Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement/Archive1

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User requesting enforcement

Viriditas (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Psb777 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 06:57, 4 January 2010 Edit warring. Psb777 reverts User:Dave souza and restores previous version at 01:41, 4 January 2010 by User:A Quest For Knowledge
2. 08:55, 4 January 2010 Edit warring. Psb777 reverts User:Wikispan and restores 01:41, 4 January version.
3. 11:27, 4 January 2010 Edit warring. Psb777 reverts User:ChrisO and restores 01:41, 4 January version.

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. 09:05, 4 January 2010 General sanctions warning by ChrisO (talk · contribs)
2. 06:08, 31 December 2009 Edit warring warning by Viriditas (talk · contribs)
3. 02:42, 28 December 2009 Edit warring warning by jheiv (talk · contribs)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

Topic ban due to incessant edit warring after multiple prior warnings and acknowledgement of general sanctions.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

In addition to edit warring, Psb777 is currently acting under the radar and placing comments on user talk pages "rallying the troops" and encouraging a battlefield mentality. Viriditas (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

I think there was no urgency required in determining a sanction here. I did not exceed the 3RR rule. I am not in the habit of edit warring. I have backed off leaving the other editor's version in place. I invited the other party to Talk, and I've been on the Talk page ready to talk where others would agree I have avoided being personal, despite some provocation.

If an impartial observer looked at who was doing the reversions and the edit warring I think s/he would not have indentified me as the culprit. Count the reverts. There has been a lot of gatekeeping going on. And not by me. Why am I singled out?

The upsetting thing about this is that within a very few minutes of the notification of this appearing on my talk page the sanction has been decided upon. Before I had a chance to write this. Or maybe not, maybe you have greater sanctions planned!

But a restriction to 1RR will not impact me. Within reasonable memory I have only reverted more than once on two occasions, I think. And, as I said, always I have left the "war" with the other persons version in place. So, in what way is what I do problematic or disruptive.

Or is this one of those occasions where you say, see, he cannot even see his own bad behaviour, that's what proves we really need to impose a sanction? :-)

No, I know what it is. I've got up a few peoples' noses by being successful in getting a consensus together to make some necessary changes to a seriously lacking NPOV article.

Anyway, let's see what happens next. Maybe by the time I press the save button there will be some description of what I am supposed to have done.

Paul Beardsell (talk) 16:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Re comment by Ryan: I don't follow, where have I been warned about particular behaviour yet I have continued to do so. No, that's not correct. Paul Beardsell (talk) 16:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Further comment to Ryan: I think you've been fooled here. ChrisO may have placed a 3RR notice on my page but I had not and did not exceed the 3RRs. In fact I may have only done 2. I'll check. And ChrisO placed an edit-war banner on my page twice but that really should not be taken as evidence of an edit war, look for yourself. You must be aware that a common technique is to allege bad behaviour by others? Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Re viriditus's "under the radar" comment. This truly is ridiculous. I am here under my own name, everything I do at WP is at WP. I don't take part in any off-WP chat sessions. I never ever send WP related e-mail to another WP user. There is no off WP coordination of 3RR avoidance etc etc. What Viriditus says is under the radar is most definitely ON THE RADAR with me. And what is on the radar? Me suggesting to two participants on the Talk page that they actually edit the article. Have a look! Or didn't V provide the links? Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is relevant. I was writing this while Ryan couldn't wait a few minutes before issuing a scanction. Thanks to Troed for his comment Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is where V says I was warned by him/her previously but you'll see, s/he backed off and agreed that perhaps she was wrong. V was fooled here too by ChrisO's placement of an edit warring tag on my page when I had reverted only twice and where I left the page at his preferred version, backing off first. In all fairness, if anyone needed a tag it was him, he having regularly reverted all suggested changes to the FAQ from any user. Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the lesson to be learned here is always shoot first. Always be the person to make the allegation of bad behaviour first. Is that the lesson you are trying to teach here.?' Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think however that the lesson to be learnt really is always carefully check allegations of bad behaviour. Now, please lift the sanction so that you can see there is no need to levy one one on me. Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This edit is listed incorrectly as a third revert whereas (1) it was to a different version and (2) the edit was discussed with and encouraged by Hipocrite on the Talk page - it certainly felt consensual and nobody complained of a third revert at the time or since, until now. Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

can I ask Viriditas if s/he collated the "evidence" or was it provided by someone? Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I obviously can't add. I had thought it was 21 minutes from Viriditas's request to Ryan's imposition of the sanction. No. it was only 13 minutes. Paul Beardsell (talk) 18:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• I don't know if this is yet ripe. It appears that normal editing of the article is resulting what appear to be fully agreed-apon improvements. Most of the credit goes to dave souza and Itsmejudith, though I'll take my share as well. While the earlier rote reverting back and forth was of little value, perhaps the example of forward progress by not reverting and instead evaluating consensus on the talk page and responding to the concerns of others demonstrated over the last few hours will work. At the most, warnings for all reverters would be appropriate. Hipocrite (talk) 16:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• I hadn't realised this was already at this stage, repeating a comment I just left for Veriditas at Psb777's talk page: I'm one of the persons who Psb777 posted at the talk page to. I just want to note for the record that I in no way saw the post to mean anything but a friendly question as to why I was still only editing the talk page. To be frank, I hadn't even noticed the article was even open for editing again before Paul's notice. (And if anyone would ever believe I'd characterize myself as somebody's "troop" they would be sorely mistaken at that). I do however agree, fully, that there's a heated WP:BATTLE mentality over the article in question. It's not one-sided though, and Paul is one of somewhat few who actually participate at the talk page trying to move the article forward instead of just objecting to proposals. Troed (talk) 17:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

thanks for your kind words. You would not have realised, as it was all done with such unseemly haste, during a period where all was happening consensually at the page for the first time in a while, so no hurry, even if you accept the allegation. Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Whoa. I just took the time to look at the reverts this is all about. This was a widely discussed paragraph which had arrived at consensus in changing of sourcing. The persons above who deleted it are the ones that should be sanctioned, not Paul who correctly reverted them. There was no support, according to consensus at the talk page, for removing this complete paragraph which was actively discussed with good results. If you care to look at the article in its current state, we've arrived at something that seems to stick. Paul has been one of the persons who've participated in making this happen (and yes, I'm one as well), while in the list of names I see for the editors who removed it is one I can't recall having participated in the discussions at all. This is clearly not how the sanctions were supposed to work, I hope. Viriditas, did you really look this through? Troed (talk) 18:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll additionally go out on a limb (and if I'm breaking some Wikirules I do not know of I'm sorry) and state that if I was an admin, I'd see the sudden appearance and edit of this article, and this specific paragraph, by User:Wikispan as really strange in the context of the article having just been re-opened for editing and no previous participation whatsoever either with the article or at the talk page. Troed (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

ChrisO

I feel must correct some misrepresentations in Paul's statement above. I did not give him a "3RR warning"; I notified him of the article probation, using the template at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation#Notification of probation, after he (re)added to the article some blog-sourced material concerning criticism of living people (which is of course disallowed by WP:BLP and WP:V). When he expressed an intention to continue reverting, I left a message requesting him to engage in discussion to find consensus and advising him against disruptive editing, as he was opening himself up to to possible enforcement action. I emphasised that I did not intend to submit an enforcement request. I'd hoped to encourage Paul to pursue discussion and avoid him ending up here, but evidently that hasn't worked. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I deny that I added any material in violation of WP:V or WP:BLP. There was no support for that assertion from anyone else. ChrisO has acted as gatekeeper at the article reverting every or practically every edit I (and others) have tried to do. I have always backed off and left his version and invited his participation at the Talk page. I am hacked off that ChrisO's repeated plastering of policy violation allegatios like alphabet soup which typically would go unsubstantiated, that he felt free to apply warnings of poor behaviour ad nauseum on my page without substantiating his allegations. In particular his repeated allegation of disruptive editing against my ongoing struggles to find consensus I found irksome. He continues, above, in misrepresenting the situation, as any person prepared to read the record would soon determine. Paul Beardsell (talk) 19:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

dave souza

• Mixed feelings on this, the enforcement of sanctions to make it clear that edit warring it not the way forward sends a sound message, but it's possible a strong warning or a general imposition of 1RR on the article would have been fairer at a time when Paul Beardsell had settled down to constructive discussion. My initial deletion of the paragraph in question was, in my view, justified as removing inadequately sourced material with clear BLP issues. That did not preclude the introduction of the better sourced version under discussion, but there was no consensus about the suitability of that version. There's a more general issue of a tendency for some editors to fail to assume good faith, but hopefully civility can be improved without sanctions. . dave souza, talk 19:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

nsaa

Interesting how this works. Here you have people totally disregarding a very well sourced statement as discussed now at Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident#About_.22trick_to_hide_the_decline.22_.E2.80.93_removing_well_sourced_comments.3F (again). As far as I've seen the at the WP:A/R has said the following about that kind of removals. Restoring "statements that are sourced reliably, written in a neutral narrative, and pertain to the subject at hand." is just an action to restore a "disruptive" action, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar#Removal_of_sourced_edits_made_in_a_neutral_narrative_is_disruptive, so Paul Beardsell should not be sanctioned here. The people removing the stuff is doing the misconduct here as far as I see per the above cited WP:A/R paragraph. I see that they're attacking both the sources and used in this paragraph, since the content is so damaging to their (AGW-)Cause (my interpretion). Feel free to look into this also (Which resemble this case Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident#Pressmulti_-_removal_of_a_piece_with_millions_of_readers.3F_-_Climategate:_the_corruption_of_Wikipedia and you see the same pattern by the same group of users). Nsaa (talk) 20:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I missed this and I think it's about to close, but I have a serious comment so I'll make it here anyway.

This is the second enforcement request made on this page by ChrisO, and I must say I'm not impressed with either. I suggest that if ChrisO and others editors persistently use the enforcement page prematurely for borderline cases and for what appears to be settling scores or eliminating perceived "enemies" the whole probation is likely to fall into disrepute. I urge the uninvolved admins to be vigilant for such instances, and (as they did in the GoRight case, which was particularly egregious) be prepared to sanction editors who persistently bring half-baked and borderline cases without demonstrating an honest and civil attempt to resolve matters on talk pages. This enforcement page must not be allowd to become a part of the warfare. --TS 00:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

For heavens' sake Tony, please read this properly. This request was submitted by Viriditas. I had nothing to with it and I explicitly told Paul that I was not intending to submit a request about him. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Please accept my abject apologies. I don't know where I got the idea that you filed the report from. My general comments still stand though. I think we're in danger of losing the plot if this page becomes part ofthe war. --TS 00:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

As Psb777 has already been notified of the sanctions and has continued to revert, I've placed him on a 1RR restriction on all climate change articles for a period of two weeks. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 16:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That may have been a bit premature, I recommend letting discussion run a bit longer than an hour (Tony's, just above, has run for a day and a half and isn't closed yet) ++Lar: t/c 17:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

An hour? 21 minutes. Paul Beardsell (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement requests pages are to alert administrators to behaviour where enforcement may be needed. If any administrator sees problematic behaviour then they are free to act. I have seen behaviour from psb777 which I believe warrents a 1rr restriction and I don't feel the need to further discussion - others are free to discuss my implementation however, hence why I didn't archive.--Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 17:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Concur with Ryan. Prodego ^talk 18:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, I'm not (yet?) convinced this sanction is warranted. The previous requests we've had here (I know, I know, I'm sniping at the guy who proposed the scheme) had some back and forth and a rough consensus was reached on what to do before things were imposed. I think that's the appropriate approach. If we want folk to accept this regime, it has to be fair and it has to be perceived as fair. So now what? ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to putting the entire article on 1RR instead. But what can't happen is everyone feeling entitled to 3 reverts - there are too many editors for that. Prodego ^talk 18:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That seems a far better approach than where we are now. The more I look at the evidence given above, the more it seems (again, I may be misinterpreting it) that we've got the wrong person in the stocks on the charge of edit warring... sticking 1RR on the whole thing reduces the need to get into back and forth on who did what and why. (3rr is a bright line, not an entitlement, anyway) ++Lar: t/c 18:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds fair to me - I'll remove the restriction on Psb shortly and put the article under 1RR. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 19:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorted? Closable? ++Lar: t/c 20:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I am satisfied with the outcome but still just a little annoyed at the process. It cannot be right to decide an outcome before the accused can even be expected to have seen the notification. 13 minutes! The initial adjudication made it fairly plain the decision was final. I think it is in WP's interests more than even the accused editor. You want someone to feel they've been given a chance to argue their case. Or the chance to say sorry! If that is not understood then it calls the whole process and thereby WP into disrepute. Paul Beardsell (talk) 20:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that. Maybe we need to take it to the talk page and thrash this out, because this moved too fast in my view. ++Lar: t/c 20:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with yourself and Lar on this one... this happened with far too much haste. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 11:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Hang on, this is a 1RR restriction. People should not be routinely making multiple reverts in contentious areas in the first place. Guy (Help!) 22:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

That's along the lines of how I was reasoning above. Prodego ^talk 22:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Have you considered that he might not have known? - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 06:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User requesting enforcement

Viriditas (talk) 21:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Marknutley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 18:11, 6 January 2010 Reversion of William M. Connolley to previous version at 17:33, 6 January 2010 (see text)
2. 09:27, 7 January 2010 Complex reversion of Atmoz and restoration of the same disputed content
3. 15:52, 7 January 2010 Reversion of ChrisO
4. 16:03, 7 January 2010 Self-revert after

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. 16:08, 7 January 2010 Edit warring warning by Hipocrite (talk · contribs)
2. 11:30, 5 January 2010 Probation warning by Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

Topic ban

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

User created this SPA at 07:35, 20 December 2009 and minutes later began edit warring on Michael E. Mann, and has continued to use this account for disruptive purposes since that time. Viriditas (talk) 21:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notification

First diff is a revert based on the fact that WMC`s reason most certainly was not within the rules i:e He removed it as he thinks monckton is a wacko, ignoring the fact that senator steve fielding also signed that letter.

Second diff was not the same text, it was totaly rewritten

Third diff, speaks for itself. user chriso was extremely rude and disparaging in his edit summary ] and i got angry, i self reverted and did in fact explain why on my talk page when admonished by user hipocrite.

I do not feel i have been deliberately disruptive at all, if you look on the tak pages you will see that for the most part i have tried to reason with all concerned, however this has proved pointless, as can be seen on the talk pages as soon as i am proving my points within the rules against the objections of just a few editors all dialogue stops. They refuse to respond, and just carry on with their usual revert my inclusions or any inclusions the ydo not like the look of. WMC made two reverts in the same article as the third diff, a clear breach of the probation and i fail to see him being brought to book for this? I leave this in the hands of the admins and hope they see that i have acted throughout in good faith with the occasional lapse through frustration. Thank you. --mark nutley (talk) 21:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

@zulupapa5 does this Wikipedia:PRESERVE#Try_to_fix_problems:_preserve_information not mean that when WMC Chriso and Atmoz reverted they actually broke an existing rule, not just probation?

@WMC Given that you actually broke the probation you have some cheek calling for me to be topic banned :)

Comment by ATren

Another frivolous request. This is a sourced claim that is currently under dispute. Note, the last two edits cancel each other, since he self-reverted after warnings. The second edit was substantially different from the first, an attempt to reword the text to address the concerns of other editors, with an edit comment of "rewritten COI allegations to show from his perspective". So his first edit was a revert, his second edit was a revert but with changed wording in an attempt at compromise, and his third edit was nullified by his later self-revert.

So, in summary: revert, attempt at compromise, (revert, self revert back after consideration). And for this you want a topic ban? Isn't this getting a bit silly? ATren (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Response to WMC: You have not provided a single diff, yet you want to keep this open. If there is so much evidence of a problem here, then present it for evaluation. ATren (talk) 16:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC) ^{WMC has clarified that he is not opposed to closing, only opposed to the wording of the close. ATren (talk) 19:36, 8 January 2010 (UTC)}

Comment by GoRight

I would remind everyone about WP:BITE. Mark appears to be a good faith editor who is still learning the ropes. I believe that he has already survived a checkuser as a suspected SciBaby sock puppet so we can all rest assured that he is legitimate. Any edit warring on his part appears to be WP:BOLD attempts to move the articles forward based on sound policy and he has contributed extensively to the discussions on the talk pages that I am aware of.

Listing a self-reversion above as an example of wrong-doing is kind of laughable, IMHO. He obviously decided it was better to take things to talk rather than continue reverting. Isn't that the behavior these sanctions are trying to encourage? I think on that point at least he should be commended, not reprimanded. --GoRight (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding him being an SPA, (a) he hasn't been here long enough to have had a wide variety of experiences so he may not truly be an SPA, only time will tell, and (b) there is no prohibition on being an SPA anyways. All are free to contribute to the project in whatever ways they choose to. We are all volunteers, right? --GoRight (talk) 21:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Response to 2/0: This discussion maybe veering off topic of Marknutley, but I think there is a distinction to be made between editing against consensus vs. editing without consensus. I think that sometimes people may confuse this subtlety. If there is a clearly demonstrated consensus on an issue one way or the other, then making edits which are not in line with that consensus could best be termed as "editing against consensus" which is clearly a bad thing. However, proposing changes via WP:BOLD edits when no clear consensus has been demonstrated is more properly referred to as "editing without consensus" and should be viewed as a normal part of wiki interaction and thus should not be viewed as a bad thing in and of itself, correct? --GoRight (talk) 17:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment by BozMo

Topic ban is too Draconian in my view. I believe Mark to be a genuine newbie with some serious beliefs on Climate Change but still learning about Wikipedia policies and how things work. I don't think he is a sock or that the account looked like it had WP experience. In the above he did 2RR and self reverted a third. One of the two "prior" warnings was after the event and the other was a general warning without anything too specific. Previously on one article (IPCC) he self reverted after I warned him about edit warning only to see others break what I had said was the most likely line in the sand. He brings enthusiasm to the project and is out searching for references and checking things up.

It is not surprising that sometimes he gets the impression we have two sets of rules. I think we should still assume good faith and be a little patient. I think he will improve the quality of WP through challenging others. Something like putting him on 1RR or an extremely clear set of rules might be ok but he is frustrated because he cannot understand the differences between his edits and those of others. --BozMo talk 21:41, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment by nsaa

As far as I see he has not violated the 1RR per 24h rule imposed on the article. The first example is a revert, the second is not a revert, but a rewrite, the third was self reverted as stated. As far as I see the removal by Atmoz (talk · contribs) was possible a break as described here Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar#Removal_of_sourced_edits_made_in_a_neutral_narrative_is_disruptive. Nsaa (talk) 21:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments by William M. Connolley

The best thing to do is look at MN's contributions. There is an awful lot of unproductive argument on talk pages and a telling lack of productive edits. Indeed the only productive edit I could see was a revert of anon nonsense on Scaffolding. Given such a tiny ratio of productive edits to unproductive edits, I think a topic ban, for a brief time - perhaps a week - would be valuable. If he is able to discover some interests outside political infighting on the GW pages, during that period, then the ban could be lifted William M. Connolley (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I object to the proposed close strongly. Marknutley's edits since this thread opened do not seem in any way problematic looks to be far too sweeping an endorsement; replace with Marknutley's edits since this thread opened have not been deemed needing any enforcement action would be better. Also All editors are reminded to seek consensus at the talkpage before making any edit to which another editor has objected in good faith. is gameable: example: editor A makes edit, says in edit comment or on talk page: I object to anyone undoing this edit (not an unlikely scenario: it happens often), then editor B is according to your close not allowed to undo the edit William M. Connolley (talk) 16:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Response to ATren: read what I wrote. I'm not objecting to this being closed. I'm objecting to the wording of the close William M. Connolley (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, that's looking better now. Thanks. But what are we to make of over the top and abusive call? That is not good faith. I see no call at all to describe this request as abusive and suggest that ZP5 strike that in the interests of polite discourse William M. Connolley (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments by Tony Sidaway

Mark is a relative newcomer, I think we all recognise that and I suggest that this does make any offence less than those he was edit warring with. I think we experienced editors should be held to a higher standard and, if we're going to look at Mark's edit warring, we should look at our own too. After all, where did he pick up these bad habits? --TS 14:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments by ZuluPapa5 Warning maybe ... topic ban, over the top and abusive call for some who corrected themselves. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 18:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

@2over0, This will have to be better considered Wikipedia:PRESERVE#Try_to_fix_problems:_preserve_information to make a point. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 18:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

@Marknutley In my short participation and review of the Climate change articles, specifically citing WP:IMPROVE and WP:PRESERVE to help move the articles forward has been neglected for WP:EW, WP:BLOCK, WP:1RR enforcement. I believe the editorial policy must take greater precedence if the probation is to be effective in working for a NPOV and avoiding clubbing everyone involved. No specific comment on the other editors contributions this case is about you; however, see this suggested remedy. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 19:30, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments by JzG I think at this point the outcome is, de facto, that marknutley is on notice to give more thought to is contributions and to be mindful of the potential to cause drama through ill-judged comments. I think we can probably leave it at that for now, if he does not heed this warning then it is likely we will find consensus for a topic ban of some duration. Guy (Help!) 20:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

Proposed result: All editors are reminded to seek consensus at the talkpage before making any edit to which another editor has objected in good faith. Marknutley's edits since this thread opened do not seem in any way problematic (except possibly related to an image upload, but that is being discussed elsewhere and is not really germane to this board). Self-reversion + discussion is not as good as plain consensus-seeking, but I see it as a definite sign that this editor understands and intends to abide by the collaborative model. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Striking proposed close pending further discussion above. I am trying to get at the idea that making an edit that any reasonable observer would know will be almost immediately reverted is usually pointless. The exception, of course, is making an edit that has consensus at the talkpage - editing against consensus is edit warring (though, of course, the interpretation of consensus can be subtle). - 2/0 (cont.) 17:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

User requesting enforcement

Hipocrite (talk) 18:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Jpat34721 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. Removes the sourced fact that the controversy was named "Climategate" by sceptics.
2. Removes the sourced fact that the controversy was named "Climategate" by sceptics.

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warning by Hipocrite (talk · contribs)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

Introduction ban on Climatic Research Unit hacking incident (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The introduction has been difficult for many to deal with. Some want other nicknames (Swifthack, Warmergate) included in the title. Some want all the nicknames out. Others want Climategate included. I don't know why constant reversions by Jpat, a bunch of drive-by IP addresses and the subject of the prior section should win just because they are willing to revert over and over and over to their most-preferred version, and the other "side" is willing to accept the compromise of one nickname with explanation. The introduction is being discussed actively on talk, but Jpat, the subject above and the drive-by IP addresses constantly start edit-wars trying to get the intro to their version. It needs to stop.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Hipocrite pointed out on my talk page that the edit in question might be considered a revert. Even though I didn't think it qualified (it was attempt at compromise by adding a link to the section where the disputed neologism is discussed in full), to be safe I self-reverted prior to hipocrit's accusation here. It appears that my self revert doesn't show up in the page history perhaps because someone had already reverted my edit, but I assume the history of my attempt exists in a log somewhere. JPatterson (talk) 19:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It dosen't. Hipocrite (talk) 19:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I would also point out that when I made the edit in question, I entered this on the talk page, "I have tried a compromise edit which combines "colloquially known" with a link from "Climategate" to the naming the incident section. Comments? JPatterson (talk) 17:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC) Clearly, I was not edit warring but attempting to find common ground. JPatterson (talk) 19:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

As to his comment's re the lead, my position is that the current wording goes against WP policy. It is either OR or an factually wrong, depending on how one interprets the word "dubbed". My goal is not POV pushing but moving toward an article that chronicles the controversy instead of passing judgment on it. JPatterson (talk) 19:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Bizmo has a strange definition of contentious editing. In an article where the editors are as deeply divided along partisan lines as they are here, any edit is contended. I have proposed numerous "compromises" in an attempt to find middle ground (hence the many posts). I have tried WP:Bold, revert, discuss, I have requested 3rd party help on the NPOV message board with no takers. To single out one user in this mess is patently absurd, especially when that user has engaged constructively (and in many cases successfully) toward reaching consensus.

WMC: The edit you point to () was in no way a revert (please find the edit I supposedly reverted, I've gone back 7 days and can't find it). We have reached consensus that contentious labels and characterizations are not to be used. In this case, the label applied was not even supported by the cite, as was made clear in my edit summary. Looking over the page history, the characterization I removed, was at least five seven days old and appears to be one we missed when we went through and removed the labels. In particular, we agreed that the label "climate change skeptic", as used here, was unsupportable,pejorative and not POV neutral.

TS: As a matter of transparency I should say I disengaged from that article after accusations of ownership. Having said that I can only encourage uninvolved admins to look carefully at the fulness of the evolving situation on that rather sensitive article. Removal of some editors may be merited, but I stopped watching it a week or so ago. --TS 18:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Mark Nutley

This to me seems incredibly stupid, "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change," Since watergate every scandel has ended up being called whatever-gate I am curious as to how this particular scandals name is being attributed to skeptics and not just the usual lazy journo`s not even trying to come up with a new name. Take the expenses scandel in the uk recently, expensesgate, not scamalot which has gotta be the best name but nope, expensesgate. I would also like to see the reliable sources which state that this name was coined by sceptics as well. And not a source which is pro AGW, a neutral source please. I have looked at the diffs and i see jpat trying to compromise with different wording and he did try a revert but had to do it manually "17:15, 11 January 2010 Jpat34721 (talk | contribs) (91,549 bytes) (last rv failed. Doing it manually)" Is this perhaps the self revert he means? --mark nutley (talk) 20:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The section on naming included in the article goes over this stuff a bit. The "sceptics" line is contradicted by some sources.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:52, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there were five citations. But they were removed because they were being used as primary source data points to produce a novel synthesis not present in any of the sources. Five sources were being used to show that it was widely used. It was explained to you that this is not acceptable, per policy. Several times. Guettarda (talk) 20:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Why did you write this? It's not accurate, kind of mean, and I don't see the relevance to the discussion. --Heyitspeter (talk) 21:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Guettarda's comment is accurate, but I agree that it's not strictly germane here. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to bother arguing this out, but I do want the comment removed as it's distracting from the discussion at hand.--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

@wmc, i have removed your strike as i have not actually edited that article, hence i am uninvolved, i have asked a few questions in talk and thats its. I was als ounder the impression that editing anothers posts was frowned uopn? Now if you actually feel that as j broke the 1r rule and should be topic banned then should the same not apply to you? ] --mark nutley (talk) 23:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC: User:Jpat34721 is misbehaving here and needs sanctionning to remind him (and indeed others) that the rules really do exist and have teeth. Article / topic ban for a while seems like a good idea, with possible remission after a while if credible efforts to be productive elsewhere become clear. Nb: I struck "uninvolved" from MN's self-description: that is laughable William M. Connolley (talk) 22:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC) Comment re MN's evidence: all that misses the point. This isn't a place to rehash all the old arguments. The question here is whether J's edits were a violation of the article parole William M. Connolley (talk) 22:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC (again): I think this is fairly simple. J had broken the 1RR parole on this article very clearly by the time of this report. *After* this report he has continued reverting . If this doesn't trigger a block then these sanctions have become meaningless William M. Connolley (talk) 22:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

GoRight: I think the sanction proposed by BozMo is clearly excessive given that there is much contentious edit warring from both sides. --GoRight (talk) 23:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Do feel free to report anyone else. I have looked at three reports here and decided two do not need action. One month article ban (not topic ban mind you) for a user who has spent too long on one thing seems pretty balanced.

Arzel: Why is BozMo, who appears to be an involved administrator, giving his recomendations in the section specifically stated for uninvolved administrators? Perhaps he is not, but he does seem to be more involved than one would expect a completely neutral admin to be. Aside from that this appears to be nothing more than an attempt to quiet three editors (JPat, Tillman, and Heyitspeter) from editing global warming articles. Arzel (talk) 01:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

Wow. I haven't gone back more than a week into the history but even without probation in place if I saw someone doing as many contentious edits in 24 hours I would use some sort of sanction. There is an arguable 3RR (depending what you think about the self revert and attempt to compromise above) and five contenious edits in seven hours. There is also an unhealthy focus of edits on this page (couple of hundred edits to the article and talk in a week). All this on an article on probation. My proposal would be a one month ban from this topic and talk page. Any seconder? --BozMo talk 22:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Done, logged, and notified. If behaviour continues across other articles this can be extended to a topic ban, but I think minimal intervention is best for now. - 2/0 (cont.) 02:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User requesting enforcement

Hipocrite (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Tillman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. This drive-by revert duplicates "individuals who oppose action on Anthropogenic global warming and some others call the incident "Climategate"." which is directly below it in the introduction. This is actively being discussed on the talk page - is this motonous revert warring over the lead going to win out over discussion? Without serious action to prevent the 1rr rule from becoming the "TAG TEAM FOR THE WIN" rule, it is.

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warning by Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

0rr on all global warming, broadly construed

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I see no value in having a user who has made zero - zero talk page edits to the section under discussion using his 1rr as an entitlement.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

The question of referring to Climategate has been discussed many times at the article talk page, and I have participated in many such discussions, for example here, here and here.

I have been active in editing this page since its inception. Hipocrite calling this a "drive-by revert" is incorrect, and, in my opinion, borders on a WP:Personal attack.

Additionally, Hipocrites quoted "warning", above , was a "routine friendly notice, not as a claim that there is any problem with your edits."

I regard this charge as attempted intimidation by User:Hipocrite, who has been very actively opposing any use of the term Climategate for this controversy.

Thank you, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with Tillman's viewpoint on this article and I disagree with his revert but I would be sorry to see this request actionned. Tillman *has* participated in talk and I think that characterising this as drive-by, or sanctionning him for it, would be regrettable, even if there is some slight evidence of carelessness in reverting this when it was already in there. I too have rather lost track of the revert status of this article. There are other people here who need sanctionning first.

William M. Connolley (talk) 22:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

A quick review of Hipocrite's contributions, , reveals that H himself is deeply involved in this conflict. I shall call out a number of his edits to substantiate that here in a bit. His choosing to bring enforcement requests against his opponents in a content dispute warrants a warning, IMHO, similar to that which was issued to myself regarding listing frivolous and vexatious requests here. This request in particular would easily fall into that category. --GoRight (talk) 23:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Specific diffs as promised: , , , , , , , , , , , . Note that some of his own reverts are essentially drive-bys as well, and that these are ALL just from TODAY. --GoRight (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

QUESTION: Given all the warnings being proposed against one side of this content dispute, would it be deemed inappropriate (i.e. frivolous or vexatious) of me to open an equal number of such cases against editors from the opposing side of this content dispute? --GoRight (talk) 23:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

I don't think this is actionable. Not the greatest edit ever given the contention and repetition but not drive by (previous edit was 24 hours earlier to talk page) and certainly not actionable. If another uninvolved admin agrees could they please close this. --BozMo talk 22:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. That article might need full protection soon if Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident#Compromise on "Climategate" in lead does not wrap up soon, though. - 2/0 (cont.) 03:37, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User requesting enforcement

dave souza, talk 12:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Ling.Nut (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. Is unconstructive, and uses the article talk page for offtopic accusations of bad faith and a general, if brief, rant against Wikipedia and consensus.
2. Repeats the rant against consensus, claiming "it very strongly encourages the formation of tag-team gangs of bullies etc. (no accusations meant here)."

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warning by 2over0 (talk · contribs), as already logged

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

{{{Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)}}}

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Suggest further warning to stop stirring up argument, and in future comply fully with talk page guidelines.
Additional note: the General sanctions/Climate change probation Remedy section specifically mentions assumptions of bad faith, and advises "Avoid making repeated comments unrelated to bettering the article; Avoid repeatedly discussing other editors, discuss the article instead" – added by dave souza, talk 12:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• Eh. I plan to seek support for the proposal I outlined here. That will give me ample opportunity to rail against Wikipedia's fatal flaw. Meanwhile, I stand by my comment here that I will avoid all personal attacks and all angry editing of article text... as my edits indeed have shown . I... am not at all familiar with the some of the folks who warn or template me, but I am very, very, very wary of admins sympathetic to the AGW position acting as blocking or even warning admins. Not sure how i can address this issue, but it is a separate one. • Ling.Nut 12:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

From Cla68: Neither of the two diffs presented are directed at anyone in particular. Instead, both are complaints about Wikipedia's current structure, which I myself have complained about on numerous occasions. Is it against the Climate Change probation to complain about Wikipedia? I don't think so. This appears to be an unactionable request. Cla68 (talk) 12:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

From Tony Sidaway: I had been following the discussion on Ling.nut's page this morning, and have left him a note about dispute resolution. The talk page of Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident can be very frustrating for all involved, and these instances of low-grade griping and personal attacks are part of the problem. Perhaps all parties in that case should be steered towards mediation. Concerns about the consensus policy and the like are best tackled on the talk page of the relevant policy. --TS 12:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

From Viriditas: Viriditas (talk) 12:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

From Pete Tillman: I didn't participate in this discussion, but I've found Ling.nut's other contributions to be thoughtful & helpful -- in particular, he's spent considerable effort trying to improve Climate change denial, a notoriously contentious and difficult article.

I think Ling is fairly new on the Wikipedia climate-change scene. As Tony notes above, the subject page in particular is a frustrating one, and I've made some soapboxy comments myself on that talk page that, in retrospect, probably weren't constructive. Everyone involved should remember to "keep cool". Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No, he's not new to it. Guettarda (talk) 19:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

I collapsed the relevant section at Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident#Rename redux, as it was in no way related to improving Climatic Research Unit hacking incident. Ling.Nut has made some assurances concerning both discussion and editing, and is discussing the wider issue of the Wikipedia model elsewhere. Proposed close: All editors are reminded to adhere strictly to the topic of improving the associated article when posting to an article's talkpage. Ling.Nut is cautioned that concerns of bad faith and inappropriate collusion should be dealt with through WP:Dispute resolution, not aired at talkpages. - 2/0 (cont.) 02:56, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User requesting enforcement

Hipocrite (talk) 18:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Heyitspeter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. Removes the sourced fact that the controversy was named "Climategate" by sceptics.
2. Removes the sourced fact that the controversy was named "Climategate" by sceptics.
3. Removes the sourced fact that the controversy was named "Climategate" by sceptics.
4. Removes the sourced fact that the controversy was named "Climategate" by sceptics.

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warning by Hipocrite (talk · contribs)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

Introduction ban on Climatic Research Unit hacking incident.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The introduction has been difficult for many to deal with. Some want other nicknames (Swifthack, Warmergate) included in the title. Some want all the nicknames out. Others want Climategate included. I don't know why constant reversions by Heyitspeter, a bunch of drive-by IP addresses and the subject of the next section should win just because they are willing to revert over and over and over to their most-preferred version, and the other "side" is willing to accept the compromise of one nickname with explanation. The introduction is being discussed actively on talk, but Heyitspeter, the subject below and the drive-by IP addresses constantly start edit-wars trying to get the intro to their version. It needs to stop.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

I suppose I should start by asking that the 4th diff be removed as irrelevant. That was a copy/paste typo and I quickly self-reverted as shown here.

In regards to diffs 1-3. Note that all the edits were differently worded and responded to different stages of discussion in the talkpage. These edits were individual, honest attempts to improve the article spaced out over several days. The "by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change" clause has been repeatedly contested on the talkpage by many different users (e.g., a short scroll through the current talkpage and recent archive yields the following sections: , , , ), and is contradicted by sources discussed in the article in this section. It is my understanding that this means, respectively, that inclusion of the disputed clause violates WP:CONSENSUS and WP:LEAD.

In summary: my motivation for making edits 1-3 was to bring the article in line with these two policies by providing a factual, informative version of the sentence, supported by the body of the article, that both sides of the discussion can agree to (cf. my explanation for diff 2: ).

I'm concerned about this request. The "Additional comments by editor filing complaint" suggest that it was filed in tension with WP:BATTLE and WP:AGF. I recently warned Hipocrite about the latter on his talkpage , with this request following very soon after.

Thanks.--Heyitspeter (talk) 19:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

In a semi-related note, as administrators will be viewing this page I wanted to ask how one should go about requesting arbitration in regards to the disputed edit (hopefully something lesser than ArbCom, as I've heard that's a pain). I don't see the discussion going anywhere. Thanks again.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

There's no such thing as "arbitration lesser than ArbCom", and ArbCom doesn't do content disputes anyway. You might want to look at mediation instead. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the info.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:00, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC I think this request can be closed with an acknowledgement of HiP's volunteering to leave that sentence alone William M. Connolley (talk) 11:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

Currently doing the same edit once every 24+ hours three times is a nuisance but looking through the page history there are other people who are being far more of a nuisance and we should deal with them first. I suggest we tell Peter we aren't going to accept many more edits from him on sentences containing the word "Climategate" and leave it at that. Any seconder? --BozMo talk 22:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I am tempted to put a pseudo-lock on whatever Wrong Version is up there now until Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident#Compromise on "Climategate" in lead concludes, but discussions there seem to have a way of looping back on themselves. This all concerns whether and how the term climategate should be used in the lead, so how about asking him to refrain from adding, removing, or moving any material related to the term climategate or its description in the lead section? Obvious vandalism excepted, of course. Limiting this to a month is probably sufficient. Heyitspeter - would you be okay with limiting your participation on this matter to the talkpage? When there is a good consensus at that section, everyone will defend it. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:55, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Even prior to this request I had decided not to make more direct edits to that sentence. I wish Hip had contacted me before filing this request, as it would have spared everyone's time.--Heyitspeter (talk) 10:37, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User requesting enforcement

Hipocrite (talk) 18:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

JettaMann (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. Blatent violation of WP:BLP - "a Wikipedia arbitration committee found him guilty of violating a number of Wikipedia rules" - not true. This went on at the beginning of an RFC on the talk page, which has hardly even begun.
2. . Over-the-top BLP violation - "I don't think this individual has any notoriety of any kind, other than for being caught for various Wikipedia editing infractions. That's pretty much all this page should say about him is that he was a Global Warming activist who got caught gaming Wikipedia."

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. 10-day block by Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) with note "I would strongly recommmend when you come back from the block, even if you haven't been banned by then, you should tread very carefully in that area or preferably choose to avoid the field altogether, because if you continue behaving like you did you will most likely incur more sanctions."

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

Perminant topic ban, along with ban from all biographies of living persons.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is exactly the kind of "user" that makes dealing with these articles impossible.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

The requesting user is asked to notify the user against whom this request is directed of it, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The request will normally not be processed otherwise.

I disagree that second diff violates BLP. This seems like something better handled via a disruption route rather than being specifically related to the Climate change probation. Prodego ^talk 18:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a slightly unusual case in that the target of JettaMann's comments is both a BLP subject and a Wikipedia contributor. As such, I think the no personal attacks and civility policies are clearly applicable here. The claim that WMC is a "Global Warming activist who got caught gaming Wikipedia" strikes me as both a personal attack and a highly incivil comment that displays a battleground mentality - none of which should be encouraged. I would suggest closing this with a firm warning that any further incivility will result in blocks. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

JettaMan was blocked for 10 days by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise on December 10 for "disruptive tendentious editing and personal attacks on Talk:Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident". After the block expired he made one edit, a less than civil comment aimed at User:William M. Connolley, on December 22, before making the edits in question. Guettarda (talk) 21:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with ChrisO; these are incivil and battleground-like edits, though not so problematic by themselves that they require immediate sanctions. A final warning should suffice in this case. (Disclaimer: I have participated in that same content dispute during the past few days, after learning about that article through my OTRS work, though I have made no other contributions to climate-related topics that I can recall.)  Sandstein  21:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Jettamann seems to have a modest but blame-free record of editing on other matters, but severely problematic behavior on the subject of global warming. He was blocked for disruption last month and as soon as he comes back he's already engaging in some pretty serious attacks. I suggest a warning that he faces a topic ban if he acts disruptively again. We could use this otherwise productive editor on other parts of the encyclopedia where his feelings do not overrule his judgement. --TS 00:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've sent the following note to Jettamann by Wikipedia email:

I'm contacting you by mail because you haven't edited English Wikipedia since 17:34 GMT on January 4th and since then a Wikipedia editor has filed an enforcement request concerning your recent edits on the article William M. Connolley and its talk page. A notification was placed on your user talk page at 18:34 GMT on January 4th.

A provisional remedy has been posted by an admin with a suggestion that you should be given up to 48 hours to respond before the case will be closed. Discussion is ongoing. You could be topic banned from articles related to William M. Connolley.

Please see the discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.orghttps://wikious.com/en/Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation/Requests_for_enforcement#JettaMann

--TS 12:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with Tony and with the proposal below but there is a small issue of a total non-interaction ban with William as they are more or less bound to cross paths at some point. Could we please clarify whether, if both users happen to turn up to an article, both are permitted to comment on the article content? Guy (Help!) 15:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

They can edit the same articles, but JettaMann should not comment on WMC. Comment on the content, not the editor. If JettaMann is wise, they will put a fence around this restriction and not go anywhere near WMC for a while. Testing boundaries usually ends badly. Jehochman ^Brrr 15:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Adding: I will take a dim view of any baiting or goading of JettaMann by WMC. When an editor is restricted, others have a moral obligation not to encourage violations. Jehochman ^Brrr 15:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Since I've had absolutely no interaction with this user for longer than I can remember (indeed I can't recall any; anyone care to trawl back far enough to find any such interaction?) I find this "warning" gratuitously offensive William M. Connolley (talk) 16:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not in any way involved in Climate Change articles. If Jehochman is going to comment here or in other science-related matters (eg WikiProject Mathematics, where he has posted a link to his Masters degree in Computer Science), it might be an idea in future if he made sure that he had some familiarity with the matter on which he is commenting. At the moment his comments give the rather worrying impression that they have been made at random without forethought. This is extremely unhelpful. If he cannot stop this and in addition appears to have his own personal issues with William M. Connolley, then it probably is not appropriate for him to involve himself on this page. More administrators are needed to make these new procedures work smoothly, but not those who cannot stop themselves making comments that are at the same time clueless and offensive. Please redact your comments, Jehochman. Mathsci (talk) 14:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree (less angrily) with WMC. We don't ask BLP victims not to have contact with their abusers in other circumstances. If WMC were to start needling this (almost certain never to return) account, there would be no need to warn him at all - just block WMC till he stops. I don't see anything in my (not WMC, who has had zero involvement with this user to date) request asking for anything about WMC the editor, rather William Connolley the Living Person who was defamed by wikipedia in violation of WP:BLP on an article under general sanction. This is not about editor interaction, it's about editing an article disruptively. Hipocrite (talk) 16:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Hipocrite, we (FSVO we) do exactly that. For well over a year now I have been a victim of an intermittent campaign of harassment which has included nuisance phone calls, posting of private data on the internet, visiting my house and posting observations on the internet and so on. This has lost the abuser two ISP accounts, but the police response is to avoid the venues where he arrives to abuse me; in practice this means I am being asked to accede to his demand to stop using several sites and forums because he dislikes my opinions. I was there first, he arrived solely to harass me, but the advice from law enforcement is to walk away and emphatically not to respond to him. Guy (Help!) 21:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly you live in a backwater country still ruled by a girl. You raise a good point. Hipocrite (talk) 22:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm being dense, but I don't see how either of the quotes provided above are bannable BLP violations. The first - "a Wikipedia arbitration committee found him guilty of violating a number of Wikipedia rules" seems true. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley found that he used admin tools while involved (Findings of Fact #14) and that he edit warred (Findings of fact #14-1 and #14-3 and Remedy #7). It is a violation of WP:V in that it isn't sourced, but it's hard to argue that adding a true statement to an article once merits a ban. The second is questioning the notability of the subject on a talk page. This is commonplace and, while it is a bit harsh and could be viewed as a personal attack, I don't see how it merits a ban either. Is there conduct other than these two diffs? I am also concerned that disallowing a user to interact with WMC is in effect a topic ban because WMC edits such a wide range of global warming pages. I think the appropriate thing is either a warning or a topic ban of limited duration. Oren0 (talk) 01:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'm a little late for my own case here. Wasn't even aware it was going on actually. I would add to OrenO's comments that the first supposed infraction of mine had several references to leading newspapers such as The National Post. This was referenced, and as OrenO notes, it was also true. The second supposed infraction was merely a talk page comment asking what makes this William Connolley person eligible for his own Wikipedia entry? As I said then, Idon't see anything notable that he has done. There does seem to be a small cabal of AGW activists who really go after people with a vengeance using Stalin-like methods, and that's all this looks like to me. JettaMann (talk) 17:08, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The non-interaction provision is clearly not going to be practical if they are allowed to edit GW pages. No one can edit GW pages without crossing paths with WMC and this provision allows one-sided sniping, regardless of whether there is a history of such sniping or not, which is obviously unfair. The sanctions should be symetric in this regards. --GoRight (talk) 04:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

Provisional result: JettaMann is indefinitely topic banned from all pages related to William Connolley, broadly construed, and interaction banned from User:William M. Connolley. I don't see evidence here sufficient to topic ban JettaMann from all Global Warming pages. The previous 10 day block was immediately followed by personal attacks and violations of WP:BLP, per the evidence cited above. Just because somebody edits Wikipedia their biography does not become a free fire zone. Please keep this thread open until JettaMann comments, or until a total of 48 hours have passed from the initial filing, and then log the sanction, notify the user, and close this thread. In this case indefinitely means until suitable explanations, retractions and assurances are provided to ensure that the objectionable conduct will not recur. Jehochman ^Brrr 03:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Support all provisions of this proposed result. ++Lar: t/c 14:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Also support all of proposal. --BozMo talk 22:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thread closed, ban enacted. If JettaMann chooses to lodge an appeal, please take into consideration that they have not edited since shortly before this request was opened. Notification. Log. - 2/0 (cont.) 05:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

, . Blatent, and obvious. Hipocrite (talk) 02:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Why is H not using the prescribed template given that this involves a single editor? Also, I note that it is possible that the editor in question may not be aware of the WP:1RR restriction since they are not listed in the notifications table, . Frivolous and vexatious use of this venue to engage in WP:BATTLE? You decide. This is the fourth such request. I was warned after 1. Some neutrality of enforcement, please? --GoRight (talk) 02:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Blocked 24 hours in the course of investigating above. There is an editnotice that displays every time anyone edits that page. If they make a credible appeal, I would not object to an early unblock - this is not a frequent flyer here. - 2/0 (cont.) 03:00, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite notified Dcowboys3109 six minutes after the first revert, nearly four hours before the second. I was over that way anyway, so I have added this to the log. GoRight does raise a good point, though - the log of notifications is there to serve as a collective memory. Right now the probation is new enough that it is easy to see a notification in the talkpage history and the main participants in the topic area were also active at the community discussion, but this set of procedures should be futureproof inasmuch as possible. - 2/0 (cont.) 07:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no need to use undue formality when the violation is sufficiently obvious William M. Connolley (talk) 08:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Hipocrite seems a little fast on the trigger in requesting enforcement, and doesn't always do his homework. --Pete Tillman (talk) 23:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User requesting enforcement

mark nutley (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. First Revert on 19:08, 17 January 2010.
2. Second revert on 20:15, 17 January 2010. Mistake, not under 1R rule
3. Two reverts in under 24 hours in breach of the probation.
5. ...

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warning by William M. Connolley (talk · contribs) This diff is just to show WMC was well aware of the probation.

1. ...

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

{{{Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)}}}

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Topic ban for a minimum of 48 hours on all articles currently under the probation.(putting this here as in preview this does not appear above in the enforcement section)mark nutley (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

I'm baffled. What does an edit that happened 11 days ago at Rajendra K. Pachauri made by MN not me have to do with me? (or indeed this ? Has MN fouled up his diffs, or am I missing the point?) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:34, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, I'm missing and an explanation how these edits violate it from MN's diffs. This looks just like pointless disruption on his part William M. Connolley (talk) 22:38, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixed the wrong diff, sorry about that. look to the left of that one and you will see your revert. Hope this clears up your confusion.

What are you on, old fruit? Your current #3 points to , which is an edit by you; and your #4 points to which is an edit by GR. Both of them are antique, and I don't think you'll now be sanctioned for them, but I really can't see *why* you're bringing up your previous poor edits, and those of GR, in a complaint about me William M. Connolley (talk) 22:49, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you unable to move your head or eyes to the left of your screen? You can clearly see your reverts, two in under 24hrs. I had not realized that ten days made something antique. But lets wait for the admins to decide that one. --mark nutley (talk) 22:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

If you want anyone to take this seriously, you need to give diffs of *my* edits, not someone else's. Fix them and I'll pay attention. At the moment this bizarre request has two struck out diffs and two meaningless diffs William M. Connolley (talk) 09:36, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Done, however the original diffs did show your reverts so i fail to see how it`s a problem. mark nutley (talk) 10:02, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Well done, you got there in the end. Why is 2R an intrinsic breach of probation, though? The article isn't under 1RR sanction, and the edits were extensively discussed on the talk page. And this is all ancient history - why are you bothering? William M. Connolley (talk) 10:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your condescending words. The pachauri article is under 1R is it not? I was brought to book for it at any rate, either way you were edit warring and the discussion on the talk page was most certainly for it`s inclusion. However that is not an argument for here is it. --mark nutley (talk) 10:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

If you don't want to be condescended to, I suggest you stop making quite so many mistakes. "The pachauri article is under 1R is it not"? Good grief, have we got all this way and you really haven't even bothered to check? The page header gives no hint of a 1RR restriction, neither does Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation/Log#Log_of_sanctions William M. Connolley (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Unless this article was specifically under 1RR, this is inappropriate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:27, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I was under the assumption that all the article tagged with the probation were under 1R --mark nutley (talk) 22:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

You are mistaken. 1RR has to be imposed by an uninvolved admin on an article-by-article basis and logged at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Log#Log of sanctions. It is not automatically applicable. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Well you're wrong, aren't you, cos if you were right the article probation would say so William M. Connolley (talk) 22:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

No i`m not, it does not say that on the pachauri talk page, just the same article probation notice as everywere else. I have struck those diffs as i appear to have made a mistake. --mark nutley (talk) 23:05, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

• There seems to be no indication of a 1RR restriction on this article. The request appears to be malformed: diffs 1 and 2 show two very different edits by William M. Connolley, diffs 3 and 4 are ten days earlier and showed mark nutley apparently reverting twice within 24 hours, arguably edit warring. As amended after I wrote the above, diff 4 now shows GoRight reverting, and perhaps ironically accusing William of edit warring. Clarification needed, but tacking two edits from 6 and 7 January after two edits from today looks stale. . . dave souza, talk 22:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

• I should like to point out that diffs 3 & 4 with regards to me were already dealt with here. And even though it was brought up in that enforcement request WMC was not sanctioned, so no it is not stale. I have been reading up on how to actually do one of these things as i messed up the last one so badly. Is there a time limit on infractions? First and second diffs, my mistake, i assumed all articles under the probation were 1R only. So i will withdraw them now.

• I'm frankly baffled as to what this complaint is all about. I don't see evidence of a violation, even if we make the assumption that the listed articles are under the 1RR restriction. Furthermore, the disputed text appears to be an obvious piece of synthesis. Since this synthesis relates to a living person, it might also fall under the auspices of WP:BLP; therefore, the reversion of original research pertaining to a living person wouldn't count toward any sort of reversion restriction. Looks more like a case of gaming the system on the part of the reporting editor to me. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm disappointed by the complaint and the response. This is classic battleground behavior. Over the course of a few hours, a content dispute has grown into trench warfare, with no chance of consensus or resolution. Please, everybody, look at LessHeard vanU's warning above, and take it to heart. Drop the attitude and step away, all of you. --TS 23:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

What the hell is going on here? why is there a content dispute in the middle of this request? If it keeps up i would ask the whole lot be archived, what a mess. mark nutley (talk) 23:27, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I have collapsed that portion of the thread above. Please keep the disputes separate.

Sanctions are imposed to prevent current disruption to the project of building a free high quality encyclopedia, not as indefinitely enforceable traffic infractions. The section above may contain evidence that a sanction on WMC would be warranted, but at least for now I really like LHvU's idea. Please keep discussion of that issue at the appropriate thread, though. Since there seems to have been some confusion at the outset here, perhaps this thread could be archived with encouragement to MN to prepare a new request? It may be helpful to read Help:Diff for advice in preparing the links in such a way as to facilitate easy review. - 2/0 (cont.) 08:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks 2/0 but to redo it would seem pointless, it has been pointed out above that using diff`s over ten days old is stale and that I am gaming the system. I actually waited to do this as i was trying to ensure i got it right this time around but still managed to make a mistake :). If the diff`s which show WMC breaking the pachauri probation are not enough or are to old then just strike the lot. mark nutley (talk) 08:59, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggest we close this with a general note that multiple reverts aren't an entitlement and the terms of the probation entail an obligation to responsible engagement. The healing of the climate change articles is more important and should be given a higher priority than any one edit. --TS 12:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not happy with that. the terms of the probation entail an obligation to responsible engagement - of course, we all agree that. But doing so rather suggests that didn't occur in this case. I don't think that's true. I'd accept 'the terms of the probation entail an obligation to responsible engagement (responsible engagement did occur in this case), though that would make your closure odd. Also, MN opened this complaint with Two reverts in under 24 hours in breach of the probation. - I'd like it made clear in the close that this is an error by MN: at the moment, his last edit indicates that he doesn't accept this. As far as I can tell this entire filing is based on an error by MN, and the close should reflect that William M. Connolley (talk) 12:35, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Mark did get it ridiculously wrong. Perhaps singling out this case for that proposed concluding statement (which I think is generally true) sends the wrong message. A null close would be okay with me. --TS 12:46, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

That will do fine by me William M. Connolley (talk) 12:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes i did get it wrong, i was under the assumption that the pachuari article was under a 1R restriction as i was reported for breaking it if you recall. I must however disagree with WMC`s statement that responsible engagement did occur in this case as it most certainly did not, look at the diffs and tell me which WP Rule says you can revert well sourced material on "monckton is a wacko"? That is disruptive editing and pushing a POV. I believe WMC should be warned at the least for this. I have no problem with the closing statement saying i has made an error with this case. --mark nutley (talk) 12:55, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Material on global warming sourced to Monckton or giving any weight to Monckton's opinion on matters of global warming, except on Monckton's own bio or a related article such as "Global warming conspiracy theory" where it can be presented in context, should of course not appear in Wikipedia article--much less the biographies of others. But the place for such discussions is not here. --TS 12:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

I'm worried I'm misinterpreting the rules here, so I figured I'd pull a Hipocrite and lay down the request without using the template. It seems to me that Scjessey violated the 1RR rule with this edit, which reversed three unrelated, recent edits. I'd like the editor to self-revert. --Heyitspeter (talk) 00:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

If it helps, you can find a short discussion (prior to this request) of one of the edits Scjessey reverted here: User talk:Heyitspeter#Self-revert.--Heyitspeter (talk) 01:06, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

You are misinterpreting the rules. One reversion is one reversion. In fact, per WP:3RR I could've performed the same changes as a series of concurrent reversions if I wanted to, but there was no need. If you had sought consensus before making such controversial changes, a reversion like this would never had been necessary. You must, for example, had been fully aware of the total lack of support for using the word "leaked". -- Scjessey (talk) 02:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

As Scjessey's edit here demonstrates, he knows that this article is on 1RR restriction. He could not have made the same changes as a series of concurrent revisions. Can I get an outside opinion on whether the edit should be (self-)reverted? Thank you. --Heyitspeter (talk) 03:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

(In regards to the "leaked" word choice, this isn't relevant to the discussion at hand. I will say that a) I didn't know 'leaked' would be contentious, and b) as an editor you can easily change that word without making a broader revert. I'm still not clear why that wasn't done.)--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the diff, but I can tell you absolutely that a single edit can never be a violation of 1RR. As Scjessey correctly notes, even a series of consecutive edits – all reverting – would not violate 1RR if there were no intervening edits; they would be taken together and count as a single revert. A revert is simply any edit which undoes the effect of one or more other edits; it doesn't matter how many intervening edits are undone. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Ahh okay cool! Had no idea that was the case.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:37, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Immediately this move took place disruptive editing against Hansen's ideas occurred by the two anti-Hansen editors above (William M. Connolley and Arthur Rubin) at the 'carbon tax' "Kyoto Protocol" AND 'biosequestration' articles. I would like to appeal the transfer of this enforcement dispute to the biosequestration talk page. We are clearly dealing with an attack on Hansen's ideas in multiple aricles.NimbusWeb (talk) 19:04, 17 January 2010 (UTC) William M Connolley has now attempted to remove the entire paragaph (with over six references) with Hansen's ideas about carbon sequestration at coal plants from the biosequestration article. This was after a recent edit by me attempted to clarify by highlighting use of algal biosequestration at coal plants in the Garnaut Report immediately above the Hansen ref.NimbusWeb (talk) 19:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC) ARthur Rubin has now attempted to remove the same fully referenced paragraph from from the biosequestration article. How can this sort of disruptive editing be allowed to occur? These editors are providing no justification fro rmoving this material, but by simultanous attack they are making it hard for me to keep it in the article (although it is directly on point) without having to constantly revert them. Help, this is unfair.NimbusWeb (talk) 20:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Calling WMC an anti-Hansen editor is absurd. In addition, it's not fully referenced and it wouldn't be relevant, even if referenced, as noted on the talk page. Please continue the discussion there, and don't edit against consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:14, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Conclusions are reached on the basis of evidence available. All that is necessary is to examine the edit history of you two in relation to Hansen comments. 'Absurd' is just an irrelevant appeal to a negative emotion. Why should you assume that your point of view represents consensus, especially when what you are trying to do is remove referenced material and make ideas hard to understand? The discussion board has been used extensively to try and prevent your disruptive edits. It appears to have failed. Higher level scrutiny is now requiredNimbusWeb (talk) 20:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Absurd is quite correct. WMC has added other Hansen comments to other articles, where I consider them problematic in terms of relevance, although not as bad as this one. Furthermore, this (and other comments) constitute a severe WP:AGF violation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

• Kyoto Protocol (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Carbon tax (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Biosequestration (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Administrator attention to recent very acrimonious edit warring on these articles might be merited. --TS 19:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Noted. I won't edit again unless consensus can be obtained somewhere unless any of the parties reports a clearly improper edit reason. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

If all involved will similarly down tools pending the achievement of consensus, no further action will be necessary. --TS 20:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, it appears I was forced to break my assertion. Tags indicating my concerns as to why NW's edits were inappropriate were removed. It seems to me that removing tags without a clear consensus to do so, or a previous discussion leading to the conclusion that the tags were inappropriate then, is disruptive. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree provided the disruptive edits on 'biosequestration' 'carbon tax' and "Kyoto Protocol' can be reverted to where they were before this blew up.NimbusWeb (talk) 20:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Using that argument as a pretext to carry out further edit warring, as you have just done , is rather inflammatory. --TS 20:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

But TS-look at what they did at 'carbon tax' they replaced the words 'carbon sequestration' at coal plants with 'sequestration' at coal plants-making the idea unintelligible. Sequestration of what? Carbon? Well why not say it-except that it creates an unpalatable precedent for teh coal industry. Why should that sort of disruptive editing be allowed to stand indefinitely. This is why formal dispute resolution should commence here. This is not a small issue for the coal industry NimbusWeb (talk) 20:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Beware the curse of Plaxico. --TS 20:42, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Beware editors that have retainers from the coal industry to make sure ideas requiring them to sequester carbon as a condition of operating never see the light of day.NimbusWeb (talk) 20:58, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'm requesting enforcement. NW is now over 3RR, despite warnings about 3RR. I've reported this at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:NimbusWeb_reported_by_User:William_M._Connolley_.28Result:_.29. However it would be desirable to deal with it here William M. Connolley (talk) 21:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC? Retainers from the coal industry? I think the coal industry is libeled by that statement. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Note: NW has now removed the 3RR warning, and the notification of the AN3 report from his talk page with the edit comment "minor edit". I don't think this looks like good faith any more William M. Connolley (talk) 21:42, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm fully aware of the warning but think it should be applied to WMC and AR. Please note I placed a similar warning on WMC's talk page which he also deleted. Such editing is allowed on your own talk page. So let's get this right. You two gang up and start deleting whole paragraphs of referenced material on Hansen's ideas (see biosequestration-policy implications section) and making them unintelligible (replacing 'carbon sequestration with 'sequestration). This is despite the sections being changed being fully justified on the discussion page. Particular references include Hansen writing in his open letter to Obama and his book that power plants need 'carbon sequestration'. You allege that can't refer to algal biosequestration despite Garnaut amongst others specifically making that connection. When I try to stand up to your disruptive editing you invoke 3RR and try to bully me into submission. You call me a 'noob' claim I am 'spamming'. I'm the editor who is trying to write sentences with full references. You two are the editors who are trying to delete them or make them unintelligible. It will be interesting to see who is censored and no doubt also somewhat revealing about the internal administration at wikipedia and how this climate change probation system works and who runs it.NimbusWeb (talk) 21:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

It will be interesting to see who is censored - I *think* you mean censured. In which case, we've now got an answer: you William M. Connolley (talk) 14:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

It is my conclusion that Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs), NimbusWeb (talk · contribs) and William M. Connolley (talk · contribs) are all in violation of Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation, relating to edit warring (I am not concerned with the technicalities of 3RR or team tagging) and WP:NPA (again, I am not concerned who is the most egregious practitioner). If I were not of the opinion that any short sanction would simply pause the continuation of these violations I would have sanctioned all three named editors for 24 hours, so no "advantage" may accrue to either side of the dispute. Under the circumstances, I am now warning all the above editors that any infraction of the Climate Change Probation by any party will result in a 72 hour block for all three - possibly disrupting the other WP activities of all concerned. I would ask Tony Sidaway to notify me of any infraction, although I would comment that I shall take sole responsibility to the blocks imposed, after notifying the parties concerned and reviewing any response/appeal. While drastic, I feel my actions are permissible under the Probation and are designed to impress upon the editors the necessity of keeping within the restrictions. The above will apply as soon as Tony Sidaway agrees to referee the application of this warning. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Everybody be nice, please. --TS 22:57, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Your (crossed with TS, so to be clear: LHVU's) non-neutrality in this is obvious; your ignoring a blatant 3RR violation is also obvious William M. Connolley (talk) 22:57, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

<facepalm> --TS 23:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with LHvU and TS. If AR and WMC disagree with what Hansen is saying or writing then non-disruptive editing should see them inserting referenced criticism of Hansen's ideas and not simply trying to delete them or render them unintelligible wherever reference to them appears. What's going to happen if they team up to launch another attack on Hansen's ideas later?NimbusWeb (talk) 23:49, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with WMC, except as to the obviousness of LHvU's non-neutrality. (Note, this is a rare occurance; don't take it as a trend.) Ignoring a 3RR violation after warning while censuring 1RR "violations" made without warning of 1RR is questionable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't make this more bloody than it need be. All three of you got into an out-of-control edit war across three articles. Less Heard van U is giving you the chance to knock it off and handle it the Wikipedia way. This doesn't make him biased. All of you have to stop engaging in personal attacks (you know who I'm referring to here) and all of you have to stop edit warring (and that applies to all). NimbusWeb has far less experience than the other two, so Please do not bite the newcomers applies. Now be nice, all of you. --TS 00:22, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I would like the {{syn}} and related tags that I've added restored pending discussion of the material. It seems obvious that the tags are at least nominally appropriate, and there certainly isn't consensus against the tags. In fact, a previous version of Hansen's comments were previously removed from one of the article per consensus at one of the notice boards. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Those tags were clearly disruptive given the talk page of the article has extensive discussion in which multiple editors have attempted to answer AR's pedantic and disruptive views on Hansen's use of the word "biosequestration' instead of the synonym 'carbon sequestration'. Reinsertion would only reopen the dispute.NimbusWeb (talk) 01:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

There was no "discussion", only IPs' arguments that it's important, but without even assertions of relevance. Hansen never said "biosequestration" or "geosequestration", and doesn't appear to have said "proportional", so those words should not be in the articles as Hansen's opinion unless sourced to others referring to Hansen's comments. In fact, on one of the articles, the section was previously removed as not being sourced, per comments on one of the noticeboards. It's still (mostly) not sourced, even if it were relevant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:24, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

To TS, above. I don't think he's technically a newcomer, as the questioned paragraphs had been inserted by IPs for about a month previous to the creation of NW, and he takes credit for the "arguments" made by those IPs.

And (to NW) "carbon sequestration" is not "biosequestration". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:36, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The IPs could the same user - all from AU hosts, two from Sydney, two from Canberra. Similar styles too. Ravensfire (talk) 01:47, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The sentences AR and WMC seek to either delete or qualify have direct quotes where Hansen expresses the idea that coal-fired power stations should no longer be approved or allowed to operate unless they have what he terms 'carbon captture' or 'carbon sequestration.' Both these quotes are referenced-to Hansen's Open Letter to Obama and to his book. So the question for AR is what does Hansen mean by 'carbon capture' or 'carbon sequestration' at power plants. It can only mean geosequestration or algal biosequestration. There are no other alternatives currently being debated in the scientific literature. Clearly this is what Hansen is referring to. What else could he be referring to when he uses the terms 'carbon capture' and 'carbon sequestration' in relation to on-site use at coal-fired power stations? Answer that. There is a reference to Garnaut discussing algal biosequestration at power plants in the sentence above. This is another attempt at disruptive editing. Claims that only one editor is opposing AR and WMC are also clearly ploys to attack process rather than deal with the substance of the dispute.NimbusWeb (talk) 02:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps if you weren't continually attacking those with whom you disagree, they'd be more motivated to address your points. You are new to Wikipedia but not so new as to be unaware of the No personal attacks policy. Please address the arguments and not the person. --TS 02:10, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

OK. I apologise. But isn't the claim above my most recent entry above a personal attack on me?NimbusWeb (talk) 02:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

If you remove the references to biosequestration, including the paragraph in that article, and replace it by carbon sequestration, then almost everything would be sourced. ("Proportional" still isn't sourced, possible, or likely to be relevant.) The relevance and undue weight would still be subject to discussion, but I'd probably stay out of it. Deal? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't intended as a personal attack; if you did edit under those IPs, and if those IPs were warned of inappropriate behaviour (which I don't remember doing), then you are considered to have been warned. But I'm willing to work with you in cleaning up the unsourced sections. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:23, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

AR, I believe it is reasonable and still maintains the sense of what Hansen is arguing to replace the word 'biosequestration' the two times it appears in the Hansen paragraph in the biosequestration article with "carbon sequestration'. I'm relying on your good faith in agreeing to this. I order that the agreement not be violated I suggest that either TS or LHvU make the changes. It still seems unusually pedantic to meNimbusWeb (talk) 02:36, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not just the biosequestration article; it's in all the places it's been added. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:59, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

This is utterly bizarre. There is an absolutely clear 3RR violation by NW, correctly reported, and we have a pile of admins (yes I know you're watching) saying "la la la I can't see it". Regardless of the article probation, that should lead to a simple block on NW. TS is saying "This is a train wreck" - no, it isn't. This is a very simple situation which had it been handled in the normal way would have caused no problems at all William M. Connolley (talk) 08:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

It appears that there is sanity in the world after all: William M. Connolley (talk) 11:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

If I gave the appearance of being very indulgent towards NimbusWeb, it's because I was--and deliberately so. He gives all the appearance of being a sincere and relatively inexperienced editor. I would have liked to see the content dispute resolved without the need to block him or anybody. My efforts were directed towards restraining the edit warring tendency to which, as a newcomer of little experience, he easily succumbed.

There was a suggestion that he might be the same editor as some of the IPs who adopted a similar stance and tone. I haven't investigated but I wouldn't be surprised if that were true. If so I think he should be commended and applauded for registering an account and thus giving all of his edits a single name. This fellow is obviously not here to cause harm but to fix what he perceives as an error in Wikipedia's coverage of biosequestration. He has made some accusations and attacks, but that is not perhaps surprising since he has probably read such attacks on related talk pages and may well have convinced himself that such conduct is acceptable.

This isn't to excuse his attacks or edit warring. He has had an opportunity to learn some of our community norms, and has failed to do so. But his errors are those of a beginner. He commits the beginner's solecism of characterizing edits he disagrees with as "disruptive" (some newcomers misuse the word "vandalism" in a similar context). I had hopes that you would both be prepared to back off and give the fellow some breathing space, which would have made your words arguing against his edits all the more persuasive and permitted him a glimpse of how we do things (at least, on a good day) on Wikipedia. --TS 11:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

NW had all the hallmarks of a very overenthusiastic beginner who was not going to listen to any warnings. And indeed that is exactly what happened: he got plenty of warnings, and deleted them all (which in fact is *not* the hallmark of an inexperienced editor, so there is a little puzzle there, but never mind). However, all those warnings were from me, doing my humble duty in sharing the meaning of wiki. But perhaps he dismissed them as blustering from an involved party. Arguably, he *might* have listened to a strong warning from you or LHVU that breaking 3RR was not acceptable and he needed to self revert (let alone pay some attention to the article probabtion). Alas you, and more particularly LHVU, declined to do this, instead preferring "a plague on all your houses" type warnings, which NW mistook for license to ignore my valid warnings. I would hope that you, and more particularly LHVU, might take a lesson from this: being excessively soft on overenthusiastic noobs does not do them any favours in the long run William M. Connolley (talk) 12:33, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC deleted the warnings I placed on his talk page. He doesn't refer to that. I guess he lives to different rules. He claims there were 'more like 15 articles' which is a blatant three fold exaggeration designed to impugn my credibility. Hopefully the real lesson the wiki editing community learns is to watch the edits of AR and WMC very closely particularly in relation to Hansen's ideas that 1) on-site carbon sequestration should be a legal operating condition of coal plants and that 2) coal, gas and oil should be taxed and the dividend returned to people at a rate depending on their carbon footprint. No doubt also, more objective editors will see through what is going on here. Why do AR and WMC turn up in certain articles only to remove or distort comments Hansen has made? Who knows, my favoured hypothesis is that they simply don't like the way Hansen dresses. But if there are senior editors in wikipedia who are allowed to go around deleting whatever referenced sentences they feel like on dubious excuses which we have seen in this dispute like links are dead (when they are not), people aren't notable (when they are), precise words aren't used (when the meaning is otherwise clear) etc etc, then expect the rest of us to play catch up and seek consensus before reverting them, those senior editors should only get such privileges if they are prepared to disclose their actual identities to an internal wiki hierarchy and have any conflicts of interest fully disclosed. Otherwise the ongoing credibility of the system will be in jeopardy. This will be particularly important in areas where the coal or pharmaceutical industries or, religious organisations, multinational corporations or political parties are likely to view wikipedia as a form of advertising or campaign promotionNimbusWeb (talk) 10:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

. Even after another editor objects to his interjecting his comments within those of another editor, continues to revert to his version. He also tells the other editor "How many times are you going to get this wrong?" and to "stop whinging" in user talk page discussion.

I also think the attack page he keeps in his talk space needs addressing.

Given his COI on climate change issues and his past involvements with RealClimate I think a topic ban would be a good solution at this point to stop the disruption he continues to cause. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Diffs of some of the uncivil edits by WMC to this project page: NimbusWeb an "over-enthusiastic noob"..."What are you on, old fruit?"..."If you don't want to be condescended to, I suggest you stop making quite so many mistakes."..."@MN:noob". (I've moved this comment from following section. You'll also find diffs from pages other than this one at that location.) --Heyitspeter (talk) 04:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

His edit comments also leave a great deal to be desired --mark nutley (talk) 19:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

We're you blocked for this kind of harassment just recently? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

William M. Connolley, your comments and edit summaries both here and elsewhere leave something to be desired in terms of civility. Please refrain from disparaging, or even veiled remarks - it is not constructive in such controversial areas. Prodego ^talk 20:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Think it should be dismissed, not even formatted correctly, and only one diff? And depending on others to argue the case for you? Don't assume accusations are self-evident. This feels like it's here only to attract attention. If you're going to go through with this ChildofMidnight, could you please take it more seriously? ChyranandChloe (talk) 20:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

What like this you mean C&C damn near deleted half my post there. mark nutley (talk) 20:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

He didn't delete anything there. What are you talking about? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me? He didn't delete anything in that diff, except for excess linebreaks. Are you giving a wrong diff? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Right diff, wrong interpretation. Apparently Marknutley can't read diffs. Sigh. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry chris :) and yes i do still have issues with diffs :) Actually what i meant was WMC`s edit comment weird also gratuitously refactor MN's errors And the fact that he messed up my post when he stuck his text in along with mine. I should have been clearer :) --mark nutley (talk) 20:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Mark, "messing up with text" here is removing excess linebreaks from your comment, it didn't change anything . And when "he stuck his text in along with mine" he was replying to your comment, with the correct indentation, so that it was clear what he was replying to. This is not unusual when replying to long comments, or comments with more than one argument. On the other hand, you did delete WMC's comment . --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:47, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Not to worry, I've noticed that certain arbitrator(s) seem to be unable to read diffs as well, so you're hardly alone... -- ChrisO (talk) 20:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

MN, you're still a noob in some ways. You've only just realised that bare url's don't take double brackets, because I finally got bored of your repeated errors and told you: User_talk:Marknutley#.5B.5B_and_.5B. Your edit to that talk page was broken: by failing to remove the line breaks you messed up the indentation of your quote. I fixed it for you. There is no need to thank me William M. Connolley (talk) 21:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC, address your issues, this isn't about the complainer. Suggest you consider as a guide. Your edit summaries and comments could be less antagonistic. Not everyone is entertained by them. It's due for a block time if not a serious warning. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 20:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC could perhaps be less adversarial in his comments and edit summaries, but I suggest that you and others should also refrain from harassing him. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

That is good advice for everyone, but I think as this process continues, people who haven't stepped up their game on the civility front are going to find that they are the tall poppies remaining after the more egregious issues are resolved. WMC really needs to take a hint here, there are few taller poppies remaining I think, if any... ++Lar: t/c 20:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If this is to be a report, it needs to be refactored into standard form, no? Else perhaps moved to the talk page? ++Lar: t/c 20:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't move it to the talk page. Just close this as resolved, requiring no action; it was a badly formatted request for a non-issue. The talk page has had enough use already as a forum for lobbing kitchen sinks at William Connolley; it's not a dumping ground for general complaining about one's (perceived) opponents and shouldn't be used as such. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If we're talking about civility, I want TS's description of Kenosis as an "egregious edit warrior" discussed. Does no-one else find that somewhat incivil? I've raised this with TS; it just bounced off.

Also, I've redacted a PA from CoM's initial statement - it may look like trivia to you but CoM is well aware of what he is doing William M. Connolley (talk) 20:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• Connolly is obviously not taking this seriously. Instead of apologizing for his abusive behavior and incivility he continues to refactor comments. I do not appreciate having my notice to him about this discussion refactored to indicate I made a personal attack. His claims that I am harassing him are also totally specious. I am required to notify him when his abusive behavior is being discussed and if I hadn't done so he would be complaining about that. Misrepresenting other people's comments is WP:Civility violation. We can't allow incivility to continue, he's been causing disruption and pushing his POV for far too long. His COI with Lawrence Solomon who he posts about on his blog and is in a personal feud with and his past involvements with RealClimate also makes his involvement in editing climate articles improper. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Now that just sounds like a rant. Look, if you want to be taken seriously, reactor this thread correctly as prescribed by the template in the lead and provide the diffs to justify COI and POV. Anything less, and I think you've given him permission to blow you off. ChyranandChloe (talk) 21:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It is hard to take seriously a complaint at least partly about incivility that itself contains deliberate incivility. Yor claim of "abusive behaviour" based on that one diff is indeed not credible. I've redacted yet another PA from you - please learn William M. Connolley (talk) 21:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

CoM, your "COI" claim was discussed at length on the COI noticeboard and rejected. You don't get a second bite at this cherry. Please drop this and move on. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Or ... close this and restart with many diffs. COI can be brought up again when things change. 22:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

No. I said above "refrain from harassing him". I think you will find that ignoring that advice would not be a good idea. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Note: there is some discussion of this matter on CoM's talk page. However what remains there as of this moment is partial, because CoM has been deleting my comments with a rather deceptive edit summary . Which is a bit ironic, given that CoM is complaining about refactoring William M. Connolley (talk) 23:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I removed your comments from my page after you removed mine from yours. Please try to be less hypocritical and disingenuous in making false accusations about behaviors you engage in enthusiastically. Also, if I am required to refer to your per your preferences then I ask you to obey my parallel request. Do not refer to me as anything other than ChildofMidnight. If you are unable to do so then I certainly don't feel it necessary to abide by your whims of the same nature. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Several diffs of his abusive behavior have already been provided. Among them: Diffs , and . I know he has friends and allies, but this report should not be disrupted with mirespresentations about what is a clear pattern of abusive behavior, incivility, refactoring, remocing of comments, and making false allegations. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

This problem has been goin on for a long time. I think the diffs showing abusive refactoring, referring to other editors as incompetents needing spoon feeding, misreperesnting the comments of others, the making of false allegations are enough to warrant action, but here are some more examples per repeated requests for more evidence of William's abusive behavior.

• Here's one of his abusive talk pages titled "whinging" Please note that if this is allowed I'm going to start a page on WMC with a diff noting that this kind of attack page was endorsed per this discussion. I don't want to be maligned in his talk space space and view this type of abuse as a clear example of his harassment and disruptive attempts to intimidate other editors.
• You are dense. Nevermind, I'm sure you'll get there in the end William M. Connolley (talk) 19:58, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• "He is clearly to busy to review the actual terms of the article probation; he is clearly to proud to undo his errors; please DO NOT invite him back in again, we do not need his elephant-like blundering in this situation William M. Connolley (talk) 10:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)" (Sorry about the grammatical errors, but I don't want to refactor someone else's quote.
• Irrelevant digression to call someone a noob. Per William's declaration that calling someone named William, Will is a personal attack, this must be taken as the worst sort of slander!
• Another attack page titled "curse of the gnome"
• And here's one of the many instances where he dishonestly refactors my comments to make it look like I made personal attack . If he's allowed to do that then I expect I will be allowed to do the same to him when he doesn't use another editors full name.
• Here's an example where he uses his blog to engage in a personal feud with Lawrence Solomon . Clearly this COI involvement in a dispute of this type should prevent him from editing related article subjects since his involvement is not neutral. The same issues are involved with his editing of climategate subjects because he was a named party in the RealClimate advocacy website where he had a biography page included (it might still be there, I haven't looked). Wikipedia should not be used as an extension of his personal and professional interests in advocating a certain point of view. I certainly hope this is obvious to the vast majority of editors here. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
• And another example where he discusses a climate scientist he disagrees with under the cateogry "general stupidity" You'll not that he does not use the individual's full name, let alone his title, once again demonstrating a level of hypocrisy that is fairly awesome. His edits to that article include edit warring to include a photo that he says on his blog "makes Lord M look like a bit of a wacko". ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

You are aware that the off-wiki links are a complete waste of time? WP:CIV applies on Wikipedia. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Since civility is a Big Thing, could someone have a quiet word with O2RR about this , please? William M. Connolley (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I assume that's supposed to be 'sceptic'. to you actually have a habit of calling people that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ludwigs2 (talk • contribs)

This thread was improperly closed by Prodego who repeatedly asked me for more evidence of William Connolley's COI, incivility, and refactoring. After I spent time gathering diffs he has now collapsed the discussion hiding them. In response to Stephan Schulz's comment about off-wiki links, I'm sure he's aware that COI by definition applies to conflicts of interest that involve off-wiki interests. This discussion needs to be reopened so we can establish whether editors with clear conflicts of interest who have been involved with advocacy groups and run a blog disparaging article subjects are allowed to extend their efforts to POV pushing on Wikipedia. The incivility, refactoring, and misrepresentations also need to be addressed. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, this has been improperly closed. I see no admin consensus for either conclusion; furthermore, O2RR's incivility has become mixed into this and needs to be considered. I request that this be re-opened and properly closed William M. Connolley (talk) 10:27, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

With no-one commenting, I've undone the close William M. Connolley (talk) 15:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

• You linked to only a bit of the section, here it is all...

name calling

As William M. Connolley repeatedly uses the derogatory expression of septic to refer to people with opposing views to his would it be OK to refer to him as a climate whiner ? (Off2riorob)

Neither would be ok. (Prodego)

Thats what I thought. (Off2riorob)

My question and comment to Prodego was not uncivil at all, it was a question that was meant to point out how repeated long term name calling by WMC of the people with opposing views is wrong and needs to be stopped, he repeatedly calls people septic this is not a nice way to repeatedly refer to other editors at all, especially editors you are in content disputes with, I was pointing out to Prodego how poor it was that WMC repeatedly does this is and that someone doing a similar name calling to him would not be ok and WMC accusing me of incivility for this is ridiculous in the extreme. My comment was made to Prodego in his capacity as Administrator on his talkpage at a time when he was dealing with WMC's incivility issues in his administrator capacity. Off2riorob (talk) 17:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Around the same time as this, an editor asked WMC a question regarding the same issue...I don`t know if that`s an insult or praise :), might i ask you though WMC is it an error when you write septic`s instead of sceptic? Given one is oozing pus and the other is about questioning things? --mark nutley ....well.., clearly it isn't praise, is it. Off2riorob (talk) 17:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

In fact, the only reason WMC is bringing this up is as a smoke screen in an attempt to distract from the real issue here, which is his long term general incivility in discussion and in edit summaries at multiple climate change articles. Off2riorob (talk) 17:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, "septic" is an intentional smear, see this ATren (talk) 21:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it clearly is a repeated intentional smear of good faith editors with a differing opinion to his. Off2riorob (talk) 22:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Apparently there is a mutual history of name calling harassment and war exchanges, between the editor and I. Haven't kept a score with diffs. When looked at from the battleground game view, I concede ... the editor is winning. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 01:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, and the 2over0 proposed action to end this seems appropriate to me. The editor can have it. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 02:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Administrators that are involved in issues do the wikipedia a service when they keep out of issues they are involved in, I dispute this closure, but it matters not, the wikipedia is not blind and it is clear that this report has merit and actually by closing it as if to protect WMC you do him a dis-service as the behavior has not been addressed and will for sure will be repeated. Off2riorob (talk) 00:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said before, if anyone else had committed 10+ blatant BLP violations then they'd have been flat out banned, not just topic banned like I'd suggested. You should recuse your 2over2 - you never do, but you should. The sanction means nothing because it won't be enforced against Connolley - a repeated pattern with him, which, of course, only further encourages disruption from his camp since they know the rules don't apply to them. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Is the prohibition on refactoring others' talk page posts specifically directed at WMC, or is it part of a broader measure? These talk pages have a strong tendency to degenerate into collections of unfocused rambling screeds detailing individuals' personal views on the topic. As such they become nearly useless for discussing specific improvements to the articles. How can we reconcile this with WP:NOTSOAPBOX? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

As proposed it is WMC-specific, as I think he has exceeded the spirit of the talk page guidelines through over-zealous refactoring. We might yet get something out of the more general discussion above, though. - 2/0 (cont.) 05:50, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

And what do you propose to do about his near-constant BLP violations? They are already against the rules - there has to be a limit to how often a wikipedia editor can slander public figures. TheGoodLocust (talk) 06:50, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I also dispute how you closed the following section and left this one open. There was a lot more evidence in that section and it followed the request for enforcement guidelines and formatting. It also showed that Connolley had no defense for his behavior - none. It was inexcusable and so are your actions in this. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Administrators that are involved in issues do the wikipedia a service when they keep out of issues they are involved in, I dispute this closure, but it matters not, the wikipedia is not blind and it is clear that this report has merit and actually by closing it as if to protect WMC you do him a dis-service as the behavior has not been addressed and will for sure will be repeated. Off2riorob (talk) 12:37 am, Today (UTC+0)

I support the close as a requirement. Calling people "septics" is soapboxing, and editors on the other side of this dispute are banned from articles and topics for doing it, if not from Wikipedia. As shown on one of these requests, he's also reverting edits as vandalism that aren't any kind of vandalism. A temporary topic ban is warranted, considering the soapboxing, personal attacks, disruptive talk page and article edits. The unfortunate part is that there is no good in any of it, unless the goal is to bait others into incivility. There is no victory in any of it for Wikipedia. I support the proposed close in any case as a final warning. Mackan79 (talk) 08:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I object to the proposed close, pending quite a lot of things. I've asked 2/0 to clarify William M. Connolley (talk) 08:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I've encountered ChildofMidnight before, but his commenting style does indeed seem to be overly personal and could stand some considerable improvement. --TS 15:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

There is an unfortunate history of unproductive approaches to dispute resolution: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/ChildofMidnight#Summary. Overall, he is generally a very strong content editor, but his skills at resolving inter-editor conflicts leave much to be desired. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be confused about that comment. There was nothing personal about it. I was agreeing with that editor's comment on abusive and misapplied blocks without discussion. It also has nothing to do with this situation regarding William's problem's with civility, COI, refactoring, attack pages in his userspace, and disruptive wikilawyering. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

(moved from result section)

I object to the "personal involvement" nonsense. I don't have any "personal involvements" here and haven't been on a date with Jimbo since at least November of 2009. My only communications with William were related to informing him about this discussion and answering his posts on my talk page. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:12, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

• WMC links to the fools essay again - to quote from that of-wiki essay WMC references: "once a certain minimal level of literal or metaphorical illumination has been shed on a subject, increasing the level of illumination or quantity of explanation will not allow the foolish to understand any more" (emphasis mine). This was his response to me asking why he accused me of having a vendetta. The implication here is that I am a fool for not recognizing my own intentions in requesting even-handed treatment of incivil, disruptive edits. To answer WMC's charge it's not about revenge, it's about building a collegial editing environment that doesn't include calling people you don't agree with fools. ATren (talk) 20:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

As I predicted his incivility and poor behavior will continue. It is perfectly logical since he knows he will never face meaningful sanction and he always has the upside of goading other editors into responding in kind and thus getting them banned. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

This response by TGL is far less civil than my comment. Or is there some free pass for incivility on this page? William M. Connolley (talk) 23:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

You may have actually convinced yourself that pointing out your incivility -- and the response to it from this RfE page -- is more uncivil that tacitly calling other editors "fools", but you're wrong. I've yet to see any meaningful sanctions leveled against you, so what Tgl pointed out is simply a fact, as it currently stands. Whether that changes or not, remains to be seen. UnitAnode 23:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Are we judging by the BLP and civility violations you've committed on this page? Or are we going by the standards that everyone else must follow? The way I see it GoRight was blocked for far less by 2/0 and is suggesting a 6 month topic ban, but your demonstrated BLP violations and blatant incivility warrant the most minimal of actions by him. In either case my previous comment is plainly not uncivil - esp. if going by your apparently sanctioned labelling, 97 times according to a wikipedia search, of people as "septics." TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

What is the relevancy of this off-wiki essay that, by the way, looks entirely harmless? And how or why does BLP enter into this? I tend to agree with others - this is just an attempt of throwing all kinds of mud all over the place trying to make some of it stick. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:17, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The BLP violations are well-documented, but, unsurprisingly, have mostly been "collapsed" in the following section. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Stephan if you don't understand the relevancy of WMC linking to that essay, then there's no point in me trying to explain it to you. ATren (talk) 02:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• It's relevant, because WMC is using the link to it to call other editors "fools" or "the foolish" without using those exact words on-wiki. UnitAnode 02:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The concern that 2/0 expresses below regarding a "heckler's veto" is worth considering. Part of the remedy could be that comments that may be taken as attempts to goad or provoke WMC will also be in breach of this remedy and will be dealt with accordingly. If such a provision is not added then I can guarantee that WMC's detractors will call him "Willie" (knowing he doesn't care for such nicknames), make spurious accusations of dishonesty or misconduct, and in general do everything possible to provoke him into a violation. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

So to be clear, you consider the diffs that show his numerous BLP violations and reference to other editors as fools and septics to be "spurious?" TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:23, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I would suggest you participate in the next Wikipedia:The Great Wikipedia Dramaout. Or take 5 days anytime. If you manage 20 edits per day, you can double your main space contributions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I regularly take breaks from wikipedia and other websites. Thank you for clarifying that you consider WMC calling people "septics" and "fools" to be "spurious" allegations of misconduct. That should be enlightening for anyone who even needs it at this point. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Mu. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Stephan Schulz: I'm not seeing your comments in this subthread as particularly helpful to moving things forward. Far too much snarkiness on this page already, why add more? ++Lar: t/c 13:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

And I think singling out Stephan for a comment like this is nothing short of incredible given some of the bad faith comments being thrown around by everyone else. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

If it was the only comment along these lines I'd made, I'd call it singling out. But it's not, I have given this feedback or similar to a lot of participants. EVERYONE needs to up their game here. So I guess you didn't help either. :) ++Lar: t/c 15:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Everyone... except you, of course William M. Connolley (talk) 16:03, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

You aren't helping your case here, WMC. Nice reference to Keane in your edit summary though. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC, Sure, I'll do my best to up my game. We are none of us perfect. That includes me, and I always welcome feedback. Anyone is always welcome to stop by my talk page, as long as they are willing to engage in honest discourse. I hardly ever remove stuff, either. But some of us are farther from perfection than others, and this section is about sanctioning you. As other sections have been. Which is a disturbing pattern, isn't it? ++Lar: t/c 17:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, give me a break! WMC is a big boy. If he can't handle "Willie" without responding, then he's no better than those who've responded badly to his "septic", "waste of time" or "fool" insults. Once again, the "poor WMC is being harassed" meme resurfaces, when it's WMC that's hurling all the condescending insults. ATren (talk) 02:23, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

In one of the earlier threads, I believe it was ChildofMidnight who said "Will *blah blah blah," and Connolley reverted the "Will" and put in "PA redacted" to make it look like ChildofMidnight was behaving poorly. That sort of behavior is not good. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:27, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

While CoM's use of "Willie" is impolite (and unwise), it's not even close a personal attack, and WMC's editing of the comment is way out of line, and far more concerning than the initial impoliteness. UnitAnode 02:34, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

He actually used the term "Will," and it all seemed very natural to me. Here is the diff though to make it easier to judge. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC should just comment that he prefers certain forms. Redacting other people's comments that way isn't on. ++Lar: t/c 13:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly the first time this has come up. For instance, last July, with Thegoodlocust in particular, rendering the feigned incomprehension above a bit bothersome. It's an uncivil form of needling; as Risker pointed out, most people learn that it's rude sometime around kindergarten. WMC overreacted as well; as usual with these threads, it's a race away from the high ground. MastCell ^Talk 17:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

<outdent> "Feigned incomprehension?" So, if you'll notice I haven't refered to that man by his first name. In fact, that whole thing started with him doing something very similar to me, when I believe I called him either Will or William and he decided to exercise what I interpreted as some sort of powertrip. The fact of the matter is, believe it or not, that most people don't know his preference not to be called William, Will, Bill or anything of the sort, and despite that being a natural way of referring to someone with a username like that he gets quite upset when it occurs and inserts things like "PA redacted" into other people's comments. TheGoodLocust (talk) 17:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

In fact, being called "Will" is far better than the various insect extermination references some of those same editors have directed towards me. TheGoodLocust (talk) 17:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• I've experienced some similar nonsense with WMC in the past. I believe I misspelled his commonly misspelled last name. He seems to be hyper-sensitive to any apparent slight against himself, while not being equally sensitive to his obvious slights against other users. UnitAnode 02:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
  • There seems to be a lot of that going around. MastCell ^Talk 04:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
    • True. (signed) --Lars.  :) (no, that's not my name, but usually I just make a joke about how you really only want one of me around) ++Lar: t/c 13:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why I'm being singled out. Shouldn't everyone be focusing on content rather than other editors? For example dave souza has been making accusations of bad faith towards various editors. And he's not the only one.

My main concern is that my good faith editing and report here were turned around by those who disagree with me on content issues in order to make all kinds of accusations against me and to try and intimidate and chase me off. That's abusive. I'd like to be held to the same high standards that everyone working on contentious articles should be. The problem is that there haven't been any enforcements to address William's rank incivility, personal attacks, and other problems highlighted here by numerous editors. And I still have not received a response regarding the attack pages in his userspace. I do not think those are appropriate and I'd like to see them addressed.

If we can stop the one-sided enforcements and hold everyone to high standards going forward there is a good chance that we can make headway with a more collegial, cooperative and respectful editing environment. The focus should absolutely be on sources and content. I couldn't agree more. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

There has been talk of how no one has demonstrated any pattern of bad behavior on WMC's part. I've been doing some digging, as I remember very clearly being attacked by him on more than one occasion. I found this, which is a multi-edit diff in which I had asked him to stop removing people's talkpage comments at Garth Paltridge. I'll be adding more here as I find them. UnitAnode 18:35, 27 January 2010 (UTC) This was part of WMC edit-warring to remove comments from the Patridge talkpage. UnitAnode 18:41, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

And this one, in which he removes a bunch of comments from his talkpage (which isn't prohibited in itself), while also seemingly challenging me to some kind of fight, with his, "Come on if you think you're hard enough." UnitAnode 18:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

It is hard to tell if you're being deliberately stupid or just stupid. What's wrong with that? TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• It's a problem, for sure. But the larger problem is that -- despite how he treats those with whom he disagrees -- nothing is ever done about it. I doubt that my establishing that this pattern of behavior extends back to at least October (and everyone knows it goes back further than that) will change anything. But, unlike the "you haven't edited the mainspace enough" charges that they level at you (and you really should do more mainspace editing) they can't say the same about me. UnitAnode 19:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

I am a little uncomfortable that the first result is setting up a heckler's veto, but WMC remains free to point out instances of incivility at articletalk and usertalk. Personal attacks are, of course, unacceptable and may lead to blocking or other restrictions, particularly in the probation topic area. If another uninvolved administrator agrees, can we please log the sanctions, close this thread, and move on with improving the encyclopedia? - 2/0 (cont.) 23:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is strong enough. WMC has been showing a pattern here and just requesting things doesn't quite cut it. Stronger measures seem called for. At the very least change all the "requested"s to "required"s ++Lar: t/c 05:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Further if we were going to close one of these two in a row as no action, maybe this is the one to close and the other one the one to act on, it has more meat. IMHO anyway. ++Lar: t/c 05:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be fine with required. As Short Brigade Harvester Boris suggests above, by barring William M. Connolley from even legitimate refactoring we are losing something in terms of keeping those discussions focused on improving the article rather than degenerating into general discussion of the topic. Still, there are other avenues open to him and generally others are available to do what is necessary. Say, six months for that one? Prodego also recently left him a civility warning, but adding a logged warning to express personal opinions civilly or not at all would probably not be too harsh. A note that civil does not describe veiled insinuations would also not be amiss. - 2/0 (cont.) 05:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I think there are enough other people involved that the possible loss of focus negative effect from losing his contributions is far outweighed by the probable avoidance of disruption positive effect from losing his contributions. 6 months works for me. Note that I still think the other case shouldn't be closed, it seems to touch on other aspects of problematic behavior but starting here might help. More can be done later if necessary. With that sorted, I should add that I support the proposals for ChildOfMidnight and Off2riorob as written. ++Lar: t/c 15:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

• I concur with 2/0's wording, since holding WMC to a greater duty of diligence than heckling accounts almost invites efforts to have him removed temporarily by means of sanction from the editing environment. Regarding ChildofMidnight and Off2RioRob I defer to other editors opinions. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I could go with the standard wording there - ChildofMidnight is warned to comment on the content, not the contributor, and leave it at that. I am not sure that it really expresses the heart of the issue, though - it is more like WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND but, from where I stand, it manifests as appearing to be spoiling for a fight over an editing disagreement rather than as the entrenching in a PoV that that policy usually is invoked to describe. I am sorry, but that is how it appears to someone following your edits after the fact and without the benefit of access to your actual reasoning processes. Maybe: ChildofMidnight is warned to be more civil in interacting with other editors, and is reminded that Wikipedia is not a battleground.

In any case, there should be no need to replay the recent RfC/U in microcosm, so I will preemptively support any similar wording in the interests of winding down this thread. I will say that the relevant part of the section Wikipedia:Requests for comment/ChildofMidnight#Outside view by Gladys J Cortez expresses some of my concerns pretty succinctly. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:42, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

It is also worth noting that Wikipedia is not the civility police for the internet - off-site comments are generally irrelevant unless they are being used as an extension of an on-site debate. - 2/0 (cont.) 07:27, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Required is in, but on thinking further, we could except archiving any thread that has gone stale - would no comments for two weeks be a good standard? - 2/0 (cont.) 18:17, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure, or even one week. But perhaps having bots do it might be a better approach? ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought about just letting the archivebot take care of it, but on the usueally less active talkpages there is sometimes a single thread that veers way off topic, in which case just removing that would be better. I have acted on suggestions that are even years old on some of our more disregarded articles that I probably would not have thought of if the thread had been automatically archived. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:03, 27 January 2010 (UTC)