Wikipedia and AGW

[Hallo Alfie]

You may be right. What you have done is picked off a few minor amendments it seems, no doubt there were some of those too - perhaps now you could pick off some biggies.
That said he was removed why?

Here's a reminder...

In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolley’s administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges

 

[mailman]

This whole man made global warming hoax is coming apart at the seams isnt it...and a lot of the cracks lead back to the cranks at realclimate.

The funny thing is the bigger the cracks become, the louder the deniers scream from high that the world is ending!

The fact this person banned people for simply disagreeing with him or removed articles he didnt like is a gross abuse of power and one, unfortunately, we are seeing more and more as global warming (tm) jihadi's try to shore up their cult.

Mailman

 

[linusrichard]

I guess I'm failing to understand the reasoning here. Because someone who believes in AGW edited some 5k pages to conform to his beliefs, AGW isn't true? Because if it were true, its proponents wouldn't feel the need to tell as many people about it? Is that the logic?

 

[a_unique_person]

Snigger
And people have a go at me saying I am a denier and unwilling to listen. Geez!

Maybe you could just read what I did post.

You wrote

In short, climate scientists created Realclimate (no surprise there) for their self indulgence, mutual ego stroking and selective science, but then placed a staff member on to write or rewrite (hijack?) over 5000 Wikipedia articles on climate science

Which is a pile of opinionated nonsense backed by no evidence at all, featuring guilt by association.

For a start, Connelly was editing Wikipedia in 2003, Realclimate wasn't created till 2004.

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/12/i_am_all_powerful_part_2.php

So, Lawrence "beany" Solomon does me the honour of a full-out assault. I'm a bit puzzled as to why, perhaps more study will reveal this. It looks like he is trying to get some kind of linkage between the [[Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident]] and my on-wiki activities. But although Solomon states directly The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world -- Wikipedia -- in the wholesale rewriting of this history I don't see any actual support for this anywhere. I find two refs to wiki in the emails, one of which miss-spells my name, thereby convincingly demonstrating a clear intent to hide their tracks, ha ha, and the other is an apparently uninteresting whinge. So that all looks like twaddle - presumably, just the peg for Beany to hang his story on. He then continues with some confused stuff that is reasonably well explained in [[Description of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in IPCC reports]] (and you can find traces of that in the emails if you look hard, I won't spoil your fun by telling you how to search, but if you find it feel free to put it into the comments).
Then there is some bizarre ahistorical stuff about wiki and RC. I started editing wiki in 2003. It isn't hard to discover that RC started in late 2004 [1]. Beany says He rewrote Wikipedia's articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling and all of that is true enough. The bit about erasing the LIA and MWP is twaddle though.
For those who aren't wiki-wonks and may be wondering where his stats come from, the answer is http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/count/ or similar tools. You can view my actual deletion log here. It really isn't very exciting. For those who can't be bothered to follow the link, here are the first few:
[nb: lightly mangled to make them more readable]
# 2006-06-17T11:39:17 deleted "South Atlantic oscillation" ‎ (non-existent concept; straight copy of NAO page)
# 2006-05-24T08:44:33 deleted "Discjockey" ‎ (spam)
# 2006-05-05T21:46:19 deleted "Alan Chartock" ‎ (copyvio (again))
# 2006-05-05T20:48:01 deleted "Alan Chartock" ‎ (copyvio (as before) plus suspicious edit warring (if thats any kind of grounds))
# 2006-04-11T13:47:06 deleted "El Nino-Southern Oscillation" ‎ (Deleted to make way for move.)
# 2006-03-17T17:08:05 deleted "John heap" ‎ (pointless redirect)
# 2006-03-08T12:38:54 deleted "Gostivari" ‎ (POV fork of Gostivar; not even in English!)
# 2006-03-04T19:54:06 deleted "Quango" ‎ (content was: '#REDIRECT Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation')
# 2006-03-01T21:53:21 restored "Ray Bradley" ‎
# 2006-03-01T21:47:50 restored "Ray Bradley" ‎
# 2006-02-25T20:01:33 deleted "Henry Ward, Hastings architect c.1880 - 1920" ‎ (pointless redirect)
# 2006-02-24T22:55:25 deleted "Glacier dynamics" ‎ (Page moved; redirect not useful)
# 2006-02-17T21:29:42 deleted "File:Bang-dont-shoot.JPG" ‎ (errrm, probably not a good idea really, wouldn't have been very funny)
# 2006-02-08T22:09:57 restored "Talk:Aetherometry" ‎
# 2006-02-03T10:00:59 restored "User:Howrealisreal" ‎ (1 revisions restored)
# 2006-02-03T10:00:15 deleted "User:Howrealisreal" ‎ (Remove old personal info at user request (will recreate just present version))
# 2006-01-18T20:33:29 restored "Henry Farrell (political scientist)" ‎ (7 revisions restored)
and here are the last few:
# 2009-07-20T16:50:05 deleted "Sub-Saharan African DNA admixture in Europe" ‎ (G4: Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion)
# 2009-07-09T20:13:08 deleted "Talk:Ancient Egyptian race controversy/Draft request for arbitration enforcement" ‎ (sock stuff)
# 2009-07-01T09:50:44 deleted "Hilery clintin" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:50:40 deleted "Cheekle" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:50:35 deleted "Gray brich" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:50:31 deleted "Saddam heussein" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:50:25 deleted "Mon key" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:49:58 deleted "Gorge bush" ‎ (pointless)
# 2009-05-23T13:38:09 deleted "Talk:Human rights in the United States" ‎ (G6: Deleted to make way for move)
# 2009-05-23T13:35:35 deleted "Human rights in the United States" ‎ (G6: Deleted to make way for move)
# 2009-05-19T07:37:19 deleted "User talk:Tennis expert" ‎ (per user request)
# 2009-05-09T18:01:46 deleted "Catastrophic climate change (disambiguation)" ‎ (oh no not again)

# 2009-05-08T12:01:55 deleted "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Catastrophic

 

[lomiller]

Just to get an idea of Connolly’s publication record

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl...ley"&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

He’s got a good number of papers on the topic, and many with a decent number citations. (there are probably a half dozen regular contributors at realclimate with even more, but Connolly’s publication record is still quite good)

Furthermore all you have to do is look at the pages he’s involved with. They are some of the best documented on Wikipedia in terms of citing real papers in real journals to back up their content.

The crackpots always think their conspiracy theories deserve equal time, but this is a patently ridiculous notion. When they start publishing science of their own instead of circulating their “information” on internet blogs and newsletters then they deserve equal space. Until then, no.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

# 2006-06-17T11:39:17 deleted "South Atlantic oscillation" ‎ (non-existent concept; straight copy of NAO page)
# 2006-05-24T08:44:33 deleted "Discjockey" ‎ (spam)
# 2006-05-05T21:46:19 deleted "Alan Chartock" ‎ (copyvio (again))
# 2006-05-05T20:48:01 deleted "Alan Chartock" ‎ (copyvio (as before) plus suspicious edit warring (if thats any kind of grounds))
# 2006-04-11T13:47:06 deleted "El Nino-Southern Oscillation" ‎ (Deleted to make way for move.)
# 2006-03-17T17:08:05 deleted "John heap" ‎ (pointless redirect)
# 2006-03-08T12:38:54 deleted "Gostivari" ‎ (POV fork of Gostivar; not even in English!)
# 2006-03-04T19:54:06 deleted "Quango" ‎ (content was: '#REDIRECT Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation')
# 2006-03-01T21:53:21 restored "Ray Bradley" ‎
# 2006-03-01T21:47:50 restored "Ray Bradley" ‎
# 2006-02-25T20:01:33 deleted "Henry Ward, Hastings architect c.1880 - 1920" ‎ (pointless redirect)
# 2006-02-24T22:55:25 deleted "Glacier dynamics" ‎ (Page moved; redirect not useful)
# 2006-02-17T21:29:42 deleted "File:Bang-dont-shoot.JPG" ‎ (errrm, probably not a good idea really, wouldn't have been very funny)
# 2006-02-08T22:09:57 restored "Talk:Aetherometry" ‎
# 2006-02-03T10:00:59 restored "User:Howrealisreal" ‎ (1 revisions restored)
# 2006-02-03T10:00:15 deleted "User:Howrealisreal" ‎ (Remove old personal info at user request (will recreate just present version))
# 2006-01-18T20:33:29 restored "Henry Farrell (political scientist)" ‎ (7 revisions restored)
and here are the last few:
# 2009-07-20T16:50:05 deleted "Sub-Saharan African DNA admixture in Europe" ‎ (G4: Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion)
# 2009-07-09T20:13:08 deleted "Talk:Ancient Egyptian race controversy/Draft request for arbitration enforcement" ‎ (sock stuff)
# 2009-07-01T09:50:44 deleted "Hilery clintin" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:50:40 deleted "Cheekle" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:50:35 deleted "Gray brich" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:50:31 deleted "Saddam heussein" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:50:25 deleted "Mon key" ‎
# 2009-07-01T09:49:58 deleted "Gorge bush" ‎ (pointless)
# 2009-05-23T13:38:09 deleted "Talk:Human rights in the United States" ‎ (G6: Deleted to make way for move)
# 2009-05-23T13:35:35 deleted "Human rights in the United States" ‎ (G6: Deleted to make way for move)
# 2009-05-19T07:37:19 deleted "User talk:Tennis expert" ‎ (per user request)
# 2009-05-09T18:01:46 deleted "Catastrophic climate change (disambiguation)" ‎ (oh no not again)

Perhaps anyone could care to inform me how any of this promotes AGW, or hinders AGW scepticism?

 

[lomiller]

Perhaps anyone could care to inform me how any of this promotes AGW, or hinders AGW scepticism?

The deniers think their position deserved equal time, and therefore anyone who doesn’t give them a soapbox is doing something wrong. This really isn’t to different then any conspiracy theory, they all think their ideas deserve equal time but are being suppressed.

The answer to this would be easy if those ideas had merit, publish papers backing up the claims being made. The deniers idea’s, however, are so badly put together and unsupportable that they are un-publishable in any serious journal.

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Perhaps anyone could care to inform me how any of this promotes AGW, or hinders AGW scepticism?

Well clearly by flooding Wikipedia with these seemingly trivial edits he's made it much harder to find those that are actually propping up the conspiracy. That's why neither Solomon nor A.A. Alfie has been able to discover one.

 

[varwoche]

I have absolutely no way of knowing either way, the only source mentioned here is a fiery op ed piece which makes no mention of where its numbers come from.

Indeed. A skeptic who sees information coming from a sketchy source sets out to confirm it. Whereas an agenda-driven zealot accepts it at face value and parrots the most damning cherry-picked bits.

 

[geni]

Are they untrue?

They are missrepresented. While I don't keep track of how many articles I've edited it is over 8 thousand. I've deleted over 10,000 items. I've only blocked about 500 odd people but thats because I haven't focused on areas where the use of blooking tools comes up for a long time. So William M. Connolley stats are pretty typical for a fairly active wikipedia admin.

 

[geni]

It appears from that he is still making 'contributions' or am I reading something wrong?

Here is wikipedia's blocking policy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLOCK

Feel free to show which bits apply.

 

[Cavemonster]

To put it in context, I went to the Transformers page, looked at the discussion and found the stats for a random, fairly active participant. He had edited over 3,000 articles, mostly about transformers.

So to point to edits of around 5,400 unique articles edited as a vast conspiracy seems a bit misleading, unless there is also a vast conspiracy around cartoon robots.

 

[Beerina]

If temperatures were warmer 1,000 years ago than today, the Climategate Emails explain in detail, their message that we now live in the warmest of all possible times would be undermined…

IIRC, they don't actually claim this, as there are periods with the dinosaurs that were supposedly significantly warmer (but I will also admit I have heard some claims that this is, or soon will be, the warmest -- ever. I think that's in error, though.)

However, what the above observation demonstrates is that massive swings do occur, and with varying lengths. Even if AGW is fully true, would this upswing be worse than those in the past that happened naturally? And no, "over 100 to 300 years" isn't unreasonably out of line with some, but not all, of the natural swings of the past.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Frankly I would have thought that the sort of manipulation and propoganda mentioned in the report was extremely anti science.

lol

yeah cuz science means everyone's right

 

[SezMe]

I see, so you just simply dismiss a whole article of on the basis of one sentence you take issue with.

No, I didn't have an "issue" with the sentence. It is factually incorrect. Wrong. In error.

Second, it is an erroneous statement originating out of the denier movement, debunked, and yet still repeated. It inclusion at the very outset of the opinion piece demonstrates the mindset of the author.

I think it is reasonable to reject that opinion piece on that basis. After all, it is not a journal article or a piece claiming to be a review of climate science or global warming or whatever. It's just an opinion piece by someone who apparently wants his own set of facts to back up his own opinion. I think it is well within the zone of critical thinking to thus reject his opinion as being worth reading to see if I should re-evaluate my own perspective.

 

[Cain]

It seems to be a simplification of the article, and a good one at that. Refers to the same topic with much more elegance. You don't need to refer on the definition to articles of temperature records and the presumed cause. His edit improves the article.

This only proves he's a more insidious figure than we thought. By shortening articles, thereby improving their readability, he's promoting the AGW hoax. I mean really, HELLO, did anyone else hear about the BLIZZARD that just struck the eastern seaboard. A BLIZZARD hitting the EAST coast... in the middle of December??

Call them "edits" if you wish but 5,000 creations/rewrites = 5,000 creation/rewrites. I just love how the Wikigate deniers in this thread try their best to trivialize and cast doubt upon a documented phenomenon that could have global implications.

 

[a_unique_person]

No I didn't.
The article is dated the 19th December. When was he sacked?

Whether historical or current, on the face of it, this is still some outrageous manipulation.

Yeah, well, that's all it takes, isn't it. Skepticism requires more than just 'on the face of it'.

 

[elbe]

Yeah, well, that's all it takes, isn't it. Skepticism requires more than just 'on the face of it'.

Alfie does seem to support anything that may cast the climate sciences in a bad light, even when he's been shown to be wrong.

 

[Peephole]

AGW denialism seems to be slowly reaching the levels of stupidity seen with creationists and conspiracy theorists.

 

[TriskettheKid]

AGW denialism seems to be slowly reaching the levels of stupidity seen with creationists and conspiracy theorists.

Slowly?