RfC time. I take it WMC did not appreciate being called on his actions.

Lar doesn't either. He's quite happy to accuse others of what he himself is guilty of, or thinks they are.

Just in case there's any doubt though, I firmly believe that WMC's position is at best dishonest.

Hrmm. I see that Guettarda and KillerChihuahua (both of IDCab fame) are in on the game.

I'll be watching this one from my idiosyncratic perspective of someone interested in science-related articles that strive for high levels of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online reporting.

You'll most likely end up being disappointed then.

Oh, I'm resigned to the likelihood that WP will never get anywhere close to normative levels of accuracy, excellence, or ethics in online reporting. What interests me is 1) diagnosing why that is so, and 2) why there is no reasonable expectation of remedying that shortcoming.

The answer to your second question is surely obvious. The place is run by children and idiots who value "civility" above honesty.

So Sanger got it wrong? It's not adults peddling porn to children, but children peddling porn to adults?

"Peddling" implies some kind of benefit in return. Don't see it myself. It's just a power thing. I'm an admin you're not, so I'm in charge. Why wouldn't kids love that?

I would nominate Dopamine as the reward. Dopamine is the neuropeptide most commonly associated with instant gratification.

Children and addicts are often dopamine junkies -- they seek instant pleasure, without regard for the long-term consequences.

Not a peptide (as are, say, the encephalins-- the brain's morphine). Dopamine is just an amino acid derivative.

And there must be more to reward centers than dopamine, else Parkinson's drugs that increase dopamine in the brain (L-DOPA/carbidopa) would be addictive. Or at least pleasurable. So far as I can tell, they aren't. Much. Certainly the sympathomimetics (meth, coke, etc) are far more so.


Teenagers peddling porn to everybody. Wow, that's unique.


Not.

So what cocktail of neurotransmitters would you indict as being responsible for lulz?

Hemoglobin, plasma, testosterone, and adrenaline.

And piss and vinegar. Snaps, snails, puppydog tails.

Not enough sugar, spice, or anything nice.

No original research here, either. Oh well.

Can't we just ban em all? Bring me back too. : )



I think that is the argument most pedophiles make: "she came onto me".



By the way, what about the BLP issues of Lar accusing WMC of doing something sneaky on Wikipedia regarding Climate Change in a parallel manner to "climategate"? Isn't that a big no-no? I don't really see any diffs or proof (no emails released yet).

What shit. Boris is confusing his mouth and his anus again.

(Any conversation about WP's "governance" always seems to lead back to the butthole.
I think there's a lesson in there.........somewhere.)

You may be on to something, Eric. Antagonists in these turf battles fling dirty words the way monkeys fling poo. That might also explain the associated references to grabbing a fistful of ammunition from the dark dank depot.

Looks like they both ran out of easier victims.

This is one dull RfC.

In spite of all the constant bickering, revert warring, baiting, and personal attacks that occur on the global warming pages, not that many RfC's come out of it all. One reason may be because the enforcement board gives an outlet for dispute resolution.

I reported Stephan Schulz to ArbCom a few weeks ago because he posted in the "admin only" section of an enforcement board discussion. Since he is rather heavily engaged in watching WMC's back in the AGW articles, I didn't think he should be involving himself as an admin. ArbCom gently declined to get involved, and lately he has started posting in that section again in protest of Lar's involvement. If that isn't controlled, the enforcement board will become a farce. I'm sure some will contend it is already, but there are a couple of admins, including Lar and LessHeard, who are actually trying to correct or manage the behavior of WMC and some of the other regulars in those articles. I hope that they will be able to continue to do so.

Or maybe they'll wise up and move on to other areas where they don't have to be aggravated on an hourly basis.

In the clash of admins for governance sake
Which one will bend and which one will break?

Send in the clowns and set up the joke
Who is the willow and who is the oak?

Although it may be convenient for others to allege that I have said this, as far as I am aware I have made no such suggestion. I ascribe no ulterior motive, allege no grand conspiracy, and have full faith that the folks I have concerns about are acting in what they believe are correct ways from noble motives.

My concerns are more nuanced, that the playing field is not level, and that control of articles has been exerted over a long period of time. That the articles on the science(1) generally are accurate and agree with the scientific consensus is great. But in this case the ends do not justify the means.

1 - I disagree with their emphasis, the lead article on the Global Warming topic should be more about the socio-politico-economic aspects of this, which are going to be world changing, rather than the specific scientific points... those should be in background, in depth articles rather than the lead. I also disagree with what I feel is spin control by certain editors (I struggle to find a term that won't immediately cause backlash among those editors) to hide details of some of the messier political machinations in the scientific community around (among other things) how the results are presented and verified.



It's tempting.

"but WMC is not a very civil person. He does not suffer fools gladly. (and by his definition, many of us are fools) He has a history of baiting others he is in conflict with until they explode. I am not the only person who holds this view."

That right there is from you in the RfC.

I've seen people without the protect of admin status be blocked for making such accusations without "diffs", even if hidden behind labels of "my opinion".

If my ArbCom statement can say I violated BLP for a talk page statement that a guy wasn't a respected writer, then you making a comment about a person who has a biography on Wikipedia like the above is definitely a BLP violation.

You changed the subject to refute something I didn't say. Is your animus now so great that you're willing to overlook anything I point out just to try to score points against me? Ok whatever.

I pointed out that you have been going after him in a way that violates BLP. You denied it. I pointed out one example of it. If you don't like it, you can always strike the comment from the RfC. As long as it is in print, I stand by my assessment.

I don't think you've shown that commenting on inappropriate editor behavior is "going after" them, much less violating BLP. Again, your animus is showing.

You made unsourced negative claims of a highly disparaging nature about someone who has a biography on Wikipedia and is living. You have done so on multiple pages dating back many months. The BLP violations would warrant large blocks by this time if people actually enforced our policies appropriately and fairly.

Yet another demonstration of why a functioning society does not conduct disciplinary hearings in open session.

If Lar is the one to be the judge of such, then there is no way to say that the hearing would be fair. Most people demand their governance to be open so we can't have hidden biases simply so we can get rid of the bias people and establish a fairer system. If you want secret hidden trials, then you are promoting a system that is completely against what most people here would want.

Hell, there are constant attacks on ArbCom doing stuff through the mailing list for the above reason.

The claims might be currently unsourced, but are they untrue? You've been around enough to know, if you aren't blind or biased. The truth is not "disparaging" if it's true.

This is a side issue really. WMC, et al, are not happy that I'm not turning a blind eye to their activities, and it takes a massive effort to actually demonstrate that the claims are untrue, witness how hard it has been so far to even get them to concede that there are groups of editors that edit in the same areas and that I identified some. Each point is argued in detail and then when you get to the end, it's characterised as "trivially obvious", but if you'd said that at the go, you'd not get anywhere.

Just another example of where WP "governance" (not government but governance, and the quotes are because it's governance in name only in many areas) isn't working.

But go ahead, attack me for pointing out what most honest folk know already instead of working to resolve the problems by making constructive contributions to the discourse.

PS... when you quote me please don't cut me off in midsentence quite so much. Makes it look like you're trying to twist things around.

Same argument I made about John Beer. I provided a few sources that agreed with me that his work for Britannica was him selling out. ArbCom didn't care and called me an egregious BLP violator anyway.

Source the damn statements! Start a counter RfC with diffs! Send this damn thing to ArbCom. It would be like King Kong vs Godzilla. Toyko will be destroyed regardless of the victor.



It is my way of trimming the fat of the argument. If you want, I could just bold the portions of the quote that I am responding to?

I believe this has been dicussed in WR before, but as many of you are aware, Michael Mann's hockey stick graph, which purports to show a link between CO2 levels and global temperature increases, has had a controversial history. Two amateur statisticians, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (M&M), were able to get a paper published in a scientific journal criticizing the research that went into the graph. In response to an inquiry by the US Congress, an additional investigation by statistician Edward Wegman (check out the talk page for that article) upheld M&M's findings. Further papers since then have defended the graph, but recently David Hand, one of the top UK statisticians, said that he felt the graph's results were "exaggerated".

Perhaps in response to M&M's findings, Mann and some colleagues set up the RealClimate blog, the staff of which spend a lot of time and effort defending Mann's hockey stick research and attacking those who criticize the graph. As you all are aware, Connolley used to work for RealClimate, and in fact was one of its founding members

Here's the thing, if the hockey stick graph, which was the centerpiece of Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and the IPCC's Third Assessment Report is false it does not mean that humans aren't causing global warming. It just means that Mann's research is lousy and scientists looking for the cause of the warming that occurred between 1900 and 1999 (according to the CRU, there hasn't been significant global warming increases since then) need to ask Mann to redo his methods if he wants to be part of that effort.

My impression is that Connolley is not just trying to push the human-caused global warming theory in Wikipedia. He is also trying to support the efforts to defend Mann's hockey stick research. If so, then this makes Connolley's Wikipedia agenda more dishonest, because it means that he is not just POV-pushing, but trying to use Wikipedia to support a friend's controversial and unproven research. In the past, Connolley and the editors who support him have tried to introduce RealClimate links into the AGW articles. They have recently backed off of this because other editors have tried to follow their lead and use sceptical blogs as sources.

Incorrect! Anyone who knows that film would recall that the Japanese army built a huge electrical fence that repelled Godzilla, thus keeping him out of Tokyo. But Kong was able to gain strength by eating the electrical wires (I could never quite figure that one out). Thus, only Kong entered Tokyo. However, he was quickly knocked out by some sort of funky gas and he was floated out of Tokyo with giant balloons.

"King Kong vs. Godzilla" is one of my all-time favorite films.

I preferred Mothra. <3

But I liked the idea of characterizing the two as either a giant angry lizard or a giant angry monkey. ;/

And I suppose the Mothra Twins are chopped liver?

No Japanese monster movie is truly complete without a musical number. Even "King Kong vs. Godzilla" had a dance sequence praising Kong.

This is related. Amazingly, Dave souza deletes an attack against a Climate Skeptic, and who blocks him? Less Heard after Cla pulled a bs move. There was nothing that warranted anything but praising Dave. Remember, Dave is a strong defender of WMC and he had the guts to remove violations of BLP. Now you are blocking him for removing BLP violations on an opponent of Global Warming?

LessHeard really fucked up this one.


By the way, this is Pure bull in every possible way, and LessHeard should be banned from using admin powers from any related page because he showed himself of the worse kind of POV warrior.

Its nice to see that LessHeard, Lar, and Cla (among some others) want to form their own little bully group.

Curious, given that LessHeard blocked Cla too, for continuing the (slow) edit war on that article.

No, its called trying to get into good graces with those wielding the power.

This wonderful edit can be translated as: "Now that we sullied your block log in order to put you in your place, I am willing to unblock because you didn't actually do anything wrong and unblocking would help hide me from any potential ramifications later if this goes to ArbCom".

Don't be surprised if Connolley and his Global Warming Nut Squad starts another major push on WP to sanitize themselves and their thesis.

Because the CRU was recently cleared of all wrongdoing. All they get is a "suggestion" to use better statistical techniques. This will undoubtedly encourage Connolley, he being one of the founders of the CRU.

Hopefully National Health covers sprains from excessive patting of ones own back.


Assumes facts not in evidence. But don't let that stop you.

What a precocious little tyke he must have been. When I was seven academia was far from my concerns.

The history of that article is interesting. When it was nominated for deletion, I was actually planning on voting to delete it, because after looking at the article I thought there wasn't sufficient references to support it. After checking the article history, however, I noticed that several of the usual suspects had been very aggressive at removing article content during the AfD! After checking the references, I realized that the blog had received a fair number of significant mentions in major media. So, I went and made a note of this in the AfD discussion and voted to keep. One editor then changed his vote to "keep" and a few others also voted to keep while noting that the sources supported its notability. The AfD was then closed as a "keep."

Since then, the same suspects have been trying everything to keep those references and sources out of the article, including attacking the main editor, Mark Nutley, who has been defending that article. Yesterday, Mark was blocked for an unrelated reason, copyviolations in other articles. Almost immediately, Dave Souza blanked most of what was left of the article. Soon after, ChrisO disappeared it completely.

Remember, earlier in this thread I explained that I think WMC's main purpose for participating in Wikipedia is to defend and support his friend Dr. Mann's hockey stick research. WMC and his editing friends do not want this blog, the blog's author, Andrew Montford, or his book, The Hockey Stick Illusion, mentioned in Wikipedia. If I didn't say so before, Mann and his colleagues are extremely aggressive in defending against attacks on their research. Montford is apparently beginning to be the "go to" guy on questions about the hockey stick's history by many of those who may have concerns about the veracity of Mann's methods and conclusions, and I doubt that Mann and his supporters are very happy about Montford's efforts.

Actually, according to WP's guidelines, the book and the man (Montford) probably aren't notable for inclusion at this time. I believe, however, that the blog is notable enough to have an article. Nevertheless, I believe WMC et al's plan is to get the blog and BLP articles merged into the book article, then argue that the book isn't notable and get it deleted, thus removing any mention of it all from Wikipedia. Of course, the big picture of all this is that no self-respecting encyclopedia would allow these types of ridiculous games to be taking place.

. Once doesn't have to supply diffs every time one says something that is common knowledge.
People without the protection of admin status get blocked for looking crosswise at an admin. So? Lar isn't one of those, he's a highly privileged member of the community. He can provide diffs, I could provide diffs, Diffs-R-Us, so, Ottava, get over it.
Sad, Ottava. Incivility, boorishness, and various other offenses can easily be forgiven, but stupidity in the service of accusation is tough. A "BLP violation" is offending text in a "Biography," and that wasn't said by Lar in a biography. If a statement is sufficiently llibelous, it might be necessarily removed even from Talk or WP process pages, but those comments don't even get close. They are mild compared to what has been routine for WMC and his cronies. If you are not aware of WMC's history and regular practices, I'd suggest that you become aware before proceeding, you are trashing yourself.

Actually, it was closed as "no consensus" by Sandstein. In fact, it had turned heavily to Keep, but perhaps Sandstein did some analysis he didn't disclose. Some admins don't adequately explain their reasoning.

Vsmith, who just blocked Nutley, has been associated with the cabal. See my original picture of the GW Cabal, in the evidence page I created for RfC/GoRight, section on users supporting each comment, compared to those who had edit warred with GoRight. Later, when I tried to edit the Global Warming article, I had plenty of opportunities to notice those names reverting with no effort to seek consensus.

Only a reversal of your own statements. Takes two competing armies to form a battleground, you know.



I've been on opposite sides of discussions and disputes from Dave for two years. However, he has -always- been a complete gentleman.

If you read what he blanked, it was negative attacks against a climate change skeptic, that is going out of his way to protect the biography of his ideological opponent. Don't lump his edits with others because they just don't belong with the others.

Dave being blocked was completely unfair and he responded in an impeccably kind and considerate way.



I've had many disagreements with WMC and I do not think the characterization was acceptable or fair, especially seeing the huge amount of diffs on Lar's taunting and inappropriate actions.



A BLP is any statement about any living person anywhere on Wikipedia, according to ArbCom. That includes talk pages.

Wow! Does this mean that I can demand that the WMF remove all the scurrilous lies and misrepresentations intended to harm my reputation that were told about me on Wikipedia? (Or be forced to defend their truth and/or necessity?)

On the other hand, BLP is just an acronym for "Biography of a Living Person," and comments on a talk page aren't biographies. They can be libel, but the "L" in BLP isn't "Libel." You are sticking your foot deeper in your mouth. Start noticing the taste, maybe you can avoid it coming out the other end if you wake up quickly enough.

As I pointed out, someone like Lar can get away with it in a very blatant way while simultaneously making derogatory comments about lesser given to him. BLP, like CIVIL, NPA, etc, are just tools to beat people with in content disputes. It is the very definition of Battleground, but no one has the balls to block such people.