Not content to simply let the arbitration committee attend to their own business, WMC seems impatient to help get other ideologically aligned editors freed from their restrictions vis a vis climate change topic bans.  <snark> He’s just being helpful, I’m sure.  He has no ulterior motives in such cases. </snark>  And just to keep things interesting, it seems Tony Sidaway and Mathsci are also in favor of letting Scjessey loose on the climate pages again.  Who would have guessed?

The systemic bias continues and gains momentum unabated.

Well the flood of appeals is likely to begin.  The second has already appeared.  This time around it is User:Scjessey who seeks to have his binding voluntary restriction lifted.  Anyone who follows along will remember that Scjessey lies firmly within the ideological perspective espoused by “the group who cannot be named,” or TGWCBN for short.  Given this it should come as no surprise to anyone that WMC has shown up in support of lifting Scjessey’s restriction while simultaneously opposing any blanket amnesty which might include any of the climate skeptics who have been banned.

So it appears that WMC plans to be selective in his support for the lifting of any bans as a means of further skewing the ideological makeup of the editors allowed to contribute to climate change pages. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. It is one of the ways the bias on Wikipedia is maintained.

This is, sadly, a transparent move on WMC’s part, but one worth noting formally none the less.

A snapshot of the motion and voting can be seen here.  Effective immediately WMC is again allowed to edit climate change articles but he remains “prohibited from editing relating to any living person associated with this topic, interpreted broadly but reasonably.“

So the oligarchy’s favored editors are now be set free to continue exercising their previous control of any article that falls under the rubric of their single purpose for editing at Wikipedia.

This result is neither surprising nor in the best interests of the project.

I thought William was crazy for wanting to be unbanned, and told him so. In the unlikely event his appeal is granted he’ll have flocks of admins, partisans, and partisan admins circling to look for the tiniest misstep. (Cooler heads than mine agree on at least this point.) Someone will haul him before AE for not saying “please” is an edit summary or similar nonsense and he’ll get blocked, which will justify Arbcom’s locking him back up and throwing away the key. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

via This Diff

As I was discussing in email with Count Iblis, the phenomenon being described by SBHB is a common technique which is used to get people banned.  Just review the arbitration enforcement proceedings related to Abd for a fine example of how every little and ridiculous opportunity is exploited to seek a sanction until something sticks and those that do stick add up over time.  SBHB is familiar with this technique because he and MastCell have seen it employed numerous times against any editor who seeks to improve the NPOV on the climate change articles (i.e. by expressing anything that could be interpreted as supporting a skeptical perspective no matter how well founded it might be). The group seeking to use the tactic in such cases shall remain nameless. I shall begin referring to this group as “the group who cannot be named,” or TGWCBN for short.

SBHB’s comment is misplaced because it will never be used, or at the very least will never be successful, in the case of WMC.  He will be immunized from any effective use of the technique by TGWCBN.  Just like TGWCBN came out to object to any consideration of removing my ban they will come out in support of any action against WMC and thereby derail any such efforts. It will be no different than what we are seeing now with TGWCBN coming out in support of letting WMC begin editing climate change articles again while at the same time objecting to any lifting of sanctions against their perceived enemies (e.g. such as myself).

I have been following along with WMC’s arbitration amendment request discussed just below.  It seems some little known sockmaster, BookWorm44, has been giving WMC a bit of a prodding based on his editing at the Journal of Cosmology.

After typing in a Google search suggested by one of BookWorm44′s IP edits at a DRN discussion about the whole mess I came across the following quote:

Michael Jankowski says:

March 6, 2011 at 4:00 pm

The Journal of Cosmology is about as reputable and “peer reviewed” as Real Climate.

via Skeptical science: meteorite aliens bring out the armchair experts | Watts Up With That?.

I found that quote humorous given all the on-going hoopla over the reliability of the Journal of Cosmology which is, in deed, quite a piece of work to say the least. That quote and the article it appears in are proof positive that climate skeptics are superbly adept at spotting Cranks and Charlatans!  They’ve identified two suspicious websites in one comment. 

For anyone who follows the climate change debate and how it plays out on Wikipedia the news that William M. Connolley is attempting to have his ban lifted should be of particular interest.  Since his ban the environment on the climate change pages has improved considerably owing largely to the elimination of his caustic attacks on other editors who don’t particularly share his extreme and exclusionist philosophy.  The neutrality of the climate pages has begun to improve since his ban and reversing his ban would only serve to reverse that positive trend.

Of course his usual allies are piling on in support of lifting the ban whereas they were more than happy to pile on to insure that I had no such good fortune.  Such is the state of things.  If the climate change pages are better off without my input they are most certainly better off without the caustic atmosphere WMC so frequently engenders.  Removing people’s comments.  Insulting people in his edit summaries and elsewhere.  Skewing the neutrality of the climate change content to promote his myopic views.  None of these are good for the encyclopedia and few have done more to harm the reputation of the climate changes pages on the project than has William M. Connolley.

The discussion will be ongoing here.  If you are so inclined I encourage anyone with an opinion on this matter to express it there.

If memory serves, at the time of his ban the Arbitration Committee expressed the strong sentiment that as a condition of having one’s ban reversed they would put a premium on subsequent work which lead to moving articles in other areas to Featured Article status.  If my memory serves correctly then one has to ask the obvious question, how many articles has William successfully moved to that level of status?  I don’t know because I have not been following along that closely, but I suspect the number is 0 (zero).  If I am wrong please correct me in the comments.

Assuming he hasn’t moved any articles to featured article status since his ban, and given that he presumably remains a caustic influence when it comes to climate change topics, why then is it in the best interests of the project to lift his ban?  If he wishes to contribute to the project let him continue in the small way that he has since the ban.

OK, so maybe it isn’t actually a news flash.  I haven’t been paying much attention lately but a little birdie just pointed me to the following:

• (cur | prev) 17:13, 5 June 2011 Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk | contribs) (35 bytes) (had it) (undo)
• (cur | prev) 17:12, 5 June 2011 Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk | contribs) (19,505 bytes) (→Change to discussion of fundamental mechanics: had enough) (undo)

Which was an interesting turn of events.  He will be sorely missed.

(For all of Boris’ friends out there, don’t worry.  He hasn’t really gone anywhere.)

Via WMC I came across a post by David Appell at Quark Soup wherein I posted the following comment:

Providing links to news articles which publish unsubstantiated claims by purported victims does not constitute evidence of anything other than the purported victim made a claim.  Watts is right.  Where is the actual evidence that the claim is true?

– GoRight

The comment is awaiting moderation.  Let’s see if it ever appears.

UPDATE: I followed up over on WMC’s blog.  See comment #59.

UPDATE II: Appell approves my comment.  See last comment in this archived version.

UPDATE III: Apparently WMC is offended by the truth.  He removes my comment without a reply.  Sorry, WMC, didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities. 

I can’t say that I am surprised by the outcome but here is the response I received from the Ban Appeals SubCommittee:

David Fuchs <xxxx> to goright

Hey GoRight, sorry to keep you in the lurch.

At this time we’re declining to unblock. A new appeal in a few months could be successful, but right now the major issues are that you weren’t totally forthcoming from the get-go and that there isn’t a huge amount of evidence that you have demonstrated an improvement and can work constructively. I suggest you find something on another project that you can devote some time to and interact with other editors in a collegiate manner. Evidence of this, combined with full disclosure and continued abstinence from socking, will greatly improve your chances.

Thanks,

David Fuchs

I’ll try again after I build up a larger history of collaboration on another project.  At least the socking issue has come out and can be put behind us at this point.

There is one group of people I still need to apologize to on that front.  To all of the people who supported me in the past I would just like to say that I am sorry for having deceived you and for having abused your trust.  I sincerely regret having deceived you most of all.

Additional updates made as of 05/31/2011:

For those who might be interested I am in the process of appealing my ban on Wikipedia.

As part of my appeal I was asked by the committee to make a full accounting of any sock puppets that I have used.  In response I have admitted to the committee that I have, in fact, employed sock puppets in violation of my ban and I have provided a complete list of the puppets I created to the subcommittee.

As part of my appeal I have pledged to leave the battleground tactics of my past behind me, and I have asked that I be judged going forward by my post-ban behavior rather than any pre-ban behaviors.  I believe the primary message to come out of the Climate Change Arbitration which took place during my absence was that battleground tactics will not be tolerated.

I am now taking that message to heart.  If I am successful at getting unblocked I plan to do the following:

• I will seek a voluntary interaction ban with any individuals with whom I have previously had any significant disagreements, and I fully intend to honor any such agreements which are mutually accepted.
• I will make a good faith effort to edit in a manner generally consistent with WP:1RR with a clear preference for resolving issues on the talk pages rather than engaging in edit warring.
• UPDATE: Both as a means of proving my sincerity and to make some measure of restitution to the community I will voluntarily restrict my article space and article talk activities for a period of 6 months from when I am unblocked to nothing but direct community service.  This will be served as a combination of (a) helping the project to reduce it’s copy edit backlog, and (b) Recent Changes Patrol to help fight vandalism.  I propose that at the end of 6 months the following four administrators review my work: MastCell, 2over0, LessHeard vanU, and Lar.  If three or more of these administrators agree that I need to do more service before editing outside of these parameters I will voluntarily extend my self-imposed restriction for an additional 6 months.  If I wish to try other similar forms of community service during this period I will first ask for community approval to do so and will only do so if approved.

Much time has passed since I was banned.  It is true that I have violated my ban by employing sock puppets.  It is true that I vigorously denied that activity at the time and that I said some things which were unkind and hurtful.  I hereby apologize for having said those things.  The bottom line is that I eventually came to understand that my socking activity was wrong and I have since chosen to stop but I cannot undo what I have already done.

I would hope that my having recognized the error of my ways (both in terms of socking and employing a battleground approach to editing) would count for something in this appeal.  I clearly understand that any return to a battleground mentality will result in an immediate return to my current ban.

The committee has decided to ask for community input.  The resulting discussion is here, here, and here.

UPDATE:

While I have told the committee that I am intentionally avoiding any point by point rebuttals of issues being raised in the above mentioned discussions (to avoid increasing the drama level caused by my appeal) I believe that the following raises a valid and important point:

I note that he has not taken any steps to update the lies, taunts, and attacks in his previous blog entries about other editors who correctly identified his now-acknowledged sockpuppets, nor has he named his sockpuppet accounts in his blog. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:18, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

So with that in mind I hereby publicly acknowledge that I was wrong to use sock puppets to evade my ban, and further that in my attempt to conceal my activity I did actively and unfairly lie to, taunt, and attack those who sought to expose those same activities.

To those whom I have wronged in this respect I do hereby offer my sincere apologies.  I know that an apology offers little comfort but it is the best I can do at this point.  I cannot undo what I have done on wiki.  I could delete the posts on this blog but I will instead make this public statement and link to it from each blog entry where I have made false claims.  This shall then serve as an enduring reminder of my shame in this matter.

Not all accounts which were suspected of being my sock puppets actually were.  As has been already made public on wiki I hereby acknowledge having created and used the following accounts to evade my ban:  TheNeutralityDoctor (talk · contribs), Absit invidia II (talk · contribs), and Copyright_police (talk · contribs).  I deny all other suspected socks and shall not discuss them further.

UPDATE:

The archived version of the above discussion is here.