Apparently Wikipedia’s own attempt at self policing problem editors isn’t working. Despite being up for a restriction or a ban, rogue Wiki editor (and Real Climate co-founder) William Connolley is still removing anything he doesn’t like when it comes to climate science. This time it’s wholesale removal of any reference to the American Physical Society resignation letter of physicist Hal Lewis, who resigned over the APS global warming position:
And no wonder, the traffic to the Hal Lewis Wikipedia page looks likes a hockey stick. People are learning about the reasons for the Lewis APS resignation, and Mr. Connolley can’t have that:
Here’s the Wiki history page. Note the comment by Mr. Connolley:
And look at the Wiki entry for Hal Lewis now, fully sterilized:
Ironically. the yellow highlighted text says:
This article about an American physicist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Yeah, right. Just try.
Members of Wikipedia, you need to show William Connolley the door, or at the very least, put up a new picture for him:
Don’t get it? Read this.
h/t to WUWT reader “gibo”
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/5050213093/
A window into his world.
p.s. “belette” is French for stoat….
From the Wiki Harold Lewis talk page, courtesy of this sad Connolley chap:
“Agreed; AFD looks like the right thing.” 07:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Harold_Lewis
I had to look up what AFD stands for and it means “Article for Deletion.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion
So this {snip} whose only real claim to fame is as a Neo-Inquisitor political activist and who has his own Wiki page thought that the correct course of action would be to delete Hal Lewis from Wiki altogether? He was deemed unworthy? The audacity of this doude is “incontrovertible”.
REPLY: Mr. Connolley has tried to delete the pages of many people who speak up. This is not new for him. The wet dishrags that run Wikipedia let sterilizers like Connolley run roughshod over most anything. – Anthony
A comment from Stoats blog (Connolleys blog)
13
That wiki page is much better now, and I imagine will improve still further with time.
It’s interesting to see how much of an apparent about-face he’s made wrt climate change (unless the stuff quoted in comments above was only written out of a conscious desire to cash in on the scam?). But it’s telling that the main trigger seems to have been the emails, not the science. That’s becoming such a familiar story…
Posted by: outeast | October 13, 2010 8:14 AM
Thomas says:
October 13, 2010 at 1:07 pm
It’s really quite funny how I can work myself into a frenzy yada yada yada
As rock hyrax wee is a boon for paleoclimate reconstruction, Stoat leavings will become a history for climatology in the wiki era.
The Register was the first to call Wikipedia out in 2004, I think it called them “the Khmer Rouge in Diapers” – a pretty accurate description.
Andrew Orlowski was smeared for his trouble. Look at his Wikipedia entry, it’s angry Wikipedians getting their revenge. Unfortunately for Connolly there are thousands of links at Wikipedia citing The Register, and he can’t remove them all.
Does any other “Encyclopedia” act so childishly?
EthicallyCivil says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:23 am
To be fair, The Register *isn’t* a reliable source
Or, if I may suggest a slight revision to this statement (wiki-style): To be fair, The Register is *usually* a reliable source but this article was written by Lewis Page and his articles can *never* be considered a reliable source.
Don’t get me wrong, Lewis Page is my favourite journalist at El Reg (never, never, “el rego”), his writing style is second to none; always amusing, always informative but also always to be taken with a grain of salt as his personal passions are poured out on every page.
That said, the Wikipedia page never needed all that text from Hal Lewis’ resignation letter. It works much better with a simple one sentence summary of the fact that he had resigned and a link to the letter for those who wish to learn more.
1984 meets the “memory hole”.
Keep stuffing the facts down the memory hole – hopefully no one will notice.
Whoops looks like everyone just did.
How embarresing for wikipedia
It is very interesting to see you use “nefarious” to deny any wrongdoing and serve as an apologist for the very people responsible for the criminal conduct in the Climategate scandal and related post-normal so-called climate science. You can attempt to disguise and pretend the “mountains” of evidence demonstrating unethical and crmiminal conduct by the proponents of AGW amount to nothing more significant than “molehills,” but your attempts to do so are failing miserably. That’s alright, however, because your folly only serves to awaken the suspicions and the responses of even the most oblivious of uninformed observers. Keep up the good work.
Meanwhile, we’ll be more than happy to continue spotlighting the incidents of “nefarious” misconduct and acts of real persecution, no thanks to you.
The latest Connolley comment is riddled with condescension… clearly he thinks people past a certain age lose their marbles (Connolley is my age… what’s his excuse?):
“It seems regrettable that 80% of this chaps biog should be a regrettable letter that he wrote in old age. Is that really the only notable thing he has done? William M. Connolley (talk) 22:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)”
BTW was rouge a slip? Look at his user page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_M._Connolley
He is badged as a “rouge admin” replete with Jolly Roger flag in bright red:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rouge-Admin_JollyRoger.svg
I couldn’t think of a more appropriate flag for someone who rapes and pillages across the Wiki seas…
A few comments, since I’m one of the Wikipedia editors involved in l’affaire Harold Lewis:
1). The article is much better now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lewis
Things move pretty fast at Wikipedia.
2). Connolley’s actually a pretty reasonable editor– except when something sets him off, and he’s not, like here. He’s certainly knowledgeable, and even pitched in with some BG info on Prof. Lewis once I prodded him a bit. Lewis has an interesting backstory — see the article.
3) The WP climate-change articles are in much better shape now than before I got involved. Coincidence? Pick your favorite topic, and have a look. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_McKitrick . Even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Watts_%28blogger%29 isn’t too bad. Anthony — we need a photo!
Better yet, contribute to WP instead of complaining!
4) The Register article will probably go back in, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#The_Register_article_on_physicist.27s_resignation_from_the_American_Physical_Society
But it doesn’t really matter, since lots of other sources have since picked up the Lewis/APS story.
Best regards, Peter D. Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Arizona and New Mexico (USA)
REPLY: Peter, thank you for the update! Yes I see now there’s been improvements, thank you. I did contribute to Wikipedia at one time, creating the page for the Climate Reference Network. It was soon hacked apart, and I found myself disillusioned with the entire process. It seems less like a collaborative effort and more like a food fight. But your notes make me hopeful this will change. There’s a photo on my facebook page you can use here. It was taken at KHSL-TV in 2002 IIRC. – Anthony
Patrick Davis says:
I am still stunned that these people, anyone in fact, believes one can “disappear” stuff from the interweb. Well, maybe sometimes, but mostly one fails after the event.
The simple act of trying to ban or censor something tends to draw attention to it. People who would otherwise never have heard about it will be queueing up to view the webpage, buy the book, see the movie, etc.
This is nothing new (It happened with Monty Python’s Life of Brian over 30 years ago). But it can now take a matter of minutes/hours before people all over the planet are aware what is going on.
Thomas:
Let’s face it, that letter from a long retired physicist who as far as I can tell never worked on anything related to climate science is soon going to be forgotten even by you, once you manage to find another “scandal” to get upset about.
Once you’ve finished trying to convince yourself by talking to your mirror, Thomas, maybe you should consider taking a course in logic? Hint, your willfully ignorant personal wishes and needs are not anyone else’s commands. And also ask yourself why you try to support this Climate Science crappola, and so pitifully! Is your life that meaningless?
Mark says: “The simple act of trying to ban or censor something tends to draw attention to it. People who would otherwise never have heard about it will be queueing up to view the webpage, buy the book, see the movie, etc.”
And you can’t censor nature!
They can spend all the hours on earth modifying Wikipedia to fit their own preconceived ideas as to how we should view nature, but nature doesn’t listen to these idiots and it will do what it will do.
As we all know at the very least the threat of global warming AND the extent (if any) of human global warming is massively overblown, we know that sooner or later the cold facts of mother nature will force them to change Wikipedia to suit the reality of what really happens rather than what they think we should be told will happen.
That’s half the fun of Wikipedia climate articles. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. Worse, the car driver is not only trying to pretend they are in control, they are even showing off to us how well they can control the car, but we can see the thick layer of ice which they are denying is there and then slowly slowly slowly the car begins to spin, they try to pretend it is still going straight but, we can see it slowly turning around and their struggles to gain control have absolutely no effect on the car. And, its such an expensive car which they’ve spent so much time and love on fashioning to be the ultimate in driving experience. and did they listen to anyone who told them their was ice on the road?
Bang!
@ur momisugly Peter Tillman
Peter – your comments and input in wikipedia are indeed fair.
I have only revisited wikipedia on the back of this story and there are obviously a few reasonable minded people who are trying to make it better.
That said, the link from Lucy Skywalker’s post to the “Regret” heading could easily be condensed into a simple sentence saying – “I don’t agree with this guy’s inputs so I will do whatever I can to keep them off wikipedia”.
Also, as mentioned above Connolly has several pals who will continue to do the dirty work for him.
As for contributing to wikipedia – I think that is also a fair comment, however, it appears that several WUWT contributors have tried and been well and truly shafted.
So maybe it is best left as is – for general information on dates and specific points and leave it as an unreliable source for factual information on global warming.
When you consider Hal Lewis’ illustrious scientific career and the Wikipedia biography and compare it with Stoat’s very undistinguished scientific career with the voluminous guff of Stoat’s wiki bio, you realise exactly why Wikipedia is a menace to knowledge and scholarship.
As far as Connelley’s revisionism and censorship, its been a constant factor for many years. He really can’t help himself.
Mr. Tillman- Could you please correct the wiki page for my father , as it is filled with incorrect and erroneous information. A google search of Dr. Tim Ball will reveal much of the misinformation is put out by sites like Desmogblog. They are not a CR. Look further and you will find much different and more accurate information easily on the net. To look at the wiki page on my father is distasteful to be sure, along with inaccurate. Many have tried to correct it, but Connelly and his “assistants” keep changing it back. You need to have unbiased gatekeepers at the helm. Please and thank you.
While I appreciate Tillman’s corrections of Connelley’s attempts to “memory hole” the resignation letter, he (Tillman) is far too forgiving of Connelley. Connelley’s obvious abuse of his (heightened compared to regular users) editorial privileges merits the revocation of those privileges. Otherwise Wikipedia is 100% a battle of “who spoke last” — and even now it is perilously close to such.
I’ll believe the bona fides of Mr. Tillman when I see him speak out in favor of stripping the likes of Connelley of their ability to edit articles. “Boys will be boys” just doesn’t cut it.
>>>Better yet, contribute to WP instead of complaining!
Tried that. Got banned, for saying that wind turbines were intermittent !!
.
“el rego isn’t an RS”
Says a man who edits Wikipedia. And they say Americans don’t do irony…
@David Ball
Your father’s bio was recently deleted according to this conversation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Timothy_Ball
As you can see most of the votes were to “Keep.” What you don’t see is that on the ArbCom PD page Connolley made a point about how he was going to delete the page and several of his friends showed up to do exactly that.
Another thing that isn’t obvious is that the admin who closed it as “delete” (against the consensus to keep) has a pro-AGW/WMC bias and is, in fact, also the ArbCom clerk I mentioned who released private information that was passed to dangerous religious fundamentalist who then used that information to harass people offline.
ArbCom is well aware of his activities but they seem to be protecting him either because of his viewpoint, the fact that he is a minor, or since they feel they may be legally responsible if the people he endangered come to harm.
I know this stuff sounds unbelievable because it is so sick (and I’m leaving stuff out because I don’t want to mess up any future legal proceedings), but to the best of my knowledge it is true.
WMC topic banned on WP. Sorry not sure if anyone has posted this already. BishopHill has the link and it’s also given here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change/Proposed_decision#William_M._Connolley_topic-banned_.28R3.29
Are William Connolly’s contributions peer-reviewed?
Yep, it came down pretty much as expected. They let a few of the AGW group beg for voluntary topic bans so they can come back in 6 months and they refused to ban several really bad characters. They also banned nearly every single skeptic on really dubious grounds – perhaps they were expecting an increase in activity with Connolley gone and they wanted to get rid of anyone who could show the new guys the ropes so they don’t get banned (too quickly anyway).
Anyway, I’m happy Connolley is gone, that the case is finally over and now I don’t have to deal with wikipedia’s crap anymore.
‘Revisionism’ is a form of ‘denialism’ with exactly the same black connotation. E.g. David Irving.