Talk:William Connolley/Archive 4

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Edit request from Jpmt, 16 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Add as a new paragraph under Political Activity: "In October 2010, Wikipedia Editors banned Connolley from editing articles about Climate Change broadly construed and their talk pages; from editing biographies of living people associated with Climate Change broadly construed and their talk pages; and from participating in any Wikipedia process relating to those articles [Reference]." Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change Jpmt (talk) 11:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The coverage of Connolley's activities is for the most part derived from reliable third party sources, not the wiki. There is also the question of weight. This suggestion of a fairly large paragraph to be devoted to a minor event is not without controversy so I've removed the "edit semi-protected" tag above as inappropriate. --TS 11:31, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


Outside source

It looks like some outside source finally cares about William Connolley no longer being allowed to edit articles on wikipedia.

"His career as a global warming propagandist has now been stopped, following a unanimous verdict that came down today through an arbitration proceeding conducted by Wikipedia. In the decision, a slap-down for the once-powerful Connolley by his peers, he has been barred from participating in any article, discussion or forum dealing with global warming."

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/10/14/lawrence-solomon-global-warming-propagandist-slapped-down/

220.253.89.194 (talk) 12:37, 16 October 2010 (UTC) fred

Lawrence Solomon's attack pieces are not reliable sources and have no place on Wikipedia, especially not on a biography of a living person. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:27, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

All three sources being used at present seem to be basically Solomon's nonsense or uncritical copies of it (Delingpole also parroted Solomon's original grossly inaccurate article about Connolley). This will have to wait for a proper source, I'm afraid. --TS 19:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Politics

Just to note that in the UK, parish councillor doesn't count as politics - the vast majority are entirely non-political, and Coton's certainly was. As usual, I'm not watching here, so please use my talk if you wish to discuss this with me William M. Connolley (talk) 20:11, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to remove all information gained from blogs

After I made a good faith edit (for reference: "In October 2010 he was banned from making any edits of Wikipedia climate related articles for six months.[1][2][3]") based on a news article I read which was clearly supported by several other sources which I took to be news articles (which when closely viewed could be construed as a blog ... but it counts as google news) I was told:

Blogs are not, in general, appropriate sources for biographies of living people. This has been re-affirmed in a recent arbcomm case. Guettarda (talk) 19:54, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

In line with this advice it seem that it is now necessary to delete the following sentence (and any others sourced from blogs) be deleted.

"Connolley was a member of the RealClimate website until 2007,[8][9] and he operates a website and blog that discuss climate issues.[10][11][12]" (all links are from blog type websites)Isonomia (talk) 20:29, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:BLPSPS#Using_the_subject_as_a_self-published_source for the rare exceptions, which apply in this case. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Mainstream Source of Wikipedia Admin abuse: WSJ

WikiPropaganda WSJ doesn't get much more mainstream. Please, unlock this topic so balance can be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jlschlesinger (talk • contribs) 18:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Opinion pieces are not reliable sources, especially not for biographies of living persons. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Also note that, if this example serves, the WSJ is fringe as a source on science. Horses for courses. . . dave souza, talk 21:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Quote from Lawrence Solomon

This revert removed the sentence:

TS, I know you're jealous that WMC got all the attention, but it's an attributed, quoted statement, not a claim of an indisputable fact. Solomon's POV is evident in the quote, so it need not be a factual one about Wikipedia, but it certainly speaks of how WMC is viewed by the skeptics/denialists/anti-alarmists. Futhermore, the sentence was added in the proper context. A good part of this article already is about Dr. Connolley's activity on Wikipedia. Also, without that sentence, the article leaves the reader to wonder who those generic sceptics (from the previous sentence) might be, when some are are readily identifiable, and notable enough that they have an article here. Tijfo098 (talk) 01:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a tricky one. The main consideration that influenced my decision to remove the edit was the fact that Solomon has repeated egregious errors about how Wikipedia works. Perhaps the worst of there is his belief that Dr. Connolley blocked thousands of people who disagreed with him on global warming, when in fact he officiated as an admin on the edit warring noticeboard and blocked people who edit warred all over Wikipedia. Thus it doesn't matter how influential Solomon thinks Connolley is because he isn't equipped to make that evaluation. Tasty monster (=TS ) 01:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request, 11 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} As "William Michael Connolley (born 12 April 1964) is a British software engineer" (emphasis added), the article should use "sceptic" instead of "skeptic" (currently in the last paragraph of the article) see WP:ENGVAR/WP:TIES.--163.1.147.64 (talk) 09:34, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The word "skeptic" appears in a quotation from the New Yorker, and is correctly rendered using the spelling conventions of that American publication. --TS 11:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Um, the line as used is

His Wikipedia editing was also discussed in a July 2006 article in The New Yorker that said he briefly became "a victim of an edit war over the entry on global warming", in which a skeptic repeatedly "watered down" the article's explanation of the greenhouse effect.

Clearly not inside the quotation marks, had if of been, I'd have checked the source for that spelling and gone away again. It can be fixed by either using the BE spelling or constructing the quote to use the words inside the quote marks.--163.1.147.64 (talk)
Done. -Atmoz (talk) 17:26, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. -163.1.147.64 (talk) 09:24, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Good catch. --TS 23:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

regarding the picture

is it possible to find a more flattering one? or maybe just a head shot? --Rocksanddirt (talk) 00:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. It's not a felicitous camera angle. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
The picture was changed in this edit [4]. The original is still available if that is preferable. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 22:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I seem to remember that one was old and this was the replacement provided on request by the subject. Odd pose I agree. --BozMo talk 07:31, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Community activity

Does William_Connolley#Community_activity really serve any useful point? None of this is notable per WP:POLITICIAN, and the citations aren't great as reliable sources. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 06:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Is there any objection to just deleting this section? Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not from me... --BozMo talk 20:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Photo

Good to have a photo of him assuming a good one's available, but do we really need the crotch shot? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.240.134.140 (talk) 05:06, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Notability?

I know this article has been nominated several times in the past for deletion, but seriously this article reads like a WP:RESUME and should be nominated for deletion again. This article fails to meet the basic notability criteria WP:N, as there doesn't appear to be any in depth coverage in any independent source, nor coverage in multiple sources, apart from a brief mention about William's involvement in Wikipedia. However 15 minutes of fame doesn't entitle everyone to a Wikipedia article. Fails WP:ACADEMIC on the following points:

Notability guideline Achieved
The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.  No
The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.  No
The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g. a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g. the IEEE)  No
The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions.  No
The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research.  No
The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at a major academic institution or major academic society.  No
The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.  No
The person is or has been an editor-in-chief of a major well-established journal in their subject area.  No

Given the high standard required for notability outlined in the table above, why should an exception to the criteria been made in this case? --Martin (talk) 17:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Have you read the previous deletion discussions, and do you have anything to introduce that wasn't covered in those discussions? That is, has policy, practice, or the supporting evidence changed on Wikipedia since then? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes I have read the previous AfDs and yes WP:ACADEMIC has changed since the last AfD of April 2008, it was significantly re-written on August 2008. Can we address why this biography is notable given the failure to meet the above guidelines? Any old college professor needs to publish in academic journals in order to become a college professor. What makes William more notable than the average college professor? --Martin (talk) 19:53, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Dr. Connolley does not appear to be a college professor, and his notability appears to flow from sources in addition to his peer-reviewed academic work. While taken individually these elements might be insufficient or borderline to clear the WP:N threshold, the consensus of the last four or five deletion discussions appears to be that collectively these factors meet our standards. It seems that you have overlooked this point, despite its appearance in many of the discussions (as well as in the article itself). The last two deletion nominations (apparently the fourth and fifth) have been closed as speedy keeps per WP:SNOW — do you believe that there has been that substantial a shift in the consensus?
The article already seems thoroughly referenced — either the subject isn't notable and the article should be deleted, or he is notable (by Wikipedia's standards) and there's no need to decorate the article with a {notability} template. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Per WP:CCC, pointing to past concensus related to AfDs over two years old is not a valid rationale. Given that WP:ACADEMIC has been substantially re-written since the last AfD, I see no reason not to revisit the issue by way of a fresh AfD, particularly as you say notability is borderline. --Martin (talk) 23:46, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
I think that what TenOfAllTrades is saying is that you're free to renominate the article for deletion. However, when drafting your nomination, it would probably be worth your time to review the prior discussions, address the arguments raised in them, and outline the reasons why you think this AfD should end differently. MastCell Talk 00:40, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I have wondered about this myself. Connolley's h-index is 11 right now. I'm "bean counting" his contributions to science because the impact of his various findings is not at all obvious to a non-specialist, and no WP:SECONDARY source are cited to appraise the values of those contributions. Sadly, most if not all of his WP:ANYBIO notability comes from the conservative/sceptic press articles dedicated to attacking Connolley's role in Wikipedia: Lawrence Solomon, James Delingpole, Andrew Bolt, and more recently the Wall Street Journal. Ironically, none of those sources are cited in this article because they are deemed unreliable. The few quotes in Nature are in articles that are not about Connolley, but about science articles in Wikipedia at large. Unless you can show that Dr. Connolley personally wrote much of those, even in the AGW area, the Nature refs don't contribute much towards his personal notability. The claims from Solomon and his buddies that Connolley is actually responsible for that much content here have been rejected repeatedly on this talk page, to the point that none of those articles are cited even as viewpoints; see the section here on the quote from Solomon here for an example. I have looked at previous AfDs on this article. They had weak arguments along the lines that Connolley is a published scientist (which is not enough per WP:ACADEMIC), that a few quotes from him have appeared in Nature and in the New Yorker articles on Wikipedia (again insufficient per WP:BASIC in my view), and/or invoking stare decisis based on previously stated equally weak arguments, to the point where the last non-joke AfD was closed by User:Newyorkbrad as "SNOW keep". It's often impossible to delete articles on Wikipedia that have an army of vacuous keep votes (see a language is a dialect with an army and navy for the reason). As MastCell put it in another context, but which applies here equally well: let the reader's bullshit detector sort this one out. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:33, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI, Thompson Reuters' Science Watch had a special issue last year on climate change. None of Connolley's papers, (or even Michael E. Mann's for that matter) appear in the top 20 papers for 1999-2009, nor do these researches appear in the corresponding top of authors [5] in this field. The sceptics' obsession with these two guys appears to stem from poplar science venues like RealClimate and Wikipedia, and with Mann also because of Mann's "hockey stick" paper, Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries. That paper appeared in Nature in 1998, and even though it has over 1000 citations by now, it didn't make it into the Science Watch top because that top covered only 1999-2009 publications. (Connolley is not a co-author to that paper anyway). Tijfo098 (talk) 08:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Like I said before in similar contexts, it's often the obscure and controversial that giant pages here. E.g. Antoine Guisan [6] is unheard of in Wikipedia. Tijfo098 (talk) 09:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Certainly there are a stack of Royal Society Research Professors and genuinely distinguished academics missing from Wikipedia who completely dwarf many of those we include, and also dwarf Antoine Guisan. But that is an argument for addition, not deletion.--BozMo talk 18:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
What precisely is the claim to notability here? As far as I can tell, William no longer works in climate change but as a software engineer in a a totally unrelated field. Is it being mentioned incidentally in a Nature article about Wikipedia? Dr. Vaughan Bell, a career researcher and wikipedia contributor is also mentioned, and note he has a h-index of 19 [7]. --Martin (talk) 20:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Um. I think you need to look at your reference more carefully. Many of these references do not appear to be correctly assigned to the right person. Meanwhile on WMC I am sympathetic to the fact that the AfDs probably should have gone the other way. But there have been many and in my view re-opening after so many requires more than a marginal decision. --BozMo talk 20:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Dang, I should have checked more carefully. What you are saying then is WP:CCC has no weight, despite WP:ACADEMIC undergoing a major re-write and expansion since the last AfD? --Martin (talk) 22:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what BozMo is saying, but I say that WP:CCC is no magic pixie dust. Consensus can change, yes. That does not mean that it has changed. If you have substantial argument why this article should be deleted ("it fails WP:N" is not substantial in my mind, at least not for an article that has been around for 7 years), and you think that consensus has changed, nominate it for AfD. If not, safe us all the drama and don't. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Don't think I said either of those things. I said though that it requires more than a marginal decision. Make your case carefully and I will read it and think about it and vote as will others. But 5 or 6 unsuccessful AfDs mean you are not going to get the benefit of much doubt if people don't see a clear case to re open. --BozMo talk 22:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
In a nutshell: his w-index = the number of wikifriends. Tijfo098 (talk) 06:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Some articles have had 6 straight AfD "keeps", some snowball, and the 7th being a "speedy keep" before being deleted on the 8th attempt, so concensus can change on a dime. Given recent events, the tide of consensus may well have turned, but we won't know for sure until it is actually tested. But I take you views onboard, any new AfD needs to be thoughtfully drafted. --Martin (talk) 03:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, as a frequent wikipedia reader (and active scientist) but not a wikipedia editor, this page jumped out at me when I just browsed to it. It reads more like a personal or professional website than an encyclopedia entry. I wasn't surprised to find this discussion about deletion on the Talk page. Perhaps wasting my time as an anonymous user, I read the WP:ACADEMIC guidelines and don't think this former scientist would come close to making the cut. It seems like he's very active in the wikipedia community, though. Is that a criterion for notability? Can people who are not otherwise notable but do a lot of editing on wikipedia have their own long and detailed bio pages? If members of their own community (i.e., other very active wikipedia editors) are judging notability, I guess this is bound to often happen. If this bio does not get deleted, it certainly seems like it should be substantially shortened. Most professors who are very 'famous' in their research communities have bios that include about 1/4 this amount of detail. Can you really mention in a wikipedia bio that you were briefly quoted in a Nature news piece??? Same for New Yorker. Also, this is the only academic's bio I've seen that includes all the subject's publications, not just the small fraction of publications that were really notable. I hope Martin and the rest of you manage to get this deleted or revised so that it doesn't read like an advertisement for this guy. Frankly (if I can write this without having read the former AfD discussions), an article with 6 attempts at deletion that all concluded the article should be kept sounds to me like a bio that most readers think isn't notable but has an army of wikipedia editors who are friends with the subject and always manage to give enough arguments to foil the deletion attempts. --75.142.50.231 (talk) 09:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

It is indeed a bit strange. Clearly he's not notable under WP:ACADEMIC guidelines. Neither is he notable for his (very limited and now cut from the article) political career. He might be considered mildly notable as a co-founder of Realclimate, but that could be (and indeed is) covered there. I suppose he might be considered notable as a blogger [8]? Of course all his real notability is based on his Wikipedia activities, but they are barely mentioned here, leaving the naive reader wondering what is going on. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 21:31, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
I do not disagree with the notability argument but, "75.142.50.231", pretending it is somehow so unusual as to "jump out at you" is pushing credulity a little. There are zillions of marginal and not notable bios in WP, and equally plenty of very notable people with no WP article about them. What is unusual about this one is more that the AfD process keeps hitting strong consensus to keep. Perhaps no longer but it would be a bit of an admission if people's opinions on notability were based on falling out of favour with the community/ --BozMo talk 22:10, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
Oh yes indeed, there are many similar examples of marginal and non-notable bios. I guess the reason this has had so many AFDs and has survived them all is some wort of overflow from the climate wars? There is a lot to be said for letting sleeping marginal bios lie, and not inflaming further excitement. But there is a problem that this subject is primarily notable for his Wikipedia activities, but current policy seems to discourage mention of these; thus I can't imagine the issue ever going away completely. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
That may well be why. Without checking it would not surprise me if the AfD results were partly a backlash reaction to whoever proposed AfD in the first place. --BozMo talk 17:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
This is "75.142.50.231" again (on a different computer now - I guess I ought to get a wikipedia login). Pushing credulity or not, the article did indeed "jump out" at me. Maybe I'm just a jerk about notability: several months ago the same thing happened when I browsed to the bio of Hope May, and I helped initiate an AfD process. I don't have a dog in this fight, just procrastinating with wikipedia. In terms of the suggestion to "let sleeping marginal bios lie", what about just shortening it, removing the odd things like mention that he was quoted in a couple news stories, removing all but the most noteworthy publications (with a heading like "Notable publications"), etc? Maybe I'll have a go at this now myself. Anyone will be welcome to undo the edits of course. --131.215.67.222 (talk) 23:26, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Just noticed the page is locked. Weird. Unless I'm mistaken (which is fairly likely; this is based on searching for "protect" in the page's edit history), it's apparently been locked for almost a year now. Why? --131.215.67.222 (talk) 23:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
It's not locked. It's semi-proteced so that only established editors can edit it. The reason is the same as for most semi-protected pages: too much anonymous vandalism. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Probation

Why is there no information about his probation? This seems relevant to this article as his notability, as noted on this talk page, derives from Wikipedia. Surely, a BLP on any other would devote some time to any censure by thier field of notoriety. Given the subjects' copious and still ongoing attacks against Wikipedia, both on and off Wikipedia, shows that this subject is highly important to this person. If this information is covered elsewhere, then I would respectfully request a link to it on this BLP. As it is, it vaguely defends him as a victim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Multiperspective (talk • contribs) 18:29, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Please clarify what you want to add and bring reliable sources for it. I'm not aware of any probation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Connolley, along with lots of other people, is under a topic ban from editing articles relating to global warming. This was part of a recent Arb Com decision, and all those people can come back in six months if they are suitably contrite. I don't see how it diminishes his notability; if anything, he just got more buzz in the blogosphere from it. I don't think it changes any of the facts stated in the article - he still IS a Wikipedia editor; he just can't edit global warming articles for a while. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC

So.... losing Admin status is no big deal at Wikipedia? Wow! I shall endeavor to fully learn the conventions, protocols and politics of Wikipedia. Maybe then I'll begin to understand how someone involved enough in the Green Party to become a candidate for them and have so much control at Wikipedia is considered neutral enough to be let near any thing as political as Climate Change (nee AGW) or whatever the name du jour, in the first place. As for gaining more notability from the buzz in the blogosphere, the vast majority of what I have read paints the subject of this BLP as a power mad activist using his editorial power to slant a public source of information on whatever topic Connolley or his cabal is attacking that day. The damage to the reputation of Wikipedia (67,000 hits on Google, 90,000 hits on Yahoo) is mentioned in all that I have read. But I have yet to see a single one accepted as RS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Multiperspective (talk • contribs) 01:17, 7 December 2010

This page is to discuss improvements to the article, and should not be used for commentary. Some blogs claim one thing, and others claim the opposite. That's why reliable sources are required, and none of the information you posted is correct. Comments that are not compatible with WP:TPG should be removed. Johnuniq (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request, 11 November 2010

I have a number of edit suggestions which I think would improve this article: (1) Summary box on right should not have lines "Political party" (no discussion of political activity in this article) and "Known for" (the subject of the bio doesn't appear to be very well known for "Research into climate change" - he's apparently active in the blogosphere and may be an expert, but he's clearly not among the well known contributors to research in the field). (2) In "Background" section, final two sentences of paragraph 2 and final sentence of paragraph 3 should be removed (leaving the reference at the end of paragraph 3), as they're inappropriate detail for an encyclopedia article; the final two sentences of paragraph 2 are not even connected in this article to the subject of the bio. Then paragraphs 2 and 3 should be merged. (3) In "Writing and editing" section, the first sentence of paragraph 2 should be appended to the end of paragraph 1 and the rest of the paragraph should be deleted (this is just him getting briefly quoted in some news articles about wikipedia and mentioned as an example in another piece about wikipedia - this could be mentioned on the wikipedia page if anywhere). (4) "Background" and "Writing and editing" sections should be merged into one section; I'd call it "Writing and editing". (5) Rename "Publications" section to "Selected Publications" and remove papers that aren't widely noted; as a simple criteria, just remove papers with less than 10 references in ISI (a generous criteria); this suggests the removal of item 2 (Turner et al 2001, 4 refs), item 5 (Connolley 2002, 3 refs), item 8 (a translation of an old paper that he posted on his website that is apparently not published anywhere), item 9 (Connolley et al 2004, 8 refs), and item 12 (Connolley 2005, 4 refs). I think these revisions would improve and streamline the article. (Note that I erroneously entered a version of this suggestion in the "notability" discussion below - I assume I'm not allowed to delete that entry, but I've re-entered it here.) Thanks. --75.142.50.231 (talk) 05:11, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I would strongly suggest that you make your own account; it would make things much easier all round. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:48, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Let me add that you can delete your own contributions as long as that does not create a misleading context. If someone has already replied to it, it often is better to use strikeout. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:52, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
I've taken out the green party - I agree that that is useless. I disagree with the other proposals. Though they are not unreasonable, I think most of the material is useful for establishing context. The Wikipedia part, in particular, has evolved over a long time, and I would like to see serious consensus before striking it. Finally, I'm too lazy to go through the papers, and I think they don't hurt. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
I would be reluctant to remove the named publications because the list as presented does not appear to be unmanageably long; the suggested removals would eliminate all but one of Dr. Connolley's lead-author publications from the list, leaving an unreasonably scant impression of his scientific activities; and while I don't think anyone believes the listed publications are earth-shattering in their importance, I would hesitate to suppress them on the basis of citation count without being much more intimately familiar with the publication and citation practices in that particular field. (For example, Connolley et al., 2004, with its eight citations, was published in J . Phys . Oceangr., which has an impact factor of just 2.3 or so; a (naive) reading of that would suggest that his paper was 'punching above its weight class' in that journal.) In any event, it is appropriate to include life and career details in our biographical articles that wouldn't be notable on their own, but which form part of the picture of the individual being described. Consider:
  • Joe Blow attended Abilene High School in Abilene, Kansas and graduated with the class of 1909. He was then employed as a night foreman at the Belle Springs Creamery.
Obviously, irrelevant trivia. Placed in context:
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower attended Abilene High School in Abilene, Kansas and graduated with the class of 1909. He was then employed as a night foreman at the Belle Springs Creamery.
It becomes a reasonable detail appearing in our comprehensive biographical article. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:56, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
I see where you're coming from, TenOfAllTrades, but I respectfully disagree on two points. First, I don't think having a short list of high profile lead-author publications is justification for including publications that are not noteworthy. Note also that a medium-impact paper in a low-impact journal (with JPO actually is not) is still just a medium-impact paper, even if it's "punching above its weight class"; furthermore, note that impact factors are usually, I think, calculated based on citations received within 2 years of publication, and the 2004 JPO publication in question received just 1 citation during the 2 years after it was published according to ISI. Secondly, while I certainly agree that Eisenhower's high school should be mentioned in his biography, I think it's fair to say that the more notable someone is the more trivia one expects to read in his/her encyclopedia biography (does anyone know if there is a wikipedia guideline for this?). What do you think?--Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 05:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
A terrific example of a climate science bio, in my opinion, is Lonnie Thompson. They don't list all of his 165 papers, but instead list a subset of just 5 "notable publications". I don't see any reason to include inappropriate levels of detail in this article. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 09:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

"Known for"

Does anyone object to me changing "Known for = Research into climate change" to "Known for = Blog activity about climate change" in the Infobox? The subject of the bio was active in research for a while but did not receive wide notoriety for his research (which may be related to all the AfDs this article has received). He is, however, widely known for his blog activity. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 21:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless someone objects, I'd like to make two other edits to this article as well. It says, "Because direct observations of Antarctic sea ice are sparse, satellite Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSMI) based observations are used instead. Inconsistency in sea ice predictions from the various GCM algorithms in use makes verification of GCM output difficult." The first sentence doesn't make a lot of sense. Satellite observations would be used to constrain sea ice cover even if direct observations were more prevalent, as, for example, in the case of tropical Pacific surface winds. The second sentence seems minimally related to the first sentence. Neither sentence seems related to other points in the article. I'd like to delete them both. Also, a little farther down, it says, "He concluded that Bootstrap data produced a better fit than data produced by NASA, prompting the conclusion that GCM predictions are more realistic than previously thought." This is a reference to a 2005 paper that has, according to ISI, 4 citations (1 of which is by Connolley himself). I don't think a sentence should be dedicated to summarizing the result of a paper that seems to have garnered very little interest. I'd like to delete this sentence as well. Let me know if anyone objects to this. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 11:59, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind deleting the first two sentences, because they are not about William Connolley. I do object to removing the third. See below. -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I left the third sentence in for now, but I do think it ought to be removed. For a 5-year-old paper in this field, 3 external citations is an unambiguously small impact. Furthermore, this is on a very specialized topic without broader interest. I don't think this article needs a sentence about a comparison between the results of the NASA and Bootstrap algorithms for satellite retrieval of sea ice concentration. Does anyone have an argument for including this sentence ("He concluded that Bootstrap data produced a better fit than data produced by NASA, prompting the conclusion that GCM predictions are more realistic than previously thought.")? Thanks, Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 06:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Green Party and other unexplained deletions in this article

I put it back in. The deletion of all mention of Connolley's elected offices can be seen as an attempt to eventually delete this article by chipping away facts from it, little by little, that, in the aggregate, establish Connolley's notability. Here is the info about his Green Party offices: Connolley served as a parish councillor in the village of Coton (near Cambridge, England) until May 2007. He was also a Green Party candidate for South Cambridgeshire District Council or Cambridgeshire County Council every year from 2001 to 2005. This was referenced, but I see that someone had removed the references for the same purpose! -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to comment that moving the refs out of the text and down to this separate ref section can be seen as a cynical attempt to slowly destroy the information in this article by making it difficult to connect the references with the text. Then, by destroying one reference at a time, the editors can claim that the accompanying text is unreferenced and delete it. Eventually, this leads to a situation where the editors can try to say, "look, there is not enough information to establish notablity." Perhaps I am wrong, but the pattern of editing on this article is troubling. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Being a parish councillor is not notable. Being a failed council candidate is not notable (even a repeatedly failed parliamentary candidate is only notable under quite unusual circumstances). I'm struggling to see your justification for putting this back in. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 22:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The fact that Connoley held and ran for public office might not, by itself, make him a notable person, just like any one of his peer-reviewed publications would not, in itself, make him a notable person. However, all of these facts about him are facts that any reader of his bio would find of interest. I see, on closer inspection, that you did ask for feedback about it above before deleting, so I apologize for calling it "unexplained" above. Nevertheless, I feel strongly that it is properly referenced information that is of interest to most readers about this subject. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I would endorse restoring the information, per Ssilvers comments. See also my reasoning above — the fact that a person attended Abilene High School or worked at the Belle Springs Creamery does not make an individual inherently notable, but leaving those details out would make our biography of Dwight Eisenhower incomplete. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I did not see the deletion as an attempt to eventually remove the article itself to which I am personally opposed. I see it as a simple move to hide his association with the Green Party and to reinforce a false image of neutrality in one of Wikipedia's most prolific editors. After all, one usually must strongly agree with the political view of a POLITICAL party to run as a candidate for it(several times). How this person passes conflict of interest given his obvious POV in his blogs and edits is beyond me. Type in "Wikipedia's own Climategate" on this particular day and you get 67,000 hits on Google and 90,000 hits on Yahoo. If anyone of them was regarded as RS by Wikipedia, it would be in this BLP and in many, many more articles on WP. That they are not, only comforts one camp, incites the other and gives cause to the center to question the neutrality and accuracy of WP, which I deeply regret. Overall WP is wonderful reference. But activist editors will destroy the reputation of this great institution who's sole purpose is to inform, not promote.
Does anyone have a problem with; "Was a political candidate every year from 2001 to 2005 with the Green Party, primarily known as an environmentalist party." (from the WP article on Green Party). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Multiperspective (talk • contribs) 02:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ssilvers. I am fairly new to having an account on wikipedia and joining talk page discussions. I discussed a number of potential edits (above) on this talk page, asked if anyone objected, and ultimately made the edits. I believe that my edits improved the article, for the reasons discussed in my talk page entries. I also believe that the reason many wikipedia articles read as polished encyclopedia entries is because a lot of people make a lot of edits to them. You have just undone all of my edits to the article without a word of justification in their talk page section. In this talk page section you have justified your undoing of revisions by expressing paranoia that any revisions to the article may make it more deletable in the future. Is this proper wikipedia etiquette?--Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 05:39, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, ABC. I have now restored many of your changes. Read my comments above. I did indeed give my reasons. But I didn't understand what you were doing, so thanks for the message. As for the repetition, the introductory section should summarize the body of the article below, so everything in the intro should be repeated. See WP:LEAD. Comment here if there are further changes you wish to make, but I think we should not delete any description of Connolley's research. Indeed, I think there should be more description in the article of Connolley's peer-reviewed publications. Multiperspective, what are you proposing to change? It's true that the Green Party is an environmentalist party, but everyone knows that, and in any event it is hyperlinked. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:07, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Many thanks for addressing my points in this follow-up, Ssilvers. Regarding the lead, my concern was it was nearly repeating the same sentence twice in a row (first in the lead, then in the following paragraph). I think it reads well with your expansion of the lead. What is the justification for keeping a very exhaustive discussion of Connolley's research activity and publications? I don't see why small-impact papers that didn't get much attention in the scientific community should be thoroughly discussed in this bio. At any rate, I think the sentences describing his research should be revised a little bit. First, there is an issue where single things are described as if they are multiple things, if I am not mistaken. He worked as a sea ice modeler using the HadCM3 GCM. His papers include a study that looked at SSMI and submarine observations to validate the model. There currently appear to multiple mentions of the same SSMI HadCM3 validation study that make it sound like separate studies. I just corrected this point. Let me know if you think this should be different (?). Regarding other points raised in this section, I also think that the Green Party doesn't need further description in this article, especially since it is hyperlinked. I am ambivalent about whether his modest political activity should be included in this article. Overall, thanks again Ssilvers for addressing my revisions both by putting some back in and by expanding the intro. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 06:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Developing this article

Hi, ABC. I see someone reverted your changes. I suggest that you propose here each thing you want to do, so we all can discuss it. I think that some of what you want to do is OK, for example, describing "single things" only once, as long as the description is clear and does not omit anything that has already been researched and written about here. The problem is that this whole bio is in shorthand. Things should be described so that a layman can understand them. I disagree with you about omitting a description of Connolley's research and publications. We are building an encyclopedia. This is a bio of Connolley, and it should describe his life and career in reasonable detail. We don't need to give an exhaustive list of Connolley's hobbies, what kind of car he drives, or what his favorite movies are, but our review of his life and career should give a person reading the articlea good understanding of the subject. Obviously, his most important papers should get the most ink, but currently, many of them are not described at all. There should be a narrative paragraph or two describing what he has written about - these are published, peer reviewed papers. And his work as a field scientist should be described in greater detail, again, so a layman can understand what he did. His blog should be described - what positions does he take? As for the rather considerable press he received as a Wikipedian, there were quite a few articles in reliable sources, and some of them are mentioned here. If anyone wants to do the research, I am sure you can find other articles in reliable sources with other points of view to describe. I know you're a new editor here, so here is a helpful link about this: WP:DEVELOP. Also, we must be especially careful with this article, because the subject is a living person. See WP:BLP. Even if you don't want to develop this article (no-one here has to work on anything they don't want to work on), you should not be deleting properly referenced information from this too-short article. All the best. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:09, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You appear to be proceeding on the assumption that Connelley is an important academic figure with a significant research career; this is at best a rather optimistic view of things. You might find it helpful to review the section Notability? above. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Jonathan, this article has survived many deletion nominations in the past. We know that you don't think Connolley should have an article, but the consensus has been, over and over, that he is notable. Since he is notable, the article should be a good article, not a stub. You should not argue that articles on Wikipedia should be stubbified just because you don't agree with the consensus. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ssilvers. Thanks for your note. I am indeed new to having a wikipedia account (although I've been reading wikipedia and 'anonymously' editing articles for a number of years). I should emphasize that all revisions I made to this article were first proposed on this talk page, as a perusal of the history will show. Twice now I've had people undo my revisions without, apparently, noting the talk page discussions (despite them being referenced in my edit summaries). The first of these instances was corrected (by you - thanks very much again!). The second (by Johnuniq) has not yet been. I recognize that this appears to be a very delicate article. Connolley is a controversial figure. In my experience, it's on controversial topics like this where wikipedia has a history of particularly excelling. I think this article could be improved substantially, though. As you write, the whole article is in "shorthand". I'm trying to improve the article, but I have been coming across an apparent strong resistance to any change to the article whatsoever. I completely agree with all your comments about what would improve the article: there should be more discussion of his most important papers, less discussion of his least important ones, more discussion of his blog viewpoints. I didn't mean to imply that I thought a description of Connolley's research and publications should be omitted, only that it should be improved and small impact stuff doesn't need to be included. There's plenty of larger impact material to include. Look, Connolley is notable for his blog activity (and work as a wikipedian), and he's extremely notable for this. He's probably not notable by his academic achievements alone, although that point appears to be somewhat debatable, and anyway, his academic achievements are highly relevant as background regarding his blog activity. I'd like to improve this article. I'm getting a bit discouraged, though, in my attempts to improve this article. The current issue is a revert to my edit by Johnuniq which appears to be an error on his part. I don't want to get into an edit war here. Can someone (e.g., Ssilvers or Johnuniq) perhaps look into this and correct if necessary? --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 21:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, ABC. I suggest adding the information about the most important items before deleting anything. If you add well-referenced, encyclopedic information that develops the article, people won't delete it (or if they do, others will restore it). I agree with Johnuniq's edit, because you deleted content. What you need to do instead is to add content that explains exactly what his job was, before deleting anything. Can you explain more clearly (and briefly) what the HadCM3 global climate model is? The blue links are not adequate, because they are the crux of the matter. You deleted the information that his job included "validation of satellite sea ice measurements against upward looking sonar observations in the Weddell Sea area." All of that seems relevant, so please first add more information before deleting anything here. It would be *much* better to build and develop the information first, and then come back to anything that you think ought to be deleted. After you have built up the article, deletion of repetitive information would be easier to explain. Don't get discouraged! -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ssilvers. Many thanks for this note and the encouragement. It is indeed rather discouraging dealing with so much resistance to edits of this article. The sentence I deleted was an instance, as described in my entry in the talk section above, of "single things are described as if they are multiple things". It currently says, "His research focused on ... validation of satellite sea ice measurements against upward looking sonar observations in the Weddell Sea area. Connolley also worked on the validation of SSMI data against more direct upward looking sonar observations in the Weddell Sea area." (Note that "satellite" in first sentence is linked to "SSMI".) This is two consecutive sentences discussing the same work, in almost identical words, as if it is two different topics. I corrected this redundancy, and that is the edit that Johnuniq reverted. If there is consensus against me in correcting a brief and obvious redundancy like this, how can I possibly hope to make substantial edits to improve this article? (Sorry to be discouraged,) Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 23:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again, ABC. I see now that the two sentences were essentially the same and have made a deletion similar to yours. Best regards! -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for your thoroughness, Ssilvers. I appreciate you revisiting this edit. Your many courteous and encouraging comments are much appreciated as well. I think the article is improved from what it was when this discussion began, but I think we can probably all agree that it still has a fairly long way to go. My experience editing this article has been like pulling teeth, but I do very much appreciate all your help so that most of the few teeth in question did get pulled in the end. I'll probably come back to this article again in the near future in the hope that I can continue to improve it. Right now I think it's missing a lot of relevant content, on the one hand, and it's got a bunch of irrelevant trivia, on the other hand. An example of the latter, in addition to the point discussed above that it places great emphasis on an insignificant paper about SSMI/submarine/GCM validation (which at least now is corrected of the redundancy), is a translation Connolley made of an old scientific article and posted on his website ("Translation of Fourier 1827") included next to peer-reviewed papers in the "Publications" section. An attempt to delete that, in a talk section above, was shot down with the argument "I'm too lazy to go through the papers". I think this article needs to get unfrozen somehow so that it can evolve into something up to wikipedia standards. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 00:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry you are finding it difficult, but this is, as you noted, a controversial article; people want to be sure, before deletions are made, why they are being made. As I said before, you will find that well-referenced additions to the article concerning the most important aspects of Connolley's life and work will receive support from many editors. I note, BTW, that you have edited some of your older statements above to clarify them. WP guidelines say that you should not make a substantial edit to your comments after others have responded to them. Looking forward to your additions to the article. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fair points, Ssilvers, and I'll take them into consideration for future edits to this article. Regarding the edit of an older statement, I assume you're referring to the one dated "23:29, 8 December 2010". That was an error on my part. I was in the middle of editing it when you entered a response. So when I submitted my edits, I got a "conflict", but I didn't notice it was because you'd just entered a response, so re-submitted my edit. I noticed this afterwards too. My apologies for this error. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 02:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually Ssilvers, I have mostly argued that this article should reflect the things for which Connolley is notable, that is his blogging career (especially his role in setting up RealClimate) and his Wikipedia activities. There is obviously no problem with mentioning his rather minor academic career, but this should not be out of balance and should not be written in such a way as to imply that his academic work is notable, which, according to clear Wiki policies, it palpably isn't. I have no problem mentioning his connections to the Green Party (indeed it adds useful context for his actions), but including his Parish Council role verges on the ridiculous. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I just looked through the AfD logs for this article. There is quite a bit of discussion regarding the notability of Connolley's academic career, and some of it is rather markedly misguided. In particular, a lot of emphasis is placed on his having a third-author Science publication in 2001. I just checked, and it's actually a Perspective piece. Perspective pieces are not peer reviewed and do not discuss the authors' own research; rather, they provide commentary on someone else's work. This type of article would not count in any substantial way in a typical tenure case, and certainly does not add any real substance to a professor test. Perhaps this bio can be more clearly structured slightly to emphasize the point, which I think is clear, that Connolley is notable for his blog activity; he has a respectable background in research, which is relevant, but this background alone would not make him notable. [This paragraph added by User:Jonathan A Jones on 8 December 2010]

Jonathan, I agree that more information about the blogging career would add more balance to the article. I also agree that Connelley is perhaps most notable because of the press he received as a Wikipedian. As I said above, the first thing to do is to expand and develop the article. This will also add to the balance. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Category:Green Party of England and Wales politicians

Just visiting (and not watching): I consider Category:Green Party of England and Wales politicians inappropriate. If I ever was, which I doubt, I'm not now William M. Connolley (talk) 15:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Article fails to mention he was turfed as a Wikipedia admin

Connolly had his admin privileges revoked by the Wikipedia community in December 2009. The article seems to be *very* sympathetic towards Connolly's position but omits anything negative about him, such as the many articles written about his alleged bias about AGW. Why does the article not state he has his admin privileges revoked? 24.76.207.207 (talk) 19:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you have WP:Reliable sources that discuss these things? Also, you must comply with the rules for WP:Biographies of living persons in order to insert material like that. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes, here is a mention on how he got topic banned in a blog on the North County Times.[9] Keep in mind that blogs from news outlets are ok as reliable sources. Truthsort (talk) 00:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
That is, to put it gently, rather unimpressive as an example of a source for a serious, respectable reference work. MastCell Talk 04:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Per WP:SPS, blogs like this are fine as long as under control of the news organization and the writer is a professional in the field of journalism. The writer of this blog, Bradley Fikes, is a writer for the newspaper and has written for the San Diego Daily Transcript, San Diego Business Journal, and Star-News.[10] Truthsort (talk) 17:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
This artice is a WP:BLP: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject". Fikes' attack piece could not be cited even if it said anything useful, but it does not: Fikes doesn't understand why Connolley was de-sysopped. So, let us know if you find a WP:Reliable source that is not an SPS and explains the actual reasons why Connolley was de-sysopped, and I'd be happy to cite it. . -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Well after looking at WP:BLPSPS, it seems you forgot to mention that the description given for "self-published blogs" refers to personal and group blogs. Immediately after that it says, "Some news organizations host online columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control". So it appears this blog still qualifies. Truthsort (talk) 00:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
You're arguing that the piece is technically useable. I'm less interested in that wikilegal argument, and more interested in whether you actually think this is the sort of source that a serious, respectable reference work should rely upon. Aside from its rather polemical and unserious tone, it contains numerous errors of fact (for example, it describes User:ATren as an administrator), and appears not to have been proofread or copyedited prior to publication. MastCell Talk 05:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Outside of mistaking that user, it points out his activities and the arbitration request that resulted in the topic ban. I do not see what your issue is with the tone. Truthsort (talk) 19:31, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

[left]So many other things are wrong with that blog. For one, it (intentionally) confuses the issues of Connolly's de-sysopping and his topic ban. Also, the topic ban was based on incivility, but the blog gives the impression that it was based on POV pushing. We really need a better, more knowledgeable and, as MastCell says, less polemical source. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

While the blog focuses a lot on his climate change activites here, it does not state that the ban was a result of pov pushing but rather "extensive run-ins". Of course "run-ins" are a form of incivility. Look, I am not familiar with Connolley's editing here at Wikipedia but I must ask how do you know the writer of the blog "intentionally" confuses the issues of Connolly's de-sysopping and his topic ban? Truthsort (talk) 04:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Just from the face of it and the way it is written. With all due respect, if you're not familiar with the cases in which Connolley was de-sysopped and later topic banned, then you ought to look into them so that you understand that the blog is wrong and appears to be attempting to confuse readers as to the actual circumstances. However, even aside from the mis-description of the circumstances in the article, you must know that the "run ins" that you just cited, are an additional error in the article. Wikipedia does not have "run ins" with people. That implies that Connelley had arguments with some kind of governing body of Wikipedia, which you know we do not have in that sense. We need to present clear, NPOV information in our bio and other articles that does not contain information that we know is wrong. -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Ref to New Yorker

I was helpfully fixing a dead link--and did, in fact--but Help:Cite errors/Cite error references missing key showed up at the bottom of the ref list. ??? Yopienso (talk) 02:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I removed the reference from the reference section that you replaced, and it looks ok now, but who knows :) --Threeafterthree (talk) 05:09, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi. The updated url that you found was OK, but the coding got messed up because someone has created a stupidly complex footnoting system for this article. Then the bibliographic information got deleted. I've fixed it now. We do need the ref twice, though, because the direct quotes each need to be referenced. Merry Christmas! -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:50, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I have restored the referencing system to the more typical system where the reference info can be found immediately after the text being referenced. I found the other system (which was implemented in February 2010) to be unworkable and it made it harder to verify that edits being made to the article were non-malicious. -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:57, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

What are the key points that make this individual notable?

I see from the article his key points are: blogger (but not a notable one with any following), software engineer since 2008 (for something called Cambridge Silicon Radio, again not notable), Wikipedia editor (how is that notable?), and "Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth System project at the British Antarctic Survey". Well, that's a mouthful and uses a lot of words, but it doesn't mean there is anything notable that he's done. I'm really struggling to see what is notable about him, other than some attention he received by allegedly editing articles in a POV manner before he was dismissed as an admin by Wikipedia.24.76.207.207 (talk) 19:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Please read the voluminous deletion discussions. This article was nominated for deletion five times and Kept five times; the last one, in 2008, was a "speedy keep". -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:41, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
This is one of those irrational things. Not really irrational--inconsistent. I think we just have it because we want to, not because by our policies we should. Call it a pet page. :) I myself was glad to find it some time back; it interests me. Yopienso (talk) 03:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Do pet pages belong on wikipedia? Isn't that what talk pages are for. Reading through the AfD logs, there does seem to be a lot of "pet page" sentiment supporting this page. I think Connolley's main claim to notability is his activity as a blogger. He did get quite a lot of attention for that. In my impression, his blog activity makes him sufficiently notable. If it doesn't, I imagine he shouldn't have a page here. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 19:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, no, they probably don't. Again, the human condition includes a lot of irrationality and inconsistency. Ironically, Dr. Connolley helped get rid of the article on the more notable Dr. Ball. Who ever said it's a perfect world? Yopienso (talk) 19:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The guy is not notable for anything that would actually sustain a proper biography to Wikipedia 2011 standards, period. The past Afds show not much of anything at all, and they are certianly not 'voluminous'. If it was possible to have this article discussed objectively to current standards, it would be gone no doubt. The human condition/brokeness of Afd is the only reason that this article still exists, while it is still impossible to answer the basic question, 'William Connolley is a notable....???' Welcome to Wikipedia, please read our fascinating, in-depth and informative biography on his life (which in no way reads like a dissappointing patchwork of trivia, introspection and irrelevance). MickMacNee (talk) 20:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It's interesting that such a non-notable person attracts such a lot of attention. Johnuniq (talk) 02:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Not really. While it's interesting that you personally might think that's what WP:N is, and might heaven forbid even offer that as your case in a future Afd on this article, as far as answering the OP's query, or having any objective relevance at all, it was a thoroughly uninteresting observation. MickMacNee (talk) 04:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
This isn't the best bio on Wikipedia, and it's not the worst. We've deleted bios of people more notable than William, and kept bios of people less notable. Consistency isn't Wikipedia's strong suit, but that's what happens when you have thousands of different people working on a project, at least half of whom are of below-average caliber. If you think the article should be deleted, then the best option is to nominate it at AfD. Complaining about it here makes it look like your interest stems from sour grapes or personal animus rather than more legitimate project-related concerns. Most of the previous AfD's failed because they were submitted in close succession; it's been more than 2 years since the last one, and notability standards have arguably tightened for biographies, so you might be surprised at the result. Or you might not, but whinging here isn't helping. MastCell Talk 04:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
@MastCell--It doesn't sound like whinging to me. It sounds like appropriate talk page discussion to gather input. Your bad faith regarding the caliber of your fellow editors doesn't help. Your comments about the AfD's do help--Thank you!--and show that the talk here is worthwhile. I'm curious: there are certainly "worse" (fewer details, less sourcing) bios on WP; can you point me to one on someone less notable? Yopienso (talk) 17:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
For a small sample of less notable biographies, see Category:People in alternative medicine. As far as caliber, there's no bad faith involved, just a faith in mathematics: half of our editors are below-average. MastCell Talk 05:32, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Not to be a jerk, but I may as well note that this is "faith" in inaccurate mathematics. Half the editors are below the median, but not necessarily below-average. For example, considerably more than half of the US population makes below-average income because a minority of really big earners skew the mean. One might expect a similar skewness among wikipedia editors. Of course, this has nothing to do with Connolley's notability, which I guess exposes me as one of the sub-average editors... --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 09:45, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough; "average" is an inexact term which could refer to the median, mean, or various other metrics. MastCell Talk 04:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Fair point. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 20:50, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the first paragraph which states William Michael Connolley (born 12 April 1964) is a British software engineer, writer, and blogger on climate science. Until December 2007 he was Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth System project at the British Antarctic Survey, where he worked as a climate modeller. After this he became a software engineer for Cambridge Silicon Radio. I personally think that him being a software engineer and a Senior Scientific Officer working as a climate modeller gives him the nobility necessary for an article. I think the article needs a lot of clean up to get rid of the trivia that is there. The comments about Wikipedia is not necessary for this article. The article needs to get into the meat of what Connolley has done in the past and is doing now. He has written articles that are published. Just my opinion but I thought I would share it. --CrohnieGalTalk 22:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, Connolley received most of his national and international press as a Wikipedian. Therefore, I believe this is not trivia and is essential to the article. An interesting thing about this article, is that different readers who have commented above each have a different part of the article that they think is the most important part of Connolley's background. So, each of these sections is of interest to someone, and I believe that all of the information currently in the article is necessary to this biography. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the 'greater than the sum of it's parts' theory of aggregated notability. It has been advanced as a defence of this biography's existence many times, drawing together all the non-notable aspects it details to somehow make a notable person, but it quite rightly appears in no policy as a recognised formula for notability. We have a definition of general notability, which is well understood, and on that score, only 5 out of the 23 sources used to support this biography are actually non-academic independent secondary sources, with not a single one having any in-depth coverage of the subject at all. And of those, every single one is about the role of Connolley at Wikipedia. On the current sources, the only thing Connolley is remotely notable for is being scientifically published, not general or aggregated notability. And bearing in mind he is a PhD, simply being published is not remarkable in of itself. Neither is the title of SSO, it's given to many PhDs working in industry. What matters is who took notice, and per WP:ACADEMIC, the proof in this case is practically non-existent. Infact, I'd be really interested to see an organisational diagram of the BAS, to see how far down the food chain the Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth System project actually is, and how many more eminent scientists would come above Connolley's former position, but never have and never will be considered notable. Rather than resting on personal opinons, if readers actually go looking for the required proof that he is infact a notable BAS SSO outside of scientific publications he himself is an author/co-author on, as you would expect for a biography of such people per WP:BIO, they will not find it. He's no longer even in the post, so it's not likely to arrive in future now. If he leaves his current job as a software engineer, the only way to verify it would be through primary or self-published sources. Hardly the mark of a notable software engineer. Five Afd's, even the joke one, and countless complaints/requests on this talk page, have failed to find true non-academic secondary evidence that he ever was considered a notable scientist/modeller/engineer. There's not even a single source supporting any of the text in the article about his academice/scientific/engineering work that is not connected to him in some way. MickMacNee (talk) 15:57, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Does his blog activity make him notable? Clearly his academic activity, while not negligible by any means, doesn't meet the WP:ACADEMIC criteria. In discussions of the latter point on this talk page in the the deletion logs, people who appear to be far-removed from academia have argued he meets the criteria solely because he is published (all career research scientists are) or some other misunderstanding like his co-authorship of a Science article (it's actually a "perspective" piece: not about original research and hence not peer reviewed; not that a single Science research article ensures notability), whereas people who appear to be closer to the academic research world seem to see it as an obvious case of not meeting the criteria. But Connolley has received huge attention for his activity in the blogosphere and as a wikipedia editor. Can't that be used as a basis for notability? --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 09:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
I have asked questions like this before. It is absolutely clear to me that he doesn't meet the notability criteria for academia or politics, and any case would have to be based on either his Wikipedia activities (which is difficult given that there are relatively few reliable sources on this) or on his blogging activities (either his historic role in the formation of realclimate, or his current role on his own blog, stoat). Note that I am not arguing that he is notable on those grounds; simply that I can't see what other grounds might be used. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
JAJ, I think "absolutely clear" is too strong for me. Prima facie a case exists that "The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity" and certainly a number of sceptic critics have claimed that his influence on the Climate Change content on Wikipedia has made him a central figure. Now, I don't say he meets WP:ACADEMIC, and I do not agree with these commentators about the extent of his influence but there are commentators who appear to open the question. Also his paper reviewing whether there was a prevailing academic view that we were heading to a new ice age in the seventies had some weight and had influence outside academia. Again, not slam dunk but requiring some discussion. --BozMo talk 09:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
My claim was intended to be simply that he does not meet WP:ACADEMIC or WP:POLITICIAN. Making a claim for notability in academia or politics would thus seem to be difficult, though perhaps not completely impossible. However I suspect he does have a reasonably strong claim as a blogger (and, of course, for his wikipedia activities if a suitable source can be found, something which has proved remarkably tricky). Jonathan A Jones (talk) 22:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Maybe but I was quoting Wikipedia:ACADEMIC#Criteria point 7. I don't think any case could be made for WP:POLITICIAN. I am not sure how I would vote on an AfD these days; I might have to reread all the current policies. There seem several arguable bits though. --BozMo talk 19:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
The required verifiable evidence of secondary sources discussing Connolley in depth in terms of being a notable blogger, is compeltely non-existent in the article. Infact, there's no evidence of that discussion in any depth. And the basic information on that score in the article is, as ever, completely self or primary-sourced. MickMacNee (talk) 18:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

This discussion seems to have reached a peak and then died, unresolved, a month ago. Is this a "pet page" that doesn't belong on wikipedia page, as Yopienso suggested? Is all the attention this talk page has received evidence of Connolley's notability, as suggested by Johnuniq? There appears to be near-consensus in this talk page section that Connolley is not notable as an academic (three of us agree that it's a closed case, one suggests that some additional discussion of this point may be a good idea). On rereading this talk page section, it appears that the consensus recommendation is to either (1) try to add to the article further information on Connolley's blog and wikipedia work that substantiates his case for blogger notability or (2) initiate a new AfD in light of changes in wikipedia notability standards since the last AfD 2 years ago (mentioned by MastCell and BozMo). Without stronger evidence in the article of Connolley's notability as a blogger, there seems to be no substantial argument for keeping this page. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 19:25, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe that he is notable as a person who has received press attention regarding his Wikipedia editing and disputes. He may also be notable as a blogger. I would oppose an AfD. I just added one of the many newspaper opinion pieces that attacked Connolley, hopefully in a way that does not run afoul of the BLP rules - but Connolley has received a lot more press than the article indicates, as a Google search will show. (e.g. this) -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:46, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
It's been removed before, and likely will be again. Check the archives. MickMacNee (talk) 20:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
When you consider that Tony the Marine, a Wikipedia editor and Puerto-Rican American who actually received recognition from the Puerto Rican government for his efforts as a Wikipedia editor, and even met former US President Bill Clinton in that capacity, and who is also a journalist and historian who writes for proper print publications and not just blogs or activist sites, has just had his biography deleted as being not notable in any way shape or form, then it only makes the continued existence of this article rather laughable. That was a guy who had coverage to the level of entire pieces written about him in Arizona news sites (with Arizona being, what? ten times the size of the UK?). The independent news coverage of Connolley by comparison is a couple of lines here and there. This is what supposedly passes as notability here why exactly? Nobody can justify it, and nobody ever will it seems. MickMacNee (talk) 20:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
I'd have voted to keep Tony's article if I had known about the AfD. That sounds like a wrong result. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
You are correct, MickMacNee. There is virtually no coverage of Connolley, mostly just brief mentions. The nearly 5-year-old New Yorker article spotlights him the sharpest of any I can remember, not counting the blogs that are not RSs. (I could be mistaken here, going on memory rather than double checking. Time crunch.) On the AfD on Timothy Ball, whole articles on just him were deemed "not coverage" because they did not tell when or where he was born, who his parents were, what flavor ice cream he prefers. If you are looking at "fair" or "proper," this article should not be here at all. But every entity, very much including Wikipedia, has its flaws and flukes; including this article is one of them. Why fight city hall? Anyone suggesting deletion should be sure they are not fighting anyone, but have as their sole motive the improvement of the encyclopedia. There most certainly should be no intention to slight Dr. Connolley or attempt to "even the score," a most unacceptable attitude at WP. There are strong grounds for deletion, but I will stay out of any such vote. Yopienso (talk) 23:55, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
If this is accurate, it seems clear that the article needs to be removed, doesn't it? I'm relatively new to editing wikipedia, so maybe I'm just not sufficiently jaded yet. But is there really a place for articles wikipedians write about their friends? It seems like the question ought to simply be whether his blog activity (or some other criteria?) makes him sufficiently notable based on the standard wikipedia guidelines. Why should it be any more complicated than that? Personally, I'm not sufficiently familiar with his blog activity to judge how notable it is, although it seems like this could be straightforwardly looked into.--Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 23:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

[In Ssilvers comment above,] By "he is a notable person" in addition to his work as a blogger, do you mean you believe he meets the general notability guidelines? --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 23:27, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. As Connolley's article notes, his Wikipedia activities have been discussed in the New Yorker, Nature, major newspapers, academic papers and, according to a Google "books" search, over 20 books; and Google only searches a small percentage of published books. A general google search for "William Connolley" and Wikipedia brings up 38,000 items, most of them criticizing his editing of climate change articles. He is also cited extensively in the blogosphere for his writings on climate science. He is a favorite whipping boy at Watts Up With That? and other climate skeptic blogs who were very excited by his de-sysopping, interpreting it as his being wrong about content. So, even if you don't think his published papers, or his blogging work at RealClimate and Stoat are notable, I believe that he is notable because of getting so much press and academic attention regarding his Wikipedia editing. I don't know anything about this Tony the Marine, discussed below, but it sounds like he was notable. In any case, two wrongs don't make right. If someone satisfies the notability criteria, they are notable, even if another notable person's bio was wrongly removed. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:41, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
On the basis of your experience here, By December 2010, I had made over 70,000 total edits on Wikipedia. I have created several hundred articles on Wikipedia, and over 130 of them have been featured on the "Did You Know" section of the Main Page, I would expect you to know that the blogs are not WP:RS or the New Yorker article by itself sufficient for WP:NOTE. I would expect you to know that tons of Google hits do not necessarily show notability and that he does not meet the criteria for WP:ACADEMIC. William Connolley is notable in one corner of Wikipedia. Period. Yopienso (talk) 07:20, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Handy reference for notability as an academic

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

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

This section appears to violate WP:TPG. Is there some reason unrelated to soap boxing for this text to remain? If anyone agrees, please remove this section including my comment. Johnuniq (talk) 10:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
How does it violate WP:TPG? We have editors asking if William Connolley has the notability for a WP biography. This lays out the criteria. I posted it because I believe it is supremely pertinent. This has been done with no challenges on other bios when there was a question of notability. In fact, I cannot fathom why you think it shouldn't be here. Please explain. Yopienso (talk) 16:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
@ William Connolley, if you're watching: My heart wants this bio kept, but my head tells me it should be deleted. Nothing personal. I admire your knowledge, rowing, climbing, civic-mindedness, that you're a family man, and specially your new editorial attitude. Yopienso (talk) 16:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Your final above comment proves my point: you are soapboxing and that is not the purpose of the page. Copying extracts from pages unrelated to improving the article is contrary to WP:TPG. Johnuniq (talk) 23:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Anyway FWIW I think a case needs to be considered under 7 in this list. Specifically that it is in his former academic capacity as an academic working on Climate Change that his "impact" needs to be weighed. He has always edited as an identifiable person with an academic capacity. If he has, as some people have claimed, had a significant influence on the public debate (through his Wikipedia or other activity) then he has done so as an academic and makes notable under 7. I would want to see the evidence assembled to make a judgement on whether his influence or perceived influence is strong enough for "substantial" to be merited. --BozMo talk 07:01, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Such coverage if it exists at all, is all non-neutral unreliable blogfizz tbh. There are simply no reliable secondary sources that support this idea that Connolley has had any impact on the wider world simply for being an academic, let alone a 'significant impact'. This is both in terms of what they actually say, and in how much depth and detail they say it (i.e. the lack of). I mean seriously, if Connolley has had a "significant" impact, then you very rapidly start to run out of words to describe the impact of all the people who have had a greater impact - what sounds more credible in an encyclopoedic biography? "Dr. Albert Einstein had a significant impact outside academia", or "Dr. William Connolley had a significant impact outside academia"? MickMacNee (talk) 13:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
While I agree with our principles in sourcing, this could possibly be a time and place to "ignore all rules." Point 7 would kick in if we could allow this widely published comment: "William Connolley, arguably the world’s most influentia­l global warming advocate after Al Gore, has lost his bully pulpit." It's only published in blogs and in comments on RS articles because nobody cares about it except combatants and observers in the climate wars. Yet it could be true. I can't find that the Stoat by itself is enough to give Connolley notability as a blogger rather than an academic. Yopienso (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
The rules (and material) on "substantial" academic influence outside academia are not clear to me. But for example, in the non academic press, like "New Scientist" [11] there seem to be a reasonable number of references to his paper [12] pointing out that "in the 1970s everyone was expecting an ice age" was not well founded. Now this paper was not a great work of original science, and he was only one author. But it was a review exactly of the type "academic having an impact outside academia". The main summary from the paper is quoted in quite a few places without citing the paper, so there was an impact. The word "substantial" is missing from this comment. But there was an impact of sorts and substantial is a subjective word (literally it just means of substance or non-trivial) and so in my view ought to be examined. I have to say I don't think the impact was huge, and I am personally struggling with the fact that complete nobodies in some areas of public life (sport for example) get included in WP so I am inclined to set the standard for academic influence rather low, perhaps that is in line with the community view. --BozMo talk 06:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
That's not even an article in the main magazine, it's just one of their short online blog pieces! It doesn't even name Connolley, let alone describe anything he did in person. To even describe that as being an example of his personal impact could be classed as synthesis to be honest. To start picking out which bits of it rely on the paper to quantify the impact, even though the blog doesn't even think it's worth making clear, is definitely wandering into the realms of original research. All this to support what should be a quite easily verifiable claim for a biography - 'person X had a substantial impact outside their field'. And I couldn't disagree more with the idea that 'substantial' translates as 'anything of substance' in this context. The requirement for an impact, any impact, takes care of the idea it should be something of substance. And if the issue is other fields, to take the sport analogy, in football, the basic requirement is to have made an appearance for a club in a fully professional league. That's as much to stop endless arguments over borderline GNG cases as it is to set a quite good measure of at what point a player starts to have an impact in their field. Setting aside any ideas about what is substantial, even the most minor player in the most minor club under that standard would be referred to by name in reliable secondary sources at some point in their career. That is as a minimum. And their exploits as part of the team would certainly garner ongoing in-depth coverage, in mainstream print media. Do you seriously think you've set the bar at the same sort of level with this blog piece, which doesn't even name the person? We have no article on the paper itself even though that is the primary GNG topic of this blog piece, no biography for the primary author or even the third author who wrote it with Connolley, and we don't even have a biography on the author of the blog even though her name appears to have been used in citations all over Wikipedia. Yet somehow, this single very short blog post becomes evidence to support this biography's main claim to notability? Really? In terms of basic fairness, you've got to feel bad for the 50 or so authors whose primary research the review paper rests on tbh. MickMacNee (talk) 12:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Hmm. I am not going to comment on your (surprising) remarks on football but just for reference the NS coverage of that topic isn't limited to their blog [13] as far as I can tell (the main article seems to use the blog as a means to cite the source) and there are a reasonable number of similar bits around so why don't you try and list them for us, since you seem to have less apathy than I do shall we say. I don't care what the outcome of the discussion is but claiming there is no discussion looks a bit odd. On "substantial" if you want to deviate from my dictionary you will need to provide a source. If you can, that's grand of course. --BozMo talk 16:52, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
"This lays out the criteria." -- No, it does not. As Wikipedia:ACADEMIC#Criteria, of which this is only a fragment, says: "Academics/professors meeting none of these conditions may still be notable if they meet the conditions of WP:BIO or other notability criteria" and "Before applying these criteria, see the detailed Notes and Caveats sections, which follow." ... posting this fragment here is grossly inappropriate and misleading and is in fact a violation of WP:TPG -- 98.108.202.17 (talk) 09:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have died out. It is odd to me, as someone relatively new to editing wikipedia, that this article seems to be so difficult to delete, and that the discussion seems to be so polarizing. It seems that most editors familiar with the practices of academic sciences agree that the subject of this bio is clearly not notable as an academic. I wonder if some of the issue stems from the Wikipedia vs Connolley conflict and sanctions history (which has been the main source of third-party information regarding Connolley). Connolley being such an expert that he has his own Wikipedia bio page may, perhaps, be valued by some as evidence supporting his side of the conflict (or the absurdity of Wikipedia's side) (?). This is, however, somewhat mistaken in my opinion. Connolley's work for a number of years in climate science research clearly makes him an "expert" qualified to author an encyclopedia article, but I think it is also that that is not sufficient to make him notable. This is not unusual. For example, one of the two authors of the Britannica article on global warming [14], Henrik Selin, does not (and should not, at this point in his career anyway) have a wikipedia page. --Abc-mn-xyz (talk) 20:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Out-of-context quote?

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

If you have a problem with "even if" you should edit "even if" not remove a straight quote by the person the entry is about. In fact, Connolley and co-authors dedicated a section of that review to the fact that "By the early 1970s, when Mitchell updated his work (Mitchell 1972), the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted, albeit poorly understood". The section has been titled by Connolley and co-authors "The Global Temperature Records: A Cooling Trend", so the quote cannot be ruled as "out of context" by any stretch of imagination. If anybody reads the review and not just its title, the "myth" Connolley and co-authors talk about is of a consensus in the 1970s about an imminent ice age, not the wide acceptance of a global cooling trend in the early 1970s that they themselves report as a fact of history. Check also Fig.2 in the review for the period 1971-1974. mmorabito67 (talk) 14:15, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
How we understand a "notion" being "widely accepted" (as a notion?) has to be taken in context of what the paper actually says. I accept the notion of atheism (I just think it is shocking badly thought through, and wrong). The point of the paper is that a misconception exists about scientific opinion which is worth correcting. Trying to turn this into a statement giving weight to the strength of the misconception is a little strange. Due weight also wins on the selection of that remark form the paper unless you think that the remark you decide to quote drew particular attention? --BozMo talk 17:59, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
To be honest I can't really see what the second half of the sentence is doing in the article anyway. This article is about the man, not yet another place to refight the climate wars. Removing the second half fits the structure of the article much better. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:30, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

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

I'm not sure we are all talking about the same sentence. I'd suggest you all clearly specify which part you want in or out ("clear" as not in "the sentence" or "this argument"). I'm fine with the status quo ante, which I think Ssilvers has restored. See my argument above. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:21, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
Stephan - I still think it's a problem with the "even if". Connolley set out to disprove the "myth" of a "global cooling consensus". But "global cooling" can mean many things, eg (a) "the world has been cooling" ; (b) "the world will be cooling"; (c) "the world will be cooling into an imminent ice age". Connolley actually in that review with Peterson and Fleck disproved any consensus on (c) during the 1970s whilst proving there was a indeed a consensus on (a) between 1972 and 1975 circa. This is not a side issue: the fact that "by the early 1970s..the notion of a global cooling trend was widely accepted" is the reason why people nowadays wrongly recollect a "consensus on an imminent ice age in the 1970s" and justifies both Connolley's work and his findings. How about this edit then - actually predicted warming, not global cooling, despite a "widely-accepted", if "poorly understood", "global cooling trend" in the early 1970s - mmorabito67 (talk) 09:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
To answer Stephan Schulz, my preferred version is the bare bones "Connolley has authored and co-authored articles and literature reviews in the field of climatological research." found here [15]. The arguments above seem to be about the interpretation of a primary source, and in general the best solution to such arguments is to examine what reliable secondary sources say about this material. If a clear consensus exists among reliable secondary sources, first that Connolley did take a particular stand on global cooling, and secondly that this stand either forms part of his notability or is at least is more characteristic of his research than, say his opinions on Antarctic sea ice, then well and good; if not then the relevant text is best deleted until such time as reliable secondary sources can be found. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Jonathan, there are two problems with what you just wrote. First, there is no interpretation question. Look at the sources cited. They are unambiguous that this was one of Connolly's main arguments. There is no reason to add to what we now say about the topic (as Mmorabito67 advocates), which is simply that this is what Connolley's writings say. Second, the fact that he wrote several papers and lots of blogs about what he concludes is a myth doesn't have to be "more" characteristic of his research than his sea ice writings. These have been the main two focuses of his writings, and we should mention them both. So, in conclusion, we neither need to add nor to delete anything from the well-cited sentence currently in the article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Ssilvers - as it stands, the text is misleading. Connolley's review starts with a prominent colored box stating "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age". That is the "global cooling" Connolley wrote about. But the term is ambiguous as I have shown earlier: the reader is currently misled into thinking there was never such a thing as "global cooling", something contradicted by Connolley himself in the "global cooling trend" quote I have mentioned already several times. So to be very precise the text should become - actually predicted warming, not global cooling and an imminent ice age, despite a "widely-accepted", if "poorly understood", "global cooling trend" in the early 1970s - I'm open minded about alternatives to despite - mmorabito67 (talk) 16:54, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Ssilvers, it's not that simple. There is evident disagreement on the interpretation of these primary sources, and by WP:AGF there is a strong presumption that the disagreement is genuine. WP:PRIMARY advises on precisely this sort of issue: "Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." You can state that he wrote about global cooling and sea ice under the "straightforward, descriptive statements" clause, but going beyond that requires secondary sources. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
I further note that of the three references given under "authored and co-authored articles and literature reviews in the field of climatological research, including several concluding that a majority of scientific papers in the 1970s actually predicted warming, not global cooling.[7][8][9]", only one (reference [9]) is to an article or a literature review, the others being a blog post and a personal webpage, so the statement as it stands is not supported even by primary sources. The list of publications also strongly suggests that his interests are primarily related to the Antarctic and to sea ice, rather than to global cooling. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 17:40, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

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

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

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

He only wrote one paper with the word "cooling" in the title. The great majority of his papers are on Antarctica and/or sea ice. More on this point later. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 15:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Ssilvers, my objection was not to the use of blogs: these can indeed be used with caution under WP:SPS, and while I don't share your analysis above it's not clear to me that these references can't be used appropriately. My specific objection was to describing them as "articles" but that is now fixed. But we haven't yet addressed the underlying point: why that bit is there at all. The current text is "Connolley has authored and co-authored articles and literature reviews in the field of climatological research. His blogs and one of his papers conclude that a majority of scientific papers in the 1970s actually predicted warming, not global cooling.[7][8][9]". This gives the impression that global cooling is a major focus of his work. In fact of his 38 papers in the ISI only 1 has the word "cooling" in the title, while 20 have the word "Antarctic" or "Antarctica", and 5 refer to "sea ice"; these would seem to be much more significant focuses of his work. Alternatively we could look at citations: it turns out that his cooling paper has only 5 citations making it his 26th most cited paper, so again there is no evidence that this is important to his work. So to the problems previously noted with WP:PRIMARY we can add WP:UNDUE. In summary the sentence should go unless and until suitable secondary sources are located. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 12:22, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

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

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

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

Hard to say. For example none of my objections has been replied to. "Global cooling" still stands as ambiguous as ever, and I'm leaving it like that only because I understand some editors are pretty edgy about some climate-related changes and I do not have time for Wikipedia disputes. mmorabito67 (talk) 21:45, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
I remain firmly of the view that the whole global cooling sentence breaches WP:PRIMARY and should simply be deleted. But if peace is breaking out I'm happy to leave it there for the moment. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:25, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

AfD?

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

I notice in your six month editing career on Wikipedia you have raised this question quite a few times, and that people seem decreasingly prepared to reply to it. Do you think this is because you are winning the "argument" or for some other reason? By all means, if you think that there is enough of a case try another AfD. I would then have to think about whether to support it or not. Otherwise repeating your opinion on the issue every month or so in threads about something else is a little unhelpful I feel. --BozMo talk 06:53, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Abc-mn-xyz, I would suggest that if you feel that there is a problem with primary sourcing then you identify this by adding tags in the appropriate place. Look at Template:Better source for the appropriate inline tag for a single item; if a whole section relies on primary sources then you can use Template:Primary sources. I would, however, urge you to use these tags only when the case seems clear (i.e., you can quote the relevant advice explaining precisely why the item or section should be tagged). I'll add the first one for you to get you started. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree with BozMo above. If you want to start another AfD on this article, do so. Those of us on this talk page have replied to your thoughts on notability as much as we feel is relevant to this talk page. AfD would be the next step. As I've noted above, I would oppose the AfD, as I think that Connolley is notable. BTW, if I were a relatively new editor, I would focus on what I can add to the encyclopedia, not on deleting articles; especially ones that have survived AfD's before. As to WP:PRIMARY, this seems to be a misplaced concern to me. That guideline says, in part: "Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages." In this case, we have a biography in which we are discussing the subject's writings, so of course we refer to those writings. As to Connolley's blogs, WP:SPS says: "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field... (I have quoted the rest of this above). Non-primary sources for this article are referenced in footnotes 5, 6, and 15-21. That's 9 non-primary references. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
While it's entirely a matter for Abc-mn-xyz, I wouldn't recommend another AfD at this stage. But I have found that learning about tagging is a useful process for people who want to move on from adding content to the more technical side: it forces them to learn about policies and guides, and to think about process. With regard to WP:PRIMARY, note that I have only tagged one phrase, which I think is a fairly clear-cut case. I certainly haven't tagged all the statements which only have primary sources, as some of them seem to be OK. And I am certainly not claiming that the whole article is primary sourced, which would be grounds for an AfD. There are plausible grounds for an AfD, but not that one, and they are only plausible not clear-cut. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:12, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Jonathan, the sentence is only saying what Connolley's blog postings and paper themselves say, so this is a perfect case for citing the posts and paper themselves. We do not make any analysis of what he says, so I think the tag is inappropriate. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Ssilvers - "Non-primary sources for this article are referenced in footnotes 5, 6, and 15-21.". So, according to secondary sources only, he's a former parish councillor (5), a former Green Party council candidate (6), and someone who gets brief mentions in pieces about experts editing Wikipedia (15-21). Remind me again how this adds up to Wikipedia notability in your eyes? Which requires in depth coverage in secondary sources dealing with the subject directly and in detail. The subject being one William Connolley and his notable life as a ?????, not 'Experts and Wikipedia'. MickMacNee (talk) 23:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Ssilvers, primary sources should only be used for simple matters of fact where no reasonable person could disagree about the meaning of the source; they should not be used when any non-trivial interpretation is required. As noted above there is disagreement over the interpretation of this source. But more to the point, you are also missing the question of how we select what to talk about. This sentence picks out one of his papers, and talks about that, giving the impression that his opinions on global cooling are characteristic and/or notable. Why should we believe this? He wrote precisely one paper on the subject, which has not been heavily cited, and on which he is the middle author of three (while author ordering conventions differ between fields, this certainly means that he is not the principal author). Of course the whole question could be very easily resolved by finding a reliable secondary source discussing this point. And then we could all go off and do something more interesting. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 14:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

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

Ssilvers, I have no idea how many children he has; I just note that we have an unsourced statement about his personal life and have tagged it as such. Given that this is a BLP there would be a case for deleting it immediately, but as it is very unlikely to be viewed as potentially libelous I think it is reasonable to leave it there for a few days in case somebody turns up a source. This is basic WP:VERIFIABILITY and I'm not sure why you are treating it as controversial. With regard to global cooling, you keep on insisting that this forms a very important part of his career, a career which you believe to be notable. If this is the case then you should have no difficulty turning up at least one reliable secondary source which confirms your claim. If no such source can be found then the claim doesn't belong here. Again this is basic stuff. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 17:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and you might want to reconsider this edit [16] which appears at first sight to breach WP:AGF and possibly WP:NPA. You might also wish to consider WP:CANVAS with regard to making this appeal on the personal talk page of the user whose wiki page is being discussed. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
How many men who don't have two children put photos of two children on their own personal websites and also upload detailed diaries involving two children? In addition to that, as you may be aware William Connolley happens to be an editor here and would be perfectly able to correct the information if it was wrong. It's the kind of information for which WP:SPS allows us to use self-published sources. If you absolutely insist, I believe there is precedent that William Connolley might provide the information through OTRS, which would be responsible for verifying his identity. (An absurd exercise in this case. If the editor William M. Connolley were an impostor, we would have heard about that long ago. It's inconceivable that the real William M. Connolley didn't learn about the libel published by the Wall Street Journal.)
Added after an edit conflict: WP:AGF is not a suicide pact, and it's pretty obvious what is going on here. I believe this article is subject to the Arbcom sanctions on the topic of global warming, and I have no doubt that Arbcom are able to interpret your activity in context. Hans Adler 18:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
WMC does not watch this page, nor, I think, frequently check it for correctness. This is surprisingly wise of him, of course ;-). I'd have some concern about using the image even as evidence, though - he may have had two at the time it was taken, but may have more now (Let me add that I have no idea about this and no evidence for any number other two, either. Nor do I read his diary.). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
It's not a big problem if this kind of information is slightly out of date. Happens all the time, especially when we are using "reliable sources", and people expect it to happen. And of course there is nothing wrong with asking him. I got to my conclusions just by a quick look over his personal website, by the way. Hans Adler 18:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Re: children: His personal website is here and lists two children: Daniel and Miranda. A 2009 blog entry refers to Daniel and Miranda. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
It is quite sad actually to see how many determined people (such as Ssilvers) campaign even in Wikipedia to defend Connolley's contributions to the debate about 'global cooling consensus in the 1970s' without showing any understanding of the meaning of 'global cooling' in Connolley's work. The end result is that a perfectly reasonable quote such as the one I tried to insert will never see the light of the day, as people-in-the-wikipedia-know with plenty of spare time in their hands will of course forever out-resource me. Is this what Wikipedia is for? Marginalizing the casual editors? mmorabito67 (talk) 15:48, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Why does anyone think this is a discussion for the talk page? If anyone thinks the subject of an article does not satisfy inclusion guidelines, you should take it to AfD. Any discussion here is essentially pointless as the article won't be deleted based on a discussion here even if a consensus is reached (which seems highly improbably). If you think the subject is notable, don't feel like you have to discuss your opinion here. If you think the subject isn't notable, take it to the designated place for such a discussion. OlYellerTalktome 16:15, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Secondary sources

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

If you haven't figured out why those 'idiotic' stories aren't ever going to see the light of day in the article after all this time, it's not worth repeating. As regards the Times and CSM ones, I think part of the problem is that you seem to genuinely believe that these pieces are about Connolley. It's truly amazing how far you've managed to stretch these to pad out that 'Writing and 'Editing' section, to make it bigger than the entire career sections of the biographies of many thousands of truly notable people we do host here, actual real life award winners in their field with actual real life in depth coverage in spades. I'd be surprised if we don't get a visit from the copyright bot soon if this goes on much longer. MickMacNee (talk) 23:54, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
The CSM piece looks usable as a secondary source for the global cooling sentence, and this is a definite step forward, though the way it has been used is a bit unusual. I make no comment on the other issues you raise at this stage. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

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

Encyclopaedic value

This article concerns a person, who is not known for anything in particular. Why does it still exist? 62.198.247.173 (talk) 10:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The article exists in many ways to prop up the author, Mr. Connolley, who, on numerous occasions, has been charged as the key contributor in one of the single largest scandals in science and scientific journalism. Ironically, no one seems to want to mention "Climategate"/"Wikigate". I wonder why? [sarcasm intended] The mere discussion of such morose topics is devastating to the integrity of Wikipedia. Wikipedia was and has been a staple of the freedom of the internet movement. It shames me to read such scathing reviews. This subject is so scathing in fact Lawrence Solomon wrote several scathing articles for the National Post regarding the matter. See: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/10/14/lawrence-solomon-global-warming-propagandist-slapped-down/ But, what is more nerve-wracking--the disappearance of said articles from the National Post's website. I'm going to have to perform deep-net fishing/dumpster diving on this one. But I will. I'm a scientist and a student of ethics. This is a morose topic that must be made known. If not by the editors of this page, then by others. Hiding this by references to editorial policy is daft.
Most news these days exhibits a foul perfunctory of yellow journalism. To claim that a Wall Street Journal editorial has no encyclopedic value is misleading at best. Perhaps, it would not provide a primary source evidence of the facts, as would traditional investigative journalism, it would, however, be an apt mention of the criticism lobbied against said person (in which case it would be primary source). No meaningful article of merit can exist without a full deliberation of the facts. Highly critical articles (especially, those penned by leading political figures) necessitate mention. Criticism of this reputable degree must be heavily documented and linked, such as in reference to the "Climategate" scandal, even if only as claimant references.
If someone charges me with perpetuating a falsehood [libel], whether or not that accusation bears merit [I in fact perpetuated falsehoods] leaves no reference to the merit that the charges were lobbied in fact. A historical description must include references to the charges being made to be neutral and comprehensive (none the least to meet the neutrality guidelines of Wikipedia). It would be better to have the article nullified entirely, than to allow it to remain without pretense or vetting.
I would be sickened to discover that legitimate (and constructive) criticism of the editorial integrity of an article (vetting), meant to help the whole of Wikipedia, was met with leering and banning. Such practices merit Occupy and Anon taking larger steps in rectifying matters. As a member of both, and of the scientific community at large, having heard these charges, it is without question I challenge this article's editors to begin a detailed account of the facts (both the charges and their merits). It is not the place of Wikipedia to provide independent research, but to provide merely a tally of the scores. That Lawrence Solomon criticized Connolley is of importance, not whether his claims were in fact true. Merely that a major climatologist and public figure wrote said articles demands attention. The consensus of the scientific, historical, legal, journalistic community at large shall be the gauge by which the article's conclusions fall. I await further discussion. Dragoon91786 (talk) 11:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Wall Street Journal article

With reference to this reversion: Isn't it okay to say, "The Wall Street Journal said x"? They did, after all, say it, so that makes what was written in the article a fact, not an opinion. Also, facts sometimes appear in opinion pieces, as in this case. Feel free to cite/quote a pertinent section or quotation from policy/guidelines if you find something applicable. Thanks. Leucosticte (talk) 01:22, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Editorials and opinion pieces are never usable for claims of fact. And editorials by named individuals can never be cited as the opinion of the paper that publishes them. In fact, many of the better paper invite very different opinion writers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:25, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't remember reading anything in WP policy that editorials cannot be sources for facts. Surely a major paper like the WSJ has fact checkers go over such content, or has other measures in place to ensure that potentially libelous material doesn't make it into the paper, even if it is in an editorial? And unless I'm mistaken, if a newspaper publishes an editorial without putting it in an "Other views" section or otherwise stating that it's not the views of the newspaper, then it can be presumed to be the opinion of the newspaper.
I apologize in advance if I'm wrong about WP policy; it is so voluminous that it's hard to be aware of everything in it. If you can quote or link to something specific, that would be helpful. Thanks. Leucosticte (talk) 01:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
These articles are a loosing proposition. That Reference 27 (A marginal published source of an invited book section from the proceedings of a conference using interviews with some unnamed WP editors) is a gold standard, and an actual published RS is not only shows just how biased these articles really are. Most annoying of all is that Stephan knows exactaly what happened, and that the WJ account is accurate. Arzel (talk) 02:16, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
We shouldn't be loosing standards on biographies, if anything we should be tightening them. The WSJ has a track record of misleading opinion pieces about climate change science, and from what I've seen this particular account is woefully inaccurate. Arzel, you should know better. . . dave souza, talk 08:42, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Still, the Wikipedia Arbcom pages are primary sources, and the WSJ is a secondary source, which makes the latter theoretically more reliable under the assumptions our policies make. This is another illustrate of why that policy is kinda silly. Everyone who's played telephone knows it's more reliable to get information straight from the horse's mouth than from a friend of a friend. Each intermediary one adds to the chain introduces more potential distortion of information. Leucosticte (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Yep. WSJ is inaccurate of course as well as Oped. Finding a notable secondary source which matches easily accessible non notable primary data has proved elusive. --BozMo talk 18:28, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
From the ever impartial BozMo who openly admits here to being Mr. Connolley's most devoted fan. 68.146.78.154 (talk) 03:42, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Notable in the world?

There's nothing notable about working as a software engineer, blogging, moderating a niche website, graduating with an advanced degree etc. Why does this page even exist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.91.14.223 (talk) 00:02, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


This guy is not notable. Being a wikipedia editor of articles about climate is not notable. This article should not exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.198.87.140 (talk) 08:02, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Did you not see the link below? This article has been put up for deletion 4 times and kept every time, do you seriously think going to the talk page and saying "This guy is not notable." will change things? IRWolfie- (talk) 11:20, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/William_Connolley_(4th_nomination)--BozMo talk 12:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
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