As we all know, Wikipedia has one major flaw in it’s design: it allows gang warfare.
We see this in many political entries, such as the Wikipedia entries for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, which are revised hourly, only to be be revised again by “gatekeepers”. See more here: The-ClintonObama-War-The-Battle-of-Wikipedia
This illustrates the most basic problem with the reliability of Wikipedia in any entry where human opinion is involved. There are roving gangs (and sometimes individuals who appear gang-like due to their output level, such as disgraced Wikipedia editor William Connolley, who will no doubt wail about this note, and then proceed to post the usual denigrating things on his “Stoat, taking science by the throat” blog) and individuals who act as gatekeepers of their own vision of “truth”, regardless of whether that truth is correct or not. Some of these people may simply be paid political operatives, others may be zealots who have a belief that they are part of a “righteous cause”, something we know from Climatetgate as “noble cause corruption“. Many of the people involved don’t even use their real names, so of course hide behind that anonymity. In my opinion, it’s truly an irresponsible and cowardly way to define “truth” with no responsibility for your actions attached.
Right now, there is a war going on over WUWT’s entry on Wikipedia, with a clear intent to apply a smear. I’ve been getting a fair amount of email about it. Here are some examples:
Just a heads-up that there’s a concerted effort in progress to label both you and WUWT as “a blog dedicated to climate change denial” (first line in lede, WUWT article) and “described by climatologist Michael E. Mann in The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars as having “overtaken Climate Audit as the leading climate change denial blog”. (last line in your Wikibio). A twofer! Sigh.
It’s a determined group, and things (as you may recall) get decided by head-counts there. “They” have more heads than we do….
From another concerned reader:
I just tried fixing it and got shut down. Those people really care more about “gate-keeping” public information then just reporting the facts. It’s creepy and a little scary. Kind of like double-speak. The game seems to be finding a “source” which sides with their own viewpoint, and then bestowing high “credibility” on those sources, while denigrating anything else. I’m actually ambivalent on climate change and fall somewhere in the middle as to whether it’s a major problem. So much is unknowable when it comes to the natural sciences. But when I see the above described behavior it really, really makes me sick, regardless of which side is doing. Anyways I just wanted to bring this to your attention in case you were not already aware of it.
And this one:
Anthony,
Don’t know if you’re aware that when searching for WUWT on Bing a profile pops up on the right margin, the first sentence of which is;
“Watts Up With That? is a blog dedicated to climate change denial created in 2006 by Anthony Watts”
I used their feedback form to object but it will no doubt be ignored. No need to respond to this.
Of course, I’m not allowed to make any changes myself, because the Wikipedia rules prevent such things due to potential “bias”. (added: In some cases, even the Wikipedia administration won’t even attempt to correct falsehoods, requiring a public appeal such as this Open Letter to Wikipedia h/t to Bob in comments). But, oddly, people who have a willful bias against me and WUWT are fair game for such changes. The citations list on the WUWT Wikipedia page reads like a “who’s-who” of haters.
For the record:
I don’t “deny” climate change or global warming, it is clear to me that the Earth has warmed slightly in the last century, this is indisputable. I also believe that increasing amounts of CO2 in Earths atmosphere are a component of that warming, but that CO2 is not the only driver of climate as some would have us believe. However, what is in dispute (and being addressed by mainstream climate science) is climate sensitivity to CO2 as well as the hiatus in global warming, also known as “the pause”. Since I embrace the idea of warming and that CO2 is a factor, along with other drivers including natural variability, the label “denier” is being applied purely for the denigration value, and does not accurately reflect my position on climate.
That paragraph above should serve as it’s own entry in the Wikipedia citations for WUWT.
So, since this is a numbers game, and because anyone can edit Wikipedia articles, I ask WUWT readers to help out in this matter. Here’s some instructions on how to do so, including the official Wikipedia instructions. You can make edits after you create an account.
If you do participate, please stick to facts, not opinions. Thanks for your consideration.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I hadn’t bothered using Wiki for the better part of a decade, for reasons covered in many previous postings here. Then a few weeks ago I was editing an article that contained a Wiki link, to a bio of Jacob Devers. So I took a look at it.
Now, Jacob Devers — a US Army general in WW II — is known for a series of events in 1944 — a dramatic advance up the Rhone Valley against severe odds, taming the Free French Army, which was engaged in what amounted to a civil war, and planning an advance into Germany that might have ended the war in weeks but which was cancelled by Ike without explanation hours before kickoff. All this between August and December 1944.
The problem? The Wiki entry ends in 1943.
The casual reader would come away believing that Devers was a mediocrity, a military bureaucrat with nothing of importance in his record, rather than a major figure in the defeat of the Third Reich.
So it ain’t just climate studies — it’s everything. Wiki has not improved in the past ten years, and is not likely to improve. It is a useless site based on bogus premises and operated by corrupt means. Editing or consensus-building as regards to Wiki is a complete waste of time. It cannot be rectified, and the sole acceptable response is to disclaim it under all circumstances.
I got involved in editing a WWII thread. A good example of non-ideological hijinks. A few “editors” and “administrators” made it crystal clear that they’d pull out all the stops to prevent any changes whatsoever, no matter how well sourced. That’s when I gave up.
After all these instances of Wikipedia being polluted by ignorant, political editors, chumps like Connolley keep trying to pretend it’s worthwhile. It’s not.
Wikipedia is just a huge screed of leftist politics. That makes it completely worthless for anything related to climate science. There are plenty of alternatives, including WUWT.
Dump Wikipedia. You will be better off.
Interesting stance for those running wikipeida. Personally it is the C in cagw I am skeptical of. Looking at past data Id conclude a warmer world is calmer not more extreme. It is the RATE of change we were supposed to fear, which we have NO data whatsover to conclude any rates of change are past natural variability, nor does climate sensitivity look to be anywhere close to what the IPCC itself implies is the dangerous end of the ranges given.
All that said, I read from several sources on this topic and of those I go to this is the ONLY source that I personally use that covered such published works as a NASA paper showing the deep ocean is stable in temp and not enough warming in the ocean overall to account for missing heat, another group who argued for slight cooling there, papers on warming tundra soils NOT leading to released methane, papers on arctic lakes actually soaking up MORE not releasing more and a myriad of other topics covered here from published work that many sources simply IGNORE. Ive literally quoted WUWT, was told it was a bad source so I would use the cited papers instead, and get people responding with things like… Wow, weird I hadnt seen this work, which makes me question its validity, where did you find it? Indication that others who follow the topic but refuse to look at this source just wont see many published works with in convenient data… Acting like THIS source is the biased one… well it is a sad day for science. Even if everyone here was dead wrong, published works ignored on related sites can be discussed here. Anthony and the others who do the work making this place run should be PROUD.
There is a marvelous irony working, here. The nature of William Connolley’s work on Wikipedia can only be given sufficient credit by the skeptical side. It must always appear invisible to the consensus. Poor ol’ doomed ferret.
===============
Hero to the alarmist cognoscenti, traitor to the masses seeking a dialogue with truth.
==========================
> William Connolley says that WUWT is “a blog dedicated to climate change denial”.
I didn’t write that. In fact, searching, I can’t find myself saying anything similar; though I don’t rule it out as a possibility. I have called you lot incompetent, of course (e.g. http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/10/04/wuwt-taking-incompetence-to-a-whole-new-level/).
> Yet when I try to comment on alarmist blogs, most often my posts never see the light of day.
I’m dubious you have ever made such an attempt. Remember above, where you said “I would love to ask the person who re-edited that entry”, and when I pointed out that you could indeed ask that person, you ran away? You’ve never tried to comment on my blog. and unlike a number of people (including me) who have had comments refused at WUWT, you’ve not actually said what blog, and what comment, of yours was refused.
> you’re saying that scientific skeptics take the position that the climate never changes.
Err, no. I’m not.
> Of course, that is a lie.
It would be a lie, if anyone ever said it. But since no-one ever says it, its not a lie. Its a little shell, a semantic trick, that you’ve constructed for yourself. Over here, in the walled garden, with no-one to challenge you, it sounds really good; maybe. Out in the real world it just sounds stupid.
WC says:
> William Connolley says that WUWT is “a blog dedicated to climate change denial”.
“I didn’t write that.”
——————-
To whom are you addressing your remarks? Was that something said in the comments?. The article certainly doesn’t say that “William Connolley says…”
More [snip -edited by a Wiki editor] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/25/the-sad-tales-of-the-wikipedia-gang-war-regarding-wuwt-creepy-and-a-little-scary/#comment-1945581
I like ‘real world’. Grasp it ever more desperately, William.
============
Connolley says:
Remember above, where you said “I would love to ask the person who re-edited that entry”, and when I pointed out that you could indeed ask that person, you ran away? You’ve never tried to comment on my blog.
“Ran away”? I just noticed this comment, and I am responding. Anyone the least bit familiar with my persona knows that I don’t run away from anything.
I’ve tried to post changes on Wikipedia, but they were never published. The same thing happened when I tried to post a chart of global temperatures on Scientific American. I know what’s happening. It’s the same thing that happened in Germany in the 1930’s. History repeats.
As for commenting on Connolley’s blog, no thanks. I care about the people I associate with. That’s why I comment here, and not there.
WMC> Happily, there’s an article on that which will explain it for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
takebackthegreen> No, no no. You can’t change the meaning of words
Well, firstly, I didn’t write that. But secondly, no, *you* don’t get to define things using your own pet meaning and then insist that all other meanings are wrong. Your own pet meaning “someone who denies climate change” is a useless phrase, because it describes no-one; as we all know, everyone accepts that the climate changes.
thomam> It’s apparently supported by a huge raft of references to make it look authoritative. Only…
So you’re sad about the references used. Can you propose any other ones that should be used? Anything that would constitute a reliable source? Blogs are no good; you need responsible newspapers. “you people” are rather reluctant to use, or discuss, the D-word; so its not surprising that sources on “your side” are in short supply. Perhaps you should try talking about it?
William’s real life has been saying No, No, No, No, No a wearisomely number of times a day, for a wearisomely number of days, and now he wants to expound on ‘denial’.
Keep it real, there William. I’m all ears.
==============
Did you actually read what he said? It was on point.
Heh, I was making a different point about denial than he was. He was sparring with butterflies, I meant to sting.
======================
WC says: “you people” are rather reluctant to use, or discuss, the D-word; so its not surprising that sources on “your side” are in short supply. Perhaps you should try talking about it?”
———————
We reject out of hand your use and defense of the term. We recognize that the employment of the term is ultimately, an action in support of tyranny.
Ps We are, in fact, talking about it, despite your “little shell, a semantic trick, that you’ve constructed for yourself. “ in pretense that we are not thus engaged.
The conman cite Wikipedia! How convenient.
How about this: Connolley is a total denialist. He agrees with that other denier Michael Mann, who has consistently denied the MWP and the LIA. Deniers, both of them.
@ur momisugly William Connolley
A “reliable source” is any source that contains non-abstract actual, factual science and/or mathematics, …. confirmed and/or substantiated proofs or evidence ….. and/or common sense thinking, logical reasoning and/or intelligent deductions that confirm or justify one’s commentary.
“Original thought” or “original thinking” on subject matter associated with the science of the natural world is not restricted to the pre-approved Degree holding associates or subservients of the self-appointed “peer-approval” resident members of Academia and/or their minions.
Given the above, me thinks you are a tad irrational or delusional in your thoughts, thinking and/or beliefs that the cited “source” (blog, newspaper, news media, organization, political party, etc. [the messenger]) of the cited data/information is far, far more important than the content/context of said data/information [the message]
The science of the natural world exhibits no favoritism …….. and neither does a real scientist.
(Snip. Policy violation. – mod)
What utter tosh …
The phrase:
is completely unambiguous. And you correctly note, that it “[describes] no one”.
It seems that you take this (correct) observation as an excuse to attach all kinds of other meanings to that phrase, not contained therein(*). Rationalizing this because similar idiotic attempts have been made by other (similarily) challenged people.For instance one who claims:
“you need responsible newspapers”
.. to demonstrate that this phrase does not mean what it never meant!? Because a bunch of lefty loons still would lie it to mean [something] entirely different!?
As I said: What utter tosh!
But it’s good to see it demonstrated, even spelled out so glaringly obvious.
(*) Most of time, the attempts to give it [completely] other ‘meaning’s are equally stupid. See eg thomam’s comment above
The school district my kids are in doesn’t accept references from any of the wikis. What we end up doing is to look at a wikipedia entry for more authoritative links and to get ideas for other searches.
Not bad. But always keep in mind the citations and links they choose to delete and keep hidden. What is discarded may be worthless, but there can be great value in what is discarded, too.
I am reminded that the town of Leadville, Colorado got it’s name from gold prospectors who were disappointed in the lead-like minerals they found instead of the gold they sought. They were unable to recognize the value in the high-grade silver ore that stared up from them in their pans. Leadville is still the home of a world class molybdenum mine.
If Wikipedia ever wants to gain credibility, it has a very easy path. All it needs to do is to acknowledge its problem of fanatics, activists and concentrated interests acting as gatekeepers, and set up their system to respond. To wit, controversial topics should have a separate treatment, in which a bifurcated path provides a place for both protagonists and antagonists. Once a topic joins the controversy category, the system would enforce hard and fast rules that ban any editor that tries to edit in both pro and anti realms. Perhaps editors could vote only to move new contributions from one section to the other, and not be allowed to delete. If a contribution was moved once, and the other side didn’t want it, only then does it get deleted. Perhaps a vote from editors on each side could limit into which bucket other editors were permitted to act. You could be rejected as an editor for one side, restricting you to the other. If rejected from both sides, you lose all editing privileges. The pro side would get top billing. And as a matter of good manners and fairness, subjects with a principle player or identity would always would be required to give a spot at the top of the topic for that voice, which could never be rejected by any editor. For example, in the page for WUWT, Anthony should always have a inviolable slot to post his opinion, response, whatever.
To combat the problem of anonymity and flooding by one side on any controversy, an automatic metric system could watch for roll-back and gate-keeping activity. And this metric could also trigger shifts of non-controversial topics to the controversy bucket. Such monitoring could automatically ban people after one warning and a second occurrence. Under such a system, William Connelly types would be forced to restrain his activity to one side, or be flatly excluded from editing away the opposing side’s opinions and contradictory science.
If we had such a wikipedia, a third section might even evolve in controversial topics, in which fair minded analysts could aggregate content with which both sides agree.
> controversial topics should have a separate treatment, in which a bifurcated path provides a place for both protagonists and antagonists
You’re welcome to propose that, of course, but wiki explicitly rejects that way of doing things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_forking). As already noted in this thread, other projects have gone down that route; wiki is more successful and will not be following.
Heh, ‘successful’. So speaks the censor for its least credible branch. Congratulations on your contribution to the success and we’ll follow your future career with great interest.
==============
Looks like Kim has already touched on this, but I want to reiterate her thought. “Success?” By whose definition? By yours, not mine. I’ve looked through wikimedia’s forking policies (good name for them if you say it fast) and they are hopelessly naive as they pertain to forcing consensus and purely “neutral” Points of Views. There are no such things in controversy as a neutral or consensus POV. Everyone has a point of view, and to say only ONE can be represented under any topic leaves the field to you fanatics and dogmatists who are either willfully oppressive or too self-unaware to understand that you’re fanatics and dogmatists.
Mickey,
If they did that, they wouldn’t be the propaganda outlet they are now. They have zero interest in giving that up.
It would be like firing that execrable toad willy conman. Won’t happen.
Therefore wikipedia has a terminal flaw. So, better to spend ones time elsewhere and leave wiki to the obsessed nut-jobs who comprise it. It is, and will remain, a repository of extremist opinions….a cult.
Sez you. But our host disagrees, because he’s asking people to edit the article (note that he’s wrong about the COI rules not permitting to do that himself; they aren’t so strict. and of course, COI doesn’t prevent him joining in on the talk page; only Fear does that).
The upper case ‘F’ stalks William; what iF not?
==================
I love it when people propose easy solutions, as if no one has ever thought of them, and they simply need to carry out an easy task. (And I say this knowing I have been guilty.) As William Connolley already pointed out, the concept is known, and has been discussed in depth. It is not as “easy” as you suggest.
As valued, not easy enough. So, as it is valued, so will it be valued.
============
Don’t put words in my mouth, Phil, or I’ll expose all your wife-beating and dog-fighting activities. /SARC I never said that no one hadn’t thought of this stuff before. If you want to know, I expect LOTS of people have tried to get wikipedia to operate this way, and have failed. I’m only telling them (and by extension, its fanatical gate-keepers) why I consider wikipedia content in political and controversial areas to be worthless propaganda. I’m only describing the bare minimum they must do if they ever want me to respect their content. As for how difficult it would be to put some programming tools together to help flag and enforce a forked tree of content and to enforce editing privileges thereof, please spare me your headaches. You apparently don’t have enough imagination to judge such things.
I’m quite sure you used the word “easy”, so I’m not sure what words I put in your mouth. The technical aspects of forking are not hard. It has been done. You haven’t thought through follow on challenges.
You might also look up the words sarcasm. Alleging I’m involved in dog fighting is not sarcasm.
Forget about adding a new set of rules to Wikipedia. They don’t even follow the ones that already have. ~~~~
(Snip. -mod.)
I was over at the WattsUpWithThat Wikipedia page.
I noticed that the removal of the
Furthermore, the first paragraph: remains until unlocked on June 8:
Wow. The Neutrality dispute tag was remove (implying dispute is resolved), and that abysmally inaccurate first paragraph remains in place.
It is my understanding that the tagline of the blog is now: “The world’s most views site on Global Warming and Climate Change.” Buried deep down in the WUWT About page, you will still find the older tag line: “News and commentary….. “. So the “tagline” sentence looks to me to be out of date.
The word “dedicated” is factually inaccurate, not present anywhere on the about page. The word can only be the opinion of others, a non-neutral point of view. That such a non-neutral POV word exists on the first line and the non-neutral warning tag is removed is prima-facie evidence of how bad the editorial balance exists at Wikipedia.
So I went to the Talk pages. There is much talk. I didn’t find the specific part about the removal of the point of view alert. But I noticed that the editors Jess and Guy didn’t seen as neutral to the subject as they needed to be. Just my opinion of course. But I went to Guy’s (a.k.a. JzG, vGuyUK on Twitter | SceptiGuy on Twitter ) Talk home page. and found this about his opinion of WUWT content on Wikipedia:
Breathtaking, isn’t it?
Let’s dissect those references to “is a blog dedicated to climate change skepticism or denial[a]”
[a] = Sources include:[2][1][34][35][36]
[1] ^[a b] Mann, Michael (1 October 2013). The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. Columbia University Press. pp. 27, 72, 222. “Since then, a number of other amateur climate change denial bloggers have arrived on the scene. Most prominent among them is Anthony Watts, a meteorologist…and founder of the site “Watts Up with That?” which has overtaken climate audit as the leading climate change denial blog.”
[2].^[a b] John Grant (2011). Denying Science: Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions, and the War Against Reality . Prometheus Books. ISBN 1616144009. Retrieved May 2015. “* The blog Watts Up With That? is a notorious hotbed of irrational AGW denialism” “the massively trafficked denialist site Watts Up With That”
“Watts is best known for his very heavily trafficked blog Watts Up With That?, began in 2006, which provides not just a megaphone for himself but a rallying ground for other AGW deniers.”
[34].Manne, Robert (August 2012). “A dark victory: How vested interests defeated climate science”. The Monthly: 22–29. “More importantly, it was becoming clear that the most effective denialist media weapon was not the newspapers or television but the internet. A number of influential websites, like Watts Up With That?, Climate Skeptic and Climate Depot, were established.”
[35].Dunlap, Riley E.; McCright, Aaron M. (2011). Dryzek, John S.; Norgaard, Richard B.; Schlosberg, David, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society. Oxford University Press. p. 153. ISBN 0199566607. “In recent years these conservative media outlets have been supplemented (and to some degree supplanted) by the conservative blogosphere, and numerous blogs now constitute a vital element of the denial machine…the most popular North American blogs are run by a retired TV meteorologist (wattsupwiththat.com)…Having this powerful, pervasive, and multifaceted media apparatus at its service provides the denial machine with a highly effective means of spreading its message.”
[36].Farmer, G. Thomas; Cook, John (2013). Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis: Volume 1-The Physical Climate. Springer Science & Business Media. “One of the highest trafficked climate blogs is wattsupwiththat.com, a website that publishes climate misinformation on a daily basis.”
Very quaint.
I’ve long been amused by ‘reality-based’. It is used so pretentiously.
=============
One of two editorial caution tags on the WUWT Wikipedia page.
Too many references to primary sources.
Improve it by adding secondary sources.
I understand the need to remove original work in a Wikipedia entry. But what are they getting at here?
I can only read this one way:
Editor Z should prefer a reference to what Y1 wrote about what X wrote
over a reference to what X actually wrote.
What Y2, Y3, Y4 wrote about X is fair game to not reference and or delete.
This is “Through the Looking Glass” in 1984 stuff. A literal distortion of reality where left is right, what is visible is obscured, and “ignorance is strength.”
All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources …
“All”?? They can’t be serious. It is not practical to cite all peoples interpretation of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. Therefore, their must be some judgment subject to point of view in what is selected. Surely the primary reference (Library of Congress, for one) to the actual text of the Address is more important than any secondary reference about it.
Stephen, you said you could “only read this one way”. However, you misunderstood the point (which may mean the original needs tweaking.)
To illustrate with your point about the Gettysburg Address, it is quite acceptable to cite published opinions about the speech, what is disallowed is a Wikipedia editor adding their own personal “interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims”.
If X wrote a scholarly paper about the Gettysburg Address, then that is a secondary source. If editor Z thinks they’ve dreamed up an interesting interpretation of the Address, we’d like them to keep that out of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia says they prefer secondary sources over primary sources, do they not? That is the fault.
Wikipedia’s policy is properly to prevent editors from inserting in their own original work as opinion about a subject. So far so good. The point of the secondary source need is for editors to need a secondary source to prove that a subject is worth covering. No secondary sources? Then the subject doesn’t belong on Wikipedia. Also, so far so good.
But the policy, AS WRITTEN,
to prefer secondary sources over primary ones means the editor is allowed to selectively choose biased secondary sources that agree with his own opinions.
In what other way can Michael Mann’s The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. be the first citation on a page about “WattsUpWithThat?”
This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The Wikipedia editors of the WUWT are guilty, guilty, guilty of bias, bias, bias.
The first reference of any website ought to be the About Page of that website. List Primary references FIRST, ahead of secondary references. And mark them as Primary, Secondary, Tertiary as related to the subject of the page.
If
X[Y1] wrote a scholarly paper about the Gettysburg Address [written by X], then that is a secondary source. If editor Z thinks [Y1] dreamed up an interesting interpretation of the Address, we’d like them to keep that out of Wikipedia.I agree. And that is consistent with what I wrote.
But what is written describing Wikipedia policy is what Y1, or Y2, Y3, Y4 wrote about the Gettysburg address is preferred over the primary source.
Secondary sources are needed to support that what X wrote is important enough to be covered by Wikipedia. But, under no circumstances should what Y1 wrote about X take priority over what X actually wrote that other readers can read for themselves.
If Z feels Y1 is an interesting interpretation of X, it will likely and properly be included, especially if it is also supported by Y2 — even if it is disputed by Y3, Y4, Y5 which will be deleted — out of sight, out of mind. This precisely describes the current incarnation of the WUWT Wikipedia page.
Here is the <href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Watts_Up_With_That%3F#NPOV_tag" rel="nofollow">talk on NPOV from a Z, (i.e. an editor in good standing):
The lunatics are running the asylum.
The Wiki article is locked down. No changes possible.
It is fully protected, which is not quite the same as locked down. It can be edited by admins, although convention is that even these edits should be ones reached by a consensus discussion ont he talk page, rather than simply the whim of a passing admin.
There is also a formal request for comment, looking for input from the broader community, on what words should be used to characterize the WUWT site.
There is also a formal request for comment,
You mean this?
Fat chance of any request being accepted.
Plain and simple; it’s denial.
=========
No, an RfC is a very different animal than an edit request. The article is cirrently fully protected (scheduled to end 8 June IIRC). In such circumstances, if a non admin wants to make an edit, they make a request, and an admin will review it, and make it if warranted. I see one such request which was enacted. I do not see any rejected requests.
Separately, when there are strong disputes about content, one can file a Request for Comment (short name – RfC) which invites editors, many who may not usually participate in the article, to weigh in on some dispute. Typically, an RfC runs for 30 days, is then closed by an experienced editor who is expected to enact the concensus of those participating.
It is not uncommon that a dispute will lead to protection as well as an RfC, but they are different mechanisms.
The RfC can be seen here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Watts_Up_With_That%3F#Request_for_Comments_.28RfC.29:_Denialism
Ah!… a “Formal Request for Comment” way down on point 19 of the Talk page….
By that ever-so-objective editor Guy (help!). (see above) who proposes a choice of three solutions for the lede. Then voices his own opinion on the first entry.
One of the replies:
Thanks for the education, The other Phil
It’s pitiful. And Connolley crows about ‘success’.
=======
-from
Europe Goes Down the Memory Hole With the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’
Nothing says “freedom” like forcing people to alter the historical record
Brendan O’Neill | June 6, 2015
Reason.com
The article notes that the actual historical documents are unaltered (so far).
It is your ability to FIND them that is altered.
The article also make reference to the philosophical question, “proverbial falling tree that makes no noise because no one’s there to hear it. ” The life-long lesson I learned about this point came from a two-minute bit between Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. A letter from a Cal Tech physics professor pointed out:
From the Wikipedia NPOV
All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, ALL of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. [emphasis mine]
But what is clear from the May 2015 talk pages of the Watts Up With That article is that ideas and facts don’t survive the gate-keeping of biased Wikipedia editors with indelible points of view behaving like little O’Briens, wiping from
internet search enginesWikipedia references any fact they would rather no longer existed.