Sad conclusion to the Scott-Taylor matter

[Daniel_Wexler]

For what little it may be worth, it has been my considered opinion from the start that Mr. Scott-Taylor fabricated this material not with an eye towards financial gain (which could potentially have resulted in extremely serious legal ramifications) but rather in attempts at boosting his profile/qualifications/aura as an architect.

And then the horse kind of got out of the barn a little bit....  

[John Kavanaugh]

If the opinion pieces are deleted and these threads stand then it will be impossible for Phil or Ran to defend themselves from these most recent accusations of being knowing participants in the ruse.  At this point I don't see the value in deleting anything unless you delete everything.

You can't help yourself, can you?  Where has anyone suggested anything about Ran being a knowing participant? 

The talk of "others" having their reputation tarnished...If not Ran, then who?  People on this board will not call Ran out by name because he still holds something they want.

[Ryan Coles]

I think David Moriarty did great with this. He is owed an apology. He brought this up offline to no avail and has had Phil, Neil
Crafter and others ridicule him.

[Lou_Duran]

I received an email from STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) in the UK this morning that referenced plagiarism in Phil’s October In My Opinion piece.

This much is clear: The 21 page preliminary brief that purportedly was commissioned by the Scott-Taylor family – and that was the primary source for Phil’s October In My Opinion piece - was in fact derived from a 2010 report published by STEP on an unrelated matter.  Both related In My Opinion articles will be removed from the web site at 4:00pm EST. The threads will remain.

.........

This entire incident is regrettable on many levels and causes me to re-evaluate this web site’s policy for posting material.

Not an unexpected "conclusion", but I am confused.  How did the plagiarized material come from a report on an unrelated matter?  Were the "lifted" materials not pertinent to the DST documents and drawings?

While a review of the site's posting policies is probably a good idea, we should remember that this is not a newspaper of record.  Much of the information here is opinion and interpretations of what might be factual material.  Just like courtroom rules of evidence don't apply in the Discussion Group, it is unrealistic to require the level of due diligence associated with publishing the news, double sourcing, professional editing, legal review, etc.

I don't see a rush to publish as a problem of the site.   However, the very occasional enthusiastic endorsement of a thread or opinion piece by its founder can be.  This can be remedied easily by not prefacing these.  Being found to be a fraud or a boor for making self-serving, uninteresting posts should be sufficient deterrent (though when self-policing doesn't work, the moderators can very easily terminate the posting privilege of the offender).

As to Phil's apology, I don't know how it can be more complete.  The suggestion that he might commit seppuku is astoundingly unkind.  Phil is hardly the first researcher/historian who has been duped.  We could benefit from a little grace here.

I can't help but to feel sorry for Ian.  Certainly his reputation has been badly tarnished, likely affecting his livelihood.  Pretty sad, but maybe there is a good lesson here.   
    

[John Kavanaugh]

I think David Moriarty did great with this. He is owed an apology. He brought this up offline to no avail and has had Phil, Neil
Crafter and others ridicule him.

David would not want and will not be getting an apology from me.  I 100% stand behind every statement I made to him or others about this concern.

[Mark Pearce]

If the opinion pieces are deleted and these threads stand then it will be impossible for Phil or Ran to defend themselves from these most recent accusations of being knowing participants in the ruse.  At this point I don't see the value in deleting anything unless you delete everything.

You can't help yourself, can you?  Where has anyone suggested anything about Ran being a knowing participant? 

The talk of "others" having their reputation tarnished...If not Ran, then who?  People on this board will not call Ran out by name because he still holds something they want.

If you had actually bothered to read the thread, rather than just abuse David Moriarty (and you're one who owes him an apology, too), you'd know the names of the others.  I'm not going to repeat them here because I don't believe that they were complicit.

[Jim Nugent]

I think GCA worked great in this affair.  Almost perfectly, in fact.

A well-respected (among many) long-time member of GCA came out with some sensational news.  Almost immediately, a number of other members set out to verify it.  They found one contradiction after another.  In the end, it was revealed as a fraud.  

I think this reflects very positively on Ran and this DG.  I don't expect him to vet the opinion pieces or posts here.  Instead, he has created a forum that does that.  We have some real smart people on the board.  Peer review at its finest.  

Kudos to David Moriarty and the rest of you for showing the inconsistencies in the story.  

[Mark Bourgeois]

Lou,

You are right to put "conclusion" in quotes and I would say the questions you raise in your first paragraph illustrate that if this were a baseball game we'd be in the 7th inning (or should be). More discovery needed.

I would make a distinction between the "stack" of In My Opinion pieces and the "flow" of the discussion board. An entry to the latter is chatter; a submission to the former is, or should be, solidly researched. This I believe is the implicit contract between author / poster and reader on this site. The bar should be higher for IMOs than for posts to the discussion board.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Not a time to gloat, I agree.

I think this is a good day for GCAtlas.  This forum seems to stay ahead of the many others in golf.

Certainly livens up my afternoon with this announcement, wow.

[Niall C]

No doubt there will be plenty of "I told you so's" and more piling on about the discoveries of facts by the relentless researchers that have been hammering at this for months.  Yet, in my personal view, I am of two minds on the intensity of the pursuit of the true historical record.  Of course I personally am grateful for the diligence and passion of these folks to set he accurate record straight and protect the community in general and the GCA.com community specifically from this fraud.  But, I am also of the mind that it became obvious after about a week or two of the exposures and that it almost seemed a piling on or vicious campaign by parties on several sides and coming from tangential issues to natter and antagonize their enemies.  I'm not going into the specifics of that.  It should be patently clear who those parties are who used this for side attacks that brought no valid information, only innuendo and cast aspersions like a bully does in the school yard.  

RJ

By not going "into the specifics" and by not naming names are you not also guilty of casting aspersions on most if not all who have participated in this debate ?

Niall

[Niall C]

I think David Moriarty did great with this. He is owed an apology. He brought this up offline to no avail and has had Phil, Neil
Crafter and others ridicule him.

Ryan

David is more than capable of speaking for himself and no doubt will pass comment. However I'm not sure any of those named has ridiculed him........... strongly disagreed, yes... but ridicule ? I don't think so.

Niall

[Ryan Coles]

I think David Moriarty did great with this. He is owed an apology. He brought this up offline to no avail and has had Phil, Neil
Crafter and others ridicule him.

Ryan

David is more than capable of speaking for himself and no doubt will pass comment. However I'm not sure any of those named has ridiculed him........... strongly disagreed, yes... but ridicule ? I don't think so.

Niall

I beg to differ and believe there are numerous examples in the latest thread, if you care to read through. In hindsight it is excruciating reading back some of the comments.

He can of course speak for himself. But so can I and I believe he is owed a public apology.

Wonder if the crank call to the sister actually happened......

[Niall C]

The crazy thing is: I happen to believe that there are some genuinely authentic elements here (my guess: the diary is indeed an old dead man's diary from the period, and the drawings/sketches may well have been produced contemporaneously).  But whatever is indeed authentic is so mixed up with confusions and exaggerations and sloppiness and flat out mistakes and even outright deceptions that it means at this point nothing at all.  

In short - moving forward Ran I think your primary goal, if you want to publish at all, is to get it right, and to get it right the first time. Take the time to get it right. Share it with a few close and trusted friends and/or experts, hopefully including folks that know a bit about writing and that are not too invested in the content.

 

Peter

It seems to me that in the first paragraph above you are somewhat denying reality given the mountain of evidence that this material is fake and then in the second you are holding yourself out as the sort of person (ie. writer) who should be in the inner circle to decide whether the essay is worth publishing. That seems to me to be quite a bizarre way of looking at things, and I do actually mean that with respect.

As Jim Nugent said elsewhere, we reached the bottom of this through the analysis and debate of the DG and not because of any filter group before the original essay was published. As others have said, I hope that Ran isn't put off by this experience.

Niall  

[Duncan Cheslett]

I am delighted that this saga has been brought to a conclusion.

Two months ago I had never heard of Tillinghust, Phil Young, or Ian Scott-Taylor. My interest in this story centred solely around the alleged involvement of Alister MacKenzie, an involvement which I knew in my bones from the start must be false.

It is a mystery to me how and why leading authorities on MacKenzie were so quick and eager to hitch their wagons to this story; it just smelt so wrong.

Anyway - no gloating, no 'I told you so'. Let's just move on and be thankful that history has not been distorted.

[Dan Kelly]

I think GCA worked great in this affair.  Almost perfectly, in fact.

A well-respected (among many) long-time member of GCA came out with some sensational news.  Almost immediately, a number of other members set out to verify it.  They found one contradiction after another.  In the end, it was revealed as a fraud.  

I think this reflects very positively on Ran and this DG.  I don't expect him to vet the opinion pieces or posts here.  Instead, he has created a forum that does that.  We have some real smart people on the board.  Peer review at its finest.  

Not having followed the details of this story, and not having read the threads in question ...

This sounds right to me.

Crowdsourcing is a beautiful tool to build things up ... OR to knock them down.

Dan

[Peter Pallotta]

Niall - well, I guess I'm a worse writer than I thought if you drew such conclusions, but at any rate let me clarify:

1. I would never "hold myself out as" nor do I have any desire to be part of nor do I have the experience/knowledge necessary to participate as a member of any inner circle. I was merely suggesting two types of folks for that might comprise that circle - a) interested and knowledgable gca types with time on their hands to help ask questions and check facts  and b) people who like and are good at writing, just to try to ensure clarity and verve and directness of language.

2. I don't understand how holding the belief that possibly the diaries might be those of an actual old dead person who lived back in the day is outlandish. Granted, still thinking that the drawings might have come from the time is probably more of a stretch.

Jim is right, that's how it played out in this case. Do you think it better that it did so than if, say, David M had asked all the questions off line and the essays never saw the light of day?

At any rate, Ran asked (implicitly) how the process of posting In My Opinion pieces might work better in the future. My suggestion was that he take a lot more time before posting, as there will never be a "need" to get such an essay out in the world. That's all I was focusing on.

Peter

[Dan Kelly]

Niall - well, I guess I'm a worse writer than I thought if you drew such conclusions...

Peter --

You guess wrong.

Dan

[Steve Wilson]

I'm certainly glad I stayed out of this.  

Lest too much beating up continue, let's all remember the Piltdown man.  Not to mention all the fraudulent old Masters circulating in art circles.  

Who knows what else is out there in the way of hoaxes.

But in the event some of you do feel compelled to pursue this, pitchforks and torches are probably available through Amazon.

 

[Jeff Taylor]

"At any rate, Ran asked (implicitly) how the process of posting In My Opinion pieces might work better in the future."

If people will act in a civilized manner then the cost to one's reputation ought to be enough incentive to post credible IMO pieces.

[Keith Grande]

I think GCA worked great in this affair.  Almost perfectly, in fact.

A well-respected (among many) long-time member of GCA came out with some sensational news.  Almost immediately, a number of other members set out to verify it.  They found one contradiction after another.  In the end, it was revealed as a fraud.  

I think this reflects very positively on Ran and this DG.  I don't expect him to vet the opinion pieces or posts here.  Instead, he has created a forum that does that.  We have some real smart people on the board.  Peer review at its finest.  

Kudos to David Moriarty and the rest of you for showing the inconsistencies in the story.  

Well said, Jim!

[Ian Andrew]

Peter,

I wrote a piece on the Architectural Evolution of Stanley Thompson.

It was based upon a series of interviews with people who knew Stanley including Geoff Cornish, the judge who settled his estate and his step-daughter. While I carefully collected information for two years, at a certain point I have speculated on certain facts based upon the summary of what I collected. One of the key weaknesses is Stan barely wrote any architectural thoughts down.

It's not up to Ran to verify those facts.

It's up to me to be able to prove, share or justify the conclusions of my essay.

The section is called  "In My Opinion" not in Ran's Opinion.

[Carl Nichols]

Peter,

I wrote a piece on the Architectural Evolution of Stanley Thompson.

It was based upon a series of interviews with people who knew Stanley including Geoff Cornish, the judge who settled his estate and his step-daughter. While I carefully collected information for two years, at a certain point I have speculated on certain facts based upon the summary of what I collected. One of the key weaknesses is Stan barely wrote any architectural thoughts down.

It's not up to Ran to verify those facts.

It's up to me to be able to prove, share or justify the conclusions of my essay.

The section is called  "In My Opinion" not in Ran's Opinion.

Ian-
I generally agree.  But in this particular instance, Ran wrote a Discussion Group post that read a lot like an endorsement of Phil's original "In My Opinion" piece.  

[Bart Bradley]

Peter,

I wrote a piece on the Architectural Evolution of Stanley Thompson.

It was based upon a series of interviews with people who knew Stanley including Geoff Cornish, the judge who settled his estate and his step-daughter. While I carefully collected information for two years, at a certain point I have speculated on certain facts based upon the summary of what I collected. One of the key weaknesses is Stan barely wrote any architectural thoughts down.

It's not up to Ran to verify those facts.

It's up to me to be able to prove, share or justify the conclusions of my essay.

The section is called  "In My Opinion" not in Ran's Opinion.

Ian, to be fair, the piece was not originally posted in the "in my opinion" section. It got moved there after the revelation that Tillinghast wasn't in Scotland as was initially purported. I think opinion pieces should just be  introduced for discussion without endorsement as to their veracity.

Bart

[Wayne_Kozun]

As someone who didn't have a dog in this fight I found this whole matter to be very interesting and fascinating to follow.  I learned many things about medical exams in Scotland, British military records, using web tools to find when certain words/terms came into popular usage, etc.  Perhaps my (and others') interest was not unlike being unable to look away from an accident or a NASCAR crash so that may not say good things about my nature.  As I posted in one of the threads this reminded me of Orson Welles' last movie F for Fake.

I think it would be interesting to archive the IMO pieces and threads in case they disappear.  So far I have downloaded the following:

IMO piece by Phil from "Tillinghast, Student of..."
IMO piece by Phil from "Authenticating the Tillinghast..."
Thread titled "Two Tillinghast Treasures..."
Thread titled "Hubris and a Point of Honor"
Thread titled "Tillinghast, MacKenzie and the Problematic..."
Thread titled "Authenticating the Tillinghast Sketches update..."

Am I missing anything major?

p.s. It looks like Phil's two IMO pieces have been taken down.

[Jud_T]

Kudos to David Moriarty.  He may not always be warm and fuzzy, but he was right on the money, and the integrity of the site is better because of it.