Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-03-25 Global warming

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

[edit] What's going on?

Clearly: There are on-going issues related to claims of NPOV and weasel words In the introduction. Possibly: There may be some ownership of the page issues The page is going through cycles of changes as one person or another inputs his "right" view. Discussion is ignored. Personal insults are included. Possibly one person has had his or her feelings hurt. Wikipedia policies governing such matters are ignored, declared to be not applicable or demeaned.

(Note by sm8900) the actions referred to above are mainly by a small group of those supporting global warming theories, in opposition to those who are skeptical. they have repeatedly struck down efforts to present opposing views.)--Sm8900 14:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a long history of these actions from some of the above listed members. Also hindering the advancement of the articles (and scores of others that are related) is the continuous circumvention of policies (such as the same reverts being done no more than 3 times by one person but in conjunction with others making the same reverts as many as 6 or 8 total in a 24 hour period) or the avoidance of policies through technicalities (e.g. performing the same revert 3 times and then again 3 times the following day; doing so on many articles per day). Generally on the rare instance a consensus is reached the some of long-time users listed above will wait weeks and then undo the consensus. This is usually not brought up as the people with whom the consensus was reached have moved on trusting the consensus would be honored. The categories of the chronic harmful actions by some of the listed Users is much longer than already provided and should be also explored and reviewed to provide a more accurate picture of the problems. -- Tony 15:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The contents of this article (and surrounding related articles) have been harshly dictated and "hawked" by a small group of editors (most prominent William Connolley & Stephen Schulz) holding specific activist beliefs on the subject matter. Some of the consequences of this dictation are:

1. Countless reversions of content and edits provided by members of Wikipedia.

2. Edit wars and long and unfruitful discussions on the talk page.

3. A slanting bias/weight given towards specific aspects of the issue.

4. Deliberate removal/hiding/obscuring of content providing conflicting views.

The machine512 00:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The specific "activist beliefs" being that the scientific consensus carefully developed over 20 years by (currently) more than 2000 scientists, endorsed by all major (and quite a number of minor) National Academies of Science, supported by organizations from the AAAS to the United States National Research Council and virtually without opposition in the scientific literature, should be adequately reflected in the article. I'll grant you number 2, though. --Stephan Schulz 00:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What would you like to change about that?

I would like to see a coordinated discussion, with people not taking it to personal insults and having an open mind to other views. I would like to see the article have fewer NPOV issues. I would like to see a recognition of wikipedia policies as a means to help resolve the issues, rather than something to avoid and make fun of. I believe that the article could be greatly improved by a re-organization, but as it stands now, even a few words are an issue.

The long term (at least 9-12 months) history of the article (and related articles) should be fully reviewed. Those who have been participating in reverts w/out discussion, edit wars, etc should be banned for a time in proportion to their participation in these harmful activities. Extra rights, etc. should be permanently revoked of the edit-warring participants, esp. of those participating in the personal attacks or policy circumvention--especially if those extra rights/privileges were used in any manner related to these activities (e.g. blocking another user in the midst of editing disputes with that user). Also in order should be a review and possibly re-opening of previous mediation cases, complaints, etc to examine the rationales for those decisions were properly considered the histories of users involved and correct any erroneous examples set by those previous decisions or shortfalls in the decision's justifications. -- Tony 15:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The fact that there are so many reverts, edit wars, etc, solely in regard to this article is due to a small number of users who have decided they alone know what this topic should entail, and making it into a narrowly-stated description of one theory, rather than the broad overview of many topics which it ought to be. that is what is turning otherwise well-behaved editors without a single complaint against them into outright skirmishers. I know that is true in my case. There really is no reason there cannot be a consensus and compromise between the two sides, rather than one side deciding that the other side is too small, or too insignificant to be given any coverage at all. --Sm8900 16:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at the reverts done by the people in question and the reasoning behind the reverts listed. Also, please look at the people in question to see if there is any WP:COI violations, as some of the people in question are Environmental Activists, and based on their edit history and protection of the Global Warming pages, I don't know that they are capable of editing with a WP:NPOV. There also seams to be a lack of consistency when it comes to sources that are accurate/reliable but support information that some people do not wish to have on these pages. The same standards for what can exist and what must be removed or pushed off onto a POV fork seam to not apply when it comes to additions that do not "go with the flow" of the POV. I'm sure this moderation issue would not come up if many of the users in question helped each other to make the additions by many Wiki authors worthy of being up, instead of outright reverting what they don't believe.--Zeeboid 00:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

What are the specific "reliable sources" to which you refer? It would be helpful to give us examples (i.e., diffs) where these sources were rejected. (The bit about "environmental activists" cannot be taken seriously.) Raymond Arritt 01:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Raymond, here are just a few for you.

1. [2] The crux of this one is that the editor decided a pdf on Heartland Instutute's page was not acceptable and changed it instead to a "less partisan source", specifically the The Committee on Energy and Commerce Republicans. Oh, the timeframe for discussing that change: 12 minutes.

Why link to a second-hand source when a direct source for the identical material is available? Doesn't it add to the credibility of the material in question (which in this case often is cited in support of "your side") to come from a source that is more prestigious and less partisan? Raymond Arritt 03:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

1. [3] This edit added 2 links to the "External Links" section under the sub section "Science", one from a news organization (Canadian Post) and one from Life Style Extra. 24 minutes later was this deletion. The summary said, "Sorry, but the CP is about as far from "science" as possible" and the link to a series of articles about the "skeptics" side of Global Warming was deleted (not moved/corrected) while the link to a movie review about a [The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle|polemic]] film.

That would be me. That series from the CP is extremely tendentious (my opinion) and has been savaged as misrepresenting their position by at least two of the portrayed scientists (an easily verifyable fact). It is not a reliable source, and it's in no way a scientific source, or even a source about science. And the sections we had at that time were "Science", "Politics", and "Printed Media" - which one do you claim is the "correct" one? --Stephan Schulz 08:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Is your argument that newspaper opinion pieces should be taken as objective sources of scientific information? Raymond Arritt 03:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that is good for starters...I don't want to be accused of wiki-lawyering by the ad hominem attackers for adding a fraction of historical relevance to a complaint about abuse. -- Tony 02:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, lets try to keep as much of this as possible about the global warming article. Obviously many of the partisans from the other articles indeed contribute (or lack thereof) to other similar articles, but lets try to focus this on one article at a time. ~ UBeR 03:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Partisans? --Kim Bruning 14:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Wait, I'm not quite that naive. This is about internal .us party politics, isn't it? While we could just ban all Americans from the article (this would solve most of the controversy instantly ;-P), perhaps some kind of compromise can be found between the different .us political affiliations? :-) --Kim Bruning 15:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it is a US political thing. I am not sure though. I know Al Gore a Democrat has pushed it pretty hard but I do not exactly see Republicans getting out the wooden stakes, crosses and holy water when they hear about it. I'm not sure that it is a party thing exactly. Anyway, if we just edit from an NPOV, it won't matter that much. --Blue Tie 15:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Some of the heaviest editors to these pages, however, are not Americans, but some of them are indeed self proclaimed Activists. I would rather see proven activists of a topic disalloud from editing on that topic, then anyone from a nationality. WP:COI?--Zeeboid 16:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You keep repeating "Activists" like a mantra. You claim "some" - that usually means more than two. Would you care to name them and give us some sources for their self-proclamation? Thanks. --Stephan Schulz 19:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The trouble is that often activists know a lot about their own topic, that's part of being an activist. That's a bit of the trouble with wikipedia, anytime anyone remotely knowlegable edits, they are likely going to have an opinion on their topic, one way or the other. Could you explain which people say they are activists, and what is their exact cause? --Kim Bruning 16:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Guys, we're not helping our case here. We can't just simply keep going on about the practices and attitudes of pro-GW people which are frustrating us. That won't give the mediator anything to work with, other than generalities. We need to start mentioning specific edits which we would like to have done. This can even be minor edits, as long as they were blocked by pro-GW editors (see my comment on tthe talk page). Uber, Blue Tie, Zeeboid, could you please provide specific examples of reasonable edits which you wanted, which were blocked because the other side claimed that the anti-GW case does not have sufficient weight, according to them? Feel free to provide any examples which you feel are helpful. This is our chance to reach a reasonable compromise on getting some of the reasonable revisions and edits adopted. Thanks. --Sm8900 18:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Sm8900, that would indeed be useful! You must have done mediations before? :-) --Kim Bruning 00:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Specific Edits. Ok. The Global Warming has no Critism section. Every Anti-GW article I see has not just one Critism section, but also lists debunks or someone else's opinion next to most of the 'reasons' listed in the anti-GW article. The word "controversy" is only listed on the page 3 times, and one of them is a subtopic link. Apperently if there is this much attention on this topic, Forking out to the Global warming controversy which is full of "Yea Butt..." statements about why the "Controversy" should not be believed. I would like to see this moved closer to the middle. either add the same "Yea butt..." statements onto the Global Warming page or remove them from all the others, or on all the AGW pages, create a link to another page explaining the ANTI-View (which I realize is a real crap way to do it, but thats the way it is now.)--Zeeboid 02:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Zeeboid has misunderstood many things. There is no anti-GW article, nor should there be. GWC is not anti-GW. Its about the "two sides of the controversy" insofar as that makes sense. The GW article, by contrast, is largely about the science, which is why the balance is as it is: since the overall science is largely in favour of the current state, the "anti" science (largely solar) is quite small. This is correct according to wiki's NPOV policy on weight. The GW article somewhat overweights the skeptic position, because its such a small minority viewpoint; this is probably inevitable. I don't know what "criticism" Z wants to see in the article; some reputable examples would help. Creating a page on anti-GW would be resisted as a POV fork, obviously William M. Connolley 13:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

WMC has misunderstood many things. There is no "consensus" when it comes to science. To say so brings politics into it. According to the American Heritage Dictionary Consensus is: "An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole" or "General agreement or accord." I'm sure you would agree that Opinion and Science are quite different. Also, in Science, from what I understand... it is preferred that the current thinking is questioned... That’s how we discover. Your opinion that the "overall science is largely in favor" has two problems. When was the last time a Scientist told you that the "Consensus" view of scientists is this? In fact... the use of the word "Consensus" has only come into "Science" recently, with this Global Warming debate, with reports by the IPCC (which is a international political group).

1. It, along with your persistent POV Pushing, is keeping the Science that is not in favor of AGW from showing. Even your use of the phrase ""anti" science" is questionable. Even Science brings questions into play here (how did Humans cause the climate changes prior to the Industrial revolution for example). When you allow the Science that is not in favor of AGW to show, it is full of "Yea butt..." statements, unlike the Pro AGW science. the arguments against human caused AGW and the skeptics are many in numbers, but Constant Activism here keeps that from being reflected. Speaking of many in numbers:
2. There is a large public/political split when it comes to the People who believe or disbelieve in AGW. (I didn't bring politics into this, the word "Consensus" did) Most polls show that around 20%-50% (Varies widely depending on the poll) believe that Humans are not causing Global Warming. Where is this split reflected? in this article.
3. Where is the conflicting science refrenced in this article? Its not... Its in the POV Fork called Global warming controversy with a whole bunch of "Yea butt..." statements. so your comment about the GW Article being mostly abou the science is mostly inaccurate.--Zeeboid 15:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Please give up the "yeah butt" stuff or I shall report you to the mediator. This is a science article - not a public perceptions one. "consensus" - of course there is one; as represented by the number of people/orgs that agree with IPCC. Where is the conflicting science refrenced in this article? Its not... - but of course it *is*. The solar stuff gets more-than-its-fair-share of space. Is there anything else? GWC is largely full of non-science and nonsense - which is why it doesn't make it into the GW article. But you're wandering off into vagueness again? Which bits of skeptic GWC science would you like imported into GW? The UHI stuff: can't: there is nothing reputable there (take a look). Attribution? nothing of value. Please nominate something from GWC, scientifically supported, that belongs in GW but isn't William M. Connolley 16:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for my typo. As you state, this is a Science article, yep. People/orgs and agreement with a politican group (THE IPCC) Should be kept out of a science article, if thats realy what this is... Science, not politics. As someone who Blogs about your disagreement with the anti-human caused GW stance (as refrenced by your wiki article), you should be able to addaquatly list the science that does not agree with the Prog AGW stance. Anything I list will be called "Trype" by you, so there is not much point to it. Lets take this oppertunity for you to display a lack of bias on your part. Heavy Global Warming opinion, after all, is held to Doctors of Philosophy.--Zeeboid 17:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

This is an interesting reply. You've asked William to supply you with the skeptical science. But do you, yourself, know of particular scientific findings that refute the mainstream view? Or do you simply assume "it must be out there somewhere"? If you can name some specific findings that deserve mention in the article, that would give us a starting point for discussion. Raymond Arritt 17:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I do. I have a list already, however I want to see first, if the information many here would like displayed to flesh out this article can be listed by someone else claiming to have a NPOV. For someone with a NPOV, this should be easy as pie. I will give it a day or two, then post myself either way. Feel free to join in, Raymond, in this task... otherwise I'll post in 2 days.--Zeeboid 18:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You say you have a list already, but what is the purpose in playing these "you go first" games? If you have specific findings to be addressed, why not go ahead and present them, so we can make progress instead of going around in circles? Raymond Arritt 20:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone in the world has a neutral point of view by themselves. It takes teamwork. :-) --Kim Bruning 21:34, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, and people having NPOV isn't even the question (or, at least, ir shouldn't be). People can have whatever point of view they like and hold that opinion as strongly as they like. What matters is whether the edits they make are NPOV. For instance, I have the strong POV that Time cube is pure bullshit (and at least one othert editor believes it is "the absolute truth of the universe"). My biased POV shouldn't, and doesn't stop me editing Time cube. It just means I shouldn't spout my opinions unreferenced and unattributed. Further, as you say, it is ultimately the balance of several people cooperating that helps to drive the actual article toward NPOV. -- Leland McInnes 22:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks like we're going round and round and round in circles. As a suggestion for progress, can we pick a single, specific point to address first? Once we've resolved that, we can move on to other points. Raymond Arritt 00:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

My single point might be (probably is) different from everyone else's. --Blue Tie 00:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

(reindent) You're probably right. But it would be nice to have something concrete to work with. Otherwise we end up with little more than a replay of the sniping that has gone on (and on and on) in the article talk pages, which frankly seems like a waste of time. I'd like to break out of that mold. Raymond Arritt 00:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

As Mr. Connolley has already stated, the article is meant to reflect scientific opinion, not political or common opinion. Stop trying to push politics into this article; it is not the place for it, and it is becoming very bothersome. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 00:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, I'd like to point out that User:Sm8900 has canvassed at Talk:Republican Party (United States) (diff and Talk:Conservatism in the United States (diff). He and some other members of the skeptical camp are doing nothing more than trying to push politics into science. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 00:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Sm8900 seems to be otherwise acting in good faith, so I'm sure Sm8900 has a perfectly plausible explanation. (Though I would like to hear what that explanation is, of course.) --Kim Bruning 02:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Politics and science. I've heard the excuse a million times before, and it is always used in a double standard situation. Truth is, everything is political, even science and the interpretation of scientific data. It is human nature. But the real problem comes when one group snuffs the opinion of another and uses the excuse, THIS is science, and THIS is not.

Might I point out that Mr. Connolly is a member (and previous political candidate) of a far left socialist political group the Green Party of England and Wales (which believes in legalization of all recreational street drugs), as stated on his own self written Wikipedia page. The machine512 02:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Mediator, I ask your opinion on whether the above remarks regarding William M. Connolley are considered appropriate contributions to the mediation. I've not participated in this type of process before, and am trying to get a handle on it. Raymond Arritt 03:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Ad hominem at its best. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 04:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

How is mine any different than yours Cielomobile? The machine512 06:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that many of the comments both pro and con regarding WC are ad hominem -- that is, arguments about the person. (More precisely, some may be ad hominem and others may be ad verecundiam.) Supporters will point out his credentials. Detractors will point out his pov and affiliations. They are both about him and if we respect one side of the argument we should respect the other side as well. Or we could ignore both sides equally -- which is less confrontational. This highlights an issue with wikipedia that is not solvable. People who are open about their expertise are not given special credit -- the high schooler drooling on drugs is given the equal credit as the scientist with years of credentialed research. On the other hand, a person recognizing this issue may hide their expertise as well as their personal pov yet may express both by having access to exceptional or unusual resources for citing as well as by filtering those citations to support one conclusion. Without expertise no alternative side may be able to recognize the filtering and yet wikipedia ends up with a pov article. It is a problem with wikipedia that cannot be fixed in the current model.

Speaking directly to this article and these comments, I believe that reliance upon an expert (as people want to do here) is appropriately open to the criticism about that expert's pov without being considered a personal attack and this is especially true if both expertise and pov are made a high profile part of the person's public identity. --Blue Tie 09:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

You claim a non-existing symmetry between "this man is a published and recognized expert" (a relevant piece of information) and "this person is associated with a party that believes in legalization of all recreational street drugs" (which, apart from being wrong, also is a classical ad hominem). In no way should we give these equal weight. Anyways, while I respect William's opinion, I by no means support him blindly. The article is extremely well supported by reliable sources. Bring in anything that is a) relevant and b) supported by comparable source (this does not include a position paper by the Heartland Institute), and I will gladly support it. But all we get are out-of-context quotes and popular press opinion pieces. --Stephan Schulz 11:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I have another response to the comment:

As Mr. Connolley has already stated, the article is meant to reflect scientific opinion, not political or common opinion. Stop trying to push politics into this article; it is not the place for it, and it is becoming very bothersome.

The article is titled "Global Warming", not "The Science of Global Warming". As an article on Global Warming it should cover ALL aspects of the main topic. If there are then subpages such as "The Science of Global Warming" and "Political Controversies of Global Warming" and so on, those should be referenced in the main article.

I happen to think that if the articles can be kept on a narrow focus, it is helpful to avoid edit wars and conflicts. So I like the idea of focused articles (as long as we avoid POV Forks). But it is wrong to think that Global Warming can or should only be discussed from a scientific perspective. The main article needs to cover the whole topic. If that is too much for the main article (I have seen suggestions that it is too long) then so be it... divide it into subtopics. But do not compromise the main article.

Once more, this is a solution that may require restructuring of the article(s) in question as I have already suggested.--Blue Tie 09:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Points that need resolving

Different people have different points they'd like to resolve. Could everyone paste the points they'd like to see resolved below?

• (example) Try to keep points somewhat short (less than a paragraph) if at all possible. I need to actually read them all, you see, and keeping things short also helps you think about what you're actually trying to say. :-) --Kim Bruning 02:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• (your point here)

• • This may not help, but my problem can be summed up with a simple statement, which when I say it will be viewed as insulting. It is not meant to be, but I know you want to cut through to the chase. So, here it is: A coordinated group of "experts" and friends, with a history on the article, work together to see that their edits prevail and any edits contrary to their views are swiftly rejected without discussion. Tactics used by the group include constant, repeated, reverts, failure to deliberate in good faith upon points raised and personal attacks. I believe the factors that lead to these behaviors are originating pov, a history of "attacks" upon the integrity of these dedicated editors, ownership of the article, a concern about a loss of prior "investment" in the article and the self-serving sense that experts have a superior view, giving a sense of validity to quick dismissal of other perspectives. There is a circle the wagons and fight to the last man feeling to it rather than a collaborative sense. A few minimal edits have been recently tolerated only because a lock on the article with a pov tag was considered even worse than accepting the edits, but up to that event there had been a stonewall on changes. Deep resistance to change continues though now slightly more muted. In my opinion the effects of these behaviors are to increase article pov, decrease article quality and increase animosity. I also believe that some reasonable nods to other perspectives can help reduce edit warring, but this may be seen as compromising article integrity by the group of experts and friends. This guardianship (which is understandable) is the root of the problem. Look at any other claim on this page and you will see that they are comprhended in this paragraph. If you solve the many varied problems expressed on these pages.. you hack at leaves. Solve this one problem (without hurting article integrity) and you get to the root. I also believe that a clear focus on wikipedia policies is (on net) the best solution.

<archive bottom>

[edit] Suggestions on mediator response

Some more help would be great :-) --Kim Bruning 22:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that you need help knowing what you are expected to do here?--Blue Tie 10:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

More like I'm already overextended elsewhere, so a couple more folks helping out would be great ^^;; --Kim Bruning 14:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there a mediation committee or supervisor which coordinates these things, or which can allocate further manpower? Just wanted to ask. --Sm8900 18:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Um, I guess that might just be me in fact, until we manage to rope a new one. That's not entirely good... I'll go ask Ideogram for help with that... --Kim Bruning 00:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

See your talk page. I suggest an uninvolved mediator instead? --BozMo talk 08:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I was requested specifically as a mediator on my talk page before the request was made to the mediation cabal. This is actually quite normal for informal mediators, requests to user talk pages are actually more common than requests on the mediation cabal pages. For similar reasons, if you personally choose not to speak with me, that's your prerogative, of course. :-) --Kim Bruning 10:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I also have concerns that the invitation by one of the contending parties was less than appropriate. While you seem fairly level-headed, your involvement aforehand leaves less of a neutral starting position by which to proceed, which calls into question the effectiveness on the whole of this mediation. If you simply tell people that they can excuse themselves from speaking, that then completely undermines the entire purpose of mediation. --Skyemoor 11:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

previous comment before discussion was archived. In my experience, neutrality is more of a role (some people are only mediators from Mon-Fri, 9-5, for instance). As far as speaking with people or not, well, we have plenty of time, and we can easily give people room to breath. The article will still be there tomorrow or next week. :-) --Kim Bruning 11:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.