Requests for amendment

Initiated by William M. Connolley (talk) at 20:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected

Climate change arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. 5.6) William M. Connolley is topic-banned from Climate change, per Remedy 3.

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Amendment 1

• Link to principle, finding of fact, or remedy to which this amendment is requested: Wikipedia:ARBCC#William_M._Connolley_topic-banned
• Details of desired modification: Removal / Lifting

Statement by William M. Connolley

The restriction is no longer necessary.

Update: apparently I should consider providing further information, especially in regard to his perception of why the topic ban was applied, and why it's no longer necessary. OK: the second is easiest: at the time of ARBCC, there were multiple wars/fights/messes all over various climate pages. No-one could be bothered to work out exactly who was to blame; the solution was to ban lots of people. Those problems have largely gone (indeed, a look back at the edit histories will see that they had gone before the case closed, as I said at the time), which is a large part of why the remedies are no longer needed. As to the first: well, I read and thought about what was written in the case, in particular William M. Connolley has been uncivil and antagonistic. I think the extensive second para largely about my own talk page now reads pretty oddly, but we don't need to go over that. The general injunction to be more civil has been taken to heart; you can judge me on my behaviour over the past, say, 6 months: that being your timeframe. As to BLPs: I will be more cautious.

Re Collect's stuff: as Boris said, no-one is going to believe that C is uninvolved - as I think you can tell from his mud-flinging: my edits to Ian Morris (historian) were nothing to do with climate; and the word isn't even mentioned on the page. If anyone thinks that was a violation or a "nibbling" at my ban, they should raise it at enforcement. The same is true for Journal of Cosmology.

More substantively, C asserts that he is not arguing post hoc, ergo propter hoc but in fact that is the entire substance of his argument. So the question is, does having me editing CC pages inevitably cause conflict? The answer is clearly no: there have been long stretches of such editing with no problems (back in, oh, 2008 we had more than a year of peace; even in the early CC case my only sanction was later realised to be an error and repealed); the conflicts around CC leading up to ARBCC wasn't caused by my entering the area, but by an influx of "skeptical" editors occasioned by the CRU email excitement. C's entire argument is nothing but his involved opinion that there is a real chance that the serenity would be rather roiled by his return but he offers no evidence for this. His argument that the topic ban should remain in force could be used against all the banned editors, in perpetuity, with equal "logic". In which case, arbcomm would have made the bans permanent. That they didn't, instead effectively setting a 6 month cooling down period (now long past) suggests that they intended the bans to be reconsidered.

Update: 75.218.64.123 / Journal of Cosmology: all that stuff looks badly confused. In the interests of not adding pointless text, I'll ignore it. If any of the arbs is interested in a reply, please let me know and I'll be happy to.

Update: by their enemies ye shall know them: I adduce AH and ZP5's statements in my favour.

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Statement by uninvolved Collect

It is clear that with WMC being absent there have been few conflicts in the CC arena. While I would not argue "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" the fact that the area is calm and apparently now in good order does not mean that WMC's return would keep that serenity intact. In fact, there is a real chance that the serenity would be rather roiled by his return. I suggest then that the original order remain in force. The "findings" in that case were clear, and I see no reason to suspect that they were made in error. The precise argument made here would apply identically to all those topic-banned, and I see no reason to suspend the topic ban for one and not for all if the only substantive reason given is that there is no problem now. I am unsure that this is a sufficient argument, indeed. During the topic ban, WMC has edited on Journal of Cosmology which [1] does publish articles directly on Climate Change. He has edited on Ian Morris (historian) adding material critical of a person whose book specifically mentions climate change 52 times [2] . In short, WMC has "nibbled at the edges" of his topic ban already. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:31, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@SB - I was and am uninvolved in the Climate Change area. My "partisanship" I suppose is shown by my edits on Johann Hari and Chris Hulme I suppose -- in point of fact my only "partisanship" is my belief that BLPs must be maintained under WP:BLP and neither puffed nor demonized. My posts on ArbCom pages have been, to the best of my ability, scrupulous, as the diffs provided quite show. Lastly, I fail to see how attacking me affects the validity of my comments. Cheers, but next time try to stick to the topic at hand. Collect (talk) 15:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@WMC I dislike the smear of "mud flinging." I would have hoped that civility would reign in this procedure, but an apparent lack of civility might induce arbitrators to look at your edits more closely than they might have otherwise. The arbitrators are well able to read the diffs and to determine whether the Journal of Cosmology has run articles on Climate Change and whether Ian Morris's book has 52 mentions of "Climate Change" as a specific term. I have no connection with the Climate Change arbitration other than as a person commenting on an interesting statistical relationship between editors who editted heavily in that area. I doubt that the statistical research I undertook makes me "involved" to any reasonable extent in the matter at hand. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:23, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by involved Short Brigade Harvester Boris

While I harbor no illusions regarding the outcome of this appeal, Collect's claim of "uninvolved" status cannot go unchallenged. Even a cursory examination of his edit history shows extensive and partisan involvement. For a more or less random and far from complete sample of diffs of his participation in the original case, see [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] (note this one is an argument with WMC), [15]. Also [16] [17] here he argues with WMC on WMC's talk page, and here he speaks in favor of WMC's topic ban. His statement that the topic area has been "calm and in good order" since WMC's ejection from it is similarly imaginative, but that is another issue for another day. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by involved Count Iblis

The problems in the CC have gone away, mainly due to the articles being put under the General Sanctions Regime and TS, NuclearWarfare, and a few others aggressively patrolling this area without that generating any bickering. But just like a broken leg is only fully cured when you can walk on it again and not when you have put bandage on it, one now needs to allow editors who are able to contribute productively like William editing again. The General Sanctions will still be there, so there is no risk of problems escalating.

What can happen is that William's return may make some hidden problems visible so that these can be dealt with effectively using the General Sanctions system. For the CC area to become fully healthy, this is therefore a necessary step. Then without the old problems, most of the extra energy one gets in this area by allowing William back in will go into productive article work instead of fueling disputes. Count Iblis (talk) 17:07, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

William of all people acknowledging the accuracy of the findings when even Alex writes here that: "He is right that ArbCom banned lots of people because that was easier than trying to figure out what was going on..."??  :) . Just imagine that William were to make such a statement in the future. Then surely, William's account would be indefinitely blocked as that would strongly suggest that his account has been hacked :) .

So, let's simply look toward the future and consider if the William we know, with some changes in behavior that he pledges to make, can contribute productively in the CC area which is now under a General Sanctions regime. Count Iblis (talk) 15:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Stephan Schulz

I think the relative calm at the climate change articles is only very partially the result of the last ArbCom intervention - we have seen such cycles of increased and decreased activity before, usually driven by external events (a new IPCC report, US elections, Hacked emails...). While the area currently is somewhat quiet, there has, in my opinion, been a slow erosion of article quality, not due to POV editing, but simply due to a lack of experts like WMC (and SBHB, who has essentially left the field after the ArbCom decision). Thus, I would very much urge the committee to relax the constraints on William. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:54, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Biophys

Just to be objective, one should ask the following questions:

1. Has William demonstrated their ability to contribute constructively to the other areas of the project during their topic ban? I think the answer is :"Yes".
2. Has William violated his topic ban ever since they were banned? There are several blocks dated November-December 2010 (not sure if this is related to his topic ban), but he has been compliant ever since.
3. Is William promising to behave in the future? Yes, he said: "The general injunction to be more civil has been taken to heart... As to BLPs: I will be more cautious."

So, I do not see any reason why the topic ban for William can not be lifted, especially since you lifted it even for an editor like YMB29 who did not contribute to the project during the entire period of his ban (and edit war since then [18]). I support William, even though we had quite a dispute about nuclear winter [19]. Biophys (talk) 01:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Cla68

I agree with NYBrad's proposal to continue the restriction on WMC for editing climate change-related BLPs. Some of the scientists involved in the debate on climate change who have been subjected to some severe criticims or attacks by the media or by other scientists are friends and colleagues of WMC. Otherwise, if WMC is promising not to edit war or treat other editors rudely on article talk pages, then I think it should be fine for him to return to editing the CC articles. Cla68 (talk) 23:12, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by 75.218.64.123

My recent interaction with Mr. Connolley at Journal of Cosmology seems pertinent to this proceeding. It was through that interaction that I had occasion to review Mr. Connolley's recent contributions and subsequently this proceeding and the original arbitration case upon which it is based.

My concern with Mr. Connolley is with regards to remedies [20] and [21] with which Mr. Connolley can now be assumed to be familiar.

[22] shows Mr. Connolley reinserting a purported BLP violation before engaging in the ongoing discussion on the talk page. Once he did engage in the discussion he argued that blogs are perfectly fine sources supporting the statement he reinserted which included calling living people cranks. When this was pointed out to him as being a BLP violation, he reinserted the offending text with the deceptive edit summary "so how about dropping the 'cranks' bit, which isn't important, but retaining the substance?" suggesting that he had, in fact, removed the "cranks" bit when he hadn't. Stricken as incorrect. I somehow managed to review the wording from the previous edit and the error was mine. 75.218.64.123 (talk) 03:17, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A review of the current content on the article's talk page reveals that this material has been controversial for quite some time. Given this one can only assume that Mr. Connolley's judgement with respect to the spirit and intent of the remedies referenced above is severely defective. He continues to support the use of personal blogs which are subject to no editorial controls as a means of disparaging the work and character of other living and identifiable people.

In a similar vein he is also calling the peer review process of the journal into question. In this case there isn't even a dispute as to whether such a process exists because the journal's detractors are themselves critiquing the relative merits of that process. Mr. Connolley asked for a WP:RS which refers to JOC as peer reviewed. I provided one. He then chose to ignore it and move the goal posts in furtherance of wanting to edit his WP:OR personal opinion into the content of the article based on no sources at all.

Again, one can only assume that his judgement with respect to the remedies referenced above is severely defective. Based solely on his ban in the aforementioned arbitration I can only assume that climate change is his personal passion. If he is unable to exercise good judgment and proper restraint on topics which presumably are of little interest to him such as we see here how will he be able to do so for something he cares about deeply.

Zealotry in support of a personal point of view is not something that the project needs more of. Relax his restrictions with extreme caution. If you do choose to relax his restrictions I recommend that he be required to propose edits to the climate change topics through an appropriate mentor who may be able to help him to better understand the nature and causes of his current sanctions. 75.218.64.123 (talk) 02:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC) (Note that I currently edit via a dynamic IP)[reply]

Update:

Reviewing Mr. Connolley's recent edits, one does not have too go very far back to find examples of deceptive edit summaries which required rework by other editors and the continued ruffling the feathers of other editors. I assume that these are some of the things which got him in trouble to begin with. If these are the results we see in uncontroversial areas what can we expect in a controversial one like climate change? 75.218.64.123 (talk) 03:46, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Comment by Alex Harvey

I disclaim that I agree with William Connolley's statement that ArbCom's remedy was arbitrary and lazy. He is right that ArbCom banned lots of people because that was easier than trying to figure out what was going on. That said, there was never any doubt that William Connolley's own behaviour was a significant causal factor in the general disruption. He may have been no worse than some of the other most disruptive editors, but due to his unique status as a professional climate scientist without anonymity, his behaviour doubtlessly caused younger and impressionable editors to copy him.

My problem with William Connolley's statement above is the lack of remorse displayed. There is no evidence that he accepts any responsibility for anything. Thus, I am in favour of the remedy remaining in place until this changes. Alex Harvey (talk) 05:13, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by involved ZuluPapa5

Agree with Alex Harvey above (he's quicker here than me.) Without remorse, regret and arbcom validation, WMC offers little for reform now. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 20:11, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting comments from interested parties. However, my advice to William M. Connolley is to consider providing further information, especially in regard to his perception of why the topic ban was applied, and why it's no longer necessary. PhilKnight (talk) 21:39, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• I would echo Phil's request for further explanation; a blanket statement that "the restriction is no longer necessary" is simply not adequate in this regard. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Concur with Kirill and Phil. Risker (talk) 00:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Recused. SirFozzie (talk) 21:13, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Awaiting further statements. At this stage, my tentative view is to allow some loosening of the restriction, either outright or for some period of time to be followed by a reevaluation. My vote last year to support this topic-ban was a reluctant one given William M. Connolley's expertise on this topic and long-time participation in the project, and I think that some time away from these articles may have helped to restore his sense of perspective regarding the unfortunate tone he took in discussions concerning them. However, I am inclined to leave in place the restriction against William M. Connolley's editing BLPs in this area, which is where the most serious problems arose. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:46, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• In order to support this, I would need to see a statement that 1) specifically acknowledges the accuracy and validity findings of the most recent arbitration case, 2) expresses contrition for the behavior that led to that case, and 3) Explains in convincing detail how and why this multiply-sacntioned editor should be given an N+1th chance. The statement so far does not satisfy any of these three criteria, but I think it premature to write off the appeal without giving WMC the opportunity to address them. Jclemens (talk) 03:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]