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The article states "He is the founder and managing director of the Energy Probe one of Canada's most prominent environmental agencies, as well as working with its predecessor and sister agency, Pollution Probe."
It is true that Lawrence Solomon worked with Pollution Probe prior to 1981 but Pollution Probe has not been a 'sister agency' to Pollution Probe since that date. The split between Pollution Probe and Energy Probe was adversarial and took place around 1979-1980. Since that time there has been absolutely no connection whatsoever between the two organizations.
Colin Isaacs, Executive Director of Pollution Probe 1982-1989 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.127.220.121 ( talk) 02:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
This WP:BLPN discussion may be of interest Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Talk:William_Connolley for the writing of this article. Nsaa ( talk) 13:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I've added an infobox, and I included his date and place of birth because it was in the lead, but I can't find a source. Does anyone know of one? SlimVirgin talk contribs 20:26, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Undid revision 371530124 by 69.63.53.25 (talk)Solomon has self-declared in his newspaper column that he is an environmentalist is wrong. Self-descriptions aren't acceptable if contested William M. Connolley ( talk) 19:59, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
Irrelevant, the source is reliable, if they got it from energy probe is beside the point, we use what the sources say. And for you guys to say the founder of canada`s biggest enviro group is not an enviro is beyond parody. And do not lecture me on source evaluation WMC, at least i have never used my websites or my blog as a source in WP mark nutley ( talk) 18:10, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
There's an academic paper about propaganda on Wikipedia that calls Solomon an environmentalist. See Oboler, Andre; Steinberg, Gerald; and Stern, Rephael. "The Political Framing of Political NGOs through Criticism Elimination", Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 7(4), 2010. It says: "Entire topic areas can be framed with a particular view by users with knowledge, determination, and power within the system. Environmentalist Lawrence Solomon (2008) explored this in Wikipedia articles on global warming and climate change research." SlimVirgin talk| contribs 22:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
There is no BLP violation here, there is nothing controversial about calling him an environmentalist, and it's clearly well-sourced. I've restored it. ATren ( talk) 03:47, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
To elaborate, we have:
Are we really still disputing this? Jesus. ATren ( talk) 04:08, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Verbal, there are numerous reliable sources who call him an environmentalist, including the academic paper I posted above. So what is the BLP issue? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 08:06, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
@Kelly: well, if your opinion is correct you too will prevail without you having to talk here. So you could take your own advice William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:01, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
If Solomon has decided to label himself an "Environmentalist", and reliable sources have called him such, then that's what he is. Nobody owns the definition.
This reminds me of the reaction to Sarah Palin identifying as a feminist. Just because political objectives differ, it doesn't mean the person is not entitled to the identification. Kelly hi! 08:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Nobody owns the definition - exactly true. In particular, LS doesn't own it, and can't change the meaning by applying it to himself if inappropriate. Or rather, *he* can but we should not follow him William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:04, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
In light of the present dispute, what exactly disqualifies Solomon from being described as an "environmentalist"? Kelly hi! 10:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Two years ago, WMC questioned Solomon and Energy Probe on his blog. It is a highly critical post, calling Solomon a "frothing-at-the-mouth GW septic" (note "septic") and Energy Probe "pro-property rights right-wing pro-coal astroturf group". He clearly has a critical opinion on this LP, and he clearly is trying to impose this view here by removing the environmentalist label, which is supported in sources and non-controversial, except to WMC.
This evidence of pushing one's opinion on-wiki would be exhibit "A" in disqualifying any other editor from contributing here, but as we all know the rules are different for WMC and those who support him. This is clearly a COI, clearly a case of someone pushing their POV on wiki, and clearly a BLP violation merely by his presence here editing this article. But nobody stops him, and his friends bully off any opposition. This conflict is a microcosm of the entire history of the CC debate, especially when it comes to BLPs of people they don't like.
Verbal please specify the reasons for the POV tag, or I will remove it first thing tomorrow. Specifically, you should address my 3 points above: that he self-identifies as one, that others identify him as one in RSs, and that he's founded an organization which reliable sources have described as an environmental group. ATren ( talk) 14:14, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Ugh, what a tedious argument. Yes I have read it and the archived discussion. I have had a long around at this environmentalist thing. As it is not a qualification but rather a creed I think self declaration is an important consideration but actually the expression which seems to be used by and about Solomon most (and about Energy Probe) is "free-market environmentalist". Does anybody regard the claim to being a " Free-market environmentalist" gives a false impression or can we settle on that compromise description? -- BozMo talk 20:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Free-market environmentalist describes his position completely - I found a ref, off his own site, that describes him as such - [10] - in the section "Setting Up Fronts", "As pointed out by the free-market environmentalist Larry Solomon of Energy Probe, the "Boreal Conservation Framework" actually amounts to a massive resource giveaway requiring government subsidies, as industrial development in the far northern boreal forest is currently uneconomic under market conditions." I hope this resolves this once and for-all. Hipocrite ( talk) 13:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
I asked Verbal above for justification of the {{disputed}} tag, but he may have missed it. I have presented three points that support Solomon being labeled environmentalist: (1) he claims it himself, (2) others have called him that in reliable sources (though it is argued that those sources are not strong), (3) he founded an organization ( Energy Probe) which reliable sources call an "environmental group" and an "environmental research group". Point (3) is compelling, since it strongly enforces the first two by providing evidence of his environmental activity. I therefore believe the disputed tag is unwarranted, and I plan to remove it unless someone presents a reliable source that indicates otherwise. ATren ( talk) 14:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
It's been 2 days with no activity here. I am removing the tag. ATren ( talk) 12:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't really care about the dispute tag. But I've removed "env", per the discussion above. Hopefully at some point ATren will find the time to read and answer it William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:35, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I have reverted "free market environmentalist" back to the unadorned environmentalist for two reasons:
Being that I see no reliably sourced justification for the "free market" label other than a partisan magazine, and given that the BLP himself considers the term inaccurate and pejorative, the term is not appropriate and I have removed it. ATren ( talk) 01:36, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
So, because the individual presented wants to be seen as an "environmentalist," but liberal authors don't call him an environmentalist, instead a "free market environmentalist" (which, we all agree, describes him more fully), we decide to ignore one PoV entirely? That seems like a violation of NPOV to me. But, it's become clear the skeptic cabal has shown up here and will do what it normally does to drive away NPOV editors, so I'll leave. Hipocrite ( talk) 10:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
OK, so we are to trust a single, very partisan magazine for Solomon's label, and put that in the lede? Is that what you are saying? Because that opens up quite a wide door on all the BLPs in this topic area. I'm sure Heartland Institute will have some very interesting labels to put in the lede of the Climategate scientists' BLPs. NPOV demands that the standard has to be level across all articles, and if that means lowering the standard here to the point where partisan sources are allowed to define this BLP, then it should be applied to all. I prefer a higher standard, but if this small groups of editors absolutely insists in pushing partisan opinion prominently into these few skeptic BLPs, then it must be done in all BLPs. ATren ( talk) 13:10, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Verbal reverted a bunch of my edits, and in the process, he included the free-market environmentalist label in the lede, which is cited to a single person writing for an obscure liberal Canadian Magazine. This is clearly not notable and given LS's own indication that he considers it a pejorative, it is a BLP violation to include it. In my version (which Verbal reverted) I included the "free-market environmental" claim with its source in the references section, but it does NOT belong in the lede. I have cited BLP exemption in my revert. ATren ( talk) 14:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
The tags went up shortly before protection, so let's start discussing it so they can come down when protection expires. Is this solely about the environmentalist label? If so, what's the problem? Why is this so controversial? Solomon wrote a book called "The Conserver Solution" which helped inspire a conservation movement. He started Energy Probe, which is clearly an environmental group, and described that way in many reliable sources (despite WMC's POV that it is not). Now, recent references to Solomon have referred to him by his roles as writer and/or EP researcher, but that does not disqualify him from the environmentalist label.
I am shocked that this has gone on for so long -- two years the same group of editors has persistently (and tendentiously) fought the environmentalist label. Solomon himself has even commented on the folly of it [11]. This all seems to have started because one single person, who also happens to be a Wikipedia editor, formed the opinion that Solomon really isn't an environmentalist [12] and has relentlessly pushed that opinion here for two years. In fact, in his own blog posting where he expresses his unfounded views about Solomon, he admits that he couldn't find anything negative ("Thanks to all those who commented and/or mailed. Probably the most interesting thing about all this is the lack of info about him, which is curious for 'Canadas leading envirnomentalist'."), yet he has still pushed that opinion here for two years.
So the question is: does anyone have any reliable source which questions Solomon's environmentalist credentials? And if not, why are you still edit warring on this? This should be a no brainer, but because of a few tendentious editors (at least one of which should be banned by now, because he's done as much damage as any sock), we are still arguing this obvious point.
Now, if someone can't come up with some evidence to counter the very solid evidence already presented on his environmentalist credentials, can we put this to rest once and for all?
As to the "free-market" label -- it appeared as a passing reference in ONE very partisan and obscure source, and is not at all appropriate for the lede. But I have kept the source in the footnote, qualified, to reflect that one person has called him "free market". Even that is more weight than it deserves. ATren ( talk) 14:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
( edit conflict) Interesting - [14] - WP:NEWSBLOG of Western Standard - conservative, calls him a FME while awarding him something. Hipocrite ( talk) 01:48, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
As a compromise, I've removed the tags and the disputed sentence. The first paragraph now reads:
"Lawrence Solomon is the founder and executive director of Energy Probe, a Canadian environmental agency. His writing has appeared in a number of newspapers, including The National Post where he has a column, and he is the author of several books on energy resources, urban sprawl, and global warming, among them The Conserver Solution (1978), Energy Shock (1980), Toronto Sprawls: A History (2007), and The Deniers (2008). [1]
By the way, I intended to add that I was changing this to the edit summary, but I mistakenly added that I'd added an infobox, and tidied. That was an error, caused by answering the phone when I was supposed to be concentrating. I'm mentioning it only because this is a contentious point, and I don't want anyone to think the edit summary was deliberately misleading. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 18:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Enquire has added time and place of birth to the article. This is, in principle, welcome. However, IIRC, this has come up earlier - the problem is that we could not come up with any source for that data. Enquire, can we use whatever source you got the data from in this article? -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 11:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
"According to Elaine Kurtenbach for America's Intelligence Wire, Solomon discovered and revealed that the IPCC used a flawed and non-peer reviewed paper by James Hansen and Eigil Friis-Christensen as support for the IPCC's conclusions on the correlation between land based global temperatures that had been contaminated by proximity to expanding urban areas with rising atmospheric CO2.[22]"
Aside from being run-on, it seems to say "They used a flawed paper to support their conclusion that the correlation with land-based temperatures that had been contaminated by rising UHI with rising CO2."
Can someone please reorganize that sentence into several that make sense? Perhaps removing "that had been" would help a little. But I still can't be sure what it means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.195.224.102 ( talk) 00:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Earlier today I deleted a copyvio link, I've thought about it and now deleted the entire reference to the article he wrote called "How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles". The link is dead of course but anyone looking at this reference would think that Connolley actually rewrote 5,428 climate articles, which of course is ridiculous. We've never had anywhere near that many articles relating to climate change. At the time it was written, Connolley had edited that many articles - many edits certainly being your standard vandalism reverts, etc. That link is not just dead, Solomon doesn't link to it here [15] and I wouldn't be surprised if the article hasn't been removed from the National Post website. The article's actual text included "All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions… In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement." Not exactly what the headline said, but the wording implies that all of these deletions, blocks, etc were related to climate change. The inaccuracy of that may be why the article isn't on the website now. Dougweller ( talk) 15:23, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps I need some guidance - I have been trying to add additional detail on Solomon's positions with respect to climate change - my additions that quote from Solomon's own work are getting deleted. I am trying to be neutral, but I believe that the point of an article on a person should legitimately convey their work and is enhanced by conveying positions they have taken, even if those positions might be considered controversial by some. I am trying to be careful to cite referenced statements by Solomon - if there are additional steps I need to take to ensure that this is done in a neutral and reference-able way could someone please let me know (I presume that "neutral" doesn't mean to make the article neutral about the topics he writes on, but to make it neutral in terms of not misrepresenting his writings or position) DiligentDavidG ( talk) 15:32, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
( edit conflict)You've explained about using his book although we must never presume. I also agree that we need to decide why the debate should be included and whether it belongs here. I also think you should read WP:NPOV - we don't say articles should be neutral, we say they should be written from a neutral point of view which is not, as you should see if you read the policy, the same thing. We only add significant material to biographies, and not everything he has done is significant. Dougweller ( talk) 16:38, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
The article states "He is the founder and managing director of the Energy Probe one of Canada's most prominent environmental agencies, as well as working with its predecessor and sister agency, Pollution Probe."
It is true that Lawrence Solomon worked with Pollution Probe prior to 1981 but Pollution Probe has not been a 'sister agency' to Pollution Probe since that date. The split between Pollution Probe and Energy Probe was adversarial and took place around 1979-1980. Since that time there has been absolutely no connection whatsoever between the two organizations.
Colin Isaacs, Executive Director of Pollution Probe 1982-1989 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.127.220.121 ( talk) 02:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
This WP:BLPN discussion may be of interest Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Talk:William_Connolley for the writing of this article. Nsaa ( talk) 13:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I've added an infobox, and I included his date and place of birth because it was in the lead, but I can't find a source. Does anyone know of one? SlimVirgin talk contribs 20:26, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Undid revision 371530124 by 69.63.53.25 (talk)Solomon has self-declared in his newspaper column that he is an environmentalist is wrong. Self-descriptions aren't acceptable if contested William M. Connolley ( talk) 19:59, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
Irrelevant, the source is reliable, if they got it from energy probe is beside the point, we use what the sources say. And for you guys to say the founder of canada`s biggest enviro group is not an enviro is beyond parody. And do not lecture me on source evaluation WMC, at least i have never used my websites or my blog as a source in WP mark nutley ( talk) 18:10, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
There's an academic paper about propaganda on Wikipedia that calls Solomon an environmentalist. See Oboler, Andre; Steinberg, Gerald; and Stern, Rephael. "The Political Framing of Political NGOs through Criticism Elimination", Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 7(4), 2010. It says: "Entire topic areas can be framed with a particular view by users with knowledge, determination, and power within the system. Environmentalist Lawrence Solomon (2008) explored this in Wikipedia articles on global warming and climate change research." SlimVirgin talk| contribs 22:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
There is no BLP violation here, there is nothing controversial about calling him an environmentalist, and it's clearly well-sourced. I've restored it. ATren ( talk) 03:47, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
To elaborate, we have:
Are we really still disputing this? Jesus. ATren ( talk) 04:08, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Verbal, there are numerous reliable sources who call him an environmentalist, including the academic paper I posted above. So what is the BLP issue? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 08:06, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
@Kelly: well, if your opinion is correct you too will prevail without you having to talk here. So you could take your own advice William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:01, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
If Solomon has decided to label himself an "Environmentalist", and reliable sources have called him such, then that's what he is. Nobody owns the definition.
This reminds me of the reaction to Sarah Palin identifying as a feminist. Just because political objectives differ, it doesn't mean the person is not entitled to the identification. Kelly hi! 08:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Nobody owns the definition - exactly true. In particular, LS doesn't own it, and can't change the meaning by applying it to himself if inappropriate. Or rather, *he* can but we should not follow him William M. Connolley ( talk) 09:04, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
In light of the present dispute, what exactly disqualifies Solomon from being described as an "environmentalist"? Kelly hi! 10:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Two years ago, WMC questioned Solomon and Energy Probe on his blog. It is a highly critical post, calling Solomon a "frothing-at-the-mouth GW septic" (note "septic") and Energy Probe "pro-property rights right-wing pro-coal astroturf group". He clearly has a critical opinion on this LP, and he clearly is trying to impose this view here by removing the environmentalist label, which is supported in sources and non-controversial, except to WMC.
This evidence of pushing one's opinion on-wiki would be exhibit "A" in disqualifying any other editor from contributing here, but as we all know the rules are different for WMC and those who support him. This is clearly a COI, clearly a case of someone pushing their POV on wiki, and clearly a BLP violation merely by his presence here editing this article. But nobody stops him, and his friends bully off any opposition. This conflict is a microcosm of the entire history of the CC debate, especially when it comes to BLPs of people they don't like.
Verbal please specify the reasons for the POV tag, or I will remove it first thing tomorrow. Specifically, you should address my 3 points above: that he self-identifies as one, that others identify him as one in RSs, and that he's founded an organization which reliable sources have described as an environmental group. ATren ( talk) 14:14, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Ugh, what a tedious argument. Yes I have read it and the archived discussion. I have had a long around at this environmentalist thing. As it is not a qualification but rather a creed I think self declaration is an important consideration but actually the expression which seems to be used by and about Solomon most (and about Energy Probe) is "free-market environmentalist". Does anybody regard the claim to being a " Free-market environmentalist" gives a false impression or can we settle on that compromise description? -- BozMo talk 20:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Free-market environmentalist describes his position completely - I found a ref, off his own site, that describes him as such - [10] - in the section "Setting Up Fronts", "As pointed out by the free-market environmentalist Larry Solomon of Energy Probe, the "Boreal Conservation Framework" actually amounts to a massive resource giveaway requiring government subsidies, as industrial development in the far northern boreal forest is currently uneconomic under market conditions." I hope this resolves this once and for-all. Hipocrite ( talk) 13:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
I asked Verbal above for justification of the {{disputed}} tag, but he may have missed it. I have presented three points that support Solomon being labeled environmentalist: (1) he claims it himself, (2) others have called him that in reliable sources (though it is argued that those sources are not strong), (3) he founded an organization ( Energy Probe) which reliable sources call an "environmental group" and an "environmental research group". Point (3) is compelling, since it strongly enforces the first two by providing evidence of his environmental activity. I therefore believe the disputed tag is unwarranted, and I plan to remove it unless someone presents a reliable source that indicates otherwise. ATren ( talk) 14:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
It's been 2 days with no activity here. I am removing the tag. ATren ( talk) 12:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't really care about the dispute tag. But I've removed "env", per the discussion above. Hopefully at some point ATren will find the time to read and answer it William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:35, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I have reverted "free market environmentalist" back to the unadorned environmentalist for two reasons:
Being that I see no reliably sourced justification for the "free market" label other than a partisan magazine, and given that the BLP himself considers the term inaccurate and pejorative, the term is not appropriate and I have removed it. ATren ( talk) 01:36, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
So, because the individual presented wants to be seen as an "environmentalist," but liberal authors don't call him an environmentalist, instead a "free market environmentalist" (which, we all agree, describes him more fully), we decide to ignore one PoV entirely? That seems like a violation of NPOV to me. But, it's become clear the skeptic cabal has shown up here and will do what it normally does to drive away NPOV editors, so I'll leave. Hipocrite ( talk) 10:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
OK, so we are to trust a single, very partisan magazine for Solomon's label, and put that in the lede? Is that what you are saying? Because that opens up quite a wide door on all the BLPs in this topic area. I'm sure Heartland Institute will have some very interesting labels to put in the lede of the Climategate scientists' BLPs. NPOV demands that the standard has to be level across all articles, and if that means lowering the standard here to the point where partisan sources are allowed to define this BLP, then it should be applied to all. I prefer a higher standard, but if this small groups of editors absolutely insists in pushing partisan opinion prominently into these few skeptic BLPs, then it must be done in all BLPs. ATren ( talk) 13:10, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Verbal reverted a bunch of my edits, and in the process, he included the free-market environmentalist label in the lede, which is cited to a single person writing for an obscure liberal Canadian Magazine. This is clearly not notable and given LS's own indication that he considers it a pejorative, it is a BLP violation to include it. In my version (which Verbal reverted) I included the "free-market environmental" claim with its source in the references section, but it does NOT belong in the lede. I have cited BLP exemption in my revert. ATren ( talk) 14:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
The tags went up shortly before protection, so let's start discussing it so they can come down when protection expires. Is this solely about the environmentalist label? If so, what's the problem? Why is this so controversial? Solomon wrote a book called "The Conserver Solution" which helped inspire a conservation movement. He started Energy Probe, which is clearly an environmental group, and described that way in many reliable sources (despite WMC's POV that it is not). Now, recent references to Solomon have referred to him by his roles as writer and/or EP researcher, but that does not disqualify him from the environmentalist label.
I am shocked that this has gone on for so long -- two years the same group of editors has persistently (and tendentiously) fought the environmentalist label. Solomon himself has even commented on the folly of it [11]. This all seems to have started because one single person, who also happens to be a Wikipedia editor, formed the opinion that Solomon really isn't an environmentalist [12] and has relentlessly pushed that opinion here for two years. In fact, in his own blog posting where he expresses his unfounded views about Solomon, he admits that he couldn't find anything negative ("Thanks to all those who commented and/or mailed. Probably the most interesting thing about all this is the lack of info about him, which is curious for 'Canadas leading envirnomentalist'."), yet he has still pushed that opinion here for two years.
So the question is: does anyone have any reliable source which questions Solomon's environmentalist credentials? And if not, why are you still edit warring on this? This should be a no brainer, but because of a few tendentious editors (at least one of which should be banned by now, because he's done as much damage as any sock), we are still arguing this obvious point.
Now, if someone can't come up with some evidence to counter the very solid evidence already presented on his environmentalist credentials, can we put this to rest once and for all?
As to the "free-market" label -- it appeared as a passing reference in ONE very partisan and obscure source, and is not at all appropriate for the lede. But I have kept the source in the footnote, qualified, to reflect that one person has called him "free market". Even that is more weight than it deserves. ATren ( talk) 14:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
( edit conflict) Interesting - [14] - WP:NEWSBLOG of Western Standard - conservative, calls him a FME while awarding him something. Hipocrite ( talk) 01:48, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
As a compromise, I've removed the tags and the disputed sentence. The first paragraph now reads:
"Lawrence Solomon is the founder and executive director of Energy Probe, a Canadian environmental agency. His writing has appeared in a number of newspapers, including The National Post where he has a column, and he is the author of several books on energy resources, urban sprawl, and global warming, among them The Conserver Solution (1978), Energy Shock (1980), Toronto Sprawls: A History (2007), and The Deniers (2008). [1]
By the way, I intended to add that I was changing this to the edit summary, but I mistakenly added that I'd added an infobox, and tidied. That was an error, caused by answering the phone when I was supposed to be concentrating. I'm mentioning it only because this is a contentious point, and I don't want anyone to think the edit summary was deliberately misleading. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 18:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Enquire has added time and place of birth to the article. This is, in principle, welcome. However, IIRC, this has come up earlier - the problem is that we could not come up with any source for that data. Enquire, can we use whatever source you got the data from in this article? -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 11:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
"According to Elaine Kurtenbach for America's Intelligence Wire, Solomon discovered and revealed that the IPCC used a flawed and non-peer reviewed paper by James Hansen and Eigil Friis-Christensen as support for the IPCC's conclusions on the correlation between land based global temperatures that had been contaminated by proximity to expanding urban areas with rising atmospheric CO2.[22]"
Aside from being run-on, it seems to say "They used a flawed paper to support their conclusion that the correlation with land-based temperatures that had been contaminated by rising UHI with rising CO2."
Can someone please reorganize that sentence into several that make sense? Perhaps removing "that had been" would help a little. But I still can't be sure what it means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.195.224.102 ( talk) 00:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Earlier today I deleted a copyvio link, I've thought about it and now deleted the entire reference to the article he wrote called "How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles". The link is dead of course but anyone looking at this reference would think that Connolley actually rewrote 5,428 climate articles, which of course is ridiculous. We've never had anywhere near that many articles relating to climate change. At the time it was written, Connolley had edited that many articles - many edits certainly being your standard vandalism reverts, etc. That link is not just dead, Solomon doesn't link to it here [15] and I wouldn't be surprised if the article hasn't been removed from the National Post website. The article's actual text included "All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions… In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement." Not exactly what the headline said, but the wording implies that all of these deletions, blocks, etc were related to climate change. The inaccuracy of that may be why the article isn't on the website now. Dougweller ( talk) 15:23, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps I need some guidance - I have been trying to add additional detail on Solomon's positions with respect to climate change - my additions that quote from Solomon's own work are getting deleted. I am trying to be neutral, but I believe that the point of an article on a person should legitimately convey their work and is enhanced by conveying positions they have taken, even if those positions might be considered controversial by some. I am trying to be careful to cite referenced statements by Solomon - if there are additional steps I need to take to ensure that this is done in a neutral and reference-able way could someone please let me know (I presume that "neutral" doesn't mean to make the article neutral about the topics he writes on, but to make it neutral in terms of not misrepresenting his writings or position) DiligentDavidG ( talk) 15:32, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
( edit conflict)You've explained about using his book although we must never presume. I also agree that we need to decide why the debate should be included and whether it belongs here. I also think you should read WP:NPOV - we don't say articles should be neutral, we say they should be written from a neutral point of view which is not, as you should see if you read the policy, the same thing. We only add significant material to biographies, and not everything he has done is significant. Dougweller ( talk) 16:38, 18 May 2014 (UTC)