User talk:GoRight

Historical References

Historical Back Pointers

Rather than create archive pages which use up additional space I have decided to instead keep a list of back pointers to permanent links within the history of this talk page at various points in time.

Back Pointer 1

Back Pointer 2

Back Pointer 3

Back Pointer 4

Back Pointer 5

Raul's Attack Page

• User:Raul654/GoRight
• Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Raul654/GoRight

My Response Page

• User:GoRight/Raul654

Users Requesting to be Informed of Topics of Interest

The following users have explicitly requested that I keep them informed of topics I believe that they would be interested in:

• User:Abd
• User:John G. Miles

December 2009

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 55 hours for disruption on Scientific opinion on climate change article. Please stop. You are welcome to make useful contributions after the block expires. If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by adding the text {{unblock|Your reason here}} below. tedder (talk) 19:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Valid NPOV defending effort by GoRight. I support any appeal. Admin Tedder corrupted my intent for placing the POV-tag. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Zulu, if you have issues with me, please take them to my talk page or to WP:ANI. tedder (talk) 21:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

GoRight (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

The simple fact of the matter is that I have not committed any blockable offense here. There is a valid WP:NPOV dispute occurring at the article in question. I am well within my rights to post a NPOV tag on that article, I was following the requested steps outlined by User:William M. Connolley who is one of the primary editors from the other side of this dispute. I have been making extensive use of the talk page in support of my position both prior to and subsequent to my placing the NPOV tag on the article. While I have reverted the NPOV tag a few times so have my opponents, and I have not committed any WP:3RR violations. There is no emergency requiring that I be blocked. There is no danger to the encyclopedia by my placing an NPOV tag on that article. I can only assume that Tedder means for this block to be punitive, not preventative, which makes it inconsistent with WP:BLOCK. I therefore request that I be unblocked.

Decline reason:

Edit warring is not permitted. The reason for this is that edit-warring is an ineffective way to solve disputes. The use of repeated reversion rather than discussion is only permissible in emergency situations, such as those caused by defamatory content. Unless you can explain why you felt that there was an emergency that meant that you needed to revert immediately, this block would appear to be valid. CIreland (talk) 14:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Unblocking admin, and GoRight, you were blocked for edit warring with the NPOV template, against this: Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change#Cease-fire on POV template. This was not punitive, you have clearly been edit warring with the template, which is actively being discussed on the talk page without consensus. tedder (talk) 02:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I refer you to the complete text of Wikipedia:NPOVD#What_is_an_NPOV_dispute.3F, but I wish to highlight the following portions thereof:

"By linking to this page from an article, a dissenter can register his or her concern without unduly upsetting the author(s) or maintainer(s) of the article, and without starting a flame war. Others would maintain, however, that linking to this page only postpones the dispute. This might be a good thing, though, if a "cooling off" period seems required."

"Sometimes people have edit wars over the NPOV dispute tag, or have an extended debate about whether there is a NPOV dispute or not. In general, if you find yourself having an ongoing dispute about whether a dispute exists, there's a good chance one does, and you should therefore leave the NPOV tag up until there is a consensus that it should be removed."

I also refer you to Template:POV and note that I was merely following the instructions described there. I also highlight the following text from the template itself:

"Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved."

which clearly indicates that the intention is for the NPOV tag to be left on the page until the dispute is resolved. Note that the dispute is not yet resolved. tedder's actions are clearly at odds with both the letter and the intent of the NPOV tag as described in the essay linked above. I can only assume that the existence of the essay suggests that there is some level of precedent for how these situations are normally handled, and that I am acting in a manner consistent with those precedents. --GoRight (talk) 03:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

How can one side in an edit war be blocked, and not the other? Sounds punitive to me. Having said that, GoRight: even if you are in the right here, you of all people should know the playing field is not level on these pages. A POV tag is not worth giving them an excuse to block you. ATren (talk) 03:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Tedder, given this result I intend to raise this issue at WP:AN because I while I accept that you are merely attempting to contain the edit war you are also using your admin bit to prevent me from utilizing the NPOV tag for its clearly intended purpose, and are thereby, in effect at least, aiding one side in what is fundamentally a content dispute. I wish to seek guidance at WP:AN related to the proper use of the NPOV template as well as the community norms for such use.

If I agree not to restore the NPOV tag until the matter is discussed at WP:AN and I further agree to abide by any decision that arises out of that discussion, will you agree to unblock me? --GoRight (talk) 16:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

GoRight, I'll happily unblock you given those limitations. Additionally, please leave this section on this page until the AN/ANI discussion is over, okay? tedder (talk) 17:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Please don't forget about the autoblocks that typically get setup as well. Thanks.

Just to be clear on what we are agreeing to, I will also be free to edit elsewhere (i.e. other than just WP:AN) and to continue the discussion on Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change subject to the usual WP:CIVIL rules, correct? --GoRight (talk) 17:51, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I've unblocked you and I think I cleared the autoblock- let me know if that doesn't appear to be the case. You are free to edit anywhere, including Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change, paying special mind to WP:CIVIL and the aforementioned NPOV tag on the article in question.

Let me know when you've posted to AN- link to it here and on my talk page. tedder (talk) 17:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --GoRight (talk) 18:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Is There Any Chance of Getting Some Balance in the Global Warming Article?

I have tried to put a little balance in the first paragraph of the Global Warming article. Anyone reading this would be left with the impression that AGW is a more solid scientific theory than Newton's Laws of Motion. I had added the following:

"However, a number of highly respected scientists dispute the consensus view. Recently, leaked emails reveal that the leading Global Warming scientists, at the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia and elsewhere, have been concealing or altering the raw data, which shows the world has been cooling for the past decade. These Global Warming scientists have admitted in their emails, that none of the climate models can account for this lack of warming in the real world."

Not unsuprisingly, it was deleted a minute later. I note that despite the strong impact of the recent revelations of Climategate, this has failed to find any mention in the article. I have asked for advice on how the editors controlling the article would recommend I rewrite these facts so that they wouldn't object to their inclusion. I received the following reply:

Roughly, the only things that are correct is the name of the university, and that emails have been leaked. The rest is somewhere between obviously wrong and egregiously wrong, with a bit of WP:PEACOCK thrown in for good measure. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Any suggestions? - Brittainia (talk) 11:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge into Climate Change Controversy. = Brittainia (talk) 10:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Stephan Schulz

AfDM| page=Stephan Schulz|logdate=2009 December 10

I thought you might be interested in this vote. Vanity Pages for Admins really have no place on Wikipedia and it is high time to clear this detritus. ~ Rameses (talk) 11:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Blanking of An Article While it is AfD

Goright, I had written an article "Wikipropaganda on Global Warming" recently. It was quickly AfD'd by Zvn, which I have no Objection to. However, while the AfD process is underway, William M. Connolley acting in concert with Verbal have effectively blanked the article reducing it from 4,734 bytes to just 567 bytes - just one line! This is clearly blanking and one of the two behind it is the subject of the article so it's also clearly motivated. Any advice on how to get some justice here? ~ Rameses (talk) 14:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Daily Mail news, special investigation

(FYI, if you're interested in the Climategate article, this information needs to go in and otherwise due weight restored when it's unblocked on Dec. 18th -- Flegelpuss)

The Daily Mail has a news Special Investigation with an excellent analysis, including an excellent description that references among others McIntyre's analysis of the "trick...to hide the decline" which I previously submitted above. So this is an unquestionably RS that describes that analysis. The graph and a summary of the description should be included in the article. Here are some excerpts:

Derived from close examination of some of the thousands of other leaked emails, he [McIntyre] says it suggests the ‘trick’ undermines not only the CRU but the IPCC.

There is a widespread misconception that the ‘decline’ Jones was referring to is the fall in global temperatures from their peak in 1998, which probably was the hottest year for a long time. In fact, its subject was more technical - and much more significant...

Briffa knew exactly why they [IPCC] wanted it, writing in an email on September 22: ‘I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards “apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more”.’ But his conscience was troubled. ‘In reality the situation is not quite so simple - I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.’...

Finally, Briffa changed the way he computed his data and submitted a revised version. This brought his work into line for earlier centuries, and ‘cooled’ them significantly. But alas, it created another, potentially even more serious, problem.

According to his tree rings, the period since 1960 had not seen a steep rise in temperature, as actual temperature readings showed - but a large and steady decline, so calling into question the accuracy of the earlier data derived from tree rings.

This is the context in which, seven

weeks later, Jones presented his ‘trick’ - as simple as it was deceptive.

All he had to do was cut off Briffa’s inconvenient data at the point where the decline started, in 1961, and replace it with actual temperature readings, which showed an increase.

On the hockey stick graph, his line is abruptly terminated - but the end of the line is obscured by the other lines.

‘Any scientist ought to know that you just can’t mix and match proxy and actual data,’ said Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

‘They’re apples and oranges. Yet that’s exactly what he did.’

...as McIntyre points out, ‘contrary to claims by various climate scientists, the IPCC Third Assessment Report did not disclose the deletion of the post-1960 values’.

On the final diagram, the cut off was simply concealed by the other lines.

Flegelpuss (talk) 06:44, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't...

... fall into the trap of thinking they care about anything but protecting their POV. Focus on the issues, not in trying to build brides with those who have never shown one inkling in trying to find common ground. ATren (talk) 02:58, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Typical, but disappointing from SBHB. He has occasionally shown signs of rationality and we have had some good exchanges in the past. Lately he has been aloof. I guess he must have fallen under the influence of some bad apples or something. --GoRight (talk) 06:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

KDP

GR, you stated in the Lindzen talk that KDP has made precisely the same arguments from weight and undue that I am presently making in defense of other pages, something I find quite believable. Can you give me any examples? Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 05:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to dig some up, but to be honest you can probably go to just about any skeptic's page, look for something I have tried to add, and read his comments. On the warmers side of things he uses the mirror image of the arguments. He then tries to claim that cross article consistency arguments are moot and that every article has to be judged on its own merits. I suspect that argument is the lynch pin that prevents his cognitive dissonance from spinning out of control. --GoRight (talk) 06:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Regardless...

Regardless of how worthless individuals may or may not be, let's retain the pattina of civility and avoid commenting on other contributors, rather their contributions. Thanks! Hipocrite (talk) 21:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Heh. I appreciate your being even handed about it. You correctly caught the meaning of that post. I would like to likewise acknowledge that I saw your change to the POV template as being a legitimate attempt to find a compromise position and I commend you for it even though I would have been unlikely to support that specific change. --GoRight (talk) 22:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, your still here

I'm surprised you are still active here. I don't know how you can take it. I had given up long ago on this place.

Hey dude, how's it going? Send me an email using the wikipedia email service so we can catch up. You may have to setup one on your account first. I assume you can remove it after you send the email or just use a throw away one. --GoRight (talk) 23:33, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

disruptive editing

Edits like your latest set at Richard Lindzen don't help your case. It's obvious from the Iris article that the hypothesis is not generally accepted. Rather than delete, you could have added a fact tag or even (gasp!) tracked down a cite yourself. I've seen lots of wikilawyering in support of WP:FRINGE POV's, most notably at Passive smoking. It has some effect in disrupting the Wikipedia project, but it never helps advance the POV. JQ (talk) 08:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I will raise this issue on Lindzen's page in due time. But for now let me just point out the following:

1. Your source is NOT a peer-reviewed source.
2. Your source is NOT even a WP:RS on a BLP since it is a blog.
3. Your source does NOT support the claim being made (i.e. that the Iris effect is not widely accepted). No discussion of the acceptance level of that hypothesis is even mentioned in the article to which you link.

--GoRight (talk) 19:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Labeling edits as vandalism.

No good faith attempt to improve the encyclopedia should be labeled as vandalism. You have been here long enough to know that this was not appropriate. Do not repeat this behavior. Hipocrite (talk) 18:34, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The fallacy in your point is, of course, that Verbal removing properly sourced material that no one will disagree is something that Singer would actually say represents a "good faith attempt to improve the encyclopedia". It represents exactly the opposite and as such it is vandalism by definition. --GoRight (talk) 18:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Verbal is attempting to improve the encyclopedia, though you believe his actions harm it. I believe you are attempting to imrpove the encyclopedia, though many believe your actions harm it. If you continue to assume bad faith of other long term contributors, I will request that you be prevented from further disrupting the encyclopedia. Hipocrite (talk) 18:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Where have I assumed bad faith? I am arguing from the content of the change. Removal of that section which is properly sourced does nothing to improve the encyclopedia but most definitely accomplishes exactly the opposite because it removes material pertinent to the subject of the article and the views of a notable skeptic with respect to a notable incident. --GoRight (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism is a bad faith action. It assumes the intent of the vandal was to harm the encyclopedia. You have been around long enough to have read WP:VAND, specifically Wikipedia:NOTVAND "NPOV violations," "Unintentional misinformation," "Disruptive editing or stubbornness," or "Lack of understanding of the purpose of Wikipedia." Like I said - don't accuse long-term users of vandalism for disagreeing with you about what should be in an article. Hipocrite (talk) 18:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll just quote from the first two sentences of WP:VAND, "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. Vandalism cannot and will not be tolerated." Now, I will clearly acknowledge that YMMV on this point, but as far as I am concerned Verbal's edit was "a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia." And at this point I suspect it is best if we simply agree to disagree and move on. Feel free to have the last word. --GoRight (talk) 19:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll take that last word right here - "If you suggest another long term contributor has comitted vandalism by disagreeing with you in good faith, I will sugest you be provided a break from the encyclopedia to prevent further disruption." Hipocrite (talk) 19:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a silly dispute. I have to go with Hipocrite on the merits here, though - it's clearly a content dispute, rather than a deliberate, malicious attempt to sabotage Wikipedia. The reasons provided by Verbal in his edit summary, as well as his associated commentary on the talk page, indicate pretty clearly that he feels the content violates content policy and guidelines. If someone is providing those sorts of policy-based arguments for their edits, then they may be wrong, misguided, stubborn, POV-driven, biased, ignorant, abusing Wikipedia as a venue for advocacy, etc... but they are not committing vandalism. Just argue the case on its merits and let the vandalism thing drop - it's an overreach, and you're not going to convince anyone of anything except that you're misapplying WP:VANDAL. MastCell ^Talk 19:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Best I can offer at this point, folks. See [1]. --GoRight (talk) 19:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

"Involvment" checker

Since the GUI version was so bloated, I went ahead and put together/commented up a trimmed-down command-line version of the tool at User:MastCell/ContribCheckerCL. Works pretty well for me, and it's handy since it spits out a set of tab-delimited rows that can be sucked up by Excel or other data-crunching utilities. Let me know if you find it useful. MastCell ^Talk 00:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Coatrack

I'm seeing pretty clear consensus that Fred Singer is being used as a coatrack. Unless I'm overlooking someone, you're the only editor that doesn't agree. At this point I'm ready to start removing non-biographical information from the article. Will you respect the consensus, or do we need further dispute resolution? --Ronz (talk) 17:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe that you are overlooking Q Science. In any event, I disagree with your assertion that any consensus exists. --GoRight (talk) 17:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Ronz, count me among the dissenters if coatrack is applied unevenly on that article. I believe the ClimateGate quotes belong in some form, though probably only in a short summary sentence, not full quotes. I also feel that there are several coatracks that have been there for a long time but haven't been removed. I think there needs to be an overhaul there (long overdue) and I might support what you are doing, or I might not, depending on how you apply the standard. Perhaps you can outline your intentions in a new section on talk and I can comment further; or, perhaps be bold, apply the edits, and realize that some of us may object and try alternate versions. ATren (talk) 17:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, ATren. I'm continuing the discussion here for now in the hope GoRight will explain further. After that, it would be best to continue the discussion on the article talk page.

Yes, there are a lot of coatrack/BLP/NPOV problems across the global-warming-related articles.

Yes, we need to apply these policies evenly. I'm hoping that if we explain the problems and solutions clearly, it won't be nearly so hard to clean up other, related articles along the same lines.

Yes, a summary sentence would be a good solution for this (and perhaps most of the non-biographical information). Ideally, we'd have an independent, reliable source that's noted how widely he's been quoted that also summarizes these quotes. That way we are clearly following NPOV and SYN. If we can't find such sources then we need to be more careful, paying close attention to the pov of the source and their willingness to summarize rather than just provide a quote. --Ronz (talk) 18:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If the whole point of the "Views" section of the Fred Singer article is to articulate what the man's views are on a given topic (i.e. climategate in this case), I fail to see how we (or some secondary source) is better able to do that via paraphrasing than the man is with his own words. Can either you or ATren please explain to me how that makes any sense?

As to the applicability of the section in general, Singer is being vilified for being a skeptic of AGW. Indeed, his stance on AGW is a significant component of the man's career at this point in his life. Like it or not, climategate is a significant event in the history of the whole AGW debate of which Singer is a prominent figure. So to argue that his views on climategate are not germane to his BLP appears, on the surface at least, to be somewhat disingenuous IMHO. Clearly a discussion of his views on climategate belongs in his BLP, and as I have stated multiple times on the talk page I am perfectly willing to try and address people's concerns once they have been articulated. Generically citing NPOV and COATRACK does not an actionable issue make. Please state the specifics of your concern. Simply, "I don't like Singer's stance on AGW or climategate" is not a sufficient response. --GoRight (talk) 18:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. My solution to the Views section is to rely upon sources such as I mentioned so that we're not violating SYN or NPOV (or BLP, which is a possiblity as well). If we simply select quotes, we ignore NPOV. If we present such quotes as a summary of his viewpoints, we're violating SYN. We should instead rely upon reliable sources that do the summarizing/synthesizing/analyzing for us, and present them with appropriate weight.

One big problem with using quotes is that journalists often use them in place of analysis. Such sources should be avoided, especially in biographies. --Ronz (talk) 19:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I mean no disrespect here, but this is nonsense. The section is about Singer's views on climategate. To be a NPOV violation in this context Singer would have to hold multiple distinct views on climategate and we would have to be excluding one or more of them. As far as I know, we are not. So, for example, which of Singer's multiple views on climategate are we not including? That's what NPOV means for that section.

Neither is this WP:SYN. I am not synthesizing anything. To synthesize something you have to be combining multiple things or creating something out of whole cloth. In each of these cases there is only one thing, namely Singer's quote as reported by a secondary source.

If we try to paraphrase him, THEN we are doing synthesis, but merely including his quotes directly as reported by the secondary sources clearly is not. What will I have changed or introduced via the quote? Nothing. In both of these cases I am merely including what secondary sources have reported which is precisely what I am supposed to be doing.

Now, if we want to add something else into that section to provide the POV of someone else we better have a secondary source that is specifically commenting on Singer's views on climategate or THAT would be a fine example of synthesis, or WP:OR if you prefer, as well. --GoRight (talk) 21:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Not at all. I said, "If we simply select quotes." The NPOV violation is from our selection of what quotes/viewpoints are mentioned in the article, and the resulting emphasis on those viewpoints. The selection should be based instead upon reliable sources.

On the SYN issues: You claim we aren't making any with regard to the quotes. This misses the point. This is an encyclopedia we're writing - a biography in this case. This requires that we have summaries, synthesis, and analysis. We need to find and use references that provide them, since we are restrained from making them ourselves per WP:OR.

Once again, "Ideally, we'd have an independent, reliable source that's noted how widely he's been quoted that also summarizes these quotes." --Ronz (talk) 22:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

"The NPOV violation is from our selection of what quotes/viewpoints are mentioned in the article, and the resulting emphasis on those viewpoints." - You are quoting the standard argument at me, which under other circumstances in a non-BLP context would make sense. I would agree with you. But in this context there IS only ONE point of view, Singer's. No one can better represent Singer's POV that Singer himself.

"This requires that we have summaries, synthesis, and analysis. We need to find and use references that provide them, since we are restrained from making them ourselves per WP:OR." - While in general what you say is true, nothing in it precludes the use of quoted material in a biography. The two are most certainly NOT mutually exclusive. To argue that they are is to argue that one could not quote the text of the Gettysburg Address in a biography about Abraham Lincoln. Such a position appears absurd on its face, at least IMHO.

"Ideally, we'd have an independent, reliable source that's noted how widely he's been quoted that also summarizes these quotes." - So to use the Lincoln analogy, you would argue that we cannot actually quote the text of the address itself but should instead only use some secondary source's paraphrasing of it? And we cannot provide excerpts from some of Ronald Reagan's speeches such as the Tear down this wall speech? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it. (And no I am not trying to equate Fred Singer with Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan, but the point remains the same.) --GoRight (talk) 23:22, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience with this. I think we're making some good progress here.

You're correct with Lincoln and Reagan, but I am too. In both the Lincoln and Reagan cases we have countless references that provide the analysis we need. I'm simply asking for similar sources that give us the type of summarized information that is appropriate for a biographical article in an encyclopedia, and that give us information with which we can determine what weight to give it as notable information for such an article.

More specific to Singer: I'm sure he's made multiple statements about his viewpoints on various topics, and multiple statements on the e-mail hacking incident. If he hasn't made multiple statements, then we need to be sure we don't give it undue weight compared to other life events we're reporting. If he has made multiple statements, then we have the problem of which to select, plus the need to give it proper weight in respect to his other life events. --Ronz (talk) 23:37, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Given the size of the current article I don't think that we have to worry about thinning things out just yet. If you feel that some aspect of his life has been neglected relative to the existing content then, by all means, please help to improve the article by including it. That some aspects of his life may be in neglect is NOT an argument to exclude properly sourced material that we have already at hand. By that argument you could never even start an article and incomplete stubs would be disallowed. --GoRight (talk) 00:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for continuing the conversation.

"By that argument you could never even start..." Thankfully, no one is making any argument like this. All I'm arguing is that disputed information in biographies should be sourced by the highest-quality sources, per BLP, NPOV, OR, and NOT. --Ronz (talk) 01:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you dispute that Singer made these statements? --GoRight (talk) 05:23, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay getting back to you.

I don't see anyone arguing the point. It's simply not relevant to the discussion. --Ronz (talk) 17:38, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Number of Scientists

Hi GoRight. I tried finding the "number of scientists in the world" a few weeks ago, but all I was able to find were some unreliable webpages. I saw you mentioned the number at 2,500. I don't dispute your number and I have no clue what the number is. I am interested in where you arrived at that number though, since I never found a satisfactory answer. I suspect the criteria used to define a "scientist" is also important. Airborne84 (talk) 06:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that was merely a flippant comment on my part. The 2,500 was the oft cited number of scientists represented by the IPCC reports, but this number is quite controversial. Why are you in search of this figure? Depending on your intended use I could try to see if such a number could be found, but it is likely to be elusive as you point out. --GoRight (talk) 15:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

No need to do extra research on my behalf. I was looking for estimates based on curiosity. I didn't know about the IPCC number, so that's useful anyway. Thanks and cheers! Airborne84 (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

It's pointless because a) you would widely disparate numbers depending on your definition of "scientist", and b) science isn't a popular vote in any case. The way these things usually go is: scientific majority says: "No real scientist believes your minoritarian view." Minority group says: "Yes they do - here's a list of a zillion scientists who think the way we do!" Majority responds: "Well, here's an even bigger list of scientists who agree with us." It played out this way with AIDS denialism, and it's sort of pointless. MastCell ^Talk 19:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, as you have framed it (scientist v. scientist) you are correct that the number becomes sort of pointless. But when weighting the value of public v. scientific opinion, strictly speaking the coverage in Wikipedia is completely out of whack with the scientific side of things receiving hugely WP:UNDUE weight. I'm not sure I really intend to press this point, but it IS a valid WP:WEIGHT argument.

If you don't buy the "size of general population" v. "size of scientists" rationale for weighting then another might be "number of public domain media, editorial, and blog stories on GW" v. "number of peer-reviewed science papers". I suspect that in that case the scientific POV on GW is hugely over represented here. Perhaps this does bear some additional thought. I might be on to something .... --GoRight (talk) 21:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Nah, newspaper coverage is sort of an artefact of the way journalists cover science. They cover it like politics, as if there were two sides engaged in an even debate with no a priori assumption of correctness on either side. If you were to survey the popular press, you'd come away thinking that there is a robust scientific debate on the topic of whether vaccines cause autism, or whether secondhand smoke causes cancer. There isn't - those are matters where a robust scientific consensus exists without serious dissent. But the media tend to cover them as point-counterpoint "debates" with the WHO/Surgeon General on one side and a tobacco-company spokesresearcher from the American Society for Smokers' Rights (A wholly owned subsidiary of Philip Morris Inc.) on the other.

Since we're not in the news business, but rather in the business of trying to summarize the current state of human knowledge on a subject, it would seem to make sense that we focus on current scientific understanding when we cover scientific topics. Wikipedia's overview of the science of global warming should be in line with respected, mainstream scientific thought. If we want to cover the politics of global warming, then we could do so, but it should be clear that we're talking politics and not science. MastCell ^Talk 22:23, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The above is NOT an argument about the weight within the context of the scientific debate. Rather, it is an argument that far too much weight (i.e. far too much coverage) is being dedicated to scientific views overall relative to the political ones. So, for example, we should have (for the sake of discussion) 100X the number of political articles as we do scientific ones on GW ... based solely on the weight given to each by verifiable RS, and since we are discussing opinion here obviously editorials published in the MSM count as well. In other words, in the GW articles the scientific opinions are given far too many column inches relative to the public/political ones IF one truly wanted to assess the relative weights of each in terms of volume of publications. In even OTHER words, using the very same argument that the AGW promoters use to delete skeptic's views from the encyclopedia based on WP:UNDUE why should the scientific articles not be deleted entirely in favor of public/political ones? The scientific opinion is, after all, a minority of opinion in this larger context, right? --GoRight (talk) 00:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Apologies if my contribution is disruptive in any way...

Scientific consensus is a necessary and required pov to have in all scientific matters. We are, after all, writing an encyclopedia here. --Ronz (talk) 17:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

How strange...and interesting. GoRight, I had no intention of lambasting you on your talk page, I was simply trying to get at the "truth" of the matter, and not trying to support an opinion either way for me. A man/woman's home is his/her castle, after all...

I will say that a few months ago I had absolutely no opinion on climate change/global warming whatsoever (due to my lack of knowledge about it). However, I started hearing things on the news about it, heard Al Gore say things, etc. I did what I thought was the logical thing to do, I started researching what scientists said about the subject. I saw what Al Gore said about the topic. He's just as bad on some of the points as the sceptics are in politics and the news shows I've seen. My interest in determining the "truth" of the matter (a slippery term) resulted in scientific opinions and research. Why did I eschew other sources?

1. Politicians. They all have agendas. On both sides. And their information on the subject comes from others.

2. News media/talk shows. Some have agendas. And their information on the subject comes from others.

3. Economists. Irrelevant to the subject of whether global warming is occurring and if it's caused by man. The costs of addressing it are a huge issue to be sure. I'm not sure I want to accept a huge impact on my life to address this immediately - without considered thought. However, that's a separate issue.

4. Public opinion. Amazingly irrelevant from my point of view. Without research, the public knows only what it hears. Most of the public in western Europe believes global warming is a fact and it's caused by humans. That doesn't mean they're right. If I wanted to find out if the Great Wall of China could be seen by the human eye from space, I wouldn't go take a poll at the local shopping complex (I bet the majority answer would be wrong). I'd ask an astronaut - or someone that worked at a space agency - in other words, someone with some knowledge of the field that didn't require research to get the answer.

Anyway, I'm not saying that scientists are right on global warming (on either side). I'm just saying that a few months ago when I wanted to do research on this subject, my first thought was "what do scientist say about it"?

Again GoRight, no intent to disparage you on your own talk page. Just responding to what looked like an interesting conversation that I (unintentionally) sparked. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and if you can improve the articles on this subject and others on Wikipedia - more power to you.

Cheers! Airborne84 (talk) 02:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate

Hi there. Can you help me here-Mariordo (talk) 19:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

About your editing of my edits :)

With regards to this article [[2]] Do you believe i acted correctly and used reputable sources to validate the post? And if so why was it removed by willy connolley. It has been redone now about six times with different users re-adding it and other users using different excuses to delete it. Most confusing :) Why are people so worried about the truth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marknutley (talk • contribs) 02:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Your sources were fine. I just added a couple more. The editors you ran into just don't like Monckton so they were trying to keep his views off the page. Watch the page as they will likely continue to try and remove the material despite it's being properly sourced.

Are you aware of [3]? P.S. Please remember to sign your edits. --GoRight (talk) 04:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I`m a sock puppet :) Is that allowed if all i did was edit a few posts to reflect the truth? How stupid is that, sheesh.

How does one sign his edits btw? o assumed it was four tildes but have been told this is not the case for anything other than talk pages. Thank you. mark nutley (talk) 09:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

WMC Harrassment

If you really think WMC is harrassing ZP5 (I haven't followed the recent edits) but don't know where to post put your case on my talk page and I will look at them. If you convince me and I agree I will raise it with WMC. Agreed? (Except I may not be online much over Christmas itself with lots of family around)> --BozMo talk 07:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, what's your threshold for harassment? I can try and dig up some diffs but don't want to bother unless we are in the same ballpark. I can cite things like WMC following ZP5 around and repeatedly calling for him to be banned, constant criticism and a total unwillingness to try and afford him any courtesy, repeated incivility, general bullying, repeatedly removing his comments or redacting them, etc, etc. Now a lot of this is just WMC being WMC but in ZP5's case he appears even more pointy than usual. For example, he lobbied for 2/0 to block ZP5 and after he had been blocked he couldn't just leave well enough alone he went to ZP5's page to make even more in your face comments and proddings. He's clearly walking the thin line of trying to provoke ZP5 into lashing out so he can call him unhinged or whatever.

Then there is the issue of whether it would even do any good. What makes you think you can get WMC to listen to you anyway? My experience suggests that he is fairly impervious to any outside "attitude adjustments".

I'll try to dig up a few of the examples that stick out in my mind tomorrow to give you a more concrete idea of what I am thinking of ... thanks for even taking the time to bring it up. --GoRight (talk) 07:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

My experience with WMC has always been pretty positive in terms of engagement on criticism so the upside from your standpoint would be convincing me that his behaviour is as you describe. What I have seen of you is a puzzling mix so I am quite open minded to listen to your perspective more. Sometimes you are completely dismissive of other good faith editors and sometimes you engage positively. My experience with ZP5 has not been completely positive though. He seems to have a limited ability to put his edits into a wider context, and I have twice told him to be careful about harrassing WMC [4] but I don't really have the time to engage with ZP5 constructively for a few weeks because I sense it would be a time intensive process. --BozMo talk 14:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate the well intentioned offer to mediate. I assume that you have seen the list of diffs that ZP5 put up related to this discussion. I will simply defer to ZP5's perspective on when and where he may feel harassed. That having been said, and given the time of year, perhaps it is best to just let things pass at this point in an effort to embrace the spirit of the season. We can always resume this next year if things continue or escalate from here. Have a happy holiday season. --GoRight (talk) 18:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks/ yes lets work toward peace breaking out in the new year.--BozMo talk 22:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Refactoring comments

Do not edit my comments. Not ever. If you have a problem with any of them, ask me to refactor them. Reverted. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:30, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, don't make personal attacks and people won't have to remove them. And if you continue to make them I will continue to redact them, this is you final warning on the subject. --GoRight (talk) 04:32, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

GoRight, your latest personal attack against Scjessey on the article talk page is totally unacceptable. Consider this a warning. Please remove your personal attack from the talk page or I will formally request its removal. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 08:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh please ATren (talk) 14:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: Take your evidence to SPI

The evidence was taken to SPI, where myself and another editor noted the similarity. Furthermore, I provided diffs and evidence linking the two editors. GoRight, is there a reason you are always defending sock puppets on climate change-related articles? Viriditas (talk) 01:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

So where is this evidence? I looked at SPI but couldn't find it. --GoRight (talk) 15:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

GoRight, if your definition of "find" is to "ignore" something, then I don't know what to say. This was discussed extensively on the SPI investigation page. In any case, the user is now blocked. Indefinitely. Viriditas (talk) 20:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for the 3RR reminder. Honestly hadn't noticed, so warning appropriate and appreciated. :) -- Scjessey (talk) 18:12, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. --GoRight (talk) 18:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

BTW, my use of profanity was for emphasis. It is not a matter of civility. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:35, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

While I myself am not offended by such things, others most certainly can be. I don't mind a good heated debate but for some profanity simply crosses the line, that's all. I don't mind you removing the section from your talk page but that language IS getting dangerously close to actionable I would think if taken to a noticeboard. This will be especially true if it is repeated. As sign of good faith perhaps you would consider refactoring your own comment to be just slightly less emphatic? --GoRight (talk) 19:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I've been involved in umpteen noticeboard discussions concerning profanity, including variations of "fuck", and they have only been actionable when directed at an individual. It's hard for me to feel charitable in the current... er... climate. Nevertheless, I will refactor. I will also politely warn you to avoid interacting with TheGoodLocust (see below). Nothing but trouble will come of it, as a glimpse at his edit contributions will reveal. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

"It's hard for me to feel charitable in the current... er... climate." - Believe me, I understand. Perhaps a focus on a few other articles for a day might help. Just a thought. --GoRight (talk) 19:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I need an outlet for my rage. This is just the place! -- Scjessey (talk) 19:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I see wikipedia hasn't changed

Recent experiences have demonstrated that wikipedia is just as bad as ever, if not worse, the Real Climate blog, cited by and partially produced by William Connolley thousands of times on wikipedia is apparently acceptable, but citing a newspaper article (or "blog" since it is online) by an atmosphere scientist, an actual scientific article, and an article from Science (the magazine) is unacceptable.

These people are truly unbelievable - I have no idea how you put up with them. I think this might be a decent website if the rules were applied consistently and it wasn't simply a matter of sending a private message to one of your friends on facebook for backup every time you needed to overcome the 3r limit. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I might need some help

I half-expect to get blocked for 24 hours for my edits here, because, during my last edit, I clicked "undo" but it wasn't really an undo. I just wanted a convenient way of getting my text back. Anyway, I'm sure "they" have an admin on standby to block me so I'd better keep this short. If you can, and I'm unable to, can you explain that it wasn't really a 3r violation? Thanks if you can. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

If this happens again simply self-revert the revert with an explanation of hitting the wrong button. I'll point them to this comment and to your talk page but beyond that there isn't much I can do. Sorry. --GoRight (talk) 00:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice (and the defense!). Unfortunately I'm sure I'll ignore a lot of it since I'm far too honest for wikipedia and all the behind-the-scenes machinations. We all know what is going on, but anyone who says it out loud will likely get banned. I suppose I like to test the waters every now and then and see if the honesty levels have improved. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Can i get some advice please

I have come to the conclusion that the usual suspects will not engage in debate on this article. [[5]]

i have also noticed an increase in reverts since it`s protection was removed which leads me to suspect another lock out on the "right version" will soon happen. How do i create a new section in the article for new text? (as seen in article talk) Whom should i speak to about this refusal to debate and then reverting of edits for no just cause? I have also asked user the good locust for his advice. Thanks. --mark nutley (talk) 14:13, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The only way to break the stonewalling, and you can't always prevail obviously, is to get other neutral editors involved. The only acceptable way to do that is to follow WP:DR. The exact option you choose will depend on the circumstances. For example, mediation is only an option if both sides agree to participate. Stonewalling, therefore, is likely to continue. In most cases the best option is an WP:RFC posted at the appropriate noticeboard. It is usually bad form to WP:CANVASS unless you do so in a neutral way, such as using noticeboards or neutral notices left at related pages.

You can also inform people who have explicitly asked to be informed of such things previously and/or who indicate on their user page that they like to receive friendly notices (see my user page at the top right). I have not looked at the details of your issue but I suspect that an WP:RFC is a likely next step. --GoRight (talk) 22:26, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Scjessey disruption

There's no support for this edit anywhere, and your edit summary fails to assume good faith. Please stop your agenda-driven editing. -- Scjessey (talk) 06:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Ha. Your attitude is amusing to say the least. (a) My edit enjoys more support in terms of the number of editors involved in arriving at the content in question than does your revert, and (b) you were the one that started with the labeling people as "tendentious". Don't throw stones and you might find less coming back at you. --GoRight (talk) 06:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

That's complete bullshit. The disruption is from you, and there has been no consensus for using the word "scandal" in the article - a loaded, POV term. -- Scjessey (talk) 06:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

See [6] regarding whether this is POV or not. It is widely referred to as a scandal. --GoRight (talk) 06:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

IPCC Article

Hi i see you made a comment in this talk [[7]] As the consensus was for inclusion user the goodlocust reverted the artilce to include the disputed text. However User:William M. Connolley reverted ignoring the consensus and reverted to his prefered version with the note #rv: nope: talk page consensus is to leave it out. Please don't misrepresent reality" I reverted and explained "William look again, 6 say in 3 say out. If you have an issue please take it to talk and not revert like the project rules state" Once again he ignore the rules and the consensus and reverts this time with "rv: please see comments in talk. This version is fatally flawed." What am i to do? If i revert again i will be accused of an edit war and get banned again :( Any advice would be great thanks. mark nutley (talk) 18:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I have a few pieces of advice for you:

1. Patience. Lots and lots of patience. The RfC will run for like 30 days. Let it run its course to see if you get any other neutral voices (WMC and KDP will not consider me neutral) to swing things your way. If the neutral voices go against you then consider whether it is worth pressing on, or not. Pick your !Battles and accept that sometimes you will lose.
2. WMC and KDP will WP:TAGTEAM any one of you to keep the material they don't like out. If needed some of their friends will likely just "happen by" to help out. Since the list of people supporting inclusion have already weighed in on this topic AND because they are now being discussed regarding that support, contact them in a neutral way and ask them to confirm or refute their support in this matter. They may then choose to help. Be aware of WP:CANVASS before taking any such steps.
3. Since it is just WMC and KDP right now they are likely simply waiting and hoping that you (collectively) will simply grow tired and go away. This is how many of their !Battles are won. They are in this for the long haul.
4. I discourage edit warring as a means of trying to get something into an article, and I definitely encourage individuals to stay well within the rules on this point. However, I note that if those who are listed as supporting inclusion where to collectively assert their position that WMC and KDP would have a hard time maintaining theirs without more support for their side of the issue. --GoRight (talk) 18:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

--GoRight (talk) 18:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, i have left a short note with the others involved in the talk including kim, i`m assuming he will let the others know :) mark nutley (talk) 19:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

If I may chime in here .... also listen closely to the suspected taggers (it is important to stay content and sourced focused) However, when folks attempt to define what bounds qualify as a reliable source for an article, herein may lay the ownership concerns. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 19:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

zulupap5, the sources are reliable but i am confused by the use of the word ownership what does that refer to? mark nutley (talk) 19:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Ownership is a property issue. Owners define the boundaries and rights to the property. At the heart of the wiki ownership matter is WP:5P where it says .... "Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit and distribute. Respect copyright laws. Since all your contributions are freely licensed to the public, no editor owns any article; all of your contributions can and will be mercilessly edited and redistributed." .... So any editor who defends the POV boundaries as if they may have copyrights, can be considered as behaving like an owner, when in fact they have no copyrights to the POV because it is ever openly changing to adjust the NPOV as new sources are included. If an editor enforces like copywriter ownership, then a serious COI issues may be in the works. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

To bring it home, an editor(s) who unreasonably and repeatedly claim "no consensus" may be effectively saying, I don't give you permission (consent) like they own the content copyright. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Ian Plimer

I've posted at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Ian_Plimer because I think the unresolved BLP problems and edit warring at this article merit administrator involvement. --TS 19:28, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Survivors

This is an incredibly poor idea. Please tell me that you're just messing around and plan to ask that it be deleted. If you want a technical, policy-based reason, it seems clear that this category does not "aid in facilitating coordination and collaboration between users for the improvement and development of the encyclopedia.". But surely you see why this is an incredibly bad idea without reference to specific policies, right? MastCell ^Talk 21:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually have a reason for doing this that is related to "aid in facilitating coordination and collaboration between users for the improvement and development of the encyclopedia." The Scibaby sockpuppet investigations are being used as a rubber stamp to run check user against anyone expressing a skeptical POV with respect to AGW. This is plainly true as many of the accounts being checkusered only have a single edit to their credit. I have raised this issue with the Arbcom audit subcommittee and expect to hear back from them in January on whether checkuser is being abused in this case, or not.

In the mean time I have created this category to simply keep track of how many accounts have been falsely accused so that we can better assess the actual impact on unrelated accounts ... at least for the period for which we actually have a trackable SPI history. Raul wasn't very good about keeping a paper trail for these as you may know ... hmmm. That is, unless of course, there is a paper trail the predates the SPI page that I am aware of. Do you know of any way to verify what happened prior to the SPI history?

I am aware that this is likely to be viewed as controversial, but invasion of people's privacy is also an important consideration, IMHO. Having been the target of some of this nonsense I can attest to the fact that the impact isn't minor.

Why specifically do you consider keeping track of the survivors to be an incredibly poor idea? I mean there is a category to keep track of the puppets, why not the survivors? If there is something I have missed I am certainly open to deleting the whole thing. Enlighten me please. --GoRight (talk) 21:56, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

User categories are not intended to help craft complaints about checkuser usage. The Audit Subcommittee is the proper venue to do that, and it sounds like you've already availed yourself of it. If you need to collect data, then there are any number of ways to do that without creating a user category. The way you've approached it (labeling them "survivors", for example) guarantees that the category is not likely to foster constructive collaboration.

Furthermore, the category is useless as a data-collection tool. Since you have no way of knowing how many checkusers were actually run looking for Scibaby sockpuppets, you have no idea what fraction of checkuser investigations are represented in the category, nor how complete your dataset is. The people with access to that data are other checkusers, because they can see a log of every access to the checkuser database. Queries should be logged with a clear rationale, so someone with access to the log should be easily able to see how many checkuser queries were conducted looking specifically for Scibaby sockpuppets. The category does not provide those data, which are the numbers of interest, so it's useless for that stated purpose on top of its divisiveness.

I'd like to ask that you drop the "invasion of privacy" line, at least in discussion with me. It may be effective in some venues, with some people, but to me it only suggests that you're grandstanding. I know you're technically savvy, so you know as well as I that even people who are checkusered here have vastly more privacy than visitors or contributors nearly anywhere else on the Web. IP and user-agent data is logged by every web server - anyone who knows anything about the Web knows that. It cannot reasonably be considered "private" in any meaningful sense. Wikipedia chooses to provide additional safeguards in the form of the privacy policy. One could debate whether Wikipedia's privacy policy has been breached here - that is one role of the Audit Subcommittee - but to cast this as a general "invasion of privacy" is ludicrous hyperbole. I have no idea what Scibaby's IPs or user agents are, nor do I know any supposedly "private" information about them, nor does anyone else outside a small group of checkusers who are bound to keep that knowledge private - and even if they weren't, those details are exposed every time you view any website anywhere in the world, so it's hardly appropriate to go on about the FBI and unreasonable search and seizure.

Anyhow, I digress. If you want to keep a list of people who were publicly identified with negative checkuser results, then keep them on your computer, or even on a user subpage I suppose, but don't misuse user categories. I'll probably move this over to WP:CfD at some point for wider input if you really think I'm off-base here, because this seems obvious as 2+2 to me. MastCell ^Talk 23:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

My list is driven off of the current history of the SPI archive for Scibaby. So while I cannot use my category to determine the hit rate for all time, I can certainly use it to compute the hit rate over the period of time for when the publicly viewable SPI archive covers. All of that information is available to everyone. In retrospect, however, I will accept that this is more controversial than I had anticipated and agree to have it removed in preference to some other mechanism for tracking such things. This will also have the benefit of being less intrusive on the user's involved because I won't have to add the category to their pages.

I'll put up a speedy delete here in a bit once I have captured the information elsewhere. --GoRight (talk) 00:23, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The thing is that only a fraction of checkuser queries are performed in response to public SPI filings. Some are performed on the basis of an email request that a checkuser deems reasonable, and some are performed on the checkuser's own initiative. At best, you're catching the first set while missing the latter two, which could only be seen by someone with access to the checkuser logs.

Like I said, I don't have a problem with you collating this information, only with the use of user categories to do so. Thanks for taking my concern into consideration, and I apologize for the testiness of my posts. MastCell ^Talk 00:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I put up the speedy delete template as the sole author of the category. Feel free to remove it. Should I go remove all the category tags or does that happen automagically when a category is deleted? --GoRight (talk) 00:57, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me that a list page would be perfectly fine for the purpose. Categories are fiddly and you can't tell when a page has been added to or removed from your category unless you're watching the page added or removed. --TS 23:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

GoRight's standing up for privacy invasions is a noble cause. Keeping a list of survivors is a valid method. Where exactly to keep and present that list, is beyond me at this point. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 04:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Personal attacks

As you are well aware, our policy forbids personal attacks such as this one of yours. Your attacks are especially egregious given that your claim that it's not a blog post is contradicted by all available evidence. Guettarda (talk) 05:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Follow the wikilinks I have been providing like

THIS ONE ---> Pajamas Media <--- (Hint: Click on it.)

And where have I made a personal attack? I see no personal attack in that statement. KDP is telling a known falsehood (aka a bald face lie). --GoRight (talk) 05:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Calling a statement a "lie" imputes motive. One can always make a mistake. For example, you are almost certainly wrong in your claim that Plimer's article was not a blog post. But I am willing to assume that you are simply speaking from ignorance, and that you are not deliberately fabricating falsehoods. To do otherwise, to call something a lie, is a violation of our policy on personal attacks. Of course it's all the worse because the thing you are calling a "bald faced lie" is, on the face of it, accurate, while your assertion is, per all evidence that I have seen, untrue. Guettarda (talk) 05:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

As for the link to the Wikipedia article - Wikipedia articles are not reliable sources. And they clearly are not worth much when you use them to contradict the Pajamas Media website. Guettarda (talk) 05:27, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but PM is a well-funded media operation not just some guy's blog. RealClimate is an actual blog. PM is not given the capital, expenditures, numbers of people involved, etc. I suppose there is some very slim chance that we are arguing over the semantics of the term "blog" but KDP is well aware of who PM is, and in knowing and continuing to spread known falsehoods his motive seems quite clear. --GoRight (talk) 05:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It's still a blog, and your claims to the contrary are simply untrue. HuffPo is also a blog. It has nothing to do with how much money is behind it, it has to do with editorial standards and editorial control. It counts as a blog for the purposes of SPS. This isn't a semantic argument, this is a policy argument. Kim is absolutely correct. Your distinction is nothing but semantics, yelling, and personal attacks. Guettarda (talk) 05:38, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See [8]:

"The PJM Portal now provides exclusive news and opinion 24/7 with correspondents in over forty countries. Its distinguished line-up of XpressBloggers is widely respected for their punditry. Pajamas Media also has its own weekly show on Sirius satellite radio – PJM Political."

Exclusive news and opinion. Do they have bloggers as part of their infrastructure? Sure, those are their political pundits. Every media outlet has them to write their guest editorials. This is no different than if Plimer had written an article for the NYT or the Wall Street Journal. Do you deny that Plimer wrote the piece? --GoRight (talk) 05:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

"Badger Drink now provides exclusive administrative, Jimbo-sanctioned insight 24/7 with an established team of highly-qualified advisors. His distinguished line-up of Wikipedia Talk page comments is widely respected for its accuracy". Therefore, when I state that two plus two equals five, it's completely accurate. Honestly, you're coming across like a disingenuous, anti-science ruleslawyer. To put it another way, you know full well that self-published claims of editorial mission are completely unreliable, and if they were reliable, then the Timecube guy should be used as an academic source on math-related pages. Badger Drink (talk) 06:06, 29 December 2009 (UTC)