William Connelley - The Opinionator, How one extremist skews Wikipedia Options

[JohnA]

An extremely interesting profile of William Connelley by Lawrence Solomon in Canada's Financial Post:

The opinionator

At Wikipedia, one man engineers the debate on global warming, and shapes it to his views

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Published: Saturday, May 03, 2008

Next to Al Gore, William Connolley may be the world's most influential person in the global warming debate. He has a PhD in mathematics and worked as a climate modeller, but those accomplishments don't explain his influence -- PhDs are not uncommon and, in any case, he comes from the mid-level ranks in the British Antarctic Survey, the agency for which he worked until recently.

He was the Parish Councillor for the village of Coton in the U.K., his Web site tells us, and a school governor there, too, but neither of those accomplishments are a claim to fame in the wider world. Neither are his five failed attempts to attain public office as a local candidate for South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council as a representative for the Green Party.

But Connolley is a big shot on Wikipedia, which honours him with an extensive biography, an honour Wikipedia did not see fit to bestow on his boss at the British Antarctic Survey. Or on his boss's's boss, or on his boss's boss's boss, or on his boss's boss's boss's boss, none of whose opinions seemingly count for much, despite their impressive accomplishments. William Connolley's opinions, in contrast, count for a great deal at Wikipedia, even though some might not think them particularly worthy of note. "It is his view that there is a consensus in the scientific community about climate change topics such as global warming, and that the various reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summarize this consensus," states his Wikipedia page, in the section called "Biography."

On BLPs of accomplished scientists that Connelley doesn't like, there are the familiar tactics known to WR only too well:

Connolley is not only a big shot on Wikipedia, he's a big shot at Wikipedia -- an a dministrator with unusual editorial clout. Using that clout, this 40-something scientist of minor relevance gets to tear down scientists of great accomplishment. Because Wikipedia has become the single biggest reference source in the world, and global warming is one of the most sought-after subjects, the ability to control information on Wikipedia by taking down authoritative scientists is no trifling matter.

One such scientist is Fred Singer, the First Director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service, the recipient of a White House commendation for his early design of space satellites; the recipient of a NASA commendation for research on particle clouds -- in short, a scientist with dazzling achievements who is everything Connolley is not. Under Connolley's supervision, Singer is relentlessly smeared, and has been for years, as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry. When a smear is inadequate, or when a fair-minded Wikipedian tries to correct a smear, Connolley and his cohorts are there to widen the smear or remove the correction, often rebuking the Wikipedian in the process.

Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, as well as a code of civility. Those rules and codes don't apply to Connolley, or to those he favours.

Absolutely they don't apply to Connelley. Next to Slimvirgin, I regard Connelley as one of the most serious historical revisionists on Wikipedia.

Now read on: http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics...l?id=490337&p=1

[Moulton]

Notwithstanding the WMF Privacy Policy (which I don't claim to understand), IP addresses are not private. If they were private, TCP/IP wouldn't work. If an individual, accessing the Internet from some IP address, opens a TCP/IP connection with another host, that host automatically acquires the sender's IP address. Without that information, the TCP/IP connection wouldn't work.

The WMF Privacy Policy has to do with disclosure to third parties of the IP addresses of those establishing TCP/IP sessions with WMF servers. Users who are not logged in automatically have their IP addresses disclosed. Matching IP addresses to nicknames is often trivial, and occasionally an interesting puzzle that anyone can undertake to solve.

Now, for those who care to parse the meaning of the applicable WMF Privacy Policy, here is the relevant section:

Policy on release of data derived from page logs

It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, may be released by the system administrators or users with CheckUser access, in the following situations:

1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement
2. With permission of the affected user
3. To the chair of Wikimedia Foundation, his/her legal counsel, or his/her designee, when necessary for investigation of abuse complaints.
4. Where the information pertains to page views generated by a spider or bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues.
5. Where the user has been vandalising articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to assist in the targeting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers
6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.

Wikimedia policy does not permit public distribution of such information under any circumstances, except as described above.