Talk:2001 anthrax attacks/Archive 3

The Hidden Message in the Media Letters

"As is visible to anyone examining the attack letters [sent to Tom Brokaw and the New York Post], there are instances where the letters 'A' and 'T' were bolded within the text, suggesting that the letters contained a hidden code. The Task Force’s investigation found a distinct connection between this hidden code and Dr. Ivins’s own fascination with certain codes. Understanding this connection first requires some background information about deoxyribonucleic acid (“DNA”) and codons." That quote is from page 58 of the DOJ/FBI's Summary Report released on February 19, 2010.^[1]. Pages 56-64 cover the entire subject. At least four newspapers have commented upon this information: The New York Times^[2], The Washington Post^[3][4] (which got a lot of the information wrong), The Register in the UK^[5] and The Frederick News-Post^[6].

As those sources say, the letters to The New York Post^[7] and Tom Brokaw^[8] contained the "hidden message" in highlighted characters, specifically A's and T's. Below is the media text with the highlighted A's and T's:

09-11-01

THIS IS NEXT

TAKE PENACILIN NOW

DEATH TO AMERICA

DEATH TO ISRAEL

ALLAH IS GREAT

After the FBI performed a thorough search of Dr. Ivins' home, his office, his lab, his vehicles and his safe deposit box on the night of November 1-2, 2007, they put full time surveillance on him because after such searches guilty people sometimes throw away or destroy materials that the searchers missed. That turned out to be the case with Dr. Ivins, when at 1 a.m. on the morning of November 8, Dr. Ivins was observed throwing away a copy of "a book entitled Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid ('GEB'), published by Dr. Douglas Hofstadter in 1979" and "a 1992 issue of American Scientist Journal which contained an article entitled 'The Linguistics of DNA,' and discussed, among other things, codons and hidden messages." (See page 64 of the Summary Report for more details.)

GEB contains a lengthy description of the encoding/decoding procedures including an illustration of hiding a message within a message by making certain characters more bold than others.^[9], the same method of coding used in the media letters. (According to GEB, the techniques are familiar to people who hunt for hidden messages in "normal" communications, everything from messages sent by suspected terrorists to possible transmissions from outer space.)

In GEB, the basic message is called "The Frame Message." (See page 62 of the Summary) Then there are "Triggers" or indicators that there is a code within the Frame Message. Examples: "The first letter of the message 'T' is emphasized. The letters at the four corners of the message are highlighted. 'PENACILIN' is misspelled, which draws attention to the word. The 'A' is a misspelling point and is highlighted. Not all 'A's and 'T's are highlighted." Lastly, there are indicators on how to decode the hidden message: Examples: All the sentences are 3 words long. There are nine highlighted characters. A's and T's relate to DNA. "DNA is a chain of nucleic acids consisting of Adenine (designated by the letter A), Cytosine (designated by the letter C), Guanine (designated by the letter G), and Thymine (designated by the letter T)." (Page 58)

"When they lifted out just the bolded letters, investigators got TTT AAT TAT – an apparent hidden message within the letters themselves." The 3-letter groups are codons, "meaning that each sequence of three nucleic acids will code for a specific amino acid." (Page 59)

TTT = Phenylalanine (single-letter designator F)

AAT = Asparagine (single-letter designator N)

TAT = Tyrosine (single-letter designator Y)

"From this analysis, two possible hidden meanings emerged: (1) 'FNY' – a verbal assault on New York, and (2) PAT – the nickname of [Dr. Ivins'] Former Colleague #2." (Page 60) Dr. Ivins was known to have a dislike for New York City, and four of the media letters had been sent to New York. When questioned about this, Dr. Ivins claimed he hadn't read the part in GEB that discussed the coding/decodings procedures. (See FBI File #847551, pages 74 & 75 if you have a copy from before the June 9, 2008 "off the record interview" was removed.)

Since Dr. Ivins committed suicide before he could explain whether the decoded message was FNY or PAT or both, "It was obviously impossible for the Task Force to determine with certainty that either of these two translations was correct. However,[...] the key point to the investigative analysis is that there is a hidden message, not so much what that message is." (Page 60) In other words, it's not necessary to know what message Ivins intended, it's only necessary to understand that Ivins did place the hidden message in the media letters. The hidden message links Dr. Ivins and only Dr. Ivins directly to the attack letters.

Page 59 of the Summary contains this additional information: "on July 27, 2000, Dr. Ivins forwarded an e-mail to Former Colleague #1 which began 'Biopersonals: I have single-stranded too long! Lonely ATGCATG would like to pair up with congenial TACGTAG, along with a note 'this is some cute humor for anyone who has ever had anything to do with biochemistry or molecular biology.'” and "This e-mail was notable not because of any particular meaning ascribed to those specific nucleic acids, but rather because it demonstrated Dr. Ivins’s familiarity with DNA, specifically As, Ts, Cs, and Gs." And, it's another example of Dr. Ivins using DNA coding to send a hidden message. EdLake (talk) 17:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the proposed text to the talk page! I have already commented on the text in the section above, stating my reservations about both the approach and some specific aspects of the text. It would be best if more editors have a look at the issue and offer their views on it.  Cs32en Talk to me  18:09, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, that's not necessary. EdLake (talk) 20:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Ed, for now, my advice is to assume that the DOJ/FBI report is suitable for substantial use here. I would support you on that. Then (to be blunt in a friendly way) start writing this like a Wikipedia article section, which it is miles away from being. A few of the pervasive problems are that it is written like a conversation of you personally telling the reader your personal take of what to think on this. I'm NOT saying that it is, just that that's how you wrote it. Then it is written in an incomplete way, telling the readers to read something else to "fill in the blank" instead of you summarizing what the reference said and just citing it to support what your summary said. Make sure each of the statements is supportable by a in-line citation to a specific place in a reference, even if you do not actually provide that citation in each case. And provide those specific citations on statements which you think that many people would be skeptical of. And it kind of skips around, as if you were throwing out thoughts and points instead of being a cohesive summary of what you are writing about.

To pick a random example that illustrates a few of these things, when you say "they put full time surveillance on him because after such searches guilty people sometimes throw away or destroy materials that the searchers missed", did the FBI report say that this was the reason they put him under surveillance, or are you just imparting your personal knowledge why this is often done, or giving your personal guess on why the FBI did it in this case? Again, please excuse my bluntness, it was genuinely meant in a friendly way. And again, this is all just my opinion. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

North8000 - I have no problem with "bluntness." The example you use is my rewording of what is on page 61:

"On November 1, 2007, Task Force agents executed a search warrant at the Ivins residence. A few days later, on November 7, 2007, agents conducted a “trash run” at his house in an effort to see what he threw out that they may have missed."

And on page 64:

"In the days that followed the search of his home, cars, and office on November 1, 2007, investigators seized Dr. Ivins’s trash to see if there was anything of interest that they may have missed during the search. The agents first set up surveillance in order to avoid detection when securing his trash, and noted the following bizarre behavior of Dr. Ivins: Just after 1:00 a.m., on November 8, 2007, with the front porch light on, he walked out the front door of his house across the street from USAMRIID, wearing long underwear, and stood outside for a few minutes before walking back inside. A few minutes later, the municipal garbage truck pulled up in front of his house and took his garbage. Seven minutes later, Ivins again emerged from the house and walked toward the street. He walked to the garbage cart where the garbage once was and looked inside, closed the lid and pulled the cart back into the driveway. He then walked towards his neighbor’s house, and while standing in the street, looked into the parking lot across the street. He walked towards the wooded area across from his house (where the surveillance agent was making all of these observations) and peered into the wooded area and the parking lot for approximately a full minute. He then went back inside his house. In the other 15 or so trash runs conducted before and after this one, Dr. Ivins was never observed doing anything remotely like this."

I remembered the sections, and I wrote the text, but then I forgot to go back to check the exact words and provide the page numbers.

Ed, (June 25th) this is a minor example, but a good one. According to the above text, your statement is in conflict with the reference on one point (the reason for setting up surveillence) and unsourcable (& wrong) on another implicitly said that at that point FBI determined that he was guilty. This is what I was talking about when I said to review your statements in there. My belief is that you are correct on the general content of this section. But these are the type of things I was talking about when I suggesting checking every statement. North8000 (talk) 13:36, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I tried to write the article in an easily understandable way. It's a VERY complex subject. I don't think I jumped around. The DOJ's report jumps around. That's why the page number references aren't in order. That's probably why the newspaper articles claim the DOJ report is difficult to follow. I tried to make it easy to follow. EdLake (talk) 20:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I have left a note at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Probematic situation at 2001 anthrax attacks, so hopefully we can get some help from uninvolved editors who have experience in handling difficult situations such as this one.  Cs32en Talk to me  20:58, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I went back to the article to add the page number reference (#61 and #64) about the surveillance and saw that the page number reference #64 was there after all. Since I was in the area, I changed "commented" to "reported" and I deleted "(which got a lot of the information wrong)" since it's not important and is a point of contention. I'd just used it because it seemed an interesting point. EdLake (talk) 21:22, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Initially, I have indeed focused almost exclusively on the aspect of sources. Other editors, including North8000, have correctly pointed out that this is not the only, and in their view, maybe not the main problem with the edit. In my view, for an encyclopedia, the sources that are most detached from a given topic are best, not the sources that are most close to a topic. Most of the other problems of the edit, it seems to me, are a result of looking for sources that are very close to the topic, rather than for sources that summarize and condense the information.  Cs32en Talk to me  22:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Ed, it looks like the work will be done in main article space rather than here, but IMHO it has to be done. Again, please excuse the bluntness which is intended in a friendly and attempting-to-be-helpful way. Two good starting points would be:

Take out all of the "see xxxx" phrases. To many this keeps looking like a crutch to avoid summarizing the content for the article, evade accountability for proper writing (somebody always has to go read something else first), or provide those notes in lieu of proper citations. I just said "looking", NOT that it IS these things. And then fix it so that your article section can work without them. Assuming that these are mostly (or should be) a citation for something that was just said/summarized, put in a citation to a specific page etc. in these cases.

Review your writing for the "statements" that it contains, and just briefly think about whether you think that each of these is supportable by the references. Take out any where you don't think that this is the case.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

North8000 - Previously, you wrote: "This means that for a questioned/challenged statement, you need an in-line citation pointing to a specific page etc. that supports the statement, not just mentioning an entire document (of block of 10 pages in a document) once in those paragraphs."

Now you say: "Take out all of the "see xxxx" phrases. To many this keeps looking like a crutch to avoid summarizing the content for the article"

I only put in all the "see xxxx" phrases because you suggested it. But, I'll removed them (or look them over to see which should be removed).

I think that each statement I wrote IS "supportable by the references." Please don't take offense, but the dispute seems to be that you would have written things differently. I can't do anything about that. I can't write from your point of view.

Ed, I know that this may seem confusing, but I don't have a dispute, I am just trying to help. And I was trying to suggest a starting point for a process to tidy this up. If you want me to, I will disappear from here.

Regarding citations/references, what I meant is that wherever there is a statement that people are likely to question, to provide an in-line citation that specifically supports it. So you might have multiple references that use the FBI/DOJ report, that point to different pages in it.

Again, I don't have a dispute, I am just trying to help. If you want me to, I will disappear from here. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:31, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

North8000 - NO, I definitely do NOT want you to "disappear from here." You are offering constructive advice. The problem is: I don't understand your advice. So, further attempts to get things through my concrete head could help both of us.  :-)

Ed (June 25th) When I suggested taking out all of the "see xxxx" I saw this as step 1 of a process that would "force" tidying this section up. As a preface, something clearly identified as a citation in Wikipeda in essence says "the following citation supports what I just said". The "see xxxx" wordings are not this, and nobody knows what they are, they could be:

"The writing elsewhere is an integral part of my writing here, so nobody can critique what I wrote unless they spend the extra time reading all of that other stuff."

" I didn't bother to summarize the complete thought in the article "

"I'm using this vague concept to avoid having to provide real, specific Wikipedia type citations in the article"

" For those interested, here's a place to find further info"

#1 through #3 would be problems, if they existed. So, I thought that if you took out all of the "see xxxx" items, that would be the first step to guide/force you to fix any of those three that are present. Specifically, make sure that you are putting complete thoughts / summaries of key points in the article, make it possible to critique what you wrote on it's own merits, and to clear away the ambiguity so that I (or somebody) could put "citation needed" tags on any statements where it is felt that such is needed. North8000 (talk) 14:10, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

RESPONSE TO "Ed June 25th":

I thought we had gone over this. You said that mentioning pages 56 to 64 wasn't enough. So, I added "(See page 59)" "(page 61)" etc. to the article to refer people to the exact page where they could find the reference. It does exactly what you request: ""the following citation supports what I just said". Are you saying now that you want to see just an exact page number like [59]? There is no way to provide an exact page number when the document is 92 pages long. Or are you requesting that I repeat the exact same reference to the FBI's entire Summary report over and over? EdLake (talk) 20:49, 25 June 2010 (UTC) Indent added by North8000 (talk) 21:28, 25 June 2010 (UTC) I hope you don't mind.

What I am suggesting is to start by removing those things. Then the other stuff will follow. But, to answer your final question, there will probably be a few cases where you would need to provide a in-line citation with a specif page #. And that would involve repeating the overall source. If that repetition gets huge, (which I don't think it will here), there are WP referencing formats and tools to handle that. North8000 (talk) 21:28, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay. I removed all the page citations that weren't part of the text, i.e., everything that required parenthesis. Why do I have this feeling that you're now going to ask me to put them back one by one? EdLake (talk) 21:51, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe. But it would be "see xxxx", so I wouldn't call that "bakc in" If I become too much of a pain the butt just tell me to go away and feel free to revert anything I did.  :-) Sincerely,

I took a look at the "hidden message" section to see what changes I should make. I looked at the sentence "they put full time surveillance on him because after such searches guilty people sometimes throw away or destroy materials that the searchers missed" and tried to come up with some way to say that they put full time surveillance on his GARBAGE CANS without making it seem silly. But I couldn't. Then I looked at the citations to see which should be deleted. I considered deleting a couple of the minor ones, but the ones that have been indicated as being most objectionable "(See page 64 of the Summary Report for more details.)" and "(See page 62 of the Summary)" are the ones that are required in order to make the abbreviated references understandable "(Page 58)" "(Page 59)" "(Page 60)". So, I'm just going to leave it to you or others to delete the citations you/they think are not necessary. EdLake (talk) 14:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Cs32en - You wrote: "the sources that are most detached from a given topic are best, not the sources that are most close to a topic." Isn't that equivalent to saying that the people who know the least about a subject are best, not the people who know the most about a subject? Also, the people who are "most detached" are also the people who have the least interest in writing about the subject. EdLake (talk) 13:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The people that are least involved in an issue may know less than people closely involved in it. Their accounts, however, are less affected by their personal or instutional involvement. This is especially true for news institutions, that build their reputation on a track record of accuracy and unbiased presentation of relevant facts. The latter aspect is generally much more important than the former. However, once an unbiased structure has been built on the based of such detached sources, we may fill in remaining "holes" with information taken from primary sources. There is no clear dividing line here, and the issue is not whether or not to use primary sources, but to used primary sources as part of an appropriate process in which the presentation is being developed, either as part of the editing process here, or in the mind (or the text editor) of a single contributor to Wikipedia.15:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. Someone wrote: "This is especially true for news institutions, that build their reputation on a track record of accuracy and unbiased presentation of relevant facts." That's an interesting point of view. The media's reporting of the anthrax attacks of 2001 has got to be the worst news reporting in the past 100 years. And the consensus seems to be that today's news is more about opinions than facts. Newspapers and magazines are dying because people now look to opinionated Internet bloggers and radio and TV commentators for their information. Just look at the most recent news stories about the anthrax attacks of 2001, and most of what you will see is pure uninformed opinions which are easily shown to be total nonsense. (On my web site, I archive every original news story I can find about the anthrax attacks of 2001.) EdLake (talk) 16:28, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

September 13, 2009 - Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low

"The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows.

"Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate.

Source: http://people-press.org/report/543/ EdLake (talk) 17:07, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Ivins' "non-denial denials"

The anthrax mailings included a number of indications that the mailer was trying to avoid harming anyone with his warning letters.^{[improper synthesis?]} (1) The seams on the backs of the envelopes were taped over as if to make certain the powders couldn't escape through open seams.^[1] (2) The letters were folded with the "pharmaceutical fold," which was used for centuries to safely contain and transport doses of powdered medicines (and currently to safely hold trace evidence).^[2] (3) The media letters provided "medical advice": "TAKE PENACILIN NOW." (4) The senate letters informed the recipient that the powder was anthrax: "WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX." And, (4) at the time of the mailings, it was generally believed that such powders could not escape from a sealed envelope - except through the two open corners where a letter opener is inserted, and those corners had been taped shut^[3].

According to page 70 - 71 of the DOJ/FBI's Summary report^[4], on June 5, 2008, Dr. Ivins had a (recorded) conversation with a witness, during which he made a series of statements about the anthrax mailings that could best be characterized as "non-denial denials." When asked about the anthrax attacks and whether he could have had anything to do with them, here are some of Dr. Ivins' responses:

Ivins: “I will tell that, I will tell you that it’s, I can’t pull that up. And a lot of times with e-mails, I don’t know that I sent an e-mail until I see it in the sent box. And it worries me when I wake up in the morning and I’ve got all my clothes and my shoes on, and my car keys are right beside there. . . . And I don’t have it in my, in my, I, I can tell you I don’t have it in my heart to kill anybody.” ....

Ivins: “And I, and I do not have any recollection of ever have doing anything like that." ....

Ivins: “The only reason I remember some of this stuff, it’s because there’s like a clue the next day. Like there’s an e-mail or, or, you know, when you’re, when you’re in bed and you’re like, you’re like this, you know, that’s, that’s not real fun. It’s like ‘oh shit, did I drive somewhere last night?’”

Witness: “Right, yeah, yeah, that must be awfully scary.”

Ivins: “It really certainly is. Uh, because I can tell you, I am not a killer at heart.” ....

Ivins: “If I found out I was involved in some way, and, and . . .”

Witness: “And you don’t consciously know?”

Ivins: “Have any, any clue. [pause] [groan] ‘Cause like, I’m, I’m not uh, a uh, I don’t think of myself as a vicious, a, a nasty evil person.” ....

Ivins: “Because I, I don’t like to hurt people, accidentally, in, in any way. And [several scientists at USAMRIID] wouldn’t do that. And I, in my right mind wouldn’t do it [laughs]. . . . But it’s still, but I still feel responsibility because it [RMR-1029] wasn’t locked up at the time . . . .”

Commentary

1. Boldface, don't use it. If you really want to highlight something use Italics, but use those sparingly as well. The less text is highlighted, the better it works. Relevant policy is MOS:BOLD
2. Sentences/wordsconsisting of capital leters, also to be avoided. Use Italics if you want emphasis. See MOS:ALLCAPS
3. "The anthrax mailings included a number of indications that the mailer was trying to avoid harming anyone with his warning letters". Unless you have a source which draws the same conclusion, pointing to the same 4 pieces of evidence you are not allowed to say this. Relevant policy is synthesis.
4. "during which he made a series of statements about the anthrax mailings that could best be characterized as "non-denial denials." Same story as above, you are gonna need to have source say this, it can't be you who draws the conclusion.
5. Whole conversation between Ivins and a witness, please just leave it out. If you want to quote some of his statements to show the his "non-denial denials." than do so, but entire phone conversations are serious overkill. I notice you also provide no source for the conversation.
6. According to page 70 - 71 of the DOJ/FBI's Summary report.^[1] Don't do this, include the page number in the reference: According the DOJ/FBI's Summary report.^[2] Please note, this is just a quick example, I am saying this is the proper way your references should look, although they could use some improvement from mere links.

Also some general comments about the entire article (not saying you are responsible for these points, but you might want to know):

1. It is too detailed and long. Try to condense it.
2. Comments from X sections: Just remove this, it does not belong in a wikipedia article. Some quotes might be integrated into prose elsewhere, but sections consisting purely of quotes are unwanted.
3. Timeline: turn this into a separate subarticle.

Yoenit (talk) 17:27, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Responses:

1. I can use italics, but bold definitely works better for me.

2. The only place I use all capital letters is when I quote from the anthrax letters, which were written in all capital letters. It makes no sense to de-capitalize them.

3. I have sources, but they may not use those same words. A change will just lengthen the sentences in question. But, I'll give it a try.

4. The sentence begins with "According to page 70 - 71 of the DOJ/FBI's Summary report[4]," which is the source. I didn't put quotations around it because I added "(recorded)". But I can remove "(recorded)" and put back the quotes.

5. Again, the source is pages 70-71 of the Summary Report. I reduced those pages to a few key quotes to reduce the size of the entry.

6. I don't know how to refer to a specific page in a 92 page document. I didn't even know it could be done. It seems more readable the way I did it, but I can make the change if I can figure out what you did. Let's see:^[1] Hmm. It appears I won't know if it worked or not until after I do the SAVE PAGE. (Nope, didn't work.)

1. I'd like to condense the entire article and get rid of a lot of garbage, but deletions REALLY get objections. That's why I've tried to only ADD things so far. I'm trying to make the unnecessary stuff clearly unnecessary. I'd like to get rid of entire sections, but all Hell will break loose, I'm sure. This is a VERY controversial subject.

2. "Comments from X sections" I have no idea what you are talking about.

3. "Timeline: turn this into a separate subarticle." Isn't "Timeline" already a "separate subarticle"? It's #10 in the table of contents. Or, perhaps, I have no clue what you are talking about. EdLake (talk) 18:13, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe there's something you don't know about all this. This whole article has been the FOCUS of a LOT of conspiracy theorists and True Believers who feel that the FBI is wrong about who sent the anthrax letters and whether or not the powders were weaponized. For years I tried to change things, only to have them immediately changed back. So, I gave up for a couple years. Now, I'm back. And I'm CERTAIN that nearly all the debate about using the FBI's Summary report is just a way of preventing the use of newly released facts in the article so that the old quotes from conspiracy theorists and True Believers from 2001 and 2002 will continue to dominate. EdLake (talk) 18:29, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I tried changing the key statements from Ivins from bold to italics, and the result is that you don't even notice the key statements, so I didn't do the save.

Before:

Ivins: “I will tell that, I will tell you that it’s, I can’t pull that up. And a lot of times with e-mails, I don’t know that I sent an e-mail until I see it in the sent box. And it worries me when I wake up in the morning and I’ve got all my clothes and my shoes on, and my car keys are right beside there. . . . And I don’t have it in my, in my, I, I can tell you I don’t have it in my heart to kill anybody.” ....

Ivins: “And I, and I do not have any recollection of ever have doing anything like that." ....

After:

Ivins: “I will tell that, I will tell you that it’s, I can’t pull that up. And a lot of times with e-mails, I don’t know that I sent an e-mail until I see it in the sent box. And it worries me when I wake up in the morning and I’ve got all my clothes and my shoes on, and my car keys are right beside there. . . . And I don’t have it in my, in my, I, I can tell you I don’t have it in my heart to kill anybody.” ....

Ivins: “And I, and I do not have any recollection of ever have doing anything like that." ....

Maybe I'll try just using the key statements and eliminating everything else. EdLake (talk) 18:46, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I removed "(recorded) and put back the quotes. I'm trying to figure out how to strip down the entire quotes from Ivins to just use the highlighted parts, but I'm having trouble getting it to make sense that way. And searching for other sources to replace the part that is "synthesized" is going to take time. I may have to give up for today and try again tomorrow. Other chores are accumulating. EdLake (talk) 19:01, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah! I had been thinking that I'd have to dig into some Wikipedia manual to figure out how to use hidden page numbers instead of stating them in the text, but while doing chores I realized that I could check the source code in the Wikipedia article. Then I realized that you provided an example, and I can check the source code there. I've done so, so I'm going to go back and change a few things in the article.  :-) EdLake (talk) 20:21, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

With regards to point 1 and 2. Our opinion is not relevant to this. Wikipedia has a manual of style for these things to make sure it is consistant between articles.

With comments from X I ment the sections "Comments from bio-weapons experts" and "Comments from government officials" which are just unrelated quotes. I am gonna delete them in a minute.

Timeline is currently a section. What is propose is moving everything from section 10 to the new article Timeline of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Also gonna delete Timeline of the 2001 anthrax attacks in New York and New Jersey

about references, almost everything you can do in a normal text can also be done in a reference. You might want to read Wikipedia:Citation templates for very nice preformatted reference templates.Yoenit (talk) 20:45, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I already fixed the bold to italics problem. I stripped the quotes down to just the needed information, and the results didn't need bold OR italics.

It will be interesting to see if there is any reaction to deleting the sections of "Comments." I would have deleted them myself, if I'd had the nerve.

I fixed all of the page number citations I could find to put them in the links. It's not a problem. I just didn't know who to do it before. One remains, however, and I'm not sure what to do with it. Here it is:

When questioned about this, Dr. Ivins claimed he hadn't read the part in GEB that discussed the coding/decodings procedures. (See FBI File #847551, pages 74 & 75 if you have a copy from before the June 9, 2008 "off the record interview" was removed.)

The problem is: The information WAS on-line in the FBI's files for a few days, but then they realized that it was a "off the record" interview and deleted it. I'd save a copy from before that happened, but my copy isn't on-line. It seems important to know what Ivins response was when confronted with that information, but it's not absolutely critical. What do you think? EdLake (talk) 21:09, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Changing "TAKE PENACILIN NOW" and "WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX." to "Take penacilin now" and "We have this anthrax." is wrong, since the original was in all caps. You are creating an INCORRECT QUOTE. But I won't fight it. Are you going to correct the spelling of penacilin, too? That would really screw it up. EdLake (talk) 21:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I support the use of capital letters in those case in which the original source contains capitals. "Off the record" interviews should not be used as sources on Wikipedia, but we can use information about such interviews published in secondary reliable sources, of course.  Cs32en Talk to me  21:45, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Ed, I think you are missing the main point of the feedback given. Most folks are saying basically saying to write this in a more Wikipedian / Enclyclopedic way. My general feeling is that you are not seeing that that is the main theme of what people have been telling you, and trying to help you with. I think that you are an expert the field of the subject of this article, with knowledge of many sources, but have a lot of rough edges and things that you don't understand regarding writing for Wikipedia, or enclyclopedic content. Maybe not every suggestion is perfect, but my advice would be to take what folks are saying with this understanding. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:01, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I made a whole bunch of changes yesterday because I finally realized what you and Yoenit were trying to tell me. The problem was that I not only didn't understand what you were saying (saying "It's not the Wikipedia way" doesn't really explain much), when I figured out what you were saying, I discovered I also didn't know how to do what you wanted. But, I figured it all out yesterday. So, I went back and changed everything. Where I previously said, "Page 71 of the DOJ Summary report[21] says, 'Ivins' did it.'" I now say, "'Ivins did it'[21]" and reference 21 says "DOJ Summary Report, page 71" and there's a link under "DOJ Summary Report" to the actual report on the DOJ's web site.

I apologize for my snide remark about correcting the spelling of "PENACILIN," but the idea of following the rules even when the rules will make things WRONG and/or less understandable bothers me.

I notice that early this morning "Kjdillon" added this comment to the section about the "hidden message in the media letters":

"Critics of FBI's theory note that various hidden messages have been detected in the letters, including known al Qaeda codewords. Because there is no method for determining which supposed hidden message is the real one, this approach appears to have no probative value. In addition, the nighttime disposal of GEB by Ivins can be interpreted as the act of an innocent man who, knowing that FBI had targeted him, sought to destroy anything that might look suspicious."

No references, no quotes from news sources, just the firm beliefs of "Kjdillon" who thinks Ivins is innocent and the anthrax letters were sent by al Qaeda.

I can't delete that new paragraph without creating a fuss. But I hope someone else can.

Meanwhile, later today I'll take a look at the "improper synthesis" notations to see how to make them proper. When I "fix" them, do I delete the "improper synthesis" notation, or do I wait for the person who put it there to decide the fix is proper?

I also notice someone put a date on the "This section may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources" notification. What's that all about?

I think we're making significant progress in improving the article about the anthrax attacks of 2001. I don't know if it was a good idea to separate the timeline from the main article or not, but I think it was definitely a good idea to delete the "Comments from bioweapons experts" and "Comments from government officials" sections. I couldn't have done it without someone immediately putting it back, but those same people clearly tend to think twice when someone else makes the deletion. EdLake (talk) 13:55, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Ed, you have the same right to challenge, tag or delete other people's insertions, or question or grill them in the talk page as they have to do so with yours. The norm in Wikipedia is a complex mixture/balance, of boldness and cautiousness / seeking consensus, with WP:policies used as a guide or framework. If I were deep in on this article, seeing that, to me, Kjdillon's insertion has a reasonable possibility of being true/sourcable, (it is an assertion that to some significant degree people have raised that question, Kjdillon is NOT asserting that the question is the answer) I personally would put "citation required" tags in 2-3 places in Kjdillon's insertion, or bring it up on the talk page. And, if there was no sourcing provided within a few weeks on any controversial statements, I would delete their insertion. North8000 (talk) 14:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

North8000, I know, but I'm not going to get "aggressive" in deleting things OR challenging other people's postings until I've finished adding new material to the anthrax article. Debating logic and reasoning just takes up too much time. The debate over "primary" versus "secondary" sources went on for over a week without any real resolution. No one has yet answered this question:

If the FBI interviews Dr. Heine and writes a report about it, is that somehow different from the New York Times interviewing Dr. Heine and writing a report about it? Is the FBI always the "primary source" as if Dr. Heine doesn't exist? Does Dr. Heine only really exist when he's interviewed by The New York Times? EdLake (talk) 15:23, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

EdLake, if you state that "the debate over 'primary' versus 'secondary' sources went on for over a week without any real resolution", then please re-read the comments from editors at WP:RS/N#Primary vs Secondary sources. Three editors have stated their assessment that the DOJ report is a primary source, and no editor has stated that it would be secondary source. While the debate has not formally ended, consensus seems to build around regarding the DOJ report as a primary source (which can nevertheless be used, to be sure).  Cs32en Talk to me  15:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

CS32 I had said there that a huge report prepared by many many of people in many many different roles is inevitably a mixture of primary and secondary sources. I think that the discussion wandered into many interesting places, and don't belive that there was a consensus (or even focus) on classification of the FSI/DOJ report as primary vs. secondary,. And Ed, I don't think that you understand that even if it were purely a primary source, that would not forbid you from using it. And Ed, I don't think that you understand that the primary vs. secondary has not been a big issue here in subsequent discussion. Even CS32 who (I think) is the one most feeling that it's use should be limited is not telling you not to use it. North8000 (talk) 15:54, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

In my view, the discussion on the reliable sources notice board#Primary vs Secondary sources is the relevant discussion with regard to this aspect. I know that you have stated a different opinion, although it's not a polar opposite. At the same time, you have not added it to the RS notice board (neither did I add my opinion on the DOJ report there). In my view, the feedback that we have got from uninvolved editors on this particular question so far is that the source should rather be regarded as a primary source. The discussion is not closed, however, maybe I should strike out "formally" in my comment above. Overuse of primary sources will make the article even longer, harder to read and difficult to manage with regard to possible original research and synthesis.  Cs32en Talk to me  16:23, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I did not know that that discussion existed. I added a few sentences there. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:40, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

As you see, we're getting opinions but NO LOGIC. I'm an analyst. I use logic. I understand that the use of primary sources is no longer an "issue" to some, and that's the reason I'm once again posting material taken from the DOJ/FBI Summary Report and no one is deleting it. But, the definition of primary vs secondary sources cannot be resolved until the question I asked above is resolved.

Just out of curiosity, I know that in other forums too many indentations causes people with small computer screens to see things as if they're a vertical stack of meaningless letters. Is that also the case here. Is there a reasonable limit on indentations? EdLake (talk) 16:52, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Here's the definition question again:

If the FBI interviews Dr. Heine and writes a report about it, is that somehow different from the New York Times interviewing Dr. Heine and writing a report about it? Is the FBI always the "primary source" as if Dr. Heine doesn't exist? Does Dr. Heine only really exist when he's interviewed by The New York Times? EdLake (talk) 16:54, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

You can use {{outdent}} to get back to the left side. An interview is always a primary source, unless the interviewee would be a secondary source for some other information. In that case, the interviewee must be considered reliable for the interview to be used (with the exception of using self-published sources per the respective guideline).  Cs32en Talk to me  17:20, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Cs32en - "You can use {{outdent}} to get back to the left side." Thanks, but that doesn't answer what I asked. I have a 23 inch computer screen. You'd probably have to do 30 or 40 indentations before it would be a problem for me. I was just wondering if 10 or 12 indentations was a problem for anyone else or if there was some kind of limit. (I thought the software limit was 5 until I saw someone use 6.)

"An interview is always a primary source, unless the interviewee would be a secondary source" So, an FBI report of a meeting with Dr. Heine is a "secondary source?" Doesn't that mean that FBI reports are NOT always considered to be "primary sources?" EdLake (talk) 17:50, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, FWIW, I added material to substantiate the two areas where "improper synthesis" notations were made - and I removed the "improper synthesis" notations. The only one remaining is the boxed thingy at the top of the section about the "hidden message in the media letters." It says: "This section may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources." I'm assuming that "may" means that it's just a warning to readers, NOT a threat to delete the entire entry if I don't somehow fix something. EdLake (talk) 19:28, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Since I was thinking about "improper synthesis" anyway, I plunked four "improper synthesis" notations into Ken Dillon's comment disputing the hidden message findings. His points are all the result of "original analysis" by Dillon and others who believe al Qaeda or an al Qaeda sympathizer was behind the attacks. (Check out Ken Dillon in the "Amateur Investigators" section.) I don't recall any "secondary sources" reporting on such things. EdLake (talk) 19:52, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Because I was in a good mood, I also added a "preview" to the new article about the timeline. If not me, who else? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2001_anthrax_attacks EdLake (talk) 21:40, 27 June 2010 (UTC)