An Open Letter to Wikipedia Blog Founder, Jimmy Wales Regarding False Allegations Against CAIS

CAIS

The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies

[ Home ]

[ About CAIS ]

[ Articles ]

[ Daily News ]

[ News Archive ]

[ Announcements ]

[ CAIS Seminars ]

[ Image Library ]

[ Copyright ]

[ Disclaimer ]

[ Submission ]

[ Search ]

[ Contact Us ]

[ Links ]

An Open Letter to Wikipedia Blog Founder, Jimmy Wales

Regarding False Allegations Against CAIS

In relation to recent false allegations made by Wikipedia website against CAIS⁽¹⁾, the following letter was sent to the Jimmy Wales. The contents of which are self-explanatory.

Dated: May 18^th, 2007

Dear Mr Jimmy Wales

I have recently noted some worrying and untrue allegations on your website. These accuse that www.cais-soas.com (CAIS) has multiple copyright violations and plagiarises various sources. Personal allegations have also been publicly made against me, including by your administrators.

I would like to make it clear that CAIS is not breaking any copyright rules or plagiarising in any way whatsoever. If you would like to submit any detailed concerns to me, I will be happy to answer any specific points to you or your administrators may have.

I am surprised that your staff did not think to send an email to CAIS directly about this very serious matter – there are email addresses on the CAIS website and we respond to many queries from members of the [public and] academic communities every day.

Concerning the personal allegations, there is an involved correspondence with various contributors / administrators suggesting that various other contributors are, or are not, myself (Shapour Suren Pahlav). I have not been directly involved at all in the unpleasant series of allegations and counter-allegations. Again, it would have quite simple to contact CAIS to determine whether I was involved.

It feels disappointing that, when Wikipedia is apparently endeavouring to become recognised as a more reputable information source, it is considered reasonable to make unfounded and damaging professional and personal accusations. Surely you are aware that this sort of behaviour may have serious legal implications for your organisation?

To avoid this possibility, I look forward to an immediate removal of all the unfounded and insulting comments regarding CAIS and myself.

I think you should also consider the issue of avoiding unfounded personal and professional allegations in the training / briefing of all your administrators, and especially those who were involved in this unfortunate incident.

I appreciate that you have many calls on your time, but I am sure you understand the importance of both personal and professional reputation, and will be giving this issue your immediate personal attention.

Yours sincerely

Shapour Suren-Pahlav

UPDATES

1. It is believed the campaign of the cyber attack on CAIS was began by a pseudo-academic calls himself Jona Lendering who runs a blog called Livius. He uses his blog as platform to falsify history and attack pre-Islamic Iran. Lendering, in order to block CAIS, not to be used as a source by Wikipedia participants, with the assistance by two scholarship students from Iran at SOAS, begin his campaign to defame CAIS founder.

UPDATE

2. It is alleged that Lendering which is known among the cultural figures in Iran as the ‘Fatman Cyrus Hater’ is working for the Islamic Republic and has an office in Tehran (a. Jona Lendering’s Crusade against Cyrus the Great; - b. Protest against Jona Lendering's anti-Iran campaign).