Talk:Somerton Man/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Age and Identity

Jessica Ellen Harkness, PROSPER MCTAGGART THOMSON. Father of Australian Ballet dancer Robin Thomson. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.168.138.143 (talk) 13:53, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

This person's posts indicate that they are conducting an irrational vendetta against this family. Unfounded accusations do nothing to enhance the conversation and I would like to suggest that all of their edits be permanently deleted.Donde1960 (talk) 05:37, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Not really a vendetta. The names have been revealed as accurate though not by a reliable source and the anon doesn't understand what WP:RS means. Wayne (talk) 07:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Since his identity remains unknown, his exact age does too, so stating that the deceased was 45 years old makes no sense. I'm editing to reflect this.71.63.119.49 23:44, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Age can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by examining the groves on the skull where two or more plates converge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.192.42.128 (talk) 00:03, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, when they are children, not adults. Unless you are fully prepared to back up that claim with solid citation as it pertains to this matter, it isn't especially helpful. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

One H. C. Reynolds born in the UK who would have been 18 in 1918: http://www2.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?scan=1&r=101619011&d=bmd_1354011142 though at the time, Irish people would have been described as British and Irish birth records are not available online. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cod (talk • contribs) 21:37, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Tamam Shud

In the body of this document the Persian word "Tamam" is consistenty misspelt as "Taman." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.220.160.119 (talk) 07:58, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It's spelt as "Taman" in all the sources I have referenced. I think it was an error made back when the case was first written about that people have continued.--Roisterer (talk) 08:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps google Taman, it might be a clue rather than a simple typo? Or was it written this way in the particular translation? 75.111.34.169 (talk) 02:03, 20 August 2010 (UTC) Google tells me Taman and Shud, at least separately, in Hebrew mean "hidden" or "to hide" and shud means "wasteth." Wonder if the reason nobody's ever solved the cypher is that it's not in Persian at all, but Hebrew? 24.144.124.49 (talk) 20:50, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

inside the page there is an image of the book which can be seen clearly the word "Tamam Shud", which has been misspelt "Taman" which does have no meaning in Persian.

Excellent article

Excellently-sourced article, my congratulations and thanks to its creators; it seems worth applying for Good Article status as a history article. If nobody wants to take the initiative, I may return and nominate it myself. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 02:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it just me, or is that coffin about two feet too short to hold a person limbs-intact? It seems more like a child's coffin, were his remains in such poor condition following the inquest he was just stacked into such a small coffin, or are my eyes playing tricks on me? Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 02:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I will make inquiries to check with the undertaker whose uncle and father were the undertakers for that burial. Certainly the grave itself is a normal sort of size. There are two other people buried in the same grave, but presumably they are stacked underneath as this is what is normally done (up to some maximum limit) when grave leases expire. Complexitydaemon (talk) 02:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I think the reason that leapt to mind was I saw the awkwardly-worded phrase "the man's left arm was lying beside his body" which implied (wrongly, I think?) that his arm had been severed. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 02:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it was still all attached. Have changed the wording. Coffin wasn't unusually sized. Complexitydaemon (talk) 07:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Taman Shud

I'm new to Wikipedia so please forgive any undeliberate errors.

Two points:

1. In the the list of persons associated with the case, it lists Clive Mangnoson as someone who tried to solve the identity of the deceased. Surely Clive M was the 2 year old son of Keith Waldemar M? Clive was found dead in 1949 and Keith badly hurt. I believe Keith died in 1991.

2. Regarding the visits by an unknown woman to the grave of the deceased, I have read that a) the woman was never traced and b) she was traced and said she knew the man but police thought she was lying and c) she was traced and said she never knew the man. Don't know which is true but why visit a graveyard in the middle of the night if you didn't know the deceased?

Hope I've not disregarded any site protocol but this case interests me. Mainly because I have loved the Rubaiyat for many years and can see how easily it can be used cryptographically.

Lumpur200889 (talk) 09:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Lumpur;

1. It doesn't make that claim the in the article, don't know where you've gotten that,

2. Wikipedia works on verifiability not truth, if you can cite these sources then great. What will get editors jumping up and down is speculation, called Original Research here.

If you have a copy of the edition of The Rubiyat involved in the case, a group of students at Adelaide University would love to hear from you--their lecturer has set solving the mystery as a class assignment! They can be contacted through the ABC's Stateline program. MartinSFSA (talk) 13:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Or you can contact them through me. My email. Re point 1, the claim is made on a separate wiki, linked but not referenced from this page. I will encourage the author of that page to reference the timeline appropriately and move it onto the wikipedia page. Re point 2, that flowers were left on the grave was discussed in the 1978 Inside Story episode (so that part could be included on the wikipedia page, will add it myself if no one else dose). Haven't heard any speculation on if she was traced, and that should be left off the main wiki page. The nurse involved in the case was traced, but she had moved to Sydney. Not sure if she moved back to Adelaide. Complexitydaemon (talk) 23:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

My edition is from 1964 so not the same edition. It does have both versions of the Rubaiyat: the 1859 first edition that had 75 verses and ended with the words 'Tamam Shud' and the 1889 edition that had 101 verses and ended with the word 'Tamam' only.

Lumpur200889 (talk) 05:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The version found in the car was a different version to that of Boxall's, based on discussions today. Not sure what version it is. Boxall's version can probably be deduced from the photos of it. Complexitydaemon (talk) 07:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Boxall's must have been the 1859 version as 'Jestin' had written out verse 70 ("Indeed, indeed, repentance ...) which is actually verse 94 in the later version. The two versions, whilst having a different number of verses, also differ in the translation of each verse. Whilst it may not be relevant I found an old book today on the Rubaiyat (c. 1905) which discusses other translations of the Rubaiyat other than Fitzgerald's. Namely one by Awadhi.

Lumpur200889 (talk) 08:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Sterling work you're doing, Lumpur--could it be the third copy mentioned (found the night of the death) was yet another edition? Adelaide had few books before bookstores such as Marty Martins and two copies of The Rubiyat is remarkable. The greatest salient fact from the current investigations is that the former nurse's name may not have been recorded--but is known. MartinSFSA (talk) 08:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

IIRC all books published in New Zealand must have copies deposited with the National Library Their online catalogue lists a version of The Rubiyat "translated by Edward FitzGerald -- Kúza-Náma" published by Whitcombe and Tombs dated "1944?" (the question mark is unexplained). The call number of the item is PAM 891.551 OMA 1944. link1 link2. Kiore (talk) 07:50, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I know this is a pretty old thread, but just in case anyone was interested, the "1944?" means that the librarian cataloguing the item couldn't definitively identify the date, so has given an approximate date using AACR / AACR2 conventions (Christchurch [N.Z] : Whitcombe & Tombs, [1944?]). The square brackets are for information added when the cataloguer couldn't see it on the book in front of them (e.g. inferring that it was Christchurch NZ not Christchurch, Dorset). If I was working with this record, I'd make the assumption that the cataloguer had pretty good circumstantial evidence to show that the book was probably published in 1944, but not definitely (e.g. a catalogue from 1944 shows it as a new book). Either way, I'd be fairly confident that this edition of the book was published by the time of this case. EmyP (talk) 15:43, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Good Article Nomination

As the main contributor to this article I fear its Good Article Nomination is somewhat premature, particularly with intriguing new information being turned up as above. There is also an Adelaqide University team led by Professor Derek Abbott currently investigating the case which may come up with further information in the near future. Additionally, I am currently on overseas holiday with infrequent access to the internet and no access to my notes on the case, which would make responding to any issues raised by the GA reviewer difficult. --Roisterer (talk) 01:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Had some free time so did a bit of work on the article bringing it up to date plus tidying the text and images. Have look and see what needs to be done to fix anything I messed up. On a side note I don't know if Abbott considered this but everything we know about Jestin points to her being a member of a prominant Adelaide family which to me stands out as the most likely reason for the suppression of the womans name. If this is so then it should be a piece of cake for Abbott to start with checking council records to find her name. Wayne (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

She was not from a prominent family, she was from a Victorian stevedoring family. Her name was Jessica Ellen Harkness/Thomson. Her husband was small-time crook, Prosper McTaggart Thomson, the owner of Prestige Motors in Adelaide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.168.138.143 (talk) 21:41, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistency on White Citation

This article reports that Harry Dexter White's cause of death was listed as an overdose of digitalis. But the Wikipedia page for White, to which this article links, says White merely died of a typical heart attack, a claim supported by the contemporary news articles it cites. 76.23.157.102 (talk) 06:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Look up Digoxin, or Digoxin toxicity!

Coincidence?

On another website, I found someone's comment that seems to show a strange coincidence. It feels important. The comment: "I find it interesting about the 'Taman Shud Case' that the number of letters in the code, are the exact letters in the stops on the train line he didn't get on.
MRGOABABD
NewGrange
MLIAOI (crossed out)
Grange (demolished station)
MTBIMPANETP
Marlborough
MLIABO AIAQC
Henley Beach
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
CityofCharles"

Any thoughts? Occamsrazorwit (talk) 05:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the letters are a code at all, look at how they are written they are not fluently wrote, they have been wrote one letter at a time. I think the letters are acronyms for words, I think he wrote it so that only he could read it and I also think the code was written before he moved to Australia. Here's my take on the code:

My R G O and brother are both dead
My life is an open inquest
W T B I M P A N E T P
My life is a bit of an inconvenience and quite clearly
its time to move to South Australia maybe see the Great Artesian Basin

Another body was found on the exact opposite side of the coast line where the body was found also with a copy of the The Rubaiyat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davwot (talk • contribs) 22:16, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. As the main author of this article, I have found that the more I read about the case, the less certain I am about anything. --Roisterer (talk) 06:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Less interesting as I recall there was no "City of Charles" anything prior to that fershingluger amalgamation in the mid-Ninties. MartinSFSA (talk) 08:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, that destroys this theory unless the previous name had the same amount of letters. :( Ah, oh well. Occamsrazorwit (talk) 00:59, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The frequency of the letters is the same in the station names and the code as well, with the exception of the last line. Seems like too much of a correlation to be a coincidence. Waldron76 (talk) 02:55, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Give it a rest

This was an "event" that occured over 62 years ago. The university of south australia has invaded the private lives of people who were never charged with doing anything wrong, including the descendants of those people. You would think the university faculty would have better things to do. This article relies entirely on wild speculation, and engages in smear and innuendo by association, by implying they were engaging in some sort of alleged criminal activity or espionage. That's not on. The admins on this site should immediately blank out the personal dates. AdelaideBob (talk) 22:49, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The article is well referenced. No one is under any obligation to talk to the University of SA and the article is attempting to record accurately the mystery and subsequent attempts to solve it. --Matt (talk) 06:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

What is the big secret? If Jessica Ellen Harkness and Prosper McTaggart Thomson were innocent of any wrongdoing, let's find out what really did happen and let's lift the lid on this murderous conspiracy. Let's look at Robin Thomson's physical features and analyse them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.248.125 (talk) 09:34, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

"secretly buried"

Why does the article say he was secretly buried when there is a photo of the burial with a caption that says the burial was attended by reporters and police? Was it secret from the public? This statement seems unclear and unreferenced. — Reinyday, 03:44, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

According to the South Australian Police Journal (reference already included on the page, but not in-lined), it was the "arrangements" that were secret. Presumably this means the time and date, since the location is obviously well known. -- 202.63.39.58 (talk) 13:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Error?

How could Jestyn's 16 month old son who died in 2009 be the Somerset Man's? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.136.146 (talk) 13:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

That does appear to be unclear from the way that it is written, anon24; its also reflected in the original source. I think that the man who died in 2009 was 16 months old at the time of the Somerset Man's death. The implication is that the unknown person was the child's father. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 13:48, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up for me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.136.146 (talk) 20:22, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

No worries. :) - Jack Sebastian (talk) 00:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, given the information about the teeth and ear genetics it seems pretty much a certainty that Jestyn's son, who was 16 months old when the man died, is that man's son. The odds of that not being true are infinitessimally small. I would also think that Jestyn like the Rubaiyat book and gave copies of it to two different people. Obviously she did not want to be associated with the dead man and the authorities just took her word that she did not know him. I believe it is quite certain she had known him even if it was for a very short time, maybe just enough to make a baby with his genes. GS3 (talk) 17:45, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The role of the Rubayat

Since I myself was a bit confused about the various bits and pieces of the Rubayat playing a role in this case, I tried my hands at summarizing the connections in a little picture. [1] What do you think, is it pretty, is it correct, should it be included in the article...? -- Syzygy (talk) 17:15, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I like the picture but I'm not sure if it would be considered encyclopaedic enough for the article. I could easily be proved wrong on this though. --Roisterer (talk) 05:10, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I just gave it a shot now. -- Syzygy (talk) 12:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The Code

One theory related to the 'code' that is not mentioned is that if you look at it carefully, it appears as though 'someone' has masked the real code or whatever it is by covering up letters or numbers. Example of alternate symbols and letter comparisons This information is presented for the Uni students investigating the 'code', to help figure out what it may mean. Janice835 (talk) 10:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

tamam shud or shod

it took me 2 1/2 days to crack all 4 codes. are you seriouse well he died of quinine poison. Its about were to go on d day the note was the news paper artical head line from usa yk .here is a hint to 75s last pome in persian to crack it takes alot of steps but it was so natural for me. eazy any way pass the glass . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.237.14.174 (talk) 02:44, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Would you like to explain what you mean by this? --Roisterer (talk) 05:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm wary of codebreakers who can't write a complete sentence. -- Syzygy (talk) 07:53, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The bus stop for which the ticket was used was around 250 metres south of the body's location?

Is there a citation for this because that seems awful close to a bus stop.--67.246.129.143 (talk) 23:19, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

A quarter of a kilometer is 820 feet, for those friends who haven't gone over to metric from imperial yet. Which isn't that close to a bus stop. MartinSFSA (talk) 06:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

That was wrong anyway. The bus stop was maybe 1km north of Jestyns home and 1100mtr north of the body's location. Thats assuming she lived around halfway along the street which we dont know. The most direct route from where he died east to Moseley st is around 300mtr.Wayne (talk) 13:25, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Article Title

From what I can tell the case is better known as the Somerton Man or Somerton Beach Mystery since we know for definite that the body was found in Somerton should the title reflect this seeing that the connection to Taman Shud was discovered some time after he was first searched and we don't know if it was there at the time of death or that he was connected to the book.79.66.94.99 (talk) 17:15, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Staying with Taman Shud has a number of advantages. It is a unique spelling, thus denotes this case alone. Running "Taman Shud" through Google as a phrase gives "About 53,700 results". "Somerton man" gives "About 4,980 results". "Somerton Beach Mystery" gives "About 2,980 results". Somerton has had any number of beach front deaths over the years, and that's just the shore. MartinSFSA (talk) 17:35, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree with MartinSFSA. "Somerton Man" may be the most common local name but there is no "ownership" of that name by locals as is normally found with murder cases so it never achieved widespread use elsewhere. The Taman Shud connection is what made it notable in other states and overseas. Wayne (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I posted the original question, while i'll agree the Taman Shud Case is a better name and maybe more popular I hope people remember that it may not be important to the death or murder of the deceased.88.104.83.102 (talk) 19:44, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Why "taman shud"? The Latin transliteration of the phrase should be "Tamam shod". I understand that may be "shod" is wrongly spelled "shud" at the print but it is impossible that "tamam" spells "taman". I suggest to change the title to "tamam shud". In fact several places in the artickle it is spelled "M" instead of "N". Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.202.118.113 (talk) 08:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Neatly trimmed or Torn

The section about the Rubaiyat states that the piece of paper with the words Tamam Shud had been neatly trimmed but later states it had been torn from the found Rubaiyat and was microscopicaly tested and proved it came from the book does that mean it was trimmed after being torn out and the paper was determined to be the same or were the two pieces matched by the cut/tare? I can find pictures of the Tamam shud piece but not of the page it came from, I wonder if the book belonged to Jestyn and when Somerton man appeared on her doorstep she gave him the Tamam shud piece and then threw away the book and the code actually belongs to her. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Owain meurig (talk • contribs) 21:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The piece of paper was neatly cut from the page torn from the book. The paper and book were matched from the paper, not the tear. I've reworded to clarified the claim in the article. Wayne (talk) 13:10, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Clarify importance of story

I'd never heard of this case until I stumbled on this article, but I had to read several hundred words before even getting a hint as to why this is remotely of interest today. Even having reached the end of the article, I'm still honestly unclear as to why this is of interest. I guess because of the possible spy connection? Nonetheless, I would suggest that the introduction could be improved to establish clearly for the new reader why this case is still of interest. An uninformed reader should not have to wade through pages of text before understanding why this merits a wikipedia entry Coyote-37 (talk) 09:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Coyote; after having been involved with the article (as well as being part of the group that is trying to solve te case now), I've probably lost track of what the average reader will think of it. --Roisterer (talk) 14:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand the objection. The intro summarises quite well what the article is about and anyone who is not interested can avoid reading the rest of the article. I found the article extremely interesting and fascinating. Not to mention there are still people working on trying to solve the case. GS3 (talk) 18:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Jestyn: Jessica Ellen Harkness

Jestyn's real name was Jessica Ellen Harkness. Her father, Thomas Harkness was a stevedore and petty criminal. Her brother married Clarice Isobel Victoria Beaumont, the first cousin once-removed of the Beaumont children. She married Prosper McTaggart Thomson, another petty criminal and Adelaide car dealer. Jessica Harkness had a son of unknown provenance, Robin Thomson, who was born in 1948.

This is regarding the following phrase: "In a TV program on the case, in the section where Boxall was interviewed, her name was given in a voice-over as Jestyn, apparently obtained from the signature Jestyn that followed the verse written in the front of the book, but this was covered over when the book was displayed in the program."

The TV program can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieczsZRQnu8 and the part in question starts at about 4:45 to 5:18.

What supports that the name Jestyn was "apparently obtained from the signature Jestyn that followed the verse written in the front of the book"? The identity of the woman was found by the police from the phone number in the book. Then she was question and identified Boxall. Then the police talked to Boxall. The name "Jestyn" may have been her real name or a nickname but it was not obtained from Boxall's copy of the book. It was "Jestyn" who lead the police to Boxall and his copy of the book.

In any case, "but this was covered over when the book was displayed in the program" does not seem to me like what can be seen in the video at all. To me it seems like the hand is just holding the book open. Furthermore, viewing the video in slow motion and capturing frames it looks like the verses in four lines are written at the top of the page, visible all the time, with each word being identifiable but not readable, under that is a sketch of a woman and no writing can be seen under that. The lower part of the page is visible enough to see there is no writing there.

Youtube video has poor resolution. Maybe someone could find a recording with better resolution and quality. Not only the video, the audio is also atrocious in Youtube. It seems the audio channels are not in sync. GS3 (talk) 00:54, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Pity we can't see the original writing !

The code is described as 'faint pencil' - the image is bold.
The image is clearly a photo of the pencil-on-paper original, which has been gone-over with a rather shaky pen on the photo - twice in some places. Modern forensics could do much more with the original. An 'enhanced' copy is pretty useless.
--195.137.93.171 (talk) 10:17, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually the photo of the hand writing appears to be edited without having doctored the original evidence. The contrast of the photograph has been increased to make the faint grey a bold black, you can tell be cause the "shadows" in the paper are very dark. I dont have any citation, only my own experience in manipulating photographs to go on. 203.158.36.196 (talk) 23:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Names

Jestyn's real name was Jessica Ellen Harkness. Her father, Thomas Harkness was a stevedore and petty criminal. Her brother married Clarice Isobel Victoria Beaumont, the first cousin once-removed of the Beaumont children. She married Prosper McTaggart Thomson, another petty criminal and Adelaide car dealer. Jessica Harkness had a son of unknown provenance, Robin Thomson, who was born in 1948. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.168.138.143 (talk) 09:58, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The names in this article are almost certainly incorrect. I notice that, except for the name "Jestyn" there isn't even a hint of a reference for the names either. "Prestige Johnson" is not the correct name of one of the individuals. The last name is not Johnson and Prestige is a pseudonym intended to protect his identity. Likewise, "Teresa Powell" is almost certainly wrong. This is per an anonymous source who knew the individuals being named here, personally. In any case, I note that the names are NOT referenced. If there are no objections, I am going to delete the names (except Jestyn) in about a month.

--Blue Tie (talk) 16:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• I seem to note citations in the text although they are from books I do not own. Are you sure?

Either case I think it would be prudent to keep them as any information, even such that is presumed to be faked but is still real "fake" information should be kept for such an interesting case. I understand that you might want to protect the privacy of your friends or acquaintances but I doubt to many people bother them about this nowdays, if they are even alive. If you can provide the "real" names. 81.170.157.91 (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I have the book and have changed the text to better conform to what the author wrote. The book gives some background history for the Johnson family from their roots in England and a timeline for Prestige's interaction with Jestyn. Jestyn gave the name Teresa Powell to police and they accepted that it was her married name. The author implies Powell was her husbands name on only one page where it mentions that the phone was in her husbands name after an earlier mention that the phone was under the name of Powell. All other mentions in the book say his name was Prestige Johnson. This is further confused by several mentions that there is no record of Jestyn's maiden name although the context implies that Powell may have been. Perhaps it's a case of bad proof-reading but it's in the source so we have to use it. Wayne (talk) 06:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The names are Jessica Harkness and Prosper McTaggart Thomson. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.175.35.85 (talk) 00:23, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I absolutely 100% know for a fact that these names are incorrect. The book you are using must surely refer to them as pseudonyms if it has any quality at all. If that is the case, the article should say so also. --Blue Tie (talk) 00:55, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

And how do you "absolutely 100% know for a fact"? Some guy (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Explanation

I thought that the somerton man was from USSR and maybe related to the assassination of Joseph Stalin. One of the conspirators was Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov, who was born in 1900, and disappeared in 1945. Lyushkov was an officer in the Soviet secret police and its highest-ranking defector. During the Great Purge, his mother, wife and brother were under arrest but he escaped to Manchukuo. He was last seen in August 1945 in China and then disappeared. Today, the fate and whereabout of Lyushkov remains unknown, some reported shot to death by Japanese agents. Maybe the ex-officer of NKVD and defector of soviet escaped again with some of his companions and fled to Australia at the end of WWII. Lyushkov changed his appearence in AUS and pretended to be a local resident. He knew the Thomsens well as they were all communists and recorded their phone number and address as the code on the Rubaiyat, the book he used as one-time pad for the communication with his soviet companions. The nurse J E Thomsen was in this secret group and she had a copy of that book. The spies made their plans and one day Mr Marshall from Singapore overheard them, so he was murdered. Something of cospiracy got failed in 1948(ended- tamam shud), Lyushkov called on the Thomsen's just before death. Hearing that his family members were almost all dead in Russia and himself was indeed in danger, he felt depressed and desperate, then tore the book and committed suicide(if the man was murdered, he must had made efforts such as trying to find medical aids to save his life before death, but he did not). Lyushkov's wife was a Jew so there were some stones on his tomb as a Jewish trandition. Selenaluna (talk) 12:44, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

The Somerton Man was murdered. Girlfriend Jestyn married Prosper McTaggart Thomson. A woman called Elizabeth Thomson later identified the body - this was Prosper Thomson's first wife, Queenie. All three were associated with stevedoring and maritime command and were Soviet agents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.168.138.143 (talk) 10:01, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The somerton man was a military (ex-navy) guy who was a generally undercover man and had been responsible for killing people. He happened to really like the Rubaiyat. He had an illegitimate or even secret child, thats the girl Jestyn. He gave her a copy of the rubayait as a present as one of the only fatherly things he could do. He carried the rubaiyat around with him all the time when he was travelling, even using it for a quick notepad one time (probably a long time before he died because he had no other paper handy) but he made sure to do it really softly (it was invisible without use of infrared lamp) He came back to australia and went to meet with his daughter one last time, and his grandson. At the time he knew he wanted to kill himself. He tore off the last bit of his favourite book, but then he couldnt handle throwing away his favourite book, so he 'donated' it to a stranger who had parked his car nearby. He then took his military poison himself while watching the waves on the beach.

3 October 2011Edward Fricker

Jestyn also found the rubaiyat a close part of herself. She fell in love with Boxall, and so gave him the copy her biological dad gave her as a parting gift before he went overseas. When he came back, they had a son together. The son shows his grandfather's genetic traits. Jestyn didnt want to make public that she was a bastard, and she knows it would help noone to identify that man, so she kept quiet.

. The book is really not very important in the story. It was just a really old book of his and he decided to put a piece of it into his 'death suit' to look good when he dies. An inflated spleen is often caused by alcohol abuse during life, so perhaps he was drunk and depressed for a long time. If he is the boys father, that makes sense too, but its less likely. The boy was born slightly over 9 months after Boxall returned to Australia, the man who Jestyn so kindly gave a book to while on a date, just the two of them, before he went overseas. Why did jestyn give him that particular book? It makes more sense that Somerton-man, who is older and had the very old, rare first edition, had his first. He doesnt really care about stuff before he dies. Also written in the somerton-mans copy was other phone numbers, including a bank phone number. HE probably left money in there for jestyn before he died, or took it out and gave it to her.

Plenty of people plan their suicides, write big suicide notes or visit people before they die. He didnt discard the book, he deliberately put the 'the end' bit, which is the only bit written in the original persian and is in a paragraph on its own, in his pocket before dying. He was still emotionally attached to the book though so he thought it would be better to give it away to a stranger (even back then it would have been worth some decent money as a 100 year old first edition of a book which became very famous) There was a half smoked cigarette falling out of his mouth when he died, on the beach. (For skeptics, A beach is not a place anyone would leave a murdered body). He visited the girl and went to the nearest beach, took the poison and lit a cigarette as he died by the sea. The codes: those are telephone numbers a codeflag and M in naval signalling means the following letters are numbers. They work out to be adelaide area phone numbers notice how they all start with M? the crossed out one is an old sydney number, 2291559 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.28.53.145 (talk) 14:08, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Here's a better explanation: Jestyn, Boxall, and Somerton Man were all Soviet agents operating in Australia. Jestyn provided Boxall and Somerton Man with identical copies of The Rubaiyat so that the poems could use for cryptographic pads via book cipher. At some point Somerton Man decided that his identity had been compromised so he had to commit suicide (rather than risk being captured and tortured for information). He injected himself with poison and tossed The Rubaiyat into the backseat of a random car so that the secret pad would remain secret. Kaldari (talk) 11:33, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Hicks' testimony

The article ([2]) mentions that Hicks wrote down the names of drugs possibly used (Exhibit C.18) and that this information was made public in the 1980s. However, this information is not included and no citation is offered. The only copies of the inquest that I have found do not include this exhibit. Thus, the claim is very dubious. Attys (talk) 17:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

External links

There is an overabundance of ELs, including 8 videos and some 10 different random links. Per WP:EL this needs to be massively trimmed. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:25, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Editing

Made changes to Lead - this is a case "of an unidentified man"; keep it simple, that was the basis for the rest; one doesn't have to say "revolving around an unidentified man". Have made other edits to use more active voice rather than passive, and make language more concise and direct.Parkwells (talk) 17:30, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Jestyn/Teresa Powell/Johnson name presentation problems

Many problems with how Jestyn's name is addressed throughout the article. In section "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", citation 48 is attached to the sentence "...who did not know "Powell's" married name...". This is the first time the name Powell is presented in the article; as someone previously unfamiliar with the case I was completely lost when the name Powell was introduced here.

This entire chunk of text slightly later in the same section is a mess:

Researchers re-investigating the case attempted to track down Jestyn and found she had died in 2007.[53] Her real name is considered important as the possibility exists it may be the decryption key for the code.[53] In a video interview, Paul Lawson (who made the body cast) refers to her as 'Mrs Thompson.'[54] In 2002, retired detective Gerald Feltus, who had handled the "cold case", interviewed Jestyn and found her to be either "evasive" or "just did not wish to talk about it", she also stated that her family did not know of her connection with the case. Feltus believes that Jestyn knows the Somerton man's identity.[55] Jestyn had told police that she was married, but they did not record Jestyn's name on the police file, and there is no evidence that police at the time knew that she was in fact not married.[56]

The paragraph states her death in 2007, implies her name is unknown, calls her Mrs Thompson, says she was interviewed in 2002 (this should be mentioned before her death), uses present tense for "knows the Somerton man's identity" after mentioning she is dead, and again implies her name is unknown.

The "Timeline" section lists her as "Teresa Powell" in quotes, with no explanation of where this name came from, contradicting earlier implications her name was unknown. Later it gives an explanation for the names Teresa Powell/Johnson, stating the supposedly real name was discovered in 2002, contradicting the implications of earlier sections.

Overall, the article is confusing and contradictory in its presentation and explanation of her name. Teresa something is presented as her known real name in a minor section, yet she is referred to by the pseudonym Jestyn throughout the body of the article. Someone more familiar with the case than I should clean this up. Some guy (talk) 23:38, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I was very confused about this as well. Kaldari (talk) 01:57, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem came about due to adding new information and other edits. The first public mention of her death was in 2009. Until recently, the only name by which the public knew her was Jestyn. Lawson (who made the cast of the body) told interviewers in 2002 that he was told her name was "Mrs Thompson" and this was accepted as either a psuedonym he had been given or possibly her real name. The names Powell and Johnson were first used by Feltus in his 2010 book on the case. According to Feltus, the original police records say she gave her name as Teresa Powell and as she claimed to be married they accepted Powell as her husbands name which is why most sources say there is no record of her maiden name. The cold case investigation found a lot of personal infomation that was not released to the public until the 2010 book. Detective Feltus (he conducted the cold case) explained that the Johnson's wanted to keep the names secret but after information was leaked gave him permission to use the information in his book. Wayne (talk) 04:43, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

That is what I have been supposing (but I haven't read Feltus' book) but I have found Feltus saying, on 27 March 2011 on what appears to be his own website, "As a matter of principle I will not be revealing the identity of the nurse and my reasoning is contained in the second paragraph of page 12 of the book. I cannot find a logical reason how by revealing her identity it would assist readers to further their comprehension of the known facts. If others choose to take an alternative course they can suffer the consequences."[3] The WP article states pages 178-179 of the book claim that Feltus was given permission to disclose the names in the book. Thincat (talk) 16:15, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I understand that Feltus never released her real maiden and married name and that both Teresa Powell and Teresa Johnson are pseudonyms. Prestige Johnson's real name is known, as available elsewhere on the web (I'm not comfortable putting it here, as I'm aware one of his nieces has been tracked down and harassed for information, but it's up to the editors of this article if they feel differently - in any case it may be considered original research.) As I believe Feltus mentioned (?), "Jestyn"'s real name is discoverable with some effort and the right records, and it isn't Teresa Powell. My inclination with this article would be for someone who has access to it, tp check in Feltus' book for any mention as to the origin of the names Teresa Powell and Prestige Johnson, and cite this in the article. As it currently stands, the article reads as if these are real names, which I don't think is the case. 58.7.68.249 (talk) 12:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC) (Apologies - that was me Helenabella (talk) 12:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC) )

Feltus does use these names in his book and nothing is written in the book that I'm aware of to indicate that they are not the real names. The contradiction between pages 12 and 178 could be the result of the book being written over an extended period of time. It is also possible Feltus decided to muddy the waters to protect their identities by eliminating any reason to search for names. Now that Jestyn and her son are deceased there is no need to protect identities as they would have been the only people with knowledge of any connection if one existed. Apparently, Tamam Shud: The Somerton Man Mystery, a book by Kerry Greenwood also gives those names as their real ones. Wayne (talk) 03:17, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Editing a reference

Hi

Not being an experienced enough editor I was unable to figure out how to correct a reference which is incorrect. Reference number 10 (referring to an inquest) contains the following text: GX/0A/0000/1016/0B. This is a repository location at State Records of South Australia not a record reference and is of little assistance in identifying the record. The repository location may also be subject to change. The correct reference is: GRG 1/27 File 71/1949. Is it possible to have this reference updated to the correct details?

Thanks Atcwikieditor (talk) 12:29, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done - it may be worthwhile to check that none of the other refs use a repository location rather than a record number.--ukexpat (talk) 14:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done - Updated a couple of the references in the bibliography section.

Atcwikieditor (talk) 00:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) as possible lead

Besides writing quatrains, Omar Khayyám was also a mathematician. According to the Wikipedia article he was also involved with the theory of parallels and "In a sense he made he made the first attempt at formulating a non-Euclidean postulate as an alternative to the parallel postulate"

Consider the lines in the middle of the code:

1. It's representation of two parallel lines converging at infinity in a projection. The point of intersection is the point at infinity (vanishing point in perspective projection)
2. By adding a "point at infinity" to an elliptic curve you obtain the projective version of the curve
3. The X mark in the code represents an intersection. It is positioned above the O letter which represents an elliptic curve. It is positioned on the top line to the right of the origin indicating the P+Q+R=0 case.
4. Compare the above with the Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) example in this image.
5. And a final note, the first letters of the first and 3rd lines look like a superimposed M and W. In the English alphabet both M and W have prime number positions (13 and 23). These could be constants in the elliptic equation or the difference (23-13 = 10) the order of P (the n).

I'm no math expert, sorry if it doesn't make sense.

An excellent article ditto

For what this is worth, writing this some six years since it was created and through numerous update & rewrites, I consider this to be an excellent article. — Ineuw talk 09:55, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree. There are topical and varied photos, the structure is good and there are extensive references from the news media and factual literature. GA class? ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 22:46, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's certainly in better shape than when I took it through to its unsuccessful GA nomination some years back. I'm unfortunately too busy to do too much but I'll help where I can if someone else wants to steer through GA nomination. --Roisterer (talk) 11:10, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The Discovery of the Rubaiyat

There is a discrepancy between the two passages that detail the discovery of the book. It is initially stated that the man found the book "in the back seat of his unlocked car that had been parked in Jetty Road Glenelg about a week or two before the body was found". However, in the timeline section, it is stated that the Rubaiyat was "found on 30 November containing the secret code". Which is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.237.7.220 (talk) 11:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The referenced article states "Sgt. R. L. Leane received from a city business man a torn copy of Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam said to have been found in his car at Glenelg about last November, a week or two before the body was found.....The business man told Det.Sgt. Leane that he found the copy of the Rubaiyat in the rear of his car while it was parked in Jetty road Glenelg, about the time of the RAAF air pageant in November." (The pageant was held on Saturday 20 November 1948.) All other newspaper references that I can see only state that the book was originally found "in November" with no mention of a date. Gerry Feltus writes of the incident as "...we all went for a drive in my car just after that man was found dead on the beach at Somerton....when I got in the back seat, the book was on the floor..." I would not be surprised if the story was changed slightly by the finder in later years as it would otherwise indicate that the unknown man may never have been in possession of the book, and we can't have that!

The whole timeline is a bit of a mess. There are a number of statements attributed to Gerry Feltus' book regarding personal names which are incorrect, and Jestyn is referred to as a combination of her real name and a pseudonym which is just stupid. If nobody has any objections, when I have more time next week I will attempt an edit which actually reflects the content of the references in the article.Donde1960 (talk) 13:58, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Mentone,Victoria

Prosper Thompson moved to Mentone in 1936. Jessica's parents lived there also. Jessica stayed with them there in 1946.

Is there any information on whether the Thompson's were still there in 1946 or their addresses or whether the families might have been acquainted? Bronzepeach (talk) 08:34, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Wrong information in the lead

The second paragraph states "what appeared to be a secret code on a scrap of paper found in his pocket," whereas the secret code actually appears on the book that the scrap of paper found in his pocket leads the police to. The scrap of paper only says "tamam shud." Could the author please edit this sentence to reflect what has actually happened more accurately? 78.180.176.138 (talk) 23:29, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

JEstyn

Someone has edited that "Feltus believes the written name to be J.E. Styn and that she may have been using the surname of a previous partner." Could the editor (or someone who is aware of this) add a citation to this point as I didn't think Feltus addressed the capital E in his book, and I don't know where else it comes from?

It seems an odd thing, as one would think a quotation like this written in a book given by a young woman to an older married man would be more likely to be signed by first name, nickname or initials - initials and surname seem fairly unlikely. Either way, the s is lower case, so that would make it J. Estyn. Anyway, I propose removing it if it can't be referenced. Bronzepeach (talk) 11:24, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Timeline

The article talks about the City Baths being a 15 minute walk either way by the shortest route. I think this is a gross overestimate. Assuming in the late 40's the railway station was where it is now (or more importantly the ticket office roughly in the same place) then the walk would be closer to 5 minutes (or even less). As I understand it, the baths stood next to parliament house (where the Festival Centre's artworks are) (http://adelaidia.sa.gov.au/places/adelaide-city-baths). Assuming we go by road, this would involve a minute or two walk (uphill) to North Tce, a left turn and en even shorter walk would find you at the showers. A brisk walk would see someone cover half the Adelaide square mile in 15 minutes (ie you could walk almost to Victoria Sq from the railway station in 15 min) 162.145.32.67 (talk) 01:39, 7 July 2015 (UTC) Anonymous 7/07/2015

title of article?

By calling it the Taman Shud case, we are perpetuating a commonplace misprint in early Australian media. The correct designation ought to be Tamám Shud case, in keeping with what was in fact printed on the mysterious paper found sewn into the Somerton Man's fob watch pocket, and consistent with what closes most Edward FitzGerald editiions of the Rubáiyat. (There were four editions published in FitzGerald's lifetime, and a fifth that was posthumous. For decades afterwards, all editions were republished, sometimes combining various quatrain translations drawn from multiple editions.)

Although assumed here to be associated with FitzGerald's Rubáiyat and its poetic context, in Persian itself, by the way, "Tamám Shud" is a phrase used in just two specific cultural instances: it is said at the end of fairy tales and children's stories, and repeated at funerals to close an elegy.

Can we at least fix the title, or provide the (obvious) alternate name for the case as well, explaining that "Taman" is just a newspaper typo that stuck? Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Do you find note 1 to be insufficient? I went through this article a while back and made sure that every instance of "taman" or "tamam" was appropriate given the context. The proper spelling is actually used more often in the article than the improper one. I feel that the article currently makes it clear that while the original text is "tamam," usage of the misspelled version was widespread enough in contemporary discussion that it became the case's de facto name in the majority of literature and sources. Note 1 seems to provide the equivalent of using [sic] in a quote, but I suppose there might be an argument for bringing that information into the text of the article itself. Tegrenath (talk) 22:53, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for reminding me — I read the article and note months ago, but only recently re-read the main text and perhaps a little too quickly, in light of the GA nomination (which I support). So I forgot about the note! Would you mind if I perform a tiny surgery on the lede, and see if it's satisfactory? I'm generally loath to change the title of a well-established article but the misprint has somehow gotten under my skin lately (BTW, even the Australian band Tamam Shud got the spelling right, minus the acutely-accented "á", so not everyone is calling it the Taman Shud Case, even down under). I'll have a whack, and will remain amenable. Thanks — Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 00:50, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm a bit agnostic on this point, but does the band name itself after the case or after the phrase? Can't see a reference in the Wikipedia article to support the idea that they named themselves after the case. Also, was the paper sewn into the fob pocket or just put into it? Bronzepeach (talk) 21:46, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I need a help for translation

Hello everyone. I am Rikipedia~jawiki（talk）, a Japanese wiki user. I created a Japanese translation of this article. I couldn't catch the meaning of this sentence; "forcing them to look further afield." in the section Taman Shud Case#Identification. Can anybody explain, who are "them", and what "look furthur afield" means in this context?
Thank you in advance.--Rikipedia~jawiki（talk） 15:38, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi, "them" means the South Australian Police. "To look further afield" in this context means the Police had to extend their search for fingerprint records outside of South Australia (i.e. to the other states of Australia) as they could not find any matching fingerprint records within the South Australia Police files. Hope this helps. Bronzepeach (talk) 21:32, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Hello. Thank you very much for your explanation! My question about this article was now solved. Now I can fix the translation. I really appreciate your help.--Rikipedia~jawiki（talk） 00:05, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Marshall's Rubaiyat

I removed this text about Marshall's Rubaiyat: Marshall's copy of the Rubaiyat was recorded as a seventh edition published in London by Methuen. In 2010 an investigation found that Methuen had published only five editions; the discrepancy has never been explained and has been linked to the inability to locate a copy of the Whitcombe and Tombs edition.

The Smithsonian article's only source on the matter is a facebook group, which has since been deleted. Discussion/investigation is being carried out by amateurs on many blogs/message boards/reddit/etc, but there is no longer a link to a credible source on this issue I'm afraid. The Smithsonian article is a dead end.Brianbleakley (talk) 03:21, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Tamam additional meaning

Tamam also means "okey", "will comply", "roger that" in daily usage. In the context of: - Don't forget to buy bread on your way home. - Tamam

Maybe this information shall be added to article too.

Mingus79 (talk) 15:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Please note that "tamam" as "ok" is only common in Turkey, and uncommon in Persian or Turkish/Azeri speaking parts of Iran. Taghiv (talk) 19:17, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Request for discussion on article name

Since the words in question are "tamám shud", is there any reason why this article is called "Taman Shud Case"?

In the absence of a specific reason for the current name, I would suggest that the appropriate name should be either "Tamám shud case" or "Somerton Man case". At the very least, the word "case" should not be capitalized.--NapoliRoma (talk) 05:31, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Taman Shud was apparently what it was originally erroneously reported as and the name stuck. I'm a bit ambivalent about whether it should be changed, but I guess I'd be inclined to leave it as it had always been known. As for the title, "Taman Shud Case" is just title case with initial capitalisation isn't it? Seems correct to me. Bronzepeach (talk) 09:18, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I came back to this article after several months and was disappointed to see how it's been renamed. At the very start, the reader is confronted with an anomaly. The title reads 'Taman' but the first sentence starts 'The Tamam Shud case...', so the reader is left with the impression that there's a typo and therefore the rest of the article can't be trusted either. My preference is that the title should use the word as it's printed in the book: 'Tamam', but I concede that it has been Taman for a very long time (and possibly from the article's inception). The only justification for capitalizing 'case' would be if "Taman Shud Case" was the title of a book, play, movie, or other work that the article is about. That doesn't apply here, and the 'C' should be lower case. Akld guy (talk) 01:45, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't have strong views either way, but I'm leaning towards it being Tamam rather than Taman. This matches the original quote, but the text should mention the long-running error. There does not seem to be any significant preference for either on the internet, with both in fairly equal amounts of usage. For now I have matched up the lede text to the title until this gets resolved. As for "case" this should be lower case. --Dmol (talk) 03:06, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Well that's irritating!! I had never paid much attention to the titles of Wikipedia articles. The title I was referring to was the title of the article, which a literate person would expect to be in title case. I see however that Wikipedia does not seem to use title case for article titles. That's going to irritate me now 'til the end of time! I have not tried to see if there's a style guide - I suppose there probably is, but I would be afraid to look. Bizarrely enough, the style seems to generally be to capitalise (or should I say capitalize) the first letter of the first word only, except for proper nouns. Why capitalise the first letter only? It's not a sentence and there's no full stop (or 'period'). Would be better to have no capitals than just the first word for no reason.

Anyway, it would seem appropriate to change it to 'case' to conform with what seems to be the house style, so by all means go ahead. (At least it will save me some money - I won't feel the need to donate to Wikipedia any more!! :) ) Bronzepeach (talk) 04:25, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

There is indeed a style guide -- it's called, oddly enough, the Wikipedia Manual of Style, or WP:MOS. The section of interest is WP:TITLEFORMAT, where at least the partial justification is that rendering the titles in sentence case makes it easier to link to an article in running text without modification.

FWIW, I just grabbed a volume of the print edition of World Book Encyclopedia that was at hand, and it turns out the titles of entries there are rendered in... sentence case.--NapoliRoma (talk) 06:46, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the pointer to the style manual. However linking is not going to be that much easier as you'd still have to look at the article title and (good heavens) spell it correctly. As for the World Book Encyclopedia - it's about as World as the World Series! Bronzepeach (talk) 07:28, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

There are three supporters for Tamam and lower case 'case' so far. Akld guy (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

It should be "Tamam Shud case", I think. Everyking (talk) 07:20, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I have moved the title to "Tamam Shud case". This is a fascinating incident, and makes a good read. I think there is promise in the article if it could be tidied up. While not yet organised and appropriately cited, information has been gathered. I think there is enough information here and in linked sources, to enable a good article to be created. I will spend some time working on it, but my time and energy is limited these days, and I'm being asked to do some work on the Covent Garden article, so I may not be able to do much SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:45, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

I was just about to ask the same question. The title should be Tamám Shud Case. Don't need to change the link. Just the title. Failure to correctly spell the word is kind of offensive. Spiel (talk) 13:15, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Tommy Reade

"A seaman by the name of Tommy Reade from the SS Cycle, in port at the time, was thought to be the dead man, but after some of his shipmates viewed the body at the morgue, they stated categorically that the corpse was not that of Tommy Reade." - Well, what happened? Did Reade ever turn up? I can't locate any work that says he did. Maybe Feltus answers the question, but I don't own a copy of his book. Akld guy (talk) 03:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

• Nope, Feltus doesn't elaborate on Reade. Like so many other leads at the time, it seems to have been abandoned - presumably because the police at the time were happy with the other seamen sayibng "Oops, no that's not the guy we were thinking of" (although possibly because the ship would've moved on by then and it was simply too hard to contact them again) --203.6.69.2 (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Unknown Book Edition

I distinctly remember there being a section in this article devoted to some complexities in tracking down the exact edition of the book. This all seems to have been removed, why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.126.226.90 (talk) 12:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Meaning of tamam shud

An IP has tried a couple of times to change the meaning from 'ended' to 'the end'. Please see here for the opinion of a native speaker of Persian. While his/her opinion does not constitute a definitive ruling without references, long-time consensus has been that 'ended' is the correct meaning, and consequently the onus is on the IP to show evidence to the contrary. Akld guy (talk) 20:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Where can I find the reports cited in the article?

There are a few reports cited in the article like for example Don O'Doherty's report or the Coroner's Report but there are no links to none of these. Could anyone provide original documents, so I could read it? Tashi _{Talk to me} 23:05, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Possible timeline of events

It seems that this poor fellow quite possibly was a disenchanted Russian spy on the run, who had a previous affair with Jessica "Jestyn" Harkness after meeting during (or perhaps after) the War, resulting in the birth of Robin Thompson (the Russian connection being suggested by his lack of identification in NATO aligned countries, his identity as a foreign service member during WWI when Russia was still an ally, and Jessica's unaccounted-for knowledge of the Russian language and culture). He may have arrived in Glenelg to visit his infant son, whom he had never seen, thus making peace with his unresolved past and perhaps accounting for the Persian line hidden deep in his pocket from a book which had deep sentimental value for both him and Jessica. This would also account for the short-hand message (or encrypted cypher using the text of the book itself), the presence of her telephone number on an impression from the lost (likely intentionally destroyed) scrap of paper, and the place where he met his demise. After this, he may have spent hours with mother and child in a final attempt to make up for lost time. Then, to protect the identity of his child and the child's mother, he poisoned himself by smoking one last cigarette on the beach as he watched the sun set (the beach facing West and his possibly having died around 7-7:30pm when witnesses spotted what may have been convulsions). Jessica's surprise at identifying his features in the plaster cast may suggest both their past together and the fact that she had just seen him in the hours before his death.The Famous Adventurer (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Tamam Shud case article.

This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Akld guy (talk) 20:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Ambiguities about recovered writing

1. According to this 26 July 1949 newspaper article there were two phone numbers found in the back of the copy of the Rubaiyat from which the dead man's scrap was torn. A number of blogs and other web sites imply that the second phone number was that of a bank branch — but I can't find any reliable source for this. Anyone have one?

1. It's unclear whether the back of the Rubaiyat actually contained faint writing in pencil, or just the indentations from having been used as a surface to write on another piece of paper. Anyone have a source that can clarify this?

—Moxfyre (ǝɹʎℲxoɯ | contrib) 06:55, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Ronald Francis and the Rubaiyat

AFAIK the pseudonym was created by Feltus (circa 2010) not Leane. In his book Feltus anonymised many of the characters, not wanting to cause hassle for people involved. This is not the only confusion caused from this anonymisation - in the book Jessica Harkness (Jessie) was Teresa Powell (Tessie), and Prosper Thomson was Prestige.... More recently (Aug 2018), someone (possibly Feltus) has revealed Ronald Francis to be chemist John Freeman who either lived or worked in Jetty Road Glenelg. There's a lot of confusion arounf the Rubaiyat, and (as with many other aspects of the case) a lot of assumption seems to have turned into 'fact'. The rubaiyat that was handed in was found in a car. This car had at times been parke in Jetty Road (but just where the assertion that it was in Jetty Road that the Rubaiyat appeared in it is not clear). Depending on which version of events you read, this was either found by the car owners adult relative (who assumed it belonged to the owner and put it in the glove box), or by related children playing in the back of the car. The shape of the tear in the back of the book did not match the neatly trimmed 'Tamam Shud' fragment, however Government analysts concluded that the paper was similar and there was nothing to dismiss a connection (personally I'm very cynical about this meaning anything other than 'Not really sure, but they seem the same'). There's comprehensive detail on the National Archive here (inquest starts at page 135) that includes the exact words used in the inquest. Although we know when the Rubaiyat was presented to police, there'ssome confusion about when the book was found - with some reports suggesting it may have been found BEFORE SM died (it would be hard to get concrete facts, because you're relying on the memory of osmeone coming forward well after the fact). Some reports imply that the 'code' was in pencil, others that it was indentations from pencil (popssibly written on another page) - the one thing that is certain is the commonly used picture is an enhanced version that appears to have been traced with texta (or something) and is not necessarily even on the original paper. The letters in the 'code' are inconsistent, and may have been written in several separate hands, however this could also be the result of analysts trying to guess the code and occasionally following patterns that aren't quite right (the 'C' appears loke the top half of some of the 'S'). There was some mention of 2 phone numbers, one immediately dismissed as a business (possibly a bank as someone suggests above), and it's not really clear why the phone number resulted in police interest in Jessica rather than Prosper - it sort of suggests they weren't necessarily cohabiting, yet she had taken on his surname. 203.6.69.2 (talk) 22:27, 23 April 2019 (UTC) Squid

Jessica and Ciphermysteries

Some time ago, on ciphermysteries (cited as a source for some other content here, eg the dismissal of HC Reynolds) there was a fairly extensive attempt to trace Jessica Harkness. The discussion descended into some confusion as there appears to have been a nurse with the same name who had lived in country SA North of Adelaide through the 1930s (and from memory disappears from the picture with a trip to Britain in the late 30s) however who appeared not to be the same Jessica. As with so many other facets of this case, it seems a remarkable coincidence that there should be 2 nurses, both Jessica Ellen Harkness of similar age and both with connections to Adelaide. (Speculation) It raises a possibility that with one JEH disappearing the other appears somehow stealing her identity (or at least name). While the ciphermysteries site is a blog, most of the ideas it comes up with are at least backed with research and logical extrapolation - and while the same cannot necessarily be said for the people who comment and expand on the ideas there have been some interesting ideas on who SM may have been and how he came to be deceased at Somerton Park. Although Wikipedia focusses on factual (ie provable) ideas, perhaps some of the speculation is worth mentioning - as I'm sure I've seen on other pages (ie while not necessarily adding credibility to the idea, at least listing different theories people have on SM's demise) 203.6.69.2 (talk) 22:27, 23 April 2019 (UTC) Squid

Title

I've seen the word "Tamam" written as "Tamám" by other sources, and I was wondering if the title of the page should be renamed in accordance to the "á" in the phrase. I considered doing so immediately, yet it's important to see what other people think.--GouramiWatcher^Talk 00:39, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

According to the Wiktionary article: "Tamam" is the transliteration of the Turkish term, while "tamām" is the transliteration of the Arabic term. Dimadick (talk) 15:47, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Timeline

I think there's a few issues with the timeline (especially on 30 November 1949)

• 8:30-10:50 presumed to arrive by train. I know this is partially based on train timetables, but I think too much assumption. Given the ticket was the first of three sold after 6:15, then perhaps the time should be 6:15 to 10:50 (unless there's a reason we can say he definitely couldn't have been earlier)
• The timeline talks of him buying a ticket for the 10:50 HB train. Do we know that it was explicitly for the 10:50 train, or was it simply for the Henley Beach line (if, as I suspect, it's the latter, then the 10:50 in the point above should probably be adjusted to 11:15). Perhaps someone knows a train buff who would know whether train tickets were sold to explicit services or merely for passage on a particular line (or perhaps someone's seen the actual ticket?).
• I suspect it's a remnant of the original narrative (which was full of guessing, assumption and fabrication), but is there any need to mention the lack of evidence about the baths. On its own as it stands it sounds detached, unnecessary and is probably confusing for people who are reading the case for the first time.
• The timeline talks about the bus terminating at Somerton at 11:44. Is there a source for this? My understanding is that the bus turned Right from the Anzac Highway and terminated at St Leonards. This is also where the spculation that he had gotten off near the St Leonards hotel comes in (it was the closest the route comes to Harkness' house and the beach he was found). If he were on the Somerton Bus, he would have passed right by 90A Moseley with a bus stop practically out the front.
• Is there a source for alighting at St Leonards? As per the previous point this seems to have been an assumption based on where he was found. The only alternative I could imagine is that the Bus Driver was interviewed and (though he didn't explicitly remember SM) remembered that the bus was empty by the time he'd passed that stop (but I don't remember anything like that being in any of the inquest docs that I've seen)
• In general, I think the timeline should be cleaned up to state fact where possible, and explain assumption/speculation (and more importantly its source) where necessary - I think a lot more items in the timeline are potentially contentious

--203.6.69.2 (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

links with other investigations

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/19/remains-of-mystery-somerton-man-to-be-exhumed-70-years-after-his-death — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.30.115 (talk) 05:20, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Article started here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Operation_Persist please add more to this about operations Persist and Persevere

Someone needs to add a geo link to the title

I20sc (talk) 09:28, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

1948 Australian phone book listing

Thomson J E Sister 90a Moseley Ginig . .. .. X 3239 ('Sister', is a general reference to, 'hospital Nurse' I20sc (talk) 23:32, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Reliable source needed

This recent edit [4], claiming a solution by Mohammad H Tamdgidi, sourced to the website https://www.okcir.com ([5]), seems to lack a serious independent source.--Nø (talk) 00:17, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Granted that the material on the website referred to is probably written by Tamdgidi himself (with whom by the way I am not in any way connected), it would still appeal that he is a retired associate professor of sociology at UMass Boston and previously full-time lecturer at SUNY-Oneonta and adjunct lecturer at SUNY-Binghamton, and founding editor of an academic journal and a published author – doesn’t all this at least make it worthy of mention that an scholar devoted to the study of Khayyam is claiming he solved the code? I was careful not to say that he did, merely that he is claiming it. Surely no “serious independent source” is needed to report the fact that an academic is claiming to have solved the riddle. Really, you guys sap the life out of those who simply want to share the info they have found and taken the trouble of writing it up. Perhaps you though I was trying to advertise the book? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.165.180.121 (talk) 00:17, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi "unsigned"! This is Mohammad H. Tamdgidi. Yesterday, by chance I ran into your “Talk” (above) behind the Tamám Shud case Wiki page, and thought of adding my take here, so you and those interested may know what I have to say on the subject. I have not been a Wikipedia contributor, and given the structure of how it works, I don’t think I will be, but I guess in the talk page I can share my voice to a publication related to my work, where my name has been specifically mentioned.

Your reply in Talk was regarding my recent publication “Tamám Shud: How the Somerton Man’s Last Dance for a Lasting Life Was Decoded — Omar Khayyam Center Research Report” (Okcir Press, 2021). Obviously, I do not know who you were/are trying to helpfully share a word about my publication on the wiki page for the Tamám Shud case, but just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for making the effort, and for being fair and independent-minded in the spirit of what I had assumed Wikipedia is or should be.

I am not writing below to convince others to include your paragraph or anything else about my contribution to the topic of Tamám Shud case. It is for you or others to judge and decide on that. Those who care to read the findings in my report can independently find it online and read it freely, and those who don’t, it will be their own loss, sorry to say. Seven decades were lost going after strange conspiracy theories about the case, another seven or more to go for those who are inclined to ignore contributions from others with different sounding names (such as mine) on the topic.

Below, in appreciation of your gesture in trying to make this Wiki page what it is supposed to be, that is sharing helpful information about a topic, rather than censoring it without the slightest explanation or justification, I simply wish to make this a learning opportunity for myself and anyone who cares to read it, in order to explain what in my view is behind the censorship being pursued regarding my contribution, one that is not really surprising to me, and in fact proves again why folks have not been able to solve the Tamám Shud case for decades. In other words, the Wikipedia censor who axed your added paragraph actually unwittingly proved my thesis in the report about why this case has taken so long to be solved.

So, here is my two cents.

There is a topic X. There is a website Wikipedia W whose aim is to inform as reliably as possible readers R about the most relevant knowledge offered by contributors C1 to Cn about the topic X. W has a set of self-designated editors, who are for all practical purposes themselves “self-publishing” their judgments and opinions, as anonymous judges J1 to Jn. In effect, they basically regard themselves each as judge, jury, and executioner, at once, individually and/or collectively policing the rules set by W about which C’s voices are to be reflected on the W page for topic X and which not.

A rule set by W apparently is that, what finds its way into the page for topic X must have “a serious independent source.” Apparently, it would be hard to include “self-published” research reports or accounts in a Wiki page, without such a qualification (at least for voices that are deemed as outsiders). Yet, apparently, the one-liner judgment a judge passes in axing a voice is not considered to be a “self-published” material itself, for otherwise, the judge/jury/executioner must also share “serious independent source” for his or her own qualifications and judgments for axing a voice (yours, and by extension mine) from a wiki front page.

Contributor Ct (me), having had an academic career involving earning a Ph.D., having published various peer reviewed academic discipline journal and book publications with major other publishers, having passed a tenure review and been promoted, having founded and edited an academic journal involving peer reviewing of all ranks of faculty from major universities worldwide for many years (all available online and via academic libraries worldwide), being an encyclopedia contributor for sociology, being a sociologist of knowledge himself and having actually published critical research on the duplicitous and impossibly single- or double-blinded peer reviewing procedures (whose function is basically gate-keeping dominant paradigms than advancing new and alternative voices in academia), having demonstrated that much of classical knowledge taught in academic in fact were not peer reviewed originally in its modern sense until recent times allowing for others who care to read for themselves to judge the worth of their findings, … (sorry for the long list) has decided to be most transparent and publish his research through his own research center (being a “serious independent source”), letting peer reviews of his works to be done in public by all those who care to read and judge his works, and not by some hand-picked (in an impossibly blind or double-blind way one or another self-appointed judge/editor. So, all the above background source qualifications can be regarded as serious and independently verifiable, some of which you had mentioned. It is verifiable because it is offered in completely transparent way.

So, among others, he (that is, me) decided to take time off from his main work and contribute to a topic he also specializes in, involving Khayyami studies, with native and scholarly knowledge of Persian and familiarity with Arabic, offering his analysis of the Tamám Shud case, concluding that in fact a reason folks have not been able to solve the case has been their Eurocentricity, since despite their orientalist and fanciful homage to the Rubaiyat, and whatever else Khayyam related, they have ignored the possibility that the code is a transliteration from Arabic, showing that The Somerton Man was in fact trying to emulate the “Tamám Shud” line at the end of FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat (a phrase which is a transliteration from Persian, which uses Arabic alphabets) to offer his suicide note code in Arabic transliteration. Whether readers agree with the findings or not is beside the point of the findings being worthy of being shared for further consideration. That is basically the spirit in which you were trying to share this side of the story as well to Wikipedia readers. And Wikipedia is supposed to be, from what I understand, a source from the readers for the readers by the readers, so to speak, with all the reasonable safeguards for offering reliable information withstanding.

In any case, here comes a self-appointed one-liner self-publishing judge, whom we don’t know who he or she is, has offered no information about his or her background and expertise other than being from a certain Western country and having edited a series of W pages, writes a one liner, deciding that Ct’s voice is not fit to be reflected on front-page of W on topic X, because of a lack of “serious independent source.” So, an anonymous judge, depriving W readers of making their own judgments about his or her being qualified based on a “serious independently source” has self-published his or her one-liner judgment telling us we have to take his or her word as a matter of faith, that what he or she has contributed (the one line) is a valid basis for axing another voice from the main page, that is your voice (and by extension mine) about a possibly relevant study on topic X.

The self-published one-liner, which is not even a substantive contribution, but is a “self-publication” by any standard, is one that he or she did not have to spend too much time or resources to self-publish, by the way. It is basically a censoring statement, not even pretending to justify or explain why a voice must be axed from a page. The judge is basically saying, “I have decided to ax this voice, because I want to, using the W rule of lack of serious independent source, even though my own judgment has not passed the same judgment itself, since, after all, I have declared myself a judge, but I do want to remain anonymous, and do not wish to let you know what my own qualifications and serious independent background source is as a fit judge for this action.”

So, he or she has in fact himself or herself violated the W rule of allowing for a “serious and independently sourced” verification of his or her decision about what fits in or not on the W page for the topic. That is because, being anonymous has offered the judge a convenient way of avoiding a truly transparent peer review requirement. That is because, readers can never know who he or she is, coming from what seriously verifiable independent qualification background, that decided to deprive them of being made readily aware on the front page for the topic about a contribution to it. Not only he or she just offered one line for the axing, he or she did not even find it in a polite and welcoming way (therefore, not respecting Wikipedia rules for newcomers, I guess), to reply to your inquiry for months, even to say you are wrong. Why? Perhaps because he or she has suspected that you (the unsigned) may be me (the report author), so has not seen your voice worthy enough to be respectfully responded to, and in the meantime, an unsuspecting reader may actually think that it was me who asked you to write that paragraph and express concern about its axing later. And this is even despite the fact that you many times note that you do not know me personally and have had no contacts with me, which is the case and I can obviously confirm that.

Why does this judge give himself or herself the right to judge your voice, a newcomer to Wikipedia or not (according to how many posts you have made, I am guessing), is again this shield of anonymity. Anonymity actually cannot prevent biases from appearing in Wikipedia, but can in fact exacerbate them. Anyone who wishes to twist the account on a topic, can ask someone he or she knows to do it anonymously on their behalf, I am guessing (since I have not been involved in Wikipedia writing, and would find it abhorrent to do such a thing). Because people can remain anonymous, this person has felt justified in perhaps suspecting that you are me, trying to promote my own book. Had this structure of anonymity not been there, obviously, such suspicions would not have been readily made. Besides, being blind or double-blind, actually has served peer reviewers to avoid being themselves subject to others’ independently sourced judgments and to evaluate whether the axing is motivated by other, including cultural, biases—something we will never know about given this hiding behind pseudonyms.

Note how duplicitous and self-serving this structure of peer reviewing, unfortunately also advanced in Wikipedia is. If this judge himself had written a book and self-published it without any “serious independent source” he or she would have, judging from his or her own criteria, not be able to influence a public page for a topic related to it, either by adding something to it, or by axing something from it. And, yet, an anonymous self-appointed judge as he or she is, has given himself or herself the right to do exactly that, without providing any transparent mechanism to the readers to evaluate the soundness of his or her judgment. He or she just offered a one-liner, and did not find it necessary or even polite to reply to your rejoinder, now for several months.

But the self-appointed one-liner self-publishing judge could have done otherwise. Alternatively, for instance, he or she could have simply added his or her judgment sentence in the public page as well for W alongside your contributed paragraph, offering his or her opinion also, letting both viewpoints be reflected for readers to judge on their own. In fact, had he or she cared about actually finding out for himself or herself what the new report contributes to the topic X, something a good judge and peer reviewer is supposed to do I assume, he or she actually could have taken the time and read the source being censored and become himself or herself a much appreciated “serious independent source,” whatever his or her evaluations may have been. But that is apparently not how this self-appointed judge seems to see the spirit of what Wikipedia is or could be. He axed your paragraph, and by extension my voice, from the W front-page for the topic, bolstering his or her record of contribution to Wikipedia. After all, using a pseudonym does not imply the person is not also self-promoting his or her own contributions to Wikipedia, judging from the long list of the contributions made.

Contrary to his or her background, my background and qualifications were transparently given, and seriously independently verifiable. But nothing of that mattered to him or her apparently, not even respecting the opinion of another W fellow contributor who actually can be regarded as one of the “serious independent sources” our judge was looking for, his or her gesture simply being that this report is worth considering. The topic is not so specialized that a fair independent reader can make reasonable judgments regarding its worth, and I made every effort in my report to make its findings accessible to others. I have absolutely no idea who you are, unsigned contributor, but good for you, since from what I can tell, your spirit actually best exemplifies what Wikipedia is supposed to be (or I thought it to be), as far as I am concerned. You are correct in lamenting about how Wikipedia does not seem to be fulfilling its promise, when one can readily read and evaluate a contribution for what it worth.

Meanwhile, I must add, a half-novel book that does not even pretend to be scholarly has been listed on the same page, twice, I see. Media source links have been given that are equally lacking serious independent source. A detective’s self-funded and self-published book on the topic (self-published according to his own website for the book) is not only listed but numerously cited, even though its author has self-admittedly failed to solve the case for decades. Various self-promoting “scholars” on The Somerton Man case, simply because their names are Western, are seen as flamboyant and popular (at least in the eyes of some) are widely referred to on the same page, even having expressed a whole variety of fanciful and contradicting ideas about the case over the years and not even having bothered to consider in their researches that The Somerton Man code could actually be traced to Arabic, and not an European language—which they simply assumed it to be the case due to their Eurocentric cultural biases. Even, the Rubaiyat as translated by Edward FitzGerald, an originally self-funded and self-published book (actually rejected initially by a journal he had submitted to, by the way), has its own Wikipedia page gloriously on Wikipedia. If you say it is included because others later judged it to be worthwhile (or not, challenging its “free” translations) then why not apply the same judgment about other new self-published reports by those much more qualified scholars doing serious independent research? Why Wikipedia cannot be also accommodating to serious new serious scholarship that think differently from dominant paradigms and procedures, ones who offer their works transparently for all to see and judge?

The comedy of it all is that, the censor may be thinking that by doing his or her one-liner axing and arrogantly not replying to your rejoinder for reconsideration, has served to advance science. Those who think they are advancing science by being censoring in their W judging, ignore the fact that neither being independently sourced, nor being peer reviewed, in and of itself guarantees the truthfulness of any finding, scientific or not. Much of the dominant paradigms in science have been shattered by voices from the margins, and how could it be otherwise?! If everything had to go through the gate-keepers’ who are arrogantly protective of dominant ways of thinking, nothing serious could be accomplished in science. Wikipedia, by dismissing self-published works automatically simply because they are so, is actually depriving its readers of alternative voices finding their way into its public pages. This does not mean that every single idea should be reflected in them, but if its readers find it reasonable to include a voice that is itself a “serious independent source” (with a professional background and licenses to back it up transparently), should be given a fair hearing. No?

It is in the very definition and nature of science that it does not have sacred truths (and this should necessarily apply to its methods and procedures for so-called “peer reviewing” I must add), and therefore, it is the transparent exchange of ideas (offered by those who dare to reveal their identities and backgrounds in the service of serious independent judgment by readers), often in fact in defiance of officially published and challenging previously peer reviewed knowledge, that can allow for the true spirit of worthwhile projects like Wikipedia to thrive.

How can one be sure biases such as Eurocentricity and Islamophobia are not motivating, consciously or not, the judgments of what fits or not on this W page on The Somerton Man? Why the self-appointed judge has not censored out others on the page with apparently Western names from the same page? Why this particular axing seems justified and not others? Why has he or she not responded to your rejoinder, one that I actually find quite offensive, I must say, since my name is mentioned by him or her in the one-liner, leading to unsuspecting readers to think that it was I who was trying to add that paragraph or somehow push my self-promotion on the Wikipedia page for the topic, an implied accusation that I find abhorrent and unfair. He or she should in fact clarify and apologize for the implied assumption in his or her one-liner, and for the silence in replying to your rejoinder, which could have at least clarified that he or she did not think I was the one trying find my way to a Wikipedia page.

The Tamám Shud case offers a great opportunity to learn about not just The Somerton Man, but also about ourselves. For those who have the eyes to see, and the patience to sit and read a brief report, even this judge’s censorship proves why for decades no one bothered to take seriously the possibility that The Somerton Man code is an Arabic transliteration. The judge has deprived himself or herself of seeing this side of the story, and has decided to deprive Wikipedia readers from it as well, despite the efforts of unsigned readers like yourself. Kudos to you, "unsigned." And shame on Wikipedia for allowing this to happen. MHTamdgidi (talk) 20:12, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand how Wikipedia works. All that matters is that serious independent sources - not private websites with little to no traffic - have taken notice and commented on what you have to say about this case.

It doesn't matter if all independent sources agree with you or disagree with you. Either way, Wikipedia can then report what you say, and then what they say about it.

If however every serious independent source has ignored what you say, it has no place on Wikipedia.

So why don't you list the serious independent publications that have commented on your writings one way or the other? Then editors can easily make a judgement as to whether it belongs here. Aredbeardeddwarf (talk) 17:01, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Is it possible, just possible, that it was you who did not read carefully and therefore understand what I had written in my previous reply in “Talk” for this page? It seems to me I had already addressed the main point you bring up, delving into even more basic issues than simply following rules. I was questioning your rule? No?

I am willing to consider your point again, however, and perhaps, at the cost or repeating myself, explain things differently this time, and perhaps also add a few more notes.

You are basically saying the following.

The rule is that what finds its way to the front-page for a topic in Wikipedia depends on whether it has been already “taken notice and commented on” by other “serious independent sources” (which you specify do not apply to websites of little to no traffic”). You say, it does not matter whether they agreed or not with what one has contributed, since Wikipedia will reflect both sides (presumably fairly) on the page if it decides to include one’s contribution. However, you say, if one’s contribution has been ignored by “every serious independent source,” then it “has no place on Wikipedia.” You put “ignored” in bold in your reply statement. Then you proceed to suggest that I offer “serious independent source” coverage links for my study regarding the page concerned so Wikipedia editors can “easily” make their judgment.

I hope I have clearly understood in the above what you were saying. If so, let us unpack it, if you care now to read what I had/have to say.

Let us for now take for granted your “rule,” although I will show you later that your reply does not seem to indicate that you have clearly understood Wikipedia rule-setting procedures and considerations, at least as they exist on “paper,” if not practiced.

If there is a rule, it should apply to everyone. However, you as editor, who thankfully have at least cared to respond, seem to assume that the same rule does not apply to you. The same goes for the other editor (who has still remained silent in response to the “unsigned” for nearly four months, and now to my reply for about two weeks; I made sure to give enough time to see if still he or she would reply and explain why he or she omitted the “unsigned”’s contribution, but that has not happened, oddly I must say.

Why are you, as editors, exempt from the same rule you apply to others?

Granted, you see yourself as just “editors” and do not (apparently) find it necessary to actually read the material about which you ax other’s evaluations and contributions. But this should not prevent the rule to also apply to you in any case. No? Your contribution to the page, even as minimal as clicking an a censor button, still decides what counts as worthy or not on that page. And this you do quite “easily” without feeling you owe an explanation.

So, why not apply the same rule you speak of to yourselves?

To repeat, your omitting or including voices are still contributions to the front-page. It does not even matter whether you actually researched the topic. The simple click to ax a revision, or include another, has substantive consequences for the page. No?

In your case(s) as editor(s), however, we are offered absolutely no “serious independent source” so that we also can know whether you are indeed qualified to make your mark on the Wiki page concerned.

Who are you? What are your backgrounds? What qualifications do you have to pass judgment on contents of the page? Where are the “serious independent sources” that can also vouch for YOUR contribution of axing or including, or judging what to include or not even from those deemed worthy?

How can we check what other serious independent sources have said, for or against, about YOUR editorial practices, for being supposedly fair or impartial referees about this page?  How can we even judge those evaluations, if existing, when you hide behind a veil of anonymity? How can we know you do not have a bias toward one or another explanation of the case, being in favor of one or another theory in the popular “serious” discussions going on regarding this topic?

Why does the rule not apply to you?

Wikipedia presents itself as a “free” encyclopedia, inviting newcomers (and already joined folks) to contribute to its page. It instructs you, editors and already joined folks, to be welcoming to newcomers. I do not see you editors here taking the time to follow that rule and explain to the “unsigned” where he or she went wrong in his or her assessment, other than just saying his or her contribution does not count because it is just one voice. The “unsigned” at least took the time to read the report, and more so to offer his or her voice to Wikipedia. Is not that what you invite folks to do? You seem to think of folks in numbers, one is not worthy, many are worthy.

So, most likely you reply to the above by saying, the “unsigned” is just one person, not representing a highly visible “serious independent source,” the same way you are implying the same regarding my contribution.

Alright, let us now consider this side of the issue.

On Wikipedia pages, there are pages on many topics that are old or new. To some, not much new material is added for a long time, to others new material are added daily or even hourly. Some pages reflect what people have contributed to the topic for months, years, decades, or perhaps even centuries, having had ample time to be noticed (not “ignored”) by others. For example, in mid 1800s, FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat was rejected by a journal, and then ignored for months, for almost two years, and was eventually left in a penny-a-book box to be given away, before someone noticed it, passing the word or copies to others, and so on. He had self-published it with his own funds. It became in time widely known and celebrated, deservedly or not.

The Somerton Man’s death took place in 1949, about seven decades ago. Much of the material Wikipedia has on his page are years, if not decades, old. There has not been any serious and independent academic research done on it by social scientific sources, nor by anyone familiar with Khayyami studies, nor by anyone specifically native in or familiar with Persian or Arabic. The few that have conjectured on the so-called code to be related to languages other than European have not considered carefully the Arabic transliteration solution. The only classroom study done on the code by a university professor and his students (with whom he reportedly ran into differences later on) oddly did not even seriously consider that the code could be related to languages other than European. Of course studies are being done on the Somerton Man’s body to trace his genes. That is a different line of research that is also promising. But studies of the code in the traditional way, even done by intelligence agencies, have resulted in nothing new for decades.

The reason I am noting the above, without intending to discuss the topic itself (which is not the purpose of this “Talk” page), is that any fair editor will have to consider how long it has taken for a new contribution since its publication to become available. My report was published on Oct. 1, 2021. The “unsigned” offered his or her contribution sometime in late October or early Nov., soon axed by that easy and no longer responding editor on Nov. 5. The “unsigned” replied on Nov. 7 questioning the exclusion and reasons for it. So, the publication had even hardly been around for a month before the editor axed it, not finding it welcoming (let alone necessary) to reply to the “unsigned”’s complaint, just to say why the omission was made.

Now, here is another important point to consider.

What you have offered as a “rule” to be followed regarding Wikipedia page editing, not only seems to not apply to your own action in this matter as editor, but also seems to ignore the fact that Wikipedia as a source on the web has now itself become a source people follow in trying to judge whether a contribution is worthy or not, to be ignored or not.

In other words, the Wikipedia page itself, by axing a new contribution that has not even had a chance yet to be heard, let alone be taken notice, has in effect told others to treat the contribution as being not serious. It is one thing for a contribution not be even considered (for which I can cite many other examples), and another for it to be noticed by an “unsigned” and then axed as being not worthy, with the deletion being also recorded online. Do you really think people who are actually interested in this case will not notice Wikipedia’s “ignoring” the contribution?

Wikipedia seems to still hold a rather chunky Newtonian, billiards-ball vision of what publishing in the age of the internet and quantum science. Observers to change what they observe, and not just in microscopic worlds. You and colleagues see yourselves as a weave of a different cloth, so to speak, not considering that the rules you apply to others must also be applicable to yourselves. You are not even willing or expected to actually read the material you ax (or include) from Wiki pages. Having been given the title “editor” has given you a license to self-gratifyingly omit others contribution when not fitting your interpretations of the rules.

It makes things easier, of course, if you instruct your editors not to bother to actually read the material. All you care about is to apply a cookie-cutter rule, find popular topics about which a “popular contest” is going on, pro and con, and do the editing. Such safe choices must also offer higher traffic to your pages, which, while being self-serving in terms of financial support prospects, does not seem to be a reasonable criteria for judging the merits of a serious work, material that should be judged according to their substance and not their popularity record.

In the rule you have described, you have basically reduced the consideration of sources to a “popularity contest,” albeit of “serious” ones, assuming that the truth may be found either in on one or another or both/all view(s) that have been voiced, not considering that for long-standing puzzles such as the Somerton Man case, whose every side has been repeatedly discussed over the decades with no solution in sight, new contributions can be made that do not fit in any of the previous explanations, yet can be readily ignored by others who have an interest in insisting on their own tale for the case. Wikipedia seems to be not considering that a contribution can come out of marginal currents, not having been discussed by any of your deemed popular sources in the past—for otherwise, the solution would have been found decades earlier.

What this tells me is that there is inherently a “blind-spot” in Wikipedia rules, or at least as they are interpreted and practiced, which not only downplays new voices not previously represented in the popular media or publications, not only it ignores the fact that it takes time for new findings to be noticed, but also that Wikipedia’s ignoring them on purpose, or even axing them immediately without any substantive justification or explanation, itself can contribute to the finding being ignored as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The fact, however, is that your editorial observations and actions themselves also determine what material become popular and what are left out and ignored. Wikipedia is not just a bystander reporting on other sources, but is itself now, whether liked or not, treated as a source of what counts as knowledge. Someone interested in the topic looks it up in Wikipedia, and not finding it there (or worse, seeing it as having been axed), will think that the contribution is to be ignored since Wikipedia says so.

There can be numerous reasons why people may ignore a finding, but in your simplistic interpretation of what “not being noticed” means, being ignored ends up meaning that the contribution must be not worthy. Perhaps you may even want to read your Wikipedia pages on “ignorance” or even “ignorance is bliss” to see what I was trying to say in my previous reply, one that you chose to ignore.

I don’t understand why folks in Wikipedia seek serious independent sources to judge the worth of anything, yet ignore a “serious independent source” that is offering this critique of Wikipedia.

Let me break you the news. Wikipedia is, for all practical purposes, essentially a community of self-publishers, whether you like it or not, whether the contribution is axing a voice or including another, or reflecting all worthy views (presumably fairly) for a Wikipedia page. You may read what I just said as a negative portrayal for Wikipedia, but actually I am saying it as a matter of praise and compliment. It seems to me Wikipedia started by saying, “we don’t want ‘big brothers’ telling us what is worthy and reliable information about one or another topic, so we start our own participative free encyclopedia.” For all practical purposes you are doing, even as editor, what a self-publisher does, in the sense that you pick and choose what is worthy or not based on your own personal opinion. Wikipedia has been trying to be participative, encouraging others to see Wikipedia as their own, feel welcomed.

But what seems to have been happening instead is that Wikipedia has become a new “big brother” on the block, and in some ways become even worse. At least in traditional publishing peer review systems they try to find someone who specializes on a topic, even though by blinding the process, in my view, they have also gone astray by assuming that it is even possible to have blind reviews. Since sociology of knowledge and science is my specialty I guess I am justified in offering my assessment, since there is no way to even choose blind-reviewers blindly and not consider their input in a neutral/blind way. The modern peer reviewing system is just a game constructed for the interest of gate-keepers of what goes as science. Einstein abhorred one of his papers being given to someone else for peer review by the journal editors, saying he did not find the person fit to judge him. Even if you look at the pages you have cited from popularly contested serious sources, you will find that only some aspects of the views are chosen and others are not. There is no way editors in Wikipedia can be neutral arbiters while riding the same train with contributors. They can pretend and make themselves believe they are neutral and “easy” editors, but I can tell you, as a qualified and credentialed sociologist of knowledge and science, that such a think is impossible.

Troubling, however, is that Wikipedia is becoming a community of self-publishers who duplicitiously think they are not so themselves and in turn stigmatize self-publishers in turn, ignoring them and not listening to what they say or write or “talk,” not even questioning themselves and not even finding it necessary to explain why they omit a contribution from others.

If you click on your signature link (Talk) leading you to where you end up on the wikipedia page “Five pillars,” you will find the following, one that I actually found refreshing, being the last on the list, stating the “pillar” that “Wikipedia has no firm rules.” The whole paragraph for it is actually interesting, basically advancing the notion (as it appears on the Wikipedia page for “Wikipedia” itself) that Wikipedia rules are themselves Wiki knowledges to be contested and reconsidered, and revised through the contribution of all.

That is good to know, but, alas, it remains useless when not practiced. I have not gained the sense in your response, or in another’s non-response, that you are actually aware of this flexibility with rules in Wikipedia, for otherwise, you would be open to consider that rigid rules do not necessarily apply to specific cases.

What is most puzzling to me is why Wikipedia, or some folks in their community at least, cannot just find simple and “easy” alternative new solutions for these situations. All it takes is just add a section to the page for “New or Less Discussed Emerging Studies or Perspectives” and add new or even some views not traditionally considered. It would be more in line with Wikipedia’s participative and new-contributor-welcoming philosophy, and make editors less rule-executioners and more self-reflective listeners, or even more hopefully readers, of the sources and contributions they ax with supposedly best of intentions.

What “serious independent sources” do you really expect to pick up on new studies on the Somerton Man code, as far as social scientific contributions are concerned? The topic has hardly been picked up academically by anyone from a social studies point of view, and the studies already done, whether reasonably or academic or not, are already vested in their own tales and conspiracy theories about the man. Why should we expect them NOT to ignore new findings such as mine that would undermine their years- or decades-long conclusions?  I have argued that Eurocentricity lies at the heart of why this case has remained unresolved. Do you actually think those who maintain Eurocentric views like to hear that, unless they are open-minded? Actually, nothing could have been easier than rejecting my findings by others, if they could reasonably do so. So “ignoring” it may actually be a sign that amid all these strange social media material on the case, there are some thoughtful readers who are reading the report and are not the type to quickly jumping into conclusions. They are not ignoring it. They are reading it.

I am a sociologist, specializing in the sociological imagination (which concerns itself with the study of how personal troubles and public issues interrelate), my studies are transdisciplinary and transcultural, I am a Khayyami studies scholar, know Persian natively, am familiar with Arabic sufficiently to be able to judge whether a text is an Arabic transliteration, and I have supported my deciphering of the code in detail in the report. For seventy years nothing like this has been reported about the Somerton Man code. Wikipedia can help by letting others know about this finding at least, even if it deems it a minor voice, and let others judge its worth rather than preemptively, as the character Barney Fife in Andy Griffith Show would have it “Nip it in the Bud!” The initial editor did not even allow one month for the publication to circulate amid a pandemic and just axed it, “easily,” using lack of “serious independent source” as an excuse. Not even one month! Not even ONE month!

Being independent is a relative term. Actually, my report is the serious independent source for much of the past studies done on the Somerton Man. You say you reflect all sides, but have ignored my side of the story. People may ignore anything for a variety of reasons not having anything to do with the merits of the study itself. They just may not know about it, thanks to Wikipedia so far. Seventy years passed, another seventy or more to go.

Ironically, I think Wikipedia will actually become a part of the history of the Somerton Man case, like it or not. History will tell that after seventy years, the code was solved by someone on the margins but with all the required qualifications, and your rule structure and misjudgment of your editor(s) prevented Wikipedia from taking notice. What a shame! Wikipedia could have been the pioneer in doing so, but blew it, thanks to your unwelcoming editors who seem unable to think outside the box they have themselves created (i.e., self-published).

Wikipedia seems to be failing its own rules and promise, sorry to say.

But then, you run into things like the following statement on its pages (with which I will close this talk). It must be an ornamental relic from the past, somebody enlightened and imaginative wrote it and then all forgot about it—at least our editors seem to have. It seems to make people think Wikipedia practices flexible, self-correcting, rule-setting procedures, but judging from what has transpired regarding the page concerned, it seems clear that Wikipedia is not practicing what it itself preaches:

“If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it” (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules).

That is all I have o say. MHTamdgidi (talk) 13:12, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not reading all that, as straight away I can tell you that I have made precisely no contributions to this article as I know nothing about it, so where do you get the idea that I think the same standards don't apply to me, somehow?

You still don't get the fundamental rule of Wikipedia - it is NOT for original research. if you have original research, publish it elsewhere, and when you do, then Wikipedia can report it. And it has to be a serious independent source. If no serious independent source is interested in this case any more, as you claim, than that's tough. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, it's settled. You simply don't understand what Wikipedia is. This is not the place to argue your theories.

I know you will say "how can you deny my theories when you admit you know nothing about the case" but you see, that's just your misunderstanding again. I don't have to know anything about it; I just need to be able to check that sources say what the article claims they say. That's the whole point, it's not for Wikipedia editors to decide whose personal website is worthy of inclusion; nobody's is. The assumption is anything of note will be found somewhere other than someone's personal website. If you are right, then in time your research will be recognised and mentioned elsewhere, and can be included. It's really simple. Wikipedia does not want to be the pioneeer in anything. It works hard to avoid being the pioneer in anything. Please try and understand that. Aredbeardeddwarf (talk) 22:27, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Even (see Tamdgidi 2005/6 https://www.okcir.com/product/journal-article-editors-note-peer-reviewing-the-peer-review-process-by-mohammad-h-tamdgidi/ or 2008 https://www.okcir.com/product/sociological-imaginations-from-the-classroom-plus-a-symposium-on-the-sociology-of-science-perspectives-on-the-malfunctions-of-science-and-peer-reviewing/ also https://www.okcir.com/product/journal-article-editors-note-toward-sociological-re-imaginations-of-science-and-peer-reviewing-by-mohammad-h-tamdgidi/) the deeply flawed and duplicitous single-blind, or even worse, double-blind, peer reviewing system that serves to gate-keep dominant paradigms in academia at least pretend that they seek and select peer judges who are specialists in the field, who actually take the time to read the material as it is ethically required of any fair person, and offer their opinion (which is what really their contribution is, just an opinion, since there is absolutely no way anyone can claim being ‘objective’ in science any more, unless they include their own views in what they judge, pro or con (see Tamdgidi 2020 https://www.okcir.com/product/liberating-sociology-from-newtonian-toward-quantum-imaginations-volume-1-unriddling-the-quantum-enigma/ see especially the last chapter) and whoever claims it is, he or she still lives the illusions of Newtonian science that assumes one can separate the observed from its observers, like billiard balls.

And yet, now we hear from your Wikipedia horse’s mouth, as you have stated, that your judging does not even require you to have read a piece, let alone to have made a contribution to it (assuming that axing, or supporting the axing, is not a contribution, which certainly is). All you need to do is check the “seriousness” of the sources; seems simple enough and does not supposedly require years of academic training and acquiring qualifications, apparently. Actually, you are making such a virtue out of this, which amounts to what Wikipedia seems to be actually “pioneering” in science, and beat others with that (none?)pioneering stick. “I don’t need to know anything about the case, let alone contribute to it, yet I can judge whether your piece is serious and worthy, and can support my Wikipedia colleague in doing so, because I don’t see (yet) others commenting on it seriously, pro or con.” If that is not a pioneering approach to judging knowledge worthiness, what you claim what wikipedia is about, then I don’t know what is!

Did I again summarize your point of view correctly above, and before? I think I have already many times tried to show that I understood your point of view. You are saying that it is not for Wikipedia to judge a contribution right or wrong; all it does is include contributions that have been picked and discussed by others, pro or con, in serious venues. If so, you have thankfully admitted, and that is a progress, I guess, it will be reflected in Wikipedia, apparently admitting it should not matter whether it is originally published in others works, or in your own “personal site.” You have said, if it is picked up by other serious sources, it will be reflected in Wikipedia.

From a Wikipedia judge one should expect a rounded, not a selective, reading of others’ points of view. You keep on bringing the point that I have not understood you or Wikipedia, yet you have conveniently ignored the basic thrust of my argument, from the beginning, because that seems to serve your argument.

I have told you that let us assume your opinion, “settled” in Wikipedia, to be true.

Just to digress here briefly, it is actually not true, as Wikipedia itself lists a whole list of problems with itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia or here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_not_so_great or others do here https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/10/22/175674/the-decline-of-wikipedia/), pro or con. There are so many things there that dispute your claim of “settled rules” in Wikipedia that one does not know where to begin. Even what I quoted at the end of my last reply indicates that the very claim that there is a “settled rule” in Wikipedia is itself counter-Wikipedian. I will even end this reply with another one. Yet, you conveniently wish to appeal to some absolute Godly point of view that somehow makes an absolute about something that out of all places, Wikipedians should admit does not exist.

But, again going over things I have already said but you seem to ignore conveniently, let us assume you have a settled rule as you have described.

If that is the case, why are there sources mentioned in the page on the Somerton Man, that would have no basis to be included as “serious” sources? I do not wish to list them in detail, since from my point of view anything that offers something worthwhile should be included. In my view, there is nothing wrong with sharing, if they are serious contributions, whether picked up by others or not, and they can even be labeled as majority or minority/emerging views.

But, the burden is upon you, dear Wikipedia judge, to read the piece, to make sure the stick you beat me with you apply also to others.

You have continued to assume that I actually care about being in the front-page of Wikipedia on that topic. If you cared to look in my work, you can easily find many many more topics on whose page my work has simply been ignored, even though I have published them with major other “serious” publishers, peer reviewed by other serious academics, and they have been plenty cited by others in various “serious” peer reviewed publications. But nothing as such has been picked up by your claimed perfect system in Wikipedia. If you have not reflected those, now years if not decades past, what makes you think I can trust your judgment that you will pick on this one topic?

The reason I have entered this conversation has had nothing to do whatever with asking for being on your front-page for the topic. Don’t include it, it is your and your readers' loss. If that was the case, I would have said these things many years earlier regarding my other works. I was simply trying to support one of your Wikipedia readers who had assumed was a participant in Wikipedia’s great system of participative Wikipedia, by contributing his or her passage regarding my contribution. Your other judge (Mr. or Mrs. Nø) has yet to respond about why he or she axed “unsigned”s contribution, apparently justified by the same reasoning that you, as his or her colleague, are espousing.

My argument has been to show the inconsistencies in the interpretation and application of your own supposedly “settled rule.” To continue with questioning your point of view (I guess you must be welcoming “serious” comments on your personal opinion, not dismissing it offhand) if your rule is settled and correct, then, I have been trying to show many times, what gives YOU the right to assume that your point of view is correct, as a self-published opinion? We don’t know who you are and what your background and qualifications are, so there goes the ability to judge your seriousness. You have offered just a personal opinion (so that takes care of your condition of saying something on your personal column on a Wikipedia talk site, much easier than building your own website for decades), and now we are told that you do not even have to have read, let alone made a contribution, to judge a piece worthy or not, or whether another contribution/contributor is a worthy “serious” source. I give you credit for at least engaging in a conversation, however, as Nø is nowhere yet to be found.

If you did care to read the Wikipedia page on the topic, you would find that no academic specialist as such has actually made a contribution before on the specific topic of the Somerton Man code, in the way you prescribe. The code studied in and self-published by a classroom or its faculty does not seem to meet your settled rule condition, even if picked on by others in the media. A detective’s self-published work is still not an academic work, if that is what you mean by “serious.” I am a specialist in the sociological imagination, which studies how personal troubles and public issues inter-related (see Tamdgidi in Wiley’s Encyclopedia of Sociology https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeos1673). I have founded and edited an academic journal dedicated to the advancing the sociological imagination (https://www.okcir.com, judging many scholarly contributions of faculty and students of various ranks). I have a Ph.D. in sociology on that specialty, have been a tenured/promoted faculty, going through lots of reviews you may not even imagine. I am a Khayyami scholar, familiar with the Rubaiyat, know Persian natively, and am familiar enough with Arabic to be able to recognize the Arabic transliteration nature of the Somerton Man code. I have offered my assessment in detail, with clear supportive links, being offered for judgment by others, pro or con; it is a serious contribution to the topic. Wikipedia can follow an alternative model of being inclusive of majority/dominant or minority/emerging contributions on a topic, if they cared to actually read a contribution and be truly reflective of what is out there on a topic. But, it is choosing to ax some in favor of others, others being included despite their not fitting the ‘settled rule’ you have mentioned.

There is a blindspot in your exchanges with me that is preventing you from seeing the most important sides of my argument, in truly being objective, since ultimately, my argument is not about what I want the rule to be, but about how you are defining and applying the rule inconsistently yourself. And yet, I have not even once read in your words anything that indicates to me you are aware of shortcomings on Wikipedia’s side, self-reflectively speaking. You have instead tried to sanitize it, ignoring controversies that even Wikipedia, pro or con, has admitted as being worthy of being listed on its pages.

Wikipedia is clearly, in your own words even despite your denial of the same, pioneering something. It is pioneering a way of judging knowledge that legitimates judges not even bothering to read a contribution, or be aware of the history and nature of topic being discussed. They hide behind their anonymity, preventing us from judging whether they are “serious” or not themselves, even in checking the sources, just using Wikipedia to offer their own personal opinions about a topic as if on their own personal column on Wikipedia’s talk website. They do not feel they should wait until their self-published opinions actually gather a minimal traction in the public exchanges to see whether “their views” are picked up by others (as they expect for those they judge). So, without even feeling a need, in a “friendly way,” to explain axing the views of an “unsigned” (axed by the ever elusive and silent Nø), they find themselves justified in taking action and cutting others’ views off from supposedly participative Wikipedia public discourse, and even making a virtue out of their not being specialists, let alone basic serious readers or even contributors, of the topic pages they judge. And they call that a “settled rule.” That is clearly a pioneering contribution Wikipedia is making, duplicitously, to sharing relevant and serious knowledge with others.

You say, “Wikipedia does not want to be the pioneeer [sic] in anything. It works hard to avoid being the pioneer in anything.” Oh, I wish things were as simple as that. Your blind spot, that is, not seeing yourself in what you observe in others, is again working magnificently for you. Even Wikipedia seems to be refuting your opinion, dear judge, even though the one who wrote it, or those who allowed it to stay, must not really mean it, judging from your judgment rule practices:

“As it's a wiki, anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, and everyone is encouraged to. Overall, Wikipedia gets hundreds of times more well-meaning editors than bad ones, so problematic editors rarely obtain much of a foothold. In the normal course of events, the primary control over editorship is the effective utilization of the large number of well-intentioned editors to overcome issues raised by the much smaller number of problematic editors. It is inherent in the Wikipedia model's approach that poor information can be added, but that over time those editing articles reach strong consensus, and quality improves in a form of group learning, so that substandard edits will rapidly be removed. This assumption is still being tested and its limitations and reliability are not yet a settled matter – Wikipedia is a pioneer in communal knowledge building of this kind.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editorial_oversight_and_control) MHTamdgidi (talk) 19:40, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

For the last time - Wikipedia reports on things that have been discussed elsewhere. it does not seek to be ahead of accepted current research, its goal is to remain a step behind. That is what Wikipedia is. You need a different platform to present your arguments. You are desperately trying to argue for it to be something else, what you want it to be, becuase that would be "better". That would be sometihng else. Such other things exist, go bother them. Wikipedia doesnt care that it will be "proved to have been wrong", it is supposed to report current thinking, not try and get at the truth. You seem simply incapable of understanding this.

Contact the Australian media. Get a reputable tv show or a newspaper to run something on your ideas, then you can add that to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not going to be the first place to give them currency - that is not what it is for. If there's anything in your arguments at all one of the Australian papers is going to be happy to give it half a page somewhere. Then Wikipedia can report "Newspaper X ran this story..".

You do realise I am not anybody, yes? I have no "position as an editor". I am a user of Wikipedia, exactly the same as you. I am explaining a general principle to you, and you still don't understand that whether I think your theories are good, bad, or indifferent, or whether I have never read them, is completely immaterial.

I've removed your moronic and insulting accusations of racism. Take that up with someone if you want. I will not bother responding to you again, I have tried to help and you are not worth my time.Aredbeardeddwarf (talk) 08:19, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

That’s odd! The “editor” above deleted a passage from my talk he or she did not like to hear, then accused me of something I never said. What a fair way of letting others judge the truth of your opinion, dear editor! Is this an example of how you reflect pros and cons on Wikipedia pages? My arguments could not have been proven right any better than what you did and more so, the language you used.

Actually, I see you cut even more lines than was even allegedly relevant to the accusation you were making. In these other lines, I was pointing out the inconsistency of applications of the so-called “settled rules” you were claiming Wikipedia has and I showed, quoting from Wikipedia itself, that no such “settled rules” can exist on its pages.

All this proves my points throughout. No need for me to take this up with a Wikipedia that allows for this sort of “editing” of contrary views to take place. Let the records show that in a talk page, an editor chose to delete a passage from another talk, yet commented on it any ways. Wikipedia at its worst is on display here!

End of this talk. MHTamdgidi (talk) 20:56, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

For the last time, you cretin, I am no more an "editor" than you are. You realise I haven't made any edits on this article, yes? All I have tried to do is explain to you on this talk page the mistakes you are making about the function of Wikipedia, and I am met with abuse and conspiracy theory. Too right I will delete accusations of racism you level against me. It's still in the history for anyone who wants to check so pointless you denying it. Aredbeardeddwarf (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Also, for last time, since you added more to the talk:

Believe it or not, I am sad and quite surprised that you have been saying these things and suddenly using such vulgar language against me. I thought, despite our differences, we were having a frank conversation; I even mentioned what to me seemed like some progress in our talk.

Your entry into the subject was trying to explain what in your view Wikipedia is, not what it should be. My entry was to show that Wikipedia, according to its own self-definition (as I quoted many times from its own page), is or should be a flexible media, where people can even offer their views on how it can be run. I cited serious sources from Wikipedia itself to support my view. You ignored all that, insisting that only your point of view was the correct one, without engaging with the sources and arguments I was offering to open the conversation to wider contexts.

As much as you say I did not understand you, I can say you did not understand me. That is in the nature of having arguments. I had no doubt that you had nothing to do with editing the piece on that page. I also understand that in Wikipedia all are, as you say, users and editors. I think you took my comment about my name out of context and overreacted, since I was referring to Wikipedia generally in the wider passage (a collective “you” which includes you too, of course) but my point was to draw your attention to explaining why the same rule you said should apply, does not, when your conditioned are met regarding my other works.

You can interpret what I said in the passage you deleted the way you wish, but I have the right to also interpret why there can be inconsistencies in the application of same rules, and why they happen in discriminating ways. I also have a right to understand that your sudden turn in using abusive language against me is itself telling of how you react to those having different or ‘other’ opinions from you. You have, in your word ‘conspiratorially,’ assumed I was accusing you of racism, and proceeded to call me names, and they now seem to get worse each time you engage.

I would not have even considered deleting any part of your talk, or, now, vulgar language, simply because I felt offended by it, right or wrong. This is what makes what you did rather odd and unbecoming of the high standards you were setting for Wikipedia pages, even as just a user. It does not matter to me whether you edited or not a front page; your manner of editing this talk seems to be itself illustrative.

My whole point had been that one cannot take oneself out of the context, where one is making a decision about whether “other serious” sources have drawn on a work, so as to make it worthy of Wikipedia pages (according to your rules). There is something wrong with the logic being applied. You say, A must be judged by a serious B, pro or con, to deserve inclusion in Wikipedia. So, my reply was, first, why in other situations where such conditions of A and B both existing were met, Wikipedia ignored the work. Second, how do you decide whether B is itself serious or not? That will have to require a C to come into a picture, no? Then, how do you judge B or C? And so on. Is it just “reputation”? Does not having training and expertise to back a work up also count? At some point, the verifiable training of those who produce a work must play a role in deciding their seriousness, and if so, why discriminate against A, simply because it has made a new contribution, one that may be ignored for various reason for a long while? You have tended to see lack of citation by others as an automatic judgment on their your work. I have said, such lack of citation by itself does not mean anything out of the context, and only those who have serious familiarity with the subject can judge the silences. A whole literature is sociology of knowledge is devoted to understanding why some topics are silenced or ignored while others receive immediate media and dominant gate-keeper attention.

In my view, Wikipedia is a flexible medium, or supposed to be, and can rethink its rules to allow for such possibilities. Your response has been that, that is not what Wikipedia is and is intended to be. My response was, why not rethink the rules? Just because you disagree with me does not justify you calling me names and using vulgar language. That is not a good example to set for what your Wikipedia is, and if yours is the sort of vulgar talk Wikipedia is proud to have, I will have nothing to do with it.

In any case, I think the right thing to do is to keep your vulgar language used against me as it is, and not edit it out so others who you wish to judge us could see and make their own judgments upfront, rather than having them go through the trouble of searching the talk’s history.

I wish you well, and, still, appreciate, as I said before, your engaging with me in this conversation, even though the result was not as expected. I have no doubt that you started with the good intention of trying to explain the situation, from your point of view. I appreciate your time, and I hope you understand that my time also matters and I did not have to engage with you, either. But I did and am still trying.

Poor Somerton Man, deeper and wider understanding whom was really the point of all this. MHTamdgidi (talk) 06:44, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Reminder

Reminder to all editors (here and elsewhere) that editing other people's comments in a talk page is definitely deprecated and cannot be tolerated. Please restore any of your own comments that have been modified and by no means modify other people's text (except in specific circumstances). Editors who cannot follow Wikipedia's basic rules will be notified to admin. Please avoid personal attacks and edit with respect even in disagreement. Thanks JabberJaw (talk) 04:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

In your link: "Derogatory comments about another contributor may be removed by any editor."

I removed derogatory comments implying I was applying a racist bias and not accepting his edits to the article (not that I was touching his edits anyway) because his name was Arabic. Aredbeardeddwarf (talk) 09:52, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes - you are correct - hence my edit to include that aspect of acceptable edits to other's comments in my previous message. It's easy for people to get 'personally invested' in some topics and sometimes the line blurs between arguing a point and taking arguing personally. I haven't read this entire section, but my feeling was that it was drifting towards the latter. Thanks again for your efforts to build a consensus here. JabberJaw (talk) 21:45, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

You say you have not read the entire section, yet, you have judged the right and wrong, and then claim having moved toward consensus? Did you read the language the editor used in addressing me in the last few exchanges?

Frankly, I thought your original intervention was a balanced observation to remedy the language used by the editor, what seems to fit what you call "personal attacks" and what the editor calls "derogatory comments." Yet, you have said nothing about that. Is that language used by the editor what you regard as the standard to be followed in Wikipedia talks?

It is hard to believe what just happened, but I have already commented on matters sufficiently, so this will be my last note. MHTamdgidi (talk) 00:27, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

The reason you can't believe it is that you seem congenitally incapable of understanding any of it. Aredbeardeddwarf (talk) 14:41, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Can we add info about Carl Webb?

I don't know how to add information with stuff that links to articles.. But just today, he was identified by DNA. Can someone update this article to reflect this? Glorialafolle (talk) 02:29, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

This had already been done. Note, however, that the sources currently report this as a claimed identification and note that it has not yet been verified, which means we should do the same, and only update e.g. the name in the infobox once the sources state that. Melcous (talk) 07:43, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

New request not associated with request above: I’ve invested only two hours since viewing the story on BBC.com re:Webb. But one article I googled

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/it-all-fits-researcher-finds-melbourne-identity-of-somerton-man-20220727-p5b4wh.html

mentioned an identity of T. Keane as Webb’s brother-in-law.

Finally, I suggest an addition to the article, given the other corpse found in 1945 with the same Rubaiyat book, suggesting the book was used in the coding of the encrypted message. I hope to find an authoritative source that discusses this. Frank R.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.193.154 (talk) 12:30, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 27 July 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Somerton Man by a strong consensus. No such user (talk) 11:54, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

---

Tamam Shud case → Somerton man – This is a much more common name. I had never heard of it being called the Tamam Shud case, in all of my decades of living in Adelaide. Google returns 10,800 hits under that name, vs 257,000 for Somerton man. (And I think "Mystery of" is redundant.) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 11:23, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I see that the redirect is from the capitalised version, Somerton Man, which might be better as it could be argued that lower case make it seem as if it is any man from Somerton - but I'm agnostic on this one. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 11:26, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
  • I think it is correct to capitalise "Man", as in e.g. Piltdown Man, Lindow Man. Adpete (talk) 23:22, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support Somerton Man is by far thr better known name.★Trekker (talk) 13:00, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't understand why "Somerton man" is being proposed when "Somerton Man" seems to be more widely used as well as more logical. Thincat (talk) 15:14, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Not sure exactly where you stand. You prefer "Tamam Shud case" to "Somerton man", but do you also prefer it to "Somerton Man"? This seems unclear. "Somerton Man" is on the table and widely supported, so of the name were to to be changed to "Somerton Man", may we mark you as supporting that? Herostratus (talk) 02:09, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

If the nomination had proposed SoMeRtOn MaN I would not have regarded "Somerton Man" as being on the table and I would have also opposed. Thincat (talk) 19:05, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

So bewildered am I by the seeming convention that you !vote "support" to oppose a nomination (see the reply to my comment below) that I am striking my !vote above. It would be helpful to document this convention at WP:RM#Commenting on a requested move Thincat (talk) 20:14, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose the article is about a case, not only about a man. Artem.G (talk) 15:36, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support but to Somerton Man with a capital "M". Much more people would search for the words "Somerton Man" rather than the current title. Also, articles of unidentified (or formerly unidentified) people commonly use their "nickname" as the article title. See Lyle Stevik, Isdal Woman, Mary Anderson (decedent), Lori Erica Ruff, Joseph Newton Chandler III, and Lady of the Dunes. Changing the article title to "Somerton Man" will satisfy WP:CONSIST. CountyCountry (talk) 20:05, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support, the name of Somerton Man is more recognizable , even calling the article as The Mysterious Case off the Somerton Man, which was the case name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.43.189.59 (talk) 22:33, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support - it is clearly more popularly known as the "Somerton Man case"; just look through the references and links: 7 with Taman or Tamam in the title, 53 with "Somerton". Perhaps Somerton Man case to meet @Artem.G:'s concerns. Adpete (talk) 23:20, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I don't understand why people are putting "support" in bold and then suggesting a change to a different title. Thincat (talk) 08:06, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

  In my experience, supports infer that the editor wants the name of the article changed from what it currently is to something else. Opposes reject moving the page at all. Anarchyte (talk) 10:13, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose I agree with Artem.G The article remains easy to find and accessible under it's current title, and it is more accurate to the entirety of the content. Jrdburrow (talk) 13:40, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

How is it more accurate to the entirety of its content? The main content of the article is the mystery of who the Somerton man was, while the phrase "Tamum Shud" is just one of several clues. Adpete (talk) 07:26, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support per CountyCountry -Gouleg🛋️ ^harass/_hound 13:51, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Google Ngrams doesn't give data, but Google Trends indicates that a lot more people search on the string "somerton man" than on "tamam shud case". I also support the capitalization "Somerton Man" on the grounds that "Somerton Man" is gramatically correct (it is, in essence, a proper name) and that is a matter of style, and on matters of style we have a lot of leeway to follow our own MOS rather than the MOS's used by other publications. Herostratus (talk) 02:09, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support "Somerton Man" (with capital M) because it's clearly in greater general usage, by just searching either title, and makes more sense (i.e. until there's a definite identity confirmed) than naming it for one possible lead. -- Bacon Noodles (talk • contribs • uploads) 16:57, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support Somerton Man appears to be the WP:COMMONNAME here. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 21:12, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support Somerton Man (it is the OP that raised the sugestion on the capital M). It appears the man's identity may be on the point of confirmation, but I expect he will continue to be known by this label long into the future. --Scott Davis ^Talk 02:09, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support - when one thinks of "The Somerton Man" they aren't just thinking of the man by himself (Somerton Man is just a police/sleuth/local name for him), but the mystery surrounding his death. I don't see it as being any different to Tamam Shud, but Somterton Man appears to be the most common name for this case. --SinoDevonian (talk) 00:31, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support Somerton Man. I have been interested in the case for many years, and I have never heard it called the "Tamam Shud case", always the "Somerton Man" (with or without capitalisation). The scrap of paper torn out of the Rubiat is only a small aspect of the case. The article is about the man himself as well as the mystery of his death, the Piltdown Man case is not called the "Dawson hoax".TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 16:46, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deleting "Marshall Case"

I intend to delete the "Marshall Case" section. There is no connection (3 years earlier, different city) other than the dead person had the same book, and no connection is offered in the article. The section also entirely uses primary sources, so drawing a connection is WP:OR. Adpete (talk) 05:43, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

The man has been finally identified using dna testing, by finding family members.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/27/somerton-man-mystery-identity-solved-identified-australia

Time to change the article a bit. Also the wife of Abbot was not related. 46.204.76.211 (talk) 06:05, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't be changed yet. This is just an academic's claim. There would need to be some official finding, like a coroner's report to make it official. --Dmol (talk) 07:55, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

"just an academic" is not the same as "just some random hobo", since they guy did actual science to reach his conclusion. He didn't use a Ouiji Board. It's ultimately a matter of truth and science not politics, so whatever official findings are in play are data points and not conclusive. We should not say in our own voice "Well, now we know who they guy was", no, but this new report is definitely worth including, particularly since it's been extensively covered. Herostratus (talk) 11:11, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but lets not be hasty, mistakes can happen even in science. If it becomes accepted reliable sources will report and confirm it.★Trekker (talk) 08:24, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

we should go with plausible deniability. We can write the article neutrally, "On basis of DNA findings, Abbott has claimed...", and "no response from coroner/govt". We already have appropriate section and mention of Abbott's research in article. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:10, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

that has already been done as of this comment. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:16, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a very likely match - the DNA Doe Project being onboard seems to cement that. I am often left annoyed and incredulous of how some editors seem to believe that only text pertaining to "official" (Gov, Law enforcement) statements or directives should be added to articles such as these - so I am glad to see section on this likely match being added and sustained. --SinoDevonian (talk) 18:25, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

I am going to change the Infobox from "Unidentified for X years" to "Possibly identified". The criteria for Wikipedia is reliable sources, and there are dozens of reliable sources saying that Abbott and Fitzpatrick's identification is correct or probably correct. Adpete (talk) 02:47, 9 August 2022 (UTC)