  == Email to Sean Black ==  I did not want this text to be publicly known, since I still have to contact the professors, but in the current situation I see no choice but to put the draft text here.   *PM 1. I earlier emailed this draft to Rob Speer and Joe Hall for comment, and just sent it out to Sean Black.  *PM 2. I noticed that I am also blocked from the RfC page. I have not had much time to investigate what the intention of that page is, since I am writing my email to the professors, so I don't know whether that page or being blocked from it is important. *PM 3. It is not true that I only editted pages on myself. *PM 4. Who hold that contacting a professor would be the same as contacting an employer, neglect my earlier comment that I approach the issue from the angle of the integrity of science. The proper reaction is not to neglect it but give the argument why this angle would be improper.  *PM 5. On the RfC Joe Hall suggests that my objective would be to punish him or so. No, I only suggest that the professor and he discuss the situation from the angle of the integrity of science. Earlier I wrote that this would be very beneficial for him.  *PM 6. Joe mentioned that Hal Varian no longer is the dean at SIMS. Thus the draft needs at least one change. *PM 7. I told everyone that I wanted a time out. Why don't you respect that wish ? Didn't I read somewhere that a truce was also an option ?    Dear Mr. Black,  I saw that, while I was composing my letter to the professors at MIT and SIMS, further action on wikipedia about me. There is an RfC which I am not familiar with and now you seem to have been blocking me whatever that is.   Below you find the draft text of my letter to the professors. If you think that this is threatening and not befitting a scientific community, please reply.  A few hours ago I already sent this draft text to Rob Speer and Joe Hall. With an introductory text, that I no longer have, since wiki-mail has no cc. But they might forward the email sent to them.  I would appreciate it if you could explain the problem and what I can expect.  Please see also my recent edit of Arrow's impossibility theorenm.  My regards,  Thomas Colignatus   DRAFT  To the president of MIT Professor Susan Hockfield http://web.mit.edu/hockfield/ hockfield@mit.edu  To the dean of SIMS, University of California at Berkeley Professor Hal Varian http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/ hal@sims.berkeley.edu   March 11, 2006    Dear professors Hockfield and Varian, Dear Hal,  I have a problem on the integrity of science with two of your students, Rob Speer at MIT who started the problem, and Joseph Lorenzo Hall at SIMS who is interfering in an unhelpful way. The problem is summarized in the appendix.  Obviously, the integrity of science is a difficult subject even for academics so there must be a great deal of tolerance with students. With students, they certainly cannot be held accountable as scientists can, and they are only learning the trade. Yet, students e.g. know that one cannot cheat a test and that one must study a topic before one gives conclusions on it. When issues of integrity arise, it can be very educational for them to have the issue discussed. In this case, these two students would learn a lot about scientific conduct and scientific integrity.  In the present case, the issue is on the behaviour of these students on the internet, in particular wikipedia. It appears that communication with these students is greatly hindered by that environment, which does not allow the quality of deliberation provided by a personal chat with a person that they respect. My reason to contact you is to ask you to find a teacher or counselor at your school to have that chat.  It is to be considered whether the activity of those students within wikipedia is related to their life as students at your schools. My impression is that this relation exists. Firstly, they present themselves on their wikipedia pages as students of MIT and SIMS, thus partly referring to those institutions and their education there, implying their relation to you. Secondly, they are active in editing work, where they refer to learned books and where they use difficult words. Their behaviour thus cannot be strictly separated from their education and prospective position as scientists. This is most clearly so with Joseph Lorenzo Hall who is already a Ph.D. student who thus must write scientific papers for the journals. For Rob Speer, who started the problem, it can be observed that his education on computing science is relevant for the topic where the problem arose.  In the end, it is with students similar as with academics: An academic can still be a good academic “professionally” even if he or she steals roses from the neighbours or tells gossips to friends in church, but, the expectation would be that that behaviour would not occur. The expectation would be decent behaviour, worthy of an intended graduate or doctor, especially when the integrity of science is involved.  The relation to your school also arises directly from the nature of their misconduct. When a student behaves badly in an area that he sees as distinct from his education, it can be educational to him or her to be reminded that this behaviour does not fit a graduate, for which the very education is intended. As said, I kindly ask you to find a teacher or counselor within your institution to discuss matters on a personal level with those students. I already tried to explain it to them via the contact that is provided by the internet, but this didn’t help, and my hope is that such a talk on a personal level would help them to see the problem.   Unfortunately, the student Rob Speer only provided the co-ordinate “a senior at MIT studying computer science and music” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rspeer) and explicitly refused to give a name and email address of his professor. There appear different organizations dealing with computer science at MIT, so I can only write to the President, professor Hockfield, with the polite request to forward this issue to the appropriate person. To my relief, though, I noted a speech by professor Hockfield where she discussed academic integrity, in the case of two scientists at Lincoln Laboratory, so I have been confirmed that integrity has her attention.  The Ph. D. student Joseph Lorenzo Hall can be identified via http://josephhall.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Joebeone, joehall@berkeley.edu. At the present, SIMS is smaller than MIT, so I suppose that professorVarian can identify this student with some ease.   Both students have been informed of this letter, via the email addresses on their webpages.  For the information of professor Hockfield I may add that I had brief contact with professor Varian some years ago, notably on his economics programs for Mathematica and my Economics Pack, applications of Mathematica. (This Pack has decent quality. Once I sold via a third party, Wolfram Research Inc., but they resold unexpectedly to other resellers, halving my margin, so I had to stop that outlet.) Professor Hockfield might also inquire with professor Blanchard at MIT, since he once gave a lecture in Holland and met me; though it seems he hasn’t had time yet to study my work, so I mention his name only with great hesitation.  Respectfully yours,  Thomas Cool / Thomas Colignatus http://www.dataweb.nl/~cool  cool@dataweb.nl