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Revision as of 21:12, 10 September 2008

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Block warning

Since your stated intention is (in essence) to cause as much disruption as possible, if yon continue to disrupt our global warming articles, I'm going to block you. Raul654 (talk) 03:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

thats a very, very, very, very, very liberal POV take of what I have written. You try it and see where that lands you on abuse of admin. Im all for seeing what happens here... Jaimaster (talk) 11:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jaimaster. Can you explain what you meant in the diff that Raul has highlighted please? --John (talk) 23:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Having reviewed your recent contribution history, and as an admin who has no previous history in this area, I independently agree with Raul that your behavior merits a block. Without taking sides on the matter of global warming, I take great issue with "Still, fighting the good fight is what its all about" from your user page. Misplaced Pages is not a battleground. Instead we work by consensus. However, blocking is meant to be preventive and not punitive, so if you are willing to remove this from your user page and refrain from edit-warring on GW-related pages in the future, I will not block you this time. Failing that I propose to block you for 24 hours to prevent your disruption. It's up to you, but I counsel you to choose wisely. Let me know if there is any way I can advise you to help you be a more productive editor, please. --John (talk) 00:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

As you can see in the link Raul gave, I stated that I will continue to make my good faith edits over, and over, and over again until Raul is willing to complete the edit-revert-discuss cycle. This is not edit warring according to my interpretation of WP:3RR - I am applying BRD, and havae repeatedly requested that Raul discuss his reverts to no avail. Currently Raul prefers to revert, revert, revert without discussion - this is edit warring with no regard towards building a consensus. Can you please explain why my recent contribution history would merit a block while Raul's would not? Reverting without giving reason or joining discussion is Raul's Modus Operandi and completely against the spirit of WP:Consensus - he refuses to participate in seeking compromise in any way, shape or form.

I am completely staggered that you choose to take the comment on my user page literally. Its a very common phrase describing one's commitment to continue in the face of adversity. Since you appear feel it is akin to a declaration of war I will remove it.

I do not intend to stop attempting good faith edits to remove the "all Global Warming doubters are liars in the pay of big oil" POV that Raul is currently revert-protecting until he is willing to discuss why he feels it is correct and encyclopedic. If you feel this merits a preventative block - thats your call. You will note that this "edit war" is over the catagorisation of a skeptical AGW film as "Denialism" and linking the wiki list of all scientists skeptical of AGW to the "Climate Change Denial" page. Both are attempts to equate doubting the anthropogenic causation link with Flat Earthism and Holocaust denial. I am not vandalising the articles, I am not attacking the content, I am not using unreliable sources to push a minority POV onto the page over the top of peer reviewed literature. I am just trying to remove pejorative, unsourced highly POV labelling. Please keep this in mind regarding your decision. Jaimaster (talk) 05:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Further, on reviewing WP:Block, you will notice that Raul's initial warning on this talk page constitutes a direct threat to break the policy - per WP:Block#Disputes - in a deliberate bullying attempt over a content dispute. Could you advise me on what steps I can choose to take to report this, and get your own opinion on if my interpretation of the incident is correct? Jaimaster (talk) 05:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Here are some thoughts on your reply.

1) WP:CIVIL is non-negotiable and applies to all of us. You must always assume good faith in other editors, especially those you disagree with.

2) You can get a lot more latitude for your suggestions if you stick to article talk, than if you revert war against consensus on the article space itself. Be careful how you use user talk; try to make it focused and polite, as I hope this communication is.

3) Comment on content, relating it to policy and common sense, rather than the contributor you are in dispute with. We may all assume the motives which may be driving those we are in dispute with, but to comment on them like you have been doing is contrary to our policies.

4) Ultimately, WP:NPOV drives much of what we do here. For scientific articles, that means a very high standard of peer-reviewed mention before we even mention it.

I'm delighted to see you haven't continued to edit-war on the articles; this is a great start. Let me know if you need any more help. --John (talk) 06:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, in relation to your question about Raul, let's assume that I'll deal with this from now on, a new admin you have no history with. Sound fair? --John (talk) 06:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Re 1 and 2, agree and accept. Re 3, poisoning the well ironiically exactly the type of labelling I am attempting to remove that Raul keeps reverting back. Re 4, im not challanging the science portions of any of the articles anyway (in this dispute). Re addendum, I will continue to push for discussion on the talk pages. If Raul chooses not to contribute on that discussion but keeps reverting (see ] for his latest revert of the topic at hand, this time reverting an edit made by another user, again without comment, reason or discussion) what course of action do you recommend? Jaimaster (talk) 06:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no real opinion on the case between the participants, but it is clear that the article does fall under the category of denialism, as in Merriam Webster's definitions of deny "to refuse to accept the existence, truth, or validity of" " to refuse to admit or acknowledge" "to give a negative answer to" or more so to the point on this subject, the allwords.com definition of denialist: "an assertation in a controversial political debate" So I don't see why the edit would need to be explained in this controversial political debate. Sln3412 (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from, but the word denial is a loaded word in the AGW spectrum and not used per its dictionary definition. It is mostly used to belittle anyone not in complete agreement with the mainstream (IPCC) view. Raul for example does not think the catagory applies specifically because it fits a dictionary definition, but because in his opinion scepticism of AGW is directly equatable to calling the apollo landing a hoax or believing the earth is flat (see his comments in the RfC on TGGWS talk). Jaimaster (talk) 00:51, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I see your point as well. But it's just one more loaded word/phrase all too common in this debate of opinion. That carbon dioxide absorbs longwave infrared can not be denied. On what replacing some parts of the atmosphere with that infrared absorber actually does in the system is another matter. Sln3412 (talk) 20:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Informal request for third party opinions re Jaimaster vs Raul654 "edit wars"

My contentions

• One - that Raul654 is actively engaging in edit wars to maintain his POV on wiki's Global Warming related articles
• Two - Raul654 meets the majority of definitions of being a disruptive editor
• Three - Raul654 has abused his status as an Administrator in an attempt to intimidate other users

Concessions

• Glass houses, throwing stones - if the shoe fits I will happily wear it, so long as the comments are applied fairly to both sides. I have no doubt at all that I allowed my frusterations to boil over last week and give no excuses for it. I merely ask for a fair application of the rules to all parties and object to what I still percieve as an attempt at intimidation by an administrator involved in a content conflict.

Objectives

• One - to break the perceieved edit war impasse instead of continuing an I revert / you revert ad infinitum
• Two - to understand if and how my behavior is different and worse than Raul654's in regards to the perceived edit war, which Raul654 and John both appear to imply is so
• Three - to ascertain if my opinion of Raul654's threat to block me is considered correct by neutral parties

Related Wiki policy -

• WP:EW
• WP:Block#Disputes
• WP:Disruptive_editing#definition of disruptive editing and editors (verifiability, rejection of input, campaign to drive away productive contributors re WP:OWN)

Related wiki policy essays -

• WP:Revert only when necessary#Explain reverts
• WP:DBF (2, 3, 6)

Evidence presented - Raul654's reverts

Regarding article: The Great Global Warming Swindle -

I am attempting to remove the catagorisation "Denial" from this page. Raul654 opposes the removal.

Reverts made by Raul654 without any reason given -

] ] ] ] ]

Reverts made by Raul654 with an unsourced attack on the subject matter -

]

Reverts made by Raul654 mistating the "consensus" for the change on the talk page -

]

Regarding article: Climate change denial

I am attempting to remove two links from "see other" as in my opinion being linked here on the Climate change denial page is an implication of involvement in the behavior described in the article. Raul654 disagrees with removal citing that one link has WP:RS for inclusion, implying agreement with my opinion regarding implication of the "see other list". That WP:RS is not linked in the article at all. Why both links were restored in his full revert rather than a partial revert of the link in question (which would arguably have been valid) is not explained.

Reverts made by Raul654 without any reason given -

]

Reverts made by Raul654 citing a source not in the article and applicable to only half of the edit -

]

Finally - total comments made by Raul654 on both article talk pages regarding all reverts or the content in dispute - zero

Evidence presented - Raul proposing to use his administrator status in violation of WP:Block#Disputes -

] ]

Further I state that this block warning was made in direct response to my notice of intention to persue WP:DISPUTE resolution,

]

and after my response (essentially "I dare you") -

]

Raul654 contacted another Administrator and, in my opinion, misrepresented the situation (labelling me a constant disruption, re-interpreting my intention to continue good faith edits until Raul654 discusses his reversions as "declared he intends to continue disrupting") -

]

In response to which Administrator John proposes to ignore WP:Dispute#Last resort: Arbitration and jump straight to Arbitration -

]

Before deciding to uphold Raul654's threat to block without addressing my own concerns about Raul654's behavior, per User talk:Jaimaster#block warning. Further, no equivilent warning has been made to Raul654 by John regarding his involvement or behavior in this matter.

Opine away.

Jaimaster (talk) 03:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional note - users Raul654 and John have both been notified and invited to comment. Additionally I have invited at random administrator Misza13 to look at this as well. If you all decide I am completely in the wrong I commit to accepting that. Jaimaster (talk) 03:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional note #2 - I am on a self imposed hiatus from all GW related articles (except talk pages) for say, a week from today. Hopefully that is enough time to resolve this. In any case on reflection to avoid being a single issue fanatic I need to branch out my editing a bit. Jaimaster (talk) 04:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment from User:John

Misplaced Pages is not a court of law and we do not deal in verdicts. I know this has been a difficult area of the project historically, and I know Raul is one of the admins and highly experienced editors who helps prevent minority viewpoints from gaining undue weight. While it is always difficult as an admin to know how to use admin tools ethically but also effectively, I think Raul has done pretty well in this case. I did think he was in danger of looking too involved in a previous recent block he made, though it was marginally ok, so I reminded him that it's good to have fresh eyes sometimes, which led to him contacting me. By asking me to look at it, I think he did the right thing.

You on the other hand come across as a fairly new user with what seems like an agenda to promote, and you seem to have been pretty aggressive in your edit warring at times, and unnecessarily personal in many of your comments in talk and edit summaries.

So, overall, I think Raul has acted well, and you have, on occasion, not done. I think it is laudable that you are trying to find out the details of where you've gone wrong with a view to not repeating it. If you ever need any other help, you know where my talk page is. --John (talk) 04:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment from User:Rameses

I fully agree with your points 1,2 and 3 above that:

• One - that Raul654 is actively engaging in edit wars to maintain his POV on wiki's Global Warming related articles
• Two - Raul654 meets the majority of definitions of being a disruptive editor
• Three - Raul654 has abused his status as an Administrator in an attempt to intimidate other users

I can provide you with plenty of evidence where he has done all of these things. Raul654 has routinely abused his Administrator status for years to prevent many editors who have tried to provide valid edits to Global Warming related articles. I have been contributing to Misplaced Pages since 2004 (2003 if you count edits made without a log in account) and have been saddened by the takeover of Misplaced Pages by POV Pushers such as these.

Indeed his history of reverting changes and blocking and intimidating users is a very long one. In one instance - following UBeR's "suspected sockpuppetry" complaint against William Connolley - Raul654 launched a complaint against UBeR just to deflect attention from William Connolley. He admitted this with the statement on William Connolley's talkpage: "Since you apparently have a monkey on your back, I've gone ahead and asked someone to get it off" Along with this cryptic and rude comment Raul654 gave a pointer to a complaint on Misplaced Pages:Administrators noticeboard against UBeR which he had started: This resulted in:

1. The sockpuppetry allegation against WMC being buried by a friendly Administrator within 90 minutes - without UBeR's requested check ever being completed.

2. UBeR a very hard-working editor, being bullied by the same crowd who control Global Warming which included several Administrators. Soon after this bullying, UBeR reduced his editing workload at Misplaced Pages and he has stopped editing completely on a couple of occasions before being persuaded to return.

3. When I and my wife tried to support UBeR against these attacks, both we and my daughter were accused of Sockpuppetry by Raul654. My family appeal to the ombudsman never even received a response. This resulted in my wife and daughter quitting Misplaced Pages in disgust and my contributions being only very occasional. I no longer try to bring balance to the Global Warming articles as these edits are immediately reverted by Raul654, WMC or one of their group.

A number of interesting statements in UBeR's defence highlighted the same problems which you are now suffering at Raul654's hands (but remember this happened back in February 2007 which shows just how long Raul654 has been causing the same problems):

: "Let it be known that I support the consensus view on global warming, as presented by the IPCC. In fact, despite what might appear as undue support for the solar variation theory, my purpose is an attempt to bring balance and a NPOV to the global warming article, where a number of POV-pushers patrol and police the article."

: "I have seen many users complain of William M. Connolley's POV or behaviour regarding climate articles, and I have witnessed myself at least one disregard of WP policies by him so far. I guess it is legitimate to keep a file with regard to his actions."

: "UBeR is truly a very hard working, fair minded, long standing contributor to Misplaced Pages. He (along with many others) has simply become increasingly frustrated by the kinds of tactics used by User:William M. Connolley, User:Raul654 and a few others who constantly delete all contributions by UBeR and anyone else not agreeing with their POV on all pages having to do with Global warming. ......12 out of the past 50 edits by User:William M. Connolley are reverts (the rest are mainly talk page entries) and almost all these reverts are to global warming pages. when he runs out of reverts himself he pulls in others to start reverting. Given that he makes his livelihood in this field and clearly has a very strong POV, he should avoid this area for the obvious conflict of interest reasons (esp. so for an Administrator)."

: "Raul654 has labeled me a "contrarian POV pusher trying to put bias into the article". But all I was doing was defending the words: "However, there remain respected scientists who hold differing opinions." which had been deleted from the Global warming article. Surely these words do not constitute pushing a biased POV, as alleged? The control group will not even tolerate this tiny amount of NPOV in this important article."

: "This is a witch hunt. Most of the edits UBeR has made have been reasonable as far as I have seen. He's been fighting what many of us believe to be a systemic bias on many global warming related articles to shut down and revert edits that are anti-GW."

: "Raul, this is getting absurd. Until that last post, I thought you were doing this is good faith, but that's obviously not the case. ------------- You're just trying to discount 8 editors' opinions because they disagree with you. When did WP become about censoring ideas you disagree with?"

: "You ought to investigate the bullying but that would take too much time (as I found out) and I'm sure there is fault on both sides. Probably the best solution would be to ban anyone who has contributed to this debate from editing any of the various global warming/climate change/mars heating up/etc. articles again!"

: "I have had the misfortune to try and edit the various global warming articles. Although I do not personally agree with Uber's point of view, I am firmly convinced that the faction that opposes Uber's views try is ganging up on contributors they don't like in an attempt to silent contributions informing readers of alternative & notable view points to the pro global warming lobbyists. I really do feal sorry for people who are trying to document the alternative view to the pro global warming lobby because they are up against some very nasty characters who quite clearly want to stop people like Uber using any means possible. This whole situation doesn't do Misplaced Pages's reputation any good."

: "From what I have seen this is not at all a fair fight, this is the Misplaced Pages equivalent of the overwhelming force of the Nazis attacking the minority jews (with the same vicious belief they are right). The "Nazis" may be technically operating within the law, and the "jews" may be behaving in ways that in other cases would be acceptable, but until Misplaced Pages finds a way to redress the balance and in particular starts to enforce NPOV, I'm with the underdogs and would urge you to see their actions as extremely restrained given the intolerable position they are under."

"I have had the horrid experience of attempting to edit/balance the Global Warming pages. My own research of edit histories, etc. has shown some extremely disturbing things about Misplaced Pages, its administrators and its policies. The short of the whole issue is this: there are a number of admins (the group being discussed here are not the only ones) who flex their power over any other editor that dare disagree with them. The tactics used are vague references to policies to 'prove' the other editors are out-of-line; carefully crafted cheap shots in the article edits summaries & talk pages to 'push buttons' of the 'bad editors'; talk down to them as being too inexperienced to understand how to properly edit Misplaced Pages; revert edits wholesale and in tandem (when one's rv is undone another will re-revert for the admin. The harder the resistance to the will of the abusive admins the more destructive the admins use/abuse of policies become."

: "Raul654, this post that you made just after UBeR filed a checkuser against William M. Connolley, clearly shows that this entire complaint against UBeR was orchestrated just to "get this monkey off WMC's back". The next step should be to stop this intentional diversionary complaint against UBeR and investigate your activities instead. Your entire group , , orchestrating these illicit activities should be thoroughly investigated by all those who have wasted a lot of their valuable time on your "getting this monkey off WMC's back". It is now clear that you yourself are guilty of most of the accusations which you have levelled at UBeR above, I believe that you and your co-conspirators should be permanently banned from editing global warming articles in order to stop the kind of bias, frustration and witch hunts which you are causing by your devious tactics. Everyone should know that this group are currently being investigated and exposed by a radio show for their hijacking of global warming articles as this group already knows - thus they are bringing Misplaced Pages into disrepute."

: "Stephan, this post by William M. Connolley on a user talk page , is clearly designed to appear innocent and is a pointer to the next post on another user talk page , where the actual conspiring and planning of your group's next move is clearly discussed. WMC was obviously attempting to hide this discussion otherwise why would he say "Where next? - I have (reluctantly) started a discussion of this at User_talk:Stephan_Schulz#RFC? William M. Connolley 09:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)" and give a pointer to another user talk page before starting the actual planning session? The "where next" comment makes me question "where was it before?". Your self-serving mischaracterization of user talk pages as "public" is false as the public rarely (or never) visits them for "general browsing". Now that your group has been exposed, I hope that the Misplaced Pages community takes this seriously and considers permanently banning your control and POV pushing on all GW pages.

: "Although a conspiracy is not proved only by the discussions that Brittainia unearted, circumstances are of concern. I was perhaphs naive, but I must say that until now, I did not understand how it could be that these three editors are on the same line 99% of the time in GW related articles and always backing up each other. I mean, in normal circumstances, the odds are that they will disagree here and there on occasion no? This being said, the "monkey-off-your-back" post by Raul654 as well as the one where WMC gives an awkward pointer to his friends do not seem to be within normal Misplaced Pages behaviour."

Brittainia had clearly warned the Misplaced Pages community of the possibility of this group bringing disrepute more than a year before Lawrence Solomon published his first article exposing William Connolley & Co. and 16 months before his article "Wikipropaganda." Regrettably she did not get thanked for it - instead she was attacked and accused of sockpuppetry. A diversionary tactic to discredit what she was saying - which worked perfectly and drove her out of Misplaced Pages.

Clear Examples of POV Pushing:

Unfortunately, Svante Arrhenius has some problems (i.e. the standard sceptics claim that water vapour is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect). Will somebody with more knowledge about sources than I write a sufficiently nuanced sentence there? --Stephan Schulz 07:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed that by removing it. It wasn't relevant there anyway William M. Connolley 09:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Good Luck

I wish you a great deal of Good luck with your attempt to bring this rogue administrator under control, you are going to need it! This is part of a long standing abusive pattern of behaviour by Raul654, WMC & a few others, which I and many other editors, who have tried to bring balance to Misplaced Pages's GW sections, have been systematically silenced by. As you can read above they have been exposed many times (even on the CBS News Website "Wikipropaganda on Global Warming" ) but with the cooperation of many friendly Administrators, they seem to blithely carry on with their routine abuse and control of Misplaced Pages.

Sadly Misplaced Pages now most resembles George Orwell's Animal Farm with those in charge redefining, bending or selectively applying the rules to take control and selfish advantage of what was supposed to be a shared equal system. ~~ Rameses (talk) 01:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

RfC on conduct of User:Abd, comment requested

Thank you for expressing interest at User:Abd/RfC/Proxy Table in my standing userspace RfC. The first questions to be addressed are at User:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block, which is a page for the questions and (later) a summary of consensus. Comments and discussion have been begun, by me, at User talk:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block. Because the first questions address the warning issued to me by Jehochman before the block on 8/11, and should not involve extensive research, I have several times asked Jehochman to comment, but he has declined so far. I have also asked Carcharoth, as suggested by Jehochman, to look at it, but so far he hasn't found time; perhaps he will in the next few days. If you are able to look at the pages ref'd above, and comment regarding the questions, or otherwise as you see fit, it would be appreciated. I am waiting to see if these questions can be resolved and a preliminary consensus found, without going to a wider forum, such as the Village Pump, AN, or a standard user RfC. Thanks for any time you can give this. --Abd (talk) 21:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)