Connolley's time of the month (again) Options

[Abd]

It is, as usual, a complete and total fabrication by serial liar Abd. Shocker.

Which is kinda why Abd's campaigns always fizzle out.

Nah, they just go into remission.

Reminds me, I have some unfinished business at Wikiversity. I was distracted for a month or so shooting up Wikipedia. Now that I've been relieved of that burden, I can return some old favors. One good turn deserves another, eh? It's never too late.

[Minor4th]

Also, I was going to mention that he now appears to be socking, something he's done in the past when he's gotten ticked off, but I'm really not sure what to make of this. This IP seems to be trolling around a bit, and it belongs to Connolley's "old' employer the BAS, but if you look at the history of the IP then it looks like it has been used by Polargeo (before and after).

The most obvious conclusion is that Polargeo and Connolley worked at the same place (at the same time?), which is probably nothing more than an interesting factoid.

17:39, 6 October 2010 Coren (talk | contribs) blocked 194.66.0.0/24 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 2 weeks ‎ ({{checkuserblock}})
How embarrassing.

Here's a list of all of the 204 IP edits from that range.

Can you break this down for me? What exactly does this mean or what do you think it means?

As for NW possibly releasing private information that led to off-wiki harassment, as one of the harassees, I'd appreciate if you would all give NW a break. He did not mean any harm and any part he played was unintentional. I think giving up the bit was appropriate, even if only temporarily, and some thoughtful introspection is warranted in this situation -- I trust that NW is giving it the attention it deserves. I do not agree with many of the admin actions NW has taken, and I have told him of my perception of biased actions on his part, but I also think he is a good kid trying to do the right thing. NW has made apologies and expressed appropriate regret for any inadvertent assistance he may have given to those who actually intended to cause harm. That's good enough for me and apparently good enough for Greg as well. I think the focus should remain on those who intended the harm.

This post has been edited by Somey: Sat 23rd October 2010, 5:52am

[Cla68]

Also, I was going to mention that he now appears to be socking, something he's done in the past when he's gotten ticked off, but I'm really not sure what to make of this. This IP seems to be trolling around a bit, and it belongs to Connolley's "old' employer the BAS, but if you look at the history of the IP then it looks like it has been used by Polargeo (before and after).

The most obvious conclusion is that Polargeo and Connolley worked at the same place (at the same time?), which is probably nothing more than an interesting factoid.

17:39, 6 October 2010 Coren (talk | contribs) blocked 194.66.0.0/24 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 2 weeks ‎ ({{checkuserblock}})
How embarrassing.

Here's a list of all of the 204 IP edits from that range.

Can you break this down for me? What exactly does this mean or what do you think it means?

As for NW possibly releasing private information that led to off-wiki harassment, as one of the harassees, I'd appreciate if you would all give NW a break. He did not mean any harm and any part he played was unintentional. I think giving up the bit was appropriate, even if only temporarily, and some thoughtful introspection is warranted in this situation -- I trust that NW is giving it the attention it deserves. I do not agree with many of the admin actions NW has taken, and I have told him of my perception of biased actions on his part, but I also think he is a good kid trying to do the right thing. NW has made apologies and expressed appropriate regret for any inadvertent assistance he may have given to those who actually intended to cause harm. That's good enough for me and apparently good enough for Greg as well. I think the focus should remain on those who intended the harm -- ScienceApologist and Timothy Usher.

Well, perhaps NuclearWarfare is now going to fully commit to participation in the CC articles as a regular editor. If so, NW, hopefully you won't experience what it was like trying to edit those articles before the arbcom case closed.

NW, let me tell you, it was an absolutely miserable experience. I never knew if, after spending 30 minutes building and sourcing a paragraph, it would be reverted in its entirety minutes later by WMC, KimDPetersen, Tony Sidaway, or ChrisO. Then, if one tried to defend the text addition, you would have to face condescending and patronizing comments by those and other editors like Dave Souza, Guettarda, and ShortBrigadeHarvesterBoris.

Hopefully, those editors I mentioned above who somehow didn't get topic banned will abandon their myopia and start trying to work with all other editors on those articles instead of trying to chase them away or treat them in a dismissive manner. One thing to remember is that the way Wikipedia is structured it doesn't matter whether Wikipedia articles have expert attention or not. What matters is how the involved editors work together. If expertise was valued in Wikipedia, it would be governed more like Citizendium. Trying to give self-proclaimed experts some favoritism in Wikipedia is like trying to force a square block into a round hole.

This post has been edited by Cla68: Sat 16th October 2010, 7:59am

[A User]

If expertise was valued in Wikipedia, it would be governed more like Citizendium.

Perhaps you should talk to Paul Wormer, Martin Cohen, etc Despite being credentialled they were forced out of the project by people arguing with them outside of their own expertise. There is a culture of exclusionism at Citizendium that is not healthy.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Hopefully, those editors I mentioned above who somehow didn't get topic banned will abandon their myopia and start trying to work with all other editors on those articles instead of trying to chase them away or treat them in a dismissive manner.

[tarantino]

Also, I was going to mention that he now appears to be socking, something he's done in the past when he's gotten ticked off, but I'm really not sure what to make of this. This IP seems to be trolling around a bit, and it belongs to Connolley's "old' employer the BAS, but if you look at the history of the IP then it looks like it has been used by Polargeo (before and after).

The most obvious conclusion is that Polargeo and Connolley worked at the same place (at the same time?), which is probably nothing more than an interesting factoid.

17:39, 6 October 2010 Coren (talk | contribs) blocked 194.66.0.0/24 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 2 weeks ‎ ({{checkuserblock}})
How embarrassing.

Here's a list of all of the 204 IP edits from that range.

Can you break this down for me? What exactly does this mean or what do you think it means?

The IP range 194.66.0.0/24 (194.66.0.0 - 194.66.0.255) is owned by the British Antarctic Survey. There are climate change subject matter experts who work there. Coren blocked them all from making accounts and participating anonymously for two weeks because of Polargeo.

[Abd]

Hopefully, those editors I mentioned above who somehow didn't get topic banned will abandon their myopia and start trying to work with all other editors on those articles instead of trying to chase them away or treat them in a dismissive manner.

Yeah, right.

This is the house that ArbComm built. At Cold fusion, as elsewhere, I attempted to find true consensus. It takes discussion to do that, lots of discussion. To someone not interested in the topic, not interested in discussion, but just in pushing a general point of view that they imagine is "scientific," this is incomprehensible if brief and "wall of text" if it is detailed To write convincing polemic on a difficult topic is no simple task. People get paid lots of money to do it in the real world!

Discussion in real consensus process takes place in layers. Not all participants follow and participate in all layers, it is very inefficient if they do. Some layers involve deep discussion. Some deal only with distilled, boiled-down summaries.

I was not banned for "walls of text," but it's clear that some arbitrators wanted to, and that's what they remember as my offense. It's not exactly clear what I was banned for. From the MYOB ban, there was no finding of fact that involved not "minding my own business." There had been some idea that I'd abused dispute resolution process, but the origin of that, AFAIK, was JzG's refrain that I was beating a dead horse, by bringing up "old issues" -- i.e., his own personal decisions -- but, generally, the community decided with me on those, unless the cabal gathered, they could make it look like I was an isolated lunatic, and this got worse and worse.

At cold fusion, ArbComm had originally looked like it was going to decide almost exactly what I'd asked for. Then, suddenly, it reversed. The mentor idea (I was eager for it!) got tossed as useless, and the MYOB ban was proposed; there was an obvious meaning: we don't like that Abd identified and "prosecuted" administrative misbehavior. I'd done it for an admin who had been considered practically bulletproof.

ArbComm is, functionally, like a coward. When they are faced with massive misbehavior, a large faction, involving administrators, they are terrified that all these "useful volunteers" will take offense and go away. They generally ignore, then, the long-term damage done to ordinary editors, who are not valued.

They took an extraordinary length of time to start working on the case, after closing evidence and proposals, for a long time. ArbComm has become, functionally, a star chamber, they clearly do much or most of their deliberation privately.

They did finally address the issue of a mutually involved faction, I'd begged them to do it in my RfAr, but they decided it was too difficult to read my stuff. Naw, it wouldn't have been that difficult, the problem was difficult!

It was still too little, too late. GoRight remains banned, as an example. They had worked on that diligently for about two years. A faction can set up conditions to ban almost any editor, because they can create an appearance of consensus that will fool a neutral admin who doesn't investigate deeply.

The odd thing is that the Eastern European Mailing List editors were accused of this, but they hadn't actually done it. ArbComm threw the book at them; it seems that the worst offense of Piotrus was that he'd semiprotected an article after IPs were revert warring, having been canvassed on the mailing list to help. But the actual decision was mild, temporary, and quickly moot, since as soon as the IP's couldn't edit, apparent meat puppets showed up, new editors, and continued, and the article was full protected. I think it was the very idea of people with common interests communicating off-wiki that freaked them out.

But, of course, they do it all the time.

[ATren]

Well, perhaps NuclearWarfare is now going to fully commit to participation in the CC articles as a regular editor. If so, NW, hopefully you won't experience what it was like trying to edit those articles before the arbcom case closed.

Why would he start editing? A "neutral" admin can do much more for his cause than a lowly editor.

NW, let me tell you, it was an absolutely miserable experience. I never knew if, after spending 30 minutes building and sourcing a paragraph, it would be reverted in its entirety minutes later by WMC, KimDPetersen, Tony Sidaway, or ChrisO. Then, if one tried to defend the text addition, you would have to face condescending and patronizing comments by those and other editors like Dave Souza, Guettarda, and ShortBrigadeHarvesterBoris.

The real travesty of this case is that more of those editors were not sanctioned, even though the arbs were presented with plenty of evidence to do so. Tony Sidaway was actually clerking the case even though he was an active participant in the content battles. How does he get away with it? (Yes, I know the answer -- house POV defenders can do whatever they want and survive).

I tried to get Shell Kinney to look at the evidence for Guettarda, SBHB, Stephan Schulz, and the activist admins 2/0, NW, TOAT and FPAS. She refused to even look at the evidence. Neither did Roger or any of the others. The best you can say about them is they are lazy, but I think it's even more than that: they think Wikipedia can save the world, and they think POV pushing in this topic area is the way to do it.

Hopefully, those editors I mentioned above who somehow didn't get topic banned will abandon their myopia and start trying to work with all other editors on those articles instead of trying to chase them away or treat them in a dismissive manner.

Why would they change now? The situation is actually more favorable for them now that Lar, you, me, JWB and a bunch of others have been removed while friendly admins like NW and 2/0 remain to clear out any others who dare oppose the house POV. If anything, their tactics will escalate because there is not even a check on their behavior anymore.

This post has been edited by ATren: Sun 17th October 2010, 12:11am

[thegoodlocust]

No one asked me to resign, because I supposedly released private information or for any other reason either. Confirm it with any arbitrator you wish. It isn't being censored on Wikipedia to protect me. Even if it were being censored on WP for that reason, how on Earth would that affect anything in real life.

You have a bright future as a lawyer.

ScienceApologist isn't banned because he didn't violate outing or harassment policies. I would doubt very much that he has any "clout" though, considering that he has been banned before. Also, the fact that he is Raul654's sockpuppet is simply laughable. Do some research next time?

ScienceApologist is probably in desperate need of therapy and medication - my opinion is that he has serous mental problems. There are a half-dozen reasons besides whatever you, him and Usher did to ban him. The suggestion that he is someone with political power like Raul is merely an example (I would not be terribly surprised if Raul was or is socking in the area though).

The point is that there is some reason he hasn't been banned. He is either innocent of the charges, the charges can't be proven effectively or he has some sort of clout that has nullified the judgment. I pointed out to Risker that SA has flat out stated that one of his goals is to needle people to hope they screw up and make mistakes that can get them banned.

That self-declared modus operandi by itself was sufficient to topic ban (if not outright ban) him. The only question is, "why not?"

[Cla68]

Why would they change now? The situation is actually more favorable for them now that Lar, you, me, JWB and a bunch of others have been removed while friendly admins like NW and 2/0 remain to clear out any others who dare oppose the house POV. If anything, their tactics will escalate because there is not even a check on their behavior anymore.

I don't think that is entirely the case. First of all, the ArbCom did make it clear that no more monkey business will be allowed with CC BLPs. The three worst offenders of that policy were topic banned. Also, the news is out that WMC is topic banned, which I think will draw more new, interested editors to the topic in Wikipedia, on both sides.

I don't think the CC articles will dramatically improve in the future as far as NPOV, but I don't think they will get much worse. I think the environment for newbie editors will be better with those articles. Actually, only a few of those articles are blatantly POV, and those are the ones directly related to RealClimate and Connolley's paleoclimatic friends, like "Hockey Stick Controversy" or the "Climategate" article. I'll be interested to see how those articles look six months or so from now.

[Abd]

Why would they change now? The situation is actually more favorable for them now that Lar, you, me, JWB and a bunch of others have been removed while friendly admins like NW and 2/0 remain to clear out any others who dare oppose the house POV. If anything, their tactics will escalate because there is not even a check on their behavior anymore.

I don't think that is entirely the case. First of all, the ArbCom did make it clear that no more monkey business will be allowed with CC BLPs.

It may improve, but this is the biggest problem: the combination of various POVs, which is what often motivates people to edit an article, and knowledge of Wikipedia guidelines and dispute resolution process. ArbComm tends to be slow to act, but then it often acts excessively. Sanctions should be measured, with Talk page access the last to go. If an editor is restricted to making suggestions in Talk, they may soon get it that, first of all, incivility will get them completely banned or at least topic banned, depending on whether they are WMC or not, and, second, if they make suggestions that are not adequately sourced, they will be wasting their time.

I'll say it again: Wikipedia should be quick to ban editors from the article page, except for self-reverted edits -- that was a sophisticated suggestion treated as if it was some attempt to wikilawyer! --, but slow to ban from Talk, because banning from Talk is very often excluding the most knowledgeable editors, and restricting them to Talk means they must respect other editors or they will be ignored.

True POV pushers will attack an article-banned editor, even when the editor follows COI rules (that's equivalent to a rough article ban from making edits that can be expected to be controversial), and that would be obvious for anyone following the activity at Cold fusion, but nobody follows it except for editors with an axe to grind. Cold fusion is under discretionary sanctions, but the only application of these sanctions so far has been to reban me for ... for ... for what? Now, my own question is whether or not I bother appealing this particular blatant stupidity. Indeed, this is how Wikipedia disintegrates: the brightest and smartest, most knowledgeable, and most motivated to create a neutral project, run into the Problem, and mostly just leave. It takes entirely too much time to run dispute resolution process, even at the article level, given the absence of skilled facilitation.

Dispute resolution process requires a lot of discussion! Sound bite exchanges preserve POV disputes and even amplify them, as the motive becomes winning a debate instead of seeking mutual understanding and consensus. The situation is so bad on Wikipedia, when disputes arise, that many experienced Wikipedians believe that factions will always be at each other's throats, that consensus is impossible, therefore the only solution is to ban the most egregious offenders.

Bans should be reserved for those who will not participate in dispute resolution, who will not restrain themselves when under "voluntary ban," i.e., bans not enforced by blocks, pending dispute resolution. And there would be a path to return, always, and that was part of the self-reversion proposal. And it works. It the community respects it! Serious POV-pushers, true fanatics, won't bother with self-reversion, it's easier for them to sock.

Wikipedia desperately needs, not more administrators, but more *facilitators.* And, ironically, that's what I was good at, particularly when I wasn't involved, but even sometimes when I was. So ... ArbComm banned me from it, completely. At the time, it seemed the scope of the MYOB ban was limited, but the cabal made sure that interpretation of it crept up, to the point to becoming an almost complete gag order, applying, for example, to user talk pages where the user welcomed my comments. But someone else objected. "Dispute" was widened to mean, for example, a request on the blacklist talk page for a whitelisting, where nobody had objected, I responded with a suggestion, someone else then objected, and I responded to that. MYOB!

And always the same people filing the enforcement requests. Usually Hipocrite, now banned from Climate Change, but Climate Change was only one area of cabal activity. Too little from ArbComm, too late, and then, paradoxically, too much, too soon.

Content? The hell with content! Protect the admin core, that is the real motivation, and this goes way back, it's a structural defect, which, once built in, can be the devil to change. And the tools of this "policy," which could, of course, never be stated as such, it would be a User:Abd/Rule 0 violation, are unaware of it, generally. They think they are enforcing this or that policy or rule; what they don't see is how the rules are selectively applied. Until it's too late, and the bell is tolling for them.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

True POV pushers will attack an article-banned editor, even when the editor follows COI rules (that's equivalent to a rough article ban from making edits that can be expected to be controversial), and that would be obvious for anyone following the activity at Cold fusion, but nobody follows it except for editors with an axe to grind.

If you could get competent editors to follow articles where they don't have an axe to grind, there might be hope for the fabled "neutrality." But, short of actually paying them, I see know way that that is going to happen.

[Abd]

ScienceApologist isn't banned because he didn't violate outing or harassment policies. I would doubt very much that he has any "clout" though, considering that he has been banned before.

ScienceApologist is probably in desperate need of therapy and medication - my opinion is that he has serous mental problems.

I've been forced to more or less the same conclusion.

Wikipedia can have very selective vision. ScienceApologist has many friends who generally agree with his pseudoskeptical POV. When JzG went to AN to request a renewal of my Cold fusion ban, if the admin reviewed the history of what had been going on, he'd have seen serious misbehavior by ScienceApologist, tendentious POV-pushing beyond all reason, clear violation of the prior Fringe science arbitration that originally banned him from Cold fusion. That was a short ban, three months, from all fringe science articles. His nemesis, Pcarbonn, for far lesser offense -- if any offense at all! -- was banned for a year.

He'd also have seen Hipocrite acting up, both of them seriously, both of them with article editing, I was merely discussing. (I did make two edits that I expected would be accepted, but SA and Hipocrite showed up unexpectedly....)

Cold fusion is now under discretionary sanctions, and what GWH did in banning me was to look only at my edits, it appears, and not the context. He sees me "arguing" with more than one editor, so, easy assumption, I'm tendentious. He doesn't look at the RfAr that he's enforcing to see editor histories. He doesn't understand the arguments or the issues, and why complex discussion might be needed. SA wasn't mentioned in that arbitration, though, because he'd already been banned and he hadn't been active at all with the article in the period when I was.

SA is now arguing that the immense amount of material that has appeared in mainstream peer-reviewed journals over the last five years (See the Sources page at Wikiversity:Cold fusion) is not usable because it's not "independent." That's based on the authors being researchers in the field, or writers following the field. Whom does he expect will write an article about the field? An ornithologist?

He's completely missed that the peer reviewers are now accepting articles, and the latest review, the deepest on the critical evidence for cold fusion, in the most prestigious journal, was actually solicited, the Naturwissenschaften "Status of cold fusion (2010)." Supposedly the gold standard for Wikipedia sourcing is peer-reviewed secondary source, and the "independent" requirement refers to publishers, not authors.

He's blatantly POV-pushing, tendentiously (against consensus at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard), and ... I'm prohibited from bringing this up on Wikipedia. Why?

GWH cited my delisting request (;enr-canr.org) at meta as a cause for the ban renewal. Besides being iffy as hell, citing off-wiki behavior, that request was fully in line with general community consensus. I was indeed challenging meta admin decisions, and I was prepared to go to an RfC if, as seemed fairly likely, the request was denied. Blacklist admins have a strong tendency to never delist, and I could certainly explain why.... (But Beetstra granted it, after complaining about my "irrelevancies." My "irrelevancy" was that I based the claim on the blacklisting never having had an adequate reason, it was abusive content control, as ArbComm had addressed, from the start. But I also responded to the farrago of issues raised as rationalizations, which takes a lot of words, so ... there goes that wall-o-text Abd again.... the original request was brief and to the point and a truly neutral admin would have granted it, no question, no fuss.)

Structural problem, bottom line.