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Removed cleanup tag, because the article appears to have sectionsTheHappiestCritic (talk) 22:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The section header "Invented EMAIL" has misled the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/todays_paper?dt=2012-02-18&bk=A&pg=16) into thinking that Ayyadurai invented email, rather than merely inventing an email management system that he named EMAIL. Updating section header to be less misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andylatto (talk • contribs) 15:18, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• The extended mail command, known as mailx or Mail (with a capital M), was already in use at Berkeley when I arrived in 1978. It had an inbox and saved mail folders. It was compatible with the legacy mail software, which dated back to the 1st edition. -- Resuna (talk) 17:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• This link may be advisable as a reference: http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/mail -- Resuna (talk) 17:51, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• And by the time I arrived at IBM in 1980, tens if not hundreds of thousands of IBM employees used VNET email (I was JPS@RCHVM1 IIRC) on what at the time was one of the largest computer networks in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_VNET Jpgs (talk) 18:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• In high school in 1976, we "invented" email, too. It was a database-driven system with all the same features (and more) described by this guy (in this WP article, in the Post, etc.) This was easily accomplished, as all of it was well-known technology and practices, even to precocious high school freshman. In that same timeframe, I also used a commercial system (part of the APL*PLUS Timesharing services) that included email in exactly this way. And this stuff was by no means new in 1976. (This makes Ayyadurai's claims ridiculous and pathetic.) If anyone cared, I could produce hardcopy printouts from the era illustrating all of this. But I think it's too silly to bother, really. I think the WP article should be edited to reflect this common knowledge, and remove the (untrue) factual statements that he invented email. I mean, come on! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.131.250 (talk) 01:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this guy notable? He wrote an early email program called EMAIL, but there were many email clients using databases for years on the ARPANET, other public networks, and corporate enterprise networks such as IBM VNET. The other aspect in the bio are not particularly notable either. Jpgs (talk) 16:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is the profile of, at best, a run-of-the-mill visiting lecturer and self-promoter. There is a whole paragraph on a paper he once presented on Biomimetics to an audience of people in the Hospitality Industry. If you've been to grad school, you'll know why it's not wikipedia-worthy to mention a paper you once presented, let alone a paper in a non-peer-reviewed conference, to a group of people outside your domain of expertise. Could someone please explain why this whole page is not just a vanity project? [unsigned 67.255.1.24 20:04, February 19, 2012 (UTC)]

Maybe he also invented Astroturfing... Alan Davies (talk) 23:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed: I see no notability here; neither does the text argue why he is notable. ... richi (hello) 19:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further coverage on Techdirt and Gizmodo. Various technical email lists (including the ex-BBN list on which I participate) have been abuzz with what hogwash this claim is. I strongly support deletion of this page. Jpgs (talk) 20:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Might be notable for his audacity and ability to perpetrate a fraud. Getting Time Magazine and the Washington Post to cite you as the creator of email is at least notable for hutzpah and self-promotion capabilities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.134.212 (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now that he is the subject of scrutiny around the world on his inventor of email claim, unfortunately, he became notable and we should remove the non-notable tag. Also the email section has been cleaned up with added info on critics, I think it is fair to keep this article. Z22 (talk) 01:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This guy has apparently convinced a few reporters that he invented e-mail.

The claim is, on the face, false based on dates alone: e-mail was in widespread use well before the 1978 date claimed by Mr. Ayyadurai; see for example the E-mail Wikipedia page.

JMForbes (talk) 21:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep this article. Only because I think it is important to keep a record of and clarify that this individual did NOT invent the concept of email or even the first implementation. It seems that there is some confusion which exists about this because he continues to suggest that he did invent it and some media outlets have picked it up. Keeping this article will provide a way to debunk these claims and ensure that media fact checkers can see what's going on. --BenFranske (talk) 02:39, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy with that outcome, although it would reduce the article to a discussion (and debunking) of his email claims, and only those other statements that can be reliably sourced. As it stands, the articles claims far too much apart from email, and we cannot have adequate confidence in this additional material to let much of it stand. Although our standards for objectivity should apply equally to all BLP articles, in this case we have a pressing need to actually enforce these standards, which means checking out claims and sources for reliability. As discussed already, too much of what's here now is either trivial, or not supported by a source that we can really trust.

Or we could just take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There has been so much analysis around the world on his claim (some examples: [1], [2], [3], [4]). He has become himself the main subject, we cannot just say that he is not notable.Z22 (talk) 03:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Notable due to exaggerated claims appearing in WP and Time. Scanlyze (talk) 17:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Should the discussion whether to delete or keep go here Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Shiva_Ayyadurai instead? Z22 (talk) 17:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Shiva_Ayyadurai Andy Dingley (talk) 14:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Someone removed all other sections than the Email claims section. I think, instead of removing everything else, we just need to rewrite his bio a bit in the format that reads better than the one before the removal. I will try to put together the new Early life, and Career sections. Definitely, CSIR controversy should be included (perhaps in the Career section). Anything else we should have? Also we should keep note to ourselves that when creating an article about a person, not all parts of the article must be all from notable events. Not very often that notable people will have their Early life section with full of notable events. Also, regardless of how we personally feel about the person, we should keep it objective and try the best to put a full article with interesting details about the person once the notability has been established. In this case, the notability is there, we just need to clean up and make a nice article to read. Z22 (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My feelings too. I've made an effort. Snori (talk) 01:04, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit was much better than the original article. I added some wording changes and added info on additional claims. Z22 (talk) 06:17, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting much better, but why is the Traditional Medicine section there? Many academics talk at international conferences (I'm at one right now and do several a year), but this doesn't deserve a section. In fact, it is not notable unless he has been invited to a long list of prestigious conferences. Jpgs (talk) 07:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not all sections of an article of a notable person must be notable in itself as long as it is not trivial. For example, an actor who like red color and has once aspired to be a doctor, we can have some contents about his inspiration to be a doctor but he changed his mind to be an actor. This helps broaden our knowledge about the person. However, we should not include that he likes red color because it does not help in anyway to gain the knowledge for the general public unless that person is so obsessed with red color such that it affects his behavior in an obvious way recognizable by the public. Of course, all parts (notable or not) must be from verifiable sources. For this instance, I won't feel bad if this section has been merged with something else in that just to know that he has been invloved in various fields and traditional medicine is one of them. My opinion is that we should totally remove that section as this is somewhat an unusual feature of a person who is interested in technology and modern biology, but also in traditional medicine (or maybe it is not that unusual, I don't know). Z22 (talk) 13:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If we keep anything here, we might as well keep that section, as he appears to have been awarded a Fulbright grant to study it specifically. Noting the conference at which he presented afterwards is reasonable too (because the conference matters to the Fulbright-funded research, not because he was notable to the conference). However neither of these would support notability on their own - they're there to fill out the article, not to justify it. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I meant to say that we should not totally remove that section. I agree that the section is not for justifying his notability, just to fill out the article. Z22 (talk) 15:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

May 1981 on USENET group fa.human-nets. [5], [6]

Do you find any reference to Teletext itself that there was something called EMAIL (again they really like the all capital names, don't they?). All we know right now, the document that Ayyadurai submitted to the Westinghouse's committee which had many references to the word EMAIL was before January 1981. Z22 (talk) 15:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article leads with He is best known for his controversial claims to have 'invented' email (or EMAIL). This claim is obviously false, as supported by the increasing list of references. Therefore shouldn't it say false claim? And his use of EMAIL (in all caps) is already discussed in the article, so I propose this text: He is best known for his false claim to have invented email (without the quotes around email). Jpgs (talk) 07:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer "exaggerated" (less accurate, but also less blatantly controversial) and also "EMAIL" as that's all he claims.

We can then (and really, must) clarify that as (something like), "His recorded copyright over one form of capitalisation, describing a new system that he had developed, post-dated already existing email systems. This copyright represents the mode of spelling, but is no claim for invention although it has been assumed by several media sources to be so." Andy Dingley (talk) 09:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC) But note that the name of the program "EMAIL" was not subject to copyright; the name of a program could potentially be a trademark, but he didn't get one. He filed for copyright registration on the program itself. His "EMAIL" program was used at Rutgers Med, and didn't go much farther. Also, copyright does not require registration; you just include the notice in the program and it's covered. He just felt like getting a certificate. Isdnip (talk) 01:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More on the controversial side than false. As mentioned in the article, he referred to 6 attributes to be called email. Also, most of them has a distinction for his claim like email as we know today, ... Cc:, Bcc:, ...and other features (implying it is more than just header fields), ... like Hotmail or Gmail. This is a controversial claim. There is a part in TIME Techland that he mentioned about Cc and Bcc with references to RFCs in the 80s. The Bcc part was false, but the reference to RFCs according to the details of the claim on his website, he referred to those RFCs as to the development of SMTP, but he did not mention specific RFC# (if I'm not mistaken, SMTP is RFC 821). So when we look at his claim, we need to look at it in the entirety, which is mostly controversial with only a potion that we can say false. Z22 (talk) 13:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the controversy? Who is still refuting the debunking by TechDirt et al? He made false claims, these claims were debunked, there is no grey area left over which to raise a controversy. It is a falsehood, no longer a "controversy", to claim that he invented Cc: before RFC822, when this is so clearly preceded by RFC733 and others. It would be remarkable indeed if Ayyadurai has responded to TechDirt pointing him to the earlier RFCs and still claiming his own precedence.

I have no evidence that Ayyadurai has ever read an RFC, so I cannot claim the stronger "he lied" and only that "his claim was wrong" (which may indeed have been innocent). There is no question now though that these claims were wrong, and they were wrong when he made them. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no controversy, only false claims. He defines 6 "mandatory" attributes (of his own and arguable!) and there is evident prior art for everything he claims: header fields indeed, but also for other hidden mechanisms which are necessary for any email system to work (between offices like between continents), such as mailboxes, transport, archival, etc., and some of us are looking at it in its entirety and it comes from well before SMTP (which latest revision is RFC5321). The good thing is that everything is recorded in the RFCs!... No, even the USPTO would immediately refute his claims!...

VS Shiva doesn't deserve any care: he doesn't seem that embarrassed if we look at all the links on his selfish personal website that point to those misled articles presenting him as The inventor of electronic mail. He seems rather flattered.

If he was innocent, he should at least have noticed he was being mistaken by his interviewers and he should have made it clear he was talking about his EMAIL product. No, what he did was to let the game going, playing with the email/EMAIL confusion and hearing himself talk about the future of the internet and so...

Even Dave H. Crocker, former ARPANET researcher and coauthor of RFC724/733 (among others) just said VA Shiva is a conman!... Evoisard (talk) 00:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to see prior art, look at the emails (and read them btw...) in this archive of the first ARPANET mailing list "MsgGroup". In 1975, when VA Shiva was 11, mail headers with To: and Cc: weren't that different than current ones, and there was a distribution mechanism perfectly capable of handling multiple recipients and multiple sites. There was email! Evoisard (talk) 00:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While I personally have no doubt that Shiva has been intentionally misleading, he's also generally been very careful in his writing to only claim "EMAIL" - and to let the careless journalists make the "big claims". It's important that the article keep it's encyclopedic tone, as it makes the facts clear. Snori (talk) 08:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OTOH, he's been quick to confuse copyright and the sort of novel invention that requires a patent to cover it. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, he hasn't! If you look at his web page, he lists himself prominently as the inventor of Email - *not* in all caps. He is intentionally lying. Jpgs (talk) 14:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC) And he calls himself "Dr. Email" on some web sites, including the one of his bulk-emailing company, EchoMail. Isdnip (talk) 01:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I agree or disagree anything here in the context of whether to use the world EMAIL (all caps) will be less or more confusing, I just want to point out about how careful he is in term of using the word EMAIL. At least from what I have seen on his web site, only the words email that are not all capitals were written by someone other than himself (i.e. the press). Try google "email site:vashiva.com" and see the result. Unless you can point out to a specific page that you referred to when your made that comment. Z22 (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it is all over his main page, but they are the images from all the Web sites he posts to. He does usa all caps in the text on the page. But of course, he could not include all the big images that do have email not in all caps. Jpgs (talk) 18:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's right he carefully keeps using EMAIL everywhere. However in his (own) article The History of EMAIL, he calls prior systems not true EMAIL systems but "text messaging systems that only computer geeks could use". That's right in the early seventies, only scientists and computer nerds had access to computers, and GUIs didn't exist!

Why his article really is crooked is because he places himself and his program in the middle ot the electronic mail history (where he omits RFC724 btw), like if it were a major event that led to modern email... He never mentions "email" but he refers to other email systems and technologies that actually are milestones in the evolution of electronic mail and he puts himself in the center, between the development of TCP/IP and the development of SMTP, not less. How to say it, he puts his "EMAIL" stuff in a deceptive context. It's wily. Evoisard (talk) 18:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Mea Culpa dated 03/01/2012 from the Washington Post and a blog post about their article that dates 02/24/2012 that I didn't notice... Evoisard (talk) 22:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've rewritten and expanded this section, while taking some material out. Reason: some of it is synthesis wp:synth. We can't patch in material that doesn't specifically reference the Ayyadurai controversy as a means of making an argument. There are plenty of references that do, and we're obligated to stay with those. Barte (talk) 19:51, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted this. I don't consider the term "whitewash" to be too strong. To save time later I'll ask it bluntly now: Are you another sockpuppet of Shiva Ayyadurai? Andy Dingley (talk) 20:08, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]