To spend any time on Wikipedia is to be confirmed in the truth that any large group of enthusiasts, left to their own devices, will immediately begin to organise themselves into a hermetic society with its own byzantine hierarchies, secret language and arcane practices.

The case of William Connolley is particularly illuminating in this regard. A 42-year-old climate modeller at the British Antarctic Expedition in Cambridge, Connolley found himself embroiled in a ‘revert’ war with a sceptic over the subject of global warming that lasted the best part of a year. ... Connolley told me he has no idea who his antagonist was, but it was clear to him that ‘they didn’t know science’. Eventually, the argument went to arbitration, where a ruling was made not on the basis of the facts of global warming but on etiquette and policy.