Talk:William Connolley/Archive 1

message: Probably the correct section header (if you insist on splitting it into a section, it seems rather short to me and a section header unneeded) is "public understanding of science". Thats what my work calls it, when scientists stoop down from their ivory tower to explain to the general public. Its encouraged. Having it retitled "hobbies" appears to me gratuitously offensive. William M. Connolley 20:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public understanding of science 

message: Sorry about the date ... ... should've thought that you'd stated it in the "euro" format ... J. D. Redding 07:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: b-date

message: WMC POV'ed this page. He removes factual info (to "correct" it to his "truth" ("sadly", he is completely biased)) ... 
As a sidenote ... WMC "rm yucky footnotes" that point out that most of the notes are to pages that he has control (eg., realclimate.org; mustelid.blogspot) or that he may not want exposed (eg., the sci.environment post railling againt NASA; Connolley believes the Earth is to be in global warming (and has spoken out against individuals and groups that do not fully this theory (including NASA) - from the ref|NoGlobalWarming http://groups.google.com/group/sci.environment/browse_thread/thread/54b037867f387138/b7c641cab7b035dd?lnk=st&rnum=57#b7c641cab7b035dd ). 
Also ... there wasn't any "dupl" ... oh well, it's POV tagged now ... J. D. Redding 23:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went over the article, and found nothing POV. It may not contain everything you like, but I did not find your additions particularly noteworthy or releveant. Hence, I've removed the POV tag. On the other hand, William probably should not edit this  article, either. Please point out inaccuracies here on talk. --Stephan Schulz 01:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: WMC POV'ed

message: IMO, The article should list the public offices that WMC has held or campaigned for. --Ssilvers 03:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a parish councillor for Coton. Campaigning... well, I've never seriously campaigned William M. Connolley 07:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  I added it.  I decided against adding any family info, although many bios note it.  Ssilvers 11:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Can you say what these "many bios" are Ssilvers? Try as I might, I've been unable to find anything else on the nets that points to William Connolley's importance, let alone an actual "biography" of the great man. Where else is there a biography of this high achiever? Or is it enough just to be an Oxbridge man? MarkThomas 11:45, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Politics

message: I saw that many more publications are listed on Connolley's work bio online than are listed here.   Are the ones listed here the most notable?  --Ssilvers 11:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You could check the history. I think they got trimmed. There was some discussion about it :-( William M. Connolley 15:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, they were trimmed, but would you say that the ones currently listed are the most important of all the publications?  --Ssilvers 15:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Publications Revisited

message: I've looked into this user / vanity page and the above debates in some more detail. First off, Connolley's biog page from the BAS site: 1. What we clearly have here is a fairly ordinary scientific researcher at the BAS, one of many. He does not particularly seem to stand out from other similar climate researchers at BAS. He does not google strongly other than for this page. There are no media mentions of him that I can locate and he has published a few papers, along with many thousands of similar lower-echelon researchers.
It's clear that the deletion discussions and final outcomes were driven by Connolley's friends and associates on _Wikipedia_ as an _admin_ and this is unfortunately very typical of the Cabalism that WP offers now. His admin user page begins: I am now an Admin; see-also /3RR. I'm part of WP:100 & I'm 359!. Vanity on this page and vanity on that. I propose we have another deletion debate on this page but we need to prepare the ground better and be factual in the approach. There are very good grounds for removing this page, if only that Connolley himself repeatedly edits it. MarkThomas 09:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree. This is nothing but a vanity page. I don't know how you go about setting up a vote on removing this page but if you set it up I will vote for deleting this page. ICGAFFL, Duke53 | Talk 13:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: If you're wondering what prompted the above, the answer is  William M. Connolley 10:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Not at all. I avoid editing it now but I do correct errors, that seems only sensible. Why do you think leaving in a mis-spelling of Coton is a good idea? William M. Connolley 11:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion on deleting this page 

message: Does anyone know the various paygrades and status of different job roles at BAS? Connolley is a Senior Scientific Officer and I understand from other bodies this to be a fairly lowly role, on a salary of about £27K or similar, can anyone confirm? Thanks. MarkThomas 09:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Senior Scientific Officer at BAS

message: This page is in breach of multiple clauses of WP:Vain and I have attempted to correct them. Other admins and supporters of William Connolley have attempted to delete these justified changes, including Connolley himself, further supporting the case that he is in serial breach. Do the guidelines apply to admins or not? MarkThomas 13:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have not justified these changes (a generic claim of "vanity fluff" is neither justification nor discussion), and I fail to see how your changes improve the article. They remove factual information.--Stephan Schulz 14:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, Mark, stop the wikilawyering, "that he is in serial breach".  Please.  Oh, btw, you mean "material breach"...unless you meant "cereal" breach as in he forgot to finish his oatie-o's.  •Jim62sch• 21:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Accusing him of Wikilawyering seems here to simply be a desperate attempt to discredit the argument he is making, which seems perfectly valid to me. His approach isn't very constructive but his essential point has such force that I don't see how you can justify not addressing it. --SandyDancer 12:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I fail to see the argument he is making. This article is balanced and correct. His changes deleted useful information. I agree that William should not directly editing this article, however, from what I have seen he has only contributed trivial corrections, not real content. That may be a sign of vanity (and impatience/efficiency), but hardly a serious problem. --Stephan Schulz 13:28, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're reaching Stephan. The point is not if it's factual (although with him editing it - and they are more than just trivial corrections if you follow the history back - this is in doubt), but if it qualifies as a Wikipedia page. Its a classic example of a complete trivia biog that should not be on here, as the user in question is not important enough to merit it. And yes, before you say it, I know we've had multiple votes for deletion, with negative outcomes, but when you look at who voted in those - well, that's where the role of an admin comes into play. So the real reason this page lasts is Connolley's role as an admin and not as someone important outside WP. So it shouldn't be on here, regardless of the veracity of it. I keep a pet dog - if I publish a page about me, a specialist in tree preservation who is totally un-notable outside the narrow world of Norfolk and Suffolk Tree Orders - what would you choose to comment on? Would you comment on accurate it is that my dog's name is Grainger. Or might you question if such a page should exist. Oh and by the way, I have had papers published in journals. But that doesn't make me automatically worthy of a page in Wikipedia. Neither does the fact that I "have beliefs". Hurrah! Neither does the fact that I "went to University". Goodness. MarkThomas 14:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So you contest notability. William is reasonably well-known outside Wikipedia. Google Scholar returns a bunch of papers by him. He was interviewed by Nature (journal) about his work on Wikipedia, and he is a contributor to RealClimate. He may not be on a level with Queen Victoria, but he certainly is above Max (Pokémon). Looking at the VfDs, two preceeded William's adminship. And the fact that mostly admins are voting is fairly normal - check any other VfD. --Stephan Schulz 14:46, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correcting multiple breaches of vanity guidelines 

message: Adding  is only appropriate when you have some reason to doubt the veracity of the statements.  Care to share what these doubts are?  Guettarda 21:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This too is easy to explain...  William M. Connolley 21:34, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree about the likely motiviation, but it would still be nice to have some sources. Do you have any online bio, e.g.? These seem to be good enough for most biographic articles....--Stephan Schulz 21:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's nothing wrong with sourcing material (he could have raised the issue here), the issue is using  tags - you shouldn't use them unless you have some reason to doubt the veracity of the information.  You certainly shouldn't use them like this.  In general, tagging articles is a last resort, not a starting point for discussion.  Guettarda 21:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Guettarda, you are confusing  with .  The former is for when there is no doubt (rendered as "citation needed"); the latter is for when there is doubt (rendered as "verification needed"). --Spiffy sperry 22:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm not confused.  Guettarda 23:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may follow the links to the templates above to see what I mean.  It's all right there in the instructions (in bold, even)... --Spiffy sperry 13:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Technicalities aside, abusing these tags in the manner displayed by MarkThomas is vandalism and a vio of WP:POINT. •Jim62sch• 22:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand. I was just following the advice given above. Sheesh, it's hard to do anything right around here - at the moment I don't even have my own vanity page, as I'm not an admin. MarkThomas 08:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fact tags 

message: Earlier on, I made an attempt to de-vanitise this page and also to remove uncited and unfactual material in line with a range of WP guidelines. Since then I have been repeatedly harassed by administrator allies of William Connolley. The harrassment has included (a) removal of my entries from their talk pages, against guidelines (2) random warnings on my talk page (c) personal threats and (d) vandalistic reverts of my postings. It is really quite stupifying the extent to which the administrator cabal is prepared to go to in defending the indefensible, eg, that admins are not subject to WP guidelines; for that is after all what we see here on the Connolley page. This page would have been deleted long ago if Connolley was not an admin.
If I am blocked now as an editor by Connolley's helpful pals, I am in regular contact with other like-minded editors and they will be contributing updates to this and other pages on progress. Basically until this page is deleted we see WP as essentially a corrupted entity. MarkThomas 21:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is off-topic here. You might want to take it to WP:ANI. However, (a) is within the discretion of the user, unless it's a justified warning, (2) the only one I found was a WP:NPA warning, in reply to a posting of yours that included the phrase "a bunch of utter halfwits", hence rather not "random",  (c) can we have an example and (d) can we have more than one example? --Stephan Schulz 22:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you meant WP:DR. MarkThomas 08:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if there is a blatant current admin abuse, WP:ANI is better. For a longer term conflict, yes, WP:DR is the way to go. --Stephan Schulz 09:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Making threats is really not in your best interest MarkThomas.  This is advice, take it or leave it.  •Jim62sch• 22:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: What threat? This page is a pathetic abuse, and this type of page undermines both the credibility and usefulness of Wikipedia. The only sad thing is that as we all know Google emphasises it, so we have to pay attention to the results of what is in effect a role playing game managed by self-serving "wizards", eg, admins. MarkThomas 08:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "I am in regular contact with other like-minded editors and they will be contributing updates to this and other pages on progress" - that's a clear threat to disrupt this article in violation of WP policy.  Guettarda 09:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Eh? How do you make that out? Since when is "contributing updates" a threat????? Perhaps every update to Wikipedia is now a threat? Or is it just anyone with the temerity to update an admins vanity page? MarkThomas 09:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because you threatened a coordinated campaign to disrupt an article.  That can be a blockable offense.  Guettarda 09:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh come off it, I said "contribute updates", since when is that disruption? On the other hand, since we're exchanging semantic interpretations here, wouldn't it actually be in Wikipedia's best interests to edit out the bad parts of an article that clearly shouldn't be there, especially if people have joined in cabals to defend the existence of an obvious vanity puff page? MarkThomas 10:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Systematic harrassment by admins defending this page 

message: Jim62sch said :<I>" ... now enough with the games -- finding any remaing "cites needed" is on the person placing the tag"</i> Huh? The person who adds the info to the article is responsible for citing it. What are you talking about? You expect us to do the work of researching for what somebody else claims? Absurd notion. Duke53 | Talk 01:05, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When you're abusing the tags, yeah, you try to find the facts -- if you feel that abusing policy is cool, then goose-gander-sauce.  It took me all of three minutes to find the cites for the three you slapped on yesterday.  Surely you could have done it.  Ain't rocket science.  Hell, if we carry your absurd notion of questioning points that needn't be questioned wiki would be nothing but fact tags.  You have a problem with Connolley, take it up on his user page. •Jim62sch• 01:17, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You can call it abuse if you choose; I call it asking for verification. I don't know that guy and without sources the whole article could be a pack of untruths. (You hear stories every day about people padding their resumes). When I add something to an article I cite sources and expect other editors to do the same. If you don't like that, well, tough on ya. I'm not going to go to the trouble of verifying other editors' claims.Duke53 | Talk 01:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And yet I did -- I didn't write the article in case you didn't notice.  Besides, every article on wiki could be a "pack of untruths".  Gonna start taggin' 'em all?  •Jim62sch• 01:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is your choice to verify others' claims. I will ask for cites on any article that interests me and where I feel that a source is called for. Duke53 | Talk 01:55, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New Wiki rule?

message: Since it's obvious that the real notability of W Connolley Esq. lies in his role on Wikipedia, can I suggest a new page entitled William Connolley, Major Wikipedian and Superlative Personage, not to mention an Oxford Graduate Gosh!! be created? This can fully explore His Contributions to WP. At the same time, this page can be moved to Lapsed Vanity Pages that Never should have Existed in the First Place. All OK with everyone? Good, let's immediately implement. MarkThomas 21:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Haha. Funny. Not. --Stephan Schulz 21:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Which was reverted by me because it was vandalism. -- Mapetite526 22:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal for new page