User talk:Stephan Schulz/Archive 4

A word of advice from a fellow computer scientist

Stephan, I've noticed that you are the de facto leader for the "Global Warming" movement on Wikipedia (i.e. you are the most active editor on related pages and even created the "FAQ") and have a propensity for reverting any additions that represent opposing viewpoints. You are clearly an intelligent, well respected man in academia. I know this because you created a page dedicated to yourself and your achievements (though it was eventually marked for deletion).

I also wasn't surprised to discover your background in computer science; I work in programming languages at a well-known software company. As computer scientists, we are privileged to work in a discipline where understanding causality is relatively (I stress the word relatively) trivial within the confines of a system designed to be deterministic. We often mistakenly extrapolate this perception to other scientific disciplines; however, they do not share this luxury. They operate within systems that are chaotic and not wholly understood. After all, what proportion of computer science white papers discusses sensitivity vs. specificity along with the "statistical significance" of the result? :) I say this for comparison sake...

I implore you to take a step back here and reevaluate what you have read (I can tell you have already done your homework). Peer-reviewed research consisting of a heterogeneous set of computer models may be the best tool we have when confronted with systems that we do not understand, but it is an utterly imperfect evaluation of a complex problem. As an imperfect evaluation, it is subject to manipulation and bias. The reasons for manipulating the data are manifold, but to blindly accept the results as "fact" is an unfortunate and naive decision. When was the last time you saw the FDA approve a drug based on computer modeling alone?

I'm not trying to start a flame war; I can tell from your awards that you wouldn't be susceptible to that sort of thing. I'm genuinely hoping that you reevaluate the conclusions you derived from your reading. In a few years, I think you will have great difficulty reconciling your academic achievements and intellectual prowess with the error in judgment you made here today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.6.124 (talk) 07:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus comes to mind. I did not create a page dedicated to myself and my achievements, nor did I ever edit the one that was created by others. Moreover, I'm not the "de facto leader" for anything on Wikipedia, nor am I "the most active editor (although I'm probably one of the more active ones). Yes, I created the FAQ, although others have contributed significantly. You can rest assured that I have evaluated all sides of the global warming literature. As always, humans are not perfect. But about 95% of the sceptic literature is obvious nonsense, and even the few peer-reviewed papers that exist are usually sub-par. On the other hand, basic AGW theory is a lot older than the political dispute, or even computers, and, like many fields of science, rests on a multitude of strong lines of evidence and reasoning. I don't want to sound like an "I was an evolutionist once" creationist, but before I started to look into the original literature, I pretty much thought that the UHI had laid global warming to rest. Now I know better. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:31, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your response Stephan. Ultimately, I believe we're both seeking the truth, and from my perspective, your assertion that "95% of s[k]eptic literature is obvious nonsense" is more-or-less true. Indeed, the dissenting opinion is particularly subject to COI, but I'm concerned that this stigmatizes genuine dissension. If you're willing, I'd love to continue this conversation via email. I'll contact the address on your homepage soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.6.124 (talk) 17:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Bovine emissions and suspected Scibaby accounts

As far as I can see, this edit violated no policies. I checked the source, which is reliable, and the edit appeared to be faithful to the source's information. I understand that Scibaby had a fixation on bovine emissions threatening humanity, but you don't know for sure that it was a Scibaby account. You apparently blocked the account because it had an interest in a subject that was the same as a banned editor. Do you think that perhaps blocks, or block considerations, in these types of situations should be handled by editors who aren't regular contributors to the Global Warming articles? Cla68 (talk) 07:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I am very certain that this is a Scibaby sock, and as such I blocked and rollbacked all of his substantial edits. I've submitted the account for sock verification to a CU. No, editors who "aren't regular contributors to the Global Warming articles" will typically neither watch them nor be familiar with the patterns that expose Scibaby, and so will not be able to react in time. I refuse to put a layer of bureaucratic veneer over simple administrative actions, as that would further shift the burden of work to the advantage of the Sockmaster. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:33, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

But, if the edit itself isn't against any policy, then what's the big deal about waiting for a sock verification first before blocking? Cla68 (talk) 07:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It delays the process. And it would require any edit to be individually checked. That's a courtesy we grant normal users, not abusive sockmasters. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:18, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Cla, if you like the edit you're free to add it yourself, and sponsor it. You shouldn't, because it is wrong, and has been discussed before. Violating no policies is either irrelevant, if you read it superficially, or incorrect, if you read it with understanding, since it violates NPOV. faithful to the source's information: You failed to assess the edit correctly; [1] will help you William M. Connolley (talk) 09:47, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

He's gone. Was it something I said? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This is turning into quite a little soap opera -- a blend of genuine concerns, partisan maneuvering, long-term grudges, and everything else that makes for a juicy tale of intrigue. (Except for the sex, though there may be things we don't know yet.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you all need to remember that the entire University of Colorado science department was once blocked from editing Wikipedia because of an excessive, fear-of-Scibaby, range block. If an edit is wrong, fine, remove it for that reason, but we should be wary about blocking someone as a sock based the editor having a similar POV. Wikipedia or the Global Warming articles won't be destroyed if a suspected sock is allowed to edit for another day or two while we make sure. Like I said to Mr. Schulz (or Doctor Schulz if that's the appropriate title, and I don't mean that in a mocking way), if you all are too close to the subject, then please consider inviting neutral admins to help you out with guarding the project from Scibaby. Cla68 (talk) 23:15, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not about the money. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

This isn't a range block. You are failing to address the point: you, a neutral, (can we call you neutral?) failed to understand the problem with the edit, because you don't understand the area. If an editor who knows what is going on says to another admin "hey go block this sock" and the other simply does so, thats just meatpuppetry. So the other admin has to be brought up to speed on what is going on, and by the time they are... then by your standards, they are no longer neutral. Your approach is a recipe for disaster William M. Connolley (talk) 08:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Which, of course, is the point of proposing it. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Dammit, I sometimes hate being right. It ocurred to me not until after welcoming that it could be someone aging a sock. I was refreshing that contribution history for a few days after the autoconfirm kicked in, but it turns out to have been an obvious one. Thanks. - 2/0 (cont.) 20:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I've got some experience with this particular sock master. It's not obvious from single edits unlike you either know the type or look at them in detail and with fairly deep domain knowledge. BTW, the sock has been confirmed by CU. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Will be nice if you can tell what policies are violated in this edit. You can check reference and it is official stance of part of PAS. I hope once you confirm it's not sock it will be brought back. Cheers. User talk:Forest001 (cont.) —Preceding undated comment added 15:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC).

Unlikely. The subcommittee is not a scientific body of national or international standing. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

You are wrong, it is part of Polish Academy of Science which is national scientific body as listed here. And it's not subcommittee but Committee. You can read more about it being national standing here. Hope this will clear up few things for you. User talk:Forest001 (cont.) —Preceding undated comment added 15:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC).

The Polish Academy of Science is definitely a relevant scientific body. However, it has a distinctly different opinion from its (sub- or non-sub) committee. Please see the discussion I linked. And please discuss this on the article talk page, not here. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Will move at once. But hinting at that the Committee of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences is not relevant is low-blow. Further i want to address that "However, it has a distinctly different opinion..." - it's not a reason to diminish that opinion. User talk:Forest001 (cont.) —Preceding undated comment added 15:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC).

Japan Society of Energy and Resources and Global Warming

Can you explain why JSER is not a "scientific body of national or international standing?" Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralree (talk • contribs) 14:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

JSER's status is debatable. But JSER does not have a published position on the issue. What has been published (and misrepresented by the register) is a summary of a discussion by 5 members of a sub-committee of JSER. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually its not even that... It was an article (not a report) printed in the JSER journal, written by 5 scientists (with different opinions on AGW) to spark a debate. (see here (more specifically the update by Itoh)) relevant quote: "Thus, it is not correct if one thinks that the discussion represents the opinion of the journal’s editors or of the society JSER. In fact, none of the five contributors belong to the JSER, and Prof. Yoshida kept his attitude neutral in the article" --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Talk page comments

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I don't see this going anywhere useful. Our positions are clear but clearly different. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

---

Stephen, I do not agree with removing part of a conversation, even if you believe it is irrelevant. If you feel it must be removed (why?) then I suggest you remove WMC's comments as well, where he (1) accuses Alex of bad faith on the silly Ph.D thing, even though it's clear that Alex never had any intention of disrespecting anyone, and (2) calls it a "waste of time" even though calmer editors had reached consensus. This is baiting, pure and simple, and it has to stop. David Shankbone has now removed my edit for a third time, so rather than restore mine, I've simply removed WMC's disruptive comment that started it all.

BTW, WMC is certainly a COI editor on Lawrence Solomon, and David Shankbone is not supposed to be reverting actions made by me, per an earlier conflict between us. This is all highly inappropriate. Thank you. ATren (talk) 17:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry ATren, WMC certainly doesn't have a COI on Solomon - or at least that is what two different AN/I queries have shown. (the other way is more obvious Solomon does have one). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, it's irrelevant anyways, so I'm striking it so as not to divert from the main point. The rest still applies. And, FWIW, WMC removing my comment to him is certainly inappropriate. ATren (talk) 17:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing here that vaguely serves the purpose of improving the article, and I find your edit comment extremely unhelpful, as it brings a completely unrelated issue into the discussion. It also displays a complete misunderstanding of the discussion. Boris original comment pointed out that Alex (like many) showed a tendency to stress academic credentials for people that support his position. The rest of the doctorate discussion was quite good fun until Alex misunderstood a comment - and that has been cleared up. Nobody has indicated any serious desire or expectation to be called by their title. We all know that WMC is not the most diplomatic of people, but his summary of the thread that you removed here actually was useful in its substance. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Stephen, with all due respect, calling a thread a waste of time and continuing to accuse Alex of bad faith on the Ph.D thing (my original response to WMC on Solomon's talk was one hour after this provacation) is disruptive. I called on others to ignore it (again, one hour after he brought it up again on his talk), he removed my response without removing his original disruption (highly inappropriate) and then you got involved. I would not have minded your removal if you'd removed both his disruptive statements and my response, but removing just my response is unacceptable. Now, the entire thread is now gone (I removed WMC's unnecessary aggression which started it all) so let's move on, shall we? ATren (talk) 18:00, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you have an unhealthy fixation on WMC. As far as I can tell, you've had no interaction on t:LS except for commenting on WMC. And now you use a comment he made on his user talk page to justify an off-topic attack on an article talk page? I'm at a loss what you want to achive - Alex has already been engaged in a separate and producive discussion on WMC's user page, and no-body was remotely at risk of "taking the bait". Why don't you step back and refrain from interaction with WMC unless you have a substatial argument on article content? It's not our job to proactively police Wikipedia, and its a particularly bad idea to try to do so if it involves editors you have had previous unpleasant interactions with. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No, Stephen, you are incorrect in your assumption. I've been involved with BLPs for many climate change skeptics in the past, because of what I view as overly negative material in the bios. I can't recall if I've edited Solomon directly, but I have been involved in Singer, Gray, Plimer, and others I may not recall at the moment. I was about to make a proposal on Solomon's page for the coffee thing when Boris provided a compromise which satisfied all involved. It is then that I found WMC's provocative comments about it being a "waste of time" and the whole Ph.D manufactured controversy (which WMC will not let go, by virtue of his comment this morning). And, for the record, I do have arguments on content, but it's difficult to have a rational discussion when other editors are hurling insults (e.g. being called a "malcontent" for raising a blp issue). It is not my behavior that is out of line here. If WMC continues to make aggressive comments, I'm going to continue to call him on it, because all it does is create a hostile environment.

By the way, what is your view on saying someone else's concern is a "waste of time", or the continued haranguing of Alex for the Ph.D silliness? Do you think any of this is appropriate or helpful? ATren (talk) 18:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

If you want to "call out" other editors, the correct place for that is not an article talk space, where such comments are plain disruptive. Use the user talk page or an RFC/U if you feel that's necessary. As I said before, WMC is not the most diplomatic of editors, but nobody but you seem to have any problem with his behavior in this particular case. We traditionally allow users a lot of leeway on their talk pages. It's not helpful to carry this into any article talk pages. Article talk pages are explicitly for discussion of the articles and improvements to them, not for user issues. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

(e.c.) WMC is not the most diplomatic of editors - that's the problem. It's disruptive. Alex is still trying to apologize for nothing, because WMC won't let it die (see WMC's talk page and Alex's long response from today). And this is far from the first time WMC has caused problems with his abrupt style; as someone who edits the same kinds of articles as he does, I'm intimately aware of the disruption he causes with his "lack of diplomacy". It happened just last week on Plimer, now on Solomon, and in the past year on Singer and Gray. Those are just the ones I'm aware of. And I don't buy the argument "that's just who he is". If an editor can't conduct themselves with a minimum of decorum, including not regularly insulting those they disagree with, then they don't belong here. We should not be tolerating disruptive behavior just because "that's the way he is" - isn't that why Abd and his walls of text were banned?

Also, FWIW, I have, in the past, raised these issues on WMC's talk, but he usually reverts my edits on his talk, so I saw no point in going there. ATren (talk) 19:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

So? If he deletes it, he saw it. I also see no sign that your comments are improving the situation even mildly. Again, I suggest you disengage and spend more time building content and less time commenting on other editors. Abd was banned for persistent POV-pushing combined with an inability to communicate effectively. I think William's style is very effective in communicating his opinion. It's his opinion that some few people can't stomach. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you respond well to others calling you "malcontent" and accusing you of bad faith? If I have an opinion that another editor is a moron, can I say that and claim "that's just my opinion"? WMC's abrasive attitude and disruptive comments are what people take issue with, not his opinions, and perhaps if the people he respects (like you and Boris) were more honest with him, it wouldn't have come to a breaking point where he (quite justifiably) lost admin rights. Frankly, his behavior since the case is as bad as it's ever been, and instead of him learning from wise editors like Risker, he calls them fools and cowards and escalates his aggressive attitude. I am simply the messenger here.

Anyway, I'll fade into the woodwork again (I really don't care about people like Plimer, I only care about how it makes us look when we appear to be attacking them), but rest assured, the problem is not me, and will resurface again if WMC doesn't realize how inappropriate his behavior is. ATren (talk) 19:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Note to ATren, keeping a "serious injury list", as you are doing here, is frowned upon unless you have an immediate goal for dispute resolution in mind. If that is the case it would do well for you to put a heading at the top of the list stating the specific dispute resolution mechanism you intend to undertake. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:55, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Boris, it is perfectly appropriate to keep links in userspace, as long as there is no inflammatory commentary. See User:Raul654/GoRight, for example - which has been around for over a year and does contain commentary. And FWIW, I do anticipate taking action if it keeps going the way it is. But, if enough people object, I will take it offsite. I would view that as simply more of the double standard that has made this place so poisonous, but I can live with a double standard for now, as long as progress is being made with wise arbcom decisions like the one we just saw. ATren (talk) 19:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Reconsidered: I've taken it offsite, where I don't have to defend it (even though others don't have to defend it :-/) ATren (talk) 19:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ugly Merge proposal at 350 (organisation)

Hi, there is a POV-driven attempt to downgrade-via-merge the abovementioned article. There is a much-blocked, habitually-edit-warring admin called Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) involved. The merge proposal needs to be removed. Most merge-supporting comments are from the usual suspects who are networking on Talk pages in a co-ordinated effort to suppress this page (and others). Your attention there welcome. Thanks. ► RATEL ◄ 03:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Idiocy

I could enumerate the pedantic idiocy in the article you posted on Boris' talk, but it would take a while. Instead, if you are interested in oil and/or why Solomon's article is idiotic (as are many of the comments, predictably), my talk is available. Awickert (talk) 00:39, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll take you up on it. We have one (stable isotope ratios inconsistent with abiotic origin). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Here goes in 3 10 15 minutes away from my real work:

1. Oil from Dinos: I'm willing to give him this one as a facetious remark, as dinosaurs were a very tiny amount of biomass and many oil resources are not from the portion of the Mesozoic in which dinosaurs existed.
2. All the study says is that at high T, P, hydrocarbons can combine into bigger chains. Solomon doesn't represent this at all.
3. "The Nature study follows Kutcherov’s previous work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that created hydrocarbons out of water, calcium carbonate and iron — products in the Earth’s mantle." - several problems here
   • Water is in very questionable and likely extremely low abundance, except in subduction zones where it gets to a few percent. The study is talking about oil under cratonal areas, which are the stable, old continental interiors.
   • Carbonate (CO3^2-) is nonexistent in the upper mantle except for some fluid inclusions; it is not a player in the bulk composition
   • The "iron" that they use in this previous study is FeO. Around 9% of the olivine in the mantle is Fayalite, which has a much different structure and I presume would be much different thermodynamically. Other iron in the mantle is also tied up in more complex mineral structures.
   • Basically, the conditions in this previous study are not characteristic of the Earth's mantle
4. Since this last study isn't characteristic of the Earth's mantle, how does the carbon get down there in the first place? There is basically no carbonate, and the density of carbon-based mineral compounds is less than that of the mantle.
5. Solomon calls this an infinite source. But there is a huge logical fallacy in an assumption of a production rate that can keep up with our consumption rate, which is completely absurd considering if one thinks about the rate of petroleum usage and integrates that as a production rate for hydrocarbons over all of geologic time.
   • [added 00:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)] Back of the envelope calculation based on data here and approximating 7 barrels per metric ton: 1.94 * 10^12 kg per year current consumption, times 4 billion years, gives about 8 * 10^21. The mass of the Earth's crust, where this stuff is supposed to reside, is about 2 * 10^21 kg. Liquid propane is about 1/6 the mass of rock, so per volume, we should have 20 times the amount of petroleum as we do crust on Earth unless it was somehow destroyed. And if it was destroyed, this signature should be in the sed record, and there should be a sign that the mantle (mass 4 * 10^24 kg) lost 1% of its total mass, resulting in a decent amount of global shrinking. And that's not even counting the fact that carbon is a great rarity in the mantle. Wild. I'm off to do something more useful with my time :-). Awickert (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

And I'm just getting started, Awickert (talk) 20:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Werewaz

Hi. Werewaz (talk · contribs) has now clearly broken 3RR, and is ignoring the ANI discussion, even though I've put the link into edit summaries. Could you not just go ahead and block him?VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 15:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I could. However, I'm still hoping someone else can get him to open up... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Ha ha (^o^) That's very humane of you. I just think policy is very clear, the user is ignoring not only policy but every single attempt to communicate. It's possible that they don't speak English, but that's still not an excuse.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 15:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I've put him/her up at WP:AN3#User:_Werewaz_reported_by_User:_Stephan_Schulz_.28Result:_.29. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Banging my head against a very opinionated brick wall!

Hi

You’ve recently given me a 12 hour ban for 3Rs, but what you obviously haven’t seen is that the edits I’ve reverted, have been after discussion which the other party has chosen to ignore, preferring to just revert my edit instead. Some of these reverts were even made after consensus had been reached!

I am having a very long and frustrating battle while simply trying to bring some kind of accuracy, and NPOV, to the Uri Geller article which was previously completely full of nonfactual POV material, without reliable source.

The main editor I have been having these issues with, is Arthur Rubin who seems to have made a hobby out of edit warring, and who appears to make up the rules as he goes along. He appears to be one of quite a few James Randi followers, (the person who has stated publicly that he is attempting to ruin Uri Geller's career) who is watching this article only to ensure that no positive or neutral material sticks. Negative, incorrect & un-sourced POV edits are being left alone, while anything neutral or even slightly positive, regardless of how well sourced, is fiercely repelled.

I’ve had some very long discussions with Arthur Rubin and his motives appear quite clear, to keep this article as one sided as possible. In fact, from his comments it appears that Arthur Rubin thinks this is the “James Randi Vs. Uri Geller” article.

I am not the only editor who feels that there is a problem with NPOV with this article, see “NPOV Issue.” On discussion page.

Recently, Arthur Rubin even went as far as making a very serious libelous comment about Uri Geller on the discussion page, accusing him of criminal behavior! (towards bottom of “YouTube Video” section on discussion page.) I dread to think what the reaction will be to this from Geller’s legal team get hold of this.

Moondial (talk) 20:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, too. I blocked you because you were in clear violation of WP:3RR, and none of the exceptions applied. I also looked at the edits in question individually. Sorry, but USA Today may not be The Economist or The Times, but it is a major news outlet and generally meets WP:RS. Ufodigests.com does not. If you think the article is overly negative, consider bringing it up on WP:BLPN, the BLP noticeboard. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not USA today Vs UFO digest that I'm referring to. Spend enough time looking through the previous discussions and you'll see what I mean. It doesn't matter what source is cited, if it isn't in line with the skeptical point of view, it's passionately apposed - if it is in line with this POV, is gets in without any problems at all.

Thanks, I will bring it up on WP:BLPN

PAK(ISTAN)

i don't think so it is a derogatory term as it is often used by many people in pakistan itself, i guess u r referring to the word Paki,which is derogatory, still if u r offended in any way, My apologies.Qazmlp1029 (talk) 18:44, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

No worries. This is an international encyclopedia, different words are interpreted differently in different places. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Rollback rights

Stephan - I appreciated your comment earlier today on the WP:ANI. I wanted to see if you would restore my rollback rights. Thanks. |► ϋrбanяeneωaℓ • TALK ◄| 00:29, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Answered on your talk page. Good luck and have fun! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for restoring my rollback - your advice is definitely taken. I appreciate the help. |► ϋrбanяeneωaℓ • TALK ◄| 13:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Carbon tax on global warming page

OK, you deleted my text, but if you think it's a valid topic, then you could have replaced my sources with better ones. My sources were adequate in my view, but if you thought otherwise, then you could Google for ones that will replace mine. John Hyams (talk) 21:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I've opened the topic on Talk:Global warming controversy. I suggest we discuss there. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks...

I've read your argument on redaction and find it fair enough. Thanks for your input and I shall act accordingly in future.Manning (talk) 00:12, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, too. I'll second Boris' suggestion of a beer ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Rule 5

What's this rule 5 do be so kind as to explain it where is it to be found (link please), what is it about?--Damorbel (talk) 22:16, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, you are not cleared for this information. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Resilient Barnstar
		For keeping your temper in the face of hostility and for reverting countless acts of vandalism. Great Work. South Bay (talk) 21:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I'll put it up by the front door. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:46, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Ref desk edit conflict

I've just realised that I apparently removed a post of yours on the ref desk - sorry! I got an edit conflict (which I shouldn't have done anyway - we both just added comments to completely different sections) but it got the revision I had started with in the edit form and the diff between my version and that version displayed below it. Your revision seemed to be completely ignored... very odd... --Tango (talk) 09:40, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

No worries. Sometimes the data base back-end seems to act up. No wonder, with such a large, distributed system. I wonder how they do that, anyways...would it make sense to split the load by article? I.e. all work on one article is always routed to the same database server. Very simple conflicts are all sequential, scales up to the limit where a single server cannot handle a single article.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:17, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a single server that handles all edits, I think (at least, all edits on a given project - some of the other projects may be on different servers). The database mirrors just handle people reading articles (although most of that is handled by Squid caches). --Tango (talk) 11:37, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Help with dermatology-related content

Are you interested in dermatology-related content? I am looking for more help at the dermatology task force, particularly with our new Bolognia push 2009! Perhaps you would you be able to help us? ---kilbad (talk) 21:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Very sorry. I'm currently teaching a university class on the side, and have been forced to reduce my time on Wikipedia even for topics I do feel reasonably comfortable with. Dermatology is a topic I know nearly nothing about. I use sunscreen - sometimes. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:57, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

OK

I WILL ASK IT IN THE HELP DESK. WIKIPEDIA IS NOT CENSORED. THE WIKIPEDIANS ARE NOT CENSORED. --190.50.86.22 (talk) 00:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, apparently they also have broken shift keys. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:14, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

QQ advice

Do you have a way of dealing with rubbish answers on the reference desk? I have kind of given the right answer at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Coiled_rope but a couple of other editors who should know better keep repeating rubbish. I don't like to be rude to them but you edit on rd so what should one do when this happens. --BozMo talk 07:26, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is much to do. If I get into an argument with someone who suffers from WP:ICANTHEARYOU, I eventually just state that I stand by my point and ignore further comments. TJ claims that "truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate", and I do, as a whole, live my life assuming that he is right. Everything else is to painful... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming (3rd nomination). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Please add these questions to the semiprotected Global warming talk page

Please add these questions to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_warming#Precipitation_rates

A. How far are increased precipitation rates expected to raise 10-year flood plain levels?

B. How much have projections for future greenhouse gas concentrations changed over the past 10 years?

Thank you. I would add them but I can't because the page is semi-protected. 99.62.185.160 (talk) 07:57, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I did, once. Please get an account for the future - it's just as anonymous and has a number of other advantages. My private consulting rates are EURO 300/hour, 30 minutes per incident minimum ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:34, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Troublemaker

[2] :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 10:00, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

My characters are always Chaotic Good - I'm the Swashbuckler! ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Can't win

You can't win. Don't try. Hipocrite (talk) 18:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Theon

Thanks for your note. Yes, I wondered why it had the word blog on it. Still, I think it can be used, in part because it's on an official government website, and isn't a personal blog (see WP:V, footnote six, for the policy's definition of blogs that are prohibited), and in part because I used it only for the contents of the subject's email, and not for any other personal views. But I only just started the rewrite. I'll take a look later for other sources. Thanks for the heads-up anyway. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:35, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

The "official government" part of the above is wrong. There is nothing official about it, just as there is nothing official about the republican party's website. That the committee allows such blogs/information from party-members on the site, doesn't make it "official". I've looked at your rewrite - and of the 4 references not a single one is a reliable source to BLP material (2 blogs, an Op-Ed and one example). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Icons of Evolution

I removed the tags you placed around the "Icons of Evolution" section of the WP:RD science desk.

Please don't take such action without first discussing it in the WP:RD "discussion" section. Placing those tags presents an air of "officialdom" which is unwarranted since this appears to be your opinion only. I appreciate that you were just "being bold" in doing that - but understand that I'm just "being bold" in removing them.

I might well concur with adding those tags - but not without prior discussion. That's how the RD's work. SteveBaker (talk) 12:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

If you look through the archived discussion, you will see universal agreement that this discussion was off-topic on the reference desk. I think placing these tags is well within the mandate of any experience editor of good standing. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:01, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Icons of evolution

Hi,

Just wanted to tell that within the discussion we had on the above talk page I forgot to make my point in clear words: It realy doesn't matter whether one book is pseudoscientific or not, naming it as such seems to me of bad taste because it's a contorversial issue with social implications and certainly keeping neutrality would not cause any damage. That is, I have grave doubts that one who accepts the concepts of natural evolution would reject them because we don't have specific warning that the book is pseudoscientific, in the same way that one who disbelieve in evolution would not change his/her mind because the book is labeled as pseudoscience.--Gilisa (talk) 12:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Gilisa! I always enjoy diagreeing with you, because you never become disagreeable ;-). Basically, I'm in favor of calling a spade a spade. But I don't insist on the label in the first line - this needs to be said, but not necessarily thrust into peoples face directly. What usually get me into these discussions is a conditioned reflex to not let a scientifically unsound claim unchallenged in an area I know a bit about. Information theory is such a field, and ID's "contributions" are, without a doubt, pseudoscience of the most pseudiotic kind... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Well Stephan, not being disagreeable is my new version as you might notice (and it's also much more healthy) ;-). As for the article itself, we still disagree here, but as I said-it's not a big deal anyway--Gilisa (talk) 12:50, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Question

-waves- Hey there. Hope you don't mind me asking you a question. You commented on the Medieval Warm Period thing not too long ago (here) which had involved me. My account might be somewhat old but I'm not very knowledgable about the policies (didn't even know what an RfC was when the other person mentioned it heh), you seem to know better so... in relation to that article's name... should all the other "period" articles be switched to capitals? Over at List of time periods the majority of them were small-capped (i.e. Vedic period, Jōmon period and so forth). Might as well fix the other article's names if they should be capitilized too. So ... let me know if they should be capitilized as well and I'll go (attempt) to change them or request the move :) Avalik (talk) 15:13, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Avalik. I think it depends on the article in question. MWP is used as a proper noun - or it can be a descriptive. One calls for all upper case, the other all lower case (with the initial letter capitalized automatically). "Vedic period" seems to be purely descriptive, but Veda is a proper noun in its own right, so derived adjectives maintain the upper case (in English - in German we lower-case them). If in doubt, discuss it on the talk page of the article in question. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

NowCommons: File:JamesonStillCork.jpg

File:JamesonStillCork.jpg is now available on Wikimedia Commons as Commons:File:Jameson Still Cork.jpg. This is a repository of free media that can be used on all Wikimedia wikis. The image will be deleted from Wikipedia, but this doesn't mean it can't be used anymore. You can embed an image uploaded to Commons like you would an image uploaded to Wikipedia, in this case: [[File:Jameson Still Cork.jpg]]. Note that this is an automated message to inform you about the move. This bot did not copy the image itself. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 19:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

German translation

Hi Stephan,

Sorry for addressing you for this, and if this is not the right place just tell me-I just wanted to know whether transleting this sentence "System zur Abbildenden Aufklarung in der Tiefe des Einsatzgebietes" as "A system that would give the armed forces long range abilities new power" is correct in meaning, at least. Regards,--Gilisa (talk) 10:23, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Gilisia! Well, it's not wrong, but a different focus. A more fitting translation would be "System for deep theatre penetration visualizing reconnaissance" - but it looks like its full of military bullshit bingo buzzwords which may have a more specific meaning, or may be naive translations from English (I have only a vague idea what "Abbildende Aufklärung" could mean). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:24, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Stephan, what is your vauge idea about "Abbildende Aufklärung"? I'm not that familiar with military buzzwords :)--Gilisa (talk) 16:14, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, "Aufklärung" is "reconnaissance" or "intelligence (gathering)", but "Abbildend" can mean "mapping" or "visualizing", or possibly just "visual", so the combined phrase has many possible interpretations. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:34, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, thanks again, and you already translated it before..You are much more efficient than google's translation, I must tell ;)--Gilisa (talk) 16:57, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Scibaby

Do you also think that this was scibaby talking to himself? Some weired 'good cop, bad cop' thing... SPLETTE :] ^{How's my driving?} 09:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking. It would allow him to get the old sock into the discussion with less suspicion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought the same thing even before you added the tags but I wanted to keep them on my watchlist for a while first, to see what happens next. I guess he/she/them is trying new patterns... SPLETTE :] ^{How's my driving?} 09:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, that probably means that you are old and wise and that I'm young and rash. How's that arthritis of yours? ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, 'old' I don't know. I'm just 30. Certainly not wise. Just been around long enough to recognize scibaby... sometimes. SPLETTE :] ^{How's my driving?} 09:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Stephen on the other hand is nearly 50% older than you, and nearly as long toothed as me. But young at heart, and a good vintage year...--BozMo talk 12:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Gardner monk is probably not S. -Atmoz (talk) 17:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Furrfu?

Never expected to see that word pop up on Wikipedia. Did youlearn it at AFU, or has it migrated further? PhGustaf (talk) 18:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I certainly read AFU at a time, but I'm sure I also saw it on other newsgroups. It may not always show, but I'm old enough to have rejected that new-fangled Mosaic-thingy in favor of Usenet - indeed, my university made Usenet available with the advent of C News. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Heh. I still use text tools for mail and occasional news, for which web tools are abominations. The inability to read HTTP without extra effort is a feature. PhGustaf (talk) 19:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Problem with CfD of Category:Scientists_Opposing_The_Mainstream_Scientific_Assessment_Of_Global_Warming

Please revert your changes and repopulate Category:Scientists_Opposing_The_Mainstream_Scientific_Assessment_Of_Global_Warming untill the CfD discussion is closed. Depopulating it was an inappropriate move. I've made the same mistake, so I understand. ---Irbisgreif-(talk | e-mail)-(contribs) 20:48, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

No. None of the additions to the category was cited, so they are all WP:BLP violations and need to stay depopulated. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in SecurePoll feedback and workshop

As you participated in the recent Audit Subcommittee election, or in one of two requests for comment that relate to the use of SecurePoll for elections on this project, you are invited to participate in the SecurePoll feedback and workshop. Your comments, suggestions and observations are welcome.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Risker (talk) 08:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Additional information needed on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby

Hello. Thank you for filing Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby. This is an automated notice to inform you that the case is currently missing a code letter, which indicates to checkusers why a check is valid. Please revisit the page and add this. Sincerely, SPCUClerkbot (talk) 02:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Grrrr! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Please respect Wikipedia more than you respect your own views.

Hi. Your edits to Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident are kinda partisan. You rmv as "No source, and wrong" something that is easily sourced, and correct. Please respect the facts that exist, not the ones you wish to exist... If the whole thing is revealed as a fraud later, then you can say the facts are wrong. meanwhile, the emails do suggest that data was fudged. Please respect Wikipedia more than you respect your own views. I do it all the time. Ling.Nut (talk) 08:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

No, the emails do not give the impressions. Some blogs claim they give the impression. As an example, I looked at the archive and in the very first email a researcher disputed Trenberth's alleged quote (the "travesty" quote that has been all over the right-wing blogosphere) and gives a reasonable explanation for the current temperature trends. If you read the emails neutrally and with an educated mind, they are entirely unremarkable. Of course, given that its 61 MB, nobody has looked at the archive in any detail - bad sources repeat the same selected sound bites, good ones are silent. Anyways, WP:BLP strictly requires that unsourced negative information about living people (and an accusation of fraud is such) is deleted immediately. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:18, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

But you knee-jerk rmvd something that could be fixed with ten words or less. many sources are alleging that something is rotten in Denmark (or Norwich). These allegations, when treated as allegations and not as fact, are eminently fair game under BLP, assuming they are well-sourced. Don't you think? Ling.Nut (talk) 09:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Then fix it in your own sweet time. I have not yet seen "many" reliable sources alleging something "rotten". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

OK. Meanwhile, please do go gently with that rmv reflex. The sources are out there. We just report what they say. WP is about verifiability, not a reified Truth. Ling.Nut (talk) 09:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you a master of irony? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I'll chat about reified Truth some other day. ;-) other thread more important. Ling.Nut (talk) 10:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

tag team deletion? Please do calm down

please do recreate the redirect you deleted to Mike's Nature Trick. I have explained everything quite reasonably. the phrase has been used as the title of several articles. Folks will be entering it into the search box. Ling.Nut (talk) 09:39, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Well i have checked the sources. And i can't find a single WP:RS that uses the phrase "Mike's Nature Trick" as a title. WP isn't a search engine or a directory - so an argument that if other sources use something as a title would require that Wikipedia creates a redirect based on such title's is simply bogus. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 09:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• The folks at Wall Street Journal will surely be severely cut to hear that you do not believe they are RS:
• here Ling.Nut (talk) 09:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Except of course that that isn't an article - but a link to Watts Up With That which certainly isn't a reliable source. (in case you missed it OneSpot is a news aggregator). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget Mike’s Nature Trick (I'm having a hard time telling them apart - did you delete the lower case one?) William M. Connolley (talk) 09:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Yep. I was not aware about the other one up to now... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:02, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

As for your source... This is a mirrored post from ClimateAudit.org - it would appear that the WSJ has now stooped to replicating septic trash :-( William M. Connolley (talk) 09:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Either way, it's WSJ. But thanks for the recreate... Ling.Nut (talk) 09:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh no. You didn't recreate. Oh me oh my. Ling.Nut (talk) 10:02, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I notice a certain consistency in your approach to fact checking.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

(undent) meh. Elliptical WP:SARCASM is unhelpful. I was trying to follow links via redirects. Sometimes they worked; sometimes they didn't. Hey, which forum should i complain about you all on? It wouldn't seem to be ANI. I never (well nearly never, not in years probably) complain about people. The bureaucracy is a bit tedious. So... where should I go? Ling.Nut (talk) 10:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

ANI seems to be traditional but often unproductive. I know there are more exotic boards out there. If I were you I would avoid WP:BLP/N as unlikely to be sympathetic. Maybe try WP:Wikiquette alerts - I don't think I've read it in the last years, but I could be wrong. --Stephan Schulz "the Just" (talk) 10:26, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I was at that Wikiquette thing a long, long time ago. It was days and days before the thread was replied to, IIRC. Essentially, my contention is this: you're using your adminly delete button to suppport a POV. I on the other hand, and very very far from being "malicious". A redirect is the most humble and unassuming thing on the wiki. And I have been accused of a few things, but never of vandalism. If you AGF and assume I am not being malicious, where does that leave you? With an innocent redirect. And with admins supporting a POV with their buttons. ... I'm going home. See ya tomorrow. Ling.Nut (talk) 10:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't care what your intent was. The redirect was inappropriate nonsense, and was deleted as such. If someone ever creates a redirect from McIntyre's Crapload to Climate Audit, I'll delete it just as quickly (if its pointed out to me). Have a good night. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Let's be honest. You're a global warming POV warrior masquerading as a neutral admin. I'm sorry I offended your religious views. I'll save my thoughts for another day. Bye! Ling.Nut (talk) 01:17, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Mu. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:26, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Personal attacks are malicious. -- 98.108.199.134 (talk) 03:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Broken "revert" tool, and "other"

FYI, apparently, the tool you are using to revert changes is broken.

[3] and [4]

I don't know what happened here (not your edit), but it made things worse. I fixed the edits here. Q Science (talk) 05:26, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. Weird. I don't use any special tools at the moment. I tried wikEd for a while, but found it too annoying and went back to the plain default interface. No idea what happened there. Thanks for fixing it, though. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:32, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:AN3

You've made a dupe I'm afraid. Could you add our comment to my report and anything I missed, and remove yours? Cheers, Verbal chat 10:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Was just about to comment on your talk page. I have more, yours are better (dated). I'll merge. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I stopped at 10! Thanks, Verbal chat 10:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Medieval Warm Period

Hi Stephan, I think the blanking was non-constructive and unnecessary, and I back your revert. But maybe there's something more to it. Maybe the text pays to much attention to a single view. See the edit summaries of the IP. Take care, Woodwalker (talk) 19:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Woodwalker! I've read the edit summaries, I've read (most of) the IPCC reports, I've read M&M, I've read (most of) the NCR report and as much of the Wegman report as I could stomach, I've read (some of) the leaked emails, and I've read (too many) uninformed editorials on the topic. As far as I can tell, there is nothing in the CRU emails that calls the current state of the science into question. I don't want to know what I've written over the last 13 years - I'm sure suitably motivated people will find plenty of stuff to tarnish my sterling reputation if they ever go through my archives with a fine-toothed comb or properly unfriendly grep. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:42, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah okay, then I trust you know what you're doing. I know what to do next time. Thanks, Woodwalker (talk) 19:59, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Your removal of the reference to the CO2Science database on MWP reasearch, and the associated comment that they were "An advocacy group" was both funny and irritating. I don't care of Exxon Mobile posted a collection of relevant studies in various journals, it's still very much on topic, and should be interesting to readers of Wikipedia. If you'd actually followed the link you'd find that the listed publications include "Quaternary Science Reviews", "The Holocene", and "Geophysical Research Letters". This sort of junk is why Wikipedia is distrusted by so many.

The REALLY funny thing is the built in and clearly inbred assumption that the IPCC is NOT an advocacy group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.11.140.118 (talk) 19:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

CO2Science is not a reliable source. If there are useful links on their page, that's by accident. But there is nothing wrong with taking good sources and integrating them into our article. And no, the IPCC is indeed not an advocacy group. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

CU and Scibaby

Why are you wasting time CUing Scibaby accounts which are WP:DUCK ? I am just indef blocking them on sight but the CU request makes reference to some politics which I don't know about? --BozMo talk 10:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I prefer to get some confirmation. If CU works fast, it also can work if there is not enough material for certainty based in behavior alone (it's not fast at the moment, though). Also, by having them checkusered, the CU database remains fresh, so it remains useful if less obvious socks appear. Also, we can document the problem better. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

CU not being fast at the moment isn't to do with the volume of requests? Every time I have tried in the past I just get told "we don't do obvious cases" but perhaps your charm or other persuasive skills are better than mine. --BozMo talk 12:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

National Review

Re [5], I added it as an attempt to compromise with Math.geek3.1415926 (talk · contribs) (though he seems to be not at all interested in a compromise). See the talk page. I'd suggest reviewing the top of that para for POV as well. The editor is blatantly misrepresenting what sources say. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:25, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

reply

Sheltered life it was then. And I have even read the Bernard Ramm bit on how the polar bears got back to the North Pole after Noah's flood. --BozMo talk 21:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Westpond is a weird country... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:04, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

You expected otherwise? Remember, we're the descendants of people who were kicked out of (or ran away from) all the civilized countries of their time. Dr. Dr. (Mr. M.D.) Arthur Resnick (talk) 04:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This is not something which the rest of us ever forget. I was brought up that it was rude to look at an Australians ankles for a similar reason ;). --BozMo talk 20:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

sleeper sock

MuZemike may have gone to bed so I'll tell you too. Farnshon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a sleeper. Became active today, made 10 edits, then edited a semi-protected global warming talk page. Scibaby? ~YellowFives 06:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say there is a >90% chance that this is scibaby. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:58, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

...and the case has just been closed (with another 10-15 identified). I'll be teaching all day today and have a meeting tomorrow at too early to fathom, so I won't do much about it today. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Blocked now by Seraphimblade. ~YellowFives 09:33, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Deep sleeper

It's likely that User:Telekenesis is an old sleeper of our friend. It was created right around the time that the original Scibaby and Obedium accounts were blocked and is behaviorally very very similar. Wonder how many more of these are stashed away? Dr. Dr. (Mr. M.D.) Arthur Resnick (talk) 04:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

What are the odds on BeachedOne being scibaby? (so far i'd say >80%) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Using IPCC language, I'd say unlikely. -Atmoz (talk) 19:03, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh.

I didn't even read the remark. Wow. Hipocrite (talk) 16:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

ANI close

I'm not sure if you caught my edit summary. I appreciate your attempt to keep the thread open so that my comment could be responded to, but I feel the ANI dispute has run its course and is probably best left closed. Further discussion regarding future scenarios can be taken up in other areas, like the policy pages, or even my talk page. Please feel free to respond to my comment there, if that's what you intended to do at ANI. Thanks. Equazcion (talk) 17:01, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)

This is much to reasonable a request for the reply I had in mind ;-). Let's just say I strongly disagree with your suggestion that all Jews (or other ethnic groups) should operation under an implicit COI assumption. It's a bit like asking blacks to voluntarily sit in the back of the bus... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I didn't mean in all situations, just the ones where they might be especially offended. As in my previous example, if you were a baker and found someone insulting the baking industry, assuming there were some indicator to the public of your baker status, chances are your action in that situation would be heavily scrutinized. It has at least the appearance of a possible COI. The way I see it, if I were an admin, the more offended I was in a situation, the more I'd hesitate to act. I think that's how it should work. Equazcion (talk) 17:23, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)

That would imply that no decent admin should act on particularly egregious situations that offend all decent people. A reasonable appearance of COI requires more that a shared ethnicity or even a shared occupation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It's of course a sliding scale. A perfect system can't be conceived, but it's not a binary decision. We can try. Jurors who are decent people are chosen to rule on violent cases, but those with an especially outstanding COI risk are still dismissed. I'm not necessarily saying this should be policy, that Jewish admins can't act on questions on antisemitism; but still, admins should take such precautions upon themselves. And, in cases where it has happened, I don't think users should be admonished for pointing it out. If we wouldn't admonish them for pointing out the problem with the baker scenario (and I don't think we would), the social "touchiness" of ethnicity shouldn't mean they shouldn't be able to express a similar concern in that regard. Equazcion (talk) 17:35, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, it should. Bakers are bakers voluntarily, but people are born into ethnic groups. Moreover, there is a long (and ongoing) history of discrimination based on ethnicity, while discrimination against bakers is, well, a rare case. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it being voluntary or not should play a role. If the baker takes offense, do we say well maybe you should've thought of that before you became a baker? The history of discrimination only goes towards showing that a Jewish person having taken offense at possibly antisemitic remarks might be historically justified. It doesn't show that they can be seen as any more objective in those situations. The opposite actually, I would say. Equazcion (talk) 17:49, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)

Since I was pointed here by Equazcion, would you mind terribly if I continued the discussion on this topic on your Talk page? Don't want to overwhelm your page on this subject, so I wouldn't mind if you'd rather just keep it between the two of you for now. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I can live with a yellow bar on top of my page ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay then. :) In response to Equazcion: your proposal would mean that, if we had a user insulting Martin Luther King Jr., a black admin could not intervene. Hell, what if we have a multi-racial admin? Should they stay away from all racial-related conflicts that affect their heritages? It just doesn't work out in any practical manner. If an admin displays a bias in matters relating to their race, it can be dealt with at ANI. And if an admin voluntarily discloses a bias, we can remind them to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Finally, the big issue is that admins are not required to disclose their heritage at all. If someone accuses an admin of acting on behalf of a racial influence, the admin doesn't even have to disclose their race, which makes the whole thing moot. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Again: If you read above, I'm not suggesting that this necessarily be policy, but admins should take such precautions themselves. If they feel offended or feel it might appear that they are acting out of personal offense, it would be smarter to recuse themselves and let someone else handle it. Furthermore the suggestion of impropriety by the supposed "victim" of it shouldn't garner admonishment; and in fact it usually doesn't, except in certain extra-sensitive scenarios such as this one, but it shouldn't, even here. Equazcion (talk) 22:59, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)

I agree that admins should generally step away from issues they're too invested in. But that doesn't mean a Jewish admin should never step in when an editor is insulting Jews. Further, I totally disagree on your last point. An accusation of ethnicity-based impropriety with nothing to back it up should result in admonishment. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 02:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

No, but, when any admin feels particularly offended, I think that's cause to hesitate in taking administrative action. An accusation maybe is cause for concern, but this wasn't an accusation. It was a polite request complete with a "please", for a non-Jewish admin to examine the situation. Equazcion (talk) 02:58, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)

Which is what pushed the whole thing over-the-top. It implied that no Jewish admin could be trusted to make an objective decision, which really throws up red flags everywhere. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 04:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I know. That's part of the problem as I see it, though not exactly a solvable one. Equazcion (talk) 08:37, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)

Polite or not, it's bigoted. -- 98.108.199.134 (talk) 03:43, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

T:GW

I accidentally removed one of your comments here. Sorry. Restore if you want. IMO, he could use a little time out. -Atmoz (talk) 22:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. The time out comment still stands. -Atmoz (talk) 22:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping

We might flush out loads of Scibaby socks with Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2009/Comments/William_M._Connolley but so far it is only providing known criminals. Hmm --BozMo talk 08:16, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Corrected your spelling [6] hope that's ok --BozMo talk 10:28, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, thanks! Well, that's one of the problems with anonymous voting - the socks can have a field day, and chances of finding them are much minimized (no behavioral clues, for example). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Clearly you are a partisan

You don't seem to want any criticsm on RealClimate. You are not being rational or fair. Worst still, heartland and Cato are both notable. Their websites attract about 100,000 visitors a month each, maybe even more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LVAustrian (talk • contribs) 18:53, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Number of visitors does not make the opinion of an organization notable. Moreover, both Heartland and Cato are partisan think tanks with a wide range of topics. How many of those visitors are interested in their web site reviews? Both have no demonstrated competency in climate change topics (and that puts it generously). Neither is a reliable source about anything but their own opinion - and this opinion has little to no impact worldwide. Their opinion on a science website is simply irrelevant. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:32, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

That would be your opinion. Dr. Michaels is a UVA professor of climate science. Cato and Heartland are cited by many major newspapers, their opinion in this regard is on RealClimate not science and quite frankly most peer reviewed academic articles have no impact at all. People are just reaching to eliminate dissent (LVAustrian (talk) 19:46, 3 December 2009 (UTC))

Michaels is retired and has a publication record that can only be described as mediocre, with fairly few citations for someone in his former position. And many of those cites are not in climate articles, but in social science articles where he is cited as the curious one out. However, if Cato and Heartland are cited by many newspapers, you should be able to find secondary sources who report their opinion on RealClimate. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:19, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

BLP does not allow blog-sourced exeptions

Re: Singer and the RealClimate-sourced criticism - BLP is clear on this, and there is no "expert" exemption for BLP. I've reverted. The source is self-published and critical of Singer himself (in the first line, no less). Further, the point is still made by the ABC-sourced sentence that remains. ATren (talk) 20:47, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Which sock?

Any clue which of the Obama and Global Warming socks User:Dalej78 is? --BozMo talk 20:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

And it seems one of our friends are back [7] --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I'd like to formally submit that although I am a Dale, I am not this Dale. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 14:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Another sock?

Maybe i'm getting paranoid here, considering all the scibaby socks, but it seems to me that this and this, combined with the very old fashioned signatures, look very much like socks. Should i request a CU? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. I think there has been a whole bunch of accounts that have been around anywhere between 2 years and 3 months, and that suddenly came alive. Its smelly, but I don't know what it smells of... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The thing that struck me here is the almost exact subset of articles that they are interested in, and the signatures. They both started editing at NPRI. My guess is either socks or meatpuppets. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Possible. There is also User: HarmonicSeries, and others I'm to tired to find now - I'm off to bed. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Since you seem to be the go to person on this I thought maybe you would like to check out User:Brittainia. This editor seems to be canvassing other editors about a section they put in that got reversed. It showed up on multiple pages on my watchlist so I took a look and saw the contributions. If I'm wrong, please just ignore. Thanks, --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

She (?) has been with us for a while. Strong-opinionated and uninformed, but too naive for Scibaby, I think. I wouldn't be surprised if there is another nest of socks, but I don't think there is sufficient evidence at the moment. If she is Scibaby, either Scibaby is good at faking incompetence, or Scibaby really is a group. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Have you had time to look at this? I have almost zero experience in CU's, so i wanted a second opinion - it seems rather clear to me though. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of Scientific material at article "Medieval Warm Period"

Because of your persistance in deleting scientific material I am going to take it up at the discussion page. You can submit any claims there. Wejer (talk) 17:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I have not deleted any "scientific material", but you have massively violated WP:BLP. My explanation is on the talk page. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Stephan Schulz

Re Stephan Schulz. Congratulations on your new-found fame, or otherwise. Permit me to offer you some advice: take the article off your watchlist :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It's been there for quite a while. Up to now it lived in pleasant obscurity. I'll wait for a few days to see what's happening... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

To repay me for this, you must merge Conjunctive normal form and Clausal normal form and disambiguate "CNF" in your article appropriately; at least, I am pretty sure that they are describing the same concept. To be clear, as humor does not always translate well over text, this is completely tongue in cheek; I am perfectly capable of proposing the merge through the usual channels. And besides, a full merger is significantly more work than just a little copyediting. Also - is there a good subcategory of Category:Computer scientists by field of research for that article? - 2/0 (cont.) 05:51, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. At least I took out a wrong statement from Clause normal form. Yes, Clause- and conjunctive normal form are more or less interchangeable, although they sometimes have different connotations, with conjunctive normal form being properly structured formulae and clause normal form being sets of sets of literals. Both Category:Formal methods people and Category:Artificial intelligence researchers has theorem proving people, as the field sits right on the edge. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow -- so exceedingly impressed because I can't understand a single thing about anything that you apparently know so much about that other people are willing to award you Masters' and doctorate degrees on them. I am dismayed, though, that you do not include Wikipedia editor on your CV -- it's been on mine for 3 years now. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 14:30, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Mike's nature trick

Hi! I noticed you deleted the page at Mike's nature trick. I was hoping you could user-ify for me anything that was there, as I'd like to recreate the page with the appropriate sources and references (of course following WP policies).

Thanks! jheiv (talk) 09:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The article I deleted had exactly one revision and consisted of #REDIRECT [[Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident]]. I don't think that is very useful ;-). When creating this from scratch, be sure to use reliable sources (as it is a WP:BLP). Also, make sure you capitalize the title correctly (Nature is a proper noun). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Arbcom elections

This exchange raises serious concerns for anyone who edits controversial articles. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Red is green and 2+2 is 5. I've already performed my duty as a member of the people's proletariat and voted following good doctrine on those candidates I have some information on. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

E equational theorem prover

Hello Stephan. I happened to see an AfD on the article Stephan Schulz, which I guess is about you. This drew my attention to E equational theorem prover. This article, it seems to me, might be enhanced so as to be more understandable to non-specialists. It seems that the system is rather successful, but the article lacks introductory material. I have some awareness of the Knuth-Bendix completion algorithm via previous work in computer science, yet based only on what the article says, I would have no way of connecting up the article on E with that topic. (Though Automated theorem proving does succeed in explaining things a little better). Since E has won competitions, there might be a way to give examples of the problems it can handle. There is some hint that it can even do practical problems. (What was the Safelogic company doing with it, for example?) Please let me know if you might have some time to discuss improvement of this article. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 05:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Ed! I'm quite ready to help improving the article. But I'm fairly deeply buried in this field, and don't exactly know where to start - much of the complexity is not specific to E, but rather to first-order logic and theorem proving. So far, the article mostly concentrates on what makes E special among theorem provers. Yes, some examples might help - E can do everything from classical puzzles of the Cluedo type to software verification tasks, encoded modal logic, and ontologies. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:17, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

In the 90s there was an equational theorem prover known as REVE that was based on Knuth-Bendix completion of a set of rules, using term rewriting. Can you say if E is able to solve problems in the same domain? I do recall there were issues about associative and commutative unification that caused issues for equational provers, and let to some thick journal papers. Is E beyond all that? Has it solved the previous set of difficulties, or is it a start in some other direction? EdJohnston (talk) 15:26, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I've not heard of REVE before, but I've met its author - I started working in this area in 1990 or so. E is a prover for full first-order logic with equality, not just unit-equational logic like REVE. However, the system compiles first-order logic into clausal logic, and if the clauses all happen to be units (i.e. individual equations), the calculus will degenerate into a variant of unfailing KB-Completion. I'm fairly certain that E can prove most of the problems REVE could solve, and many that it could not. AC is still nasty, but E handles it via explicit axiomatization and some clever redundancy elimination in the search space. By now E is often given problems with an axiomatization that would probably not have fitted the disks in the age of REVE. See [8] for a collection of problems we now work on. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:30, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The story of the annual contests between theorem provers could probably be told in a dramatic way. This would be easier if we could highlight a few topics where the provers have become steadily better. Especially where there is a hint of practical value in the task (circuit properties, program correctness, etc). Occasionally there is an article in the popular media and I wish there were more. Since the only published articles on this topic seem impenetrable for non-specialists, the only way to create an intro-level WP article is probably if an expert such as yourself would help to find the material. EdJohnston (talk) 16:59, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

BTW

If you do get deleted then don't take it personally, it is more about publicity than results. You may not know it I have a brother with who is a Royal Society professor, FRS (Edin), FRS, British Society of Rheology Gold Medal winner, Institute of Physics Dirac Prize winner (here alongside Hawking et al), IoP Maxwell Prize winner, and an H-index of approaching a hundred (I can get to >60 just on Google scholar, which on citations goes 407,402,259,253..). But he has a low profile and likes a quiet life, so no WP article. If one was written he would probably request it deleted. --BozMo talk 07:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

William Connolley

Hi. I've explained my take on the desysop issue on the article talk page and would be interested to hear why you believe the proposed text violates WP:BLP.  Sandstein  08:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

See my reply on that talk page. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:58, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I tried a compromise. If you feel strongly tell me and I will self revert to save you an RR. --BozMo talk 09:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Edits to Hockey stick controversy

The previous version contained errors, which I corrected. I do not see any unsourced OR. Will you explain your edit? AlfBit (talk) 20:06, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

One thing that is unsourced, OR, and plain wrong, is the claim that the Hockey Stick was removed from all IPCC publications. Download AR3, it's still there. The entirely ordinary process that happened is that MBH98, the very first millennial reconstruction, was superseded by several new reconstructions (that, BTW, all or nearly all, live comfortably within the advertised error bounds of MBH98). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean the AR4 ;-) - the hockey-stick can be found in Chapter 6 in the AR4. As well as in the Technical Summary --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:35, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Star Wars kid...again.

Can you drop a few words at Talk:Star Wars kid#RFC about why we shouldn't include his name? Thanks. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 23:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Rajendra K. Pachauri

Could you consider semi-ing Rajendra K. Pachauri? Thanks, William M. Connolley (talk) 10:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. While it's noisy, it does not seem to have major problems with new users and IPs. I'll keep an eye on it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I would have to object to Rajendra K. Pachauri being semi`d. I know i am new here however wmc has yet to state an unbiased reason as to why the addition of Pachauri being asked to resign in an open letter due to his conflict of interests as shown in this article. Given the sources are reputable the only reason i can see for his insistence on there removal is due to WMC`s own conflict of interest with regards to any articles on climate change or those associated with it. Currently i see five editors who wish to have this addition added. I see three who do not. It would appear the current consensus is for the addition to remain. Thank you mark nutley (talk) 13:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Stephan Schulz

Referring to here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Raylopez99

Italic text and this quote here: "I'll warn or block any user I see who persists in such comments, although I have to say that I rarely have seen such incoherent aggression before." this shows me one of two things: (1) you are prone to making aggrandizing statements like "although I have to say that I rarely have seen such incoherent aggression before", which begs the question about what was "incoherent" about my statement to this person, or, (2) you are very inexperienced about human interaction. Either way, you're probably not the best person to be moderating Wikipedia. I understand Wikipedia, being unpaid, is facing a crisis in finding competent administrators. Shame, since the current administrators seem to be ruining it for everybody. Worse, you have failed to read this section, that you cite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CIVIL#Assume_good_faith Now ask yourself--telling an administrator like William, who has been voted out by the Wikipedia committee as an administrator (due to his censoring activities and apparent bias towards the Global Warming cause, as has been exposed in the online mainstream media) that he should not censor any of my comments about his censorship about a particular article on the Wiki page that he censored--is clearly "good faith". In fact, it goes to the very issue of the article under consideration. How is that not good faith? You perhaps were offended by the rhetorical "twist the knife" remark I made, but that's small beer. Nuff said. I'm not going to make a mountain out of a molehill, but this is another example of why Wikipedia has gone downhill, and now is just a shadow of it's former self and potential. Have a nice day. Raylopez99 (talk) 17:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

First, I'd like to point out that WMC's loss of administrative powers had nothing to do with global warming. Also please note that editors that try really hard to be dispassionate on these issues will generally oppose anyone who decides to place personal insults on talk pages, because no matter what their viewpoint, their behavior is counterproductive. Awickert (talk) 18:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Taken to AN/I for neutral review. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Connolley's edits

Hi - I didn't really understand your point about the distinction between pages and articles. I looked just at the articles. Connolley has edited 1,701 articles. There is no tool that tells you the subject of each (is there?). I went through all the 108 articles to which Connolley made 20 or more edits. These account for 8,125 of his article edits (the articles with less than 20 edits account for 4,919 of his edits, making a total of 13,044 edits to articles). Of the 108, only 13 were on non-global warming-related subjects. I.e. 88% were global warming related. I am including articles on climate scientists and sceptics as GW-related, of course. You may be right that the remaining 1,593 articles with less than 20 edits, the majority are not on GW subjects. But how can you be so sure? Even of the articles with low edits, many of them are GW-related. E.g. "Reconstruction of temperature record for past 1000 years". I love SUV's (talk) 19:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

You looked at articles (pages in the main article name space). Solomon looked at pages (in any namespace). I looked at your list of articles. If you look at the other side, less than 10 articles from the last 100 in the list have anything to do with climate. And doing a couple of random samples also shows significantly more non-climate than climate articles. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

To be precise: you mean by 'the other side', the articles at the bottom of the list. The list is ordered by the number of edits per article. The bottom 100 are those with only 1 edit. Articles with only one edit by Connolley account for 762 of the 1,702 articles. Clearly making only one edit to an article suggests little interest in the subject matter. Moving to articles with 20 or more edits (as explained above) we find that 88% of these are GW-related. I agree that Solomon was literally wrong however you interpret what he said. On the other hand, what Solomon meant was clearly correct. The overwhelming majority of Connolley's edits are GW-related. And the majority of articles in which he clearly shows an interest (let's say articles with 5 edits or more) are likely to be GW-related. I love SUV's (talk) 12:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree that the majority of my edits are GW-related. Or even, assuming that fails on a technicality, that the majority of my *interest* is in GW. What is less clear is why that is a problem. Indeed I would argue (without any clear backing, I agree) that the majority of wikipedians (excluding the WP:wikignome types) tend to edit in one particular area. Generally, the one they know something about or are interested in William M. Connolley (talk) 12:19, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not a problem that the majority of your edits are GW-related. It's just that Larry Solomon said this (albeit for bad or mistaken reasons), and some people here said he was wrong, and were seeking to rubbish his claims. That is all. I love SUV's (talk) 15:47, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

No, Solomon did not say that, and his claims of a 5000+ article Empire Of Climateevil are rubbish, as, apparently, we both agree. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:56, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Stephan, Solomon's claims may be over the top and I agree we should not place too much weight on his bombastic claims, but it would be equally incorrect to pretend that there is no problem at all here. I arrived at the GW articles over a year ago with no preconceived bias (really) and I personally witnessed admins like Raul and WMC (and a few others) assert their dominance to maintain the status quo they had created on GW articles. Particularly egregious (to me) was the frequent edit warring to keep questionable material in GW skeptic BLPs. Do you remember the "Fred Singer believes in martians" thing? That was mentioned in Solomon's earlier column on WMC and Wikipedia, and even though he got some details wrong in that opinion (as with his latest), his assertion that WMC was trying to embarrass Singer was entirely correct, because I personally witnessed it. So even as we dismiss Solomon's error-riddled opinion piece, let's not pretend that there isn't any problem at all. ATren (talk) 18:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

There are two separate claims at issue here. The first is that Connolley's involvement in GW-related articles in Wikipedia is extensive. That seems to be correct, and WMC has agreed anyway. The second is that his influence is pernicious and malignant. That is something that would require more evidence. Larry Solomon's main assertion is that WMC made the Medieval Warm Period go away. I don't know anything about the Medieval Warm Period. I love SUV's (talk) 10:03, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate talk page

Your last edit on the Climategate talk page is not done in WP:AGF. 1. please discuss the mattier in the appropriate tread11 (as done by the others enganged in this matter) 2. don't make edit comments like you did onthis edit. It's an attack on a living person and not very elegant and may break WP:BLP.Nsaa (talk) 10:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I only noted this now. I honestly don't know what edit you are talking about - this one? If yes, I stand by my edit. Solomon's article is trash and could not have been published by any journalist with minimal ethical standards. It's full of falsehoods, and trivially so. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Mann "CV"

I apologize, you were spot on with my mistake regarding terminology. I updated my comment on the talk page, and although Einstein is an exception (as you can see I skipped all around him in the scientists I surveyed -- that in itself is interesting) -- If you could comment on the pages talk page regarding the section, maybe we could get a consensus (although I fear there will be some "piling on"). To be honest, I really do want to see a good article here (Mann is a Professor at my Alma mater) and I feel removing the partial bibliography really doesn't remove meaningful content to most visitors and it cleans up the page. jhe_iv (talk) 09:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I checked a few more scientists, and from my rather small sample, it looks like about 1/2 to 2/3rds have some kind of publication list. I've added the examples at the talk: Michael Mann for the delectation of the masses. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Huh?

"Operates" his website? "Doubt he owns the physical website" What of earth are you doing? --BozMo talk 10:16, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. I thought this was normal terminology. I operate a website, but it's running on the servers owned by my provider (or my university for the university-related stuff). I'm responsible for content, they are responsible for hardware, OS, network connectivity... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Normal? AFAIK I own the URL. I contract another party or parties for web services such as hosting etc. Anything they are responsible for they are responsible for to me. No "physical website" exists. --BozMo talk 12:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you call the server with the data on, if not physical? But anyways, feel free to change my edit. It's a Wiki ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

context at Lindzen

Stephan, it would be appreciated if you could contact Daniel Kirk-Davidoff privately to ask the question of whether or not he has been taken out of context in the Seed Magazine article. Note, I am effectively offline at the moment so probably won't see your response here for a while if you make one. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

On the off-chance that you do read it: Did you already try to contact him? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

gw faq

If a faq answer says "science coverage is more akin to a textbook", you don't see any relevance to WP:NOTTEXTBOOK? How much more clear can wikipedia is not a textbook be? The relevant policy is:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not an instruction manual, guidebook, or textbook. Wikipedia articles should not read like: ... Textbooks and annotated texts. Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not a textbook. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter.

A22 of the faq is contrary to the plain meaning of the policy. Please do not revert again. TMLutas (talk) 16:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You miss the point. WP is like a textbook not in the style of exposition (it's presenting facts, not teaching them), but it has similarities in the selection of material - it does not cover the latest news, but rather presents an integrated view of established facts. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

A paper xyz published in abc journal states this. Those are facts. A22 as it stands is seeking to impose extraneous conditions beyond the presentation of facts that is more akin to how textbooks are created and selected. WP:NOTTEXTBOOK applies very much. There is no underlying policy, rule, or guideline that supports the vague and indeterminate "wait and see" approach lasting several months. I've been asking several experienced editors for going on two weeks now to produce such a link. Every attempt's failed as I read the links and the plain meaning doesn't fit the claimed meaning.

If you want to assert that wikipedia can and should select material like textbooks select material, you should try to gain consensus to change WP:NOTTEXTBOOK to include that. But I've been suggesting that AGW proponents try to do things like that for a long time and it never really happens because if you did run wikipedia like that theproject would come crashing down, losing most of its usefulness. The bureaucratized process of textbook creation/selection is antithetical to the spirit of wikipedia. TMLutas (talk) 20:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The "wait and see" is supported by WP:NPOV - more specifically WP:WEIGHT. We aren't here to do agregation of science papers, but describe the science overall. This is exactly the same as with current news, we are always at least one "rotation" behind .... --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

An Entire Wikiproject, Perhaps

You should recall some of what we've spoken about. It's not the topic here.

I was wondering if you would support an entire wikiproject's (or subproject's) creation: Denialism. I ask because it seems that there are some questions on a good many subjects like climate change, where answers might be obtained via a one-sentence redirection to a proper parallel article in the denial arena. The denialism article itself could use a bit of expansion (plus there is going to be a need for handling a book with that title, I suspect). It seems that Wikipedia users might benefit from having denialism treated as a very broad subject.Julzes (talk) 12:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to such a project, but I don't know if such a broad treatment is useful. There are several commonalities between global warming denial, evolution denial, Holocaust denial, and so on. But there are also significant differences. And due to a lack of time, I would almost certainly not participate in such a project. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention atheism of course you heathen... :-) --BozMo talk 14:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey! I'm only "almost certainly an atheist". But you are most certainly a heretic! ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Most certainly, well except that, in common with all practising Christians I know, I am of course an agnoscist. But proud to be an agnoscist heretic if that puts clear water between us. Sadly one thing I do have in common with you is that the statements of which I am most certain would be ones about the invalidity of certain types of religion (being Fundamentalism). But that's because you can pretty well prove the logical absurdity on a reductio ad absurdum basis. More to the point "almost certainly" is enough to be a denialist, so the cap fits. :) --BozMo talk 15:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Is an agnosticist an agnostic who does not speek Greek? Anyways, wrong logic. I'm not an almost certain atheist, but almost certainly an atheist (or that's the logic of some Wikipedian who dug out my 1837 votes on soc.atheism and talk.aheism....). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:09, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Or one who cannot spell in English. I only did a year of Greek at school to complement eight years of Latin. But your talk.aheism also looks an unusual spelling to me. --BozMo talk 22:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that compared to speek, aheism is positively high-class! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah! The Tupo War is what I'll call this. Anyway, thanks for the answer. Little whim on my part to ask, as I can no longer imagine things changing so dramatically as to have a Denialism Project, seeing as there is not even a social sciences help desk (Why the heck is that? In the USA, at least, Social Sciences and Humanities are separated. Anyway, the parenthetical question comes from an absurd Mathematics Help Desk question about a ridiculous economics question. Don't bother answering.)

This is a good place to explain your thinking on your recent revert.Julzes (talk) 09:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The IPCC process has several levels of review. In particular, the final report is not a collection of individual components, but has been formally accepted by both the scientists and the representatives of the member states. It indeed represents the opinion of the IPCC as a body. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to have misunderstood that, and thanks for your answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Julzes (talk • contribs) 10:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

No worries. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if you have time for any of it or how I might do it, but I'm trying to drum up a long sequence of multi-lingual footnotes for the change I made in the end of the geoengineering section of the article. Something that demonstrates the history of the recovery from denial on the sub-topic. I can certainly provide enough by the end of Sunday to fully justify all of the wording in that change, but even more than that would be good. Another change I'm looking at is the definition of the word, since we don't have a natural environment now.Julzes (talk) 10:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Redfish Bay DYK

I have added content to the article to surpass the minimum amount of prose. --William S. Saturn (talk) 19:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Very good! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Protection

Hey there -- although not an article, this George Lucas template (with filmography being exchanged for pornography) has been vandalized twice in recent edits -- perhaps it could be placed under protection. In case there's some formal protocol to follow here, I apologize for taking the short route, but I see you're an admin and didn't know how else to accomplish this. Thanx! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 14:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The formal process is to use WP:RFPP. However, I've looked at it, and the "pornography" theme seems to be recurring. Templates are not very well watched, but very visible. I've semi-protected it for a week. Let's hope they lose interest. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Global cooling

You do know about the probation right? You appear to be in an edit war over there [[9]], might i remind you of WP:PRESERVE as well Cheers --mark nutley (talk) 22:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I do, and no, I'm not. Note that the key phrase in PRESERVE is useful content. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry

[10]Fouled up the copy-n-paste. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's see how soon we become master and sock now ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal: Request for participation

Dear Stephan Schulz/Archive 4: Hello, my name is The Wordsmith; I'm a mediator from the Mediation Cabal, an informal mediation initiative here on Wikipedia. You've recently been named as a dispute participant in a mediation request here:

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-12-08/Global Warming

I'd like to invite you to join this mediation to try to get this dispute resolved, if you wish to do so; note, however, it is entirely your choice whether or not you participate, and if you don't wish to take part in it that's perfectly alright. Please read the above request and, if you do feel that you'd like to take part, please make a note of this on the mediation request page. If you have any questions relating to this or any other dispute, please do let me know; I'll try my best to help you out. Thank you very much. Best regards, The Wordsmith^Communicate 21:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Answered there. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:05, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Bad content and deletion

Hi! I hope you do not mind me bringing this up here. I did not want to derail or detract from the AfD with a discussion of broader issues that is only tangentially related to the article in discussion. I disagree with any blanket sentiment that bad content is an insufficient reason for deletion. For a clear example, if a BLP is almost nothing but bad content, deletion should be a valid option. More broadly speaking, there are a lot of questionable articles that are pits of original research and POV pushing. Except for pretty much totally unmonitored articles it can be an uphill battle, even pragmatically impossible in many cases, to stubify or even more delicately remove original research and questionable uncited material. Even in less controversial or less owned articles where it is clear the cleaning editor is replacing the removed text with sourced material there is a strong trend of resistance based on the 'preservation of information'. In a large number of cases, the problems are only resolved when an AfD deletes the article or forces a merge or redirect to create a clean slate. The bias against reposting material deprecated in XfD discussions without clear, unquestionable references allows other editors to come in and create a better framed and sourced article. We have a duty to preserve reasonable content. We do not have any such obligation to preserve bad content. I believe our traditions, policies, and principles are intended to do the former. I do not see them in any way protecting bad content and there are many of the same exhorting us to avoid and remove it. Vassyana (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Stephan

I sort of deleted your comment in this diff.[11] Sorry about that. Awickert and I were talking about how discussions were going a while back.[12] May I handle this? ChyranandChloe (talk) 09:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I assumed that was a mistake - now I'm not so sure ;-). Do you want to handle the discussion or the deletion? I'll go shower and get my fresh croissants, and then check back... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:12, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to handle the discussion for just for tonight, I'll probably be on another hour or two and you can have at it. Why do each of our discussions always ends so poorly? That was the question Awickert and I asked. Well, we looked at some cases and came up with a theory. You can read about it here. "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." It's quote, we're not checking to see if we understand each other, and often talk right past each other. In an hour or two I'll be done and to bed. If you want, Public opinion on climate change needs some help if you want to pass the time. ChyranandChloe (talk) 09:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

If I had spare time, I'd go back to sleep. Anyways, go on, I'll chime in later. Nothing is lost in the database.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:25, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Scientific opinion on climate change

In your post [13], you have cite a website that uses Wikipedia as its source[14]. Can you explain what you are trying to say? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to say that even reliable secondary sources talk about this topic, and precisely this topic, to the degree that they even cite Wikipedia. Please keep article-specific discussion to article pages where possible. Thanks. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Content Fork

Stop responding; let the poor thing expire naturally of boredom William M. Connolley (talk) 17:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Echo chamber

Beware the echo chamber. LessHeard VanU's blocks were all well within administrative discretion especially in the extraordinary situation of edit warring on a talk page under probation. --Tasty monster 01:36, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about all of his blocks, but the block of Kenois was outside of reasonable discretion. It may not rise to the level of an actionable offense, but it still is wrong. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Notice

Hallo, du könntest mal wieder einen Blick in die deutsche Wikipedia werfen. Dort insbesondere auf Artikel von Klimaforschern.*ShortNotice* (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

[15] *ShortNotice* (talk) 18:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Ich bin gerade auf Reisen und nur sporadisch online...mal schauen. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

re: William Connolley

Um... I think you'll find that that is what happened, if you read the arbcom report, which is already linked.- Wolfkeeper 17:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom is not really an RS - if you look through the discussion and archives, there was some consensus to allow it in for the simple fact of de-admining only. I was there - the reason for de-admining was not edit-warring, but blocking Abd during the ArbCom case. But again, see WP:RS and WP:SELFREF. This should really be kept to a minimum unless we can find reliable external sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:00, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

No, arbcom is a reliable source on what arbcom rules; this should be self-evident. And they're not even self published, they're published by the wikimedia foundation; it's not like they can say whatever they want.- Wolfkeeper 18:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

FWIW I'm in no way an opponent of WC, I just think it's better if the circumstances are spelled out in this case, and it's probably best to do that in the references.- Wolfkeeper 18:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• ArbCom might be reliable as a primary source, but there might be prohibitions against using Wikipedia as a primary source, I'm not sure. You can take it to the WP:RSN and ask there if it can be used. Just try not to flood that board with opinions of involved editors. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:24, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
• No, like any content on an open Wiki ArbCom opinions are self-published. The Wikimedia foundation has no editorial control (any more than on any other Wikipedia content). Yes, ArbCom is reliable for its rulings, but not necessarily for the facts it claims in the rulings. And the ruling does not even claim "removed for using his administrative tools while edit warring on the cold fusion article" - in fact, it does not give any reason directly. We can infer (violating WP:OR ;-) that the remedy was based on this Finding of Facts. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh? Are you really an admin?

Surely you say this in jest, right? [16] - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 14:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I am, and yes, I am. See my reply there. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank god for that. Sorry, I should have realised. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 14:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

No worries. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:58, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Please consider signing our proposal.

A number of editors have been working on a proposal regarding the renaming of the Climatic Research Unit hacking incident and we are now in the process of working with people individually to try and garner support for this proposal. Please review the proposal and if you are willing to support and defend it please add your name to the list of signatories. If you have comments or concerns regarding the proposal please feel free to discuss them here. The goal of this effort is to find a name that everyone can live with and to make that name stick by having a strong show of unified support for it moving forward. Thanks. --GoRight (talk) 16:11, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

PS - I know that we don't usually see eye to eye on various topics but hopefully we can come together on this. ChrisO, Hipocrite, and I started working on a joint proposal and have been working to gather support for it ever since. Please take a few minutes to give this proposal your full consideration and in the spirit of finding a compromise position both sides can live with. Thanks. --GoRight (talk) 16:11, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I've not really followed the discussion, and I'm currently mostly offline due to traveling, so I have no time to check the context. I currently have no opinion, either for or against, so I'll keep quit. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

3rr

you have broken the 3rr rule [17] please self revert.

I will also point out, there is no way you could have checked all the refs provided for the improvements in the time i added the new text and your reversion. Blind reverts like that also break wp policy please do not do it again mark nutley (talk) 11:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Three things here Mark: First Stephan did not break the 3RR rule - in fact he is at 2 reverts (one on the 19th and the second today). Secondly, you may want to ponder the fact that people: A) Might have already read the reference before you even considered it. B) That "global" cannot be inferred from seperate locations by editors (that is called original research), and especially not when it is in direct contradiction to academic sources. And the third one: You are once more breaking your probation, by editwarring. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Bull, the ref`s i used in the last rewrite were academic sources one of which clearly states the MWP was global. Yes he has broken 3rr his first revert was 21:18, 18 February 2010 Stephan Schulz 2nd 21:29, 18 February 2010 Stephan Schulz 3rd 19:04, 19 February 2010 Stephan Schulz and fourth 09:50, 20 February 2010 Stephan Schulz. I am no9t edit warring, i am adding facts to the article, stephen is edit warring however by constantly removing well sourced additions for not reason mark nutley (talk) 14:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Mark you may want to read WP:3RR. The bright line is 3 reverts in 24 hours. Not 3 reverts ever. Btw. i suggest again (as i've done before on another instance) that you revert yourself. You are edit-warring on MWP. And unlike Stephan, you are under probationary warning (just as i am). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Replied on my talk, are you saying that SS can edit war due to the fact that i am on probation? Once again i am not edit warring, i have added extra ref`s every time i re-added the text mark nutley (talk) 15:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Mark. That is a fact of our probationary restrictions. I'm not going to revert you, despite that if i did, then i would "win" the edit-war, since you are currently at 3RR. I won't do it, despite that i'm 100% certain on the content issue, as well as 100% certain that what you are doing is WP:OR (which btw. is contradicted by references in the article). Please revert, we didn't get the probabtionary last warning without reason. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

What Kim said. I've not broken 3RR, but you try to push scientific nonsense into the article. I don't doubt your good will, but, as far as I can tell from our interactions so far, you are simply not able to read scientific papers to determine what they say - you hook on to some isolated bits that seem to support your POV without taking into account the context of the paper. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I've filed a probation enforcement here: Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation/Requests_for_enforcement#Mark_Nutley_.282.29. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Please note, your edits are being discussed in the report Kim notes above, and you may wish to comment there. I have taken the liberty of adding you as an involved party, and would caution you to avoid edit warring even when you are sure of your position from a scientific point of view... but I do not think it is likely that there would be any formal action against you as a result. One goal of article probation is to calm things and find a more effective way to sort things out than simply edit warring. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 20:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I see you've already commented there, so please forgive the redundant notification. Cheers, - Wikidemon (talk) 20:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

No worries... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

BLPN

You may be interested in this: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Talk:William_Connolley. Nsaa (talk) 12:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"unless Lar thinks that means 'true'"

If not sarcasm, then what was it? ATren (talk) 21:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A joke. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Determination of uninvolved admin status

Do you consider yourself an "uninvolved admin" with respect to WP:GS/CC/RE? ++Lar: t/c 02:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

As an aid to productive discussion you might want to pose the question in a more specific way rather than as a generality. I assume this is in reference to Stephan's comments here, but if not it would be helpful to point ot the approouriate section. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The question is specific enough without reference to any particular section of that page, and admits of a yes or no answer as posed. ++Lar: t/c 05:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I consider myself as uninvolved in that particular discussion than you - or more so. *cough* --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

We are all of us going to be "involved" in whatever specific discussion we are having, so perhaps it's sophistry to point it out. However, with respect to that particular one, if I'm asking neutral questions, and you're advocating a particular point of view, you're far more involved, even under your own peculiar definition, than I am. That said, the question is about the topic area as a whole. Please confine your answer to the question asked, if you would be so kind. Sorry if that was unclear. As it happens I have already made my own determination of the matter and acted, but the question is nevetheless of interest ++Lar: t/c 13:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Please confine yourself to a yes or no answer. Or, to put it more explicitly, you have repeatedly tried to frame the discussion in terms I find unacceptable. I don't have to play that game and I chose not to. I take the liberty to express my views in a manner I find suitable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, then. You may take that view if you wish but the question admits of a direct yes or no answer, unlike your rhetorical dodge. They are not equivalent. Your repeated refusal to answer a simple yes or no question with a "yes" or "no" is all I need though, the answer is plain enough from your refusal, and I adjudge you to not be an "uninvolved admin" within the scope of the topic area. Going forward any comments by you in the "result concerning..." section of any enforcement request are subject to removal to the section immediately above them, as I have recently done with "Result concerning ZP5, AQFK, ATren". You are welcome to challenge that determination, in the proper form and manner, should you so choose. However you are not welcome to unilaterally move things back or to post in that or any other similar section again. ++Lar: t/c 14:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I adjudge you to not be an "uninvolved admin" within the scope of the topic area - I see. On what authority do you adjudge that? "I said so first"? "Some pigs are more equal than others"? And what exactly is "the topic area"? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

It is my view as an uninvolved admin. You are welcome to contest it, in the proper forum, but I intend to act on it as I see fit. In accordance with our norms. The "topic area" is the entire area covered by the Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation in accordance with the definition currently in effect there. I'm not seeing much more to say here given your unwillingness to engage in meaningful dialog. ++Lar: t/c 14:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I'm willing. In fact, I'm engaged in several meaningful dialogs, in this topic area, on Wikipedia, right now. I just don't accept your framing and mistaken assumptions. I have four awards for resilience, calmness and patience on my front page, given over the last 4 years for different topics (including climate change) and by very different editors. I'd be interested in a plausible explanation why our communication seems to be so unproductive. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:58, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Collapse?

Hey Stephan Schulz. Do you mind if I collapse these comments to reduce clutter? I'm down to keep more of the set or less if you'd like? I feel like we got sidetracked though and those pages get out of hand.

"I'm requesting action against the sock master(s). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I repeat. 57? 205? The one you list has already been blocked indefinitely [152].--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Broken record? As I said, I'm looking for action that is effective against the sock master(s). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I suppose we're both spinning in circles, so in that sense the metaphor holds. I asked you a question twice and you haven't answered twice.--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC) "

Let me explain. Sock master: A real human being. Sock puppet: A disposable Wikipedia account created by the sock master (see there). I'm looking for sactions that are effective against the sock master (see there) and as a consequence reduce the disruption caused by the sock puppets (see there). Some examples of possible actions are listed above (see there), I'm sure this groups of brilliant brains can come up with more than I can after 5 minutes of thinking. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)"

Auch ich verstehe dass Sie ins Deutschland sind [sic]. Ich habe diese Semester das Deutsch studieren begonnen. Ich versuche mit Sie auf Deutsch sprechen.--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

"in Deutschland" - it's a state, not an action. The second sentence requires a construct that looks like a split infinitive if translated back to English: "habe begonnen, Deutsch (no article for a proper noun) zu studieren". "Semester" is neutral gender, i.e. the preposition is "dieses Semester". No, English is not easier, just differently difficult ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:12, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Good luck. Do you mind if I give hints when about mistakes? You are quite understandable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Jaja Nein! und danke schön! I would love that. Feel free to start now :) Ich prüfe nur eine Semester deshalb musse ich eine Gemeinde von Lehrerinnen ausser meine Klasse entwickeln. Nichtsdestotrotz, ich werde das Englisch benutzen wenn ist es zu kompliziert.--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my hat/hab glitch - saw the problem, but you beat me to the fix. Vsmith (talk) 14:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I waited for about 30 seconds and then decided you've had your chance ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Response to your question

How many potentially good editors have been put off (or even banned/blocked) from editing the global warming pages, by the caustic atmosphere there? Maybe one or more of those editors would have produced "WMC-quality" (or better) content, given the chance. We'll never know, of course, because they've been chased off.

The other point I'd like to make is that I personally know that other editors could have done better on GW-related BLPs (like Fred Singer), where the involvement of a small select group of like-minded editors produced a bunch of BLPs filled with poorly sourced allegations and coatracks. I'm sure that others could have done better on those articles. ATren (talk) 14:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Facepalm

*Facepalm* fixing now, thanks for pointing it out. Kindest regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 15:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I thought I'd tell you rather than undoing the action myself. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed in a slightly unconventional manner, but fixed nonetheless. Thanks again, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 15:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Copyright violations

Exposing copyright violation as you did here is bad form. If you're going to rewrite it, you should do so before restoring the content to publication. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the content for now. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Given that it's been there for days (if not months - didn't check), I'm sure 5 minutes while rewriting wouldn't have mattered. But thanks anyways. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Give that it would have been blanked for, what, 10 minutes? I imagine that taking the time to do it without reposting copyrighted material in violation of policy wouldn't have mattered much, either. These processes are long-standing on Wikipedia, and there's nothing wrong with following them. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I followed the easiest route - restore, then rewrite. I could have rewritten the old version before restoring. However, old version don't allow me to edit by section, and my internet connection sometimes chokes if I try to upload full articles, so I'm in the habit of rarely doing this. I also tend to ignore about 90% of rules, policies, and guidelines in favor of uncommon sense. Life is too short to deal with all the bureaucratic overhead. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:IAR doesn't work with WP:C. The Wikimedia Foundation mandates that we handle non-free content conservatively. Even if your connection chokes, you could have removed the problematic content and rewritten it then without restoring the copyvio. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Given that the copyright violation is questionable to begin with (it was a very minor segment of descriptive text with little creative input - possibly a case of plagiarism, but likely not a copyright violation), I think my handling was sufficiently conservative. I understand that you have a different opinion. Life would be boring if we all agreed all the time. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:45, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

True enough. :) But while the courts can spend years defining the "legal violation of copyright" and determining if something is substantial taking, the the Wikipedia "violation of copyright" is not so equivocal. If it's non-free, we simply are not permitted to import it unless it is brief and clearly marked as non-free. The duplication in this article was picked up by Corensearchbot when it was created. William removed the Corensearchbot notice, but didn't explain why we could use that text. When the ticket came up at WP:CP, I blanked the article while looking into it. This is in keeping with WP:C: "Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt Wikipedia. If in doubt, write the content yourself, thereby creating a new copyrighted work which can be included in Wikipedia without trouble." Rewriting the content is a perfectly fine approach, of course; my only objection is in restoring the content before doing so. I'm still not sure why William removed the template without rewriting the text; it may be that for some reason we can use that content. But we can't use it and shouldn't publish it even temporarily until we know. So far, we're sheltered under DMCA. But I know that our right to shelter here has been challenged; there have been some prominent critics of Wikipedia who claim that we are a publisher and subject to the same "due diligence" as other publishers. Being conservative here is a smart move for the Foundation. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for putting on that elbow pad ... ;)

[18] made me laugh (in a good way). You better be careful, though. If you give me a micron I might just try to take a millimeter!  :)

I wonder if I could split this hair even a bit further by digging up at least one example of a different skeptic reverting a Scibaby edit, but it hardly seems worth anyone's time. Thanks for the micro-concession and I'll not belabor the point further. --GoRight (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I was in dire straights. In German, there is a regular construction for the diminutive. You can create a diminutive of ever noun by adding "-chen" or "-lein" (and sometimes changing a vowel to an umlaut - "Ball->Bällchen, Knabe->Knäblein, Schwein->Schweinchen, Rad->Rädchen"). So you can easily create mock-diminutives of words that usually have none. I couldn't find something comparable in English, but then the metric system came to the rescue ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Spelling -- sorry!

You know, I knew that about your name. What bothers me is that somewhere I've spelled it "Stephen" instead of "Stephan". I didn't know I got the last name wrong though. If you tell me where, I'll gladly fix it. I once started studying German and got as far as the pronunciation chapter, so I'm aware that in German the "lz" sound is pronounced with a "t". Is it only in America that the "t" is added? I've always been curious about that. Anyway, sorry about that. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

To a first approximation, whenever you wrote my name. Check your edit summaries, e.g. [19] and [20], and Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Climate change denial (4th nomination), which has several grueling instances. No need to fix them (the edit summaries are unfixable anyways), but if we interact in the future, try to get it right (and, if we're at it - do you really think addressing people by the unadorned family name is polite? "Stephan" is fine). BTW, I think my name is pronounced very much like that of George P. Shultz. In German, the "z" is nearly universally pronounced similar to "ts" - the lz is not special in that respect. --Stephan Schulz (talk)

User talk:Atmoz/Climate change feedbacks#db-u1

You made an edit to this userspace draft, which the user has tagged for deletion. S/he said I could ask you if you wanted it transuserfied? –xeno^talk 18:23, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

No worries. I can always grab it back from Hades if I feel an urgent urge ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Notice: WP:RS has changed

There's been a persistent misperception of WP:RS that you seem to have fallen prey to in a recent revert on global warming that otherwise ok peer reviewed papers must wait before inclusion. WP:RS was clarified last month to clear that up. It is not legitimate to exclude a paper because it's too new to get some sort of gauge of impact by citation score. The relevant section is the 4th bullet point in section 2.1. TMLutas (talk) 20:01, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

You are wrong. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

DYK

I think I've solved that DYK wording.

I also noticed that as well as being factually wrong, the original stub was at the wrong page name, it's "Ave Imperator" not "Ave caesar" (!)

See T:TDYK#Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant for 2 wordings that I think may solve it. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 05:03, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Very good! I like it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:37, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

GA initiative

I've asked WMC if he would be willing and able to help take the Watts Up With That article to Good Article status. As my request details, me and a couple of other editors have almost completed preparing the DeSmogBlog article for GA nomination, and I think it would be great if both reached GA about the same time. Observing your interest in the Watts blog article, I suggested to WMC that he ask you to assist. Cla68 (talk) 00:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm always trying to edit to improve an article, of course, and I applaud your attempt. I'm a bit with Boris, though - GA review often concentrates on the form, not always on the content. And I'm not sure that we really have enough beef to make WUWT into a GA - it is a fairly obscure blog, after all (the same holds for DeSmogBlog, of course). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, even if either article fails GA review, at least they both would be improved by the effort to get them there. Cla68 (talk) 02:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Please note

Concerning the article Climate change denial, Mackan79 (talk · contribs · logs · block log) has opened an enforcement case against me at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement. As someone involved with the page, I thought you should be informed. ► RATEL ◄ 06:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement

Stephan, I really think you should withdraw from the enforcement page. Keeping your own conduct above reproach shines a brighter light on the misconduct of others. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:03, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

You're a wiser man than I am, Gunga Din! I don't plan to make a regular spectaculum out of it, but I do think an occasional intervention is useful.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I've asked for an ArbCom review. Cla68 (talk) 01:15, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Probation, what a load of rubbish! I thought I was actively editing in the climate change area without taking a wikibreak and then all of a sudden a couple of admins started slapping sanctions notices over loads of articles. Would have been better if they had done it to give notice the topic was being discussed first. Just gives lots of trolls the chance to snitch on every legitimate revert or slightly frustrated talkpage comment they disagree with. TS seems to think the articles have all cleaned up tremendously. I think that is just his opinion. My advice is for all admins to boycott this crazy area anyway. Leave it to the trolls. With nobody to argue against maybe they will be seen for what they are. Polargeo (talk) 17:00, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Stephan Schulz. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement#Comments by uninvolved editors need to cease.
Message added 20:45, 17 March 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

NW (Talk) 20:45, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Gun laws article and Brady scorecard

While I don't agree with what you said, and might respond to you there, thanks for joining the discussion at Talk:Gun laws in the United States (by state)#2009 Brady Campaign State Scorecard. We need more editors to give their opinions there, four of us have been dominating that discussion. My immediate question however is, what does "AEB" stand for? — Mudwater ^(Talk) 13:39, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

No worries, I have plenty of opinions ;-). AEB is short for "Arbitrary Editing Break" - inserting an otherwise useless header to make the sections shorter and easier to edit. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:50, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks for explaining. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 13:54, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes you lied

And I can see you want an edit war. OK. Stirling Newberry 16:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Neither, nor, actually. I didn't even make a factual statement, so how can I have lied? Please also read WP:NPA. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:14, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I remember SN from the old days... archaeology contest anyone? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:04, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

probation warning! I see you still haven't given up on that nonsense :) Polargeo (talk) 16:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Always cross your eyes and dot your teeth! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:26, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Signature

I'm in a little bit of a bind here. I changed my signature to "UBER" from "UberCryxic" because many people were spelling my name wrong on talk pages and it got annoying. Fortunately, it seems, the actual UBeR uses a lowercase e for the signature and does not appear to be that active in Wikipedia anyway.UBER ^(talk) 20:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Going by that argument, I should go with "Steve Shultz" - at least that is the closest most people come ;-). Seriously, its not a big deal - just be aware about the potential confusion. Maybe put a link on the top of your talk page clarifying this? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Well you're an admin. Can you move my page to UBER (capital E) instead? And just redirect all previous instances of UberCryxic to UBER. Is that doable?UBER ^(talk) 20:59, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

No, that needs a bureaucrat. See WP:UNC. But anyways, I think that would make the problem worse, not better. Take a look at all of Wikipedia:Username policy. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:BLP violation

I've removed your WP:BLP violation here.[21] Please do not restore this. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Your opinion does not make it one. As I said on your page: Do not falsify my comments. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:18, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

You are not supposed to blindly revert WP:BLP violations. Instead, you should discuss the issue on a talk page until the concern has been resolved. You have done no such thing. If you restore the violation, I will delete your entire comment if that is more agreeable to you. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:23, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not, as its not a BLP violation. No, it's not. There are legitimate ways of dealing with (real or imagined) BLP violations. Falsifying a comment or disrupting a discussion by uncontrolled removal of comments are not among them. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:29, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

You inserted contentious material about a living person. This should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:33, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

• Why did you strike his whole comment instead of the one phrase of concern? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I did remove just the one phrase of concern. But Stephan complained saying that I changed the meaning of his comment or something, so I removed the whole post. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:38, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Ummm....again, you fail to understand fairly basic nuances. The main point was that you silently changed my comment, without any indication to the reader that that's not what I wrote. That's unacceptable not only under Wikipedia rules, but under most countries' civil laws. And I'm not Stephen, although I've been called worse. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:42, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

• Your grammar is weak. You cannot stand against a true yedi. I've made no claim about a living person, only about his writing style. And that claim was as demure as possible in the English language. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:36, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Or you can just remove the offending phrase and end this. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:39, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Reboot

Why can't you just remove the offending phase and repost your comment? This resolves the situation, does it not? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:12, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It gets rid of what you think is my BLP violation. It does do nothing about your unsuitable (under any circumstances) changes to my comments. The first issue is moot now - TS has done a technically proper redaction. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:17, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why it had to be so difficult. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:18, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. You cannot get my name right. You either cannot count or do not understand WP:3RR. You falsified my comments in violation of WP:TPG, and then chose to remove them even after I made the proper procedure for redacting painfully obvious to you. And you ask me why this was so painful? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:25, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

You edit-warred to include contentious material about a living person. All you had to do was remove the offending phrase but you chose not to. This type of conduct is not something that I would expect from an admin who should know better. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:30, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's productive to continue this. Your truth-o-meter is obviously out of whack. Please have it fixed or use a modicum of common sense in interpreting it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:35, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Fine. If you think that edit-warring to include contentious material about a living person is acceptable, then file a request for enforcement against me. If a warning or sanction is made, it won't be against me. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:41, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

BLP

I agree with AQFK here that your statement was a minor BLP violation. I don't know if I would have gone as far as to remove it without discussion, or get into a 3RR violation (which is technically allowed for BLP issues) over it, but I would defend anyone removing it and if the issue comes up at WP:BLP/N (and we have had similar issues before) I would agree with its removal. You are welcome to your own personal POV of LPs and their writing style, but it's rarely helpful to mention them in talk pages, and even less helpful when you defend them against people who argue against their inclusion.

While I agree AQFK's method of removal were unhelpful and wrong, the best course of action was to correct it yourself then take it up with AQFK, if AQFK dismissed your concerns then AQFK would be the one I'd advising here not you. Or to put it a different way, while I prefer to avoid getting into 'who was more wrong' disputes, in this case it seems clear to me that while the way AQFK handled this was unhelpful, given that it was clearly a BLP problem even if a minor one and the reason it was was soon clear, ultimately things will come down more favourably on the side of the one dealing with the BLP issue then the one reintroducing it.

BTW, if you continue to feel this was not a BLP issue, you're welcome to take it up at WP:BLP/N if you desire or I can do it for you. I take BLP seriously so hence why I do think it's important this isn't just ignored if you continue to feel there was nothing wrong with your comment.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

It appears there is probably some confusion here (at least on my part) about who did what. First AQFK removed the 'frothing in the mouth' part, then ChrisO added 'ranting' trying to come up with a compromise wording, you then changed 'ranting' back to 'frothing in the mouth', AQFK then removed the entire bracketed aside about SS, which you added back, which lead to AQFK deleting the entire comment, which you added back and he removed again and then TS added it back and removed the problematic part with a signed comment that it was removed.

Although AQFK should have made it clear he had redacted that part in the discussion as I've noted to him, I would note he didn't actually alter add words to your comment but simply removed part of it. So while AQFK made mistakes, I feel even more strongly now that you should have either accepted the removal or if you felt it necessary mentioned you redacted it because of complaints and then asked AQFK to make it more clear in the future when he removes parts of a comment for BLP or similar reasons. Even if you don't agree with my view of this dispute, I do hope you agree that would have been a better way to handle it and of course as I said earlier on my ultimate concern here is the BLP issue here.

P.S. It is of course unfortunate that ChrisO added ranting as an attempted compromise.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:32, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that criticising a particular persons writing style, even strongly, is a BLP violation. There are few things more protected than expressing opinions, and for a very good reason. However, I'm not insisting on that particular wording - as you can see, I'm not happy with Tony's redaction, but I accept it. But it's absolutely unacceptable to silently, without any outward sign, changing a signed comment. And it's quite irrelevant if its adding or removing words - as a trivial example, see "Even if you don't agree with my view of this dispute,.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:55, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Then you obviously don't understand WP:BLP. Aren't admins supposed to understand Wikipedia basics before becoming admins? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Mu. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:11, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Some of your recent edits

I suggested to 2/0, who has concerns about WP:NPA and WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior in general, that a discussion with you about some of your edits might be a good idea. I mentioned [22], but there's also [23], [24], [25] and [26]. You might want to take a short break to cool down. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:59, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Stephan, mind WP:BAIT. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:06, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry SBHB, I don't rise to bait like [27]. Or were you worried about something else? You need to change your approach. You all do. ++Lar: t/c 02:17, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I wasn't baiting. After I mentioned Stephan's recent edits to 2/0, I realized bringing up the matter directly with Stephan was a better idea. But it was still a good idea to mention it to 2/0. If that looks like baiting, Stephan, follow Boris' advice. My advice about a short break was sincere. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 02:36, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for any confusion. I thought you were perhaps raising material that SBHB then correctly characterized as baiting by Stephan Schulz. Why would I think that? On the face of it, those posts by him look like baiting to me! That's why. So I would HOPE SBHB would warn Stephan Schulz about it and urge him to desist. It's excellent advice. But perhaps that's not what SBHB was doing. Perhaps he was egging him on. Can't be sure. ++Lar: t/c 02:41, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

A clear case of baiting SS, exactly as pointed out by SBHB. I followed all of the diffs and it really sounds to me like an editor trying to argue his corner whilst surrounded by several "holier than thou" (can do no wrong in their own eyes) people. John and Lar if you really wish to hound good knowledgeable editors and admins out of the climate change area of wikipeida then you are clearly going the correct way about doing it. Reading your comments here I think the wikibreaks you suggest are in order all round and not just for SS. Polargeo (talk) 13:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you may be confused, and a careful reread may help clear that up. The diffs show baiting BY Stephan, and SBHB does sometimes speak in riddles. Also, I don't believe that Stephan wants to be called SS. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 15:05, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not confused I did not miss the bold and italicized "by" in your first statement and I do not need a caps "BY" to show me I missed it. I think this is unnecessary silliness and I suggest is every bit as much baiting as you are claiming others have done. Hence my call for a general calm down of all parties. Further if Stephan wishes to put me correct on his name usage then I am sure he will. Polargeo (talk) 16:06, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I can provide some context to show that it is Stephan who is baiting. This edit, by Stephan, is what started the current thread. There has been much snark recently by Stephan and SBHB implying that Lar is biased. Little evidence is presented in these remarks, and indeed Lar has never edited CC articles. The current thesis, presented below by SBHB, is that bias is calculated some other way, though we've yet to see that alternate definition. So it's currently unsupported. I chimed in because I was recently admonished to avoid making unsubstantiated insinuations of bias against other admins on the enforcement page -- admins who are much more active than Lar and who do have prior involvement in CC articles. So it would appear the same warning directed at me would apply to Stephan and Boris too: basically, raise it at arbcom (with evidence), or stop raising it. ATren (talk) 16:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I wouldn't make similar criticism against Lar myself but I have been watching this develop for quite a long time. I have been extremely concerned with bias in Lars approach myself. I certainly think from many of his comments and his general approach that he is personally too involved to enforce sanctions in this area even if he has no editorial bias whatsoever. Polargeo (talk) 17:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, from my perspective, if Lar is too biased, then so are BozMo and 2/0, and they should all be removed. That's just off the top of my head, I could probably name others if I researched it. The point is that Lar has been less active, and I think he's also less involved than others with respect to CC, so if Lar is removed from enforcement then a whole bunch more need to be removed as well. I still have yet to see a single piece of evidence of Lar's alleged bias, by the way. ATren (talk) 18:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

My view is that Lar's interactions in this case have been poor from the start. They have been generally unprofessional and from the very first time I read his comments I thought he was completely over the top in a way that an admin would only be if they were too personally involved in the situation to be neutral. Now maybe I am reading this wrongly and Lar has just been a little misguided in his admin actions in the CC area. I don't know. However, I definitely get a sense of unnecessary over-zealousness in pursuing Stephan to the extent that I think it would be best for Lar to withdraw from the area. I did see the allegations of bias when they were first made and appreciate that they go too far without proof so I appreciate the situation goes both ways and I am not defending anyone's actions. However, there is some substance behind those allegations, evinced by the nature of Lar's comments (even in this current thread), although I can see the allegations go too far and that substance has been partly hidden by this silly mud-flinging. Polargeo (talk) 19:52, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Stephan, Boris, if you have a problem with Lar or LHvU, perhaps you should bring it to arbitration and present your evidence. That's the advice I was given when I questioned the actions of admins in this probation. ATren (talk) 03:09, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with LHvU. I think he is very much trying to be fair and he is doing a quite good job at being fair and a reasonably good job overall. He's not perfect, but if we wait for perfection, we can wait till doomsday. I do have a serious problem with Lar thinking that he is a neutral admin. I point this out where relevant to he discussion. I don't think taking this up dispute resolution will create more than more useless bickering. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

And I had a problem with 2/0, but I was directed (somewhat firmly) to "put up or shut up" -- take it to arbcom or stop making snarky remarks with no supporting evidence on the enforcement pages. I'm passing that on to you since you seem to be making a lot of unsupported charges against Lar.

As to your specific concern, do you really believe Lar is any more "biased" than BozMo and 2/0? BozMo has actually participated in CC-related content disputes (I'll look for some diffs, it was from late 2009 I believe). Lar has never participated in a single GW debate, and Lar's involvement on the enforcement page has been significantly less than 2/0 or BozMo, especially when it comes to enforcement. Personally, I think an argument can be made that Lar is LESS biased than most of the admins there. So basically, your complaints appear to be groundless, making my above advice (take it to arbcom and stop the snarky remarks) even more relevant. ATren (talk) 12:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm happy to further discuss my perceived bias. (on my talk page, not here) I'd think a good starting point would be for you, Stephan Schulz, to articulate exactly what you think it is. Be specific. But I find myself in agreement with ATren, I'm less involved in editing in the area itself (i.e. essentially zero edits) than several of the other admins who are active at the enforcement page, and who I consider uninvolved, and I am less active. My role so far has been purely commentary and clerical, I don't believe I've actually blocked anyone yet. I think you (and SBHB, and WMC, and others) need to stop the snark. If you want to pursue the matter further after the discussion about bias I propose, I'm recallable. But please stop the snark. It's just not helpful. ++Lar: t/c 15:05, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm less involved in editing in the area itself (i.e. essentially zero edits) than several of the other admins. Again and again, you shift the focus to the narrow, legalistic definition of "involved" while neatly dodging the stated point, which is bias. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:16, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, then, define "bias", propose a way to quantify it, and if it's accepted by consensus, we'll apply it to all the admins on that page. Or, perhaps as a starting point, how about presenting some evidence? ATren (talk) 15:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

A personal dislike of specific editors is a bias. Expressing a will to enforce perceived imbalances without evidence is a bias. Stating that enforcement should be made, not based on evidence, but on unarticulated and unpresented feelings, is bias. Wanting to enforce based upon things that haven't happened, but might have (based on personal feelings), reveal bias. These bias-situations are all relevant for Lar, since hir has expressed all of these. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:05, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Assumes facts not in evidence. I'm happy to further discuss my perceived bias. (on my talk page, not here) ++Lar: t/c 12:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

No. It assumes no facts at all. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC) [nb: Its a nice dismissive statement - but it is also one that you should apply to yourself in rather a lot of the enforcement comments - since you've assumed quite a lot of facts that weren't in the evidence --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)]

Can you cite examples please? ATren (talk) 22:15, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I will cite one for the very last one (the enforcing based on what might have happened): Random chance, at best, that KDP didn't edit war as much as the next fellow in this particular incident. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:14, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, then if that's the bar, 2/0 should be disqualified based on his similar (but much more extensive) actions against GoRight and others. And I think I could find similar quotes that would disqualify others as well, certainly BozMo and Jehochman. ATren (talk) 00:04, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

KDP, there are several avenues you can take to respond to what Lar said there, besides doing nothing, including asking him for evidence, initiating a recall, making an arbcom request, or joining with several other editors to make random comments in various forums about Lar's supposed "bias." Do you really feel that the latter is the most helpful course of action to achieve resolution to your concern? Cla68 (talk) 00:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Cla, i have no intent of doing anything but nothing.. i can live fairly well with the enforcement that was the result (*), i don't think that it was correct - but i'd rather have enforcement work, over the probation area, than not having it. In the long run, i believe that it will achieve results, but unfortunately it won't have much of an effect, until the admins take context into account. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC) [(*) something that strangely enough rather contradicts Lar's presumption - but thats another thing entirely]

Well ATren, lets just agree to disagree about that. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I require someone neutral

[28] This article is up for GA status, WMC who has edited the article heavily has added a review, which as i understand the process is not allowable, "Further reviews are welcome from any editor who has not contributed significantly to this article" Might i ask you if my removal if his comment was the right call? He has reverted me but i would like an opinion from you as to how to proceed on this, Thanks mark nutley (talk) 18:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, not a bureaucracy. William cannot formally review the article, but he can certainly comment on your contribution. Removing another editors comment in talk or Wikipedia space is very rarely a good idea. Also, please take a look at Guettarda's review - that is how you are supposed to perform a review. You evaluate the article against the GA criteria. If it passes, you can promote it - there is no vote. But "I'm impressed" is not a proper review, it's at best an opinion. Please read Wikipedia:Good article criteria and Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles to get a better idea about the process. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:19, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

He did not comment on my contribution :-) he left a review. I`ll look through the link i have been pointed to and redo my review, i thought i just had to leave just general feedback :) thanks mark nutley (talk) 20:45, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment deleted

Hi Stephan Schulz,

I have removed your unhelpful, flamebait "Use Ubuntu" comment from the Computing reference desk, and made a note of it on the Reference Desk discussion page. Please do not make "Use XXX OS" comments on the Reference desk; it has been decided several times that they are not helpful for the poor users who just want to get their system working. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it's both helpful and responsive, albeit, of course, not entirely straight-faced. It's certainly not flamebait. Anyways, is there a pointer to "things that have been decided"? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

RealClimate

I did not know how to do this in a talk page, sorry it bugged you

Nearly as much as unsigned posts ;-). Seriously, if you spend half your time here to improve the quality of your edits (such as checking sources for obvious red flags, proper capitalization, signing, careful reading of sources in context, ...), your net contribution rate would probably go up. Do you, for example, know how the greenhouse effect warms the earth? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, why do you require a teacher :-), actually i learnt about the GHE in school. A few years have passed since then but i have recently been brushing up on a lot of stuff, because of some advice you gave me funnily enough mark nutley (talk) 18:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Stephan, your edit summary in that diff was a little harsh. Mark is still a relatively new editor. It took me awhile to learn the ins and outs of Wikipedia when I started editing in 2006. Fortunately for me, the editors I encountered were patient enough to help get me up to speed. Cla68 (talk) 23:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Mark isn't a new editor. He's got nearly 3000 edits,[29] which is enough to make a credible run at adminship. Nonetheless Stephan's edit summary was a little gruffer than it needed to be; in turn, Mark should take Stephan's advice to heart and give more care to his edits. That will benefit both him and Wikipedia. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Von Storch Resignation

(reproducing discussion from main article talk page; your reverts have introduced a serious problem with BLP policy)

The article seems to be misquoting the source, when it says Von Storch resigned in protest after the paper. The source says, after the paper, Storch wanted procedural changes to the PR process that the publisher was unwilling to make, so he resigned, which is quite a different thing altogether. Does someone have a source to back up this claim before I delete it?

It seems clear the Goodall resignation was over the paper's publication, so that part doesn't seem to be under dispute. FellGleaming (talk) 23:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Any discussion on this before I remove Von Storch from the list?

FellGleaming (talk) 23:47, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Repeating the call one last time: Any discussion on this before I remove Von Storch from the list?

FellGleaming (talk) 14:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Stephan, this discussion has been open here for 3 days and you haven't participated. The source says that Von Storch resigned, but not over publication of the paper, but rather the publisher's refusal to grant Storch additional authority after the paper was published -- a very different matter. Please discuss here; rather than reverting. FellGleaming (talk) 15:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

See article talk page. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)