William Connolley and Wikipedia: Turborevisionism

UPDATE2: There’s now some question about who is who regarding the editing of the Connolley page at Wikipedia.One of the problems with Wikipedia is the use of handles. In the messages sent to me seen below, it appears that they came from William Connolley via the Wikipedia message system, but can’t be sure since the identity of the people who have handles and are involved in active editing aren’t known it appears not to be the case.  This is one of the central problems with Wikipedia- anonymous editing lends to the confusion. While it is clear that Mr. Connolley has in fact edited his own page in the past, I have removed a reference to self editing in the current time frame because of the uncertainty he did not do so recently. My apologies for the confusion.  – Anthony

======

People send me things. Here’s a story about a thread of recent exchanges that appeared in Wikipedia in the “talk” section regarding William Connolley’s page. This incident highlights the shape shifting nature of the information presented on Wikipedia, and how it is subject to the whims of ego and agenda. With information changing character literally in minutes, how could anyone treat Wikipedia as a reliable reference? I’ll coin a new word and call this “turborevisionism” due to the speed, sound, and fury it characterizes.

Consider the “Neutral Point of View” required by Wikipedia policy:

Neutral point of view (NPOV) is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors.

The editor who takes issue with this event writes:

On Sunday night, I went to the William Connolley wiki page and entered:

Additional criticism appeared on December 19, 2009, in nationalpost.com, as “How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.” This alleges that Connolley removed more than 500 wiki articles of which he disapproved; that he published inaccurate information on the controversial “hockey stick” graph; that he specifically opposed scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

That disappeared within an hour (maybe less); I reinserted it.  On Monday night, checked again: text gone.  I wished to re-enter it, but the [edit] facility was totally missing from the wiki page.  Hardly ever saw that before.

Found a msg from Connolley directly to me:

William Connolley I’m the original author of the paragraph at William Connolley that deals with the Lawrence Solomon article of December 2009. I note you inserted some specific detail that I acutally removed, as I believed it only caused confusion between opinion and fact, and isn’t really necessary, anyway. I don’t want to add any more reverts to that already poorly abused article, so I’m urging you to reconsider your addition of the detail. Cheers. —Ħ MIESIANIACAL 05:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

___________________________________________

Date: Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 11:53 PM

Wikipedia activity

In 2005, an article in the scientific journal Nature compared the reliability of Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica. It discussed Connolley as an example of an expert who regularly contributes to Wikipedia.[8]

A July 2006 article in The New Yorker reported that Connolley briefly became “a victim of an edit war over the entry on global warming”, in which a skeptic repeatedly “watered down” the article’s explanation of the greenhouse effect.[9] The skeptic later brought the case before Wikipedia’s arbitration committee, claiming that Connolley was pushing his own point of view in the article by removing material with opposing viewpoints. The arbitration committee imposed a “humiliating one-revert-a-day” editing restriction on Connolley. Wikipedia “gives no privilege to those who know what they’re talking about”, Connolley told The New Yorker.[9] The restriction was later revoked, and Connolley went on to serve as a Wikipedia administrator from January 2006 until 13 September 2009.[9]

An October 2006 article in Nature contrasted the Citizendium online encyclopedia project, which makes a point of recruiting experts from academia, with Wikipedia. It quoted Connolley as saying that “some scientists have become frustrated with Wikipedia”, but that “conflict can sometimes result in better articles”.[10]

___________________________________________

Just appeared in wiki (by Mason):

Additional criticism appeared on December 19, 2009, in nationalpost.com, as “How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.” This alleges that Connolley removed more than 500 wiki articles of which he disapproved; that he published inaccurate information on the controversial “hockey stick” graph; that he specifically opposed scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

__________________________________________

Instantly changed to:

An October 2006 article in Nature contrasted the Citizendium online encyclopedia project, which makes a point of recruiting experts from academia, with Wikipedia. It quoted Connolley as saying that “some scientists have become frustrated with Wikipedia”, but that “conflict can sometimes result in better articles”.[10]

Mason corx, 2009 XII 21, 12:45 AM & again 12:51 AM:

[[Lawrence Solomon]], on December 19, 2009, penned a piece in the ”[[National Post]]” that accused Connolley of editing Wikipedia and using administrative power in order to subvert opinion that disagreed with his own, linking the supposed activity to the [[Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident|Climategate scandal]].<ref>{{Citation| last=Solomon| first=Lawrence| author-link=Lawrence Solomon| title=Wikipedia’s climate doctor| newspaper=National Post| date=December 19, 2009| url=http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx| accessdate=December 19, 2009}}</ref>  The specific allegation was,”How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles,”  claiming that Connolley removed more than 500 wiki articles of which he disapproved; that he published inaccurate information on the controversial “hockey stick” graph; that he specifically opposed scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

__________________________

2009 XII 21 midnight: txt missing again. Mason want to re-inserts txt, cannot because the facility  [edit] is now missing :

[[Lawrence Solomon]], on December 19, 2009, penned a piece in the ”[[National Post]]” that accused Connolley of editing Wikipedia and using administrative power in order to subvert opinion that disagreed with his own, linking the supposed activity to the [[Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident|Climategate scandal]].<ref>{{Citation| last=Solomon| first=Lawrence| author-link=Lawrence Solomon| title=Wikipedia’s climate doctor| newspaper=National Post| date=December 19, 2009| url=http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx| accessdate=December 19, 2009}}</ref>  The specific allegation was,”How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles,”  claiming that Connolley removed more than 500 wiki articles of which he disapproved; that he published inaccurate information on the controversial “hockey stick” graph; that he specifically opposed scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

_____________________________________

Msg from William Connolley to Mason, 2009 XII 22:

William Connolley

I’m the original author of the paragraph at William Connolley that deals with the Lawrence Solomon article of December 2009. I note you inserted some specific detail that I acutally removed, as I believed it only caused confusion between opinion and fact, and isn’t really necessary, anyway. I don’t want to add any more reverts to that already poorly abused article, so I’m urging you to reconsider your addition of the detail. Cheers. —Ħ MIESIANIACAL 05:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

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Melamed
December 24, 2009 11:25 am

There is another wikipedia, called “wikinfo.org” that was set up specifically to deal with some of the weaknesses of Wikipedia. It may be something to look into to support.
One of the worst weaknesses of Wikipedia is their so-called NPOV standard, which results often that a particular POV is adopted for many articles. Another weakness is the no original research clause, which even extends to no correction of erroneous information that was published elsewhere.
I had an account on Wikipedia, but left after finding that most of my edits were summarily deleted by activist editors who did not know what they were talking about. Once I tried correcting a simple error, but my correction was rejected as “original research” until the main editor of the page did his own “original research” weeks later. One article I wrote was decried as “original research” where the sum total of my ‘original research’ was rewording the idea so that others could easily understand it (the same type of “original research” that is part of all Wikipedia articles), thus deleted. Another lasted a few years before being deleted. I gave up seeing that my efforts would be more fruitful elsewhere.
Wikipedia has turned out fairly useful for computer geeks, detailing the latest hardware and software fairly accurately. But I wouldn’t recommend it for anything else.

George
December 24, 2009 12:17 pm

Well as one of the many many many people who was banned from Wiki by William and his goon squad(not for anything I did mind you, they simply accused me of being a fake account of someone else and I was never even given the chance to respond) I can say that wiki is a waste of any reader of WUWT time. Let it die the death that its new “we need money” advertisements show quite clearly it is dying..
And anthony please don’t justify this mans existance by arguing with him. He is the lowest of the low.

papiertigre
December 24, 2009 12:32 pm

Nothing. Just what I figured.
THe man has no kahones. I tell you what Anthony, you should require the same standard of “proof” for the “corrections to this post that Wikipedia requires for skeptics. Benny Peiser’s page comes to mind.
Revisions based on Benny’s word were not good enough.
Likewise, revisions here based on Williams word shouldn’t be good enough.

papiertigre
December 24, 2009 12:51 pm

Here’s a little nugget from UK libel laws that might explain the use of handles at Wiki.
You can’t defame nicknames when people don’t know who they are. Hence the fancy nicknames on the revision. It’s to give WC plausible deniability.
There are no special internet defences. The only advantage is that web sites tend to have a smaller number of users, (so less people see it hence it’s less defamatory so it’s rarely worth the bother of going to court) and allegations can be removed promptly on protest from a defamed party.
But what about a site like Wiki which is preeminent on the Google search engine? I bet those damages are more substantial.
On the web, the writer, the web site owner and the ISP can all be sued just like the writer, the magazine and the distributor in the print field. A link could also be potentially defamatory if you are linking to defamatory material. So if you have Connolley defaming Benny Pieser, the case can be filed against Will, Wiki, and Google. That could be interesting.

As explained well in an article by Emily MacManus, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that British laws on libel are a threat to free speech around the world. Because they permit frivolous cases that would be far too costly for most people to fight, they give a great deal of power to anyone who is annoyed enough and has the resources to pursue legal action there. Even the threat of such action may be sufficient to make individuals or publishing organizations censor themselves.

Let the treats commence.

Barbara
December 24, 2009 2:51 pm

www. YCombinatorcom has a wish list written by Paul Graham. One of the items is software to replace Wikipedia. Has anyone looked into WMC’s business dealings? He’s copyrighted his HadCM3 graphs.

Turboblocke
December 24, 2009 2:53 pm

Smokey puhleese. In the anstract of that link the author reveals he doesn’t understand the science of CO2 in solution. The release of CO2 from the oceans as temperature rises is in equilibrium with the partial pressure of CO2 which gives negative feedback.
Now if you knew that yourself, why link to such a bogus analysis? If you didn’t know it, I suggest you bone up on the science of AGW.

George
December 24, 2009 3:17 pm

Connolley has never made any attempt to abide by strict libel laws of his nation. Whats more he knows it too.

December 24, 2009 8:46 pm

Turboblocke, making a final judgement based on an abstract is juvenile. There is no way that you could have read that link with the comments and the embedded links. Opinions based on preconceived assumptions don’t carry any weight here.
Here is Dr Glassman’s CV:
Dr. Glassman has a BS, MS, and PhD from the UCLA Engineering Department of Systems Science, specializing in electronics, applied mathematics, applied physics, communication and information theory. For more than half of three decades at Hughes Aircraft Company he was Division Chief Scientist for Missile Development and Microelectronics Systems Divisions, responsible for engineering, product line planning, and IR&D. Since retiring from Hughes, he has consulted in various high tech fields, including expert witness on communication satellite anomalies for the defense in Astrium v. TRW, et al, and CDMA instructor at Qualcomm. Lecturer, Math and Science Institutes, UCI. Member, Science Education Advisory Board. Author of Evolution in Science, Hollowbrook, New Hampshire, 1992, ISDN 0-89341-707-6. He is an expert modeler of diverse physical phenomena, including microwave and millimeter wave propagation in the atmosphere and in solids, ballistic reentry trajectories, missile guidance, solar radiation, thermal energy in avionics and in microcircuit devices, infrared communication, analog and digital signals, large scale fire control systems, diffusion, and electroencephalography. Inventor of a radar on-target detection device, and a stereo digital signal processor. Published A Generalization of the Fast Fourier Transform, IEEE Transactions on Computers, 1972. Previously taught detection and estimation theory, probability theory, digital signal processing.
Please post your CV, so we can compare it with Dr. Glassman’s. If you’re not Connolley’s sock puppet, or Connolley himself, I’m sure you will be happy to comply.

Bulldust
December 24, 2009 11:22 pm

Melamed (11:25:17) :
Another major issue with Wikipedia (at least from my perspective) is that it is particularly user unfriendly to the average web user. Clearly the editing processes have not evolved much from the original concept of some IT experts. It is intimmidating to non-IT types and hence likely to discourage many people from taking part in the project. Surely that is counter to the concept that it be inclusive.
Would it kill them to make the whole edit-discussion process more like conventional blog fora?

Turboblocke
December 25, 2009 4:14 am

Oh Smokey, going straight to the appeal to authority aand ignoring the mistakes in the text does not enable you to pass “Go” and collect $200.
You also went for the classic double of an ad hominem on me to.
In addition to not understanding the point about partial pressures, you also ignore the fact that the ocean surface exchanges CO2 not only with the atmosphere, but also deeper water and that exchanges happen between waters of a different temperature. Given that the basic physics of the CO2 ocean/atmosphere dynamics seem to have escaped your hero, I have no intention of wasting my time looking deeper into his story.
Perhaps he should have spent more time learning about them rather than on all the unrelated subjects that his CV reveals.
Back to my original remark: “Now if you knew that yourself, why link to such a bogus analysis? If you didn’t know it, I suggest you bone up on the science of AGW.” Let that be my Christmas gift to you… a bit of advice to help you sort the wheat from the chaff.

December 25, 2009 7:34 am

Turboblocke:
So, it seems you’re a high school graduate with no CV, quoting simple high school chemistry like it’s advanced physics. Should we be impressed by having to multiply the % of CO2 X the total pressure to get the partial pressure? That’s your rebuttal to Dr Glassman??
Since you’re not capable of refuting Dr Glassman, or even of understanding his deconstruction of your high school conjecture in his Q&A and related links, you’ll understand why it’s appropriate to dismiss your attempt at criticism. This isn’t Wikipedia; when you stumble over the science here, you will get pushback with the facts.
Just look at all the comments in this thread. Do you actually believe that you are right, and everyone else is wrong? Look at William Connolley’s quote, presuming to be the authority on what are facts, and what is opinion:

“I note you inserted some specific detail that I acutally removed, as I believed it only caused confusion between opinion and fact, and isn’t really necessary, anyway.” [emphasis added]

Could Connolley be any more arrogant and insufferable? He is the primary reason that WUWT has replaced Wikipedia’s totally pro-AGW propaganda pages with honest, open, uncensored discussion from both sides. You would never find a quote like Connolley’s here.
On this “Best Science” site, the truth is sifted from all the pro & con comments by the readers themselves — not by one Soviet-style individual who selectively removes thousands of scientifically skeptical facts debunking the CO2=CAGW conjecture, just so others can’t see them and decide for themselves. That’s not science, that is pushing an agenda.
WUWT is ethical, and Wikipedia’s AGW pages are not. They are pure propaganda. How can you excuse Connolley’s constant, unremitting censorship of anyone who has a different point of view, and provides specific facts supporting their arguments? Condoning Connolley’s censorship of anyone but his own puppets is inexcusable, and it makes a mockery of the scientific method.
Next, since you can’t follow Dr. Glassman’s explanation, here is another well documented paper discussing CO2 vapor pressure. It’s a little beyond high school physics, but you should be able to understand most of it. It deconstructs the repeatedly falsified CO2=CAGW conjecture. Debunkings of the CO2 scare like this are immediately censored out of Wiki’s AGW propaganda pages. Really, could Wiki be any more biased and one sided? And Wiki’s kissy-face propaganda giving China a free pass isn’t lost on the rest of us. With Wikipedia’s constant, top of the page begging for moneymoneymoney, it’s pretty clear that throwing Jimmy Wales a bone keeps the repeatedly punished William Connolley in a position to delete skeptical facts disputing AGW. We’re supposed to believe that no one else is capable of doing the same job as William Connolley?
George Soros funnels money to alarmist blogs. And China bailed out an entire country this year with $5 billion, when Iceland was on the ropes financially. You can be certain that China didn’t do it without a private quid pro quo. So throwing a little chump change Wikipedia’s way is a cheap and easy way to buy their AGW propaganda. Or maybe you’re naive, and believe that Wales keeps a guy on board who is turning his site into the equivalent of realclimate, and forfeiting Wikipedia’s reputation in the process.
Finally, FYI: CO2 is mainly a function of SST; human activity has little to do with it. The planet emits by far the largest share of CO2 naturally. You probably didn’t know that. But then you’re new here, and you’ve been getting spoon fed your AGW propaganda by Wiki. Stick around here, and you’ll learn the side of the debate you’ve been missing.
For example, temperatures have been lower in the past than they are now many times — with CO2 concentrations up to twenty times higher — for millions of years at a time. CO2 is an effect of temperature — not a cause. By mendaciously deleting data like this, Connolley sacrifices scientific truth on the altar of his Leftist ponytail politics.
The fact that the title of this article is ‘Turborevisionism’, and that you’re a new poster calling yourself ‘Turboblocke’ is no coincidence. You are either Connolley or one of his string puppets. Which is it?

Turboblocke
December 26, 2009 5:27 am

Well Smokey, you seem to have no intution at all. Check my nickname on Google to see how far off the mark you are.
You seem strangely reluctant to argue the point. Here’s what the abstract of your link said: “When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase. If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere.”
The catastrophic positive feedback that he postulates, didn’t occur because a basic knowledge of the physics and chemistry that I explained above show that it can’t occur.
Claiming that Carbon Dioxide doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere is so contrary to evidence that it shouldn’t fool anyone.

December 26, 2009 6:20 pm

Turboblock:
“You seem strangely reluctant to argue the point.” Now there’s an example of pure psychological projection. Turboblock has avoided answering numerous points and questions, for example:
Arrhenius’ 1906 paper recanting his 1896 paper re climate sensitivity. The climate’s sensitivity is so small that it can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes, no matter how much the minor trace gas CO2 rises. Even using Arrhenius’ 1906 sensitivity number [≅1], we have nothing to worry about even if CO2 doubles. And Arrhenius’ 1906 number was likely at least double the true number. Therefore, wasting more money on the CO2=CAGW scare is foolish and irresponsible.
And:
Turboblocke was asked to post his CV to compare it to Dr Glassman’s, after disparaging Glassman’s knowledge. Still waiting.
And:
“The real problem is William Connolley’s dishonest redacting of thousands of articles and comments that simply presented different [and more scientifically credible] points of view, which refuted the debunked conjecture that rapidly rising CO2 will cause rapidly rising temperatures, leading to runaway global warming.” Rather than allow Wiki readers to read both sides and make up their own minds, Connolley works overtime to delete one side of the debate; the scientific skeptics’ side. All that’s left are alarmist scare stories, temperature graphs with colors ranging from hot orange to deep red, and repeatedly debunked hokey stick charts.
Censoring different points of view is not science, it is partisan political advocacy, and an unethical abuse of his [Connolley’s] position within the increasingly discredited Wiki AGW posts. Try to justify the blatant, ongoing and one-sided censorship by Connolley and the typical climate alarmist blogs, with the requirement of the scientific method for full and complete transparency and cooperation. Censoring those who disagree with AGW is how Connolley and Wikipedia operate.
And:
Residence time for CO2: click. This is the central issue in the CO2=CAGW debate. Because if CO2 residence times are on a century long time-scale, then as CO2 rises rapidly, the planet’s temperature will rise rapidly in response. That is not happening.
Conversely, if CO2 residency time is short, eg: 10 years or less, then there is nothing to worry about. And as we see from dozens of peer reviewed studies, CO2 persistence is very short. Only the UN/IPCC preposterously assumes that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for a century. They must claim that, because the entire alarmist case against CO2 falls apart with short residency times; the biosphere will easily accommodate excess CO2.
Not sure what the complaint is with the solubility of CO2. As Dr Glassman points out, when ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to naturally increase. So of course CO2 increases, and the natural ocean outgassing of CO2 swamps the relatively tiny human CO2 emissions. But the natural rise in CO2 is an effect, not a cause, of temperature rises.
It looked like Dr Glassman was referring to a geologic time scale when he wrote, “If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic.” But there has been no positive feedback from the [largely] natural increase in CO2, so there has been no runaway global warming. Even if CO2 levels more than doubled, there would still be no climate catastrophe: As Glassman points out: “While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur.”
So CO2 can not cause runaway global warming, and that was the central conjecture of the CO2=CAGW promoters. Now that the science on that point is settled, there is no reason to throw more good money after bad, and certainly no reason to worry about the silly catch-word of the day, “carbon”.
[And for those who think the Wiki AGW pages or Connolley are honest, see here.]

January 5, 2010 7:23 am

I would invite all readers to help improving the climategate article on wikipedia, which has been hijacked by alarmists that have a troop of sleepless zealots that work in conjunction with the aim to keep the page as useless as possible. Please bear in mind the use of reliable sources and read and add your views in the discussion page before changing the main article. We need more people to counter W. Connolley and his troop of alarmists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
talk page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident

TWZA
January 5, 2010 10:58 am

Oh dear. We saw that, [snip].
–The Wikipedia Zealot Alarmists

BLouis79
January 10, 2010 12:19 am

I tried changing some bits in the article on “climate sensitivty”. Given a range of estimates appears already and warwick hughes site suggests even lower is reasonable, I added it to the mix. It got undone by W Connolley. Didn’t know about him until that. Citing “unreliable source” is an interesting rule to push, since one could arguably delete all reference to IPCC et al as “unreliable source” after climategate.

Godfrey
January 19, 2010 3:17 am

I see Connelly and his “tag-team” are at it again. This time it’s about the many disputed entries about Lord Monckton, the prominent anti-AGW campaigner.
Many contributors have argued that they have chosen a picture of him which is unflattering, and at worst, deliberately derogatory – which is agaist wiki rules.
After a temporary removal, there has been an edit war which Connelly’s tag-team have won, insisting that it stays. See “Discussion” page on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley
They’re fascists.

Zach
January 21, 2010 11:19 pm

There’s a reason Wikipedians don’t take this criticism seriously. The main reason being the numbers you cite.
You site that he deleted over 300 articles that he disagreed with. While it is true that he deleted articles on Wikipedia, that’s part of the duties of an administrator. He can only delete articles that don’t belong on Wikipedia according to Wiki policies and guidelines which have been decided by hundreds if not thousands of people. You have no proof that he has ever simply deleted an article that he just didn’t care for or went against his alleged views.
The same holds true for his edits. Did you check to see what percentage of his edits had anything to do with climate change articles? I would guess that not even 25% of the 5k+ edits had anything to do with climate change.
I worry that my words will fall on def ears as you apparently do not fully understand how Wikipedia works and the conspiracy theory that a cabal of editors headed by a dastardly Goliath are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public.
I think your reports are borderline libel and that you should have looked more deeply into the matter. Once you do, I believe you will find that at least a partial apology is in order as I don’t expect you to agree with everything he does (I don’t either).

Fred S.
January 26, 2010 3:45 pm

William Connolley was in direct contact with the IPCC as the Climategate emails reveal. Searchable climatagate database:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/
Search for “Connolley” and you get the picture.

noway
January 27, 2010 12:53 pm

Opening comment – “politicized censorship has no place on Wikipedia”. Well just out of curiousity where in hell are these articles in Wiki. I have totally missed them – other than bland science etc. Anything to do with history, etc, etc GW is a good one, etc is so politicized I read them for the humor. I didn’t think ( and seriously doubt ) that anyone other than a few editors on Wiki take the quality of their work seriously.

Abd
January 28, 2010 10:55 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-12-08/Global_Warming&diff=337975642&oldid=337963833
Schulz, one of the long-time tag-team editors at Global Warming, claims that “A large part of the problems at the Climate Change articles is caused by short-lived newcomers and, in particular, socks.”
Sure. One of the most prolific sock puppet masters at Wikipedia has been Scibaby. Look at the history of Scibaby, he was tag-teamed by the usual suspects and blocked by William M. Connolley and then by Raul654, and a number of administrators were quite ready to block anyone who “pushed” a skeptical point of view at the article, leaving alone editors who were uncivil revert warriors on the other side. Editors who tried to make the article neutral, following guidelines and policies, gave up in frustration, leaving behind nobody but “us chickens.” Like Schulz.
At one point a neutral administrator, seeing the edit warring, protected the article. WMC unprotected it, in a blatant violation of administrative recusal policy, and his reason for unblocking was that the article was being watched by administrators, no problem. He also wrote that there was no problem, because “we” would be able to keep the article on-track, “they” would tire of trying to work on it and go away. He got away with wiki-murder for a long time, he had powerful friends, but eventually it became too much. He lost his administrative privileges last year over actions-while involved.
If you are interested in global warming, by all means, read the article and watch the Talk page discussion. Register an account and use it, particularly after some delay and hopefully some edits to other subjects, but, note, much information about Wikipedia, such as the complaints about WMC’s deletion record, are misinformation. WMC was abusive, all right, and still is, but coming in like a bull in a china closet will just irritate everyone. If you want to help, learn the policies and guidelines, be as cooperative and civil as possible, be patient, try to make the article actually neutral following what is in reliable sources, help those who are trying to do the same, and especially those who are unjustly attacked. And don’t give up. Don’t burn yourself out by trying to do it all at once.

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