Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerk: Amorymeltzer (Talk)  Drafting arbitrators: Newyorkbrad (Talk) & Rlevse (Talk) & Risker (Talk)

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Giving a short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

It is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those will have changed by the time people click on your links), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. Please make sure any page section links are permanent. See simple diff and link guide.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see the talk page. If you think another editor's evidence is a misrepresentation of the facts, cite the evidence and explain how it is incorrect within your own section. Please do not try to refactor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, leave it for the Arbitrators or Clerks to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

In addition to the usual guidelines for arbitration cases, the following procedures apply to this case:

• The case will be opened within 24 hours after the posting of these guidelines.
• The drafting arbitrators will be Newyorkbrad, Rlevse, and Risker. The arbitration clerk for the case will be Amorymeltzer, but all the active arbitration clerks are asked to assist with this case as needed.
• The title of the case will be Climate change. Participants are asked to bear in mind that case titles are chosen for administrative convenience and do not reflect any prejudgment on the scope or outcome of the case.
• Notice of the opening of the case will be given to all editors who were named as parties in the request for arbitration, all editors who commented on the request, and all editors who commented on either of the two pending related requests ("Sock Puppet Standards of Evidence" and "Stephan Schulz and Lar"). If any other editor later becomes a potential subject of the case, such as by being mentioned extensively in evidence or named in a workshop proposal, a notice should also be given to that editor at that time.
• The issues raised in the "Sock Puppet Standards of Evidence" and "Stephan Schulz and Lar" requests may be raised and addressed in evidence in this case if (but only if) they have not been resolved by other means.
• Preparation of a formal list of "parties to the case" will not be required. In previous cases of this complexity, extensive discussion about who is or is not or should be or should not be a party has often become the focus of controversy, sometimes to the detriment of the parties' focusing on the merits of the case itself. As long as all editors whose conduct is being reviewed are notified of the case, and the decision makes it clear which editors are affected by any sanctions, it does not ultimately matter whether a given editor was formally named as a "party" or not.
• Within five days from the opening of the case (i.e. by 00:28, 18 June 2010 (UTC)), participants are asked to provide a listing of the sub-issues that they believe should be addressed in the committee's decision. This should be done in a section of the Workshop page designated for that purpose. Each issue should be set forth in as a one-sentence, neutrally worded question—for example:
  • "Should User:X be sanctioned for tendentious editing on Article:Y"?
  • "Has User:Foo made personal attacks on editors of Article:Z?"
  • "Did Administrator:Bar violate the ABC policy on (date)?"
  • "Should the current community probation on Global Warming articles by modified by (suggested change)?"

The committee will not be obliged to address all the identified sub-issues in its decision, but having the questions identified should help focus the evidence and workshop proposals.

• All evidence should be posted within 15 days from the opening of the case (i.e. by 00:28, 28 June 2010 (UTC)). The drafters will seek to move the case to arbitrator workshop proposals and/or a proposed decision within a reasonable time thereafter, bearing in mind the need for the committee to examine what will presumably be a very considerable body of evidence.
• Participants are urgently requested to keep their evidence and workshop proposals as concise as reasonably possible.
• The length limitation on evidence submissions is to be enforced in a flexible manner to maximize the value of each user's evidence to the arbitrators. Users who submit overlength diatribes or repetitious presentations will be asked by the clerks to pare them. On the other hand, the word limit should preferably not be enforced in a way that hampers the reader's ability to evaluate the evidence. For example, an editor may present evidence in a form such as "event A occurred [diff 1] and then event B occurred [2], which led to event C [3], followed by a personal attack [4], and an uncivil comment [5], resulting in a block [6], an unblock [7], and an ANI discussion [8]." It sometimes happens that the editor is asked to shorten his or her evidence, and it is refactored to read something like "there was a dispute about a block [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]." This does not make life easier for the arbitrators who have to study all the evidence. Editors should take this into account before complaining that other editors' sections are too long.
• All participants are expected to abide by the general guideline for Conduct on arbitration pages, which states:

  The pages associated with Arbitration cases are primarily intended to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed, and expeditious resolution of each case. Participation by editors who present good-faith statements, evidence, and workshop proposals is appreciated. While allowance is made for the fact that parties and other interested editors may have strong feelings about the subject-matters of their dispute, appropriate decorum should be maintained on these pages. Incivility, personal attacks, and strident rhetoric should be avoided in Arbitration as in all other areas of Wikipedia.

• Until this case is finally decided, the existing community sanctions and procedures for Climate change and Global warming articles remain in full effect, and editors on these articles are expected to be on their best behavior.
• Any arbitrator, clerk, or other uninvolved administrator is authorized to block, page-ban, or otherwise appropriately sanction any participant in this case whose conduct on the case pages departs repeatedly or severely from appropriate standards of decorum. Except in truly egregious cases, a warning will first be given with a citation to this notice. (We hope that it will never be necessary to invoke this paragraph.)
• This procedural notice shall be copied at the top of the evidence and workshop pages. Any questions about these procedures may be asked in a designated section of the workshop talkpage.
• After this case is closed, editors will be asked to comment on whether any of the procedures listed above should be made standard practice for all future cases, or for future complex cases.

Evidence presented by BozMo

Too few uninvolved admins are trying to do too much

Someone with a better tool set can check the numbers but I think there have been around 100 cases (?98) discussed on the enforcement pages with at least 5000 diffs worth of discussion in a matter of months. You need to be pretty self-confident as an uninvolved admin to get stuck in without having a reasonable feel for precedent. In practice most cases are dealt with by the same (roughly five) admins discussing them. We need ventilation; about five or ten more people who, like 2/0 originally feel called to get stuck in and some sort of rotation system. If we cannot get uninvolved admins prepared to do this forever then doing one month shifts or similar would help. --BozMo talk 08:04, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

@ZP5. I am not sure that this is the place for you to bring up what is essentially another enforcement case below (an enforcement case which has, pretty much, been discussed to death on the enforcement pages in all the cases you mention although you are clearly unhappy with the conclusions). Rather than presenting all this (arguably off topic) material and encouraging others to respond with all of the context and detail in the various points again, perhaps you could explain how you feel the probation is going, whether it should carry on and what could be improved in it (we recognise of course your feeling it could be improved if fewer people disagreed with your perspective on WMC's editing pattern). --BozMo talk 6:11 pm, Today (UTC−4)

@The Good Locust. (1) presenting the diffs of your own talk page contributions as evidence for the assertions contained therein is an interesting form of evidence (2) You might for context include evidence about the circumstances which led to you being topic banned from CC under the probation terms, in case your readers have missed them. --BozMo talk 10:20, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by ZuluPapa5

William M. Connolley should be topic banned for repeated uncivil disruptions

Where the Request for Enforcements have been unable in whole, ArbCom should review William M. Connolley's newbie biting, overwhelmingly single purpose, antagonistic, and hostile "ownership" behavior in the Climate change articles and remove WMC to restore civility and progress the content with a NPOV. Diffs from William M. Connolley's (WMC) 18 cases "for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, personal attacks, incivility and assumptions of bad faith". Brought by 10 editors and involving many other users time in the Climate change probation from January to June 2010. Opening and closing comments linked to an index. Demonstrates that WMC has continued: edit-waring; interacting uncivilly with other editors; making repeated comments unrelated to bettering the articles and repeatedly discussed other editors, instead of discussing the article; to basically not be a model Wikipedian; after knowing he crossed the line.

Newbie biting, PA and other antagonistic examples

1. Newbie biting confession "being excessively soft on overenthusiastic noobs does not do them any favours in the long run"
2. "spoon feeding for the hard of understanding"
3. "AQFK's assertions of impartiality indeed appear 'laughable'...Could we try to stick to reality, please"
4. "What are you on, old fruit?"
5. "If you don't want to be condescended to, I suggest you stop making quite so many mistakes."
6. "@MN:noob"
7. "repair for the incompetent"
8. "this entire section is stupid"
9. Unproductive jab ("utter rubbish").
10. Adds an insinuation that an editor is a fool to his comment
11. Adds an accusation of bias to his comment
12. "MN is, as usual, defending anything anti-GW, regardless of reality"
13. Attacks editor with "pointless malicious revert"
14. Calls an editor "malicious"
15. Repeats above infraction
16. Edits another editors post to say he does not care
17. Accuses another editor of "Spamming"
18. Same as above "spam"
19. Accuses an editor of being "snarky"
20. Attacks editor with "you should learn to make coherent valuable content edits."
21. edit summary "clueless", directed at Mark Nutley. Text: "Face it, you really don't know what is going on here but are determined to push your POV anyway"
22. Incivility directed at MN: "you should find an arera to edit that you understand"
23. "MN's statement reflects a lack of understanding of the science, and was correctly removed. It is regrettable that he is adding material that he doesn't understand. It cannot be a co-incidence that this suits the POV" #"I note that MN is still pushing his bizarre "this is what all the sources call it" unmarked reverts"
24. "It's good to see you chaps finally coming out into the open and admitting you're a team. Full points for honesty, well done Cla and ATren!"
25. Refers to an editor's contribution "we don't expect miracles"

Edit waring during the sanctions

1. [1]
2. [2]
3. [3]
4. [4]

Example of WMC ownership and uncompromising edits in a single article

In December 2009, before the Climate change probation, admin 2over0 instructed WMC to talk and provide compromises. In the Scientific opinion on climate change article example, I counted 9 instances of WMC negative edit summaries (i.e. "no" and "not" language) and 35 instances in the article talk page. This demonstrates WMC inability to provide for compromise by consistent reverting with "no" an "not" language. The example demonstrate that the editor's narrow point of view and ownership behavior is obstructing article progress. From this behavior analysis, I concluded that WMC is an "indignant reverter" and, at that time, should have been subject to a zero revert restriction.

• The editor's 9 "no" and 'not" reverts to the main article: [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14] (Reverts to other articles excluded.)

• The editor's 35 "no" and "not" talk, without or with little compromise: [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49]

In whole, this example of excessive negativity is cause for concern with WMC's WP:OWN behavior. It is largely uncompromising and often defended with personal attacks [50] and other uncivil behavior, such as introducing original research and synthesis from his blogs [51], during the discussion on the article talk page.

What is most concerning, is WMC attempts to circumvent dispute resolution and have newbie editors banned [52] [53] with personal attacks and socking allegations.

WMC's Conflicts of Interests

WMC's owns the point of view and opinions put forth by a political organization of scientists known as the IPCC. This group has a narrow mission, which WMC aggressively advocates on Wikipedia with uncivil conflict. Owning a POV is sufficiently harmless; however, WMC's activism in the Scientific opinion on climate change article (and others), has antagonistically excluded [54] [55] reliably published views from other legitimate organizations NIPCC, causing harm to the content's NPOV. Editing to represent a single owned POV in the climate change articles is a conflict of interest. Wikipedia's best interests are maintained when many views and opinions, from diverse organizations, are combined into a NPOV.

WMC's owned views and activism has adversely affect biographies of living persons, which was recently determined in Fred Singer (NIPCC contributor) for which he was banned. However, List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming largely created by WMC, is a BLP violation designed to present scientists who oppose WMC's owned POV in a false light. The listing itself has no source support, it was constructed for WMC's activists views and harms BLPs. WMC (and others) select membership based on their owned opinions and synthesis of other scientists views, so as to distort them as being in (battleground mentality) opposition to the IPCC. [56]

WMC holds his activist views above other editors and published sources, to the point of causing other users great pains with uncivil personal attacks. A true Doctor of Philosophy, meaning "teacher in philosophy", is chiefly concerned with educating the newbie over denigrating them with their knowledge, for their owned selfish benefit.

Essentially, WMC would like Wikipedia to serve his vested interests in a POV, rather then him civility serving the Wikipedia community to reach a NPOV.

Editor comments on WMC's civility

• Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2009/Comments/William_M._Connolley
• Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2009/Comments/William_M._Connolley
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/William_M._Connolley
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/William_M._Connolley_2
• Editors WMC incited to misbehave [57]

Drama resulting from Lar blocking WMC

Arbcom should review and affirm Lar's original block to WMC. In addition, it should be noted that the escalations associated with this 1 hr block, are precedent to the elaborations in the RFC and this ArbCom case.

• Lar blocks WMC for 1 hr for "Disruptive Editing" [58] citing this diff [59], and follows up with [60], [61]
• 2over0 quickly unblocks WMC [62] and files for ANI review [63] where Stephan Schulz is implicated.
• 2over0 opens Climate Sanctions RFC claiming "Most of the disruption boils down to often heated or uncivil disagreement ..." [64]
• ArbCom opens "Climate change", combines "Stephan Schulz and Lar" filing from ANI dispute, after disappointment with RFC. [65]

Scibaby sock investigation performance

The preliminary analysis indicates xxx accused sock with xxx true positive finding, xx socks found (but were not Scibaby) and xx editors falsely accused with possible preemptive blocks.

GoRight's Request for Arbitration should be reopened in this case

• GoRight's good faith request, [[66]] where ArbCom placed faith in the Climate change probation to solve disputes. Which resulted in GoRight being banned.

Responses not covered in talk page

@BozMo see [67], your request would approach ArbCom like an RFC. There are other opportunities for collecting comments and attempting to set Wikipedia content or policy. WMC's behavior has been disputed for years in the climate change articles, by many others than me. Time for an arbitration with Wikipidia's principles front and center along side of WMC's disruptive behavior.

Evidence presented by Polargeo

Lar should not act as an uninvolved admin in Climate Change Enforcement but particularly in cases where he has displayed personal animosity to a user

A previous arbcom ruling highlights the problems and sensitivities in the area [68]

Avoiding apparent impropriety

All editors, and especially administrators, should strive to avoid conduct that might appear at first sight to violate policy. Examples include an administrator repeatedly making administrator actions that might reasonably be construed as reinforcing the administrator’s position in a content dispute, even where the administrator actually has no such intention; or an editor repeatedly editing in apparent coordination with other editors in circumstances which might give rise to reasonable but inaccurate suspicions of sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry.

• The most supported viewpoint in the recent RfC/U was Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lar#Outside view by Short Brigade Harvester Boris which clearly states If adherence to the spirit of policy is of any interest at all, then Lar's continued involvement in enforcing the climate change probation is problematic
• The view in the RfC/U that Lar was involved regarding William M. Connolley was not supported however, the most relevent evidence only came to light late on on the RfC/U talkpage and these diffs were never presented on the main page. I give examples of them here and here. I think Lar's animosity towards WMC started with him undoing the close of an MfD [69], before and after undoing this close Lar participated in the discussion and so was not acting as an uninvolved admin. These examples show that in two completely unrelated cases, shortly before Climate Change sanctions began and where Lar was not acting as an admin in either, Lar has shown a clear animosity towards WMC. Therefore Lar now acting as an admin on sanctions enforcement with often the heaviest calls for bans against WMC shows that he is not in line with the arbcom ruling I outlined earlier. Polargeo (talk) 16:45, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Count Iblis

Current situation

Like almost all science related articles, the global warming related pages are edited according to WP:SPOV, despite this not being official policy. This then leads to tensions in which the sceptics seem to engage in bad behavior a lot more than the other editors, because of the following dynamics.

From the perspective of a sceptic, it is not nice to find out that the rules are only used against you. When a rule favors your position, it is not valid "by consensus"; this may invite more arguments based on the rules which then will be seen to be wikilawyering by the other editors, ultimately escalating into Adminstative interventions which tend to target the sceptics. This may lead to a perception that the Administrative processes are biased against the sceptics, which in turn polarizes things even more, even leading to disputes at the Admin level.

How we got where we are today

While the main Global Warming article was always written from the SPOV perspective, there was vigorous opposition to this by sceptical editors until early 2007. There were frequent edit wars, but despite that, the editors succeeded in maintaining the FA status of the article. The crucial thing that made this possible was not Adminstrative involvement, topic bans or anything of that sort (Apart from Scibaby, no one was banned). Instead, it was keeping the politics away from the main article and moving that to the global warming controversy article.

What changed in early 2007 was that the bikkering on the talk page became a lot less after a poll on article subject was held with the discussons indicating a consensus on scientific focus his was not the first poll of this sort and it came after a sceptical editor asked for help here and and here in vain. So, the support for the scientific perspective was quite solid, but by making that more explicit by holding polls, the sceptics could see more clearly that they were fighting a losing battle.

Here is the reason I gave for rejecting inclusion of politics in the article at that time. As is clear from that discussion, you could not do that at that time, because this would inevitably bring in bad science in the article. Today, the political climate surrounding global warming is a bit different and that has allowed the editors to have a paragraph in the article about the politics.

Conclusion

What should be clear from the history is that the right decisions were made in sometimes difficult editing environments. Whether or not someone had engaged in personal attacks in 2007 is not relevant at all to understanding the evolution of the article. What the above history does show is that there is a tension perceived by the sceptics between the Wiki rules and the scientific focus of the article. This leads to tensions today, because the sceptical editors of today are different from those in 2007 who conceded after vigorous discussions.

The only way to address this is by either making the de-facto SPOV official, or having to go through the same vigorous discussions every few years when the group of sceptics changes and start to question the consensus for SPOV. Count Iblis (talk) 01:22, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Cla68

“ ...because I'm increasingly frustrated that an editor with a grand total of 106 main space edits, nearly all of them political POV pushing, keeps distracting and baiting valuable expert editors with thousands of constructive main space edits. I think this aspect needs to be highlighted. If we want to build an encyclopedia, we need to protect our most valuable assets better. And that value is, in the end, the ability to contribute actual content. I believe in WP:SPADE. Establishing a pleasant climate of cooperation between 150 undereducated morons by driving away everybody who has an actually qualified opionon cannot be our primary mission. As for the mu (negative): It's about the only useful answer to the "have you stopped beating your wife" type of questions. ”

- Stephan Schulz (italics and bolding mine).

More to come

I will be away from the computer for a couple of weeks. I should be back around 3 July. I probably won't be able to check Wikipedia, or email, much during that time. I will finish my evidence section, if the case is still in the evidence phase, at that time. Cla68 (talk) 22:59, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Stephan Schulz

Scientific competence

The alleged "Science Cabal" editors share an unusual level of expertise. Very many of them have PhD level qualifications, are or have been published research scientists, and have served as editors or reviewers for scientific journals. Several have made significant peer-reviewed contributions to climate science and related topics. Their largely synoptic view on the climate science articles thus is adequately explained by a common scientific approach and understanding of the scientific process.

A statement on the qualification of several editors has been provided to NYB directly to maintain privacy. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:55, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Massive sock-puppeting

The climate change articles have been the target of an extremely aggressive and persistent sock-puppeting campaign. See

• Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Scibaby
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby/Archive
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby/Archive/2009
• Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Scibaby (2007 and 2008 cases)
• Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Scibaby currently has some 660+ entries
• Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Scibaby has 170+ more entries
• Not that, while Scibaby is the most prolific sockmaster by far, several of the cases in 2010 and 2009 have also found other cases of sock-puppetry that could not be linked to Scibaby. Nearly all of these socks represent so-called "sceptical" positions, sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously.

--Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:35, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Malicious and sophisticated socking

A recent case of socking via open proxies involved a group of accounts suggesting connections to a Wikipedia user and imitating some of his mannerisms. Another sock from the same group brought an SPI case against that user. The evidence is at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/GoRight/Archive. Due to the use of open proxies, there is, so far, no incontrovertible evidence connecting these socks to any user, however, I find the circumstantial evidence presented at the case suggestive. Either way, this is a case of malicious and disruptive WP:POINT. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:35, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Off-Wiki campaigning

There is significant off-wiki campaigning targeting the Wikipedia climate change articles and several Wikipedia users, particularly User: William M. Connolley. These campaigns range from the merely malicious to paranoid and from nuisance to active harassment. It includes explicit recruiting of inexperienced new POV editors (meatuppets). Several Wikipedia editors are involved in these campaigns. Much of this campaigning is based on plain wrong claims. Examples are below.

1. CONNOLLEY WATCH blog: "DOCUMENTING THE EVERY MOVE OF WILLIAM M. CONNOLLEY...William M. Connolley, is a fraudster...Welcome to your nightmare Connolley. Send him a hello on his Wikipedia talk page and let him know he is being watched." - stalking, and invitation to on-wiki harassment.
2. Lawrence Solomon, also User: Lawrence Solomon:
   • Lawrence Solomon: Wikipedia’s climate doctor: "How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles...All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions." Note that the numbers cited apparently came from the, at that time completely open, edit counter. Note that "5428" was the total number of unique pages ever edited by WMC (not climate articles), the "500 articles that disappeared at his hand" were RfA closures and speedy requests, (nearly) all unrelated to climate change, and the "over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who [...] found themselves blocked from making further contributions" are nearly exclusively the subject of 24 hour blocks per then-standard WP:3RR policy, again all unrelated to climate change.
   • These, to be generous, "mistaken" claims have been widely and uncritically echoed in parts of the blogosphere: James Delingpole in the Telegraph blog [70], who also adds "Do you want to know just how ugly? I’ve been saving the worst till last. Here it is: William Connelley’s Wikipedia photograph.", Watts Up With That at [71], and then down to [72] and any number of other attack blogs.
   • Lawrence Solomon: Climategate at Wikipedia: "William Connolley, a Climategate member and Wikipedia’s chief climate change propagandist...Battles like this occurred on numerous fronts, until just after midnight on Dec 22, when Connolley reimposed his version of events and, for good measure, froze the page to prevent others from making changes". This refers to the editing initiated by this edit in the history of Medieval warm period. Note that the description does not only use extremely biased language, it also is factually wrong. William's edit "just after midnight on Dec 22" was a change unrelated to the previous edits described by LS, the article was not "frozen", but semi-protected, not by William, but by me (following IP vandalism), and not "after midnight on Dec 22", but nearly a day before the claimed time.
3. Two particular paranoid ranting have been submitted in private since they contain false and damaging claims about an unrelated Wikipedia editor.
4. Wikipedia Watch, run by User: GoRight and with contributions by User:Thegoodlocust, contains explicit instructions for effective meatpuppery at [73].

More on request. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Scientific consensus on climate change

Climate change is a vigorous research topic, but there is a strong scientific consensus on a number of core positions. These have been endorsed by all major academies of science and a large number of other scientific organisations, and are supported by analyses of the scientific literature and surveys among scientist. See scientific opinion on climate change for a summary. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:54, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by JohnWBarber

In the process of shrinking -- 14:44, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Polargeo violated behavior policies

• A case on the WP:GSCCRE page resulting in sanctions for disruption against him, May 27-30 [74]
• April 29 on WP:GSCCRE, creates a WP:POINTy complaint against himself [75]
• Some of the personal attacks against Lar:
  • April 27 [76]
  • April 29 [77]
  • May 4 (disparaging both Lar and his wife) [78]
  • May 24 [79] Merriam-Webster's definitions of "operator" [80]

• Personal attacks against others:
  • May 2 [81]
  • June 16 [82]

WMC's recent personal attacks

June 15-18 [83][84][85]

Hipocrite's promotion of a WP:BATTLEGROUND atmosphere

Violations of WP:CIV, WP:NPA and other violations and comments contributing to a WP:BATTLEGROUND atmosphere on climate change articles:

• March 16 [86]
• April 30-May 3 at Talk: Judith Curry For the context, which occurred roughly simultaneously in two threads, it's best to simply click on this link [87] and look at the bottom of this "Curry's notability...." section and the "Some refs" section (comments directed to me unless otherwise noted):
  • April 30 -- to Mark nutley:[88][89]
  • May 1-3 -- to me:
    • [90] -- exaggerates my comment in a disparaging way ("So, your argument is we need to use blogs as sources for quotes because it's VERY IMPORTANT RECENT INFORMATION, and for VERY IMPORTANT RECENT INFORMATION, we don't use an encyclopedic tone? No.")
    • [91]) After I asked him to substantiate his charge at 23:33 May 1 [92] there was no response.
    • [93] incivility, including an unjustified accusation of incivility
    • [94]
• May 24 [95] -- WP:BITE, WP:CIV unwelcoming comment directed at a new editor, Samwyyze (section title Hipocrite created: "A new user arrives") This was the response to the first and, as it happened, last edit by Samwyyze.
• May 25 [96] -- disparaging people with a different POV who edit climate change articles
• June 3 [97] -- WP:CIV, WP:TALKNO (misrepresentation) to Lar. (Lar explained [citing Lar's own words] how his meaning was clear)
• June 3 [98] -- to Lar on his talk page ("your side [...] your sockpuppet friends")
• June 10 at Talk:The Gore Effect, also including violations of WP:TALKNO (misrepresentation) and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT (full thread [99] for context):
  • [100]
  • [101] -- caricaturing my argument rather than responding to it; suggesting to User:ActiveBanana that that editor should also not respond to points I made (that neither editor had responded to earlier).

Jehochman and Franamax: WP:NPA, WP:AGF and promoting a WP:BATTLEGROUND atmosphere

User:ChrisO filed a complaint against me at WP:GSCCRE, alleging I filed an AfD to make a WP:POINT. I filed a complaint against ChrisO for filing a frivolous complaint. During discussions for these complaints, Jehochman and Franamax each made derogatory statements about me without stating why they believed I was doing wrong and without responding to my defense from accusations by ChrisO. As was explained to both editors, making derogatory statements about the actions of another editor without providing justification is a personal attack and a demonstration of an assumption of bad faith. Doing so in front of other editors is modeling bad behavior for them, promoting a WP:BATTLEGROUND atmosphere.

For context: This is ChrisO's complaint against me. This is my complaint against ChrisO. Both discussions mostly overlapped in time and essentially were the same one in two different places. I'm putting diffs from both threads in chronological order. "[JB]" means the comment was made in the complaint against me, "[C]" in the other one. Quotes are usually exerpts.

• 02:08 March 8 [102] -- [C] I file the complaint against ChrisO
• 07:01 March 8 [103] -- [C] Jehochman announces his conclusion, providing no justification (repetitions of this will be labeled "Jehochman does it again"): "This stronglt appears like a retaliatory filing. Gaming of this board must be discouraged. This request is therefore rejected, and I will leave it to the next admin to sanction or warn the filer as appropriate."
• 12:38 March 8 [104] -- [C] Jehochman does it again: "The subsequent comments on this thread seal the deal. I was thinking one to three months. How about one month?"
• 14:10 March 8 [105] -- [C] Jehochman does it again: "[...] I think we could justify a one month block for disruptive editing here, not a mere topic ban. [...]"
• 17:12 March 8 [106] -- [C] (diff with corrections) I ask Jehochman to justify his reasoning for thinking I did something wrong in filing this case
• 04:50 March 9 [107] -- [C] Jehochman does it again
• 06:41 March 9 [108] -- [C] Mackan79: "I don't see anything retaliatory here. I saw the AfD on Climate change denial and certainly did not perceive it to be a WP:POINT. One would have to presume that JWB does not believe the article should be deleted, and I think that's extremely unlikely. [...] much of the rest of this strikes me as utterly failing to consider the possibility that an editor was acting in good faith, and was personally attacked, and thus does not believe that he should have been."
• 13:20 March 9 [109] -- [C] Me: "I discussed POV editing less than six months ago with Jehochman both on his talk page [32] and mine. [33] and at ANI [34] and at ArbCom [35], so the idea that I would have any other motivation than wanting to delete a WP:POVFORK-violating article is ridiculous."
• 14:15 March 9 [110] -- [JB] Jehochman does it again
• 14:19 March 9 [111] -- [C] Jehochman does it again
• 20:52 9 March [112] -- [C] Jehochman does it again: "I am closing this as we aren't going to get any more done here than the following: the filing user is on notice not to use this page for retaliation."
• 23:21 March 9 [113] -- [JB] Franamax says he agrees with Jehochman's 14:15 comment that I was "pointy" and retaliating; accusation again without an explanation, on 02:29 March 12 [114]
• 23:40 March 9 [115] -- [JB] Mackan79, addressing Franamax: there's no proof of WP:POINT and anyone with accusations but without proof is violating WP:AGF
• 02:15 March 10 [116] -- I ask Franamax on his talk page to respond to my comments on the GSCCRE page
• 01:54 March 12 [117] -- [JB] ChrisO: "I suggest that the request [against me] be closed without action, but JWB could perhaps be reminded to consider how others may interpret his comments and actions"
• 19:00 March 12 [118] -- [JB] Jehochman does it again, implicitly
• 23:11 March 12 [119] -- [JB] Franamax claims to have evidence, doesn't present it: "the quick focus on JWB's behaviour below [in my complaint against ChrisO] was based on my initial assessment and confirmed by more detailed analysis. I still have the notes from the analysis but I threw away all the links after the thread was closed."
• 21:53 March 13 [120] -- [JB] Mackan79: "With all due respect, how long is this going to carry on? The initiator has proposed above that it should be closed without action. I cannot see how we would still be doing something here. The involved editor does not deserve this; please let's move on."
• 01:26 March 14 [121] -- [JB] Franamax posts a compromise decision suggested by LessHeardvanU: "All editors are warned that the tolerance for WP:BATTLE and general gaming of enforcement requests is approaching zero."
• 01:32 March 14 [122] -- Franamax on my talk page: "I will contact you presently (if you wish) to explain my methodolgy within the request, which I think you found troubling. This may take a while though, as there's a hockey game coming on soon. :)"
• 16:34 March 18 [123] -- I ask Franamax for an explanation. I never received one. That's one long hockey game.

• Long before any of this, Jehochman was well aware that those in authority on Wikipedia owe it to an editor to explain why they want to sanction him. [124]
• Long after Jehochman was calling for the strongest possible sanctions against me, he is calling William M. Connolley's long series of incivilities merely "[s]peaking one's mind" and complaints about them "petty". [125]

KimDabelsteinPetersen violates BLP for a subject he disagrees with, then protects subjects he agrees with

If the subject is a climate-change skeptic, Kim D. Petersen interprets BLP loosely. For AGW-supporting scientists, Kim cites BLP to remove information.

• For skeptic Fred Singer, on December 3, KDP supported use of a blog to call a report of which Singer was the lead author "dishonest" [126] (his assertions about what WP:BLPSPS allows were incorrect). Recently, he defended this position. [127] Compare Kim's defense to what the source he defended said: S. Fred Singer and his merry band of contrarian luminaries [...] served up a similarly dishonest ‘assessment’ [128] Kim's edit violated WP:BLP.
• In a separate article, on Dec. 8 [129] Kim violated WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT when he objected on WP:BLPSPS grounds that Wikipedia could not use a Science magazine reporting blog citing a legal expert on UK FOI law who said CRU scientists "'may [...] find themselves in legal jeopardy if they" destroyed documents that fell under FOIA (quoting the report). [130] [131] Full discussions here [132] and here [133] (The individuals involved in the e-mail controversy were some of the same individuals in the source Kim edit warred to keep on Dec. 3)
• In May (in this section, [134] best seen in context), Kim violated WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT when he objected to use of a reporter's blog at the New York Times to source an inmocuous quote by Fred Singer, the climate skeptic, because it hadn't been proven that the Times fact checked that blog. Kim's objections were repeatedly answered, at length. His peculiar interpretations of WP:BLP were brought up.

Evidence presented by Jayen466

BLP editing by William M. Connolley

I found the editing behaviour by William M. Connolley related to the BLP of Fred Singer, a noted climate sceptic, problematic.

• This edit by WMC (31 December 2009) added a self-published source (link is to the most recent archive.org version, the page is no longer online) to Singer's BLP, in direct contravention of WP:BLPSPS ("Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, or tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject"), a policy which WMC is well aware of.
• This edit (2 November 2009) reinserts a ref to a site WMC is personally involved in, to contradict an opinion voiced by the article subject. None of the articles presented at the cited site actually discuss Singer, so this appears to be a case of using this BLP as a coatrack for conducting a scientific argument (as well as WP:SYN), rather than a reflection of Singer's reception.
• This (15 October 2009) is unsourced WP:OR commentary.
• This edit (15 May 2010) changes the description of Singer's SEPP institute from "a non-profit research institute, where he serves as president" to the dismissive "a website skeptical of global warming, which he runs", a change that is unsourced and is out of step with reliable sources.
• This edit (13 May 2010) as well as this (15 May 2010) as well as this (16 May 2010) diminished the subject, who continues to be described as an atmospheric physicist in the press.
• In the BLPN discussion related to this last point, ten editors (MastCell, Will_Beback, Cla68, Crum375, Bill the Cat 7, FormerIPOnlyEditor, SlimVirgin, Off2riorob, mark nutley, JohnWBarber) advocated (or agreed with) dropping the "retired" label, yet WMC showed himself unable to accept input by uninvolved editors, dismissing the entire noticeboard thread as "forum shopping" (08:38, 20 May 2010 in that discussion).
• Pointy edit. --JN466 11:56, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring at Singer's Science & Environmental Policy Project

1. Talk page discussion
   • [135], [136], [137], [138], [139], [140], [141], [142].
2. Cited source: New York Times, describing the Science and Environmental Policy Project as "a research and advocacy group financed by private contributions."
   • [143], [144], [145], [146], [147], [148], [149]
   • Talk page discussion

Evidence presented by Heyitspeter

The editing environment created by some users pushes NPOV editors out of the arena

I think this statement sums it up wonderfully. A review of the talkpage of that (from all reasonable perspectives) more or less inconsequential article should help you get an idea of the deleterious effect that some editors in this topic area have on the editing climate. I believe that a review of Hipocrite's edits, for example, in this article and elsewhere, reveal a (net) strongly negative effect on this topic area, and that it would be constructive to remove him or her from the area entirely. I do not mean to single out Hipocrite (though that will sound hollow given that I have technically done just that). I have elsewhere suggested that the removal of most of the strong personalities from (either side of) the topic area would have a positive effect, though I believe the evidence presented on this page should demonstrate that the 'pro-consensus' block of editors is consistently home to some of the worst behavior seen in the topic area (perhaps because most clearly skeptical POV editors have been topic banned at this point). A significant portion of the editors in this topic area are extremely hostile and unabashedly interested in pushing a single POV and removing others, which discourages editors interested in maintaining a neutral point of view from editing the articles and ipso facto polarizes the editing community. I believe removal of these editors from the topic area would be appropriate and ameliorative.--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE are misapplied by some editors to exclude content they do not like

Users claiming to represent the 'scientific consensus' have repeatedly and inappropriately attempted to categorize as WP:FRINGE reports in reliable sources that appear to damage the reputations of 'mainstream' climate change scientists in an attempt to disqualify those reports under WP:UNDUE. A simple statement by arbitrators that 'WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE should be followed' is therefore insufficient to resolve the problem of coverage of reliable sources that appear to cast a negative light on mainstream scientists.

An example of this maneuver can be found here. The main article space claimed that allegations of misconduct by researchers at the CRU were made exclusively by global warming skeptics. Attempts to fairly represent numerous other reliable sources (including the Wall Street Journal, the BBC and the the British government) making identical allegations were countered by claims that because these allegations were also made by global warming skeptics they were skeptical allegations and should not be independently represented in the article, for fear of making the skeptical position appear stronger than it is in violation of WP:UNDUE. (I'm not making this up. See quotes below.) The sources here discussed have yet to be included in the lead, though skeptical allegations are covered.

Highlights, including carefree violations of WP:OR:

The notion that the accusations can be disengaged from the denial campaigns is inherently biased. It is to ignore the statements of scientific organizations and of the most prominent qualified scientists. The article is indeed biased. It has been stripped of the opinions of the most reliable sources. Tasty monster (=TS ) 00:40, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The question is where those allegations came from. Clearly they originated with denialist blogs and right-wing think tanks, and were then taken up by sections of the media. I think it's important to note the sequence of events here: the blogs created the initial framing of the story, which the media then reported fairly uncritically (and as it turned out, wrongly). So when we say that the allegations were made by denialists, perhaps we should be saying that they originated with denialists. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:08, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Once again, you seem to by trying to play up relatively minor criticisms and downplay the central part played by "skeptics", presenting "skeptical" claims as though they were mainstream, giving undue weight and support to the "skeptic" claims and unbalancing the lead. Not an improvement. . . dave souza, talk 12:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

(Dave souza continues with the same line later at [e.g.] these diffs [150][151][152])

WP:HEAR violations are consistently committed by some editors to exclude content they do not like and obstruct discussion

Since I don't want to spend all my time working on the arbitration pages I have pursued just a few examples, all stemming from the only page I work with in the climate change topic area. The first two links separately display the use of repeated WP:HEAR violations to justify removal of a POV template from the article despite an outstanding dispute clearly displayed and directed to at the talkpage. You can see this maneuver at the following sections (you'll have to ignore a thread of inconsequential argumentation between AQuestForKnowledge and Viriditas, for which I apologize):

1) User_talk:Heyitspeter#Re:_POV_tag.

For ease of viewing, here (Archive 30 and Archive 31) are links to the (now archived) talk pages that would have been current when Viriditas claimed not to be able to find mention of NPOV concerns (there are nearly 100 hits for the letters "NPOV" between the two pages, which of course does not include hits for "UNDUE").

2) Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#NPOV_tag.2C_again.'

(It might be interesting, or perhaps frustrating, to check out a third example of extraordinarily unhelpful editing by Viriditas as a demonstration of a continuation of a similar style of editing that does not come up in any other topic area I have happened upon: Here Viriditas makes 9 separate comments detailing how he refuses to add a citation that he says is easy to append with a simple reflink. [The required task is eventually carried out by Nsaa, an editor Viriditas would categorize as an opponent.])

And here's a link to an RfE where a different set of WP:HEAR violations were committed.

3) Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation/Requests_for_enforcement/Archive4#Guettarda

It's pretty clear to me (though I've provided links precisely so you can come to your own conclusions) that (1)-(3) and the indent under (2) are examples of decidedly disruptive editing. I'm not sure what to do about it, and am certainly not directly advocating blocks or bans, but I do think it valuable to provide these links as evidence of the fact that the present deleterious editing environment is at least in part the result of the actively negative behavior of certain editors.

Evidence presented by William M. Connolley

Competence is required

WMC: wikipedia needs editors who are actually capable of editing the science-based climate articles [153], [154]. Examples of the "skeptic side" making *any* positive contribution to the science are so rare that I can't think of any, even small ones; making substantive contributions is unknow.

False neutrals

There are very few "true neutrals" in the area of climate change (nor even a clear definition of the term). But there are many who make false claims to neutrality, such as AQFK, whose real opinions occaisionally shine out [155]; [156]

Excess kibitzing

Climate change suffers from too many kibitzers who make no productive contributions. For example ZP5 has made *no* productive contributions to climate change articles: inchoerence such as [157] is more in his line.

MN: BLP violations, misrepresentation of science

MN has persistently misrepresented the state of climate science, often to a BLP-worrying degree. In [158] he asserts that The hockey stick has since been proven to be a fraud. MN's judgement is generally faulty. For example [159] he attempts to get User:Hipocrite/GWCC deleted. In [160] he adds strongly POV controversy to a direct quote from a PNAS paper for "balance", apparently giving equal status to blog comments and published literature. Placed on civility parole: [161] after his promise to be "civil at all times" was negated by a string of edits including [162] [163] [164].

Lar has been incivil

Lar has been incivil [165]

Problematic editors

The climate change area has a number of problematic editors who make effective collaboration or progress difficult or impossible. GoRight was permanently banned [166] for a succession of problems collectively amounting to being a strong net negative. TGL was banned for 6 months [167] for significant soapboxing, use of talkpages as a forum for general discussion, treatment of the probation area as a battleground, incivility, anti-collaborative sarcastic remarks, and tendentious and disruptive editing. Just recently he has made implausible allegations of sockpuppetry swiftly rejected as worthless [168]. MNs understanding of sourcing is so poor that he has been prohibited from introducing new sources [169].

The Bishop Hill (blog) and LHVU's bias

The Bishop Hill (blog) was deemed non-notable and merged into Andrew Montford. Despite continual consensus for this merge, ideological opponents of the merger persisting in objecting. An RFC was started, which served no purpose other than to waste time and inflame tension. During this period, LHVU enforced his own preferred version of the BH(b) page [170] [171].

Fallout from Climatic Research Unit email controversy

A great deal of the recent trouble on the climate change pages has come not from the *science* but from the fall-out of Climatic Research Unit email controversy. Wikipedia repsonded badly to this incident: half-formed opinions and poor news sources were used to build a poor article over the objections of the science-based editors. Subsequent events (most clearly the outcome of serveral investigations) have vindicated those objections, as the current state of the article and more measured mainstream coverage demonstrates [172]. Not everyone has realised this [173].

No-one knows you are a dog until you start barking

Contrary to assertions elsewhere, new editors to the climate change area are not met with hostility - see User:Thegreatdr, below, for example; or User:ScottyBerg. But when an editors first edit is a BLP-violating accusation of fraud [174], the second is a BLP-violating assertion of speculation as fact [175], the third a reversion of the fraud nonsense [176] and the fourth an aggresive complaint [177]: why, even then the editor is met with a polite reference to the policies [178] (all those from MN). But even having been pointed to all this, MN still refuses to read our policies [179] which presumably accounts for his current "sourcing" parole. TGL did not start with a blank slate, having previously been a pusher of the "Barack Obama birthplace" conspiracy [180] (and getting blocked for disruption [181]). TGL's first edit near Cl Ch was to the UHI page [182] where he failed to understand the subject. Despite his editing history he was met with politeness [183] which he returned with incivility [184] which rapidly transition into accusations of collusion [185]. TGL's failure to understand the subject continue [186] and he then veers off into deliberate incivility [187].

Misc stuff

Worth a quick browse if you have time.

• Who got it right and who wrong at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Climate_change_exaggeration?
• Talk:William_Connolley#Redux: I [Jimbo Wales] recommend that Weakopedia be blocked if he does this again... this is just too ridiculous to permit to continue
• Incivility and battleground mentality from JWB [188] William M. Connolley (talk) 22:02, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

William M. Connolley (talk)

Evidence presented by Thegreatdr

@Heyitspeter: Just as a side note, I thought of making some edits to the Global Warming article back in November 2006. While I was treated with respect, I did notice the editing history of that article back then was a revert first/coordinate on edits later environment, which was new in my experience in Wikipedia at that time. It defintely doesn't fit the be bold comment concerning editing which greeted me when I joined wikipedia in January 2006. It doesn't appear to have changed much since then, and how the climate change (CC) articles are edited remains uniquely different within my wikipedia experience from how the tropical cyclone and meteorology projects function. Back then, blogs were considered reliable sources within the CC articles, but popular science magazines were not, which surprised me. They're pretty much on equally weak footing per wikipedia standards. Every so often, I still see editors squabbling over some details, trying to use blogs as proof that someone's wrong about some nuance of global warming. Last I checked, they're still not reliable, original sources. I have tried to stay away from editing the global warming set of articles since then, though I did have some luck upgrading the Urban heat island article to GA since then, and because of the 2006 experience, I did learn how to work better with people from that project. Thegreatdr (talk) 05:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by WavePart

People are being blocked as sock puppets to enforce article bias

It seems that there is a lot of sock puppet witch-hunting going on and indefinitely blocking of people as suspected sock puppets without any shred of evidence. In my case, without warning I logged on and saw that I was set on an indefinite block with the stated reason, "Abusing multiple accounts: fails the WP:DUCK test". This was quite surprising to me, since obviously I am not a sock puppet.

It seems my example started (without warning) with this edit by Hipocrite, followed 46 minutes later by this edit where I was again declared an "obvious" sock, given a permanent ban by The Wordsmith, and presumed without any evidence to be someone named Scibaby. Many ridiculous failures of logic then occurred on my talk page, where I was presumed guilty without a shred of evidence ever given, except repeated declarations that I was "obviously" a sock puppet. It was only on the third day that a rational admin finally removed the block declaring it "based more on suspicion than evidence".

I was also added to here as a sock puppet, which I was of course not. There appears to be a discussion here about the failures of "Duck" evidence. In that discussion, a user named User:Weakopedia challenged Hipocrite's standards for reporting "sock puppets", so Hipocrite promptly reported Weakopedia as a scibaby sock puppet, which received some criticism as a dubious action. It seems Hipocrite has indicated he supports policy changes to actively block editors with a POV contrary to his, and has stated that "all new editors that are brand newish and show single-purposed difficultness should be blocked ... that's the level of draconian I support".

Here is an example of the standards of evidence being used here by admins to support these blocks when users challenge them, such as "blatant", "obvious", and "compelling". Also, things like knowing how to use wikipedia tags, or knowing wikipedia policies, are being used as grounds for blocking. It is my understanding that wikipedia policies such as Clean Start and Privacy provide plenty of legitimate pathways for users with prior wikipedia experience to have new accounts, and thus mere familiarity with wikipedia cannot be grounds for blocking.

I mostly hope for the arbitration committee to issue a ruling about minimal standards of evidence before a sock puppet block is issued. It is my understanding that to even be a sock puppet, you essentially need to be using a new account to evade a block, ban, or injunction, or you need to be using multiple accounts at once to deceptively sway a debate. Yet clearly new users are being blocked indefinitely (and in a biased manner) without evidence being shown that EITHER of those two things have been done, and that really needs to stop.

I also hope that the arbitration committee can issue an injunction specifically against Hipocrite reporting any more "sock puppets", given his apparent abuse of this process for the purpose of winning arguments and enforcing bias.

WavePart (talk) 06:43, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Guettarda

Coverage of climate change in the media gives undue weight to fringe position

Through content analysis of US prestige press—meaning the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal—this paper focuses on the norm of balanced reporting, and shows that the prestige press’s adherence to balance actually leads to biased coverage of both anthropogenic contributions to global warming and resultant action.

Boykoff, M. and J. Boykoff, 2004. Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the U.S. Prestige Press, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 125-136.[189] Note, this is an influential paper that has been cited 69 times according the ISI Web of Knowledge.

When mass media report on this particular issue, research has found that attention has been paid particularly to more extreme viewpoints rather than those in convergent agreement...It was found that minority views—in this case alarmist and denialist discourses—earned much more amplified attention in media reports (pp. 442–443)

Boykoff., M., 2009. We Speak for the Trees: Media Reporting on the Environment, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Vol. 34, pp. 431–57.[190] Annual Reviews are a family of journals that publish prestigious, invited review articles.

Contrary to news presentations, "skeptics" represent a tiny minority among climate scientists

A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to agreeing researchers, and the level of agreement among top climate experts has not been conducted and would inform future ACC [anthropogenic climate change] discussions. Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.

William R. L. Anderegg, James W. Prall, Jacob Harold, and Stephen H. Schneider, 2010. Expert credibility in climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "Early edition". doi:10.1073/pnas.1003187107

"Skeptics" are also a small minority among the general public, even in the US

While only approximately 7% of the U.S. adult population (or 12 million people) according to this survey, naysayers are politically active, are significantly more likely to vote, have strong representation in national government, and have powerful allies in the private sector.

Alarmists represent approximately 11% of the American public. It is also important to note, however, that all other respondents had climate change risk perception levels much closer to alarmists than naysayers

Leiserowitz, Anthony A. 2005. American Risk Perceptions: Is Climate Change Dangerous?[191] Risk Analysis, Vol. 25, No. 6, 2005. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00690.x

Note that "alarmists" hold a view of global warming that is considerably more dire than the predictions of the scientific mainstream.

Evidence presented by MuZemike

Private evidence

I have emailed the Committee some private evidence in which, for potential outing reasons, I will not mention here as it may be related to this case. –MuZemike 18:47, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence provided by Collect

I include all my prior comments by reference, and also include [192] as being the current version of material presented in the RFC/U on Lar. [193] is, in fact, even more striking.

In another place, I was disparaged for believing in the value of statistical analysis <g> And that the reversion of "Scibaby" is a protected class - even when a substantial number have been "proven innocent." I have now found hundreds of reverts -- many of which are of those officially shown not to be Scibaby. I therefore iterate that having multiple editors co-ordinate reverts using the handy excuse of "of course it must be Scibaby because it does not agree with us" becomes a Catch-22 for anyone to disprove. Collect (talk) 19:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

At this point, I ask that ArbComm note the use of sideways disparaging comments from any editor regarding any other editor. My "intersections" with any of the others involved here are minimal. Collect (talk) 20:06, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Indirect material at [194] representing the absolute maximum overlap on User Talk pages by the committee -- where a large overlap would certainly be expected for sure. Number of 6/6 overlaps? 27. Many of which represent communication with people about cases, and with former arbitrators etc. And where a definite common interest for user talk pages would be expected. It is fair, indeed, to say that arbitrators should have such a degree of overlap. Collect (talk) 17:30, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Editors involved in Global Warming as their primary interest appear to be apt to act in what appears to be a co-ordinated manner

Not only is a small group apparently extraordinarily apt to edit on the same user talk pages in far beyond random chance numbers but also appears to act in reverts in what appears to be a non-random minuet in GW.

I decided to only look at the immediate past week in order not to show any biases on my part.

Examining only 3 articles out of many which I could list, I found

[195] Hipocrite 24 June [196] Squiddy 24 June [197] Hipocrite 24 June [198] Connolley 24 June [199] Hippocrite 24 June [200] Connolley 24 June [201] Atmoz 23 June [202] Connolley 23 June

All on one article in a very short period of time for one basic edit.

[203] Squiddy 24 June [204] Connolley 23 June [205] Wikispan 23 June [206] Connolley 23 June

All on one article for one basic edit

[207] Prolog 24 June [208] AgnosticPreachersKid 24 June [209] same 24 June [210] Connolley 22 June [211] Souza 21 June [212] Schulz 21 June [213] ChrisO 21 June [214] Atmoz 19 June [215] Connolley 19 June

Which suggests an extraordinary amount of co-incidental opinions and actions among a relatively small group of editors.

With regard to the valuing of the co-incidence level of the "wikistalk" results, I ran 30 editors with 30K+ edits who are currently active through a rough bubble sort, and found no group of six with anything near the overlap on user talk pages. I ran them twelve at a time, removing, one by one, anyone with esentially no UT overlap with the other 11. I invite any one else to extend that work. Collect (talk) 15:36, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

It is claimed that Scibaby is the reason why reverts get co-ordinated -- I do not find that a credible excuse, especially since a non-trivial number of editors aserted to be Scibaby "per the usual" have been shown not to be Scibaby. And some have been blocked "per the usual" without any backing by any checkuser. And, lastly, the range blocks are broad enough to block non-Scibaby editors. Collect (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC) It is claimed that this only affected "several" editors. Since last August, the "several" is now over fifty who were not Scibaby (and not including ones labelled "clearly Scibaby" who did not get a full checkuser). For some odd reason, I consider fifty to be a "significant number" of wrongly accused editors. Collect (talk) 11:20, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Yet more evidence of uncivil editing, battleground mentality, and CANVASSing

Why should I seek compromise - honestly - when every inch given is a mile taken?... Instead, every single step taken to try to appease them is met with a "great, now I can ask for more."

should not list every argument that some Oxfordian, or Climate Change denier, or believer that aliens built the pyramids can come up with

[216] Is nobody going to aid me in resisting the scibabies and deniers? Your comments at the RfCs on this Talk page would be gratefully accepted. Thanks! showing CANVASSing as well

[217] What, who thought that nonsense was gong to be anything more than a slush of empty public posturing, with a smattering of well-intentioned but naive participants? More Kool Aid is needed.

Hi, sorry to bother you, but Ian Plimer is becoming a battleground once again. Please protect it for a month or so. Thanks. Note the "again" here - from the same person CANVASSing above, who later turned out (shocking news) to be a sock.

same person in same archive Concerning the article Climate change denial, Mackan79 (talk · contribs · logs · block log) has opened an enforcement case against me at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement. As someone involved with the page, I thought you should be informed.

The global warming deniers are in full swing at the article, and another admin decided it was appropriate to protect.

I daresay the existence of an uncivil battleground mentality as well as CANVASS impropriety is shown in this small handful of diffs presented, as well as in the multitude presented by others. Collect (talk) 12:22, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by 2over0

RfC/Climate change

The request for comment on continued community support for the sanctions in this topic area has expired. I initiated the request, as required by the discussion establishing the probation, and offered an opinion so I will not attempt to summarize the RfC. I do feel, though, that it has some useful ideas and provides a decent overview of some of the problems that have lead to this case. - 2/0 (cont.) 05:20, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by LessHeard vanU

Preamble

I did consider that I might not evidence any of my concerns regarding the editing of AGW/CC related articles, since in my role as uninvolved admin I did not participate in the editing of any articles and my involvement regarding issues was therefore second hand; I was not exposed to the editing environment and could not ascertain that the requests I was involved in represented the norm in interactions of editors with opposing views. However, this ArbCom case has provided sufficient incidences of (IMO) non optimum attitude and viewpoint that I feel I should detail them - as well as an incident in which I was involved in outside of the Probation enforcement request page. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Curious claims in respect of both consensus and "new editor requirements " at Bishop Hill (blog) article

I was asked as an uninvolved admin to look at the matter of a contested source at the Bishop Hill (blog) article - now merged into the Andrew Montford article. Since it was my opinion that there was a slow edit war, I protected the article in an attempt to draw the contributors back onto the article talkpage. Upon a further request, and noting discussion had resumed as intended, I lifted the protection, whereupon there was a short edit/move war after which I sanctioned the involved editors. Given the circumstances, I placed the article on my watchlist. I subsequently became involved in issues arising on a RfC upon merging the article with that of its writer, of which more later. Soon after the RfC commenced the article was again redirected, reverted, and redirected again, after which I reverted as edit warring and then protected again. (Some comment was raised, both within AGW/CC Probation space and also ANI - where I noted my actions - that I should not have both reverted the last instance of edit warring and protected the article against further warring; which reasoning I disagree with and would be happy to have reviewed again in this ArbCom case). It should be noted that both times the article was redirected the editors concerned noted "per talk" and "...consensus", although as noted the RfC on the merger had commenced only two days previously and had been started because there was resistance to there being a merge or delete of the article (a recent AfD has been closed as inconclusive, defaulting to keep). I submit that editors, especially the two who performed the redirects, who voiced support for the merging of the articles either momentarily misunderstood WP:Consensus or were disinclined to provide any weight to the arguments of those opposing the merge per WP:IDON'TLIKEIT.
The RfC mentioned above was filed by SlimVirgin (talk · contribs), an experienced content contributor who had started editing the article around early May. While familiar with both Wikipedia practice and - I don't think this will shock too many readers - editing in controversial areas of the encyclopedia her contributions were both swiftly removed and her motives questioned, to such an extent that I felt I had to comment more than once, drawing complaining editors attention to the point that SlimVirgin was acting in accordance to established WP practice. SlimVirgin's raising of an RfC, given that her choice in contributing to the article had drawn criticism previously for not having been made after careful review of the editing and talkpage histories, was condemned by some parties as a means of delaying a merger proposal that had already attracted counter arguments. I submit the above, and indeed the entire merger discussion (and especially the Threaded discussion section), and the talkpage in its entirety, as evidence of the lack of application of Wikipedia policy, practice, and common courtesy on the part of certain editors, most of whom edit toward the scientific consensus regarding AGW, when presented with arguments for the inclusion or retention of material that is inclined toward a CC skeptical viewpoint.

LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Nigelj, ScienceApologist, Count Iblis and Guettarda oppose acknowledgement of non Scientific consensus pov within articles, contrary to WP:NPOV

These examples are from the pages within this case;

Nigelj (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): [218], [219]
ScienceApologist (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) [220]
Count Iblis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) [221]
Guettarda (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)[222]

The above positions promoted both indicate a viewpoint that skeptic or denialist viewpoints are not tolerated within general CC/AGW article space, and are not conversant with the principle of WP:NPOV - and was one of the positions that I understand that the CC Probation was set up to counter. I find it unbalanced that such extreme positions have been permitted to remain largely unchallenged within the AGW article space, as extremist advocacy from the skeptic and denialist viewpoint has been successfully countered. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:33, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Avenues for resolution of content disputes are disrupted by interested parties

Following a notice to my talkpage (and the extension for providing evidence) I would note that there appears to be the situation that the processes for dispute resolution are being deprecated by the involved parties arguing for "their" interpretation of policy, and disinclining uninvolved editors from commenting. The page is Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Are the following blogs reliable sources. (A thank you to Stephan Schultz for making this a permanent link) I offer this as evidence that potential avenues of dispute resolution are being disrupted by the WP:Battle mentality of some parties, thus diminishing the potential for good faith resolution of issues. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:24, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Mark Nutley

The use of the term ClimateGate

The use of the term Climategate has been forced out of wikipedia by a small group of editors, if one thing comes from this case it should be a ruling that the use of the term is allowable within article content per wp:v. It is policy to use a term which the sources use yet the following diff`s will show a wilful disregard for policy.

• User:William_M._Connolley [223] removes Climategate even though the source uses the term. [224] Reverts out climategate again. [225] and again. [226] and again

User:ChrisO [227] removes the term, even though it is the name of the book which the article is about. And removes it again from another article, [228]

This has happened in plenty of articles and i feel a ruling here is necessary to stop this constant removal of the term. Especially as this is what all the sources use [229]

This got to the stage were i did an RFC about the issue [230] I believe there was a consensus there to allow it`s use yet the same editors continue to push their POV against policy to remove the term from wikipedia mark nutley (talk) 13:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Response to hipocrites comments on climategate

Below User:Hipocrite has presented this diff [231] stating Just now, marknutley has started inserting the word "climategate" without discussion in articles that were relatively stable. This kind of tension-elevating activity is par for the course This is entirely incorrect. That article section had been called climategate since it was moved into mainspace. It is Chris0 who has created article instability by changing a long standing section header, i would assume due to what i have written above.

Further response to hipocrites latest mistake [232] below, Section header Climategate dated one day after article creation [233] changed by User:Thepisky on 25 April 2010 [234] changed back by me last week after consensus was gained per the RFC [235]. I even waited a while to see if any further objections were going to be raised. It was then of course reverted out by Chris0 mark nutley (talk) 14:49, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

WMC`s abuse of identifiable living people

[236] Calls US senator John Barrasso a right wing nut in an edit comment (more to come) mark nutley (talk) 10:42, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Bishop Hill (Blog)

As the creator of this article and having seen it mention by both LHVU and WMC i fell the entire story should be told. This is the article as it was when moved to mainspace [237] After bickering on the talk page i did an afd [238] so we could see what the community thought, is it notable or not. During the AFD User:ChrisO more or less blanked the article [239] any editor trying to reinsert the content was reverted.[240] I revert the removal first, [241] Chris0 reverts me. User:Nsaa reverts content back in, [242] chris0 reverts it back our again, this is pure edit warring to remove content from an article he has voted to get deleted. In WMC`s evidence section he accuses LHVU of enforceing a preferred version, This is incorrect, how can an editor have a preferred version of an article they have never edited? Such bad faith accusations are all to common from these editors and leads to bad feeling all round mark nutley (talk) 13:18, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Late Evidence

WMC uses his own blog to make statements about an identifiable living person [243]

WMC reverts his own blog into an article with the edit summary, Nope; I'm as reliable as Pielke

WMc uses his site as a source [244]

WMC`s use his blog as a source [245]

Inserts a blog into a BLP [246]

[247] Uses a blog in a BLP

mark nutley (talk) 13:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Hipocrite

Global warming

The articles on "global warming" are neutral, presenting all points of view in equal amount to their weight.

At the last evaluation, there were zero peer reviewed studies that contradict the major conclusions about global warming - that it is real, and caused, in large part, by anthropogenic CO2.[248] A recent United States National Academy of Sciences study shows that "97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers." [249] Denialism, therefore, is nothing more than politics - they merit no mention as science, as there are no published sources on the science of denialism - it compares to Holocaust Revisionism in level of acceptance.

The main article in the space - Global Warming includes entire sections about the manufactured controversy, and links to sub articles that detail the controversy, providing more than due weight to the minority view that all of modern climate science is wrong. [250]

Compare Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are peer reviewed studies and, in fact, entire academic works by well regarded (but a minority of) scholars that claim that bombing was not a military action in WWII, but rather the opening shot of the Cold War, or a propaganda requirement placed on the army by the populace. This is not detailed in the article, which hardly even mentions this interpretation, routing every single contrary fact into the sub article. The section in the main article is two paragraphs, and fails to note any peer reviewed works which disagree with the historical consensus that the bomb was dropped to minimize causalities in a hypothetical US invasion of the home islands. articlepeer reviewed dispute, and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Alperovitz, Gar, Vintage, 1996. Others on request. In fact, Global Warming is far more friendly to minority opinions than any other controversial article surveyed, except for those taken over in-full by said minority opinions.

Adminstrative conduct

Despite this, administrators who are skeptical or ignorant of the status of Global Warming have inserted themselves into the process, purporting to be "uninvolved." (lar diffs LHVU diffs) They are not uninvolved - their statements and protestations about being uninvolved are belied by their other statements about the content - they have determined preferred content and have manipulated results to ensure their favored version(lar diffs, LHVU diffs). This pernicious use of administrative powers and authority to win content disputes is directly contrary to our expectations of administrative conduct.

Further, Lar was in conflict with WMC before Lar's first action ever in relation to Global warming (diff). Antagonizing an editor, especially on the eve of what might have been a difficult electoral loss is not acceptable. Later following that editor with the goal of exiling him from a topic area he has provided value to is even more problematic. (lar diffs)

BLP concerns

I am unhappy with WMC's edits to articles about deniers . I am equally unhappy about deniers edits to articles about scientists. I am most unhappy with people who pretend to care about BLP and kvetch about only one of the two.

Marknutley

I include only the first violation of BLP in each article - There are others, as recently as June 21, where marknutley returns to the first scientist he attacked and adds a link to a fringe attack book as a see-also.

• Adds totally non-npov accusation of fraud to bio of scientist [251] This accusation of fraud continued over multiple reverts and other attempts to accuse a living person of fraud.
• Adds totally non-npov accusation of conflict of interest to a politician [252] - "an obvious conflict of interest."
• Adds poorly source accusation of having leaked information to the biography of a scientist[253]
• In a branching out, returns poorly source fringy criticism about a US political candidate [254]

Disruptive behavior by various individuals

Most of the users who have little or no experience in other areas of the encyclopedia are disruptive - they have demonstrated no interest in providing encyclopedic coverage, opting instead to attempt to push their personal fringe beliefs, providing undue weight to unreliable sources, wikilawyering policies to say what they hope they say, or alternatively, just making things up.

Some examples:

• [255] - ZuluPapa5 writes in this very arbitration "least one reliable source has presented a consensus view on the science, which would could threaten the IPCC's monopoly view" - False. When repeatedly asked to provide this source, he stalls.
• [256] - Marknutly makes multiple things up. He attributes the quote "alarmist" to the wrong person. He uses a document from 2007 to document something that happened in 2009. He describes a position paper by an individual as representing the position of an entire national government. He invented that the position paper was "commissioned" by the Indian government.
• [257]. Cla68, normally a reasonable editor, fabricates the location of Al Gore. Even after this discussion, Cla68 again fabricated the location of Al Gore ([258], [259]).
• [260] Cla68 supports the addition of information sourced to a deleted blog comment, writing that the information sourced to said blog comment is "reliably sourced, neutrally written, and succinct." In the same argument, it is called "smoke & mirrors, and/or intimidation" to insist that our content fairly represent sources and not engage in plagiarism. Even later, Cla68 states that "Curry's blog post is directly referenced in the NY Times article." This is fabricated - Cla68 later admits that he "got the blog wrong." In response to this massive abuse of blog-sourced nonsense, Lar later wrote [261] - "The statements by Ms. Curry are impeccably sourced." When repeatedly challenged about this, Lar said that he didn't mean that the statements by Dr. Curry are impeccably sourced, but rather some of that removed content was poorly sourced, and that when he said "The statements by Ms. Curry are impeccably sourced," he actually meant that "The statements by Ms. Curry in the New York Times are impeccably sourced. He says this with a straight face while asserting attempts to "Spin Control," by others. In that same comment he stated that he "started by looking carefully at the article beforehand, and walking the diffs and checking the refs." In so doing, he did not, apparently, find it relevant to note the deleted blog comment being used as a source about a living person.([262])
• In [263], JohnWBarber asks me to read WP:BLPSPS, as a justification for including self-published sources for material about a living person. When I point out that BLPSPS says exactly the opposite, JohnWBarber says that we don't need to follow BLPSPS because it's just a guideline.
• In [264], A Quest for Knowledge includes information sourced to a blog, arguing that blogs can be used as reliable sources for opinions of the blog owner. Would he believe the same thing if people were to put blog-sourced opinions in articles about 9-11 conspiracy theories? Of course not. (ref)
• Just now, marknutley has started inserting the word "climategate" without discussion in articles that were relatively stable. This kind of tension-elevating activity is par for the course. [265]. Regarding this, Mark stated "That article section had been called climategate since it was moved into mainspace." This is not accurate. Per [266], mark changed it, without discussion, just a week ago for the first time. The article was made in mainspace. This kind of inaccuracy is also par for the course - if it's incompetence or dishonestly, it's disruptive.
• Heyitspeter has spent the better part of two months attempting to insert one sentence into the lede of Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy - see Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy/Archive_33#Lede_still_violates_WP:NPOV, ongoing in current Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy. His specific sentence is the uncited non-fact that the emails were reported by the media to withold scientific data and include all kinds of other purported malfeasance. In the light of [267], one wonders why the lede would include retracted allegations of malfeasance, rather than the retraction. Heyitspeter's suggestions have been routinely shut down - however, as recently as June 28, he has pledged to edit-war back in an NPOV tag, all without presenting any real dispute over the content.

Pile-on disruption of noticeboards

Noticeboards are supposed to be areas where uninvolved users can assist in working things out. In this area, however, editors disrupt the functioning of said noticeboards by not allowing independent comment, drowning it out by showing up to push their partisan side (as opposed to their policy interpretation - the policy interpretation is always fluid enough that things they like are ok, things they don't like are banned). (diffs)

Specific responses to factual inacuricies

TheGoodLocust states that "Editors that have been driven off of wikipedia due to this group, off the top of my head, include UniteAnode (Scott), Jennavecia (Lara), Ottava Rima and Rootology."

• Unitanode (talk · contribs) left over Prod tagging and a dispute with Durova, who is not a party to this, per [268].
• Jennavecia (talk · contribs) is still active.
• Ottava Rima (talk · contribs) was banned by ArbCom in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Ottava_Rima_restrictions#Ottava_Rima_banned, a case with no party overlap.
• Rootology (talk · contribs) quit after the fracas over the illfated "Advisory Council on Project Development," which had little overlap with the parties here.

One wonders where TheGoodLocust, who had only interacted with Unitanode, got this list of names from - it certainly couldn't have been "off the top of [his] head."

Evidence presented by TheGoodLocust

Reading guide

BLP Violations

After being topic banned from the Fred Singer page (e.g. trying to make it look like he believes in martians), WMC implies, on his talk page that Singer is committing tax fraud (notice how incredibly incorrect his facts are too) and also links to a document with his phone number and address [269]] - this sort of retaliatory behavior is common.

WMC inserting his friend's blog [270], that same friend reinserting it [271], and WMC defending that behavior [272] (minor example, but he inserts his friend's blogs quite often).

Reverts to keep in his incredible BLP and privacy [273]

Final form of the discussion links to a diff of the previous discussion and WMC's attack blog (something he often does), where he now implies that Singer is insane [274]

Outsider SlimVirgin quickly gets to the heart of the matter [275] and [276]

"Retired" conversation (fairly short) [277]

Boris complains that WMC and confirmed sockmaster Ratel were blocked by ArnorldReinhold(agr). Who blocked them for edit warring to insert a possible BLP violation sourced to this blog, which Boris describes as "well-sourced" at the ANI. [278] The usual, including Bozmo and Mastcell, show up to defend WMC and Ratel. Note: Ratel had previously been "indefinitely" blocked by Gwen Gale due to this statement.

Wikilawyering/Rule violations to promote agenda

Canvasses for admin support to avoid sanctions [279]

"Hipocrite" canvassing off-wiki [280]

WMC attempts to make a deal with admin Polargeo, saying he will continue his edit war, and revert to their prefered version if Polargeo will unblock him when Less blocks him for edit warring. Noticable lack of 2over0 and Bozmo activity. [281]

Stephan explains that SlimVirgin will oppose him just because of "rules." Demonstrates their mindset about rules. [282]

The "usual" show up to defend WMC's editing with a clear COI (Solomon has wrote articles critical of WMC)[283]

"Soapboxing" not that I really care, but admins like 2over0 ban others for "soapboxing" with the opposite view [284]

Good example of how the Scibaby menace is used to harass the undesirables [285]

Admin directly named in complaint against me pops in to decide my fate - wasn't even in climate change, but shows how incredibly lax COI/involvement stanards are[286]

<samples of Schulz, WMC, Bozmo and Hipocrite commenting in "uninvolved admin" sections>

There is a negative culture in the topic area

Respect/Civility/Baiting

"we have people here who merit no respect when attempting to discuss the science of GW."[287]

"Respect" is a problem. Taken literally, your "Progress on articles can only happen with mutual respect..." means that the people who can't be respected (becasue they attempt to edit past their level of knowledge) need to leave those articles they can't cope with [288]

NigelJ also articulates similar beliefs that certain editors shouldn't be allowed to edit and justifies (read what he is responding to for context) the incivility demonstrated by the cc editors [289] The sentiment is further supported Schulz and WMC [290]

"Why play nice?" -Bozmo[291]

After Lar told WMC not to call him an "old fruit" (part of various harassment tactics - see admin baiting section for more examples), Bozmo, in solidarity with WMC, creates the old fruit template, and WMC continues to refer to Lar in that manner in a manner he thinks he can get away with (he did of course) - note edit summary and content of his post for context. WMC also takes the time to slander me for "ethnic slurs" for this diff, which was intended as a joke (I'd also refactored Schulz's initials when asked). Also, following this conversation might help make a little more sense of it. Additionally, Bozmo's statement about going "gun's drawn" and finding that Guettarda was not calling Lar a climate skeptic refers to this post - Bozmo seems to make interesting interpretations of things when defending some people - and the only "Michigander" WMC could've been refering to was Lar.

Schulz and WMC amusingly taking the time to mock my spelling[292]

"Interested in reality?" (edit summary) and "If you're not interested in incivility in general, but only in a grossly one-sided version, please declare your biases now and I'll stop harping on about it. But it would be better if you could drop your hypocrisy." [293]

"Can you pretend to be balanced?" [294]

Describes another's edits as "pointless and malicious" [295] and confirms his meaning to Bozmo.

"Why are you making things up" "Do you feel your credibility is too high?" [296]

"No, we shouldn't use yet another piece of journo tripe that just happens to fit with your POV" [297]

"Whitewashing starting?" [298]

Describes me as a "blind partisan" after I demonstrate, upon request, that such a label is not accurate [299]

Suggestions of "reading trouble" - something he also does to Less [300]

Civility parole is a "victory for the yahoos" [301]

"Oh dear. You really have firmly joined the waste-of-space brigade." (notice sensitivity to suggestions of off-wiki coordination between him and KDP) [302]

Obstructionism

[303]

Paranoia

[304]

Delusion

[305]

Mocking/Baiting Admins involved in enforcement

Lar

[306]

LessVanHeard

[307]

Wordsmith

[308]

Demonstration of Biased Administrators

2over0

[309]

Bozmo

[310]

MastCell

[311]

Polargeo

[312]

Vsmith

[313]

Misc.

[314]

Evidence presented by Sphilbrick

I view this case as nominally about Climate Change, but, in substance, about the Wikipedia dispute resolution process. The process works fine in many cases, but breaks down in highly contentious cases. It is inevitable that highly contentious disagreement about content will continue, whatever decisions ArbCom may reach in this present case. My hope is that outside observers of a revised process will agree that the views of all good faith contributors are dealt with respectfully, and the resulting articles reflect a neutral point of view. While it may not be within the remit of ArbCom to spell out the details of a revised policy, my hope is that a decision will re-emphasize a commitment that articles need to be neutral, and editors need to comment on content, not on each other, while suggesting procedures (such as rotating overview sysops, and broader discretion to apply short blocks of in-civil commentary).

Present processes are inadequate

The Dispute resolution process has evolved over the years. However, the provisions were not viewed as sufficient to deal with the disputes arising from climate change articles. As a result of a community discussion at AN a special venue was created: Climate change probation, partially, but expressly with the hope that "we could solve this dispute ourselves". The existence of this Arbitration is proof that even this special approach was not sufficient.

To be fair, the alternative mechanism has addressed a substantial number of issues. User:Ryan Postlethwaite deserves commendation for an excellent attempt at creating a dispute resolution alternative. However, while many disputes have been resolved. the tone of the discussion is still quite acrimonious. My concern is not the vigorous content disputes, which can and should be encouraged, but sniping and accusations against editors which should be easier to halt. We need to avoid the possibility of a Gresham's law driving out GF contributors in favor of extremists.

Contributors above have provided many examples which I won't repeat. However, I will add a few examples of word choices which should not, in general, be directed at editors.

Example of use of pejorative term "denier" or "denialist":

• Perhaps the preferred usage from now on is climate change denier...

• Wikipedia treats the beliefs of creationists and global warming deniers...

Example of use of pejorative term "septic":

• Is there any other "recognizable" use for the term septic?

Example of use of pejorative term "warmist":

• ...I suspect all of the global warmists blockers...

While none of these qualify as "fighting words" none are consistent with a collegial editing environment.

Evidence presented by A Quest for Knowledge

WMC's incivility, failure to assume good faith and promotion of battleground atmosphere

• "Poor CoM has done his pointless malicious revert without realising that its the wrong article. Ah well, he'll get there in the end"
• "You snarking above seems all-too-typical of your style"
• "spoon feeding for the hard of understanding"
• "AQFK's assertions of impartiality indeed appear 'laughable'...Could we try to stick to reality, please"
• "If you don't want to be condescended to, I suggest you stop making quite so many mistakes."
• "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"
• "repair for the incompetent"
• "Your edits speak for you; take a look at your recent contribs"
• "MN is, as usual, defending anything anti-GW, regardless of reality"
• "I think you should learn to make coherent valuable content edits. Failing that, and all the evidence up to now is that you do indeed fail that, this isn't the place for prattle: take it elsewhere"
• "Face it, you really don't know what is going on here but are determined to push your POV anyway"
• "you should find an arera to edit that you understand"
• "It is regrettable that he is adding material that he doesn't understand. It cannot be a co-incidence that this suits the POV of his "side""
• "It's good to see you chaps finally coming out into the open and admitting you're a team. Full points for honesty, well done Cla and ATren!"
• "MN: please explain why you have tagged this (with the wrong tag too, but we don't expect miracles)"
• "You have no interest in her science"
• "Sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la" was never going to be a very successful strategy"
• "Please keep your fantasies about FOI to yuorself"
• "Since you make yourself vulnerable I *will* snark at you: it is revealing that you know what Wegman is but don't know about NRC"
• "Looks like ATren has reverted this but it was beneath his dignity to trouble himself to discuss"
• "Thank you for making it clear that you have no purpose here other than to add pointless comments"
• "willful misrepresentation by SV" (in edit summary)
• "OTOH, it is nice to see you actually caring about article content for once, instead of just trolling on the probation pages. though really, you're just trolling here instead, so it is no great improvement."

List of reliable sources which use the term "Climategate"

In case the naming issue of the Climatic Research Unit email controversy comes up during the case:

List of reliable sources which use the term "Climategate"

Evidence presented by Horologium

Outside views are not really welcome

During the RFC on Lar I presented a brief comment on the situation as I perceived it (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lar#Outside view from Horologium). It would be harder to provide a more outside view, because I don't believe that any of my ~15,000 edits involve articles in this field. Nonetheless, I received a rather pointed query from Polargeo, and when I responded in a fashion contrary to his views, I was subjected to a rather unpleasant dismissal (on my own talk page), which leads me to believe that many of the self-styled proponents of the scientific point-of-view are unwilling to allow anyone to disagree with their biases. The entire exchange between me and Polargeo may be found in my May 2010 User talk archive. Horologium (talk) 02:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Franamax

I've been lately pursuing my second alternate career as a geocacher but have still been reading. I saw JWB's comments about Jeh and myself on another case page and indeed I did promise him an explanation several months ago and resolved to get it done. Now I see there is formal evidence, so JWB I suppose this is your explanation too. I've no intention of scouring for counter-evidence against JWB, that sort of tit-for-tat is a big part of the AGW problem on-wiki.

JWB's presentation against Jeh and myself I feel lacks credibility and further confirms the problems I initially perceived with JWB's approach to editing, namely a far too-close reading of the "rules" and a tendency to construct a theory based on a self-chosen premise.

So far as I can tell, the charge of NPA is based on the fact that both Jeh and I judged JWB's actions at the time to be disruptive. There's no way to sugar-coat that for someone when you're contemplating action to stop the disruption. And when someone presents their defence and you find the defence inadequate, you have a choice between getting into a drawn-out conversation where they'll never agree anyway, or moving forward. I see no personal attacks in the record, just two uninvolved administrators identifying what they saw as disruptive conduct.

On the AGF charge, not at all, I personally think that JWB was acting in the utmost good faith. The thing is, that good-faith action IMO resulted in disruption, and the disruption needed to be curbed. Most (not all) disruptive editors are working in good faith, but they still need to be steered off their course. JWB takes a very narrow approach to rules and policy IMO, reading words and phrases instead of paragraphs and whole essays.

The BATTLE accusation is a classic tactic, turn around the charge levied against yourself, put them against your "opponents" to see what sticks. But we're uninvolved so what battle are we fighting? Whereas my judgement is still that JWB exhibited battleground behaviour at the time; his "case" against ChrisO was CO's response to his counter-AFD, CO filing a CC enforcement request, CO responding at an ANI thread that JWB started about him and one other bit I'd have to check my notes for. Now that is battleground behaviour and I would have sanctioned JWB for the two cases rolled into one. The ChrisO case petered out though and I closed JWB as warniong only - but that is exactly the behaviour I think should be slapped down on the CC enforcement page.

In general, I question the whole purpose of this case. Thumbs up to Shell (I think) who opined that the community already had a process in place. IMO it was working reasonably well though I'm sorry I strayed from participating. An Arb case won't quell the ongoing problems, except for establishment of an enforcement regime six months from now - which it turns out we already have. And everyone who has staked their all on a winners-and-losers approach to this will win small battles and lose big ones during this case. I do think the enforcement should move toward wide but shorter-term general topic bans instead of blocks when a sanction-request case finally closes.

There is completely diff-free evidence, maybe a clerk will want to move this somewhere more appropriate. If arbitrators would like supporting evidence, I'll work it up. I do still have my notes. I will apologize here to JWB for not being prompt with my followup which may have helped him to better understand where the problems were, mea culpa there.

I'll check in on this, but it's summer in BC and those rocks won't climb themselves. We're starting into serious bear country now to find the good geocaches. :) Franamax (talk) 06:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by MastCell

Quality of climate-change content

The quality of Wikipedia's climate-change content has been assessed positively by both internal and reputable external reviewers. The latter have been sympathetic to the difficulty of maintaining an informative article in the face of politically driven pressure.

• Global warming became a featured article in May 2006. It was reviewed and retained in May 2007.
• Nature 2005, PMID 16355169: "In politically sensitive areas such as climate change, researchers have had to do battle with sceptics pushing an editorial line that is out of kilter with mainstream scientific thinking."
• New Yorker 2006 ([315]) detailed "a particularly nasty confrontation with a skeptic, who had repeatedly watered down language pertaining to the greenhouse effect" as an example of the pitfalls of Wikipedia's approach to creating a serious, respectable reference work.
• Denver Post 2007 ([316]): An expert "called the Wikipedia entry [on global warming] 'a great primer on the subject, suitable for just the kinds of use one might put to a traditional encyclopedia. Following the links takes the interested reader into greater and greater depth, probably further than any traditional encyclopedia I've seen.'" On the much-maligned topic structure, it was noted that while the main articles appropriately stick to the science of climate change, "students who want to study up on the controversy... find plenty of links if they want them."
• Lindsey 2010 ([317]): In a journal article generally critical of Wikipedia's featured-content processes, the global warming article was reviewed positively. An expert in the field "scored the article on global warming at an eight [of 10] and wrote that it was 'very concise and clear', but remarked that he could tell 'it was not written by professional climate scientists' and noted an error in the way the article explained how clouds are included in climate models."

The burden of dealing with sockpuppetry

At present, there are 670 confirmed sockpuppets and 182 suspected sockpuppets of a single agenda account. Based on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby/Archive, it appears that responsibility for identifying, reporting, reverting, and otherwise handling this prolific sockpuppetry has devolved to a very small handful of editors.

These editors are doing Wikipedia a service by dealing with one of our most prolific sockpuppeteers. However, because they have little or no help from other editors, they assume all of the risk of any false-positive identifications, which are consistently used to attack them. There seems to be little or no interest in helping these editors find a better way to deal with this abusive sockpuppetry - instead, their small number of errors are leveraged against them. Worse, their efforts are misrepresented as evidence of inappropriate coordination (see evidence presented by Collect, first & third set of diffs, for example).

Setting an example

Admins who hope to resolve intractable disputes need to be prepared to model the behavior that they want to see from others. A good example is powerful; a bad example even more so. I'm going to pick on Lar (talk · contribs) a bit here, not because he is the only admin to fail to set a good example, but because as the holder of multiple advanced permissions on this site (and as a highly respected Wikipedian above and beyond those permissions), his responsibility and the power of his example are magnified. Here are some concerns, in descending order of importance:

Wheel-warring with Jehochman

Lar and Jehochman wheel-warred over the closure of an enforcement request at WP:GS/CC/RE:

• Jehochman closes enforcement request
• Lar reverts the closure without discussing it with Jehochman
• Jehochman re-closes the request
• Lar re-reverts Jehochman's re-closure

The spectacle of two admins edit-warring over a closure set a horrible example for the editors at the climate-change enforcement board, and (I believe) went a long way in undermining its credibility. I voiced my disappointment here; Lar concluded: "So did I set an example? Yes, a good one, in my view."

Lar/WMC

Lar's opinion of William Connolley's editing has been discussed elsewhere in evidence. If William is indeed uncivil and interested in baiting others, then it should be paramount that admins avoid responding to that baiting in kind. Instead, sniping between Lar and William degenerated bilaterally (parenthetically, if this is not "baiting", I'm not sure what is). Ultimately, BozMo was concerned enough to consider proposing a two-way interaction ban between Lar and William. I will not touch on nor defend William's conduct, which I think will be adequately addressed elsewhere in this proceeding. Regardless of what conclusion one draws about it, admins responding to it need to set a more positive example.

Personalizing discussion with Dave Souza

Lar responded to a relatively innocuous comment from Dave souza (talk · contribs) with: "Was wondering when you'd turn up. You're a canonical example of the problem, you know, since you so often indulge in snark to the exclusion of anything else in these bunfights, just like a good enforcer." He also negatively retitled a comment from Dave: "Dave Souza twists things around".

Dave opposed Lar's reconfirmation as a steward on Meta. In response to a on-topic general enforcement board comment from Dave, Lar cited Dave's stewardship vote, concluding: "If you can't win on strength of argument, attack the folk doing the enforcement in whatever venue offers itself. Right, Dave?"

Our interaction

In this discussion, I felt Lar was being intentionally provocative in response to a straightforward question. He asserted that by asking him to clarify a comment, I'd "played right into Stephan Schulz's hand." He added (to Kim Petersen): "You and yours poisoned the atmosphere long ago." Lar's summary of the thread: "These guys are pretty good at tag teaming me and getting me pretty wound up." I don't think this was handled in a manner consistent with admins' obligation to be responsive to good-faith questions.

Separately, but on the same theme, this series of interjections was suboptimal.

Thegoodlocust

With less than 50 article edits, Thegoodlocust (talk · contribs) had already accumulated 4 blocks for edit-warring, disruption, BLP violations, and tendentious editing. His initial focus was Barack Obama, from which he was topic-banned in May 2009. He subsequently has edited nearly exclusively on the subject of climate change, acquiring a 5th block and another topic ban.

In one of his few edits outside these two political crusades, he made an edit to Talk:Miley Cyrus which was deleted as a clear BLP violation. When he was warned, he responded: "I realize that you are either an obsessed teenage girl or a gay male, and, apparently, you are the reason the Miley Cyrus article doesn't mention this well-known controversy."

Thegoodlocust's edits to this Arbitration case have focused on continuing to advance his agenda, e.g. [318]. Insofar as off-wiki evidence is relevant, searching this page for "TheGoodLocust" is perhaps enlightnening. MastCell ^Talk 00:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)