Bishop Hill had the news first, which is fitting since Mr. Connolley is based in Britain.
In a vote of 7-0, The most prolific climate revisionist editor ever at Wikipedia, with over 5400 article revisions has been banned from making any edits about climate related articles for six months.
Here’s the details at Wikipedia. After that time, he can reapply, per the Wikipedia rules seen here in remedy 3
This is of course just a shot across the bow, and there are easy ways to circumvent such a ban, but it is finally a factual realization by Wikipedia that the sort of gatekeeping and revisioning wars in the climate change information business are being recognized and dealt with.
Personally, I’m encouraged by some of the recent changes brought to my attention by Peter Tillman, an editor who left a comment here.
Perhaps we no longer need to disengage from Wikipedia, but rather engage it and work to make it better.
“My instincts impel me to say that I would, if possible, prefer a more carefully tailored, nuanced sanction or set of sanctions that could preserve the value of William M. Connolley’s editing”
Bang head on table time!
Hahaha! Anyone want to go into his Wikipedia page and edit it now? He can’t go in and revise it (theoretically…)
Who pays Wikipedia’s William M. Connolley?
http://www.radicalgreenwatch.com/main/?p=511
The only thing that Wikipedia has banned is an ego. It´s quite easy to come back and edit using a different name and/or a different IP. Nothing has happened here.
The tax payers maybe sad that he’s not sitting on Wiki all day at there expense, oh wait I’m one of them tax payers, hey Connelley get back and do some real work instead of gate keeping your religion.
I like Wikipedia now (they are usually wonderful on pure math topics), but this is an early version of the concept. Wikipedia is flawed, but the evolutionary process is underway. Something better than Wikipedia may come out next but this cannot happen without the current lessons learned.
Who is paying WMC? He’s not doing this in his free time and he’s not alone. There’s a team and funding behind him. My guess would be one of the environmental ‘charities’ so expect the team to reappear in some other guise.
Wikipedia has reached what I call the churn point. Open access allowed it to get up and running very quickly but now the [communist] model is working against it. I think the missing ingredient is ownership. There is a real limit to how far lack of ownership can take you because it has side effects including:
1. Orphaned pages. Why bother keeping topics up to date when anybody can come along and replace what you have written. I see lots of topics which are now out of date.
2. Respect for other people. Most decent people work on the assumption that someone owns the page in spite of what Wikipedia says. Who asked me to edit someone else’s work? Nobody – so most people don’t.
3. Lack of expertise. Some topics are very detailed and are obviously written by an expert but most are not. For example, take a look at ‘English cuisine’. The author is clearly not a chef or food writer. I’ve got a 500 page book on the subject. Any modern chef wouldn’t be seen dead cooking the dishes shown and it’s not the kind of food I eat now. They are all from the past.
4. Undefined audience. Take a topic like foot. Is it about human feet, animal feet or furniture feet? Is it intended for patients, athletes, doctors, surgeons, biologists, evolutionists or furniture makers? There’ll be lots of books aimed at each audience but there is no single expert on all feet.
5. Some topics are inherently controversial. Try Arab–Israeli conflict. It all depends on where you it. What’s there can only be one opinion.
Oops. Spelled my name wrong above – should be AlanG not AloanG.
Who is paying WMC? He’s not doing this in his free time and he’s not alone. There’s a team and funding behind him. My guess would be one of the environmental ‘charities’ so expect the team to reappear in some other guise.
Wikipedia has reached what I call the churn point. Open access allowed it to get up and running very quickly but now the [communist] model is working against it. I think the missing ingredient is ownership. There is a real limit to how far lack of ownership can take you because it has side effects including:
1. Orphaned pages. Why bother keeping topics up to date when anybody can come along and replace what you have written. I see lots of topics which are now out of date.
2. Respect for other people. Most decent people work on the assumption that someone owns the page in spite of what Wikipedia says. Who asked me to edit someone else’s work? Nobody – so most people don’t.
3. Lack of expertise. Some topics are very detailed and are obviously written by an expert but most are not. For example, take a look at ‘English cuisine’. The author is clearly not a chef or food writer. I’ve got a 500 page book on the subject. Any modern chef wouldn’t be seen dead cooking the dishes shown and it’s not the kind of food I eat now. They are all from the past.
4. Undefined audience. Take a topic like foot. Is it about human feet, animal feet or furniture feet? Is it intended for patients, athletes, doctors, surgeons, biologists, evolutionists or furniture makers? There’ll be lots of books aimed at each audience but there is no single expert on all things feety.
5. Some topics are inherently controversial. Try Arab–Israeli conflict. It all depends on where you it. What’s there can only ever be one opinion.
Perhaps we no longer need to disengage from Wikipedia, but rather engage it and work to make it better.
My attitude has been that “they need people of different views who respect each other because the reader soon gets put off a one-sided biased article.”
The truth is that Silly Billy has done more than anyone else to turn readers and editors off climate articles by indulging in bullyboy tactics to force through clear and blatant propaganda.
As I said many times: “the fact that the global temperature has stopped going up is undeniable … what is arguable is the cause and future trend, but the fact there has been a pause is not only scientifically interesting, it has had huge ramifications in the political arena for global warmers.” Everyone who has read anything on climate knows about the recent pause and the fact wikipedia failed to mention, let alone discuss this obvious fact proves it isn’t being honest with the result people do not trust anything that is written in the article … and that mistrust spreads to other articles”.
Indeed, I knew that whilst it was very tempting to try and force them to accept edits, all I was doing was putting a sugar coating more acceptable to sceptics on a blatant piece of warmist propaganda.
AND WHY ON EARTH SHOULD ANYONE TRY TO MAKE BLATANT WARMIST PROPAGANDA MORE ACCEPTABLE?
A ruthless political activist is a political activist. In any organisation, if you take a decision that that is what they are, they should be banned for life.
Will the magnificent 7 now revisit and change the 5,400+ edits made by this gentleman? If they do, I might take notice, if not… yawn.
All the best.
In the blogosphere where Wikepedia exists, it is well known that they have been a running joke for a long time. I guess they are just getting tired of being called out all the time in the blogosphere.
This Wiki topic seems to be in some error and should be re-edited as well.
Reliability of Wikipedia
“The reliability of Wikipedia, compared to both other encyclopedias and more specialized sources, is assessed in several ways, including statistically, by comparative review, analysis of the historical patterns, and strengths and weaknesses inherent in the editing process unique to Wikipedia.
Because Wikipedia is open to anonymous and collaborative editing, assessments of its reliability usually include examinations of how quickly false or misleading information is removed. An early study conducted by IBM researchers in 2003—two years following Wikipedia’s establishment—found that “vandalism is usually repaired extremely quickly — so quickly that most users will never see its effects”[1] and concluded that Wikipedia had “surprisingly effective self-healing capabilities”.[2]
A notable early study in the journal Nature suggested that in 2005, Wikipedia scientific articles came close to the level of accuracy in Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of “serious errors”.[3] This study was disputed by Encyclopædia Britannica.[4]
By 2010 reviewers in medical and scientific fields such as toxicology, cancer research and drug information reviewing Wikipedia against professional and peer reviewed sources found that Wikipedia’s depth and coverage were of a very high standard, often comparable in coverage to physician databases and considerably better than well known reputable national media outlets. Wikipedia articles were cited as references in journals (614 cites in 2009) and as evidence in trademark and higher court rulings. However, omissions and readability sometimes remained an issue – the former at times due to public relations removal of adverse product information and a considerable concern for fields such as medicine.
A common view as of 2010 in fields from medicine to technology and a range of social-cultural topics, is that Wikipedia is a valuable research resource and starting point for information and major news events, and articles in many areas are routinely accurate and informative (Military History topics being assessed as “spot on”), but users should take care – as with all general reference works – to check their facts and be aware that mistakes and omissions do occur.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
I have two daughters at University. I warned them both about the dangers inherent in relying on Wikipedia for any sort of quote and advised them to avoid it.
Both daughters have been told repeatedly by staff of their respective educational institutions that any mention or quote from Wikipedia is strictly forbidden on the grounds that the Wiki is not intellectually nor factually correct in far too many fields.
That is how institutions of higher learning regard the Wiki in England; it is to be avoided and ignored.
Who uses Wikipedia anyway?
Thegoodlocust makes a good point – you lose 1 warmist but several realists – there must be lots of vacancies for people to help Pete Tillman.
I am amazed at how much time and effort must have been put into the whole process – you have to feel that most of the people involved are doing it for the right reason but as with so many good will enterprises there are a lways a few who take advantage.
It will be intersting to see if the problem goes away or if someone else just steps up and continues to censor any reasonable alternative points to the warmist’s flawed arguments.
anticlimactic says: “Perhaps Wikipedia could be persuaded to allow dual entries – skeptical and warmist – then users could check out both and form their own opinion. In effect to acknowledge there is [heated] dispute.”
I think that has got to be the solution. It not only that they “hog the article”, they also “hog the agenda” by e.g. defining “global warming” as a “science” and using this to prevent any references or material from anyone who isn’t part of the same group of scientists and their underlings/cronies who edit wikipedia.
The simple truth is that global warming is political article, and predominantly the sceptical interpretation and evidential base is found in political references and not the (POV) science journals.
And it is also notable the way there is no articles on climate prediction … for obvious reasons because climate predictions have been so totally abysmal and any historical analysis shows a range of climate predictions from sooth sayers in the ancient world to camp century cycles and predicted cooling to global warming … all sharing very much in common.
So, this would have to be much more than “global warming (scientific article only allowing Mann and cronies as a source)” The pro (experts) and the con (… oops we’ve defined it so that there is no reliable source to back up any of your claims).
It would have to be:
Global warming (politics and science),
climate science (real science … but who am I kidding!),
Climate predictions (science … but not as the “scientists” want it),
21st century cooling (the impact of the cooling on world perception, its affects on public opinion, climate actions etc.).
Climategate (as most other language articles call it!)
ACTION PLAN TO CHANGE WIKIPEDIA
1. Remove Silly Billy (done)
2. Get enough people to assert the view on the article that global warming is a political issue and therefore political comment is as valid as “scientific” comment.
3. Having undermined their main defence that only “their” (i.e. the “scientists and underlings who edit wikipedia) views (aka science papers) are allowed, proceed to include a range of diverse views on the issue and make it an interesting read covering the whole subject in depth.
“Perhaps we no longer need to disengage from Wikipedia, but rather engage it and work to make it better. ”
Some fields of my interests are worked out really well on Wikipedia and it can be a really rich source of information. Especially as people with much interest but a different view can normally give input too as long as there input applies to the rules.
Sadly the model didn’t work up till now for the Climate subject. It must be possible to give every lemma more objectivity. That said the amount of (funding for) science behind climate change has long ago reached a “tipping point”
Se here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ball
Who is NuclearWarfare?
CYA at the Wreckepedia. Now it’s up to the gang of William to continue his tireless work – Brigade Harvester Boris and Stefan Schmidt or Schultz or something like that. Go, boys, rewrite history!
Do not confuse me with the truth, my mind is made up!
“Fred Bauder says:
October 14, 2010 at 7:13 pm
There was a problem with William Connolley.
[..]
It’s not that he’s wrong; it’s like he’s hovering over everyone. That what WP:OWN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles is about.”
There was a lot more than one problem with Connolley. How about Wikipedia:Civility? How about NPOV? Wikipedia:Disruptive editing? Wikipedia:Etiquette? Wikipedia:Assume good faith? Wikipedia:Conflict of interest? The problems have manifested themselves not once, or a few times, but thousands of times. And he certainly is wrong a lot. He just doesn’t like to admit it.
“I don’t think him being gone for a while is going to change much; we’re still not going to allow poorly sourced biased information,”
I don’t think it is going to change much either. At least we can agree on that. Connolley regularly sourced material from the blog he himself was a cofounder of. For some reason that was accepted. Alarmist material can be sourced from biased editorials, while well researched news articles are not sufficient to justify inclusion of opposing views.
“but maybe you can accept this as evidence that we are trying to provide a fair statement of generally accepted knowledge in this area.”
The evidence is that you are trying very hard NOT to provide a fair statement on generally accepted knowledge. Connolley (and some of his pals) has been allowed to break Wikipedia rules on a daily basis for years, while there is zero tolerance for anyone remotely critical of the alarmist POV.
‘Tis naught but a time out for old Bill.
REVISED ACTION PLAN TO CHANGE WIKIPEDIA
The main aim of the plan would be to rename the present article called “global warming” to something like “global warming science”, create a complimentary “global warming politics” and then to create a new article over-arching article called “global warming” which by linking to both articles, gives equal credence to the idea that the political dimension is as notable as the “scientific”. However given the huge wars over something as simple as “climategate” I know this is quite a tall order. So the strategy would not (initially) be to change the present global warming article but to create a rival and better article focussing soley on the politics.
Here is how I suggest doing this:
1. Get together a group of people with experience/willingness to learn and rewrite the article: “global warming controversy” so as to be able to rename it “global warming politics”. This would have to be a mainly pro-warming article, but by treating the politics and political action in a serious scholarly way WITHOUT BIAS … (i.e. pro warming bias) it would be very difficult for the warmists resist.
2. Having asserted there is a serious political dimension to global warming, … the aim is now to demote the present “global warming” page to something like “global warming science”. One simple way to do this is to create a page called “global warming”, with links to the various articles on global warming.
3. At some point it might be worth arguing the present “global warming” article should be renamed “climate change” or “climate chaos” or whatever – this has been many times before, but like judo, the art is to apply pressure in the opposite way you intend to throw, so that by resisting they push the way you intend them to go.
Now for tactics
As a very experienced, organised and professionally financed group the warmists are virtually invulnerable to a frontal attack by keen individuals here. They have every current article on the subject monitored 24/7/365, so any change to current articles immediately brings out the brainless soldier ants whose aim is to mindlessly revert any changes anyone “not of the tribe” makes.
So, the initial assault has to be on a range of new articles, ideally small articles each with a “climate politics” theme … and to avoid detection written by new recruits in a largely pro-warming way – avoiding any of the obvious search words that they will be using to try to catch new articles.
Eventually, there should be enough undetected articles on the general theme to propose an “amalgamation” of articles to create a single article on the politics.
And of course, the most important thing is to spread as much misinformation as possible, and to continue the frontal attack so that they don’t spot that we are mining the defences from behind … or perhaps it’s all a double bluff and the real attack is at the front door.
… our greatest asset is their paranoia!
When I first came here, I was learning, learning, learning, following clues everywhere. That energy was steadily replaced with the desire to CLARIFY, CONDENSE, and PASS ON what I’d learned. Hence my Primer etc (click my name).
I’ve long hoped that WUWT itself would evolve in a similar way. What has actually happened is that many other blogs have started up, with some that concentrate the facts like Alan Cheetham’s website. But mostly the punchy facts are still widely scattered.
Because Wikipedia has (correctly IMHO, for its purposes) set up the rule “NOR”, No Original Research, controversial subjects get heavily skewed. Catch-22 dictates that since the hoi polloi rely on Wikipedia, it’s the skewed funding/MSM that gets the research… the peer-reviews… the quotes in “acceptable” journals… that WP senior admin like Fred Bauder probably believe are neutral…
I reasoned that, as other controversial topics have done, the only way through was to start our own wiki. I’ll come back to that later because therein lies an ongoing story.
For now, I’d like to suggest that Anthony runs a “hot” Wikipedia climate article once a week, for folk here to crowdsource rewrite suggestions, and for those who choose, to edit them into place. This would also be an interesting “learning curve” for both us and WP, since I see many here are unfamiliar with WP and what people here could do. We could start with the article on “An Inconvenient Truth” which seriously downplays all suggestions that it is a serial fabrication from beginning to end.
Even if this proves unfruitful, it might still stimulate enough energy here, and develop enough expertise here, for us to start our own wiki. And that’s what I’m still working on.
The word “banned” in the heading should have been “suspended.”