WUWT reader Dennis Kuzara wrote to Wikipedia in response to our earlier article on Wikibullies prompted by Lawrence Solomon of the National Post. He has received an eye-opening reply. Emphasis mine – Anthony
=================
Wikipedia replies
notable excerpt:
> > 4. Has William Connolley been removed as a Wikipedia administrator? If so who has taken his place?
In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleyās administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added to his article
().
Nobody has replaced him specifically, but there are more than a thousand other administrators with very varied backgrounds.
Reply follows:
Dear Dennis Kuzara,
Thank you for your email.
12/20/2009 05:31 ā Dennis Kuzara wrote:
> > Pierre
> >
> > I understand there several processes and procedures intended to prevent
> > someone from taking control of a segment of Wikipedia for their own benefit. I
> > also understand that Wikipedia is huge and therefore cannot be micromanaged
> > from the top, which is why the procedures and controls are in place.
> >
> > What happened in this case was a successful conspiracy to take command of
> > information (and history) by a not-so small group of co-conspirators, a la
> > 1984, to serve their own means and ends.This is not a flash in the pan, but a
> > long term (over a decade) coordinated effort to literally rewrite history. As
> > you stated, Wikipedia ā¦ normally takes no stance in disputes about Wikipedia
> > content or administration, but this situation is far from normal by anyones
> > measure.
> >
> > I think the Wikipedia concept has enormous benefits and Wikipedia is usually
> > the first place I look when I need information. My greatest concern is the
> > damage to Wikipediaās credibility by something as massive as what was
> > orchestrated by William Connolley and his band of cohorts. I think it would be
> > prudent for Wikipedia to be proactive on this matter, if for no other reason
> > than for damage control.
> >
> > So, actually, your (apparently off the shelf) reply does not answer my
> > question.
> >
> > Letās break it down into several parts:
> > 1. Is the management at Wikipedia aware of the biased and dictatorial
> > Wikipedia administration by William Connolley?
Iām not Foundation management, just an editor and volunteer who answers customer
e-mail, but my understanding is that while Foundation staff are probably aware of
this and other controversies, they leave their resolution to the community of
editors and its procedures.
> > 2. Is there any internal investigation being undertaken to verify the extent
> > and the scope of this apparent hijacking of process.
What you refer to as a āhijacking of processā is, as far as I can tell, an
entirely normal (for me) series of disagreements about article content. Thousands
of such disagreements occur every day on Wikipedia, and they are normally resolved
through our discussion-based dispute resolution process, as explained at
. This process may ultimately lead to
an Arbitration Committee investigation.
> > 3. What, if any steps are being taken to correct the bias injected into the
> > 5,428 articles authored or edited by William Connolley?
Wikipediaās content is not centrally edited. Anybody may make any change to
Wikipedia, including undoing an edit by Mr. Connolley. But that change may be
undone in turn if others disagree, and any dispute has to be resolved through
discussion until a consensus is found. This is explained at
.
> > 4. Has William Connolley been removed as a Wikipedia administrator? If so who
> > has taken his place?
In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleyās
administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges
while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added
to his article
().
Nobody has replaced him specifically, but there are more than a thousand other
administrators with very varied backgrounds.
> > 5. Would it be prudent in this case to now have an administrator who is
> > biased against AGW but closely monitored until this situation is fleshed out?
Administrators are elected by the Wikipedia community, and require a supermajority
of about 70% for election. The community prefers to elect administrators who
display no bias in any respect, but are committed to upholding Wikipediaās
principle of āneutral point of viewā ().
> > 5. If the current controls failed in this situation (a successful coordinated
> > attack by a group), then what steps are being taken to change the procedures
> > and processes to keep such usurpation from happening in the future?
Should the community conclude that its processes were indeed subverted by anybody
(and I am not aware of any such consensus emerging currently), it may decide to
change its policies, as explained at
.
Yours sincerely,
Pierre GrƩs
ā Wikipedia ā http://en.wikipedia.org ā Disclaimer: all mail to this address is answered by volunteers, and responses are not to be considered an official statement of the Wikimedia Foundation. For official correspondence, please contact the Wikimedia Foundation by certified mail at the address listed on http://www.wikimediafoundation.org
| D L Kuzara |
Submitted on 2009/12/19 at 11:36pm
Wikipedia replies notable excerpt: > > 4. Has William Connolley been removed as a Wikipedia administrator? If so who has taken his place? In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleyās administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added to his article (). Nobody has replaced him specifically, but there are more than a thousand other administrators with very varied backgrounds. Reply follows: Dear Dennis Kuzara, Thank you for your email. 12/20/2009 05:31 ā Dennis Kuzara wrote: > > Pierre > > > > I understand there several processes and procedures intended to prevent > > someone from taking control of a segment of Wikipedia for their own benefit. I > > also understand that Wikipedia is huge and therefore cannot be micromanaged > > from the top, which is why the procedures and controls are in place. > > > > What happened in this case was a successful conspiracy to take command of > > information (and history) by a not-so small group of co-conspirators, a la > > 1984, to serve their own means and ends.This is not a flash in the pan, but a > > long term (over a decade) coordinated effort to literally rewrite history. As > > you stated, Wikipedia ā¦ normally takes no stance in disputes about Wikipedia > > content or administration, but this situation is far from normal by anyones > > measure. > > > > I think the Wikipedia concept has enormous benefits and Wikipedia is usually > > the first place I look when I need information. My greatest concern is the > > damage to Wikipediaās credibility by something as massive as what was > > orchestrated by William Connolley and his band of cohorts. I think it would be > > prudent for Wikipedia to be proactive on this matter, if for no other reason > > than for damage control. > > > > So, actually, your (apparently off the shelf) reply does not answer my > > question. > > > > Letās break it down into several parts: > > 1. Is the management at Wikipedia aware of the biased and dictatorial > > Wikipedia administration by William Connolley? Iām not Foundation management, just an editor and volunteer who answers customer e-mail, but my understanding is that while Foundation staff are probably aware of this and other controversies, they leave their resolution to the community of editors and its procedures. > > 2. Is there any internal investigation being undertaken to verify the extent > > and the scope of this apparent hijacking of process. What you refer to as a āhijacking of processā is, as far as I can tell, an entirely normal (for me) series of disagreements about article content. Thousands of such disagreements occur every day on Wikipedia, and they are normally resolved through our discussion-based dispute resolution process, as explained at . This process may ultimately lead to an Arbitration Committee investigation. > > 3. What, if any steps are being taken to correct the bias injected into the > > 5,428 articles authored or edited by William Connolley? Wikipediaās content is not centrally edited. Anybody may make any change to Wikipedia, including undoing an edit by Mr. Connolley. But that change may be undone in turn if others disagree, and any dispute has to be resolved through discussion until a consensus is found. This is explained at . > > 4. Has William Connolley been removed as a Wikipedia administrator? If so who > > has taken his place? In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleyās administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added to his article (). Nobody has replaced him specifically, but there are more than a thousand other administrators with very varied backgrounds. > > 5. Would it be prudent in this case to now have an administrator who is > > biased against AGW but closely monitored until this situation is fleshed out? Administrators are elected by the Wikipedia community, and require a supermajority of about 70% for election. The community prefers to elect administrators who display no bias in any respect, but are committed to upholding Wikipediaās principle of āneutral point of viewā (). > > 5. If the current controls failed in this situation (a successful coordinated > > attack by a group), then what steps are being taken to change the procedures > > and processes to keep such usurpation from happening in the future? Should the community conclude that its processes were indeed subverted by anybody (and I am not aware of any such consensus emerging currently), it may decide to change its policies, as explained at . Yours sincerely, Pierre GrĆ©s ā Wikipedia ā http://en.wikipedia.org ā Disclaimer: all mail to this address is answered by volunteers, and responses are not to be considered an official statement of the Wikimedia Foundation. For official correspondence, please contact the Wikimedia Foundation by certified mail at the address listed on http://www.wikimediafoundation.org |
Sponsored IT training links:
Need help for HP0-J38 certification? Download 70-450 products to guarantee pass your 1Y0-A09 exam.
This is amazing.
I wouldn’t break out the champagne just yet. William Connelly ran for a seat on the Arbitration Committee.
Current results here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ACE2009
It looks like he won’t make the nine member cut, but with Wiki, who the heck knows for sure…
Wow, it’s amazing. Moreover, the irony is kind of obvious.
99.9% of his bullying and intimidation was related to articles about “climate warming.” They were probably the “desired ones” so at the end, he had to be sacked for a different topic – where he only applied his new self-confidence obtained by the Wikipedia establishment’s tolerance towards his gangster behavior towards the editors of “climate warming” articles.
By the way, once this particular dinosaur is gone, I think it could be sensible to try to correct the most obvious biases and mistakes in Wikipedia’s climate articles.
There are lots of smart and educated WUWT readers who read this thread. Create a Wikipedia account if you don’t have one yet and try to peacefully and constructively edit articles about global warming, hockey stick, and lots of other things.
It may be that you won’t be treated as a Jew in Germany of the early 1940s this time.
woohoo, score one for the good guys š
What is to stop Connolly using another ID and IP address to continue administering climate articles?
Perhaps he already has several aliases which he’s been using in tandem.
‘The community prefers to elect administrators who
display no bias in any respect,’
Good luck with that.
The point is that hundreds of entries related to global warming are still hopelessly biased. Most of the sceptics are still described as Big Oil stooges or raving lunatics. Instead of one corrupt editor we now have hundreds of even more corrupt petty dictators.
Well my edit on mann`s hocky stick lasted all of half an hour š
Reason for deletion, blog nonsense pov and was done by chriso, so another one steps in were the other has fallen.
I’m sure I’m only one of many, but I emailed wikipedia recently about their donations campaign saying I woud happily donate once the bias was removed from the global warming section.
Just fix it (Climate change Wikipedia) with the truth no pro or anti AGW bias. Just based on the RAW data (when we get it!). It has to be said that both RC and Stoat Connoley web sites are now allowing unbrindled criticism.. a good start for a future in long term forecasting.
It seems that the Wikipedia “Climate Change” page has now been completely changed! All Hadcrut data deleted, hockey stick gone etc… a good start.
Stop whinging and get editing.
Sheesh!
I just read through the arbitration page on Connolley’s case over at Wikipedia. The verdict? There all nuts.
It also says that Connolley can apply for reinstatement as an administrator at any time. I think Wikipedia ought to have a clear policy of editors not being allowed to edit articles on subjects for which they are advocates. And despite RC and its contributors claiming they are just scientists explaining the science, I think any dispassionate observer would have to conclude that they’ve crossed over the line to become advocates.
OT – haven’t scanned the rest of the Sundays yet, but an excellent piece by Gerald Warner on Copehagen, carbon trading and climategate in Scotland on Sunday:
“Finally, the great climate change lie begins to unravel”
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/sos-news-columnists/Gerald-Warner-Finally-the-great.5926323.jp
But I am sure that the BBC, the Guardian, Independent (and sadly the Glasgow Herald which usually takes a different view from the London hegemony), will still be on message.
I know Anthony has a bias against certain skeptics, namely one that many of us (his readers) want to name the current Solar Grand Minimum after. I joined Wiki to help flesh out Ted’s ‘stub’ and discovered Bill Connolley trolling about. He apparently met Landscheidt and didn’t like him either. He was actively trying to delete it saying he was insignificant and not noteworthy enough for an entry. The version twisted by Bill version remains. I did manage to sneek a bit of fun stuff at the end of a blatantly wrong article about the Western Antarctic related to satelite data which remained there for about 3 months before being wiped. After that bit of fun I’ve grown tired of the idea of doing all that work to put up on a place like Wiki. I still think there is a need to look (paint a picture in simple terms) of solar forcing of the climate from a broad paleo level to the Milankovitch Cycle to the ‘Jose Cycle’ to the Hale Cycle … I had a rudimentary post that was evolving on this but I shut down my site. (Mostly because I would rather browse my fave sites like this one) Maybe with William Connolley gone I could put it on Wiki š He was just one of the team of warmist gate keepers on Wiki and I don’t know if I want to find out who has taken over.
Just take a look at this little incestuous page on realclimate.org …
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=RC_Wiki
bananabender (00:15:19) :
You may well be right, but I smell a lot of media outlets of all sorts doing a great deal of cya activity. I suspect that Climategate (and what may well be as yet undisclosed further revelations from Climategate) is having a big influence in all sorts of areas. Colour me optimistic if you like, but I think the tide is turning
In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleyās
administrator status…
So what? He’s made 50 contributions to Wikipedia from Dec 17 to Dec 20, or the last three days or so. Mr Connolley has remained very active, despite revocation of his official status. The point is that while Wikipedia is wonderful for -say- Faraday’s experiments or definition of an eigenvector, it simply cannot be trusted for anything controversial – which unfortunately includes “climate science” at least so long as climate “scientists” persist in playing climate politics.
I asked today on email if there was any truth in the allegations in the National Post. What was Wikipedia’s side of the story?
I received a prompt and very courteous response from Pierre at Wikipedia with similar information to the above:
==== email from Wikipedia ==========
Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia (as explained at ), and so anyone may edit its articles. Its policy, nonetheless, is that articles must be written from a Neutral Point of View, representing all majority and significant-minority views fairly and without bias, as is discussed extensively at .
However, all matters relating to article content and project administration are
not controlled by a central authority, but are decided through discussion and
consensus of all collaborators. The nonprofit Wikipedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, does not intervene in the day-to-day operations of Wikipedia, does not make decisions about the content of articles or about administrative actions, and normally takes no stance in disputes about Wikipedia content or administration.
There are several tens of thousands of contributors and more than a thousand
administrators on the English Wikipedia alone, which normally ensures that no single editor or administrator can exert a commanding influence over the project or any particular aspect of it. There are also often disputes about content or administrative policy, but Wikipedia has solid procedures to resolve disputes and to make sure that every contested action, including the deletion of articles or the blocking of contributors, is subject to review in a community discussion or by an independent Arbitration Committee
().
In September 2009, the Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolley’s administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to global warming. This has now been added to the Wikipedia article about him
().
I hope that this addresses your concern.
===== end of email from Wikipedia ==========
That does satisfy my concern about the story. Of course, Wikipedia is always going to struggle to do a great job on very controversial subjects, but perhaps in the real spirit of Wikipedia – the crowd-sourcing model – it might still be better than what would be found in a traditional encyclopedia.
So, for those who have knowledge and expertise in a subject related to climate, why not go ahead and create some material.
If the gatekeeper is gone, the crowd-sourcing model might be freed up.
Steve
http://scienceofdoom.com
Sorry – that last comment was intended to include a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=William_M._Connolley
As an apologist you have to consider giving these guys a way out.. after all they were eminent scientist at some time.
I am not impressed with the response from Wikipedia.
While they refuse to publish the academic achievements of scientists who dispute the AGW doctrine they make themselves unworthy of attention.
Unfortunately Wikipedia is known as very left wing, and very biased on a great deal of topics (not to mention often-times factually inaccurate). Although this climate issue isn’t my particular field, I’ve faced the exact same aggressive editing when balancing evolution/atheism/religion articles. Most of my edits are extremely well sourced and authoritative, yet rapidly removed because it disturbs the otherwise streamlined propaganda that forms the opinions of millions.
Sorry, I’m wandering OT. My point is that, as others have said, while one propagandist is removed, there are many others that will move in to fill the gap. Bottom line to any casual readers here: if you want the truth on any “hot” issue (pun intended) don’t go near Wiki.
“In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleyās administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added to his article
().”
I don’t see where this was added to Connolley’s Wikipedia article.
The fundamental flaw of Wikipedia is the same as one in the modern process of “peer review.”
I grew up in the Soviet Union, where any publication was allowed only if it faithfully adhered to the current party line. Encyclopedias, including the scientific ones, referred to the previously approved publications only, and, therefore, they too toed the party line.
Any feedback could flow only through this closed evil short circuit. Conformist insiders thrived in government scientific institutes; “skeptics” and “deniers” did hard physical labor in prison camps, died in penalty battalions in Afghanistan, or perished in special “mental hospitals” for dissidents.
Today we live, in more than one sense, in a Global Soviet Union, where no conclusion, no matter how well justified by the logic or experimental results, is allowed to be published in “peer-reviewed” scientific journals if it is regarded as “unwanted” by the clique of mutually supporting, ideologically biased (and, in the final analysis, financially motivated) editors.
Green alarmism is an incredibly convenient ideology for the crooks in power. Not only it justifies their financial and legal abuses, it gives them an opportunity to use fear and guilt – two most efficient tools of manipulation – on the massive, global scale.
They know very well that most human beings value their status, comfort, and safety much more than some abstract notions of “truth” or “scientific facts.” By financing science, plutocrats receive “scientific” results made to their order: scientists are mere humans, and such is human nature.
It is amazing that lawmaking thieves still allow a relatively free worldwide access to some unbiased opinions and uncensored facts via Internet. I am sure they are working fast and furious on closing this dangerous loophole. Yahoo and Google are already cooperating. Soon they will introduce information filters – first under the innocent pretext of “protecting minors from pornography,” and later, quietly, expanding these filters to the matters of real ideological importance.
Do you think people like Rev. Jeremiah Write and his faithful acolyte of 20 years, Barack Obama, will ever let up? They are full of passionate, righteous hatred, and seriously bent on destroying the very foundations of the free society. Overt socialist slogans being out of fashion, green propaganda is their best chance of success.
[snip, ended over the top ~ ctm]
I gave up on Wikipedia a LONG time ago. While I guess I’m not altogether moribund about the demise of the Connolley, I hold very little hope that his ilk won’t carry on polluting the thing and continue its bias.
‘On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age’
Nothing better to do I guess.
Slightly ot/ is steve mcintyre actually a climatoligist? What are his credentials?
Is he considered an expert in this field? How would i go about using his work as a reliable source?
Here’s some good news. Michael Mann is getting his ass whipped by the commenters of his pathetic Washington Post editorial in which he tried to defend AGW by attacking Sarah Palin:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/17/AR2009121703682_Comments.html
Let us see how quickly the MWP rises like Lazerus from the dead. If it doesn’t, we know the bias remains.
I read through the comments/endorsements for Conneley’s candidacy for arbitrator. Wow, a lot of folks have been rubbed the wrong way by this guy.
Ok, I would love to write an entire article on this subject, but I believe the spam filter would kick in.
First off Connolley, several years ago, lost his adminship due to similar behavior. Once, when I was a bit active with wikipedia, and pissed off at his obvious censorship and his “teamwork” with several other individuals, I pointed out that his facebook friends (right off is own profile), included about 12 obvious wikipedia admins – this would allow them to communicate off-wiki to coordinate their activities (a big no-no according to wiki rules).
I pointed it out in the appropriate place, but knew nothing would happen due to the culture of wikipedia (it is all about sucking up to people like “Jimbo”) and so I didn’t spend too much time fighting it.
Honestly, the best thing to do in reponse is to play dirty. They break wikipedia rules all the time and know how to game the system with socks, email lists, and wiki-lawyering. A coordinated attempt to correct the bias on wikipedia is the only way to counter them – they’ve been doing it for years.
Mind if I write a “How to” guide?
Reply: Go for it, but we will not advocate gaming the system, but some may need to understand the system better. I’ll send email. ~ ctm
Well, at least we can hope that this is a move in the right direction at least.
NigelS, how very true. Maybe WUWT readers and their associates should attempt to become a sizeable part of the community.
“he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. ” Do I understand that he lives in England? If so, will he try to use the notorious English libel laws?
Look up ‘Medieval Warm Period’ in Wikipedia and you will notice that graph, still, at the head of the article.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
It opens (inter alia): “The Medieval Warm Period …… is often invoked in discussions of global warming. Some refer to the event as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly as this term emphasizes that effects other than temperature were important”.
I have noticed that AGW enthusiasts are now willing to accept the existence of the MWP, but emphasize possible negative consequences like the collapse of the Maya civilization (supposedly caused by climate change, i.e. drought).
This tactic is, of course, an attempt to deflect attention away from the crucial point that the MWP was probably global and probably warmer than now.
“In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleyās administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added to his article”
Does he mean this article :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Connolley
Looks like it has been edited out already …
Ah, on the dispute page: “I came to cold fusion – I forget how”. One does, doesn’t one?
The german Wikipedia has long been overtaken by people we call “Blockwarte” (in Nazi Germany there was one spy per housing block, the GDR had a similar setting; their job was to control that everyone behaved conformant). The Blockwarte will delete any article they deem “irrelevant”. So there’s a constant “relevance discussion” in the german wikipedia. The trick now is this: Wikipedia stores the history of all changes of an article so any viewer can get at old versions. But if an entire article is deleted, that history is lost as well [or at least becomes inaccessible, i don’t know what happens when you create a new article with the same title].
So be prepared to see entire articles deleted by the admins. They will want to destroy the history of those articles. Watch out for discussions of the relevance of an issue, this discussion always indicates efforts to delete it in the near future.
I’m not sure what he’s hinting at here in his square brackets comment to Dallas Dinosaur’s post at his stoat blog – anyone help?
Quote DD:
Can you explain the one below? It looks innocuous, but there are others emails that have at first glance, looked harmless, only to look much more conspiritorial once you understand context.
> William M Connolley wrote:
> > On Thu, 4 Jan 2007, Phil Jones wrote:
> >
> >> The net is closing…
> >>
> >> National Research Council, US Committee for the Global Atmospheric
> >> Research Program, Understanding Climatic Change: A Program for Action,
> >> National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, (1975), appendix A.
> >>
> >> This book (Fig A2b) has the same figure as Imbrie/Imbrie. It is rotated.
> >> It also has the same concept of the IPCC 1990 Figure, changes on
> >> various timescales – all rotated. Loads of Lamb diagrams I have
> >> seen countless times before.
> >>
> >
> > ? The source for IPCC can’t be the 1975 NAS report. That fig is relatively warm
> > about 1600; the IPCC ’90 figure is cold then. And as noted the “MWP” is colder
> > than 1950. But NAS 75 is the same as I+I, true (they both source to Lamb 69).
> >
> > Incidentally my I+I says copyright 1979, seventh printing 1998.
> >
> > -W.
[Yes, this is the bit I said you could find if you looked hard enough. But I don’t think you’ve done your homework enough – go read the wiki page on MWP/LIA and see if you know then -W]
(ENDS)
His comment reads like someone who wants to get caught like the poisoner who actually suggested the police test for Thalium.
In the last thread I noted
Mike Lorrey (22:48:33) :ā¦. There is a conservative group launching their own wiki encyclopedia, btw, which will have better vetting of admins and peer review of contributions.
Please keep us informed Mike, if this is a usable alternative wiki platform for the real climate science, we surely want to bless it and use it… When there is an opposition party, the worst excesses can be kept in check.
We need a skeptics’ reference point, that is open to editing by a wide number of editors (unlike NIPCC for instance) that can in this way become a gold standard for Climate Science where it differs crucially from the AGW point of view.
Both he and “atmoz” are still working the Patrick Michaels entry as of 2 days ago…
REPLY: Atmoz is this guy:
http://atmoz.org/blog/
He’s a grad student at the University of Arizona Atmospheric Sciences Department. And yes, he’s worked up a number of Wiki articles. – Anthony
It looks like this person is still contributing a lot, every single day he updates a dozen global warming related articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=William+M.+Connolley
No surprise here. This is the single biggest problem with the wiki idea and, as wiki has become bigger more and more people with a vested interest have joined the support volunteers to skew the content to match their beliefs. This applies to many topic areas, not just CAGW.
Just like the MSM, wiki is not a reliable source for accurate information.
OMG yesterday he removed any reference to climategate in the article concerning Michael Mann:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_E._Mann&diff=prev&oldid=332744981
Wikipedia needs to take action on this instead of the whitewash. Unless they do their credibility will fall even further.
During the years, I have been a bit surprised to see Wikipedia’s obvious bias when it comes to facts and conclusions in climate science. It has been clearly partial, like reading Guardian. I have not reflected much on that, thought more like “one can’t ask for a professional quality, after all it’s free of charge”.
But I now understand that the ambitions are admirable:
“Administrators are elected by the Wikipedia community, and require a supermajority of about 70% for election. The community prefers to elect administrators who display no bias in any respect, but are committed to upholding Wikipediaās principle of āneutral point of viewā ().”
I believe that all controversial subjects should be treated with more caution and should be controlled by more than one person. I have seen requests for monetary contributions, but I would not consider contributing to something that amounts to a partial source of information. I hope that WUWT follows up the development, a neutral source of high quality would be of great value.
Something needs to be done about Wiki, as an information source on energy, for the bias here is as bad as at the BBC.
A few years ago I edited Wiki ‘wind power’ to add details on intermittancy, which it did not mention. These were constantly deleted and had to be re-added – and this got to the stage where I was banned from Wiki for ‘topic vandalisation’ !!
I re-added similar details under a different user for many months, and I now note that an ‘intermittancy’ section has been added. But I still note that this mentions things like:
“”Thus, the 2 GW Dinorwig pumped storage plant adds costs to nuclear energy in the UK for which it was built””
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power#Intermittency_and_penetration_limits
This is totally untrue. Dinorwig was built (at enormous expense) to cover variability in demand, not in supply. It is a capacitor. It is there to soak up the instant demand when 5 million households all put the kettle on when a football match ends, and all demand extra power. It is NOT there to soak up any perceived variability in supply from nuclear plants.
If we can all have a concerted effort to change this and other points, I would appreciate it.
Remember:
a. Anyone can make changes.
b. All changes and information must be referenced to original sources.
c. It is sometimes better to enter the discussion pages and talk with the others monitoring that topic first.
.
Maybe we should take this chance and edit some of the pages ourselves. I don’t have an english account (anymore) but I can edit the swedish sections.
I remember reading a blogger post on RC, I think, about a year ago, where the blogger was lamenting that Connelly had too much power in Wikipedia. The comment was only allowed to stand so Connelly could add his dismissive riposte. He said, “Apparently I’ve got a lot of power. I must start using it then.”
In hindsight, his sarcasm was rather prophetic.
Here’s Wiki itself on Connelly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Connolley
Sparse details of his canning are left to a footnote: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact
(Connelly mentioned about 2/3 into the article):
This reveals the fundamental flaw in Wikipedia; the consensus view of knowledge. For example, if a majority of the Wikipedia community thought that cold fusion was possible, then that’s how it would be written up, with dissenting views deleted. Anyone previously ignorant of cold fusion, using Wikipedia as the first point of reference, would also be passed this perception, and it becomes self-fulfilling knowledge.
It reminds me of when Time magazine ran a reader survey for their person of the 20th century. They were bombarded with nominations for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, by Turkish people who thought it was a popularity contest. Bad luck for the Turkish that Time isn’t run the same way as Wikipedia.
Gore not the only high priest on the take—-http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html
has the wikipedia”climate change ” page been changed yet?
Until someone who has been smeared takes this anonymous editors to court nothing will change.
Richard Henry Lee (22:58:12) :
It appears that Connolleyās effort to get elected to Wikipediaās arbitration committee have failed according to the election results:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ACE2009
He had 234 support votes, 284 neutral votes and 478 oppose votes for a net of -244. He came in 19th out of 22 and nine were to be elected.
Maybe someone is finally listening at Wikipedia.
Posted on the other thread.
Hooray!!
Dumped as editor and outvoted as Arbitrator now as well!
Maybe Wikipedias internal organs grind round slow, but they seem to be getting some clue.
This calls for a celebration!
I also added two large paragraphs on why wind power does not work – taken from the experience of Denmark. This was taken from this critical report which states that Denmark, as Europe’s largest wind generator, has NEVER USED ANY OF ITS WIND POWER.
Wind power is too variable to use in the Danish grid in such quantities (19%), as it would destabilise it. Instead, the Danish sell their power to Scandinavia, where it can be integrated with hydro power (which is instantaneous). No doubt Denmark has to subsidise this energy, to sell it.
The Danish report:
http://www.thomastelford.com/journals/DocumentLibrary/CIEN.158.2.66.pdf
This has been reduced to:
A report from Denmark noted that their wind power network was without power for 54 days during 2002. Wind power advocates argue that these periods of low wind can be dealt with by simply restarting existing power stations that have been held in readiness or interlinking with HVDC.
A bland paragraph which fails to mention that this doubling of power stations will double the cost of electricity. In addition, most of these backup power stations will have to be on ‘spinning standby’ and thus burning fossil fuels whether the wind it blowing or not.
.
Organizations like Wikipedia, which are based on consensus, will always end up being biased towards the most *pushed* opinions at that time, instead of the most truthful or popular. That is why Science does not work on consensus, and why Wikipedia will never be able to reproduce anything like the scientific method for finding the truth. Anyone who thinks that excluding one or more editors is going to change that are kidding themselves.
Anthony. OT, have you seen this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html
When Wikipedia was getting started, I maintained a couple of topics. As it got larger, it attracted the usual band of “little dictators”: people who have made working on Wikipedia the purpose of their life, and who are very intolerant of people outside of their little circle. They play lots of politics, and enforce ever-changing editorial policies that part-time contributors have neither time nor interest in reading.
It would be a great thing if WUWT readers would make a joint effort to repair the damage to Wikipedia. Just be aware that you will need patience to deal with the internal politics, else your edits will likely just be summarily deleted for not meeting some obscure guideline or other…
The image that Wikipedia presents to the world is very different from the truth, as anyone who has been involved in editing it knows. Publically, the content of Wikipedia articles is arrived at by concensus. In fact, it is arrived at by stubbornness. The person who is prepared to keep reverting until the other party gives up is the one whose version you will find in Wikipedia. And that is usually either the fanatic or the person with a vested interest. That is what makes Wikipedia useless as a reference work for any but the most uncontentious information.
What Wikipedia has done is ignore science;
And so we see not only does the environment invalidate the AGW theory but that it also fails the 3 main scientific tests – tarski’s theorum, the classical model of science and scientific method.
http://twawki.com/2009/12/20/tarskis-theorum/
Despite the claims of this wiki editor, I find that Connolley remains active in reverting other peoples edits on any climate related articles. He has them all apparently on “watchlist” status so he gets a notification whenever one is edited so that he can go revert it. And yes, he has a team of fellow travelers helping him out as well. I think it would be prudent to investigate whether and how much he gets paid by pro-AGW individuals and groups to do the astroturfing at wikipedia.
OT but nice piece in DT dissecting Pachauri’s business links
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html
Its fun to read the entry on Energy & Environment in Wikipedia. Energy & Environment probably has the longest history of publishing peer reviewed papers which are not wholly sympathetic to AGW. Therefore the AGW-ers desperately need to rubbish it, because its existence contradicts AGWs major claims about scientific consensus, and how the peer reviewed literature reflects this. (In passing they create a straw man, implying that peer review acceptance means ‘this paper is good/correct’, rather than the true case, ‘this paper is worth publishing). And they do a good job of rubbishing it, offering a page which is not false, but far from true also. Its as though the Queen of England were to be described as a rich old lady living in central London. Certainly, not false….however. The ‘Talk’ pages are good fun, where Connelly, Dalbenstein and Schultz can be seen busily at work. I like ‘Talk’ No 9 most.
Barry Foster (02:56:54) :
Anthony. OT, have you seen this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html
Dynamite!
New thread please!
>> I donāt see where this was added to
>> Connolleyās Wikipedia article.
Seems it was added in this revision:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Connolley&oldid=332828714
But it was reverted again 10 minutes later by KimDabelsteinPetersen (the other Wikibully) hiding the embarassing passage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Connolley&action=historysubmit&diff=332829845&oldid=332828714
What on earth is going on?
I had noticed how some of the Wikipedia articles on global warming were altered several years back. When I had gone back to find a graph on Wikipedia about CO2 absorption bands, it had been deleted. I stopped using it as a source of AGW information other than to get the alarmists’ point of view. It was great as a starting point of information because the alarmists would not argue with that data. For me, it was just a starting point. It was still a useful source for developing arguments against AGW. Since proof that we are not the cause is apparent in even the hacked articles of Wikipedia, I saw no reason to fight the Wikipedia process to get rid of the hackers.
Ignoring the politics and looking only at the data, the AGW case falls apart even on Wikipedia.
This whole thing is not a big deal for me. I rarely use Wikipedia for information unless it is not a politicized topic like how an XRF works. Just stay away from current events topics on there.
John M Reynolds
Nigel S (00:14:34) :
āThe community prefers to elect administrators who
display no bias in any respect,ā
Good luck with that.
A very apt point. You will never get unbiased administrators and Wikipedia should stop hitting their head against a brick wall trying to. The solution is transparency. Would fellow wikipedians view Connolley’s actions favourably if they knew he has a vested interest in the science remaining settled? The childish and ignorant ones would, the grown ups wouldn’t.
The warmist side of the argument is always keen to judge sceptics based on their qualifications and corporate connections but it is a massive blind spot for their own kind, as we are now seeing with Dr. Pachauri. He has collated an impressive catalogue of business interests that hinge on emissions trading. Sorting out the environment (and even proving to what extent the environment should be sorted out) has taken a back seat.
You may be interested in this page that gives a background to whats going on at wikipedia in regards to Climategate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:A_Quest_For_Knowledge
Apologies if this was already known.
OT:
Mayon Volcano in the Philippines on the verge of major eruption:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091220/ap_on_re_as/as_philippines_volcano
Just take over Wikipaedia. Remember:
a. Anyone can make changes.
b. All changes and information must be referenced to original sources.
c. It is sometimes better to enter the discussion pages and talk with the other contributors monitoring that topic first, before making changes. But there is nothing to stop you jumping straight in and changing a posting. Just make all points reasonable, balanced, truthful, referenced, and don’t include personal opinions.
.
Off Topic, but Richard North and Chris Booker have exposed the dubious financial shenanigans of Rajendra Pachauri.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html
The man is probably worth more than Indian Railways.
More on how the money-go-round works.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1237235/ANALYSIS-Saved–trillion-pound-trade-carbon.html
How does the song go? “Money for nothing ….”
Thought this was rather amusing pee-take of AP : D
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100020347/ap-wins-world-brown-nosing-championships-for-how-obama-saved-the-world-article/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge
I don’t see anything in the article about “conspiracy to take command of information (and history) by a not-so small group of co-conspirators, a la 1984, to serve their own means and ends”.
Maybe the Wikipedia administrators should confer and agree to update the article to include actual practice.~
Mike Ramsey
From the 2006 New Yorker article:
That was before WUWT appeared on the scene.
I’ve worked with Wikipedia for years, and have a good track record there (I’m not an administrator, but have made several hundred good edits, and have reverted tons of vandalism). I noticed that this guy is still incredibly active in wikipedia, with an average of about 15 pages a day being edited, almost all related to climate change. I’ll try to start undoing them now that he is not an admin anymore; anyone care to help?
SCREAMS “THIS STORY ISN”T OVER!”
WIKI BLOCKED ALL SKEPTICS FROM CLIMATEGATE PAGE THEN LOCKED DOWN THE PAGE CONTAINING ONLY BELIEVER COMMENTS!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:A_Quest_For_Knowledge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate
The Arbitration page where Connelly got his admin rights revoked is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley&oldid=315690726
We need to remember all the scientists who have been smeared, and who have had their funding reduced or denied. These people have stood for truth, and have suffered for truth. They deserve a gold star by their names. When science re-builds its reputation, after this fiasco, those are the scientists who deserve power. And especially honor.
Gnarf:
Oddly reminiscient of the relationship between Bush and Blair, eh?
the best thing to do in reponse is to play dirty
No, we win better playing straight. It may take longer but it will be truly “sustainable”. There are “straight” ways of being cunning which are sometimes necessary (eg look to the work of S.O.E in the second world war). But you have to do things for the right reasons and with a clear conscience. Beyond that, you have freedom. Inventiveness beyond belief. And each of us is master/mistress of their own conscience. But as an overarching principle, we win better playing straight.
Now to business. I’m very intrigued by a visit to Conservapedia. I like their setup, their ethics and their awareness of wiki-context issues. Look particularly at their pages Commandments and How Conservapedia Differs From Wikipedia. I think that this has the potential to break WP’s tyrannical monopoly, at least in Climate Science. WP has beautiful ideals but these have been hijacked due to WP’s processes that are, in practice, undemocratic as well as unscientific. Democracy is far from perfect, but the presence of an opposition with teeth as well as courtesy keeps the ruling group on their toes, and leaves room for reform and open research to happen.
The last thing I expected was to recommend a conservative political platform for building up a good wiki source of Climate Science. But it has a lot going for it, and IMO has the potential to stay with the science in proper encyclopedia fashion. And if it can do so, this would be to everyone’s, but everyone’s, benefit. Even Wikipedia would be forced to reform, in time. Think about it. I don’t want to go on, I hope to see readers here observe all the facets of this possibility.
Oh, the irony, beeing “desysopped” for his involment in the cold fusion dispute…
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley&oldid=315690726#William_M._Connolley_desysopped
Rewrite,delete, repeat… what a waste of time. Obviously this is the domain of someone who does not do any real work. Wikipedia is over as a real source. It probably was good, early on before it became a tool of abuse. Just like communism, the idea sounds good, but leaves the real workers open for abuse.
Any single source of information is useless because it is human nature to lie and also human nature to tell the truth. People need to read both sides of an issue to understand the truth. The more different view points you read, the more the truth jumps out at you.
Nevertheless, consensus does not reflect truth when information is repressed and distorted.
Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake-up, UK.
The proposals would require:
Children in England to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication.
So the leftist Broon government, show the Gore propaganda film to young children then encourage them to check the facts through Wiki.
Any comment.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/25/primary-schools-twitter-curriculum
Whoever is out there keeping Wikipedia at least half-way honest deserves our praise like David at (04:59:55) :
Connelly and the other pro-AGW Wiki-scrubbers have to be treating this like a full-time job.
It is clear that the Team have divied up their responsibilities – Connolley Wiki, gavin RealClimate, Jones Hansen Peterson Karl the temperature record adjustments, Mann Wigley peer-review process intimidation, all of them and Pachuari controlling the IPCC etc. etc.
I am dumbounded. Just looked Pachauri up at the Wikipedia – he has a Nobel peace price just like Al Gore. Seems the major criterion for that price these days is you need to be a totally corrupt guy with a huge conflict of interest. Or do they just buy them?
We have nothing to fear from the Borg, the collective doesn’t work.
It took me about two visits to RealClimate to realize that the truth was not at the top of their priority list. One visit to the “hockey stick” page at Wiki convinced me of the same about them. Haven’t been back to either place. Don’t know why the hell anyone would seek information from either of them.
Astounding differences between Wiki sites in different countries…for example..
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate&ei=ATYuS6yJEJDasgP0go3JBA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CB0Q7gEwBg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dclimategate%2Bsite:wikipedia.org%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX
vs….
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate&ei=ATYuS6yJEJDasgP0go3JBA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q7gEwAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dclimategate%2Bsite:wikipedia.org%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX
vs..
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate&ei=ATYuS6yJEJDasgP0go3JBA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBUQ7gEwBA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dclimategate%2Bsite:wikipedia.org%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX
Now, compared with the english/U.S. version, it really does appear that Connolley or the Team at RealClimate is steering Wiki…The seriousness of climategate is being downplayed, and only the AGW crowd is allowed significant comment.
Caleb (05:15:05) :
We need to remember all the scientists who have been smeared, and who have had their funding reduced or denied. These people have stood for truth, and have suffered for truth. They deserve a gold star by their names. When science re-builds its reputation, after this fiasco, those are the scientists who deserve power. And especially honor.
Amen.
Whatever edits you make to Wikipedia articles, you must provide relevant and authoritative citations for EVERYTHING you say. Not links to other blog opinions. For example, when discussing Mann’s hockey stick, linking to Steve McIntyre’s blog would not be considered a relevant citation, but linking to reports or minutes of his congressional testimony would be. Just sayin.
Some light reading for the moderators who have to suffer the mangled grammar at WUWT: http://www.grammarphobia.com/
He lost the election for Wikipedia arbitrator. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2009#Results
Wikipedia will reflect the consensus view, and it does in the area of global warming. As the consensus changes, WP will change as well, although it will likely lag that consensus.
Good News !!
Go to the emails and do a search on Connolley. You will find he was involved as part of the team in trying to suppress the MWP and various “outreach efforts”.
This shows you who he was associated with:
From: Phil Jones
To: William M Connolley ,Caspar Ammann
Subject: Figure 7.1c from the 1990 IPCC Report
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:38:40 +0000
Cc: Tom Crowley ,”Michael E. Mann” , “raymond s. bradley” , Stefan Rahmstorf , Eric Steig ,gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov, rasmus.benestad@physics.org,garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, David Archer , “Raymond P.” ,k.briffa@uea.ac.uk, t.osborn@uea.ac.uk, “Mitchell, John FB \(Chief Scientist\)” , “Jenkins, Geoff” , “Warrilow, David \(GA\)” , Tom Wigley ,mafb5@sussex.ac.uk, “Folland, Chris”
Amen. “Science” by oligarchy must end.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
This is the conservative wiki encyclopedia I mentioned earlier.
Hmmmm.
Wikipedia has no credibility for anything that is remotely political. Frankly I laugh when people try to cite it.
As for Wikipedia policing itself? *laugh*
Wiki is going into the garbage by reason of bad reputation. The bad reputation is easily exposed and spread. Makes it hard to recover.
So a Wiki administrator gets canned what about this guy written about in the Telegraph today:-
Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri
The head of the UN’s climate change panel – Dr Rajendra Pachauri – is accused of making a fortune from his links with ‘carbon trading’ companies, Christopher Booker and Richard North write.
In defense of Wikipedia, it is hard to do what they are trying to do, and on non-controversial subjects the content is, on the whole, excellent.
Here is the page covering the arbitration dispute that stripped Connolley of his administrator privileges. Short story: He lost his privileges for abusing them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley#William_M._Connolley.E2.80.99s_use_of_administrator_tools_while_involved
@Bill Illis (06:05:00)
Thanks, but I don’t deserve it. I have duties and responsibilities outside of Wikipedia, apparently unlike these people, and I can’t even start to keep up with the incredible amount of edits they make daily in pursuit of AGW. I’m trying, but not very successfully.
I’m going to propose that educators no longer accept citations or references from Wikipedia in papers submitted by students.
Not censorship, not restricting freedom of information, just good sense. The mainstream media, and here, Wikipedia, has allowed and even encouraged this biased behavior, and this could be a simple cause-and-effect reaction. This is what happens when you’re not responsible. Something they should learn from.
Wikipedia ‘model’ works on its own terms but it has loads of problems as an information source. One of the biggest is that it takes no account of the target audience. Look at ‘sardine’ which has a couple of pages. Is it written for children, home cooks, chefs, nutritionists, fisherman, food producers, fishery managers, fish farmers or fish feed producers? Then there are all the scientific specialties like oceanographers or geneticists. Some subjects are too simple whereas others are full of jargon which is only understandable to someone working in that specialty. Anything medical or anatomical is equally a problem. Is the audience for ‘heart’ for lovers, patients, doctors, cardiologists, surgeons or scientists? What about a cat’ or whale heart?
Wikipedia has now reached the ‘churn’ point. As much is removed as is added.
Caleb (05:15:05) :
We need to remember all the scientists who have been smeared, and who have had their funding reduced or denied. These people have stood for truth, and have suffered for truth. They deserve a gold star by their names. When science re-builds its reputation, after this fiasco, those are the scientists who deserve power. And especially honor.
Over at CA, poster Shen announces that he has set up a wiki for “Climate Change” entitled Neutralpedia. He’s using the Wikipedia platform MediaWiki, and it looks like a possible. He’s inviting contributors. If this starts to take off, I’d still like to see the best of the excellent Conservapedia awareness of wiki issues there – so that reality and ideals stay linked, not severed as currently under Connolley.
I feel we owe it to ourselves to make this, or something like this, work. First I want to know that Shen (or people joining him) can deal with attempts to sabotage – like learning to brake before learning to accelerate.
I want a gallery there, to reinstate the bio’s of those who have been tarred by WC.
I wonder if Connolly is a member of UCCSSP?
More here:
http://tinyurl.com/ycwuzz3
[LOL ALERT!]
Please add the “Gore Effect” back to Wikipedia!
OT.
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/12/17/earths-upper-atmosphere-is-cooling/
“New measurements from a NASA satellite show a dramatic cooling in the upper atmosphere that correlates with the declining activity of the current solar cycle. For the first time, researchers can show a timely link between the Sun and the climate of Earth‘s thermosphere, the region above 100 km, an essential step in making accurate predictions of climate change in the high atmosphere.”
What? The sun might be responsible for upper atmospheric heating and cooling? Who knew?~
“This finding also correlates with a fundamental prediction of climate change theory that says the upper atmosphere will cool in response to increasing carbon dioxide.”
Hmmm, I thought that upper atmospheric cooling was due to the sun waning but really it is due to increased CO2. I am confused.
–Mike Ramsey
TBH, after reading Conservapedia’s articles on evolution and creationism, IMHO the primary author there is as bad as Connolley, only from a creationist pov. Gah, the world needs an un-idiotarian wikipedia.
Below is a good resource to plenty of articles on Wiki bias including climate science.
Tip: Bookmark to respond to pro-AGW supporters quoting from Wiki š
http://www.populartechnology.net/2008/11/anti-wikipedia-resource.html
Einstein:
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
“To defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.”
…and the “Climate Change Consensus” section!
I would start by proposing that all citations that reference papers that reference data or other papers that directly or indirectly require the support of data from the CRU be disallowed. Without the citations the garbage will simply fall off the pages.
It is the data that is corrupt, anything that is build on corrupt data is corrupt and must be cleansed from the reference section of all libraries.
John Hooper (00:36:10) :
Stop whinging and get editing.
Sheesh!
You could lead the way John.
A cartoon linked from Connelly’s run for Arbitration Committee…shouldn’t this robot be named Al Gore?
http://abstrusegoose.com/strips/ignorance.PNG
Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. It appears the owners of Wikipedia do not want it to be an encyclopedia.
It should not be viewed as an encyclopedia. I think most people don’t view it as that anyway.
Over the top? In 1930s practically every sensible editor would reject any notion of what was really going on in Germany as a wild exaggeration: “After all, we are all Europeans, civilized, educated people! It cannot be.” Eyewitnesses warning the Eastern European Jews were laughed at in their faces.
Remember my words: a few years from now you will realize that what was going on behind the Climategate was much worse than you thought.
You are dealing with a mob; billions of dollars and thousands of reputations are at stake. A mob not only lies for comfort and status, it readily kills.
So I think the only reasonable follow up activity is to now hit every climate article ever touched by Connolley with the bias {{POV}} and factual problems {{disputed}} templates.
That should serve as a nice notice to people that the articles aren’t to be taken for granted.
Mike Lorrey (08:03:43) :
TBH, after reading Conservapediaās articles on evolution and creationism, IMHO the primary author there is as bad as Connolley, only from a creationist pov. Gah, the world needs an un-idiotarian wikipedia.
Or Idolitarian perhaps…
Perhaps the best thing Wikipedia could do is simply have two clearly labelled sections on global warming, one for the proAGW crowd and another for the sceptics. Then folk could read either or both and make up their own mind without wikiadmins getting into fights about it.
r (05:44:25) :
Rewrite,delete, repeatā¦ what a waste of time. Obviously this is the domain of someone who does not do any real work.
I’m still wondering how William Connolley makes a living. He must be getting funding to edit Wikipedia full time. Maybe I’m wrong about that. But I don’t know how he has time to work a full time job to raise his kids and also do all the editing of Wiki that he has been doing for years.
…and now, as time goes by, this tale of “global warming” will remain as a scaring tale just for kids….and, last but not least, politicians š
Mark (01:17:45) : “Slightly ot/ is steve mcintyre actually a climatoligist? What are his credentials? Is he considered an expert in this field? How would i go about using his work as a reliable source?”
Steve McIntyre’s claim to fame is mathematical prowess. He was a whiz in school, and went on to study (and master) statistics. He made his living in the mining industry, studying data for ore bodies and the like, where statistical analysis was part of the game. He was also involved in the administration of mining companies, where he gained knowledge of the legal requirements for prospectuses, etc. (I am writing this from my impressions from having read his story several times. I believe that I am generally correct!) He makes no claim to being a climatologist. He became suspicious of the claims of Mann and the “hockey stick” and decided (as a mental pastime) to subject the data and methods claimed by Mann to rigorous statistical standards (audit). And he found that things didn’t add up.
You can read the whole story at http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html . (Google “mcintyre and mckitrick + hockey stick” if you want to read even more!)
Steve M deserves the Order of Canada, at a minimum. Through WUWT his accomplishments have been praised more than once. You can follow his blog at http://climateaudit.org/
IanM
VG (00:31:05) :
RC and Stoat Connoley web sites are now allowing unbrindled criticism..
Few even know about this because few ever visit or even know about these web sites.
All changes and information must be referenced to original sources.
And therein lies the operational design flaw. Some time back (2 or 3 years?) Jerry Pournelle tried to correct misinformation about himself. He was not allowed to do so, because the “original source” of the misinformation was a published (opinion) article and Jerry didn’t have a reference to a published article.
The wiki “editor” in charge of this decision was likely unqualified to serve Dr. Pournelle his lunch at Taco Bell, much less have anything resembling a discussion with him.
The Wm Connolley episode is simply part and parcel of how wiki operates. Don’t get your hopes up that this changes anything at all.
Wiki is democracy but only in the form of two wolves and a sheep discussing what to have for dinner. Without well considered, working forms of oversight, this is little more than a shouting contest; e.g. the editing process as written requires than an entry be agreed upon by some “community” and there’s zero evidence that this “community” in any real sense is qualified to hold an opinion, much less be able to influence one, meaning that there are likely millions of edits that have been given up simply because the holder of the Correct Information grew tired of arguing with the unqualified. (And whether the unqualified are activists or mere imbeciles hardly makes an operational difference.)
Until WIKI corrects this obvious and enormously stupid policy I’ll continue to regard it as a source of egotistical flatulence.
Ian L. McQueen (08:52:28) :
Steve M deserves the Order of Canada, at a minimum. Through WUWT his accomplishments have been praised more than once. You can follow his blog at http://climateaudit.org/
A vote for him and Anthony!
@ Ian L. McQueen (08:52:28) :
Thanks man, would anyone know of a peer reviewed article which refutes manns hockey stick? I am trying to edit his wiki article and am being told all the links i provide for proof are nonsense š
Purakanui (00:42:46) :
ClimateGate is only accelerating doubts about global warming that longer, colder winters are making.
here’s a look at record snow from yesterday in the USA:
http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=maxtemp,mintemp,lowmax,highmin,snow
Just a couple of observations:
First, it is imperative to remember that Wikipedia is more like a an organic creature than an organization. In order to affect the output, you need to be more like a virus. Appeals to leadership are less than meaningless. Authority is social, not hierarchical nor at all pecuniarily-based. It’s chaos made human. You have to become part of the creature, because you’re not going to change it from without.
Second, I’ve known Jimbo Wales since the days of UseNet where we and a number of others discussed and debated matters of philosophy and freedom. I cannot assert that Jimbo is without any fault, but I can say that from what I’ve personally seen and experienced, he’s one of the good guys. He’s individualistic, objective, and rational and I might add at the very least he’s Objectivist-friendly, which means something to some of us.
If Jimbo understands the issue well enough and can have some positive effect within the context of this strange beast that he helped create, he’ll try to do so, in my opinion.
Mark Young
I received the exact same email so I guess they must have been prepared for this.
I think what is needed is a “pedia” that, for controversial topics, runs two threads – one on either side of an unsettled question. Any contribution should be well supported. It would at least lay out the controversy to a reader for his/her consideration. This might be a good suggestion to Wiki to help repair corrupted topics.
Also, with the dismantling of the AGW dictatorship, I believe we are on the cusp of a sensible development of climatology where we will accord well-supported theories and hypotheses from the complete spectrum of data collected and interpreted transparently. Hey, we may find some real things we should be concerned about.
The cynicism and dishonesty of the wikipedia AGW case here is part of a larger problem that has corrupted science itself. I believe the time is overdue for scientists to formally subscribe to a strict code of ethics – the kind that engineers have had as their professional guide for perhaps a century or more. It includes taking a course in ethics before graduation and it also includes disciplinary proceedings under the Associations of Professional Engineers (one in each province in Canada) where unethical behaviour has been uncovered.
Mike Lorrey (08:03:43) : TBH, after reading Conservapediaās articles on evolution and creationism, IMHO the primary author there is as bad as Connolley, only from a creationist pov. Gah, the world needs an un-idiotarian wikipedia.
Point taken, Mike. However, that does not invalidate a possible usefulness of the pages mentioned, to adapt to use on the Neutralpedia wiki that Shen has just set up for “Climate Change” and mentions on today’s CA thread on Wikipedia. The author of Conservapedia obviously has hands-on awareness of the problems of Wikipedia, and this could still stand us in good stead, guidelines and help to set up a skeptics Climate Science wiki and make it work. Shen’s setup looks hopeful but is still extremely minimal and I hope this can be developed.
Last April I was looking at the possibility of starting such a wiki myself, and wrote up a page on this, but decided it needed a MediaWiki platform and technical abilities beyond what I have. Now perhaps it’s time. Readers of my Primer (click my name) are writing steadily with thanks, numbers apparently increasing, people are motivated after ClimateGate to try, even as non-scientists, to understand what happened to the science. In fact, today my site is down owing to bandwidth being exceeded for the first time!
So I’ve jumped in at Shen’s wiki to try to start the ball rolling in the right direction… er, David Ball? Reinstatement bio? Good articles? whatever…
“Gah, the world needs an un-idiotarian wikipedia.”
What I think the world needs is a Wiki that embraces the idea that people can have different perspectives and assessments of what’s true or not and that allows both (or all) arguments to exist side-by-side for comparison, perhaps with notation from critics. In other words, let the pro-AGW people make their case and the anti-AGW people make their case and let the public sort out which they believe. Deleting and prohibiting opposing opinions is the problem.
Can anyone help me out on this one?
In a newspaper article about climate a reader made the comment-“when did CO2 become lighter than air?………..How did CO2 manage to get to the upper atmosphere in the first place and how does it manage to stay up there?”
For myself I heard an AGW scientist say that it can stay in the atmosphere for more than 50 years. I am always looking for information to be able to reply to the AGW believers.
Having looked at http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page, I think I will be recommending it in future, but in needs a lot of work to make it comprehensive.
John (09:24:48) :
Amen, amen, amen.
The first case was Climate change dispute, where Connoly was placed on parole.
The second case was Climate change dispute 2, where his parole was removed without discussion and the reporter of the parole violations was punished.
Some years back I was at a country fair and poking through a rummage sale, and came across a “The American People’s Encyclopedia” (20 volumes) for something like a dollar. It was published in 1962, so it doesn’t even include ideas like Continental Drift, but I still use it as a reference, especially when it comes to history. It is amazing to see how history has been revised, no matter what your politics are.
Also of great interest are the Supplementary Volumes of the set, which begin with “Events of 1962” and continue on, year by year, to “Events of 1971.” I actually think you get a clearer idea of history by reading it described by people watching it happen. For example, you can witness Continental Drift entering public consciousness. For another example, reading about the Vietnam War, as it was seen in 1961, 1962, 1963, and so on, gave me insights I have never gleaned from people attempting to write about the events with 20-20 hindsight.
Lastly, I confess the yellowing pages of the old volumes seem more honest and factual than Wikipedia. I recommend that, if you come across an old set of encyclopedias, and have the room, buy it.
However someone should print out sections of Wikipedia now, so people in the future can see what we dealt with.
Plato I believe said it best: “Democracy is the triumph of ignorance over knowledge”.
wikipedia seems to be the definitive proof of Plato.
By the way, Solomon said Connolley was both an editor and administrator. Wikipedia only says they “revoked Mr. Connolleyās administrator status”. So is his editor status still valid and can he still edit material and mess with it, but perhaps just not bar other authors he didn’t like, or has his editorial status been revoked also?
fFreddy (01:38:47) :
āIn September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleyās administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added to his articleā
Does he mean this article :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Connolley
“Looks like it has been edited out already ā¦”
In and out more than once. It’s hilarious, all good stuff, no bad stuff despite having equal relevance.
A number of writers here keep expressing their view that science is not about consensus. This is true at the foundations of science, but in the earth sciences particularly, where controlled experiments are difficult to make, then advancement of the science typically relies on consilience, which is the act of concurrence. Part of the problem with the whole GW-climate change debate (war?) is that so many earth scientists have been boiled in the caldron of concurrence for so long that they believe it is a reliable avenue to truth. It is not nearly foolproof though, and there are many clear examples about science gone badly astray because of this. In these examples it is usually a renegade or two that lifts the veil.
Skepticism is the hallmark of science. Even wrong skepticism is better than none at all.
Mark;
http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_fact_sheet.pdf
photon without a Higgs (08:50:02) writes:
“Iām still wondering how William Connolley makes a living. He must be getting funding to edit Wikipedia full time. Maybe Iām wrong about that. But I donāt know how he has time to work a full time job to raise his kids and also do all the editing of Wiki that he has been doing for years.”
This is a very interesting question and one worth pursuing. How did young William become a founding member of RC? What’s his connection? Perhaps he’s being paid by Fenton Communications (?).
BTW, if it can be established that RC is not arms length from NASA, then RC can be subject to FOIA and the connection between RC and Fenton can be established. If NASA knew that Schmidt was spending time working on RC during business hours and NASA did nothing about it, then the doctrine of latches can be applied to say that RC is really an activity paid for and approved by NASA.
AnonyMoose (09:47:48),
Thanks. I rarely click on anything Wikipedia, so I wasn’t even aware of these behind the scenes show trials. Reading the first link you provided, it’s interesting that Connolley gets complete unanimous support in every question regarding his exoneration.
paul wright (09:24:49),
CO2 can stay in the atmosphere indefinitely ā if you’re talking about an individual molecule. But on average, CO2 is absorbed by a sink [ocean, forest, etc.] in less than ten years.
This is an important question, because if CO2 persistence in the air is long [say, a century or more], the climate sensitivity number is high and a fast rise in CO2 will result in a rapid rise in temperature.
But if the persistence of an average CO2 molecule is, say, ten years or less, then the sensitivity number is very low, and for all practical purposes the effect of CO2 on temperature is so insignificant that it can be completely disregarded.
There is a lot of peer reviewed literature on CO2 persistence: click
@paul wright
Start here with Ernst Georg Beck studies:
http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf
http://www.biokurs.de/eike/daten/leiden260607/leiden1e.htm
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/bayreuth1e.htm
Being a long-time Wikipedia user and sometimes minor editor (always anonymously, I don’t want to be associated with that bunch of nut-bags), I can tell you that their ArbCom (Arbitration Committee) is not much help – they consider themselves to be a law unto their own.
Mark (01:17:45) : āSlightly ot/ is steve mcintyre actually a climatoligist?”
In addition to what Ian relates above, Steve applies the Scientific Method in terms of his “audits”, which are essentially peer reviews because he’s looking at, and is extremely qualified to look at, stastistical “methods” used in Climate Science studies, methods which often are the most relevant and even the only “science” being done by some important Climate Scientists – such as those studies using alleged temperature proxies such as tree rings, varves and other borings for obtaining specimens – such as from sediment layers from lake and ocean bottoms, spleotherms – stalagmites, and, of course, instrumental temp. constructions which involve a lot of data and methods of collection and manipulation of data to get graphs and averages, including the Global Mean average. McIntyre is also an official ipcc Reviewer.
He’s pushed for accessable, fairly contemporaneous release of “materials and methods” – or data, sources, and algorithm computer codes used for further use of the data, as required for a Scientific study to even be a study and have results to begin with, the lack of doing which is one of the main reasons we are at the point we now are, which seems to clearly reveal that what the ipcc and its elite Climate Scientists have done is simply not Science.
Steve’s audit and methods get deeper and deeper in trying to look at what Climate Science does, including publishing papers “officially” but also completely openly on his blog. He’s also asked and looked for, without receiving or finding, and pushed for a complete “Engineering quality” analysis of how Climate Science gets its CO2 forcing numbers. Etc., etc..
But Steve and “Mr. Pete”[?] and his wife also even collected some tree ring cores in one day – I think “Mr. Pete” then collected some more over a few days – taken from the important Almagre bristlecone pines near Boulder[?], Colo., in order to have them analyzed and to prove Steve’s “Starbucks” hypothesis to the effect that some amateurs could pretty easily do it starting out from a regional Starbucks in the morning, when the Climate Scientists [Mann?] were claiming they couldn’t update from 1980[?] their own series because the operation was too difficult and costly. It was a riot!
McIntyre stays very focused and requires this on his blog, but it sounds to me like he understands a lot more about physical Science, or easily could, than some of the elite Climate Scientists. There are so many topics, posts, and thoughtful comments at Climate Audit that you could probably get a good start at achieving several Phd.’s if his blog were to get accredited.
It just goes on and on. So, yes, imo Steve McIntyre is easily as much of a Scientist and “climatologist” as anyone apparently needs to be to qualify as a “Climate Scientist” and then some.
For a refutation of Mann’s Hockey Stick, go to Climate Audit as per WUWT’s link and look to the left sidebar there for MM’s papers – McIntyre and Mickitrick – and the NAS, etc., investigations – I’m having trouble with the new CA site, probably due to my OS or something.
Also keep in mind McIntyre’s anlysis of the “trick” used to “hide the decline” re: Briffa’s contribution to the Hockey Stick, which can also be found at CA and elsewhere.
I wrote Wikipedia dozens of times from 1999 to 2004 about how its stance on global warming was one sided and that Wikipedia was a site only for leftists. I never got any responses, even though I sent in links to more recent studies that were pulled from Wiki that were more recent than the ones they put up. I stopped using Wiki for anything with even the most remote political consequence, because they simply were not credible.
G.L. Alston (08:55:11) :
The Wm Connolley episode is simply part and parcel of how wiki operates. Donāt get your hopes up that this changes anything at all.
I get the impression that the people running Wikipedia don’t want to put the effort in to correcting everything.
Mohib (09:55:04) :
Plato I believe said it best: āDemocracy is the triumph of ignorance over knowledgeā.
wikipedia seems to be the definitive proof of Plato.
U.S. politicians also.
Mike Ramsey (08:03:19) :
New measurements from a NASA satellite show a dramatic cooling in the upper atmosphere….This finding also correlates with a fundamental prediction of climate change theory that says the upper atmosphere will cool in response to increasing carbon dioxide.”
Cooling there, ok, so where is the warming happening NASA??
James Hastings-Trew (06:52:44) :
“Whatever edits you make to Wikipedia articles, you must provide relevant and authoritative citations for EVERYTHING you say. Not links to other blog opinions. For example, when discussing Mannās hockey stick, linking to Steve McIntyreās blog would not be considered a relevant citation, but linking to reports or minutes of his congressional testimony would be. Just sayin.”
I’ve seen references linked to RealClimate, which is a blog.
Case in point; “It is his view that there is a consensus in the scientific community about climate change topics such as global warming, and that the various reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summarise this consensus.[2]”
“2. “Just what is this Consensus anyway?”, 22 December 2004 (Real Climate.org)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Connolley
I don’t think your understanding is correct. Wiki does not allow original research, but whether references are authoritative appears to occasionally be a bone of contention. For instance, Is FOX News an authoritative source? Isn’t Wiki itself an authoritative source when it comes to a decision to deflock an administrator?
Check this out, Connolley cites (and hawks) his own website for “Connolley has worked on confronting the notion that “all scientists were predicting an ice age in the 1970s” (known as global cooling).[5][6]”
John (09:24:48) :
“What I think the world needs is a Wiki that embraces the idea that people can have different perspectives and assessments of whatās true or not and that allows both (or all) arguments to exist side-by-side for comparison, perhaps with notation from critics. In other words, let the pro-AGW people make their case and the anti-AGW people make their case and let the public sort out which they believe. Deleting and prohibiting opposing opinions is the problem.”
The CAGW cabal don’t want a debate, as they think the science is settled. They know that if the topic was to be debated they would lose – and by a very large margin at that.
There tactics are clear from the Climategate document. They have the politicians, financiers and industrialists on there side. They think they are bullet proof.
However, despite this huge propaganda machine, more and more people are joining the sceptic camp. Their lies are starting to rock the power base of politics, so won’t be long before they are fed to the wolves to protect their master’s. The Copenhagen accord shows just how much damage this distorted science has done.
James Smith (03:18:26) : “The person who is prepared to keep reverting until the other party gives up is the one whose version you will find in Wikipedia. And that is usually either the fanatic or the person with a vested interest. That is what makes Wikipedia useless as a reference work for any but the most uncontentious information.”
This is, in fact, a problem with “democratic” institutions in general, not just Wikipedia. A small, united group of full-time “politicians” will always have the advantage over a larger unorganized group of people who exercise their “vote” rarely, if at all. The price of truth/liberty is eternal vigilance, and we haven’t been very vigilant lately.
Wikipedia is an excellent place to find out the name of Gilligan’s pet hamster in episode 27.
Lucy Skywalker (05:17:09) :
“No, we win better playing straight. It may take longer but it will be truly āsustainableā. There are āstraightā ways of being cunning which are sometimes necessary (eg look to the work of S.O.E in the second world war). But you have to do things for the right reasons and with a clear conscience. Beyond that, you have freedom. Inventiveness beyond belief. And each of us is master/mistress of their own conscience. But as an overarching principle, we win better playing straight.”
Yes and no, we win by being honest and fair, but not by playing by the rules that they set up, interpret and ignore when convenient. We have to do what they do – we have to ignore the wiki-rules that they ignore (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvass ) if we want any chance of changing wikipedia for the better.
Remember, these people have been manipulating the system for years and know how to game the system – we CAN beat them if we stay honest, that’s our advantage, but only if we combat their organizing with our own and twist the rules right back at them via jiu-jitsu.
It’s interesting how one gate opens to a path leading to another gate – Wikigate. One wonders what lies ahead? Footprints leading to carbongate? And don’t forget Nobelgate. I hope that what we are seeing here is the beginning of the death throws of the last vestiges of the left in the West. There best tool – the ‘artful’ use of words to twist and invert reality – is not up to the task of hijacking the internet where many users and many sites preserve their crooked paths for scrutiny.
len (00:41:55) :
I know Anthony has a bias against certain skeptics, namely one that many of us (his readers) want to name the current Solar Grand Minimum after….
O/T Len, you might like to take a look at this. It seems to be correct and an easy read for the scientifically inclined layman. I stumbled across it a couple of hours ago. It deals with the Milankovitch theory and confirming evidence in the geologic record.
Ice Ages Confirmed by Alan Feuerbacher
http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/part-15-ice-ages-confirmed.html
I very much doubt that Wikipedia will be allowed to become un-bias. There is too much big money behind the propaganda. If in 1917 J P Morgan and his cronies went to the effort of identify and buy controlling interests in the major newspapers in the USA so they could install editors with strings on them, I doubt that Wikipedia will escape being used for propaganda.
“It has been noted in congressional record of 1917, that J.P. Morgan interests took control of the United States media industry: “In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press….They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers… An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.” – U.S. Congressman Oscar Callaway, 1917. http://www.solarnavigator.net/venture_capital/J_Pierpoint_Morgan.htm
The internet and small independents are the only hope for un-bias information.
I haven’t had a chance to examine this site but it looked interesting: Unfiltered News Compiled by G. Edward Griffin at http://www.realityzone.com/currentperiod.html
G. Edward Griffin wrote The Creature from Jekyll Islandabout the history of the Federal Reserve and has no love for the big bankers controlling the USA. He also sells a DVD that is “an antidote to Goreās Inconvenient Truth. Designed for the classroom, it is divided into three lessons based on statements by internationally recognized climate scientists covering such topics as climate change in history; data errors in computer models; the impact on global temperature by cosmic rays, solar flares, and cloud formation; the truth about melting ice caps and flooding; and the benefits of increased CO2 levels. It also shows the corruption of science by the United Nations.
The guy can be all bad with that going for him.
This is not the first or only time this has occurred at Wikipedia. Editors fought a fierce battle over editing on John Edwards articles prior to his August 8, 2008 ‘confession’. They too, were overruled and censored by administrators with a particular viewpoint.
It got so bad that we got “tips” by disgruntled Wiki Editors
http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2008/07/john-edwards-love-child-scandal-debate-at-wikipedia-rages
So it would seem that procedures to prevent politicized entries are still lacking–in which case, expect it to happen again.
ralph (04:17:51) :
Just take over Wikipaedia. Remember:
Easier said than done when you are going up against a bunch of paid “volunteers” After seeing a “Nuclear Protesters Wanted – $10/hr” ad in the 1980’s Boston Globe I realized that in many cases we are no just dealing with Zealots but those who are making a paid career out of “activism”
Ahhhh dear William!
I worked at BAS for nigh on 20 years without realising that he was an AGW cheerleader. Though he did fit the demographic, as he seemed to be on every committee and working group (I seem to recall that he was our union rep, at one point) and one of only two men in the building who sported a ponytail.
I didn’t work in the same division as William, but he was famous throughout BAS for one thing, which I now wholly understand – he wore shorts and sandals every single working day, come rain, shine or, occasionally, snow. This was obviously in preparation for “catastrophic warming”.
has this been noted already? did/does connolley work at hadley?
Dr William Connolley / Senior Scientific Officer / Climate Modeller / Physical Sciences Division
I work on various aspects of Antarctic Climate. For the last few years I have been heavily involved with sea ice modelling, implementing, tuning and verifying the elastic-viscous-plastic sea ice dynamics scheme within the Hadley Centre’s model HadCM3 (Connolley et al. 2003; Turner et al, 2001),
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/biog.html
I agree I have two old sets of Encyclopedia Britannica and several other Scientific Single volume Encyclopedias on specific subjects along with targeted reference books for mechanical engineers, etc. which have sections on what are now controversial topics. I frequently refer to them to find an authoritative baseline of where the science was in the late 1970’s.
It is a good idea and I highly recommend it!
Unfortunately many of the younger generation are incapable, (or unwilling) to thumb through a written reference and follow the internal references to get a full picture. Those of us who grew up during the time when major engineering reference libraries had physical card file indexes that had millions of index cards have better research skills in that regard. We learned the hard way that some of your best information was in obscure publications intended for other audiences. I remember fondly (not!) standing at the dewey decimal card index in the Norlin Library at University of Colorado for hours thumbing through card indexes and writing down references, then spending literally days walking through the stacks to find the volumes only to find that the info I needed on a mechanical engineering subject actually was best explained in an aeronautical research paper written in 1918 by NACA and a text that discussed steam locomotives written in 1934.
People forget that the scientists that founded institutions like NACA did some very good science with very simple test equipment, because they have never read some of those old papers.
I also concur that one way to deal with wikipedia’s skewed presentation would be to systematically harvest the pages and references that were deleted and archive them in a wiki that preserves “what Wiki did not want you to know”. It is especially interesting to follow the reference citations that only survive for a day or two before they get black holed.
Larry
Larry
Gail Combs (12:45:08)
O/T Len, you might like to take a look at this. It seems to be correct and an easy read for the scientifically inclined layman.
I think the Hale Cycle and Milankovitch Cycle are generally out there being discussed. It’s the intermediate cycles that seem to get forgotten and the link to the whole ‘solar forcing’ story … I think. The long paleo trend is also out there to discover. It’s like you were on Google Earth zooming in and you skipped from the globe filling your screen to city scapes.
I think Anthony tends, like many, to be more interested in the actual mechanisms of solar forcing like Eddy was working on and many others. There was some recent evidence the sun transfers energy to our biosphere simply because we in the outer fringes of the Sun’s atmosphere … kind of direct transfer analogous to convection as opposed to TSI … radiation.
I, personally am frustrated with the lack of prominence Paul Jose’s paper on the influence of Planetary movements on Solar Activity and am personally happy Geoff Sharp is keeping the subject alive at http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/ and http://www.landscheidt.info/ along with many others. That NASA has a paper by Hung that corroborates this theory is telling since they are baffled by what the Sun is doing now. Why do ‘causal mechanisms’ seem to only appeal to Engineers and ‘statistics and ad hoc computer models’ entrance the general public … and some scientists like Hathaway?
To get back on topic. From my couple months of locking horns with Connolley and a couple other gate keepers of their bias, I have concluded the discussion of the intermediate influence of the Sun on Climate (MWP, LIA, Victorian Age Chill) is one subject Wiki successfully supressed or wiped and it makes me angry. I think the full macro to micro telescoping of solar influence on our planet would be a compelling story and an education for many people of the very short history of modern man and the amazing world around us. The idea of a 172 year cycle matching Maunder Minimum and Dalton Minimum has been for the most part, been swept under the rug by zealots.
Someone asked about British Royal Navy logs. Some (all??) can be found at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/shipsonexploration.asp. A sample is available at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/dol/images/examples/pdfs/adm55/felix.pdf, in which page 33 shows a temperature reading. I don’t know how often readings were taken – I merely tried about 3 pages of the sample and saw the reading. Hope this helps.
Gary Pearse (09:20:38) :
…. I believe the time is overdue for scientists to formally subscribe to a strict code of ethics ā the kind that engineers have had as their professional guide for perhaps a century or more. It includes taking a course in ethics before graduation and it also includes disciplinary proceedings under the Associations of Professional Engineers (one in each province in Canada) where unethical behaviour has been uncovered.
AMEN to that When I was young and idealistic, I was required to falsify certificates of analysis by my company. I was horrified and went to a lawyer to see what my “rights” were. They were ZIP as an employee who was NOT a certified Professional Engineer. If the company fired my for refusing to be dishonest I did not have a legal leg to stand on. Since then there is “whistleblower” but it is more fluff to feed the ignorant masses than a workable reality. I end up in an automated system that required providing all sorts of personal info to get a call back about the situation. A friend of a friend reported the USDA agent at the Mexican border for ignoring Mexican produce being switched to “product of USA” boxes. The DOT pulled his CDL in retaliation!
Unfortunately Dishonesty pays it is now called “being a team player” Honesty gets you fired and blackballed.
Alexander Feht (01:07:27) :
The Australian government is in the process of trying to implement a mandatory, nationwide ‘filter’ on internet access. This filter will ban any urls that end up on a blacklist. The blacklist will be a secret list, maintained by a government department. There are no avenues for appeal if you end up on the list. The government says it is trying to stop child pornography : a laughable claim given that most child pornography is traded in ways other than on websites (the filter will not affect p2p, ftp or email). Even the child advocacy groups agree it is a bad idea. An early draft of the blacklist was leaked earlier this year, as suspected it not only contained pornography websites, it also contained other politically questionable sites such as euthenasia, anorexia advocacy and some religion (think fundamentalism) sites. There were also a number of innocent businesses on the list, because they had their sites hacked for uploading pornography, and thus were blacklisted. In each case the relevant site was not notified of their ban.
Plenty of polls have shown the majority of the public is against it, yet they are pushing ahead anyway, after fobbing people off with ‘studies’ and ‘tests’ that ‘prove’ it works as they want.
Given that the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was pushing to have an emission trading scheme before going to Copenhagen (he told the public it was important to help cement a deal), which got defeated in the senate, and he was completely excluded from all copenhagen dealings (that’s what you get when you emit less than 1% of all greenhouse gases in the world) – it wouldn’t such a stretch of the imagination to see a site like climateaudit.org ending up on a ‘blacklist’.
So while others may think that the internet is destined to be a safe place for the free exchange of ideas ; if this idea makes it through the Australian Senate (hopefully will be defeated like the ETS) then other countries around the world will point to it and say ‘it works in Australia’ then implement similar policies. Make no mistake, the politicians dislike the internet immensely, and will sell censorship on the same old line as AGW ‘think of the children’.
Connolley deletes criticism of himself in Wikipedia.
len (15:17:40) :
… The idea of a 172 year cycle matching Maunder Minimum and Dalton Minimum has been for the most part, been swept under the rug by zealots.
Anything that would contradict CO2 as THE cause of climate variation has gotten swept under the rug. But that rug is getting very lumpy and the lumps are starting to crawl back out. (cartoon anyone?)
This was the best I could find as a reference for the 172 yr Wolf-Gleissberg cycle
http://virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf
Which is why I will only backdoor relevant links to WIKI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_fallacy
The numbers not adding up is OK here.
After I posted a Wikipedia article on Kim Dabelstein Peterson and how she controls the AGW discussion there, she had my account revoked with the following excuse: “User hates Wikipedia”. The level of groupthink there is remarkable.
http://joustthefacts.typepad.com/joust_the_facts/2009/12/climategates-winston-smith.html
Excerpt from Orwell’s “1984”
As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs — to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one on which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of The Times which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.
If your bias matches my bias neither you or I am biased.
Can I just say, that, more than likely you were ‘stamping’ a form or work order not so much to vouch for its accuracy or authenticity, but rather that a particular ‘work step’ or part of the process had been completed. Engineering in a normal company would have had a process set up within which the employees ‘worked’ to complete a job or a batch of anything …
Methinks sometimes that Gail reads WAAAAAY too much into things.
And I’m pretty sure it’s just me and me alone who thinks that …
.
.
There’s a reason I switched from researching for information on Wikipedia to Conservapedia (http://conservapedia.com/). There are literally hundreds of other administrators just like Mr. Connolley who abuse their privileges and create what is now known as a censored community who push a bias agenda.
Here’s a great example.
Climategate on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
Climategate on Conservapedia: http://conservapedia.com/Climategate
Which one is being more open about truth and the facts of the entire scandal? Conservapedia.com is most definitely more open about truth, clearly it is a more factual open reference discussing the facts — Wikipedia is not. It’s sad, but Wikipedia has gone downhill and fails as a source for the most relevant information on the Internet.
Straight out of the handbook: Introduction to Conspiracy Theory-dom (part of the course: Conspiracy Theory 101).
Myth #1: The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was crafted by Wall Street bankers and a few senators in a secret meeting.
Debunking begins thusly here :
.
.
Sorry, mods, but some of this I think (just me thinking now) needs addressing. Or, you might be ‘overrun’ by these people and think, oh! what a mess they will make of Wikipedia then!
brc (16:14:04) :
Interesting news — and chilling.
Thank you for letting us know.
Steven Colbert on how editors and admins create “wikiality” through faked ‘truthiness’:
http://civicactions.com/node/405
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word—wikiality?videoId=72347
Gail Combs (16:39:52)
This was the best I could find as a reference for the 172 yr Wolf-Gleissberg cycle http://virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf
Thanks for the paper. I have actually abandoned my quest and taken up gravity as a subject of interest. The hunt for what could be an imaginary particle best defined by our imprecise understanding, dark matter, is very intersting.
If I actually fire up my enquiry again that paper will come in useful because I noticed at least two dicernable parallel lines of inquiry exploring planetary barycentric tides on the sun and its influence on solar activity (which don’t cross reference each other). The Gleissberg cycle and other derivations, rather messy and referred to by Hung in his paper in 2007, and the neat and tidy barycentric tides and solar torque wind up of Paul Jose and Landscheidt by Carl Smith. The second avenue of enquiry focused more on the geometry and what I saw of the first is it seemed to get muddled in the mechanics and mechanisms involved and take the geometry as secondary.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if you took these variations of this causal mechanisms for intermediate solar variation, and some think it is the primary driver of the Hale cycle as well, along with the Milankovitch cycle, what we know about solar output over geological time (paleo) and then added the dampening effects of the ocean … I bet you could make a real model. Touch it up a little with some statistical analysis/fitting and you could forcast out to the end of the Holocene š
Still cannot add that bit that was pulled (“In September 2009…”) back in to the article on Connolley — need to be an administrator. It was put on protection by Stephen Schulz, to expire late on 26 Dec 09 UTC. Not normal protection: only wikipedia administrators have editing privileges…
An thing that it is severely messed up that you can get elected to the Arbitration committee with negative votes (more against than for)?
Oops. That should read: Anybody think that it is severely messed up that you can get elected to the Arbitration Committee with negative votes (more against than for)?
When I want to look something up, Wikipedia is the first place I go, and the last place I believe. I use them like I use NPR – selectively. And I never give either of them a dime. If they succeed, it won’t be because of me. If they fail, then good riddance.
I created the original Wikipedia entry for the sceptical Australian geologist Professor Ian Plimer in early 2006. The entry has now been totally butchered. I just checked the edit history. William E Conolley and KimDabelsteinPetersen feature prominently in the edit history.
Ian L. McQueen (08:52:28) :
You ask:
āThanks man, would anyone know of a peer reviewed article which refutes manns hockey stick? I am trying to edit his wiki article and am being told all the links i provide for proof are nonsense :)ā
In my peer review for IPCC AR4 (2007) I wrote:
āPage 1-13 Chapter 1 Section 1.5.2 Line 36
For accuracy and completeness, after ā(IPCC, 2001a)ā it is very, very important to add:
āHowever, since the TAR several studies have provided doubt to that work of Mann et al.. Many studies provide data that conflict with the findings of that work of Mann et al. (e.g. Beltrami et al) (ref. Beltrami et al “Long-term tracking of climate change by underground temperatures”, Geophysical Research Letters v.12 (2005) ). In 2005 McIntyre and McKitrick published two papers that together provide a complete refutation of that work of Mann et al. (ref. McIntyre S & McKitrick R, Energy & Environment, v 16, no.1 (2005)) (2005), Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 32, No. 3, (2005)). But, perhaps the most important of their studies of that work of Mann et al. was their publication in 2003 (ref. McIntyre S & McKitrick R, Energy & Environment, v 24, pp 751-771 (2003)) that showed it is not possible to replicate the work of Mann et al. There are several reasons for the inability to replicate this work of Mann et al.; not least that Mann refuses to reveal his source codes. The inability to replicate this work of Mann et al. means it has no scientific worth: i.e. this work of Mann et al. is anecdote of similar kind to a report of a ghost sighting. Hence, the IPCC now apologises for including it in the TAR. The IPCC will now disregard this work of Mann et al. and recommends that all others should also disregard it until it can be ā and has been ā independently replicated.ā
Of course, this review comment was ignored and the MBH āhockeystickā was hdden among a spagheti-graph in the AR4.
But the E&E and GRL references in the comment are peer reviewed pubications.
Richard
Ian L. McQueen:
PS
Following a FOI request, all IPCC review comments are now published on the IPCC web site, so my entire review comment that I posted at (02:56:55) can be quoted and referenced to the IPCC web site if you want to use it (and not only its references) in your wiki submission.
Richard
At the bottom of his entry at Wikipedia, WMC provides five external links. Ignoring RealClimate, it is instructive to read the comments in STOAT, “I am all powerful”.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/
May I suggest that a few thousand people with non-static IP addresses check the recent Wikipedia edits of William E Conolley and KimDabelsteinPetersen, and reverse those edits if you disagree with them. Or simply change climate related articles to say what you think is correct. Do not vandalise Wikipedia. You will need to change your IP address after each change as they will likely ban that IP addess.
The problem is that skeptic editors come, do a few edits, get discouraged, and go. I see new skeptic editors come to the Wikipedia climate articles every day, but they soon get discouraged that their initial edits are not successes and drop out. Usually they don’t understand Wikipedia rules, such as the rule of reliable sources, which basically means you have to get the information from mainstream media *news* sources, not from blogs or editorials. Meanwhile, there are about a dozen hard-core alarmists who are fanatically dedicated to sticking around all hours of the day, and they quite thoroughly understand the rules and will beat you over the head with them. Thus, at any given time the editing is dominated by alarmist fanatics. If we want balanced articles we need to have much more patience and thicker skin, and stick around until enough of us are there to achieve critical mass.
As mentioned last time I put a polite, sensible note on the discussion page of MWP on wikipedia stating my concerns about conflicts of interest on the part of some editors. It was deleted. I then put a comment asking how Mister Connelly could state “The Heartland Institute are considered a joke” and delete all citations involving the group yet he could still cite his own website to support his own evidence. All my comments were deleted by an anonymous user. I restored them. I invite other readers to apply this pressure. At least it may stop some people being totally deceived.
Richard S Courtney (03:03:40) : Maybe they used to be available due to FOI, but the CA link to UCAR WG1 comments is dead. Apparently replaced with a link to Harvard’s collection.
I’ve always stated that you have to be very careful on what you have read on Wikipedia’s Site…Even though information is reviewed, it still has to be ultimately by a person or persons that have a view!
Review this article: http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?63.post
And a followup: http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?104.post
If you have researched the AGW data there, it follows the same agenda you will see from the Alarmists point of view…It doesn’t stay “non-partisan”!
William E Conolley and KimDabelsteinPetersen can make only a few hundred edits per day. Ten thousand skeptic editors doing only one edit per day can beat them.
And if that’s not enough, I see that Google for Climategate gets over 12 million hits. There are more skeptics than alarmists.
You don’t have to follow Wikipedia rules. They already allow RealClimate as a source, and it’s a blog.
Don’t worry if your edit is deleted. This is about keeping Conolley and Petersen and the other climate alarmists so busy they won’t be able to keep up. They don’t play by the rules themselves. Just be sure to change your IP address for each edit by turning your modem off and on again.
Let’s take Wikipedia back. It can still be a useful source. Don’t vandalise Wikipedia. Add only useful data.
Why not start using knol?
The point is starting to have a mass of data and information organized and easy to use and refer to. This also let people to validate or not a knol (article) with their name and face. The comment help appear useful to find error or criticism.
When a system is corrupt, the best way to reform it is to build a competing system not corrupt. Competition forces people to be honest.
_Jim (21:24:17) :
Can I just say, that, more than likely you were āstampingā a form or work order not so much to vouch for its accuracy or authenticity, but rather that a particular āwork stepā or part of the process had been completed.
Jim I am a chemist who graduated on the dean’s list from Purdue University and am Certified Quality Engineer. I ran chemical analysis using IR, GC, AA, Mass Spec, wet analysis, set up and managed three labs, wrote quality procedures…
I had the plant manager at more than one company point blank order me to change the numbers on a certificate so they could ship the product. These were numbers that resulted from chemical tests I had run and double checked. I am not mentioning names of the companies because I wish to protect WUWT.
I am not making these things up and I would appreciate it if you would quit calling me a liar. If you have never run into dishonesty in the work place good for you but that does not mean it does not happen.
I’m the Wikipedia editor who more or less got WMC defrocked. It’s ironic, given some comments here, that I had confronted WMC long ago on his global warming misbehavior, but personally am very much not a global warming skeptic, I merely believe in the goal of neutrality. In spite of the statements about consensus, Wikipedia has largely settled for “rough consensus” which can, in practice, mean disregard for minority positions, quite contrary to the theory behind Wikipedia. True consensus would be quite different, it’s a matter of stating what is in reliable sources neutrally and completely and without creating imbalance. Balance is found in Reliable Sources, a Wikipedia term of art. It doesn’t mean “reliable” in the ordinary sense. If that had been followed at the Global warming article, none of this would have happened.
My primary interest was Wikipedia process, in other words, not specific content, but how to develop neutral and informative content, given a community consisting of people with various degrees of bias. In this pursuit, biased administrators using their tools to warp content are a serious problem, interfering with the necessary seeking of consensus. So I’d confronted WMC when I found what he was doing. Later, investigating another incident of admin abuse, I came across the Cold fusion article, and started to research it, and found that it’s quite an unusual situation: a common view among scientists and others in one direction, and opinion among scientists actually informed about the topic in the opposite direction. The rejection was twenty years ago, but research continued, and the tide of publication in peer-reviewed journals shifted in the other direction within two years of the original conclusions of experimental artifact. So I started to edit the article according to what is in the literature, in reliable sources. And ran into the same kind of problem, what I’ve called “Majority Point Of View (POV)-Pushing.” WMC saw this and took advantage of the opportunity to ban me. Ultimately, I appealed to the Arbitration Committee.
The result was mixed. I’d always known there was a risk that I’d be seen as a fringe advocate, and that happened. But WMC also stubbornly persisted to the point that he blocked me during the case. As if a police officer accused of abuse went out and arrested the plaintiff…. So the statement that this had nothing to do with global warming wasn’t accurate, ultimately. It was a product of his attitude, and the initial confrontation had been over global warming behavior.
Wikipedia is complex, and many comments here are quite uninformed. Connolley is not an admin any more, but remains free to edit, as does a skillful global warming skeptic, GoRight, though the latter is often beseiged. There is a “cabal” of editors who maintain the global warming articles in their desired state, quite improperly, but the difficulties of Wikipedia process mean that it can take years for this to be adequately resolved. Quite simply, they have the troops. If a skeptic registers and tries to be effective, they also have the experience and status, and the skeptic is quite likely to end up blocked, unless they manage to learn how to navigate the Byzantine maze. If anyone wants to help, I would highly recommend becoming familiar with how Wikipedia works. If you focus on developing truly neutral articles, rather than on emphasizing skepticism, for example, you might succeed if you are careful. Don’t just dive in with insistent editing, you will be history quickly, given the number of editors and administrators on Connolley side, who remain untouched, and some remain powerful. I’ll be on the other side, as to point of view, but my position is that we can’t find neutrality if we attempt to shut up one side.
Reply: Thank you for the the thoughtful comment. While you will read many angry and some rather biased opinions here, there are others that strongly strive for neutrality as well, as well as open and transparent research. If you do not mind I may contact you via email. ~ charles the moderator.
An interesting view of bias at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
All this and all they are discussing is a name for climategate.
len (23:09:29) :
….Wouldnāt it be interesting if you took these variations of this causal mechanisms for intermediate solar variation, and some think it is the primary driver of the Hale cycle as well, along with the Milankovitch cycle, what we know about solar output over geological time (paleo) and then added the dampening effects of the ocean ā¦ I bet you could make a real model. Touch it up a little with some statistical analysis/fitting and you could forcast out to the end of the Holocene š
Yes it would. Especially now that we have the computer power not available to Milankovitch and Gleissberg. It is ashame so many possible research avenues got derailed not just by the global warming clique but when ever research threatened entrenched money. A good example is the Canadian treatment for rheumatoid arthritis my doctor used and then championed that was never allowed in the USA.
for Jim
Her Name was Dr Dailey. She lived in the NYC area and appeared on the Joe Pine TV Show in the 60’s pushing to have the medication allowed in the USA. There maybe archived news stories too – YOU dig them out.
If you hate Griffin then A Primer on Money by the House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency: The chairman was even a democrat http://familyguardian.tax-tactics.com/Subjects/MoneyBanking/Money/patman-primer-on-money.pdf
And yes I read the entire 135 pg booklet.
man their is a ton of them all working in tandem, i can only make 3 edits a day to an article, they can team up and undo it without breaking the 3edit rule. This is impossible š
anyone want to go and undo changes to this article other than by mark nutley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_K._Pachauri
Please do so
Rather than worrying about someone playing games at Wikipedia, I usually just scoff at anyone pointing to it as some kind of authoritative reference. Connolley’s tale is fat for the fire in directing people to get information from something that isn’t so beset with factual errors and ideological bias.
Wikipedia is a useful research tool, often. However, when it comes to controversial topics, it has not developed its sea legs, and readers should understand that. It is not and does not pretend to be an “authoritative reference.”
Mark, there isn’t a “ton,” maybe merely one or two dozen, with a core of less than that. However, if you are not following Wikipedia policy in your edits, and you appear to be pushing a particular point of view, they will manage to raise the ire of neutral editors and, in fact, the Wikipedia community can and has resisted organized groups with serious resources. That’s why I do not recommend making rapid changes, you will get slaughtered, so to speak, unless you know what you are doing.
Yes. It’s not fair. But to make it fair will take structure and process that hasn’t been developed. Want to change it? You’d have to pay your dues, become known as an editor for things other than some single purpose. You could start, though, by identifying experienced editors who understand the problem, and ask them how you can help.
I’m not banned from this topic, by the way, though I need to be specially careful. I’m user Abd on Wikipedia, and I can be reached through the Wikipedia email interface. My goal has been, from the beginning, genuine consensus, and there are people who know how to facilitate that, but the “technology” isn’t well-known among Wikipedia editors. It takes patience.
I’ve named one editor who generally has a skeptical attitude on global warming, or who wants the article to be fair. There are others, some with very substantial experience, but few have been willing to confront the “cabal.” (This isn’t some secret conspiracy, it is merely a group of editors who collectively exert power through consistent cooperation.) It can be difficult, tedious, and unrewarding. That’s Wikipedia, when there is conflict. Just so you know what you’d be getting into.
Wikipedia can also be fun. Elsewhere. If you contribute to the project in other areas, you will have more credibility and may be better able to resist and gather support if you are treated unfairly.
Thank you for the advice adb, small steps it will be š
I second Mark; thanks for the advice, abd. It should be required reading for everyone here who advocated changing Wikipedia, including me.
DILBERT HAS THEIR NUMBER – LOL
HEY! If you are contemplating the editing of articles at Wikipedia, I highly advise you a) open an account first, b) use a pseudonym and don’t reveal personal information, and c) perform other useful edits before you do anything. Wikipedia fancies itself a community, and they are very intolerant of one-issue editors. I recommend that, if you do not use and enjoy editing Wikipedia, do not touch the editing of a global-warming article with a ten-foot pole.
The thing is that at one point William had a very vested interest in pushing his Point of view (POV) regarding global warming. So while the average hobbyist comes around now and then and works on an article, they quickly get discouraged by William and his supporters antics. Since the hobbyist has no skin in the game, he or she gives up after a bit, while William, who presumably got some funding based on AGW theory, has a vested interest in keeping on pushing his POV, his very livelihood depends on it.
If you want influence, I think your time is better spent starting blogs, plus you can actually make money and contacts from it.
Hi guys, I’ve just been having a discussion on James Randi’s website about William M Connolley losing his administrative priviliges at Wikipedia but someone on there has pointed out that he’s still editing posts. It appears to be correct check here 16 December 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere
He also shows up on the realclimate talking about ‘the’ wikipedia project 6 December 2004
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/william-m-connolley/
And on a blog
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/
december 3 2009, Quote: I’ve been busy with the wacko’s on wiki, as you’ll see if you visit [[Talk:Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident]].
november 24 2009
Its best to read through his posts yourselves because I don’t have time to read them and follow the links right now but it seems like this guy is on a mission.
Here is a blog where I think by James Annan was appointed arbitrator by Connolley. It gives an interesting insight into the reaction of the IPCC supporting scientists. I think they have forgot that anyone can read their posts.
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2009/11/arbitration.html
Connolly is editing Wikipedia non-stop. Here’s the list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=William_M._Connolley
Connolly’s old blog is here. http://mustelid.blogspot.com/
There are other wikipedia administrators on here.
Quote:
A few snippets from wikipedia… I’m now an admin, and hence have ultimate power to CRUSH ALL MY ENEMIES HA HA HA HA!!! . Sadly no: the rules prohibit me from abusing my powers and there are always other people watching anyway. And not that I have too many enemies, Of Course. Some of the comments are interesting though: try the RFA, scroll down for the Opposes.
And I’ve just made my 10,000th edit. That slacker Lubos only has 2.3k, & Charles matthews has a feeble 54k.
posted by Belette at 7:24 PM 6 comments links to this post
Sorry for posting so much but here’s one more (the last one).
It seems like realclimate is making real effort to dominate wikipedia and they even have a guide on how to deal with sceptics.
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=RC_Wiki
Maybe this is the wikipedia project.
Connolley left realclimate on december 1 2007 so maybe along with friends on his blog he has his own wikipedia project too.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/goodbye-to-all-that/
Following my issue with Connelly et al on the wikipedia page on MWP (see my comment 04:37:17) : I received this standard message from Connelly:
Surely he has to be an admin to send messages like this?
”
…………….If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! William M. Connolley (talk) 12:15, 21 December 2009 (UTC)”
I`m guessing that message was on your talk page, anyone can leave messages to you on it.
Remember, always be polite, do not use profanity and do not exceed the 3 edit rule (you can only do 3 edits per day per article)
I tangled with Connolley years ago on Wikipedia, and don’t have a lot of sympathy with the pro-warming orthodoxy, but wanted to give a few comments to anyone interested in beginning to edit.
1) Take some time to learn the community norms. You are right that organized groups can pull a page one way or the other, but overall, Wikipedia is a pretty incredible achievement. Spend some time editing non-contentious pages until you have a sense for how the community resolves disputes.
2) If you get into conflict on pages you care about, the most important thing is that you be scrupulously fair, pleasant, and open-minded. The people who will judge any dispute don’t have a dog in the hunt. To them, global warming pages are just one more contentious set of documents, no different from Israel-Palestine, Allegations that W stole the 2000 election, or Scientology.
3) The main Wikipedian community strongly believes in the Wikipedia process, and the central posts of that process are (a) that editors should bend over backwards to collaborate openly and pleasantly with other editors (“assume good faith”) and (b) that all disputes should ultimately resolve to fair summaries of reliable outside sources.
There will be times when you are convinced that the other guy is not operating in good faith, or that your reliable sources are being ignored. Those are the times when it is MOST important to be pleasant and collaborative.
It’s astounding how little people know about what WMC does and yet so quickly pass judgment. The subjects WMC is considered an expert in and regularly edits are quite large topics in the scientific community, are highly lucrative topics, and topics of much debate. That being the case, there are at least tens of thousands of articles published about the subject and like any controversial topic, there’s bound to be fringe publications who verge on the border of prophetical or down right nincompoopery. Many of the editors who come to Wikipedia only to edit these articles are often obsessed with conspiracy theories and try to interject their own PoV while backing their claims with these fringe articles. WMC has taken a stand against them. He does not act alone. No one person can act alone on Wikipedia and get their way. There are many others involved with these articles and they too keep the cruft out, often with WMC leading the way.
Granted, WMC isn’t always as civic as people would like but he gets the job done. The majority of the people who oppose him are either misguided, new to Wikipedia and unaware of its policies, guidelines, and nuances. After having their PoV rejected by the editing body, they go off on wild sprees of name calling bad mouthing in blogs as to what can only be compared to as a child’s temper tantrum.
One person doesn’t make, control, or destroy Wikipedia. If you think there’s a problem, voice it through the proper channels like an adult and if people disagree with you, fade away into obscurity like a good child.
The problem is, Zach, that we are right. Fading into obscurity is not an option for us.
Wikipedia is both more simple and more complex than many think. First of all, it’s billed as “the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” And it’s true. You can go and edit almost any page, you don’t need to register unless the page has been semiprotected because of lots of unregistered accounts mangling it (or trying to fix it contrary to the opinion of a substantial set of registered editors, like at least one who knows how to ask for semiprotection. It’s very easy, once you know how to do it, and if there is edit warring going on, the request is usually granted, or even full protection, if it’s registered editors doing the revert warring.)
WMC is not an administrator, he can do nothing that any registered editor can’t do. Except. He has lots of friends who can, though it’s getting more dangerous for them to support him in biased activity. The message he gave to the writer above could have been written by anyone, there is nothing in it that implies he is an administrator. Indeed, personal detailed “welcome” “helpful” messages are often a sign of a contentious editor who wants to set up an appearance of assuming good faith. But WMC isn’t one of the more outrageous game-players, he’s pretty open and direct. He just has strong opinions on global warming and cooperates with and is liked by the whole anti-fringe cabal, who came out in force to defend him during my case.
To give a balanced idea of the power of that cabal, WMC did not do well in the ArbComm elections. However, because this clique includes a number of active editors and administrators, it can often appear to be in the majority, that’s a result of how Wikipedia operates, there is no structure to guarantee broad enough consideration to allow neutrality to overcome participation bias. The “cabal” is not formally organized, it has no discipline, but it functions nevertheless, and it’s obvious if one reviews participation records.
I assure you all that Wikipedia, structurally, such as it is, doesn’t have a bias for or against global warming. However, in practice, there is a bias, and to overcome this takes patience and understanding. It’s a political problem. Wikipedia tells itself that it doesn’t vote, but, of course, it does; in effect. Nevertheless it is possible to bring matters to the attention of the community in a measured and careful way, especially if editors support each other in this, with reasoned and civil argument, and don’t themselves violate behavioral guidelines.
Note that various cabals will attempt to ban editors who challenge their domination, and sometimes they will succeed with individuals, or with a minority group, but they cannot long and completely suppress minority opinion; and when they try and are somewhat successful, they encounter long-term vandalism and sock puppetry, and administrators end up spending inordinate amounts of time dealing with them, with collateral damage as range-blocks set to block known IP for puppet masters prevent completely uninvolved people from editing Wikipedia, which then brings the attention, eventually, of those who actually want a neutral encyclopedia that “anyone can edit,” including Foundation officials. The Foundation, though, seems to have the illusion that the community will fix all its own problems, and you can see that in the comments by the OTRS volunteer whose response was initially quoted. It probably will, but it can take years. Maybe many years.
Wikipedia appears to work well in many ways, though it’s probably highly inefficient once editor labor is valued. Ultimately, that labor must be valued, it is not inexhaustible, it merely appeared that way at the beginning. Editors and administrators are burning out right and left, some of the abuse from administrators is a result of sheer frustration. Yet, tell them why this is happening, and they get angry…. or some of them do. If you go to http://wikipediareview.com, you can find a community of editors and ex-editors, including administrators and arbitrators, some of whom understand very well. Understanding alone doesn’t necessarily fix things.
Zach is a standard Wikipedia defender who is either affiliated with or supports the global warming cabal, or has drunk the Kool-Aid, as they say on Wikipedia Review; he clearly does not understand the neutrality policy, nor the specifics in the global warming case. Or he does and is blowing smoke. The evidence is obvious:
“Granted, WMC isnāt always as civic as people would like but he gets the job done.”
That is the standard excuse for fascism. It presumes that WMC is doing “the job.” But there is a dispute resolution policy on Wikipedia and developed protections against factional bias. Which WMC, in particular, had no interest in and no patience for. Thus he was a hero to people frustrated with having to deal with “POV-pushers,” who miss the point that they, themselves, push their own points of view, it is practically inevitable and the best of us are able to recognize it in ourselves. There are others who have embarked on his crusade, after much popularity and community acclaim, it must be terribly confusing to them that they end up blocked. WMC is carrying on as if nothing happened except he can’t personally block peoiple any more, and there is a good chance he’ll go down that wikisuicidal road as well. He’s managed to insult practically the whole the Arbitration Committee, not the most politic thing to do!
Note that WMC isn’t a naive conniver, he’s quite open. He’s also not particularly uncivil, or wasn’t when he had the administrative tools. He’d just ban or block you. Others were much more uncivil. Civility isn’t the issue. The issue is the use of blocking and revert warring to maintain preferred content, which is very much contrary to policy.
“The majority of the people who oppose him are either misguided, new to Wikipedia and unaware of its policies, guidelines, and nuances.”
The Arbitration Committee? The high percentage of editors who voted against him? He got about 30% approval, i.e, if you divided the Yes votes by the sum of the Yes and No votes, seventy percent voted against him, in an election where he’d made the point that ArbComm was silly to take away his tools, since he was using them as Zach described (he thought).
“After having their PoV rejected by the editing body, they go off on wild sprees of name calling bad mouthing in blogs as to what can only be compared to as a childās temper tantrum.”
The community does not reject points of view, and that Zach believes it does demonstrates the problem. The community wrote and supports the policies and guidelines, which require a neutral point of view, and no individual point of view is “neutral point of view.” However, WMC’s faction believes, generally, that there is a “Scientific Point of View,” and that this is neutral by definition. It is an error, because science is about method and process, not about points of view, it’s an approach, and definitely is not a set of conclusions, though often the set of generally accepted reports (experiment, observation) and theory (organizing principles and predictions) are mistaken for science itself.
Wikipedia also has a notability policy, which governs what kind of information is allowed in the project. In science articles, the gold standard is peer-reviewed secondary source, but there are other aspects to, say, global warming than the science. There is also political and social history, biography, etc., and the basic policy, as I interpret it, is that anything found in “reliable source” belongs somewhere in the project. Reliable Source is a term of art, it doesn’t actually mean “reliable” in the ordinary sense. It means that fact or analysis or opinion has been published by a independent publisher of sufficient repute. The exact boundaries are frequently disputed, but the theory is that if a publisher is actually in business to make money, or exists for academic purposes, rather than pushing some agenda, it will only publish what it considers notable and sufficiently reliable that their own reputation won’t be damaged, hence Wikipedia depends on this judgment.
That doesn’t establish how the fact is presented. It may be quite biased, and if there is, again, reliable source that might show that, the existence of this source can be noted.
And then there is “due weight,” another policy. It is very clear to me that global warming skepticism is notable, and covered by reliable sources. Thus that skepticism belongs in the project. Where, exactly, is a matter of judgment, but the articles themselves should never present a significant minority opinion as if it is “wrong.” Neutral point of view requires otherwise. However, if a position is only held by a small minority of those knowledgeable, and this can be established in secondary source that covers the field, this can be and should be included. Minority opinion should not be presented as if it were equal in breadth of acceptance with majority opinion.
Actually balancing presentation is difficult, and the attitude that Zach shows is precisely what can make it next to impossible: he views the minority position as being that of children. If he voiced that on Wikipedia, he might be blocked for incivility….
“One person doesnāt make, control, or destroy Wikipedia. If you think thereās a problem, voice it through the proper channels like an adult and if people disagree with you, fade away into obscurity like a good child.”
Well, I did voice it through proper channels, very precisely, and the result was that WMC was desysopped. Yes, I was also site-banned for a few months, but those are the risks one takes when confronting administrative abuse. The administrators tend to circle the wagons. I was ready for that. Overall, most of what I set out to accomplish in filing the case was accomplished. But it’s hugely inefficient, and I certainly won’t attempt that again on my own. I did not attempt to gather support, so I was, indeed, largely on my own, with only a handful of editors showing up to try to balance out the screaming crowd.
When many people are upset with you, and anyone who challenges the global warming/anti-fringe-science Wikipedia cabal will upset many people, it is an easy conclusion for a somewhat distracted Arbitration Committee to conclude that you must be disruptive. And so they concluded in my case. Not at all surprising. But “time will tell just who has fell and who’s been left behind, as you go your way and I go mine.” Dylan’s grammar was downright weird, but damn! He could write.
Mark wrote: “Remember, always be polite, do not use profanity and do not exceed the 3 edit rule (you can only do 3 edits per day per article).”
To clarify, the rule is called 3RR, or 3 Revert Rule. A revert is a repetitive insertion of content or removal of content. The exact boundaries are a tad vague, in actual practice, but the intention seems to be that if you reverse the work of another editor or group of editors more than three times in a day, you have crossed a “bright red line.” In fact, any such reversal, if not accompanied by an attempt to negotiate a consensus, can be considered “edit warring,” even if 3RR isn’t broken.
3RR violation can result in almost automatic blocking. Normally, an editor should be warned that they are pushing the edge, before being blocked. 3RR blocks, first offense, are usually short, say 24 hours.
This rule then creates a serious temptation to use sock puppets. Don’t do it unless you don’t mind being more or less permanently site-banned and want to play that game against a group which includes experts. It’s definitely not the way to improve content, because it creates a reaction, it can make content worse, as anyone who tries to insert the same kind of text is accused of being your sock puppet.
The way to permanently improve content is patient negotiation, with appeal through dispute resolution process as needed when the process gets stuck. The global warming cabal is not monolithic, there are more reasonable members and less reasonable members. Further, there is the general community, which, if one has been careful to remain civil and to only assert what is based on reliable source, and what doesn’t violate proper balance, will support neutral text. Many do know how to recognize it!
When a reasonable consensus is found, by means that don’t include excluding points of view through banning all the editors with that point of view, all the participating editors will support that text, including those with minority opinions, for they know that if push comes to shove, they will end up with worse. So when someone new comes in with a minority POV, they will educate this new editor. It’s classic tribal social structure, actually, I saw it functioning in San Quentin State Prison, where I was a volunteer chaplain. Each “tribe” — called gangs by the officials — policed itself, preventing the more radical members from causing gang warfare, which, after all, damaged everyone. The gang leaders were not stupid. And it usually worked.
My position has been that the neutrality policy requires the participation of editors with all significant points of view, for having a point of view makes one very sensititive to bias in the opposite direction. The job of the administrative community, properly, is not the making of content decisions (in general), but maintaining the kind of civil communication between editors that fosters the development of consensus. The degree of consensus that a text enjoys is a measure of its neutrality. If neutrality is desired, “majority” is not nearly adequate, the ideal, which may not be atttainable, would be complete agreement. That’s possible more often than we usually imagine. But it takes patience and tolerance, which are qualities that were missing in WMC, unfortunately.
I can’t believe people think the Climategate Conservapedia article is better than WIkipedia’s counterpart. Just look at the lead. It included emotional, unencyclopedic language like “in a profoundly bizarre situation”. Seems to be more concerned with The Truth, than presenting both sides, neutrally, with due weight. It flat out calls climate science “a fraud”, which is clearly taking sides. “Contrary to the liberal media’s attempt to hide the scandal”. Accusations of censorship. And then those images. Encyclopedias usually don’t present new information, or novel syntheses. But Conservapedia seems fine juxtaposing the Gore image with the snow image, having us take their word on it that one disputes and disproves the other, without backing it up with a valid source. (not to mention that Gore was not involved with the hacked e-mails, so the top image seems misleading in other regards as well) Not to mention the photoshopped image of Gore and the fire.
While it might be telling you what you want to hear, it doesn’t seem neutral nor encyclopedic.
I’m glad some of you guys stood up and noticed the bias at Conservapedia on other science related articles (evolution/creationism). Kudos to you.
dcardno (00:46:58) : “…while Wikipedia is wonderful for -say- Faradayās experiments or definition of an eigenvector, it simply cannot be trusted for anything controversial ā which unfortunately includes āclimate scienceā at least so long as climate āscientistsā persist in playing climate politics.”
But science is not a collection of independent articles. It is more like a tapestry, an interwoven structure of facts, data, and relationships. Once the corruption starts in any area, there is nothing to stop it from gradually spreading to all the others. In fact, given the lowest common denominator, self-selection process of postering, eventual degradation of most articles is probably guaranteed. The entire concept is flawed, particularly in its reliance on social consensus instead of Science.
Add to this the likelihood that AGW pseudoscience will become increasingly difficult to prop up as contrarian knowledge expands. An ever-widening body of tainted articles (e.g., CO2 spectral absorption bands) will be necessary to preserve the appearance of legitimacy in global warming and warming related articles.
Science is dead and Wikipedia is becoming necrotic. I use it only as a last resort and never for climatology, meteorology, atmospheric physics or geophysics.
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodies.”
This thread is long in the tooth, but I just ran across this dirt on Jimmy Wales: click.
I especially liked the one on censorship [including the embedded links].
Is it possible that Gavin Schmidt and Jimmy Wales were twins separated at birth? If so, that would tilt the nature vs nurture argument [over innate ethical behavior, at least] firmly into the nature camp.
The key feature of Mr. Gres’ reply is one I don’t see discussed, namely the total abdication of responsibility. “The community” does this, prefers that, elects the other. Don’t like what you see? It’s not our fault – vox populi, vox dei. Obviously, with that kind of attitude on the part of those who should be in charge, Wikipedia is a lost cause. I’m not sure that’s bad news, though. The Internet is vast and non-hierarchical; why then must there be ONE wiki, ONE search engine and so on? People with specialized knowledge got disenchanted with Wikipedia years ago and started their own specialized wikis and FAQs to serve as alternatives to the erroneous Wikipedia entries that kept getting restored by incompetent editors. Don’t like the biased [snip] about climate at Wikipedia? Stop using them and build your own. Anybody can start a wiki.
Talkpage censorship. “Sockpuppet” tool abuse.
————————————-
The main problem in William related topics is that at least several admins have found loopholes in Wikipedia rules and worked out the way to abuse them institutionally.
One of these loopholes is the “sockpuppet” tool. Originally developed to prevent single editors from operating multiple accounts in polemics, polls, edit wars (etc). is now a strong censor tool on talkpages.
How was it possible? Current regulations allow to accuse just anyone of suckpuppetry but don’t give that person instruments to prove innocent. What happens next is humourously but accurately described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_Ban_a_POV_You_Dislike,_in_9_Easy_Steps
I’d like to underline that an editor doesn’t have to be a climate change skeptic/”denier” to clash with these ppl. My personal experience was when I tried to discuss “Climate change denial” article. I suggested to neutralise the language and give some background to the term. Another one was William Connoley’s biography where I postulated to update info in “Writing and editing” section.
In both cases no one responded to my thread. Each lasted for about 30 seconds before deleted. I was labelled as a sockpuppet without any explaination.
@marco
I am amazed that that article is still there, “humorous” or not. I would think that it might just hit a little too close to home for certain Wiki admins we all know and love…
After coming across some apparently accurate stories on Jimmy Wales, it’s clear that Wales supports Connolley. They’re both dirtbags: click
“Iād like to underline that an editor doesnāt have to be a climate change skeptic/ādenierā to clash with these ppl”
Too true!
I clashed with this comedian when I tried to put a link to another energy related article – it took me weeks to realise that the lobbyists who control the climate articles would never accept this perfectly reasonable link which I only put there because I thought other people interested in sustainability/energy issues would find it interesting.
Con-alley and his co-conspirators have completely wrecked the reputation of Wikipedia as an “anyone can edit” and “neutral” source of information and doubtless this is part of the reason Wikipedia is losing so many editors across the board in all subjects.