Revision as of 08:11, 21 June 2007

I'm fairly busy in the Real World at the moment. Expect delays here... or not. But it's my excuse anyway...

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

You are welcome to leave messages here. I will reply here (rather than on, say, your user page). Conversely, if I've left a message on your talk page, I'm watching it, so please reply there.

If your messages are rude, wandering or repetitive I will likely edit them. If you want to leave such a message, put it on your talk page and leave me a note here & I'll go take a look. In general, I prefer to conduct my discussions in public. If you have a question for me, put it here (or on the article talk, or...) rather than via email. If I've blocked you for 3RR this applies particularly strongly: your arguments for unblock, unless for some odd reason particularly sensitive, should be made in public, on your talk page. See-also WMC:3RR.

In the dim and distant past were... /The archives. As of about 2006/06, I don't archive, just remove. Thats cos I realised I never looked in the archives.

The Holding Pen

Atmospheric circulation pic

Thanks for the pic you added to this article. It's very interesting, and I am intrigued by some of the anomalies it shows. Denni☯ 01:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Denni. Thanks! All part of my very very slow atmospheric dynamics project... more to come... slowly... William M. Connolley 22:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC).

Trend estimation with Auto-Correlated Data

William: This article you started is a great topic! I am just wondering if you have detailed information to add to the section about auto-correlated data. I am facing this problem now, and am trying to get information from papers and textbooks. --Roland 21:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah well, IMHO what to do with auto-correlated data is an ongoing research topic. Top tip: divide the ndof by something like (1+ac1) (or is it ac1^2...) if the autocorr isn't too extreme. There is some formula like (1+ac1^2+ac2^2+...) if its strongly auto-correlated... but... its a bit of a mess, I think. Err, thats why I never expanded that bit. The von Zstorch and Zwiers book covers it, somewhat. William M. Connolley 22:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I added a link to autoregressive moving average models JQ 23:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Linda Hall editor

User:204.56.7.1 has been blocked four times in the last month for 3RR (once by you). He is now performing wholsale reversions without comment (see at Radio ) This user as you probably know, has a long history of refusing to collaborate. He ignored my talk page request. Any suggestions? --Blainster 20:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is that 204. is Reddi. Reddi is limited to 1R per week. Establishing the connection past doubt is difficult; but the edit patterns are very similar. You could post a WP:RFCU. Or you could just list 204. on the 3RR page together with the note of Reddis arbcomm parole and see if that does any good. Or maybe I'll just block it... shall I? Oh go on, yes I will... William M. Connolley 21:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

My Reddimeter displays 8.5 on a scale from 0 to 10: Selection of topics. likes patents, likes templates. Only the tireless lamenting on article talk pages is missing. --Pjacobi 21:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Reddi apparently back

... with another sockpuppet KarlBunker 19:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there no stopping him? I've blocked that one; if he persists, will semi it William M. Connolley 19:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The Templeton Foundation

The Templeton Foundation used to provide grants for ID conferences and courses. According to The New York Times, Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, later asked ID proponents to submit proposals for actual research. "They never came in," said Harper, and that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned. "From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said. The Templeton Foundation has since rejected the Discovery Institute's entreaties for more funding, Harper states. "They're political - that for us is problematic," and that while Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the science," "what I see is much more focused on public policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth."

I'd think that while individual members/beneficiaries of the Foundation's largess may embrace ID, the the Foundation itself is trying to distance itself from the ID movement, but keeping in mind that the Discovery Institute, the hub of the ID movement, actively tries to cultivate ambiguity around its own motives, actions and members with the aim of portraying ID as more substantial and more widely accepted than it actually is, as the Dover Trial ruling shows (it's worth reading). FeloniousMonk 21:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Thats interesting and useful William M. Connolley 21:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Improving the models

I find this to be a fascinating example of the improvement of weather models over time. Do you happen to know of any comparable quantitative metrics by which climate models can be seen to have improved over time? Dragons flight 07:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Nice pic. The one I'm more used to seeing is the length-of-useful-forecast graph, which shows similar improvement. However... no I don't know comparable pics from climate models. The obvious problem would be that you can't do it year-on-year, climate models being far less frequent: the hadley center has arguably only had 3 model incarnations. They do have a "model index" which finds that hadgem1 is better than hadcm3, but I don't know if that was ever applied back to hadcm2, much less to other centres William M. Connolley 13:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

when you say 3 models, does that include or exclude improvements in spatial resolution as computing power has improved? Dragons flight 16:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I meant hadcm2, hadcm3 and hadgem1. There are others, but it could get complex. Do you want to include atmos-only models? Those are the "official" releases, sort of. There are various experiments with different spatial res, but its not clear if those were meant to be improvements... William M. Connolley 17:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well at the moment I am just sort of curious about what is being labeled a "model". I could see the term being used to refer to either a set of coupled differential equations (which might then be implemented on a variety of different grid sizes), or to a specific implementation on a specific grid size. Do you ever take your differential systems, and leaving them as is, try to increase the number of grid elements through the use of more powerful computers? Dragons flight 17:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no. "GCM" means the full set of code, on the whole. Ie, big set of PDEs and params on top. But also, in general, it means a specific config and setup. "hadcm3" means a given code version, plus given ancils (e.g. land sea mask), plus a given resolution. You *can* run it at, say, higher rez; but there is no guarantee that its better. But yes, I know there were various projects with higher rez versions... the problem is that because of the about grid^3-4 dependency, you can't run much higher rez, if the model is anywhere close to state-of-the-art William M. Connolley 22:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Photo of pulpit in Stephansdom in Vienna

I want to express my appreciation for the photo you uploaded; its shadow and contrast really bring out the relief and allow the user to see it well. I wish all the photos uploaded were as carefully composed. --StanZegel (talk) 20:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, thats very kind to stop by so politely. I did take care over the photo - I have very fond memories of that pulpit from a cycle trip in 1986 William M. Connolley 20:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Glad to have you here

With all the disinformation around, it's nice to know that there are a few scientists here on WP who aren't willing to parrot whatever their corporate masters send in a memo. Be well and to the extent that it even matters, know that you have the respect of a lot of us! :) -- User:RyanFreisling @ 14:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh. Thanks. It *is* nice to know that occaisionally :-) William M. Connolley 17:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me second Ryan's statement - I find it very reassuring to have you around on the climatology articles. Raul654 19:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope you don't feel like taking it back after I hack Inhofe... William M. Connolley 20:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thirded. I've just been skimming the conversations you've been in with various people and am amazed at your patience and dedication. It's a shame you have to go through the same disputes time and again with users who don't have either the scientific training or rational mindset required to reason about these complex issues. Hopefully Misplaced Pages will evolve to a point where such distractional arguments require less of your time. 129.215.11.58 21:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

To Bdj

Can you give an outsider who's been pretty much frustrated to the point of leaving the page a quick-and-dirty as to why the page on Global warming dedicates less than a dozen words to the highly publicised controversies surrounding the science? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think I can. Firstly, this page is primarily about the *science* over GW - not the politics or press. Hence, it tries to give a balance of the science, not the press coverage. If you're basing your expectations on the latter, you'll be disappointed.

Secondly, what do we have? there are a few scientists who disagree about the primary causes of the observed warming and A hotly contested political and public debate also has yet to be resolved, regarding whether anything should be done, and what could be cost-effectively done to reduce or reverse future warming, or to deal with the expected consequences and Contrasting with this view, other hypotheses have been proposed to explain all or most of the observed increase in global temperatures, including: the warming is within the range of natural variation; the warming is a consequence of coming out of a prior cool period, namely the Little Ice Age; and the warming is primarily a result of variances in solar radiation. and There is a controversy over whether present trends are anthropogenic. For a discussion of the controversy, see global warming controversy. . And a whole section on solar variation. So I guess your "less than a dozen" is meant rhetorically.

Thirdly, what controversies are you expecting? Solar is in there; HSC isn't (and maybe should be touched on, though its not all that relevant).

Fourthly... its just about impossible to talk about this on t:GW while everyone is wasting time rehashing old arguments about "consensus" and sourcing William M. Connolley 17:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay. That makes sense about the science, although it would be nice to see a better cross-section of the interpretations. Regarding your "fourth," it's why I just cut to you. Thanks for the straight answer. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Your query

Hi William, it's correct that we're not supposed to use wikis as sources (except in very limited circumstances, namely in the same way we'd use any self-published source), but I don't see how that would apply to the instrumental temperature record. We're allowed to use any primary, secondary, or tertiary source that's reliable. I don't know what kind of source the ITR is, but it seems to me something we ought to be using. SlimVirgin 18:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

What we are talking about here is to not repeat references already contained in sub-articles. I.e. when referencing the instrumental temperature record in global warming, it should be sufficient to Wikilink there, not to repeat the references over and over again. --Stephan Schulz 18:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It would depend on the context. It's almost always better to repeat the references, unless the material is completely uncontentious, in which case you could simply link to the Misplaced Pages article and anyone who wants to know more can read that. But if the claims are "challenged or likely to be challenged," as the policy says, then it's better to supply citations even if they've been repeated elsewhere. SlimVirgin 18:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how that is compatible with your original reply, sorry. How can we cite ITR in this way if tertiary sources are forbidden? WP:OR sez Tertiary sources are publications, such as encyclopedias, that sum up other secondary sources, and sometimes primary sources. Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source... All articles on Misplaced Pages should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources... Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely entirely on primary sources (for example, current events or legal cases). This, as written, would appear to imply that tertiary sources are forbidden. I would suggest that it needs to be re-written. William M. Connolley 18:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, I don't see how this can work with WP:SUMMARY. For complex topics, it's easily possible to go multiple levels of recursion. Repeating all references will destroy the whole idea of using summaries. --Stephan Schulz 19:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, though the wikilawyers would tell you thats only a guideline :-). It points you are History of the Yosemite area, which indeed is woefully unreferenced, by the absurd standards some are pushing. So I think WP:OR is miswritten, and needs revision William M. Connolley 19:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I would need to see the specific example to understand what the issue is. But generally, tertiary sources are allowed if they're high quality; the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, would be allowed. The secondary/tertiary distinction can be a bit of a red herring that's best ignored: what matters is whether the source is a good one, and whether it's used correctly in the article. As for summary style, you summarize the contents of another article, but in summarizing, you presumably make a couple of claims, so these particular claims should be sourced. That doesn't mean you have to repeat every single source that's in the main article — just sources for the particular claims you're repeating. SlimVirgin 19:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, thats what I would have thought. But I don't see how this is compatible with a literal reading of the OR policy, as quoted above. Its all very well to agree in friendly discussion with you that the policy is a red herring... but its not pleasant to have the policy quoted in unfriendly edit wars. If you want an example, then consider: For example, I could just write "John Adams was born in 1735," and leave it at that because that Misplaced Pages article SAYS he was born in 1735 SO IT MUST BE TRUE! Wrong. That is not how Misplaced Pages works, I'm afraid. Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source. How does that sound to you? William M. Connolley 19:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, fair point, the policy needs to be tweaked. At the moment, there's a discussion about whether V and NOR are to be merged into ATT, so I hope we can leave any tweaking until after that's decided. Cheers, SlimVirgin 22:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure its a good idea to leave it, otherwise we'll get edits like this being done on the basis of over-zealous interpretation of the current policy William M. Connolley 22:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you arguing the article adequately cites it sources? ~ UBeR 22:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

When an article achieves FA status, the adequacy of sourcing is a major criteria. The article passed that hurdle a little while back and the quantity and quality of citations have improved even after that. Are there areas that could be improved? No doubt, but overall the article is adequately sourced and the current round of nitpicking is not helping to improve the article. Vsmith 01:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Current

World Climate Report

Hello MDr. Connolley. You removed this clause from the page "but clearly evinces an acceptance of anthropogenic global warming" saying that you saw no such evidence. I then reverted it and added supporting evidence in two references. You then removed the clause once again, saying that the first reference didn't show such acceptance and that the second was not WCR. To address the second first, as I see it the Michaels article that I cited in reference #2 is relevant because he is the chief editor of WCR. His viewpoint dominates. And that article shows he accepts AGW and CO2 as an AGHG. Regarding reference #1, it reads "There is no doubt that fossil fuel burning around the world is causing an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, and CO2 remains the number one anthropo-generated greenhouse gas." I think this is pretty clear and is in keeping with Michaels views as he has expressed them in numerous venues. I think this puts the burden of proof on you to provide clear and incontrovertible evidence that WCR and Michaels do not accept AGW. Finally, and I hope you don't take this personally as it is not meant as an ad hominem, but I note that you are a member of a rival organization to WCR, namely Real Climate. One might see a conflict of interest here, especially in the absence of any evidence against WCR and Michaels's acceptance of AGW. Cordially, Geoffrey Plauche (http://en.wikipedia.org/User:Veritas_Noctis)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Veritas Noctis (talk • contribs) 20:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

RealClimate as a rival of WCR???? The mind boggles... Raymond Arritt 20:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I added the following to the discussion page for the WCR article earlier today: "I added another quote from the source in reference #1 ("ethane is far more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2 – the same mass of methane would warm the earth 23 times more than the same mass of CO2.") to buttress my claim that WCR accepts AGW. Geoffrey Allan Plauche 22:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)" Perhaps the first quote by itself isn't decisive on the issue of AGW, but the addition of this one (from the same WCR article) ought to be enough. By the way, I meant "rival" merely in the sense that they have often differing views on global warming. Geoffrey Allan Plauche 05:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh...and I dropped the word "clearly" too, if that helps. Geoffrey Allan Plauche 05:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

This would all have been better on the WCR talk page - so I shall reply there. But Raymond is correct; and your assertion of COI is wrong William M. Connolley 09:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll keep that in mind about proper venue. I guess we disagree on the conflict of interest issue. I certainly wouldn't say it precludes you from monitoring the article, but I do think it places an extra burden to be objective. By the way, as you will see on the WCR talk page, I'll take your suggestion on wording it in the negative rather than making a positive claim. That is satisfactory. I just don't like to put nothing at all because the phrase global warming skeptic has a strong implication of rejecting the idea of global warming period or anthropogenic global warming, and I don't think that they reject either GW or AGW outright. Regarding the note you left on my talk page: I am aware of WP:3RR, thank you, but I don't believe I reverted more than three times. I only reverted two times yesterday, in fact. The other changes I made were not reverts. They were either unrelated to the issue being disputed or were separate attempts after the second revert to satisfy you on the issue (not an undoing of your own changes). Cordially, Geoffrey Allan Plauche 14:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

COI: see top of this page (now). As for WCR... my opinion (which of course I won't put onto the page itself) is I think rather similar to RA's: that they present different faces to different people: they are trying to appear skeptical, because that is their audience, whilst mostly sticking to the facts, which is a very tricky thing to do, given the facts. Which makes for some convoluted writing. As for the reading, I don't know, since I don't William M. Connolley 15:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Global warming

Wow, I have tremendous admiration for you so...

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		For tirelessly fighting POV pushers on the Global warming article and others I, Aaron Bowen, award you this defender of the Wiki barnstar. Aaron Bowen 00:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had a similar problems on a much smaller scale with a user at another article and the whole process was so stressful that it almost made me not want to edit anymore. After seeing your work and all you've been through, I'm almost ashamed to admit that I let it get to me. Aaron Bowen 00:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much - I've copied it to my main page for a day or two William M. Connolley 10:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Seconding this. I mostly just lurk on the Global Warming pages, since I don't really have the expertise to debate it effectively, but I am always gladdened to see you keep up the good fight. :) --Ashenai 11:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

looking for input

Hi William, I'm a researcher of online communities and I'm looking for some help understanding the ways that niche content areas like climate science are maintained in Misplaced Pages. You seem to have quite a bit of experience. :) If you would be willing to spare some time to chat with me, please drop me a note at aforte(at)cc.gatech.edu. Hope to hear from you. --Andicat 23:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Hello. Although I agree with it, I believe your post at 3RR was a little bit redundant. I agree, they need to discuss it on the article talk page, which I had just suggested. peace. Lsi john 18:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

IUGG?

Are you going? I'll be there Mon-Wed of the second week for the regional climate stuff. Oh, and another laff riot courtesy of Ed: . Raymond Arritt 22:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Sadly no... I was half going but then didn't book a hotel until the nearest available was 100 km away... Have a good time. Nice to see Ed keeping CP unreliable: 100s of times in 1Myr: wonderful William M. Connolley 08:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Semi-Protect

Good God... I know that lots of people on here disagree with your stance on GW, but seriously... half of the history of your page is vandalism, and the other is reverts. Can user pages be protected? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.15.226.72 (talk • contribs)

OF course. But I don't see the need William M. Connolley 18:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

James Hansen Edits

Mr. Connolley,

Who is Mr Connolley?

Your continued deletions of my edits to Dr. James Hansen Misplaced Pages article are censorship.

Please discuss this on talk:James Hansen William M. Connolley 20:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Climate Change Controversy

The topic is wrought with seemingly contradictory views

I think you'll find "fraught" is more appropriate. It *is* just about possible to make sense of "wrought", if you really mean that the entire topic has been deliberately constructed out of... William M. Connolley 20:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Coming from Dr "don't you dare correct my English" Connolley that's a little rich... --BozMo talk 11:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I find wrought to be appropriate as it expresses my view that the discussion on climate change requires a great deal of exertion in order to produce a constructive discussion. It appears as though some others don't believe such discussion is productive but rather believe it is simply laborious. I too own a dictionary Mr. Connolley. I also use it. As to my claims of censorship on your part, you conveniently deleted my comments regarding your charges of censorship on the Global Warming debate which you made on your blog. Hmmm. Did you find that to be inconvenient? Regards, David Keelan

I think you're just covering up a simple grammatical error, but who cares really? Claims of censorship are usually tedious; not sure what you mean wrt my blog. Please learnt to sign your posts with ~~~~ William M. Connolley 13:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Environmental Record Task Force

You are being recruited by the Environmental Record Task Force, a collaborative project committed to accurately and consistently representing the environmental impact of policymakers, corporations, and institutions throughout the encyclopedia. Join us!

Dr. Connolley,
I'm hoping you'll come by to have a look at our new task force and consider lending a hand. We'd especially value input from someone with your expertise.
Best regards,
Cyrusc 22:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

advice

Can you please look at Individual and political action on climate change, where i'm currently in an edit-war with what (imho) is a spammer. My question specifically is: where does one take a spam case? --Kim D. Petersen 15:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

As a sidenote - i looked into the issue a bit, as this might be considered a borderline case, in the context of the article, but the websites do not seem to be at all notable. Earthmoment generates a total of 6 hits on Google, and Earthmoment.com only 1. --Kim D. Petersen 15:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right. RA has stepped in; I will block him for 3RR if he repeats after the warning. I don't think there is a place to take "spamming" as such William M. Connolley 16:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Deleted comments

• "The text of another user's comment, however, may never be directly edited to misrepresent the person or change the meaning of the comment." See Talk_page guidelines
• I would be grateful if you would restore my comments to ScienceApologist's talk page so that my views are represented. --Iantresman 00:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocking during disputes

Will, I declined Chris Chittleborough's unblock request because I thought the block was proper, but you can't block users you're in disputes with. The policy is unambigious and ArbCom has indicated the same thing. This is the kind of thing that people get de-sysopped for.--Chaser - T 04:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I certainly wouldn't block a user I was in dispute with - but I'm not in a content dispute with CC William M. Connolley 08:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)