question for Russ "without horns or teeth"

quote

Excellent post! Awesome rebuttal!

It really is a crying shame that the entity known as Kennedy-Western has usurped and, in my opinion, improperly appropriated unto itself the website address of kwu.edu.

There is a high-quality, accredited and first-class Kansas Wesleyan University which is located, and should properly be found, at http://www.kwu.edu but sadly, the unaccredited, un-wonderful, supremely-substandard internet quack-school operation-cum-business, KWE, almost always shows up in one's browser if one simply types in kwu.edu.

Kansas Wesleyan University (the real "KWU") was founded in 1886 and is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Check it out here at the link below, and if the millish kwe shows up, then manually type this address in your browser to see the real "KWU" - Kansas Wesleyan University:

http://www.kwu.edu/index.htm

Accreditation - Kansas Wesleyan University, the legitimate, accredited and real "KWU" (upper-case letters - smile) - is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, the National League for Nursing, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Kansas State Department of Education.
http://www.kwu.edu/admissions/basicfacts.html

The entity known as KWE (which claimed accreditation from a fake accreditor in 1990 and has remained unaccredited, un-wonderful, and substandard for 20 years, is masquerading as "kwu" (lower-case letters, LOL) since 1984 has usurped the web address.

It really is a shame!

Does anyone have any ideas as to how Kansas Wesleyan University (the real "KWU") can show up more frequently in one's browser when one types in kwu.edu?

Ahh! The free market lives (I almost forgot). First to register a web address, first to own it, right? But, wait, Kansas Wesleyan University is over a hundred years old and, I believe, has had rights to the acronym "KWU."

I am not an attorney or a patent examiner however, does that not count for something (legal college existence since 1886 versus a correspondence school that sprouted up in 1984)?

I do not work for, nor am I in any way associated with, the fine Christian institution, Kansas Wesleyan University. It has not asked me or anyone I am aware of to do this on its behalf. I just think that it is a shame for an accredited, legitimate and high-quality school not to be noticed more widely on account of some entity's shameful subterfuge and usurpation.

Thanks.

 

Good post, Jake. I made somewhat the same point a while back (see, my degrees are RA; I know that "a while" is two words) about the HBCU Central State University in Ohio. Somebody made the witless comment that no one in California had heard of it anyway. Gnuts.

 

I'm from California. Not only have I heard of CSU in Ohio, I've been there. I attended their commencement one year.

 

Multnomah Bible

Multnomah Bible College in Portland has been accredited for some years now by AABC, a national accreditor of Bible colleges. The statement that it is unaccredited is not correct.

 

Just so, Rich. I don't remember or care who said it, but I'm sure 'twasn't you.

 

Epistemology for Trolls, Module One

If Contreras said MBC is accredited, it must not be and there's a conspiracy.

 

I'm from California as well (even though I now live in Illinois) and have know about Central State University for many years. That's at least two of us out of 36 million!.

Tony

 

Here is full disclosure for the record, again. I am not associated with KWU, do not have an unaccredited degree and I am not in the education business. It can't be that hard to accept that someone has a different position about all this than most of the people on this board. Actually, Jim_S has an even stronger position in favor of KWU than I do.

What started all this is my comment about how I thought KWU kicked Oregon's ODA around the courtroom. I think most rational people would come to the same conclusion if you look at all the things Oregon's ODA has to do compared to KWU. I didn't see anything about KWU having to take defamation classes but Alan and his crew has to. Common sense will tell you who "won" that legal encounter.

To clear up the confusion even further, I am now the second person you have met that argues for the right of alternative higher education other than strict accreditation. Nice to meet you.

 

Oh, bull. I've been arguing for the legitimacy of certain unaccredited schools for years. You are neither novel nor ingenuous. Just another self-inflating troll. Since you won't even say what category of school, if any, you graduated from, or what degrees you hold, if any, your trollish doubletalk hardly qualifies as full disclosure.

 

What a wonderful example of how wrong all of your posts are. The ODA and KW NEVER made it to the Courtroom. They SETTLED out of court! Just more WRONG degree shill talk unfortunately.

 

Boy, it's very clear you don't have a clue. Many of us used to advocate that very point of view. In fact, the weirdos at Jamesville like to use that as some strange evidence of hypocrisy--we did and now we don't. But we don't for a good reason: there's no need anymore. There isn't a legitimate, unaccredited DL school out there that offers something that cannot be found at accredited DL schools--except shortcuts.

Learn some history, get some facts, then try using them.

 

quote

Argumentation by assertion.

Prove it, Russ - or just go away, troll. (I know, I know: you do not have to "prove" anything here to anyone).

Reminds me of Uncle Janko's paen to Degreeinfo's sanguine immortality:

"troll + shill = trill"

Btw, remember this, Russ: your favorite, Kennedy-Western, has a moniker and it is "KWE," not kwu.

The real KWU is Kansas Wesleyan University, an 1886-founded, multiple accredited christian college of much repute.

Yes, "accredited" - the word that you dislike so much and which pulverizes you into mincemeat and freezes up your rigidified being with such trepidation!

Open your eyes and see what a real university looks like, here:
http://www.kwu.edu/index.htm

All for the "trill" of it!

Thanks.

 

quote

You are entitled to your point of view, Russ, but these are quite uninformed statements, and very irresponsible, to boot.

You clearly do not know, and maybe do not care to know, the difference between settlement of a case (before trial) and the minimum rudiments of what constitutes a trial.

The entity known as Kennedy-Western filed a case mostly on "constitutional" freedom-of-speech grounds, not on disputing the preponderance of facts (ala US Senate hearings, etc) that it shares more attributes in common with known diploma mills than it does with a real school.

Why, Russ? Why cry wolf instead of challenging the many uncovered facts of KWE's illegitimacy and fraudulent operations?

Have you ever bothered to ask yourself this question?

Regardless of the merits of Oregon ODA's regulatory actions, such cases ("fighting those crying wolf") can be quite complex and tortured to successfully litigate and win (for ODA), but often relatively easier to bring (for KWE).

The settlement says nothing about the merits (or lack, thereof) of the ODA's efforts to protect the citizens of Oregon from the mushrooming, persistent and fraudulent diploma mills and supremely sub-standard entities like KWE, that were and are pilfering hard-earned dollars from many innocents and co-conspirators alike.

Your statements about KWE "winning" this round is fallacious in part because many readers of these forums who read your shrill mill-shill-speak and spin in here may not know the details of the case or would not understand it if they did.

KWE did the relatively easier thing to do, by crying wolf, "constitutional foul, instead of daring to answer the real charges uncovered in the US Senate investigations and used as a basis for ODA's categorization of the entity.

Any simpleton can cry, and many do, "you are abrogating my freedom of speech - and commerce - and disallowing me from saying that I possess a diploma" - from a diploma mill, nonetheless!.

By no means has the entity, KWE, "won" this round.

More states are stepping up or gearing up to step up, to bring better-prepared and much more robust, well-written legislation against these illegitimate but sometimes "legal" sub-standard operations and DL scams.

And regardless of what KWE may or may not have "won" in Oregon, other states like Michigan, New Jersey, and Indiana, did not and will not change their existing characterizations of the entity, KWE, and its non-acceptance in those states.

Clearly, Oregon's ODA and other states and localities have additional work to do.

History shows us that this sort of thing (figting diploma mills and substandard operations) is a complicated process, often punctuated by numerous states’ failures which hopefully become learning experiences for their investigators, regulators and legislators.

Eventually the states will end-up getting it right, but it can take a long time.

Eventually, KWE will get what it deserves - forced to close its doors and maybe, move offshore, maybe back to Singapore, who knows - unless it escapes the fast-falling mauvais guillotine by applying to become accredited and legitimate.

Russ, you may hold your breath waiting for this to happen or you may hyperventilate yourself into a tizzy with angst and wrath at the thought thereof.

I won't because I am almost convinced that the entity won't.

Go away, troll. Your millspeak is exposed, tired and no longer fun to watch or trash.

Get it?

 

Part 1 of 2

I am no fan of Kennedy-Western, as you almost certainly know; so please do not interpret any of the following as an indication that I'm a defender of Kennedy-Western. That said...

The kwu.edu domain is owned, exclusively, by:

• Domain Name: KWU.EDU
  
  Registrant:
  Kansas Wesleyan University
  100 E. Claflin
  Salina, KS 67401-6196
  UNITED STATES
  
  Contacts:
  
  Administrative Contact:
  Jay Krob
  Kansas Wesleyan University
  100 East Claflin
  Salina, KS 67401
  UNITED STATES
  (785) 827-5541 x2213
  [email protected]
  
  Name Servers:
  NS1-AUTH.SPRINTLINK.NET
  NS2-AUTH.SPRINTLINK.NET
  NS3-AUTH.SPRINTLINK.NET
  
  Domain record activated: 31-Mar-1994
  Domain record last updated: 17-Sep-2001
  
  SOURCE: whois.educause.net

Kennedy-Western has nothing whatsoever to do with the kwu.edu domain name; nor is it possible for Kennedy-Western to have "appropriated unto itself the website address of kwu.edu" -- improperly or otherwise.

If one types any of the following:

• kwu.edu
  
• KWU.EDU
  
• www.kwu.edu
  
• WWW.KWU.EDU
  
• http://kwu.edu
  
• HTTP://KWU.EDU
  
• http://www.kwu.edu
  
• HTTP://WWW.KWU.EDU

into the "Address:" field of one's web browser, one always gets the web site of Kansas Wesleyan University, and not that of Kennedy-Western.

The domain kwu.edu (both with and without "www." in front of it; and regardless whether it is typed in all lower-case or all upper-case or any combination thereof) resolves in DNS to the IP address 65.160.196.2 and to no other.

If one types, simply, the IP address 65.160.196.2 or http://65.160.196.2/ into the "Address:" field of one's web browser, one gets -- every single time -- the web site of Kansas Wesleyan University, and not that of Kennedy-Western.

If you're getting one of Kennedy-Western's web sites in your browser window whenever you type kwu.edu into said browser's "Address:" field, then something's very technologically wrong -- and it's almost certainly something wrong at your end, and not Internet-wide.

By "your end," I mean something in your browser or on your computer; or perhaps something related to the DNS servers used by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Of the two possibilities (that are separated by the semicolon in the preceding sentence), the former is, by far, the most likely.

Some possibilities are:

1. Your browser, via its connection to the Internet supplied by your ISP, is pulling weird and incorrect DNS information from the DNS servers used by your ISP. (Highly unlikely)
   
2. Your browser is not using the DNS servers provided by your ISP and is, instead, using some other DNS servers out there in the universe; and said DNS servers are returning bad information. This could be happening because you keyed-in the wrong DNS IP addresses into your dialer or ethernet card TCP/IP settings; or maybe a virus, worm, spyware or trojan did it (see items 4 and/or 6, below).
   
3. The non-ISP DNS servers referred to in the immediately preceding item could be alternative root servers, provided by one of the weirdo "alternative root" or "public root" providers that are out there pitching gTLDs and ccTLDs that are not actually ICANN-approved and which, therefore, usually require that you download some kind of driver or browser plug-in; or which require you to specify the IP addresses of their DNS servers (as opposed to those of your ISP's DNS servers) in your dialer or ethernet card's TCP/IP settings area.
   
4. Your browser is using cached DNS information; or DNS information from a DNS mini- or pseydo-server that is installed right on your computer, and that was probably loaded there by you when you downloaded and installed something that maybe you shouldn't have.
   
5. You have your browser's "URL auto-complete" feature turned ON so that you can key-in URLs the "lazy-man's way" by simply typing-in the first two or three letters of a given domain and your browser is completing it before you finish typing it and as soon as it does so you're hitting the [Enter] key and sending the browser to whatever incorrect web site was auto-completed in the browser's "Address:" field. There are hundreds of domains among the "big six" gTLD/ccTLDs (i.e., .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us) that begin with the letters "kwu...", as shown here. If your browser's URL-complete feature is turned ON (which I always counsel that it should never be), and if you have ever keyed-in or visited any of those hundreds of domains out there that begin with the letters "kwu..."; and if you have ever, after the browser auto-completes one of them into said browser's "Address:" field, simply clicked on the "Go" button or hit the [Enter] key on your keyboard without really looking, closely, at the actual URL in the browser's "Address:" field, then you could be easily fooled.
   
6. Your machine and browser have been infected with any of a number of clever viruses, worms, spyware or trojans that are capable of taking-over or redirecting DNS requests to whatever actual IP addresses they want. It makes some sense that, given all the press that Kennedy-Western has gotten of late; and considering that the people who extol its virtues tend to me of the same mindset, generally, as hackers and crackers, one or more of the malicious viruses, worms, spyware and/or trojans floating around out there would redirect kwu.edu, when typed into the browser's "Address:" field, over to the Kennedy-Western web site. There is a long list of exploits -- some of them DNS-related -- which can easily infect Internet Explorer (if that's, in fact, the browser that you're using -- and even if it's not). If you've not been keeping up-to-date your copy of Windows and, even more importantly, your copies of Internet Explorer, Outlook and/or Outlook Express, then it is a virtual certainty that your browser and email client have security holes in them through which one or more of these viruses, worms, spyware or trojans may pass. All Windows users -- even those who are intentionally using some browser and/or email client other than Internet Explorer (such as Netscape or Opera or Mozilla, etc.) or Outlook or Outlook Express -- must keep their copies of Windows, Internet Explorer and Outlook/Outlook Express up-to-date at all times, regardless! This means a minimum of a monthly trip to the http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com web site and then downloading every single security patch said site tells you that you need. In addition, all Windows users must download, install, keep-up-to-date, and properly use both anti-virus and anti-spyware software. And, finally, all Windows users -- especially those connected to the Internet via persistent methods such as broadband connections (i.e., T1, DSL or cable modems)... but even dialup users, too -- must (or, in the case of dialup users, "should") download, install, keep-up-to-date and properly use a software firewall product; or, better yet, use a hardware firewall appliance (the firmware of which is kept up-to-date with the same zeal as though it were a software firewall product). The Windows updates are free; and there is no reason why the other products I've listed here need to be expensive. In fact, if readers would like me to, I can post, here, a list of excellent FREE anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall software products that would do the trick quite nicely -- this is, if the user is diligent about keeping them up-to-date and using them properly and as prescribed by their manufacturers.[/list=1]I could be wrong, Jake, but something's up with your computer that I strongly suggest you get to the bottom of as soon as you can.
   
   In any case, the bottom line, here, is that kwu.edu is not being "appropriated" by Kennedy-Western. It belongs to Kansas Wesleyan University; and thats the only web site to which healthy, up-to-date, properly-configured browsers always go whenever one types kwu.edu into said browsers' "Address:" fields.
   
   Any other results mean that something's broken -- almost certainly on the user's local computer, and not out on the Internet itself.
   
   Period.
   
   Continued in next post...

 

Part 2 of 2

...continued from previous post.

Yes, actually... and, barring trademark violations, that's pretty much as it should be... no matter how much it sometimes ticks us off.

To drift off-topic... but only briefly: Some would argue that "KWU" is not an acronym because it is neither pronounceable nor a word in the dictionary; and that, at best, it's a mere "initialism" or some form of abbreviation other than an acronym. Those who would argue that will tell you that while text strings like "KWU" or "FYI" (for your information) or "AVHRR" (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer), etc., are not acronyms, strings like "SCUBA" (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) or "NATO" (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) are acronyms. I've read both sides of the argument carefully and the only thing I notice is that people seem to be all over that map about it. I was always taught that an acronym must, at bare minimum, spell a pronounceable word -- even if it's a word not in the dictionary; and that, to be truly correct, one should probably follow the purists' argument that mere pronounceability is not enough and the resulting word must also be in the dictionary. Still others argue that that's all hogwash; and that the whole pronounceable thing and the requirement that the resulting string be present in the dictionary is but an arbitrary creation of U.S. dictionary publishers. I note, however, that those same folks in the latter group sometimes also argue that the word "acronym" comes from making a word from the first letters of: Abbreviating by Cropping Remainders Off Names to Yield Meaning. Of course, I most certainly question that one given that "acronym" ends, conveniently in "onym" which comes from the Greek word "onyma," which means "name" and is universally used to create words that describe word types, such as antonym, synonym, aptronym, capitonym, charactonym, eponym, homonym, pseudonym, toponym, etc.

Maybe I'll start a new thread about this. But I digress.

Kansas Wesleyan University may, as a moral issue, more deserve the right to use the string "KWU" than Kennedy-Western, but unless either of them goes to the trouble of trademarking or service marking the string, it's all sorta' moot -- at least where domain names are concerned.

Again, at least with respect to domain names, neither institution is in a very good position to lay absolute claim to the "KWU" text string until and unless one of them trademarks or service marks it. ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP} is more or less universally recognized as the sole and appropriate remedy for those wishing to lay absolute claim to a domain name on the grounds that it coincides with the identical text string used for non-Internet-related marketing or identification purposes; and most courts of law have deferred to the UDRP procedure and, further, have allowed themselves to be bound thereto. That said, many have made a compelling argument that a de novo standard of judicial review is warranted in most or all UDRP disputes. A good article in support of this notion may be viewed, as a PDF file, by clicking here.

Irrespective of the validity, counter-validity and/or judicial review arguments, the UDRP process remains the method by which matters such as whether Kennedy-Western or Kansas Wesleyan University (or Kenneth William Umberton, for that matter) has absolute right to the use of the "KWU" text string in domain names. And if you look at the long history of UDRP disputes and their outcomes, you'll see -- much to the chagrin of free-speech advocates, I might add -- that trademark and/or service mark ownership of the string in question usually trumps even tradition and history... or so the statistics would seem to bear out. Of the 4,300-something (at this writing) UDRP disputes filed and adjudicated since UDRP's inception in 1999, some 82+% of all single-panelist rulings, and some 58+% of all three-panelist rulings, have been for the complaintant. Complaintants in UDRP disputes tend, overwhelmingly, to be trademark and/or service mark owners who are going after individuals who have registered a domain name, the SLD (second-level domain) portion of which (i.e., the part to the left of ".com" or .net" etc.) matches exactly, or would be likely to cause "confusing similarity" to/with, a trademarked or service marked text string. The other most commonly-claimed grievance of complaintants in UDRP disputes is "bad faith." And there are many others.

Having written all of the above, it's worthy of note that in the specific case of the .edu gTLD (global top-level domain), it is not ICANN's UDRP policy which governs but, rather, Educause's. Sadly, Educause has not posted its final UDRP policy on its web site; however, it is well-known that it mimics, in nearly all respects, ICANN's UDRP policy. So pretty much everything I've written above would still apply -- at least in broad strokes -- to the kwu.edu domain name.

But it's probably moot, in this case, because Educause Policy expressly prohibits Kennedy-Western (and unaccredited "schools" like it) from qualifying for the use of the .edu gTLD in the first place. Of the two schools that you've cited, Jake (i.e., Kennedy-Western and Kansas Wesleyan University... and the foregoing word "school" being applied most loosely to the former), only Kansas Wesleyan University qualifies to use the kwu.edu domain name in any case.

Click here for a good, generalized FAQ on UDRP.

Click here for one of the web's best general resources for UDRP information.

Click here or here or here to search previous UDRP decisions.

Click here to see a list of organizations that handle UDRP disputes (UDRP providers).

Click here to read the Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society web site's excellent UDRP guide; and click here for just about the best generalized list of UDRP-related resources on the Internet.

Hope that helps!

 

Gregg, I was surprised to read in your post that Educause does not allow use of the .edu suffix by unaccredited suppliers. There are scores of them that actually have this suffix.

It is my understanding that these older users are grandfathered because Educause decided that it could not withdraw authority for use even from the lowest degree-sales scammer. We have had a warning about this on our web site for some time.

I think there are people on this list who know more about this issue that I do, but I have checked with the U.S. Department of Education and with CHEA and they say that the .edu suffix is in use by many unaccredited suppliers, its protected status being very recent and perhaps illusory.

Any other info on this available?

 

A cogent commentary posed as a question if I ever saw it! Good work, Alan!

I'm well aware -- as are many here -- of that about which you've written, above. Perhaps I should have included a caveat of some sort which explained the grandfathering thing. I was referring to current Educause policy.

We all discussed this at length back in November 2004... a thread which one may see by simply clicking here.

I agree with you that Educause should have the courage to reign-in the scammers and less-than-wonderfuls using the .edu gTLD... and, in fact, I even prescribed a method by which they could in the aforementioned thread.

As to the question of whether the "protected status" to which you refer is "illusory," other than by virtue of a flawed "grandfather" scheme which I believe should be reversed, I'm unaware of Educause violating its current policy since its inception. That being the case, certainly any recent .edu gTLDs registered would not suffer from the infirmaties of which you write.

 

That would be infirmities, with an "i" -- and, yes, I knew that. I was just uncareful and typing too fast.

This also gives me an opportunity to add to what I wrote, above, to Alan:

• I further agree with the overarching and/or underlying (depending on one's viewpoint) intent of your posting here, i.e., that readers should be very careful to never assume that a given institution is legitimate just because it uses a .edu gTLD as part of its web site's URL

If the reader gleans nothing else from this exchange, I hope s/he gleans at least that.

 

Thanks, Gregg. I do recall that earlier discussion. Educause appears to be represented by that fine old law firm, Pusillanimous, Invertebrate & Craven. But then they have so many clients.

I am not aware of a recent issuance of .edu to a non-real school, but I have little confidence in the entity.

 

Ah, yes... the sister lawfirm of Dewie, Cheatum and Howe, as I recall.

Yeah... but as you correctly pointed-out, until and unless Educause reverses its silly grandfathering policy, those who don't know anything about what we've been talking about here may be misled... and that's a very bad thing.

Pity.