William Connolley (and Polargeo) vs Lar, Global warming wars Options

[Cla68]

RfC time. I take it WMC did not appreciate being called on his actions.

[Malleus]

RfC time. I take it WMC did not appreciate being called on his actions.

Lar doesn't either. He's quite happy to accuse others of what he himself is guilty of, or thinks they are.

Just in case there's any doubt though, I firmly believe that WMC's position is at best dishonest.

This post has been edited by Malleus:

[Moulton]

Hrmm. I see that Guettarda and KillerChihuahua (both of IDCab fame) are in on the game.

I'll be watching this one from my idiosyncratic perspective of someone interested in science-related articles that strive for high levels of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online reporting.

[Malleus]

I'll be watching this one from my idiosyncratic perspective of someone interested in science-related articles that strive for high levels of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online reporting.

You'll most likely end up being disappointed then.

[Moulton]

I'll be watching this one from my idiosyncratic perspective of someone interested in science-related articles that strive for high levels of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online reporting.

You'll most likely end up being disappointed then.

Oh, I'm resigned to the likelihood that WP will never get anywhere close to normative levels of accuracy, excellence, or ethics in online reporting. What interests me is 1) diagnosing why that is so, and 2) why there is no reasonable expectation of remedying that shortcoming.

[Malleus]

I'll be watching this one from my idiosyncratic perspective of someone interested in science-related articles that strive for high levels of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online reporting.

You'll most likely end up being disappointed then.

Oh, I'm resigned to the likelihood that WP will never get anywhere close to normative levels of accuracy, excellence, or ethics in online reporting. What interests me is 1) diagnosing why that is so, and 2) why there is no reasonable expectation of remedying that shortcoming.

The answer to your second question is surely obvious. The place is run by children and idiots who value "civility" above honesty.

[Moulton]

The place is run by children and idiots who value "civility" above honesty.

So Sanger got it wrong? It's not adults peddling porn to children, but children peddling porn to adults?

[Malleus]

The place is run by children and idiots who value "civility" above honesty.

So Sanger got it wrong? It's not adults peddling porn to children, but children peddling porn to adults?

"Peddling" implies some kind of benefit in return. Don't see it myself. It's just a power thing. I'm an admin you're not, so I'm in charge. Why wouldn't kids love that?

[Moulton]

"Peddling" implies some kind of benefit in return. Don't see it myself. It's just a power thing. I'm an admin you're not, so I'm in charge. Why wouldn't kids love that?

I would nominate Dopamine as the reward. Dopamine is the neuropeptide most commonly associated with instant gratification.

Children and addicts are often dopamine junkies -- they seek instant pleasure, without regard for the long-term consequences.

[Milton Roe]

"Peddling" implies some kind of benefit in return. Don't see it myself. It's just a power thing. I'm an admin you're not, so I'm in charge. Why wouldn't kids love that?

I would nominate Dopamine as the reward. Dopamine is the neuropeptide most commonly associated with instant gratification.

Not a peptide (as are, say, the encephalins-- the brain's morphine). Dopamine is just an amino acid derivative.

And there must be more to reward centers than dopamine, else Parkinson's drugs that increase dopamine in the brain (L-DOPA/carbidopa) would be addictive. Or at least pleasurable. So far as I can tell, they aren't. Much. Certainly the sympathomimetics (meth, coke, etc) are far more so.

The place is run by children and idiots who value "civility" above honesty.

So Sanger got it wrong? It's not adults peddling porn to children, but children peddling porn to adults?

Teenagers peddling porn to everybody. Wow, that's unique. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ermm.gif)


Not.

[Moulton]

So what cocktail of neurotransmitters would you indict as being responsible for lulz?

[Zoloft]

So what cocktail of neurotransmitters would you indict as being responsible for lulz?

Hemoglobin, plasma, testosterone, and adrenaline.

[Milton Roe]

So what cocktail of neurotransmitters would you indict as being responsible for lulz?

Hemoglobin, plasma, testosterone, and adrenaline.

And piss and vinegar. Snaps, snails, puppydog tails.

Not enough sugar, spice, or anything nice.

[Moulton]

No original research here, either. Oh well.

[Ottava]

RfC time. I take it WMC did not appreciate being called on his actions.

Lar doesn't either. He's quite happy to accuse others of what he himself is guilty of, or thinks they are.

Just in case there's any doubt though, I firmly believe that WMC's position is at best dishonest.

Can't we just ban em all? Bring me back too. : )

The place is run by children and idiots who value "civility" above honesty.

So Sanger got it wrong? It's not adults peddling porn to children, but children peddling porn to adults?

I think that is the argument most pedophiles make: "she came onto me".



By the way, what about the BLP issues of Lar accusing WMC of doing something sneaky on Wikipedia regarding Climate Change in a parallel manner to "climategate"? Isn't that a big no-no? I don't really see any diffs or proof (no emails released yet).

This post has been edited by Ottava:

[EricBarbour]

Outside view by Short Brigade Harvester Boris

Lar's consistent position is that he is an uninvolved administrator in the climate change probation because he does not edit articles in that topic area. It is indeed true that he does not edit such articles, so that he qualifies as "uninvolved" under that formal criterion.

But there is a long tradition on Wikipedia that following the spirit of policy is as important as following the letter of policy. A sample -- by no means complete -- of the points that raise concern over Lar's behavior in this regard includes where he:

* Derides a group of editors in the enforcement area as "socially inept." [4]

* Advocates a specific content position while engaged on the enforcement talk page.[5]

* Makes no secret of his desire to "level the playing field"[6][7] by tilting it more favorably toward one group of editors and less favorably to another. As such he comes to the sanctions not as an impartial arbiter, but as one with a preconceived agenda.

* Promotes a battleground mentality by lumping editors together as "the cadre,"[8] the "science club,"[9] and a "cabal."[10]

* While engaged on the enforcement page itself, sarcastically berates an editor for having opposed his reconfirmation as steward.[11][12]

At bottom the question is whether we are meant solely to follow the letter of policy or whether we also should respect its spirit. If adherence to the strict letter of policy is all that matters, then there is no ground for this RfC and it should be closed. If adherence to the spirit of policy is of any interest at all, then Lar's continued involvement in enforcing the climate change probation is problematic.

What shit. Boris is confusing his mouth and his anus again.

(Any conversation about WP's "governance" always seems to lead back to the butthole.
I think there's a lesson in there.........somewhere.)

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[Moulton]

Any conversation about WP's "governance" always seems to lead back to the butthole.
I think there's a lesson in there.........somewhere.

You may be on to something, Eric. Antagonists in these turf battles fling dirty words the way monkeys fling poo. That might also explain the associated references to grabbing a fistful of ammunition from the dark dank depot.

[Guido den Broeder]

Looks like they both ran out of easier victims.

[A Horse With No Name]

This is one dull RfC. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[Cla68]

This is one dull RfC. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

In spite of all the constant bickering, revert warring, baiting, and personal attacks that occur on the global warming pages, not that many RfC's come out of it all. One reason may be because the enforcement board gives an outlet for dispute resolution.

I reported Stephan Schulz to ArbCom a few weeks ago because he posted in the "admin only" section of an enforcement board discussion. Since he is rather heavily engaged in watching WMC's back in the AGW articles, I didn't think he should be involving himself as an admin. ArbCom gently declined to get involved, and lately he has started posting in that section again in protest of Lar's involvement. If that isn't controlled, the enforcement board will become a farce. I'm sure some will contend it is already, but there are a couple of admins, including Lar and LessHeard, who are actually trying to correct or manage the behavior of WMC and some of the other regulars in those articles. I hope that they will be able to continue to do so.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[A Horse With No Name]

I'm sure some will contend it is already, but there are a couple of admins, including Lar and LessHeard, who are actually trying to correct or manage the behavior of WMC and some of the other regulars in those articles. I hope that they will be able to continue to do so.

Or maybe they'll wise up and move on to other areas where they don't have to be aggravated on an hourly basis. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[Moulton]

In the clash of admins for governance sake
Which one will bend and which one will break?

Send in the clowns and set up the joke
Who is the willow and who is the oak?

[Lar]

By the way, what about the BLP issues of Lar accusing WMC of doing something sneaky on Wikipedia regarding Climate Change in a parallel manner to "climategate"? Isn't that a big no-no? I don't really see any diffs or proof (no emails released yet).

Although it may be convenient for others to allege that I have said this, as far as I am aware I have made no such suggestion. I ascribe no ulterior motive, allege no grand conspiracy, and have full faith that the folks I have concerns about are acting in what they believe are correct ways from noble motives.

My concerns are more nuanced, that the playing field is not level, and that control of articles has been exerted over a long period of time. That the articles on the science(1) generally are accurate and agree with the scientific consensus is great. But in this case the ends do not justify the means.

1 - I disagree with their emphasis, the lead article on the Global Warming topic should be more about the socio-politico-economic aspects of this, which are going to be world changing, rather than the specific scientific points... those should be in background, in depth articles rather than the lead. I also disagree with what I feel is spin control by certain editors (I struggle to find a term that won't immediately cause backlash among those editors) to hide details of some of the messier political machinations in the scientific community around (among other things) how the results are presented and verified.

I'm sure some will contend it is already, but there are a couple of admins, including Lar and LessHeard, who are actually trying to correct or manage the behavior of WMC and some of the other regulars in those articles. I hope that they will be able to continue to do so.

Or maybe they'll wise up and move on to other areas where they don't have to be aggravated on an hourly basis. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

It's tempting.

[Ottava]

Although it may be convenient for others to allege that I have said this, as far as I am aware I have made no such suggestion. I ascribe no ulterior motive, allege no grand conspiracy, and have full faith that the folks I have concerns about are acting in what they believe are correct ways from noble motives.

My concerns are more nuanced, that the playing field is not level, and that control of articles has been exerted over a long period of time. That the articles on the science(1) generally are accurate and agree with the scientific consensus is great. But in this case the ends do not justify the means.

1 - I disagree with their emphasis, the lead article on the Global Warming topic should be more about the socio-politico-economic aspects of this, which are going to be world changing, rather than the specific scientific points... those should be in background, in depth articles rather than the lead. I also disagree with what I feel is spin control by certain editors (I struggle to find a term that won't immediately cause backlash among those editors) to hide details of some of the messier political machinations in the scientific community around (among other things) how the results are presented and verified.

"but WMC is not a very civil person. He does not suffer fools gladly. (and by his definition, many of us are fools) He has a history of baiting others he is in conflict with until they explode. I am not the only person who holds this view."

That right there is from you in the RfC.

I've seen people without the protect of admin status be blocked for making such accusations without "diffs", even if hidden behind labels of "my opinion".

If my ArbCom statement can say I violated BLP for a talk page statement that a guy wasn't a respected writer, then you making a comment about a person who has a biography on Wikipedia like the above is definitely a BLP violation.

[Lar]

Although it may be convenient for others to allege that I have said this, as far as I am aware I have made no such suggestion. I ascribe no ulterior motive, allege no grand conspiracy, and have full faith that the folks I have concerns about are acting in what they believe are correct ways from noble motives.

My concerns are more nuanced, that the playing field is not level, and that control of articles has been exerted over a long period of time. That the articles on the science(1) generally are accurate and agree with the scientific consensus is great. But in this case the ends do not justify the means.

1 - I disagree with their emphasis, the lead article on the Global Warming topic should be more about the socio-politico-economic aspects of this, which are going to be world changing, rather than the specific scientific points... those should be in background, in depth articles rather than the lead. I also disagree with what I feel is spin control by certain editors (I struggle to find a term that won't immediately cause backlash among those editors) to hide details of some of the messier political machinations in the scientific community around (among other things) how the results are presented and verified.

"but WMC is not a very civil person. He does not suffer fools gladly. (and by his definition, many of us are fools) He has a history of baiting others he is in conflict with until they explode. I am not the only person who holds this view."

That right there is from you in the RfC.

I've seen people without the protect of admin status be blocked for making such accusations without "diffs", even if hidden behind labels of "my opinion".

If my ArbCom statement can say I violated BLP for a talk page statement that a guy wasn't a respected writer, then you making a comment about a person who has a biography on Wikipedia like the above is definitely a BLP violation.

You changed the subject to refute something I didn't say. Is your animus now so great that you're willing to overlook anything I point out just to try to score points against me? Ok whatever.

[Ottava]

You changed the subject to refute something I didn't say.

I pointed out that you have been going after him in a way that violates BLP. You denied it. I pointed out one example of it. If you don't like it, you can always strike the comment from the RfC. As long as it is in print, I stand by my assessment.

[Lar]

You changed the subject to refute something I didn't say.

I pointed out that you have been going after him in a way that violates BLP. You denied it. I pointed out one example of it. If you don't like it, you can always strike the comment from the RfC. As long as it is in print, I stand by my assessment.

I don't think you've shown that commenting on inappropriate editor behavior is "going after" them, much less violating BLP. Again, your animus is showing.

[Ottava]

I don't think you've shown that commenting on inappropriate editor behavior

You made unsourced negative claims of a highly disparaging nature about someone who has a biography on Wikipedia and is living. You have done so on multiple pages dating back many months. The BLP violations would warrant large blocks by this time if people actually enforced our policies appropriately and fairly.

[Kelly Martin]

Yet another demonstration of why a functioning society does not conduct disciplinary hearings in open session.

[Ottava]

Yet another demonstration of why a functioning society does not conduct disciplinary hearings in open session.

If Lar is the one to be the judge of such, then there is no way to say that the hearing would be fair. Most people demand their governance to be open so we can't have hidden biases simply so we can get rid of the bias people and establish a fairer system. If you want secret hidden trials, then you are promoting a system that is completely against what most people here would want.

Hell, there are constant attacks on ArbCom doing stuff through the mailing list for the above reason.

[Lar]

I don't think you've shown that commenting on inappropriate editor behavior

You made unsourced negative claims of a highly disparaging nature about someone who has a biography on Wikipedia and is living. You have done so on multiple pages dating back many months. The BLP violations would warrant large blocks by this time if people actually enforced our policies appropriately and fairly.

The claims might be currently unsourced, but are they untrue? You've been around enough to know, if you aren't blind or biased. The truth is not "disparaging" if it's true.

This is a side issue really. WMC, et al, are not happy that I'm not turning a blind eye to their activities, and it takes a massive effort to actually demonstrate that the claims are untrue, witness how hard it has been so far to even get them to concede that there are groups of editors that edit in the same areas and that I identified some. Each point is argued in detail and then when you get to the end, it's characterised as "trivially obvious", but if you'd said that at the go, you'd not get anywhere.

Just another example of where WP "governance" (not government but governance, and the quotes are because it's governance in name only in many areas) isn't working.

But go ahead, attack me for pointing out what most honest folk know already instead of working to resolve the problems by making constructive contributions to the discourse.

PS... when you quote me please don't cut me off in midsentence quite so much. Makes it look like you're trying to twist things around.

[Ottava]

The claims might be currently unsourced, but are they untrue?

Same argument I made about John Beer. I provided a few sources that agreed with me that his work for Britannica was him selling out. ArbCom didn't care and called me an egregious BLP violator anyway.

Source the damn statements! Start a counter RfC with diffs! Send this damn thing to ArbCom. It would be like King Kong vs Godzilla. Toyko will be destroyed regardless of the victor.

PS... when you quote me please don't cut me off in midsentence quite so much. Makes it look like you're trying to twist things around.

It is my way of trimming the fat of the argument. If you want, I could just bold the portions of the quote that I am responding to?

[Cla68]

I believe this has been dicussed in WR before, but as many of you are aware, Michael Mann's hockey stick graph, which purports to show a link between CO2 levels and global temperature increases, has had a controversial history. Two amateur statisticians, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (M&M), were able to get a paper published in a scientific journal criticizing the research that went into the graph. In response to an inquiry by the US Congress, an additional investigation by statistician Edward Wegman (check out the talk page for that article) upheld M&M's findings. Further papers since then have defended the graph, but recently David Hand, one of the top UK statisticians, said that he felt the graph's results were "exaggerated".

Perhaps in response to M&M's findings, Mann and some colleagues set up the RealClimate blog, the staff of which spend a lot of time and effort defending Mann's hockey stick research and attacking those who criticize the graph. As you all are aware, Connolley used to work for RealClimate, and in fact was one of its founding members

Here's the thing, if the hockey stick graph, which was the centerpiece of Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and the IPCC's Third Assessment Report is false it does not mean that humans aren't causing global warming. It just means that Mann's research is lousy and scientists looking for the cause of the warming that occurred between 1900 and 1999 (according to the CRU, there hasn't been significant global warming increases since then) need to ask Mann to redo his methods if he wants to be part of that effort.

My impression is that Connolley is not just trying to push the human-caused global warming theory in Wikipedia. He is also trying to support the efforts to defend Mann's hockey stick research. If so, then this makes Connolley's Wikipedia agenda more dishonest, because it means that he is not just POV-pushing, but trying to use Wikipedia to support a friend's controversial and unproven research. In the past, Connolley and the editors who support him have tried to introduce RealClimate links into the AGW articles. They have recently backed off of this because other editors have tried to follow their lead and use sceptical blogs as sources.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[A Horse With No Name]

Source the damn statements! Start a counter RfC with diffs! Send this damn thing to ArbCom. It would be like King Kong vs Godzilla. Toyko will be destroyed regardless of the victor.

Incorrect! Anyone who knows that film would recall that the Japanese army built a huge electrical fence that repelled Godzilla, thus keeping him out of Tokyo. But Kong was able to gain strength by eating the electrical wires (I could never quite figure that one out). Thus, only Kong entered Tokyo. However, he was quickly knocked out by some sort of funky gas and he was floated out of Tokyo with giant balloons.

"King Kong vs. Godzilla" is one of my all-time favorite films.

[Ottava]

Source the damn statements! Start a counter RfC with diffs! Send this damn thing to ArbCom. It would be like King Kong vs Godzilla. Toyko will be destroyed regardless of the victor.

Incorrect! Anyone who knows that film would recall that the Japanese army built a huge electrical fence that repelled Godzilla, thus keeping him out of Tokyo. But Kong was able to gain strength by eating the electrical wires (I could never quite figure that one out). Thus, only Kong entered Tokyo. However, he was quickly knocked out by some sort of funky gas and he was floated out of Tokyo with giant balloons.

"King Kong vs. Godzilla" is one of my all-time favorite films.

I preferred Mothra. <3

But I liked the idea of characterizing the two as either a giant angry lizard or a giant angry monkey. ;/

[Milton Roe]

Source the damn statements! Start a counter RfC with diffs! Send this damn thing to ArbCom. It would be like King Kong vs Godzilla. Toyko will be destroyed regardless of the victor.

Incorrect! Anyone who knows that film would recall that the Japanese army built a huge electrical fence that repelled Godzilla, thus keeping him out of Tokyo. But Kong was able to gain strength by eating the electrical wires (I could never quite figure that one out). Thus, only Kong entered Tokyo. However, he was quickly knocked out by some sort of funky gas and he was floated out of Tokyo with giant balloons.

"King Kong vs. Godzilla" is one of my all-time favorite films.

And I suppose the Mothra Twins are chopped liver?

(IMG:http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll191/Shrlocc/mothratwins2.jpg)

[A Horse With No Name]

And I suppose the Mothra Twins are chopped liver?

(IMG:http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll191/Shrlocc/mothratwins2.jpg)

No Japanese monster movie is truly complete without a musical number. Even "King Kong vs. Godzilla" had a dance sequence praising Kong.

PS... when you quote me please don't cut me off in midsen...

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

[EricBarbour]

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

[Ottava]

This is related. Amazingly, Dave souza deletes an attack against a Climate Skeptic, and who blocks him? Less Heard after Cla pulled a bs move. There was nothing that warranted anything but praising Dave. Remember, Dave is a strong defender of WMC and he had the guts to remove violations of BLP. Now you are blocking him for removing BLP violations on an opponent of Global Warming?

LessHeard really fucked up this one.


By the way, this is Pure bull in every possible way, and LessHeard should be banned from using admin powers from any related page because he showed himself of the worse kind of POV warrior.

Its nice to see that LessHeard, Lar, and Cla (among some others) want to form their own little bully group.

This post has been edited by Ottava:

[alan323]

Its nice to see that LessHeard, Lar, and Cla (among some others) want to form their own little bully group.

Curious, given that LessHeard blocked Cla too, for continuing the (slow) edit war on that article.

[Ottava]

Curious, given that LessHeard blocked Cla too, for continuing the (slow) edit war on that article.

No, its called trying to get into good graces with those wielding the power.

This wonderful edit can be translated as: "Now that we sullied your block log in order to put you in your place, I am willing to unblock because you didn't actually do anything wrong and unblocking would help hide me from any potential ramifications later if this goes to ArbCom".

[EricBarbour]

Don't be surprised if Connolley and his Global Warming Nut Squad starts another major push on WP to sanitize themselves and their thesis.

Because the CRU was recently cleared of all wrongdoing. All they get is a "suggestion" to use better statistical techniques. This will undoubtedly encourage Connolley, he being one of the founders of the CRU.

[Lar]

It is gratifying to us that the Oxburgh Report points out that CRU has done a public service of great value by carrying out meticulous work on temperature records when it was unfashionable and attracted little scientific interest, and that the Unit has been amongst the leaders in international efforts to determine the overall uncertainty in the derived temperature records.

Hopefully National Health covers sprains from excessive patting of ones own back.

Its nice to see that LessHeard, Lar, and Cla (among some others) want to form their own little bully group.

Assumes facts not in evidence. But don't let that stop you.

[alan323]

This will undoubtedly encourage Connolley, he being one of the founders of the CRU.

What a precocious little tyke he must have been. When I was seven academia was far from my concerns.

[Cla68]

Its nice to see that LessHeard, Lar, and Cla (among some others) want to form their own little bully group.

Curious, given that LessHeard blocked Cla too, for continuing the (slow) edit war on that article.

The history of that article is interesting. When it was nominated for deletion, I was actually planning on voting to delete it, because after looking at the article I thought there wasn't sufficient references to support it. After checking the article history, however, I noticed that several of the usual suspects had been very aggressive at removing article content during the AfD! After checking the references, I realized that the blog had received a fair number of significant mentions in major media. So, I went and made a note of this in the AfD discussion and voted to keep. One editor then changed his vote to "keep" and a few others also voted to keep while noting that the sources supported its notability. The AfD was then closed as a "keep."

Since then, the same suspects have been trying everything to keep those references and sources out of the article, including attacking the main editor, Mark Nutley, who has been defending that article. Yesterday, Mark was blocked for an unrelated reason, copyviolations in other articles. Almost immediately, Dave Souza blanked most of what was left of the article. Soon after, ChrisO disappeared it completely.

Remember, earlier in this thread I explained that I think WMC's main purpose for participating in Wikipedia is to defend and support his friend Dr. Mann's hockey stick research. WMC and his editing friends do not want this blog, the blog's author, Andrew Montford, or his book, The Hockey Stick Illusion, mentioned in Wikipedia. If I didn't say so before, Mann and his colleagues are extremely aggressive in defending against attacks on their research. Montford is apparently beginning to be the "go to" guy on questions about the hockey stick's history by many of those who may have concerns about the veracity of Mann's methods and conclusions, and I doubt that Mann and his supporters are very happy about Montford's efforts.

Actually, according to WP's guidelines, the book and the man (Montford) probably aren't notable for inclusion at this time. I believe, however, that the blog is notable enough to have an article. Nevertheless, I believe WMC et al's plan is to get the blog and BLP articles merged into the book article, then argue that the book isn't notable and get it deleted, thus removing any mention of it all from Wikipedia. Of course, the big picture of all this is that no self-respecting encyclopedia would allow these types of ridiculous games to be taking place.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Abd]

(quoting Lar)

"but WMC is not a very civil person. He does not suffer fools gladly. (and by his definition, many of us are fools) He has a history of baiting others he is in conflict with until they explode. I am not the only person who holds this view."

That right there is from you in the RfC.

. Once doesn't have to supply diffs every time one says something that is common knowledge.

I've seen people without the protect of admin status be blocked for making such accusations without "diffs", even if hidden behind labels of "my opinion".

People without the protection of admin status get blocked for looking crosswise at an admin. So? Lar isn't one of those, he's a highly privileged member of the community. He can provide diffs, I could provide diffs, Diffs-R-Us, so, Ottava, get over it.

If my ArbCom statement can say I violated BLP for a talk page statement that a guy wasn't a respected writer, then you making a comment about a person who has a biography on Wikipedia like the above is definitely a BLP violation.

Sad, Ottava. Incivility, boorishness, and various other offenses can easily be forgiven, but stupidity in the service of accusation is tough. A "BLP violation" is offending text in a "Biography," and that wasn't said by Lar in a biography. If a statement is sufficiently llibelous, it might be necessarily removed even from Talk or WP process pages, but those comments don't even get close. They are mild compared to what has been routine for WMC and his cronies. If you are not aware of WMC's history and regular practices, I'd suggest that you become aware before proceeding, you are trashing yourself.

[Abd]

The history of that article is interesting. When it was nominated for deletion, I was actually planning on voting to delete it, because after looking at the article I thought there wasn't sufficient references to support it. After checking the article history, however, I noticed that several of the usual suspects had been very aggressive at removing article content during the AfD! After checking the references, I realized that the blog had received a fair number of significant mentions in major media. So, I went and made a note of this in the AfD discussion and voted to keep. One editor then changed his vote to "keep" and a few others also voted to keep while noting that the sources supported its notability. The AfD was then closed as a "keep."

Actually, it was closed as "no consensus" by Sandstein. In fact, it had turned heavily to Keep, but perhaps Sandstein did some analysis he didn't disclose. Some admins don't adequately explain their reasoning.

Vsmith, who just blocked Nutley, has been associated with the cabal. See my original picture of the GW Cabal, in the evidence page I created for RfC/GoRight, section on users supporting each comment, compared to those who had edit warred with GoRight. Later, when I tried to edit the Global Warming article, I had plenty of opportunities to notice those names reverting with no effort to seek consensus.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Ottava]

Assumes facts not in evidence. But don't let that stop you.

Only a reversal of your own statements. Takes two competing armies to form a battleground, you know.

Since then, the same suspects have been trying everything to keep those references and sources out of the article, including attacking the main editor, Mark Nutley, who has been defending that article. Yesterday, Mark was blocked for an unrelated reason, copyviolations in other articles. Almost immediately, Dave Souza blanked most of what was left of the article. Soon after, ChrisO disappeared it completely.

I've been on opposite sides of discussions and disputes from Dave for two years. However, he has -always- been a complete gentleman.

If you read what he blanked, it was negative attacks against a climate change skeptic, that is going out of his way to protect the biography of his ideological opponent. Don't lump his edits with others because they just don't belong with the others.

Dave being blocked was completely unfair and he responded in an impeccably kind and considerate way.

(quoting Lar)

"but WMC is not a very civil person. He does not suffer fools gladly. (and by his definition, many of us are fools) He has a history of baiting others he is in conflict with until they explode. I am not the only person who holds this view."

That right there is from you in the RfC.

. Once doesn't have to supply diffs every time one says something that is common knowledge.

I've had many disagreements with WMC and I do not think the characterization was acceptable or fair, especially seeing the huge amount of diffs on Lar's taunting and inappropriate actions.

A "BLP violation" is offending text in a "Biography," and that wasn't said by Lar in a biography.

A BLP is any statement about any living person anywhere on Wikipedia, according to ArbCom. That includes talk pages.

[Abd]

A BLP is any statement about any living person anywhere on Wikipedia, according to ArbCom. That includes talk pages.

Wow! Does this mean that I can demand that the WMF remove all the scurrilous lies and misrepresentations intended to harm my reputation that were told about me on Wikipedia? (Or be forced to defend their truth and/or necessity?)

On the other hand, BLP is just an acronym for "Biography of a Living Person," and comments on a talk page aren't biographies. They can be libel, but the "L" in BLP isn't "Libel." You are sticking your foot deeper in your mouth. Start noticing the taste, maybe you can avoid it coming out the other end if you wake up quickly enough.

[Ottava]

A BLP is any statement about any living person anywhere on Wikipedia, according to ArbCom. That includes talk pages.

Wow! Does this mean that I can demand that the WMF remove all the scurrilous lies and misrepresentations intended to harm my reputation that were told about me on Wikipedia? (Or be forced to defend their truth and/or necessity?)

On the other hand, BLP is just an acronym for "Biography of a Living Person," and comments on a talk page aren't biographies. They can be libel, but the "L" in BLP isn't "Libel." You are sticking your foot deeper in your mouth. Start noticing the taste, maybe you can avoid it coming out the other end if you wake up quickly enough.

As I pointed out, someone like Lar can get away with it in a very blatant way while simultaneously making derogatory comments about lesser given to him. BLP, like CIVIL, NPA, etc, are just tools to beat people with in content disputes. It is the very definition of Battleground, but no one has the balls to block such people.

[Lar]

As I pointed out, someone like Lar can get away with it in a very blatant way while simultaneously making derogatory comments about lesser given to him. BLP, like CIVIL, NPA, etc, are just tools to beat people with in content disputes. It is the very definition of Battleground, but no one has the balls to block such people.

"someone like Lar" ??? Your animus is showing. Stop straining at gnats and passing camels. It's increasingly tiresome.

[Moulton]

How about "someone like FeloniousMonk could (at one time) get away with it" or "someone like Filll could get away with it" (back in the day before ArbCom became horrified at reckoning what they were getting away with.

[Abd]

On the other hand, BLP is just an acronym for "Biography of a Living Person," and comments on a talk page aren't biographies. They can be libel, but the "L" in BLP isn't "Libel." You are sticking your foot deeper in your mouth. Start noticing the taste, maybe you can avoid it coming out the other end if you wake up quickly enough.

As I pointed out, someone like Lar can get away with it in a very blatant way while simultaneously making derogatory comments about lesser given to him. BLP, like CIVIL, NPA, etc, are just tools to beat people with in content disputes. It is the very definition of Battleground, but no one has the balls to block such people.

Those policies are that, but the only one using BLP that way, here, is you, Ottava, and you are doing it stubbornly and tenaciously. Whether you were or were not originally, you have become part of the Wikipedia Problem, definitely not part of the solution.

People like Lar might be part of the solution. My opinion is that it's probably too little, too late, but it remains a possibility that enough of the core might wake up and see what's been happening. My claim is that if the community organizes independently, it can become a force with the resources to turn Wikipedia around, to fulfill the original vision that inspired and then disappointed so many. The problem wasn't the vision, exactly, it's that it was simply incomplete.

The mission, to be sustainable and to not be a dangerous thing in itself, requires consensus process. The sense of the early wikipedians was that it was possible, and they were, in my opinion, right, but consensus process frequently does not naturally arise when the scale is large. It takes skill and experience and process. And it takes patience.

The standard excuse when someone is banned is that "the community has lost patience" with the editor. But a community does not truly lose patience unless every member loses patience, and what that really meant was that powerful individuals within the community lost patience. I saw numerous situations where individuals had lost patience and then prevented other editors from guiding or mentoring a problem editor. The community hadn't lost patience. Individuals had, and then, with their tools or influence, they enforced their own anger. And then, I have an example in mind, were elected to ArbComm, which then continued in the same vein, using coercive methods to maintain order, but without the caution and care and prudence to restrict coercion to necessity.

What's this thread about here? Many of the editors remaining at Wikipedia routinely act to block and ban or to urge this. And if anyone interferes with them, they attack that person, and I've seen this over and over. Lar was never a part of that. He's certainly "complicit" in what the community has been doing and he's done things that I would not defend, but I've never detected the all-too-common meanness in his actions, and it seems to me that his errors have been just that, errors, and it also seems to me that he's been ready to acknowledge that, continually.

Ottava, you could learn something from Lar, if you turn around. If the rest of Wikipedia were like him, there would not be a Wikipedia Problem, or, at least, it would be on a whole new level. You probably would not have been banned. You might have been warned or short-blocked for intemperate incivility, but that is simply the equivalent in normal process of the chair of a meeting ordering a member to sit down and shut up for the moment, ruling that their actions are out of order. And Wikipedia would have "chairs" who understood the true function of such facilitators.

[Ottava]

As I pointed out, someone like Lar can get away with it in a very blatant way while simultaneously making derogatory comments about lesser given to him. BLP, like CIVIL, NPA, etc, are just tools to beat people with in content disputes. It is the very definition of Battleground, but no one has the balls to block such people.

"someone like Lar" ??? Your animus is showing. Stop straining at gnats and passing camels. It's increasingly tiresome.

Yes, someone like you. You were quoted from your response to the RfC. You were asked to provide diffs right here and you haven't. So, you are still violating BLP.

Those policies are that, but the only one using BLP that way, here, is you, Ottava

I'm using BLP as it is applied by ArbCom.

Rules are practice, not theory. If others aren't going to address BLP as it is currently interpreted then there is no reason for them to use those three little letters.

Ottava, you could learn something from Lar, if you turn around.

Lar is one of the nastiest, most incivil people on Wikipedia and he doesn't even bother to write articles.

Wikipedia is already filled with people like him. It was people like him that got you banned to begin with. The majority of people here feel that incivil paper pushers who do nothing but frequent Wikipedia to tear others down representing their own psychological need to hide from their own short comings do nothing but wrongs to Wikipedia.

[A Horse With No Name]

Its nice to see that LessHeard, Lar, and Cla (among some others) want to form their own little bully group.

Curious, given that LessHeard blocked Cla too, for continuing the (slow) edit war on that article.

(IMG:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/24/Self_Portrait_%28A_Study_Upon_The_Effects_of_Aging.%29.jpg/478px-Self_Portrait_%28A_Study_Upon_The_Effects_of_Aging.%29.jpg)

Big LessHeard is Watching You! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)
(Though I should say that the Marks & Spencer turquoise t-shirt is in good taste!)

This post has been edited by A Horse With No Name:

[Abd]

Permanent link to two discussions on Talk:WMC

the first, the section FYI, shows Connolley dismissing Cla pointing out the problems with WMC (and the cabal) as an attempt to get revenge:

(belated) as I understand it, I pissed of Cla 6 years ago and he is still trying to get revenge William M. Connolley (talk) 20:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The second is a discussion with ChronieGal in which she "jokes" about the cabal. ChronieGal clearly knows that there are "groups" and that they are, in her opinion, "camped." I included CG in the cabal evidence at RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley because she had clearly established her position in a "camp" on one side of a series of issues, and the most important would be efforts to block and ban editors opposed to or by WMC et al. She later claimed that she had been libeled by the RfAr, which is why it's blanked. In fact, I'd simply pointed to her behavior, she had not been accused of wrongdoing. But she (and ArbComm) took "cabal" as an accusation of wrongdoing, that's part of the doublespeak that has made it difficult to address the cabal problem, and that's why I broke the taboo at the RfAr.

ArbComm does not like community taboos being broken. I can understand, in a way. But it's also necessary, and my editing rights weren't as important as breaking that taboo.

Now comes Lar who again points out the obvious. He uses the term "cadre" for what I called the "cabal." But he's also a respected admin, and it's not as likely that he'll be ignored if this goes to ArbComm. After all, it's trivial to establish with evidence the long-term "connected" activity of this group of editors, Cla is doing it and I may assist as well, though I can't assist on-wiki because of the MYOB ban, which was a clever but futile device employed by an ArbComm majority to prevent me from commenting on matters where I have detailed knowledge.

Current events in the GW area are remarkable. Hipocrite has actually started to make sense, urging his (her) faction to be patient and to negotiate consensus. In other words, to do what they should have been doing from years ago.

[A Horse With No Name]

"someone like Lar" ??? Your animus is showing. Stop straining at gnats and passing camels. It's increasingly tiresome.

It could be worse -- he might have said, "Something like Lar." (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

Lar is one of the nastiest, most incivil people on Wikipedia and he doesn't even bother to write articles.

Oh, he's not that bad. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

Now comes Lar who again points out the obvious.

Ah, but what is he pointing with? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

Ottava, you could learn something from Lar, if you turn around.

Hmmm...kinky! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[Abd]

Ottava, you could learn something from Lar, if you turn around.

Lar is one of the nastiest, most incivil people on Wikipedia ....

No, I'm far nastier than him, your foot is now coming out your ass. You are demonstrating why you have been banned here in the past, as well as on Wikipedia. Tenacious, gratuitous incivility. If Lar made some mistakes, point them out, and then see if others agree that they were errors. I've seen people do that here about his actions, and he simply admitted they were errors. That's not characteristic of the Wikipedia mob, but your stubborn persistence is. If you keep it up, you'll be banned here and everywhere else. Continue to ignore this at your own peril.

[Ottava]

Now comes Lar who again points out the obvious. He uses the term "cadre" for what I called the "cabal."

I don't get along with WMC nor do I hold their positions. However, I have been able to -work- with them and got them to compromise.

Those like Dave.souza who are impeccably decent and respectful and trampled by the bullying against the so call "cadre".

So, by setting up a "cadre" or "cabal", all that is being done is creating a battleground state and unfairly attacking people. There was no excuse for such inappropriate and incivil behavior by both Lar and LessHeard against these individuals and such actions nullify any claim by them that they are impartial enough to determine the situation as admin.

[Moulton]

I rue the day that I lost my ability to feel (or express) remorse.

[Cla68]

I never said that Mr. Souza wasn't polite.

Permanent link to two discussions on Talk:WMC

the first, the section FYI, shows Connolley dismissing Cla pointing out the problems with WMC (and the cabal) as an attempt to get revenge:

(belated) as I understand it, I pissed of Cla 6 years ago and he is still trying to get revenge William M. Connolley (talk) 20:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

That discussion is interesting, because they openly give their opinion that this complaint is some conspiracy by me and others to get WMC in trouble. WMC and his buddies don't seem to understand that there can be consequences when they treat new editors rudely on global warming talk pages. In fact, they appear to be in denial! After my own experience a few years ago that WMC referred to, I continued monitoring the global warming pages off and on. After a few years of observing WMC and Stephan Schulz repeatedly insulting and bullying editors who tried to suggest changes to "their" articles, I finally decided that it was time to get reinvolved.

In my opinion, the fact that this group is so readily eager to justify their actions and violations of Wikipedia's policies reaffirms my opinion that these guys are fanatics. I think WMC's group receives a lot of empathy from Wikipedia's editing and admin community because many people believe that group is looking out for the "settled" position on climate change. What Wikipedia's administrators and other participants need to understand is that WMC's group represents climate science about as much as the John Birch Society represents American conservative libertarianism. Within the climate science community, as I understand it, there is wide variation of opinion on the nature and severity of modern climate warming. WMC and his group represents the alarmist faction, which also includes, as I've said before, Dr. Mann's RealClimate group of associated researchers, some of whom were caught in the ClimateGate emails giving each other advice on how not to release data to climate change skeptics. It is not in Wikipedia's best interest to have these guys running the global warming articles.

[Ottava]

I never said that Mr. Souza wasn't polite.

Then why tar and feather him?

Sigh.

The idea of honest civility would have you talk to him, not do what you did.

[Cla68]

I never said that Mr. Souza wasn't polite.

Then why tar and feather him?

Sigh.

The idea of honest civility would have you talk to him, not do what you did.

Well, we can discuss that article if you like. In my opinion, one of the indications of POV pushing is when one group of editors uses extensive lawyering to keep information out of an article. For some good examples, look at these threads here, here, here, and here. Notice the standard delay tactics and wikilawyering, such as attacking the motives of new editors, accusations of coatracking, casting aspersions on the sources, and claims of BLP violations. Notice when I ask if anyone is willing to help me expand the article to nominate it for Good Article, there is no response. Does anyone really think those guys are there to build a complete and neutral article on this topic?

[Moulton]

I never said that Mr. Souza wasn't polite.

Then why tar and feather him?

Although Dave Souza politely stood by while Filll, FM, and others in IDCab were tarring and feathering me, I wondered why he didn't speak up for civility.

I was tempted to go in and stand up for him in this latest kerfuffle, but (as you know) I am globally banned across all WMF projects.

[Abd]

I don't get along with WMC nor do I hold their positions. However, I have been able to -work- with them and got them to compromise.

I was able to work with WMC also, on the Global warming article; as I've said a number of times, he was not the worst of the cabal editors. But when he got the opportunity, bang! The ban-hammer. He admitted that he had an agenda, one thing that I like about WMC was that he was quite open about what he was doing, and the amazing thing to me is that nobody did anything about it for so long. So of course he believed that he represented the community consensus. After all, every time someone would bring up an outrageous action at a noticeboard, the cabal would pile in and prevent a consensus from forming, then they would later claim that WMC had been confirmed. Which wasn't actually true, I looked at one of these and there were more editors opining that WMC had been out of line, but, if there was a close at all, it was no consensus. That's a real problem with administrator actions; they can be offensive to a majority, but without a consensus, nothing can be done. A dedicated cabal and do serious long-term damage if unrestrained.

The answer is not to ban the cabal, by the way. The answer is to identify cabals and start warning members about things like using reversion to support another cabal member's reverts. Under some conditions, a single revert can be and should be treated as improper. That's all.

In the delegable proxy systems that I've proposed, cabal members actually would gain a little recognition and power by openly identifying as affiliated, i.e., by choosing the same "proxy." For those who want efficiency, the gain is greater than the loss, the loss of covert cabal power, i.e., the pretense of independence of judgment, the pretense of neutrality, is only the loss of something unstable and dangerous, in the end.

[Ottava]

Well, we can discuss that article if you like. In my opinion, one of the indications of POV pushing is

blatantly wrong. He removed blatant obvious attacks on a person who he did not agree with ideologically.

That is the complete opposite of how you want to label him. You should be ashamed for trashing a very nice and civil person for upholding our standards. Your actions are exactly what breeds such corruption because all it does is beat the good people doing what is right.

You really owe Dave an apology.

[Cla68]

Well, we can discuss that article if you like. In my opinion, one of the indications of POV pushing is

blatantly wrong. He removed blatant obvious attacks on a person who he did not agree with ideologically.

That is the complete opposite of how you want to label him. You should be ashamed for trashing a very nice and civil person for upholding our standards. Your actions are exactly what breeds such corruption because all it does is beat the good people doing what is right.

You really owe Dave an apology.

The text in question isn't a BLP violation. Do you really feel that Mr. Souza doesn't advocate a particular POV in the Global Warming articles?

[Ottava]

The text in question isn't a BLP violation. Do you really feel that Mr. Souza doesn't advocate a particular POV in the Global Warming articles?

You are now either trolling or can't read.

This is the diff. Negative material with fringe connections to the person's page and clearly put in there only to tar the individual. The individual in question was of the opposite political view as Dave, so removing is not a POV problem.

1. "resigned from the Independent Climate Change Email Review after Bishop Hill (and [[Channel 4]]) publicized an interview he'd given in the Chinese media in which he stated that there was no evidence to suggest a coverup"

That has almost nothing to do with Hill and only is there because Hill merely republished something.

2. "with Channel 4 News saying"

Also not Hill.

The material does not belong there and has nothing to do with the Dave Hill blog. If you want to put the information over at Philip Campbell without the attacks on the Dave Hill blog, fine.

Now give Dave his apology and stop your nonsense.


By the way, Cla, it is well known where my politics lie and it is well known that I do not share any views held by WMC.

This post has been edited by Ottava:

[Sxeptomaniac]

I never said that Mr. Souza wasn't polite.

Then why tar and feather him?

Because he "politely" defends abhorrent behavior, and subtly engages in it himself. Here he is, galloping in to defend his buddy Guettarda, for example. I hate dragging up old stuff too often, but I think it's relevant to this situation. Rereading it, it still amazes me how few were willing to understand why I was so pissed off in that case.

[Ottava]

I never said that Mr. Souza wasn't polite.

Then why tar and feather him?

Because he "politely" defends abhorrent behavior, and subtly engages in it himself. Here he is, galloping in to defend his buddy Guettarda, for example. I hate dragging up old stuff too often, but I think it's relevant to this situation. Rereading it, it still amazes me how few were willing to understand why I was so pissed off in that case.

You don't block people for politely doing anything. Quite the contrary, suggesting he should be blocked for politely acting would promote people being nasty, which is destructive. If only everyone acted as polite as he does in disputes, then the Wiki would be a lot better.


Here is what he said:

"Right, Sxeptomaniac. So you're not satisfied with a remark being deleted, you want to keep repeating it and calling another user a liar as well as demanding that the user retracts the remark. I'm sure that when you take up issues that an indefinitely blocked user has told you about, you do so in good faith. I'd hope that you take care to disregard the sort of personal attacks that are acceptable on another site, but I'd also hope that you can also accept that views on issues differ in good faith and that someone you describe as behaving like "a foaming-at-the-mouth religious fundamentalist" may actually have a valid point."

That is pretty good advice. Don't mix personal attacks with criticism if you want the criticism to have any legitimacy.

This post has been edited by Ottava:

[ulsterman]

You don't block people for politely doing anything.

That's quite true; see WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. And of course it's a fundamental part of the wikigame. As long as you are superficially courteous and civil, you can often get away with being as nasty as you like. Then if the other party loses his or her temper, the other party is deemed to be in the wrong and may well get blocked, even if he is really in the right. No doubt many people here have been victims of the system or seen occasions when it has been used.

[Moulton]

That is pretty good advice. Don't mix personal attacks with criticism if you want the criticism to have any legitimacy.

Umm, as you may recall, Ottava, it was standard operating procedure for the members of IDCab to define criticism as a personal attack, so as to justify deleting it and site-banning those who would dare criticize them.

[Ottava]

That is pretty good advice. Don't mix personal attacks with criticism if you want the criticism to have any legitimacy.

Umm, as you may recall, Ottava, it was standard operating procedure for the members of IDCab to define criticism as a personal attack, so as to justify deleting it and site-banning those who would dare criticize them.

The wrongs of another would still be the wrongs of you. Ever heard of "be the better man"?

[Sxeptomaniac]

I never said that Mr. Souza wasn't polite.

Then why tar and feather him?

Because he "politely" defends abhorrent behavior, and subtly engages in it himself. Here he is, galloping in to defend his buddy Guettarda, for example. I hate dragging up old stuff too often, but I think it's relevant to this situation. Rereading it, it still amazes me how few were willing to understand why I was so pissed off in that case.

You don't block people for politely doing anything. Quite the contrary, suggesting he should be blocked for politely acting would promote people being nasty, which is destructive. If only everyone acted as polite as he does in disputes, then the Wiki would be a lot better.


Here is what he said:

"Right, Sxeptomaniac. So you're not satisfied with a remark being deleted, you want to keep repeating it and calling another user a liar as well as demanding that the user retracts the remark. I'm sure that when you take up issues that an indefinitely blocked user has told you about, you do so in good faith. I'd hope that you take care to disregard the sort of personal attacks that are acceptable on another site, but I'd also hope that you can also accept that views on issues differ in good faith and that someone you describe as behaving like "a foaming-at-the-mouth religious fundamentalist" may actually have a valid point."

That is pretty good advice. Don't mix personal attacks with criticism if you want the criticism to have any legitimacy.

What about that whole series of events looks like criticism? I sure didn't say my point was to criticize. I thought at the time I made it abundantly clear my point was that I find making up crap about me is unacceptable and I will not simply stand by in the name of some twisted form of "civility" while someone attempts to game the rules in order to undermine me. After all, as some pointed out, Guettarda's lie that I was threatening to intentionally introduce POV into WP articles was somewhat serious in terms of WP policy (potentially blockable as "preventing harm to WP"). If you payed attention to what you read, including some of the links, you'll find I gave Guettarda two very easy ways to get me to retract my claim that the statement was a lie: retract it as a mistake, or prove it. Instead, Guettarda tried to do an end-run around true civility, as well as policy, by claiming I made a personal attack.

So no, it's not good advice. It's "advice" from someone who wanted me to shut up and go away, so that an untrue personal attack could be treated as true simply by not being properly challenged. He tries to question my motives. He brings up irrelevant details to try to make me look bad (associating me with a "banned user" and WR). He tries to color the argument as an ongoing content dispute, which it also was not. None of that was directed at me; it was intended for anyone else reading the thread. Dave was trying to be underhanded and manipulative, not offer good advice.

You once seemed a reasonably intelligent person, Ottava. I'm surprised you would so easily fall for such manipulation.

[Ottava]

t that whole series of events looks like criticism? I sure didn't say my point was to criticize. I thought at the time I made it abundantly clear my point was that I find making up crap about me is unacceptable and I will not simply stand by in the name of some twisted form of "civility" while someone attempts to game the rules in order to undermine me.

If you want to rage at someone while they are doing something you feel "abusive", and they are being polite while you are acting completely irrationale, they won.

You once seemed a reasonably intelligent person, Ottava.

Your perception is wrong if you ask around. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[Sxeptomaniac]

t that whole series of events looks like criticism? I sure didn't say my point was to criticize. I thought at the time I made it abundantly clear my point was that I find making up crap about me is unacceptable and I will not simply stand by in the name of some twisted form of "civility" while someone attempts to game the rules in order to undermine me.

If you want to rage at someone while they are doing something you feel "abusive", and they are being polite while you are acting completely irrationale, they won.

Well, looking at things, I don't see it that way. I was not irrational. I followed dispute resolution procedures, I was clear about what I wanted and why I felt I had been right, and I quit when I had taken it as far as reasonable. So no, I was not behaving irrationally. I made it clear I was angry, but that was the point. Focused anger can be a useful tool when addressing clear wrongs.

I suppose the result could be considered a draw, though I tend to think I came out somewhat ahead. I did not get a retraction, but I made a very clear point, and was not sanctioned, nor was I required to remove my replies calling out Guettarda's statement. While not many spoke up, there were several uninvolved editors who clearly did agree Guettarda's behavior was suspect. Considering I'm a nobody on WP and Guettarda's an admin, the fact that I walked away from the confrontation without so much as a rebuke from an uninvolved admin says a lot, I believe. I believe Guettarda hoped I'd become irrational due to his provoke, so another admin would have an excuse to block me, but I never gave them the opportunity.

[Abd]

You don't block people for politely doing anything. Quite the contrary, suggesting he should be blocked for politely acting would promote people being nasty, which is destructive. If only everyone acted as polite as he does in disputes, then the Wiki would be a lot better.

Fundamental error, not accepted by consensus, and properly so. People are properly blocked for disruptive editing, which can be variously defined. Underneath imprecision in definition lurk many hazards, for sure, but in theory, a block is or should be transient, simply an administrative decision that someone's activity is doing -- short-term -- more harm than good.

Incivility breeds incivility, which is why it's considered disruptive. But, as Moulton pointed out, charges of incivility are used to claim that a critic is disruptive. But criticism is an essential part of wiki process. Certainly a block is a "criticism" of the editor's editing! (Well, usually. A block could be "protective custody," i.e., a method of telling an editor to shut up, even if the editor is right and polite and all that, because, short term, insisting on it in context might be disruptive.)

"Disruption," to me, means that the efficient operation of the wiki is impaired. Any escalation, i.e., DR process, is, to some degree, disruptive, so "disruption" must always be a matter of balance. Is an issue "worth" the disruption? Part of the problem is that we have given blocking tools to people utterly unqualified to make these distinctions, ad a core was developed that resists change to this, and the development of clear and enforced guidelines for the use of the blocking tool has also been resisted, as if clear guidelines would somehow supersede IAR, which is an ignorant and stupid position.

I've been chagrined by the level of opposition to recusal policy among administrators, it was blatant in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, though it had been visible before. ArbComm has been willing to tolerate this, and under this must be, I suspect, a view that the admin cabal must be coddled, protected, encouraged, or they will leave. Definitely the work that admins do -- or that some of them do -- should be respected, but blocking editors when it is not necessary does long-term damage, much of which may never be directly visible. It's all the work that these editors might have done if not rudely shoved away, and it is the resentment against Wikipedia that builds in society, and it accumulates.

WMC and Raul654 abusively blocked Scibaby, to the point that, without it ever being neutrally considered, Scibaby was -- and is -- routinely considered banned. This action and conclusion has done far more damage to the project than Scibaby ever would have caused directly, and it became an open scandal, with Raul654 eventually being "encouraged" to give up his checkuser privilege over it. It takes constant effort and administrative attention to keep Scibaby from editing, but the edits themselves are mostly harmless.

One of the big errors has been to fail to address recusal violations, situations where an admin is clearly personally involved, and yet still personally blocks. The issue tends to become whether the blocked editor should have been blocked or not, which is actually the wrong question, or, often, the least important one. It is much more difficult to become irrationally upset by being blocked if one is blocked by someone clearly neutral, who does it with civility and courtesy. And every police officer knows -- or should know -- to treat someone being arrested with courtesy, to use minimal force, to respect cooperation and civility, to avoid escalating the situation.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to take you into the station, there is a warrant out for you from an unpaid traffic citation," is what I was told, once. Absolutely no reason to get upset with the officer! Dreadfully inconvenient (but easily resolved). But what if the officer had decided he didn't like me and he insulted me in the process? "Scofflaws like you shouldn't be on the road," as he slammed me against the car hood to search me? No, he asked me politely, explaining that he had to check me for weapons, it was purely routine. And it was.

I was irritated, sure, but not at him. I was irritated because I'd paid the fine, but it had apparently gotten there late, so there was an additional penalty... my error or theirs, I don't know.

Wikipedia rapidly devolved into an "us" vs "them" mentality, with "us" defending the place against legions of vandals, POV-pushers, fans of fancruft, spammers, and trolls. Especially trolls. Especially trolls who violate User:Abd/Rule_0, like our friends Moulton and Kohs, and, of course, myself.

Societies which cannot tolerate criticism, which define it as rebellion or treason, have become ossified and will ultimately collapse and die.

Civility is important, but it is not all that is important.

[Moulton]

That is pretty good advice. Don't mix personal attacks with criticism if you want the criticism to have any legitimacy.

Umm, as you may recall, Ottava, it was standard operating procedure for the members of IDCab to define criticism as a personal attack, so as to justify deleting it and site-banning those who would dare criticize them.

The wrongs of another would still be the wrongs of you. Ever heard of "be the better man"?

That appears to be a non-sequitur, Ottava. I don't see how it's connected to my remark.

[Ottava]

Fundamental error, not accepted by consensus, and properly so. People are properly blocked for disruptive editing, which can be variously defined.

As this proves, disruptive editing means whatever a blocking admin wants as an excuse.

But actions are not definitions nor can an abuse justify the change of standards.

Polite people should never be blocked.

[CharlotteWebb]

Polite people should never be blocked.

Bullshit.

[Ottava]

Polite people should never be blocked.

Bullshit.

I'm not saying impolite people should be blocked either. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif) Blocks should only be last resort and are never part of civil discourse.

[Lar]

I believe Guettarda hoped I'd become irrational due to his provoke, so another admin would have an excuse to block me, but I never gave them the opportunity.

SOP with that bunch, I'd say. Good for you that you managed to keep your cool.

I see they're after LHvU now.

[Milton Roe]

I believe Guettarda hoped I'd become irrational due to his provoke, so another admin would have an excuse to block me, but I never gave them the opportunity.

SOP with that bunch, I'd say. Good for you that you managed to keep your cool.

I see they're after LHvU now.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/popcorn.gif)

Prediction: LinusHeard vanPelt is eventually going to Speak Truth to Power once too often.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/obliterate.gif)

Above: illustration of LesJean danArc

[Lar]

Prediction: LinusHeard vanPelt is eventually going to Speak Truth to Power once too often.

By truth to power, you mean attacking the enemies of the in crowd and squelching any opposing view through nasty incivility and outrageous personal attacks?

After all, Mr If I Can't Say Nothing Nice it is a Normal Day was put forth as a candidate on the CU/OS election. Not even our dear Xeno was allowed the honor, and he has a solidly clean record.

I'm pretty sure that's not what Milton meant. "nasty incivility and outrageous personal attacks" is probably more your MO than LHvU's.

This particular spat makes for very strange bedfellows.

[Cla68]

Prediction: LinusHeard vanPelt is eventually going to Speak Truth to Power once too often.

By truth to power, you mean attacking the enemies of the in crowd and squelching any opposing view through nasty incivility and outrageous personal attacks?

After all, Mr If I Can't Say Nothing Nice it is a Normal Day was put forth as a candidate on the CU/OS election. Not even our dear Xeno was allowed the honor, and he has a solidly clean record.

I'm pretty sure that's not what Milton meant. "nasty incivility and outrageous personal attacks" is probably more your MO than LHvU's.

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that that the IDCab used to employ. In my opinion, these guys may be jumping the shark.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Lar]

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that that the IDCab used to employ. In my opinion, these guys may be jumping the shark.

I think it's premature to write this group off. I think there is a serious danger of underestimation here. If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

Just because the tactics used are ones we have seen before does not mean they are easy to counter or ineffective.

After all, their views (that I'm "delusional" to even suggest that there's something untoward going on when the same group of editors turn up routinely and support each other in lock step, or that thinking there might be an issue with that is itself evidence of involvement, while thinking that there isn't such a group or that there isn't an issue is NOT evidence of involvement) have gotten more endorsements than views more closely aligned with the idea that yes, there might be a problem here somewhere.

[Moulton]

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that that the IDCab used to employ. In my opinion, these guys may be jumping the shark.

Although FeloniousMonk, Filll, and ConfuciusOrnis are gone, many of the IDCab crowd are still active, and many of them are still signatories.

See also RfC/IDCab, which was left dangling.

[Cla68]

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that that the IDCab used to employ. In my opinion, these guys may be jumping the shark.

I think it's premature to write this group off. I think there is a serious danger of underestimation here. If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

Just because the tactics used are ones we have seen before does not mean they are easy to counter or ineffective.

After all, their views (that I'm "delusional" to even suggest that there's something untoward going on when the same group of editors turn up routinely and support each other in lock step, or that thinking there might be an issue with that is itself evidence of involvement, while thinking that there isn't such a group or that there isn't an issue is NOT evidence of involvement) have gotten more endorsements than views more closely aligned with the idea that yes, there might be a problem here somewhere.

Like I said before, this group gets some empathy because, I think, many of WP's community think these guys are actually representing the science of global warming and therefore the ends justify the means. I think once more participants become aware of how unethical this group have behaved in the past, such as their tag-team efforts to defame, discredit, and ridicule AGW sceptics in their Wikipedia BLPs, they'll lose a lot of their support. If I remember right, this was one of the things that eventually proved the IDCab's undoing, when they began to attack the BLPs of the signatories of that petition that related somehow to Intelligent Design.

[Moulton]

I think once more participants become aware of how unethical this group have behaved in the past, such as their tag-team efforts to defame, discredit, and ridicule AGW sceptics in their Wikipedia BLPs, they'll lose a lot of their support. If I remember right, this was one of the things that eventually proved the IDCab's undoing, when they began to attack the BLPs of the signatories of that petition that related somehow to Intelligent Design.

The appalling lack of ethics among the allied editors of this notorious clique was manifestly apparent to me within a week or two of coming across them, back in August of 2007. There isn't a shred of evidence that any of them have begun to acquire or practice normative journalistic ethical standards in their ongoing machinations in the Wikisphere.

[A Horse With No Name]

This particular spat makes for very strange bedfellows.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

Albeit with extremely sore elbows - especially in regard to knocking out LHvU, who looks like a real brawler in his WP pic. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ermm.gif)

This post has been edited by A Horse With No Name:

[Cla68]

I was curious to see for just how long WMC has been trying to defame or discredit global warming skeptics in their BLPs. The answer appears to be since at least 2004. In the Michael Crichton article, I found this and this by WMC. If, perhaps 2004 edits aren't relevant, here's a similar one from 2006. He appears to have left Crichton alone since then.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Abd]

I was curious to see for just how long WMC has been trying to defame or discredit global warming skeptics in their BLPs. The answer appears to be since at least 2004. In the Michael Crichton article, I found this and this by WMC. If, perhaps 2004 edits aren't relevant, here's a similar one from 2006. He appears to have left Crichton alone since then.

I found disruptive behavior going way back, though not that far, I was mostly concerned with his administrative actions. It was common that he'd use tools while involved, then it would be challenged, and the cabal would show up to defend him, and discussions would become no-consensus. But, later, these discussions would be cited as having confirmed him. That's why, in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, I considered it crucial to identify the cabal, for the cabal could create, easily, an impression of community backing, when, in fact, general consensus would be quite in the other direction; but the general community is usually too distracted to develop a coherent consensus when faced with a cabal. I was apparently in advance of what ArbComm could handle, it's an occupational hazard. Tant pis. Wikipedia's loss, not mine. I've benefited, because Wikipedia is an absorbing addiction, always providing some reason to waste more time....

Lars has the gravitas to survive this, I believe. It's easier the second time around. That was part of my purpose, I knew it might be premature, but someone has to do it first.

[LessHorrid vanU]

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that that the IDCab used to employ. In my opinion, these guys may be jumping the shark.

I think it's premature to write this group off. I think there is a serious danger of underestimation here. If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

...stuff...

I'm not going anywhere.

[EricBarbour]

I think it's premature to write this group off. I think there is a serious danger of underestimation here. If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

It is quite likely that they will eventually get both of you forced out.

I'm not going anywhere.

We'll carve that on your Wiki-tombstone. Want anything else on it? Recipes, perhaps? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

[LessHorrid vanU]

...stuff...

I'm not going anywhere.

We'll carve that on your Wiki-tombstone. Want anything else on it? Recipes, perhaps? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

Hey, if you can place a chisel on an electron you have the right to inscribe whatever you want on it (but if you insist, Groucho's epitath will be fine). (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif)

[Milton Roe]

...stuff...

I'm not going anywhere.

We'll carve that on your Wiki-tombstone. Want anything else on it? Recipes, perhaps? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

Hey, if you can place a chisel on an electron you have the right to inscribe whatever you want on it (but if you insist, Groucho's epitath will be fine). (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif)

Excuse me, I can't stand up? Apocryphal. However, Mel Blanc's does say "That's all, folks!"

Marx's says "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it."

I wish he hadn't changed it the ways he did. The guy was clueless in so many ways. Example: a line from Capital: "So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange-value either in a pearl or a diamond." As somebody who knows some chemistry, I can give you dozens of industrial uses for diamonds. Even gem quality ones. One famous US Venus probe used a gem-quality diamond window for spectroscopy to the outside, made out of a gem that had to be imported from Europe, with hefty duties paid. Someone at NASA saved the paperwork and successfully filed for refund of those duties after launch, on the grounds that the item had been intended for subsequent export. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/happy.gif) Take that, Marx.


"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -- Groucho

[LessHorrid vanU]

...stuff...

I'm not going anywhere.

We'll carve that on your Wiki-tombstone. Want anything else on it? Recipes, perhaps? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

Hey, if you can place a chisel on an electron you have the right to inscribe whatever you want on it (but if you insist, Groucho's epitath will be fine). (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif)

Excuse me, I can't stand up? Apocryphal. However, Mel Blanc's does say "That's all, folks!"

Marx's says "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it."

I wish he hadn't changed it the ways he did. The guy was clueless in so many ways. Example: a line from Capital: "So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange-value either in a pearl or a diamond." As somebody who knows some chemistry, I can give you dozens of industrial uses for diamonds. Even gem quality ones. One famous US Venus probe used a gem-quality diamond window for spectroscopy to the outside, made out of a gem that had to be imported from Europe, with hefty duties paid. Someone at NASA saved the paperwork and successfully filed for refund of those duties after launch, on the grounds that the item had been intended for subsequent export. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/happy.gif) Take that, Marx.


"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's good dark to read." -- Groucho

I thought it was supposed to be "Here lies Groucho Marx. And lies and lies..." I have a book of his published correspondence; I realise it is both cherry picked and he was attempting to impress the recipient with his wit, but boy doesn't he do a great job at it!

[Polargeo]

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that that the IDCab used to employ. In my opinion, these guys may be jumping the shark.

I think it's premature to write this group off. I think there is a serious danger of underestimation here. If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

Just because the tactics used are ones we have seen before does not mean they are easy to counter or ineffective.

After all, their views (that I'm "delusional" to even suggest that there's something untoward going on when the same group of editors turn up routinely and support each other in lock step, or that thinking there might be an issue with that is itself evidence of involvement, while thinking that there isn't such a group or that there isn't an issue is NOT evidence of involvement) have gotten more endorsements than views more closely aligned with the idea that yes, there might be a problem here somewhere.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

[dogbiscuit]

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

Welcome to the Review.

I suspect most will think it sadder that there are people who are still in denial about interest groups existing on Wikipedia. All rather similar to the Israeli lobby bemoaning the rise of a Wikipedian Palestinian lobby and not seeing the irony of their complaint.

[A Horse With No Name]

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

Yes, welcome to WR. You are one of the WP good guys -- your company here is always welcome. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

[Cla68]

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that that the IDCab used to employ. In my opinion, these guys may be jumping the shark.

I think it's premature to write this group off. I think there is a serious danger of underestimation here. If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

Just because the tactics used are ones we have seen before does not mean they are easy to counter or ineffective.

After all, their views (that I'm "delusional" to even suggest that there's something untoward going on when the same group of editors turn up routinely and support each other in lock step, or that thinking there might be an issue with that is itself evidence of involvement, while thinking that there isn't such a group or that there isn't an issue is NOT evidence of involvement) have gotten more endorsements than views more closely aligned with the idea that yes, there might be a problem here somewhere.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

Welcome to WR. You will find, I think, that you can express yourself freely here without fear of it being formally used against you, as opposed to what occurs in Wikipedia. As I've said before in this thread, the problem with the AGW articles is not the topic itself. Global warming is what it is, a controversial topic which may or may not represent impending doom for the earth. The problem with the topic in Wikipedia is how editors involved with it follow, or not follow, Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Here's the thing, we can cooperate to build neutral articles on the topic, or we can fight over an alarmist vs skeptical view. I believe that most of the involved editors are willing and able to follow the former course, but vested contributors with a dishonest agenda, namely WMC, are inhibiting that from happening. What do you think?

[Lar]

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

You're not very observant, are you? Are you sure you're a scientist?

[Abd]

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

You're not very observant, are you? Are you sure you're a scientist?

It's really preposterous. The core of editors operating effectively as a cabal has been visible for years. I saw it immediately when I did the research for RfC/GoRight, and when I tried to edit the Global warming article. And I believe that global warming is a very serious problem!

But I also believe that we harm our causes when we attempt to defeat neutral examination of issues. This cabal of editors is generally very similar to those involved with anti-Fringe science activity. I was not familiar with IDCab, but it would make complete sense, from various comments I've seen from these editors. The same editors would show up again and again, and the key to this being a cabal rather than just a set of editors who happen to share some opinions is how the activity was consistently toward supporting the use of admin tools against editors who were seen as enemies of the POV. The POV itself was often some kind of loosely Majority POV, but the tactics were not those approved of by Wikipedia consensus. They were punitive, sought to ban editors who disagreed, used tag-team reversion, encouraged article ownership, etc.

There was a sequence that clearly showed this, I documented it as part of my evidence for RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley. Tag-team reversion had led to protection of the Global warming article by Jennavecia. WMC reverted the protection, claiming that the article was well under control, being watched by many administrators. Certainly was. WMC, Raul654, Kim Dabelstein Petersen, and a few others occasionally. There was conversation on WMC talk where WMC openly admitted to owning the article, it was "us" vs. "them."

I was probably dinged by ArbComm due to my open claim that a cabal existed. They claimed I did not present evidence, but the truth was that I did not present evidence of reprehensible collusion, i..e, through off-wiki coordination. What I attempted to show, and I believe I did show it, was "mutual involvement," which then creates some serious situations. If admin A and admin B are "mutually involved," if admin A can't block you because the use of tools while involved would be too obvious, then admin B does the work. ArbComm didn't want to look at this, I'm sure, because the implications were too deep, and too difficult to address. So they just closed their eyes.

These same editors continued to be persistent in cooperating to encourage the banning of editors, and they, as before, were often able to present an appearance of consensus that would then bring along others, including other administrators, who rather easily then saw the situation as some lone editor on the other side making trouble by opposing "consensus." I.e., the very biased view of the cabal.

In RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, cabal-affiliated admins (1) argued against seeking consensus as valuable. After all, science is not about consensus, it's about .... truth, eh? and (2) against administrative recusal policy, since they had routinely been violating it for years. WMC was blatant, and you can look to see how and why he got away with it for so long.

There would be an AN report, and the cabal would pile in and prevent the appearance of a consensus that WMC had used tools improperly. Nobody wanted to file an ArbComm case because they knew what a huge mess it would be, it always is when there are a dozen editors or more involved in a faction. ArbComm could fix that, and I made plenty of suggestions how they could, but ... they don't like "outsiders" making suggestions. That's part of the Wikipedia problem! It prevented expert opinion on consensus process from being incorporated into the structure. "Not invented here, they don't understand how wikis work," which was actually preposterous.

The cabal sucks along various editors who haven't done the work -- it takes a lot of work! -- to examine the evidence, and especially not to dig for themselves. Not every editor who agrees with the cabal in this or that decision is "cabal." You can tell by looking at long-term patterns. I used the coincidence of participation in a certain direction in multiple processes to determine "cabal membership," and I was not claiming that this was reprehensible in itself, just that the editor was likely to be biased in certain ways. That's not a crime.

But the very fact that this was pointed out was considered some kind of horrible accusation, which is why the RfAr pages have been blanked. Very odd, don't you think? Serious incivility, accusations of lying and worse, are common on RfAr pages, and nothing is done. What, exactly, was so horrible about the "cabal evidence"?

Questions, so many questions. Those who ask these questions are easily considered "disruptive." Sure. But what is being disrupted?

What's being disrupted is what makes Wikipedia fail to realize the original vision of a neutral project that incorporates the sum of human knowledge. That vision requires functional consensus process that is not only efficient but reliable. It can be done, but the cabal was directly opposed to this, they knew what it would mean for their agenda. They were quite open, for a long time they believed that they were consensus, "le projet, c'est moi." Or nous, "me and my right-thinking friends, here."

Then it started to dawn on enough of those who were left -- these phenomena have decimated the editorial community, long-term -- that damage was being done by, say, Raul654 making the detection and range-blocking of Scibaby socks more important than anything else. Scibaby was a creation of the cabal, an editor who disagreed who was blocked by WMC and Raul654 (and someone else who may have been neutral, I don't know.... but the long-term situation was clearly the doing of WMC and Raul). That editor decided to not go away quietly, as policy seems to suggest he must. It's still going on, the community believes that it must enforce this "ban," though there never was a ban discussion, just an indef block by Raul, as I recall. The edits that Scibaby makes are mostly harmless.

Option with a problematic editor. Don't block the editor, but set up a bot to revert all the editor's edits in a controversial area, then allow any other established editor to revert them back in. Suddenly there is actually a motivation for this editor to develop cooperation, and the edits are really "suggested changes." If an editor does stuff that is truly disruptive, like gross incivility, fine. Block, escalating. But so many blocks would have been unnecessary if some simple measures to avoid blocking had been instituted. However, easily, editors with unpopular opinions were categorized as trouble-makers, not worth any attention or respect. That's the death of consensus process.

[Abd]

I think it's premature to write this group off. I think there is a serious danger of underestimation here. If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

Probably not. The cab has been acting against consensus for a long time, and they could get away with it because of the chaotic nature of WP process. Indeed, this is why ArbComm threw the book at the EEML "cabal." It was an error. What the EEML was doing was very minor compared to the routine activity of the cab. But the ArbComm majority is terrified of off-wiki collaboration, and very deliberately set out to make an example of EEML:, thinking this would discourage it. That's a mind set that is doomed to fail, not to mention that they were not only punishing, in some cases for nothing actually reprehensible, but as "exemplary punishment," imagining that people who want to cooperate are going to be terrified of the banhammer. Yet people cooperate all the time, and it's routinely tolerated. That's Wikipedia, a pile of contradictions. Trying to ban cooperation is exactly the reverse approach from what is needed. It should be encouraged, because cooperation leads to division of labor and efficiency. Rather, what should be encouraged is open cooperation, and there are ways to do that.

Just because the tactics used are ones we have seen before does not mean they are easy to counter or ineffective.

It can be very difficult, and takes a great deal of patience, ordinarily. It should be made easier, but the collective cabs with administrative support will act to try to prevent better process from arising, because it will reduce their power. My own conclusion has been that it is far, far too much work, that Wikipedia isn't worth it to me, personally, I went as far as I could, or even further than I could afford, in my efforts. I used DR process, which requires discussion, and then was dinged for discussing too much. Go figure. Discussing too much was, from my case, worse than revert warring, gaming RfPP, and gross and repeated incivility. Why should I put more time into a project like that?

After all, their views (that I'm "delusional" to even suggest that there's something untoward going on when the same group of editors turn up routinely and support each other in lock step, or that thinking there might be an issue with that is itself evidence of involvement, while thinking that there isn't such a group or that there isn't an issue is NOT evidence of involvement) have gotten more endorsements than views more closely aligned with the idea that yes, there might be a problem here somewhere.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer.

No, but he's important. It is, in fact, a horrific cancer, it has eaten much of the project, compared to what it could have been.

He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this.

Plargeo perhaps does not realize that he's describing how the cab worked, for years, except the conversations were not quite in "places like this," which are very open.

All editors are biased, that is a necessary realization. The only way to find NPOV is through consensus, NPOV is not an absolute, a quality of text itself, but rather a relationship between text and an entire community, and the broader the community and the deeper the consensus, the more we can be confident that text is NPOV. Lar is not aligned, to my knowledge, with some fringe POV on CC. I was not aligned with such a point of view, the opposite, actually. However, I do have points of view about Wikipedia and what is proper for administrators. Lar may well be aligned with me and others in that. Where do you stand, Polargeo?

I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

What I've seen him write on it is generally confirmed by my experience and that of others, for many years.

Yes, welcome to Wikipedia Review. Now, pull your head out of that dark place and look around. Have some of the house special, I recommend it.

[Sxeptomaniac]

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

Welcome to WR.

Given the strong similarity in editors and behavior to the one-time anti-intelligent-design faction (some referred to them as the ID Cabal or IDCAB) that was once a huge pain in the ass, I'm inclined to side with Lar. That group finally moved on after FeloniousMonk was desysopped for his behavior on articles the group considered their domain. This is all before your user was created, but a number of people are still around who remember that.

This claim that Lar is part of some anti-cabal cabal is not only ridiculous, it's hypocritical. There are a number of editors that don't like your group's behavior simply because they know that it creates a toxic atmosphere WP doesn't need, and is just a terrible way to treat people. Many of them, like me, have seen it before. Trying to undermine the critic as supposedly engaging in sinister behavior in order to avoid recognizing criticism is typical.

[Moulton]

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that the IDCab used to employ.

I was thinking about the above observation, and it occurred to me that we haven't clearly characterized "the tactics that the IDCab used to employ."

In simple terms, they were bullies. But just calling them "bullies" doesn't really do the job of delineating their recognizable practices with sufficient diagnostic precision.

I think it would be helpful to characterize with more precision the continuing tactics and practices of these IDCab alumni, and reveal why they are so toxic and so problematic.

We can start by reminding ourselves of what ArbCom concluded about FeloniousMonk, the one-time leader of IDCab...

Given the strong similarity in editors and behavior to the one-time anti-intelligent-design faction (some referred to them as the ID Cabal or IDCAB) that was once a huge pain in the ass, I'm inclined to side with Lar. That group finally moved on after FeloniousMonk was desysopped for his behavior on articles the group considered their domain.

To what extent do the IDCab alumni continue to employ the problematic practices which ArbCom condemned in the aforementioned case against FeloniousMonk?

Charles, you were a principal player in that case. How would you sum up the elements that characterize the unbecoming practices which recur in the present case?

Lar, Sxepto? How would you construct a similar summary?

[LessHorrid vanU]

Welcome to WR, Polargeo, you are going to find it refreshing.

Since this isn't WP I can honestly say here that I do not think you are part of a cabal - an organised grouping of like minded editors who "share responsibility" for using process to keep views they do not care for out of article space. You subscribe to the scientific consensus and do not see why that is not the Wikipedia consensus. I also subscribe to the scientific consensus, but believe it only informs the WP consensus. The encyclopedia is a general interest one, and not a scientific one, and in the big general world the debate is driven as much by the skeptics through the media of blogs and "soundbite" journalism, as by the learned discourses of experts (where the examination of theory is often mistaken as criticism in the modern sense.) Because I disapprove of the exclusion of skeptic viewpoints, since they are part of the outside world, does not make me a supporter of skeptic thinking. Honestly.

Plus, your comment about Lar engaging in off site conversations; I suppose you mean, me, here? Ask around (those who bother to read my stuff). Me and Lar make little digs at each other mostly, and we never discuss our WP work because it goes against our principles. We don't collude, because we don't have to. You likely do not collude on off Wiki sites with those editors you agree with, because your scientific background means you have the same viewpoints as those also scientifically inclined. I think you are a little too grounded in that field to understand what a npov viewpoint of the subject is in a non specialist context, but I think you do bring something to that discussion. If only you would allow the skeptic viewpoint the same consideration.

Anyway, welcome again.

[Polargeo]

Welcome to WR, Polargeo, you are going to find it refreshing.

Since this isn't WP I can honestly say here that I do not think you are part of a cabal - an organised grouping of like minded editors who "share responsibility" for using process to keep views they do not care for out of article space. You subscribe to the scientific consensus and do not see why that is not the Wikipedia consensus. I also subscribe to the scientific consensus, but believe it only informs the WP consensus. The encyclopedia is a general interest one, and not a scientific one, and in the big general world the debate is driven as much by the skeptics through the media of blogs and "soundbite" journalism, as by the learned discourses of experts (where the examination of theory is often mistaken as criticism in the modern sense.) Because I disapprove of the exclusion of skeptic viewpoints, since they are part of the outside world, does not make me a supporter of skeptic thinking. Honestly.

Plus, your comment about Lar engaging in off site conversations; I suppose you mean, me, here? Ask around (those who bother to read my stuff). Me and Lar make little digs at each other mostly, and we never discuss our WP work because it goes against our principles. We don't collude, because we don't have to. You likely do not collude on off Wiki sites with those editors you agree with, because your scientific background means you have the same viewpoints as those also scientifically inclined. I think you are a little too grounded in that field to understand what a npov viewpoint of the subject is in a non specialist context, but I think you do bring something to that discussion. If only you would allow the skeptic viewpoint the same consideration.

Anyway, welcome again.

This is where you have misinterpreted my motives. I am a skeptic. In my every day life as a scientist I am the most skeptical person I know. I hate the fact that the media is always trying to link my work in the Antarctic to climate change.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

You're not very observant, are you? Are you sure you're a scientist?

Thank you everyone for the welcomes. And yes Lar I am a scientist. I have a PhD and over 6 years post PhD research into Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets. I must say that I don't know a great deal about lego but I believe I have built some amazing houses. I was liberated as a child when we purchased a set of specialist roofing tiles.

[Polargeo]

I think several people in this thread have implied or noted that the current group assisting WMC in the AGW articles include several former members of the IDCab and the group as a whole are employing some of the same tactics that that the IDCab used to employ. In my opinion, these guys may be jumping the shark.

I think it's premature to write this group off. I think there is a serious danger of underestimation here. If they successfully knock LHvU and myself out, they will have essentially free reign.

Just because the tactics used are ones we have seen before does not mean they are easy to counter or ineffective.

After all, their views (that I'm "delusional" to even suggest that there's something untoward going on when the same group of editors turn up routinely and support each other in lock step, or that thinking there might be an issue with that is itself evidence of involvement, while thinking that there isn't such a group or that there isn't an issue is NOT evidence of involvement) have gotten more endorsements than views more closely aligned with the idea that yes, there might be a problem here somewhere.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif) The thing that makes me so sad is that Lar truly believes there is some group tag teaming against wikipedia policy and that he is the last bastion against this horrific cancer. He fights what he percieves to be this problem by what could easily be described as tag teaming himself with a small group of fairly biased editors, some of whom he has offwiki conversations with in places like this. I specified that delusional was too harsh a word to use when I agreed with the particular comment in the RfC. I truly believe AGW has been overhyped but I am not happy with what I saw as Lar's bias caused by his mistaken view of the CC situation on wikipedia.

Welcome to WR. You will find, I think, that you can express yourself freely here without fear of it being formally used against you, as opposed to what occurs in Wikipedia. As I've said before in this thread, the problem with the AGW articles is not the topic itself. Global warming is what it is, a controversial topic which may or may not represent impending doom for the earth. The problem with the topic in Wikipedia is how editors involved with it follow, or not follow, Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Here's the thing, we can cooperate to build neutral articles on the topic, or we can fight over an alarmist vs skeptical view. I believe that most of the involved editors are willing and able to follow the former course, but vested contributors with a dishonest agenda, namely WMC, are inhibiting that from happening. What do you think?

Hi Cla. It is evident that you cannot express yourself here and expect it not to have any consequenses on wikipedia because this is a public forum. However, expressing yourself here should have no direct influence or retaliation on wikipedia. Unless for example you implement, alongside other editors, the modus operandi you have been discussing here on wikipedia itself. I personally don't think WMC is of any consequence in the overall direction of CC articles and I would say the same to his face. I am very worried that he is being used as a stick to beat and smear several dedicated editors with.

[Cla68]

Hi Cla. It is evident that you cannot express yourself here and expect it not to have any consequenses on wikipedia because this is a public forum. However, expressing yourself here should have no direct influence or retaliation on wikipedia. Unless for example you implement, alongside other editors, the modus operandi you have been discussing here on wikipedia itself. I personally don't think WMC is of any consequence in the overall direction of CC articles and I would say the same to his face. I am very worried that he is being used as a stick to beat and smear several dedicated editors with.

Polargeo, I don't think it's very nice to come here and leave a veiled threat to take action in Wikipedia for things that are said here. The fact that you would do so means, IMO, that you are taking Wikipedia a little too seriously.

I'll repeat it again, the problem I have with WMC's editing of the CC articles is his rudeness towards editors who try to make changes to those articles and his attempts to defame, ridicule, and discredit people he disagrees with in their BLPs. He is, of course, not the only one doing this, but he has been one of the most active. In my opinion, he shouldn't be editing the CC articles for this reason. If he is removed from them, I think the behavior by other editors with those articles will improve because they seem to be following his lead.

[Moulton]

I'll repeat it again, the problem I have with WMC's editing of the CC articles is his rudeness towards editors who try to make changes to those articles and his attempts to defame, ridicule, and discredit people he disagrees with in their BLPs. He is, of course, not the only one doing this, but he has been one of the most active. In my opinion, he shouldn't be editing the CC articles for this reason. If he is removed from them, I think the behavior by other editors with those articles will improve because they seem to be following his lead.

I am wondering if the highlighted portion above captures the essence of the unbecoming practices that you first noted in the IDCab alumni.

[Polargeo]

Hi Cla. It is evident that you cannot express yourself here and expect it not to have any consequenses on wikipedia because this is a public forum. However, expressing yourself here should have no direct influence or retaliation on wikipedia. Unless for example you implement, alongside other editors, the modus operandi you have been discussing here on wikipedia itself. I personally don't think WMC is of any consequence in the overall direction of CC articles and I would say the same to his face. I am very worried that he is being used as a stick to beat and smear several dedicated editors with.

Polargeo, I don't think it's very nice to come here and leave a veiled threat to take action in Wikipedia for things that are said here. The fact that you would do so means, IMO, that you are taking Wikipedia a little too seriously.

I'll repeat it again, the problem I have with WMC's editing of the CC articles is his rudeness towards editors who try to make changes to those articles and his attempts to defame, ridicule, and discredit people he disagrees with in their BLPs. He is, of course, not the only one doing this, but he has been one of the most active. In my opinion, he shouldn't be editing the CC articles for this reason. If he is removed from them, I think the behavior by other editors with those articles will improve because they seem to be following his lead.

I had no intention of any threat, veiled or otherwise. On wikipedia I tend to only take things to a higher level when I truly have a concern for balance and fairness, not to win petty battles. Again I feel WMC is being held up as somone who a whole group of independent editors are being linked to in order to discredit them. I also feel that WMC is under a greater scrutiny than pretty much any other editor on wikipedia, with edits from some time ago being brought up to back up very flimsy recent misdemeanours in an attempt to impose sanctions. I think WMC is not the force he is perceived to be. Getting rid of him as an individual will have little or no effect.

[dogbiscuit]

I had no intention of any threat, veiled or otherwise. On wikipedia I tend to only take things to a higher level when I truly have a concern for balance and fairness, not to win petty battles. Again I feel WMC is being held up as somone who a whole group of independent editors are being linked to in order to discredit them. I also feel that WMC is under a greater scrutiny than pretty much any other editor on wikipedia, with edits from some time ago being brought up to back up very flimsy recent misdemeanours in an attempt to impose sanctions. I think WMC is not the force he is perceived to be. Getting rid of him as an individual will have little or no effect.

I think the problem is not that people link other people to WMC, but that they link themselves by flocking around the call to arms.

If you truly have a concern for balance and fairness, you would recognise that WMC has a long history of inappropriate editing. The fact that he does this in support of views that are allied to your own should not, in a reasonable world, blind you to his abusive style.

WMC is under scrutiny because of his behaviour rather than his views.

You are right that getting rid of him will have little effect in there are an army of abusive personalities on Wikipedia more than happy to take up arms in his stead, however, the lack of action against someone perceived to be abusive, but "on the right side" in some sense, does have the effect of encouraging the wrong behaviour.

Long term Wiki-Watchers have more or less given up that there is any intent by WMF or Wikipedian power structures, whatever they may be, to pay anything other than lip service to controlling this element of the game. That's in part why we invented the annex, to dump pointless conversations covering the same old ground out of the way...

[Polargeo]

I had no intention of any threat, veiled or otherwise. On wikipedia I tend to only take things to a higher level when I truly have a concern for balance and fairness, not to win petty battles. Again I feel WMC is being held up as somone who a whole group of independent editors are being linked to in order to discredit them. I also feel that WMC is under a greater scrutiny than pretty much any other editor on wikipedia, with edits from some time ago being brought up to back up very flimsy recent misdemeanours in an attempt to impose sanctions. I think WMC is not the force he is perceived to be. Getting rid of him as an individual will have little or no effect.

I think the problem is not that people link other people to WMC, but that they link themselves by flocking around the call to arms.

If you truly have a concern for balance and fairness, you would recognise that WMC has a long history of inappropriate editing. The fact that he does this in support of views that are allied to your own should not, in a reasonable world, blind you to his abusive style.

WMC is under scrutiny because of his behaviour rather than his views.

You are right that getting rid of him will have little effect in there are an army of abusive personalities on Wikipedia more than happy to take up arms in his stead, however, the lack of action against someone perceived to be abusive, but "on the right side" in some sense, does have the effect of encouraging the wrong behaviour.

Long term Wiki-Watchers have more or less given up that there is any intent by WMF or Wikipedian power structures, whatever they may be, to pay anything other than lip service to controlling this element of the game. That's in part why we invented the annex, to dump pointless conversations covering the same old ground out of the way...

I don't think WMC is detrimental to wikipedia. There it is, full stop. Yes he can be a bit rude and that is not good but he knows his stuff and he does not try to force his way against consensus. The other editors who are consistently being linked to him are some of the most intelligent and competent editors on wikipedia. To assume they are some sort of sheep following WMC is a joke which is long past its punchline.

[Moulton]

A fish rots from the head down.

The lack of action against someone perceived to be abusive, but "on the right side" in some sense, does have the effect of encouraging the wrong behaviour.

This is one of the big failings of WikiCulture. People who are viewed as leaders or power brokers cultivate a set of practices which newer, younger, or more impressionable editors are likely to adopt. That's why those in power have to be scrupulously circumspect and ethical, lest they inculcate their followers into a spectrum of corrupt practices that eat away at the integrity of the community from the inside.

[dogbiscuit]

I don't think WMC is detrimental to wikipedia. There it is, full stop. Yes he can be a bit rude and that is not good but he knows his stuff and he does not try to force his way against consensus. The other editors who are consistently being linked to him are some of the most intelligent and competent editors on wikipedia. To assume they are some sort of sheep following WMC is a joke which is long past its punchline.

The problem with the "a bit rude" WMC is that it is about a culture. It is perfectly possible to be part of social interactions on the Internet that conform to social norms of the real world, but Wikipedia determinedly fails to achieve this. By tolerating the gaming and bullying, you lose the ability to have civil disputes and force people into entrenched positions - every edit becomes moving the front line in the Somme a few feet one way or another in the misguided belief that once the edit goes through, there will be a final push to an adequate article.

It also a mis-characterisation to think of the following around on Wikipedian events as being sheep - it is part of a far more considered view of common interest. WMC, or a colleague, generates a dispute, and those of similar views can't resist the me-too, under a misguided belief that this will move the front line, but it is not follow my leader, it is a learned response to an external stimulus - RFC appears, comment and !vote, ArbCom, comment and !vote; never admit that someone with similar viewpoints is flawed, as you need the weight of numbers to defend the article and mob consensus discussions.

A better approach would be to let the combative elements go off to one side, and those who are able to edit without goading, irritating or abusing the other editors can then discuss things in a mature fashion.

This doesn't happen because of the culture that has been encouraged from the highest levels - people who disagree with the party line are trolls to be routed out rather than someone with challenging views that need to be examined and accepted if there is the evidence to support them, even if that is alongside a contrary viewpoint.

[Cla68]

I had no intention of any threat, veiled or otherwise. On wikipedia I tend to only take things to a higher level when I truly have a concern for balance and fairness, not to win petty battles. Again I feel WMC is being held up as somone who a whole group of independent editors are being linked to in order to discredit them. I also feel that WMC is under a greater scrutiny than pretty much any other editor on wikipedia, with edits from some time ago being brought up to back up very flimsy recent misdemeanours in an attempt to impose sanctions. I think WMC is not the force he is perceived to be. Getting rid of him as an individual will have little or no effect.

I think the problem is not that people link other people to WMC, but that they link themselves by flocking around the call to arms.

If you truly have a concern for balance and fairness, you would recognise that WMC has a long history of inappropriate editing. The fact that he does this in support of views that are allied to your own should not, in a reasonable world, blind you to his abusive style.

WMC is under scrutiny because of his behaviour rather than his views.

You are right that getting rid of him will have little effect in there are an army of abusive personalities on Wikipedia more than happy to take up arms in his stead, however, the lack of action against someone perceived to be abusive, but "on the right side" in some sense, does have the effect of encouraging the wrong behaviour.

Long term Wiki-Watchers have more or less given up that there is any intent by WMF or Wikipedian power structures, whatever they may be, to pay anything other than lip service to controlling this element of the game. That's in part why we invented the annex, to dump pointless conversations covering the same old ground out of the way...

I don't think WMC is detrimental to wikipedia. There it is, full stop. Yes he can be a bit rude and that is not good but he knows his stuff and he does not try to force his way against consensus. The other editors who are consistently being linked to him are some of the most intelligent and competent editors on wikipedia. To assume they are some sort of sheep following WMC is a joke which is long past its punchline.

Have you read the Climategate emails, especially the ones from Dr. Michael E. Mann encouraging the CRU not to give data to skeptical observers and discussing ways of blacklisting journals and their editors who publish unfavorable papers? The RealClimate crew, from what I have read, have a reputation for this type of behavior. WMC is part of that group. I believe that the vast majority of climate scientists are dismayed by that type of behavior. I don't understand why you would willingly link your name, via Wikipedia, to that group. They are giving climate science a bad name. Even George Montbiot, one of the strongest advocates for the theory on human-caused AGW in the press, has publicly called those guys, and the CRU, out for their behavior. WMC, in my opinion, gives a bad name to climate science and the other climate scientists who edit Wikipedia should be asking him to leave, not defending him.

[Moulton]

A better approach would be to let the combative elements go off to one side, and those who are able to edit without goading, irritating or abusing the other editors can then discuss things in a mature fashion.

This doesn't happen because of the culture that has been encouraged from the highest levels - people who disagree with the party line are trolls to be routed out rather than someone with challenging views that need to be examined and accepted if there is the evidence to support them, even if that is alongside a contrary viewpoint.

Word.

It just astonishes me that a project as large and as prominent as Wikipedia cannot see its way clear to evolve out of a manifestly retrograde culture.

[Polargeo]

A fish rots from the head down.

The lack of action against someone perceived to be abusive, but "on the right side" in some sense, does have the effect of encouraging the wrong behaviour.

This is one of the big failings of WikiCulture. People who are viewed as leaders or power brokers cultivate a set of practices which newer, younger, or more impressionable editors are likely to adopt. That's why those in power have to be scrupulously circumspect and ethical, lest they inculcate their followers into a spectrum of corrupt practices that eat away at the integrity of the community from the inside.

And thereby does wikipedia become that much more childish. WMC is not a "power broker" for those editors who are being detrimentally portrayed as part of his gang. Many of them have thousands of edits and years of wikipedia experience. It is silly to dismiss so many experienced editors becasue they agree with some of WMC's edits. Most of them also disagree with many of WMC's edits. As I said WMC is not a power broker. That is a myth that should be burried for constructive dialouge to begin.

[Moulton]

There are two separable issues intertwined in this thread.

One issue has to do with the merits of the cases being made on editorial considerations for the articles on climate change.

The other issue has to do with the tactics and practices of competing editorial factions as they work through their conflicting points of view.

To my mind, this latter issue (which is independent of the subject matter or the editorial factions involved in the dispute) is the larger and more pervasive issue. We've seen it in Climate Change, in Intelligent Design, in Cold Fusion, in Israel-Palestine, in Scientology, and in other contentious subjects.

We really need to zoom out to the larger cultural question of editorial conflict, problematic tactics of competing editorial factions, and the lack of a functional conflict resolution process for content disputes. The way things stand now, content disputes morph into behavior disputes, some of which go to ArbCom, but most of which just serve to transform WP into a fractious MMPORG free-for-all.

This post has been edited by Moulton:

[Abd]

A better approach would be to let the combative elements go off to one side, and those who are able to edit without goading, irritating or abusing the other editors can then discuss things in a mature fashion.

This doesn't happen because of the culture that has been encouraged from the highest levels - people who disagree with the party line are trolls to be routed out rather than someone with challenging views that need to be examined and accepted if there is the evidence to support them, even if that is alongside a contrary viewpoint.

Word.

It just astonishes me that a project as large and as prominent as Wikipedia cannot see its way clear to evolve out of a manifestly retrograde culture.

The problem is that there is no "it" that sees. There is only a pile of individual viewpoints, more or less. The "culture" is the operation of chaotic individual interactions and small groups. It will evolve, if it survives, to something more awake, but that process is slow unless guided by vision and does see. This can come from a single individual, sometimes, but probably in the Wikipedia situation it would take a core of people that have the vision. And it will be resisted; however, if the vision is clear, it includes the process to arrive at the goal: true community consensus, living, active, appearing as if it is an intelligent entity that can learn and grow and express itself.

Wikipedia requires, to fulfill its mission of neutrality, full-on consensus process, but, as obvious as this may be, it's never been accepted by the active core, which wants to continue to own the project. It's not surprising at all, it could have been expected, and was expected by those who study such things, large-group evolution and process.

The difficulty of this leads some to believe that it's impossible. But it's possible, of that I'm certain. It hinges on the availability of what might be an astonishingly low number of participants. The shift could come from someone highly placed, such as Jimbo, but that's not necessarily to be expected, it's merely possible. Jimbo's time when he could have imposed full consensus process has probably passed, but maybe imposition wasn't a good idea anyway. What's needed is facilitation, not coercion.

The present situation is highly abusive to nearly all the participants, but it can be hard for some of them to see it. Nevertheless, it ought to be a clue that many of those who, long-term, appeared to own the place, end up complaining about how the community is losing its mind, not realizing that they are merely experiencing the flip side of what they created.

What is needed is a consensus cabal, that promotes no particular point of view, but that acts to seek genuine consensus in as many disputes as possible, and that seeks to make dispute resolution process not only efficient, but actually resolving disputes instead of burying one side. (And, often, then, later, the other.)

[Polargeo]

There are two separable issues intertwined in this thread.

One issue has to do with the merits of the cases being made on editorial considerations for the articles on climate change.

The other issue has to do with the tactics and practices of competing editorial factions as they work through their conflicting points of view.

To my mind, this latter issue (which is independent of the subject matter or the editorial factions involved in the dispute) is the larger and more pervasive issue. We've seen it in Climate Change, in Intelligent Design, in Cold Fusion, in Israel-Palestine, in Scientology, and in other contentious subjects.

We really need to zoom out to the larger cultural question of editorial conflict, problematic tactics of competing editorial factions, and the lack of a functional conflict resolution process for content disputes. The way things stand now, content disputes morph into behavior disputes, some of which go to ArbCom, but most of which just serve to transform WP into a fractious MMPORG free-for-all.

However, this illustrates much of the problem. Lumping climate change together with Intelligent Design and Cold Fusion, or even scientology for that matter, is not useful. It is so completely different that it becomes a joke even trying to compare it and doing so is indicative of the misconceptions of the whole area. The Israel Pallestine issue is a very separate type of issue and is far closer to the Balkans situation on wikipedia.

[Moulton]

WMF has both a Mission Statement and a Vision Statement. Some projects (such as Wikiversity) also have them. As near as I can tell, the English Wikipedia does not have a Mission Statement or a Vision Statement.

However, this illustrates much of the problem. Lumping climate change together with Intelligent Design and Cold Fusion, or even scientology for that matter, is not useful. It is so completely different that it becomes a joke even trying to compare it and doing so is indicative of the misconceptions of the whole area. The Israel Pallestine issue is a very separate type of issue and is far closer to the Balkans situation on wikipedia.

I will grant you that the level of rudeness, abusiveness, coerciveness, etc, varies from one subject area to the next. The editors of IDCab were so egregious and outlandish in their bullying tactics that ArbCom unanimously condemned one of them. The issue that Cla68 raised was that he was seeing those same bullying tactics turning up again in the CC kerfuffles.

[Abd]

A fish rots from the head down.

The lack of action against someone perceived to be abusive, but "on the right side" in some sense, does have the effect of encouraging the wrong behaviour.

This is one of the big failings of WikiCulture. People who are viewed as leaders or power brokers cultivate a set of practices which newer, younger, or more impressionable editors are likely to adopt. That's why those in power have to be scrupulously circumspect and ethical, lest they inculcate their followers into a spectrum of corrupt practices that eat away at the integrity of the community from the inside.

And thereby does wikipedia become that much more childish. WMC is not a "power broker" for those editors who are being detrimentally portrayed as part of his gang.

I'd suggest, Polargeo, that you review the long-term evidence. You have not understood even the present allegations. There is no doubt that there is a grouping of editors who have, long-term, pushed certain allied agendas, supporting these agendas with administrative tools. It is just as useful, analytically, to see WMC as a tool of these interests as to see him as a leader. The "cabal" isn't a secret club, exactly, but it did have a sense of its own identity and operated as if, in some senses, a coherent organization. When I raised cabal evidence in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, I did not assert reprehensible cooperation, though I could have put up evidence of what might ultimately be considered improper use of tools while involved (for others than WMC). There was no claim or idea that "cabal members" should be sanctioned, only that they were mutually involved. Which, then, can affect analysis of RfC !votes, ban polls, review of admin actions on AN or AN/I, etc. The cabal frequently intervened to prevent wikitrouting of WMC, for blatant use of tools while involved, and praised him for his boldness in these actions. The result would be no-consensus in a noticeboard discussion, because the cabal could quickly mobillize, through watchlists, as many as a dozen or so editors. And then, later, even though if you examined the !vote counts, it would be even, they would claim that the discussion "vindicated" WMC.

In the end, he became "bolder and bolder," to the point that he blocked me during the RfAr which was over his right to ban and block me unilaterally. He edit warred on the request page, to protect a cabal editor from being added as a party (and it worked!). He edit warred with another admin over notice to that editor, and the other admin, rather than push it, left Wikipedia. And all along, until he actually blocked me, the cabal was cheering him on. With the actual block, they scattered for a short time. "Uh, he shouldn't have done that!" But then they returned, after he'd been desysopped, to commiserate with him, and continued to encourage him to "be bold" in resisting the "pov-pushers."

Many of them have thousands of edits and years of wikipedia experience. It is silly to dismiss so many experienced editors becasue they agree with some of WMC's edits. Most of them also disagree with many of WMC's edits. As I said WMC is not a power broker. That is a myth that should be burried for constructive dialouge to begin.

Nobody is being dismissed because they agree with WMC's POV on Climate change. However, if they agree with the tactics he used, and which he and others used for years, largely with impunity, and if they are administrators, they should be desysopped or at least the privilege suspended until they assure the community that they will not act that way themselves, nor will they encourage others to act that way. KDP and others have a long history of tag-team reversion. Mostly, though, KDP avoided using his tools, that was left to WMC, Raul654, and a few others. There are a few admins who didn't edit the actual articles of interest, but who would occasionally intervene to support the cabal editors. Was this a deliberate tactic? I don't know, and I never claimed it, but it is certainly possible.

Polargeo, it may not be easy for you to see this, particularly if your views are aligned on the topic, you can see these editors as supporting the "scientific point of view," SPOV. SPOV is rejected by the majority at this point as the basis for the project, it violates the fundamental policy of neutrality. What many think of as SPOV is not actually scientific, for true science is a process and an approach, not a set of beliefs about reality. It's easy to become confused about this, because, quite naturally, we want an encyclopedia to reflect the best scientific knowledge. But what is "scientific knowledge?" It is nothing other than a consensus of scientists at a given time. When that consensus is complete, there is rarely an issue, but the problem is that the consensus often isn't complete, there are those who are "knowledgeable," who disagree with it in part or more substantially. It gets even more complicated when a political agenda becomes involved. Global warming is considered by some to be an emergency requiring strong and immediate action. I happen to agree, by the way. But I also believe that neutrality in science and in an encyclopedia is essential. We do not approach truth by repressing dissent, and that is what the cabal did on Wikipedia, actively, for years, and it is still going on in various areas.

If you agree with that, you should not therefore be sanctioned. There is no move to sanction editors for their point of view on this, even though for years, editors with a contrary point of view were insulted, attacked, blocked and banned, and blind reverted. What is being considered for sanction is revert warring, violation of page probation, and incivility. WMC, since his admin tools were removed, has been trolling to be banned, I'd say, doing things that would have gotten less popular editors blocked long ago.

It could be useful to read the essay, "Civil POV-pushing." Originally written by Raul654, it lays out the problem, the view of Raul and others that the problem is "civil POV-pushers." Why was this a problem? Because it was tougher to block them, if they avoided revert warring. Usually the cabal was able to push them into it, though. But the real problem was that the cabal was unwilling to negotiate consensus. It was intransigent because it believed that it was right, that it was important for Wikipedia articles to present the SPOV, which they believed was their point of view, and that skeptics be exposed and belittled at every opportunity, using sources of often marginal notability or even in violation of RS guidelines, while excluding far better-sourced material on the other side. Much of the behavior would not have survived ArbComm attention, but for a minority POV editor, particularly an SPA, taking a case to ArbComm might be suicidal.

I knew what I was doing, and had ArbComm experience, and was even successful in dealing with the issue over which I filed, and I was still sanctioned, not over what I filed for, but over other allegations piled on by cabal editors, and ArbComm wasn't willing to go over this in detail, it merely saw the obvious: I was upsetting a lot of editors. Of course I was. They were the cabal! And there were enough of them, promoting knee-jerk majority POV, to easily convince others who were neutral. In order to understand my position, one would have to do a lot of research. Who was willing to do that? Few. I'd gotten involved in the first place by researching RfC/GoRight.

Who is still indef blocked, it merely took them two years to push it through. GoRight was the original "Civil POV-pusher" subject of Raul's essay. And he was dinged for pointing out the truth, too many times. He was actually quite restrained, compared to others. But it looks bad, to be an SPA, and "pushing" in a particular direction. Nevertheless, I watched him, and he actually sought consensus, which is precisely what a good SPA should do, same as a COI editor, there is a close relation. Compare his behavior with that of WMC, and it's obvious that there has been a double standard operating. Still. But the cabal has been losing, and is starting to seriously complain, and RfC/Lar is a symptom of that. Polargeo, I have no idea how affiliated you might be, the cabal has dragged along many relatively innocent editors, and when I presented cabal evidence, which was just a primitive and individual effort, I required three independent interventions on behalf of clear cabal positions, in a major process, and still the identification was considered tentative. For some of these editors, a serious search would uncover hundreds of signs of involvement, tag-team reversion, for example. It is quite possible to distinguish this from mere agreement with a POV.

There is no danger of the reverse, of articles being taken over by fringe POV, unless they are articles where there is no attention, that still happens. It won't happen with any of the Climate Change articles. But they will become more neutral, presenting a more balanced view, overall, where it can be justified by sources.

And it all took way too much work. That's the damage done by inefficient WP dispute resolution process.

[Polargeo]

WMF has both a Mission Statement and a Vision Statement. Some projects (such as Wikiversity) also have them. As near as I can tell, the English Wikipedia does not have a Mission Statement or a Vision Statement.

However, this illustrates much of the problem. Lumping climate change together with Intelligent Design and Cold Fusion, or even scientology for that matter, is not useful. It is so completely different that it becomes a joke even trying to compare it and doing so is indicative of the misconceptions of the whole area. The Israel Pallestine issue is a very separate type of issue and is far closer to the Balkans situation on wikipedia.

I will grant you that the level of rudeness, abusiveness, coerciveness, etc, varies from one subject area to the next. The editors of IDCab were so egregious and outlandish in their bullying tactics that ArbCom unanimously condemned one of them. The issue that Cla68 raised was that he was seeing those same bullying tactics turning up again in the CC kerfuffles.

Cla has a bit too much of an axe to grind on this issue. There is often some rudeness as in any heated disspute. Of course wikipedia should keep this to a minimum. I have an issue with your perception of "coerciveness" this should be handled separately from rudness and unfortunately this is not being done. There is not a batch of editors who are going around bullying people in the CC area. Occassionally on a particular article a few editors have lost patience with some terrible additions by the 20th climate change skeptic of the day but I do not see a group of editors going around and coercively bullying anyone. I think WMC is being used as a convenient stick to beat others with.

[Moulton]

In the end, he became "bolder and bolder," to the point that he blocked me during the RfAr which was over his right to ban and block me unilaterally.

That's what I mean by leaders and power-brokers cultivating a set of toxic practices that, like an unchecked cancer, eat away at the community from the inside out.

[Abd]

However, this illustrates much of the problem. Lumping climate change together with Intelligent Design and Cold Fusion, or even scientology for that matter, is not useful. It is so completely different that it becomes a joke even trying to compare it and doing so is indicative of the misconceptions of the whole area. The Israel Pallestine issue is a very separate type of issue and is far closer to the Balkans situation on wikipedia.

The general problem is that Wikipedia process is vulnerable to manipulation by cabals. Something strange happened; it was originally understood that "cabal" meant a group of people cooperating toward some end, and the term "administrative cabal" was first used by Jimbo to express control of the project by administrators, which created a cognitive dissonance, since adminship was supposed to be "no big deal."

There are many cabals, but only a few have becomes so clear and so damaging as to be confronted. I'm not particularly familiar with IDCab, but the relevant general point of view, SPOV, would cause natural cabals to form. But it is what I specifically called a cabal that formed that is more than a point of view, it is an operating defacto agreement on tactics to be used, such as tag-team reversion rather than working toward consensus text, and selective blocking of editors on one side of an issue, with worse behavior on the other side being ignored, as happened frequently.

I first became involved with what I frequently thought of as the Global Warming cabal when I happened upon RfC/GoRight, and I intervened to prevent GoRight from wikilawyering the RfC out of existence. But then I read the RfC and I was horrified. Read it! It was written by Raul654, and is a very good example of a hit piece, presenting highly distorted and biased evidence. Co-certified by WMC. In analyzing this RfC, preparing evidence to present, and looking at the revision histories of the articles where GoRight had allegedly edit warred, I saw the same names popping up over and over. Later, I saw these names popping up in other fringe science and pseudoscience articles and AN/I reports and ban discussions and RfArs that were relevant. On one or two occasions, I warned WMC about his use of tools while involved. His response was to predict that I'd be banned.

In RfAr/JzG, I succeeded in finding ArbComm confirmation of my claim that JzG had used tools while involved with Cold fusion. That RfAr was preceded by RfC/JzG 3, and you can look at that and see how many editors confirmed what ArbComm confirmed, and how many instead pushed for me to be banned. Banned for what? For "beating a dead horse," or "attacking JzG," or the like. This was the kind of thing that the cabal did. JzG was very popular with the cabal, and he was asserting an anti-fringe science agenda, while very personally involved, using his tools.

Was I involved with cold fusion? Not at the beginning. My interest was administrative abuse and recusal failure, and I simply warned JzG, I had no idea of the larger political issues at that point. JzG blew me off. I began to look into the history of this, and that's how I became interested in cold fusion. I had the physics background to understand the issues, and what I found amazed me. I started trying to shift the Cold fusion article toward neutrality, considering the huge amount of material that was available in reliable source. And I continued to work on the JzG case. I was warned by a very experienced editor that, though I was right about JzG, if I pushed it, I would be banned from Cold fusion. She was right, in the end, but it didn't happen immediately. Rather, when RfAr/Abd and JzG was closed with a troutslap for JzG, they came after me, I was followed and reverted and trolled for response to outrageous edits. I generally didn't bite, but then WMC intervened, out of the blue. On the surface, he was uninvolved with Cold fusion. But he was very much involved with me, and he acknowledged it quite openly at one point. The cabal turned out in force to defend him, hence the huge mess that was RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley.

They were defending someone who had blatantly violated recusal policy, but to show how difficult it has been to confront this, he might still have escaped sanction if he hadn't presented me with an obvious opportunity. The community ban on me at Cold fusion had expired, but WMC had asserted his personal right to continue it unilaterally. (This right, by the way, was generally rejected, later, by the community, at WP:BAN).

He wrote, on an RfAr talk page, that I was still banned and he could prove it. Bluster, very common among the cabal. So I gave him the opportunity. I declared at that place that I was abandoning my voluntary compliance with the ban that I had maintained on general principles, and that I would edit the article or article talk. Nobody said anything, no warnings, nothing. Almost a day later, I made a harmless edit to the Talk page, as I recall, it simply referred, as an answer to a question there, to a discussion in the Talk archive. Then I went to sleep.

WMC blocked me, and all hell broke loose. I was unblocked before I woke up, and there was a motion to emergency desysop him. There was also some noise about how I'd been disruptive in making the edit. Perhaps. I did know that he'd threatened to block me. But the threat should have been enough to desysop! It wasn't. People were accustomed to WMC's bluster, they laughed it off or believed that nothing could be done. In order to get ArbComm's attention, it was necessary for them to actually see that he'd do what he threatened. I didn't make the edit just to push the point, but I did set aside my voluntary compliance with the ban. It should have been no surprise at all. WMC was very open, it's almost charming, he's far more honest than certain other cabal participants. In the brief work that I did on Global warming, in 2008, he was, at times, one of the most reasonable participants, in fact. But he's burned out, that's why he's become so bold in his incivility and revert warring, he's trolling to be banned. Often happens with burnout.

My edit to Talk:Cold fusion, which WMC had reverted, as an edit by a supposedly banned editor, was reverted back in by the admin unblocking. But other cabal members removed it, still alleging that I was banned (which was not the position of ArbComm, in fact; what happened was that Rlevse then enjoined me from editing the pages, to avoid controversy pending the resolution of the case, which was proper, and I respected it.) Nobody noticed the revert warring over that talk page, though, even though it was by a party to the arbitration (Enric Naval), and should have been just as improper as WMC's removal. Very difficult to get attention to cabal activity. It does not appear connected to someone not familiar with the history.

[Abd]

... I do not see a group of editors going around and coercively bullying anyone. I think WMC is being used as a convenient stick to beat others with.

You obviously haven't looked, Polargeo. It's been going on for many years. For one of the most famous examples, look at the history of the Scibaby sock master. Scibaby is one of the most prolific and persistent sock creators, I've lost track, it may be 600 socks. Scibaby was a creation of abuse by administrators, mostly Raul654 and WMC. Sure, he was violating guidelines, but he was blocked in violation of policy. And then, of course, when he circumvented the block, that becomes an offense of its own, even though his actual editing with all these socks has been relatively harmless, and if there had been an effort to negotiate consensus with him, the whole thing would have been completely unnecessary. Probably. You never can tell. They went after GoRight just as tenaciously, but GoRight didn't sock, and fought back through the process. Eventually, it was surprising how long it took, the "fighting back" was taken as proof of battleground mentality and he was indeffed. He could appeal to ArbComm, but I think he's concluded it is just too much work. After all, it's just a damned encyclopedia.

A cabal like the one under discussion does deep and lasting damage, driving away editors who could become part of a broad consensus, warping the community of those who remain in favor of the POV of ... who? Polargeo? I'll let him answer that.

I do know that many neutral editors and administrators have told me that they stayed away from the CC articles because it was an impossible situation. The cabal was way too powerful and entrenched. (Raul was checkuser and oversight, and not afraid to use the tools or threaten them. He reverted me at one point and threatened to block me if I repeated the edit. That was threat to use tools while involved....)

That power started to erode with my actions with respect to JzG and WMC, Raul654 resigned checkuser, probably over the Scibaby stuff, which I'd brought to the attention of WMF staff, not that they were unaware of the problem, but it's still not resolved by far.

[Lar]

There is not a batch of editors who are going around bullying people in the CC area.

Sorry for sounding like a broken record but... you're just not very observant. Or blinded by something. Or deliberately not seeing what is there. If it was just me that felt that there are (insert your favorite C word here [1] )-ish groups in various contentious areas that enforce the "house POV" I'd certainly look at what I was seeing and wonder if it wasn't there.

But it's not just me[2]. About the only people who don't see it are those who are in the very same (insert your favorite C word here[1])-ish groups and use denial of what the rest of us know as a control tactic, the naive, and the clueless.

Which are you? That's what I can't figure. I'm an optimist so I'm going with naive.

1 - coven/cabal/colloquium/confluence/cadre/corps/club/cast/controlling

2 - see MZMcBride's view in that farce you started. And think about who all signed it. NOT just "denyers", inconveniently.

[Moulton]

To be fair, Lar, look at how long it took for others to come around to the view that you, CLa68, and many more of us have been saying for several years now. What perplexes me is not that others don't see what so many of us now see, but that we have made so little progress in figuring out how best to illuminate the issue so that it may be more easily seen by those who sincerely care about crafting accurate models of complex systems.

I frankly dunno which is the more complex model to reckon -- global climate or WP socio-political dynamics. But it occurs to me that anyone capable of apprehending a reliable model of one is probably capable of apprehending a reliable model of the other.

[Lar]

To be fair, Lar, look at how long it took for others to come around to the view that you, CLa68, and many more of us have been saying for several years now. What perplexes me is not that others don't see what so many of us now see, but that we have made so little progress in figuring out how best to illuminate the issue so that it may be more easily seen by those who sincerely care about crafting accurate models of complex systems.

Well I can't claim to be very sharp on this front... for quite some time after I saw the pattern, I thought it was a good thing, that enforcing the House POV (at least in most areas) was more important than most anything else. After all, we're Building an Encyclopedia ™ !

And, on GW, which scares the bejeezus out of me, I gotta say there's part of me that STILL thinks that maybe this GW thing is so important that we should go with the thuggish enforcement (to keep On Message) if that's what it takes. Mostly no, but a part of me anyway. Mostly no because I think the articles can be fine without thuggery.

I frankly dunno which is the more complex model to reckon -- global climate or WP socio-political dynamics. But it occurs to me that anyone capable of apprehending a reliable model of one is probably capable of apprehending a reliable model of the other.

That's a no brainer. Climate may have more variables, but WP has people. People cannot be modeled accurately. Full stop.

Either that or it's me. Maybe I just can't model them. I've always sucked at politics. Look at how I got outmaneuvered in the steward thing by a tiny little clique in a very short span of time.

[Moulton]

The problem with allowing the thuggery in some areas is that it thereby becomes the normative practice, which gradually spreads until the whole project becomes rotten with corruption.

People cannot be modeled accurately. Full stop.

Shakespeare didn't think so. And we have made a lot of progress since his day.

Either that or it's me. Maybe I just can't model them. I've always sucked at politics. Look at how I got outmaneuvered in the steward thing by a tiny little clique in a very short span of time.

I can empathize. But since I'm a systems scientist who specializes in constructing models of complex systems, I gave it a go, just to see what I could come up with.

[Lar]

The problem with allowing the thuggery in some areas is that it thereby becomes the normative practice, which gradually spreads until the whole project becomes rotten with corruption.

Well at least the trains run on time. For a while. Or so they say.

I can empathize. But since I'm a systems scientist who specializes in constructing models of complex systems, I gave it a go, just to see what I could come up with.

And? what did you come up with? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Given that you're blocked indef in many places either your model doesn't work to predict things accurately enough to stay out of the soup, or being able to edit freely wasn't actually your final goal...

[Moulton]

Arbeit Macht Frei

Well at least the trains run on time. For a while. Or so they say.

Next stop... Treblinka.

[Lar]

Arbeit Macht Frei

Well at least the trains run on time. For a while. Or so they say.

Next stop... Treblinka.

I've been Godwinned.

I was more thinking of all the flappers (no, not that kind, the other kind) gushing about how handsome the brown shirts were, and how dashing Il Duce was, while they were tossing coins in the fountain.

[Moulton]

I've been Godwinned.

Well, I was Kristalnachted, so we're even. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[thegoodlocust]

To Polargeo (your name makes sense now that I know your profession):

The evidence of their teamwork is quite obvious, but if you can't see it then perhaps you need to experience it through a sock account or something. Go and find something that is inaccurate, alarmist, and doesn't promote the AGW alarmist spin, and try to fix it - go and see what'll happen and you'll be dazzled with wikilawyering bullshit (and probably banned as "scibaby").

If you like I can even point out one easily disprovable alarmist statement in the lead paragraph of the global warming article to get you started, which, until recently, sounded more like a greenpeace pamphlet than an encyclopedia article (still has that aftertaste though).

You know I once looked at WMC's article edits and 70% of them were obvious reverts, but a couple years ago he started changing his edit summaries more to make his reversions less obvious, and so I suspect the % is closer to 80-85% in a normal month, and a bit lower when he is facing sanctions and trying to keep the facade of "great content contributor."

You can't make good articles by simply reverting and chasing everyone away - even if you and your friends collect reverts by the thousands.

But hey, luckily for those involved, it doesn't take much intelligence or competence to mindlessly destroy someone else's work when you have the courage of the crowd backing up blustering bullies.

[Milton Roe]

I've been Godwinned.

That's Mary Wollstonecraft's line! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)


-- The Monster

(IMG:http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll191/Shrlocc/MiltonMonster.jpg)

[Abd]

To be fair, Lar, look at how long it took for others to come around to the view that you, CLa68, and many more of us have been saying for several years now. What perplexes me is not that others don't see what so many of us now see, but that we have made so little progress in figuring out how best to illuminate the issue so that it may be more easily seen by those who sincerely care about crafting accurate models of complex systems.

Well I can't claim to be very sharp on this front... for quite some time after I saw the pattern, I thought it was a good thing, that enforcing the House POV (at least in most areas) was more important than most anything else. After all, we're Building an Encyclopedia ™ !

Bingo. But, Lar, Wikipidia was not simply building just any encyclopedia. It was building, according to the intention and advertising, a neutral encyclopedia. This doesn't mix very well with "enforcing the House POV," except and unless that POV is in favor of discovering neutrality, which can only be known relatively, as an "extent of consensus" measure, but it's quite clear that this is far more than mere majority, and organizations which depend on consensus, which consider it important, as Wikipedia should have, will often go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that a minority isn't just stepped on, but that the minority position has been fully considered.

And what does that require? In-depth discussion, Lar. What was I dinged for? Too much discussion! There are ways to channel and confine discussion so that it is not massively disruptive, but Wikipedia never developed these with any strength. It's there in DR process, which is largely ignored. Have a dispute with an editor. DR process requires that you go to a noticeboard and try to get the editor blocked.

Wait a minute! Just in! That's not what DR process requires, it is merely what frequently happens. And instead of the noticeboard being a 911 for administrative assistance, end of topic, with administrators insisting on full-on DR process, beginning with the simplest and least disruptive steps, and with warnings and blockings only exerted as normal police power, to prevent disruption, i.e., never as punishment or a presumption of resolution by the admin simply taking one side, we got debate at AN/I (if debate is necessary, AN/I would absolutely not be the place to do it, it's like having to debate with the 911 operator.)

Properly, Wikipedia editors with skills at dispute resolution (quite distinct from what's needed for use of blocking tools) would have been identified and assigned to disputes, early on. When a dispute escalates to a higher level, there would be a relatively complete record of evidence and argument, ready, and with each escalation, that would become more complete. This is quite different from present DR process, as with RfC, where we get large piles of largely redundant arguments, and often little evidence, and there is little neutral analysis of evidence, and even at the ArbComm level, ArbComm tends to act knee-jerk, in the absence of a clear foundation in a record of a dispute.

Short-term, it seems more efficient. Long-term, though, it does not resolve disputes, which then keep coming up, over and over, until, perhaps, finally, the blister pops, and it can get very messy and waste huge amounts of time, plus, as you now are realizing, the underlying situations can be highly abusive and can continue for a very long time.

All that has to happen is for this to appear to be "enforcing a majority point of view." Wikipedia was fooled by the fact that the process works when the pushed POV is fringe, or appears to work when the topic *appears* fringe. But even with fringe POV-pushing, have you not noticed that it keeps coming back when the "solution" is banning editors with the POV? There is a much better way, and it's known within organizations that both depend on consensus and that have been successful, long-term. In short, it's consensus process.

That has been interpreted by the cabal as a waste of time, that will wear out the right-thinking editors and turn the place over to the fringe POV-pushers. But that actually can't happen. Unless it actually is not a fringe POV.

And, on GW, which scares the bejeezus out of me, I gotta say there's part of me that STILL thinks that maybe this GW thing is so important that we should go with the thuggish enforcement (to keep On Message) if that's what it takes. Mostly no, but a part of me anyway. Mostly no because I think the articles can be fine without thuggery.

If the science is real, it will come out. For Wikipedia to essentially take sides in the dispute impeaches the credibility of Wikipedia, and creates long-term disruption. I am likewise quite scared by GW, but I consider scientific objectivity to be crucial, and Wikipedia is a kind of media, and I consider media objectivity and neutrality to also be critical. I have seen huge mistakes made, historically, because a point of view, not actually proven scientifically, came to be promoted politically as if it were a scientific consensus, and my current area of interest, cold fusion, is only a relatively small example of that. Give me time, I can turn the Cold fusion article into a rigorously neutral presentation of what is in the most reliable sources on the topic. Compared to what is currently in the article, you'll be amazed. But what if I'm wrong? Well, I observed, quite carefully, RS standards and guidelines, but the cabal was able to present my *opinion* -- expressed openly in Talk -- as if it were a proof that I was some whacked-out fanatic. If you actually look at the edits and sources, you won't see that. ArbComm massively screwed up on this, and I was not the first to be banned for holding the "wrong" POV.

I'd seen this with Global warming and had confronted WMC for his use of tools while involved. His appearance at Cold fusion and his seizing of the slender opportunity to block me -- an action which he never actually explained except by reference to IAR -- wasn't unrelated to the Global warming issue. He'd been promising me that I'd be banned for something like a year.

What was missing at ArbComm? Careful deliberative process. Neutral examination and vetting of evidence. ArbComm shouild have a corps of clerks, probably at least one per arbitrator, who would do that work on behalf of the arbitrators, as well as members of the community who, by their service, would be trusted to work with evidence and the presentation of arguments. Refactoring for clarity, then correctiion as needed from original authors. It is not clear to me that anyone should be able to *directly* present evidence to ArbComm, and especially not the huge pile-up that occurred in my last RfAr. I requested that ArbComm narrow the scope. Ignored.

I was complaining about a clear violation of recusal policy. To turn that into an examination of my behavior *as part of the same case* was chilling. It's as if I were to complain to 911 that my wife's ex was breaking in my house, and the operator says, "But did you insult him?"

The WMC case that I filed was simple, and should have stayed that way. For some reason, perhaps because the case was so open and shut, the cabal stayed away mostly from RfAr/Abd and Jzg, and ArbComm made a simple, if inadequate, judgment. But now I was a proven threat to the cabal, and, indeed, as had been predicted by a long-time experienced Wikipedian, they came after me.

[Abd]

[to Moulton]
Given that you're blocked indef in many places either your model doesn't work to predict things accurately enough to stay out of the soup, or being able to edit freely wasn't actually your final goal...

Lar, please consider this well, I think you will. Anyone who has, as a final goal, "being able to edit freely" has a conflict with the goal of the project, and will be unable to confront systemic abuse. This goal, in fact, has prevented many Wikipedians who could see what was going on from speaking up or from pursuing dispute resolution. If you have a dispute with an administrator, and you are not an administrator and don't have a dedicated ally among the administrators, willing to risk his or her own position for the welfare of the project, and you pursue the dispute, you are almost always dead meat.

I'm not speaking for Moulton, but very early on, I abandoned the goal of maintaining my right to edit, because I saw the danger. This meant giving up any sort of idea that I was essential to my special projects, with, say, voting systems, or, later, cold fusion. (I was completely neutral on cold fusion when I encountered admin abuse being used to maintain the article in a non-neutral condition, with only token material from the positive side, far below the balance from peer-reviewed publication. But I became very interested later. I'm now actually COI, but that wouldn't stop the abusive admins from acting to ban. Pcarbonn returned after his year ban, edited on Talk, as I recall, was moderate and civil, and was banned at AN by instigation of JzG, who did not disclose his extensive history in acting improperly, even confirmed by ArbComm. The cabal piled in. I was unable to intervene, in spite of my extensive familiarity with the issues and history, because of my MYOB ban, which, in spite of many claims, I really did try to follow. GoRight saw this, and pointed out the obvious. For his trouble, ultimately, he was indeffed, and remains so, with utterly inadequate reason for it. Ultimately, the reason is that he's seen as having a "fringe POV," and because the cabal does not want that fairly represented, they had been trying to ban him for two years. That, in fact, is how I discovered the cabal, with RfC/GoRight. It was bloomin' obvious, once I collected the evidence. But how would it look to someone who hasn't seen the evidence? Like it looked to you, Lar.

Banning me from cold fusion did not hurt me, but it definitely hurt the project. I've personally benefited. I don't need Wikipedia, but Wikipedia needs editors who are dedicated to neutrality, as I was and remain, but who also actually understand the subject. Some of these will be COI, is inevitable, but COI editors should not be banned! They should be behaviorally restrained, and that's easy to do, and when it is properly done, it doesn't create bias and conflict.

But Wikipedia built up an operating core of administrators who didn't understand how to do this and who, too often, weren't interested in it. Some of them were and are actively hostile to the idea of consensus process, as if it would mean turning over scientific articles to a mob that doesn't understand them. Wrong. The opposite, actually. The "mob" idea relates to how people are when there is no good process for finding consensus. Most people, in fact, want the project to be neutral and thoroughly informative, and where it cannot cover a subject completely, it would refer to other sources for more research.

What was the action I first saw that alerted me to a problem with JzG and Cold fusion? JzG unilaterally blackisted http://lenr-canr.org, which is a project run to collect in one place, as many primary and secondary sources relating to cold fusion. It works with a project that is a bibliography on cold fusion maintained by a cold fusion skeptic. Why was it blacklisted? Well, that's a huge story, but this action made it indirectly into RfAr/Abd and JzG. It was blacklisted because it was "fringe," bottom line, and ArbComm ruled that this wasn't proper. Sure, there were other excuses advanced. These were gone over one by one, in Talk:Martin Fleischmann and rejected by consensus. The alleged "linkspam" that was later asserted to get a global blacklisting was simply that Jed Rothwell, the site librarian, had signed his IP edits with "Jed Rothwell, librarian, lenr-canr.org." They weren't links! And occcasionally, when it was relevant, Jed had put up a link to a published paper.

Still globally blacklisted. I did the groundwork to get that removed, by requesting a pile of whitelisted links, which were approved (in spite of cabal pile-in to try to prevent it). But I haven't gone back to meta to get the global blacklisting undone. Frankly, I'm tired of being the Defender of the Wiki, because there were far too few people willing to stand up and ...

risk their right to edit. Look what happened to GoRight. And he effing cared about his right to edit, he was simply brave in spite of it.

Lar, your action against the cabal, or the whatchamacalllit -- I made it clear that I was using "cabal" to mean a collection of mutually-involved editors, cooperating, without necessarily improper off-wiki coordination or other necessarily reprehensible action -- was a long time coming. The foundations had been laid long before, it's not like this had never come up. But there were too many administrators and editors willing to say "not my conflict."

It is not that they should have jumped in to defend misbehavior. In RfC/GoRight, I noted GoRight's misbehavior. But I also showed the context in which it happened, GoRight was faced with a cabal, not shy about using admin tools, including blocking, checkuser (the Scibaby affair), and the ability to protect, unprotect, and edit under protection, and not shy about using tag-team reversion, to promote its agenda, which was very much a POV on Global Warming, and openly expressed as this.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Sxeptomaniac]

To be fair, Lar, look at how long it took for others to come around to the view that you, CLa68, and many more of us have been saying for several years now. What perplexes me is not that others don't see what so many of us now see, but that we have made so little progress in figuring out how best to illuminate the issue so that it may be more easily seen by those who sincerely care about crafting accurate models of complex systems.

Well I can't claim to be very sharp on this front... for quite some time after I saw the pattern, I thought it was a good thing, that enforcing the House POV (at least in most areas) was more important than most anything else. After all, we're Building an Encyclopedia ™ !

And, on GW, which scares the bejeezus out of me, I gotta say there's part of me that STILL thinks that maybe this GW thing is so important that we should go with the thuggish enforcement (to keep On Message) if that's what it takes. Mostly no, but a part of me anyway. Mostly no because I think the articles can be fine without thuggery.

Yep. I let my first run-in with the anti-ID group partly because I figured it was annoying but generally harmless. Unfortunately, the more they got away with, the more they felt they could get away with. They kept expanding their domain, until finally they were deciding the biography of a computer scientist was within their domain due to one single petition signature.

That's the nature of groups when they resort to bullying and refuse to accept criticism. Even if they are within their area of expertise for now, their arrogance grows along with the groupthink, leading them to consider themselves the arbiters of what is correct for an ever-expanding collection of articles. Eventually, their unwillingness to accept criticism becomes an unwillingness to examine any assumptions at all.

Filll exemplified this when he declared that a editor's protests that they don't believe in Intelligent Design only reinforces his belief that they do. In essence, nothing anyone did could make him re-examine his assumptions; as a result, those assumptions grew increasingly bizarre and unhinged from reality. Eventually, he was making arguments around supposed murders that he believed would happen because the end of the Anti-ID group's power trip would allow the cranks free reign on WP. In reality, the articles have remained relatively stable, and nobody's been killed yet, as far as I've heard.

[Moulton]

All that's needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Charles Ainsworth earned my undying respect when he took on Paul Mitchell (FeloniousMonk) in that celebrated case before ArbCom. A lot of people vacillated over the issues that surfaced in that case, which dramatically separated the ethical from the corrupt.

[Moulton]

I let my first run-in with the anti-ID group partly because I figured it was annoying but generally harmless. Unfortunately, the more they got away with, the more they felt they could get away with. They kept expanding their domain, until finally they were deciding the biography of a computer scientist was within their domain due to one single petition signature.

That's the nature of hubris. It feeds on itself and grows like a cancer. They might have gone on a great deal longer if I had not been a colleague of that particular computer scientist, having known her for 25 years.

That's the nature of groups when they resort to bullying and refuse to accept criticism. Even if they are within their area of expertise for now, their arrogance grows along with the groupthink, leading them to consider themselves the arbiters of what is correct for an ever-expanding collection of articles. Eventually, their unwillingness to accept criticism becomes an unwillingness to examine any assumptions at all.

That was manifestly the most frustrating thing about dealing with IDCab. They simply could not entertain the slightest doubt about their haphazard theories of mind regarding the beliefs of total strangers whom they had never met, never interviewed.

Filll exemplified this when he declared that a editor's protests that they don't believe in Intelligent Design only reinforces his belief that they do. In essence, nothing anyone did could make him re-examine his assumptions; as a result, those assumptions grew increasingly bizarre and unhinged from reality.

Filll had clearly gone off the deep end, but his confederates -- ConfuciusOrnis, Hrafn, Guettarda, Jim62sch, and FeloniousMonk -- blithely went along with him. To my mind, they had taken leave of their senses, and abandoned any pretense of respect for the protocols of the Scientific Method.

It's not uncommon to come across people with recognizable misconceptions (and even some disturbing delusional beliefs). But when such people arrogate to themselves the power to decide what belongs in an encyclopedia (especially biographies of living people), the results can be appalling.

[LessHorrid vanU]

As in Naked Short Selling, when it was found that the "bad guys" had all along been the okay guys and the good guys were the ones who were abusing WP to ensure their version was the published one, it will be interesting in who will be welcomed in from the pale after the Global Warming RfAR of 2010 finally draws to its conclusion.

And coming it is, most assuredly.

[Milton Roe]

As in Naked Short Selling, when it was found that the "bad guys" had all along been the okay guys and the good guys were the ones who were abusing WP to ensure their version was the published one, it will be interesting in who will be welcomed in from the pale after the Global Warming RfAR of 2010 finally draws to its conclusion.

And coming it is, most assuredly.

Oh, you think that after the good and bad guys were "sorted out" in the NSS fiasco, that somebody was "welcomed in" from the pale? That's not the way WP works. A few new bad buys were grumpily and grudgingly blocked (actually just one new badguy and many socks), and then everybody tried like mad to forget the whole thing ever happened. There was no self-examination, no quality-control, no learning, no improvement, no redemption. Just the usual collection of amnestic shitheads. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[LessHorrid vanU]

As in Naked Short Selling, when it was found that the "bad guys" had all along been the okay guys and the good guys were the ones who were abusing WP to ensure their version was the published one, it will be interesting in who will be welcomed in from the pale after the Global Warming RfAR of 2010 finally draws to its conclusion.

And coming it is, most assuredly.

Oh, you think that after the good and bad guys were "sorted out" in the NSS fiasco, that somebody was "welcomed in" from the pale? That's not the way WP works. A few new bad buys were grumpily and grudgingly blocked (actually just one new badguy and many socks), and then everybody tried like mad to forget the whole thing ever happened. There was no self-examination, no quality-control, no learning, no improvement, no redemption. Just the usual collection of amnestic shitheads. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Rootology springs to mind. One or two WP'ers who had been looked askance were permitted to raise from the echelons*; GW (just a coincidence of initials...? PERHAPS!) socks are now routinely scrubbed from the pages, and you can get a lot of old Mantanmorland supporters rather uncomfortable when you remind them of the "good old days". Oh, not perfect - but better for some.

*Not me. I got me hellivation during, not hafter.

[The Adversary]

...... A few new bad buys were grumpily and grudgingly blocked (actually just one new badguy and many socks), and then everybody tried like mad to forget the whole thing ever happened. There was no self-examination, no quality-control, no learning, no improvement, no redemption. Just the usual collection of amnestic shitheads. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Too absolutely damn true. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif) (my bolding)

[Polargeo]

... I do not see a group of editors going around and coercively bullying anyone. I think WMC is being used as a convenient stick to beat others with.

You obviously haven't looked, Polargeo. It's been going on for many years. For one of the most famous examples, look at the history of the Scibaby sock master. Scibaby is one of the most prolific and persistent sock creators, I've lost track, it may be 600 socks. Scibaby was a creation of abuse by administrators, mostly Raul654 and WMC. Sure, he was violating guidelines, but he was blocked in violation of policy. And then, of course, when he circumvented the block, that becomes an offense of its own, even though his actual editing with all these socks has been relatively harmless, and if there had been an effort to negotiate consensus with him, the whole thing would have been completely unnecessary. Probably. You never can tell. They went after GoRight just as tenaciously, but GoRight didn't sock, and fought back through the process. Eventually, it was surprising how long it took, the "fighting back" was taken as proof of battleground mentality and he was indeffed. He could appeal to ArbComm, but I think he's concluded it is just too much work. After all, it's just a damned encyclopedia.

A cabal like the one under discussion does deep and lasting damage, driving away editors who could become part of a broad consensus, warping the community of those who remain in favor of the POV of ... who? Polargeo? I'll let him answer that.

I do know that many neutral editors and administrators have told me that they stayed away from the CC articles because it was an impossible situation. The cabal was way too powerful and entrenched. (Raul was checkuser and oversight, and not afraid to use the tools or threaten them. He reverted me at one point and threatened to block me if I repeated the edit. That was threat to use tools while involved....)

That power started to erode with my actions with respect to JzG and WMC, Raul654 resigned checkuser, probably over the Scibaby stuff, which I'd brought to the attention of WMF staff, not that they were unaware of the problem, but it's still not resolved by far.

You know what I have some simpathy but I haven't been involved enough to understand the full situation. I think it may be far too late too lament over the Scibaby issue.

[Polargeo]

There is not a batch of editors who are going around bullying people in the CC area.

Sorry for sounding like a broken record but... you're just not very observant. Or blinded by something. Or deliberately not seeing what is there. If it was just me that felt that there are (insert your favorite C word here [1] )-ish groups in various contentious areas that enforce the "house POV" I'd certainly look at what I was seeing and wonder if it wasn't there.

But it's not just me[2]. About the only people who don't see it are those who are in the very same (insert your favorite C word here[1])-ish groups and use denial of what the rest of us know as a control tactic, the naive, and the clueless.

Which are you? That's what I can't figure. I'm an optimist so I'm going with naive.

1 - coven/cabal/colloquium/confluence/cadre/corps/club/cast/controlling

2 - see MZMcBride's view in that farce you started. And think about who all signed it. NOT just "denyers", inconveniently.

Broken record or not with these sort of feelings you should not be acting as an uninvolved admin. You appear to be attempting to push a POV. You are consistantly acting as though you are uninvolved whilst you clearly have a long history of involement.

[Moulton]

Even an objective PoV is a PoV. That's one of the problems with NPOV (and related memes). The scientific, objective, or unbiased point of view is no less a point of view than one that is demonstrably unscientific, subjective, or biased.

[Abd]

That power started to erode with my actions with respect to JzG and WMC, Raul654 resigned checkuser, probably over the Scibaby stuff, which I'd brought to the attention of WMF staff, not that they were unaware of the problem, but it's still not resolved by far.

You know what I have some simpathy but I haven't been involved enough to understand the full situation. I think it may be far too late too lament over the Scibaby issue.

In other words, without understanding the situation, it's concluded that it's "far too late." This is, indeed, symptomatic of the whole problem.

The Scibaby affair is causing ongoing and serious disruption, and it has been for years. It began with administrators using tools to support article ownership by their faction. Scibaby, as a puppet master, was clearly created by administrative abuse.

And this is a common story, in fact. Editor is unjustly banned. Editor response normally as human being. I.e., some will just go away -- it's only a web site! -- but others will respond with defiance. And then, of course, since they are now breaking policy even if they didn't a first, they are to be continually excluded, which is impossible without major ongoing effort, so .... the problem is locked in place.

I'm not "lamenting over the Scibaby issue." I'm just pointing out how the lack of sober deliberative structure leads to immense inefficiency over the years. Wikipedia eats editors, on all sides. The sanest leave, so, what's left? Long-term, those with personal agendas to maintain (either about a POV or about what an encyclopedia is supposed to be that differs from consensus), those who enjoy exercising power, and a few, increasingly few, who are pursuing the original vision. Which was excellent, in the round, just incomplete.

Blocking is a short-term solution, never a long-term one. It seems to be efficient, but that assumes that trouble is caused by trouble-makers, not by the intrinsic process of negotiating consensus. "Community ban" is a joke, too often. It means "ban by whatever faction could muster enough editors for a brief discussion," and I've seen it abused again and again, sometimes skilfully manipulated by an editor who knew just what would outrage the few neutral editors who show up.

I remember one community ban discussion on AN/I where an admin asked for evidence. No evidence was forthcoming and this admin did not comment again. Naturally, this was not considered a !vote against the ban. Another editor wrote, "Support, assuming that the charges are accurate." And, of course, this was a support. None of this would have made it past a careful deliberative process, it would have become obvious, and a lot of fuss, later, would have been avoided.

Broken record or not with these sort of feelings you should not be acting as an uninvolved admin. You appear to be attempting to push a POV. You are consistantly acting as though you are uninvolved whilst you clearly have a long history of involement.

"Uninvolved" has been inadequately defined, and this lack of definition has been abused. Polargeo, you are using an extended definition. You should be aware that when the extended definition is used, it applies to far more than Lar. Should Lar recuse? Perhaps. But on a different level than has been accepted as necessary by consensus.

And then you'd have to look at the behavior of a whole slew of administrators, such as Tenofalltrades, who blocked ClimateOracle, who shouldn't have touched that block button with a ten-foot pole, given his history with William M. Connolley and other involved characters in the climate change fracas, or FuturePerfect, who has blocked or threatened to block editors with whom he was in personal dispute over a revert war and his decisions, or many others.

Even an objective PoV is a PoV. That's one of the problems with NPOV (and related memes). The scientific, objective, or unbiased point of view is no less a point of view than one that is demonstrably unscientific, subjective, or biased.

There is no such thing as an "objective point of view," "point of view" inherently requires a subject, a viewpoint, an individual perception, which may then be shared with others.

However, that doesn't mean that the concept of "neutral point of view" is useless. Rather, we can consider a measure of neutrality being the level of consensus that text enjoys, particularly among those informed on the subject, those who know the literature (experts and others). Neutrality is not an absolute, then, it is a goal to be sought, to be maximized. That's what consensus process does. While it can involve compromises, those are mostly for efficiency; genuine and effective consensus process finds a collective decision without any compromise at all. It's superior to any biased view, and it is self-maintaining (that is, easily maintained by a community without causing disruption).

But the community never developed the patience for this, hence it is constitutionally unable to fulfill the fundamental goal of neutrality. People who are inclined to deep consideration, who might be a part of this, are excluded either literally or by being ignored. The theory of Wikipedia did not account for this; the guidelines and policies seem to assume sane process and handling of disputes. The structure had something else written in its DNA, so to speak, consequences of early decisions that prevented the necessary growth and development and which became impossible or very difficult to change.

It can be fixed, in fact, but it will take off-wiki organization, and there are too few who are interested. Like, are there three? Most who understand the problem simply think it is intractable, and won't even try. So there it is. It isn't actually stuck, but it seems like it is, which is effective enough to prevent solutions from arising.

[Polargeo]

I let my first run-in with the anti-ID group partly because I figured it was annoying but generally harmless. Unfortunately, the more they got away with, the more they felt they could get away with. They kept expanding their domain, until finally they were deciding the biography of a computer scientist was within their domain due to one single petition signature.

That's the nature of hubris. It feeds on itself and grows like a cancer. They might have gone on a great deal longer if I had not been a colleague of that particular computer scientist, having known her for 25 years.

That's the nature of groups when they resort to bullying and refuse to accept criticism. Even if they are within their area of expertise for now, their arrogance grows along with the groupthink, leading them to consider themselves the arbiters of what is correct for an ever-expanding collection of articles. Eventually, their unwillingness to accept criticism becomes an unwillingness to examine any assumptions at all.

That was manifestly the most frustrating thing about dealing with IDCab. They simply could not entertain the slightest doubt about their haphazard theories of mind regarding the beliefs of total strangers whom they had never met, never interviewed.

Filll exemplified this when he declared that a editor's protests that they don't believe in Intelligent Design only reinforces his belief that they do. In essence, nothing anyone did could make him re-examine his assumptions; as a result, those assumptions grew increasingly bizarre and unhinged from reality.

Filll had clearly gone off the deep end, but his confederates -- ConfuciusOrnis, Hrafn, Guettarda, Jim62sch, and FeloniousMonk -- blithely went along with him. To my mind, they had taken leave of their senses, and abandoned any pretense of respect for the protocols of the Scientific Method.

It's not uncommon to come across people with recognizable misconceptions (and even some disturbing delusional beliefs). But when such people arrogate to themselves the power to decide what belongs in an encyclopedia (especially biographies of living people), the results can be appalling.

I can only say that in assuming such a large area of climate change falls withing you idea of cabal controlled you are actually self perpetuating te very thing you believe you are trying to avoid.

[Moulton]

I can only say that in assuming such a large area of climate change falls within your idea of cabal controlled you are actually self perpetuating the very thing you believe you are trying to avoid.

My comments regarding Sxeptomaniac's remarks about IDCab are entirely unrelated to any comparable (alleged) cabal operating in the field of Climate Change. I am entirely unfamiliar with the goings on in the articles on Climate Change. The case of IDCab only came up here because Cla68 noticed that Climate Change editors were employing some of the same bullying tactics that previously got those aforementioned IDCab editors into hot water.

Also, I'm unclear on what you believe I'm trying to avoid. What I am doing is examining the practices of allied editors who engage in inappropriate, unbecoming, and unethical practices whilst crafting articles of an encyclopedic nature.

[A Horse With No Name]

Hey, is Lar still around? I've not heard a peep from him on these boards in ages.

Let's all cup our hands around our mouths and do the Lar call. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[ulsterman]

Hey, is Lar still around? I've not heard a peep from him on these boards in ages.

Let's all cup our hands around our mouths and do the Lar call. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

What on earth do you mean? He's made five posts already this week. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

Or is this some very clever trolling that's gone over my head? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)

[Lar]

There is not a batch of editors who are going around bullying people in the CC area.

Sorry for sounding like a broken record but... you're just not very observant. Or blinded by something. Or deliberately not seeing what is there. If it was just me that felt that there are (insert your favorite C word here [1] )-ish groups in various contentious areas that enforce the "house POV" I'd certainly look at what I was seeing and wonder if it wasn't there.

But it's not just me[2]. About the only people who don't see it are those who are in the very same (insert your favorite C word here[1])-ish groups and use denial of what the rest of us know as a control tactic, the naive, and the clueless.

Which are you? That's what I can't figure. I'm an optimist so I'm going with naive.

1 - coven/cabal/colloquium/confluence/cadre/corps/club/cast/controlling

2 - see MZMcBride's view in that farce you started. And think about who all signed it. NOT just "denyers", inconveniently.

Broken record or not with these sort of feelings you should not be acting as an uninvolved admin. You appear to be attempting to push a POV. You are consistantly acting as though you are uninvolved whilst you clearly have a long history of involement.

What POV is that? The POV that WP should work the way it's claimed to work? Sure, I'll cop to that.

You're supposed to cop to that as well. But somehow I don't think you do. I think you're probably not in the running for Straight Shooter award this year, although some wag may well nominate you.

Hey, is Lar still around? I've not heard a peep from him on these boards in ages.

Let's all cup our hands around our mouths and do the Lar call. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

What on earth do you mean? He's made five posts already this week. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

Two were direct replies to Horsey, I think. He must have me on ignore again (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Or is this some very clever trolling that's gone over my head? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)

If so, mine too.

[A Horse With No Name]

Two were direct replies to Horsey, I think. He must have me on ignore again (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Oh, there you are. I must have been distracted. So...can I borrow $50? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[Lar]

Two were direct replies to Horsey, I think. He must have me on ignore again (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Oh, there you are. I must have been distracted. So...can I borrow $50? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Actually I was hoping to tap you for $100, I'm skint.

[A Horse With No Name]

Two were direct replies to Horsey, I think. He must have me on ignore again (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Oh, there you are. I must have been distracted. So...can I borrow $50? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Actually I was hoping to tap you for $100, I'm skint.

And speaking of "ignore" -- when is little ol' you going to Friend me on Facebook, hmmm? I've been waiting to join your circle for some time, baby! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

[Lar]

And speaking of "ignore" -- when is little ol' you going to Friend me on Facebook, hmmm? I've been waiting to join your circle for some time, baby! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

I only friend people. And horses who have won me money.

[A Horse With No Name]

And speaking of "ignore" -- when is little ol' you going to Friend me on Facebook, hmmm? I've been waiting to join your circle for some time, baby! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

I only friend people. And horses who have won me money.

Boo hoo. You hurt my little feelings. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)

How can I possibly deal with such a harsh rejection? Perhaps this wise philosopher has the right idea:



This post has been edited by A Horse With No Name:

[Abd]

I can only say that in assuming such a large area of climate change falls withing you idea of cabal controlled you are actually self perpetuating te very thing you believe you are trying to avoid.

Spelling not strong suit of Polargeo, Abdosaur notices.

Cabal control of Climate Change articles, long-term, obvious. Covered by abundant evidence in various places, already cited. Covered by media.

Media reports have errors, sometimes, and Wikipediots point to errors as proof of delusion of media, preserving myth of There Is No Cabal.

Cabal not tightly organized, not Secret Conspiracy, except Secret Through Denial. Cabal is as Cabal does. Tag Team Reversion. Reversion to Preferred Version under Protection. Double Standards on Sourcing. Gross Incivility toward editors with contrary POV, and when editors respond in kind, preferentially blocked by cabal admins (or sometimes others pointed to the responding incivility).

There was a place where WMC, referring to efforts by uninvolved editors to open up Global warming, referred to "them" and "us." "Us" was clearly the cabal, the group of right-thinking editors, in his view, who could continue to exercise long-term control, as he was, by that time, quite accustomed to. WMC removed protection applied to Global Warming because of revert warring, by a neutral admin, Jennavecia, saying that there were "plenty of admins watching the article." Right. The ones who were revert warring! The cabal. Highly involved, in the traditional sense.

Lar was pointing out the obvious, in fact. Does that make him biased and "involved"?

Recusal policy is defective, as applied, but the kind of possible recusal requirement on Lar would never disallow him from commenting as "uninvolved," but, at most, require him to disclose history of "possible involvement," i.e., a history of comments or action when originally completely uninvolved.

Attempting to ding him for commenting as an uninvolved admin when his involvement was only as an uninvolved admin originally, and the comment was negative, say, is to push recusal requirements and the definition of "uninvolved" way too far. It would amount to exclusion of anyone who would come up with a negative finding.

Repeated use of admin tools by a single admin with respect to a single user should be covered by recusal policy, though. Lar has not done that. Nor should such use be allowed with respect to a cabal, or "faction," if you prefer. But in order to make that restriction real, we'd have to acknowledge the existence of such factions, eh?

No editor should be sanctioned for belonging to a "cabal," that was an error in dealing with the EEML. But for an admin to support friends with tools can be problematic, whether a "cabal" exists or not.

[A Horse With No Name]

Lar was pointing out the obvious, in fact. Does that make him biased and "involved"?

No, it just makes him...well, obvious. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ermm.gif)

But why deny the obvious, child? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[Cla68]

By the way, it looks like the ArbCom is going to go ahead and accept the Climate Change case, if anyone else here really cares. As I said before, those familiar with how the IDCab used to operate will probably recognize some of the behaviors that will soon be on display on the case's evidence page, including BLP violations and bullying of newbie editors who had the audacity to propose changes to "their" articles. In the long run, of course, it may not matter what the ArbCom concludes on this case if Wikipedia doesn't fix its governance model to head off these kinds of problems before they get this far.

[Moulton]

By the way, it looks like the ArbCom is going to go ahead and accept the Climate Change case, if anyone else here really cares. As I said before, those familiar with how the IDCab used to operate will probably recognize some of the behaviors that will soon be on display on the case's evidence page, including BLP violations and bullying of newbie editors who had the audacity to propose changes to "their" articles. In the long run, of course, it may not matter what the ArbCom concludes on this case if Wikipedia doesn't fix its governance model to head off these kinds of problems before they get this far.

Word.

What I'd like to factor out of this case is not specific characters and reprehensible miscreants who reprise the roles of FeloniousMonk, et al, but the generic structure of these recurring character-driven dramas.

[Lar]

The case has been accepted and opened. Dunno if it merits a separate thread. Some of the questions being asked (the case is structured rather differently, there is a period at the beginning to gather relevant questions that users would like to see ArbCom answer) are pretty fundamental, and get to the heart of how WP works.

There is also a tight time limit on evidence presentment.

[Moulton]

Contagion

Suggested issues to examine by Cla68

1) Has there been any extended abuse of BLP articles by a group of established editors, including one or more administrators?

2) Have any established editors, including one or more administrators, employed incivility including personal attacks, bullying, baiting, sarcasm, and insults over an extended period of time on the talk pages of any of the climate change articles? If so, did the behavior result in decreased cooperation, collaboration, and compromise in expanding or improving the content of those articles?

3) Have any established editors, including one or more administrators, displayed contempt, derision, or indifference towards Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, and/or article-improvement forums such as WP:Good Article or WP:Featured Article?

4) Have any established editors, including one or more administrators, used delaying tactics in article talk page discussions including non sequiturs, wikilawyering, and revert warring to impede addition of new content to any climate change articles?

5) Have any established editors who may have a conflict of interest, such as having a close personal or professional relationship with BLP subjects involved with climate change controversies, edited climate change articles in a way that could be interpreted as a violation of NPOV?

I would also like to see ArbCom take note of whether the pattern of generic abuses outlined above are pervasive in WikiCulture, and not just a rare departure from ethical best practices in this singular case. To the extent that this particular case illustrates and exemplifies such recurring departures from ethical best practices, how pervasive and contagious are these problems elsewhere in WP and its sister projects?

[Kelly Martin]

The issue I would love for them to consider is, of course, "Is there truly such a thing as the neutral point of view?" Is there any neutral point of view at all? If so, is it necessarily unique? Can there be more than one neutral point of view? Is is possible that Wikipedia has fetishized the concept of neutrality to the point that it no longer understands what neutrality is?

I note that none of the commentators on the workshop so far are willing to question the existence of the "neutral point of view". Someone needs to spike the kool-aid.

[Moulton]

It occurs to me that the so-called "Neutral Point of View" is actually a "Neurotic Point of View" in that one has to entertain multiple competing or mutually inconsistent points of view and express them all in some kind of overall net balance.

A good analogy would be a teeter-totter that is in balance. One can continually increase the weight on both sides whilst maintaining net balance. But eventually both sides are overloaded with wretched excess. NPOV addresses the requirement for net balance, but says nothing about the totality of weight piled up on all sides of an issue.

Personally, I prefer the journalistic notion of objectivity, wherein you show the whole picture, but you don't overexpose the film.

[Milton Roe]

It occurs to me that the so-called "Neutral Point of View" is actually a "Neurotic Point of View" in that one has to entertain multiple competing or mutually inconsistent points of view and express them all in some kind of overall net balance.

No, actually WP does not require competing points of view to be presented in net balance, or with equal space devoted the idea that the Earth is flat vs. that it is round.

What WP asks for is more subtle, and therefore impossible to either justify or refute when it is attempted (this makes for the subjective "game"). It is this: WP asks that competing views be presented with care and attention proportional to their representation in "reliable and verifiable" sources.

Well, how does one do that? The reliable and verifiable sources for a given subject may well fill a small library (suppose you're writing on the American civil war or atomic physics). Well, you have to make some kind of judgement and then re-synthesize the various academic points of view in a size that will fit into an encyclopedia article-section of 5 kb or less.

Now, of course, you can lay the blame on others and use tertiary sources that already attempt to do that. But you have to "cut" those radically in length also, and thus there is no escape from that sort of synthesis. Worse still, you'll find multiple summary sources, each of which has different emphases, and so you cannot escape the problem of personal judgement of the writer, which of course is original. When you end up selectively choosing from among sources, and this includes teriary ones, you are doing original literature research to try to put together a synopsis. Really, this is just the same thing that anybody writing a college paper or a book length academic study does, if they do it honestly (no cribbing or plagiarism).

Yes, Original Research and Synthesis are illegal on WP. But one cannot write a good and resonably sized WP article without breaking WP's rules, because those rules are contradictory. The "Single Mad Belief" of WP is that they aren't.

[Abd]

The case has been accepted and opened. Dunno if it merits a separate thread. Some of the questions being asked (the case is structured rather differently, there is a period at the beginning to gather relevant questions that users would like to see ArbCom answer) are pretty fundamental, and get to the heart of how WP works.

Fer sure.

Look, this was my case. Same people, same basic issues. I'd filed about WMC, and attempted to put two other names in there that were revert warred out. I made one accidental revert, truly didn't realize what was happening (how was I to expect that Mathsci would remove his own name from the list of parties!), and ArbComm decided to equally ding all the parties for "revert warring on case pages."

Then, when the usual suspects piled in to fill up the case pages with stuff that was completely irrelevant to the subject of the case, I pointed out this thing called collective involvement, where you may not have edited an article or had a specific dispute with a person you specifically blocked, but if you have a pattern of supporting the actions of someone who is involved, you might be involved yourself. I wasn't seeking to have these "cabal editors" sanctioned, at least not without warning! But ArbComm really didn't want to be exercised to look at it, the collective head was much more comfortable in the sand.

Lar started pointing out the obvious also, they went after him. But he was a little more, shall we say, socially defended.

There is also a tight time limit on evidence presentment.

Another Bad Idea. One something as deep as this, ArbComm should issue motions and injunctions based on the appearance of the case, but should not close it until opportunity has been given for all who might have evidence and arguments to present them. I.e., an injunction might be issued but later retracted or amended.

I've argued that ArbComm should seriously tighten up its process, it's possible that only some kind of privileged class of editor should be able to edit the actual case pages, or even just arbitrators. (My concept was that arbitrators could designate personal clerks who would do the job of filtering evidence for them. It is part of the concept of distribution of labor, under voluntary control by trusted people -- in this case, arbitrators being theoretically trusted, and then being able to delegate some measure of their authority. Arbs are overwhelmed, which, then, means that we have sometimes lost the best of them because real life intervened. But the essence of being an arb wouldn't necessarily be that the person is available to do the grunt work, and sifting through massive case submissions is just that, but someone with the judgment and discretion to pick good people, and generally supervise their work.

But how long will it take them to figure this out?

[Abd]

It occurs to me that the so-called "Neutral Point of View" is actually a "Neurotic Point of View" in that one has to entertain multiple competing or mutually inconsistent points of view and express them all in some kind of overall net balance.

A good analogy would be a teeter-totter that is in balance. One can continually increase the weight on both sides whilst maintaining net balance. But eventually both sides are overloaded with wretched excess. NPOV addresses the requirement for net balance, but says nothing about the totality of weight piled up on all sides of an issue.

Personally, I prefer the journalistic notion of objectivity, wherein you show the whole picture, but you don't overexpose the film.

The journalistic notion is good, but difficult to deepen. Presenting material neutrally is a rare skill, in fact. It is not impossible, and the necessary balance can be determined much more easily, but, to make a long story short, to realize the basic policy of NPOV, it is necessary to be able to seek and maximize true consensus, and as soon as you start banning a "POV-pusher" for just that, you can't find consensus any more. Rather, you guide and restrict behavior toward civil deliberation, you use sanctions gingerly never to punish or exclude, per se, but only to keep the process from blowing up. If a member of a deliberative body gets up and starts shouting, the sergeant-at-arms will conduct him or her from the room. "Blocked." But as soon as there is no fear of immediate disruption, the person can come back. And can, for example, move to "vacate the office of the chair," or handle whatever was pissing them off through proper procedure, designed to seek and find consensus, or at least a majority ruling.

Wikipedia fell into the idea that there were bad editors that should be excluded. Sure. Vandals, people with nothing but a policy-violating agenda with no legitimate purpose behind it, but even that becomes dangerous. I noticed that on Wikiversity there was a certain editor who obviously arrived there to push a Wikipedia conflict on the place. No, Moulton, I'm not thinking about you, though you sort of did that. This was one who was obviously extreme, and not there for any learning purpose, as far as I can see. The person suggested that they be given admin tools, and, in the end, they were. But, a condition was imposed by the mentor. That the person agree to removal of the tools on request by the mentor. Great idea. The user agreed, and was given the tools, made a few of edits, and never came back.

That was skillfully handled, in fact. Instead of a huge argument over hidden agendas, etc., the real risk was addressed, and the apparent troll -- or agenda-pusher, went away. Too boring, too likely to result in no gain. I'm very suspicious, in particular, about an anonymous editor coming from another WMF project, claiming lots of experience, but not revealing the other accounts. It's not sock puppetry, but ... when editors are banned from one project because of behavior on another, as was happening, shouldn't this apply to all sides?

(The policy of not holding 'outside behavior' against a user is sound, but when a user is clearly on a mission to attack another user, based on the other's behavior elsewhere, the shield of anonimity is not working for protection, it is working for aggression. Salmon of doubt, for those who want to know who I"m talking about.)

The idea that there is some specific "NPOV text" which somehow a skilled editor is supposed to create, all by himself or herself, is the problem. NPOV actually doesn't exist as a point of view, that's obvious. It is, rather, only a relative measure, determined by the level of genuine consensus that text enjoys. Because people will sometimes be extraordinarily stubborn, that level may not be 100%, but it is certainly maximizable to levels that people not accustomed to good consensus process may not anticipate.

Wikipedia needed, and still needs, structure to facilitate this negotiation and make it efficient. And Wikipedia seriously doesn't want to hear about it, overall.

It can be a lot of work to negotiate consensus, and many Wikipedia editors simply did not have the patience. Much easier to try to get the other side blocked. And admins themselves didn't have the skills at dispute resolution that they expected others to have. ArbComm members often lack these skills. Structural problems resulting from the naivete of the original community and leaders.

And then highly resistant to change. People who might know better and who attempt to help are identified as outsiders. Come back when you have spent a few thousand hours with relatively mindless tasks or you can prove you can create content to our standards. Skill with consensus process? Hah! Probably wants to be a wikilawyer and help vandals and POV-pushers to run the place. Block! Ban!

ArbComm has a chance to face a few of the basic issues, but I'm not holding my breath in anticipation.

The issue I would love for them to consider is, of course, "Is there truly such a thing as the neutral point of view?" Is there any neutral point of view at all? If so, is it necessarily unique? Can there be more than one neutral point of view? Is is possible that Wikipedia has fetishized the concept of neutrality to the point that it no longer understands what neutrality is?

I note that none of the commentators on the workshop so far are willing to question the existence of the "neutral point of view". Someone needs to spike the kool-aid.

It's really the wrong question, because, in fact, the neutral point of view doesn't exist in the abstract. It is only measured by consensus. To be sure, we must qualify "consensus" as "consensus of the knowledgeable" and "consensus of those willing to cooperate," but ... when I pointed this out before ArbComm, I was accused of being an elitist, someone seeking to exclude, which was the opposite of the case. I was just noting that there can be exceptions, reasons why one may not be able to attain 100% consensus. But in a small group it is usually possible. What will happen if there is a true "POV-pusher" in there, someone seeking to use Wikipedia for propagandistic purposes and who really doesn't at all care about neutrality and what's in the sources, is that it becomes obvious, when the person starts denying that what is in the sources is in the sources, or starts insisting on a "fact" that isn't, that has no basis in the sources. Excluding this person is rarely necessary, handled well by a skilled facilitator, they just disappear -- or, alternatively, become extremely disruptive because "nobody is listening to them." If there are thousands of editors, and nobody is listening, bad sign, don't you think?

If they become extremely disruptive, which is more than filling up their user space with essays, they can be warned and blocked. With apologies. Short blocks, with encouragement to stay within behavioral guidelines, which would never prohibit advocating a point of view, unless it is, itself, truly offensive (i.e., racist or gratuitously insulting to others, etc. Even somewhat offensive points of view can be tolerated, if not pushed down people's throats, but contained to deliberations where they serve the negotiation process.

I've been there, saying something that I know is true, but nobody listens. But ... it would be stupid of me to claim that the community should accept my position because "I'm right." No, obviously, if my position is to be accepted, I've got some work to do. I've got to first convince *one* person, not the whole damn community, I'll be wasting their time and mine.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Moulton]

Salmon of Doubt remains an unsolved mystery to me.

[Cla68]

The issue I would love for them to consider is, of course, "Is there truly such a thing as the neutral point of view?" Is there any neutral point of view at all? If so, is it necessarily unique? Can there be more than one neutral point of view? Is is possible that Wikipedia has fetishized the concept of neutrality to the point that it no longer understands what neutrality is?

I note that none of the commentators on the workshop so far are willing to question the existence of the "neutral point of view". Someone needs to spike the kool-aid.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying it, but it seems to me that an article is NPOV if you can't tell what side its writer is taking on the issue. For example, when I write a WWII article, I try to make it read like neither side was good or bad or deserved to win or the winning side's victory was inevitable.

With the global warming articles, its a little more complex than, I think, a lot of people realize. There are different levels of belief or skepticism involving the theory of human-caused climate warming. The beliefs range from alarmists who appear to truly believe the earth is doomed unless drastic action is taken very soon to deniers who think there actually has been no warming. Most people, of course, fall somewhere between those two positions. WMC and his group appear to lean towards the alarmist opinion and make little-to-no attempt to give any other position on the subject in the involved articles. What makes it worse is that, in my opinion, WMC is also trying to help his RealClimate colleague Dr. Michael E. Mann and friend and Climategate participant Phil Jones, whose research and ethics are, to say the least, under rather severe scrutiny with both scientists' reputations and careers at stake.

So, what ends up happening in the global warming articles is that WMC's cabal fights tenaciously over any proposed information addition to any of the global warming articles, including BLPs, which appear to water down to any extent the more alarmist position on warming. A case in point is the recent battle over the Gore Effect article. The only topic area I've seen besides global warming where involved editors tried so hard to keep information out was in the Palestine/Israel articles. In that case, however, both sides were often trying to do it. With Global Warming only one side is usually trying to keep information out that they don't like, no matter how reliably sourced it is.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Kato]

...and Climategate participant Phil Jones, whose research and ethics are, to say the least, under rather severe scrutiny with both scientists' reputations and careers at stake.

You've been hoaxed. There were no ethical or research issues revealed in the East Anglia emails. People were duped by a crude hatchet job aimed to discredit climate scientists before Copenhagen.

Even before the smoke cleared, it became obvious from the source material that nothing untoward was going on in East Anglia. It took seconds to check and realise that the examples given by the conspiracy goons were taken completely out of context.

In fact, it was one of the crudest and ugliest smear jobs you'll ever see. That it worked, and the likes of Cla68 are still quoting "climategate" and Phil Jones long after the hoax was revealed, shows how low our standards are when looking for 'evidence' to back up our opinions.

I don't care for William Connelly's antics, but in that climate (if you will) of outrageous smear and propaganda, its no wonder he's going around cracking heads.

If the truth can be so publicly assaulted by such rhetorical thuggery, along with over a decade of legitimate essential scientific research, with nary a single voice in defence, then Connelly can behave how he likes on Wikipedia as far as I'm concerned.

[HRIP7]

If the truth can be so publicly assaulted by such rhetorical thuggery, along with over a decade of legitimate essential scientific research, with nary a single voice in defence, then Connelly can behave how he likes on Wikipedia as far as I'm concerned.

The thing is, if WMC goes over the top, as he did – in my opinion – in the Fred Singer (T-H-L-K-D) BLP, he is actually making it easier for climate skeptics to argue that the other side is playing dirty.

I liked SlimVirgin's version of the Singer BLP, which WMC resisted so strongly, much better. Reading it, there are plenty of warning signs in Singer's CV that he may simply have acquired a habit of selling his name and considerable reputation to the highest bidders. And the thought occurs that at 85, he may not be very concerned about climate developments 20 or 50 years down the line. All that is still there for readers to think about, but they'll no longer come away with the feeling that the Singer BLP is a hatchet job written by his opponents.

[Cla68]

...and Climategate participant Phil Jones, whose research and ethics are, to say the least, under rather severe scrutiny with both scientists' reputations and careers at stake.

You've been hoaxed. There were no ethical or research issues revealed in the East Anglia emails. People were duped by a crude hatchet job aimed to discredit climate scientists before Copenhagen.

Even before the smoke cleared, it became obvious from the source material that nothing untoward was going on in East Anglia. It took seconds to check and realise that the examples given by the conspiracy goons were taken completely out of context.

In fact, it was one of the crudest and ugliest smear jobs you'll ever see. That it worked, and the likes of Cla68 are still quoting "climategate" and Phil Jones long after the hoax was revealed, shows how low our standards are when looking for 'evidence' to back up our opinions.

I don't care for William Connelly's antics, but in that climate (if you will) of outrageous smear and propaganda, its no wonder he's going around cracking heads.

If the truth can be so publicly assaulted by such rhetorical thuggery, along with over a decade of legitimate essential scientific research, with nary a single voice in defence, then Connelly can behave how he likes on Wikipedia as far as I'm concerned.

I have read the controversial Climategate emails, and have studied the context surrounding them. We can discuss them in a Lounge thread if you like.

As far as Wikipedia is concerned, the emails give me more reason to argue that Connolley should not be editing climate change in Wikipedia, especially BLPs of warming contrarians like Singer. I'll be including my reasoning in a section in my evidence presentation.

In short, one of the reasons is that much of the Climategate emails details a battle between two blogs and their crews- RealClimate and Climate Audit. WMC openly represents RealClimate and like Mann, Jones, and a few others' hostile attitude in their dealings with Climate Audit's McIntyre, McKitrick and a few others requests for data and information, WMC has carried that same battleground attitude into Wikipedia. Whether you or I agree with Jones and Mann or with McIntyre and McKitrick or with all or none of them is immaterial. Wikipedia is not supposed to be taking a side in that battle. WMC and his crew are trying to get Wikipedia to take a side.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[EricBarbour]

Salmon of Doubt remains an unsolved mystery to me.

This whole twisted, arcane, pointless business is a mystery to me. These people are not settling a scientific disagreement, they are throwing spitballs at each other---apparently on blogs, as well as WP.

Feels like 7th grade homeroom all over again. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/angry.gif)

[Moulton]

Salmon of Doubt remains an unsolved mystery to me.

This whole twisted, arcane, pointless business is a mystery to me. These people are not settling a scientific disagreement, they are throwing spitballs at each other---apparently on blogs, as well as WP.

Feels like 7th grade homeroom all over again. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/angry.gif)

Like I said, these Middle School skirmishes are the least of my concern.

I don't even know how to educate the general public on fundamental issues of basic science.

[Lar]

I don't care for William Connelly's antics, but in that climate (if you will) of outrageous smear and propaganda, its no wonder he's going around cracking heads.

If the truth can be so publicly assaulted by such rhetorical thuggery, along with over a decade of legitimate essential scientific research, with nary a single voice in defence, then Connelly can behave how he likes on Wikipedia as far as I'm concerned.

I don't really know what happened with the emails, or the blogs... that isn't the biggest issue, really.

I do know that climate change is a very serious issue facing us all. It may be the most serious issue we've ever faced, barring nuclear war.

That's why one of the questions I asked was whether Wikipedia should suspend the normal way it does things in this area, and make it explicit that there is POV control in place. I think it's better to be explicit than implicit, if that's the right thing to do.

Hipocrite characterized that question as "assuming the conclusion" (i.e. ... no it should not). But he or she is incorrect. I seriously think consideration should be given to that. But make it explicit, not implicit, as we have now. I expect that may not be a popular view.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The only topic area I've seen besides global warming where involved editors tried so hard to keep information out was in the Palestine/Israel articles. In that case, however, both sides were often trying to do it. With Global Warming only one side is usually trying to keep information out that they don't like, no matter how reliably sourced it is.

I could mention some other topics where you will find this phenomenon. Be that as it may, this is the hallmark of the true POV pusher.

There were no ethical or research issues revealed in the East Anglia emails.

Yeah, right.

That's why one of the questions I asked was whether Wikipedia should suspend the normal way it does things in this area, and make it explicit that there is POV control in place. I think it's better to be explicit than implicit, if that's the right thing to do.

That would undermine the entire system at Wikipedia (see WP:NOTNot!.)

[Lar]

That would undermine the entire system at Wikipedia (see WP:NOTNot!.)

I'm aware of that, yes.

My question is... IS this important enough that it should outweigh such considerations. I honestly don't know the answer, which is why I asked. But the system is currently undermined anyway, IMHO. Better explicit than implicit.

[A Horse With No Name]

I do know that climate change is a very serious issue facing us all. It may be the most serious issue we've ever faced, barring nuclear war.

Why do you want to bar NuclearWarfare? What did that kid ever do to you? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[Zoloft]

I do know that climate change is a very serious issue facing us all. It may be the most serious issue we've ever faced, barring nuclear war.

Why do you want to bar NuclearWarfare? What did that kid ever do to you? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

The only winning move is not to play his game.

[Moulton]

It's a well-established theorem that every system (other than utterly trivial ones) have an Achilles' Heel, which will trip them up. WP has a lot of such Achilles' Heels, and it's only a matter of time before one of them will do the job. It could well be Climate Change and the machinations around editing the articles on the subject. But sooner or later, the system, as it is currently constructed, has to evolve or else it will die of paralytic dysfunctionality.

[Abd]

Salmon of Doubt remains an unsolved mystery to me.

Other-wiki identity is a mystery, perhaps, but the agenda was not.

[Moulton]

Salmon of Doubt remains an unsolved mystery to me.

Other-wiki identity is a mystery, perhaps, but the agenda was not.

His agenda was very clear. He said, in plain English, that he was a "suicide bomber" sent there to take me out (and willing to die in the process).

So what did they do?

They made him an Admin.

[Abd]

I do know that climate change is a very serious issue facing us all. It may be the most serious issue we've ever faced, barring nuclear war.

I agree, which is precisely why neutral presentation of the evidence, the sources, is so important. I've seen huge public policy errors be based on a set of "scientists" agreeing to promote what they believed was very important, bypassing the process of scientific review.

If the scientific consensus is in a particular direction, certainly the article should reflect that, but "scientific consensus," when these huge political motives become involved, is sometimes different from the image.

What I saw at the climate change articles, which is where I first confronted WMC et al, was a clearly biased presentation of the subject, with the most obvious and clear compromises opposed with edit warring and occasionally abuse of tools, as "whitewashing," for example. That term reflects an agenda to "blacken," in fact, and what was being done was, for example, to present the actual definitions of terms used in scientific reports, where they differed from popular usage, so that the reader would know what was meant. But the popular meaning was what the cabal wanted the reader to think, so it was impossible to find a consensus and keep the actual -- and neutral -- information in the article. Too much detail, they claimed, too confusing.

Right. They didn't want confused readers, they wanted readers who would believe what they wanted them to believe. It could not have been more obvious.

[Abd]

Salmon of Doubt remains an unsolved mystery to me.

Other-wiki identity is a mystery, perhaps, but the agenda was not.

His agenda was very clear. He said, in plain English, that he was a "suicide bomber" sent there to take me out (and willing to die in the process).

So what did they do?

They made him an Admin.

Yes. His mission was clear. His identity even might be under a reasonable suspicion. But so what? It's completely moot. I almost hope he dares to edit again, so he'd create more evidence. But that's just a toot. If I cared enough I"d go over what evidence there is.

But I don't.

Yes, he was made an administrator. And the harm done was? That action completely defused what could have become quite another cause of disruption, and that, without it, could have led to him possibly becoming an administrator without certain crucial protections.

Point is, it worked. He became an admin and all his protestations of how much he wanted to help with his expertise proved to be totally fluff. The whole thing is just another piece of history, showing how wikis function and don't function.

Moulton, it seems you think that becoming an administrator is a reward. Some reward! Perhaps you should be an admin on Wikiversity, you might make a good one, except for the fact that it is dull, boring work, most of the time, and if you use your tools to do what you might *want* to do, you are, practically by definition, abusive, and you are either then becoming part of the dark side, or you'll be defending your tools, big mess, not worth it.

Very easy to sit back and take potshots at admins who don't do it the way you think they should. Very easy, and far short of showing deep understanding. There are reasons for the structure that exists, as defective as it is. That's usually true for social structures that last more than a few months....

Being an admin on Wikiversity means that I get to deal with image copyvio, absolutely my favorite activity. I get to make delete decisions on articles that are probably a complete waste of everyone's time. But maybe one isn't. Any Wikipedia admin knows what it's like, and it's much worse on Wikipedia. There is a reason why admins become abusive! The structure leads them to lose patience, plus, of course, it also selects for certain personality problems.

Salmon of Doubt wrote that he could fix certain technical problems. SBJohnny called his bluff, so to speak. Okay, fix them. Let me watch! It's a wiki, after all, if he blocks someone improperly, all SBJ would have to do is unblock and go straight to meta for desysop, he asked for, and got, the right to do that. It was practically like a convict seeking to be a trusty. Sure, you can sweep the yard. Here's a broom. And one false move, notice the guards on the catwalk with automatic weapons?

Thanks for volunteering, sucker!

In fact, Salmon of Doubt did practically nothing as an admin. He just stirred up a very obvious and visible fuss as an ordinary user. Anyone could have done it, and you were vulnerable. I know whom you suspect, since you've told me, and, yes, that editor has done similar stuff elsewhere, and that the user hasn't been indeffed is just a matter of how long it takes the wheels to turn. It's amazing how long it takes sometimes. He has powerful friends, but they get ground up eventually too....

He knew he was being watched. You can't hide on Wikiversity like you can on Wikipedia. I can easily review every single edit every day on WV, and every admin action -- and my actions are similarly visible.

[SB_Johnny]

Salmon of Doubt remains an unsolved mystery to me.

Other-wiki identity is a mystery, perhaps, but the agenda was not.

His agenda was very clear. He said, in plain English, that he was a "suicide bomber" sent there to take me out (and willing to die in the process).

So what did they do?

They made him an Admin.

"They" = me. I thought we talked about that before, but it was really just a matter of him complaining ad nauseum and annoying the shit out of me, so I gave him the tools and told him to go ahead and take care of it himself in a way that "followed policy". He figured out that he couldn't do squat (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif).

You're not the only one who believes in dialectical teaching, my friend. In this case, it was fun to just imagine the dialectic going on in his own silly head, as well as a reprieve from his constant nagging that "the admins do something". Epic win for both of us, as far as I'm concerned (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif).

That would undermine the entire system at Wikipedia (see WP:NOTNot!.)

I'm aware of that, yes.

My question is... IS this important enough that it should outweigh such considerations. I honestly don't know the answer, which is why I asked. But the system is currently undermined anyway, IMHO. Better explicit than implicit.

No offense, Lar, but my question about your question is: "who gives a shit what the Wikipedia article says?"

Our difference in views about WP's potential makes your argument just as valid as mine, of course, but I think my view is right and yours wrong, of course. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

[ulsterman]

No offense, Lar, but my question about your question is: "who gives a shit what the Wikipedia article says?"

If Wikipedia didn't matter, if nobody cared what Wikipedia articles say, this site wouldn't exist. Wikipedia matters because it ranks very high in Google searches and many people believe what it says. In the case of global warming, Wikipedia ranks top.

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q...obal+warming%22

No doubt thousands of people have read that article, maybe more than have read anything else substantial about it.

[SB_Johnny]

No offense, Lar, but my question about your question is: "who gives a shit what the Wikipedia article says?"

If Wikipedia didn't matter, if nobody cared what Wikipedia articles say, this site wouldn't exist. Wikipedia matters because it ranks very high in Google searches and many people believe what it says. In the case of global warming, Wikipedia ranks top.

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q...obal+warming%22

No doubt thousands of people have read that article, maybe more than have read anything else substantial about it.

There's a wee little gray area between "Wikipedia can work!" and "hasten the day!", but it's probably not so obvious to those who state the obvious in the belief that they're being profound. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

[Herschelkrustofsky]

If the scientific consensus is in a particular direction, certainly the article should reflect that, but "scientific consensus," when these huge political motives become involved, is sometimes different from the image.

The past decades have seen science routinely subordinated to political agendas, which is relatively easy to do, since scientists are forced to woo those who provide the funding. This sort of thing is death to real science, of course, and the sort of systematic corruption exemplified by the East Anglia emails was inevitable. The tactic of Wild Bill and his cohorts, of suppressing data that conflict with the agenda, is only a reflection of the mentality and the methodology that produced the infamous Hockey Stick graph (I won't even bother to link to the WP article on that one.)

[Cla68]

If the scientific consensus is in a particular direction, certainly the article should reflect that, but "scientific consensus," when these huge political motives become involved, is sometimes different from the image.

The past decades have seen science routinely subordinated to political agendas, which is relatively easy to do, since scientists are forced to woo those who provide the funding. This sort of thing is death to real science, of course, and the sort of systematic corruption exemplified by the East Anglia emails was inevitable. The tactic of Wild Bill and his cohorts, of suppressing data that conflict with the agenda, is only a reflection of the mentality and the methodology that produced the infamous Hockey Stick graph (I won't even bother to link to the WP article on that one.)

Note in the Wikipedia article on the Hockey stick controversy all the uses of RealClimate as a source to give Mann's side and then note who added the RealClimate references. To be fair, Climate Audit's side is also given to a certain extent using Climate Audit as the source but, in my opinion, this was done mainly to justify using RealClimate as a source. From what I understand, Mann and his close colleagues (including WMC) started RealClimate in 2005 at least in part to counter criticism of their hockey stick graph research. WMC has done his part to ensure that RealClimate's opinions on climate change are included as much as possible in Wikipedia's global warming articles. Yes, this is related to the ClimateGate emails.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Moulton]

Moulton, it seems you think that becoming an administrator is a reward.

It's more like giving an angry child a gun (and telling him not to shoot anyone in anger).

I dunno if SoD learned anything, but I doubt it.

[Lar]

My question is... IS this important enough that it should outweigh such considerations. I honestly don't know the answer, which is why I asked. But the system is currently undermined anyway, IMHO. Better explicit than implicit.

No offense, Lar, but my question about your question is: "who gives a shit what the Wikipedia article says?"

The problem is that WP articles are often the first thing returned in searches, and that many readers don't go beyond the first thing returned. That means what the articles say matters. Unfortunately.

[taiwopanfob]

The problem is that WP articles are often the first thing returned in searches, and that many readers don't go beyond the first thing returned. That means what the articles say matters. Unfortunately.

So, if I understand this right, your solution to the problem that, per Moulton, we live in a political culture, and not a scientific one, is to explicitly ignore the politics and pump the science re: the global warming article? "For the good of the planet", or somesuch?

Strikes me as a massive miss on almost all fronts.

I think a better one would be to tell the plain, simple, truth. Digitally tatoo upon every last article at the project -- not just the ones about Global Warming, but all of them -- a huge blinking warning, red on black, written in 120 point type that screams:

WIKIPEDIA IS INHERENTLY UNRELIABLE. ALL WIKI-INFORMATION IS POTENTIALLY TOXIC; FOLLOW HAZARDOUS MATERIALS HANDLING PROTOCOLS.

[Lar]

The problem is that WP articles are often the first thing returned in searches, and that many readers don't go beyond the first thing returned. That means what the articles say matters. Unfortunately.

So, if I understand this right, your solution to the problem that, per Moulton, we live in a political culture, and not a scientific one, is to explicitly ignore the politics and pump the science re: the global warming article? "For the good of the planet", or somesuch?

No.

I've opined before that I think the science/non (politics, economics, sociological) balance in the lead is tilted too far toward science. so that part's not correct.

As for your other suggestion, maybe. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I've opined before that I think the science/non (politics, economics, sociological) balance in the lead is tilted too far toward science.

It's a bit of a conundrum, because the purported science is tilted too far toward politics.

[Sxeptomaniac]

The problem is that WP articles are often the first thing returned in searches, and that many readers don't go beyond the first thing returned. That means what the articles say matters. Unfortunately.

So, if I understand this right, your solution to the problem that, per Moulton, we live in a political culture, and not a scientific one, is to explicitly ignore the politics and pump the science re: the global warming article? "For the good of the planet", or somesuch?

No.

I've opined before that I think the science/non (politics, economics, sociological) balance in the lead is tilted too far toward science. so that part's not correct.

As for your other suggestion, maybe. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Just as with the anti-ID group, it's not surprising that they would decide the only information that matters is what they themselves believe to be important. As we saw when addressing undue weight on Rosalind Picard's article, they believed their interests outweighed anything else, to the point of making absurd arguments that one signature was more notable than publishing books.

It's the same thing here. They would like to eliminate the politics around global warming issues because it's inconvenient and removes emphasis from what they consider important.

[Abd]

I've opined before that I think the science/non (politics, economics, sociological) balance in the lead is tilted too far toward science.

It's a bit of a conundrum, because the purported science is tilted too far toward politics.

Obviously, this is debatable, but one thing is, or should be, generally clear: any topic of public controversy is actually more than one topic, and the topics have different kinds of sources.

The science of climate process (change is a possibly biased title, though it's not terrible) is one thing. The page would be a science article, with the appropriate standards for such. The politics of climate change is a very different topic, and experts on this topic are not necessarily scientists at all, and the publications are, for the most part, not peer-reviewed journals.

And then there are the related biographies. There are incidents and scandals that might have their own articles. Wikipedia has a flat structural model, but it is organized through portals and categories.

Generally, the CC cabal would insist on tight, scientific sourcing for the Global warming article, for example, but would also revert war to keep out scientific RS'd text on the skeptical side -- there is some, even if only a little -- out of the article, but they would not, then, arrange for separate articles to cover a topic where inclusion would bring the article out of balance (and See also or a brief section summarizing another page doesn't take an article out of balance as long as the sources are of roughly equivalent quality. But none of this should be an absolute standard, the real standard should always be editorial consensus; otherwise the article has owners, even if the owner is a faction and not just an individual.

For the politics, sources would be more general media sources, usually. Newspapers, editorials, some blogs are possible if they are notable, etc. For advocacy organizations, the organization's web site, once the organization is established as notable, which requires independent coverage, can be considered a reliable source on positions of the organization, which would always be attributed. Etc.

By the tight exclusionary behavior, the cabal seriously damaged the consensus process, preferentially excluding editors with different points of view, the only ones likely to notice problems with the majority point of view, which can be defectively expressed when it comes to neutrality.

When that process is damaged, the perception of neutrality and reliability is also damaged, as well as, sometimes, the reality of those necessary qualities.

[Abd]

Moulton, it seems you think that becoming an administrator is a reward.

It's more like giving an angry child a gun (and telling him not to shoot anyone in anger).

I dunno if SoD learned anything, but I doubt it.

SoD learned that he couldn't outfox SBJohnny. I don't care of SoD learned anything, particularly. He was not there to learn.

"Adminship" is not like giving an angry child a gun, per se, rather adminship given to an immature and angry person is like that. Except, Moulton, it's not a gun and the tools don't allow the child to kill anyone. The problem is lack of supervision. There is nothing wrong with giving admin tools to children on a wiki (not generally, anyway beyond issues of what might become visible to them, etc., I'd want to see parental permission, for example, under the age of consent, and maybe that should be the limit; but maturity isn't automatic with age. I'm living proof!)

These immature administrators on Wikipedia are mostly unsupervised. That's not the case on Wikiversity. Any user who wants to know what's going on there, at this point, can look at Recent Changes. It's easy, there isn't all that much traffic. It's easy to review the logs and see what's been deleted and who has been blocked. If I screw up, I find, it's immediately seen and there is comment and helpful correction. SoD didn't have a chance, and if he'd decided to use those tools improperly, all it would have taken is one person noticing it and complaining. SBJohnny wasn't fooled. He called the bluff of SoD, in one of the more skillful and beautiful pieces of wikipolitics I've seen. Pure benefit, no down side, as long as he was around to watch and handle it. (That would have been the only defect, if he became unavailable.)

And when SoD announced he would be away for a while, SBJ asked him to check in the keys, if he didn't mind.... and if he'd minded, SBJ, I'm assuming, would have taken them anyway. He'd arranged prior consent to SBJ requesting tool return from a Steward, for that to be done. It really should be general for WV admins, with the "probationary custodianship" provision.

I wrote, in my RfA (custodian) there, that any action of mine as a probationary custodian could be reversed by any admin who supported my RfA, and that, if I did not keep this promise, I consented to being desysopped immediately by a bureaucrat on the request of any of these admins. There was a possible attempt to convert this into some kind of prejudice against non-admins which it surely wasn't. I've been explicit that admins have no superior rights except in acting as servants of consensus, which is only provisional and temporary.

This understanding, which was clear to me from early on at Wikipedia, as being the theory behind the adhocracy, I later found wasn't at all understood by many admins. There are quite a few who, based on what they've stated to ArbComm in various cases, should be desysopped based on the danger that they will act as they have claimed is legitimate, until they assure ArbComm they now understand recusal policy and will not violate it. Not a punishment for speech, rather a protection based on clear danger.

But ArbComm is terrified of offending the "critical volunteers." The fact is that there would be more volunteers than the project would need, *if* there were mentored adminship like that on Wikiversity. I see no reason not to do it on Wikipedia. There simply need to be rules for probationary admins, clear ones, and rules for mentorship, with assigned responsibility to watch and review a probationary admin's actions. That review needn't be by an admin, necessarily, but by a trusted member of the community, it's at least as important as the reliability of the admin himself or herself. It's like having watched articles: watched admins. An admin who doesn't want to be watched shouldn't be an admin. I can say, being watched at Wikiversity makes me feel much safer. If I screw up, someone will tell me, quickly. Gradually, that watching will fall away, I assume.

But every admin should have what I'd call a recall committee, a set of active admins who have the authority to immediately request the admin stop some action or class of actions. This would be explicitly accepted, with named admins, as part of the RfA. (They would not be hostile admins, to be sure, but would be those offering to mentor and being accepted in that role, and being responsible to, themselves, not be abusive in that.)

I also argued before ArbComm that any admin should, emergencies excepted, where different rules apply, recuse from using tools with respect to any user who requests it. That was thought preposterous, because recusal is often not understood.... If I block VandalOckSay, and VandalOcksay then asks -- or demands -- that I recuse, I don't therefore unblock! Rather, I make the evidence on which I blocked plain and clear and stand aside, agreeing to not consider reversal of my decision to be wheel-warring. Now, suppose VandalOckSay does this for three admins in a row, say. VandalOcksay remains blocked until a fourth one shows up. And what does this fourth admin do? Obviously, it depends on the evidence, but ... the most likely outcome is far from the victory for wikilawyering that was claimed would happen. VandalOckSay is indef blocked, quite likely.

That's with a large site. On smaller sites, one can't go that far, but an unblocking admin, if there is any reasonal objection to the editor's behavior, would set conditions for unblock that would address this. If the editor refuses to comply, or violates the agreement, that admin could block and recuse on request. Not a good idea for the user unless the user really does feel the admin is biased. And attacking a blocking admin on the basis of bias is absolutely not the way to get unblocked! Almost never works.

[ulsterman]

If Wikipedia didn't matter, if nobody cared what Wikipedia articles say, this site wouldn't exist. Wikipedia matters because it ranks very high in Google searches and many people believe what it says. In the case of global warming, Wikipedia ranks top.

The problem is that WP articles are often the first thing returned in searches, and that many readers don't go beyond the first thing returned. That means what the articles say matters. Unfortunately.

It is always good to be supported by someone of the calibre of Lar.

There's a wee little gray area between "Wikipedia can work!" and "hasten the day!", but it's probably not so obvious to those who state the obvious in the belief that they're being profound.

This seems to bear no relation to what I said so I don't know how to respond. Did I give any indication of where I am in this grey area?

This post has been edited by ulsterman:

[Moulton]

It's remarkable that just in the last four posts there are independent references back to the Picard BLP and Wikiversity Follies. This nonsense has been going on for nearly three years already.

And just today, JWSchmidt published yet another blog post about it.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

And the quest for drama continues.

[CharlotteWebb]

It is always good to be supported by someone of the calibre of Lar.

Yeah. I believe you've said that before.

[Cla68]

And the quest for drama continues.

That is referring to this I believe and this discussion. I've heard that at least a couple of the IDCab regulars changed user names. I do see some familiar names in action here. The global warming topic is related somewhat to the Intelligent Design episode, in that some of the involved editors apparently believe they're fighting to save civilization from anti-science religious fanatics.

By the way, Hipocrite used to be this editor, who does appear to believe in that cause. If I remember right, he wrote an anti-Wikipedia Review essay at one point, naming editors (including me) who were members here. I don't know what happened to it.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Jon Awbrey]

And the quest for drama continues.

That is referring to this I believe. I've heard that at least a couple of the IDCab regulars changed user names. I do see some familiar names in action here. The global warming topic is related somewhat to the Intelligent Design episode, in that some of the involved editors apparently believe they're fighting to save civilization from anti-science religious fanatics.

By the way, Hipocrite used to be this editor, who does appear to believe in that cause. If I remember right, he wrote an anti-Wikipedia Review essay at one point, naming editors (including me) who were members here. I don't know what happened to it.

Pseudonymous Science Promoter = Pseudo-Science Promoter

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

[thegoodlocust]

The global warming topic is related somewhat to the Intelligent Design episode, in that some of the involved editors apparently believe they're fighting to save civilization from anti-science religious fanatics.

I suppose they must've missed my thoughts on the subject then - oh well.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The global warming topic is related somewhat to the Intelligent Design episode, in that some of the involved editors apparently believe they're fighting to save civilization from anti-science religious fanatics.

Ironically enough, it seems that Bill Connelly and the AGW promoters may feel the same way.

I suppose they must've missed my thoughts on the subject then - oh well.

Not bad, although atheism is a rather dull persuasion. I approach it differently, from a mix of Deism and Vernadsky-ism: the universe has a purpose, and that purpose is to evolve into ever more complex and energetic systems. The emergence of humanity (and whatever other intelligent life may exist out there) plays a critical role in this process, in that it accelerates the process by making it willful and adding a new dimension of creativity. Although humans are capable of screwing up, their contribution is generally positive and in fact necessary to the well-being of nature. Plus, since eventually we will need to terraform other planets, we should be practicing on this one. The AGW promoters, when they are not hiding a neo-colonial agenda, are basically misanthropic spoilsports, and feudalist Romantics/reactionaries.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I think this indictment of KDP's selective application of policy is highly useful, because it provides a snapshot of the primary way that POV warfare is carried out by veteran Wikipediots.

[Lar]

I think this indictment of KDP's selective application of policy is highly useful, because it provides a snapshot of the primary way that POV warfare is carried out by veteran Wikipediots.

JohnWBarber has done a superb job of presenting evidence and putting forth proposals. Some of the best evidence in the case comes from him (and Cla68, mind, but that goes without saying).

And yes. selective enforcement of policy is a very powerful technique for a faction to use. Followed closely by rewriting policy when needed.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

And the quest for drama continues.

That is referring to this I believe and this discussion.

This is interesting, because it looks as if SlimVirgin is experiencing bouts of temporary sanity. The concept of SPOV is chimerical, however, because nothing in science is ever settled, and the assertion of SPOV becomes just another facet of POV warfare.

[thegoodlocust]

Not bad, although atheism is a rather dull persuasion.

I agree, non-fiction is incredibly boring, but I try to make up for it in other ways (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif).

I approach it differently, from a mix of Deism and Vernadsky-ism: the universe has a purpose, and that purpose is to evolve into ever more complex and energetic systems.

So you believe in an "eternal" universe?

The AGW promoters, when they are not hiding a neo-colonial agenda, are basically misanthropic spoilsports, and feudalist Romantics/reactionaries.

Well, it is interesting how the Malthusian excuses are all different, but the solutions are all the same - vegetarianism, population reduction, de-industrialization, etc (not that their leaders ever practice what they preach).

[anthony]

The global warming topic is related somewhat to the Intelligent Design episode, in that some of the involved editors apparently believe they're fighting to save civilization from anti-science religious fanatics.

I suppose they must've missed my thoughts on the subject then - oh well.

Unfortunately, correlation has never and can never prove causation – the only way to establish causation with regards to global warming would be to take a few identical planets, alter their CO² levels and then measure the effects. This is clearly beyond our current means and since such a scientific experiment is not possible, the AGW hypothesis cannot be disproved which makes it completely at odds with the scientific method.

So, by that argument, is evolution also "completely at odds with the scientific method"?

[Somey]

Unfortunately, correlation has never and can never prove causation – the only way to establish causation with regards to global warming would be to take a few identical planets, alter their CO² levels and then measure the effects. This is clearly beyond our current means and since such a scientific experiment is not possible, the AGW hypothesis cannot be disproved which makes it completely at odds with the scientific method.

So, by that argument, is evolution also "completely at odds with the scientific method"?

I wouldn't think so. The evolutionary path of one species can be inferred by analyzing the evolutionary path of other species, and there are plenty of species, at least until they all die off due to drastic changes in climatic conditions. And the question of "cause" isn't as significant with evolution - IOW, whether it's due more to natural selection or genetic mutation is fairly academic, and has little to do with the more socially-significant issue of whether or not evolution is "real" or not. (Though of course, that shouldn't really be an issue at all.)

Besides, that quote above argues from a false premiss - what the scientists are actually saying is that humans contribute to the CO2 increase and therefore climate change, not "cause" it. This use of the word "correlation" is a red herring. Humans only "cause" a significant increase in the rate of CO2 increase that's been observed in the last few decades... Moreover, if you can prove that a rise in CO2 causes a greenhouse effect (and therefore rising temps) in a micro-environment, you should be able to fairly infer such an effect in the global environment (though this is still considered debatable by skeptics, etc., possibly for good reason). So correlation is at least relevant to the problem, if not crucial.

Regardless, good people don't gamble with the future of humanity by quibbling over semantics, or fiddling while Rome burns, to use the closest historical analogy; bad people (like me, apparently) do that. There's definitely something to be said for the argument that fears of global warming are used as a means of holding back progress in the underdeveloped world, though, but that's short-term (or at best, medium-term) thinking, and I personally try to do as little of that as possible.

[thegoodlocust]

Besides, that quote above argues from a false premiss - what the scientists are actually saying is that humans contribute to the CO2 increase and therefore climate change, not "cause" it.

Depends on who you are asking - the general message has been that "climate change" is caused by humans, which, I agree, is ridiculous if you look at the historical records. It is even more ridiculous when you look at how they have environmental activists like Hansen in charge of the historical temps who have after-the-fact "adjusted" temp records to be cooler in order to create a "warming" trend.

Humans only "cause" a significant increase in the rate of CO2 increase that's been observed in the last few decades...

At best we contribute about 4% of the CO2 emissions - CO2 has been going down for a very long time, IIRC mostly due to the enormous length of time it is sequestered in the oceans. This is not a good thing - most creatures on the planet have evolved at higher levels of CO2 and the levels were (apparently) getting close to the point that plant growth would've been severely retarded or stopped.

Moreover, if you can prove that a rise in CO2 causes a greenhouse effect (and therefore rising temps) in a micro-environment, you should be able to fairly infer such an effect in the global environment (though this is still considered debatable by skeptics, etc., possibly for good reason). So correlation is at least relevant to the problem, if not crucial.

That isn't the problem. I agree that CO2 could theoretically cause some warming, but all the catastrophic models are based entirely on theoretical positive feedbacks. Also, CO2 is masked by water vapor which means its effects should be most noticeable at the poles due to low/nil concentrations of water vapor in the atmosphere and during winter and while the arctic appears to be warming, the antarctic has been cooling - the theory does not seem to stand up to the test of time (just like it hasn't warmed for 15 years).

Also, CO2's heating effects are supposed to be logarithmic, no linear increase in heat is predicted through CO2 alone, which is again why they must rely on computer models and theoretical positive feedbacks.

Regardless, good people don't gamble with the future of humanity by quibbling over semantics, or fiddling while Rome burns, to use the closest historical analogy; bad people (like me, apparently) do that. There's definitely something to be said for the argument that fears of global warming are used as a means of holding back progress in the underdeveloped world, though, but that's short-term (or at best, medium-term) thinking, and I personally try to do as little of that as possible.

As I said in my essay, this is similar to arguments used by the religious to con people into converting - be very afraid of the consequences because you could go to hell and burn for all eternity. The difference, of course, is that being religious (these days) isn't generally that malevolent, but the actions proposed by global warming enthusiasts will and are causing harm - millions of people are starving because the US has converted some of its food producing capacity into making biofuels.

People need to realize that theoretical lives are not worth more than actual lives.

[SB_Johnny]

As I said in my essay, this is similar to arguments used by the religious to con people into converting - be very afraid of the consequences because you could go to hell and burn for all eternity. The difference, of course, is that being religious (these days) isn't generally that malevolent, but the actions proposed by global warming enthusiasts will and are causing harm - millions of people are starving because the US has converted some of its food producing capacity into making biofuels.

People need to realize that theoretical lives are not worth more than actual lives.

I pity your grandchildren.

(I pity mine too, but at least they won't be as embarrassed.)

[anthony]

Unfortunately, correlation has never and can never prove causation – the only way to establish causation with regards to global warming would be to take a few identical planets, alter their CO² levels and then measure the effects. This is clearly beyond our current means and since such a scientific experiment is not possible, the AGW hypothesis cannot be disproved which makes it completely at odds with the scientific method.

So, by that argument, is evolution also "completely at odds with the scientific method"?

I wouldn't think so.

I dunno. I've heard the exact same argument being by creationists. That doesn't mean I agree with the argument. I certainly believe in evolution, and I'm fairly certain of anthropogenic global warming. What I'm suggesting is that perhaps the argument is invalid.

[ulsterman]

People need to realize that theoretical lives are not worth more than actual lives.

Actually, I've been using a not vastly dissimilar argument myself. There are plans afoot yet again to synchronise United Kingdom time to Continental Europe, i.e. to make it permanently an hour later. This would have serious consequences for Northern Ireland, because it is already behind the rest of the UK in time (no jokes please) and is also relatively far north,, hence has less daylight in winter than most of the UK. Thus off the cuff I think that sunrise is already at 8.55 in Londonderry in midwinter so would be at 9.55 under this proposal. People argue that in theory it would make for lighter evenings and save lives then. But it would make for darker mornings and cost lives then. Are evening lives worth more than morning ones?

[thegoodlocust]

I pity your grandchildren.

(I pity mine too, but at least they won't be as embarrassed.)

Ah, a variation on the appeal to emotion known as the "wrong side of history" argument. Sorry, but you'll have to do better than cliché fallacies.

[SB_Johnny]

I pity your grandchildren.

(I pity mine too, but at least they won't be as embarrassed.)

Ah, a variation on the appeal to emotion known as the "wrong side of history" argument. Sorry, but you'll have to do better than cliché fallacies.

Oh, I wasn't trying to convince you to change your mind or anything (since clearly that would be futile). I was just weighing in on your status as an embarrassment to the human race. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

[thegoodlocust]

Oh, I wasn't trying to convince you to change your mind or anything (since clearly that would be futile). I was just weighing in on your status as an embarrassment to the human race. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

Charming, but inaccurate. If I was really so close-minded/set-in-my-ways then I would never have become an atheist/libertarian/whatever. In fact, I'm quite open to the global warming theory being proven to be true - but 15 years of level or falling temperatures does not endear me to that idea. Can the same be said of global warming boosters with their constantly shifting and often contradictory "proofs" of global warming?

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I approach it differently, from a mix of Deism and Vernadsky-ism: the universe has a purpose, and that purpose is to evolve into ever more complex and energetic systems.

So you believe in an "eternal" universe?

I'm not sure. What are my other options?

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Unfortunately, correlation has never and can never prove causation – the only way to establish causation with regards to global warming would be to take a few identical planets, alter their CO² levels and then measure the effects. This is clearly beyond our current means and since such a scientific experiment is not possible, the AGW hypothesis cannot be disproved which makes it completely at odds with the scientific method.

So, by that argument, is evolution also "completely at odds with the scientific method"?

You lost me there. What the Good Locust is saying here is correct. Correlation is frequently used as a substitute for causation, including by astrologers, incompetent economic forecasters, and the AGW people (although to be fair, the AGW people first manicure the data to remove anything that might correlate incorrectly.) None of this has anything to do with evolution, properly understood, although you might be thinking of the Darwinian approach, which is mainly just an apology for social engineering.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The evolutionary path of one species can be inferred by analyzing the evolutionary path of other species, and there are plenty of species, at least until they all die off due to drastic changes in climatic conditions.

I don't think you can infer the evolutionary path of one species without taking into account the role it plays in the evolutionary path of the biosphere as a whole. The biosphere may "shed" some species as it develops, which should not be taken to mean that that particular species is a bunch of losers that were defeated by the stronger, more aggressive species. That model is more suitable for what happens at Wikipedia.

[thegoodlocust]

I approach it differently, from a mix of Deism and Vernadsky-ism: the universe has a purpose, and that purpose is to evolve into ever more complex and energetic systems.

So you believe in an "eternal" universe?

I'm not sure. What are my other options?

Well, they are your beliefs, and so you can have lots of options. What I mean to say is, you say the universe has a purpose, to create more complex/energetic systems, but that seems to be at odds with the Ultimate Fate of the Universe ™.

One way of getting around that would be to modify your beliefs to include parallel universes.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

What I mean to say is, you say the universe has a purpose, to create more complex/energetic systems, but that seems to be at odds with the Ultimate Fate of the Universe ™.

Oh. I believe you are referring to entropy. No, thanks. That only holds for small, closed systems. When we are talking about the universe, quite the opposite obtains. And one universe is sufficient for me (more or less by definition.)

[anthony]

Unfortunately, correlation has never and can never prove causation – the only way to establish causation with regards to global warming would be to take a few identical planets, alter their CO² levels and then measure the effects. This is clearly beyond our current means and since such a scientific experiment is not possible, the AGW hypothesis cannot be disproved which makes it completely at odds with the scientific method.

So, by that argument, is evolution also "completely at odds with the scientific method"?

You lost me there. What the Good Locust is saying here is correct.

So, you agree that the *only* way to establish causation with regards to global warming "would be to take a few identical planets, alter their CO² levels and then measure the effects"?

If so, (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/shrug.gif), I've got nothing more to say to you about it. (*) I'd still appreciate the Good Locust's answer though, because from what I've read from him so far this seems to be an uncharacteristic error.

(*) I take that back. I'll pose this question to anyone who wants to defend that statement. How do you show that evolution caused humans to arrive on earth? Build a bunch of planets, throw in a bunch of bacteria, wait a few billion years, and watch humans spring up?

Now look, I haven't researched the topic enough to be completely convinced one way or the other (as it's just not a topic which is all that relevant to my life). But from what I have read, anthropogenic global warming is the most plausible theory for what is happening (and whether or not anything is happening). I certainly wouldn't take the position that the Good Locust is taking, that I absolutely won't be convinced no matter *what* evidence is presented to me (that's essentially what he's saying).

Furthermore, I don't think it particularly matters whether or not global warming is caused by humans, because all the evidence I've seen is that it would be far too costly to stop it and much more reasonable to deal with it. I'd rather my grandchildren live close to the beach in air conditioning, than in the stone ages. (Which, I hope needless to say, means I don't buy into the "runaway global warming" scare mongering and Environmental Pascal's Wager.)

This post has been edited by anthony:

[Herschelkrustofsky]

There is an abundance of fallacy of composition in your post. I agree with Mr. Locust specifically that correlation has never and can never prove causation. I'm not proposing any experiments on other planets at this time, because the present administration seems to be scuttling manned space exploration for the immediate future. If one wanted to demonstrate human causation of global warming, one would begin by eliminating solar and other extraterrestrial causes, rather than attempting to forbid discussion of them. I should mention as well that the arrival of humans on earth is an established fact, whereas global warming is agenda-driven conjecture. There are equally plausible theories that we are entering a period of global cooling.

[Cla68]

There is an abundance of fallacy of composition in your post. I agree with Mr. Locust specifically that correlation has never and can never prove causation. I'm not proposing any experiments on other planets at this time, because the present administration seems to be scuttling manned space exploration for the immediate future. If one wanted to demonstrate human causation of global warming, one would begin by eliminating solar and other extraterrestrial causes, rather than attempting to forbid discussion of them. I should mention as well that the arrival of humans on earth is an established fact, whereas global warming is agenda-driven conjecture. There are equally plausible theories that we are entering a period of global cooling.

Some areas of global warming science research seem to be more robust than others. The science on the acidification of the oceans, for one, appears to be on much more solid ground than the paleo-climatology which produced the hockey stick graph. Some of the supporters of the AGW idea, however, aggressively defend all AGW research equally, apparently feeling that if some research is discredited, then the entire AGW theory will be discredited. The "pro-AGW" group in Wikipedia appears to fall into this camp.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Herschelkrustofsky]

RfC time. I take it WMC did not appreciate being called on his actions.

I was very gratified by the way User:Collect agrees with the outside view, Albeit not on the gratuitous use of "snark" as a word therein.

[Milton Roe]

Furthermore, I don't think it particularly matters whether or not global warming is caused by humans, because all the evidence I've seen is that it would be far too costly to stop it and much more reasonable to deal with it. I'd rather my grandchildren live close to the beach in air conditioning, than in the stone ages.

False choice. We can avoid the stone ages, or even very much of a change in civilization, by building 10,000 really big nuclear reactors (obviously including some fast breeders, else we run out of U-235 in a decade or two, whereas with breeders, our bridge-time to fusion or whatever, is a century or two).

Do this right, and about the only difference you'll notice is some smaller cars and a lot more mass transit.

We're about halfway though the planets' oil, and we've already burned the easy half. The remaining half can be used for airtravel, petrochemicals, and so on, so long as we quit wasting it on heat and ground transportation.

As for the remaining coal, God help us if we burn it all. It's not just a matter of being hotter and closer to the beach, it's a matter of dead ocean reefs from acid and just a few more degrees of temp. And with them, a whole ecology that we probably need, and that's not even being chicken little.

Of course, I doubt very much if we'll build those reactors when we need them. We'll do what we're doing now, which is more or less nothing. The eco freaks will keep us from doing it until gas gets to $10 and then $20 and then $50 a gallon, and then there will be much weeping and wailing and THEN we'll start to build reactors. Expect some dislocations in the meantime. Including no air conditioning. And I hope you don't like fish.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

We can avoid the stone ages, or even very much of a change in civilization, by building 10,000 really big nuclear reactors (obviously including some fast breeders, else we run out of U-235 in a decade or two, whereas with breeders, our bridge-time to fusion or whatever, is a century or two).

On this, sentient warmers and skeptics should be able to agree. Except that you're way to pessimistic about fusion.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Of course, I doubt very much if we'll build those reactors when we need them. We'll do what we're doing now, which is more or less nothing. The eco freaks will keep us from doing it until gas gets to $10 and then $20 and then $50 a gallon, and then there will be much weeping and wailing and THEN we'll start to build reactors.

I also think that you're too pessimistic on this. I believe that the fear and/or hatred of nukes is largely a Boomer thing; younger people don't seem to have it. And it doesn't seem to be much of a factor at all outside of Europe and the U.S.

[thegoodlocust]

So, you agree that the *only* way to establish causation with regards to global warming "would be to take a few identical planets, alter their CO² levels and then measure the effects"?

Pretty much, the only other way would involve technologies beyond what we currently have and data that we almost certainly won't have short of Von Neuman sensor network.

Basically, my opinion is similar to Freeman Dyson's - the climate is so incredibly complex, with so many interacting variables that causation is extremely difficult to prove (impossible with current technologies) - and causation is already hard to prove. But really, to be fair, I don't think causation needs to be proven to an absolute certainty - but people act like it has been, which really irks me.

I'll pose this question to anyone who wants to defend that statement. How do you show that evolution caused humans to arrive on earth? Build a bunch of planets, throw in a bunch of bacteria, wait a few billion years, and watch humans spring up?

Discover FTL travel and then build a REALLY good telescope - or make reasonable assumptions based on the fossil record.

But from what I have read, anthropogenic global warming is the most plausible theory for what is happening (and whether or not anything is happening). I certainly wouldn't take the position that the Good Locust is taking, that I absolutely won't be convinced no matter *what* evidence is presented to me (that's essentially what he's saying).

No, that isn't my position at all, I believe CO2 may be warming the planet, but that it isn't as bad as some are making it out to be and that the hypothetical positive feedbacks they are feeding into computer models to come up with scary scenarios are ridiculous - if the climate was really that sensitive then it would've fucked over the planet a million times over by now.

My basic belief is that most of the warming is due to natural cycles (oceanic and solar) - if I'm wrong (or right) then I'll know in 5-10 years (probably less).

Furthermore, I don't think it particularly matters whether or not global warming is caused by humans, because all the evidence I've seen is that it would be far too costly to stop it and much more reasonable to deal with it. I'd rather my grandchildren live close to the beach in air conditioning, than in the stone ages. (Which, I hope needless to say, means I don't buy into the "runaway global warming" scare mongering and Environmental Pascal's Wager.)

Not only that but millions are starving due to our conversion of food crops into biofuel due to the global warming scare - and the increased CO2 levels have been helping to feed the expanding human population.

Except that you're way to pessimistic about fusion.

My hope is actually for thorium powered reactors - the fuel is more readily available, the reactors are perfectly safe and the byproducts can't be used to make nuclear weapons (so we shouldn't have any problems with other countries having them).

Get a nice modular design so we can make them fast and we could solve the world's energy problems fairly quickly - too bad we are flushing the money down the solar/wind toilet.

[thegoodlocust]

As for the remaining coal, God help us if we burn it all. It's not just a matter of being hotter and closer to the beach, it's a matter of dead ocean reefs from acid and just a few more degrees of temp. And with them, a whole ecology that we probably need, and that's not even being chicken little.

Corals evolved under much higher levels of CO2 - ocean "acidification" is a myth. In reality, corals are having problems due to things like farm runoff - but global warming gets the wrap for just about everything these days.

In fact, I think we should save the oil to make plastics and take a cue from Nazi Germany and kill the Jews turn coal into fuel for our automobiles.

[thegoodlocust]

Some areas of global warming science research seem to be more robust than others. The science on the acidification of the oceans, for one, appears to be on much more solid ground than the paleo-climatology which produced the hockey stick graph. Some of the supporters of the AGW idea, however, aggressively defend all AGW research equally, apparently feeling that if some research is discredited, then the entire AGW theory will be discredited. The "pro-AGW" group in Wikipedia appears to fall into this camp.

I obviously disagree with you about ocean acidfication for a number of reasons (e.g. the pH varies a HUGE amount in various spots of the ocean, the ocean is basic and has only very very very slightly decreased its basicity (so small it is practically measurement error)), but I agree they won't let anything even slightly negative in the articles.

I was looking at the Michael Mann talk page and they won't even allow any well-sourced criticism of his investigation in there - they just want to say he was "cleared" of all charges. Hell, even if they get banned then I'm sure they'll just make socks - they've devoted way too much of their lives to this bullshit.

What I mean to say is, you say the universe has a purpose, to create more complex/energetic systems, but that seems to be at odds with the Ultimate Fate of the Universe ™.

Oh. I believe you are referring to entropy. No, thanks. That only holds for small, closed systems. When we are talking about the universe, quite the opposite obtains. And one universe is sufficient for me (more or less by definition.)

Oh you think the universe is an open system? I'm not as informed on the subject, but I didn't think that was the case.

[Milton Roe]

What I mean to say is, you say the universe has a purpose, to create more complex/energetic systems, but that seems to be at odds with the Ultimate Fate of the Universe ™.

Oh. I believe you are referring to entropy. No, thanks. That only holds for small, closed systems. When we are talking about the universe, quite the opposite obtains. And one universe is sufficient for me (more or less by definition.)

Oh you think the universe is an open system? I'm not as informed on the subject, but I didn't think that was the case.

Indeed, the entropy of the visible universe is increasing, as it obviously is expanding and gettting colder (on average). About the part of the universe that isn't visible, we have no way of knowing, but if it originated in the Big Bang as our visible part did, the same is happening there, also.

Yes, this looks bad for life over the long term, as life requires an energy source and entropy dump (i.e., a source of low entropy energy, like sunlight, and a way of getting rid of that energy with higher entropy, as in radiating it to interstellar space, as infrared).

The universe does look sort of "planned" to give regions like planets steady sources of incubating low entropy energy (sunlight) and a place to dump it (into expanding cold space). This happens basically because after the Big Bang, the universe expanded too fast to come into equilibrium, leaving a lot of distributed hydrogen about, which could serve as seeds to incubate life for the next 13+ billion years, and did (by collapsing to stars and giving up the nuclear and gravitational potential that had been stored in those widely-spaced protons, since the Big Bang).

The Big Bang seems to have been a random fluctuation from zero energy, so perhaps it's just one of those things that happen from time to time, as the astrophysics joke goes. Perhaps before dark energy rips this universe appart and all life ends, we'll get another one.

It's also funny how the physical laws are all set to make long lived stars lasting billions of years, and all that. Will that happen on the next Big Bang? Is each Bang better than the one before for making life, or lots of black holes, or something that feeds back on previous Big Bangs, like Lee Smolin suggests? That would be nice. We won't be around to see the next cycle, but perhaps better versions of us (that take a shorter time than 13.7 billion years to evolve from hydrogen) will.

[Milton Roe]

We can avoid the stone ages, or even very much of a change in civilization, by building 10,000 really big nuclear reactors (obviously including some fast breeders, else we run out of U-235 in a decade or two, whereas with breeders, our bridge-time to fusion or whatever, is a century or two).

On this, sentient warmers and skeptics should be able to agree. Except that you're way to pessimistic about fusion.

Bah. Workable fusion was 25 years away in 1955, and 25 years away in 1980, and it's still 25 years away in 2010. The joke is that it's the future of atomic energy-- always has been.

And perhaps always will be. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)