Talk:Chris McKinstry

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Personal life[edit]

What was his personal life? Did he have a wife or any children? Did he have many friends? What was his education? Where was he born?

Most of his life was in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Surviving family are his mother and brother, Andrew. Father left family when Chris and Andrew were young. The friends he had in Winnipeg he basically used til there were none left. His first 2 wives he met in Winnipeg. He divorced his first wife, then pleaded no contest to Abandonment when he fled Winnipeg leaving behind his second wife in debt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.45.18.68 (talk) 06:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Previous discussions without headers[edit]

Hey someone fix this page. I am a hacker. Not reformed.

No link to his final thoughts?[edit]

Hours before he took his life, Chris spent some time on a forum discussing his planned suicide.

While the group attempted to dissuade him, Chris ultimately succumbed to his own designs. What is most noteworthy is his state of mind, which appeared no more unusual than his typical fair. He made logical arguments, small jokes, and even went off on a few tangents.

While morbid, his final thoughts are an accurate representation of this peculiar (to put it lightly) man. I am surprised that there is no mention of this. 24.90.108.178 17:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


His final thoughts along with an article can be found here: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-02/ff_aimystery?currentPage=all I hope we can use this to make this page better 68.48.66.55 (talk) 00:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Debt[edit]

Chris fled Winnipeg owing a lot of money to the CR6 creditors. Odd that the link to the Manitoba Court Registry would be taken out... Grub 17:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suicide?[edit]

Read the two latest posts on http://www.mindpixel.com/chris/.

The forum he made his last known statements on has been taken offline permanently -- whether it's related to his suicide or not we weren't told. I managed to grab PDFs of the posts at the last minute and am hosting them temporarily, but it's not an ideal solution. 81.159.213.154 00:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hacker[edit]

Chris might call himself a hacker but what definition of hacker are we using here. Geeks might use one definition of 'hacker' while the general public uses another. I think we should use the definition of the word the general public uses. I can't find any evidence that Chris was/is a hacker (using the general public definition) so I am going to take the entire hacker part out. On a side note I think it is great that people are taking an interest in wikipedia articles on themselves but we don't have to write things the way they want them. commonbrick 30 June 2005 01:27 (UTC)

Hacking[edit]

I am a theoretical psychologist. I hack consciousness. chrismckinstry 04 July 2005


Happy 5th Birthday GAC[edit]

Mindpixel 80,000 Questions with Corresponding Probability of Truth.

www.mindpixel.com/chris/gac80k-06-july-2005.html chrismckinstry 06 July 2005

nomination for deletion[edit]

This article was nominated for deletion but the nomination was withdrawn by the nominator (me) following discussion and evidence of notability. See [1] --Misterwindupbird 16:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Suicide note[edit]

Suicide note --Lumos3 23:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As we know, the above link is not working. Do you have it cached, or is there a mirror that you know of? --Amit 20:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mindpixel December 2005 closure[edit]

That is very sad. Why did he close down his mindpixel work in December?

I haven't come across his suicide note, if there was one, but I think it is possible that he eventually realized that his project would never produce the broad AI he so desired. --Amit 20:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish news[edit]

[2]

Mindpixel dead?[edit]

Whatever happened to the Mindpixel project? I expected to be able to find some information about the continuation/termination of the project. I haven't been able to find anything unrelated to Chris' death. It's weird, I've been following this for years and I was just checking in... User:Mnemosign 06:02, 23 April 2006

I don't know, the link is dead now, but one of the last things Chris did (12 January) was link mindpixel to commonsense reasoning. A bit freaky, since this means two of the three people who have edited that page so far have committed suicide. --Jaibe 20:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jaibe, yes, that is freaky (the other person being Pushsingh). It seems to me that AI researchers need to be more pessimistic than optimistic, because optimism there has only eventually led to suffering, for the past sixty years. More formally, they seem to expect a lot of reasoning from a little bit of data, whereas in my opinion the reverse really holds true. --Amit 20:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Other AI project[edit]

I was listening to NPR this morning and there was a story on a researcher who was trying to teach a robot like a child, based on the progression of a 14 month old boy. Sounds like what Chris had proposed. If memory serves correctly, it was being conducted at MIT and the robot's name is Ripley, after the character in "Alien". Cheri on July 10, 2006.

This is interesting. I am not aware of what Chris had proposed, but to me teaching a robot like a child is not anything like Mindpixel. Mindpixel is assimilating the collective knowledge into a knowledge-base that can then be used to reason. Both approaches seem fundamentally different. --Amit 20:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

References[edit]

The reference to item #11 ( http://www.dashslot.co.uk/chris-mckinstry.htm ) is down, it looks like the domain no longer belongs to the "original" owner. Is there another link for this reference? MikeDawg (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Attempts to discredit McKinstry[edit]

I cant see why his bipolar delusions should make so much copy on this article?

Many A.I. workers have it, some who are also dead, possibly by suicide.

The notable thing about McKinstry was not his bipolar, which affects 1-2% of the populatiopn, but the pioneering attempts he made in knowledge based systems.

It is easier a stupid or deliberate attempt to alter what his relevance was.

The same attempt was made on Turing which concentrated on his homosexuality until a sustained campaign by Andrew Hodge and others reversed that.

I object to this disporportionate amount of bipolar references to technology and theory, as it lowers the content of wikipedia and clouds the contribution he made.

To cite the exact nature of his periodic illnesses at such length is sensationalism and diverting.

I am glad the move to delete this article has been repulsed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JF Ellis (talk • contribs) 14:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And so now there's no reference to his mental illness, his frequent online threats to members of communities that he participated in? His grandiose claims of being able to intercept Google search traffic and parse it for criminal intent (not a future capability, a capability he claimed to have due to random clicks on his "common sense" corpus of statements.) The WIRED article citing his critics and indirectly blaming them for his death is fair game, but his threats and provocations against those people both before and after they criticized him are not?! 155.37.216.60 (talk) 21:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey wasn't it in the late 80s that Chris McKinstry took his ex-girlfriend hostage at gunpoint and had a standoff with the Toronto Police? This should be searchable - I recall articles about it. 24.78.190.118 (talk) 06:59, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I found the newspaper story of Chris McKinstry's armed standoff from The Globe and Mail, 1990 June 13, but a better direct link to archives (behind login wall) is needed rather than a copy in an old usenet group. "Tear Gas Ends 71/2 Hour Standoff At Downtown Gun Shop" 24.78.190.118 (talk) 05:12, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Didn’t take his girlfriend hostage, he broke up with her prior the event and had allegedly pistol-whipped her according to the trial transcript 2001:56A:F8BE:8B00:35A9:9B84:B35:F069 (talk) 02:13, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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CR6[edit]

The recent investigation of Chris's internet soap opera, CR6, has offered more information on the show. There should thus be a section on it, providing some information gathered on it. It should also be more information on the fact that Chris lacks a death certificate. Soviet101 (talk) 15:42, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 18 September 2021[edit]

Add the following line to the "In Media" section. This is in order to acknowledge the Lost Media efforts that have been made, while not inserting any personal theories or opinions into the article.


Over the course of 2020 and 2021, McKinstry's CR6 project became the subject a Lost Media search effort in order to find the now unviewable online Soap Opera. [1] [2] [3]

Reference Justification: While a Youtube video can not be used as a primary source for McKinstry's life, it can be a primary source/video article documenting the attempts to find his CR6 media project. --TaeruAlethea (talk) 22:13, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ blameitonjorge. "The CR6 Rabbit Hole: A Lost 90's Internet Show". Youtube.com. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  2. ^ Cáleon. "La triste historia de CR6". Youtube.com. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  3. ^ "Cr6 (lost early internet show; 1997)". lostmediawiki.com. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. If it were WP:DUE there would be secondary sources. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:39, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Additional sources cited. This edit is to include a statement of fact that relates to this individual and their projects. Are there anymore arbitrarily high citation needs for a statement of fact surrounding renewed interest in this individual? —TaeruAlethea (talk) 02:11, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
 Not done. TaeruAlethea, most YouTube videos are considered self-published sources and therefore not reliable unless posted by someone considered reliable. See WP:VIDEOREF. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (talk) 04:33, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Was a review of the YouTube citations performed by anyone objecting?

Both videos are uploaded by the original Producer of their documentary style content. The videos are meant to be generally informative in nature. It's being used as a reference that the interest in the articles' name sake has increased. The reliability of the producer is not a major question in this instance due to the existence of 2 videos on the same subject and a lengthy text article from another site. The proposed line's inclusion will document the renewed interest in the article and why it was edit restricted in the first place.

It's clear that there wasn't even an attempt to review the citation content before hitting with a "not done" rejection about citations. TaeruAlethea (talk) 04:49, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@TaeruAlethea: See Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. I'm not questioning if it happened, but since all the sources are self-published (yes, even the last one), they're unreliable to be used on Wikipedia. What we need is a reliable source saying that there's some sort of "renewed interest" in finding CR6. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (talk) 06:47, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ganbaruby: What you need is to remember that the context for these secondary sources matter and that that makes them valid for this use. What's the request to add includes is not wild speculation or trying to insert fuel to some fire. It's a clear, neutral, and fair statement about someone's work with some sources showing that it's true. Why is the article edit restricted in the first place? Why is the reliability of three secondary sources that are considered reliable in this given context being objected on? You've admitted that it's about verification, but you've ignored all context for the secondary sources. You've ignored the context about and around online media searches. They are called "Lost Media" for a reason. Part of why they stay lost is because of this kind of stuff. I'm sorry that it wasn't mainstream enough to get top billing articles from Random House or Cambridge University Press. In context though, these sources are and should be more than sufficient to say "yeah, a thing happened." In a one line addition to the wiki article for who's project is the focus. TaeruAlethea (talk) 14:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@TaeruAlethea: That's not how this works. The sources are unreliable, so they shouldn't be used, even to make a statement like that. Wikipedia's indicator of what should and should not be documented depends on whether reliable sources exist; if they don't, they shouldn't be here. This is why Wikipedia's coverage on Internet topics are generally spotty. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (talk) 01:53, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ganbaruby: Frankly, over zealous review like yours and a willful ignorance of citation context for the sole reason of tossing out reasonable statements is why the main line Wikipedea is losing contributors. I followed the flow chart and gave cause for every question. I have tried to explain the context and explain why its relevant. The wiki policy has space for and allows the use of self published content, but the need for "classic primary sources" for every little line, like you're suggesting, is why the coverage of fringe topics is so spotty. Get with the times. Youtube editorial and news coverage is real and will continue to grow as a real source, but refusal to accept any of it as a secondary source is plainly ridiculous. Ignoring the context is ridiculous. The fact that adding a simple statement of fact, the reason its edit protected in the first place, about what's going on with this article is ridiculous. —TaeruAlethea (talk) 04:00, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@TaeruAlethea: Sorry that Wikipedia doesn't work the way you want it to. There are plenty of other places on the internet that might interest you. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (talk) 04:44, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ganbaruby: what, clearly identifiable objection do you have with the youtube citations and the additional article citations? Do you have anything more than "It youtube. Youtube bad." or what? You've ignored the 3rd citation, which is not youtube, the entire time. Was this whole discussion just to tell some random new user trying to contribute something to politely "get out" or was it to try and keep the article up to date with good citations? There are other statements in the article that are entirely unsubstantiated and uncited, but a simple "a thing happened that focused on his project" requires ironclad Wall Street Journal article citations? Pulling from WP:Self Source, the questions to answer are:
1. The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim. — There is no exceptional claim being made by the requested addition to the page.
2. It does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities). — There is no claims being made about third parties.
3. It does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject. — There requested addition directly involves the Article's name sake and their work.
4. There is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity. — There is no reasonable doubt a lost media/ internet archive search has been performed.
5. The Wikipedia article is not based primarily on such sources. — Its a single line out of an article with more than 20 lines. Thats less than 20%.
Now, what more are you needing to satisfy your citation needs for this singular line to be added to the article? I will wait till it is off Edit restriction and add it anyway when it falls off because it meets the citation standards in multiple ways. Dont point me to some random page with the "you figure out what's wrong" attitude. Tell me, in your words, what is wrong with these 2 youtube citation. Tell me how they do not fit the above criteria. Tell me how you have watch, read, and reviewed their content to explain how a random uninformed person would be miss lead by the requested addition? Tell me how they do not fit as sources for the VERY mundane statement addition that is being requested. By context, which you are ignoring, and by the Self Sourcing conditions above, the citations are fine and with in guidelines. —TaeruAlethea (talk) 05:59, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For the sake of transparency: TaeruAlethea went to the Discord channel to ask about this request and got some input from editors on there. I have not much to add here, except that I think TaeruAlethea is referring to WP:SELFSOURCE above instead of WP:SELFPUB. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (talk) 08:51, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
 Note: Closing request while under discussion, per template instructions. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:17, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]


@Ganbaruby: I think that the requester has a fairly cogent point here, although I am not familiar enough with the topic matter to say conclusively who is making a better argument. However, it seems to me like the relevant P&Gs in this situation are borderline enough to warrant asking for a third opinion or opening a RfC, rather than simply declining the request altogether -- do you mind if I do this? jp×g 07:23, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG: If you'd like, go ahead. Extra pairs of eyes is often a good thing. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (talk) 07:32, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Death certificate[edit]

@65.94.104.215: You want this article to include the statement that no death certificate has been found. Under WP:ONUS, the burden is on you to justify why that is a) true and b) worthy of inclusion in this article. Could you please do so here, rather than edit-warring? Thank you. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 06:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Missing sources about McKinstry's death[edit]

There appears to be an article about McKinstry's death on page 3 of the January 26, 2006, edition of Las Últimas Noticias, titled "Asombroso álbum de fotos del científico que se suicidó" ["Amazing photo album of the scientist who committed suicide"]. There is another article about McKinstry on page 4 the next day (January 27). Nosferattus (talk) 05:43, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosferattus: can you provide, links? They could be helpful. 151.188.25.140 (talk) 18:01, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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