User talk:Patrick Haseldine

Welcome to Wikispooks!

We're glad you came.
You will probably want to read the help pages.
The page at WikiSpooks:Getting Started should help you get started. Peter P 10:55, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Peter, I can see there is quite a lot of work in prospect! Patrick Haseldine 11:22, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I've just finished reading through your entire user and article pages. There is lot to digest and it is welcome here. I've added the article page to the 'Whistleblowers' category. I guess you've discovered that, when you take on the State over a matter deemed 'sensitive' by the guardians of its dirty little secrets, you cannot win - period. Having clearly followed the dictates of concience at the expense of career you have both my admiration and support. FWIW, Wikispooks is my way of dealing with the State's systematic betrayal of the loyalty which it demands (and ultimately enforces - or else) from its citizens. It's a wicked old world we inhabit, but after early retirement and 10 years intense study, it is crystal clear to me that the British State is right up there with most Machiavellian - not to say Orwellian - of them all. It was a painful experience to have to admit to myself that my country was NOT on the side of the goodies and - not excluding 2 x world wars - never had been. --Peter P 13:56, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

As it happens, last week's episode of my radio show was on whistleblowers/the surveillance state in USA, which notes that Jane Turner is the one that got away - the exception to the general rule that Peter suggests. But if you can keep your integrity, whatever TPTB do, as far as I'm concerned, you win! Hats off to you, Patrick - and I see you as definitely the most authoritative person to edit your biography, by the way, as long as you are the real Patrick Haseldine:) As Peter says, Wikipedia is in practice not as unbiased and impartial as it claims, so comparing the Wikipedia and Wikispooks articles might prove an interesting test case. I think wiki etiquette usually grants you exclusive editing over your user page, but I'll take the liberty of tweaking the presentation so you can see how to format stuff for this wiki. Feel free to 'undo' any changes, it's your user page. Robin 14:47, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks both! I hope to get editing in earnest in the next day or so. Patrick Haseldine 18:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

You've been putting in some interesting edits recently. This is to remind you to look at WikiSpooks:System Maintenance due to a security upgrade. Robin 02:11, 16 April 2013 (IST)

A very useful reminder, Robin, thanks! Patrick Haseldine 09:53, 16 April 2013 (IST)

The How, Why and Who of Pan Am Flight 103

Patrick, you've been working so much on The How, Why and Who of Pan Am Flight 103 that it's grown long and is no longer the easy read it once was. I'm not suggesting you delete any material (unless it's duplicated elsewhere on the site) but a reorganisation would be helpful. Take a look at template:FA if you don't already know it. You should find it fairly easy to shift out some sections into new pages, so that what remains is an easy read. I could try and have a go, but you're much more familiar with this material than I am. The aim is to leave a clear and concise summary of the ideas and evidence presented elsewhere. Robin (talk) 16:38, 15 December 2013 (GMT)

Hi Robin, I'm about to issue an important email which will reference certain sections of the current The How, Why and Who of Pan Am Flight 103. From my point of view a page reorganisation at this stage would not be helpful.

I usually include Peter on my distribution list: please let me know if you'd like to be copied in.--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 16:59, 15 December 2013 (GMT)

Sounds mysterious. So just this once, yes, BCC me. Feel free to remove the Cleanup template if it suits your purposes - but the article could still do with a major tidy at some point in the future. Robin (talk) 18:22, 15 December 2013 (GMT)

Thanks Robin. What's yer email (patrick.haseldine at btinternet.com)?--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 20:01, 15 December 2013 (GMT)

Alan Feraday

As he is the subject of the article, all the material presented should be more or less directly relevant to Alan Feraday, and the connection should be clear to someone without expert knowledge. I'm still failing to find clear connections. I've just revised WikiSpooks:Style_Guide#Encyclopedic_Style which is my attempt to explain what is wanted in terms of style.

As a specific example of my concerns, consider the two images at the top of the Alan Feraday page, the captions of which are confusing to an uninformed reader, who naturally expects directly relevant images, such as, say, photos of Alan Feraday himself. There are one or two more lines in the article (e.g. "On 20 May 2012, Megrahi died of prostate cancer") which have no clear relevance to Feraday, but a more serious weakness is poor organisation. I may have a go at reorganising it, such as through headings and sub-headings, but I'm aware that you wrote most of it and are better informed than me. I don't think it needs much work, just some reshuffling of content so that Feraday remains the clear topic of all parts of the article. The top should have a clear hierarchy of headings preceded by a short lede to give an overview. Robin (talk) 06:16, 14 January 2014 (GMT)

Yes, Robin, I agree the article needs some work and I'll certainly devote the necessary time and effort.

The subject of the article and I go back a long way. In 2007, I wrote the Wikipedia biography of Alan Feraday. It didn't take long to become "controversial" and was eventually deleted by WP Admin JzG aka Guy Chapman. I kept a copy of the article and reentered on WP a few months later. JzG quickly re-deleted it and for good measure blocked me from editing on WP. I reported this sorry saga to Prof Robert Black and he promptly posted the Alan Feraday article on his blog The Lockerbie Case, where it remains today - even though Prof Black and I are no longer on speaking terms!

You mention using photos of Alan Feraday. The problem is that because of all his (trumped up) evidence against the IRA, Alan is very camera-shy. If he is called to give his 'expert' evidence at the Old Bailey trial of John Downey beginning today, perhaps the press will oblige us with a portrait of the 76-year-old Feraday.--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 15:26, 14 January 2014 (GMT)

Latest from Robert Black's blog

Today, these three comments appeared on The Lockerbie Case blog:

1. pesceman said: So we know al-Megrahi was innocent. Of that there is no doubt. Why was the Heathrow break-in totally ignored from the very start - the Anti-Terrorism Police in the UK don't seem able to recall the event at all???? It is pretty obvious that the South African CCB were wholly responsible and assisted in the cover up by UK Intelligence and UK Police.

2. Robert Black said: It is by no means obvious. And the notion that the CCB was responsible stems from Patrick Haseldine's fevered imagination. There is nothing whatever that counts as evidence to support it. No further comments giving credence to Mr Haseldine's ravings will be accepted on this blog.

3. Quincey Riddle aka Robert Forrester said: Dear Peaceman, I agree entirely with Robert Black vis-a-vis the South African theory. Mr Haseldine is frankly certifiably doolally and an extremely manipulative individual, whom I felt obliged to expel from JFM for his conduct. I would be careful too about laying too much store on the issue of the Heathrow break-in as being linked to Pan Am 103, maybe it was maybe it wasn't. In my view, the only significant factor here is that COPFS appears to have hidden a tree in a forest in terms of the evidence made available to the defence. That from my perspective is as reprehensible as the Gauci payments being denied to the court. Robert.

I shall update the relevant WikiSpooks articles to incorporate this new information.--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 19:18, 14 January 2014 (GMT)

Recognizing wikipedia contributors' IP rights?

Greetings!

Didn't we cross paths on the wikipedia?

Over the last year or two I ported a bunch of articles to another small wiki. A big drawback is that although they agreed with a suggestion I made that they publish regular archives, as wikispooks seems to do, they haven't done so.

A bonus is that they have a "save article" feature, that fetches a wikipedia article, and copies a snapshot of its contribution history onto the new talk page. In theory wikipedia contributors are entitled to have their names listed when articles they contributed to are ported. It is one of the rights contributors hold under both the CC and GFDL.

Mind you, it probably only applies to contributions of intellectual content that pass de minimus -- not excisions, spelling corrections, or rearranging the order of material without altering it. Similarly it really shouldn't apply to adding references, adding wikilinks, or other metadata.

For my own material, I don't care. That other small wiki's license was PD, not CC or GFDL. I wrote brand new, or ported, quite a bit of material there, which I guess is now all be PD.

I noticed you ported Jeremy Greenstock -- so far without attribution.

How likely do you think it is that this could trigger a copyright challenge? Anyhow, I am just saying.

For what it is worth, there have been occasions when I wanted to port an article for which I was the primary author of its intellectual content, where I either ported an earlier version, or removed the paragraph(s) drafted by others, before I ported it, so I wouldn't be complicating the attribution history with attributions to individuals not on that wiki.

I've ported a couple of articles yesterday, but they were articles for which I think I was the sole author of the intellectual content. I am going to ask Peter for guidance on the attribution issue.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 17:38, 14 February 2014 (GMT)