Revision as of 07:24, 10 October 2008

If you're here to talk about conflicts of interest, please read (all of!) this.

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The Holding Pen

Secret trials considered harmful

Well, I've read the evidence: general impression is that this is revenge by DHMO's friends for his RFA failure. Why? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

And now I've read the judgement. And it seems to me that arbcomm has run itself off the rails. It would seem that they've got themselves infected by the bad blood from DHMO's RFA. So:

• Given the sanctions, which are more humiliating that restrictive, the case was clearly non-urgent.
• There is a good deal of interpretation and selective quoting in the evidence. I don't see any eveidence that OM was given any opportunity to respond, and that is bad (looking at OM's page, I think this response from arbcomm is revealing: when asked directly if OM was given the chance to respond, the reply is weaselly).
• I'm missing the result of the user RFC that obviously the arbcomm insisted on being gone through first. Could someone point me to it?
• Could all these people please get back to the job of deciding the cases validly put before them, most obviously the G33 and SV/etc ones

William M. Connolley (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, whatever the actual substance of the complaint: I'm deeply concerned about ArbCom (or unspecified parts of it) trawling through a years worth of contributions, selectively quoting parts that support a certain point of view, assemble all this into a large document, and without further input from the user in question or from the community issue an edict from above. And for good measure they (?) declare a priori that an appeal is possible, but will be moot. Well, maybe it's acceptable because, as we all know, the committee is infallible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I admit, my prior opinion was that arbcomm is generally slow but usually got the right answer. In this case, I'm doubtful. BTW, I'm almost sure I had a run-in with OM once. Can anyone remember when/where? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:50, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

In case you have not yet noticed: This seems to be deeper. . --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:58, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Holy @#%$! I was wondering how all of them took leave of their senses at once. R. Baley (talk) 22:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

!?! That looks bad William M. Connolley (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Is this some sort of hallucination?????? WTF??? BTW, you did run into me, because you blocked someone in a manner that I felt unfair. When I found out you are/were one of the "good guys" on global warming, I had mixed feelings. Now, I feel safe that you're watching over the article, especially since Raymond Arritt is gone.OrangeMarlin 22:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This whole notion of "good guys" and "bad guys" is a seriously poisonous and harmful way of seeing fellow contributors. It encourages the worst excesses and does not lend itself to reaching consensus with the dark side/evil ones/whatever. Orderinchaos 16:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I like to think that the people reverting vandalism might be considered "good", and the vandals "bad". Perhaps thats a bit too old-school, and you prefer a more nuanced approach? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm taking William's interpretation of good and bad editors. However, I consider NPOV vandals to be vandals too. Yes there is a nuance to all of this, and that's the problem. It's difficult.OrangeMarlin 16:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

So whats going on?

Most discussion is at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Orangemarlin and other matters, it seems.

Presumably someone will be along to sort out this car crash at some point. In the meantime I've been trying to see whats going on, and I've found...

• As we know, KL has repudiated FT2's postings . But rather suggests that secret proceedings were indeed going on.
• tB has "temporarily" blanked the page , which is nice, though not as good as "permanently"
• Jimbo has weighed in, saying basically "I haven't got a clue whats going on" . Later updated to the Arbitration Committee itself has done absolutely nothing here , which does rather suggest FT2 acting alone in acting, though doesn't address discussions.
• CM is cryptic turns on the interpretation of "formal" in "formal proceeding", a semantic point that is not vacuous
• JPG says its miscommunication and begs for patience but confirms the secret case
• FN thanks us for our patience as does Mv
• Jv appears to endorse FT2's version, adding the OM case to those recently closed and posting the result to ANI . How does Jv know this is the will of arbcomm? And interesting question, which I've just asked him, and which he is studiously ignoring.

Other arbs appear to be far too busy to deal with trivia of this type.

So its hard to know what *has* happened. But clearly its not just FT2 running amok, or the other arbs would say so. My best guess is that secret trials (discussions?) were indeed in progress and that they are too embarrassed to admit it; and that there is some frantic behind-the-scenes talking going on to try to get a story straight.

• CM . The statement is bizarre and is going to leave a lot of people (including me) unhappy. It looks like "it was a regrettable miscommunication, please don't ask any more questions" is going to be the line.

William M. Connolley (talk) 18:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC) & 20:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

What stuns me is how any arbitrator thought that allegations of uncivil behavior (however true) needed to be urgently addressed in a blatantly out-of-process manner while a case of full-bore socking by a repeat offender, resulting in high-profile articles being locked for weeks, was allowed to languish. Hopefully the committee realizes they cannot put the business of Arbitration on hold to focus solely on this drama, and will continue the voting. - Merzbow (talk) 03:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup, still baffled by that one William M. Connolley (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it looks like the official line is it all ended happily ever after , nothing to see, move along here William M. Connolley (talk) 06:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

And FT2 is terribly busy

Hmm, so... it all ended happily ever after and everyone forgot about it? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't forgotten. Who knows if it will happen again or is happening now. OrangeMarlin 21:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

FT2 is back secret activities. I can't believe it.OrangeMarlin 23:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley

This arbitration case has closed and the full decision can be viewed by clicking the above link. Both Geogre (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) & yourself are indefinitely prohibited from taking any administrative action with respect to Giano II (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), or edit wars in which Giano II is an involved party.

Furthermore, please note that the temporary injunction in the case now ceases to be in effect.

Regards, Daniel (talk) 03:51, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Arbcomm at its worst: a feeble wimp-out and a waste of everyones time. But thanks for letting me know William M. Connolley (talk) 20:19, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Since I'm here: 2008-10-02 Block log); 23:08:48 . . Moreschi (Talk | contribs | block) unblocked "Giano II (Talk | contribs)" (c'mon, for Giano this was very mild, and we can't bully people with blocks into writing more kindly). Apparently is not incivil; and we have an explicit double-standard for G William M. Connolley (talk) 07:41, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Current

Schools Misplaced Pages

Anything serious missing from environment and climate and the weather? --BozMo talk 10:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Env: Deforestation. Is it odd to have Org F, Coll F, but not Farming itself? Having Oceanic climate is a bit weird, because you don't have all the other possible climate types. Earth Day? Environmental law? Ecology? There's a lot a lot in Category:Environment William M. Connolley (talk) 19:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Farming is a divert to agriculture which is in the DVD but not listed seperately as farming. I need to update the redirect tables. SchoolsWP:Ecology is there but in another index, I will double list it. Environmental law I am adding. --BozMo talk 09:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

That Bo Nordell paper

Could you fill me in with more details? I've removed the item after seeing your note. E_dog95' 10:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes: here. You'll notice thats my own blog, and a chatty item at that, so its not usable as a source, but I'm not trying to in this instance: I'm using it as an explanation of why we shouldn't use Nordell. Note that Nordell gets the waste heat terms correct; his error is elsewhere William M. Connolley (talk) 15:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

OK thanks for pointing that out. I may run another potential source by you later. E_dog95' 18:34, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

So wot is the human contribution to global warming then?

Dear Mr Connolley

I would be most grateful if you could kindly provide me with any scientifically accepted values to the variables V, W, X, Y, & Z in the following propositions, as I have already requested of anybody in Talk: Global Warming:

1) X% of the global warming of approximately 0.65 °C in the last half century has been caused by a Z% increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions,

2) X% of the global warming of approximately 0.65 °C in the last half century has been caused by a Y% increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

3) X% of the global warming of approximately 0.65 °C in the last half century has been caused by a W% increase in the anthropogenic proportion of greenhouse gas concentrations

4) The anthropogenic proportion of greenhouse gases is now V%

As you may appreciate, the unfortunate impression created by the current Wiki article on GW is that nobody really has a scientific precise quantitative clue what the human contribution to global warming is, which surely cannot be the case.

Best Regards

--Logicus (talk) 18:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read up on this instead? Your questions 1-3 are the same one (Z=Y=W). Since the increase in GHG's can be attributed ~100% to humans. As for #4 try comparing the pre-industrial levels with the current levels - and you can figure it out for yourself. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually the proportion of the GHG increase attributable to human activity is more like 230% (i.e., the airborne fraction is around 0.43). Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually - perhaps not? Per "Natural land and ocean CO2 sinks have removed 54% (or 4.8 PgC per year) of all CO2 emitted from human activities during the period 2000-2007." 57% or 54% depends on timeframe and I suspect lower now but I have no issue with the precise figure. If this removal is in response to anthropogenic emissions, doesn't this natural removal get allocated as an anthropogenic effect? I think Williams slightly over 100% is correct based on solar and volcanic forcings being to have a slight cooling effect. crandles (talk) 20:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

At risk of being stripped of my science credentials, possibly being shot by the side of the road by the National Academy of Sciences (thereby preventing me from ever becoming a member, sadly), exactly how can we test, let alone prove, that humans have any effect on the weather? I understand the data, but the world was warmer 2000 years ago, and there are what 100X more humans on the planet than there were then? Logicus (who needs to quit using words as if he were mobile texting) asks questions that I'd love to have answered. OrangeMarlin 22:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Which data sets are you drawing from that lead you to believe the Earth was warmer 2000 years ago? -_Skyemoor (talk) 13:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Remember your basic calculus? Velocity, acceleration, and changes in rate of acceleration? This would have something to do with 1) an unprecedented acceleration of warming in an already very warm period; 2) CO and CH levels, which are known to be closely correlated with imminent rises in temperature, levels unmatched since in something like 125,000 years; and 3) unprecedented acceleration of increase in CO, and likely in CH levels. ... Kenosis (talk) 23:49, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I suspect there is a common misconception that atmospheric models are constructed by fitting historical records and extrapolating into the future. They aren't. Instead they combine the physics of radiative transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid dynamics, the basics of which were worked out decades or centuries ago. Historical rates of temperature change aren't directly used to predict the future (albeit past observations are useful for testing and refining our computational methods by "predicting the past" so to speak). As an aside I don't think we should be using William's talk page for chat and tutorial, though I suppose I just did. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed you did.  ;-) Nice explanation; thanks. I'm outta here. ... Kenosis (talk) 00:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, carefully vetting guests are welcome William M. Connolley (talk) 07:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Ouch. I guess my highly scientific pee theory isn't welcome then. sad puppy KillerChihuahua 15:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Its Magic Pee. That's what causes the warming. Really. KillerChihuahua 22:30, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear Logicus, you are clearly a person who values precision! This is indeed welcome; I applaud your attitude. But alas, you are falling well below your own high standards, a failing which I cannot doubt you deplore now that you are aware of it. I can help you though: you have erred in my title: I will embarass you no further until you have corrected your oversight William M. Connolley (talk) 08:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)