Talk:Wikipedia and copyright issues

Zoltan Simon

The copyright guy re-apperars:

Hi, my name is Zoltan Simon. I apologize for the long weeks of being absent. I would like to contribute to this discussion. I feel that Wikipedia would not be sued, and would not end up in jail for my account.

To be honest, I have been very busy with preparing a manuscript of my next book, entitled "Black box from the past - Apologetic." I understand that several concerns came up about myself, and many outstanding persons note that I have not created my own account. Does it mean own profile? I am out of touch somehow, and I do not know how to create that. Also, I have never had enough time to write a personal page about myself. The reasons? Well, all signs show that the scholarly world does not seem to miss that kind of stuff, and if they are not interested in my work, then my message would never get to the open-minded lay readership. I am a differently thinking person for the mainstream scholars, therefore an outsider. Perhaps this explains a few things.

In order to illustrate all the bad things one may wish to hear about my work, please read Mark Newbrook's review article about my first English title, entitled "Atlantis: the seven seals." Mark is a type of authority who thinks that everbody who is not representing his scholarly views, must be a "fringe scholar" only. Most of his text deals about my unscientific views as if my book were a linguistic dissertation. His criticism is totally misleading. I have also noticed that authorities that have no convincing and logical answers at hand, attack books that have "fringe authorities" in the Bibliography of the book. Listing the names of Cohane, Chatelain, Fix, Hitching, Honoré or Velikovsky would enable any critic to convince the readers that "the author has based his research on unreliable and unscholarly sources." (These authors wrote many important paragraphs, and many of their observations have never been answered by mainstream scholars. Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Wagener, H. Schliemann and many others have been constantly ridiculed by the mainstream scholars of their days. However, they were right and the mainstream scholars were wrong with their geocentric views.)

Otherwise, these criticisms do not fit and do not touch the core of my book that is searching for the common origin of the world's civilizations, common deluge traditions, forgotten historical records, etc. The bulk of the criticism refers to my present linguistic work, originating from personal correspondence only... Ruining the reputation of a book based on details that did not form part of the book, would be rather a legal matter than my articles in the Wikipedia. (As for my present work, I have got a chance to deliver a paper at the University of Buffalo, about the origin of Old and Middle English dialects on April 25, 2003. Unfortunately, I am unable to be present, so I have just sent them my long manuscript.) It is strange to read so many objections from a scholar who claims that the ancestors of the English had spent just a short time together with the Romans in Britain. In reality, Rome withdrew its army in 410, and the English, Saxon and Jutish invaders arrived only in 449, so the two languages/nations did not live side by side.

Jonathan Eisen, in "Suppressed Inventions & Other Discoveries" (page 49) cites Schopenhauer, "All truth is passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self evident." (Note: Schopenhauer forgot to list the stage zero: a momentary but universal icy silence. Just like when the child shouted in Andersen’s fairy tale: "–Look! The Emperor has no clothes!")

As for my "consuls" in Wikipedia, the list is my own product, just like the "ab urbe condita" and others. Unfortunately, no authority wanted to write about it, so I have copied some paragraphs from my previous books. It that a crime? I have so many new ideas that I do not have time to steal (or scan: our scanner is not working, I do not know how to scan) long works from others. Even if it is a suspiciously well-written text for a Canadian Hungarian who is a Canadian citizen since 1979. I am sorry for the disappointment. I trust Livy. He was a good guy and his heirs would never sue Wikipedia for copying his consular list. However, Geoff Burling and others are right about my unfinished (and therefore sloppy) Mesopotamian chronology. But maybe those king-lists are under the copyright of the last Babylonian kings. Who knows?

My present activity is to find a publisher or a forum that would listen for a moment to my humble observation. Namely, my concern is that the human sciences and Homo sapiens in general have lost the ability to distinguish between truth and fiction. They have lost their true orientation, marching into a wrong direction. Mainstream scholars (particularly historians and archaeologists) do not seem to have time and patience to revisit certain taboo issues. Therefore, they simply sweep all their unsolved misteries and controversial issues to the fields of the literature as "literary" and "fiction." A researcher not belonging to the mainstream (that is atheist) is labelled as "unscholarly" and "unscientific." (Only the Inquisition is missing, and we are back in the Dark Middle Ages.)

Perhaps the four most widely disputed (and most popular) issues have been scholarly shifted over to fiction: The Bible (with practically all ancient Jewish traditions), the question of Atlantis (that can be located in the Bahamas region) and the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe. The island with Crusoe's fortress have been identified in Central America, it is still uninhabited. Even the few words of Friday have been found in the the Térraba (Carib - Cannibal) language. Defoe has never admitted its authorship: he was the editor only. The fourth issue: most encyclopaedias claim that Columbus discovered America, and they are silent about the Vikings. However, should you list a few books with some proofs about the discoveries and the Vikings, most mainstream professors would agree with you, adding that themselves knew that very well, but they do not control the encyclopedias.

The reason is that linguists and some other scholars deny all pre-Columbian transpacific and transatlantic contacts, because those may question or screw up their rigid opposition against any possibility of diffusionist origins.

I did not really understand some criticism about my sources. I was told to follow the standards of Wikipedia, not to refer to a long list of Bibliography or sources. Would I be constitute an exemption under that rule? I would show all sources if required.

By the way, I apologize to the late Carl Schoch, regarding my article "Penelope." About 80 years ago he concluded the same as myself: a total solar eclipse at Ithaca in 1178 BCE. I have found this date at three Internet web sites, and I thought that they have taken my idea. I was wrong. They have apparently taken it from Schoch, "The eclipse of Odysseus," a practically unknown article. I arrived to the same conclusion before publishing my book in 1996, without having the Internet. Multiple discoveries and re-discoveries do happen, and have not much to do with infringement of copyright.

I sincerely hope that these explanations answer many questions.

Zoltan Andrew Simon (Vitória, Brazil)