At 03:08 PM 12/19/2009, Ken Arromdee wrote: >Now has a Slashdot story: > >http://slashdot.org/submission/1137140/Climategate-spreads-to-Wikipedia > >Which links to two articles: >http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=62e1c98e-01ed-4c55-bf3d-5078af9cb409 >http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/03/who-is-william-connolley-solomon.aspx > >At a minimum this sounds like conflict of interest, and worse if any of these >accusations are true (although the article counts are probably misreporting, >and I bet they include all articles he deleted and all banned users regardless >of associations with climate change).
The article was likely overstated. However, the editor involved did have a substantial history of using administrative tools with respect to global warming and related articles, as well as extensive editing in the area, taking a consistent position, supporting a consistent point of view. I encountered this myself when I helped avoid the deletion of an RfC that was written by Raul654, certified by WMC, then it was noticed that Raul had not certified it. Then I read the RfC and was horrified, and that was the beginning of my involvement with WMC and others active with the global warming article. My point of view is sympathetic to the position that global warming is a serious problem, but what I saw was administrative bias, tools being used to preferentially block and ban editors on one side of dispute on the topic, tag-team reversion and avoidance of the seeking of consensus, and other signs of a neutrality problem. I then saw the same constellation of editors acting in similar ways with respect to other fringe science and pseudoscience articles, and there has been much conflict over these areas that would be resolved with more attention from ArbComm to fringe issues and how to find genuine consensus, the kind that resolves disputes instead of burying half of them, whereupon they rise from the dead and walk. There is a current sockpuppet report on Scibaby, and, from the history of Scibaby and how this prolific creator of sock puppets came to be such, it was tag-team reversion and abuse of administrative tools from the beginning, that predated the creation of sock puppets, which were a rather understandable if dysfunctional response. WMC lost his admin tools over his block of me during RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, but that was not by any means an isolated incident. Many times WMC used his tools while involved. There would be an AN report over it, his friends would pile in, and the result would be no consensus, which was then presented as if it meant "no problem," i.e., that WMC had been confirmed. He had been admonished by ArbComm previously, but so mildly and so narrowly, given the fact that his alleged abuse of tools had received media attention before, that he had nothing but contempt for the decision. ArbComm, I'm afraid, will strain at a gnat and swallow flies. And when there is a substantial faction of editors who circle the wagons to protect their own, and they include a few administrators, it can be an enduring problem, and the result is Wikipedia bias, a fundamental mission failure. I'd watched WMC's actions as a administrator. He was a cowboy, so to speak, quick draw, quick decisions, not a lot of thought behind them. He was often right, more or less, but he also would get it wrong sometimes. Sometimes he backed down. By no means was WMC the worst administrator I've seen. But he frequently acted while involved and with insufficient caution, and he was utterly unwilling or incapable of addressing that, hence it was necessary for ArbComm to remove the bit. It took a totally blatant violation, under the noses of ArbComm, during a case where he and I were the primary parties, to jolt the Committee into action, though. It had been obvious to anyone watching for a long time. And there are other administrators who are probably worse, just not as open as he was, perhaps a bit more careful when they think the community is watching. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
