Bishop Hill Wicked Wikipedia
May 21, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other Media Alex Harvey takes a look at the 2010 banning of several Wikipedia editors and events since that time - William Connolley has apparently been unbanned, while a more sceptical editor, Cla68, has had his ban extended.
In the case of William Connolley, the [Arbitration] Committee is shown to be extremely lenient, compared to treatment of skeptical editors. William's ban was recently repealed despite obvious signs that nothing much had changed. In the case of Cla68, however, who was perceived to be a climate change skeptic, it is shown that he was banned on the basis of entirely fraudulent claims, and has just now had his ban extended by another six months on the basis of a single frank, out of context remark made in an internet forum.
This double standard - even in Wikipedia - has rarely been so stark. In my view, it challenges the image of Wikipedia as a neutral, dispassionate broker of facts. We see that Wikipedia is, in fact, run by activists who drive away the neutral, objective people who would otherwise contribute.
That should set the cat among the pigeons.
Reader Comments (63)
Wikipedia is an utter waste of bandwidth. When I do an internet search for something I do not want to see the results of a massive nerd argument expressed in primary school terms. I don't think I've ever seen a WP page which didn't contain glaring errors. That's before we get to anything controversial which is just the same kind of battleground as the CAGW pages; the content owes more to whichever faction has the upper hand currently than to reality. Then there's the huge number of people who are actively vandalising the thing - the obvious stuff is usually caught and deleted but subtle insertion of false and misleading information is much harder to detect.
Wikipedia actually has a policy called Verifiability Not Truth, which means that if something is reported in a medium they consider a Reliable Source (another can of worms in itself) then it can't be removed - if you happen to know its not true, that's Original Research, which isn't allowed on WP.
Fortunately, if you insert "-wiki" into your search string, it filters out most of the WP dross and its numerous scraper sites.
"Also, to all SkSers, I strongly recommend you go and like some of the more prominent reviews there - which makes them more likely to be selected by Amazon as the featured review (as is my understanding of the process). There are some great reviews by Scott Mandia and Steve Lewandowsky among others.
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Okay, I know I've been nagging all of you to post a review.
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I encourage everyone to try and counteract the denier ratings abuse.
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I did email out over a dozen copies of the book to SkSers who specifically requested it - what happened to all those reviews?
How this plays may be a good indication of the marshalling powers of the denialosphere compared to our side.
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If you see a denier review that crosses the line, click the Report Abuse link beneath the review - if Amazon gets enough of them, they take down the review.
I flagged this as abuse. Note, Amazon need several abuse flags before removing a review so go check it out.
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Just tagged this one as abusive: ...
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John M, yeah it's tricky. But I think if we beat them back - as appears to be happening at Amazon, then we only need a few examples of the spite and stupidity. When the flying monkeys flash mob like that the truth gets drowned out by all the commotion.
Went over and liked your review by the way.
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This is an example of things going right, it seems (knock wood). I think SkS made a contribution to pushing back on the WUWT swarm.
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Nothing like a bunch of true crazies to help discredit and fragment a larger movement. (Check out OWS and violence this week.)
Distasteful as it may be, it might be worthwhile to keep a collection of the craziest, most vile emails etc, to make available to journalists.
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OK, time to move on ....but here's the 2-12 tally on the extent of this troll "rout"
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I think you're right. This was a troll rout. We should continue to monitor the situation there because you never know when there may be another call to arms by another prominent denier
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Certainly worth more watching. The swarming was down to Wattsbotts, who are too easily tripped-up. There are other places where Orcs breed....
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A good lesson may be to plan for such events, and prepare for the WUWT attack.
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Definitely worth it. We were the 300 Spartans holding back the endless hordes of the Persians/WUWTians.
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Sensational! Alex Harvey: "Banned"....
May 21, 2012 at 9:06 PM | Unregistered CommenterBrent Hargreaves
He's been framed :)
May 21, 2012 at 9:42 PM | SunderlandSteve
Framed - Oslo, June 1974.
May 22, 2012 at 12:21 AM | Registered Commenterlapogus
Nice link, are you a SAHB fan or just an old fart like me who remembers the good music from the70's? :)
Snarky William Connolley has been spotted commenting on WUWT recently...
I seem to recall the Bishop's HSI was caught up in one of William Connelley' s sabotage attempts on Wiki, and it was after this that WC was banned.
I have a couple of old colleagues in academia who make it very clear to their students that citing anything from Wiki will ensure a fail.
It's no better than a bog wall - any prat can write what he/she likes on it.
I don't know what the original SkS article was like but its current iteration is nauseatingly fawning.
Sorry, Diogenes, but you appear to have missed my point; students are encouraged to quote 'authorities' and correctly attribute them in essays, they are (or should be, IMHO) taught not to air unfounded and untested ideas of their own. Wikipedia has been so successfully subverted in many areas that it cannot be regarded as an 'authoritative' source.
Those who see citations in Wikipedia articles as a useful list of sources should be aware of another common Wikitrick; nobody checks citations to see if they actually say what the Wikipedia author says they do. This is especially true if the citation is not available online. Thus the experienced Wikiwarrior will cite the most obscure reference possible which ensures his edit will stick in the hope that no one will manage to actually track it down and point out that it doesn't support the edit. Even if someone does, if the original editor is powerful enough in the Wiki heirarchy any such comment will be ignored and deleted.
http://www.weforum.org/young-global-leaders/kate-garvey/index.html
Jimmey Wales look at the woman hes shacked with and he aint even devorced yet
Kate Garvey used to be Tony Blairs diary secretary what ever that is
Another overpaid non neutral politically appointed civil servant
She worked with Richard Curtis ( Mr i wrote Blackadder and blowing up school children 10 10 campaign ) on make poverty history campaign so she knows about lefty new labour BBCish proganda from the future Mrs Green Gobbels
Wilkipedia happily have a go at China about censorship
Jimmey Wales for a bloke whose supposed to be an Athiest whys he buying into Climate Change Religon thing
Few of his exes have come out the woodwork and talked about Jimbo hes a bit of a swordsman
Anteros
"I don't know what the original SkS article was like but its current iteration is nauseatingly fawning."
To put it briefly, they are a venal bunch gossiping and conspiring against anyone they identify as not part of the Team or not sufficiently alarmist. They are like a mini Wikipedia, except that they are secretive and accountable to no one.
I searched for 'Anteros' among the files and there were at least three threads with 'Anteros' in the header.
2011-12-09-Anteros Bashes Dana on the Blackboard
2012-02-25-Denier 'Anteros' trying to smear SkS on RC
2012-03-04-Anteros
I won't tell you what they contain lest you get nauseated.
I haven't searched for 'Lucia' or 'Blackboard' yet but I am sure there will be dozens of nauseating threads discussing how to respond to the threat they perceive from Lucia's.
Shub
Good collection. Together they show what a frantic astro-turfing operation was orchestrated by Mann and his lickspittles in SkS to promote "Climate Wars".
Re: Wikipedia -- is it worth a damn?
There's a lot of WP-bashing in this thread, so I'll take a minute to give another perspective, from an active Wikipedia contributor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tillman
1. Whatever your personal quality judgment, Wikipedia is the clear winner in popularity:
#6 worldwide per Alexa, http://www.alexa.com/topsites
#6 worldwide per http://mostpopularwebsites.net/
So WP's impact in undeniable.
2. For noncontroversial topics, WP's articles are usually pretty good, and the quality control is better than you'd guess from the comments upthread. Most volunteers are genuinely trying to produce a high-quality reference source, and drive-by vandalism is (usually) quickly fixed.
3. For climate-change topics, WP is poor -- pretty clearly captured by the alarmists. For bad examples, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
The root problem in CC (and other controversial area) is the reliance on consensus -- and the numbers favor the alarmists. Hint: you could help out.
4. Wikipedia's popularity is the reason the alarmists work hard to slant the Climate Change articles their way. And the same goes for other "true believer" topics. Ordinary, common-sense editors give up after awhile -- they have *lives*.
5. For any page where you have doubts: take a look at the article's Talk page. If it's active, the page is likely controversial, and may not be reliable. Cross-check!
Peter D. Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Arizona and New Mexico (USA)
1. Popularity has nothing to do with accuracy. I frequently see people in internet comments who are under the delusion that Wikipedia is some sort of authoritative reference source.
2. I first found Wikipedia turning up in searches for entirely non controversial stuff. It was the glaring errors I found which made me wonder what on earth this Wikipedia site was.
3. It's amazing to behold how Wikipedians can find controversy in the strangest of places. "you could help out" is a version of the wiki mantra "Sofixit". You can't. As the CC articles make clear, the problem articles are owned by obsessive guardians who have more spare time, patience and connections and influence within the wiki heirarchy than any sane person will ever have.
4. Exactly. Many of their more prominent "editors" are quite clearly mentally ill.
5. Or it may mean nobody is interested enough in the subject of the article so it could contain any old rubbish.
A great benefit of the internet is the access it gives you to primary material from identifiable sources whose veracity and provenance can be researched. Wikipedia just pollutes search results with secondhand regurgitations of dubious sources. They regard newspapers as Reliable Sources for goodness' sake!