CrowsNest wrote: ↑Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:21 pm
You'd obviously have better luck finding him there than me.
The cached version of his now deleted Wikipedia biography begins like this....
Michel Aaij is a Dutch-born American scholar of Old English language and literature, who specializes in the study of medieval poetry. He is an associate professor in the Department of English & Philosophy at Auburn ...
Here's a self-promting 2011 WMF blog post about him gaining tenure.
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/04/06/t ... ributions/
Scarily, it claims he's been indoctrinating students....
He’s also a Campus Ambassador, helping students become contributors through the Public Policy Initiative
It worries me that there are students out there who may have been officially taught, under WMF programs, that the way he goes about things is an acceptable way of being a Wikipedian. I've never personally seen him doing it, so either he does it on the sly, or is perhaps now too ashamed to use himself as an example to others.
It helpfully explains he's been engaged in conflict of interest editing, which by rights should see him banned under the WMF's current Terms of Use, if he's unwilling to have his real life identity acknowledged on Wikipedia.....
he contributed to articles particularly useful to Auburn University Montgomery, including the article on the school and a biography of a colleague, who told Michel that was really cool.
He was still at it on his Uni page as late as Jan 2017, no COI declaration in sight anywhere.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =762248793
It gives a good window into the sheer arrogance of the guy.....
Let’s face it: Guillaume de Dole, now a Good Article, there’s no database entry or encyclopedic article anywhere that compares to the Wikipedia article on that poem (and I realize that that says as much about Wikipedia as about the anywhere else).”
That reveals the basic lack of respect Drmies has for what Wikipedia is, and thus how that is enshrined in relevant policy. By definition, Wikipedia cannot be the most comprehensive source on any topic, it isn't people's personal platform to show off their academic prowess, it exists nominally to properly summarize and contextualize other people's academic studies of various topics. It is an encyclopedia, not a textbook.
It's stuff like this which reveals the lies he must have told his University pay masters to gain tenure.
Disturbingly, the blog actually goes into a lot of detail about what he likely told them. Boosting his claims of academic influence, it appears he has used the fact that because he managed to convince his colleagues Wikipedia is a good thing, using his own edits as proof of course, he has somehow advanced knowledge of his topic in the world.
Worse, he somehow got away with using the fact he's put some of his work through the Featured Article, Good Article and Did You Know processes, means his work has been through something analogous to peer review in academia. Anyone who knows Wikipedia, would instantly see that as an outrageous deception. His bosses obviously didn't know any better, since it seems the only source they ever had about how Wikipedia works, was Drmies.
Here's his university page.
http://www.cas.aum.edu/profile?email=maaij1@aum.edu
Doesn't exactly project an air of expertise or authority. Looks exactly like what he probably is - an ugly bum of a failed professor who has turned to Wikipedia to find power and influence he likely doesn't have in the real world, specifically his own academic field.
Here's a page suggesting he's probably seeing better career success as a Wikipedian than an academic.....
https://www.hastac.org/opportunities/fr ... -wikipedia
Keynote speaker eh? Fame at last!
Christ knows what Everymorning used as sources, but given his inclusionist bent, I suspect it was some combination of the smattering of coverage that the WMF blog generated, and this bizarre little snippet of information from.....
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/sto ... 530729001/
....which tells us he was born in 1969, nearly died from Type 1 diabetes age 12, and moved to Montgomery in 2006.