Internet research. How to do it effectively?

[Pete Tar]

Please give your personal tips on how to effectively use search to track down a relevant piece of inormation.
What are the useful google search boolean terms (I dont even know if that's the right word? You know, the codes you use).
What are the best picture sourcing methods?
How do I find the original of something?
If I find useful information relative to something but it is on a site that also has what I would consider bunk (eg, man-made global warming denial, poorly researched anti-vaccine claims), is it still 'safe' to use if it is the only source? (eg, Mick your debunking of the Libor/aurora quote was from a website that is AGW skeptic).

How do I analyse the editing history of a wikipedia page? What is the best way to use wikipedia?
how do I use the internet wayback machine?
Any other resources I should know of?

Thanks.

[Mick]

For finding an original of image, you can just drag it into Google Images:
http://images.google.com/

[Mick]

What are the useful google search boolean terms (I dont even know if that's the right word? You know, the codes you use).

I only use the - operator (i.e. the minus sign "-") to exclude terms, and the " (quotes) to group terms. The skill to finding things is to get the right combination to narrow things things down.

I quote often will copy a long chunk, like ten words or more, and try it in quotes, like:

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."
https://www.google.com/search?q="In+politics%2C+nothing+happens+by+accide nt.+If+it+happens%2C+you+can+bet+it+was+planned+th at+way."

Then an example of excluding terms:
"In politics, nothing happens by accident" -fdr -roosevelt
https://www.google.com/search?q="In+politics%2C+nothing+happens+by+accide nt"+-fdr+-roosevelt

I also often will restrict seraches to a site, or to a domain, with terms like:

site:cdc.gov
site:.gov
site:.mil

geoengineering site:.mil
https://www.google.com/search?q=geoe...ng+site%3A.mil

For checking when something first came up I use Google Groups, and Google Books, and google news archive

https://news.google.com/news/advance...arch?as_drrb=a

Google Books is great for searching for the earliest data a quote was used, and also finding early instances of various topics, like persistent contrails.

[Mick]

If I find useful information relative to something but it is on a site that also has what I would consider bunk (eg, man-made global warming denial, poorly researched anti-vaccine claims), is it still 'safe' to use if it is the only source? (eg, Mick your debunking of the Libor/aurora quote was from a website that is AGW skeptic).

It would be better if you can use something like Wikipedia, and then preferable several sites. It kind of depends on what is being said. If it's just pointing something out - like there being no actual evidence of a LIBOR connection - then it's reasonable to quote it, or you could just paraphrase it. I just did that post rather quickly - but the bottom line there is that there's no actual evidence of a connection, but there's been no "oficial denials", so there's not a lot of repute you can quote.

But yeah, choose the most reputable source you can, and don't just repeat claims. I essentially verified the claim by not being able to find the evidence myself, but that's a little weak.

[Mick]

How do I analyse the editing history of a wikipedia page? What is the best way to use wikipedia?

I don't do much beyond clicking on "history", and the "prev" link for each change will tell you how it differs from the previous link. I think there are better tools, but I've not used any.

Wikipedia is find for quoting on uncontroversial topics, like ice supersaturation. But it's best to see if you can quote the multiple original sources as well.

[Mick]

how do I use the internet wayback machine?

http://archive.org/

Enter the url and then "Take me Back". You will get a calendar with blue dots for each time the page was stored (might not actually have changed), and a timeline at the top. Click on one, then you'll get the old page and navigation controls at the top. Sometimes a page is not available, try a different date.

Usually the oldest is the most useful, but sometimes it's useful click through until you see a change. You can use the URL to link directly to an old version of a page.

Be aware that the owner of a domain CAN remove all the old entries from archive.org, so if you find something interesting, make a copy.

[Mick]

Another useful tool is "WhoIs", which comes in many forms, but you can just use on the web to look up who owns a domain and when it was created:

http://www.whois.com/whois/funvax.com

Domain Name.......... funvax.com
Creation Date........ 2011-04-03
Registration Date.... 2011-04-03
Expiry Date.......... 2013-04-03
Organisation Name.... Ryan Harper

Reverse IP lookups are also useful, to see what sites are on the same IP:

http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/we...on-web-server/


If you get a large number of results that means it's on a shared IP address, and is low budget. A few related sites means its a dedicated server.

[Pete Tar]

great stuff thanks.

I have a person I want to check up on. Gene Rosen, said to be a retired psychologist, sheltered kids at the Sandy Hook massacre.
Some real ...POS... on ATS has said he finds him to be 'unconvincing' as an ex-psychologist, and is basically calling his integrity and version of events into question based on that.
What do I use to search for proof on this person being what he says?
Thanks.

Edit..Tried google search gene+rosen+phd, excluded recent reports, but nothing...

[Mick]

I searched for doctor review which led me to healthgrades.com, searched for gene rosen conneticut

http://www.healthgrades.com/provider...SolrCity=false

Gave third result:

Content from external source:

Joanna L. Rosen, PSY

Psychology
1 Washington Ave Suite 4, Sandy Hook, CT 06482 (1 more)

Possible daughter? Unlikely to be that many Rosen name psychologists in Sandy Hook, and careers run in families.

excluding enough terms:

"gene rosen" "sandy hook" -shooting -hero -feeding

http://genespetservice.com/pages/about.html
also dating back to 2004, so he's been retired at least eight years.
http://web.archive.org/web/200403091...ges/about.html

Content from external source:

Gene Rosen, a resident of Sandy Hook, CT for the past twenty years, is a retired psychologist who worked for several years in Newtown at Fairfield Hills State Hospital.

Same thing in many business directories

[Pete Tar]

Brilliant.

(really, that was so satisying to be able to do. I'm actually a bit emotional. Thank you)


edit.. I got post-banned by using the same words he did to question the credibility of the psychologist, to question his credibility as a human being...
The facts made no difference to him anyway.
Oh well.
I need to stop going there.

[Mick]

More detail on my thought process: The filtering out was the key there. You want to find out about "gene rosen" in "sandy hook". So I start with:

"gene rosen" "sandy hook"
Which gives lots of stories about the shooting:


So I quickly pick a word to filter, "shooting"


You want to filter words that are as specific to the story as possible. I pick hero, no so much from the results, but just knowing about the story.


So then I see there are lot of stories with the same phrase "just finished feeding his cats", so I filter based on the least common word there "feeding", although I could have done -"feeding his cats" if there were no uncommon words. This gives us several results about Gene's Trusty Pet Care, which I then verified was real by looking at the earliest version on archive.org.