Information gleaned from Wikipedia should always be taken with a grain of salt. As much as open-sourcing a knowledge base has certainly given the site a well-deserved reputation for being a first-stop in doing research, this situation points out (again) that bias can creep in, even with multiple hands contributing.
Lawrence Solomon at the National Post writes about a topic that WUWT readers have known about for a long time: How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.
We’ve known for some time that Wikipedia can’t be trusted to provide unbiased climate information. Solomon starts off by talking about Climategate emails.
The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD.
The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history.
He then focuses on RealClimate.org co-founder William Connolley, who has “touched†5,428 Wikipedia articles with his unique brand of RC centric editing….
It just seems that almost all the time, especially for highly-political issues, the censorship winds up leaning to the left. This goes against what the Left says they stand up for; truth, free-speech, the marketplace of ideas, blah blah blah. It’s just that when many of them are given power over ideas they do precisely what they accuse of Right of doing; censoring, silencing dissent, and all that. Textbook projection.
But at least the "many eyes" principle, of having many editors attempt to ensure fairness and full disclosure, is working. Now, at least. It’s too bad that it took a major Canadian newspaper to finally get some traction in this particular case, and that the editors at Wikipedia were blind to it, but at least we might get some pullback from the bias. Now, at least.
13 users commented in " Climate Information "Photoshopped" in Wikipedia "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackFWIW, the 5000 figure is all articles Connolley’s edited, not climate articles. E.g reverting random vandalism on an otherwise untouched page is included there. There’s little evidence besides guilt by association that’s been pushed here. Can you find a specific example of a misdeed? Plenty of people think Wikipedia leans left, but I keep hearing that it leans right. Funny, huh?
I have had several of my professors tell me not to obtain ANY information/resources from Wikipedia, period, you just can’t be sure it is all factual.
Pull back the curtain and you will find William M. Connolley still hard at work making bogus false PRO-AGW Wikipedia Edits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/William_M._Connolley
He has made over 40,033 edits and counting!
http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/count/index.php?name=William+M.+Connolley&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia
Wikipedia is the worst place to research controversial topics. It is ridden with bias, weak sourcing and trivia.
Wikipedia is the amongst the best places to research Pokemon characters, obscure albums, and to see photos of wikipedians’ erections.
Elsie Milan,
Are you kidding? He has removed the midievil warm period refferences in wikipedia and has replaced images with Michael Mann’s fictitious “Hockey Stick”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warm_period
I’m not kidding. You point to that article, and you see an article there, so I don’t think he’s exactly “removed” it. Give me concrete examples here! Show me a CONCRETE ACTION that constitutes manipulation! If you’re right, it should be easy! All I see is a graph that says that it was around as hot today as in the Middle Ages. That’s trivial unless you know WHY it got hotter then!
The hockey stick may be bogus, but it’s not as bogus as you think. There’s a midway truth if you stop and carefully examine the science, and that’s what Connolley and the rest want to show, just they get painted as pushing a ZOMG HOCKEY STICK campaign because of the people who think there’s nothing going at all, because otherwise people don’t LISTEN. Whether or not global warming is anthropogenic, humans ought to not pollute as much. Whether or not you like it, someday we WILL run out of fossil fuels. By that time I damn hope we’ve got decent solar, hydro and wind power.
Elsie… I agree we should not polute, but you have lost me on the hockey stick..
Have a nice day! 🙂
Who’s to be believed?
The Wikipedia that was written, by many many hands or the National Post article which was written by one guy, and among *many* other flaws:
a) claimed that William Connolley edited 5,428 climate articles
– he didn’t that’s the total number of articles edited; there’s probably not even that many climate articles in the whole wikipedia.
b) claimed that he banned whoever he wanted
– he didn’t, banning people is done according to a process, and has procedures for contesting it which requires lots of other admins to get involved; it’s not possible for him to ban people without other admins picking up on it. If he was doing anything like that Connolley would have been permanently desysoped and *banned*. (He actually has been desysoped but that was because of an unrelated and pretty minor incorrect use of tools on a ‘cold fusion’ article about physics.) He’s still allowed to edit because he hasn’t really done anything very wrong. If ANY of the claims in the NP article were true, he would have been banned outright long ago. You wouldn’t believe how scrutinised admins are on the wikipedia!
c) claimed that he removed articles at whim
– that’s just about possible, but *very* unlikely, and if he had, there’s a process for contesting such deletions, other admins would also almost certainly have become aware; and deleted articles are still visible to other admins. Deleting articles is a very normal part of being an admin; there’s a lot of garbage articles created by vandals and so forth.
d) “Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.”
– LOL, that’s the funniest of all. Admins don’t have any special editorial control; in fact they’re *banned* from using their administrative powers for doing that.
In other words, this article makes several huge claims, none of which are actually true.
By way of contrast the theory of anthropogenic global warming also makes claims which *most* scientists think are *probably* true; but that they have evidence for.
Where is the edits and evidence that Connolley abused his administration in the way the NP claims? In all seriousness there isn’t any. It’s a puff-piece. It sounds plausible, but when you look at it carefully it falls apart.
@elsie milan
“Whether or not global warming is anthropogenic, humans ought to not pollute as much. Whether or not you like it, someday we WILL run out of fossil fuels.”
So then by your quote above I surmise that you are admitting that the global warming nuts have an agenda. I also suppose you feel the end (polluting less) justifies the means (lying to the American people and creating an armageddon-like fairy tale)
That’s a slippery-slope you support there, my friend. What else do you believe it’s okay for the government to lie about and collect our tax money in the name of???
Ian…. Do you work for William Connolley?
General user info
Username: William M. Connolley
User groups: autoreviewer, rollbacker
First edit: Feb 07, 2003 11:46:59
Unique articles edited: 5,502
Average edits per page: 7.29
Total edits (including deleted): 40,118
Deleted edits: 1,301
Live edits: 38,817
Logs
Users blocked: 2029
Pages deleted: 510
Pages moved: 66
Pages patrolled: 120
Pages protected: 173
Pages restored: 18
Users unblocked: 223
Pages unprotected: 29
Files uploaded: 146
Top edited articles
Article
•1050 – Global_warming
•334 – Global_warming_controversy
•297 – Greenhouse_effect
•242 – Global_cooling
•231 – Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change
•226 – Greenhouse_gas
•191 – Kyoto_Protocol
•188 – List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scienti…
•183 – Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
•177 – Temperature_record_of_the_2nd_millennium
@Ronald Williams
This has nothing to do with environmentalism except the fact that it hurts the cause. This is about money and power. Plain and simple. You should be outraged that fraudulent science has given a black eye to real environmentalism!
@”ronald williams”
No, though you’ve provided an excellent example of a straw man argument!
I said that eventually humans will run out of fossil fuels, and you try to say that I’m admitting some sort of agenda. WTF? It’s a fact; use of fossil fuels will eventually outstrip production, since there’s a limited amount around to be drilled. Maybe not in our LIFETIMES, but damn, it’s a fact.
And no, I never said anything about the end goal of pollution-reduction justifying lying. Of course, that also begs the question of whether it’s lying in the first place, which has yet to be shown.
Essentially all climate scientists agree that global warming exists, though the exact rate, whether it’s anthropogenic, etc. aren’t proven, sure. But anthropogenic global warming is the most plausible theory, and so until significant evidence is found to contradict that theory (and no, there isn’t significant contradictory evidence), it’ll be the accepted one.
The problem isn’t the science, it’s the politics. I don’t think it’s OK for the government to lie, and I hate taxes just as much as you do. But I do think that regardless of whether there’s global warming or not, we ought to develop means of cleaner energy.
I just think it’s unfair that Connolley gets demonized for giving the scientific understanding because of the political overtones to the subject of his contribution.
Man’s contribution to Co2 is measured in MegaTons while the oceans’ contribution is measured in Gigatons, but it doesn’t bother you that any atempt to control mans portion would hardest it the poor and underdeveloped nations? No… the ilk of Connolley could care less about the unfortunate of the world. It’s all about him. Environment and quality of life be damned
Leave A Reply