Talk:Main Core

Thanks

Thanks Badagnani for this beginning. Not much to add right now. I'm watching intently and will assist if and when reliable new information comes to light. The press is silent on this one.Amitorit (talk) 17:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Good on you. Badagnani (talk) 17:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Contacted FAS's Stephen Aftergood (Secrecy News) about this. He is watching closely but has nothing to add yet. Let's see what happens. Amitorit (talk) 17:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm unfamiliar with this. Do we have WP articles on him or his outfit? Badagnani (talk) 18:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Link to other articles

This one should probably be added into the Government databases article. Perhaps also into NSA call database and others. -- 93.106.53.93 (talk) 15:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

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Why isn't this discussed at all? This seems important as hell. Yeah go on archive me NSA I don't care #swag #yolo come at me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.222.175.101 (talk) 22:09, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

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Because the government has many mechanisms of intimidation, and think about, it'd be imprudent if they didn't. Good day1 (talk) 04:56, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Undersourced

There is very little support for this article's claims, basically two articles from 2008, only one of them RS. Either find better sources or delete. Rgr09 (talk) 00:17, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Should this page exist?

There’s nothing notable in this article, IMO. It’s composed of allegations, hearsay and rumours. I don’t think that it meets the notability guidelines. Dan (talk) 08:14, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

An article with major problems

Some of the sources for claims in the article continue to be problematic, such as the following:

The Main Core database was supposedly instrumental in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

References

The archived webpage used as the source for this claim was from the Alex Jones infowars website. This is NOT a reliable source for anything except the ideas of Alex Jones and his many guests. I have therefore deleted this. Rgr09 (talk) 07:56, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

The following claim is also problematic:

This leak about the secret database was among the first of many mass surveillance disclosures.

References

There is also little I can find to suggest that Cryptogon, the website of Kevin Flaherty, is an RS.

There are major problems with this article. There are only two articles asserting the existence of the "Main Core" database that might count as reliable sources. These are the Ketcham aticle (published on the now defunct RADAR website in May 2008) and the Shorrock article (published on Slate.com in July 2008). These are not independent sources; Shorrock is based on Ketcham. Most of the other sources listed for the article simply cite these two; the Democracy Now and Think progress citations are apparently given simply to prove that Shorrock states what he states and the EFF article is just another rehash of Shorrock. This does NOT qualify as independent verification, nor does it add anything to the reliability of the original claims. I don't see any reason to include all of these gee whiz posts, so I have dropped the EFF one

Second, both the Radar and Salon articles claim that the "Main Core" is related to PROMIS, a legal case management software system developed by Inslaw, and the Salon article states that one of its sources for "Main Core" was in fact William Hamilton, the owner of Inslaw. Hamilton's claims about PROMIS have been the subject of multiple investigations and court cases, and the final result did not support these claims. His claim that the DOJ's Office of Special Investigations had murdered Danny Casolaro to prevent the DOJ theft of PROMIS was rejected by investigators as "fantasy," with "no corroborative evidence that is even marginally credible".

The article recently had a prod tag added by Plygrnd, then was deprodded by Pburka, who suggested AfD. Pburka notes "hearsay and unsubstantiated allegations seem to be well documented. We can have articles about conspiracy theories as long as we don't assert that they're true". Unfortunately, I don't have time for AfD. But since the radically unsubstantiated nature of Main Core was by no means clear in the article, I have rewritten the lead to clarify that it is only an alleged database. Please discuss here before removing the "alleged" keyword. Rgr09 (talk) 09:36, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

If this were taken to Afd, I would !vote "delete" on the grounds that it easily fails WP:REDFLAG for making "surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources". Unfortunately, I think others would disregard that and say that the write-ups in Salon and RadarOnline (and the echo chamber of smaller sources that tend to agree with them) are sufficient to pass WP:GNG. Most Wikipedia editors are unfamiliar with the credibility of the characters behind these type of claims, so you might have an uphill battle trying to argue that the sources are shoddy. If there was a better article for a simple redirect, I could go for that, too. - Location (talk) 20:45, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions, helpful as always. This particular article turns out to combine two bogus claims under one title: PROMIS, the wonder software written in COBOL for VAX machines that continues to be a lethal weapon in America's cyber-arsenal, and detention camps for the commies, a conspiracist claim that goes all the way back to the 1950s. Regrettable that this kind of stuff won't ever be dropped from Wikipedia. Rgr09 (talk) 04:57, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

claims in the article which are not in the sources

The article previously included the following paragraph:

The Main Core database is alleged to have originated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1982, following Ronald Reagan's Continuity of Operations plan outlined in the National Security Directive (NSD) 69 / National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 55, entitled "Enduring National Leadership", implemented on September 14, 1982.

This claim was originally sourced to the Shorrock article, but Shorrock does not mention NSD 69 or NSD 55. Nor does he allege that "main core" originated with FEMA in 1982. I have therefore deleted this passage. Rgr09 (talk) 09:48, 30 July 2020 (UTC)