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

[Dzonatas]

That policy makes it clear that personal information can be gained from an IP address:

If you have not logged in, you will be identified by your network IP address. This is a series of four numbers which identifies the Internet address from which you are contacting the wiki. Depending on your connection, this number may be traceable only to a large Internet service provider, or specifically to your school, place of business, or home. It may be possible that the origin of this IP address could be used in conjunction with any interests you express implicitly or explicitly by editing articles to identify you even by private individuals.

It may be either difficult or easy for a motivated individual to connect your network IP address with your real-life identity. Therefore if you are very concerned about privacy, you may wish to log in and publish under a pseudonym.

Checkuser bit makes much easier to state a username to an IP, and there is nothing in the policy that allows anybody to 'publicly distribute' the username if a user logs in as an IP, except as noted here:

Wikimedia will not sell or share private information, such as email addresses, with third parties, unless you agree to release this information, or it is required by law to release the information.

What has happened here is that a username has been inquired about, an IP has been given, another username has been given, and now 'motivated individual', by the act of those being publicly distributed, is able to match those IPs, as recognized in the above policy, and find personal or private information.

There was no need and no policy allowance to post the username together with the IP address for public distribution. This is not the first time we have seen this done publicly. There is even another thread, about WJBscribe oversights, were several issues of this kind of policy were brought up, and it reveals a bit of contradiction in when and how admin actions take place.