Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change/Proposed decision/Archive 5

BLP concerns
There continue to be significant BLP concerns in this topic area that I think will not be resolved unless remedies are added to change the current situation.

I found these examples of poorly written articles about mainstream scientists by randomly selecting articles in the Environmental skepticism category.


 * Robert Balling-majority of article is written to target quotes and opinions that promote a narrow slice of his work since it is written by people with a specific agenda about what they want to portray about the person.
 * Article editors-Longterm repeat article editors are WMC and Rd232.
 * Balling is a fairly minor figure, so it isn't too surprising there isn't much to find. I created the stub in 2004 saying so. In 2005 I added a quote entirely in context from a paper . I restore the funding stuff when someone cut it with no explanation . And thats pretty well it. Does that make me a "longterm repeat article editor"? And this is FN's #1 BLP concern? I think that, as indicated by the Christy stuff, she really needs to find something she understands to talk about. This isn't a great article, but neither is it a disaster area William M. Connolley (talk) 12:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "longterm repeat article editor"? I just had a look, and I make it 1 (one) cleanup edit in 2005, and 3 edits on 22 Aug to add a well-sourced section regarding Balling's links with the energy industry. Prompted by this very section I then updated and expanded slightly, but there's precious little sourcing that I can find to do any better. I invite anyone who cares to find more info. Rd232 talk 16:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Frederick Seitz-This article was a BLP violation while he was alive (he died in 2008) with excessive prominence given to his work and opinions about global warming and no article content about his receiving the National Medal of Science. Both sides of the global warming debate added biased content. After his death it has be expanded some but still has problems with undue weight related to global warming and his associations with the petroleum industry.
 * See talk page for comments by Rd232 that indicates that he pushing a pov, overemphasizing the content about relationship with Exxon in relation to the other background material added to the article. Diffs of Rd232 repeatedly adding pov content about a relatively insignificant point in the overall scope of Seitz life work., , . While later Rd232 makes an edit that removed some of the way way over the top comments that he added and previously reverted in again when it was removed by another editor, the initial addition and knee jerk reversion, and remaining content show a strong bias towards the inclusion of agenda driven content to Wikipedia articles on topics related to global warming. kneejerk reverting, and more kneejerk reversions to own wording.
 * In my opinion, biased editors have written this article and the result is an article that overemphasizes their area of interest and under represents to the rest of his life.
 * Not sure what this is supposed to do with me. If FN is complaining about its state in 2008, I didn't edit it that year. My only pre-2008 edits are from 2004, and wiki was rather different in those days (do you remember, youth?). My edits are . Those (a) note his research interests, based on his own words (b) adds taht he accepts the rcent T rise is real (based on his own words) and adds some EL. Apart form the disinfopedia, which might be considered off, what exactly are you whinging about? Oh, and what MastCell said William M. Connolley (talk) 17:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Roy Spencer (scientist) WMC revert of removal of poorly sourced article content with an uncivil edit comment(Undid revision 376746147 by Marknutley (talk) pointless destruction. please use the talk page), then WMC and other editors repeatedly readded the content when removed by a sock account (Undid revision 376757609 by Threatcon Bravo (talk) rv scibaby sock), Reverted edits by SezGruppen111 (talk) to last version by William M. Connolley), Reverted edits by SezGruppen111 (talk) to last version by William M. Connolley), (Reverted edits by Richard Boehner (talk) to last version by Prolog), and others to remove socking. Protected and poorly written and unsourced content remained.
 * Editors repeatedly re-add content to lead of article that pushes a pov., ,.
 * This is just the same silly ignorant mistake you've made with John Christy, below. Is it really too much to expect you to actually know what you're talking about, before commenting; or at least, once your mistake has been pointed out, to admit it? William M. Connolley (talk) 08:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * John Christy-Introduction of pov content by people with an agenda related to GW. For example, the introduction of unsourced content with pov wording addded by WMC on August 2, 2010.

The assistance of ArbCom would be appreciated. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 23:17, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The Spencer and Christie edits may lack references, but they are common knowledge at least among interested parties. I don't see a POV problem there - indeed, I'd be surprised if even Spencer or Christie would object to the formulation. There is discussion about several different problems and corrections, but the switch from cooling to warming happened with corrections accepted by Spencer and Christie and reflected in their current publications. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:42, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It reads over the top for an encyclopedia entry. The problem is the wording of material AND the lack of sources to explain it. As worded it appears to be singling out a part of his work for criticism without any indication why it would be important to mention. That and the rest of the quotes in the article make the article appear to be cherrypicked to give a biased impression of his work and opinions. There needs to be reliable secondary sources used show that this is an important area of interest and that it was controversial as the passage states. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 23:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * As Stephan says the material is common knowledge. The satellite temperature record isn't "a part of his work." It practically is his life's work, and is the defining accomplishment for his stature in the scientific community. As to the specific material at hand I will add the appropriate reference, which is a U.S. National Academy of Sciences report. If you feel that the NAS has "an agenda related to GW" or is otherwise unsuitable for use as a reference, please let me know and I will find other sources. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * LOL...common knowledge to who??? Really now, most people are not well versed about the ins and outs of satellite temperature records and who makes them. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 01:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * FN, this is junk. You can't use "LOL" as a substitute for thought, or for knowledge. As Boris points out, the satellite record pretty well *is* Christy's work, and it is overwhelmingly what he is know for. Nor is the added text unsourced - it links to the satellite temperature record page which fully refs it all. We could just repeat the entire thing again on the Christy page, but that seems pointless William M. Connolley (talk) 11:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Personally I think this is a pattern with your edits, that you do not show a concern with including appropriate context with the material you add. If I'm reading that paragraph on Christy, like Flonight, I read it to suggest (and almost only to suggest) that his work has been entirely discredited.  No useful information on the controversy is provided, other than that it was resolved when errors were found in Christy's work.  This presents a version of the received wisdom on Christy: did a lot of work, but screwed it up.  If, as you and Boris are suggesting, this is really the very large part of what Christy has done, then surely this is not a fair way to present it.  Surely we could give some details as to what Christy did rather than simply that it was controversial because Christy got something wrong, even if his work on this has been entirely discredited.  Of course, ideally others would then ask for this kind of context, so without someone having asked for it and your refusing to provide it, one could say it doesn't require sanctions.  Nevertheless, these are the kinds of edits that make these bios look like part of a battleground. Mackan79 (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Looking at the Christy article, I don't see a battlegrount there (though maybe this page is beginning to resemble one) – Cla68 rightly tagged the statement as needing a citation, and raised it on the talk page. While the statement was verifiable, it wasn't verified and should have been provided with citations when it was added, so Cla68 or any editor in good standing could properly have removed the paragraph with an explanation on the talk page. The situation was complicated by a series of removals by what seem to have been socks, and these were rightly reverted. As for giving further explanation, the difficulty is avoiding going into too much detail and making it look like a coatrack. A question to resolve on the talk page, where it's not yet been raised. The current phrasing looks reasonable, scientists are expected to produce work that needs correction as the field develops so no shame in that, and it's hardly saying he "screwed it up". . . dave souza, talk 22:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In less words, it seems you don't think WMC meant this paragraph to be critical at all. I disagree. Mackan79 (talk) 01:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The diff you cite is honest, accurate and entirely fair. Furthermore, while not sourced there, it contains a link to satellite temperature record which does source it all William M. Connolley (talk) 17:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * More: you say I read it to suggest (and almost only to suggest) that his work has been entirely discredited. But you are wrong: you have misread it. "The discrepancy was eventually resolved by a corrections to the Spencer and Christy time series after errors were found in their processing methods" means what it says: the S+C timeseries has been corrected, but not thrown away. If you, or FN, have a problem with this, could you not have discussed it on the talk page? Even now, no-one has attempted to propose an alternative wording or seriously discuss it on the talk page - and this for what you consider a serious problem.  No useful information on the controversy is provided, other than that it was resolved when errors were found in Christy's work - yes, because you're expected to follow the link to the satellite article, where it is all discussed. What is the point of repeating it all in the Christy and Spencer articles? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:00, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That's fair. In truth, I have mostly thought that you respond reasonably to reasonable comments.  But, I also think you're often too combative when challenged, and that you've sometimes added biased material to BLPs, and combined with the peculiarities of the topic area that this often causes mayhem.  If it were just one or the other -- sometimes biased material but an openness to discussion, or perfectly NPOV material combined with some combativeness -- I'm sure it would be fine, but IMO the combination causes a mess.  To your credit I see your approach as intentional, because I don't think you feel that you should have to coddle pushy laypeople.  But where someone like Boris may push the line a little, I think you cross the line, and yet often show a complete unwillingness to back down at all, thereby putting you in repeated conflict with ArbCom.  It's almost tragic! Mackan79 (talk) 20:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I still think you're being unfair. I dispute your assertion that I am not open to dialogue (well, and the NPOV bit too). I can, if you insist, produce large numbers of examples of being open to talk. Can you produce evidence to the contrary? And as for compromise, you're aware that I've just done so on the Christy article but you choose not to acknowledge that here. Is that good faith? And there is another example just now on CO2 . The problem I see is that people like FN are making up imaginary complaints, and even you are exampleless William M. Connolley (talk) 21:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with some of the examples presented here. By lack of dialogue I'm referring mostly to your reverting, when you could be looking for potential compromises.  For instance here, the removing editor had asked how this was controversial to Watts.  Maybe then you could have asked on the talk page what would make it better.  Or maybe, since it was a small report on alleged extortion (where someone is threatening to publicize information against the person's will, and was arrested, not involving any lawsuit from Watts), it didn't need to be included at all.  I suppose it's possible FloNight, I, members of ArbCom are just being unfair (I think your suggested compromise on the Christy article is helpful and speaks for itself).  Actually I think if you would voluntarily recuse yourself from editing any skeptic's BLP you'd be likely to avoid any sanctions, and the area would greatly benefit from it, in no small part because your work in other areas would not be compromised by the controversies surrounding these BLPs.  I recall even BozMo suggested this at one point.  Compromise isn't always a bad thing. Mackan79 (talk) 01:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the article on Balling, the first you mention. A book by Ross Gelbspan identifies the funding received by Balling. If that's suspect we should investigate it, but meanwhile it would be stupid to ignore it. On the basis of that brief examination, I suggest that you could have been more careful in your choice of examples. --TS 23:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * TS, I walked through the history of these articles from start to finish and overall it is embarrassing to see how the biographies of these mainstream scientist have been highjacked by both side of the GW debate. I selected a few examples of the problems that I saw. There are too many to list. People who are here to promote a position about either side of this issue need not be editing in this topic because they are filling the article with poorly written disjointed material instead of making any attempt to create a comprehensive well balanced article on the person. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 00:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You're not reading what FloNight is saying. It's not the sourcing, it's that the articles are coatracks, with lots of emphasis placed on negative reactions to their views on climate change. Some of the editors clearly have an agenda, with WMC being at the top of the list. (His insertions of links to Exxon secrets and his removal of ISI highly cited notations on skeptics has been documented elsewhere in the arbitration, and Flo is showing sustained and systematic efforts by two editors to marginalize skeptics.  Horologium  (talk) 23:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * And I've previously highlighted the same pattern elsewhere. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 00:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I asked H for any recent diffs on this, and he had nothing (see his talk). So this looks like old muckraking to me William M. Connolley (talk) 18:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Coatracks, how so? These are scientists known for their views on scientific matters. That's what scientists do you know. As for marginalizing skeptics, what planet are we on? The skeptics are marginalized, and our writing reflects that. Most of the remaining skeptics are funded by right wing think tanks who themselves receive funding from the oil industry and which have in the past played the same silly games with lung cancer and the like. We should of course document these facts and not pretend that these people have not compromised themselves. --TS 00:01, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I thought they were scientists known for their work in science, not for their views. If they're not known for their work, then how have they managed to pass our notability standards?  Risker (talk) 00:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * These are not mutually exclusive. People can be known for more than one thing. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The main problem is that the articles are created by people who intent to show only the views not a comprehensive look at the person. When the person also has an extensive body of work that we are ignoring, or the article is filled with material that over emphasizes their opinions on this topic, then we are not presenting an article from a NPOV. In some cases it is really embarrassing to see the content swing back and forth from one extreme of bias to another with slow edit wars, while ignoring large amounts of their prominent areas of research or other work. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 00:22, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Is it safe to say that everyone agrees with FloNight on this? I certainly do, and it's a problem I deal with on a daily basis with no end in sight. Viriditas (talk) 00:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that there is a problem. I think Boris pointed out somewhere above that one of the problems with even mildly contrarian BLPs is that they are often used as coatracks to introduce not information on the person, but to prominently present their non-mainstream views. Morevover, many of the contrarians are only prominent due to the man-bites-dog effect, and there often is very little other material about the person to round out the biographies. Peacocking and coatracking tend to provoke counter reactions - and not always perfect ones. Some systemic ideas to handle this problem would be very welcome. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I too agree that it is a problem. I remember SlimVirgin rewriting Fred Singer a few months ago, turning it from a climate change coatrack into an actual biography. She had to fight hard to have her changes stand, against editors with vested CC interests, and a lesser editor would have failed. -- JN 466  23:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Risker, you should know that I do not adhere to the notability standards, I'm a verifiability kinda guy. On prominence, I would not write about most of these people but I understand well that there might have been pressure to write something about these characters. It's the same reason we have articles about modern biologists who have no distinguished work behind them but happen to be opposed to evolution. FloNight, I'm broadly sympathetic to your point and I would welcome a constructive dialog on how we stop these characters being used as footballs. --TS 00:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Many of these BLPs should simply be done away with. In some cases they are about people who have virtually no scientific prominence and are known solely for their promotion of contrarian views. In others, what often happens is that certain editors puff up a biography of a notable skeptic/contrarian, then others come along and swing the pendulum back in the other direction, too far in the opinion of some (or vice-versa). We should do away with the BLPs of many of these folks (not Seitz, obviously, but probably folks like Balling and Christy) and fold statements of their views into the appropriate subject-matter articles. This is just one example of Wikipedia's plague of marginally notable BLPs, which I view as a moral and legal time bomb. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Looking at Balling, it looks as if he was mentioned in Wikipedia because a right wing political organization known as the Cato Institute employed him to give a contrarian briefing in December, 2003. I don't think there would be an article about him if he hadn't been mentioned in that context. The Cato Institute isn't a scientific institution, you know. --TS 00:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Cato is not right-wing, it's Libertarian, but that's beside the point. What is interesting is that three of the four bios cited by FloNight were created by WMC; the only one that he didn't create is the one which is unquestionably notable (Seitz).  Horologium  (talk) 00:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You're seriously arguing that John Christy and Roy Spencer are NN? That is ridiculous William M. Connolley (talk) 18:04, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

In the context of this case, I believe that there are already other sections that already have a perhaps better context for the points that FloNight is trying to make. For example, there's already a proposed finding and proposed remedy on WMC and BLP's. Bill Huffman (talk) 00:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear, this is one of the more significant findings of a review of articles that fall under the broad CC umbrella. There are at least three times the number of BLPs as there are articles about the scientific aspects of climate change, at least twice as many on the political and economic issues, and at least twice as many about various forms of media. This is something that many editors appear to ignore. Bluntly put, there is little difference between a garage band guitarist's point of view on who should be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and an otherwise non-notable scientist's point of view on climate change. Their point of view is irrelevant if they themselves are not notable, even if their point of view is reported in reliable sources. Risker (talk) 00:47, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you offering a vision of Wikipedia that would not feature endless biographies of relatively unimportant scientists? Please lead me there! --TS 00:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, Tony, you know exactly how to PROD an article, or to AfD it. Nobody needs Arbcom permission to do it, just an agreement that if a scientist isn't notable for xyr scientific work, then they shouldn't have an article. You can make the argument even better than I can. In fact, so can 80% of the editors on this page. But keeping these coatracks - and yes, that's what they are - is contrary to the purposes of the project. Risker (talk) 01:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think a good example of some of what is being discussed here is the Fred Singer article. This is what it looked like before SlimVirgin got involved with it.  Now, go look at it the much improved version.  SlimVirgin changed the article to be about the person, not a few of his views that some of the editors here apparently felt were controversial and worthy of being labeled as such.  Now, look here to see that a number of editors tried to get in the way of her improving the article.  Are there any familiar account names? Cla68 (talk) 01:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What I ended up having to do at the Singer article was work on it on a user subpage, then present it as a whole to the other editors before inserting it. That way, it became difficult for William Connolley and the others to object to it as a whole package. But it was very clear that their aim at that article was to produce an attack page, not a biography. Are diffs needed? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 17:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * (EC) @Risker: A good thought, but not possible in practice. Contrarian editors will fight tooth-and-nail to keep the articles (e.g.,), and as you are aware if there is the slightest doubt as to deletion, the default is to keep the article. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I suspect that were the three bios above to be submitted to AFD, the results would differ from your prediction. Remember, Anthony Watts was not created by a member of the mainstream science club. I know that *I* would vote to delete them, as right now they are coatracks, and I have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to fix them, and it's equally obvious that the creator and some of the more frequent editors from the mainstream science club will filibuster any effort to fix them, as happened on the Singer article.  Horologium  (talk) 01:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is not an one sided issue!! People with widely differing pov are creating these articles and adding content that adds bias. The articles that I named were not just created and maintained by editors with one point of view. The reason that I'm raising the concerns is because long time editors seem complicit in maintaining the status quo of these poorly written articles. We need to work to make them better, stub them to a list of basic bio facts, or redirect them to the most appropriate article until someone can rewrite them. But maintaining the articles in their current state is not an acceptable alternative. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 01:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. How do we implement this?  Could we have arbcom agree to some kind of office-like action?  I realize that such a proposal is extremely controversial, but that's what needs to happen. Viriditas (talk) 01:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Definitely. Many of these articles need to be elbowed, but it can't happen without high-level "encouragement." Stubbing won't work because the cancer will gradually relapse. I worked with others to stub-out the discussion of climate change in Christopher Monckton but that has only held because the article is full protected. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem here is that it's almost impossible to write a biography of a scientist that doesn't end up being a coatrack of one sort or another. The standard for notability, WP:PROF, isn't actually all that helpful for writing a biography. It's easy enough to demonstrate notability in the context of a deletion discussion, but you can't turn an H-index into an encyclopaedia. And it's really hard to find a BLP-compliant discussion of the impact of someone's work. On the other hand, controversial material, the kind of thing that gets into newspaper articles, is easy to source, and for the most part it passes BLP. So unlike someone's scientific impact - which is difficult to gauge for anyone outside of their actual discipline - someone's role in controversy is easy to source. Guettarda (talk) 01:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Guettarda: That's not true. The problem here is WP:ADVOCACY.  I wrote the following BLP about the scientist Bernard Foing.  Please tell me what it's a coat rack for? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not true? So you're saying that it's easy to write articles about a scientist's impact in their profession despite the fact that very few sources address that impact, while many address controversy? Or are you saying that it's not true that, broadly speaking, there are few sources that address the professional impacts of scientists, despite the fact that they may meet WP:PROF? If you're accusing me of being untruthful, you need to, at the very least, explain why you think I am being untruthful. What part of my statement is untrue? Guettarda (talk) 01:49, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's not distract from this case. Guettarda, I've already started a thread about this on your talk page.  AQFK, take your concerns there.  If neither of you wants to discuss it on your talk pages, you are both welcome to use mine. Viriditas (talk) 01:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Good job on that article, AQFK. Cla68 (talk) 01:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, good job AQFK, but could you visit the talk page? There's concerns about the quality of your article based on the failed GA assessment. Other than that, yes, it's not a coatrack and Guettarda may have misspoke.  I think we all agree that it is possible to write scientist bios that don't become coatracks.  And the problem here is not just advocacy.  That's only one problem.  The overall problem concerns a general failure to adhere to Wikipedia's code of conduct, not just in terms of behavior but in regards to the use of sources and material about BLP's and climate science articles. Viriditas (talk) 01:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Viriditas: I agree that there is a general failure to adhere to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, but I see this as a symptom of the core issue: editors are using BLPs as coatracks to re-argue the case for/against AGW and/or are using BLPs to score points for/against their ideological opponents.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * AQFK: You are describing your own behavior. Just a few minutes ago, you claimed in a thread higher up on this page, that "review after review has found evidence that the UEA violated the FOIA."  I don't believe that is true, but since you are so personally invested in promoting criminal acts that have not occurred, I would ask at this time that you voluntarily remove yourself from all climate articles.  Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 02:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Viriditas: You seem to be confusing an editor's personal opinion with an editor reporting back what reliable sources are saying about subject. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * All the more reason you should remove yourself, as you aren't using reliable sources appropriately. We don't repeat sensationalism or unsupported opinion.  There is no evidence that the UEA violated the FOIA.  That is your personal opinion, and you are misusing poor sources to promote it.  It's also undue weight, as that was only one small aspect of the overall case.  More importantly, your consistent focus on this tiny element is nothing but a tactic of distraction, as it reframes the actual criminal act that occurred, the hacking and theft of the e-mails, and tries to paint the scientists as criminals.  We have evidence that a data theft occurred, and that's a criminal act.  However, we have no evidence that a violation of the FOIA occurred.  You're engaging in propaganda tactics, and you need to remove yourself from this topic. Viriditas (talk) 02:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Viriditas: Let me provide some sources. What I said above is that the ICO, the House of Commons and the UEA's own internal investigation all found evidence that the UEA violated the Freedom of Information Act.  If you personally disagree with what they said, then you should take the issue up with them, not me.  Your argument that there is no evidence that the UEA violated the FOIA is false, and I note that you fail to provide any evidence to support your claims. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Again with the tendentious misuse of sources? How many times does your error need to be pointed out to you? The BBC source is dated 28 January 2010, The Guardian is dated 27 January, and The Telegraph is dated 28 Jan 2010.  How many corrections, apologies, retractions, and investigations have been released since that time?  Again, if you can't understand that older sources are replaced by newer ones, and that sensationalistic news reports based on the time of the event are generally inaccurate, then you should not be editing this topic.  This is a basic, fundamental understanding required for evaluating sources and using sources.  That you would still insist on pointing to old, sensationalistic sources from six months ago, shows that you just don't get it.  The ICO admitted that the media coverage was erroneous, and that no violation occurred. The worst thing that can be said is that the handling of the requests was found to be inadequate.  Subsequent investigations found no evidence for a violation, and no criminal act that occurred, contrary to what the sensationalist media reported at the time.  Is any of this making sense? Viriditas (talk) 02:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Viriditas: Wow. You completely failed to provide any evidence that the ICO, the House of Commons and the UEA's own internal investigation are wrong.  Even worse, you repeat your claim that "no violation occurred" without a single diff.  I've provided plenty of sources to support my understanding.  You have provided none.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * AQFK, you should be aware of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. You are editing tendentiously again.  Your sources are not accurate nor relevant to the current body of knowledge on this topic. Even Newsweek has explained how the media gets an F for failing to retract most of their erroneous coverage.  This is from July 07, 2010:
 * "...a British parliamentary inquiry and an independent panel have cleared the climategate scientists of any serious wrongdoing. The third review, out today, reached the same conclusions. And Penn vindicated Mann in a separate investigation. The science that the UEA turned out was sound—even if different methods had been used, the conclusions would have been the same...But, as NEWSWEEK's Sharon Begley pointed out, the retractions of the original 'smoking gun' stories have been muted. Climategate, now a firmly established 'gate,' will probably continue to be cited as evidence of a global-warming conspiracy. Indeed, the reaction to the report today has been somewhat odd. Bloomberg News's headline was 'Climategate' Scientists Wrongly Withheld Data, Probe Finds'. It is inflammatory and misleading—the report did not say that information was withheld. It said that the scientists could have been better at responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, and generally, as Begley also noted, more open to scrutiny."


 * AQFK, there was no violation of the FOIA. That's your personal campaign against climate scientists, and it is at odds with the known, current facts.  Selectively citing old sources to push a POV and selectively interpreting conclusions that aren't supported by the facts is evidence of a continued pattern of poor editing on your part, editing that shows a personal investment in the outcome.  Because you have failed to use sources appropriately, and continue to wage a propaganda war against climate scientists and climate science against the known facts, please remove yourself from this topic. Viriditas (talk) 02:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow, so your single source which only contains a single on-topic sentence (the UEA's violations of the FOIA) which doesn't even support your claim that "no violation occurred" should override all the other current, on-topic, detailed reports which all found evidence that UEA violated the FOIA? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Single source? The scientists were cleared, don't you get it?  Why are you continuing to post links to outdated, inaccurate, sensationalist sources?  Time magazine, 176:3, pp.10-11, July 19, 2010:
 * "Panel Clears Climategate Researchers...The latest of several inquiries into the Climategate controversy--which erupted last year after about 1,000 leaked e-mails became fodder for global-warming skeptics who saw in the messages evidence of bias and falsified data--determined that the 'rigour and honesty' of scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit 'are not in doubt.' While the independent review found that the scientists should have been more open to outsiders and critics, it concluded that they had not manipulated data or misled the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."


 * AQFK, there was no violation of the FOIA. Please stop tendentiously editing Wikipedia and making false claims.  Remove yourself from this topic immediately.  You have no business editing any article connected with this topic. Viriditas (talk) 03:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * So in other words, ignore the actual content of the emails, which the Institute of Physics had the intestinal fortitude not to do, when they said there was prima facie evidence of that which you are vigorously denying. They are not the only organization to make that statement. The fact is that they couldn't be prosecuted due to a ridiculously short 6 month statute of limitations for the crime. TheGoodLocust (talk) 04:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You're six months behind, TGL: "Institute of Physics forced to clarify submission to climate emails inquiry": "The Guardian has been unable to find a member of the board that supports the submission. Two of the scientists listed as members said they had declined to comment on a draft submission prepared by the institute, because they were not climate experts and had not read the UEA emails. Others would not comment or did not respond to enquiries."  In any event, TGL, you're cherry picking from a memorandum, not the overall conclusions of the Select Committee.  Please stop cherry picking from memorandums, and start citing from the actual conclusions in the report. Viriditas (talk) 09:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sigh, I don't even know why I bothered. The "correction" and accompanying Guardian spin had nothing to do with what I, the IOP, and other institutions have said, which is that the emails were prima facie evidence of attempts to circumvent FOI laws (and other things). You should know by now that such irrelevant distractions don't work on me Viriditas. All anyone has to do is actually read the emails (like I did). TheGoodLocust (talk) 09:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia, we don't write from our POV, like you and AQFK are doing. We cite the conclusions of the final reports. Please cite the conclusion of the final report in this regard, not the memo.  What does it say?  It says exactly what Newsweek and Time reported that it said.  Are you "getting" it yet? Viriditas (talk) 09:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh I definitely get it, you'd have the "final word" on Michael Mann be from the university that gains millions in grant money from him being there and would lose an incredible amount of money and prestige if they found him guilty. As I said, the emails are practically confessions, "final reports" that intentionally ignore the facts in the case, had CRU members there for nearly every minute of deliberation, and which have been extensively and justifiably criticized will not change those facts. Here is a novel idea - we could just quote a few choice passages from the emails in the actual article and let people make up their own minds, then we won't have to worry about anyone's POV. TheGoodLocust (talk) 10:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't change the subject. You and AQFK are both claiming that the scientists "violated the FOIA".  However, none of the current reports or secondary sources on this subject say that.  The New York Times, July 7, 2010:
 * "A British panel on Wednesday exonerated the scientists caught up in the controversy known as Climategate of charges that they had manipulated their research to support preconceived ideas about global warming. But the panel also rebuked the scientists for several aspects of their behavior, especially their reluctance to release computer files supporting their scientific work...All five investigations have come down largely on the side of the climate researchers, rejecting a number of criticisms raised by global-warming skeptics...The latest report was by no means a complete vindication. Echoing the findings of an earlier report  by a parliamentary committee in London, the reviewers criticized the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit for consistently “failing to display the proper degree of openness” in responding to demands for backup data and other information under Britain’s public-record laws."
 * That's Newsweek, Time magazine, and now, The New York Times. Do you see anything about "violation of the FOIA" in any of those articles?  No, you don't.  How can it be, TGL, that you and AQFK are saying things not found in the current sources on the subject?  Can you explain this strange state of affairs? Viriditas (talk) 10:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the IOP statement I already linked said, "The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. That's pretty clear. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said, "The prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence.”" I'd say that is also pretty clear. If you like I can start posting the actual text of the emails where they ask each other to delete info and then confirm that they've deleted the info they were previously asked to delete. Alternatively you can realize that getting the last word doesn't make your arguments any more realistic or cogent. TheGoodLocust (talk) 10:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but no. As editors, we don't cherry pick from here and there to push a POV of climate change conspiracy.  We also don't interpret primary sources above and beyond the conclusions of good secondary sources on the subject.  We go with what reliable sources say on the subject.  Sources like USA Today on July 7, 2010:
 * "No misconduct is found, but more openness urged...A final investigation of stolen e-mails that raised suspicions about the science behind global warming cleared scientists of any misconduct on Wednesday, but it called for researchers to be more open with their data...it noted 'a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness' by the scientists and university in response to critics' data requests. But it finds, as have past reports, that others have independently arrived at results echoing the CRU research. The Russell report went so far as to reproduce the CRU results with publicly available data....'Overall, the report adds to the others showing the scientists haven't done anything wrong,' says climate scientist Donald Wuebbles of the University of Illinois. 'How would you like to have 13 years of your e-mail stolen and picked over for everything unkind you've ever said?'...However, 'this is no whitewash,' says science misconduct expert Daniele Fanelli of the United Kingdom's University of Edinburgh. 'Implicitly, the report is saying something was wrong here, we need more transparency in the system of communicating the science.'"
 * And sources like the Christian Science Monitor, also on July 7, 2010:
 * A six-month investigation into the leaked e-mails that formed the "climategate" scandal has largely exonerated key scientists...In his report, British civil servant Sir Muir Russell found that the climategate e-mails don't undermine the basic science behind man-made global warming. Nevertheless, the impact of the leaked e-mails has been to push scientists toward the realization that talking about punching climate skeptics and being coy about releasing data hardly build public trust in their work...Failure to release requested data was ultimately not an issue, Russell found, because qualified researchers could easily find global warming data in other places. And while several e-mails revealed at least an intent to subvert the peer review process in order to exclude skeptical research, the report found that CRU scientists did not ultimately undermine the IPCC's peer review process..."We do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA," the report said..."We accept the report's conclusion that we could and should have been more proactively open, not least because – as this exhaustive report makes abundantly clear – we have nothing to hide," UAE's vice chancellor, Edward Acton..."
 * Let's see, that's Newsweek, Time magazine, The New York Times, USA Today, and now the Christian Science Monitor — vs. TGL and AQFK. Who is reliable here? Viriditas (talk) 10:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The Muir Russell report, released this July, stated in its findings, p. 93, "The Review found an ethos of minimal compliance (and at times non-compliance) by the CRU with both the letter and the spirit of the FoIA and EIR." The executive summary, p. 14, stated "On the allegation that CRU does not appear to have acted in a way consistent with the spirit and intent of the FoIA or EIR, we find that there was unhelpfulness in responding to requests and evidence that e-mails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them. University senior management should have accepted more responsibility for implementing the required processes for FoIA and EIR compliance." Beyond that, I agree with your principle that we should follow secondary sources, and I agree that the scientific work was largely given a clean bill of health. -- JN 466  00:30, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm so glad FloNight brought this issue here. We've all danced around it throughout the case, but I think the BLP issue is the biggest problem in this topic area for all the reasons everyone has stated above. I almost with there could be a mandate against editing the BLP of someone whose views an editor disagrees with. I know that's not realisitic, but it sure would help the situation. Regarding Rd232, I had presented a proposal about that editor, but it was limited to articles I had edited - so I was at a loss to address some of Roger Davies' comments about a larger pattern. Some of the diffs here do support the principle I was trying to illustrate though. Thanks FloNight for your entry into this madness as things seem to be winding down. Minor4th  02:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm amused at how poor FloNight's evidence is in relation to me. Duplicated diffs don't help, but the characterisation of some of the talk page comments and edits... Anyway, what it comes down to at Seitz was that FellGleaming deleted key information on Seitz's key role in a key political action on climate change. so I expanded that to fully clarify the issue. The initial paragraph was then quite big, and I reduced it myself, and some others' reductions are OK in terms of balancing clarity and brevity. Bottom line: if we're trying to whack me with a bias stick, let's whack the NYT as well. Their obituary is 952 words long., and climate change takes up 199 words (21%), RJ Reynolds 164 (17%). On 15 Sep ( last time I edited the article), the body text (excluding lead, and not including Positions or anything below) was 810 words. Reynolds is 54 words (7%), climate change 246 (30%). So NYT has 38% on these two issues, and our article had 37%. Is this really what WP:COATRACKing looks like? I must be doing it wrong. (And for comparison, after FellGleaming's recent trimming, climate change is 29%. Are we really saying that 1% more or less in a 1000-word article is a measure of bias?) Rd232 talk 09:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Update: I've expanded it a bit it's now 906 words, and cc 26%. There's a bit more to be had from the Physics Today article, but it requires more rewriting/restructuring of the career section than I have time and energy for. Rd232 talk 10:34, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Would that be the same New York Times that recently ran a front page hit piece on the Republican House minority leader including such hard-hitting examples of journalism like mocking his tan? There is a reason why the paper is going bankrupt and why encyclopedia articles shouldn't be based solely on its point of view. TheGoodLocust (talk) 09:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well for me, the way reputable papers balance an obituary has always been something of a benchmark for UNDUE concerns. In many cases they're so much shorter than the WP article that the comparison is only indicative, but here it's quite helpful. If you think the NYT is radically different than other reputable Seitz obits, prove it. Rd232 talk 10:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * At least we will have "fair and balanced" Fox News to inform us of the "facts", right? Viriditas (talk) 10:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * At least until you succeed in getting wikipedia to declare Fox News not a news organization - how's that been working out for you? TheGoodLocust (talk) 10:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you find it a bit odd that after covering the "greatest scientific scandal of our time" day and night for six months, that after the scientists were cleared by five investigations, you could hear crickets chirping in the newsroom at Fox? I suppose it is "fair and balanced" to hurl unsupported allegations at scientists for month after month, but not to inform their audience of the results clearing the scientists of any wrongdoing?  That's an interesting interpretation of fairness and balance, don't you think? Viriditas (talk) 11:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Would the two of you please pull in your claws and take the partisan sniping elsewhere?  Horologium  (talk) 11:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * FloNight points to a genuine problem area, of BLPs being used to promote a viewpoint rather than description of the life of the person. In some ways that's a reflection of the political/economic controversy, as those with fringe or small minority views are promoted by those denying the need for action, gaining disproportionate attention in the media, and mainstream figures are subjected to smear campaigns intended to discredit the science. Her statement "I found these examples of poorly written articles about mainstream scientists by randomly selecting articles in the Environmental skepticism category." is self-contradictory, these are scientists promoting minority views rather than the mainstream. A wider examination would show possibly greater problems with articles on the mainstream. Taking some cases I'm aware of; Michael E. Mann has been the subject of pov pushing, including misrepresentation of an offtopic source, misrepresentation of a source in a section giving undue weight to an ephemeral political stunt attacking Mann, battlefield behaviour in tagging, and presentation of fringe critics as though they should be given "equal validity". The latter problem persists, as does undue weight to the Climatic Research Unit emails reinforced by the iconic image of a building which Mann may never have visited. Rajendra K. Pachauri has been the subject of newspaper smear campaigns, attempts to coatrack issues, and even after the allegations were shown to be false, there has been removal of well sourced content defending Pachauri and persistent reorganising the "criticism" section to show the allegations before noting that they've been withdrawn, and persistent calls for coatracks. Phil Jones (climatologist) has also been a continued problem article, even now there is persistent discussion and attempts to add a criticism that was withdrawn and and interview that was misrepresented, giving undue weight to peripheral issues rather than to his life. There's not an easy answer to this, but it's certainly been an area where biographies are used to coatrack a point of view. . . dave souza, talk 11:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no disagreement with you on those, but the major difference is that those three individuals are all pretty unquestionably notable, and it is easier to keep an article on a notable person from turning into a coatrack. It's when biographies of people of marginal notability are created solely to disparage their views that the problem begins. For a number of reasons, that seems to happen more with the skeptics, but part of that is because WMC is a prolific contributor, who has started articles on *many* climatologists, including those on both sides of the issue.  Horologium  (talk) 11:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * @ Horologium, on Flo's selection your argument looks unfair: Frederick Seitz was begun by an IP in 2002, in 2004 WMC started articles on Robert Balling, Roy Spencer (scientist) and John Christy, all of which look good. Only the Christy article makes any mention of "skeptical views on global warming", and that's supported by a citation to a reliable source. They clearly weren't created to disparage their views. . .dave souza, talk 12:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * dave souza, I'm pleased to see that you recognize that BLPs in this topic area are a problem. I'm disappointed to see that you are introducing a partisan slant into the discussion by discussing the people based on their views. The people that I discussed are/were primary employment is mainstream institutions and their work is published in mainstream journals. Their article will need to primarily summarize their entire life work with emphasis on the areas where they are most known. Instead too often the article are used by both side to to discuss the overall GW issue as a way for each side to advocate for their side. Editors on both sides engage in this activity on articles about people with a wide spectrum of views by over emphasizing the amount of detail about GW issues compared to the rest of the coverage of their life. The level of detail used gives undue weight to the significance of these events in the persons life. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 12:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Some of it is simply WP:Recentism, which is to say, bias in availability of sources to recent events/issues multiplied by bias of editors' interest in recent events, which is one of WP's biggest structural biases. For low notability people you often have little more than their CV to work from [for older stuff], and any survey of their published work in journals risks being synthy. (With books it's not so bad as these will be fewer and have more easily available summaries or reviews.) Bottom line: editors should be reminded of the need to actively combat recentism through adding what info is available. Rd232 talk 12:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In other cases, when virtually every single mainstream reliable source reports things, over a period of years, it is not WP:RECENTISM-- it's due weight and representation of mainstream views. Just as WP:BLP has become a bludgeon to stifle criticism, so has misuse of recentism when academic sources are lagging. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 12:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:Recentism is an essay, and therefore incapable of being used as a bludgeon in the way that WP:BLP policy is. And the issue you describe does not apply in the same way in climate change as it does to Venezuela articles, because of vastly more publishing activity, and much shorter publishing cycles in science journals. PS Knowing that your contributions to climate change articles are close to zero (AFAIK), this response directed at me has a certain "when did you stop beating your wife?" quality. Rd232 talk 12:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * @ FloNight: Ah, a language based misunderstanding. You chose examples from a list of those defined as "sceptics", by definition they're publicly known for views differing from the modern mainstream, but they have had a recognised career in mainstream science, at least up to a point. If you'd made a broader selection it wouldn't have raised my concern about the need to look at this in a more balanced way. The point remains, that supposedly reputable publications like Daily Telegraph or books by reputable publishers present attack information about scientists or others associated with the science of global warming, and simply insisting on meeting the basic requirements of reliable sources without considering political slant leads to problems when editors try to push news items into biographies. There's also the question of adequately informing readers about the current status of scientists in science, and a careful balance has to be set. . . dave souza, talk 12:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I have to say I honestly have no idea what's going on here anymore. Looking only at Frederick Seitz, I cannot understand the basis for FloNight's criticism of Rd232. Seitz's petition was disowned by the National Academies of Science, an event covered by the New York Times, Science, Vanity Fair, and the Academy itself. This isolated episode should not be given undue weight, but I don't see how Rd232 can be criticized for believing that it deserves to be mentioned, given the prominence attached to the episode by top-quality independent, reliable sources. Moreover, I don't see how editors can be slagged for devoting a significant portion of the biography to Seitz's contrarian views on global warming and tobacco. These emphases are mirrored in independent, reliable sources; for example, the New York Times obituary for Seitz describes him in the headline as "Physicist Who Led Skeptics of Global Warming" . If we've reached the point where editors can be pilloried for BLP violations simply for accurately reflecting the content and emphases of the New York Times, Science, the National Academies of Science, etc, then I think there is honestly no reason for anyone to bother editing these biographies at all. The degree of scrutiny being applied retrospectively is unreasonable, and the criticisms being levelled are completely divorced from the most important context - the content of independent, reliable sources. WP:BLP still says: "If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it." The fact that a biography contains negative material is not de facto evidence of a BLP violation. I haven't looked at the other bios listed by FloNight - I only got as far as the Seitz one before being motivated to post this. MastCell Talk 17:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * "If we've reached the point where editors can be pilloried for BLP violations simply for accurately reflecting the content and emphases of the New York Times, Science, the National Academies of Science, etc" We have.  Look at how I've been treated for reporting what the ICO, House of Commons and the University of East Anglia said.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think your comments on the subject have generally been within the parameters of a robust discussion of a controversial topic. Which is kind of my point; BLP has been debased from a serious, ethical policy initiative into an undiscerningly employed bludgeon, and I think some of the material presented in this thread perpetuates that unfortunate trend. MastCell Talk 17:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, robust discussion tends to get mistaken for "battleground behaviour", as seen in the copious diffs presented above. Having looked into it a bit more, AQFK's outburst of "criminals", which certainly shocked me at the time, seems to arisen from a good faith belief in press reports such as The Telegraph writing that "The Information Commissioner's office ruled that UEA was in breach of the Freedom of Information Act – an offence which is punishable by an unlimited fine." It only takes a little investigation of the act to see that this is nonsense, as such an offence has to go to a magistrate's court where the magistrate makes the ruling, not the ICO. It was also rather shocking that AQFK was willing to see dubious press reports included, but kept removing the university's case, a situation not helped by Heyitspeter having removed links to sources and sourced statements. Still, in the long run it's good news that there has been no finding of guilt under section 77, though the university has been found to have transgressed section 50 (or equivalent) which is not time barred, and is being dealt with in accordance with the legislation. All a bit confusing, which is why good faith robust discussion is needed, along with a presumption of innocence of BLP subjects until there is a proper and well established finding otherwise. Which potentially might happen someday, but hasn't yet and indeed further investigation seems unlikely to go ahead, though bloggers will no doubt keep complaining. . dave souza, talk 22:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Christopher Monckton was the first person to actively promote the "scientists as criminals" position in the wake of "Climategate". Viriditas (talk) 22:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * MastCell, it's a systemic problem. There are few people like SlimVirgin who bother writing an actual biography; instead we have lots of editors who are happy to add the latest controversy. You end up with biographies that just consist of the controversies that made it into the press. Only mustard and no meat. -- JN 466  00:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well as I said, it's partly WP:recentism - a generic interest in the recent multiplied by bias of source availability to recent issues. But it does go beyond that. We have editors willing to restore recent non-issues (presented in a partial way) into the lead of a BLP against consensus, yet delete well-sourced information showing the impact of non-recent work of another person. Rd232 talk 07:41, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

My experience
Attempts to deal with BLP problems in this area are usually met with such outrage and opprobrium that nothing can get done. I first encountered this after seeing Articles for deletion/List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming (3rd nomination) where a lot of angry keep "!votes" in that discussion looked to me suspiciously like editors wanting to keep the battleground alive. Later, when I tried to work directly on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming all the attempts I made to try to figure out whether inclusion criteria could be judiciously applied to the article were met with such incredible resistance as to make collaboration virtually impossible (this was from all sides of the conflict). I've come back to the page from time-to-time, but I basically stand by my evaluation here: The latest place I saw this problem was at Anthony Watts (blogger) -- an article that is in such a poor state because people (including myself) who have dared to try to work on it in the past invariably get their heads bitten off. I got involved in that article because I noticed that Virginia Heffernan expressed a "regret" regarding a half-sentence recommendation she made of his flagship blog -- a recommendation that was featured prominently in the lead of the article when I arrived trying to edit it. I added the rejoinder in to the article and MN angrily told me that we couldn't use blog posts that were verified to Twitter accounts in articles on BLPs ever. Huh? Heffernan's confirmed Twitter account connected a statement of "regret" (and you can interpret exactly what she regretted in a lot of ways, but all I did was quote the woman) to her previous half-sentence on the subject. And yet the arguments flew fast and furious that since she published her first comment in a newspaper and then merely stated her second comment as comments to another blog linked by her confirmed twitter account, we should somehow ONLY include the recommendation and not the regret. This was an argument being made by multiple people. I only got notice when I started to make BOLD declarations. Otherwise Heffernan's quote would still be in the article today, I think. Some megabytes of text and months later, Heffernan is no longer included at that article. I have received no sanction, despite a lot of noise from the admin corner occupied by Lar, but the "hit points" to my reputation are enough so that a bold merge I did last week was met with disapproval by a number of editors on all "sides" of the issue. That's right, WP:BRD and WP:BOLD are looked at with scorn at these articles to the point where people suggest sanctions for acting in that way. Sanctions for trying to merge an article. Why? I'm fine with the idea that sometimes a merge doesn't work, but a wiki is supposed to be something that anyone can edit. If merging were a problem, protection could have been employed. Instead, we get so much heat and so little light as to make this entire situation essentially intractable.

I believe unless there is some breathing room provided we're never going to move forward. Currently, other obvious improvements to the BLP of Anthony Watts (such as indicating that he is a climate change skeptic or some other synonym in the lead) are perennially reverted. I was dragged through a pointless enforcement process where people tried to argue that I was "misrepresenting sources" in a way that looked so incredibly baroque and arcane as to remind me of scholasticism. Apparently, there were other conflicts in the past which people were revisiting (something about a source parole for marknutley, but I'm not privvy to all this drahmaz). So because people didn't like the sources I chose and because they thought that I was "misrepresenting" them in some way, we now have no indication in the lead of our article for what Anthony Watts position on climate change is. I've tried a couple times since then to fix this, but it simply tends to be reverted as though I'm editor-non-grata at that page. And it's not just me. Hans Adler, an editor I've been in conflict with in the past over homeopathy (but also one for whom I have a great deal of respect), was practically run out of Dodge over his attempts to verify whether Watts was a meteorologist or a weather reporter. Basic wikiquette and AGF is GONE from these pages and talk pages and enforcement to the sanctions board or here is routinely used as a weapon to intimidate anyone would would like to try to edit at those pages. It would be great if an arbitrator started an alternate use account and tried to edit one -- just one -- BLP in this area and see what kind of nonsense you come up against.

ScienceApologist (talk) 16:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Which just goes to prove as i posted in my proposed findings regarding you, you still think those sources were peer reviewed and called a BLP a denier when none of that is true mark nutley (talk) 16:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Case in point. Why this topic area has enabled personal rejoinders and mean-spiritedness such as the above comment is beyond me. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * So you believe you ought to be able to say waht you want and not have your errors pointed out to you? Why not just tell me why you used a self published source to label a BLP a denier? Or why you continue to insist the three sources you misrepresented were peer reviewed when they were not? mark nutley (talk) 18:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * We can disagree on the content, facts, and even the editorial direction on the talkpages of articles without resorting to the kinds of personal recriminations you're repeating here. It is possible to do this. Trying to score rhetorical points on this page by positing that there is something I "believe" I "ought to be able to say" or asking loaded questions for the peanut gallery seems to me to just add fuel to the fire and ignores the major thrust of my post. Thankfully, this is extremely illustrative of the problem I outlined, so if you'd like to continue to act this way to demonstrate what it's like to edit in such an environment, I welcome your continued attacks. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not an attack to ask a question, one you refuse to give a reply to. Either give an answer or do not bother to reply with strawman arguments mark nutley (talk) 19:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Every question you have asked here is a loaded question which cannot be answered except to deny the assumption of facts not in evidence. You are under no obligation to reply to anything I write, and neither am I under any obligation to reply to something you write, but when you order me to "not bother to reply" except to answer your questions, you give another great example of how talk pages conversations get derailed by rhetorical grandstanding. Feel free to keep them coming, this is turning into a great object lesson. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I did not say do not bother to reply, i said give an answer or do not bother, and it was hardly an order was it. Now lets try this, how is asking you to reply to a very simple question loaded? Did the sources you used to label a BLP actually call that BLP a denier? Were all those sources peer reviewed as you said they were? These are not loaded questions, they require a simple yes or no. mark nutley (talk) 20:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The sentence is written in the imperative tense, so grammatically, it is an order. The "very simple question[s]" you are asking are compound and loaded in the sense that instead of asking, "Why did you say this?" you are asking "Why did you say this when that is true?" These two questions appear as loaded to me as "Did you stop beating your wife?" because there are antecedents to both of them that I deny. I have been clear about this every step of the way so either you do not understand what I'm saying, you disagree with what I'm saying, or you simply want to ignore what I'm saying. In any case, it just further illustrates the kind of combativeness that I think destroys any real hope of progress. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with each other that some set of sources are "peer-reviewed" or "good" or "straightforward". We can also disagree about what the sources are saying. But what purpose at this point do your questions serve other than to perpetuate the battleground mentality? ScienceApologist (talk) 20:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It proves what i said all along. that is the point of the questions. You say they are loaded, that is bull. Yes or No Were the sources you used to label Anthony Watts a Denier peer reviewed? Yes or No Did those sources call Anthony Watts a Denier? These are not loaded questions, so just give a straight reply mark nutley (talk) 20:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In my view, these questions are either rhetorical or irrelevant to this section. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Ah please stop splitting hairs you two. You have both made your points repeatedly, no need to go around in circles. Have some cookies and a warm drink and relax. :)-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  20:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * So the question I have is after a merry-go-round such as this how does one determine what the right way to edit an article is? This exchange could have been lifted off of any article talk page in the topic area. Also note that this game has resulted in you concluding, perhaps rightly so, as a neutral observer that everybody's at fault. Or, at the very least, that's one reasonable interpretation of your exhortation. After such an occurrence, what editing is possible at all? More than this, last-word-ism is invoked all too often here. So if I refuse to answer MN's last post, he takes that as a rhetorical "win" and then complains all over the meta-pages if I were to try to make any edit whatsoever. This is an extremely typical example of how exchanges in this area proceed. I challenge you to try to make substantial changes in a BLP without having this occur. If you're successful, then I'd be happy to adopt your model. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The right way, of course, to edit an article is by following policies, like WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:BLP etc. I do understand that the editing environment is very toxic and difficult with drama arising over just about every edit. I think that I shall decline your challenge to edit a climate change BLP; I don't think that I would edit the climate change articles even if you paid me. I need to keep my sanity. :)-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  22:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think we all agree that these policies and guidelines are what we should follow. I know I don't disagree with that. However, when the environment has descended into the morass you saw above, it's almost impossible to get to anything done. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:00, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Literaturegeek, why don't you go add the following text and cite to William M. Connolley's BLP and see what happens? I'm sure WMC and the editors who watch his article wouldn't mind it being added, since they appear to agree that the same type of information can be added to the BLPs of sceptics.  In the summer of 2008, Connolley assisted Dave Rado in reviewing his proposed complaint to Ofcom over the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. Prado asked Connnolley for his assistance because, according to Christopher Booker, Connolley had developed a reputation among climate change circles for his effective work in ensuring that Wikipedia articles on global warming stayed "on message."
 * —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cla68 (talk • contribs)
 * I think that would be a rather bad idea - not because of the content - but because the reference isn't reliable to information of that kind. Opinion/Polemics generally aren't. But then again, if you think that it is important in the context of WMC's biography to have information about his "peer-reviewing" the OfCom complaint - then this reference should be reasonably appropriate (although it should be prefixed with "According to David Rado, ....". --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 07:27, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that would be a rather bad idea - not because of the content - but because the reference isn't reliable to information of that kind. Opinion/Polemics generally aren't. But then again, if you think that it is important in the context of WMC's biography to have information about his "peer-reviewing" the OfCom complaint - then this reference should be reasonably appropriate (although it should be prefixed with "According to David Rado, ....". --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 07:27, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

On labels
I've not been involved in this discussion at all, but as I understand it we are talking about some issue with referring to someone as a "climate change denier", correct? This is a mainstream term (example) that is used interchangeably with "climate change skeptic" in the way "pro-life" is interchangeable with "anti-abortionist". To make a fuss over use of this term seems unreasonable. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * To label a person a Denier when that person is in fact a sceptic and to misrepresent sources to do so is a breach of BLP policy. The fact that SA point blank refuses to give an honest reply to a simple question proves he has misrepresented sources on purpose in a BLP for no other reason than to use the pejorative "Denier" many terms are mainstream, this does not mean they can be bunged into BLP`s does it mark nutley (talk) 21:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Mark, these are synonyms. In contemporary discourse there is no distinction between a climate change denier and a climate change skeptic.  They are one and the same.  Since all scientists are by nature "skeptics", (Romm 2007:112) it does not, IMO, make sense to refer to deniers as skeptics, unless of course they are non-scientists. Viriditas (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Since when does refusing to reply to a question "prove" anything? ScienceApologist (talk) 22:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * While I agree with scjessey's statement broadly, in BLPs we should be sensitive to the preferences of the people who we try to "label". Labels are tricky things that need to be discussed carefully. Occasionally, carefully crafted prose can completely sidestep the issue: "John Doe believes that life begins at conception and that all abortion except in the case of rape, incest, or saving the life of the mother is morally wrong," That's an editorial question. In this case, MN seems to want to paint the whole issue in black-and-white, and, in my opinion, it just aggravates the situation and prevents meaningful discussion. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Simple fact of the matter is the term Denier is a pejorative, even the Guardian has stopped using it for the simple reason it equates sceptics with knuckle dragging skinhead holocaust deniers, if the term was so interchangeable then why would SA revert an editor who changed Denier to sceptic? Why would he use Denier when the sources he had used sceptic? His constant refusal to reply to the questions put to him is very telling, it proves he knows he misrepresented sources in a BLP, of course he can`t give an honest answer here as the arbs (hopefully) are looking mark nutley (talk) 22:22, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Mark, accusing another editor of being dishonest is a personal attack, please strike that. There are problems with all the terms, currently "contrarian" seems to be the pc term and my recommendation is to move to using that. . . dave souza, talk 22:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I`ll strike it as soon as i receive an honest reply to my questions, that seems fair to me mark nutley (talk) 22:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * How is one to interpret this as anything other than WP:BATTLEGROUND? ScienceApologist (talk) 22:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * He has already explained that, I think. All scientists are skeptics. Therefore to him denier seems more logical. The idea that denier is somehow equated to holocaust deniers is something that would never dawn on me. I think part of the problem here MN is that you're approaching this discussion as some kind of advesarial exchange. That is sub-optimal IMHO. Bill Huffman (talk) 22:34, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) I think there is some confusion here, yes scientists are by default sceptics. They are sceptical about things which are not yet proven by the scientific method or are not convinced by existing evidence and want more or stronger evidence etc. This does not mean that they are forever sceptical on every question, field, finding and so forth. For example, scientists would not be sceptical that penicillin has antibiotic properties because it has been robustly demonstrated in numerous controlled trials using the scientific method.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  22:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * For which values of "skeptic"? There is a sense in which a "skeptic" always carries around a little bit of doubt even about something as well-founded as penicillin. The best scientists keep this in mind always. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not entirely sure what you are saying. When I used the word proven I was thinking in terms of proven beyond reasonable doubt.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  23:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Count Iblis deals with this a bit below, but the issue I think is that "skepticism" is a fundamental part of the scientific method at all stages. You never stop testing theories even after they've been proven time and time again. It's the rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian idea. Skepticism beyond what is expected from the scientific method is often termed "denialism" because it's just so stubbornly contrary to the actual process. Very much as if someone said that penicillin had never been shown to be an effective antimicrobial agent. That attitude isn't "skepticism", it's denialism. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe I am coming at this from a different angle but to receive funding for research you need to demonstrate that the project does not duplicate existing knowledge and similarly peer reviewed journals ask how the submission adds to existing literature and whether it duplicates existing knowledge. So I disagree from my limited experience dealing with peer reviewed journals that scientists keep testing the same theory over and over again, they don't, they try to expand on theories in different ways. So for example there would essentially be zero chance of the medical research council giving funding to test whether penicillin had antibiotic properties but they might fund expansion of existing knowledge such as mechanisms of resistance to penicillin if that knowledge needed updating or expanding on. Yes saying that penicillin does not have antibiotic properties is not scepticism, I agree. The problem is that wikipedia is not about the truth, it is about verifiability which is especially strict in BLP articles and labels and categories applied to living people are based on what reliable sources say and according due weight. An editors version of the truth does not trump WP:BLP and WP:NOR and WP:V etc. Again this is not a problem I am trying to attach to you specifically but it seems like many editors on climate change articles end up in disputes about the truth rather that argueing content based on existing policies and guidelines. I could join in arguing my version of the truth of climate change and a wide range of other subject matters on wikipedia but I have no desire to give up hours of my time and lose my sanity. To be honest even mentioning climate change on wikipedia gives me the jitters because of the feelings associated with this topic.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  17:31, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Process science, as Kuhn puts it, does require incremental adjustments, but attempting to reproduce past work is always part of every successful grant application, peer reviewed paper, and successful experiment. Scientists who find they are unable to reproduce past work face a dilemma. It's only after careful consideration of all possibilities does a scientist declare a previous result erroneous. It's difficult, but it does happen. That's skepticism plain and simple. Despite protestations to the contrary, climate scientists are properly and verifiably "climate change skeptic" because they follow the scientific method which is, by definition, a skeptical endeavor. There is no verifable, reliable sources which contradict this that I've ever seen. I disagree that this is about WP:TRUTH. This is about the problems with inaccurate and imprecise labeling. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:08, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I see where you are coming from. When I say about truth I mean, that this should if possible be settled by reliable sources and a concensus otherwise an almost never ending dispute is going to rage on, not just on this issue but on lots of different disputed issues throughout climate change articles.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  22:11, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry Bill but no. There is but one reason for using the term Denier, why do you think the Guardian has stopped using it? It is a pejorative. Do you think then it is ok for an editor to use the term denier? when the sources he is using actually use sceptic? and one of those sources was self published, and yet said editor insists that it was peer reviewed? You actually think that is acceptable behaviour in a BLP? mark nutley (talk) 22:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Bill has correctly summarized my position on the matter which I have elucidated before on the Climate Change Enforcement page. If we really wanted to resolve this issue, I think there are likely many alternative ways to put this that use no words that begin with "ske-" or "den-" as dave souza suggests. I was in discussions about this with TheWordsmith at climate change enforcement when that thread got completely derailed by people crowing about how awful it was that some people take objection to the term "skeptic" when applied to these groups. I don't honestly understand why this can't be discussed without resorting to rhetorical violence. Please, Mark, stop casting aspersions upon the motivations you think I have. They are NOT the motivations I actually have. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * "Denier" is an absolutely obscene term. As the son-in-law of one of the few Jewish survivors of Bialystok and as an extremely close friend of someone who has been HIV+ for 29 years, I find the comparison of people who don't agree with the current consensus on climate change with Holocaust deniers and AIDS deniers to be repugnant in the extreme, and I offer a sincere, heartfelt fuck you to anyone who finds the comparison to be apt.  Horologium  (talk) 23:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Climate change denial is obscene, but it is a valid phenomenon based on denying actual evidence for climate change, not skepticism. The term also has currency in scholarly work and in journalism, and refers to a movement funded by lobby groups, think tanks, and the oil industry. Lawrence Solomon, a so-called "climate skeptic", positively reappropriated the term in his book, The Deniers (2008), based on a series of columns he wrote under that title for the National Post.  A little less emotional invective based on ignorance, and a little more research based on facts would be appreciated. Viriditas (talk) 23:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Look who reverted me when I tried to point out its relation to holocaust denial in the lede for that article (it was already documented in the main body). KDLP was grossly exaggerating with that edit summary, as the second paragraph didn't say that.  Any agenda-driven editing going on here? Cla68 (talk) 23:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no ignorance here. I am aware of the existence of a group of people who are working very hard to demonize anyone who disagrees with the orthodoxy, but the use of that term is so beyond the realm of civil discourse that I can't help but display an emotional response. If you feel that it is appropriate to compare holocaust deniers with anyone with whom you have a political disagreement (which is the crux of the issue), then absolutely nothing is out of bounds. And FWIW, since I don't have any particular affection for Lawrence Solomon, it's irrelevant that he has attempted to reappropriate the term. Calling a woman a "cunt" is offensive, even if some women have tried to reappropriate the term, and I still despise the term "queer", which, IMO, doesn't need to be reappropriated either.  Horologium  (talk) 23:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, you are espousing stubborn ignorance with every comment you make. Climate change denial is an actual phenomenon, and it is a valid term that describes a reall movement based on denying evidence for climate change.  This movement is funded by lobby groups, think tanks, and the oil industry.  I am sorry that you don't understand that this is a real phenomenon, but we cannot make good decisions based on ignorance, only on facts. Please do some research on this topic before commenting again.  If you don't have time to base your opinion on facts, just say the word, and I'll provide you with a list of journal articles and books. Viriditas (talk) 23:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Might I suggest that you both take a deep breath, step back and realize that you won't agree on this point, and further discussion will probably get more and harsh, eventually leading to bad things happening? I think you've both said your points clearly, continuing will not lead to good things.  Ravensfire ( talk ) 23:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * My final response has been made to Viriditas on my talk page. I will not be participating any further in this thread, because I have lost my temper in a rather spectacular fashion. I don't have any regrets about my statement, however.  Horologium  (talk) 23:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Horologium is not inventing anything. George Monbiot and others have directly stated that they do purposely mean to equate climate change denial with Holocaust denial.  As far as our articles on "denial" are concerned, we don't take sides on it.  Of course, it also means we shouldn't call each other "deniers", but I don't recall seeing any editor say that about another editor. Cla68 (talk) 00:00, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * , not even remotely. Please be more careful in your claims. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Monbiot said, "Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial."
 * Ellen Goodman, "Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future."
 * Stephan, I know it's hard to believe that anyone would actually equate climate change scepticism with Holocaust denial, but some commentators have done it. Saying that you don't believe it doesn't make their comments disappear. Cla68 (talk) 06:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Editors who try to distract Wikipedia discussions by bringing up sensitive topics like the Holocaust or AIDS, tend to denigrate both of those subjects and do their victims a great injustice by using their plight to score cheap political points. It's a poor debating tactic left to those bereft of arguments.  Anyone who truly sympathizes with victims of genocide or with those suffering from disease would never, ever use their suffering as weapon in a debate and I seriously question the motives of those that do.  Nobody in this discussion has compared climate change deniers with Holocaust denial or AIDS denial.  Leave the red herrings in the sea, where they belong. Viriditas (talk) 08:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Cla is being deliberately misleading. Monbiot has not said "Cl Ch denial is equal to Holocaust denial", which would indeed be silly. He has said that Cl Ch denial is as stupid as Holocaust denial, which is perfectly sensible William M. Connolley (talk) 08:43, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Cla68, I don't see the word "inventing" levied against Horologium anywhere, so I have no idea what you are talking about. Facts are facts, and "climate change denial" is an acceptable and widely used term with academic and journalistic currency.  I'm sorry, but one cannot deny this.  For the most recent overview of the social phenomenon of climate change denial, please see Chapter 14 in the Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society (2011).  My original findings of fact regarding the attacks on WMC are based on similar findings (now archived). Viriditas (talk) 00:10, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue is not about climate change denial it is about sources which do not use that term denialist being used to apply that term to real life people. This is original research and a BLP violation. No one is saying you can't reference and expand the article on climate change denial. Everywhere else on wikipedia these disputes are resolved by following strictly what reliable sources say, I don't see why people can't just follow what sources say, play nice and all those other nice things. :)-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  00:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there any evidence that anyone besides ScienceApologist has tried to call someone a denier when this is not supported by the sources? Cla68 (talk) 00:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression based on arguing here and in the past that this was a long running dispute involving a quite a few editors but as you probably know I don't watch list, edit or follow the articles. I was just trying to find a common sense solution by trying to get people to follow strictly the sources per WP:NOR and WP:BLP and via concensus building. I have not been involved in the climate change disputes and thus do not want get involved in supplying evidence of misdeeds on these articles. I just would like calm to be restored especially on BLP articles, preferably by people calming down, playing nice, following policy rather than via sanctions.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  00:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * LG, I think I agree with you on the whole sanctions thing. It just serves to distract from actual issues at hand. Notice how Cla68 frames the issue almost as though I had done petty vandalism to the BLP. That's the kind of rhetoric that flies fast and furious and why I've been dragged multiple times through the mud over these issues (including on this very page). If someone inserts a wording or a sentence you object to in a BLP, the appropriate thing to do is to remove it or edit it and then explain why you removed it or edited it on the talk page in the hopes of coming to a consensus. What tends to be the default mode of operation on these pages is the person who makes the edit is told they're "POV", told they're lying, told they're in violation of some sort of sanction and then, if the person tries to explain themselves or start conversation about what the appropriate course of action is, they're dragged off to an enforcement page. I had no fewer than five different editors including an administrator at different times in these articles tell me "Either do what I say or I'm going to punish you." That's the standard operating procedure. I edit in a wide range of controversial areas relating to fringe science and pseudoscience. This kind of behavior is pretty much only found on these pages. It's time it was quashed. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:10, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not aware of the sanction requests against you so I cannot comment. I am aware of your editing in controversial areas relating to fringe topics and I know you contribute productively in those areas. Yes, I agree that the request for a finding of fact on you about what appeared to be limited problematic editing on your part was not appropriate which is why I said that I didn't think that you should be sanctioned or have a finding of fact found. I have to be honest though, if lets say 3 months from now you were continuing to apply labels to people in BLP articles which are not found in reliable sources and arguing from a truth POV I would have a different viewpoint.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  17:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

You describe a hallmark of disruptive editing. The shifting of the Overton Window from normal editing to disruptive editing happens with such rapidity at these articles that it feels to me like a fundamental assumption of bad faith. Someone who labels BLPs problematically for months on end needs to be dealt with when there is evidence that they refuse to learn. But anyone can check my edit history that this is NOT my style. By suggesting that I'm exhibiting "bad behavior", editorial adversaries can get neutral evaluators to think about worst-case disruptive scenarios. This is what a caustic editing environment tends to do. I'm not saying you're guilty of assuming bad faith. Instead, I think that a group of people opposed to my involvement in these articles poisoned the well. At least, that's how it feels from my end. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:09, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, your contributions and seeing you around wikipedia leaves me the impression that you will listen to differing viewpoints and that you can be worked with collaboratively. I do not believe you are a disruptive editor which was why I disagreed with Cla's viewpoint that a finding of fact was required. My comment about "3 months from now" was poorly chosen example of me trying to say that I do not agree with using sources which say sceptic to attribute a different term denialist and that I think you should be more cautious in sticking to very closely to what reliable sources say and I have every faith that you will be more cautious and that no ArbCom intervention is needed.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  18:37, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * To be clear, the three sources in question all use some variety of the word "denial" in proximity to Anthony Watts. It has become a standard argument by MN in particular to insist that because they also use some variety of the word "skeptic" in proximity to Anthony Watts, I'm somehow misrepresenting them. Both terms, as dave souza rightly points out, are problematic, as are all sweeping labels. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) ScienceApologist, why not just stick closely to what sources say? It works well on just about every other article on wikipedia, even other controversial articles. I am not singling you out, as these disputes seem to involve dozens of people, I mean this as an idea to resolve these types of disputes.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  23:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Literaturegeek's point about when scientists stop being sceptical refers mostly about their personal views. The scientific method has scepticism build into in. Research that questions the foundations of established theories is encouraged. There are certainly no roadblocks for scientists who publish results on research that looks at an established fact from a new angle. An example in the field of climate science could be this article. Count Iblis (talk) 23:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sticking to the sources is, of course, what we try to do in all of these instances. The problem is that what often happens is people accuse their opponents of not sticking to the sources in order to gain an upper hand in editorial disputes. A good example of this was shown in this thread where MN accused me over and over again of not sticking to the sources or choosing poor sources in order to impeach my abilities as an editor. This is how the editing environment descends into personal invectives and back-and-forths. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * So your still saying the self published source you used in a BLP was not a poor source? And if you had stuck to what the sources say then you would have written sceptic, not the pejorative Denier mark nutley (talk) 18:15, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * MN, if you want to continue to discuss this issue which seems to trouble you so, can I ask you do so at my user talkpage? There exist distributed across the wiki detailed answers to all of your questions that I'm happy to summarize at my talkpage. This is supposed to be a section to talk about arbitrators' proposed decisions and, in particular, what the BLP editing environment has come to in these topics. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it is best Mark if you drop this. Some how I have ended up getting drawn into this dispute when I only intended to make one small comment yesterday to ease a dispute. How about we all call it a day on this issue? We all have had ample time to air our views on this which ArbCom actually may not even have ever been interested in anyway LOL.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  18:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Your right, he is never going to give a straight reply, suppose that was obvious from the get go mark nutley (talk) 18:47, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Is it really necessary for you to make belligerent, provocative comments of this nature? -- Scjessey (talk) 18:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict). Mark, that is not what I had in mind by letting things drop. This is what ArbCom mean by disruptive, battleground behaviour etc. Trying to have the last jab or hijack other's comments in your favour and so forth. If you remember I actually voiced support for you per concerns about lack of evidence against you Mark and per good faith when proposals for sanctions were posted but now I see my good faith was possibly misplaced?-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  18:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, your right sorry. I`m just pissed off over this whole thing is all. SA sorry for dragging this out so much and sorry for wasting peoples time mark nutley (talk) 21:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It is ok. Apology accepted. :)-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  22:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

COI edit warring at RealClimate
Earlier today I added this information to the RealClimate article. WMC proceeded to revert it in its entirety three times   (and was readded two times by FellGleaming  ). There are several problems with WMC's reverts. First, the information was neutral and sourced correctly. Second, WMC reverted three times, which is edit warring, without trying to find any kind of compromise on the talk page. In fact, he left a nasty note about it there. Third, WMC is one of the founders of that blog and definitely has an unconcealed, agenda-driven POV when it comes to it, as evidence in this case shows the numerous times that he has tried to use it as a source in articles, including BLPs. I request that the ArbCom do something to correct the behavior. Cla68 (talk) 14:03, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Why is the name change of the website's hosting company significant? This is clearly trivial information, regardless of how it has been sourced. Do you have a reason for wishing to include it? Given the ongoing case, do you not see that this sort of editing is unnecessarily provocative on your part? -- Scjessey (talk) 14:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This is clearly not "trivia", and it's not just "a name". It's the organization that provided free web hosting and other services.   The RealClimate site purports to be a neutral agency that "puts science first".  The site began, though, with the aid of an organization that exists to promote environmental issues however and as a means to this end, provides free hosting to RealClimate and other related sites.  It was also founded by a past director of the radical advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund.   That's quite relevant, and not merely "trivia".  WMC wishes to not have this fact well know.   The conflict is thus quite apparent.


 * By the way, this "trivial information" was significant enough to merit a mention by by Science Magazine: and a disclaimer on RealClimate itself in response: .  Fell Gleaming talk 18:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I am confused. What is so sinister about an organization promoting environmental issues (a laudable goal) giving free hosting to a website ostensibly about climate science? It would seem that this would be a logical arrangement. I know nothing of this "Environmental Defense Fund", but I cannot imagine defending the environment is a Bad Thing™ and I have only your word for it that the organization is "radical" (which means what exactly?). I would submit that you're jumping at the proverbial shadow here. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The real question is, if this is just "trivia", why did RealClimate feel compelled to post an article clarifying the relationship? Why did Science Magazine cover the issue?   Fell Gleaming talk 18:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, that's not the real question. Evidently you personally feel that there is something significant/sinister/whatever hosting arrangement. The real question, therefore, is why did you feel the need to edit war over this material? We are only talking about a webhost, for goodness sake. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Cla is blind to his, and his "side"s POV: as FG put it rather revealingly: The statement "The site's domain was hosted by Environmental Media Services who later changed their name to Science Communications Network" is clearly relevant. It shows the original focus was environmental issues, and was later changed (for reasons the reader can conclude for themselves") to claim "Science" as their raison d'etre. This is FG's typical attitude - utterly unjustifed assertions to denigrate cliamte scientists. So I reckon it is time for a FoF against FG - will do as a start. As for Cla's COI charge: this has been through the COI notice board. Cla knows this, but for some odd reason has chosen not to mention it - I wonder why? William M. Connolley (talk) 14:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * To be honest, Cla68, you are making me laugh. In the morning, you agree on The Hockey Stick Illusion that this level of detail is not appropriate (diff); by the afternoon, on RealClimate, you have a change of heart, finding "it's information the reader could use." (diff). All within the space of a few short hours. If you are going to contaminate the well, you can at least pour the same amount of poison down both waterholes. Wikispan (talk) 14:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

And in how many articles is Cla68 going to plug the book by Fred Pearce: "The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming"











Count Iblis (talk) 14:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Note that all these insertions are after this discussion, which showed at, at least in this case, the book got at least some of the facts wrong. Trivial mistake, yes, but Cla is using the book to source trivial additions. Guettarda (talk) 14:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The issue of WMC/COI has been discussed before. As of the middle of May, here are the discussions of which I am aware. C68-FM-SV may be relevant here. As may this discussion of FellGleaming's use of sources. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:07, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Some of those COI discussions are interesting. I liked the argument that WMC never talked to Michael Mann even though they are 2 of 9 contributors/founders of Real Climate. Of course, with the Climategate emails we know for a fact that those two email each other and indeed that WMC has direct contact with other people heavily involved in Climategate (e.g. Phil Jones). The parallels are rather amusing as well; in Climategate the scientists asked each other to delete emails/documents and on wikipedia WMC deletes other people's comments, content and accounts (via the Scibaby mechanism). TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:07, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * May i ask you to either remove this, or in case you do not, ask a Clerk to do so. This has no relevance here, and seems to have only one purpose: "To smear WMC by the coincidence that he appears to wear the same color of socks as Robert Mugabe" (you can remove this comment alongside it) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 2over0 pointed out the COI discussions and I critiqued them a bit. Your call to erase that critique is more of the same from your side on every level (e.g. excessive reversion, bannings, direct or by proxy comment deletion) and exactly proves my secondary point. TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 *  What is interesting is that Cla68 tried to allege COI against WMC, and received no support for his argument. Cla68 has also claimed on the article talk page that Pearce has made allegations about the web hosts, that's not evident from the cited reference and I've asked for a citation. TGL appears to wish to support Scibaby's sockpuppet edits, and makes unsupported allegations which look like BLP violations. As found previously, expertise in the field is not a barrier to contributing to Wikipedia, and stolen emails allegedly showing some correspondence are no basis for establishing COI. . . dave souza, talk 18:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What I support is not calling everyone a Scibaby sock when you want to get rid of them. COI discussions involving WMC tend to have the same people showing up with misinformed or misinforming arguments being presented that are completely at odds with the facts - a portion of which I was trying to demonstrate. TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:00, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * COI discussions involving WMC tend to have the same people showing up - who are those? If you are going to cast aspersions - then please be speicific (hint: the only overlap that i could find is Arritt, Cla68 and WMC (obviously)). If you do not - then again - i will ask you to remove/strike your statement. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Was that the only overlap you could find? You may want to count again because I recall several other editors showing up a few times (hint: look at the admins that show up). I don't really care to get bogged down in the minutia though, especially since I'm not even sure if 2over0's list is a complete set of such discussions involving WMC. TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:34, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Try backing your "seem to recall" up with names instead. 2/0 linked to all of the discussions. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I "seem to recall" Bozmo and Stephan Schulz showing up a couple times and a few other minor players as well. Forgive me for being skeptical of your claim that these are all of the conversations when you didn't even notice those two. Are you (or someone else) now going to move the bar some more so we can continue this pointlessly myopic quagmire? TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This is kind of insane, or at least deeply silly. At first glance, I can't see anything particularly controversial about the material added by Cla68, which makes me wonder why William felt the need to revert it aggressively. By the same token, it doesn't seem particularly vital to the article either, which makes me wonder why FellGleaming felt the need to aggressively re-insert it with overheated rhetoric about a "whitewash". Then I read FellGleaming's comments on this thread. His motivation for fighting to include this factoid is evidently that he believes it casts a negative light on RealClimate, as it kicks off a six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon connection to a "radical advocacy group". Of course, no actual reliable source has suggested or implied anything of the sort. As best I can tell, no reliable source has attached any political significance whatsoever to RealClimate's webhosting arrangements, beyond a bare mention. But because this isolated factoid serves FellGleaming's editorial agenda, it must be edit-warred into the article. Really, William should absolutely not be edit-warring to remove this material (and I think his behavior will undoubtedly be addressed by the Committee). But nor should we tolerate transparently agenda-driven, combative editing of the sort which FellGleaming is exhibiting here and elsewhere. MastCell Talk 19:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with MastCell and also feel, per my note below, that this entire discussion involved a content dispute and needs to be pinched off, hatted or whatever they call it. ScottyBerg (talk) 20:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Again Mastcell ignores the forest to complain about a tree. The relationship was significant enough to be mentioned in the book Cla linked. It was significant enough for the The Wall Street Journal to comment on it and Science Magazine as well.  It was considered significant enough for RealClimate to partially deny it (see link above).   But you're still promoting the "its just trivia!" mantra?    Fell Gleaming talk 20:02, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not mentioned on the page Cla68 cited from Pearce's book, is this misreading of the source? The Wall Street Journal (which has commonly featured fringe claims) hasn't been cited, link? The RealClimate disclaimer is of questionable notability, it links to the Science Magazine article but that's behind a paywall so don't know what it says. . . dave souza, talk 20:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Fell Gleaming: If you have other sources to support this content, you should cite them (if you haven't already). A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to cut to the chase here: this is a content dispute. This, again, is a repetition of what has happened all too often in the CC articles, which is excess use of disciplinary boards (especially the Climate Change enforcement board) to get an edge in content disputes. In this case, the dispute is about as trivial as can be. ScottyBerg (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point. It's a behavioural issue, with Cla68 making a provocative edit and rushing to this disciplinary board rather then discussing and justifying the proposal with better sources. A pattern I think I've seen from Cla before. . . dave souza, talk 20:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * MastCell, you say, Of course, no actual reliable source has suggested or implied anything of the sort. Please see:
 * Sydney Morning Herald
 * Sydney Morning Herald
 * Washington Times
 * Science Magazine
 * American Spectator (Chris Horner, writing on the American Spectator's blog)
 * RC disclaimer, referring to coverage in a 2005 Wall Street Journal article I was unable to find online (note: this link takes long to load)
 * Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception ... By Christopher C. Horner
 * Science and public policy: the virtuous corruption of virtual environmental ... By Aynsley John Kellow
 * At least some of these sources would qualify as reliably published by WP criteria. -- JN 466  20:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * At least some don't. The first and the third are opinion pieces, not reporting. The second is a letter to the editor, and does not support the claim, anyways. Please do some due diligence before dumping useless sources on us. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Jayen, I suppose I should have said that no source cited in the edit supported the implication that FellGleaming was determined to make. The sources you mention certainly contain such implications, although many appear to be factually incorrect based on this. One wonders whether we should use opinion pieces which contain uncorrected factual errors as sources here. In any case, my point had to do with cherry-picking and extrapolating the cited sources, but thank you for the legwork. MastCell Talk 20:50, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "no source cited in the edit supported the implication that FellGleaming was determined to make." Of course it did. Do you think the book mentioned just as an interesting bit of trivia?   Fell Gleaming talk 20:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Page number? I don't think the book mentioned it, as far as I've found. . . dave souza, talk 20:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay; but bear in mind that FG's comments were made on the talk page. S/he clearly was aware of that background. At any rate, the sources support that there have been speculation and denials concerning the nature of realclimate's links to EMS. As such, the content Cla68 inserted is not irrelevant. Some of the opinion pieces linked here may qualify as sources for a reception section. This is standard practice in Wikipedia. If you go to RSN and ask uninvolved editors whether the Sydney Morning Herald or the Wall Street Journal or Edward Elgar Publishing are reliable sources for fact or opinion, as the case may be, the answer would be yes, regardless of whether any particular editor likes that opinion or not. -- JN 466  21:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * MastCell, you say, One wonders whether we should use opinion pieces which contain uncorrected factual errors as sources here. I am not an unmitigated friend of the lead sentence of WP:V, and am all for editors of opposing sides being able to come to a consensus – through reasoned debate on a talk page or noticeboard – that it is better to do without a source of fact that is demonstrably in error, or without an opinion that is clearly misinformed. But absent such consensus building, the following sentence is site policy: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. By all means, editors should agree to attribute facts and opinions to their sources, and make clear which of the two it is, but we do not just dismiss notable opinions expressed in mainstream sources because an editor thinks they are "wrong". -- JN 466  22:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying that sources should be disregarded just because editors think they're "wrong". I'm saying that sources which contain demonstrable factual errors, and fail to correct them, do not meet our sourcing bar and should not be used. Moreover, if we step back from rules-based pedantry for a moment, why would we want to use sources which we know contain factual errors? Using such sources hinders, rather than furthers, the goal of creating a serious, respectable reference work. MastCell Talk 23:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Where there is a clear consensus that a source is mistaken, there is no problem. But you know as well as I do that that is rarely the case, and that there are real-life disputes where each side accuses the other of being wrong, or of producing misleading information, or where you simply get good sources contradicting each other, or indeed talking past each other, as the two sources in the Sydney Morning Herald arguably did. One of the problems of this topic area is that editors have wanted to play arbiters of truth, rather than following WP:NPOV and WP:V, i.e. presenting the full range of significant mainstream opinions, and attributing opinions to the people holding them. Do you see what I mean? -- JN 466  00:22, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

The blurb at Science (not an "article", just news reporting) is:
 * WEB LOGS: Sifting for Truth About Global Warming


 * Frustrated by Web sites claiming to debunk global warming, several scientists this month launched their own blog on the evidence that humans are heating up the planet. Realclimate.org is hosted by a public relations firm called Environmental Media Services, but nine academic and government scientists write the content, says co-organizer Gavin Schmidt of NASA (speaking in a personal capacity). They hope to counter industry-supported sites such as www.CO2science.org and www.junkscience.com, where so-called experts "have a habit of seriously misquoting, distorting, and outright manipulating data," says Schmidt.


 * So far, the site has addressed topics such as why the heat generated by large cities makes only a minuscule contribution to surface warming and the flaws in Michael Crichton's latest novel, State of Fear, which dismisses global warming as hype. Visitors can chime in, but comments are screened before they're posted.

The real significance of this is that Realclimate.org has real scientists writing for it. Though if FG wants to push the significance of any part of this blurb perhaps it ought to be the quote about the other sites that "have a habit of seriously misquoting, distorting, and outright manipulating data". - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It sounds like something reasonable to put in the article. But that does not justify this being hashed out here. Editors have to stop elevating content disputes to editor-conduct issues. Arbcom needs to take a stance on this kind of behavior, as this is not the first instance of this happening. When editors keep "going to the mat" on every little detail, they add to the battlefield atmosphere. That must stop. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, I was directing the above remark at the topic-starter. I thank J.Johnson for bringing this RS to our attention. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:15, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What else is an editor like Cla68 supposed to do if another editor reverts the addition of their sourced material three times? You can edit-war with them, and, if you are unlucky like Marknutley, get blocked yourself, while your opponent goes free. Or you can give up. Raising it here seems preferable to either of those. -- JN 466  21:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Cla68 is supposed to discuss if fully at the article talk page, and not present spurious references as he seems to have done – I'm still waiting for a clarification as to where if anywhere Pearce refers to the hosts of the website. See BRD . . dave souza, talk 21:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I sometimes think that we need a CC noticeboard. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * @Jayen: this was being discussed at the talk page of the article in question, but I see that rather than talk it out there on the merits he rushed here alleging a "COI" to get WMC off the page. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:34, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not sure "this was being discussed" is an apt expression to describe what was happening at Talk:RealClimate. -- JN 466  21:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec)I agree in the sense that there was no serious effort on the talk page by Cla68 to discuss the merits of his edit. He made just one edit on the talk page on this issue before coming here. It's like a baseball player spending all his time in the league office, filing complaints against other players. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That may be appropriate, depending on what the other players are using their baseball bats for. -- JN 466  22:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * @AQFK, I disagree. This is precisely why the CC noticeboard needs to be abolished. Editors need to discuss content issues on the talk pages of the articles. Here, the merits of the dispute were properly laid out by JJohnson. This appears to have been a "POV push" by Cla68, and when he didn't get his way on the talk page he came here. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:39, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I 100% agree with ScottyBerg here. The CC noticeboard has become a place to get your opponents removed by administrative fiat in lieu of actually coming to consensus across article talk pages. The, erm, climate in climate change was not great before, but has worsened since this noticeboard was instituted. Awickert (talk) 22:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just curious, but why do enforcement actions against any editors WMC butts heads with invariably result in enforcement action, but whenever one is brought against WMC, we wind up with a few admin sayings, "you're right, he did something wrong, but we really shouldn't use enforcement to try to solve the problem".  Do you think this is the only edit war WMC has engaged in this week? Or even today?  His normal modus operandi is simply to continually revert with ambiguous edit descriptions such as "unbalanced", "not helpful",  "unsalvageable", etc.   He won't give specifics, he won't propose alternate or compromise texts; it's a continual pattern of stonewalling and abuse.    Fell Gleaming talk 22:28, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It boils down to WMC doing the right thing in the wrong way, and the "editors WMC butts heads with" doing the wrong thing in the wrong way. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Because of WMC's personal involvement in the blog, and his disruptive editing in its article, I've formally requested to WMC that he no longer edit the article, except the talk page. If he edits the article again, I will report it to the CC enforcement board.  I'll post this same notice on the enforcement board page. Cla68 (talk) 22:31, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Cla68 (talk) 22:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I submit Cla's above comment as a prime example of baiting and pointless grandstanding, and a good (or rather bad) example of his tendency to rely on wikilawyering and forum shopping instead of constructive dialogue. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Anyone can formally ask anyone to do anything. It's just not constructive, as Cla68 already received a "no" answer. This is a distraction from the merits, or lack thereof, of the suggested addition, which, again, is properly discussed on the talk page. ScottyBerg (talk) 23:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I just noticed that Cla68 placed his "formal request" on the CC enforcement page. I agree with the comment above that this has degenerated into grandstanding, and is a misuse of the enforcement page. I think we are again seeing an exhibition of the kind of behavior that this arbitration needs to confront head-on. It's just simply disruptive. This arbitration is in the midst of determining whether to separate WMC from the CC pages. Cla68 has every right to raise the issue of a possible COI on this page. But I suggest that he does not have the right to simply import an entire content dispute to this page. I suggest that he is hurting himself, not WMC, by behaving this way.ScottyBerg (talk) 23:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin noted above that WMC and other editors' continual obstruction of her attempts to improve the Fred Singer article forced her to expand it on a page in her userspace. I see the same thing happening with the RealClimate article. If WMC, Wikispan, and other editors are going to revert war attempts to add more information to the article, then it forces editors to improve the article in their userspace, just like with Singer. Perhaps it's just me, but it seems that a group of editors who force people to use their userspace to expand and improve articles just might be an obstacle to attempts at building an encyclopedia. Cla68 (talk) 23:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you expanding RealClimate in your user space? What I'm seeing here is a content discussion in the PD page, both here and, now, one commencing in the section below and on the CC enforcement page, both directed at WMC, for the ostensible purpose of raising a COI issue. You commenced this as a COI complaint, and now you're kind of changing the subject in your most recent post. ScottyBerg (talk) 00:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've been planning on expanding the article and considered doing so in my userspace, but decided to give it a try in the article itself first by beginning with the blog's foundation and domain site hosting, which seemed to me to be a logical place to start. The resulting edit war showed me that the Fred Singer obstruction incident was, unfortunately, not an isolated case.  So, unless ArbCom (or any other uninvolved admin) effectively corrects the problem, I guess I'll be starting to expand RealClimate in a page in my userspace.  Once completed, I'll ask for feedback and critiques on the article talk page before posting the completed article, like SV did with Singer. Cla68 (talk) 00:53, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Expanding the article in userspace would be a good idea, since you surely must have known that your addition would be controversial. It reads, to me, like an effort to taint the founders of the blog. If they are tainted, fine, but that needs to be properly sourced. If it doesn't taint the founders of the blog, then it is trivia. Either way, I think that the way you went about it seems calculated to cause the maximum amount of drama and disruption. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:04, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Baloney, Scotty. I gave both sides in that edit, the way we're supposed to.  In fact, I sourced RealClimate's side to RealClimate itself, to make sure their side was accurately given.  If mentioning the organization which hosts a blog's site domain is controversial enough to justify edit warring over it, then there really is no hope for the CC topic in Wikipedia. Cla68 (talk) 01:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, there aren't two sides in that edit. It just gives basic information on where the blog is hosted, using a reliable source (Pearce's book) and RealClimate's clarification of it.  I really don't understand why WMC would risk a block or ban by edit warring over it. Cla68 (talk) 01:17, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see how you can possibly claim, after this entire heated discussion (which does not belong here), that the domain hosting of this website was not highly controversial, and that the validity of your edit was disputed on several grounds. The problem that I have with your behavior is that you short-circuited the process of collaborative editing here, which you ostensibly favor, instead behaving in a maximally disruptive and dramatic fashion. If you have a position on this, argue away on the article talk page. Stop sallying forth here and to enforcement boards when others object to what you do. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:22, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me make sure I understand this, Scotty. You don't have an issue with one of the founders of that blog edit warring to remove reliably sourced information from the article.  You don't disagree that the information was reliably sourced.  You believe, however, that fault lies with the person who added the information in the first place?  If so, it sounds like no one could add anything to that article, because they might risk offending WMC, and this is a bad thing. Cla68 (talk) 01:32, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What I see, and what I've been seeing, and what I see again in your gratuitous comment "risk offending WMC" is an effort to personalize a content dispute, and to turn it into one of user behavior. Since you feel strongly about the validity of your edit, what's needed is for you to make your case on the article talk page. If you have a specific addition to the PD that you would like to make, this is the place for it. Other uses are wastes of time, clog the page, and are, again, disruptive. I think you need to reevaluate your usage of dispute resolution procedures. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * WMC reverted this factually correct material three times. Yet you speak of "personalising a content dispute". Is it not allowed to mention the elephant in the room? -- JN 466  01:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Scotty, I understand that you might disagree with me doing so, but I was trying to follow directions here. Cla68 (talk) 02:06, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

COI edit warring at The Hockey Stick Illusion
The same day that WMC edit warred in RealClimate, he edit warred at The Hockey Stick Illusion, removing sifnificant amounts of text, forcing admin intervention to protect the article (by the way, I don't believe that NuclearWarfare is an uninvolved CC admin anymore, but the article probably did need protection from WMC's initiated edit war.). I believe the two incidences of edit warring by WMC are related, as Illusion reports on the history of the criticism of the research of several of the contributors to the RealClimate blog. WMC removed only positive reviews of the book, no negative ones, and two instances in which it is used as a source in academic papers. Cla68 (talk) 23:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Everything that was removed was previously discussed on the talk page, and I don't see a consensus for adding it back in. Again, I think that this is a content dispute, not a behavioral issue on the part of WMC. ScottyBerg (talk) 23:38, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Scotty. Here's the current talk page discussion on it. Cla68 (talk) 23:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd call it an edit war on WMC's part -- 2 reverts, deleting significant portions of the article's content,  -- after he was reverted the first time, he should have engaged in the BRD process but he reverted again,  and left the article a mess with broken refs too.    The article was protected again, so that's a pretty good clue that an edit war had broken out. Minor4th </b> 00:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The contribution history shows NW imposing protection because of edit warring by IP editors, evidently socks of some kind. I see nothing in the record indicating edit warring by WMC. I see him disagreeing with you. (Big surprise there.) That's why I'm viewing this as a content dispute, and suggesting that this is not the place for it. ScottyBerg (talk) 00:11, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. <b class="nounderlines" style="border:1px solid #999;background:#fff"><span style="font-family:papyrus,serif"><b style="color:#000;font-size:110%">Minor</b><b style="color:#f00;font-size:80%">4th</b> </b> 02:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * @Cla68: What I had in mind was the previous discussion entitled "Trimming" from late August, as well as discussions preceding and following that on the Hartwell paper, which was removed and which you reinstated. The existence of a previous discussion, one that did not go your way, indicated to me that you imported a content disagreement here, for the purpose of removing an editor who disagrees with you. It also indicated to me that both this section, the one above it, and your "formal request" in the CC enforcement page are an instance of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, and that you should be sanctioned. ScottyBerg (talk) 00:18, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW, WMC is also edit-warring at Joanne Nova. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * For the good of the 'pedia, I think some administrator intevention may be appropriate here. Cla68 (talk) 00:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * To do what? WMC is a subject of this arbitration. Several hundred thousand bytes have been expended in complaints against him. Sanctions are being considered against him. What more do you suggest needs to be done? This question is separate from the more relevant issue, which is the appropriateness of this discussion, and your behavior, not his. ScottyBerg (talk) 00:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Is Joanna Nova a climate change sceptic? Somehow, I knew she probably was before I even went to the article and looked.  If you think ArbCom should be the one to intervene here, I hope they do so sooner rather than later. Cla68 (talk) 00:49, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There's an important distinction between "editing" and "edit warring." Slapping down a couple of diffs and saying "here, there's edit warring," and characterizing pretty much everything WMC does as "edit warring" or "COI" or some other invective just isn't helpful, and in fact is disruptive. ScottyBerg (talk) 00:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I just looked at the article history there, and I have to say that the edit summary exchange in the recent 15-or-so edits is hilarious. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:39, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed! My dad has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, so that makes him a scientist. All these years we never knew. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

And now Nuclear Warfare is edit-warring to remove mention WMC's edit-warring on the Joanne Nova article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, he removing an irrelevant accusation from the CC enforcement page. However, the arbitrators are definitely getting a good dramatization of the disruption that is an everyday occurrence in the CC articles, so all this nonsense is not without purpose. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:10, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Um...he's edit-warring to remove what he incorrectly perceives as irreverent discussion. According to our article, Joanne Nova is "sceptical over the theory on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and is the author of The Sceptics Hand Book." So, he is doubly wrong.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:16, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * He just hatted the discussion completely, on the grounds that it was improper use of the page. I think that was a sound decision. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Given that NuclearWarefare is a party to this dispute, I'm not sure that this is a wise decision. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:29, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Two separate issues: is he "involved" and is he "right." I was just commenting on the latter. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:32, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, NuclearWarfare is both wrong and involved. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:39, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, no. You're both wrong and involved. NuclearWarfare, on the other hand, is both an arbitration clerk and right in redacting that commentary. He even mentioned that he would follow up on it, but that it was irrelevant there. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 02:18, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I for one have no confidence in NW's neutrality any more. -- JN 466  02:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Disinterested in BLP's?
Just a comment that, in the language used as denoting the appropriate tone when writing (BLP) articles, the term "disinterested" is used. I feel that dispassionate is preferable, unless of course ArbCom are advocating a style exampled as "Eric Fudgecake is a Professor of Linguistics at Halabamabashbang University, Utopia. Probably. Whatever." I think less passion is better than less interest in a subject, when it comes to editing? LessHeard vanU (talk) 07:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point, well made :)  Roger Davies  talk 07:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Further examples at Proposed Finding of Fact 8.5 William M. Connolley's edits to biographies of living persons, and Proposed Remedies/General Remedies 4.4 Biographies of Living Persons. LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that's not really correct. As per the OED, 'disinterested' means '1. not influenced by considerations of personal advantage', 'dispassionate' means 'not influenced by strong emotion'. Dispassionate editing would lead to the example you give above, disinterested editing is what we want.--67.161.94.10 (talk) 10:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Odd. Which version of the OED are you looking at? Mine (v4.0) gives "Without interest or concern; not interested, unconcerned" as the first meaning of disinterested and doesn't give the text you mention at all. The SOED definition is just "Not interested, unconcerned". I suppose, in the context of the high passions here, dispassionate fits the bill better and is less ambiguous.  Roger Davies  talk 10:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * "Disinterested" means not influenced by a personal view, or personal interest in the sense of advantage; neutral; uninvolved. It's not the same as "uninterested." SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 11:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * For info  Roger Davies  talk 11:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Weird. That's directly at odds with what I was actually taught in school. Maybe it's an American usage? Guettarda (talk) 12:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That M-W page is interesting. Prescriptive grammarians (at least in the U.S.) have wanted to keep the distinction in meaning between dis- and uninterested, and I always assumed it was a settled difference, but obviously it has been used the other way. I say "disinterested" should stay so that Wikipedia does it's part to maintain the useful distinction, thus promoting civilization. The "Synonyms" section on this Dictionary.com page indicates "disinterested" (implies a fairness arising particularly from lack of desire to obtain a selfish advantage) would be a more precise word here than, say, "impartial". The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary recognizes only the "fair" definition.  Then ArbCom should ban from its official statements the uncivilized "incivil", which M-W doesn't even recognize (and Wictionary tells us is "rare" ), in favor of "uncivil" which M-W tells us has been around since at least 1553. You can never be too careful in upholding civilization. But if ArbCom members think the preceding statement is too WP:BATTLEGROUNDish, WP:SOAPBOXy or WP:UNCIVIL, I take it back. I take it back! -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC) -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I would note that I was only guided by my understanding of disinterested, which is a more judged version of uninterested - that someone by choice has no interest rather than by lack of exposure. Whatever (hah!), I think dispassionate is more apt under these circumstances. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

In the portion of the decision I drafted, I used "disinterested" in the sense SlimVirgin describes. If there is any ambiguity about what the word means, then I agree that a synonym should be substituted, as Roger has done. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think "disinterested" is fine. The point is that one must edit these biographies in a manner, ideally, lacking in personal feelings for the subject, one way or the other. "Dispassionate" is also fine. Since violations of this finding will tend to be neither "dispassionate" nor "disinterested," I'm not sure it makes much difference. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Broad, indefinite topic bans for individuals
A slew of indefinite climate change-related topic bans are now being considered for a number of individuals, some of which seem misdirected and/or unnecessarily harsh. The remedy has been proposed for me, which I think is peculiar because I have very few edits in this topic (in fact, I have only contributed significantly to the editing of a single article concerning a matter of data theft, not climate change). I am concerned that individuals are being judged as a group, with a lack of regard for specifics and a whiff of guilt-by-association. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Moreover,it doesn't solve anything over the long term. There's no shortage of aggressive editors in this area and there's no reason to think such a shortage will develop in the future. If anything the opposite, given certain chatter in the blogosphere. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not sure it won't solve anything. I see no way back into this topic area for many editors who have become totally engrained in their positions. Indef bans and placing the topic area under arbcom sanctions worked in Scientology, a topic that is quite comparable in the amount of emotion and blog coverage associated with it. -- JN 466  15:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure the situations are entirely comparable, except to people who spend a lot of time in-universe with Scientology disputes. Wikipedia is a bubble. By this site's standards, date delinking disputes are of comparable magnitude to the dispute over climate change. Is Scientology the subject of a consensus statement of concern from the National Academies of Science of the U.S., Brazil, India, South Africa, Canada, Italy, the U.K., China, Japan, France, Mexico, Germany, and Russia? Is it routinely a major political issue in elections and national and international legislative sessions? The current list of topic ban candidates seems to suffer from a desire to sanction a roughly equal number of people from each "side", an approach which I think is based on faulty assumptions. The idea that, say, Verbal, Minor4th, and Mark Nutley have been equally "disruptive" on climate change articles seems questionable at best. The cynical side of me thinks that if we wait a week or two, the pendulum will swing back and we'll see another, different set of proposed remedies, but whatever. MastCell Talk 15:28, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * We're not trying to fix the climate, we're trying to fix a Wikipedia topic area. ;) -- JN 466  21:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's a great idea.  There should be more names added though.  Anyone who has edit warred or been uncivil more than once in this topic area should be topic banned.  <b class="nounderlines" style="border:1px solid #999;background:#fff"><span style="font-family:papyrus,serif"><b style="color:#000;font-size:110%">Minor</b><b style="color:#f00;font-size:80%">4th</b> </b> 16:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I do agree with Mastcell that the editors listed are not equal in terms of the amount of disruption, but that just indicates that the threshold is rather low -- not a bad guiding principle, but there's a lot of work yet to be done if the threshold is so low. Off the top of my head, without regard to which "side" these folks fall on, the list should include ScienceApologist, FellGleaming, Viriditas, Rd232, Guettarda, Jehochman, Tony Sidaway. I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of -- tried to think of more on the skeptic side, but they are mostly either listed or banned already. <b class="nounderlines" style="border:1px solid #999;background:#fff"><span style="font-family:papyrus,serif"><b style="color:#000;font-size:110%">Minor</b><b style="color:#f00;font-size:80%">4th</b> </b> 16:18, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If there's behaviour of mine that you consider disruptive, I would very much appreciate if you raised it with me. After all, you can't address potentially problematic behaviour that you're unaware anyone sees as problematic. Guettarda (talk) 16:38, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I would agree that a 'one size fits all' remedy doesn't make much sense. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Overall, I like the flexible "Appeal of topic bans" remedies (either 3.2 or 3.2.1). But the AQFK and ATren findings look even more outrageous if accompanied by a six-month-minimum topic ban. I haven't seen where Roger, Coren or Shell have defended their weak case against ATren at all or where Coren and Roger have adequately answered the questions about the AQFK finding. We now, finally, have an adequate Arbcom remedy for William M. Connolley's behavior, and the idea of reapplying for permission to edit the topic is actually brilliant because it gets to the heart of the problem: editor intentions and attitudes. We've seen right on this page, right up to the present, that some editors haven't adjusted their attitudes. I guess Remedy 1 (or 1.1) is supposed to address future problems. Maybe with the strong language elsewhere on the PD page it will be adequate (it authorizes admins to act first and then the action can be appealed to A/E or ArbCom, and that alone should help; but we'll still have a problem with biased admin actions). -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * When you're smugly gloating over one of your perceived opponents (WMC) getting what he (in your opinion) deserved, while in the same breath professing "outrage" over "biased admin actions" directed towards those that share your own point-of-view...well, that attitude pretty much speaks for itself. Tarc (talk) 18:14, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It isn't smug, and it isn't gloating. ArbCom's Fof 8.2 ("William M. Connolley has been uncivil and antagonistic") had no corresponding remedy that looked like it might pass until now. Other remedies regarding Connolley's behavior in that area weren't getting support (see Remedies 5.1-5.5; the majority-approved BLP ban would not have addressed this). It isn't "gloating" to say WMC has had a problem with attitude -- it's what Newyorkbrad said in his comment at Fof 8.2. I pointed out the strength of the idea that an editor with problematic behavior would be allowed back in after giving assurances or demonstrating (or both) that the attitude has changed. That's a lot better than just waiting six months or a year. The new proposal offers editors a constructive way to get back to editing the topic, addressing both the editor-interaction and content problems ArbCom identified. Your comment doesn't actually help ArbCom or anyone else better understand the topic of this discussion. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:14, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes it is and it's these kinds of comment like what JohnWBarber said above that needs to stop in this case, articles and other locations. It's not just Barber saying things that are inappropriate but it is an example of it.  I'd also like to see something to address the edit warriors and the editors brought to these articles from the outside.  -- Crohnie Gal  Talk  12:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Will the decision be structurally biased?
I think that we need to step back and examine the overall impact of the decision as it is currently shaping up. Roughly equal numbers of penalties are being meted out to the science-knowledgeable editors and those that favor greater emphasis on skeptical and fringe subjects and points of view. My concern about this approach, which I understand is common in arbcom decisions, is that the effect would be inherently and structurally one-sided. There are a very limited number of technically competent people willing to edit Wikipedia, but a virtually unlimited number of technically incompetent, ideologically driven people more than happy to weigh in on these articles.

The intent is to achieve a perception of fairness, but the actual outcome is to remove the majority of climate science-knowledgeable editors. Because of the unending supply of nonexpert skeptically-oriented editors, some motivated by outside websites, that would inevitably mean that the CC articles will shift in the direction of pseudoscience. More articles will appear on minor blogs/books/documentaries pushing the "climate change ain't happening" minority/fringe viewpoint. There will be more POV pushing, civil and otherwise, with far fewer technically competent editors around to challenge them. There will be more eroding of sourcing standards. There is the potential for great harm to the encyclopedia.

What we're seeing here is a fundamental weakness of Wikipedia being exposed, which is its vulnerability to fringe POVs and its structural hostility to experts. No, experts are not, inherently, polite people. They are not prone to collaborate with nonexperts. That's a fact of life. We are seeing that played out in the CC articles.

While some may feel that it is OK to "level the playing field" so that editors with minority points of view get treated with greater respect and more politely, in the long run I feel that achieving that aim by excluding scientists from these articles will damage Wikipedia and add to its reputation for inaccuracy and unreliability.

I hope that the arbitrators take all of this into account, in their effort to make this case go away. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Based on my experience, ArbCom never deliberately adds proposals to cases in order to balance the results of case, or to give a level playing field. Rather, in order for a dispute to need the assistance of arbcom, two groups of editors are in a dispute with each other that can not be resolved because the Community is also divided on the best way to manage the situation. If this was a problem as simple as you describe it, then it would have been resolved already (or at least not need the attention of ArbCom). FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 17:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh no, this is a very complex situation. I'm not trying to imply otherwise. I just looked at the decision and it occurred to me that if topic bans are imposed as proposed, it is going to have an unequal impact. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:26, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Until we know for sure that the proposed findings and remedies are complete, and even then only when we know which are likely to prevail, I don't think it's wise to characterize the proposal.


 * That said, it looks to me as if only the most troublesome editors have been targetted for exclusion. If I looked at those who are likely to be excluded, I think I'd probably find that a majority of them have shown little or no knowledge of the science. Expert editors, with the exception of Dr. Connolley and Polargeo, aren't really mentioned as yet.  The most problematic behavior identified seems to be inadequate treatment of the biographies of living persons policy, incivility and personal attacks. It's become a bit of a battleground.


 * What may be less obvious is that quite a few expert editors have been working away quietly on some of the climate change articles without attracting adverse attention, and we can only hope that in due course such experts will feel encouraged to bring their expertise to bear on the formerly controversial articles. --TS 17:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * While we might of course hope that, the example of a prominent expert being pestered by adverse attention will no doubt be public knowledge in the scientific community concerned, and the outcome of this case will be likely to influence the feelings of such experts about what could happen to them if they edit articles. I don't condone BLP violations from any editor, and value civility in discussion. I also value article content in this area where mainstream views are commonly misrepresented or attacked, and am sure that the arbiters will think of the implications of their decision for article quality. . . dave souza, talk 18:38, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Why does this all seem like interlectual blackmail to me?Slatersteven (talk) 18:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * As I understand the skeptical position, it isn't so much that scientists need to study global warming in more detail. It's that there is a broad academic consensus for behaving like many editors we've seen here on Wikipedia, and therefore we need Diogenes more than we need more PhDs. Art LaPella (talk) 18:52, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Whatever the excuse, it's never permissible to drive knowledgeable editors from Wikipedia, and I hope such practises will continue to be stamped on very hard. --TS 18:54, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Its not permisable to drive any editors from Wikipedia, and I can't recall seeing a rule thats says that holdinig a Phd makes your edits more valuable then someone who does not. Or that this allows your more leeway to behave like a tit on holiday. We ban users becasue of howe they act, not becasue they do not have a Phd. If we start to do that may as well stop calling it a wiki, its not its just another enclyopeida edited by the same kind of people.Slatersteven (talk) 18:58, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't mentioned or discussed PhDs, I'm referring to experts (and that usually means more than a doctor's degree in some vaguely scientific discipline). The context of my comment comes from Art LaPella's attempt to summarise what he perceives to be "the skeptical position". Obviously there's no question that we'd hope for all of our articles to be edited by the most knowledgeable editors in their relevant fields. Attracting editors of that caliber in many scientific fields has been quite easy, and I'm sure it will be easy in this topic once the nonsense has been dealt with. --TS 19:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * OK then I shall rephrase it to avoid confusion. Its not permisable to drive any editors from Wikipedia, and I can't recall seeing a rule that says that being an 'expert' makes your edits more valuable then someone who is n ot an 'expert' or saying they do not have to obey the same rules as lesser intelects (by the way would we extend this rule to areas they are not 'expert' in or treat them by the same rules as lesser intelects there?).Slatersteven (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Which is why we should be careful about going along with external campaigns to drive editors from Wikipedia. As a complete non-expert, I've worked with a few expert editors and value the work that they can bring to improving articles. Some things require expertise, and equal-opportunities misinformation doesn't improve articles. As editors we require everyone to comply with rules and practices developed to facilitate improving articles, which remains the primary aim. . . dave souza, talk 19:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I think we're arguing to cross purposes. My hope is that experts, who are also able to edit harmoniously, will always be welcome to contribute to any article on science. That has not been the case on some articles within this topic for quite some time now. And yes, being an expert does make a considerable difference to the quality of one's edits; this is or should be an uncontroversial fact. An expert writing about a subject in general produces a more accurate and more complete article, although it may need some polishing. TS --20:14, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * @TS: Think we're on the same page here. Mainstream expertise is made unwelcome in this topic area as a matter of political expediency, reflected in the mass media. The "poisonous atmosphere" in editing reflects those politics, and discourages expert editing. . . . dave souza, talk 21:04, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I strongly suspect that few experts will accept being told that they misrepresent their own work, or that sword-wielding skeletons were involved, especially not over and over and over again over years. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no sympathy for editors with "mainstream expertise" who behave like school boys drawing false moustaches and horn-rimmed glasses on someone's portrait when they edit skeptics' BLPs, then go on and bully neutral editors like SlimVirgin who are trying to rescue a biography from the unpalatable mess they have reduced it to, and finally end up huffily claiming the moral high ground. Let's just acknowledge there were failings on both sides here. -- JN 466  21:17, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think you'll find anyone who thinks that it's okay to mess up a biographical article. Your precise characterization, however, is inflammatory.  And of course it has absolutely nothing to do with expertise.  Has evidence been presented in this case to the effect that SlimVirgin has been "bullied"?


 * And finally I'm sick and tired of being told that there are "sides" here. --TS 21:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll readily agree that many editors have behaved imperfectly, including SlimVirgin. The "skeptics'" BLPs present a particular difficulty in that they commonly have little or no standing in the field, but have their credentials inflated to give more weight to fringe views. Getting the balance right isn't easy, as is also the case in BLPs of mainstream scientists subjected to vilification in parts of the mass media. Better behaviour needed all round. . dave souza, talk 21:35, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Struck. Perhaps we can agree then that there were failings all round here, and that no one who is the subject of a finding of fact and/or a proposed remedy should think that they were merely a victim of outside circumstances. It does not seem a very constructive way of going forward. -- JN 466  21:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This section is about structural bias, and I'd hope we'd discuss that issue. I've expressed a hope that experts will be able to edit the articles more freely than before once the battleground issues have been cleared up.  Obviously I don't want to see unbalanced BLPs. --TS 21:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd hope that we can agree that various editors had various failings in differing degrees, and that any such failings should not obscure the significance of outside circumstances affecting editing of articles in this topic area. . . dave souza, talk 21:54, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I have to say I agree with what Scotty, Tony and Dave are saying. If the scientist who have FoF's against them and they pass, I guess we'll see what happens to the articles.  I hope my bad feelings about how they are going to look is wrong but I have to admit I have a bad feeling about all of this.  Above I gave two difs about outside influences and a third one that I am told also has conversations going on about this case.  I think that it's a mistake to treat all the FoF's the same esp. since some of them are about misrepresenting sources or copyright problems which to me is far more worse than being uncivil or edit warring.  As for others coming in to these articles, I know I would be hesitant to edit these articles.  I guess we should see what the arbitrators decide on and then it's a wait and see for the rest.  The readers are the most important in all of this so please keep this in mind.  Thanks for listening, I'm tired, so good night everyone, -- Crohnie Gal  Talk  00:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Discretionary sanctions will be in place, and have worked in similarly contested topic areas (they should be advertised on every talk page). I am confident that anyone coming from one of these outside places to edit with an agenda will have a very short Wikipedia career. Also bear in mind that the atmosphere that developed over the past months and years will actually have kept away editors who might otherwise have joined the effort. The last thing Wikipedia needs is for the same strife to continue, with the same editors continuing to go hammer and tongs at each other. -- JN 466  01:51, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * A couple of comments, the first directed to Tony Sidaway, but not to him exclusively. There are quite clearly at least two sides to this dispute. Whether you choose to characterize them as "pro-science vs. anti-science", or "skeptic vs. anti-skeptic", or whatever, it is clear that the regular editors of the climate change articles are factionalized, and protestations to the contrary are pointless.
 * The second is directed more towards Guettarda and dave souza. Guettarda dismisses Linus Pauling's views towards Vitamin C megadoses as a fringe position. Perhaps that is so, but there is a section in the Vitamin C article, (Vitamin C) which not only discusses Pauling's views, but also has a link to another page (Vitamin C megadosage), which details Pauling's views at some length. Yet when it comes to skeptical positions of climate change, there has been a concerted effort to eliminate any discussion of non-mainstream views in the main articles, under the justification that they are "fringe views" which don't merit any mention at all. However, when I proposed that some of the BLPs of skeptics were deletion candidates, WMC came to their defense, with the argument "you are arguing that John Christie and Roy Spencer are NN? That is ridiculous."  If they are notable enough to merit articles on Wikipedia, then they should be notable enough to merit at least a mention in articles which relate to their field of expertise, yet the adherents to the "scientific view" argue that they should be excluded because their views are not mainstream. Dave souza argues that in this diff, so we have a dilemma; do we agree with WMC or with dave souza, who argue the mutually exclusive views that skeptics are either too notable to delete, or not notable enough to acknowledge? We can't have it both ways; either they are ultimately non-notable, in which case their articles should be deleted from Wikipedia entirely, or they are notable, in which case their views should be noted in the articles to which their views are relevant. I'd request a clarification on which course we should pursue before I either nominate the articles for deletion or push to include their views in relevant articles, noting that their views are minority views, but not excluding them entirely, as some here have advocated.  Horologium  (talk) 02:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Clarification or correction – my position is that notable "skeptical" or contrarian people/arguments/publications should be shown in accordance with WP:WEIGHT, and with WP:FRINGE where appropriate, and non-notable articles or non-significant parts of articles shouldn't exist. It can be argued that articles about purely scientific subjects shouldn't show fringe views, due weight only requires coverage of views significant to the subject, with detailed minority views going in sub-articles. . . dave souza, talk 05:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That is essentially restating what I said; you want to characterize the views of any and all skeptics as "fringe", in order to exclude their views from articles entirely. If someone is notable solely based on their work in the field of climate research (such as Christy and Spencer, or Soon and Baliunas), then they are notable enough to merit at least a brief mention in an article. There are other skeptics whose notability derives from other fields whose views could be excluded, but you can't simultaneously insist someone is both notable enough to have an article and not notable enough to be discussed in articles relating to their primary field of research. Further, if their work in the field of climatology is notable enough to be discussed in a critical fashion in their BLP, then it is probably notable enough to be discussed elsewhere. If it's not, then it is a coatrack, and should be excised.  Horologium  (talk) 12:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Your mind-reading leads you to a misrepresentation of my views – as a climate change sceptic myself, I want sceptical views to be presented accurately and proportionately, in the context of mainstream views of minority views. As required by weight policies. For example, I added discussion of Soon and Baliunas to a relevant article, and their contribution is something I'd like to see examined in more detail. By the way, their notability in this topic area rests on a review article rather than on research. Your further point is interesting, and possibly one I could support if applied to all BLPs in the topic area. Criticism of the work of mainstream scientists could well be better covered in other articles than their biography, or removed if it's not sufficiently notable. I'll think that over. . . dave souza, talk 15:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I very much favor the deletion of BLPs of skeptics (or non-skeptics) who have little or no notability aside from their commentary on the global warming dispute. As a test case I propose that the article on Tim Ball be deleted. His lack of general notability is reflected in his lifetime h-index of 3, which is not especially high for a (former) full professor in the sciences at a major university. If we can't agree on this one we can't agree on any of them. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:41, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Weird... my h-index is higher than that. (Although I think the metric is biased in favor of the biological sciences). And I'm not exactly notable. The problem, of course, is WP:PROF, which explicitly states that anyone achieving the rank of full professor is notable on that basis alone. Which is silly - I know a lot of full professors, and some are unquestionably "notable" while others are sort of journeymen about whom it would be impossible to write a Wikipedia-policy-compliant biography. But with WP:PROF in its current state, I don't see how any of these biographies can be deleted. MastCell Talk 03:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've called Boris's (and H's) bluff: Articles for deletion/Timothy Ball William M. Connolley (talk) 14:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Horologium writes: ''Guettarda dismisses Linus Pauling's views towards Vitamin C megadoses as a fringe position. Perhaps that is so, but there is a section in the Vitamin C article, (Vitamin C#Vitamin C megadosage) which not only discusses Pauling's views, but also has a link to another page (Vitamin C megadosage), which details Pauling's views at some length'' - I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here. I was responding to a claim that Lindzen's position could not be fringe because of who he was. I merely used Pauling as an example to show the fallacy of that argument from authority. As for coverage in the Vitamin C article - you're talking about 186 words out in an article that's almost 7000 words long. Fringe positions are given far more space (proportionally) in the global warming article (155-522 words, depending on how you look at it, in an article that's a little over 4200 words long). So I really don't get your point. Guettarda (talk) 12:37, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * More broadly this is an example of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, which is not the greatest basis upon which to build one's argument. Better to consider each case on its own merits. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I too am baffled by H, who writes when I proposed that some of the BLPs of skeptics were deletion candidates, WMC came to their defense, with the argument "you are arguing that John Christie and Roy Spencer are NN? That is ridiculous." Yes, it was and is ridiculous. If you know nothing at all about them, then obviously you can believe they are NN. If you know anything at all about the satellite temperature record, you can't. I know this arbcomm case is trying to pretend that expertise is dispensable, but H is doing his best to prove by misexample the reverse. If you don't believe me, put them up for AFD. However, be aware that such debates tend to polarise - even very weak candidates like Joanne Nova get voted as "keep" by their partisans, see Articles for deletion/Joanne Nova William M. Connolley (talk) 14:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, it was SBHB who suggested that they were of marginal notability . I have neither the knowledge nor the interest to delve into the scientific articles, but I do have a concern about the abuse of BLPs on this topic. SBHB is possibly the only editor on this topic who has both a PhD in the relevant field and a bunch of peer-reviewed papers directly relating to the topic, so if he says that they are not notable, I am inclined to believe him. The fact that he is one of the very few regular editors of this topic who has zero findings of fact about him makes his view even more sustainable, because he's not an edit warrior, a POV pusher, or a chronic civility sink. I will expand upon this when I return home later this evening.  Horologium  (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Boris mentioned Christy, which I find very odd. Boris? You're really arguing that he is NN? I think H has misunderstood you. But H, you cannot evade responsibility for what you said, which is 'What is interesting is that three of the four bios cited by FloNight were created by WMC; the only one that he didn't create is the one which is unquestionably notable (Seitz)'. This goes together with snark from you elsewhere. And you're wrong re doctorates: I too have one, and a number of publications - or are you forgetting that "Inconvenient" fact? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll begin by stating that the absurd WP:PROF plays no part in my evaluation. Regarding the specific example of Christy, I consider him borderline. He has done some good scientific work but do we need to write a biography on him? Or 3/4 of the people listed here? Few of them have enough well-sourced secondary coverage to justify a decent biography. That's not to denigrate e.g., Mark Cane's work on ENSO or Tom Karl's stewardship of data. There are atmo/climate types who make great biographical subjects -- Joanne Simpson's scientific accomplishments and life story, for example, are compelling and well-sourced, and certainly we should have an article on Ed Lorenz among others. All this is just a small corner of Wikipedia's loose standards on BLPs. Notability criteria are gradually weakening, which is the opposite of the direction that both encyclopedic standards and plain human decency should be moving us. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Kamikaze editing
CrohnieGal (and peripherally, Jayen466) have brought up an issue that needs more attention, specifically what might be called "kamikaze editing." These are editors who don't much care if they are blocked as long as they can score against an opponent. Some of the blogosphere chatter has been along these lines, and I recall a few editors saying on-site that they didn't care whether they were blocked as long as editor X got blocked too (mild on-site example,). For this reason I'm not as sanguine as Jayen466 that the discretionary sanctions will achieve the desired result: even if we let such individuals know they will end up with "a very short Wikipedia career," it won't be a deterrent and there are more waiting to take their place. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It will go away. This ill-tempered dispute here in the project is what has heated up the blogosphere, keeping the fires there going. -- JN 466  02:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, that's an in-bubble viewpoint. Because of Wikipedia's prominence, it's stop #1 for anyone who wants to raise the visibility of their pet minoritarian belief. It doesn't matter if the topic area is prone to "ill-tempered disputes" or not, and it's not going to change no matter what the outcome of this case is. It doesn't take an internal Wikipedia projectspace dispute to keep people fired up about climate change. MastCell Talk 03:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure. But then you will be getting the bog-standard POV pushers, rather than people outraged by witnessing daily the shenanigans documented in the Findings of Fact. -- JN 466  04:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

We cannot know whether the commenters on external sites are just blow hards or are going to be a serious problem. We'll know it's the latter if the ecology of the topic settles down to a steady drip of scientifically illiterate nonsense of the kind seen often on one of the blogs cited by CrohnieGal. We've had that on the evolution articles and the various conspiracy articles for a very long time so we know how to deal with it.

The underlying problem in such cases is the strategy of "teaching the controversy", magnifying fringe views and trying to shoe-horn them into a position of greater prominence in articles on the mainstream science. Here recent work published in PNAS will prove useful. It was found that the mind-share of the essential mainstream views in domain experts in this field is over 97%. While some significant minority views still exist, we can state confidently that our key articles within the topic area overstate the significance of minority views in comparison to the mainstream. Tasty monster (=TS ) 05:57, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree at all with JN's notion that Wikipedia has fueled the wider dispute. The CRU hacking and its associated media frenzy showed everybody the extent to which the facts are bent in an attempt to discredit the science, and we've even seen one or two editors try those same tricks on this very page, selectively quoting stolen emails in order to blacken the reputations of scientists.

This encyclopedia and its little disputes played no part in that, and fortunately proved strong enough to narrowly resist attempts to use it to spread malicious falsehoods about the climate scientists in the wake of the hacking.

With a good discretionary sanctions regime in place, such attempts should become even more futile. Those who come here with the intention of harming Wikipedia at all costs will be easier to identify, and they will no longer be able to hide behind misrepresentations of the way in which Wikipedia is edited. Tasty monster (=TS ) 06:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not so convinced. Look at recent incarnations of SciBaby. Their subtle vandalism is not easy to spot if you are not already familiar with them. They can certainly plead good faith and bitterly complain about WP:BITE and waste a few weeks and possibly the patience of one or several constructive editors. This is exacerbated if we define admin involvement only via content contributions and with a very broad brush ("all climate change" or even "all climate science"), as that basically guarantees that most eligible admins will not be familiar with or particularly knowledgable about the domain. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Scibaby? Seriously, has any of his sabotage ever remained in an article for more than a few hours? Meanwhile the checkuser system insulates ordinary editors and admins from worries about mistaken identification. While I tend to agree with those who say that the proposed Scibaby finding in this case wildly exaggerates the risk of genuine editors being misidentified, the practical effects of this arbitration are likely to make a much less friendly environment for such trolls. Tasty monster (=TS ) 08:57, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There are certainly several editors here who have reinstated SciBaby edits - per WP:AGF, because they did not recognize their POV-pushing. But I'm not concerned with SciBaby per se (although they are a permanent nuisance, and it's not helped if people support them out of factionalism), but rather use them as an example of the type of edits we need to be prepared to deal with. Assume e.g. someone pushes the old Spencer and Christy UAH temperature reconstruction, all with excellent sources. Or consider someone who pushes the NIPCC report as a reliable source. An admin who does not know the domain cannot be expected to recognize this as vandalism. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:06, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't call either of those examples vandalism, but they would be clearly tendentious editing if persistently pushed in the face of better sources, just as somebody using outdated or marginal sources anywhere else. We're pretty lucky in the climate change topic area that there is at least one regular review of all the relevant literature, conducted by prominent specialists across the entire field. The result is extraordinary depth of coverage, so it's pretty difficult to slip in a ringer, a paper that purports to represent the field but doesn't fit with the rest and hasn't been able to overturn them. This is the same bar of soap all the contrarians who come to Wikipedia slip on, but in climate change it's an especially big and slippery bar. Tasty monster (=TS ) 09:26, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

This ill-tempered dispute here in the project is what has heated up the blogosphere - wrong, and fortunately even arbcomm has recognised that: FoF 1.1 is preferred over FoF 1 William M. Connolley (talk) 14:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Back to what Boris says about editors willing to be blocked as long as they score points against their oppponents. I believe you can find more of this at the sanction board and possibly at Lar's talk page (probably archived by now) or possibly on this very talk page.  I think that's where I've seen this.  The point is this can't be allowed because as has been said above, if you read the links I provided, with Noren's help, it shows that they are now celebrating some of the PD to ban editors. I believe in being fair and I don't think it's fair to sanction editors who are under attack off site that has been shown that it's been brought on the project.  I think this really needs more discussion and preferably with an arbitrator or two involved in the discussions here.  For the record, there is at least two outside blogs involved in this and one other, which I am having troubles finding the discussion brought to my attention though I have asked for the link and I am waiting for a response.  If anyone here is a member of WP Review would look for the discussion and post the link I would appreciate it.  I really would rather not sign up for this site if possible.  Lar, Cla68 I know that both of you are members there, would you mind looking for the thread and posting the link here so that other can see?  Thanks in advance, -- Crohnie Gal  Talk  15:46, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I also think this is important, and that there is a danger of this case leading to some medium-term degradation of the articles due to what may be an attempt to appear to be 'even handed' by giving equal sanctions (even for unequal levels of disruption) to 'a few from each side'. There are many more politically rile-able blog-readers out there than there are serious experts in the field. In the very long term, of course more experts will eventually drift along to replace those lost now. I too would appreciate those who know where to look coming up with relevant links and diffs. --Nigelj (talk) 16:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I gather from the above comments that editors want ArbCom to tilt the playing field in favor of "experts" -- who it just so happens have a particular point of view not based on their expertise (this POV doesn't, of course, just get expressed in terms of how to present science but in how to present information on controversies, people, books, etc. that are related to or part of the CC debate but are not, at base, scientific questions -- what information from a blog we can put in the Fred Singer BLP, what information should go out or in "The Gore Effect", how to present the "CRU emails controversy" or whatever we're calling that article). Dressing this up as protecting Wikipedia's "quality" isn't an argument that ArbCom members should buy. Concerns about "kamikaze editors" are not substantial enough to give a break to editors who have behaved badly, most of whom haven't indicated that their attitudes have changed. The vacation is needed; tempers need to cool; editors need to be introspective; the habit of writing for the other side and focusing on quality (at FA or GA or however an editor will do it) needs time to gestate. ArbCom members have proposed that future bad behavior, including from future editors, be dealt with by encouraging admins to make independent decisions which can then be reviewed at A/E or elsewhere. It's a better plan than the creation of some kind of "balance of bad behavior", which is what coddling editors would lead to. Part of the problem with most of the badly behaving editors has been editing that degraded article quality. POV disputes do that. I'm worried about some aspects of what the ArbCom case looks like it will be, but it's better than if science-literate editors are coddled. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That's not what is being said. What is being said is 1) that editors who violate civility and 3r should not be treated the same as editors who misuse sources and have copyright issues and/or plagierism problems.  and 2) If you looked at the links to the blogs and saw how some editors have said they are willing to be blocked or banned as long as so and so is too.  This is what is being said, at least by me. I am having to leave computer but I will try later or tomorrow to supply some more difs if no one else has.  -- Crohnie Gal  Talk  17:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It is what is being said. By you: I don't think it's fair to sanction editors who are under attack off site. I disagree with you: I think editors who degrade the atmosphere promote an environment where it's harder to create good articles need to be sanctioned whether or not they're under attack off-site. And your focus on only certain ways that articles are poorly edited is not justified. Editors who are riled up by the other side make poorer editorial decisions across the board, to one extent or another, all of which we want to avoid. Also, I think it's an intra-Wiki dynamic, essentially, and it involves irritation at personalities probably even more than irritation with POV, but I'm guessing. I don't think anyone with a bad attitude about promoting their POV begins their Wikipedia career looking to get other editors blocked. That happens after they get treated badly by other editors and then find they themselves get sanctioned when they fight back in improper ways. Wanting others to get sanctioned is what seasoned, battle-scarred editors do. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I basically agree that we shouldn't give editors a free ticket if they're under attack by external agitators. From long experience of various arbitration committees over the past six years I think that's also been the overwhelming view at arbitration. On the other hand I think external agitation can give us a false view of the problem, especially if we don't take it into account going forward. We'd be fools, for instance, not to expect new editors to appear who have very odd ideas about climate science (there was a good example on talk:climate change today) and some of those newcomers may be drawn here by what they read on external websites that give a very eccentric and sometimes downright inaccurate account of what's going on. It's something we have to keep in mind as we go forward, and make sure that our precious supply of experts who can write the best material don't get left to deal on their own with these misguided ignoramuses. Because that can be very demotivating.


 * On disruptive, nuisance editors who engage in warfare because they get sanctioned, well that's what happens and will always happen because that is who they are. The discretionary sanctions should be able to take care of such problems, much as the probation did when it worked well. --TS 18:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Being "misguided ignoramuses" isn't the problem, bad behavior is, sometimes. The better term is "newbie" and if they're treated with respect, no matter what their level of knowledge, some will be very valuable -- so dealing with newbies is one of the best problems Wikipedia can have. Our precious supply of experts will always have to deal with newbies and people with less knowledge and even difficult people because that's always been part of the nature of Wikipedia and it looks like it always will be. Level-headed admins (a really precious supply) would help, but it'll always be excruciatingly difficult to reach consensus on controversial articles. I'm sure it's good to know if there's some off-Wiki website creating trouble here, if it creates trouble. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm reluctantly with you on the treatment of "misguided ignoramuses". With most of them, it's enough to gently disabuse them of the notion that they know something about the topic. Then they quite often go on to contribute much great material on topics they do know something about, or at least are capable of studying.


 * While it's true that it will always be difficult "to reach consensus on controversial articles", most of the articles in the topic area are not controversial. The ongoing problem really is the steady dribble of people who have been told that these are controversial subjects. That's why I've compared the topic to evolution. It should be possible to ramp down the drama to the point that there isn't a constant raging din of people trying to insert the latest blog-sourced conspiracy theory into Wikipedia's articles on climate change. Then we can continue to maintain and improve our already well received coverage of the topic. --TS 00:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, I worded that poorly John Barber. I also don't think anyone should be given a free pass.  That being said, with the seriousness of this case we can't ignore the outside influences which the arbitrators apparently agree because that part is passing the last time I looked.  What you didn't respond to was my comment right above yours about why it's not right in my humble opinion to sanction everyone the same.  I didn't state that sentence clearly that you mention and for that I apologize to everyone.  -- Crohnie Gal  Talk  19:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I partly agree and discussed that a bit further up on the page. If ArbCom actually implements the topic bans, overall it will be an improvement, I think. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Inclusiveness
Noticing editors lamenting about other editors leaving Wikipedia, and in the spirit of how to improve. I suggest working for content and an editing environment that afford reasonable inclusiveness. Pushing issues to the nebulous realm of the elusive expert with high standards has a place and time; however, when things go to far, I suspect and exclusive environment leads to editors being excluded by their own will or administration action. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 21:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I have to be honest, but what are you saying? -- Crohnie Gal  Talk  23:23, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I said it above, what was tempting you to be dishonest? Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 14:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not getting at you in particular, Zulu Papa 5, but I think we've all been a bit too snarky in this case and the above might sound rather more abrasive than both of you had hoped. --TS 14:10, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * ZuluPapa is well used to editors asking what he means. His comments are often a little off the wall. Olap the Ogre (talk) 14:12, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not clear to me where CrohnieGal is having difficulty. So, I tried to ask (had something to do with honesty, I guess) Apologies for the terseness. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 14:26, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to respond to this so I have asked for some advice. Please be patient so that I understand what I am supposed to have done wrong here.  Thanks in advance, -- Crohnie Gal  Talk  18:08, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * My view is that ZuluPapa5 comment made little sense because the context for the statement was unclear. The theory is that ZuluPapa5 understands the context of his question statement, so it would seem that it is clear to him. I don't see anything wrong or even snarky in Crohnie's question. Bill Huffman (talk) 18:19, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Response to Zulu Papa 5 * I want to apologize to you if I caused you any distress or hurt your feelings in anyway.  If I did, I promise it was unintentional.  Again, I'm sorry.  Would a clerk or an arbitrator please hat this discussion as it now serves for no useful purpose?  Thank you, -- Crohnie Gal  Talk  22:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)