Wikipedia talk:General sanctions/Climate change probation

What does this mean?

The section of things to avoid states:

• "Avoid making repeated comments about the subject of the article;"

Maybe I am confused, but aren't the talk pages specifically supposed to be for making comments ABOUT the subject of the article? --GoRight (talk) 04:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Note repeated. I suspect it means that folks should avoid trying to press the same points over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again (plus a few more times for good measure), but Ryan or someone else more familiar with these sorts of things might be able to clarify. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If that is the intent than this formulation of the statement is sorely lacking in clarity. This formulation clearly would include: Comment A on the subject, Comment B on the subject, Comment C on the subject, and so on. This TOO is an example of making repeated comments about the subject, is it not? Might I suggest rephrasing it as "repeatedly making the same comments about the subject?" (Assuming SBHB is correct.) --GoRight (talk) 06:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Valid point GoRight - I've removed the sentence - it was taken directly from the Obama probation but it has no real reference here. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 19:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Probation tag added to Dog

The Dog article has one particular editor who wants to included a paragraph about sea level rise... caused by dogs... in the "Human Health" section. After being reverted by three separate editors in the space of an hour, he's added the climate change probation tag to the article. Can someone explain to me who gets to decide which articles fall under the remit of this probation? I fully support it by the way, but I don't think "Dog" should fall under it. (For what it's worth, I'm uninvolved in this edit war except for offering an opinion on the talk page.) Thparkth (talk) 04:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I removed the tag, since it's clearly out of scope. The remit is "Pages related to Climate change (broadly construed)". Dog has no inherent relationship to that topic, which had not even been raised on that page until Nothughthomas started adding CC-related material to it, apparently in an effort to prove a point. See the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Climate Change#Scope, where he first argued for the inclusion of the tag on Keanu Reeves on the grounds that one of KR's films uses climate change as a plot device. He started edit-warring over dog shortly after mentioning it in that discussion. -- ChrisO (talk) 06:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Precisely who are you to make this decisions unilaterally? --GoRight (talk) 06:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"until Nothughthomas started adding CC-related material to it, apparently in an effort to prove a point" - Please WP:AGF. It is WP:UNCIVIL to not WP:AGF in matters such as this. --GoRight (talk) 06:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Lar noted this, not me: "I think it's quite a stretch to say that the dog article is intended to be within the scope of this sanction unless someone is deliberately trying to prove a WP:POINT". Perhaps you should add it to your complaint against him. -- ChrisO (talk) 06:54, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"Lar noted this, not me" - Are you saying that you are not the author of the comment I quoted from above? --GoRight (talk) 07:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't try this here. Prodego ^talk 06:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Could you pleas clarify the intended meaning of your use of the word "try"? Do you mean this as in "a trial" or "attempt"? --GoRight (talk) 07:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

You might want to include all the Category:Thermodynamics, Category:Statistics, Category:Meteorology + several others on the probation. I could make a list on those. 84.231.119.103 (talk) 05:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Note. I editted the immediately above comment to stop this talk page appearing in those categories. Melcombe (talk) 12:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Presumably

Presumably this kind of opt out User_talk:BozMo#NOTICE:_Climate_Change_articles is ok? In general I am not a great user of tools but I think making it harder for other admins to reverse them would make me less bold and I think I should be more bold. --BozMo talk 09:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Not optimistic about this at all

I haven't edited these articles a lot, but I've been observing them for quite some time, and I'm not optimistic about this "probation" at all. I get the distinct feeling that it will be used as a weapon against those who are skeptical of AGW. I hope this is not the case, but we'll see what happens. UnitAnode 16:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The Barack Obama article probation, on which this is modelled, hasn't been used exclusively against Republicans and birthers. It really just depends on how people behave, not who they are or what they believe. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, I'm just not really very confident about this, Chris. I just recently began poking back around Barack Obama, participating in discussions, and trying to find some ways to move the article toward NPOV. Already, I've been accused of disruption, POINT, being a sockpuppet of someone called MultiplyPerfect, and reported to the Obama Sanctions board. I think if you look into things, you'll find that none of the accusations are true, but many of them are made under the basic auspices of the Obama article probation. I'm afraid that something similar will happen here, with the current editors perhaps using the CC article probation against their perceived opponents. I hope I'm wrong, but without editor-specific sanctions, I don't see these problems being resolved at all. UnitAnode 18:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with User:Unitanode. I have not had much involvement in this article but have been watching the discussions for some time. It seems that a handful of editors are trying everything possible to stop the inclusion of the recent (and now widespread) skepticism into the article. This is censorship in its highest form and goes completely against the concept of Wikipedia.--Baina90 (talk) 19:23, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I second that. That is the reason I haven't wasted my time trying to contribute. --Xyzt1234 (talk) 23:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Into *the* article? Are you under the impression this dispute is about just one article? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

You'd probably do well not to contribute here Connolley. Your incivility towards those who disagree with you is one of the problems at the GW-related articles. UnitAnode 05:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Come on please, attacking each other on the talk page of an article probation that specifically prohibits personal attacks is really not a good idea. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:15, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Seriously? How is pointing out that WMC's incivility is one of the main problems at the GW-related articles a "personal attack"? Seems a bit of a stretch, especially because it's objectively true. UnitAnode 13:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This forum is a place to report incivility or other violations that occur since the forum has opened. It may frustrating to see past violations of Wikipedia's rules perhaps go unpunished, but I guess the important thing, in the grand scheme of things, is that the behavior in question is corrected, which this forum aims to do. Cla68 (talk) 13:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope that your view of how this forum will work turns out to be correct. I really do. UnitAnode 14:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This page is absolutely not the correct place to make personal attacks on other editors. If there are examples of ongoing incivility by any editor with respect to articles covered by this probation, then the place to approach those problems are, in the first instance, by discussion on the user talk page, then by discussion on the enforcement page, after which action (anything from a warning to a block or topic ban) may be taken. Making egregious personal attacks here may well lead to action under this very probation. --TS 18:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know if you see any "egregious personal attacks" on this page. If so, please be specific, as your veiled intimations are not acceptable. UnitAnode 18:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Nothing egregious yet, but personal attacks on other editors should not be repeated. --TS 18:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay then, Sidaway, please point any "personal attacks" in this thread, whether "egregious" or not. UnitAnode 03:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Good faith

Away on holidays at the moment, and trying to get my head around "probation". I noted the message in the Lindzen talk page that the Lindzen article is targetted by said probation. I can't see any reference to a discussion that explains why Lindzen's article is targetted. Anyhow, let's suppose its inclusion was a good idea, and let's look at what "probation" is. Basically, "probation" says that Wikipedia's fantastic codes of Wiki-chivalry, civility & assuming good faith, must be always observed, as must the more realistic 3RR policy. I look more carefully, and that's basically all it says. I tried harder, to see if it might say, "editors must act in good faith". But no, it doesn't say that. Just assume good faith. Does it say anywhere that Wikipedia's BLP policy must always be enforced at these pages? No, that doesn't seem to be mentioned either. Going on, I find no references to "NPOV", "NOR", "SYN" being enforceable at such pages. Basically, it says you can do what you like at these pages, provided you can remain cool-headed whilst you're doing it. Consider me strongly opposed. Alex Harvey (talk) 17:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Your concerns are covered by the probation, which provide that "Any editor may be sanctioned by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits." One of the signs of disruptive editing, as listed at WP:DIS#Signs of disruptive editing, is of an editor who "Cannot satisfy Wikipedia:Verifiability; fails to cite sources, cites unencyclopedic sources, misrepresents reliable sources, or manufactures original research." So I would suggest that if there are problems with editors persistently doing those things, they should be brought up as enforcement issues. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I should add that the reason that Richard Lindzen was tagged is because, as a prominent scientist who has publicly taken stances on the climate change issue, his biography clearly falls under the scope of "Pages related to Climate change (broadly construed)" as defined in the probation. I note that at least 50% of the text concerns his stance on the issue and there seems to have been a lot of edit-warring and battleground editing just within the last few weeks, judging from its history. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

However "disruptive" is defined in that page, the only way "disruptive" is ever interpreted in practice is (1) repeated assumptions of bad faith; (2) gross incivility; and (3) edit-warring. Is this going to change here? No.

You see, the great paradox of Wikipedia's bewildering array of behavioural policies is that the editor who chooses to repeatedly act in bad faith, whether by playing dumb or through such lack of objectivity that he is in bad faith with himself as well, is fully protected from any behavioural policy. That is, since there is no way of deciding whether the editor is disingenuous, lacking objectivity, or just stupid, there is no "legal" way of addressing it -- even for an admin. Thus, one can makes one's argument for the inclusion of material that violates, say, NPOV (the most common, and most difficult to pin down), and one can get away with it in perpetuo. Meanwhile, free speech has been effectively taken away from sincere editors in opposition. Thus, the bad faith editor can, and repeatedly does, get away with murder here. This is, fundamentally, the problem (note that I am disagreeing with UnitAnode that WMC's incivility is the root of the problem, just as I'd have to admit I'm not always civil after I finally lose my temper), and having yourself, ChrisO -- a climate change editor with a well-known bias -- apparently self-selected as Enforcer, and on New Year's Day when practically no one is here, has a really bad appearance. Alex Harvey (talk) 18:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Calm down, Alex. I certainly haven't been selected by anyone, least of all myself, as "Enforcer". My role in this has been limited to carrying out the chore of posting the template to relevant articles, particularly the ones that have been contentious. I'm not going to be "enforcing" anything. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Right, then what about the main point I've made: I want to understand why assuming bad faith is considered a heinous crime in Wikipedia, and singled out here in this "probation agenda", whereas acting in bad faith appears to be still fully protected? Alex Harvey (talk) 18:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Acting in bad faith is often covered by other policies that tend to emphasize behavior rather than motive. This is for the sheer practical reason that it is difficult to reliably assign a motive to behavior, whereas it is certainly possible to identify damaging behavior. Assuming bad faith is just one example of damaging behavior.

To the best of my recollection, only two of our policies are clearly related to acting in bad faith. These are vandalism and sock puppetry. Somebody who persists in performing clearly damaging edits despite multiple warnings that it is regarded as vandalism can be subject to sanctions. Somebody who uses multiple accounts in a deceptive way or to provide cover for disruptive behavior is assumed to have done so intentionally and may be subject to sanction. In addition editors whose behavior shows an established pattern of disingenuous and disputatious engagement with others, in discussion or in article editing, may be accused of tendentious editing, though this is a bit of a portmanteau for disruptive editing and egregious breaches of civility. --TS 18:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

TS, that is precisely my point. Because of this Wikipedia religion of "assuming good faith" we've created here, we seem to have completely forgotten what was observed nicely by Jean Paul Sartre and others that, humans don't act in good faith. So, according to Wikipedia, there are only two things you can do that are actually "bad faith" actions: (1) vandalise; or (2) sock. So we have a totally bizarre policy that every must "assume" what we know isn't always there, and absolutely no way of dealing with it. Can you imagine a presidential election campaign with Obama & McCain telling each other each day, "Barack, did you assume good faith there?" "John! That was not civil!" Or before you respond that we're not politicians here, can you imagine any debate of any kind working if both debaters were bound to assume good faith, and not allowed to call a very obviously disingenuous line? In fact, can you find me an interesting debate in print or media where neither party assumed or questioned bad faith at one point? Do our friends at RealClimate assume good faith in each of their posts each day? Imagine the day...

Anyhow, the point, once again: they are editors who act in bad faith that are the problems here, and these violations of AGF in the talk pages are as far as I can see are practically irrelevant. Sure, if there's repeated incivility, that's also a problem. I don't think assuming bad faith is a problem at all in the climate change pages. Alex Harvey (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

If you think I'm saying that Wikipedia regards vandalism and socking as the only manifestations of bad faith, I don't think I've made myself clear. Wikipedia policy and practice does recognise other manifestations, and I gave "tendentious editing" as an example. The arbitration committee has sanctioned editors for such bad faith behavior.

On your comparison of Wikipedia to the last US Presidential election, I think you drastically misrepresent the nature of Wikipedia, which is intended to be a scholarly product, not the exercise in PR as warfare that characterizes modern American elections. We should not be engaging in debate, which implies winners and losers, but rather discussion with the aim of arriving at consensus with which all can be happy. Should we engage in common debating tactics which would work well in courtrooms or legislatures, it is likely that we would sooner or later engage in such transparently dishonest behavior that we would find ourselves sanctioned.

In any case I think this discussion has become rather more general than is appropriate for the talk page of a community probation. I suggest you take it up at Wikipedia talk:Assume good faith or another suitable venue where policy matters are discussed. --TS 19:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Should we encourage people to direct page protection requests here?

Respected RFPP admin tedder suggested at my talkpage that it might be a good idea to encourage people to make page protection requests at a CC-specific venue, for instance Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Climate Change; I think it might work to take them here, but would like to hear other opinions. This would have the advantages that responding administrators would not need to bring themselves up to speed on the probation issues, increasing consistency of enforcement, and that there is a good chance that additional probation enforcement or monitoring would be required in such a case. I am loathe to create additional rules, but I also expect that any edit war in the probation area will be seen by at least one editor who is watching this page. So what do people think - should we take page protection requests at this or some other dedicated venue, or should we just encourage a few admins familiar with the issues here to watch RFPP and nip up the relevant requests? - 2/0 (cont.) 20:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

We cannot prevent editors from using WP:RFPP, but we can create another venue that editors could voluntarily use to get attention from clued-in admins. Jehochman ^Brrr 22:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

We can't prevent it, but we protecting admins can refer it over to here. I strongly prefer it, as it's easy for clueless admins to cause trouble. tedder (talk) 22:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Certainly we can watch WP:RFPP and call out any contentious requests and suggest that they be discussed here prior to action to help prevent incompetent actions. Jehochman ^Brrr 22:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Great! And if the normal protecting admins/RFPPwatchers are doing the same, it shouldn't be too hard. Obviously, "vandalism" protection is easy, but any sort of POV/edit warring should probably go here. tedder (talk) 22:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Statistical Analysis Page

If these sanctions are going to be implemented then I assert that there is a need to assess both the efficacy and the neutrality of application of them on an on-going basis. This will necessarily require statistical analysis of both the administrative actions and the individual user behaviors both prior to and subsequent to the implementation of these sanctions. Before we get too far into this whole new process I would like to propose the following (rather than being WP:BOLD which has a tendency of being misinterpreted as being WP:POINTy sometimes):

1. I would like to create a subpage at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Statistical analysis for that purpose. This page would include the summarization and conclusions drawn from any underlying raw data that had been accumulated for this purpose.
2. I anticipate creating a subpage at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Statistical analysis/Administrative actions where raw data concerning page protections, alignment (i.e. skeptic vs. warmer) of which version the protections locked in, users who are blocked or banned and their alignment, etc can be collected.
3. While this is longer term, some of the probationary sanctions such as tendentious editing would require an assessment of an individual editors edits to demonstrate a statistical POV. I would propose that such information be organized under pages at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Statistical analysis/User/GoRight as one such example.

I suggest that last one to legitimize the collection of some simple statistics regarding skeptical vs. warmer points of view in a given user's edits and thereby protect the underlying data from being viewed as being a WP:ATTACKPAGE in some user space some place.

I believe that assessing the efficacy and the neutrality of application of these sanctions is in the best interest of the project. Are there any objections to my pursuing this approach? --GoRight (talk) 02:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I have serious misgivings about many aspects of this enterprise, such as the binary categorization of editors as "skeptics" or "warmers" (whatever those terms are supposed to mean). Better do it in your user space where you will have freedom of action to do it however you see fit. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I use the terms as proxies for "edits which support the skeptical POV" vs. "edits which support a mainstream consensus POV". These seem the logical categories given the basis of these sanctions, however if other categories present themselves I have no problem with including them. As for conducting this effort under my user space I prefer to conduct it as a formal part of the probation itself since its purpose is to help the community to assess the efficacy and neutrality of application of these sanctions, possibly among other things as well, for which the community has a vested interest. For example, of the statistics demonstrate a lack of efficacy, or possibly even a worsening of the situation, then the community will be better able to make informed decisions on how to react. This will be a good thing, no? --GoRight (talk) 03:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

And corrections of spelling are which? Statistics often are self-selected to support conclusions, and you haven't said what particular statistics you propose to track. This sounds more like a user-space project to me. Statistics are notorious for confessing to various crimes when they're examined often enough. Franamax (talk) 03:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Neither. I would argue that if this effort is to benefit the project it must be subjected to the oversight of other editors to avoid the self-selection biases that you allude to. If it is an "official" page associated with the probation it will be much more likely to receive that oversight than would a user space project, or do you disagree? --GoRight (talk) 04:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I happen to think we should edit the science articles according to scientific consensus where it is established, and each article should cover minority opinions according to their degree of acceptance within the field. Does that make me a "warmer"? I think you need to rethink the notion that there are two easily identifiable and equal factions involved. --TS 04:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Not all of the editors involved are on one side or the other. Some (like me, I assume) are reserving judgement on whether what the IPCC says is really true or not and just want to see both sides represented fairly in the related articles. Cla68 (talk) 04:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This is an extremely odd postion to take. How can you be sufficiently interested in the topic, yet not have troubled yourself to evaluate the IPCC? William M. Connolley (talk) 23:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Reserving judgment is not the same as not evaluated. It is more like has evaluated but is left wanting. --GoRight (talk) 02:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Unless the proposed project is overseen by, and data collection/ analysis is done by a group of uninvolved admins the project should be userpaged. An editor with a strong pov on the subject should not be doing it or even be involved except as talk page commentator. Thus do it on a user subpage for your own fun ... or let other uninvolved users do the analyzing, etc. Vsmith (talk) 04:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Frankly I'd rather any uninvolved administrators with that much time to spare devote it to enforcement rather than monitoring. --TS 04:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, looks like a bit of a timesink. Vsmith (talk) 04:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Admins with bias should be excluded from this process

OK. I go along with this, but make instead a very basic, obvious observation: for this process to have even the vaguest hope of success, any admin with a known bias must be considered "involved" and not be involved in enforcement.

I propose that all admins who intend to assist with climate change probation enforcements now voluntarily self-identify as (1) pro-IPCC / pro-RealClimate / advocate on action for fossil fuel reduction (2) a climate change skeptic; or (3) unaligned / centred / somewhat agrees with IPCC / disinterested / simply interested in enforcing Wikipedia's rules.

Those who self-identify as (1) or (2) should then voluntarily agree not to participate in the probation process.

Although not an admin, I will go first and put myself in category (2) since I obviously hold a strong point of view about various things (truth is, I fit better into category (3) but since I am regarded as a skeptic I would not be comfortable participating as a mediator).

Will others follow so as to make this process fair? Alex Harvey (talk) 18:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I feel that identifying my opinion will merely open me up to allegations of bias based on what I think, rather than what I do. Which wouldn't be helpful. Prodego ^talk 18:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Why should the admin's opinion of parties outside Wikipedia make any difference to how s/he handles issues within Wikipedia? That's like saying that nobody who voted for Barack Obama or John McCain could administer the existing Obama and Palin article probations. It's an absurd proposition. I'm sure competent admins are able to keep their personal political views and their administrative responsibilities separate. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Everyone has a bias. Reality has a well known liberal bias. It's useless to exclude people based on what they think, so long as the interpret policy fairly. Guettarda (talk) 18:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This proposal sounds to me like somebody preparing for a very nasty arbitration case. --TS 18:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Very much so. I note that everyone who has objected to the introduction of this article probation over on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Climate Change appears to be a climate sceptic, and Alex also self-identifies in this camp. I would not be at all surprised if, when someone gets topic-banned or indefinitely blocked as a result of an enforcement request, an arbitration case would be filed alleging "liberal bias" or some such nonsense. It's interesting that one side in the dispute apparently feels that the probation is biased against it from the outset. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Hah. Yeah, the good faith shown in the above comment is really comforting.... Arkon (talk) 19:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This whole concept amounts to assuming bad faith. As User:Prodego points out above, we evaluate people's actions on their own merit without attempting to determine their motivation at Wikipedia. That's what WP:AGF is all about. Bertport (talk) 20:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Best to stick to "involved" and "uninvolved" classifications, I have faith admins can change to a NPOV. However, some may of course voluntarily declare a POV or COI. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting responses.

ChrisO part 1 / Guettarda, you don't get the point. It's not about whether you can keep your admin decisions & POV separate, it's about whether you should. Example. Imagine you're a judge on a murder case, and the person murdered happens to be your wife. You may think you're a very logical person, and quite capable of keeping your emotions in a separate bucket. Fine, so you think you can do the case, but should you do it? No, you shouldn't, because (i), your judgement, even if accurate, will not have any appearance of credibility; and (ii) you may be wrong, and your emotions may not be in the separate bucket after all, and your judgement may turn out not to be accurate. An extreme example, sure, but for any admins with strong POVs, both (i) and (ii) apply here. Just as I agreed I shouldn't in principle mediate, neither should anyone else who has the appearance of a conflict of interest -- if that is you care about what the millions of Wikipedia readers will think when they see these discussions, and if you care about WP having any credibility.

ChrisO part 2, Republicans vs Democrats. I couldn't follow this at all, but what I'd say would be a good system is a panel that has 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats and 5 independents. That would work. Don't you think?

ChrisO part 3, Why are you making veiled references to likely outcomes of indefinitely banning users through this little ad hoc court you've set up? How is that helpful?

To those who asserted I "Assumed bad faith"; nonsense, I clearly proposed an honour system and laid down my weapons first, as a token of my good faith.

Tony Sidaway, who assumed, er, frankly nasty & devious intent after preaching the values of the AGF policy. That's fine, I don't care what you imagine; it clears the air and gives me opportunity to reassure you. Such is the value of honest dialogue, and you help to prove my point. So, here goes. Let me tell you that I will never be going to ArbCom for anything. My record of civility isn't up to scratch, and I've lost my temper too many times, and I publicly dare to question the very value of the AGF policy itself (OMG!). All of this would mean that if I ever went to ArbCom, I'd have no hope in hell of not being punished, however worthy my case. I am not stupid; ergo, I'll not be dicking around with ArbCom.

I am trying to propose a system here that will actually work. Alex Harvey (talk) 18:12, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Count me with Guettarda - but with an additional comment. There is no way to find an unbiased editor or admin. Wikipedia's NPOV policy states as much. But I think finding an admin with no "ownership" feelings toward an article will do perfectly well. Ignignot (talk) 19:43, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

If 'believing in' established science and in the scientific method discounts one from being able to make administrative decisions, then all is lost. If we have to find admins who aren't sure whether or not scientific pursuit is a valid way to establish knowledge ("unaligned / disinterested") then I would doubt their decision-making capacity as admins. --Nigelj (talk) 19:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Nobody is asking anyone to reject established science or the scientific method. All that is being requested is that you admit that a minority view exists and that there are well-qualified scientists who hold the minority view. Let the pages about the majority view and the minority view portray those views fairly and without editing bias. What we have now is all Wikipedia articles that mention the minority view are edited not as encyclopedia articles about that view, but rather advocacy pieces rebutting the minority view. The reason there are so many complaints is that there really is something to complain about here. 67.150.171.164 (talk) 00:52, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Do we have an update process?

Do we have an established process for proposing and approving changes to these sanctions? For example, I would favor including a restriction on modifying or removing someone's talk page comments without their permission, obvious vulgarities and extremely blatant PAs excepted, of course. I think that would go a long way towards improving the civility on some of these pages by blunting some of the pointy elbows. How can we get such a thing included? --GoRight (talk) 03:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

So allowing personal attacks that are merely "blatant" (as opposed to "extremely blatant") would improve civility? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

No need to be argumentative. Remove "extremely" then. The point is the same. Editing people's comments without their permission is a known issue on these pages that frequently creates unnecessary friction. I seek to reduce or eliminate that source of friction. Alternatively, if the author objects we could simply require a consensus be demonstrated before it is removed or refactored. In any event, edit warring over comments should obviously be discouraged somehow as this is an all too frequent occurrence on these pages. --GoRight (talk) 03:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

(Besides, my question was about the existence of an update process, this was merely an example.) --GoRight (talk) 03:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Another example, elsewhere I proposed suspending WP:BOLD which some editors were using to justify clearly controversial edits that broke the spirit of the peace. That garnered little support. I would say that the answer is that the existing process seems to be working pretty well (my thanks to the admins involved, and indeed to all those behaving responsibly) and there is little pressure for any updates at this stage William M. Connolley (talk) 08:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your perspective, but it does not really address the question. Lacking any official response or process here I guess the next stop will eventually be WP:AN and seeking community support. To be honest, since the consensus enabling these sanctions has previously been called into question by a diverse set of editors perhaps we should still have a wider community discussion which will either reaffirm or strike down the whole thing. I don't suppose that there is any reason this couldn't be pursued, remember, WP:CCC. --GoRight (talk) 16:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, it does address your question which was, if you recall, "do we have an update process"? The answer is, no-one seems to care, as you have noticed. Threatening to go off wikilawyering elsewhere is unlikely to be effective William M. Connolley (talk) 20:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

What wikilawyering elsewhere? I have as much right as anyone to ask for a consensus discussion. Asking for a discussion is hardly wikilawyering. And no, you are unfortunately incorrect, asserting that no one cares does not answer the question "do we have an update process?" I'm just trying to be more collaborative by asking these questions here first. --GoRight (talk) 20:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Pursuing a community discussion after the regime has been in existence only four or so days would not likely get you much sympathy or support. I think you would need to have evidence that this approach is somehow not working to get it struck completely.

As far as "updates", they will happen as the body of case submissions and decisions grows. The way to get updates to happen is to submit cogent case requests, propose desired solutions, and get them accepted. In your case, that will be difficult, since you're seen as a vexatious litigant ATM. I would suggest writing up a specific case request in a sandbox, then posting a link here to see if people find it sufficiently non-frivolous to be made official and posted to the noticeboard for consideration. Franamax (talk) 20:39, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

"Pursuing a community discussion after the regime has been in existence only four or so days would not likely get you much sympathy or support." - Understood. This is not my main concern. Although wouldn't it be nice to be able to say that there was a broad based community discussion with a well documented poll that clearly demonstrates a consensus? Instead there is a cloud hanging over the entire affair. But I digress ...

"seen as a vexatious litigant ATM" - What is ATM in this context? I'll ignore the vexatious part.

"The way to get updates to happen is to submit cogent case requests, propose desired solutions, and get them accepted." - Hmm, OK. So you are saying that that the sanction updates will be driven from the cases on the requests page. And as part of a case you can suggest remedies which might include far-reaching things like editing talk page comments and such. Do I have that correct? So in order to get something like the talk page comment restriction in I need to first demonstrate, through an actual case, that such a problem even exists, correct? That seems fair enough. Surely there must also be the possibility of creating new changes out of whole cloth, though, not just out of cases or is that incorrect? --GoRight (talk) 21:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

ATM = At The Moment. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks. --GoRight (talk) 21:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up question. The current cases are all focused on individual users but the talk page comments restriction is meant to address everyone, not a specific individual. I wouldn't want to single anyone out although there are certainly some people that could be. So how would this type of situation be handled? --GoRight (talk) 21:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Just my opinion here, but yes unfortunately, I think that to arrive at a general restriction it may be necessary to work one individual case at a time. After a few such cases, it will either become apparent that we have a uniform way of handling them (the "update" you are looking for) or it will not.

The "vexatious" may have been careless wording, I should have used the exact wording from your recent warning instead of a buzzphrase. And I was intending to ask whether the results on the AN sub-page discussion would be posted back at AN for wider support when I read that Ryan intended to enact the scheme in short order so I stayed quiet. I share a concern that a little more advertising would have been a better way to go, but I'm not so concerned as to not agree that this process isn't worth a fair shot from all concerned. Franamax (talk) 21:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The edit spiral that lead to my own RfA failing really began with my slightly annoyed comments being removed from a talkpage. I see no reason to remove anything other than for example the most blatant attacks from an article talkpage. We have plenty of policies in place for this already we do not need any more, more policies are overly restrictive. Polargeo (talk) 17:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Climate change noticeboard suggestion

Content RfC's are often important in helping resolve content disputes in contentious topic areas, such as this one. A major stumbling block, however, is when a content RfC doesn't attract enough participation in order to obtain input from editors other than the handful who happen to be focusing on that article at that time. Would it be possible, under this umbrella of climate change probation forums, to add a page, perhaps called the "Climate change noticeboard" for listing conflict dispute actions, such as RfCs? That way, editors interested in any of the various topics included in the broad Climate Change topic can have that one page on their watchlists instead of trying to put all of the climate change articles on their watchlists. Editors who want to invite participation to a discussion or RfC could post a notification to this central board inviting input by all concerned. Cla68 (talk) 06:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change. That might be an appropriate place to start. I don't know how active it is at the moment, but I was thinking yesterday that after the current probation ends, hopefully the editors will be in a more harmonious frame. At that point in time, the task force might be a very useful forum to resolve problems and keep articles consistent. Ignignot (talk) 14:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it might be a good idea for the task force to have a noticeboard. The notion of a single subject having a general noticeboard unconnected with a WikiProject seems wrong to me. In practice I've deployed several content RFCs on climate change-related subjects and the results have been useful. --TS 15:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I have been encouraging people to use the new CC taskforce as the first port of call in attracting more editors, but listing relevant RfCs in accordance with WP:CANVASS also looks like a good idea. - 2/0 (cont.) 02:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay in principle, a nightmare to manage, though I suppose an RFC bot could do the donkey work by patrolling articles with the climate change taskforce flag set in the relevant template. --TS 02:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Change to the Article Probation Warning

Hope this is the right forum..

I have recently run afoul of the rules here and I would like to make some suggestions that hopefully can keep others from falling into the same trap. With the help of User:Future Perfect at Sunrise here I've sorted out the source of my confusion w.r.t. what constitutes a revert. It appears to me that Help:Revert and WP:3RR are in conflict in this regard (a smaller change qualifies under 3RR than is implied by WP:Revert). The problem is that currently there is no path that leads an editor of an article under this probation to the 3RR definition. The warning one sees when one starts to edit an article on probation speaks only of WP:1RR, which ironically enough, provides no definition and among other things advises users to "See WP:Bold,revert,discuss cycle", which as I come to find out, is bad advice in this context. When issues arose, I used WP:Revert which I found on my own by poking around and later WP:1RR which led me further astray.

I would suggest:

• The warning template on the article edit page have a link to the operative definition of a revert
• the definitions given in WP:3RR and WP:Revert be the same
• WP:1RR contain a link to the above definition
• The warning be expanded to include 3RR
• That we clarify the policy w.r.t Probation, WP:Bold, and WP:BRD

This might help to avoid contention in the future. JPatterson (talk) 15:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The easy change is to get rid of these rules which have never been successfully tested on a topic like climate change before and were only passed by an in-crowd and a few hacks and are not really anything like a true community consensus. This is further proven by the extreme lack of advertising of this debate before the imposition as compared to the advertising post the imposition of these rules. Polargeo (talk) 17:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe you are discussing the notice that pops up whenever you edit Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, yes? That notice links to WP:Reverting and to Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation [edit: it linked to this page, but I just fixed it to point to WP instead of WT], which links to WP:Edit warring, of which 3RR is part. We might change the second sentence to replace the second instance of the word revert with a brief plaintext definition, leaving the link on the first instance. Something along the lines of: Do not make any edit to the article that reverses the edit of another user in whole or in part more than once in any 24 hour period.

WP:1RR is part of the Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary essay, which contains personal advice with which I happen to generally agree, but has no policy standing. It refers to do not re-revert when someone reverts you, but does not discuss the case of re-reverting a revert of another editor's edit; I expect that failing to link it is intentional. It links to WP:3RR, but at the start of the section, which is above the anchor for WP:1RR. I will go over there to see if anyone would object to moving the links to the start of the section to avoid this sort of confusion. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I think your suggestions would go along way towards fixing the problem. I still think the "whole or in part" phrase needs to be added to WP:Revert which by my interpretation anyway, implies a wholesale reversal to qualify. Thanks for taking the time with this. JPatterson (talk) 19:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good, I will check over there. If nobody has a better idea in a day or so, let us go ahead and make that edit. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Note - Template:Editnotices/Page/Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has the same language as the above editnotice and should also be changed. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:30, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Ngh, WP:Reverting and Help:Reverting are different pages - fixed link above. The former is an essay but linked from the 3RR policy. Potentially we should link in the editnotice just to WP:Edit warring#Reverting. Hrm. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done. - 2/0 (cont.) 18:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Faliure to advertise this debate

This debate was not sufficiently listed across the articles and users which it affects. However, since it's passing into policy many articles and users have been warned that they fall under this regime. I therefore conclude that this debate never really gave a true and fair chance for the community to reach a consensus. Polargeo (talk) 17:44, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, you've identified what you feel is a problem, now please state what you think is a solution for it. Cla68 (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

There was a consensus among the uninvolved admins who set up this probation, and it's received the support of the Arbitration Committee. That's really all the consensus that's needed, particularly when the need to crack down is urgent. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:47, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't do Hierarchy, I do consensus. I believe these rules have gotten through without true consensus, whatever the Arbcom ruling or thoughts of a handful of uninvolved hacks it is in my opinion invalidated by the complete lack of advertising of this debate. This is suddenly imposed on a wide area of wikipedia with little or no warning. I believe the sanctions are wrong, misguided and essentially disruptive to the bigger picture. I believe we are now in a situation where an editor is restircted from straightening out misrepresentation as much or more than as they may be restricted from peddling propaganda. My proposal would be to remove the sanctions. Polargeo (talk) 16:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Hasn't this crackdown simply worked in favour of the pro-AGW BIAS that permeates all subjects associated with AGW/Climate_Change. If these edit lock downs continue it plays right into the hands of the Wiki AGW thought control cabal as these articles have a long history of locking out anything sceptical of CO2 global warming causality (linkage). The semantics and metaphysics of this protracted framework discussion of the pro-AGW bias problem simple plays into the hands of those in total Wiki editorial control of AGW/Climate_Change subjects and Bio's !! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.47.249.252 (talk) 15:38, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

"This crackdown" has resulted in all editors on these articles having more carefully and more diligently to apply all the normal Wikipedia editing, citing and sourcing policies. That this has resulted in more edits that reflect established science, and more from other high quality sources, rather than unsourced personal opinions and those of hysterical bloggers, seems to have been a natural by-product. The rest of what you say regarding "thought control", "cabals" and "total Wiki editorial control" is, frankly, nonsense. --Nigelj (talk) 16:10, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Does the 1RR restriction apply to the talk page of the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident article?

I have quick question. The Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident is under a 1RR restriction. Does this apply to the talk page? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Do you intend to engage in an edit war on that page? --TS 00:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

added extension to Probation to cover talkpage refactoring by uninvolved editors and admins

Per the proposal at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement/Archive4#Comment refactoring, and subsequent discussions at User talk:LessHeard vanU#Comment refactoring and Wikipedia talk:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement#Refactoring of other editors talkpage comments per previous discussions I have added a subsection to the Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation page, per WP:BOLD and consensus at the talkpages noted. Other than improvements to the grammar and spelling corrections, any proposed alteration should be discussed here.
I am also going to "adjust" the Requests page to reflect the manner of making a talkpage guideline violation request, so that may need reviewing also. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:20, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree strongly with what I see as the unnecessary creep of admin power in this area. I suggest Bold is not something that should be applied here and would like to see this reversed. We can already deal with repeat offenders for comment refactoring very capably. As this does not affect encyclopedic content I see no need for an increase of punitive powers that could catch out one time offenders who may sometimes mistakenly think that they are doing the right thing per talkpageguidelines or wikiquette or not realise how seriously this is taken. Polargeo (talk) 12:29, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't care about the creep, but I do care about the wording, which is careless. and may be actioned by any uninvolved admin or editor in good standing without further consultation. Is that and may be actioned by any uninvolved (admin or editor in good standing) or and may be actioned by any (uninvolved admin) or (editor in good standing). I definitely disagree with the latter. Also, given the number of clearly non-neutral admins who apparently consider themselves "uninvolved" I'm not happy for this to be done without further consultation William M. Connolley (talk) 14:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Polargo, this issue requires better WP:TPG guidance before advancing to the probation sancitons. There is a thread started here Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines#Putting_tags_on_other_people.27s_comments.3FZulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 18:28, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Rules to discourage tit-for-tat enforcement requests

It's obvious to anyone who watches proceedings here that "tit-for-tat" enforcement requests are a major problem. You report me, most likely because there's already bad feeling between us, and I receive a penalty of some kind. Now I'm really motivated against you, and I scrutinize your every edit, ignoring the good and noting every one that is in any way questionable, until I have enough diffs to make a complaint of some kind against you. Maybe it's dismissed, maybe it's not - it's equally effective from my point of view as a weapon against you in either case.

This is the same issue that was raised by Guy on the enforcement requests talk page recently.

Would anyone disagree that this kind of warfare mentality exists on the enforcement page? That the people making complaints and the people being complained about are mostly the same people?

I would like to propose two simple additional rules. I would welcome any discussion on this.

1. Enforcement requests may not be raised by any editor who has received a sanction under the climate change probation in the last sixty days.

2. Enforcement requests which are judged by the closing admin to be unfounded and raised in bad faith should lead to the requesting editor being barred from raising further enforcement requests for a sixty-day period.

There is no great loss of rights involved here; raising enforcement requests is a privilege which is many, many steps away from the core purpose of editing Wikipedia. Anyone affected who has a good-faith, legitimate and non-trivial complaint about another editor should have no difficulty persuading some other, non-sanctioned editor to raise the complaint for them.

Any thoughts? Thparkth (talk) 15:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

My first thought is get rid of enforcement requests altogether. My second thought is, no your criteria are too arbitrary but I do wholeheartedly agree with the issue behind your suggestion of the tit-for-tat, it is just that these arbitrary measures of spreading even more bureaucracy to an area already steeped in it is not the way to solve it. Polargeo (talk) 15:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore your suggestions are arbitrarily banning users from having their say. If a user has made what is perceived as a bad faith request it does not mean that every request will be bad faith. Sanctions can also seemingly be enforced on such minor issues such as a couple of reverts (preceived as an edit war) that to withdraw the ability to report based on them is poor. If a user makes a bad faith report at WP:ANI what do we do then? Ban them from ANI? Polargeo (talk) 16:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion certainly doesn't prevent users from "having their say." Nothing stops them commenting on requests opened by others. You say that "if a user has made what is perceived as a bad faith request it does not mean that every request will be bad faith" and I agree, but I don't think either the editor or Wikipedia loses anything of value because one person can't raise an enforcement request. Someone else can raise it for them, if they agree that it's in good faith. Really all this adds up to is one additional hurdle for an affected editor: can you persuade any other editor that the complaint you want to raise is worthwhile? If so, not being able to raise it yourself will be no impediment at all. If not, you shouldn't be raising it in the first place. Thparkth (talk) 16:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes but that is still in effect a ban and a further withdrawl of editing priviliges for potentially fairly minor transgressions. Repeated bad faith requests can surely be dealt with effectively without an increase in bureaucracy. Polargeo (talk) 16:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure that the current system for dealing with apparent tit-for-tat requests is broken, or at least broken enough to require more bureaucracy. If a new request is probably part of a situation already under discussion, they are merged; if a request is made in apparent bad faith (sadly, we have a bit of a record to go by here), the requester is requested to cut it out. Multiple poor requests lead to sanctions on the person trying to abuse the system, and everyone is free to point out that that may be the case in any request. People tend to be pretty clear when they dislike each other, which is part of the reason for this probation. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:01, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

In addition, it seems to me if someone frequently makes multiple poor requests, and few useful requests and no action results (perhaps because no neutral admin notices it) anyone else is free to, you guessed it, make an enforcement request and a neutral admin may impose an appropriate remedy which may include a ban on making requests. Nil Einne (talk)

In addition, it seems to me if someone frequently makes multiple poor requests - we already have this - MN is banned from raising requests against me William M. Connolley (talk) 08:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Point 1 would be without precedent, and a bad idea. We do not want to exclude people from dispute resolution. Indeed, this might even create an incentive to get in requests first, because even a very minor sanction (like, say a warning to use better edit summaries) would presumably activate this sanction. Point 2, on the other hand, merits discussion, and is, as as WMC has pointed out, already in effect to a certain degree. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Additional rules can add complexity to a game. It is disheartening to assume folks would approach Wikipedia like an enforcement game with penalties. Consistently reminding misguided requesters that Wikipedia exist for content and the score is kept with article quality reviews ... while enforcements hurt everyone. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 15:52, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a game. I've consistently asked this probation to focus more on content. If we were judging people by their content contributions, you would fare very poorly William M. Connolley (talk) 16:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

WMC, there is irony in this "tit-for-tat" discussion when you focusing on my individual person. It's good to see we agree that content is king. I am content with with my Wikipedia contributions. When the king becomes other than a benevolent dictator, it's time for democratic personal rights to protect freedoms. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 17:14, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you really happy with your content contributions in the Cl Ch area? I find that surprising William M. Connolley (talk) 17:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

How can I get Wikileaks off climate change probation?

Resolved

 – The climate change section is minor and currently non-problematic. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:29, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

As has been noted in the Wikileaks Talk Page, Wikileaks is on Climate change probation, and this is a bit daunting to people wanting to edit the article, which needs a lot of work. Wikileaks only tangentially refers to Climate Change, as it used to host the ClimateGate emails. How can we get it off probation? cojoco (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

If there is general agreement that the tag is likely to keep people from editing, remove it. That article is most certainly not one of the primary targets of the probation. Tasty monster (=TS ) 23:32, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

It shouldn't even be on the Wikileaks article - its extremely tangentially related. It wasn't released there, nor is it considered a major distributor or host for the mails (there are dedicated web-sites with search and cross-referencing out there). Seems to be a case of someone thinking "Oh, this is a major thing - we must have this here as well". To my eyes its WP:UNDUE. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:45, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks like Polargeo has removed the template, thanks all. cojoco (talk) 03:25, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Good luck article writing, Cojoco. If people start edit warring over the minor mention related to climate change and you think it would help, feel free to ping me or someone over here. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:29, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Note re template

I should note my edit here to the template used to create requests here. It is apparent to me that creating admin-only discussion sections is not-wiki. Admin-only conclusion sections, sure, but admin-only discussion appears to be located only in this one template. Hipocrite (talk) 14:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

As this was reverted by an AE regular, I've forked the template - I will happily self revert and discuss, but the Climate template is now located at Template:Climate Sanction enforcement request, and contains the "no admin only discussion" language. Hipocrite (talk) 12:24, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Maurice Strong

The BLP Maurice Strong is now frequently targeted by the minions who take their cue from Glenn Beck and Fox. He is peripherally related to the climate change debate, but the rabid Right have vilified him as the master puppeteer behind the whole vast left wing conspiracy to establish world government through climate scare campaigns.

Please add this article — Maurice Strong — to the list of articles under probation. ► RATEL ◄ 06:48, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

He is a little too peripheral for my liking. There is a lot more to this individual than climate change per se. Polargeo (talk) 09:28, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Environment in general should not be construed as climate change and I don't see much in the way of climate change in the article at present. Polargeo (talk) 09:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Rodhullandemu has semi-protected the article until the nineteenth, which should alleviate the immediate concern. I would not be comfortable extending the CC probation to this article, though if a clearly climate change related dispute arises it might be worth raising here. There are special enforcement provisions for BLPs, but really this looks like a job for flagged revisions. - 2/0 (cont.) 17:09, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on the continuing usefulness of the Climate change sanctions

I have opened a request for comment at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/RFC. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:45, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Accusing any AGW Skeptic of being a Scibaby Sockpuppet

I have been accused of being a Scibaby Sockpuppet on multiple occasions where I have attempted to include reasonably sourced material. I hope this is not a method of silencing skeptics or to neutralize their ability to contribute, it is however quite obscene to be faced with this. Please watch who you accuse of being a Scibaby Sockpuppet, people may have a similar view to his (I haven't really looked at what his view is) and you may mistake them as being a him.130.56.89.139 (talk) 17:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)