Posting on Academia.edu? Yay or nay?

[Jan Lundquist]

I have been thinking about the best way/place, to frame the Townsend Brown story against the lens of history. Parts 1 & 2 are posted to Nates TTB Reddit timeline. These take us through 1926, I see it as, the End of the Beginning.

When story opens up, as it is about to do, to the bigger story (or stories...this is Townsend we are talking about), It is impossible to talk about the powerhouse trio from the NRL, Taylor, Hulbert, and Gunn. without giving their backstories. But I write excruciatingly slowly, checking dates and records as I go, so it is laborious work.

Since I am finally talking the story in an orderly fashion, I would like make sure that the results are in someone's Permanent File. Academia.edu seems to be the logical choice. Or is there another, better alternative?

Jan

[Jan Lundquist]

And it's free: https://www.bibliography.com/

Jan

[David Osielski]

Professionally speaking, definitely yay. Our faculty use it individually and institutionally.
https://wheaton.academia.edu/

[David Osielski]

I have my own independent page, but just to track authors (not for my own publications...of which there aren't any )
https://independent.academia.edu/DavidOsielski

[Jan Lundquist]

Thank you, David. Your professional insight is invaluable.

Yay...the quest for a home is over!

And thanks for your link. I will pass mine back, once I have something up.

Jan

[natecull]

That's awesome, Jan. I think Academia is probably a better home than Reddit - hopefully more permanent at least. And my Timeline post is way down the bottom of the TownsendBrown reddit now, so hard for people to find. One thing I've always wanted to see is a coherent gathering together of all the sourceable material we have about TTB and where/when it fits. Paul's book is a great beginning, it's very approachable and a good entry point for the unfamiliar, but as we know, there's a lot of facts that got cut (with very good reason) to make the book shippable. And I've been very remiss in not updating the timeline on Reddit. I'm going to go there right now and read your latest posts to make sure I'm up to speed.

I'm back! Yes, it's great work. I'll post your Academia page on the reddit when you make it, if you want.

Cheers, Nate

[Jan Lundquist]

Nate, you may be able to pin the timeline to the top of the page in reddit. I can send you a doc with timeline updates as I add them, if that will help you mesh yours and mine.

A source repository would be wonderful. I hope the Brown family archives will make their way there.

Sadly, some of my resources are on the order of the Cady Report. It dovetails nicely into what was going on in that particular year and it seems to be a good transcript of the report. But for academic purposes, how reliable a reference is it without an authenticated source? Or even worse, sometimes my only source is a personal memory of a conversation with Linda or a recollection of a document I saw once. ugh. Nonetheless, I will press on and try to find better sources wherever possible.

Jan

[natecull]

Nate, you may be able to pin the timeline to the top of the page in reddit.

Great idea. I've pinned it, replacing the Lounge post.

Sadly, some of my resources are on the order of the Cady Report. It dovetails nicely into what was going on in that particular year and it seems to be a good transcript of the report. But for academic purposes, how reliable a reference is it without an authenticated source?

I don't think we need academic quality, and in some cases the sources can't be found or are oral history / personal communication / personal memory - but at least having an archive of the best documents we can find, all in one place, would make things much simpler than when we have them scattered all over the Web in sites controlled by a multitude of different actors, that can go offline. I'm thinking also about things like "The Gravitics Situation", Rockets & Missiles articles, "Hello Stupid" or its applicable chapter, the various letters attributed to Townsend Brown found in, eg, Rolf Schaffranke's "Ether-Technology", FOIA requests and news articles.

Generally I feel almost all of the Townsend Brown material is both much better sourced and less controversial / more historical than, eg, the Majestic documents. With the exception of "Morgan" and his communications to Paul, which in many cases appear to be provable, but are at about the Majestic level of sourcing and why I always read him with one eyebrow raised. And then there's the forum threads, which due to sockpuppeting are problematic, but still an important part of the knowledge base.

The Internet Archive would probably be a good start for a lot of the material, as long as there aren't problems with copyright and privacy, which there might be. There's Archives for the Unexplained (https://www.afu.se/) but I think they only take physical collections, though they offer file download.

Regards, Nate