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. Connolley’s 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 – 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 … 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 Wikipedia’s 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.
> >
> > Let’s break it down into several parts:
> > 1. Is the management at Wikipedia aware of the biased and dictatorial
> > Wikipedia administration by William Connolley?
I’m 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 “hijacking of process” 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?
Wikipedia’s 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. Connolley’s
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 Wikipedia’s
principle of “neutral point of view” ().
> > 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 Grés
– Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org — 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. Connolley’s 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 – 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 … 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 Wikipedia’s 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. > > > > Let’s break it down into several parts: > > 1. Is the management at Wikipedia aware of the biased and dictatorial > > Wikipedia administration by William Connolley? I’m 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 “hijacking of process” 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? Wikipedia’s 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. Connolley’s 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 Wikipedia’s principle of “neutral point of view” (). > > 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 Grés – Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org — 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 |
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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 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.”
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 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.”
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 “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.”
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 Gore’s 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 – 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.