User talk:William M. Connolley

To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency and humility, is to honour him; as signs of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently is to dishonour. Leviathan, X.

	You are invited to comment at: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Andrewjlockley
	Uncyclopaedia article of the week: [1]. Why can't we do that? I've decided to start an "article in need of attention of the week" (or day, or month, depending on how many come along): Regional climate change. Don't discuss it here; do it there. Archives: [[Current sea level rise‎ - nowt. Arctic geoengineering - oh dear, this isn't working very well is it? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ice sheet demolition - died! Runaway climate change (result: still cr*p)
	This is a Happy Talk Page. No bickering. Proverb for the year: if you have nothing new to say, don't say it. If you're here to talk about conflicts of interest, please read (all of!) this. You are welcome to leave messages here. I will reply here (rather than on, say, your user page). Conversely, if I've left a message on your talk page, I'm watching it, so please reply there. In general, I prefer to conduct my discussions in public. If you have a question for me, put it here (or on the article talk, or...) rather than via email. I "archive" (i.e. delete old stuff) quite aggressively (it makes up for my untidiness in real life). If you need to pull something back from the history, please do. Once. Please leave messages about issues I'm already involved in on the talk page of the article or project page in question.
My actions Contribs • Blocks • Protects • Deletions

The Holding Pen

Secret trials considered harmful [Well, you might hope so]

Well, I've read the evidence: general impression is that this is revenge by DHMO's friends for his RFA failure. Why? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

And now I've read the judgement. And it seems to me that arbcomm has run itself off the rails. It would seem that they've got themselves infected by the bad blood from DHMO's RFA. So:

• Given the sanctions, which are more humiliating that restrictive, the case was clearly non-urgent.
• There is a good deal of interpretation and selective quoting in the evidence. I don't see any eveidence that OM was given any opportunity to respond, and that is bad (looking at OM's page, I think this response [2] from arbcomm [FT2] is revealing: when asked directly if OM was given the chance to respond, the reply is weaselly).
• I'm missing the result of the user RFC that obviously the arbcomm insisted on being gone through first. Could someone point me to it?
• Could all these people please get back to the job of deciding the cases validly put before them, most obviously the G33 and SV/etc ones

William M. Connolley (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, whatever the actual substance of the complaint: I'm deeply concerned about ArbCom (or unspecified parts of it) trawling through a years worth of contributions, selectively quoting parts that support a certain point of view, assemble all this into a large document, and without further input from the user in question or from the community issue an edict from above. And for good measure they (?) declare a priori that an appeal is possible, but will be moot. Well, maybe it's acceptable because, as we all know, the committee is infallible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I admit, my prior opinion was that arbcomm is generally slow but usually got the right answer. In this case, I'm doubtful. BTW, I'm almost sure I had a run-in with OM once. Can anyone remember when/where? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:50, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

In case you have not yet noticed: This seems to be deeper. [3]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:58, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Holy @#%$! I was wondering how all of them took leave of their senses at once. R. Baley (talk) 22:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

!?! That looks bad William M. Connolley (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Is this some sort of hallucination?????? WTF??? BTW, you did run into me, because you blocked someone in a manner that I felt unfair. When I found out you are/were one of the "good guys" on global warming, I had mixed feelings. Now, I feel safe that you're watching over the article, especially since Raymond Arritt is gone.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This whole notion of "good guys" and "bad guys" is a seriously poisonous and harmful way of seeing fellow contributors. It encourages the worst excesses and does not lend itself to reaching consensus with the dark side/evil ones/whatever. Orderinchaos 16:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I like to think that the people reverting vandalism might be considered "good", and the vandals "bad". Perhaps thats a bit too old-school, and you prefer a more nuanced approach? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm taking William's interpretation of good and bad editors. However, I consider NPOV vandals to be vandals too. Yes there is a nuance to all of this, and that's the problem. It's difficult.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

So whats going on?

Most discussion is at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Orangemarlin and other matters, it seems.

Presumably someone will be along to sort out this car crash at some point. In the meantime I've been trying to see whats going on, and I've found...

• As we know, KL has repudiated FT2's postings [4]. But [5] rather suggests that secret proceedings were indeed going on.
• tB has "temporarily" blanked the page [6], which is nice, though not as good as "permanently"
• Jimbo has weighed in, saying basically "I haven't got a clue whats going on" [7]. Later updated to the Arbitration Committee itself has done absolutely nothing here [8], which does rather suggest FT2 acting alone in acting, though doesn't address discussions.
• CM is cryptic [9] turns on the interpretation of "formal" in "formal proceeding", a semantic point that is not vacuous
• JPG says its miscommunication [10] and begs for patience [11] but confirms the secret case [12]
• FN thanks us for our patience [13] as does Mv [14]
• Jv appears to endorse FT2's version, adding the OM case to those recently closed [15] and posting the result to ANI [16]. How does Jv know this is the will of arbcomm? And interesting question, which I've just asked him, and which he is studiously ignoring.

Other arbs appear to be far too busy to deal with trivia of this type.

So its hard to know what *has* happened. But clearly its not just FT2 running amok, or the other arbs would say so. My best guess is that secret trials (discussions?) were indeed in progress and that they are too embarrassed to admit it; and that there is some frantic behind-the-scenes talking going on to try to get a story straight.

• CM [17]. The statement is bizarre and is going to leave a lot of people (including me) unhappy. It looks like "it was a regrettable miscommunication, please don't ask any more questions" is going to be the line.

William M. Connolley (talk) 18:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC) & 20:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

What stuns me is how any arbitrator thought that allegations of uncivil behavior (however true) needed to be urgently addressed in a blatantly out-of-process manner while a case of full-bore socking by a repeat offender, resulting in high-profile articles being locked for weeks, was allowed to languish. Hopefully the committee realizes they cannot put the business of Arbitration on hold to focus solely on this drama, and will continue the voting. - Merzbow (talk) 03:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup, still baffled by that one William M. Connolley (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it looks like the official line is it all ended happily ever after [18], nothing to see, move along here William M. Connolley (talk) 06:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

And FT2 is terribly busy [19]

Hmm, so... it all ended happily ever after and everyone forgot about it? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't forgotten. Who knows if it will happen again or is happening now. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

FT2 is back secret activities. I can't believe it.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Current

William M. Connolley was inducted into The Hall of The Greats

On January 2, 2009, User:William M. Connolley was inducted into

The Hall of The Greats
This portrait of Robert De Niro was dedicated in his honor.
David Shankbone.

William - famous scientists is one area I have ignored, and one reason we likely have never crossed paths. I dedicated this photo of De Niro for all the work you do on this important area, one I am of no use to, but one where even I know what good work you do. --David Shankbone 02:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, thank you very kindly, and apologies for taking so long to respond. I'll have to live up to it now William M. Connolley (talk) 20:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

These dedications are for the totality of edits already made. You wouldn't need to make another contribution, and it would still be just as appropriate. Of course - keep editing; we need you! I wish I had something more suited to your area of work, but I thought De Niro was a good compliment. Who doesn't like De Niro? Happy New Year. --David Shankbone 20:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Well Clint would be my option... any way, good work!

Gipset (talk) 07:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

After returning from a wikibreak of a couple of years I've been having a look round some contributors whose work I used to admire and I'm pleased to see you're still going strong. So here's a barnstar for defending the absolutely crucial topic of climate change from the utter bullshit that gets hurled at it by Wikipedia's less informed souls. You are a huge asset to the project and you must have the patience of a saint. Keep up the good work! — Trilobite 03:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC====)

Thanks for the praise; and welcome back yourself William M. Connolley (talk) 11:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The <div> tag and Cascading Style Sheets

The <div> tag is part of the HTML standard, and in essence lets you group things logically in a HTML page. Since different user agents have different needs and treat the data differently (e.g. a screen reader for the visually impaired, a bot or a normal browser like Firefox) the rendering of elements and the logical structure has been separated into two different languages: HTML and CSS.

HTML is supposed to structure the document logically while CSS is used to change the visual appearance of a page. A website usually only has one or a few CSS documents (style sheets). Many HTML documents can then share the same style sheet, providing consistent formatting across the site.

The div element has two attributes, class and style, that are linked to the style sheet. The class attribute determines what "class" the element belong to. It is then possible to define a default style for elements of this class in the style sheet .

The style element is what's most interesting here though, it lets you override the default style of an element. So the part within the style="" is actually CSS.

W3C (website) is in charge of the CSS standard and it can be found on their website. Unfortunately, the dominating browser sets the de facto standard so things might not work as expected or even be implemented yet.

The W3C specifications aren't particularly good for learning but they are good as a reference. What you are looking for is probably: [20].

If you search the webb for CSS you will find countless examples and tutorials. Quick Googling turned up this for example: [21].

I took the liberty to modify your div tags on this page as an example, feel free to modify and revert as you like. I hope this is somewhat helpful at least. :)
—Apis (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! William M. Connolley (talk) 20:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Antisemitic incidents

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		Even though it's been restored, we really need people to be more proactive in deleting NPOV-violating material. Thank you for restoring a little bit of my faith. Sceptre (talk) 00:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you William M. Connolley (talk) 08:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Reviving Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Fluid dynamics

Crownest has expressed interest in reviving this. Since you were a member of the FD project (now converted into a taskforce), I'm wondering if you'd be a part of the Taskforce. The taskforce is undergoing a significant overhaul at the moment, and by the end of it, it should be fairly easy to get around and there should be a nifty compendium of useful tools for people interested in FD. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 10:55, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

In principle, I can help in small ways, though no longer being professionally involved. I wonder if there is an embedded prog taskforce? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Prog taskforced?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

RFAR?

I've just about reached the end of my rope with AJL's unwillingness or inability to follow basic content guidelines such as WP:V and WP:SYN. I'm nearly ready to make a request at WP:RFAR that he be topic banned. Your thoughts? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Ha, I thought you had gone for it [22] before reading the details. I doubt arbcomm will care about people violating V/SYN much, what is more likely to be of interest is how AJL reponds to people correcting him. So far his pattern seems to revert a few times and make some hurt comments and then give up. Having to check every single ref he inserts is indeed a pain; even the septics from the good old days were better William M. Connolley (talk) 21:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As I mentioned on Boris' talk page, I think we need to give him a chance to be a valuable contributor. If it turns out that he's not able to contribute and accurately cite sources without scrutiny, then he's a detriment. If he can go along without us looking over his shoulder, then he's an asset. I think that we should tell him something like: "Look, man, we'll give you a trial period of being really really good with refs, and if you succeed, then we'll stop bugging you so much, and everything will be happy. If you continue to fundamentally misrepresent your sources, we'll have to figure out something else, because you're wasting everyone's time in clean-up duty." Thoughts? Awickert (talk) 21:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That was supposed to be what the RFC was for. I don't see much evidence from that he has taken anything on board William M. Connolley (talk) 21:22, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

So I'll admit it: I'm a Midwesterner who talks like the characters in Fargo when I'm not careful. And with that: Oh, ya, I thought 'e woulda taken a hint, but oh well, I guess not, so maybe we should just be a little bit more direct, ya know? And if 'e is gettin' a little better, might as well give him a 100% clear chance. Awickert (talk) 21:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Pielke photos

I saw the messages you left on those image pages (File:Roger pielke jr.png and File:R Pielke Sr.jpg). I'm sorry if you feel it is excessive hoop-jumping. Do you have the original emails? If you forward them along to OTRS then that should hopefully resolve the issue. It is important to make sure the authors gave explicit permission to allow anyone to use the photos for any reason, at any time, and without any other conditions (except, say, sharealike or attribution). Thanks. --Tom (talk - email) 01:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I emailed you about Jr, and photosubmission re Sr. Hopefully that will do William M. Connolley (talk) 07:39, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

William, thanks for the permission email for clarification. You should forward that along to permissions-en@wikimedia.org since someone with an OTRS account will need to verify and log the information so that the images can be kept. --Tom (talk - email) 13:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, once you have done so, you can remove those speedy deletion templates and add Template:OTRS pending to both. Thanks again. --Tom (talk - email) 13:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Map of West Antarctica

Re your edit on West Antarctic Ice Sheet. I have checked and it appears that the West Antarctic map was created in MARBLE, free software that uses NASA Blue Marble imagery. This is essentially from several seasons of MODIS satellite images and then enhanced a bit, so it is probably not unreasonable to say satellite composite. But a map is a fair description if you like. Polargeo (talk) 19:20, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Note

Hi, William! Since you made this block, you might be interested in this edit. Regards, VVVladimir (talk) 14:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I accidentally deleted it when User:Damiens.rf was spamming my page with FFD nominations, get over it. PRODUCER (talk) 15:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

It is back now, so that is good. Thanks for bringing this to my, and P's, attention William M. Connolley (talk) 20:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

AH

I proposed an AFD on anthropogenic heat. I thought it was the best way to sort out the disagreement. Hope you can contribute to the debate. Andrewjlockley (talk) 22:24, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It is a redirect. It doesn't need deleting, just ignoring William M. Connolley (talk) 16:49, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

User:PhilLiberty -- resumed edit warring

The day after the 24 hour block for 3RR that you imposed expired, the user made the exact same revert that he had been blocked for (see [23]). This appears to me to be a continuation of his edit warring. This is the same pattern that occurred in August 2008 when he was blocked for 24 hours, returned with the same pattern and was blocked for 72 hours (see User talk:PhilLiberty#Three Revert Rule and User talk:PhilLiberty#Disruptive Editing. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:16, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

On Grant.Alpaugh

Hi,

I see that you released Grant.Alpaugh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) from a 72h block earlier this month after his promising to reform. Depressingly, but unsurprisingly, he's gone and gotten himself blocked for 3RR again. Grant's a productive editor, but can't seem to stop getting dragged back into edit wars and the subsequent blocks that come with them. Any suggestions on how to move this forward? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Hm, hard to say. People have to realise for themselves when edit warring just won't work. Being blocked tends to be a strong hint. Reminders earlier in the war? William M. Connolley (talk) 10:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Peace treaty

WHen I build an article from now on I will be putting up text under the u/c banner saying "Whislt this article is being built, please see xxxxx for information about the topic." Hopefully this will be sufficient to stop us fighting. Andrewjlockley (talk) 13:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Can you take a look at these contributions?

These: [24]. I've reverted a section here [25] because of the change of a direct quote and some rather POVish comments. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:23, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Cambridge3 meetup

I'm proposing a lunchtime micro-do, Tuesday 28 April. Any immediate thoughts to my talk page: I'll post a meetup page when we have some suggestions on venue. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Help with 3RR gambling

I'm not sure if this is the right term, but an anonymous user (that I'm sure is just a sockpuppet) is again gambling with the 3RR policy. You recently blocked him for 72 hours because of 3RR violation and uncivility. He just returned and started reverting again, in a very disruptive way, adding false notes to the edit summary such as "agreed per talk", which is false.

He is gambling the system because he carefully reverts 3 times and no more, and when the 24 hours span is covered, he reverts again. Just look at the history of the article.

• 69.158.150.169 Contributions
• Article he is 3RR

Hope you can help. AlexCovarrubias ^{( Talk? )} 17:49, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

This report is bereft with fallacy. I am not gaming the system: I am simply editing equitably, something which this editor and another seem unwilling and unable to do. This was discussed on an allied template, virtually identical to the one in question (see that talk page): the reporter engaged in discussion, but essentially withdrew when he didn't get his way (unable to convince another participating editor), with the resulting equitable template (including Mexico in a qualified way, as sourced in the parent article) being arrived at; dissatisfied, the reporter and company continued to edit war, and the template was eventually locked. Discussion there has not resumed, and may prove fruitless. I also initiated discussion on the template talk page at issue, with only a response from the other editor, where reverting has continued. As well, this reporter claims I am a sockpuppet, but hasn't demonstrated it. Besides, I am not required to register an account and will not.

These editors are intransigent, apparently insinuating their limited point of view onto Mexico-related articles for years (regarding minor notions about location), and the reporter in particular has a long block history,[26] and now only apparently pops up when added content doesn't agree with him. Discussion with them seems to be futile; often these editors revert without even the courtesy/requirement of an edit comment[27][28](note undoing of someone else's edits, too) or misrepresenting edits as vandalism.[29] If action is to be taken against me, it should also be levied against these editors, perhaps even for a prolonged period given their wiki-history. Thanks. 69.158.150.169 (talk) 18:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)