Elevated from a comment by Tom Rude.
Chronicle of an announced death, Wikipedia style.
I had not posted on this road movie for a while but the occasion is too good to resist.
In the Wikipedia world there are crimes that deserve harsh punishment. Yet those appear magnified when “the Cause” could be threatened by the presence of “Global Warming Deniers” in the vicinity of Climate Change greatness.
The late French climatologist Professor Marcel Leroux (d.2008) experienced a second death at the hands of William M. Connolley and his acolytes. In “Death of a Salesman” the renowned software engineer goes full steam ahead in justifying his execution to the outside world:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/10/04/death-of-a-salesman/
From the height of his pretentious bumptiousness, he dismisses the condemned scientist’s life and work and goes on indulging in conspiracy theory about some honorific title the long serving professor received ten years ago. That Connolley is now chasing ambulances should elicit a smile since having been restricted in his editorial prerogatives following a scandal; his wings appear to have been clipped, only dead climate scientists beware! Or so you may think…
But living scientists too should be on the lookout for Connolley’s grim ripping endeavour!
Professor Gerhard Kramm is about to experience it first hand if Connolley and Eli Rabett get their way. Check Eli & W’s dialogue on the Connolley’s STOAT blog link above.
In Wikipedia vocabulary this is called “canvassing” and quoting from one of Connolley’s “friendlies” admonishing a much too vocal pro-Leroux editor about the crime: “…off-wiki canvassing of the worst type (canvassing people of a specific viewpoint in order to stack a discussion).” Repent sinner!
Yet when it comes to Wikipedia royalty Dr. William M. Connolley, all is clear. So clear, they did not bother to sub-contract rolling the ball against Kramm two days after WMC asked him to “Well don’t just complain about it, do something about it! –W”?
The Good Samaritan Joshua Halpern a.k.a Eli Rabett himself took on the job! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gerhard_Kramm
And the boys are following the same, true and proven script than for the Leroux deletion, starting by questioning the victim’s “notability” and stacking up the deck against the poor professor’s unorthodox position on Climate Change during a likely one sided discussion.
Who will be expurgated next? If history repeats itself, let’s recall that Robespierre too was guillotined and with him, “his brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint-Just, Hanriot and twelve other followers, among them the cobbler Simon, were also executed”. It must be true: it is in Wikipedia!
Update 10/10/12 @6:32 am (GMT – 8): Rescued bio deleted by Connolley, h/t Lucy Skywalker & Mike Jonas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lucy_Skywalker/Marcel_Leroux
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Connolley is a joke – a very very bad joke……..
(Yet when it comes to Wikipedia royalty Dr. William M. Connolley, all is clear. So clear, they did not bother to sub-contract rolling the ball against Kramm …)
The plot is getting thicker against Kramm: a sub-contractor has been found… and Halpern is off the hook. Although a pro-Kramm asked Halpern to withdraw, no one dared firing an official complaint against either Halpern or Connolley yet… Instead, the pro-Kramm will have to battle the known, the unknown, the known-unknown and the unknown-unknown.
corio37 says:
October 9, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Wikipedia touts for donations
yes, I stopped donating some years ago when I realised their bias on climate change.
I found the initial idea great, but it degenerated with the acceptance of all these bias of vociferous groups. It is just another reason to dislike these climate-zealots.
[snip – I don’t like Connolley’s tactics but this is OTT – Anthony]
——————————-
Anthony – the truth and facts are never OTT
REPLY: But they way you say it was – Anthony
Does sweasel.com know about this? 🙂
I have to say, as a teacher of IB students in a suburban high school, one of the first things I do when teaching how to write a science research paper is that wikipedia is not an acceptable source to cite. I tell them they can start there, to get a general rundown, but they must verify everything with a more credible, as primary as possible, source. They still try it, and predictibly get knocked down. So a wiki cite? Not impressed.
What the heck is TR talking about?!?
Something about “scienceblogs” and wikipedia, and some people is all I get out of it, but suspect that one has to be part of one of the clubs to get it.
A few years ago, “a prolific Wikipedia contributor who wrote under the pen name “Essjay” and claimed to be a professor of theology turned out to be a 24-year-old college dropout, Ryan Jordan.
“Jordan’s fraud came to light last week when The New Yorker published an editor’s note stating that a 2006 Wikipedia profile in the magazine had erroneously described Essjay’s purported academic resume. The New Yorker said a Wikipedia higher-up had vouched for Essjay to the author of the piece, Stacy Schiff, but that neither knew Essjay’s real identity.
“In addition to contributing thousands of articles to the sprawling Web encyclopedia, Jordan had recently been promoted to arbitrator, a position for trusted members of the community. Arbitrators can overrule an edit made by another volunteer or block people who abuse the site.
Jordan also was hired in January by Wikia Inc., a for-profit venture run by Wales. He has since been dismissed.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17508203/#.UHXxoET4-So
The article concludes: “Wales (a founder) said Wednesday that belief is unchanged. But, he said, if people want to claim expertise on Wikipedia, they ought to be prompted to prove it. If they don’t want to give their real names, they shouldn’t be allowed to tout credentials. Had that policy been in place, Wales said, Jordan probably would not have gotten away with claiming a Ph.D. in religion.
“It’s always inappropriate to try to win an argument by flashing your credentials,” Wales said, “and even more so if those credentials are inaccurate.”
Sounds just like the belief in CAGW. I’d rather not see their credentials…
I don’t know if this article is now passing into the Great Blue Yonder re. visits, since comments have slowed right down.
However, over at my Wikipedia pages, things have been busy, with a number of visitors including WMC of course. First my copied article was offered up for “rapid deletion”, then others complained, then another admin removed the “rapid deletion” tag.
None of this happened when I posted Tim Ball’s bio “posthumously” in my sandbox. But then I just did it quietly, no fanfare of announcements, and there was no active warring with WMC nor WUWT article at the time.
I think Wikipedia is becoming more akin to a creative writing piece as humanity or resemblance to the human sprit. It’s in constant fluid state and open sourced to our imaginations, discoveries, and beliefs.
I don’t ever consider it as a prime source of strictly correct information, rather, if it helps me to expand my point of view and help discover more information, then it becomes a source for my own personal human spirit growth.
Glad to help Lucy!
Kramm follow up news:
Halpern first call borne out of a taunt by W.M. Connolley on Stoat: -“I intend to nominate this article for deletion. Joshua Halpern, added 00:57, 9 October 2012 (UTC)”-
Now, unwanted publicity has brought a willing sub to take care of business and unexpectedly revealed Eli Rabett’s… humm, human side: – “DLM that is exactly the problem and why I put this here rather than directly into an AfD, and why the statement I made is as neutral as I could make it. (.) Joshua Halpern (talk) added17:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)-
Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit comes to mind http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312004/
If I’m reading things over there right it appears Africangenesis is in danger of being sanctioned for his comments in defending that page. The underhanded tactics of Connolly and his cohorts are too much for a sane person to bear. Actually trying to claim he was doing Lucy a favor by reverting Africangenesis’ helpful changes to the copy and then getting indignant about it. If we only had a secret camera on his computer that captured his crap-eating grin as he posted that one.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 10, 2012 at 4:51 pm
TomRude says:
October 10, 2012 at 7:38 pm
I wanted to let you both know how much your efforts are appreciated.
Wikipedia is a great idea ruined by the nature of some humans. Connolly should be recognized as one of those who has done harm to wikipedias credibility. It is unlikely (in the extreme) that he would acknowledge this.
Delightful conversation with WMC continues over at my Leroux Talk page.
Thank you David Ball and TomRude for thumbs-up. I will copy Kramm now, to (a) sandbox with note (b) text file (c) Climate Wiki. Africangenesis has signed on there (thank you!) and hopefully can now help it grow.
Wikipedia condemns itself to much worse than second-class status. It is now actually debased, and destructive to the goals it nominally set out to serve. Connolley epitomizes the failure, and indeed is actively working to achieve it.
Are William M Connelly (WMC) and Joel B Lewis (JBL) the same person, and using the logic put forth why the hell has Connelly got a Wikipedia page himself?
beesaman says:
October 11, 2012 at 3:55 am
I was going to point out that all the editors seem to have or can create a page to document their activities, i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:William_M._Connolley
However, WMC does indeed have his own page – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Connolley – which notes, in part:
Oh well, it’s less annoying reading than his User_talk page.
It seems to me that one could make a pretty good case to delete that page on notability issues alone. I don’t think someone deserves a Wiki page in large part because he’s a jerk. 🙂
Looks like the first deletion request was “23:46, 14 February 2005 GRider (talk | contribs) m . . (1,625 bytes) (+1,144)”
Arrogant to the nth degree, Connolley really is a despicable little man.
More conversation over at the Leroux talk page
WMC said
WMC also said
Perhaps Anthony can amend the article’s words to “bio deleted by warmists who it seems don’t know any better than to silence what they cannot answer, thanks to their education at the hands of a biassed Wikipedia whose original bias was well locked in place by Connolley long before he lost his Admin rights.”
You can see the weaselling continuing in the details. Of course, I did not actually send this tip to Anthony, it was TomRude whose name WMC omits! And even if it wasn’t WMC’s deletion, his input was certainly at work in helping reach this result.
btw here is WMC’s version of how / why he got banned at WUWT. Seems only fair to reference this in today’s context. I remember checking out the story details at the time and the one thing I recall is that Stoat did NOT give a balanced, fair, unbiassed picture of how / why he got banned.
Again, if WMC is reading this: it is a matter of comparatives. Probably Anthony was not 100% polite or 100% correct in all details. However, Anthony’s overall attitude (as well as his track record generally) show both his courtesy and openness to decent evidence, honest scientific method, and good scientific practice, as in a different league from WMC altogether.
How do I know which “side” is right, if both claim the high ground here? One of the quickest clues is the willingness to apologize for unwarranted rudeness and to correct inaccuracy – and to support that behaviour in others. I am pretty certain that if WMC were actually to listen to criticisms of his approach and were actually willing to apologize and change (without it looking like just a stunt), Anthony would be the first person to welcome WMC back as a commenter.
But alas, beyond the issue of manners lies the deeper issues of the still-unacknowledged corruption at the heart of Climate Science, that still either fools the NAS and the RS or else they too are corrupt and in cahoots.
Not a conspiracy, WMC, just a combination of “follow the money”, human pride, bad science, unreasoning anxiety, and “noble cause corruption”, that the world has seen many times before now.
If Connolley wants to apologize for his thread baiting behavior (which he then used as fodder on his own blog) and promises not to do it again, sure, I’d allow him to participate here again.
I saw no reason to invite him into my home on the Internet any more the way he behaved. If he was a dinner guest at my physical home, I’d have shown him the door as I suspect many people would. See my policy page on how I view this.
Here’s an update: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/11/tabloid-climatology-may-be-the-real-reason-for-the-marcel-leroux-william-connolley-wikipedia-dustup/
I’d hazard a guess that Connolley’s article is not there as a result of explanation or due other folks excoriation but rather as a way for him to bolster his own fragile ego.
That he has gone after a defenceless, deceased academic and got away with it has emboldened him to take on another. The added fact that he has gone after foreigners might indicate a past event he is trying to purge by these present deeds. All in all rather disturbing, I wonder what the international company he presently works for would make of his beliefs and behaviours, particularly Joep Van Beurden the CEO?
Sparks says:
October 9, 2012 at 6:35 pm
have a look at this Wikipedia entry on David Bellamy and especially how his Views on global warming are refuted by alarmists for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bellamy
Connolley’s banning, btw, was just a temporary sham. While it “held”, minions did exactly the same kind of sceptic-purging, probably at his explicit direction. He’s been back at it himself for some time now.
Gerhard Kramm is alive and kicking and sums up what to think of this row: check his comment to Halpern!
“I beg your pardon, folks, but I do not believe that having an Article in the WIKIPEDIA is a matter of honor. The discussion of climate and climate change is clearly occupied by eco-activists like Halpern. From this point of view I am feeling being honored if this Article will be deleted owing to the activities of eco-fascists. I have my professional homepage. For Halpern who speaks German I have a simple message: “Was stoert’s den Mond, wenn ein Hund ihn anbellt.”Gerhard kramm (talk) 23:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)”