User talk:Tom Griffin

Hi,

Can you also update the page on Feldman with the Rothschild/oligarch story?

And why don't you post some of the pages that you want to see work done on as a list on the portal page (ie on the spooks, NI or Neocons portal)?

--David 08:54, 22 October 2008 (BST)

Hi,

try this way of creating new pages:

http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Article_Submission Let me know if there are any more headings or formatting that should be added to the default.

--David 15:34, 22 August 2008 (BST)

OK.

Can you suggest the formatting for such a page?

and edit this page to the appropriate format? Format for institution

--David 16:06, 22 August 2008 (BST)

Working on

1. Merge Elliott Abrams/Foreign Policy Hawk with Elliott Abrams

Ideas for pages/pages to come back to

UK

right

MI6

Vladimir Rezun

Misc

Total Politics

US

Working Group on Intelligence Reform (Finish names)
Alexander Haig

Congress

-NED

Larry Diamond

-Misc

Neocons

Lovestoneites

FBI

David Szady

-CIA

Iraq Operations Group

Ireland

Stormontgate

agents

Barron report

Fred Holroyd

Journalists

Workers' Association for a Democratic Settlement in Northern Ireland

Italy

France

Iraq

Israel

Eastern Europe

Niger

Misc

Media Tenor International

standpoint

Hi

I entered Standpoint.online after checking SAU where there was NO indication of the magazine. Maybe the sensible thing to do when entering the type of article which is subsidiary to the main one is to actually mention it in the main article.

Please merge them... up to you.

Kind rgds --Paulo 22:16, 8 October 2008 (BST)

user-friendly

Hi Tom

doing a quick tour of the portals prior to launch. I wonder, cd you pls make the N. Ireland portal page a bit more accessible to the public/non experts by giving a short summary of the issues around Northern Ireland? ie what 'sins' are we going to be looking at in the articles in yr portal? you mention the intelligence networks that have sprung up around N Ireland issue. what does this mean for the public/democracy? what are the main problems in the N Ireland field? etc. I suppose a lot of the public think that the whole N Ireland issue has gone away and you will need to explain why it hasn't.

Pls get in touch if you have any q's or if this is mystifying.

best wishes Claire

redundant headers?

--Claire Robinson 20:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC) Hi Tom, doing a quick tour of the portal pages, looks as if u have 2 redundant headers, "Northern Ireland" and "Issues"--can u either move some text into one or both of these sections or delete the headers? let me know if you can't find the coding in the edit page, it takes me a while to find these things too. best,--Claire Robinson 12:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Philip Giraldi

Hi Tom

Happened across this article http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Philip_Giraldi

could you

--pls give a brief intro to who this fellow is/what he does?

--explain who Beckett Brown Int. is?

--introduce the quote saying who is speaking and what the quote shows/the point you're making in including the quote?

let me know if this doesn't make sense.

It's just a bit telescoped and needs to be unpicked for the reader.

thanks! let me know if you cannot get to it and I'll have a go. Claire R (my signature thingie isn't working, no idea why)

clarification

Hi Tom

Thanks for these new articles. Could you just clarify one bit in

http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/National_Extremism_Tactical_Co-ordination_Unit

what exactly is Monbiot suggesting--ie which claims is there evidence to back? I'm assuming Monbiot is saying that the police were just agitating for more funding because the animal rights groups were in disarray??

George Monbiot suggested that there was evidence to back these claims in the original Observer article.[12] It stated:

The rise of eco-extremism coincides with the fall of the animal rights activist movement. Police said the animal rights movement was in 'disarray' and that its ringleaders had either been prosecuted or were awaiting prosecution, adding that its 'critical mass' of hardcore extremists was sufficiently depleted to have halted its effectiveness.[13]

thank you! --Claire Robinson 12:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

robert cooper

Hi Tom

could you by way of a public service go into Robert Cooper and define what the author of this article (not you I know) means by postmodernism in this context? I only know what it means with regard to buildings and interior design and that doesn't help me much here ... the definition will need to come as soon as the word is mentioned. we also have "premodern" which will also need definition.

many thanks! --Claire Robinson 19:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

don't worry about cooper

HI Tom

don't worry about "postmodernist" Cooper, I went in and shifted the definition to the top of the "postmodern" section... don't like words like that in our articles, but guess we are stuck with it as it's one of RC's hobby horses.

thanks, --Claire Robinson 14:35, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

cross purposes

whoops sorry Tom, that was your definition of postmodernism in Cooper and a jolly good one too - so to summarise, I have just moved it to the top of that section. thanks --Claire Robinson 14:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Free Trade Union Committee

Hi Tom

this is well sourced with page no. etc-- thank you! and the info is well publicised elsewhere. However, we need to word more carefully. You have:

In December 1948, FTUC chairman Matthew Woll introduced Jay Lovestone to Frank Wisner of the Office of Policy Coordination. Lovestone began receiving CIA funds from Wisner a month later. Irving Brown also began receiving Marshall Plan funds.

-- but can you just add a leader that will protect us, putting this allegation in Wilford's mouth, eg

In his book Blah Blah, Hugh Wilford states that ...

many thanks! --Claire Robinson 11:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Craig Smellie

HI Tom

in Craig Smellie

I can't work out what this typo "taked" is meant to mean. can u correct?

Although MI6 has denied that Wallace was employed by them, Wallace claims he was taked by Smellie on an ad hoc basis.

thanks --Claire Robinson 23:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

style point

Hi Tom

small point of style but one I'm trying to get all writers to follow -- we should always lead in to quotes and often (not always needed) end by telling the reader what they are supposed to have learned, or by linking into our next point. Thus no section or article should simply begin with a quote. we should say who's speaking/in what publication, who they are, or anything that's relevant to establish the context and let the reader know who is speaking here.

In article

Ami Ayalon

we have a section starting with a quote. so would be great to have a lead-in. the style thingie is explained a bit at:

http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/SpinProfiles:How_to_Structure_an_Article#Put_quotes_in_context

many thanks for all yr good work --Claire Robinson 22:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

lift page out?

Hi Tom

Lynn and I are working our way thru the old Globalisation page, putting all the useful content onto pages with proper titles, ie without the Globalisation prefix. One of them is this page: http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Globalisation:Henry_Jackson_Society_Project_for_Democratic_Geopolitics

and I have a note saying you are dealing with this one. could you lift all useful content out of this page, put it in the Neocons site on a page with the appropriate title, and let me know when you've done it? I can then delete the old page, Globalisation:Henry_Jackson_Society_Project_for_Democratic_Geopolitics

many thanks --Claire Robinson 11:06, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

intro

Hi Tom

in the following page for Douglas Bernhart could you pls put in an intro? and introduce the quote by putting it in context, saying who's speaking etc?

many thanks --Claire Robinson 08:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Douglas Bernhart

Loyalist arms shipment

DOZENS of lives were spared because a massive loyalist weapons cache, smuggled in from the Middle East in the late 1980s, included hundreds of rounds of faulty ammunition.

The ammunition smuggled into Northern Ireland in the Lebanese arms consignment was of Chinese origin, and of poor quality.

The weapons, which were divided between the UVF and the UDA and Ulster Resistance, have been reported to have been from South Africa, but the haul came from the Lebanon; the only South African connection was the arms dealer, Douglas Bernhart, who set up the deal between the loyalists and Lebanese businessman, Joe Fawzi.[1]

Castlereagh break-in

Hi Tom

Re this (v interesting) page:

Castlereagh break-in

there are small tweaks that need doing. if you don't have time, let me know and I will do something.

First sentence needed a verb, which I've supplied. First quote needs a lead-in: who is speaking? set quote in context. Ditto for sections, "Flanagan's retirement" and "Police raids".

that's it.

thanks for your good work

--Claire Robinson 08:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

mistakes in quotes

Spelling mistakes in quotations

Hi Claire,

I was just wondering what we should do with spelling mistakes in quoted material. I noticed that [Sic.] is used in the initial quote from the Ahuvah Berger emails. Should I do that with the rest? Also there was a quote in the Niv Calderon page that included a mistake which seems to have been rectified. Should I reverse it and put [sic.] there as well? --Tom Griffin 22:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

HI Tom

yes this is an annoying one. Sorry, think that was me who corrected their typo "forign" to "foreign" in Calderon. There is no hard and fast rule on these, but the following is what I tend to do.

Where they have made an obvious typo like missing out a letter or spelling someth wrong, you can add the missing letters or correct spelling in square brackets, thus "for[e]ign". We can see this at work in a story John Vidal of the Guardian wrote based on an illiterate email we had from the son of a GM proponent:

Taking the rap

John Vidal

The Guardian, October 6, 2004

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1320123,00.html

Rohan Prakash is the 12-year-old rapper son of Professor CS Prakash, director of the Centre for Plant Biotechnology at Tuskegee University, Alabama. Young Rohan has leapt to his father's side after penning a pro-biotech song that was mentioned by the UK web-based GM Watch group. He emailed them: "If you want to insult me, i'm going to insult you fucking dick ass bit[c]h whor[e]. Ya you can never talk about me like that cuz 12 year old rohan that's me and say sorry because universal records gave me a record contract and i can make a rap to get you out of business bitch. Do not talk about my dad because biotechnology is tight and you do not fuck with me!" Sweet child.

If they have used the wrong form of a word and it's obvious what they mean I would enclose the correction in square brackets and "ed" note, such as:

Bloggs writes, "The terrorists have had there last chance."

I would either correct to:

Bloggs writes, "The terrorists have had there [their – ed.] last chance."

If they use the wrong word and it's 99% but not 100% clear what they mean, you can add a question mark to your addition in square brackets, so if you have a quote like:

Blaggs writes, "MI6 taked me with liaising between the two sides."

I would write

Blaggs writes, "MI6 taked [tasked? – ed.] me with liaising between the two sides."

While everyone makes typos and there is usually no point in making an issue of them -- the aim in general should be just to clarify for the reader -- in some cases there is a point that can be made in reproducing people's illiteracy exactly as we find it, especially if it involves abusive and aggressive language, as in Vidal's article above, or makes a political point, eg like an example a few years ago of terrible grammar used by an education minister who was propounding about literacy in schools. In these cases I would just add the odd letter as in the John Vidal article above.

If the quote contains an obvious mistake that would entail more than the addition of a letter or two to clarify/correct, but the meaning is clear, that is a case for using [sic.] with lower case "s". This just makes clear to the reader that we are reproducing the person's words and have not made a mistake ourselves -- it's a way of reassuring the reader that they are reading the quote as we found it. Thus with Ahuvah Berger article:

"I would gladly take accept [sic.] that title."

In general, [sic.] and minor corrections of adding letters in square brackets can be freely used and will stop editors like me going in and changing quotes! so yes please re Calderon, do put the missing "e" in "foreign" in square brackets, ie "for[e]ign".

I will add this advice to the ever-growing list of editorial guidelines! thanks for drawing attn to the issue.

Small additional point: in Ahuvah Berger article, could you just add the dates of the emails concerned where they are not mentioned -- think they were all on 23 June but such details can sometimes become important? you can use the date that you rec'd the email if there is any confusion about when it was actually written.

many thanks, great work on that article

--Claire Robinson 09:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

PS

sorry Tom, just noticed you have indeed put the date of the emails in the refs so that's great.

--Claire Robinson 11:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Gilad Stern

Hi Tom

very good stuff on social networking for Israel. In

http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Gilad_Stern

there is a nice lead-in to the quote. but with all lead-ins to quotes can you just add to the lead-in who is talking and perhaps the publication or report you are quoting from?

small point but helpful to reader to find his bearings. ie reader will expect differently from a neocon commentator than from a student writing in support of the Palestinian cause.

many thanks

--Claire Robinson 09:58, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

User talk:Tom Griffin

Contents

Working on

Ideas for pages/pages to come back to

UK

US

Ireland

Italy

France

Iraq

Israel

Eastern Europe

Niger

Misc

standpoint

user-friendly

redundant headers?

Philip Giraldi

categories

clarification

robert cooper

don't worry about cooper

cross purposes

Free Trade Union Committee

Craig Smellie

style point

lift page out?

intro

Castlereagh break-in

categories

mistakes in quotes

PS

Gilad Stern

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