The main problem is that the articles push a single point of view ... very strongly. The "rules" are that new information can not be added unless it is published in a peer reviewed journal. Well, for something this controversial, that is a good rule. However, these guys cheat - even when it is in a journal, and even when written by their heroes, these guys remove anything that does not agree with their preconceived position. Really.
There is way too much to say - it is not worth my time to write it all down. This page just gives a few examples.
To be clear, I am not just discussing the Global warming page, these comments apply to most of the related pages, including biographies of people on both sides of the issue.
Vandalism
Basically, the vandals are a disaster. Over 50% of the edits are just vandals and someone else removing their edits. The obvious (and most common) problems are
Point of View Pushers
Typically, these people lack a basic understanding of science ... even though their claimed degrees would suggest otherwise.
Many people just wing it - they try to edit these pages without doing any background research. These are the worst because they won't actually read the papers they reference.
Terminology
Information Rot
For instance, on the Wikipedia Global warming page, in October 2007, the following note was produced to help stop daily edit wars ... and it worked. (It is surprising how many people don't understand temperature conversion.)
| Note that the Greenhouse Effect produces a temperature increase of about 33 °C (59 °F) with respect to black body predictions and not a surface temperature of 33 °C (91 °F) which is 32°F higher. The average surface temperature is about 14 °C (57 °F). Also note that both the Celsius and Fahrenheit temperatures are expressed to 2 significant figures even though the conversion formula produces 3. <!-- 32°F higher is 18°C higher, not 0°C higher --> |
| Note that the greenhouse effect produces an average worldwide temperature increase of about 33 °C (59 °F) compared to black body predictions without the greenhouse effect, not an average surface temperature of 33 °C (91 °F). The average worldwide surface temperature is about 14 °C (57 °F). |
| which is 32 °F higher. |
| which is {{convert|32|°F|°C|abbr=on}} higher. |
| which is 32 °F (0 °C) higher. |
So, eventually the note was fixed and an internal hidden note was added to keep this nonsense from happening again.
But the twerp, who had no recent history of editing any Global Warming related articles, decided to make the change anyway ... twice (so far).
Remember, this note was written because people kept changing an increase of 57 °F to an increase of 91 °F ... which, of course, is incorrect.
Once a page has been on the internet for several years, it is indexed by the various internet search engines and older versions of the page are available via the internet archive. If the page is even marginally useful, there are likely to be hundreds of links to it from other sites.
As a result, a change to that page's url is a serious decision. There can easily be hundreds of other pages affected. Typically, this is not a big problem with Wikipedia because a redirect page is automatically created, preventing links in normal pages from being broken. However, ....
There are tens of thousands of Wikipedia pages about people. Typically, they are identified by the person's real name. However, as we all know, names are not unique and, therefore, some method is need to tell one Tom Smith from another. The Wikipedia method is to produce a disambiguation page and to add a unique phrase after the name.
Tom Smith (plumber) Tom Smith (football player) |
The problem occurs when a page about a specific person has existed for several years and then, one day, another person with the same name appears. The logical (and no longer used) method of handling this was to leave the existing page url alone and to add a link to the associated (and new) disambiguation page. The result is that nothing bad happens. (Now there is a concept.)
Unfortunately, several self-appointed ... eh, people ... have decided that that is unfair. As a result, they have decided to disambiguate (change the url of) existing people who have had pages for a number of years. As expected, the result is a mess. The search engines now have two (or more) links for the same person ... but they now go to different pages. The information stored in the internet archives is now worthless (because no one will know to search for that url). Hundreds of individual web pages, blogs, and the like, will no longer point to the correct site.
Well, what's a few hundred problems? Well ... they make these kinds of changes to thousands of pages per day! That means that literally millions of sites are affected. In my opinion, that is a very big deal. To be clear, these people produce more harm than most computer viruses. I hesitate to use harsh terms - such as vandalism - because I am sure their intent is not malicious. However, ... these people (vandals) are editing pages where this is the only edit that they will ever make. They have no interest in the page except to change the name.
And it gets worse - in at least one case that I know of, it started an edit war and many hundreds of hours were lost (wasted) because of the simple drive-by vandalism. There was even a vote to see which term could be used to attack the person. The fact that there was an edit war should have been enough for some administrator to return things to the state that existed before the rename.
To be totally explicit, on June 13, 2009, Tassedethe (the self-appointed ... well, whatever he thinks he is) changed the name. No discussion, no consensus, just "surprise ... you're screwed". And then he did the same thing to hundreds of other pages. (At least he had the good sense to select "weather presenter" for the disambiguation term.) As of July 28,2009, the edit war is still continuing.
Basically, one group of people wants to do anything possible to discredit this person and this situation provides a mechanism to slip it in under the BLP rules. The other group supports the work Watts is doing. My suggestion is to return to what was there before the twerp started the edit war and then to ban this type of, uh, information rot.
These are fairly typical entries from Tassedethe - contributions - for 07-26-09, the were over 1,000 entries like these
19:12, 26 July 2009 (hist) (diff) m Martha Quinn
(WikiCleaner 0.90 - Repairing link to disambiguation page - You can help!) (top)
12:33, 26 July 2009 (hist) (diff) N Talk:Matt Ellis
(moved Talk:Matt Ellis to Talk:Matt Ellis (ice hockey): prep for disambiguation)
12:33, 26 July 2009 (hist) (diff) m Talk:Matt Ellis (ice hockey)
(moved Talk:Matt Ellis to Talk:Matt Ellis (ice hockey): prep for disambiguation) (top)
|
I am sure that there are other instances where this unthinking person has started an un-necessary edit war.
tasse de thé - French for "cup of tea"
I am sure these twerps see themselves as "heroes fixing serious problems" but I see them as "drive-by vandals, creating a serious problem for the web in general".
Unallowed Facts
If either of these assumptions is disproved, then the entire theory of CO2 produced Global Warming is immediately disproved.
In fact, there is significant data that both of these points are false.
Personal Vendettas
It is interesting that even though personal attacks of this nature are not allowed in Wikipedia, this person still linked to his blog in one of the "discussions" (arguments) about including data that he disagreed with. The attempts to call this person out for such remarks were immediately deleted by other "true believers", but the link to the offending comments was left in.
This is one way many Wikipedia articles become biased - if you don't like someone's opinion, you label them wacko (an ad hominem attack) or claim that they are no longer scientists (another ad hominem attack). Then you brag about how you control the entire Global Warming section of the encyclopedia with a Mailed Fist.
Scibaby
This person has apparently created hundreds of accounts (sock puppets) to hide his identity (317 as of June 2009). In order to block this person, thousands of IP addresses are permanently blocked from editing. In July 2009, two special filters were created just to try and block this one user.
For the most part (ie, what I have seen), Scibaby tries to add balance to the otherwise totally one sided, propaganda ridden Global Warming sections of Wikipedia. In general, I agree with him that more balance is needed and I agree with most of his wording ... though he tends to go too far.
It has gotten to the point that any edit attributed to Scibaby is immediately deleted without any attempt to determine if it is valid and should be left in. The reason for deletion is typically given as - Scibaby.
On the other hand, some of Scibaby's edits alter facts in a way that is not correct. For instance, he tried to redefine the nano technology size limit from "100 nm to 1um a number of times". This happens often enough that it is clearly nothing but vandalism and, as a result, Scibaby, and any sock puppet attributed to him, is permanently banned.
As an example, I found this edit by StenSmith (identified as a Scibaby sock puppet)
Professor of bacteriology -> Professor of Bacteriology |
On another page, and with a different user ID (Josko33), the following passage was added ... and immediately remove by the POV police.
| However, recent published work calls in to question of the accuracy of these models. When the composite output of 22 leading global climate models was compared with actual climate data, it was found these models do an "unsatisfactory job" of mimicking climate change in key portions of the atmosphere. [1] |
In summary, there are several areas of interest
It is not clear to me that all the user accounts identified as Scibaby sock puppets are definitely the same person ... though it is highly likely.
By the way, any user that restores an edit made by a banned user can also be banned.
Editors
Wikipedia is a great source of information if you know how to use it. Basically, before accepting what is in the article as true, you should always review the talk pages.