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

[Rootology]

Is "Gold Heart" known by a "real life" name? Or is Gold Heart just some anonymous person that happens to be tied to random British wireless IPs? If the latter, nothing "private" has been disclosed. All that's known is that Gold Heart is editing as an IP (if you don't want your IPs revealed, why don't you sock as a username?).

I see no private info here:

http://samspade.org/whois/93.107.68.59
http://openrbl.org/query?93.107.68.59

All I see is you have a Vodaphone mobile somewhere in Ireland. That really narrows it down, don't it? Thats like saying "so and so edits from a Verizon IP somewhere in the southwestern United States". It makes you one of what, 1,000,000?

I'm the first to complain about privacy issues, but this is stretched awful thin.

[Dzonatas]

I see no private info here:
[...]
I'm the first to complain about privacy issues, but this is stretched awful thin.

If someone uses an IP then any potential username that can be connected to it is private.

If someone uses their username, then any IP connected to it is private.

The privacy policy passed by Wikimedia's Board of Trustee's is very clear on that policy.

I don't see anything in those edits of that IP that constitute vandalism. Maybe others may not like the changes, but just because someone doesn't like the changes does not give them right to call it vandalism on a whim to release private information. That would be way to easy to game and get personal information.

It is a content dispute. A content dispute doesn't justify the release of private personal information as public personal information.

From that policy

Wikimedia policy does not permit public distribution of such information under any circumstances