Talk:William Connolley

Handy reference for notability as an academic

1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.
2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.
3. The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g. a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g. the IEEE)
4. The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions.
5. The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research.
6. The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at a major academic institution or major academic society.
7. The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.
8. The person is or has been an editor-in-chief of a major well-established academic journal in their subject area.
9. The person is in a field of literature (e.g writer or poet) or the fine arts (e.g. musician, composer, artist), and meets the standards for notability in that art, such as WP:CREATIVE or WP:MUSIC.

Courtesy of Yopienso (talk) 07:23, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

This section appears to violate WP:TPG. Is there some reason unrelated to soap boxing for this text to remain? If anyone agrees, please remove this section including my comment. Johnuniq (talk) 10:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

How does it violate WP:TPG? We have editors asking if William Connolley has the notability for a WP biography. This lays out the criteria. I posted it because I believe it is supremely pertinent. This has been done with no challenges on other bios when there was a question of notability. In fact, I cannot fathom why you think it shouldn't be here. Please explain. Yopienso (talk) 16:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

@ William Connolley, if you're watching: My heart wants this bio kept, but my head tells me it should be deleted. Nothing personal. I admire your knowledge, rowing, climbing, civic-mindedness, that you're a family man, and specially your new editorial attitude. Yopienso (talk) 16:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Your final above comment proves my point: you are soapboxing and that is not the purpose of the page. Copying extracts from pages unrelated to improving the article is contrary to WP:TPG. Johnuniq (talk) 23:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Anyway FWIW I think a case needs to be considered under 7 in this list. Specifically that it is in his former academic capacity as an academic working on Climate Change that his "impact" needs to be weighed. He has always edited as an identifiable person with an academic capacity. If he has, as some people have claimed, had a significant influence on the public debate (through his Wikipedia or other activity) then he has done so as an academic and makes notable under 7. I would want to see the evidence assembled to make a judgement on whether his influence or perceived influence is strong enough for "substantial" to be merited. --BozMo talk 07:01, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Such coverage if it exists at all, is all non-neutral unreliable blogfizz tbh. There are simply no reliable secondary sources that support this idea that Connolley has had any impact on the wider world simply for being an academic, let alone a 'significant impact'. This is both in terms of what they actually say, and in how much depth and detail they say it (i.e. the lack of). I mean seriously, if Connolley has had a "significant" impact, then you very rapidly start to run out of words to describe the impact of all the people who have had a greater impact - what sounds more credible in an encyclopoedic biography? "Dr. Albert Einstein had a significant impact outside academia", or "Dr. William Connolley had a significant impact outside academia"? MickMacNee (talk) 13:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with our principles in sourcing, this could possibly be a time and place to "ignore all rules." Point 7 would kick in if we could allow this widely published comment: "William Connolley, arguably the world’s most influentia­l global warming advocate after Al Gore, has lost his bully pulpit." It's only published in blogs and in comments on RS articles because nobody cares about it except combatants and observers in the climate wars. Yet it could be true. I can't find that the Stoat by itself is enough to give Connolley notability as a blogger rather than an academic. Yopienso (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The rules (and material) on "substantial" academic influence outside academia are not clear to me. But for example, in the non academic press, like "New Scientist" [1] there seem to be a reasonable number of references to his paper [2] pointing out that "in the 1970s everyone was expecting an ice age" was not well founded. Now this paper was not a great work of original science, and he was only one author. But it was a review exactly of the type "academic having an impact outside academia". The main summary from the paper is quoted in quite a few places without citing the paper, so there was an impact. The word "substantial" is missing from this comment. But there was an impact of sorts and substantial is a subjective word (literally it just means of substance or non-trivial) and so in my view ought to be examined. I have to say I don't think the impact was huge, and I am personally struggling with the fact that complete nobodies in some areas of public life (sport for example) get included in WP so I am inclined to set the standard for academic influence rather low, perhaps that is in line with the community view. --BozMo talk 06:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

That's not even an article in the main magazine, it's just one of their short online blog pieces! It doesn't even name Connolley, let alone describe anything he did in person. To even describe that as being an example of his personal impact could be classed as synthesis to be honest. To start picking out which bits of it rely on the paper to quantify the impact, even though the blog doesn't even think it's worth making clear, is definitely wandering into the realms of original research. All this to support what should be a quite easily verifiable claim for a biography - 'person X had a substantial impact outside their field'. And I couldn't disagree more with the idea that 'substantial' translates as 'anything of substance' in this context. The requirement for an impact, any impact, takes care of the idea it should be something of substance. And if the issue is other fields, to take the sport analogy, in football, the basic requirement is to have made an appearance for a club in a fully professional league. That's as much to stop endless arguments over borderline GNG cases as it is to set a quite good measure of at what point a player starts to have an impact in their field. Setting aside any ideas about what is substantial, even the most minor player in the most minor club under that standard would be referred to by name in reliable secondary sources at some point in their career. That is as a minimum. And their exploits as part of the team would certainly garner ongoing in-depth coverage, in mainstream print media. Do you seriously think you've set the bar at the same sort of level with this blog piece, which doesn't even name the person? We have no article on the paper itself even though that is the primary GNG topic of this blog piece, no biography for the primary author or even the third author who wrote it with Connolley, and we don't even have a biography on the author of the blog even though her name appears to have been used in citations all over Wikipedia. Yet somehow, this single very short blog post becomes evidence to support this biography's main claim to notability? Really? In terms of basic fairness, you've got to feel bad for the 50 or so authors whose primary research the review paper rests on tbh. MickMacNee (talk) 12:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I am not going to comment on your (surprising) remarks on football but just for reference the NS coverage of that topic isn't limited to their blog [3] as far as I can tell (the main article seems to use the blog as a means to cite the source) and there are a reasonable number of similar bits around so why don't you try and list them for us, since you seem to have less apathy than I do shall we say. I don't care what the outcome of the discussion is but claiming there is no discussion looks a bit odd. On "substantial" if you want to deviate from my dictionary you will need to provide a source. If you can, that's grand of course. --BozMo talk 16:52, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have died out. It is odd to me, as someone relatively new to editing wikipedia, that this article seems to be so difficult to delete, and that the discussion seems to be so polarizing. It seems that most editors familiar with the practices of academic sciences agree that the subject of this bio is clearly not notable as an academic. I wonder if some of the issue stems from the Wikipedia vs Connolley conflict and sanctions history (which has been the main source of third-party information regarding Connolley). Connolley being such an expert that he has his own Wikipedia bio page may, perhaps, be valued by some as evidence supporting his side of the conflict (or the absurdity of Wikipedia's side) (?). This is, however, somewhat mistaken in my opinion. Connolley's work for a number of years in climate science research clearly makes him an "expert" qualified to author an encyclopedia article, but I think it is also that that is not sufficient to make him notable. This is not unusual. For example, one of the two authors of the Britannica article on global warming [4], Henrik Selin, does not (and should not, at this point in his career anyway) have a wikipedia page. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 20:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Out-of-context quote?

User: Mmorabito67 keeps inserting an out-of-context quote from Connolley's (et al) BMS paper into the article in a plainly misleading way. The quote refers to a short-term (30 years) observed cooling trend, not to any predictions of future global cooling. It also is a very small part of the paper establishing the context of the 70s discussion. Using it with an "even if" to suggest a contradiction is plainly wrong. Using it at all, given that it is a small part of the introduction, and not a significant part of the conclusion, also violates WP:UNDUE. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:52, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

If you have a problem with "even if" you should edit "even if" not remove a straight quote by the person the entry is about. In fact, Connolley and co-authors dedicated a section of that review to the fact that "By the early 1970s, when Mitchell updated his work (Mitchell 1972), the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted, albeit poorly understood". The section has been titled by Connolley and co-authors "The Global Temperature Records: A Cooling Trend", so the quote cannot be ruled as "out of context" by any stretch of imagination. If anybody reads the review and not just its title, the "myth" Connolley and co-authors talk about is of a consensus in the 1970s about an imminent ice age, not the wide acceptance of a global cooling trend in the early 1970s that they themselves report as a fact of history. Check also Fig.2 in the review for the period 1971-1974. mmorabito67 (talk) 14:15, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

How we understand a "notion" being "widely accepted" (as a notion?) has to be taken in context of what the paper actually says. I accept the notion of atheism (I just think it is shocking badly thought through, and wrong). The point of the paper is that a misconception exists about scientific opinion which is worth correcting. Trying to turn this into a statement giving weight to the strength of the misconception is a little strange. Due weight also wins on the selection of that remark form the paper unless you think that the remark you decide to quote drew particular attention? --BozMo talk 17:59, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

To be honest I can't really see what the second half of the sentence is doing in the article anyway. This article is about the man, not yet another place to refight the climate wars. Removing the second half fits the structure of the article much better. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:30, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

What? Clearly this is an argument [i.e., that the scientific consensus was always in favor of global warming, not global cooling] that Connolley has made many times in his papers and blogs. The clause simply describes the focus of much of Connolley's work [and simply describes what Connolley concluded in his papers]. There is nothing controversial here, and it would be disingenuous to leave it out. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:12, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure we are all talking about the same sentence. I'd suggest you all clearly specify which part you want in or out ("clear" as not in "the sentence" or "this argument"). I'm fine with the status quo ante, which I think Ssilvers has restored. See my argument above. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:21, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Stephan - I still think it's a problem with the "even if". Connolley set out to disprove the "myth" of a "global cooling consensus". But "global cooling" can mean many things, eg (a) "the world has been cooling" ; (b) "the world will be cooling"; (c) "the world will be cooling into an imminent ice age". Connolley actually in that review with Peterson and Fleck disproved any consensus on (c) during the 1970s whilst proving there was a indeed a consensus on (a) between 1972 and 1975 circa. This is not a side issue: the fact that "by the early 1970s..the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted" is the reason why people nowadays wrongly recollect a "consensus on an imminent ice age in the 1970s" and justifies both Connolley's work and his findings. How about this edit then - actually predicted warming, not global cooling, despite a "widely-accepted", if "poorly understood", "global cooling trend" in the early 1970s - mmorabito67 (talk) 09:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

To answer Stephan Schulz, my preferred version is the bare bones "Connolley has authored and co-authored articles and literature reviews in the field of climatological research." found here [5]. The arguments above seem to be about the interpretation of a primary source, and in general the best solution to such arguments is to examine what reliable secondary sources say about this material. If a clear consensus exists among reliable secondary sources, first that Connolley did take a particular stand on global cooling, and secondly that this stand either forms part of his notability or is at least is more characteristic of his research than, say his opinions on Antarctic sea ice, then well and good; if not then the relevant text is best deleted until such time as reliable secondary sources can be found. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan, there are two problems with what you just wrote. First, there is no interpretation question. Look at the sources cited. They are unambiguous that this was one of Connolly's main arguments. There is no reason to add to what we now say about the topic (as Mmorabito67 advocates), which is simply that this is what Connolley's writings say. Second, the fact that he wrote several papers and lots of blogs about what he concludes is a myth doesn't have to be "more" characteristic of his research than his sea ice writings. These have been the main two focuses of his writings, and we should mention them both. So, in conclusion, we neither need to add nor to delete anything from the well-cited sentence currently in the article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Ssilvers - as it stands, the text is misleading. Connolley's review starts with a prominent colored box stating "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age". That is the "global cooling" Connolley wrote about. But the term is ambiguous as I have shown earlier: the reader is currently misled into thinking there was never such a thing as "global cooling", something contradicted by Connolley himself in the "global cooling trend" quote I have mentioned already several times. So to be very precise the text should become - actually predicted warming, not global cooling and an imminent ice age, despite a "widely-accepted", if "poorly understood", "global cooling trend" in the early 1970s - I'm open minded about alternatives to despite - mmorabito67 (talk) 16:54, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Ssilvers, it's not that simple. There is evident disagreement on the interpretation of these primary sources, and by WP:AGF there is a strong presumption that the disagreement is genuine. WP:PRIMARY advises on precisely this sort of issue: "Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." You can state that he wrote about global cooling and sea ice under the "straightforward, descriptive statements" clause, but going beyond that requires secondary sources. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I further note that of the three references given under "authored and co-authored articles and literature reviews in the field of climatological research, including several concluding that a majority of scientific papers in the 1970s actually predicted warming, not global cooling.[7][8][9]", only one (reference [9]) is to an article or a literature review, the others being a blog post and a personal webpage, so the statement as it stands is not supported even by primary sources. The list of publications also strongly suggests that his interests are primarily related to the Antarctic and to sea ice, rather than to global cooling. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 17:40, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan, I have clarified which refs support which parts of the sentence. If you look at the list of published papers at the bottom, you will see that additional papers are about climate, not just sea ice. So I copied the first two of these (but there are more) into the ref. I think it's redundant, but if you thing we need it for clarity, OK. As to Connolley's blogs, WP:SPS says: "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field, so long as: 1. the material is not unduly self-serving [Here we are just saying that this is Connolley's conclusion about one of his research interests]; 2. it does not involve claims about third parties [Check]; 3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source [Check: it's not about events, just his own conclusion]; 4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity [Check: it was definitely written by Connolley]; and 5. the article is not based primarily on such sources [Check. The article is "based" on the 3rd party press about Connolley and his work on Wikipedia]." -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Ssilvers, why did you write "His blogs and some of his papers"? As far as listed, there is only one "paper" (peer-reviewed etc) by Connolley on "global cooling". mmorabito67 (talk) 06:52, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I see that someone has already changed it to "His blogs and one of his papers". I doubt that only one of Connolley's papers treats the "global cooling myth". But if no one here knows of another peer reviewed paper that specifically treats it, ok. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:46, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

He only wrote one paper with the word "cooling" in the title. The great majority of his papers are on Antarctica and/or sea ice. More on this point later. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 15:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Ssilvers, my objection was not to the use of blogs: these can indeed be used with caution under WP:SPS, and while I don't share your analysis above it's not clear to me that these references can't be used appropriately. My specific objection was to describing them as "articles" but that is now fixed. But we haven't yet addressed the underlying point: why that bit is there at all. The current text is "Connolley has authored and co-authored articles and literature reviews in the field of climatological research. His blogs and one of his papers conclude that a majority of scientific papers in the 1970s actually predicted warming, not global cooling.[7][8][9]". This gives the impression that global cooling is a major focus of his work. In fact of his 38 papers in the ISI only 1 has the word "cooling" in the title, while 20 have the word "Antarctic" or "Antarctica", and 5 refer to "sea ice"; these would seem to be much more significant focuses of his work. Alternatively we could look at citations: it turns out that his cooling paper has only 5 citations making it his 26th most cited paper, so again there is no evidence that this is important to his work. So to the problems previously noted with WP:PRIMARY we can add WP:UNDUE. In summary the sentence should go unless and until suitable secondary sources are located. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 12:22, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. His blogs are just as important to his notability as his published papers. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:03, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Given that it has been established that he doesn't meet WP:ACADEMIC, and that any possible claim to notability would be based on his blogs and/or his wiki activities, that position makes broad sense. I'll rephrase this bit to make clear that global cooling is not a significant part of his academic work, thus partially dealing with WP:UNDUE. Of course we haven't even begin to address WP:PRIMARY yet. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 17:03, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

It is not "established" that he doesn't meet WP:ACADEMIC, though some editors on this page have argued that position. I don't care whether he is or is not notable under those criteria, because I think he is a notable blogger and also notable because of the national attention given to him regarding his Wikipedia editing. However, your switching the two sentences around seems fine. I don't think there is that much more to say about Connolley, and this article gives a fair summary. We all have other articles that need writing and expanding. Why don't we just leave it alone and move on? -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:22, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Hard to say. For example none of my objections has been replied to. "Global cooling" still stands as ambiguous as ever, and I'm leaving it like that only because I understand some editors are pretty edgy about some climate-related changes and I do not have time for Wikipedia disputes. mmorabito67 (talk) 21:45, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I remain firmly of the view that the whole global cooling sentence breaches WP:PRIMARY and should simply be deleted. But if peace is breaking out I'm happy to leave it there for the moment. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:25, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

AfD?

A lot of this article seems to violate WP:PRIMARY, mainly because there doesn't appear to be much secondary source material about Connolley beyond coverage of his disputes with wikipedia. What ever happened to the notability/deletion discussion? --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 02:17, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I notice in your six month editing career on Wikipedia you have raised this question quite a few times, and that people seem decreasingly prepared to reply to it. Do you think this is because you are winning the "argument" or for some other reason? By all means, if you think that there is enough of a case try another AfD. I would then have to think about whether to support it or not. Otherwise repeating your opinion on the issue every month or so in threads about something else is a little unhelpful I feel. --BozMo talk 06:53, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Abc-mn-xyz, I would suggest that if you feel that there is a problem with primary sourcing then you identify this by adding tags in the appropriate place. Look at Template:Better source for the appropriate inline tag for a single item; if a whole section relies on primary sources then you can use Template:Primary sources. I would, however, urge you to use these tags only when the case seems clear (i.e., you can quote the relevant advice explaining precisely why the item or section should be tagged). I'll add the first one for you to get you started. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with BozMo above. If you want to start another AfD on this article, do so. Those of us on this talk page have replied to your thoughts on notability as much as we feel is relevant to this talk page. AfD would be the next step. As I've noted above, I would oppose the AfD, as I think that Connolley is notable. BTW, if I were a relatively new editor, I would focus on what I can add to the encyclopedia, not on deleting articles; especially ones that have survived AfD's before. As to WP:PRIMARY, this seems to be a misplaced concern to me. That guideline says, in part: "Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages." In this case, we have a biography in which we are discussing the subject's writings, so of course we refer to those writings. As to Connolley's blogs, WP:SPS says: "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field... (I have quoted the rest of this above). Non-primary sources for this article are referenced in footnotes 5, 6, and 15-21. That's 9 non-primary references. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

While it's entirely a matter for Abc-mn-xyz, I wouldn't recommend another AfD at this stage. But I have found that learning about tagging is a useful process for people who want to move on from adding content to the more technical side: it forces them to learn about policies and guides, and to think about process. With regard to WP:PRIMARY, note that I have only tagged one phrase, which I think is a fairly clear-cut case. I certainly haven't tagged all the statements which only have primary sources, as some of them seem to be OK. And I am certainly not claiming that the whole article is primary sourced, which would be grounds for an AfD. There are plausible grounds for an AfD, but not that one, and they are only plausible not clear-cut. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:12, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan, the sentence is only saying what Connolley's blog postings and paper themselves say, so this is a perfect case for citing the posts and paper themselves. We do not make any analysis of what he says, so I think the tag is inappropriate. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

• Ssilvers - "Non-primary sources for this article are referenced in footnotes 5, 6, and 15-21.". So, according to secondary sources only, he's a former parish councillor (5), a former Green Party council candidate (6), and someone who gets brief mentions in pieces about experts editing Wikipedia (15-21). Remind me again how this adds up to Wikipedia notability in your eyes? Which requires in depth coverage in secondary sources dealing with the subject directly and in detail. The subject being one William Connolley and his notable life as a ?????, not 'Experts and Wikipedia'. MickMacNee (talk) 23:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Ssilvers, primary sources should only be used for simple matters of fact where no reasonable person could disagree about the meaning of the source; they should not be used when any non-trivial interpretation is required. As noted above there is disagreement over the interpretation of this source. But more to the point, you are also missing the question of how we select what to talk about. This sentence picks out one of his papers, and talks about that, giving the impression that his opinions on global cooling are characteristic and/or notable. Why should we believe this? He wrote precisely one paper on the subject, which has not been heavily cited, and on which he is the middle author of three (while author ordering conventions differ between fields, this certainly means that he is not the principal author). Of course the whole question could be very easily resolved by finding a reliable secondary source discussing this point. And then we could all go off and do something more interesting. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 14:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

No, a significant part of his work on his blogs has been about refuting the global cooling myth. It's not just the paper. His blogs, including the establishment of RealClimate, have been a very important part of his career. So that is why we are selecting this sentence. His writings about this are an important part of his career, and to leave it out, as I say far above, would be disingenuous and would fail to encyclopedically explain his career. The tags added to this article are very cynical. Is there any question that Connolley has two children? http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/DSCN5920-w-d-e-close_300x400.JPG -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Ssilvers, I have no idea how many children he has; I just note that we have an unsourced statement about his personal life and have tagged it as such. Given that this is a BLP there would be a case for deleting it immediately, but as it is very unlikely to be viewed as potentially libelous I think it is reasonable to leave it there for a few days in case somebody turns up a source. This is basic WP:VERIFIABILITY and I'm not sure why you are treating it as controversial. With regard to global cooling, you keep on insisting that this forms a very important part of his career, a career which you believe to be notable. If this is the case then you should have no difficulty turning up at least one reliable secondary source which confirms your claim. If no such source can be found then the claim doesn't belong here. Again this is basic stuff. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 17:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and you might want to reconsider this edit [6] which appears at first sight to breach WP:AGF and possibly WP:NPA. You might also wish to consider WP:CANVAS with regard to making this appeal on the personal talk page of the user whose wiki page is being discussed. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

How many men who don't have two children put photos of two children on their own personal websites and also upload detailed diaries involving two children? In addition to that, as you may be aware William Connolley happens to be an editor here and would be perfectly able to correct the information if it was wrong. It's the kind of information for which WP:SPS allows us to use self-published sources. If you absolutely insist, I believe there is precedent that William Connolley might provide the information through OTRS, which would be responsible for verifying his identity. (An absurd exercise in this case. If the editor William M. Connolley were an impostor, we would have heard about that long ago. It's inconceivable that the real William M. Connolley didn't learn about the libel published by the Wall Street Journal.)

Added after an edit conflict: WP:AGF is not a suicide pact, and it's pretty obvious what is going on here. I believe this article is subject to the Arbcom sanctions on the topic of global warming, and I have no doubt that Arbcom are able to interpret your activity in context. Hans Adler 18:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

WMC does not watch this page, nor, I think, frequently check it for correctness. This is surprisingly wise of him, of course ;-). I'd have some concern about using the image even as evidence, though - he may have had two at the time it was taken, but may have more now (Let me add that I have no idea about this and no evidence for any number other two, either. Nor do I read his diary.). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not a big problem if this kind of information is slightly out of date. Happens all the time, especially when we are using "reliable sources", and people expect it to happen. And of course there is nothing wrong with asking him. I got to my conclusions just by a quick look over his personal website, by the way. Hans Adler 18:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Re: children: His personal website is here and lists two children: Daniel and Miranda. A 2009 blog entry refers to Daniel and Miranda. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

It is quite sad actually to see how many determined people (such as Ssilvers) campaign even in Wikipedia to defend Connolley's contributions to the debate about 'global cooling consensus in the 1970s' without showing any understanding of the meaning of 'global cooling' in Connolley's work. The end result is that a perfectly reasonable quote such as the one I tried to insert will never see the light of the day, as people-in-the-wikipedia-know with plenty of spare time in their hands will of course forever out-resource me. Is this what Wikipedia is for? Marginalizing the casual editors? mmorabito67 (talk) 15:48, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Why does anyone think this is a discussion for the talk page? If anyone thinks the subject of an article does not satisfy inclusion guidelines, you should take it to AfD. Any discussion here is essentially pointless as the article won't be deleted based on a discussion here even if a consensus is reached (which seems highly improbably). If you think the subject is notable, don't feel like you have to discuss your opinion here. If you think the subject isn't notable, take it to the designated place for such a discussion. OlYeller^Talktome 16:15, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Secondary sources

I've added refs to The Sunday Times and The Christian Science Monitor. Other secondary sources about Connolley have been repeatedly deleted from this article. For example, Connolley's Wikipedia editing has been criticized in major media (albeit by writers who don't understand Wikipedia or the nature of Connolley's edits), such as this one: Delingpole, James. "Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia". The Telegraph, 22 December 2009. This article in the National Post (morrored at Financial Post) calls Connolley "arguably the world’s most influential global warming advocate after Al Gore". Both of these are idiotic stories, but they show that major media outlets, as well as the blogosphere, think that Connolley is an important person in the global warming field. Connolley is also noted in the blogosphere where, for example, Planetsave.com and Joseph Romm of ClimateProgress.org praise Connolley's paper on the myth of global cooling. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If you haven't figured out why those 'idiotic' stories aren't ever going to see the light of day in the article after all this time, it's not worth repeating. As regards the Times and CSM ones, I think part of the problem is that you seem to genuinely believe that these pieces are about Connolley. It's truly amazing how far you've managed to stretch these to pad out that 'Writing and 'Editing' section, to make it bigger than the entire career sections of the biographies of many thousands of truly notable people we do host here, actual real life award winners in their field with actual real life in depth coverage in spades. I'd be surprised if we don't get a visit from the copyright bot soon if this goes on much longer. MickMacNee (talk) 23:54, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

The CSM piece looks usable as a secondary source for the global cooling sentence, and this is a definite step forward, though the way it has been used is a bit unusual. I make no comment on the other issues you raise at this stage. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I just logged in after a week and see that there has been quite a bit of discussion here since my last comment (top of "AfD?" section). I want to thank a number of editors who raised thoughtful comments and complaints in response to my last comment, which I'd like to respond to here. It is indeed true that I've been periodically suggesting an AfD on this talk page but haven't initiated one, as well as that this has been one of my main points during the fairly brief period that I've had an account. It seems like a personal note would be appropriate here. I've been reading wikipedia and making anonymous minor edits for years. Rather recently I decided to sign up for an account because there were two edits I wanted to make that were hard to do anonymously. First, I wanted to change the tittle of an article that I thought had an erroneous name (Arctic shrinkage). Second, I though this bio subject wasn't notable as a scientist so the article should be deleted. I encountered a fair amount of resistance on the name change, but ultimately I was successful, and I do feel that my efforts improved wikipedia. Regarding this bio, I'm an academic scientist myself, and in this line of work, it is quite common that one evaluates the impact of a fellow scientist. This is not hard to do. For example, a quick perusal of ISI can give an initial estimate in seconds. It seemed straightforward when I browsed onto this bio some months ago that Connolley (whose work I was not previously familiar with) wasn't "notable" for his scientific research on climate change, although he had clearly made a number of respectable contributions to the literature on that subject. Personally, I've come to see this bio as a rogue article in wikipedia, some weird situation where the subject's editor friends don't want to let the article be deleted. As a new editor, initiating an AfD did not seem advisable, so I tried to shake the tree to see if I could inspire a more established editor to try to push an AfD through. Now it may be the time for me to stop shaking that tree. My apologies to any editors who felt I was being a gadfly on this talk page, but I've enjoyed participating in this discussion and expect that I will continue to do it with less emphasis on inspiring others to action. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 20:48, 1 June 2011 (UTC)