Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:39:50 +0100 From: Mark Donfried <info@culturaldiplomacy.org> To: "'Benj. Mako Hill'" <mako@mit.edu> Cc: "'Benj. Mako Hill'" <mako@atdot.cc> Subject: Subject: Your Activities concerning the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (Wikipedia and other Internet Outlets)
Berlin, February 26th, 2013
Benjamin Mako Hill
265 Elm Street, Apt 4
Somerville, MA
02144 USA
Subject: Your Activities concerning the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy
Dear Mr. Hill,
Following
our communications during 2012, I am writing to you today in order to
inquire regarding your activities concerning the Institute for Cultural
Diplomacy. Representatives of the ICD and my colleagues have been
following and documented your activities throughout 2012/13 and have
noticed that you are taking an active role in publicly posting
information about the ICD, discussing the ICD in the “talk” pages of
Wikipedia and are responsible for the deletion of the ICD Wikipedia page
both in June 2012 as well as in January 5th 2013.
Please
note that the ICD is completely in favor of fostering open dialogue and
discussions, even critical ones, however some of your activities are
raising serious questions about the motives behind your actions and some
even seem to be motives of sabotage, since they resulted in ICD not
having any Wikipedia page at all.
We
are deeply concerned regarding these actions of yours, which are
causing us considerable damages. As the person who initiated these
actions with Wikipedia and member of the board of Wikipedia, we would
therefore request your answer regarding our questions below within the
next 10 days (by March 6th). If we do not receive your
response we will unfortunately have to consider taking further legal
actions with these regards against you and other anonymous editors.
1. Information and Knowledge about the ICD – As
you have been serving as an active critic of the ICD for some time now,
I would like to know from where you receive your information about the
ICD and on what basis you make your decisions, judgments and opinions
about the ICD and then make them public.
2. Information Offered by the ICD –
As you may recall, the ICD offered to give you an open and thorough
overview of the ICD during your last visit to Berlin in July 2012,
however you did not show up. We would like to know why you refused to
come by our offices and did not take the opportunity to receive reliable
information from us for your use, as we offered several times to you.
3. First Deletion
- The ICD has concerns that your actions, decisions, and postings, are
not adhering to Wikipedia’s definitions and criteria for deletions
(mainly concerning notability -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability - which was the former
basis for the initial deletion decision) and are discriminatory against
the ICD.
We
find this to be particularly true once the ICD page is compared to
other existing articles on Wikipedia, which in our opinion, provide far
less notable references. We found numerous examples of Wikipages of
organizations, institutes, individuals, and even restaurants, which have
much less Notability then the ICD (a long list of examples can be
provided upon request).
You yourself even have a long and detailed page in Wikipedia, which is clearly found to be notable enough to be published.
We would kindly ask for a response on the above mentioned issues.
4. Second Deletion of ICD Wikipedia Page –
As clearly the article was significantly improved (also through adding a
numerous sources for Notability), we believe that the deletion was not
according to G4 Criteria for speedy deletion.
On January 5th,
you have suggested to delete the ICD Wikipedia page about the Institute
for Cultural Diplomacy, which was posted on November 2012 in another
ICD Wikipedia page, (which was created in February 2012 before the first
deletion of the ICD Wikipedia page in June 2012).
Two hours after your suggestions were posted, the article was then deleted by the editor “Arthur Rubin.”
From a fast check of this article, one can clearly see that the text of
this page was completely different from the text used in the first
deletion of the articles.
In
addition, contrary to your claim that by this article the ICD is not
notable and there are not enough reliable sources, many references to
the ICD were in fact added and mentioned by reputable institutions such
as for example the German Ministry of Education, NPR, Associated Press,
the US State Department, Babeș-Bolyai University, Euro-Mediterranean
University of Slovenia and the Prime Minister of Slovenia’s office,
which you can find via the following hyperlinks:
See also a new article: http://www.state.gov/r/remarks/2013/202649.htm
Despite
these reputable references and completely new postings, you explain in
the ICD talk page that this was the same article that was deleted in
June 2012.
At
this point the ICD would like to understand why you initially suggested
to have the article deleted as well as how come you found the ICD not
notable, despite the fact that it has over 100 reputable members on its
Board (who are all world leaders and celebrities with an active
Wikipedia Page) and has already managed to achieve considerable
achievements in promoting the field cultural diplomacy around the world.
See a short list of our accomplishments here:
http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/index.php?en_culturaldiplomacy_what-weve-accomplished
5. References to NPR
- During the discussion about the first deletion of the ICD page you
have made the accusation in the ICD talk page (on June 12, 2012) that
the NPR reports about the ICD are not objective; You can find the
article below (it shows in your wiki page):
“The
most convincing coverage from a reliable source on the list is
definitely the work from NPR. That said, I'm a little worried by issues
with conflict of interest here as well. All of the NPR pieces are
written by one person -- Monika Mueller Kroll. Monica herself has her
work hosted and promoted by ICD [40] and NPR Berlin (presumably, through
Monica) has hosted events with/at the ICD. —mako๛ 06:59, 12 June 2012 (UTC)”
My
question here is on what basis you have determined this accusation and
why you have made your personal judgment here public. As the NPR and Ms.
Kroll might be interested in getting involved in this case as well, it
would be advised to receive from you here a detailed answer.
I’m looking forward to receiving your response.
With kind regards,
Mark Donfried
Join ICD on Facebook – click here
___________________________________________
Mark C. Donfried
Director & Founder
Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD)
Ku´damm Karree (3rd Floor/Hochhaus)
Kurfürstendamm 207-8 Berlin, Germany-10719
Phone: 00.49.(0)30.2360-7680
Fax: 00.49.(0)30.2360-76811
donfried@culturaldiplomacy.org
www.culturaldiplomacy.org
Center for Cultural Diplomacy Studies – click here
ICD Twitter Page – click here
Become a member of the ICD – click here
____________________________________________________________ ___
This e-mail contains privileged and confidential information intended only
for the use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this
e-mail
is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible
for routing it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any
review, dissemination, copying or forwarding of this e-mail is strictly
prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please reply to the
sender of such and delete the e-mail in its entirety. Thank you.