Pointman writes: I think we’ve all had that pleasant surprise when something totally unexpected just drops out of the sky and into your lap. That happened to me last weekend when a creature called William Connolley attempted to comment on a piece I’d written about the Bengtsson scandal. If you’re unfamiliar with him, he’s infamous for editing thousands of Wikipedia articles on climate and anyone significant in the area. You can find several articles on his activities over at WUWT.
His idea of truth is somewhat idiosyncratic to say the least, but let’s just say if you were any way sceptical, you weren’t going to get a glowing entry. When the skeptics tried to correct the foul calumnies for their entry, they were promptly changed back, a loop they went around until he banned them from being able to edit anything.
I’m actually quite knowledgeable about him, since I’ve been a fawning admirer and stroker of his ego for as far back as his days co-founding the joke site called Real Climate with Gavin Schmidt and others of a similar ilk. Needless to say, it’s under one of my dark side Eco-Annie personas. The site is pretty much moribund these days but it did get a sniffy mention in the climategate emails by Phil “hide the decline” Jones, as being there just to disseminate propaganda.
He was never particularly significant in the self-declared pantheon of climate demigods, more like their technical gopher despatched as required to cobble together various bits of HTML for them. In his Wikipedia heyday, he built up a small but dedicated following of fanboys but since Wiki banned him and nobody sane reads his blogging attempts, he’s of late been at a loose end, cruising around the skeptic blogosphere, trolling for all he’s worth and generally leaving a terrible stench behind him.
As it happens, I’ve a personal score to settle with him, and one I never thought I’d get the chance to do but this looked to be a heaven-sent opportunity, if I could just play it right. Picking an appropriate way would undoubtedly come down to making use on his own rather inflated idea of his importance in the general scheme of things climatic, but in just the right way. He’s used to swimming around in a little pond of mutual fishy admirers and as far as I’m aware has never had a good kicking, so I laced up my steel-toed boots and thought about an appropriate bait to fix on the hook.
Read the rest of this entertaining post here: The scorning of William Connolley.
Willy is known extreme bias who due to ignorance and arrogance being very close bedfellows regularly calls anyone who says different to his bible “septics” and “deniers”.
Expecting Willy to have a remotely open mind would require him to exhibit a modicum of intelligence – but what we are treated to with depressing regularity from Willy simply underlines just how much the Alarmist viewpoint relies upon these people for whom any sort of integrity and moral compass on their part is sadly lacking.
His actions to manipulate and bully others is now openly discussed and looked upon with dismay by many trying to get to the truth about what we as a race are actually doing to our planet.
I am sure I am simply repeating what many before have said – and that is that I totally agree that humankind’s activities do have an effect of our planet – and have done probably since the day we discovered fire. So I for one deny nothing when it comes our Anthropomorphic potential.
But the hype that the likes of William Connolley believes in actually denies that any other version of the “truth” exists apart from their “one true belief”. And heaven help anyone that suggests that their view could be the one that is in denial over what is actually happening.
Willy is a spent force – he had his 15 min of fame when Wiki was relatively new and still had a reasonable reputation. Connolley and his ilk were a major reason why Schools banned students from using Wiki as a reference source.
If integrity was a taxable commodity, I could get William Connolley a Tax Rebate.
Connolley is surely the most despicable vermin on either side of the climate debate, by far. Surely he knows that, because people know themselves. Word is getting out, too:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/10/14/global-warming-propagandist-slapped-down
But the final word is the Planet’s word: there has been no global warming for a long, long time now. Global warming has stopped, proving connolley to be flat wrong about everything he believes in.
Go away, connolley. You are a sorry has-been.
The simple fact that he has to control the wiki, says it all.
[snip – ugly language -mod]
Jonas N> In 58k+ instances you believed that your view warranted the deletion of the view or information of others,
No, of course not. You really ought to gain some basic familiarity with the wiki editing process before talking of it. Most of my edits involved deleting nothing.For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roberto_Mangabeira_Unger&diff=prev&oldid=610983974
>> most of them also can provide no specifics ..
> Irrelevant!
No, its highly relevant. You’re sure that something terrible has been done – but you don’t know what it is; you can point to no examples of anything that has been done. Here, that’s all fine. In any place that required evidence rather than belief, you’d be laughed out of court.
> Word is getting out, too: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/10/14/global-warming-propagandist-slapped-down
That’s years old. Its also hopelessly wrong, and display total ignorance of wiki’s ways. “Connolley did not wield his influence by the quality of his research or the force of his argument but through his administrative position” is wrong: it just doesn’t work that way. “Wikipedia became a leading source of global warming propaganda” is wrong too. The wiki GW article, and related, are a fairly accurate relating of the balance of current scientific opinion, which is what they should be. You disagree with that opinion, and hence you hate and fear wiki, but its dishonest of you not to accept that they do indeed simply reflect that opinion.
> The articles about global cooling are a farce. No objectivity in presenting those but from a global warming activist point of view. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
OK, lets take the global cooling article. It, too, is an accurate reflection of its sources. I notice that you diss it, but have no specific criticisms to make. What, if anything, *specific* is wrong with it?
> but not a single mention is done to the fact that CO2 lags temperature.
Its not really relevant to that article. Its there in other articles, although not in the form you’d want, because the simplistic form you want is wrong.
LewSkannen> Does not explain why a paper about climate was a suitable reference for ‘weather’ for four years
Actually it does, but you do need to read it. Its my comment of “13:58, 13 January 2012” which points out that the paper isn’t about climate.
You have deleted 58,000 comments and submittals by others.
And you justify only one. Based solely on YOUR criteria of what is relevent, and what does not have “the right kind” of references.
That minor, irrelevant fact that CO2 lags temperature changes in the past has nothing to do with climate changes now? You claim the holy ground and the holy text of peer-review, bought and paid for by the governments getting rich off of the propaganda in the “science” they pay for.
We have had 3o years (1945 – 1975) when CO2 increased, and global average temperatures declined.
We have had only 21 years when CO2 rose strongly, and temperature rose. (1975 – 1996).
We have had now almost 18 years when CO2 rose even faster, yet global average temperatures have been steady, very slightly declining.
Based on the evidence, CO2 has no relationship with global average temperature.
Differently, in only 21 of 4 billions years of history, has global average temperature and CO2 risen at the same time.
Last October, Antarctic sea ice set an all-time satellite record for area at 20 million square kilometers. Antarctic sea ice anomaly alone at the beginning of May this year was 16% of the yearly average, covering an excess area 97% the size of Greenland. What is your so-called evidence of CAGW? Why are millions being killed based on your lies and fears of a warmer future that we can not affect by restricting energy use?
YOU are the cause of the propaganda causing their deaths of millions and poverty to billions more.
Have you no shame?
Incredibly talented at completely ignoring anything that may undermine their worldview, and attacking the minutiae to derail the conversation. Also, an insatiable need to get the last word in.
On a side note, I spent the day tearing down an ancient greenhouse that the previous owner of this home had cobbled together millennia ago. Seemed important to mention. 🙂
Don’t waste your time with William Connolley. Even if the world cooled for the next 2 decades he would see rising heat. Even if a mini-ice age or a full blown ice age began he would insists that his friends are right. No matter what happens he will hang onto his beliefs.
I would be over the moon if Mr. Connolley told me that in fact he would abandon his CAGW ideas, and re-asses the IPCC temp projections, if surface temps failed to warm for the next decade. Surprise me.
Hang in there, Willy. You still have the tailed end of a week old thread to rant on.
What would you do without ‘denier’ blogs, eh?
connolley suffers from extreme psychological projection: what he believes others are doing is exactly what connolley is guilty of doing himself. A few examples:
You’re sure that something terrible has been done – but you don’t know what it is; you can point to no examples of anything that has been done. Here, that’s all fine. In any place that required evidence rather than belief, you’d be laughed out of court.
^Borderline insane.^ Numerous examples have been posted, but connolley pretends to ignore them all. And to say “Here, that’s all fine” is simply more projection. WUWT is one of the freest sites anywhere. It has won numerous awards as the very best Science & Technology site on the internet — and it thoroughly thumps connolley’s pathetic propaganda blog.
Next, connolley attempts to dismiss facts by saying:
That’s years old.
By connolley’s criteria, Aristotle and Einstein should be disregarded, because their ideas are old.
Next, connolley is on the defensive:
“Wikipedia became a leading source of global warming propaganda.” That is wrong, too.
No one has done more to trash and destroy the reputation of Wikipedia than connoley, its censor and propagandist. Wiki could have been a contender. But connolley has made it into an unreliable laughingstock in climate matters. Connolley pretends:
The wiki GW article, and related, are a fairly accurate relating of the balance of current scientific opinion, which is what they should be. You disagree with that opinion, and hence you hate and fear wiki…
Is connolley kidding? Hate and fear? That is simply more projection by a psychotic self-hater. Wiki is merely disregarded as a misinformation blog. The fact is that more than 31,000 American scientists and engineers — all with degrees in the hard sciences, including more than 9,000 PhD’s — have totally refuted connolley’s narrative. CO2 is harmless, and it is beneficial to the biosphere. It is not a problem. So who should we believe? A proven liar and propagandist? Or 31,000 highly educated professionals who signed their names to a statement that mocks everything connolley believes?
And in response to the central issue of the entire debate: “…not a single mention is done to the fact that CO2 lags temperature”, connolley claims it is…
“…not really relevant to that article.”
It is a verifiable fact that exactly none of the endless predictions of global catastrophe have ever happened, from the bogus ‘ocean acidification’ scare, to increasing extreme weather events, to decimated Polar bear populations, to accelerating sea level rise, to disappearing Arctic ice, and to climate catastrophe in general. NONE of those endless doomsday prophecies have come true.
When a clique makes innumerable predictions of catastrophe, and none of them ever happen, rational people will conclude that those making the predictions were flat wrong. connolley has been flat wrong about everything. Yet he continues to spew his false propaganda.
That’s what liars do. Honest folks admit it when they have been proven wrong. Liars continue to live their lie. They own their lie. But the populace is seeing through it now. The chump is toast.
William Connolley, are you still a member of the Green Party?
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/william-m-connolley/
WC
Firstly: Fair enough, all 58k edits (probably) weren’t controversial or part of the information war. You say ‘most’ weren’t. OK, judgment call, and only your word for it. But regarding climate-related issues, lots of them were contentious. However:
You still don’t get it, you need to pay attention:
Nope, never made any such claim. I was asking a question! Incidentally about something different.
Two things: a) I was asking you, not about them, and b) if most of them would/did/could not specify any particulars that is still irrelevant (unless exactly nobody could!)
However, here I fear it turns into circular reasoning. You indicate not only that every instance was legit, but (and more importantly) that not one of them even was overly zealous or went to far. (Although your are cringing to avoid stating this openly). It follows that, in you view, none of them had a legitimate case or valid complaints.
Essentially I was asking: Are you capable of seeing things from another perspective? That other views could be reasonable, even if they did not concur with yours? And the idea that people curious about a topic would like to hear the story told from others too, particularly wrt to conflicting views?
Moreover:
How many Wiki-entries have you deleted entirely?
How many others have yoy revoked editing rights for?
And how many have you threatened to do this to?
(Ballpark numbers will suffice)
I understand why some disagree, some strongly disagree, and some even have contempt for the view of William Connolley.
None of which excuses the reference to him in the original article as “creature” or the comment reference “sub-human”.
@The other Phil
Very true. Only a real person who is an idiot could do what he did and think it was somehow productive.
I agree with The Other Phil. It doesn’t help to simply throw names at anyone, especially not terms with such an unpleasant history.
“When the evidence is against you, pound the law. If the law is against you, pound the evidence. If both are against you, pound the table.”
Or, in this case, spend your time in name-calling.
Kevin Kilty asked if it was true that Connolley was banned. Connolley responded with a link, but some of the material at the link was in Wikispeak and could use some translation.
The term “banned” without qualification, means that a community process (there is more than one) has reached a conclusion that a particular editor should not be editing any part of the English Wikipedia.
That did not happen to Connolley, so a narrow answer would be no. However, as he noted, it depends on what you mean.
The community can also reach a conclusion that an editor should have some limitations on what they can contribute. A common example is a topic ban, in which an editor is requested not to edit any article on a particular topic. That is what happened to Connolley; he was given a topic ban which meant he could not edit any articles relating to climate.
Such bans are usually open-ended, with a time period, for example, six months, after which an editor can appeal and ask for modification to the ban. They typcially do not expire, unless there is a request for a change.
Approximately a year after the original topic ban in October 2010, a modification was requested.
Starting in October 2011, Connolley was no longer banned from climate articles in general, but he was still banned from editing any article about a living person, in the climate area. This might seem ad hoc, but Wikipedia has special rules applying to any article involving living people (often referred to as BLP, short for Biographies of Living Persons). That topic ban is still in place.
While not specifically asked, there has also been confusion about Connolley’s status as an administrator (editors who have the ability to do certain actions, notably the ability to delete articles, and the ability to block editors). He started out as an editor, acquired the administrator role, then lost the administrator role. That action was sometimes erroneously reported as a ban, or as an action which meant he could not longer edit. Neither were true, he simply lost the ability to delete articles or block editors.
(I’ve tried to write casually, without lapsing into Wikijargon too much. If anyone cares about more details, let me know.)
@The Other Phil (I guess in my case you really are the other Phil!)
Thank you for the explanation. But Wiki’s action is akin to allowing a school to rehire a pedophile once they have served their prison sentence. It is stupid. And probably the reason that Wiki has lost its reputation (if it ever had it).
That’s from another blog, but guess who it applies to here [my bold].
It also applies to Michael Mann. Anyone reading his tweets and other comments knows what a warped person he is. Not as warped as connolley, but in the same ballpark. Personally, I could understand pretending to have won the Nobel Prize. Lots of insecure folks self-aggrandize with fabricated accomplishments. But Mann constantly flings out insults at anyone and everyone who doesn’t toe his line, and he cowers from any fair debate [I suspect that connolley would also tuck tail and run from any fair, moderated debate, since the science flatly contradicts his bogus narrative].
We are dealing with people who would be rejected by any normal society. But this is life in the new millennium. We just have to keep plugging away. And so far, it’s working.
The Other Phil, thanks for that explanation.
This means that at least some people not only think he went to far, but acted upon it, and decisively even forcefully so.. And these were his peers even.
But he tells us “nothing particular springs to mind” when asked the same question, carefully avoiding a direct answer.
I too noticed that he has been very active on pages of persons whose views he’d rather not have been publicly known, so the BLP-issue is understandable. But more notable is the lack of self awareness, where he here (and elswhere) decries that people don’t get to hear both sides of the story.
At Wiki, his rationale (or justification) for having the story be told by only his side of the fence seems to have been mainly procedural/technical: Because he got to set, interpret and selectively enforce ‘rules’ at only his discretion.
Shorter, and as I see it: ‘He did because he could, and since he could, it was legit’ …
Well, those are exactly the people and views you don’t want to have writing neither the history nor making any ‘rules’ pr wielding any power over others.
[Reply: Anthony graciously allowed Wm Connolley to have his say here, even though Connolley was banned from this site for continued bad behavior. Anthony has not notified moderators that Connolley’s ban has been lifted, so future comments from him go into the bit bucket. ~mod.]