User talk:William M. Connolley

To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency and humility, is to honour him; as signs of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently is to dishonour. Leviathan, X. User:William M. Connolley/For me/The naming of cats Googlebombing: Coton school UK CISK Adrian Edmund Gill Brian Gerard Gardiner Joanna Haigh Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate Carl Mears Frank Wentz Microwave sounding unit User:William M. Connolley/Climate change feedbacks User:William M. Connolley/Att Klaus P Heiss Proverb: if you have nothing new to say, don't say it. Thought for the day: paulgraham.com/discover There's no light the foolish can see better by [1] I "archive" (i.e. delete old stuff) quite aggressively (it makes up for my untidiness in real life). If you need to pull something back from the history, please do. Once. My Contribs • Blocks • Protects • Deletions • Block log • Count watchers • Edit count • WikiBlame I'm Number 11

The Holding Pen

Ocean acidification

On hold

A reader writes: "Leaving aside direct biological effects, it is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.[31] This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2 with moderate (and potentially beneficial) implications for climate change as more CO2 leaves the atmosphere for the ocean.[32]" I'm not sure, but it sounds odd. You can beat me to it if you like William M. Connolley (talk) 18:09, 3 May 2009 (UTC) Hmm, looks like it was User:Plumbago [2] William M. Connolley (talk) 18:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC) Correctly deduced. It was me. It may not be worded well, but I think that it's factually correct. Basically, as well as its other effects on living organisms in the ocean, acidification is also expected (see the references) to dissolve existing carbonate sediments in the oceans. This will increase the ocean's alkalinity inventory, which in turn increases its buffering capacity for CO2 - that is, the ocean can then store more CO2 at equilibrium than before (i.e. the "implications for climate change" alluded to). As a sidenote, it also means that palaeo scientists interested in inferring the past from carbonate sediment records will have to work fast (well, centuries) before their subject matter dissolves away! Hope this helps. --PLUMBAGO 06:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Your ArbCom userpage comment

Need to finish this off
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I know that you were disappointed by the conduct and results of the case, and I'm sure you're aware that I voted against most of the remedies proposed against you and share some portion of your feelings. However, I respectfully suggest that calling one of my colleagues a "fool" on-wiki is not helpful. We all accept a great deal of criticism and commentary as par for the course in connection with serving as arbitrators—just as you have as one of our active administrators on contentious topics—but I always still think it's better, and more effective, to stay away from the overtly ad hominem. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC) Ah, you've found it :-). And while you are here, thank you for your votes. I am indeed deeply disappointed by the conduct of your colleagues; and I regret having to disappoint you now. Arbcomm are big boys and girls and can cope with some discrete criticism of their actions. Moreover, you (arbcomm, I can't recall how you personally voted) established the principle that users are entitled to insult a blocking admin as much as they please on their own talk pages; I'm sure you'll extend a similar privilidge to those who desysop people William M. Connolley (talk) 13:40, 12 September 2009 (UTC) I should add that there is a diff there justifying the appelation. I regard the extensive comment re the cabal as being grotesquely stupid. However this carries no implication that is the most foolish thing that particular arb has done in this case William M. Connolley (talk) 17:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC) Nobody is entitled to insult anyone here William. If arbcom has passed some sort of rule the "entitles" users to insult a blocking admin(and I seriously doubt they have) then I would use good sense and ignore such an "entitlement" as unproductive. Chillum 14:11, 12 September 2009 (UTC) Really? Are you certain of your ground here? Suppose someone were to call the arbcomm "liars" or "lying bastards" or "ridiculous" or "devious" or compare them to a third world Junta? Do you think that would be actionable? William M. Connolley (talk) 17:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC) I think it would be rather poor judgment. Just because something is not actionable does not make it an entitlement. Chillum 17:46, 12 September 2009 (UTC) If you mean the arbcomm's decision permitting this, I entirely agree with you. However, until they are wise enough to revoke it (and alas I fear we will have rather a long time to wait for wisdom from them) we are stuck with it William M. Connolley (talk) 17:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC) I haven't looked to see which arb was accused of being a "fool," but am curious how would "Stephen Bain should not be entrusted with anything more valuable than a ball of string" would be received. I'd like to know before I say that. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:34, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley

Ditto
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This arbitration case has been closed, and the final decision is available in full at the link above. As a result of this case: The cold fusion article, and parts of any other articles substantially about cold fusion, are placed under discretionary sanctions. Abd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned for a period of three months from Wikipedia, and for a period of one year from the cold fusion article. These bans are to run concurrently. Additionally, Abd is prohibited from participating in discussions about disputes in which he is not one of the originating parties, including but not limited to article talk pages, user talk pages, administrator noticeboards, and any formal or informal dispute resolution, however not including votes or comments at polls. Abd is also admonished for edit-warring on Arbitration case pages, engaging in personal attacks, and failing to support allegations of misconduct. William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)'s administrator rights are revoked. He may apply for their reinstatement at any time via Requests for Adminship or appeal to the Committee. William M. Connolley is also admonished for edit warring on Arbitration case pages. Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is reminded not to edit war and to avoid personal attacks. The community is urged to engage in a policy discussion and clarify under what circumstances, if any, an administrator may issue topic or page bans without seeking consensus for them, and how such bans may be appealed. This discussion should come to a consensus within one month of this notice. On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Hersfold (t/a/c) 22:58, 13 September 2009 (UTC) I'm am sorry to see that your adminship has been revoked. I believe that our circumstances are similar in a way. I too was once an admin and lost my tools mainly due to conflicts on articles related to the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. I know that the vast majority of my content creation and all my FA's were done after I was desysopped...with that said I am hoping that we can still look forward to your wisdom and guidance in those areas you have so instrumental in and that you will continue to help us build as reliable a reference base as we can achieve. Best wishes to you!--MONGO 03:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC) Not a great day for Arbcom or the project. However I doubt you will take it too personally. --BozMo talk 08:39, 14 September 2009 (UTC) Thanks to you both William M. Connolley (talk) 22:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC) I ask that you please accept my nomination to regain your administrative rights at RFA. 99.191.73.2 (talk) 13:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC) Vair tempting. I fear that was the wrong forum. I shall ponder this matter William M. Connolley (talk) 21:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC) I'm sorry to hear this, William. You were a good admin. I hope you won't let it bother you. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 00:24, 15 September 2009 (UTC) I rarely comment in RFA, nor do I monitor them. If you ever decide to be re-nominated, I would appreciate a courtesy notice as otherwise I will almost certainly not be aware of the discussion. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC) Interesting [3] Hardly surprising that arbcom wants to keep their mess as far from view as possible. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) Weird. Who is it supposed to be a courtesy too? I've asked C User_talk:Carcharoth#CB. Certainly it seems to me that the people most embarassed by that page would be arbcomm William M. Connolley (talk) 07:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC) Woonpton expressed a desire for blanking, both during the case and at WT:AC/N. As I understand it, she feels that having Abd's allegations about cabal-ism visible were and are slandering her and everyone else smeared by the accusations. EdChem (talk) 07:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC) You might also want to look at User_talk:Cool_Hand_Luke#Thanks_and_question for more on Woonpton's view, as well as the thread immediately above it. EdChem (talk) 08:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC) This giant spwaling ill-managed case now extends to Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Courtesy_blanking_of_case_pages. Sigh - I thought they had finally managed to finish this case, but not, they drag its stinking corpse out of the grave and prop it up again William M. Connolley (talk) 08:40, 15 September 2009 (UTC) Not sure which section is best to post this, but I would be delighted to renominate you at RFA or support you if you decide to run. Stifle (talk) 16:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Current

Thermal underwear

Idealized greenhouse model, or the section below

Thermal trousers with special emission properties May I ask a question? I stress that I am not trying to do any original research, but only want to improve the GW article by explaining what is fundamental to the AGW hypothesis. I don't think the current article really explains it very well. My question: I did some Googling and the Stefan-Boltzmann equation (or rather a derivative of it) seems to be fundamental. But there are two versions of it, as follows: S0/4*(1-alpha) = e*sigmaT^4 S0/4*(1-alpha)+G = sigmaT^4 where alpha is albedo, S0 is a constant solar radiative flux (units W/m^2), T is temp in K, and sigma is a constant. The two sides of the equation both have units W/m^2. In the first equation e is 'emissivity' which is unitless and is the ratio of energy radiated by a particular material to energy radiated by a black body at the same temperature. I think of it as an 'underpants factor'. You have a black body throbbing with radiation, which will cool unless you keep it warm. So you put some underpants on it, to keep the cold out, i.e. stop it radiating so much. Hence CO2 and water vapour are like thermal underwear to keep the earth warm (if e is 100%, the temperature is about -18 deg C, for if you solve for e with current temperature, assume 15 deg C, you find e is about 60%). I am assuming e is constant whatever the temperature for exactly the same material, is that correct? In reality e will change as the material of the atmosphere changes (more CO2, or more vapour). In the second equation G is a number, units also W/m^2, which is a measure of the influence a factor has in altering the balance of incoming and outgoing energy in the Earth-atmosphere system. If you solve for G for 15 deg C, you get about 150 W/m^2. My puzzle is whether G is also constant, if for other reasons (e.g. change in solar radiation, change in albedo) the temperature changes. Intuitively it won't be constant. Why represent it this way? Apologise if I have misunderstood, and please correct any mistakes (I am quite new to this, but it is interesting). Again, I am not trying to do any research, just finding out some facts that could be put into layman's language and hopefully into the article. I think thermal underwear is a better analogy than greenhouses, e.g. HistorianofScience (talk) 11:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC) I really don't think all this talk of underwear and throbbing bodies is appropriate. Please keep such impulses to yourself. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:24, 10 January 2010 (UTC) You are the Walrus and you talk about throbbing bodies? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC) My personal preference is for exploding underpants, but they banned them :-( William M. Connolley (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Actually it was Long Johns I was looking for but couldn't find the category until now. Anyway I prefer the leather ones. Seriously, can anyone answer my question above ? HistorianofScience (talk) 19:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC) I think you're looking for the one-sentence summary of the greenhouse effect, which is the earth is warmer with an atmosphere, because it receives heat from both the sun and the atmosphere. Your G, above, is the heat from the atmosphere. Put that way, it becomes obvious that G is not contstant, in time (long or short term) or space William M. Connolley (talk) 20:15, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Thanks for the explanation but I'm still not sure I understand. Suppose we turned off the sun like an electric light. Then the earth no longer receives heat from the sun. Does it still receive heat from the atmosphere? Until the atmosphere cools down, yes. Then no William M. Connolley (talk) 20:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Surely not. Isn't the correct explanation that the atmosphere is acting like a blanket around the earth, preventing it from cooling as fast as a black body would? No. You need to read what I wrote and understand it. Until you do, you will get nowhere William M. Connolley (talk) 20:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC) So it's not heating the earth, it's preventing it from cooling as fast as it would in the black body case. No William M. Connolley (talk) 20:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC) And the heat energy it is losing should be identical, at the instant the sun turns off, to what it was receiving from the sun. If that is correct, G is the difference between the W/m^2 that the black body would emit, and the W/m^2 actually emitted. No? HistorianofScience (talk) 20:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC) As a very very broad-brush approximation, the atmosphere receives no heat directly from the sun, since it is transparent to SW. The atmosphere is heated by LW from the earth (which itself, of course, is ultimately sourced from SW from the sun absorbed at the earth's sfc. Can you cope with maths? If you can, this is easily written down - indeed it is somewhere, I only need to point you at it William M. Connolley (talk) 20:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC) I can cope with maths. HistorianofScience (talk) 20:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Would it be more like those rude transparent underpants then? [4] HistorianofScience (talk) 20:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Fine. Writing it all out is quicker than finding it, so... simplifying, the sun shines 4S units on the uniform earth (and since the area of a circle is 1/4 the area of a corresponding sphere the 4 drops out), which is a black body (forget albedo for the moment, it makes no real difference). The atmosphere is transparent to SW, and can be considered as a single layer not in conductive contact with the surface. There is no diurnal cycle, all is averaged out, all is in equilibrium. So at the sfc (with atmosphere) we have the following equation: S + G = rT^4 (the surface is black, captures all solar SW and transforms it into LW which it re-radiates) and G is the radiation from the atmosphere. Meanwhile, in the atmosphere, 2G = rT^4 (the atmospheric layer is totally opaque to the surface LW, is itself isothermal, and being a layer radiates both up and downwards). As it happens G = r(T_a)^4 but we don't care about that for tihs analysis. Hence, S + G = 2G, hence S = G, hence T_1 = (2S/r)^0.25. Meanwhile, in the absence of the atmosphere, we clearly would have T_2 = (S/r)^0.25. T_1 > T_2 (by a factor of 2^0.25) and (T_1 - T_2) is the greenhouse effect. William M. Connolley (talk) 21:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Also, this [5] and the linked [6] also refers, but is harder William M. Connolley (talk) 21:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Thanks (appreciated). How do you get from S + G = rT^4 to 2G = rT^4 without the assumption that S=G (which you later derive). The intervening bracketed "the atmospheric layer is totally opaque to the surface LW, is itself isothermal, and being a layer radiates both up and downwards). " seems like an explanation, but I didn't understand it. The atmospheric layer absorbs all the surface LW, which is the rT^4. It is in equilibrium. It radiates , equally, upwards and downwards, G. So it gains rT^4 and loses 2G, so those two are equal William M. Connolley (talk) 22:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC) If the earth receives all the SW, then reflects it back to the layer, why do you say earlier that the layer heats the earth? Why isn't it the other way round. No, it doesn't reflect the SW - it is assumed black. It absorbs all the SW and re-radiates it as LW. Yes, "the earth heats the atmosphere" can also be regarded as true William M. Connolley (talk) 22:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Thanks for taking the time. HistorianofScience (talk) 21:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Blast from the past

Not to creep you out, but I was looking through old RfAs and I found this, from your second, and succesful, RfA. To the question of: How do you see Wikipedia in 2010 ?

OK, for what its worth, here is the rest: I see wikipedia continuing its growth and influence. The problems of scaling will continue: how to smoothly adapt current practices to a larger community. At the moment this appears to be working mostly OK. Problems exist with the gap between arbcomm level and admin level: I expect this to have to be bridged/changed someway well before 2010. I very much hope more experts - from my area of interests, particularly scientists - will contribute: at the moment all too few do. To make this work, we will have to find some way to welcome and encourage them and their contributions without damaging the wiki ethos. This isn't working terribly well at the moment. I predict that wiki will still be a benevolent dictatorship in 2010 - the problems of transition to full user sovereignty are not worth solving at this stage. William M. Connolley 20:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC).

Thought you'd be amused. Shadowjams (talk) 07:02, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm yes. "Prediction is hard, especially of the future" as they say William M. Connolley (talk) 08:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Ha. So they say. I'm really good at the past prediction part though. Shadowjams (talk) 08:49, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

More thermals

All at Idealized greenhouse model it seems

Thanks for your explanation which I am afraid I still don't really follow. I don't see how 'the earth heats the atmosphere' and 'the atmosphere heats the earth' can both be true. If it is true that none of the SW affects the atmosphere and that the earth reflects LW as a result, then the earth is the cause of the warming. Indeed couldn't we ignore the sun entirely, turn it off and install a large amount of patio heaters all round the earth pointing upwards at the sky: this would have the same effect. I didn't understand the both directions stuff "It [the atmosphere] radiates , equally, upwards and downwards". Maybe it does, but, unless there is a net outflow of LW heat energy from the earth to balance the SW coming in, the temperature of the earth will not be at equilibrium. A net flow can only be in one direction, by definition. The net outflow from the earth must be exactly balanced by the outflow at the edge of the atmosphere, otherwise the atmosphere would continue heat up. The atmosphere is hotter than the earth's surface because the outflow from the atmosphere has to occur at a higher temperature than the same outflow from the earth. So, the earth is the 'efficient cause' of the heating of the atmosphere, surely. HistorianofScience (talk) 20:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC) You've dropped down into words (some of which are wrong: as I've said before, Earth doesn't reflect LW. It is black in LW). It is clearer if you use maths. Or pix, perhaps. Lets try: | G ^ V Solar input. (4S ->) S | ---------------------------- Atmosphere. Emits G, up and down, thermal radiation. Absorbs S+G. ---------------------------- | | | V Solar straight through - atmos transparent, still S G V ^ S+G | ----------------------------- Sfc. Abs S(SW)+G(LW). Thus emits (S+G)(LW). Thus S+G = rT^4 Clear now? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC) Sorry, apart from the bit about not reflecting LW (that seemed picky, unless I misunderstood it), which of my claims was wrong? I said that the net outflow from earth to atmosphere has to be upwards. And that this outflow has to be exactly equal to the outflow from the atmosphere into space. Your diagram is incomprehensible. And what about Greenhouse effect where it says "Radiation is emitted both upward, with part escaping to space, and downward toward Earth's surface, making our life on earth possible." This is entirely wrong isn't it? It gives the impression that we are safe because only part of the radiation escapes to space, but the rest is trapped behind & keeps us snug and warm. The reality is that the net outflow from the earth has to be exactly balanced by the outflow at the edge of the atmosphere into space. Otherwise the atmosphere would keep on heating up until equilibrium was restored. HistorianofScience (talk) 20:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC) [edit] The unclearness of the diagram is the omission of the causality. You have the atmosphere radiating G downwards, e.g. Yes but where does the G come from? If we were to start with turning on the sun like a switch, at that instant there would be no G from the atmosphere. In which case the first thing to hit the earth would be S. Then earth would emit (not reflect) S. With no G. HistorianofScience (talk) 20:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC) Like I say, you need the maths and the pix, not the words. The diagram is a steady state. We can re-draw it, if you like, for an Earth at 0K above which the sun has just been turned on: | 0 ^ V Solar input. (4S ->) S | ---------------------------- Atmosphere. At 0K. Doesn't radiate. ---------------------------- | | | V Solar straight through - atmos transparent, still S 0 V ^ 0 | ----------------------------- Sfc. Abs S(SW)+0(LW). At 0K. Doesn't radiate. So now in this pix you see that the atmos is still in equilibrium, at 0K, but the Earth isn't: It is absorbing S but radiating nothing. So it will warm up, yes? So after a bit we get something like this: | 0 ^ V Solar input. (4S ->) S | ---------------------------- Atmosphere. At 0K. Doesn't radiate. ---------------------------- | | | V Solar straight through - atmos transparent, still S 0 V ^ G_T | ----------------------------- Sfc. Abs S(SW)+0(LW). Has warmed up somewhat, to T. Emits rT^4, call this G_T. So now the sfc has warmed up somewhat, so it is emitting G_T in the LW. Now the atmosphere isn't in balance: it is absorbing G_T but emitting nothing, since it is at 0K. So it will warm up. So it will start emitting downwards an warm further. And eventually we end up with the equilibrium solution William M. Connolley (talk) 21:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Service award update

Hello, William M. Connolley! The requirements for the service awards have been updated, and you may no longer be eligible for the award you currently display. Don't worry! Since you have already earned your award, you are free to keep displaying it. However, you may also wish to update to the current system. Sorry for any inconvenience. — the Man in Question (in question) 10:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Argh, I hate it when these things change :-( Oh well, I'll see if the new one looks any prettier than the old :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 12:59, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Dynamic topography

To William and his talk page stalkers:

Would you (ambiguously singular or plural) like to expand the portion of "Dynamic topography" that is about the oceans?

I am planning on doing some expansion of the solid-Earth-geophysics portion of that article (which currently covers both the dynamically-supported ocean elevations and topography due to motion of material in the mantle), but I think it would be a disservice to continue to ignore the ocean part. Ideally, we would have two separate standalone articles.

Awickert (talk) 17:26, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Good point. How analogous are they? I never got through reading Gill, so maybe now is my chance :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 18:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't know anything about it in the oceans; in the Earth it is due to motion in the mantle that creates normal tractions on interfaces such as the surface, the upper/lower mantle discontinuity, the core-mantle boundary, etc. Since it is supposed to be about the motion of seawater, I can imagine how the physics could be identical, but I can't say for sure and about to head out the door: off to see a friend perform in Guettarda's favorite musical, Awickert (talk) 18:51, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Careful. That is pretty clear evidence of a Cabal, or possibly a Cadre William M. Connolley (talk) 19:22, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Cadre, I think. In our obligatory red shirts. Guettarda (talk) 21:38, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking about "Gang of N." It has a nice math/science ring to it, and evokes the Gang of Four. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:25, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

While "Gang of N" has a certain ring to it (the definitions are so amorphous, no one can agree how many there are), I think "Gang of i" might be more appropriate. Guettarda (talk) 03:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I was totally baffled by "Guettarda's favourite musical"...until I remembered that conversation. It was especially puzzling since I've never seen it, have no idea what it's actually about, and don't even know what comes after the second "Oklahoma!" Guettarda (talk) 21:37, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

It's a good one - you should see it. Back to the topic: if it turns out that the underlying physics are the same, but just expressed in different media, I bet we could leave it at one article. If they are fundamentally different, then let's split. Awickert (talk) 01:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

PD initial thoughts

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change/Proposed decision looks about as stupid as I'd expected, though not as stupid as some others expected. The failure of any meaningful remedies for admin involvement, which wrecked the CC probation, is a flaw. But to be fair, the PD is capable of becoming moderately sensible with the correct votes. The real test is who votes for that William M. Connolley (talk) 11:15, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Thunks

I think it's utterly useless, actually. It's a standard 'ban one from each side' decision. While the proposed principles do identify some of the problems (sourcing, due & undue weight), it's like they forgot about them beyond that point. There's nothing in that decision which actually suggests that they read any of the evidence or workshop, or did anything to actually educate themselves about what's going on. And there's absolutely nothing in that decision that will do anything to defuse the situation. Guettarda (talk) 11:54, 23 August 2010 (UTC) You are likely right, though it will depend on the voting. What puzzles me is how they took so long over this - any fool could have scrawled that on the back of a fag packet in 5 mins from the opening of the case William M. Connolley (talk) 12:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC) They have not gotten hold of the situation by the scruff of the neck and it appears that Lar agrees on this. This has not really solved anything. WEAK WEAK WEAK Polargeo (talk) 12:05, 23 August 2010 (UTC) Perhaps intentionally so. There seemed to be an intent to lower the volume of the controversy by doing the bare minimum. ScottyBerg (talk) 12:11, 23 August 2010 (UTC) An acceptable strategy if CC enforcement was not in place already but not acceptable if there is a failled system overseeing CC enforcement. Arbcom has effectively endorsed a failled system. Polargeo (talk) 12:17, 23 August 2010 (UTC) (ec) I doubt it. If you haven't already, read Boris' Pocket Guide to Arbitration. That pretty much sums it up. I have seen dozens of cases that simply default to something like this - ignore the underlying issues, and hand out a few bans. Arbitration enforcement (AE) was an innovation a couple years back, which helped a little. So it's now thrown at every case as well. This result could have been written without looking at the case. In fact, it was, if you look at what the vandal was posting on the PD page yesterday. They captured the essence of the decision. Guettarda (talk) 12:21, 23 August 2010 (UTC) So a cry going out to all editors. Lets get rid of enforcement as a community and replace it with somthing better, agreed by all and not depending on arbcom. Polargeo (talk) 12:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC) I would want to see all editors involved in this. Polargeo (talk) 12:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC) The CC enforcement failed, because it was hijacked by involved admins pretending to be uninvolved. There is no sign of arbcomm dealing with this, nor any sign of the community being able to William M. Connolley (talk) 12:54, 23 August 2010 (UTC) Absolutely. I often feel that it was my lone voice when I discovered CC probation and realised that it was not fully community approved but being strongly pushed by a couple of editors that things were going badly wrong. Polargeo (talk) 12:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC) Replacement of the CC enforcement page with Arbitration Enforcement, which presumably gets a wider readership, was a good idea. One general comment: in retrospect, the process is amazingly opaque. This may seem like a newbie sentiment and it is, but to somebody looking at this process fresh it is amazingly contrary to Wikipedia practices, almost like a star chamber. First people have to make proposals, not having any idea if they'll be entertained by the committee. Then the committee deliberates like a jury for weeks or months. The process needs to be opened up. ScottyBerg (talk) 13:05, 23 August 2010 (UTC) @PG: I think we're actually in disagreement, at least in part. I think you view the entirety of the CC probation as bad. I think it could have been helpful, after being setup, had it not been subsequently hijacked by Lar and LHVU William M. Connolley (talk) 13:15, 23 August 2010 (UTC) Yes but what you don't appreciate is that I had been dealing with enforcement on balkans articles and only saw CC probation as bad and a poor solution based on experience, I found no agreement at the time unfortunately. Polargeo (talk) 13:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC) The PD is exactly as many of the Cabal members expected -- it's well known that Risker and Rlevse despise you, and the long delay was because they had to win over Brad to get sufficiently humiliating sanctions. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the arbs pay little or no attention to the Evidence/Workshop pages and base their decisions on broad impressions of who the good guys and bad guys are. (It has to be said that your recent actions gave R/R ammunition.) I think Risker's tactic here has been to set the Overton window at her desired boundary; the final decision may not be as extreme. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC) Ah, you mean initially propose something totally absurd, and hope the rest are too dumb to notice that the final result is still absurd? Anyway, NYB gets his first two tests here [7] William M. Connolley (talk) 13:36, 23 August 2010 (UTC) I've tended to bend over backwards and to say that arbcom needs time to do this, that they need to read the evidence to make a thoughtful decision. Now I see how wrong I was. This wasn't a thoughtful decision. It doesn't even pretend to be a thoughtful decision. It certainly doesn't read as if it had been carefully hammered out. I was definitely naive in my expectations.ScottyBerg (talk) 14:44, 23 August 2010 (UTC) Ah, glasshopper, you have much to learn. Meanwhile NYB wimped out of his test so now everyone gets their chance William M. Connolley (talk) 14:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC) It was a reasonable position to take. You're just not an old cynic like some of us. In general terms, the decision is entirely in keeping with Boris' Guide to Arbitration. In specific terms, the vandal got it pretty much right (taking into account the fact that the vandal's version was parody). Guettarda (talk) 15:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC) There was a lot of truth to that parody, apart from it being very funny. With some modifications it might be usable as a comedy essay. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:21, 23 August 2010 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change/Proposed_decision&oldid=380300292 if anyone is wondering William M. Connolley (talk) 17:30, 23 August 2010 (UTC) The only thing I don't like about it is the snide reference to articles on the NY Subway system. Some of us are into that. ScottyBerg (talk) 19:31, 23 August 2010 (UTC) If it doesn't offend you in some way, then it's not good satire. Guettarda (talk) 19:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change/Proposed_decision#Statement_by_WMC, in case you missed it William M. Connolley (talk) 22:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

PD continuing thoughts

Rlevse has gorn [8]. That's interesting. There is no hint of why, though. Can't say I'm sorry but it would be interesting to know why. R has done some really wacky things with the PD William M. Connolley (talk) 15:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Naughty boy, you ignored Boris' warning to keep a low profile and not to challenge the faulty system too much, yet again. But like last time, your opponents exploited your actions a bit too vigorously, causing their efforts to backfire on them. Count Iblis (talk) 17:13, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Arbcom is coming down heavily in favor of Lar and his faction, going so far as to rewrite the definition of "uninvolved" so as to specifically exclude Lar. WP:ADMIN sez "Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors) and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute." Notice how Arbcom has refudiated the "current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors)" bit and focused solely on content? It's hard to escape the conclusion that Arbcom knew what they wanted to decide long ago, and are assembling the evidence and rewriting policy to fit their preferred outcome. So at the end of the day it wouldn't have mattered if WMC had behaved himself. They were going to nail him no matter what. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:20, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised to hear you say that. I don't see that supported by the current round of votes, though who knows what the future will bring William M. Connolley (talk) 18:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

FoF thoughts

It all came true for GJP, M4th, ZP5, JWB. But still arbcomm fail to see the obvious

I'm minded to put forward a couple of extra FoF's: GJP has been disruptive (I think the totally inapproriate GA review at a time when people were trying to step back was the most obvious; now reversed, happily [9]) Minor4th has been disruptive ZP5 has been disruptive (in the sense that his disruption to valuable content ratio is infinite) JohnWBarber has been disruptive Other obvious ones are ATren and Cla. [Oops - forgot JWB, the other obvious one. Added belatedly William M. Connolley (talk) 07:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)] Thoughts? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC) I'm chatting with ATren at the moment, who seems (in spite of our disagreements) to be a decent well-meaning fellow. I would be opposed to any sort of trouble for Cla68; he is a good content contributor and plays by the rules, and I find his behavior to be generally very respectable. Awickert (talk) 18:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Mixed feelings. Cla68 is good at following the letter of the law but disregards its spirit when it suits him. I find his view that we should prefer newspapers above the peer-reviewed literature to be deeply disturbing, but he may come by it honestly given that he appears to have no understanding at all of the scientific aspects of the articles. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC) I think that this is Cla68's background: he does a very good job of writing various history articles. In all of my interactions with him, he has been very reasonable, so I am sure that we will be able to work out the sourcing issue with him. I feel that, of all of the above, he is by far the most likely to do a substantial amount of useful writing. Awickert (talk) 18:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Cla is fine on milhist, I presume; and if he stayed there, all would be well. If you want to see bad faith from him, then Talk:Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#InterAcademy_Council_report will do. Or his repeated attempts to insert HSI as a reference William M. Connolley (talk) 20:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Anybody remember his antics on the Warm period article? That was strange. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:34, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Who could forget As far back as geological proxy measurements go, each warm period has been followed by a cool period. Ed Poor loved it. Though admittedly, I had forgotten. Mind you, Don't you think it would be more helpful to then change the article text to fit what the ref's say? was quite a classic too William M. Connolley (talk) 20:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Might also be worth noting the addition of blog-sourced content to a BLP by Minor4th, which failed to evince the usual moral panic by subsequent editors. Granted, it's a step up from Cla68 and Tillman trying to source content from blog comments, but it's still (a) a BLP, and (b) potentially embarrassing. Guettarda (talk) 19:19, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Cla68 insight? Actually, the whole WR thread is interesting and indicative that there is some synergistic sharing between Lar, Cla68, and Moulton. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:07, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

GCM Gridding

Hi William. I was just reading the general circulation model article, and was curious if you (or your talk page stalkers) had some insight about this sentence: "Spectral models generally use a gaussian grid, because of the mathematics of transformation between spectral and grid-point space." This seems wrong to me. I had always thought that spectral climate models did not use any grid, but that all of their calculations were done in the frequency domain. Of course, it is mathematically not quite so hard to output spherical harmonics to lat/long, but I think that the sentence implies the wrong thing and thereby overlooks the advantage of working in harmonics. Or, of course, I could be wrong, I mean, I do spend a lot of time looking at rocks and dirt... Awickert (talk) 06:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Spectral models do need a grid. One reason is easy: not everything can be done in spectral space. Convective precipitation is one obvious one. Indeed anything that isn't the dynamics: the air-sea interaction, the vegetation. All of those need to be represented in grid-point space. The one that is trickier is (stretching my memory) the calculation of some of the higher-order dynamics terms, which I think need some grid representation William M. Connolley (talk) 07:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

OK - thanks for the explanation! I suppose the resolution is low enough in geophysics that global modelers will very often do all of the calcs and data in spherical harmonics. Those poor, poor climate modelers... too much data, like too much ice cream, can lead to protracted pain. Awickert (talk) 07:40, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually there's a gradual movement away from spectral methods, something that I am very glad to see. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:30, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I've heard some very good things about the newer geodesic-type grids! I feel fortunate for geologists because the lithosphere acts as an elastic sheet, and harmonic functions are part of its solution: in other words, spectral methods line up with the actual physics of what is going on, making the solutions much less difficult and time-intensive. Plus, the strength of the lithosphere also acts as a filter to smear out high-frequency loading signals, meaning that you capture everything by solving up to degree 256 or 512. Thank you, Earth! Awickert (talk) 16:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It is a good article

The one you co-wrote in BAMS, that is. I think that article could help the climate-change debate, and it should be more widely known. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:49, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Ditto. (Re the global cooling myth). BTW, I relied on that article to re-write the answer for Q4 at Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change/FAQ. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Message to WMC TPSers

Precipitation (meteorology) need love badly. Spot the errrors and win valuable prizes! Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I've hacked this around extensively, but it needs more. One of the bigger problems is gross article bloat due to repetition of stuff that belongs in sub-pages. All may contribute to solving that William M. Connolley (talk) 10:57, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Exoplanets and the Intermediate General Circulation Model

Steven Vogt talks about a scientist who modeled the atmospheric circulation of a tidally locked exoplanet like Gliese 581 g in its habitable zone.[10] I'm not sure which paper Vogt is referring to here. Would you be able to add a discussion about this to the Gliese 581 g article? No hurry on this. It's in the video if you get a chance to watch it (Event begins sometime around 29:27). Viriditas (talk) 13:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

They have really irritating video... can't they just put it on youtube :-( William M. Connolley (talk) 13:44, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Interesting how I asked you this question right as it became an issue. An editor just added that the tidally locked sides would be "blazing hot in the light side to freezing cold in the dark side", however I removed this because Vogt seems to refer to the climate models several times that contradict this statement. Viriditas (talk) 13:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

And now, I've restored it after finding the source. Viriditas (talk) 14:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I've evaded the issue for the moment but put a comment about something else on the talk page. Thanks. Meanwhile, if you look at the PR puff [http://news.ucsc.edu/2010/09/planet.html - notice in the pic the sun is orange/red, as presumably it should be, but mysteriously the light reflected off the clouds has become white William M. Connolley (talk) 14:19, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I finally found the guy and his work. His name is James Kasting. Have you heard of him?Viriditas (talk) 22:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Nope. But I have found and now read Joshi et al. 1997 which looks to be the main source for the atmospheres stuff. Its quite interesting. I'll summarise it here, prior to dumping it somewhere: put it in User:William M. Connolley/Atmospheric general circulation on tidally locked planets <snipped to sub page>

William M. Connolley (talk) 22:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. But isn't deposition of CO₂ exothermic and thus would release heat into the atmosphere on the cold side so it would get warmer? — Coren ^(talk) 16:14, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, obviously the GHE would be reduced by the loss and that would overwhelm the small amount of heat gained from deposition. — Coren ^(talk) 16:16, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the heat released is small, and is soon lost. Its vaguely similar to the way that waste heat from fossil fuel combustion is far less important than the CO2 released William M. Connolley (talk) 14:46, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Gurk: I've just noticed that Vogt et al. say M stars emit a large amount of their radiation in the infrared. As a result, since the greenhouse effect works by absorbing infrared radiation, the surface temperatures would be higher than predicted by such simple calculations. [11] This is very badly broken. Oops William M. Connolley (talk) 17:42, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

In memoriam

Another valuable editor gone User:ChrisO while the trolls remain William M. Connolley (talk) 19:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

And another: User:Polargeo: [12] William M. Connolley (talk) 14:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following is a summary of the remedies enacted:

Stupidity collapsed, though it is still there, alas

A specially-tailored version ofdiscretionary sanctions is authorized for the entire topic area of climate change. Enforcement requests are to be submitted to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, which is to replace Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement. Experienced administrators, and especially checkusers, are requested to closely monitor new accounts that edit inappropriately in the topic area. Within seven days of this remedy passing, all parties must either delete evidence sub-pages or request deletionof them. The following editors are banned from the topic area of climate change, and may not appeal this ban until at least six months after the closure of this case (and no more often than every three months thereafter); William M. Connolley Polargeo Thegoodlocust Marknutley ChrisO Minor4th ATren Hipocrite Cla68 GregJackP A Quest For Knowledge Verbal ZuluPapa5 JohnWBarber FellGleaming The following users have accepted binding voluntary topic bans; Scjessey[13] KimDabelsteinPetersen[14] The following administrators are explicitly restricted from applying discretionary sanctions as authorized in this case, as is any other administrator fitting the description of an involved administrator; Stephan Schulz Lar On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Dougweller (talk) 14:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC) It is regrettable that you have to work for such poor masters William M. Connolley (talk) 20:56, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Final decision: thoughts

Of the decision:

• the "scorched earth" idea is unthinking and stupid.
• arbcomm demonstrate again an inability to distinguish the valuable from the valueless; indeed, they appear to be too lazy to even try.
• in pursuit of their atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant they have failed to notice that peace has already broken out. For two reasons: the worst of the "skeptics" (MN, M4th, Cla, ATren, TGL) are all gone; and the external forcing (Climatic Research Unit email controversy‎) has been resolved in favour of Climate Science. So all the disruption was for nothing.

About the only good thing about the PD is that it is so obviously bad, it is likely to rebound more to the discredit of arbcomm than anyone else.

Of the process:

• more of it should be open. There were very clearly extensive periods when off-wiki emails between the arbs were the main means of discussion. Some of that must be tolerable, but not to the extent that it is done. The arbs have become as addicted to secrecy as the Civil Service, and it is not good: both because of the dark deeds done in darkness (one example: the unexplained but welcome booting out of Rlevse) and because lack of on-wiki information fostered unease amongst the participants.
• the arbs need to be more involved, and to manage the process. Some are lazy, but none are good. This isn't acceptable. It has become near-expected practice in arbcomm cases for nothing but a few gnomic utterances from arbs during the case. The sheer volume of evidence and discussion produced by petty back-and-forth needs to be rigourously policed. Arbcomm as a whole is fairly lazy, in that they don't really evaluate the actual abckground to a case - that would be too much trouble, and they never bother. Instead, they rely on behaviour *during* a case, and part of their technique is a deliberate fostering of the possibility for disorder, in order to give them a lazy way of deciding. In this case, arbcomm gave a clear signal right at the start that evidence limits could be ignored. It was downhill from there.

Of the arbs:

• none of them emerge with any credit.

William M. Connolley (talk) 08:47, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Did you notice the Hipocrite slapped a retired template up? Even though he said it wasn't due to the case, I think it was for the most part. I find it sad that a lot of long term editors just gave up after this case. Do you think Verbal will be back? I didn't think we lose so many long term editors like this. I am actually surprised in one way but in the other way I guess it's to be expected.  :( --CrohnieGal^Talk 18:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

A discussion is now underway somewhere as to whether it's kosher to have a section such as the one below, discussing scholarly articles proposed by the Banned. It's so utterly bizarre, but to someone familiar with Wikipedia it would seem routine. Of course, to one of the most active (and unsanctioned) CC editors, my very act of posting on this page would be considered... I forget the words he used. Fraternizing with the unclean? ScottyBerg (talk) 19:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Could not see the discussion anywhere. FWIW I think any conversation which people bring here ought to be ok, as long as it stays here and does not get directly cited as part of an argument anywhere else. Ought, because I haven't got time to read the exact ruling but practically speaking it is much better for everyone if any such conversations stay here and visible rather than disappear on to email. Isn't there something about a prophet living in a tree whom people travelled to consult which even fits with one of the pictures....--BozMo talk 20:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It's at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#What_does_topic_banned_mean.3F ScottyBerg (talk) 20:54, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Some valid concerns are being raised in that discussion, but valid only in the Wikipedia sense. Outside of Wikipedia, I'd think that trying to prevent scientists from listing sources would be viewed with amazement. ScottyBerg (talk) 20:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with most everything you said in your analysis apart from the juicy gossip that I cannot directly verify. One comment, though: it's been perennially easy to be hard on arbcom; in fact, it won't take too much digging in my history to see my take on them. It seems to me now that they're basically doing exactly what the committee was designed to do when it was first set-up. Wikipedia and arbcom are both intentionally dysfunctional because the only way the content could have been created and given its high Google-ranks in the first place was to open it to the peanut-gallery that is the internet. What we have entrenched now is a culture that values inane process over efficiency, brute force over nuance, and immature niceties over intellectual heft. Sounds like any other internet microcosm to me. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It's unquestionable that the process was far more opaque than it should have been, and took too long. I think that everyone involved except the arbs would agree with that. Email deliberations have their place, but there was far too little communication with the parties. ScottyBerg (talk) 20:45, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It's been that way in every arbitration case since 2005 as far as I can tell. Additionally, with every arbcom election, there are candidates who get elected who promise to change the system, and they all end up either resigning or changing their minds. The opacity was intentional and has always been a part of Wikipedia as far as I can tell. Obviously, there are scenarios where private communications are needed, but for whatever reason arbcom tends to function primarily on this level to their own detriment.

I think the model of the US Supreme Court is much better. Let disputants make statements and enter evidence. Then let arbcom ask questions. Then shut everything down. Arbcom comes back with a singular ruling and opposing minority opinions with signatures.

ScienceApologist (talk) 21:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

That, actually, would be my favored model because it would tend to promote coherent decisions and better expressed dissent. Odds of being able to reform ArbCom to work this way: internal (ArbCom) support: 25%, external (community) support: 0.01%. If lucky. — Coren ^(talk) 00:27, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

That seems like it might work, actually. Anybody know what the procedure is to have it implemented? Maybe an RFC to gauge support,. and the closing consensus is the community's recommendation to the Committee? The Wordsmith^Communicate 03:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom does not answer to the community, only to Jimbo. So, one has to ask Jimbo if he would be willing to consider community proposals to reform the ArbCom system. Count Iblis (talk) 14:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that having arbcomm ask questions would be the correct way to work. I disagree that people would disagree. Furthermore, I don't think arbcomm's way of working is anywhere set in stone - it is just How They Do Stuff. The could do it differently for the next case, if they chose to. Coren blaming-the-community-in-advance for arbcomm's failure to reform itself is a Poor Show William M. Connolley (talk) 22:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Ref

Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature, Lacis et al., 15 OCTOBER 2010, VOL 330, Science William M. Connolley (talk) 21:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Interesting read. It almost sounds like a review article rather than a research one, though I notice that it is classified as a "report". I'm not too clear on the difference between the two. Could you please enlighten me? NW (Talk) 22:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It is sort-of a review; perhaps more a re-publication in a higher-impact journal of a condensed version of the J Clim 2006 paper and an in-press JGR thing [15]. I don't really know how Science categorises its various sections. Note the swipes at Lindzens back-of-the-envelope calcs. The article, as it says, is mostly there to address the common misunderstanding that we can ignore CO2 because WV is dominant; this has been a "skeptic" talking point forever [16] William M. Connolley (talk) 23:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704361504575551961821166950.html?mod=googlenews_wsj needs to go in somewhere, too William M. Connolley (talk) 23:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

While we are on the subject of journal articles, I was hoping to get your thoughts on . I know that it wasn't really your field, but does that sound plausible to you? I had somewhat of a hard time accepting all of its conclusions. NW (Talk) 14:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, its been a busy day. And so I still haven't finished that article. Temporising reply: I've always tended to skip over such articles, because predicting future GHG emissions and levels is so hard that I think about the best you can do is assume ~1%/y increase as a rough fit to historical levels, and then be aware that this is probably a bit too high William M. Connolley (talk) 22:17, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Finally had a chance to read it. It is one of those things that my eyes kept glazing and I found it hard to keep skipping over the paragraphs. I'm not sure I saw much to disagree with in their conclusions, other than that there is any great point doing this stuff. Urbanisation, aging, population are all going to affect future emissions. As are technological change and fuel availability and govt policy and public perceptions. Modelling this stuff is an academic exercise but (in my view) of very little direct policy use; the uncertainties are too large. It is useful to model just to see how things can change; but not to take the answers too seriously William M. Connolley (talk) 08:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Issues...few seem to understand

Insert appropraite comment here
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
WMC...well, what can I say...if the evidence is cherry picked, then there is plenty out there to show our intolerance of non-science. Like you, I have a history of being less than cordial to those here to promote unscientific information...however, I do not believe I have ever, nor have you ever, done this because we see Wikipedia as a place to promote a POV, but rather as a place to try and build a reliable fact based source for information. I'm not an expert on CC, but am very well read on it and am active in keeping myself up to date on the latest....like this. I strongly disagree with the comment that LessHeard vanU made here but primarily his comment that..." disregarding the evidence compiled that this is your preferred modus operandi in trying to promote your vision of what is appropriate (and what is not) to be included in the subject area - is the reason why I believe this case to be inadequate in dealing with a concerted campaign to deny a wide ranging examination of the subject of Climate Change, including and especially the skeptic or denialist viewpoint." I see little room that should be made regarding the skeptical viewpoint...it isn't backed up by the preponderance of evidence, nor is it anything more than cherry picking the inconsistancies that can be found in dealing with a complex variable science such as climate change...there is one absolute truth in AGW and that is that it is happening...the path it is taking as it gets worse is naturally going to have some inconsistancies. You know this and so do I, but those that want to convince others that AGW is being oversold, is inaccurate or is a "lie" are using these inconsistancies to undermine the underlying truth. I see no reason to allow article space to be an "experiment" in examining the skeptical viewpoint except in articles devoted to that purpose. I don't know if I can offer a road back for you at this point...if others truly feel that the skeptical viewpoint should get better examination within the article space, then it would seem that CC subject matter on this website is doomed to becoming infested with this unreasonable doubt. No amount of civility or efforts to show assume good faith "improvements" (laughable for me to assume good faith of those trying to undermine the known evidence) on your part will override a desire by others to see more of the skeptical examination, and their failure to understand your ridigity in trying to keep these nonscientific viewpoints minimized is exasperating to me.--MONGO 20:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC) Know what you mean guv. But to be fair, other than generally contributing to poisoning the case I don't think LHVU's nonsense afflicted the arbs much. Certainly it didn't make it into the FoF or remedies (did it?) and I don't see any implication at all in the decision that any of the content was slanted (perhaps the BLP bit?) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC) I simply disagree with LHVU's take on the matter, and wondered if aside from the general sanctions, if many feel that the skeptical view isn't getting enough "weight" in article space...that was my take on his position, though like you said, this doesn't seem to be part of the findings or visible basis for the sanctions but that could possibly be because arbcom doesn't (openly) settle content disputes.--MONGO 17:06, 17 October 2010 (UTC) Based on the discussion that has arisen subsequent to the decision, concerning whether the topic ban covers user page posts, I sense a kind of huffy attitude and desire to separate WMC from these articles, even in areas not explicitly covered by the decision or even discussed during the case. There seems to be a desire to restore a semblance of harmony whatever the cost. Somebody said on this page a day or so ago that this is consistent with a website that is based on broad Internet participation. I'm not precisely quoting but that's the gist. The Internet does have a larger than normal proportion of people who advocate nontraditional POVs, and their needs must be served. That's the message I hear in this decision. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:55, 17 October 2010 (UTC) I sense a certain degree of fear. Some people have so little confidence in wikipedia that even distant comment by me makes them tremble (Fred Bauder springs to mind). If they are too scared of seeing what is on this page, they can unwatch William M. Connolley (talk) 18:10, 17 October 2010 (UTC) The user page comment thread was pretty unanimous that such posts are definitely not kosher, so I suspect that if they don't like what they see on this page they'll do more than unwatch. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC) You clearly have a differenet definition on unanimous to me. In particular, SA provided evidence to the contrary. Like I say, anyone who doesn't want to read what is written here can unwatch William M. Connolley (talk) 18:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC) My impression is that the people who are known for supporting a hard line attitude to these sorts of issues, have been the most vocal in that discussion there. They overplayed their hand last time (when the issue was inserting comments in postings made here), so I don't think they would want to start another conflict on a non-issue, leading to a big brawl at AE, weakening the whole enforcement regime. Count Iblis (talk) 18:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC) Well, it appeared to me that the sentiment was against using the talk pages. Not unanimous, certainly. I was against it, for instance, for what it was worth, which wasn't much. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC) I'll give another comment on that thread. I think they are missing something when they look at the issue raised by Lar in a very narrow way. In the way they are framing it, their point makes sense. In general, you don't want talk pages to be used by topic banned editors to continue being engaged in the topic they were topic banned from. And this issue has been a problem in other ArbCom cases. But then, this particular case is different for a few reasons, which have nothing to do with William trying to get around the topic ban. Count Iblis (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

More obsessive secrecy from arbcomm

[17] William M. Connolley (talk) 16:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Given the limited amount of checkusers, it's fairly easy to check their block logs. No other checkuser has blocked any accounts as PG socks. (Unless they suppressed the block...) There was 1 rangeblock Special:Contributions/194.66.0.0/24. -Atmoz (talk) 17:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Err, maybe, but that wasn't the question, was it? I'm a bit baffled - what did I say that you interpreted as that being the answer to?

Also, that range is BAS. Possibly all of it. This stinks of paranoia William M. Connolley (talk) 18:01, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Um... something, somewhere, I think? I guess it wasn't you. Oh well, my mistake. But if anyone does/did ask, there's the answer. Happy another orange bar. (Yes, blocking all of BAS was probably overkill. Most of the edits on that range were either a long time ago, or unrelated.) -Atmoz (talk) 18:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, thats all right then. At least I know about the range block. It probably has edits by me in it - I guess I must be a PG sock too William M. Connolley (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I think this is only the logical continuation of a failed policy - why waste time driving off expert editors one by one if you can block them wholesale? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Careful, you're a good boy, remember? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Didn't anybody get the bulletin? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:55, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Missed it. Oops, looks like you were a bit too Sekret. Scarlet letter stuff I suppose William M. Connolley (talk) 19:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

That is I suppose the kind of editors them want here. 80.186.105.107 (talk) 04:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC) formerly known as Dreg743

Climate change again

I've filed a case at WP:AE asking if something can be done about you, ATren and Lar (but mainly you and Lar) sniping at one another over climate change. It's been a week now and I think we all need to move on. Tasty monster (=TS ) 16:10, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

You have misread the diffs. And I'm very disappointed in you. Lar calls me a prat; I ask him to retract; you then tell me The cited link above shows William M. Connolley extending a needling match. Come on Tony, you can do better than this William M. Connolley (talk) 18:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I've moved it to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Topic_banned_editors_needling_one_another for general discussion. --TS 20:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. This isn't getting any better. Lar insults me; you care nothing about that, but instead attack me. To be fair, Connolley is also looking for a fight. No, that isn't fair at all. If this is your idea of being helpful, please go and help someone else William M. Connolley (talk) 21:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't my intention to call you a prat. I'm sorry you drew that inference from my wording, and apologise unreservedly if you found my wording insulting. I'll try to do better in future. Was it your intention to call me stupid and malicious some weeks back? ++Lar: t/c 22:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep William, he's very sorry that you can't figure out what he means, and he'll try better to deal with your stupidity in the future. See notpology. And then, just to make matters worse, the barb at the end. Guettarda (talk) 23:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Misc breakage

• GCM [18]

William M. Connolley (talk) 18:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. For info only, out of politeness as is normal when editors are discussed on noticeboards. In my own view, you'd be best advised to ignore it and not join in the discussion. At least until there are significant further developments, but then what do I know. . . dave souza, talk 21:48, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

WMC, please don't play this game. It will not lead to a result you could qualify as positive, for anyone involved. You disagree with the ruling; that has been made abundantly clear here and everywhere else you have chosen to expound on your disapproval. Nevertheless, you need to abide by it, and such toeing of the line reflects poorly on yourself and will lead to escalation. — Coren ^(talk) 23:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)