Articles related to climate change have been one of Wikipedia's problem areas for a number of years now. Most of the disruption boils down to often heated or uncivil disagreement over the proper application of WP:WEIGHT and WP:SCIRS, though sockpuppetry and single-purpose accounts out of touch with wider Wikipedia norms play their roles. Near the end of last year, the Copenhagen Summit on climate change and the Climatic Research Unit email controversy contributed to a surge in interest in this family of articles; that furor has largely died down now. Whether the long term or the short term patterns have been more problematic is an open question, but a few days into the new year the community established Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation, giving uninvolved administrators wide leeway when acting to quell disruption in this topic area, and establishing a Requests for enforcement board for discussing the same.
Several editors in the discussion establishing this extraordinary probation opined that the community should review it after a few months had passed. It has now been about five months, and I would like to open this question for review. - 2/0 ( cont.) 15:43, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
Actions taken under this probation are logged at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Log. The large number of notifications resulted from the community decision to notify everyone making contributions to the topic area without any comment on the appropriateness of their edits. Page protections and blocks related to activities in the topic area but undertaken as normal administrator actions without invoking the probation have generally not been logged. The Requests for enforcement board was established to bring potential violations to the attention of uninvolved administrators and for discussion of appropriate action. Including trivial or vexatious requests, this board and its archives have dealt with 92 requests and comprise over two megabytes of discussion. An overview of the current state of this probation area may be seen here.
If the community thinks that the probation serves a useful function at this time, the special measures can be reaffirmed, or possibly modified; in that case, periodic or continuing input from a few more uninvolved parties would be welcome. If the community thinks the probation does not serve a useful function at this time, the special measures can be marked as historical and the relevant articles detagged, with any future matters being referred to normal dispute resolution venues. If the community thinks that this family of disputes requires input from the Arbitration Committee, this discussion may serve as a preliminary (though please focus on the question at hand when commenting here).
Please do not edit others' View by sections except to add an endorsement. Threaded discussion should take place at the talkpage.
Whatever else is decided here, the current Requests for enforcement board is not working. Instead of providing swift informed relief for nascent or escalating problems, it has turned into a game of brinkmanship. Whatever the outcome of this RfC, I have no intention of wading back into that sort of environment. This is partially an indictment on myself, as I have been acting as an uninvolved administrator in this area since shortly before the probation was established. I think that the best thing this probation has done is to establish and enforce a one revert restriction on the article Climatic Research Unit email controversy (under various names), which was enacted by Ryan Postlethwaite on 4 January; as this issue is less in the news of late and the investigations are being concluded, there is a good chance that this restriction may be relaxed. Other accomplishments include (anecdotally) fewer edit wars of the sure there have already been fifty reverts today, but I have not used my three revert entitlement yet variety, and a faster response when conflict flares up. I think, and I have been watching that monitoring link fairly closely for a while now, that this family of disputes has calmed enough that normal methods of dispute resolution should suffice. This is not to say that all matters are entirely settled, which would anyway not represent a healthy state for a developing encyclopedia, only that it is settled enough that it is no longer necessary to enforce a different set of rules from the standard Wikipedia expectations of collaboration and civility.
The probation is working, and the enforcement request page continues to evolve good working practices, and should continue to act to resolve the long term issues relating to the editing of Climate Change/Anthropogenic Global Warming articles. However, the participants to the editing of the articles and the administrators reviewing and enforcing the Probation and its requests for enforcement and their behaviours should be placed before the Arbitration Committee to have the issues regarding neutrality, disruption, battleground mentality, and associated concerns addressed and where appropriate have those individuals deemed to be nonconducive to the orderly resolution of issues brought to notice under the terms of the Probation to be removed, restricted or otherwise sanctioned so that the Probation may better and more quickly allow for providing a good editing environment within the related article and talkpage spaces.
It is my experience that in bringing cases to Enforcement request, the issues at hand are more clearly evidenced, with less interference, than on article talkpages - in the instances when that is exercised rather than edit warring - and that the dispute resolution that should have already occured commences. It is also evident that many cases of alleged policy violation are found not to have substance, and issues are then moved forward rather than dwelt upon. Lastly, the perceived belief that some editors were more equal than others in receiving the benefit or otherwise of individual admin actions has been largely reduced by the adoption by most uninvolved admins of a "consensus before action" discussion format, where policy application is decided and the end decision is adopted by all contributing admins. This has also lead to a greater consistency in the application of policy and the use of enforcement options.
That said, there are issues within the conduct of the Probation, the editing of articles within the Probations remit, and the conduct and adminning of the enforcement section of the Probation that likely requires the Arbitration Committee to review the entirety to see where there are areas of concern that may be beyond the current setup to address, to determine if there are persons whose conduct is detrimental to either the editing of article space or contributing to Probation pages, whether area's of the Probation process are indeed failing or otherwise require re-addressing, and suggestions of good practice going forward. This may be undertaken while the Probation is in force, with restrictions or amendments noted within the ArbCom process as required.
In short, it is a successful tool that might however require further refining.
1. Problem: It's not working. The purpose of the sanctions regime is stated at WP:GSCC: Any editor may be sanctioned by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, personal attacks, incivility and assumptions of bad faith. Yet each of these kinds of misbehavior have been happening, often with impunity, on the WP:GSCCRE (requests for enforcement) page, right in front of the administrators involved in enforcement -- often enough with those administrators as the victims. What's going on at the GSCCRE page is a symptom of the failure. Some leeway is normally given on a dispute-resolution or complaints page, but the behavior now has gone way beyond a litle leeway. This line at the WP:GSCC page has become ironic: Not much leeway in pages under probation, so basically be a model Wikipedian; And yet we also have administrators blocking editors or imposing other behavioral sanctions without consensus on the GSCCRE page. Lengthy discussions of complaints about certain editors are followed by little or no action by administrators, and then the whole process repeats itself, creating an enormous waste of time and more frustration.
2. Some reasons why. WP:GSCCRE is essentially a little AN/I, with some of the same civility and consistency problems of AN/I. GSCCRE is attended by a rather small number of administrators, some of whom flit through and some of whom stay put. Those who flit through probably aren't as familiar with the ongoing problems as they could be, and some (possibly all) who stay are subjected to greater-than-normal complaints and even abuse for doing a tougher-than-normal volunteer job. And some of those administrators, for various reasons, have volunteered for a more difficult task than they can handle well. This isn't a major criticism of most of the admins working in this area: It only takes a few to prevent a consensus on enforcement, and administrators who get involved in this area are more likely than not to have stronger opinions about the content, and therefore may find it more difficult to separate their POV from their judgment on whether and how to sanction various editors. It's a challenging task, and many admins have said they wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Most admins probably couldn't do it well.
3. Proposal: Many of these problems would be solved if ArbCom took over control of GSCC, simply by agreeing to appoint administrators rather than having administrators select themselves for the job. On the whole, Arbcom appointees are likely to have better judgment than self-selected admins. Appointed admins will be responsible to ArbCom (removable at any time by Arbcom or an Arbcom committee) and therefore are more likely to be on their best behavior, yet with a mandate from ArbCom they're likely to be more decisive. Arbcom should appoint admins without an intense interest in political controversies related to science, or at least admins who have shown they know how to separate their POV from their admin actions. If five admins are appointed for overlapping five-month terms, with one admin rotated out each month, they'll get a good sense of the problems and personalities first-hand, but their terms will be up before they're likely to burn out. The first batch of appointees should include at least a couple of the admins who have experience here. They could serve for a one- or a two-month term to help retain some institutional experience. A stable group is more likely to act consistently. This won't solve all the problems (nothing will), but it would help with many of them, and if the appointees are good, it would solve most of them. After 11 months, ArbCom should ask the community in an RfC if it wants to continue the Arbcom-appointment regime, return to the old one (the one now in place) or abolish GSCC altogether.
4. Process: Since GSCC was set up by the community, Arbcom may be reluctant to overturn it without some kind of support for that move shown here, or at least community input on this page indicating that the current GSCC is not working. At least that's the impression I get from some of the arbitrators' comments now on the WP:RFAR page. [1] [2] Personally, I think Arbcom doesn't need community input to take this over, but I'm not really sure. I've numbered the paragraphs here to make it easier for anyone to note that they're rejecting parts of this while supporting other parts. -- JohnWBarber ( talk) 02:18, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
At bottom this is a content dispute. The scientifically literate editors believe that the articles should predominantly reflect the conclusions of the scientific community -- a content issue. The contrarians believe that their views should get equal emphasis to those of the scientific community -- the other side of the content issue. Lar, LHvU and some others believe that the science should be de-emphasized in favor of sociopolitical concerns -- again, a content issue.
But we know that admins are not supposed to make content decisions. So, we try to re-cast our content concerns as behavioral ones. While there are a few clear instances of misbehavior, it is more typical to see people quote-mining, presenting diffs out of context, raising objections to precisely the same behavior in which they themselves engage, and the like because they have to do something to show misconduct by their opposing party. All so that the content dispute won't look like a content dispute. And yes, both sides are doing this (including admins, it has to be said). For these reasons I believe that the pretense that content is not the main issue ultimately makes the GSCC enforcement more rancorous than it would be otherwise, even before tossing in the usual long-held grudges and political machinations one sees at such venues.
Arbcom needs to drop the pretense that they don't decide content and get to the point: What do they want the climate-related articles to say? We can then go away and write those articles. Or we can stay away from them if the desired result is unconscionable to us, whatever our viewpoint may be.
I confess to not having a sense of how workable the above suggestion is, because I don't even read these articles much--the conflict level has impaired their credibility too much. That already says the existing wiki process is not working and we need to be doing something different. 69.228.170.24 ( talk) 03:57, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
(Added on re-visit): SBHB's analysis is generally insightful. There are bad behavioral problems (i.e. departures from WP policies about permissible editing) due to inability of those policies to resolve the content battle. That is a failure of policy that probably can't be fixed in the existing dysfunctional WP cultural framework. I think arbcom can't really decide the content dispute as SBHB suggests, but it could possibly enact better remedies to help manage it (I can suggest some). Maybe new mechanisms like flagged revisions can also be put to some use in slowing down the fights. 69.228.170.24 ( talk) 13:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
There could be greater consistency in the sanctions. I am left with the impression that closes and administrative actions could have better guidelines. RFE's are in and of themselves a disruption; however, necessary to address article disruptions. Thus, some of the disruptive aspects of the RFE's could be reduced with guidelines developed by sanction case histories, Arbcom finding, and ANI practices. Zulu Papa 5 * ( talk) 04:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
The administrative question faced in this area, like any area, is what can be done with regard to the editing environment in order to best favor Wikipedia's content.
What's different about this area from most others is that some of the most basic assumptions are called into question. Generally it is taken for granted that "cooperation, collaboration, and compromise," as one editor puts it, are the key elements of a productive editing environment which will produce the best content. In this area, however, many editors believe incompetent activists are so prevalent that cooperation is a losing game. Thus, editors with this view work to ensure that there is not a purely even playing field (in the sense of purely democratic article writing), and to ensure instead that helpful editing and editors are given a boost.
Fringe editing is self-evidently a problem, and as such I believe that such a boost could be given openly and appropriately. Editors who do strong work and show substantive expertise should be accommodated. Editors who push fringe material in violation of content policies should likewise be sanctioned regardless of their compliance with behavioral policies. However, I submit that because numerous editors don't believe this is possible they go too far in various forms of gamesmanship, which ultimately ends up disregarding nearly everything besides apparent support for the grand cause. The gamesmanship is seen mainly in the continual hostility aimed at editors and admins, and the refusal to accept neutral principles of any kind. I think that at some point, this is also self-evidently a problem.
What is really needed is an environment that promotes quality over incompetent editing, but also maintains openness, consistency and professionalism. If the probation can preserve its own integrity then I think it can promote such a balance. A far more optimistic goal would be to change the culture so that more substantive experts perceive that an open, consistent and professional system is possible. Hey, it would be cool.
Climate change is an unusual phenomenon. It is the first time that scientific work has uncovered and described an issue that is so important to our very survival and that is going to drive political, economic and social change worldwide for the indefinite future. The factual description of such an issue is not something that is open to the normal political and social processes that may apply to opinion-driven issues. When you describe a war or a revolution, there are at least two viewpoints to describe, and that is the point of the conflict. When you describe other scientific endeavours like space exploration, you can say that political processes allocate the funding and so social and political viewpoints underpin the decision-making. The existence of the global warming problem is no longer the issue under debate (although what to do about it, how much, and how soon, still are). Level playing fields, compromise, balance and democracy are not words that apply to people who want to alter Wikipedia's articles to give air-time to views that there is no warming, that it is not caused by people, or that it doesn't matter. Discussion of such views are correctly covered in articles like Climate change denial, and barely at all in the mainstream texts. Global warming is not a matter of opinion: the two 'sides' in this case are those who get it and those who (for whatever reason) don't.
Therefore, merely enforcing good behaviour in content debates does not necessarily lead to more balanced articles, where all viewpoints are eventually given their due weight. In the climate change arena, giving balanced weight to the views of those who get it and those who don't, just gives us articles with a certain amount of nonsense mixed in with the reality. If the nonsense is sourced to a fringe blog, it is easy enough to argue the case, but when you have powerful business interests advocating denial, political think tanks set up to spread FUD and religious views that don't help either, many non-experts come to us convinced that they have valid contrary views, when they don't.
I have no idea how Wikipedia can encourage let alone enforce good, factual, balanced editing in this situation. I remain amazed that the articles are maintained as well as they are. This is due to the tireless efforts of those editors in the space who know what they are talking about and what they are doing. Using sanctions to teach those who have no idea what the real issues are how to behave may stop some of them adding their nonsense to the articles, but it may also just make them into more civil and cleverer pushers of their fringe viewpoints. The shame is that, in the complexity of all the gamesmanship that the whole process has engendered, there remain only a few scientifically literate stalwarts who have the skill and patience to keep up with the continual risks to their own reputations and accounts while maintaining the generally high quality of the current texts and references. In some senses, article quality has been maintained despite the content-agnosticism of the probation process, not because of it.
In response to the view by Nigelj, above. The concerns that there are editors whose expertise within the science regarding the issues could permit them to disregard policy and practice when dealing with edits or subjects that reflect views from outside that discipline - and that are conversant with WP rules - was one of the issues that the Probation was created to resolve. The Probation, through its enforcement request process, has been successful in permitting the application of WP policy, and sanctioning violation of same, within the article space - although this is a continuing area of dispute and pov advocacy. To remove the Probation entirely is to allow the development of partisan editorship over encyclopedic neutrality. (as amended 27th May, 2010)
I simply do not think that sanctions/probation and enforcement have been of benefit to the climate change area of wikipedia. Internationally this area is vast. However, I believe that these ill thought out sanctions on wikipeida primarily distill issues into heated debates where a small minority of admins and editors entrench themselves in opposing camps. This in effect is detrimental to wikipedia. Polargeo ( talk) 13:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
At bottom this is a behavioral issue, NOT a content issue. Those trying to paint it that way miss the point, or are deliberately obscuring it. SBHB claims that "The scientifically literate editors believe that the articles should predominantly reflect the conclusions of the scientific community" but I don't think there is any meaningful disagreement with that view among most folk. Further, if the edit process was working correctly, we would reach consensus about details in a calm, collegial and orderly manner if there were disagreement.
But editing in this area is not calm, collegial and orderly. It is contentious and unpleasant, marked by bitter and abrasive commentary from many participants, in what appears at first as warfare between two camps.
This is not new behavior at Wikipedia. We have seen it before, time and time again. Often, in a contentious topic, a "Wikipedia House POV" (1) develops and then gets fiercely defended... for example Scientology, Naked Short Selling, Homeopathy, Intelligent Design, Poland/Russia, Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan, Cold Fusion, and so on (there are more examples to be sure). Sometimes (heck, almost always) it's the POV that has widespread support out in reality. That POV is not the issue. The issue is the tactics used to defend that POV, and the informal groups that grow up around defending it. Most people know these sorts of groups exist. Denying their existence in general is pointless.
Now, some will want you to believe that this is a battle between "the scientifically literate" and "the skeptics", as a whole. It's not. It is a battle between factions(2) , and not everyone who holds either view actually is in these factions. Further, some in the more powerful group tend to disparage anyone who does not instantly fall into line with their approach as "not one of us" and therefore a "skeptic"... exhibiting "You're either with us or you are against us!" style thinking.
No. Not acceptable.
I am far from a skeptic, but I do not agree up with the tactics employed by either of these camps. These groupings are the major problem area here, not the content itself, because most people get that GW is real. Most people, when they look into the tactics used, even (especially) if they agree with the content POV, are appalled.
The articles that resulted are generally accurate on the science, but there are loose ends at the edges. Any attempt to introduce any information that chips away at the edifice of certainty that AGW is exactly thus and such is fiercely resisted. Further, we have the BLP problem. Evidence has been introduced that skeptic BLPs slant negative over time, while AGW proponent BLPs slant positive over time. That evidence is wideranging but it gets shouted down (in detail) when presented. Even the NAME of an article (was it a hacking incident? An email theft? A leak? ClimateGate as everyone else calls it?) can be a source of warfare.
So then, that's the background.
The Climate Change sanctions were intended to improve the environment, but they did not explicitly acknowledge the existence of a grouping here. Unsurprising, as that sort of discussion is freakishly contentious. So the community took the path of least resistance and did not acknowledge the groups.
But the sanctions have been a mixed success at best. When enforcement actions have been brought against those outside the more powerful and entrenched group, they by and large have been fairly and evenly applied. Count that as a success. But when they have been brought against members of the informal group, by and large they have failed. In particular, WMC has been cautioned, admonished, warned, hectored and even sanctioned, over and over, but he persists. Why not? He has many stalwart defenders who say that the ends justify the means, that the science is what matters, and that he is beset by many on external blogs (while conveniently forgetting to mention that he gives as good as he gets on his own blogs). But WMC is a symptom of the general problem, not the sole villain.
There are groups on the other side of this, and fomenting of POV pushing among the skeptic blogs, to be sure, but they're going up against the House POV and will never win. (nor should they, by the way, actually "win" a content battle).
So what to do?
ArbCom needs to come out and explicitly state that yes, there are groups here, and that their activities have been on balance more harmful than beneficial, and that enforcement needs to take that into account. Without that statement, we are going to be forever trying to prove, over and over, in the face of defense in detail, what almost everyone already knows, but some won't admit.
If you endorse this view, you endorse:
There are other things called for as well, such as refining the definition of "uninvolved admin", or setting up groups of admins rotating or suchlike. Those are good ideas but I leave those details to other views (many of which I will endorse) rather than trying to make this an omnibus.
1 - Thanks to Kelly Martin for this term
2 - Who? Folk (on both sides) who tend to show up and support each other almost reflexively... a good way to spot them in fact is that reflexive defense Another good way is to see who most vociferously attacks those trying to point out that such an informal grouping exists.).
I wandered into the climate change debate some weeks ago, and have hung around in a few articles, almost exclusively the talk pages, because I find the debate stimulating and interesting from several perspectives. I've written an essay with some observations. [6]. Comments are welcome and actively solicited for the talk page. My sympathies tend to go with the climate change people, but I'm not happy with some of the pigheadedness and lack of civility shown by some on that side. On the other hand, I've seen a backlash underway, which I would broadly define as climate change skeptics and those who have no opinion on CC, or perhaps even agree with the scientists, but feel that the behavior of "scientific types" has been poor, and requires harsh remedial action. For all intents and purposes, the battle lines have drawn roughly that way, "scientists vs. their opponents." It's not strictly "skeptic vs. scientists."
I think that no solution is going to work unless Wikipedia recognizes that there is a backlash, and that the backlash has not made things better. There have been controversial administrator actions and rhetoric that have done little more than splash fuel on the fire. Any solution to this situation needs to recognize that composition of the battle lines. If it is viewed simply as "scientists vs. skeptics" or "Wikipedia vs. bad editors" there will be no solution. Wikipedia needs to examine this issue with brutal honesty and self-appraisal. ScottyBerg ( talk) 20:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't planning to post other than endorsing the above call for rotating admins but the comments by Lar (which he has diluted a little) have prompted me to give a view.
I've been watching this dispute with interest for some time. I wish to offer a forward-looking proposal rather than join the debate over past behavior of various parties. Thus, my proposal is "sanction free", with one stipulation mentioned below. Apologies in advance for the length.
Detente. What is needed first is a detente, starting with a mutual agreement by all disputants -- basically, anyone who belongs in the "Editors involved..." endorsement sections of this RFC -- to reset the tone of discussion back to a cordial one.[1] Without denying what has happened in the past, all such editors agree and endeavor hereafter to make every communication of theirs with a fellow disputant, and within the climate change talk pages, a cordial and respectful one. (So no more snark, lecturing, warning, curt dismissals, assuming ulterior motives, COI accusations, etc.) I think every participant in the dispute can voluntarily commit to this, and it would be a sign of their good faith to do so.
Moratorium. Human nature being what it is, some editors might struggle to overcome bad habits formed earlier. If disputants start complaining about each other right away and asking for sanctions, the detente will not last. So, there should be an indefinite-length moratorium on behavioral complaints by any of the disputants about any of the others.[2] Instead, to borrow an idea from JohnWBarber above, an ArbCom-appointed panel of uninvolved admins should review on a weekly basis the recent contributions of the disputants. Members of this panel would be the ones to approach a disputant about any behavior that doesn't yet meet the standard of civility or good-faith editing expected of them, and they would be the ones to seek/impose any further sanctions.[3]
Past behavior. If an editor shows that they are incapable of sufficient civility going forward, their behavior both before and after the detente should be within scope in deciding what sanctions to bring about. On the other hand, editors who successfully engage in cordial discussion or who show marked progress should not be sanctioned for past behavior in this dispute; all disputants should agree to let go of their grievances for the sake of making a fresh start.
I do not claim that this will resolve the entire dispute; it certainly will not solve the debates about SPOV, BLP, reliable sources, etc. But I do think it should be given a shot, for at least a month or two, to see what impact it has on the overall atmosphere of the topic area discussions and on the quality of the climate change articles. I realize it may be too Pollyanna-ish for some to support, but I think the only real barrier to it working is the willingness of the disputants to give it an honest try.
[1] I originally wrote more text here, then realized I was paraphrasing large swaths of WP:CIVIL.
[2] The moratorium I envision includes disputants approaching each other directly with requests/advice/warnings to modify their behavior, because I think such requests are only effective when there is mutual respect and trust at some level, and we are starting out in the red. Basically, disputants should all assume that the ArbCom-appointed panel will see it and address it, and no action on the aggrieved editor's part is necessary or warranted. Content RFCs and discreet, non-provocative SPI requests (to deal with, e.g., Scibaby concerns) would not fall under the moratorium.
[3] This is the stipulation that makes this proposal not entirely sanction-free.
The climate change area of wikipedia, when all BLPs and subarticles are taken into account is vast. Thousands of articles can be included. It is globally a major news topic so this is not like a tiny corner of wikipedia. Therefore a situation arises where an admin may have edited some CC articles (RfA encourages admins to have been editors to improve their understanding) and yet they are being instructed by some that they cannot act as uninvolved even in cases in which they have not edited the articles in question and have had little or no contact with those who enforcement is being requested against, this seems at odds with wikipedia policy and completely at odds with policy as stated on Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. On the other hand admins who have never had any editorial input into any CC articles may have had significant contact with certain editors but still feel able to act as uninvolved. This issue needs addressing.
My sole involvement here is to defend using established procedures within WP, rather than to make new and different rules every time a dispute arises. Those who wish to examine my opinions on the BLP controversies here (including flagged revisions and unreferenced BLPs), the XfD period discussions, the Wikiversity controversy, the issues at Meta, the Founder flag controversy etc. will kindly note this.
There is no reason whatsoever for this RFC to contain any personal attacks whatsoever. Such makes the RFC useless, as a matter of fact. Any opinions above which can are based on such personal opinions of other editors should be completely be ruled out.
With regard to "point of view", ArbCom has repeatedly stated:
Thus nothing which affects that rule can be established here, most especially any requirement in a belief that a "scientific point of view" exists, or ought to exist, or should be given any special status whatsoever.
I would suggest that it is the task of each editor to disregard and set aside all personal opinions about "truth" ( WP:Josh Billings) and to adhere more closely to the ArbCom rulings. This, perforce, means allowing opinions one knows to be "wrong" to be fairly presented, without making them appear ludicrous or venal. Where any editor finds it impossible to adhere to such an ideal, it presents a problem which the probation was intended to ameliorate. That amelioration includes the ability of admins to block editors who insist on the "truth" of their own position. I would also state that using friends to seek out information used to promote any negative image of other positions is prima facie a violation of the ArbCom position regarding point of view, and that no result here can violate that basic tenet of WP.
This statement is done entirely in defense of the ArbCom tenets, and of using established procedure. Collect ( talk) 10:43, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Along with other content Dispute Resolutions (like RFCs), escalated content issues like
WP:RS,
WP:NPOV,
WP:DUE and
WP:FRINGE should be handled by the
Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change task force or other appropriate content development project. The General sanctions/Climate change probation RFEs are inappropriate to address these content issues. Too many content issues are turned in to bad editor behavior issues and brought to the the RFE. Admins should be directing the underlying content issues to other dispute resolutions methods at the RFE closes. An editor behavior sanction is not the end of a content issue.
Zulu Papa 5 * (
talk)
19:43, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
On occasion, I'll read an article's talk page before reading the article. Many times, I've clicked on the article with trepidation, expecting to see a mess. I'm often pleasantly surprised at how well the article reads in view of the contentious arguments on the talk page. That said, I created a low hurdle—some articles are surprisingly good GIVEN the talk page comments, but they may not be objectively very good in an absolute sense. Unfortunately, that observation applies to many CC articles. Over several years, Wikipedia has established a number of policies to achieve one of its core goals - writing about a broad variety of topics with a NPOV. In many cases, these policies, and the mechanisms to enforce them have worked quite well. The dispute resolution mechanisms at Wikipedia have worked quite well in most cases, but in extreme cases, such as this one, the inadequacies show.
This is, at its heart, a content debate. However, there's much more to a body than just a heart, and the content dispute is inextricably intertwined with process questions—how best to neutrally portray the current state of climate science, when some of the important aspects of climate science (in particular, the ability to accurately project changes decades or centuries into the future). Despite claims from some who should know better, important aspects of the science are not yet settled. And, despite the claims of others who should know better, there isn't an organized conspiracy among scientists to insist the sky is falling.
Characterizations of this as merely a content dispute between scientists and skeptics is a failed summary on a number of counts. The so-called skeptics self-identify as skeptics, but proudly, in the sense that we should all be skeptics, thus a proper use of the term should apply to both sides. Labeling the other side as "scientists" fails even more so, partly because there are scientists on both sides of the debate, partly because non-scientists are some of the loudest voices on both sides of the debate.
We need a renewed commitment to the goals of an NPOV presentation of verifiable facts, but we need to examine different approaches to dispute resolution. The General Sanctions attempt was a decent experiment, which has succeeded at some goals (keeping ANI from becoming a black hole) but not succeeding sufficiently at becoming an efficient way to resolve disputes.
The arguments on the talk pages have quietened down but there are endless arguments on the probation pages. I am very grateful for the probation page if it attracts all the fanatics pushing their brand of WP:TRUTH instead of just developing the articles in line with their topics and putting in reasonable citations for what they say. The aim of Wikipedia is to develop the encyclopaedia. I view the current arrangement as successful and having those troublemakers having their interminable arguments and edit wars on the articles again would in my view be detrimental to Wikipedia. Dmcq ( talk) 12:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
My experience with the article Scientific opinion on climate change has been negative, in the sense that criticism of article's existence as a madeup topic has effectively been resisted by an adminstrator (BozMo) from the onset as illustrated by this discussion: " Some serious advice and warning".
Furthermore, my good faith attempts to add reliable secondary sources which might be used to define and establish the notability of the topic have been prevented by editors with article ownership issues. In my view, the adminstrator intervention at the article's talk page perpetuate these article ownerhsip issues, rather than allowing them to be resolved through mediation.
Whilst I acknowledge that the administrators involved have a difficult task policing climate related articles, particularly with all too frequent ad hominem attacks, I feel they are stiffling debate and dispute resolution, and have used so called "consensus" as an excuse not to deal with behaviour assoicatied with article ownership.
My view is that special measures are needed to police these articles and the interactions between editors, but I do not think the way it is being done has been effective, for despite widespread intervention, Climate change probation has not addressed the issues described above by Lars. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 10:41, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
The CC pages are often open advocacy of the believer POV with critics mentioned only as shills of the oil companies, if at all. Despite numerous mistakes found in the IPCC report in the last few months, [11] [12] [13] various editors above have essentially asked ArbCom to ban critics of this report. (I assume this is what User:Short Brigade Harvester Boris's statement means by "the conclusions of the scientific community".) NPOV means nothing if this is considered a valid approach. Thirty-one thousand scientists have signed just one skeptic petition. [14] Freeman Dyson, one of world's most eminent scientists, has recently come out with a book critical of climate alarmism. Books and articles by S. Fred Singer and Richard Lindzen, both credentialed experts, are available for use as RS, if there is any desire to construct NPOV articles. You might be thinking, isn't this type of point more appropriate for an article talk page? Ah, but any discussion of this type is routinely removed from the talk pages.
Face it. NPOV by consensus, in the midst of an contemporary controversy over what the facts show, can be impossible to hash out in the context of this project. Especially when, on both sides, careers, political power, and billions of dollars are at stake.
In such cases, some historical perspective may not be optional. It may be required before the encyclopedia can speak authoritatively. Perspective which can only come AFTER time lowers the stakes.
At which point, I have no doubt that myself and my fellow denialists will be fully vindicated. (Yee haw! Except for the fact that, likely as not, we'll all be dead.)
... tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock ...
One future advantage, little noted, is how invaluable the Wilipedia records of this controversy, and others like it, will be. To historians who wish to document how it was, exactly, that our principled stand won out in the end. ô¿ô 17:27, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Articles related to climate change have been one of Wikipedia's problem areas for a number of years now. Most of the disruption boils down to often heated or uncivil disagreement over the proper application of WP:WEIGHT and WP:SCIRS, though sockpuppetry and single-purpose accounts out of touch with wider Wikipedia norms play their roles. Near the end of last year, the Copenhagen Summit on climate change and the Climatic Research Unit email controversy contributed to a surge in interest in this family of articles; that furor has largely died down now. Whether the long term or the short term patterns have been more problematic is an open question, but a few days into the new year the community established Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation, giving uninvolved administrators wide leeway when acting to quell disruption in this topic area, and establishing a Requests for enforcement board for discussing the same.
Several editors in the discussion establishing this extraordinary probation opined that the community should review it after a few months had passed. It has now been about five months, and I would like to open this question for review. - 2/0 ( cont.) 15:43, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
Actions taken under this probation are logged at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Log. The large number of notifications resulted from the community decision to notify everyone making contributions to the topic area without any comment on the appropriateness of their edits. Page protections and blocks related to activities in the topic area but undertaken as normal administrator actions without invoking the probation have generally not been logged. The Requests for enforcement board was established to bring potential violations to the attention of uninvolved administrators and for discussion of appropriate action. Including trivial or vexatious requests, this board and its archives have dealt with 92 requests and comprise over two megabytes of discussion. An overview of the current state of this probation area may be seen here.
If the community thinks that the probation serves a useful function at this time, the special measures can be reaffirmed, or possibly modified; in that case, periodic or continuing input from a few more uninvolved parties would be welcome. If the community thinks the probation does not serve a useful function at this time, the special measures can be marked as historical and the relevant articles detagged, with any future matters being referred to normal dispute resolution venues. If the community thinks that this family of disputes requires input from the Arbitration Committee, this discussion may serve as a preliminary (though please focus on the question at hand when commenting here).
Please do not edit others' View by sections except to add an endorsement. Threaded discussion should take place at the talkpage.
Whatever else is decided here, the current Requests for enforcement board is not working. Instead of providing swift informed relief for nascent or escalating problems, it has turned into a game of brinkmanship. Whatever the outcome of this RfC, I have no intention of wading back into that sort of environment. This is partially an indictment on myself, as I have been acting as an uninvolved administrator in this area since shortly before the probation was established. I think that the best thing this probation has done is to establish and enforce a one revert restriction on the article Climatic Research Unit email controversy (under various names), which was enacted by Ryan Postlethwaite on 4 January; as this issue is less in the news of late and the investigations are being concluded, there is a good chance that this restriction may be relaxed. Other accomplishments include (anecdotally) fewer edit wars of the sure there have already been fifty reverts today, but I have not used my three revert entitlement yet variety, and a faster response when conflict flares up. I think, and I have been watching that monitoring link fairly closely for a while now, that this family of disputes has calmed enough that normal methods of dispute resolution should suffice. This is not to say that all matters are entirely settled, which would anyway not represent a healthy state for a developing encyclopedia, only that it is settled enough that it is no longer necessary to enforce a different set of rules from the standard Wikipedia expectations of collaboration and civility.
The probation is working, and the enforcement request page continues to evolve good working practices, and should continue to act to resolve the long term issues relating to the editing of Climate Change/Anthropogenic Global Warming articles. However, the participants to the editing of the articles and the administrators reviewing and enforcing the Probation and its requests for enforcement and their behaviours should be placed before the Arbitration Committee to have the issues regarding neutrality, disruption, battleground mentality, and associated concerns addressed and where appropriate have those individuals deemed to be nonconducive to the orderly resolution of issues brought to notice under the terms of the Probation to be removed, restricted or otherwise sanctioned so that the Probation may better and more quickly allow for providing a good editing environment within the related article and talkpage spaces.
It is my experience that in bringing cases to Enforcement request, the issues at hand are more clearly evidenced, with less interference, than on article talkpages - in the instances when that is exercised rather than edit warring - and that the dispute resolution that should have already occured commences. It is also evident that many cases of alleged policy violation are found not to have substance, and issues are then moved forward rather than dwelt upon. Lastly, the perceived belief that some editors were more equal than others in receiving the benefit or otherwise of individual admin actions has been largely reduced by the adoption by most uninvolved admins of a "consensus before action" discussion format, where policy application is decided and the end decision is adopted by all contributing admins. This has also lead to a greater consistency in the application of policy and the use of enforcement options.
That said, there are issues within the conduct of the Probation, the editing of articles within the Probations remit, and the conduct and adminning of the enforcement section of the Probation that likely requires the Arbitration Committee to review the entirety to see where there are areas of concern that may be beyond the current setup to address, to determine if there are persons whose conduct is detrimental to either the editing of article space or contributing to Probation pages, whether area's of the Probation process are indeed failing or otherwise require re-addressing, and suggestions of good practice going forward. This may be undertaken while the Probation is in force, with restrictions or amendments noted within the ArbCom process as required.
In short, it is a successful tool that might however require further refining.
1. Problem: It's not working. The purpose of the sanctions regime is stated at WP:GSCC: Any editor may be sanctioned by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, personal attacks, incivility and assumptions of bad faith. Yet each of these kinds of misbehavior have been happening, often with impunity, on the WP:GSCCRE (requests for enforcement) page, right in front of the administrators involved in enforcement -- often enough with those administrators as the victims. What's going on at the GSCCRE page is a symptom of the failure. Some leeway is normally given on a dispute-resolution or complaints page, but the behavior now has gone way beyond a litle leeway. This line at the WP:GSCC page has become ironic: Not much leeway in pages under probation, so basically be a model Wikipedian; And yet we also have administrators blocking editors or imposing other behavioral sanctions without consensus on the GSCCRE page. Lengthy discussions of complaints about certain editors are followed by little or no action by administrators, and then the whole process repeats itself, creating an enormous waste of time and more frustration.
2. Some reasons why. WP:GSCCRE is essentially a little AN/I, with some of the same civility and consistency problems of AN/I. GSCCRE is attended by a rather small number of administrators, some of whom flit through and some of whom stay put. Those who flit through probably aren't as familiar with the ongoing problems as they could be, and some (possibly all) who stay are subjected to greater-than-normal complaints and even abuse for doing a tougher-than-normal volunteer job. And some of those administrators, for various reasons, have volunteered for a more difficult task than they can handle well. This isn't a major criticism of most of the admins working in this area: It only takes a few to prevent a consensus on enforcement, and administrators who get involved in this area are more likely than not to have stronger opinions about the content, and therefore may find it more difficult to separate their POV from their judgment on whether and how to sanction various editors. It's a challenging task, and many admins have said they wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Most admins probably couldn't do it well.
3. Proposal: Many of these problems would be solved if ArbCom took over control of GSCC, simply by agreeing to appoint administrators rather than having administrators select themselves for the job. On the whole, Arbcom appointees are likely to have better judgment than self-selected admins. Appointed admins will be responsible to ArbCom (removable at any time by Arbcom or an Arbcom committee) and therefore are more likely to be on their best behavior, yet with a mandate from ArbCom they're likely to be more decisive. Arbcom should appoint admins without an intense interest in political controversies related to science, or at least admins who have shown they know how to separate their POV from their admin actions. If five admins are appointed for overlapping five-month terms, with one admin rotated out each month, they'll get a good sense of the problems and personalities first-hand, but their terms will be up before they're likely to burn out. The first batch of appointees should include at least a couple of the admins who have experience here. They could serve for a one- or a two-month term to help retain some institutional experience. A stable group is more likely to act consistently. This won't solve all the problems (nothing will), but it would help with many of them, and if the appointees are good, it would solve most of them. After 11 months, ArbCom should ask the community in an RfC if it wants to continue the Arbcom-appointment regime, return to the old one (the one now in place) or abolish GSCC altogether.
4. Process: Since GSCC was set up by the community, Arbcom may be reluctant to overturn it without some kind of support for that move shown here, or at least community input on this page indicating that the current GSCC is not working. At least that's the impression I get from some of the arbitrators' comments now on the WP:RFAR page. [1] [2] Personally, I think Arbcom doesn't need community input to take this over, but I'm not really sure. I've numbered the paragraphs here to make it easier for anyone to note that they're rejecting parts of this while supporting other parts. -- JohnWBarber ( talk) 02:18, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
At bottom this is a content dispute. The scientifically literate editors believe that the articles should predominantly reflect the conclusions of the scientific community -- a content issue. The contrarians believe that their views should get equal emphasis to those of the scientific community -- the other side of the content issue. Lar, LHvU and some others believe that the science should be de-emphasized in favor of sociopolitical concerns -- again, a content issue.
But we know that admins are not supposed to make content decisions. So, we try to re-cast our content concerns as behavioral ones. While there are a few clear instances of misbehavior, it is more typical to see people quote-mining, presenting diffs out of context, raising objections to precisely the same behavior in which they themselves engage, and the like because they have to do something to show misconduct by their opposing party. All so that the content dispute won't look like a content dispute. And yes, both sides are doing this (including admins, it has to be said). For these reasons I believe that the pretense that content is not the main issue ultimately makes the GSCC enforcement more rancorous than it would be otherwise, even before tossing in the usual long-held grudges and political machinations one sees at such venues.
Arbcom needs to drop the pretense that they don't decide content and get to the point: What do they want the climate-related articles to say? We can then go away and write those articles. Or we can stay away from them if the desired result is unconscionable to us, whatever our viewpoint may be.
I confess to not having a sense of how workable the above suggestion is, because I don't even read these articles much--the conflict level has impaired their credibility too much. That already says the existing wiki process is not working and we need to be doing something different. 69.228.170.24 ( talk) 03:57, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
(Added on re-visit): SBHB's analysis is generally insightful. There are bad behavioral problems (i.e. departures from WP policies about permissible editing) due to inability of those policies to resolve the content battle. That is a failure of policy that probably can't be fixed in the existing dysfunctional WP cultural framework. I think arbcom can't really decide the content dispute as SBHB suggests, but it could possibly enact better remedies to help manage it (I can suggest some). Maybe new mechanisms like flagged revisions can also be put to some use in slowing down the fights. 69.228.170.24 ( talk) 13:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
There could be greater consistency in the sanctions. I am left with the impression that closes and administrative actions could have better guidelines. RFE's are in and of themselves a disruption; however, necessary to address article disruptions. Thus, some of the disruptive aspects of the RFE's could be reduced with guidelines developed by sanction case histories, Arbcom finding, and ANI practices. Zulu Papa 5 * ( talk) 04:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
The administrative question faced in this area, like any area, is what can be done with regard to the editing environment in order to best favor Wikipedia's content.
What's different about this area from most others is that some of the most basic assumptions are called into question. Generally it is taken for granted that "cooperation, collaboration, and compromise," as one editor puts it, are the key elements of a productive editing environment which will produce the best content. In this area, however, many editors believe incompetent activists are so prevalent that cooperation is a losing game. Thus, editors with this view work to ensure that there is not a purely even playing field (in the sense of purely democratic article writing), and to ensure instead that helpful editing and editors are given a boost.
Fringe editing is self-evidently a problem, and as such I believe that such a boost could be given openly and appropriately. Editors who do strong work and show substantive expertise should be accommodated. Editors who push fringe material in violation of content policies should likewise be sanctioned regardless of their compliance with behavioral policies. However, I submit that because numerous editors don't believe this is possible they go too far in various forms of gamesmanship, which ultimately ends up disregarding nearly everything besides apparent support for the grand cause. The gamesmanship is seen mainly in the continual hostility aimed at editors and admins, and the refusal to accept neutral principles of any kind. I think that at some point, this is also self-evidently a problem.
What is really needed is an environment that promotes quality over incompetent editing, but also maintains openness, consistency and professionalism. If the probation can preserve its own integrity then I think it can promote such a balance. A far more optimistic goal would be to change the culture so that more substantive experts perceive that an open, consistent and professional system is possible. Hey, it would be cool.
Climate change is an unusual phenomenon. It is the first time that scientific work has uncovered and described an issue that is so important to our very survival and that is going to drive political, economic and social change worldwide for the indefinite future. The factual description of such an issue is not something that is open to the normal political and social processes that may apply to opinion-driven issues. When you describe a war or a revolution, there are at least two viewpoints to describe, and that is the point of the conflict. When you describe other scientific endeavours like space exploration, you can say that political processes allocate the funding and so social and political viewpoints underpin the decision-making. The existence of the global warming problem is no longer the issue under debate (although what to do about it, how much, and how soon, still are). Level playing fields, compromise, balance and democracy are not words that apply to people who want to alter Wikipedia's articles to give air-time to views that there is no warming, that it is not caused by people, or that it doesn't matter. Discussion of such views are correctly covered in articles like Climate change denial, and barely at all in the mainstream texts. Global warming is not a matter of opinion: the two 'sides' in this case are those who get it and those who (for whatever reason) don't.
Therefore, merely enforcing good behaviour in content debates does not necessarily lead to more balanced articles, where all viewpoints are eventually given their due weight. In the climate change arena, giving balanced weight to the views of those who get it and those who don't, just gives us articles with a certain amount of nonsense mixed in with the reality. If the nonsense is sourced to a fringe blog, it is easy enough to argue the case, but when you have powerful business interests advocating denial, political think tanks set up to spread FUD and religious views that don't help either, many non-experts come to us convinced that they have valid contrary views, when they don't.
I have no idea how Wikipedia can encourage let alone enforce good, factual, balanced editing in this situation. I remain amazed that the articles are maintained as well as they are. This is due to the tireless efforts of those editors in the space who know what they are talking about and what they are doing. Using sanctions to teach those who have no idea what the real issues are how to behave may stop some of them adding their nonsense to the articles, but it may also just make them into more civil and cleverer pushers of their fringe viewpoints. The shame is that, in the complexity of all the gamesmanship that the whole process has engendered, there remain only a few scientifically literate stalwarts who have the skill and patience to keep up with the continual risks to their own reputations and accounts while maintaining the generally high quality of the current texts and references. In some senses, article quality has been maintained despite the content-agnosticism of the probation process, not because of it.
In response to the view by Nigelj, above. The concerns that there are editors whose expertise within the science regarding the issues could permit them to disregard policy and practice when dealing with edits or subjects that reflect views from outside that discipline - and that are conversant with WP rules - was one of the issues that the Probation was created to resolve. The Probation, through its enforcement request process, has been successful in permitting the application of WP policy, and sanctioning violation of same, within the article space - although this is a continuing area of dispute and pov advocacy. To remove the Probation entirely is to allow the development of partisan editorship over encyclopedic neutrality. (as amended 27th May, 2010)
I simply do not think that sanctions/probation and enforcement have been of benefit to the climate change area of wikipedia. Internationally this area is vast. However, I believe that these ill thought out sanctions on wikipeida primarily distill issues into heated debates where a small minority of admins and editors entrench themselves in opposing camps. This in effect is detrimental to wikipedia. Polargeo ( talk) 13:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
At bottom this is a behavioral issue, NOT a content issue. Those trying to paint it that way miss the point, or are deliberately obscuring it. SBHB claims that "The scientifically literate editors believe that the articles should predominantly reflect the conclusions of the scientific community" but I don't think there is any meaningful disagreement with that view among most folk. Further, if the edit process was working correctly, we would reach consensus about details in a calm, collegial and orderly manner if there were disagreement.
But editing in this area is not calm, collegial and orderly. It is contentious and unpleasant, marked by bitter and abrasive commentary from many participants, in what appears at first as warfare between two camps.
This is not new behavior at Wikipedia. We have seen it before, time and time again. Often, in a contentious topic, a "Wikipedia House POV" (1) develops and then gets fiercely defended... for example Scientology, Naked Short Selling, Homeopathy, Intelligent Design, Poland/Russia, Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan, Cold Fusion, and so on (there are more examples to be sure). Sometimes (heck, almost always) it's the POV that has widespread support out in reality. That POV is not the issue. The issue is the tactics used to defend that POV, and the informal groups that grow up around defending it. Most people know these sorts of groups exist. Denying their existence in general is pointless.
Now, some will want you to believe that this is a battle between "the scientifically literate" and "the skeptics", as a whole. It's not. It is a battle between factions(2) , and not everyone who holds either view actually is in these factions. Further, some in the more powerful group tend to disparage anyone who does not instantly fall into line with their approach as "not one of us" and therefore a "skeptic"... exhibiting "You're either with us or you are against us!" style thinking.
No. Not acceptable.
I am far from a skeptic, but I do not agree up with the tactics employed by either of these camps. These groupings are the major problem area here, not the content itself, because most people get that GW is real. Most people, when they look into the tactics used, even (especially) if they agree with the content POV, are appalled.
The articles that resulted are generally accurate on the science, but there are loose ends at the edges. Any attempt to introduce any information that chips away at the edifice of certainty that AGW is exactly thus and such is fiercely resisted. Further, we have the BLP problem. Evidence has been introduced that skeptic BLPs slant negative over time, while AGW proponent BLPs slant positive over time. That evidence is wideranging but it gets shouted down (in detail) when presented. Even the NAME of an article (was it a hacking incident? An email theft? A leak? ClimateGate as everyone else calls it?) can be a source of warfare.
So then, that's the background.
The Climate Change sanctions were intended to improve the environment, but they did not explicitly acknowledge the existence of a grouping here. Unsurprising, as that sort of discussion is freakishly contentious. So the community took the path of least resistance and did not acknowledge the groups.
But the sanctions have been a mixed success at best. When enforcement actions have been brought against those outside the more powerful and entrenched group, they by and large have been fairly and evenly applied. Count that as a success. But when they have been brought against members of the informal group, by and large they have failed. In particular, WMC has been cautioned, admonished, warned, hectored and even sanctioned, over and over, but he persists. Why not? He has many stalwart defenders who say that the ends justify the means, that the science is what matters, and that he is beset by many on external blogs (while conveniently forgetting to mention that he gives as good as he gets on his own blogs). But WMC is a symptom of the general problem, not the sole villain.
There are groups on the other side of this, and fomenting of POV pushing among the skeptic blogs, to be sure, but they're going up against the House POV and will never win. (nor should they, by the way, actually "win" a content battle).
So what to do?
ArbCom needs to come out and explicitly state that yes, there are groups here, and that their activities have been on balance more harmful than beneficial, and that enforcement needs to take that into account. Without that statement, we are going to be forever trying to prove, over and over, in the face of defense in detail, what almost everyone already knows, but some won't admit.
If you endorse this view, you endorse:
There are other things called for as well, such as refining the definition of "uninvolved admin", or setting up groups of admins rotating or suchlike. Those are good ideas but I leave those details to other views (many of which I will endorse) rather than trying to make this an omnibus.
1 - Thanks to Kelly Martin for this term
2 - Who? Folk (on both sides) who tend to show up and support each other almost reflexively... a good way to spot them in fact is that reflexive defense Another good way is to see who most vociferously attacks those trying to point out that such an informal grouping exists.).
I wandered into the climate change debate some weeks ago, and have hung around in a few articles, almost exclusively the talk pages, because I find the debate stimulating and interesting from several perspectives. I've written an essay with some observations. [6]. Comments are welcome and actively solicited for the talk page. My sympathies tend to go with the climate change people, but I'm not happy with some of the pigheadedness and lack of civility shown by some on that side. On the other hand, I've seen a backlash underway, which I would broadly define as climate change skeptics and those who have no opinion on CC, or perhaps even agree with the scientists, but feel that the behavior of "scientific types" has been poor, and requires harsh remedial action. For all intents and purposes, the battle lines have drawn roughly that way, "scientists vs. their opponents." It's not strictly "skeptic vs. scientists."
I think that no solution is going to work unless Wikipedia recognizes that there is a backlash, and that the backlash has not made things better. There have been controversial administrator actions and rhetoric that have done little more than splash fuel on the fire. Any solution to this situation needs to recognize that composition of the battle lines. If it is viewed simply as "scientists vs. skeptics" or "Wikipedia vs. bad editors" there will be no solution. Wikipedia needs to examine this issue with brutal honesty and self-appraisal. ScottyBerg ( talk) 20:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't planning to post other than endorsing the above call for rotating admins but the comments by Lar (which he has diluted a little) have prompted me to give a view.
I've been watching this dispute with interest for some time. I wish to offer a forward-looking proposal rather than join the debate over past behavior of various parties. Thus, my proposal is "sanction free", with one stipulation mentioned below. Apologies in advance for the length.
Detente. What is needed first is a detente, starting with a mutual agreement by all disputants -- basically, anyone who belongs in the "Editors involved..." endorsement sections of this RFC -- to reset the tone of discussion back to a cordial one.[1] Without denying what has happened in the past, all such editors agree and endeavor hereafter to make every communication of theirs with a fellow disputant, and within the climate change talk pages, a cordial and respectful one. (So no more snark, lecturing, warning, curt dismissals, assuming ulterior motives, COI accusations, etc.) I think every participant in the dispute can voluntarily commit to this, and it would be a sign of their good faith to do so.
Moratorium. Human nature being what it is, some editors might struggle to overcome bad habits formed earlier. If disputants start complaining about each other right away and asking for sanctions, the detente will not last. So, there should be an indefinite-length moratorium on behavioral complaints by any of the disputants about any of the others.[2] Instead, to borrow an idea from JohnWBarber above, an ArbCom-appointed panel of uninvolved admins should review on a weekly basis the recent contributions of the disputants. Members of this panel would be the ones to approach a disputant about any behavior that doesn't yet meet the standard of civility or good-faith editing expected of them, and they would be the ones to seek/impose any further sanctions.[3]
Past behavior. If an editor shows that they are incapable of sufficient civility going forward, their behavior both before and after the detente should be within scope in deciding what sanctions to bring about. On the other hand, editors who successfully engage in cordial discussion or who show marked progress should not be sanctioned for past behavior in this dispute; all disputants should agree to let go of their grievances for the sake of making a fresh start.
I do not claim that this will resolve the entire dispute; it certainly will not solve the debates about SPOV, BLP, reliable sources, etc. But I do think it should be given a shot, for at least a month or two, to see what impact it has on the overall atmosphere of the topic area discussions and on the quality of the climate change articles. I realize it may be too Pollyanna-ish for some to support, but I think the only real barrier to it working is the willingness of the disputants to give it an honest try.
[1] I originally wrote more text here, then realized I was paraphrasing large swaths of WP:CIVIL.
[2] The moratorium I envision includes disputants approaching each other directly with requests/advice/warnings to modify their behavior, because I think such requests are only effective when there is mutual respect and trust at some level, and we are starting out in the red. Basically, disputants should all assume that the ArbCom-appointed panel will see it and address it, and no action on the aggrieved editor's part is necessary or warranted. Content RFCs and discreet, non-provocative SPI requests (to deal with, e.g., Scibaby concerns) would not fall under the moratorium.
[3] This is the stipulation that makes this proposal not entirely sanction-free.
The climate change area of wikipedia, when all BLPs and subarticles are taken into account is vast. Thousands of articles can be included. It is globally a major news topic so this is not like a tiny corner of wikipedia. Therefore a situation arises where an admin may have edited some CC articles (RfA encourages admins to have been editors to improve their understanding) and yet they are being instructed by some that they cannot act as uninvolved even in cases in which they have not edited the articles in question and have had little or no contact with those who enforcement is being requested against, this seems at odds with wikipedia policy and completely at odds with policy as stated on Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. On the other hand admins who have never had any editorial input into any CC articles may have had significant contact with certain editors but still feel able to act as uninvolved. This issue needs addressing.
My sole involvement here is to defend using established procedures within WP, rather than to make new and different rules every time a dispute arises. Those who wish to examine my opinions on the BLP controversies here (including flagged revisions and unreferenced BLPs), the XfD period discussions, the Wikiversity controversy, the issues at Meta, the Founder flag controversy etc. will kindly note this.
There is no reason whatsoever for this RFC to contain any personal attacks whatsoever. Such makes the RFC useless, as a matter of fact. Any opinions above which can are based on such personal opinions of other editors should be completely be ruled out.
With regard to "point of view", ArbCom has repeatedly stated:
Thus nothing which affects that rule can be established here, most especially any requirement in a belief that a "scientific point of view" exists, or ought to exist, or should be given any special status whatsoever.
I would suggest that it is the task of each editor to disregard and set aside all personal opinions about "truth" ( WP:Josh Billings) and to adhere more closely to the ArbCom rulings. This, perforce, means allowing opinions one knows to be "wrong" to be fairly presented, without making them appear ludicrous or venal. Where any editor finds it impossible to adhere to such an ideal, it presents a problem which the probation was intended to ameliorate. That amelioration includes the ability of admins to block editors who insist on the "truth" of their own position. I would also state that using friends to seek out information used to promote any negative image of other positions is prima facie a violation of the ArbCom position regarding point of view, and that no result here can violate that basic tenet of WP.
This statement is done entirely in defense of the ArbCom tenets, and of using established procedure. Collect ( talk) 10:43, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Along with other content Dispute Resolutions (like RFCs), escalated content issues like
WP:RS,
WP:NPOV,
WP:DUE and
WP:FRINGE should be handled by the
Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change task force or other appropriate content development project. The General sanctions/Climate change probation RFEs are inappropriate to address these content issues. Too many content issues are turned in to bad editor behavior issues and brought to the the RFE. Admins should be directing the underlying content issues to other dispute resolutions methods at the RFE closes. An editor behavior sanction is not the end of a content issue.
Zulu Papa 5 * (
talk)
19:43, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
On occasion, I'll read an article's talk page before reading the article. Many times, I've clicked on the article with trepidation, expecting to see a mess. I'm often pleasantly surprised at how well the article reads in view of the contentious arguments on the talk page. That said, I created a low hurdle—some articles are surprisingly good GIVEN the talk page comments, but they may not be objectively very good in an absolute sense. Unfortunately, that observation applies to many CC articles. Over several years, Wikipedia has established a number of policies to achieve one of its core goals - writing about a broad variety of topics with a NPOV. In many cases, these policies, and the mechanisms to enforce them have worked quite well. The dispute resolution mechanisms at Wikipedia have worked quite well in most cases, but in extreme cases, such as this one, the inadequacies show.
This is, at its heart, a content debate. However, there's much more to a body than just a heart, and the content dispute is inextricably intertwined with process questions—how best to neutrally portray the current state of climate science, when some of the important aspects of climate science (in particular, the ability to accurately project changes decades or centuries into the future). Despite claims from some who should know better, important aspects of the science are not yet settled. And, despite the claims of others who should know better, there isn't an organized conspiracy among scientists to insist the sky is falling.
Characterizations of this as merely a content dispute between scientists and skeptics is a failed summary on a number of counts. The so-called skeptics self-identify as skeptics, but proudly, in the sense that we should all be skeptics, thus a proper use of the term should apply to both sides. Labeling the other side as "scientists" fails even more so, partly because there are scientists on both sides of the debate, partly because non-scientists are some of the loudest voices on both sides of the debate.
We need a renewed commitment to the goals of an NPOV presentation of verifiable facts, but we need to examine different approaches to dispute resolution. The General Sanctions attempt was a decent experiment, which has succeeded at some goals (keeping ANI from becoming a black hole) but not succeeding sufficiently at becoming an efficient way to resolve disputes.
The arguments on the talk pages have quietened down but there are endless arguments on the probation pages. I am very grateful for the probation page if it attracts all the fanatics pushing their brand of WP:TRUTH instead of just developing the articles in line with their topics and putting in reasonable citations for what they say. The aim of Wikipedia is to develop the encyclopaedia. I view the current arrangement as successful and having those troublemakers having their interminable arguments and edit wars on the articles again would in my view be detrimental to Wikipedia. Dmcq ( talk) 12:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
My experience with the article Scientific opinion on climate change has been negative, in the sense that criticism of article's existence as a madeup topic has effectively been resisted by an adminstrator (BozMo) from the onset as illustrated by this discussion: " Some serious advice and warning".
Furthermore, my good faith attempts to add reliable secondary sources which might be used to define and establish the notability of the topic have been prevented by editors with article ownership issues. In my view, the adminstrator intervention at the article's talk page perpetuate these article ownerhsip issues, rather than allowing them to be resolved through mediation.
Whilst I acknowledge that the administrators involved have a difficult task policing climate related articles, particularly with all too frequent ad hominem attacks, I feel they are stiffling debate and dispute resolution, and have used so called "consensus" as an excuse not to deal with behaviour assoicatied with article ownership.
My view is that special measures are needed to police these articles and the interactions between editors, but I do not think the way it is being done has been effective, for despite widespread intervention, Climate change probation has not addressed the issues described above by Lars. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 10:41, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
The CC pages are often open advocacy of the believer POV with critics mentioned only as shills of the oil companies, if at all. Despite numerous mistakes found in the IPCC report in the last few months, [11] [12] [13] various editors above have essentially asked ArbCom to ban critics of this report. (I assume this is what User:Short Brigade Harvester Boris's statement means by "the conclusions of the scientific community".) NPOV means nothing if this is considered a valid approach. Thirty-one thousand scientists have signed just one skeptic petition. [14] Freeman Dyson, one of world's most eminent scientists, has recently come out with a book critical of climate alarmism. Books and articles by S. Fred Singer and Richard Lindzen, both credentialed experts, are available for use as RS, if there is any desire to construct NPOV articles. You might be thinking, isn't this type of point more appropriate for an article talk page? Ah, but any discussion of this type is routinely removed from the talk pages.
Face it. NPOV by consensus, in the midst of an contemporary controversy over what the facts show, can be impossible to hash out in the context of this project. Especially when, on both sides, careers, political power, and billions of dollars are at stake.
In such cases, some historical perspective may not be optional. It may be required before the encyclopedia can speak authoritatively. Perspective which can only come AFTER time lowers the stakes.
At which point, I have no doubt that myself and my fellow denialists will be fully vindicated. (Yee haw! Except for the fact that, likely as not, we'll all be dead.)
... tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock* *tic-tock ...
One future advantage, little noted, is how invaluable the Wilipedia records of this controversy, and others like it, will be. To historians who wish to document how it was, exactly, that our principled stand won out in the end. ô¿ô 17:27, 8 August 2010 (UTC)