Comes now Marquess College/Marquess University

Did Langdon really sue Langan? I didn't know that. They have been attacking each other with vigor, if not eloquence (my opinion) for a great many years...as have people associated with many other so-called high IQ societies. A charming "short and bloody history of High IQ societies" -- decades of in-fighting can be found at:
http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html

I've been reading this stuff off and on since I became (they told me at the time) the 3rd person in the US to join Mensa (after Walter Breen and Terry Kuch; Langdon may have been #4). I find most of this infighting as tedious as I found most Mensa meetings.

Langan on Langdon:
"Langdon doesn't qualify for a mega society, and he doesn't qualify to edit my material. He doesn't even
qualify to look at it. He sure as hell doesn't qualify to comment on it."

Langdon on Langan:
"He's definitely a very smart guy but he's got some very screwy ideas... Langan's work is impressive only to those who fall for a lot of fancy words without real content. Langan's stuff is full of undefined neologisms; he's so vague that it's impossible to pin him down to any empirically-verifiable proposition."

John Bear
Co-founder, Center for the Gifted Child
in San Francisco (1962)

 

Via the Mega Society, yes. The battle between those two was long, and ... well ... long. But, that's the past. There is now the Mega Society and the Mega Foundation -- and likely never the twain shall meet!

I've had nothing but civil discourse with either side -- although I am a strong supporter of the Mega Foundation and its goals and programs.

This was cited mostly as an example of "the six degrees of separation". How we (Bear and Jackson) ended up being "connected" by an avenue totally unrelated to distance education -- how the Internet world is smaller than it appears, et cetera.

 

It's interesting how this thread has evolved.

The original subject was Marquess Education/College/University and the sometimes... colorful... individuals involved with it. Not only did we find out that Marquess has branched out from credential evaluations, we received our first word about what may be a new venture of Henrik's, the Fyrst European Graduate School.

Then the Marquess webpages were quickly taken down, links were cut, and the subject of the thread quickly turned to yet another riprise of the evils of Degreeinfo.

And now it's become the occasion for people to preen about how incredibly smart they think they are.

But intelligence isn't an end in itself. Intelligence doesn't explain away iffy associations or make doubtful institutions any more credible. If other people are going to be convinced, evidence will have to be presented and a clear comprehensible case made. Intelligence might make that task a little easier, but it doesn't render it unnecessary.

 

Hahahahah.... oh, that's rich. If I had twobucksfifty and my IQ -- I could just barely buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

I'm sorry, Bill, if my explaining why I'm involved with Marquess makes you think I'm preening in any way. (I know -- you didn't mention any names -- I know.) I answered a question the way it was asked -- honestly. Don't like it -- print out the post in question and ... well ... smoke it.

Keep speculating and innuendo-ating. Don't let any perceived preening stop you.

 

Actually, down here it starts at about $3.50.

 

While it is true that judging others simply from posts made on the internet is rather error prone, we can't help ourselves but to come to some conclusions. When someone as thoughtful, honest and articulate as Bill Dayson gives an opinion, rest assured that others have come to similar conclusions. Like me in this specific example.

 

In an earlier thread, I posted regarding the link I'd found between an entity calling itself "Marquess" and Knightsbridge. The Marquess thingy was using Knightsbridge degrees as a way to improve someone's chances of gaining immigration. (To where, I forget now.)

Then we came across Marquess again, calling itself a college. We find Quinn's name associated with it, along with some people not held in very high regard. We also see Marquess dressing itself up as a univesity, as well as mention of another incarnation of Knightsbridge, this one named after the owner of Knightsbridge.

I have personally seen the damage wrought by any association with something owned by Sheila Danzig. I would think others would strive equally hard to distance themselves after such things are brought to light. Rather, we see simple truths subjected to attempted drowning by verbosity, along with attacks upon the people who ask questions. (Withholding the truth and then blaming others for speculating is dispicable for a resercher.)

If Quinn would come correctly and simply, it would help. But paragraphs of nothing are brought upon this thread instead.

Knightsbridge is a diploma mill with no legal or academic recognition to award degrees. Marquess is associated with it. The players for the two are the same, with Danzig dumped in for good measure. If it can be demonstrated (again, simply and clearly) why this is all okay, I'd love to hear it. It isn't speculation; it's curiousity. Vague (but blustered) comments don't add to the clarity sought.

 

As I said already, I prefer to get to know people by engaging them directly, rather than by reading what others have to say about what they think of them. This goes for places, too. What are they really about, what do they really want to achieve? Why? How does what they say fit into what they appear to be living?

How did MIGS fit into what I knew of Sheila from her and my personal correspondence? IMO, it was a genuine effort to do some good that got messed up by a number of factors, including premature roll out. There was a lot of excitement -- and a few i's and t's were not dotted or crossed -- and, well ... it fell apart in a rather public way.

But hell -- I've failed to meet objectives and live up to dreams and ambitions I've set, too, so this didn't seem like something to hold against anyone. MIGS didn't change my opinion of Sheila -- in fact, it solidified it. But not in the same way it solidified others' opinions. Was this because I had blinders on, or because I'd gotten to know Sheila on a personal level and had been afforded an opportunity to know the person, rather than the external impression others had of her? I think it was because I'd gotten to know her as a person, and had come to trust that her motives were pure, even if the final execution failed. I never witnessed anything untoward.

Then, end of last year or so, I started to get to know John Kersey. I'd come across a link to my website on his website, and sent him an email and he and I started conversing on topics far and wide. I read some of what he wrote, he read some of what I wrote, and I came to see him as a friend. A genuine person with high standards, and high, genuine (rather than manufactured for opportunity) beliefs in non-Statist education.

My own longstanding views about Statism and Libertarianism fell into place.

So, when MCL (College, not University) arose, it seemed natural to wonder what I might be able to do through the College to assist gifted researchers. I proposed a role for myself that involved cross-discipline powers in order to accommodate a perceived need in those researchers to not be bound to one faculty if their research brought them across methodologies, or whatever. I knew that Kersey et al wished to bring forth an institution that strove for excellence, because I had witnessed first-hand their genuine concern for such.

Over the year, I had also witnessed statements about their "associations" that I knew, from first-hand experience, were misinformed. A longstanding goal of mine, brought from the days of Fidonet's WRITING echo, which had it as one of its guidelines for participation is: "Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to the vagaries of the medium." Thus, the misinformation that I saw, I attributed to the vagaries of the medium. The Internet is a technology, not a community -- the people in the communities make the community. The Internet sometimes encourages certain social phenomenon -- possibly by the simplicity with which those phenomena can take place. So, when people jumped onto false-starts as regards how they perceived others -- I mostly just sign it off to: "This happens in such a medium."

I'm faulted on both sides of the ideological battle. Those who have come to know me have accepted that I will not throw away the baby with the bathwater. Certain behaviors I will not endure quietly, and will speak up against, even if that means I am not seen to be a card carrying member of either side. For instance, I'm not particularly concerned with how it makes me look when I state that Douglas, Gollin, DesElms, Janko, Contreras and others do not deserve the personal attacks they have endured -- and I'm not particularly concerned if my outspoken views on this result in some anonymous twit trying to get to me to shut me up about it. What has been said about these people publicly on AED is beyond comprehension, indecent, and wrong. What has been said about their private lives, in full public view -- is as unsightly as it gets. It's unethical. Ghastly. And despite what Redlyne Racer said over otherwhere -- there is no rationale for it that can hold in a decent, ethical society.

And I am also not impressed with what has been said of people otherwhere or about those whom I know to be entirely in contradiction to the public personas that have been proposed. In my experience, Ruhl, Hayes, and some others are not the people they have been made out to be by some here. This may seem blustering -- but this is a prevailing wind in both these places.

Marquess College, London is not yet open. Its pages were not yet supposed to be available to the public at large. The pages were drafts, up for review by MCL officers only. There was no plagiarism, because there was no official publication -- finding and changing from the templates was something that was underway at the time of the great "revelation." Pages were immediately taken down not to hide anything -- but because the public roll-out had not yet occurred. So, to speculate about these things, is, in my mind -- just that -- speculation. I used the word "speculation" because that is exactly how I saw it, and I called it exactly how I saw it.

MCL will not offer degrees. It is not and does not claim to be a university. It is what (upon public roll-out) exactly what it claims to be. The main operations are in London, not Florida. Robot files were in place because no official indexing was yet to be desired, because the pages were not past draft. A sincere private inquiry would have yielded the same answers as those I've given in this paragraph.

But as far as I can tell, nobody elected to try a sincere private inquiry in this regard. Instead, they decided to speculate publicly. And some of those speculations are worded in such a way as to constitute innuendo. This is how I see it -- and again I am calling it as I see it.

Now, to be fair, and to put the same shoe on my own foot, people when they say something like they see me as preening about how smart I am (or whatever) are calling it as they see it. Such it is. I am what I am. How others wish to interpret my words is not within my power. If that's how I come across, then perhaps I ought to work on it. But only to a certain degree, because frankly -- I can't tweak and tailor my style of coming across to please everyone. I can work on it only so far as what remains is indeed still who I am. If what's left over in the end is still seen as a preener by some-- then I'll have to accept that's how I come across even after some work on the matter.

Will MCL meet its objectives? Only if those involved work hard at several things. This holds for any institution with a worthwhile mission and objectives. Simply having high standards and objectives does not guarantee anything. It involves a lot of work. Like any such institution, it will first and foremost have to serve the needs of those who study there. Then, it will have to strive to measure and improve its processes. It will have to deliver what it promises to deliver. It will have to endure growing pains in the process, and this may very well mean enduring some kind of external evaluation/validation once things are fully in place and fully operational. MCL is not special in this regard -- this is how any institution ought to proceed.

And it will have to endure speculation and innuendo, because those things, too, are part and parcel of the DL community. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Substantive speculation, however, is not based upon robot file dates or claims about centers of operation that are founded only in guessing. It's based upon thorough research into the entity in question once it is operating.

Until that point -- everything is just so much hot air. And until that point arrives, anything I could say further would be perceived as so much more blustering and/or preening.

 

What I said about "simply put." Simple issues, barrages of irrelevant, well, "stuff."

Being connected to a Danzig operation, as we have all now seen, is wrong. Same with Fyrst and his bunch of self-degreed merchants.

Not what I said about "dispicable." Too strong a word. "Inconsistent with a researcher" is much more appropriate. Sorry.

 

1
The Marquess website before it was removed
(www.marquess-education.com):
"Marquess University Graduate degrees by distance learning for busy adults offered by international university with libertarian philosophy..."

2
Dr. Jackson:
"MCL will not offer degrees. It is not and does not claim to be a university."

Dr. Bear:
So what happened between (1) and (2)?

 

For the time I'd been visiting the site before all this and reviewing content et cetera as it was being drafted and edited, it said "Marquess College, London" and didn't speak of degrees. The quote in 1 above appears to have been from an erroneous listing on another site -- BST Foundation -- and as far as I can tell -- that has been removed. My Google-cached version of the main URL given above reads "College" as well. My Google cached version of BST has the old, erroneous listing.

It seems that the reference to "university" was based upon non-UK earlier (non-pursued) directions that were abandoned in favor of non-degree UK private college offerings -- as it stands from the point of my exposure to it.

The now off-list MCL website in all its incarnations during formation referred to Marquess College, and no degrees.

It took me less than five minutes to put as much detail as that together via private channels that anyone else could have courteously queried to attain similar findings. I'm not completely certain why you feel that public queries yield "better" results than private ones. Maybe that depends on what one is looking for, I don't know.

Now, to respond to Rich Douglas' post:

Simple. OK, here goes:

Every coin has two sides. I've looked at both sides, and my findings differ from others' -- as do my opinions of the people and places concerned.

 

Ya' Know Quinn,

I like you but I don't understand your repeated requests for reasonable questions to only be asked in private? Dr Bear has raised good questions that deserve direct answers, not only to him but to all. To suggest that these question can't, or at least shouldn't, be asked openly strikes me as poorly thought out. If Marquess is legitimate it should have no problem directly answering them. If it has issues to hide like Knightsbridge then that is another story.

 

Ya' Know Dave,

I have very specific reasons for asking the questions be private rather than public.

I post here as a private citizen, not as a representative of Marquess or any other party. Also -- I do not post here as a subject matter expert in any particular subject. Why do I disclaim being a representative or subject matter expert? Because it is my ethical duty to make it very, very clear that what I say on this board is not intended to be expert advice or representative of anyone or any party other than myself. This disclosure is required of me. If you want professional advice on parsing, software development, or whatever I am a subject matter expert in -- you'll have to pay me my usual per diem, and I will do the best to meet your needs within my competencies, and tell you when your needs and my professional competencies are not matched. Make sense? That's how professionals do business and pleasure -- they separate them.

I have already publicly answered those questions that I can reasonably answer from a personal perspective. For instance, why did I attach myself to it? What does my appointment mean? Why do I personally have no issues with associating myself with those concerned?

I've even suggested why the pages disappeared (they weren't intended for public viewing yet -- they were under internal review). I've even stated that it's not Marquess University, but Marquess College.

Beyond that -- I'm just Quinn Private Citizen. I can say that everything I've seen to date has been above board -- but hey -- you have your opinions in your minds already. I'm not here to represent the College and to correct your premature opinions. That is not my problem.

As Quinn Private Citizen -- I prefer to answer questions privately on these issues because I do not wish to be seen to be making a statement from the voice of the College. Whatever I may or may not say is my own opinion and perception. Why the heck should I be asked to do that in full public view if I express a desire to not do that?

Implying that is "hiding" something is just turning the tone of the conversation in a direction that implies there is something to be "hidden". That's innuendo.

Do you think I want my words to be played in that direction? No, I sure as hell don't.

 

To answer the question: "What is your usual per diem?"

Well the standard response is: "If you have to ask -- you can't afford it."

 

It is, in some ways, a difficult situation. Certainly people have the right to privacy and this should be respected. However, when information is "out there" on the net, and put there by the person in question, it's hard to understand how that same person can come back and say, "Privacy, Privacy!"

Quinn, the fact is, you are a bit of a DL celebrity and we (loosely stated) are the paparazzi. You can't come around and tell everyone 'this and that' and then expect them to observe the faint line that you've drawn in the sand. There will always be people who want to take your picture. If you can't handle it then follow Greta Garbo.
Only my opinion
Jack

 

Quinn

All I can really say is I believe the questions asked were reasonable. I understand you are not an official rep. of Marquess and cannot necessarily address all issues. That doesn't mean they are unreasonable questions and it certainly doesn't mean it is irresponsible to ask them. I thoroughly agree with you that trying to hide what should be an open discussion colors it in a way that is unfair. That is why I was surprised you suggested such. Simply put, I am suggesting you answer the questions you can and let others answer the questions you are unable to answer. Is there no one that can speak for Marquess publicly?

 

There's a certain degree of that involved -- I understand. I once wrote a piece called "Choosing the Life Less Private" that covered some of the issues involved.

Yes -- there is a certain degree of "public" in Quinn Tyler Jackson -- true. And with this will come critics. That I can deal with. However, as I said -- there are certain ethical issues involved with making statements about things that I try to be very careful about -- in the same way you, Jack, would be very careful about passing out diagnoses in a non-professional public context that you might feel no problem about in a professional context.

There's also a good deal of "private" Quinn out there too -- and it's been my doing. One strategy I use in my sociological writing (public) is to reveal things about myself that otherwise are no-body's business. I've also been (by many standards too much so) revealing of my history and past on matters that many would not reveal. For instance -- I didn't have to reveal I'd declared bankruptcy back in 2003, and took all the blame for it in my statement of bankruptcy (poor planning, overvaluation of market value of skillset, et cetera). I could have remained quiet on such matters and nobody would have known the difference. I could probably even have remained quiet on my unaccredited degrees.

So yes, to a large degree, you are correct.

But that doesn't mean that my private life is public property. Every detail I have revealed, while being accurate to the best of my ability -- I have disclosed with consent.

Where that line is must be allowed to be where the person in question sets it. The line never becomes someone else's to toy with. Unless the person in question allows this without speaking up when it occurs. Which is not the case here.

 

Yes, OK. But then it just means that you shouldn't have mentioned Marquess on your website if you didn't want it to be public. And it also means that Marquess shouln't be so stupid as to "go live" with web pages that were only drafts. (I will be frank in stating that I find this story hard to believe, especially since it's coming from someone who has clearly stated he does not represent Marquess).
Jack

 

You woudn't believe the things I find hard to believe. Like the use of the word "story" in the above. I find it unbelievable that English is such a powerful tool of human communication.

I love when people use ambiguous words that have neutral, positive, and negative meanings. It's such a great way to communicate, isn't it? To leave the particular meaning up to the reader to decide.

Isn't English an exciting language, that it offers us such words as "story" that can mean just plain "account of events" or go all the way to "lie/falsehood" -- while covering one's ass in the process? And isn't the use of such words as "innuendo" -- to "hint at character or reputation" neat also, since it speaks of such oblique allusions as offered by the powerful word "story"?

I love English. It keeps things so clear, so simple, and so uncluttered. One can never tire of such power as seen in the English language.

Cheers.