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.
Better late than never I guess. Established POV warriors like Connelly are all over wikipedia like fleas on a dog. This is just one small step in addressing a much larger problem.
Why doesn’t someone start a wiki for removed wikipedia pages?
kwikexpedia.org anyone?
tallbloke says:
October 18, 2010 at 4:16 am
Why doesn’t someone start a wiki for removed wikipedia pages
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A very sensible proposition. In parallel with this, can the climate realist/skeptic lobby convince Wikipedia to reinstate all that Connolley had, in a now-confirmed corrupt way, removed?
As you wrote above, Anthony: “Perhaps we no longer need to disengage from Wikipedia, but rather engage it and work to make it better.”
trbixler says:
October 14, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Not to state the obvious but who will unwind the thousands of biased edits?
I have only read to here, so if this is a repeat, my apologies.
You bring up a very good point, and I am afraid the answer is no one. So what did the ban accomplish?
Now the RC group can acknowledge a truth (the false edits of WC), and then point to this and say they have “cleaned house” and then point to wiki and say “and our points remain unchallenged”.
An excellent PR coup for the propagandists of RC and their ilk.
Why don’t we organise an e=mail circulation list so that anything this suspended individual wants doing is done by hundreds of us?
Wiki will wish they had never suspended him.
If I get a positive response to this post lets go for it – perhaps someone can give ideas about organisation because I’m not that good at all this computing (its only a tool at work, not my main function).
I admit I know nothing about the man – it is the censorship which sticks in the craw. At least the US has the 1st Amendment giving the right to free speech – unlike some other places.
This is what comes of not reading the article properly – I should have made my suggestion about someone excluded for telling the truth rather than this individual! However the point holds good