The OL "tribe" and the Tribal Mindset

[Robert Campbell]

Ms. Stuttle has resoundingly affirmed Allan Gotthelf's jab at me, in which he claimed I hadn't understood his post and acted insulted at my asking him a "bullying" question.

Here's what he was calling "bullying."

I'm reporting, you decide.

http://www.amazon.co...Mx2UFZGTBVU4KNL

Dr. Gotthelf,

Suppose the shoe were on the other foot.

What if Ed Younkins got Ashgate to update the Product Description of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion with the following two sentences:

"When published in 2007, this book was the first edited collection of scholarly essays about Atlas Shrugged. It is still the only one today."

Would it be well-poisoning for Robert Mayhew to ask, pointedly and in public, what the hell was being implied by such a statement?

Would it be well-poisoning for anyone who contributed to Dr. Mayhew's volume, including yourself, to ask the same question?

If you "take no position here on the level of scholarship contained in Ed Younkins' collection," the implication appears to be that you likewise "take no position here" regarding the fairness or veracity of the Publisher's Description for the Mayhew volume.

You would have us believe that those affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute would never equate "scholarly" publications about Ayn Rand and her work with those that aim to be scholarly and are written and/or edited by persons affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute. Likewise, if "point-of-view or affiliation" plays no crucial role, we'd have no reason to expect persons affiliated with ARI to deem publications about Ayn Rand and her work unscholarly whenever they are written or edited by persons not affiliated with ARI.

OK.

It shouldn't be too difficult to discern from a person's pattern of stated judgments whether point of view or affiliation is playing a crucial role in their production. It's a "revealed preference" issue.

To which end I propose this four-item questionnaire:

(1) Name one article or book about Ayn Rand or her ideas that aims to be scholarly, falls short of meeting reasonable criteria for scholarliness, and was written or edited by a person affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute.

(2) Now name one article or book about Ayn Rand or her ideas that aims to be scholarly, meets or surpasses reasonable standards of scholarliness, and was written or edited by a person affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute.

(3) Name one article or book about Rand, etc., that fails to meet reasonable standards of scholarliness, and was written or edited by a person not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute.

(4) Now name one that meets or surpasses reasonable standards of scholarliness, and was written or edited by a person not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute.

That's it. Except that the instructions need to include the following: Answer the 4 questions in a forum read both by persons affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute and persons not so affiliated.

It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to fill out.

I think it's worth adding that, well before Dr. Gotthelf replied, Paul Beaird was busily exhorting his fellow ARIans not to answer my question, because it was a trap.

Why would Mr. Beaird have thought so?

Robert Campbell

[9thdoctor]

So Hannibal Lechter air conducts (or more likely air plays)? I know that comparisons are invidious* but I am instantly reminded of a certain person.

BTW, was the performance on harpsichord or piano, and was any particular performer credited?

In the book he requests Glenn Gould, but doesn’t specify which recording (the 55 and 81 are markedly different). The movie uses another recording, I don’t remember whose, though it’s no one distinguished. In Hannibal they use Gould in the opening credits. In the book Hannibal one of his hobbies is tinkering with a harpsichord, he finds that certain human body parts work well as plectrums (plectra?), and his favorite piece to play is the Goldberg Variations. So it’s a mixed answer. Christophe Rousset’s harpsichord recording is great. For Gould, I prefer the 55, though the live Salzburg version is even better, ignoring a couple fluffed notes.

The very end of this clip shows the air conducting, albeit with the wrong soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaw9_dCRscc

[9thdoctor]

Ms. Stuttle is as capable as anyone on this board of picking up sleazy innuendo.

Ellen above demonstrates tenaciousness at tetrapyloctomy, however, since only one example of “plagiarism” is given, it of course remains a matter of interpretation whether they’re claiming one, some, or all of the chapters contain plagiarism or some other “breaches of the most elementary scholarly standards”. So, the question is what interpretation are the Orthodox meant to come away with? That the Younkins volume can (no, MUST) be dismissed, in toto, on the grounds of plagiarism? Obviously. To baldly demand dismissal on factional grounds would contradict the desired perception of emergent glasnost in the Brook era.

One way to settle Boeckmann’s charge is to check the dates on any communication between the ARIans and Younkins. Compare to the dates on his communications with the other contributors concerning errors in their chapters. This could settle whether the first printing was pulled because of ARIan threats or because of general concern about the quality of the printed product.

Edited March 17, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ah, so we're agreed then that there might have been *both* uncredited material and bad copy-editing?

Stuttle,

No.

Then I don't know what you were trying to say.

What Boeckmann was saying is that the story that the book was recalled because of bad copyediting was a lie to cover up why it was really recalled -- due to uncredited material.

I was never sure, until I saw the email to Younkins which Robert posted yesterday, if there really had been bad copyediting as well as uncredited material. I'm now convinced that there were two categories of problem.

I was surprised by Robert's seeming to know nothing about the uncredited material. (The ignorance he displayed on Amazon seems to me genuine.)

The uncredited material was in the Introduction and in the chapter by Younkins which wasn't used. Or so I've heard about the second, the original of which I never saw.

The problem in the Introduction was use of material (in a few cases with exact but unquoted brief segments of phrasing) from sources who weren't named -- not all of them ARI people, contra Boeckmann's implication. The sources are now all credited in the text, with footnotes provided, and some slight wording changes have been made in the text to eliminate exact duplication of wording.

The subsequently altered wordings in the original weren't such as could have been due to a software glitch.

Since the original is no longer available on-line for perusing, you'll simply have to accept -- or not, as I don't doubt you'll prefer to do -- my description.

Ellen

Edited March 18, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[jeffrey smith]

So Hannibal Lechter air conducts (or more likely air plays)? I know that comparisons are invidious* but I am instantly reminded of a certain person.

BTW, was the performance on harpsichord or piano, and was any particular performer credited?

In the book he requests Glenn Gould, but doesn’t specify which recording (the 55 and 81 are markedly different). The movie uses another recording, I don’t remember whose, though it’s no one distinguished. In Hannibal they use Gould in the opening credits. In the book Hannibal one of his hobbies is tinkering with a harpsichord, he finds that certain human body parts work well as plectrums (plectra?), and his favorite piece to play is the Goldberg Variations. So it’s a mixed answer. Christophe Rousset’s harpsichord recording is great. For Gould, I prefer the 55, though the live Salzburg version is even better, ignoring a couple fluffed notes.

The very end of this clip shows the air conducting, albeit with the wrong soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaw9_dCRscc

IMDB lists the pianist as someone named Jerry Zimmerman, but Amazon doesn't list any recording under that name that I could find. Perhaps they used an inhouse musician in preference to paying royalties or fees for a commercial recording.

I recently read that one of the ways Hopkins tries to keep his mind tuned up is by playing Bach and Chopin on the piano every morning, although (according to Hopkins) not necessarily with any results that any other human being would actually wish to listen to.

Rousset, you say? Will keep an eye out for that one. My only harpsichord version is Egarr's, which is rather dull all around. Of the six piano version I have, I prefer Feltsman, but my favorite version is the Sitkovetsky arrangement for string trio; I have the recording with Matt Haimovitz: the arrangement allows all the musical lines to be differentiated more fully than they can be on one instrument, although perhaps it gives a little too much prominence to the violin (which, after all, was Sitkovetsky's own instrument).

Jeffrey S.

[9thdoctor]

my favorite version is the Sitkovetsky arrangement for string trio; I have the recording with Matt Haimovitz: the arrangement allows all the musical lines to be differentiated more fully than they can be on one instrument, although perhaps it gives a little too much prominence to the violin (which, after all, was Sitkovetsky's own instrument).

If we’re going to do thread drift, may as well go whole hog! Try this out from Pablo Casals, it’s the same theme as the Goldbergs, arranged for a mixed group. These recordings of the Suites are awesome, the best pre-HIP version.

http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Orchestral-Suites/dp/B0013AV04Q/ref=sr_1_29?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1268876588&sr=8-29

[Ellen Stuttle]

Not content with her effort to defend Bob Mayhew's comments, Ms. Stuttle wades in in defense of a notably nastier critter, Tore Boeckmann.

I expect he is notably nastier. (I haven't heard stories of Mayhew being nasty. I have heard tales of Boeckman being almost as quick to posit plots and attribute motives as you are.)

[boeckman] didn't name Shoshana Milgram as an injured party until prodded, by ND in particular.

He never did name any of the other supposedly injured parties, leaving the implications open that (1) ARI-affilated scholars not mentioned in the Reference section to the revised Introduction were also subjected to noncitation, or worse, in the Younkins volume and (2) any failure to observe scholarly standards extended to Dr. Younkins' editorial supervision of the book's 36 chapters.

He did leave both implications open. However, he did not make the claim that there was plagiarism throughout, as you said he did.

In the edited version of his second comment (I don't recall any wording changes in this part), Mr. Boeckmann says (note my italics):

No. Younkins' collection contained several cases of plagiarism from the work of ARI-affiliated scholars. Upon the demand of these scholars, the book was recalled and revised.

Younkins' collection.

That means the whole volume.

"Younkins' collection contained several cases [...]" does not say that every chapter contained such, no matter how often you might insist it does.

Where was the other "uncredited material"? And who should have been getting credit for it?

He never said, did he?

No, he didn't.

So, yeah, Tore Boeckmann indicted the entire volume, using some good old-fashioned sleazy innuendo.

Robert, he obviously thinks the whole volume is poor. And as I previously said, you have a legitimate grievance against him over the charge of your (and the other contributers') lying to cover up for Younkins. But he did not say that there was plagiarism throughout. You outright misstated, never mind innuendo.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think it's worth adding that, well before Dr. Gotthelf replied, Paul Beaird was busily exhorting his fellow ARIans not to answer my question, because it was a trap.

Why would Mr. Beaird have thought so?

I'm not sure if he used the description "trap." That might be another case of your filling in your description for what someone actually said. I'm not going to check right now.

Whatever exactly Paul Beaird said, I laughed and thought, He sure picked up quick on Robert's "questions" method.

I agree with Gotthelf's description of your queries as "bullying." Your Grand Inquisitor role again, such as you kept trying on with the Valliants, and then with me. It's not a technique geared to eliciting willingness to respond.

Ellen

[Robert Campbell]

Ms. Stuttle is claiming that she did not believe, until she saw my post enumerating the faults in my chapter, that there was bad copyediting in the first printing of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion.

This establishes one of two things:

(1) Ms. Stuttle has never seen a copy of the first printing.

or

(2) Ms. Stuttle has actually seen one, but expects to get something she wants by pretending she hasn't.

For with a copy of the first printing in her hands for just a little while, she could have dipped into nearly any chapter, and found faults like the ones I mentioned in my email to Ed Younkins. She could have seen worse mistakes, depending on which chapters she looked at.

If Ms. Stuttle hasn't seen the first printing, she has a fortiori made no comparison between the first, screwed-up printing and the second (and subsequent) corrected printings.

The uncredited material was in the Introduction and in the chapter by Younkins which wasn't used. Or so I've heard about the second, the original of which I never saw.

Again, Ms. Stuttle either is pretending not to have seen the first printing, or she genuinely hasn't.

The chapter Ed Younkins pulled was the original Chapter 34, on Robert Stadler. It was sketchy, barely 3 pages. Every other chapter about a character in the novel was longer. Ms. Stuttle could have read it in well under 10 minutes.

Conclusion:

Ms. Stuttle may be reporting allegations from a source connected with the Ayn Rand Institute. If she is, the source isn't Tore Boeckmann, because if Mr. Boeckmann intended to make allegations about Ed Younkins' withdrawn chapter, he'd have gone ahead and made them on amazon.

If Ms. Stuttle has heard allegations from such a source, let her name the source—and what other sins, if any, her source claims the Younkins volume is guilty of.

Or, Ms. Stuttle may be manufacturing allegations of her own, and making them appear to emanate from someone in the ARI orbit.

Whatever she's up to, Ms. Stuttle's relying heavily on the smoke and mirrors:

Since the original [i.e., first printing] is no longer available on-line for perusing, you'll simply have to accept -- or not, as I don't doubt you'll prefer to do -- my description.

The contempt for her audience is not new.

But what Ms. Stuttle hasn't reckoned on is that every contributor to the Younkins volume received one free hardback and one free paperback—of the first printing. Unless they got fed up and chucked 'em in the dumpster, all of the contributors still own them. Some contributors actually might not own the corrected edition—because we all had to pay for those.

I didn't chuck 'em in the dumpster. So I can check any of Ms. Stuttle's assertions about the first printing rather easily. So can probably 30 other people.

And if Ms. Stuttle should ask any of us for the loan of a copy, lotsa luck with that.

Robert Campbell

Alpha Bête Noire

[Robert Campbell]

I'm not sure if he used the description "trap." That might be another case of your filling in your description for what someone actually said. I'm not going to check right now.

Whatever exactly Paul Beaird said, I laughed and thought, He sure picked up quick on Robert's "questions" method.

I agree with Gotthelf's description of your queries as "bullying." Your Grand Inquisitor role again, such as you kept trying on with the Valliants, and then with me. It's not a technique geared to eliciting willingness to respond.

Has it occurred to Ms. Stuttle that I did not expect honest answers out of either Jim or Holly Valliant by the time I asked those questions? Each already had a long track record of producing evasive answers or outright lies.

Nor, for quite some time now, have I expected honest answers about anything of consequence from Ms. Stuttle.

Dr. Gotthelf, I had fewer preconceptions about. I didn't go into that exchange expecting him to be the Tariq Ramadan of Objectivism.

But, you know, producing those four examples ought to be a piece of cake for anyone who's been involved in Rand studies, or is just an avid consumer of the secondary literature on her and her ideas.

It couldn't be any harder for Dr. Gotthelf to put down four examples than it is for me.

It's just turned out to be a whole lot more politically, um, sensitive for someone with his personal loyalties and institutional dependencies.

Maybe in 2020 his big review essay will finally appear, and then we'll know what he really thinks.

As for Mr. Beaird, here's a minuscule sample of his rhetoric:

http://www.amazon.co...Mx26406OUDCWT4S

Don't take the bait, as Mr. Campbell claims that he's set up "the test" and anyone who fails to take his questionnaire has proven his point. His deeper motivation is fear of rejection and, so, the need to show that others are obedient conformists, craving the approval of (again, unnamed persons) at ARI. If you think I'm exaggerating, review his posts under the various reviews of this book on this site.

If people don't take his loyalty test questionnaire, it is because they have respect for themselves, not because Campbell has proven his "independence". But, then, those very folks already knew that.

If I'd thought Mr. Beaird had used the word "trap," I'd have put it between quotation marks.

Apparently, in Stuttleville, no one else is allowed to net anything out in his or her own words.

Ms. Stuttle has perfected a unique blend of sliminess and hairsplitting. She should apply for a patent.

Robert Campbell

Alpha Bête Noire

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Then I don't know what you were trying to say.

Suttle,

Well, that's been obvious for some time. I will try to go slow. See the next quote.

What Boeckmann was saying is that the story that the book was recalled because of bad copyediting was a lie to cover up why it was really recalled -- due to uncredited material.

I was never sure, until I saw the email to Younkins which Robert posted yesterday, if there really had been bad copyediting as well as uncredited material. I'm now convinced that there were two categories of problem.

Two?

OK. Let's take it really, really slow.

There are not "two categories of problem" with a botched first edition. There are many categories of problems.

Any child knows that there is not only one way to do something wrong. There are certainly not only two ways. Not even two categories of ways. There are many.

I could go on and start talking about the many different kinds of mistakes possible in a botched printing, but this is getting boring and I'm not sure you understand the point yet.

Leave it to say that cherry picking one problem among a myriad of problems in a major botch and calling it plagiarism, with nothing to prove that dishonesty was the motive, especially with a man like Ed Younkins who has a stainless public record, is a spiteful arbitrary opinion and nothing more. That goes for saying that people who say this mistake is a mistake are lying. And that goes for insinuating unnamed instances of plagiarism.

It's all cult garbage. Others don't like me using that word, CULT, but there is no other word in this moment that encompasses the mentality better.

When you accuse someone--a good productive man--of plagiarism, if you've got the goods, pony up and let's see what you've got.

If not, shut up.

And if you keep going, you are, or are acting like, a cult member.

Boeckmann tried to pony up, but he fizzled and did not have the goods. All he's got left is barking out insinuations. What a big, big man. Really rational. As each day passes and I learn more, I am losing more and more respect for this dude.

What you've got is even less. And I'll save my evaluation here because I am getting sick and tired of this crap.

If that doesn't settle, I'll let it go.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I reject Robert Campbell. If he now stops posting it is because of his deep fear of rejection.

--Brant

this was a test of the emergency rejection network

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ms. Stuttle is claiming that she did not believe, until she saw my post enumerating the faults in my chapter, that there was bad copyediting in the first printing of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion.

As you do so often, you demonstrate your ability to change the meaning of what someone said with your paraphrased reporting.

What I wrote (here) is:

"I was never sure, until I saw the email to Younkins which Robert posted yesterday, if there really had been bad copyediting as well as uncredited material. I'm now convinced that there were two categories of problem."

I didn't say "did not believe," which implies positively doubted.

I found the story of bad copyediting odd, since why would a *copyediting* problem not be found until the book was in print? Had there been copyediting by the publishing company's staff which hadn't been vetted with the contributors? Strange procedure if so, though I supposed it might have happened.

(For instance, Larry contributed an article to a young readers' encyclopedia and wouldn't have been shown the publishing company's copyeditor's changes prior to the book's appearing in print if he hadn't insisted that he be shown -- fortunate he insisted, since there'd been two changes made which would have altered his meaning in a way he didn't accept.)

Had the story as I heard it been couched as "a formatting problem due to software incompatibility," this would have sounded like something only too likely to occur with today's electronic publishing methods.

This establishes one of two things:

(1) Ms. Stuttle has never seen a copy of the first printing.

or

(2) Ms. Stuttle has actually seen one, but expects to get something she wants by pretending she hasn't.

For with a copy of the first printing in her hands for just a little while, she could have dipped into nearly any chapter, and found faults like the ones I mentioned in my email to Ed Younkins. She could have seen worse mistakes, depending on which chapters she looked at.

If Ms. Stuttle hasn't seen the first printing, she has a fortiori made no comparison between the first, screwed-up printing and the second (and subsequent) corrected printings.

Are you fishing, Robert? I've seen pdfs of the original and of the revised Introduction.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Robert, a suggestion:

Suppose Mayhew were to request Amazon to add "comprehensive" to the Product Description, thus:

[suggested alteration]

This is the first comprehensive scholarly study of Atlas Shrugged, covering in detail the historical, literary, and philosophical aspects of Ayn Rand's magnum opus. Topics explored in depth include the history behind the novel's creation, publication, and reception; its nature as a romantic novel; and its presentation of a radical new philosophy.

Apparently that's what he meant, judging from his post in the Amazon discussion.

Would this change satisfy you?

If so, I'd be willing to email him (if someone has his email address) proposing the insertion.

(Of course at this point he might not be willing to make the alteration, which might be seen as a concession.)

Ellen

[Robert Campbell]

I didn't say "did not believe," which implies positively doubted.

Classic Stuttlian slime plus hairsplitting. Might as well file for that patent.

And, as always in Stuttleville, everyone else must quote verbatim. No one but Ms. Stuttle is allowed to touch the Paraphrase button.

We further learn that Ms. Stuttle is far less conversant with the ways of today's publishers than she has wanted us all to believe:

I found the story of bad copyediting odd, since why would a *copyediting* problem not be found until the book was in print? Had there been copyediting by the publishing company's staff which hadn't been vetted with the contributors? Strange procedure if so, though I supposed it might have happened.

(For instance, Larry contributed an article to a young readers' encyclopedia and wouldn't have been shown the publishing company's copyeditor's changes prior to the book's appearing in print if he hadn't insisted that he be shown -- fortunate he insisted, since there'd been two changes made which would have altered his meaning in a way he didn't accept.)

Had the story as I heard it been couched as "a formatting problem due to software incompatibility," this would have sounded like something only too likely to occur with today's electronic publishing methods.

Backpedaling and rear-end-covering.

Software incompatibility remains endemic (because of multiple systems for formatting, and several different character sets), and inadequate attempts to patch after the fact are too common.

Beyond that, copyediting, especially in the academic publishing world, is not considered terribly important any more, and is often farmed out to poorly compensated freelancers.

Proofs are not always shown to contributors before publication (they should be—and every contributor should make a stink, as Larry Gould did, to ensure that that they are). They weren't shown to the contributors to the Younkins volume.

Are you fishing, Robert? I've seen pdfs of the original and of the revised Introduction.

Dodging and game-playing.

It remains open to question whether Ms. Stuttle has ever seen any part of the first printing of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion.

But let's suppose she is telling the truth in this instance.

It would follow that Ms. Stuttle drew conclusions about an entire volume from being shown the Introduction, and—what?—being told something about a chapter that she never saw and that was subsequently taken out of the book.

And then what? Being told about 36 other chapters that she had never seen, either?

Could Tore Boeckmann have been her source, after all?

And could Ms. Stuttle have been gullible enough to accept such a bill of goods?

When Ms. Stuttle names her source or sources, and tells us exactly what they were alleging about the book, then her readers may be in a position to discern

• Whether Ms. Stuttle merely pretended to have sources

• Whether Ms. Stuttle did have sources connected with the Ayn Rand Institute, who gamed her for their purposes

• Whether Ms. Stuttle did have sources connected with the Ayn Rand Institute, whose claims she subsequently distorted or misrepresented for her purposes

It is even possible that Ms. Stuttle really did have sources, that they were not gaming her, that she has reported what they alleged without significant distortion, and that she actually believed what she was told.

But, I've got to say, it seems less likely than any of the other possibilities.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Suppose Mayhew were to request Amazon to add "comprehensive" to the Product Description, thus:

Would adding "comprehensive," as Ms. Stuttle has suggested, be an improvement over the existing Product Description?

Definitely.

Would it solve all of the problems with the Description?

No.

For one, it doesn't capture Bob Mayhew's intended meaning. Unless he is willing to modify his intended meaning from the one I think he is currently operating with, namely: "ARI-approved, guaranteed non-lamentable."

But if a change is being proposed, why not go with:

"A comprehensive scholarly study of Atlas Shrugged..."

That would put it in line with the more modest Product Description that Ashgate has been running for Ed Younkins' book, which was in print a year and a half before the Mayhew volume, yet hasn't been promoted as the first anything.

There's no harm in asking Mayhew to change the Description.

I won't be asking him to do it; he is almost sure to refuse, if it comes from me.

And I don't know how much more amenable he will be to suggestions coming from other quarters, but, hey, why not?

Robert Campbell

Alpha Bête Noire

[Brant Gaede]

If a lot of your self worth comes from being a member of the elite any de-elite-ing isn't part of the territory. To de-bloat yourself is to acknowledge you bloated yourself up in the first place.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Jonathan

He conversed with me once when I first started posting at Greg's blog, in a sense, I think he's like me. He's kinda intense and tends to ask profound and pertinent questions in a very direct way. Even though he was my opponent at the time, and pretty intense and aggressive one at that, he was fair.

Thanks, Red. I think that's a fair description. I agree that I (and you) can be intense, I try to keep my participation pertinent and direct, and I hope that I'm fair.

It's good to see you here (and, yes, I remember you from the ARCHN blog).

J

[Jonathan]

It remains open to question whether Ms. Stuttle has ever seen any part of the first printing of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion.

Is there any chance that anyone who has a copy of the first printing might take snapshots and then post low-res jpegs of some of the relevant pages so that we can all judge for ourselves whether or not they appear to contain plagiarized material, or if the accusation of plagiarism is unwarranted and that the errors could be easily explained as editing or software glitches?

J

[Robert Campbell]

Jonathan,

I'll scan some pages and post them. They can't be too low-res, or you won't be able to see where a lot of the damage was done (to quotation marks and apostrophes and such).

This may take a little while—I'm away from my office now and Monday is going to feature lots of preregistration advising.

It's hard to address the more extreme charges that have been coming from Boeckmann, Cline, and company without posting most of the book. They are (purposely?) vague about where they are alleging the plagiarism occurred, who did it, and to whom it was done.

But I will post pages from the two chapters that have been named, along with pages from others that are obviously messed up.

Along with a list of contributors, to make it clear to everyone how many people some of the ARIans are encompassing in their indictments.

Robert Campbell

[Jonathan]

Jonathan,

I'll scan some pages and post them. They can't be too low-res, or you won't be able to see where a lot of the damage was done (to quotation marks and apostrophes and such).

Right. I meant something around actual size at 72 ppi. There's no need to post 600 ppi imagery. (In my experience, people tend to post significantly larger files than necessary.)

This may take a little while—I'm away from my office now and Monday is going to feature lots of preregistration advising.

It's hard to address the more extreme charges that have been coming from Boeckmann, Cline, and company without posting most of the book. They are (purposely?) vague about where they are alleging the plagiarism occurred, who did it, and to whom it was done.

But I will post pages from the two chapters that have been named, along with pages from others that are obviously messed up.

Along with a list of contributors, to make it clear to everyone how many people some of the ARIans are encompassing in their indictments.

Okay. Thanks in advance.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Trying to keep up with Robert's renderings could consume one's life, if one were willing to let it.

Something I don't believe, Robert, is that you don't understand the difference between "was never sure" and "did not believe."

And, as always in Stuttleville, everyone else must quote verbatim. No one but Ms. Stuttle is allowed to touch the Paraphrase button.

No, Robert. But honorable paraphrasing requires trying to get accurately the meaning of what's paraphrased instead of altering to present the impression that something was said which wasn't.

We further learn that Ms. Stuttle is far less conversant with the ways of today's publishers than she has wanted us all to believe:

I have never claimed to be "conversant with the ways of today's publishers." I stopped doing any professional copyediting and proofing 10 years ago when my sight was becoming too unreliable to trust myself on minute details. (I still do a bit of informal editing.)

[....]

Had the story as I heard it been couched as "a formatting problem due to software incompatibility," this would have sounded like something only too likely to occur with today's electronic publishing methods.

[....]

Software incompatibility remains endemic (because of multiple systems for formatting, and several different character sets), and inadequate attempts to patch after the fact are too common.

Notice that I said if it had been couched as due to software incompatibility, this would have sounded like something "only too likely to occur" today. So where did I say anything about that type of problem not "remain[ing] endemic" today?

Beyond that, copyediting, especially in the academic publishing world, is not considered terribly important any more, and is often farmed out to poorly compensated freelancers.

Yuk.

Proofs are not always shown to contributors before publication (they should be—and every contributor should make a stink, as Larry Gould did, to ensure that that they are). They weren't shown to the contributors to the Younkins volume.

Obviously, I think they should have been. However, the problems as exhibited in your email to Younkins weren't the sort of thing I thought was meant by "copyediting" problems.

Are you fishing, Robert? I've seen pdfs of the original and of the revised Introduction.

Dodging and game-playing.

Dodging what, Robert? An attempt to get me to post the original version? I'm not going to do that, although I have saved a copy of the pdf which was on-line. Persons affected have requested that the original no longer be made available on-line.

And whose game? See the following.

It remains open to question whether Ms. Stuttle has ever seen any part of the first printing of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion.

Granted, it does remain open to question.

But let's suppose she is telling the truth in this instance.

How refreshing, except that your subsequent reasoning is bunkum.

It would follow that Ms. Stuttle drew conclusions about an entire volume from being shown the Introduction, and—what?—being told something about a chapter that she never saw and that was subsequently taken out of the book.

And then what? Being told about 36 other chapters that she had never seen, either?

Could Tore Boeckmann have been her source, after all?

And could Ms. Stuttle have been gullible enough to accept such a bill of goods?

No, it would not follow, since I didn't draw conclusions about an entire volume. I never thought -- or was ever told by anyone or said (quite the contrary) in any of my comments -- that the borrowings charge pertained to the whole volume.

When Ms. Stuttle names her source or sources, and tells us exactly what they were alleging about the book, then her readers may be in a position to discern [...].

My sources will remain nameless. What I was told was, as I have now said several times, that the Introduction and the withdrawn Younkins chapter contained ideas and occasional non-quoted exact phrasings gotten from uncredited sources.

I could see from the pdfs that this was correct regarding the Introduction.

Here's something I'll add: I compared the original and revised versions word-by-word. I wasn't looking for precisely copyediting errors and might not have noticed all of those. The only precisely copyediting error which I did notice was a misplaced comma separating a noun and verb phrase. That error remains uncorrected.

(It's in this sentence: "Spencer MacCallum then discusses how businessman Werner Stiefel, made great strides in practically applying the principles of social organization illustrated in Galt's Gulch.")

==

Addendum to Jonathan:

Is there any chance that anyone who has a copy of the first printing might take snapshots and then post low-res jpegs of some of the relevant pages so that we can all judge for ourselves whether or not they appear to contain plagiarized material, or if the accusation of plagiarism is unwarranted and that the errors could be easily explained as editing or software glitches?

J

As I've said, I think that "plagiarism" is too strong a description. Uncredited borrowing of ideas with close, and in a few phrasings exact, wording. And the charge applies only to Younkins, not to the others. The issue is similar, though less extensive, to what Rothbard did in using ideas from Barbara Branden's thesis, derivatively from Rand, without crediting.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Suppose Mayhew were to request Amazon to add "comprehensive" to the Product Description, thus:

Would adding "comprehensive," as Ms. Stuttle has suggested, be an improvement over the existing Product Description?

Definitely.

I'll ask him then (after I find his e-address). Not that he'll necessarily even look at the email, since I don't expect he'd recognize my name.

But if a change is being proposed, why not go with:

"A comprehensive scholarly study of Atlas Shrugged..."

I figure there's no chance of his accepting that. I can mention its being suggested as an alternate to my suggestion.

Ellen

[Robert Campbell]

Ms. Stuttle continues her endless quibbling, dodging, and fudging.

Life is, indeed, too short for anyone to have to keep responding to it.

Of the Introduction to the Younkins volume, Ms. Stuttle declares that she has seen—indeed, carefully studied—the first printing. She does quote one sentence (including an improperly placed comma) that appeared on page 4 of both the first printing and the later, corrected printings (and didn't get its comma corrected).

But we'll have to take her word for it concerning the rest of the Introduction, at least in part because

Persons affected have requested that the original no longer be made available on-line.

Who are the "persons affected"?

Ms. Stuttle has still not come out and actually said whether she ever saw any of the other 38 chapters in the first printing of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion.

I now strongly suspect that she really didn't see any of them.

I just read the withdrawn Chapter 34 that Ms. Stuttle has been talking about. (I really mean, I just read it. I've only skimmed it previously.) I said it would take under 10 minutes. It took me all of 3.

I can see why Ed Younkins thought of withdrawing such a chapter. It doesn't really work. It never delves into the fictional character to whom it pertains (Dr. Robert Stadler). Everything that is said in it could have been said by nearly anyone who knows Atlas Shrugged pretty well and sympathizes with Rand's view of Dr. Robert Stadler. And the book was already carrying another chapter on Dr. Stadler's real-life counterparts.

Is there anything in this withdrawn chapter that was quoted verbatim from someone else's article or chapter or speech or lecture about Atlas Shrugged, without quotes being put around it? Nothing that I'm able to recognize. How would I be able to tell? Every bit of it is so commonplace.

Are any ideas in it lifted from other sources? I'd have no way to tell, either. Let's just say that the uncredited sources, if any, would have to be, er, less than striking in their originality.

Frankly, unless someone steps forward and lines up the allegedly uncredited sources word-for-word against the withdrawn chapter, I see no reason to credit any charge that Ed Younkins lifted any of it from anybody. That doesn't seem to be what's wrong with the chapter.

Ms. Stuttle indeed appears to have bought the charges without seeing the chapter.

So maybe her sources were highly persuasive?

Ah, but

My sources will remain nameless.

Ms. Stuttle would significantly enhance her credibility, were she to name them.

For Ms. Stuttle's believability baseline for these kinds of discussions stands just a hair above zero.

One reason is that Ms. Stuttle keeps ranting about "honorable paraphrasing" and how her many adversaries never practice it. Yet she appears to be afflicted with an intractable case of beam-versus-mote disease.

Look at this strongly worded statement that Ms. Stuttle posted less than 2 years ago:

http://www.solopassi...7#comment-54647

As to the difference in meaning between: Hospers says: "[A] commentator... must say things, if not openly critical, at least challengingly exegetical. I did this..."

The response: "Hospers said that he was merely being 'challengingly exegetical, if not openly critical.'"

The second -- your rendering -- indicates that he bordered into being "openly critical." His original wording indicates that he stayed short of the line of bordering into that. You have changed the meaning of what the man wrote.

Nor is it an "argument from authority" to inform you that your quoting procedures don't cut it by any scholarly -- or even general publishing -- standards. People's careers get ruined over the sort of thing you're doing, and trying to defend.

This was addressed to a guy who'd been caught red-handed misquoting a source, and tried to brazen it out with a cockamamie defense of his improper practice.

So is Ms. Stuttle condemning this individual, or lending aid and comfort to those bent on discrediting him?

Are you kidding?

She's been kissing up to him. She's become one of his biggest defenders. She proclaimed how flattered she was, when he thanked her for her support.

You see, his name is Jim Valliant.

Sorry, but defenders of Jim Valliant have no business lecturing anyone about standards of scholarship.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

James Valliant has become like the automatic pilot in the movie "Airplane." He keeps getting blown up, but in more ways than one.

--Brant