Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute/Proposed decision

message: (William M. Connolley 10:52, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: William M. Connolley has expressed his opposition to Wikipedia's NPOV policy as it applies to scientific articles, (). He states, "In science, neutrality is presenting the truth, or what the vast majority of scientific opinion (as measured by published papers) believes to be the truth. Opposing views should be presented, but with lower prominence." ().
I believe that FB has mischaracterised my views. The link he presents on me objecting to NPOV is me objecting to LS's defn of NPOV - which is a rather different matter. I accept NPOV, and being bound by it, and I've said that explicitly in response to a challenge by Ed Poor. I believe that the quote from me above *does* represent the NPOV policy: that the majority gets the most space, opposing views get less space in rough proportion to their prominence. This is in distinct to the NPOV view that many s(k)eptics present, where they try to imply that all views demand equal space, even when those views are only held by a minority, and often no supporeted by publication.
I would like to see the arbitrators explicitly restate this aspect of NPOV policy (the problem with the NPOV policy is that it is rather large and quoting different sections can give rather different interpretations). The "principles" seciton on NPOV could be clarified in this respect.
(William M. Connolley 19:41, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: William M. Connolley's objections to NPOV

message: (William M. Connolley 21:05, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The bible is the best summary we have of the life of Jesus.  Wiki should give it priority, just like everyone else does.  Gee, sounds pretty non-neutral in that case, doesn't it?  Even the religious articles here manage to take their sources on less singular faith than you're suggesting we do with the science articles.   — Cortonin | Talk 22:52, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  (William M. Connolley 14:08, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The IPCC view is the IPCC view.  That's what attribution means.  In all my scientific work I've never seen a single person or organization authorized to speak on behalf of all of science until I saw you start suggesting that the IPCC does this.  It would be like saying, "The religious view is that X is wrong," because the Pope has said something is wrong.  Sure the Pope is an authoritative and prominent figure, but the Pope does not speak for all of religion any more than the IPCC speaks for all of science.  Attribute things to their respective sources, and don't try to define "science" as equal to a single source on a controversial topic.  This isn't about POV as much as it's about principle, but you, and many others, are too emotionally attached to this particular issue of climate change to be able to support the principle of non-endorsement neutrality.   — Cortonin | Talk 16:55, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPCC are best summaries we have 

message: When finding of facts name one party, should there be corresponding findings of fact about the other party?  Might Cortonin often revert edits which he considers poorly referenced…? (SEWilco 19:15, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Facts about one party 

message: Are the findings of fact supposed to consider Cortonin's "demonstrated propensity"?  The only finding which mentions Cortonin also names WMC. (SEWilco 06:32, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, there is a distinct lack of logical transition from findings of fact to proposed solution.  This lack of logical transition is fairly revealing about how things actually work here.  It seems the policies do not match the actual practice when things people feel strongly about are involved.   — Cortonin | Talk 20:22, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

text: We are not done with this case yet, so yes there are holes that need to be filled. --mav 01:27, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Where I come from, we call that revisionist history.  If you were to convict a man in the court system, and then go back and try to find evidence to justify it, then you are certainly not acting as an arbiter of justice.  Whenever evidence is chosen retroactively to match the conclusion, then significantly poor logic is being used.   — Cortonin | Talk 01:54, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The logic is there, it just has not be codified yet. --mav 04:27, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's going at it exactly the wrong way.  You've already reached a conclusion and now you're looking to organize evidence to support the conclusion?  That is, as Cortonin correctly points out, like a court convicting someone and then launching an investigation to find evidence to support the conviction.  Any findings based on such a procedure are invalid on their face - even in the unlikely event that they are actually correct.  --JonGwynne 19:48, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What is on this page now is based on talk on the arb com mailing list and on the IRC channel. The organization and the deliberation part was held there - it just has not been all documented yet. And nothing has been decided yet - this case is still open. --mav 23:44, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Single proposed decision 

message: Note to Maverick:  If commentary on the main page is limited to arbcom members, then the edit option should be disabled,  wouldn't you agree?
BTW, I consider your deletion to be extremely rude - if you had wanted to move the text in question that would have been one thing but to simply delete it with a snide dismissal is clearly unacceptable.  BTW, your grammar in the comment is is need of correction.  You said "only arb com members can edit this page" which is obviously untrue since I did in fact edit the page.  What you meant to say was ""only arb com members may edit this page".  --JonGwynne 19:42, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Misspelling somebody's user name is also rude, John(sp). ;) Also, we don't bother protecting pages that don't need protection. Since there has never been a big problem with people editing the proposed decision page, there is no need to protect them. -- mav 22:55, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for implicitly answering the question of whether or not you are capable of admitting your mistakes and learning from them.  You should resign as arbitrator on wikipedia, you don't have the temperment for it.  --JonGwynne 05:47, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting comment, given the title of this section. --mav 01:01, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Once again, you didn't answer the question.  Are you going to resign?  --JonGwynne 06:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

text: No - especially not on account of any request from you. --mav 03:26, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

text:  Of course.  There are limits to how much trouble someone can make in a courtroom before the judge will put a halt to it.  And in Wikipedia people have to first find their way to the courthouse, as people don't wander in from the adjacent town square.  But it should be a good idea to at least protect old decisions, as over the eons those who have them in their Watchlist will go away and erosion will begin. (SEWilco 04:29, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Maverick's rudeness

message: I point out #Motion to close is missing tags such as "Support:" which are usually used. (SEWilco 17:20, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small format error 

message: I suggest a finding which is symmetric to 5 (consider WMC and Cortonin both).  Reading the Evidence there are some other issues not yet mentioned.  Perhaps the article template should include suggestion of presentation of Issues/Facts to guide presentation and identification of topics (in a trial the lawyers know to identify such highlights in their Statements, but we don't include people with such experience here). I also observe WMC's evidence is mostly text with few supporting links, thus the evidence:text ratio is low. (Support/Oppose/Abstain omitted here to prevent voting accidents here in Talk.) (SEWilco 21:06, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested findings 

message: 7c) Wikipedia:Revert states, "One of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines: Always explain your reverts". Many of William M. Connolley's reverts go unexplained, both in the edit summary and on talk, in violation of this policy.               
* A WMC response: 
My reading of the Evidence continues.  Found more issues for consideration.  I don't know how many are relevant issues, and there probably is some better phrasing.  My phrasing is derived from the Evidence; for example, you can find at least one section about Cortonin's POV by searching for "pushing". To my previous suggestion for Issues in RfA template, I add a suggestion for Addendum headlines so they can be linked to.  (SEWilco 04:46, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: WMC's unexplained reversions

message: It seems a clarification of the revert limitation is needed. Both Cortonin  and JonGwynn  (see followup discussion) have filed 3rr vios against WMC based apparantly on a lack of or insufficient explanation on assoc. talk pages. Clarification is needed to prevent further misunderstandings. Vsmith 14:52, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (William M. Connolley 16:17, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Temp. injunction 

message: I note that User:JonGwynne has apparently been included in this case ().
JonGwynne recently edited the Kyoto Protocol article with this edit  which removed valid sourced information and appears to be an effort to get either WMC or myself to revert his absurd change and therefore be subject to the temporary revert injunction for 3rr blocking. In context the edit appears to be 1. POV pushing 2. bad faith editing and/or 3. simple trolling. I note that the edit is an example of JG's edits on other pages and typical of his editing style.
In addition I would like to see some arbcom comments regarding JonGwynne's combative, in your face, and make it personal edits to various discussion pages including this page (above), Talk:Kyoto Protocol, and many others. His combative style makes it very difficult to have reasoned impersonal content discussions on the various talk pages. As this often seems designed to elicit an emotional, angry response rather than reasoned discussion it amounts to trolling.
Vsmith 18:03, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (William M. Connolley 21:56, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What a surprise.  [/sarcasm].  Hold on a second here, because you guys lose your tempers and behave badly, that's somehow my fault?  Give me a break.  Look, just because you can't defend your positions with logic and in a civil manner, that isn't my problem.  You unsupported allegation of "bad faith" or "POV pushing" aside, if you're not able to hold up your arguments, then maybe you shouldn't be making them - perhaps you're both better off creating some sort of mutual admiration society and leaving the editing of wikipedia to people capable of making cogent arguments.  --JonGwynne 07:26, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Climate change dispute case inclusion 

message: I, like others, am disturbed by the one sided nature of the proposed decisions.  Take for example a recent edit  to Ross McKitrick by WMC.  Labelled "(Rv JGs falsehoods)", it included changing "the claims are disputed" to "it is by no means clear that their claims are correct".  This is justified by a link to http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/muller.html which turns out to be a blog which justifies the doubts with the phrase "William Connolley has looked at the data and thinks M&M are probably wrong" and then has a long post by WMC.  In my view, the change amounts to POV, since when there is a dispute we do not label each position by every side in this way; it is also original research in that the justification for WMC editing Wikipedia to raise doubts is that a blog reports WMC as having doubts.  The fact is that WMC regularly takes sides in this dispute outside Wikipedia, and then edits Wikipedia to reflect his position. Any decision in this case needs to take this into account. --Audiovideo 21:01, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, of course I would expect him to write different things inside and outside Wikipedia.  Outside Wikipedia, he takes a position as a defender of MBH and an attacker of M&M, as he is fully entitled to do if that is what he believes.  Inside Wikipedia, he is expected to follow NPOV, even if it means not writing everything he believes. (He did make the original link to the blog which quoted him .)  This is a point I raised before on the evidence page, and this is just another of many examples. The point I am trying to make is not causation, but correlation - this is a disputed issue (in fact several disputed issues) and so people who hold determined views need to be especially careful when contributing.  It is this which the arbitrators need to reflect when they make a decision, since it applies to both parties to the dispute.  --Audiovideo 22:21, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  (William M. Connolley 23:05, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure why I am being asked to comment on an edit I did not make, one which if true seems neither to add nor detract from the article (so I don't see why people care so much).  Following some of the external links a few months ago, I am under the impression that M&M claimed that their comments to Nature on the MBH corrections were not published because they were deemed too technical to be included in the short amount of space (500 words) finally offered.  But this is not my issue.  My real concern is that several people are behaving badly in their edits; the arbitrators seem to see this for some and not for others, while seeming to base other proposed decisions on an appeal to authority. My comments are one-sided because the proposed decisions seem to be; if they were not then I would not be commenting here. --Audiovideo 10:34, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  (William M. Connolley 10:55, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

text:  (William M. Connolley 23:10, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: POV and original research

message: I notice that in the list of names found here , there is no mention of WMC.  Why is this?  He is at least as guilty of the behavior that led to the arbitration as anyone else listed -  yet his name doesn't appear?  Was this an oversight by the admins or was it evidence of their bias?  --JonGwynne 02:17, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh? WMC was already involved in the case. That list concerned other people who it was being suggested may be added - which is why Cortonin wasn't on it either. Ambi 08:41, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A Glaring Omission

message: I guess I'm still annoying some people since they seem to be going out of their way to find things to complain about.  The latest is some ill-defined complaint about my allegedly "combative" style - what they fail to mention is that in every single instance, when I have confronted someone it has been a response to the actions of another.  Evidently, they don't mind rationalizing the rudeness of other people as the result of provocation, but when I do it, it is beyond the pale.
As before, there is no articulation of their view, just an arbitrary pronouncement and this time they're not even bothering to defend it by citing wikipedia policy, they seem content to just make things up as they go.  Sorry, but if you want me to take you seriously, you're going to have to do better.  You can't just order respect, you have to earn it.  --JonGwynne 22:54, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: JonGwynne: Failure of previous remedy

message: I'm new to Wikipedia, and hesitate to comment in a forum where everyone else is senior to me in terms of their history of participation. Despite that, though, I wanted to mention the following.
: (William M. Connolley 18:24, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Got me there. I apologize for my failure to give you appropriate recognition. -- John Callender 20:53, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Cortonin talks about process because he has lost on the science - as you and the arbcomm judgement makes clear. William M. Connolley 18:24, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't think your "insights" into why people become experts are at all helpful. They are, at least in my case, wrong. I also disagree with your apparent assertion that *all* contributions are helpful. POV pushing of invalid science isn't helpful. You are forgetting that as well as valuing good-faith contributions, wiki also needs to *discourage* bad faith contributions. Look at the mess over at dynamic theory of gravity or Nikola Tesla. William M. Connolley 18:24, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you're clearly far more expert than I could ever hope to be on the subject of your own motivations for becoming an expert, so I'm happy to defer to you there. It may well be that I've misspoken by attributing to you a failing I've noticed in others but that you don't share. If that's the case, I apologize. Also, I'm not asserting that all contributions are helpful. Clearly, some of them aren't. Some of them are helpful in some ways, non-helpful in others. I just worrying about the possibility that too much zeal could lead you to throw some baby out with the bathwater. -- John Callender 20:53, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  There is indeed the possibility of too much zeal. I don't think I show this. In this case in particular, all the participants have long ago displayed their POV for all to see - there is no question of attacking newbies. William M. Connolley 22:16, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I think you should delve a bit deeper into the page histories (especially the talk pages) before you make your judgement.  In addition, Wikipedia's first reason for existing is to write an encyclopaedia, not to be a community or a democracy.  We should never produce an inferior product just to keep people happy.  Accuracy and NPOV outweigh how well you "play with others".  If you feel that should change, then bring it up at the Village Pump and with Jimbo.  You may be able to change the aims of Wikipedia.  But there is no reason why you should expect the ArbComm to act against the currently agreed-upon goals of the project.  Climate change is controvertial, but most of that controversy lies outside of the scientific community.  WMC has done a commendable job of ensuring that the article related to climate change remain NPOV and accurate.  As for discouraging participation - anyone will be discouraged by the revert wars, but neither William not Cortonin revert spelling corrections or other such edits.  On the other hand, like many very technical and very mature articles, where every word has been discussed at great lenght on the Talk page, one should be cautious about stepping in and making changes without discussing them.  Rather than discouraging participation, William is encouraging the formation of a WikiProject.  Guettarda 16:54, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay. Thanks for the response. As I said at the outset, I'm pretty new to Wikipedia, and to this particular controversy. For what it's worth, I'm not suggesting a change in Wikipedia's aims, What I'm arguing for, when I talk about the thing you refer to as a "democracy" and "playing well with others", is something that I believe might be helpful in achieving the existing aims, and that I actually think is specifically called for in the existing NPOV policy. But I'll do more homework before bringing it up next time. At a minimum, I'll take more care to get the initials of the people I'm talking about correct. :-) -- John Callender 20:53, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  
WFC
 WMC elitist?