The fact that the page’s edit history (which AFAIK cant itself be edited by users) doesn’t record any such deletion.
But aren’t there people higher up in seniority (or if not seniority, at least in authority) who could conceal such a deletion so that it would not show on the edit history page? The average user of course would not have such power, but do we know that no one has such power? The inner workings of Wikipedia are not exactly transparent. One can see the back and forth between editors at the superficial level, on the Talk pages, but deeper into the guts of the machine, who knows what goes on? I assume everyone here has read 1984; the people behind Big Brother are not such amateurs as to leave evidence that they have wiped something out, if they don’t want the public to know that they have wiped something out.
The deeper problem, of course, is that Wikipedia is fundamentally, in its very construction, an irresponsible organization, in which the vast majority of contributors hide their names, locations, occupations, educational qualifications, motives, etc., and whose nominally “democratic” structure is all the more invidious for masking the more typical reality that whole areas of the project are controlled by self-appointed cabals. Abolish all anonymity, give the de facto behind-the-scenes authorities formal ranks and powers and responsibilities and offices and e-mail addresses where they can be reached by readers, journalists, etc., and the entire character of the place would be changed. We would not now be arguing about whether there was some secret wiping going on, or by whom, etc. We would know. But the cult of secrecy gets in the way of true accountability.
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Let’s slow down a second because there may be some misunderstanding here…
Ann, you did state that his publications and taxa had been wiped and that his wiki page was deleted. Evograd, and others, are merely trying to determine exactly what you mean by this.
Since his “species page” exists, you don’t mean that it was deleted entirely (or if you do, it was restored later.) You probably don’t mean that everything was removed from the page and the empty page was left standing (and maybe it had some content added later.) This is why Evograd is asking about details that you remember. The “history” of the page does not indicate that it was wiped. So is this a mistake in terms, or is this a broad conspiracy wherein the page was edited and the history was also edited?
https://species.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Category:Günter_Bechly_taxa
We’re all interested in what, exactly, happened. And… Happy Thanksgiving to all. 
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There are often independent archive sites, though, that capture the states of pages as they appeared on certain dates. So this can be independent of the “internal” history for a site.
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To be strictly fair, I was not stating a fact that his page was wiped based on personal knowledge. I have no personal knowledge of a time when there were species listed. I was drawing an exasperated conclusion based on my reading of the facts. You may disagree. But I find it odd that someone of Gunter’s reputation should have no listings. And what’s more, if he has zero listings, then why has he got a page at all? Does his membership in some society confer a page on him, but not list his contributions?
If all pages are archived, can we recover Gunter’s Wikipedia and his Wikespecies page? I have no idea how to do it.
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Looks like the full story is here:
It is complex, so beware. It appears that @Agauger’s account is essentially correct. The precise reasons for the deletion though, are not exactly right. It appears that there was a discussion about what to do with his page, and then there was outside canvasing (violating wikipedia’s rules) to protect his page. This backfired badly. With the increased publicity, more people got involved and it was decided to delete his page to avoid the politics of it all.
I think that was probably the wrong call. It does not seem fair to Gunter. There was nothing inappropriate on his page.
At the same time, it does not appear that the ID movement was smart about this. Turning everything into a populist call to action has some serious consequences. Most people do not like this. I’m not sure it deserved deleting his page, but it does not seem to be a smart way to go about things. Moreover, it is disappointing that ENV didn’t give the whole story.
Even with that, it does not seem fair to delete Gunter’s page. I hope that is reconsidered at some point.
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Of note @Agauger, I have a higher H-index than Gunter (22 vs. 21). Yet I have no wikipedia page. I also am far more public than he was at the time. This is not what makes the situation odd. Art Hunt (H-index 44) does not have a page. @Mercer (H-index 27) does not have a wikipedia page. @Glipsnort (H-index 66) does not have a wikipedia page. (I could go on) The fact that he has no wikipedia pages with a high scientific reputation is meaningless. Most scientists do not have wikipedia pages.
For the record, Gunter does have a Google Scholar page. That is a good thing: Dr. Günter Bechly - Google Scholar. In terms of scientific reputation, this is a far more important page for him to have. He has not been excluded here. For that matter, you @Agauger have a profile too https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UdWx8pcAAAAJ&hl=en. So does Behe: Michael Behe - Google Scholar. Robert Marks has one too Robert J. Marks II - Google Scholar. I could go on, but at least everyone is being included there. Of note. even the popular books are counted as publications.
The real thing demonstrating your story true is that the english wikipedia page really was deleted, and there is a public record of why this happened. It is not for a good reason. You are right, it seems, but it helps to be right for correct reasons. The questions we were asking, to be clear, were not to dismiss what happened, but to understand what happened. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
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Here is the wikipage debating if he should be deleted or not:
Here is the criteria for notability of academics:
The criteria is very stringent. Ironically, now that he is associated with DI, give him a little time, and he may satisfy the criteria unequivocally. I’m not sure he did beforehand. I certainly do not, at least not yet.
Given the person who wrote the article about Bechly’s Wikipedia page I’m not surprised…
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I got an H-index of 11. Wow.
Linkedin is best.
@swamidass
There is more to be said here. You are not telling the whole story. And you did not answer my question. It concerns the Wikispecies page. Why does Günter have a page when he has no species named, according to the page?
There are numerous posts at Evolution News about this treatment of Günter that you have not responded to in a substantive way. You did, however have time for a slur about the author of the posts. In several places. The wiki account of the decision was biased no matter how framed here.
You say I am right but for the wrong reasons. As defined by you?? You are biased on this topic of ID, as are the secular scientists here and many other posters. You try to sound evenhanded but you are not.
Now on to a broader problem. You asked for feedback about this site from various people, including me.
I haven’t got time for beating back endless brush fires, mischaracterizations, misunderstandings and deliberate misrepresentations. If this site is supposed to be about finding a space where people of faith and secular scientists can find common ground, then why this constant attack on ID?
I won’t hang around. I haven’t got time.
No it’s not. How many Europeans use linked in?
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Yes, it is. Linkedin is very popular in Europe and Asia. For Professionals in all fields, linkedin is the place to put up your bio, your publications, and your resume.
@Agauger you get so touchy so fast. @swamidass is trying to get to understanding of what the big hullabaloo is all about.
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Dr. Gauger, I really appreciate what you have shared on this thread. I had heard about the Gunter Bechly deletion but didn’t know many of the details. You have given me a far broader perspective such that I’ve gone from poorly informed and unsure to entirely agreeing with you that Bechly was treated atrociously. Thank you for educating me on this topic (as you’ve also done on several other topics.)
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Ok, let’s agree that Bechly was treated atrociously. But so what. Doesn’t everyone who steps into public media gets treated unfairly by someone? Isn’t this a fact of the times we live in?
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@Agauger From your linkedin paper you say that “I am a research scientist interested in evidence for design in biology.” As I have mentioned I see a lot of design in nature. Isn’t this a area were we can discuss scientifically?
@Agauger What a small world. You were a chemistry teacher at Pingry in 1975-77?
Note that Pingry is private secular school in Basking Ridge, New Jersey https://www.pingry.org/ The tuition at Pingry is about $42,000 a year now.
You’re suggesting that everyone with a page should be expected to have authored taxa listed. Why else would they have a page?
Well, here’s a few examples of people with pages despite having no authored taxa listed - I found these within minutes by searching for some random names:
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Claudia_E._Mills
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iker_Irisarri
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/David_J._Harris
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_A._Martin
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/David_Horn_Johnson
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Marlene_Harris
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tilston_Smith
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_A._Anderson
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Martin
https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Essie_M._Smith
In some cases people have no authored taxa, no publications, nothing listed on their page! How should we interpret that? That wikispecies is incomplete and/or makes unnecessary pages somehow, OR that all of these people have been targeted for deletion for their heretical ideas?
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Just out of curiosity @Agauger, what were you doing between 1993 and 2010, when there’s that gap in your publication record from academia to the Biologic Institute? Were you in industry or something?
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