Talk:High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991/Archive 1

Archive 1

No mention of the "Al Gore invented the internet" thing?

I'm surprised that there is no mention of one of the issues that led to Al Gore's 2000 defeat. I'm doubly surprised that there has been no discussion about it. I'm not going to add anything, at least not at this time, until this has been discussed. --Dans1120 14:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Adding that the internet existed before this bill would be good. At the start of the 90's, "there were just 313,000 computers on the Internet" ((1996). Computer: A History of the Information Machine.) as would adding that Al Gore believes "in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet" (CNN, 09 March 1999) with a Bill that was passed later in the 90's. --Jim732 15:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Invented the internet

I put something down, but it was reverted without explanation. I agree, it needs something--this is what Gore was talking about and what everyone in the industry KNEW he was talking about.69.242.22.77 00:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not certain I understand the connection being made here. The issue at hand is discussed in detail on this Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_contributions_to_the_internet_and_technology#1999_CNN_interview , a page which is about the general topic of Gore and the Internet and technology. To say that the controversy that arose was "about" the Gore Bill is interpretative and thus breaks the Wikipedia:No original research rule. This response from Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn to the controversy over this issue indicates numerous areas that Gore was involved in related to the internet: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0009/msg00311.html - In sum - the edit that was made here did not give sources and was speculative which is why it was removed - see also Wikipedia:Verifiability. -Classicfilms 00:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry I don't know how to make a 'stub' tag. You'd have to be a fool to think Gore was talking about anything OTHER than his work on technology bills in the Senate, of which this was the central item. It's standard formatting, in cases like this, to have a stub reference to the issue in question [i.e. the created-the-internet controversy] with a tag at the top to 'see the full article'. NOT having something here is a glaring lie by omission. So, yes, if you'd like to put what I wrote back with 'stub', 'needs sources' or other 'make this better tags,' fine, but don't be the perfect be the for of the good.69.242.22.77 02:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, I'm not certain what is missing. There is a link to the Gore Technology page given right underneath "Background" which contains the information I mention above. As for the edit which was removed, please see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (which applies to all edits made about living people, even if the page isn't a biography) - - in particular see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material

particularly note Jimmy Wales' comment: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." -Classicfilms 02:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher I don't see a citation that says Dartford was a safe Labour seat when Thatcher ran. Nor that "Thatcher was also a member of the Association of Scientific Workers." But you aren't complaining there, either. There are numerous other sources on that page that can confirm those data. So why do you take issue with the blindingly obvious inference that, when Gore publically said he was instrumental in the development of the internet, he was referring to the bill he was irreplacably integral to the writing and passage of, that was itself instrumental to the development of the internet? Seriously, you're being delibrately obtuse here. This is something POSITIVE about a living person, first of all--and considering how important the 'invented the internet' faux hype is to the anti-Gore crowd, and how important this is in debunking their impugning of Gore, I feel like it deserves a stub in this article, and apparently, I'm not the only one. That this is what Gore was talking about is not contentious. Yes, it's poorly sourced, but so is the fact that the Earth is round--all you need to do is look up during a lunar eclipse, or forward watching a ship disappear over the horison to see for yourself. I have patched in a short blurb taken from another wiki page with its citations in reference to this event. I think you should at least look it over before you auto-revert it.69.242.22.77 03:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this new version is a good and fair edit which follows Wikipedia policies - had this been the original edit, I would not have contested it. My opposition was to the initial edit which made a different set of connections without sources. Also, when discussing edits on talk pages, please follow Wikipedia:No personal attacks. -Classicfilms 04:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I also modified the edit to match the wording found on Al Gore controversies. -Classicfilms 04:11, 22 June 2007 (UTC)