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Revision as of 23:15, 5 December 2007

I'm fairly busy in the Real World at the moment. Expect delays here... or not. But it's my excuse anyway...

If you're here to talk about conflicts of interest, please read (all of!) this.

You are welcome to leave messages here. I will reply here (rather than on, say, your user page). Conversely, if I've left a message on your talk page, I'm watching it, so please reply there.

If your messages are rude, wandering or repetitive I will likely edit them. If you want to leave such a message, put it on your talk page and leave me a note here & I'll go take a look. In general, I prefer to conduct my discussions in public. If you have a question for me, put it here (or on the article talk, or...) rather than via email. If I've blocked you for 3RR this applies particularly strongly: your arguments for unblock, unless for some odd reason particularly sensitive, should be made in public, on your talk page. See-also WMC:3RR.

In the dim and distant past were... /The archives. As of about 2006/06, I don't archive, just remove. Thats cos I realised I never looked in the archives.

The Holding Pen

Atmospheric circulation pic

Thanks for the pic you added to this article. It's very interesting, and I am intrigued by some of the anomalies it shows. Denni ☯ 01:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Denni. Thanks! All part of my very very slow atmospheric dynamics project... more to come... slowly... William M. Connolley 22:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC).[reply]

It's wonderful to see something more the standard oversimplified depictions of the hadley/ferrel/polar cells. Did you create it or find it somewhere? I'm hoping to find one for July 2007 to see if there's some correlation to the heat wave in Montana/Western North America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Western_North_American_heat_wave Thanks, Dansample 18:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Its created from ECMWF data. I don't think we have July 2007 back yet... in fact we only have till 2001. You could use NCEP data (not nearly so good, I know) and draw plots online: [1] William M. Connolley 20:08, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trend estimation with Auto-Correlated Data

William: This article you started is a great topic! I am just wondering if you have detailed information to add to the section about auto-correlated data. I am facing this problem now, and am trying to get information from papers and textbooks. --Roland 21:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah well, IMHO what to do with auto-correlated data is an ongoing research topic. Top tip: divide the ndof by something like (1+ac1) (or is it ac1^2...) if the autocorr isn't too extreme. There is some formula like (1+ac1^2+ac2^2+...) if its strongly auto-correlated... but... its a bit of a mess, I think. Err, thats why I never expanded that bit. The von Zstorch and Zwiers book covers it, somewhat. William M. Connolley 22:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added a link to autoregressive moving average models JQ 23:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Linda Hall editor

User:204.56.7.1 has been blocked four times in the last month for 3RR (once by you). He is now performing wholsale reversions without comment (see at Radio [2]) This user as you probably know, has a long history of refusing to collaborate. He ignored my talk page request. Any suggestions? --Blainster 20:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling is that 204. is Reddi. Reddi is limited to 1R per week. Establishing the connection past doubt is difficult; but the edit patterns are very similar. You could post a WP:RFCU. Or you could just list 204. on the 3RR page together with the note of Reddis arbcomm parole and see if that does any good. Or maybe I'll just block it... shall I? Oh go on, yes I will... William M. Connolley 21:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My Reddimeter displays 8.5 on a scale from 0 to 10: Selection of topics. likes patents, likes templates. Only the tireless lamenting on article talk pages is missing. --Pjacobi 21:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Reddi apparently back

... with another sockpuppet [3] KarlBunker 19:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there no stopping him? I've blocked that one; if he persists, will semi it William M. Connolley 19:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Templeton Foundation

The Templeton Foundation used to provide grants for ID conferences and courses. According to The New York Times, Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, later asked ID proponents to submit proposals for actual research. "They never came in," said Harper, and that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned. "From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said. [4] The Templeton Foundation has since rejected the Discovery Institute's entreaties for more funding, Harper states. "They're political - that for us is problematic," and that while Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the science," "what I see is much more focused on public policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth." [5]

I'd think that while individual members/beneficiaries of the Foundation's largess may embrace ID, the the Foundation itself is trying to distance itself from the ID movement, but keeping in mind that the Discovery Institute, the hub of the ID movement, actively tries to cultivate ambiguity around its own motives, actions and members with the aim of portraying ID as more substantial and more widely accepted than it actually is, as the Dover Trial ruling shows (it's worth reading). [6] FeloniousMonk 21:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Thats interesting and useful William M. Connolley 21:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Photo of pulpit in Stephansdom in Vienna

I want to express my appreciation for the photo you uploaded; its shadow and contrast really bring out the relief and allow the user to see it well. I wish all the photos uploaded were as carefully composed. --StanZegel (talk) 20:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, thats very kind to stop by so politely. I did take care over the photo - I have very fond memories of that pulpit from a cycle trip in 1986 William M. Connolley 20:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to have you here

With all the disinformation around, it's nice to know that there are a few scientists here on WP who aren't willing to parrot whatever their corporate masters send in a memo. Be well and to the extent that it even matters, know that you have the respect of a lot of us! :) -- User:RyanFreisling @ 14:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Thanks. It *is* nice to know that occaisionally :-) William M. Connolley 17:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let me second Ryan's statement - I find it very reassuring to have you around on the climatology articles. Raul654 19:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I hope you don't feel like taking it back after I hack Inhofe... William M. Connolley 20:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thirded. I've just been skimming the conversations you've been in with various people and am amazed at your patience and dedication. It's a shame you have to go through the same disputes time and again with users who don't have either the scientific training or rational mindset required to reason about these complex issues. Hopefully Wikipedia will evolve to a point where such distractional arguments require less of your time. 129.215.11.58 21:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Bdj

Can you give an outsider who's been pretty much frustrated to the point of leaving the page a quick-and-dirty as to why the page on Global warming dedicates less than a dozen words to the highly publicised controversies surrounding the science? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think I can. Firstly, this page is primarily about the *science* over GW - not the politics or press. Hence, it tries to give a balance of the science, not the press coverage. If you're basing your expectations on the latter, you'll be disappointed.

Secondly, what do we have? there are a few scientists who disagree about the primary causes of the observed warming and A hotly contested political and public debate also has yet to be resolved, regarding whether anything should be done, and what could be cost-effectively done to reduce or reverse future warming, or to deal with the expected consequences and Contrasting with this view, other hypotheses have been proposed to explain all or most of the observed increase in global temperatures, including: the warming is within the range of natural variation; the warming is a consequence of coming out of a prior cool period, namely the Little Ice Age; and the warming is primarily a result of variances in solar radiation. and There is a controversy over whether present trends are anthropogenic. For a discussion of the controversy, see global warming controversy. . And a whole section on solar variation. So I guess your "less than a dozen" is meant rhetorically.

Thirdly, what controversies are you expecting? Solar is in there; HSC isn't (and maybe should be touched on, though its not all that relevant).

Fourthly... its just about impossible to talk about this on t:GW while everyone is wasting time rehashing old arguments about "consensus" and sourcing William M. Connolley 17:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. That makes sense about the science, although it would be nice to see a better cross-section of the interpretations. Regarding your "fourth," it's why I just cut to you. Thanks for the straight answer. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your query

Hi William, it's correct that we're not supposed to use wikis as sources (except in very limited circumstances, namely in the same way we'd use any self-published source), but I don't see how that would apply to the instrumental temperature record. We're allowed to use any primary, secondary, or tertiary source that's reliable. I don't know what kind of source the ITR is, but it seems to me something we ought to be using. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What we are talking about here is to not repeat references already contained in sub-articles. I.e. when referencing the instrumental temperature record in global warming, it should be sufficient to Wikilink there, not to repeat the references over and over again. --Stephan Schulz 18:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would depend on the context. It's almost always better to repeat the references, unless the material is completely uncontentious, in which case you could simply link to the Wikipedia article and anyone who wants to know more can read that. But if the claims are "challenged or likely to be challenged," as the policy says, then it's better to supply citations even if they've been repeated elsewhere. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how that is compatible with your original reply, sorry. How can we cite ITR in this way if tertiary sources are forbidden? WP:OR sez Tertiary sources are publications, such as encyclopedias, that sum up other secondary sources, and sometimes primary sources. Wikipedia is a tertiary source... All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources... Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely entirely on primary sources (for example, current events or legal cases). This, as written, would appear to imply that tertiary sources are forbidden. I would suggest that it needs to be re-written. William M. Connolley 18:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I don't see how this can work with WP:SUMMARY. For complex topics, it's easily possible to go multiple levels of recursion. Repeating all references will destroy the whole idea of using summaries. --Stephan Schulz 19:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, though the wikilawyers would tell you thats only a guideline :-). It points you are History of the Yosemite area, which indeed is woefully unreferenced, by the absurd standards some are pushing. So I think WP:OR is miswritten, and needs revision William M. Connolley 19:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would need to see the specific example to understand what the issue is. But generally, tertiary sources are allowed if they're high quality; the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, would be allowed. The secondary/tertiary distinction can be a bit of a red herring that's best ignored: what matters is whether the source is a good one, and whether it's used correctly in the article. As for summary style, you summarize the contents of another article, but in summarizing, you presumably make a couple of claims, so these particular claims should be sourced. That doesn't mean you have to repeat every single source that's in the main article — just sources for the particular claims you're repeating. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thats what I would have thought. But I don't see how this is compatible with a literal reading of the OR policy, as quoted above. Its all very well to agree in friendly discussion with you that the policy is a red herring... but its not pleasant to have the policy quoted in unfriendly edit wars. If you want an example, then consider: For example, I could just write "John Adams was born in 1735," and leave it at that because that Wikipedia article SAYS he was born in 1735 SO IT MUST BE TRUE! Wrong. That is not how Wikipedia works, I'm afraid. Wikipedia is a tertiary source. How does that sound to you? William M. Connolley 19:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, fair point, the policy needs to be tweaked. At the moment, there's a discussion about whether V and NOR are to be merged into ATT, so I hope we can leave any tweaking until after that's decided. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure its a good idea to leave it, otherwise we'll get edits like this being done on the basis of over-zealous interpretation of the current policy William M. Connolley 22:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you arguing the article adequately cites it sources? ~ UBeR 22:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When an article achieves FA status, the adequacy of sourcing is a major criteria. The article passed that hurdle a little while back and the quantity and quality of citations have improved even after that. Are there areas that could be improved? No doubt, but overall the article is adequately sourced and the current round of nitpicking is not helping to improve the article. Vsmith 01:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Current

Gulf Stream

A recent back-and-forth in AIT got me wondering: does Gulf Stream deserve a more detailed discussion of its physical causes than just mentioning that it's wind driven? Raymond Arritt 18:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That would depend on how far into the causes you want to get. It would be nice to point out that its just one part of the gyre, and that basic ocean dynamics just makes that part thin William M. Connolley 09:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: CltFn

Now that I'm aware of them, I think it's self-evident that he's violated his unblock conditions. This being said I'm not sure exactly what kind of comment you were asking for. Everything relevant is already in my warning post, it's up to administrators to decide how to enforce the conditions. <eleland/talkedits> 21:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK. When I unblocked CltFn I implicitly assumed responsibility for monitoring his parole. I've blocked him for 24h for now, what happens next will depend on his response William M. Connolley (talk) 22:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

global warming

Are you trying to say that the authors did not characterize the sort of bias their paper was meant to address? How is "uncertainty" in any way more faithful to the paper than "overestimated".Zebulin 22:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm lying through my teeth, of course. Now have another go at asking the question in a polite way and you'll get a sensible answer William M. Connolley 23:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you still appalled by the rudeness of the modified text?Zebulin 23:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm slightly appalled by the rudeness of modifying talk so that my comments no longer make sense, but I can let that go. OK, the substance: I think that the substance of the paper is uncertainty, and suggestions for improvement. Certainly they use the word overestimate, but that is from the main point. Its not even really clear whose estimates are supposed to be over. From the embedding within the GW, one might suspect the IPCCs, but these aren't mentionned. Hence, the suggestion that plucking out the word "overestimate" is quote mining William M. Connolley 23:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

with regards to modifying the text I didn't intend to make your comment not make sense I simply assumed that you weren't responding because you didn't want a "rude" comment on your talk page and I assumed you were very (if you'll forgive the term) "anal" about unnecessary duplication in wikipedia given your earlier modification my edits to talk pages as being unnecessarily lengthy. I apologize for the misunderstanding.Zebulin 23:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to make a small semantics detour to make sure we are on the same page here. My (possibly outdated) understanding of quote mining is that it consists of removing a statement from a context such that information that would modify the meaning of the removed content is lost thereby altering it's original intended meaning. Do you agree on that understanding? I think the quote mining issue will be central to any agreement on how to handle the extinction rate paper. <edit> or better yet, can we start from the content of the Quote mining article? If so then the accusations of quote mining that were appearing in the GW discussion (and which you appeared to recognize as legitimate) remain totally unsubstantiated. What is there in the article that could be used to alter the meaning of the idea that earlier projections have overestimated extinction rates? There is absolutely no quote mining occurring here. Rather the authors ideas appear to be getting compromised with weasel wording. They do not merely state that there was some uncertainty (possibly over estimating or possibly underestimating) which they offer suggestions to fix but rather that they had identified specific biases that overestimated extinction rates and offered suggestions to remove them. Rather than any sort of earlier quote mining occurring what we now appear to have (with the replacement of "overestimated" with "uncertainty") is an example of substantially altering the meaning of a sourced statement. Zebulin 23:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, not necessarily. Quote mining is taking something from a larger structure that misleads as to the meaning of the larger structure. At least it is when I use it. I haven't read the wiki page yet William M. Connolley 18:01, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That may be a different understanding of quote mining but even so, how do you see quote mining in that sense (as you mean it) in this case? I hope you are not saying that for instance if an article were published that noted tendencies for models of the development of the universe to produce underestimates of the age of the universe and suggested multiple ways to remove the biases responsible that it would be quote mining to say that the authors believed that the estimates of the age of the universe were underestimates? I continue to find the accusations of quote mining in this case, whatever the definition of quote mining used, to be baffling. I probably need more details as to where it's coming from.Zebulin 00:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, just before the sentence, Thomas et al.'s estimates are given (and only theirs are presented in the article). Botkin et al. and others (e.g. Araújo et al., Thuiller et al., Buckley and Roughgarden, Pearson et al., & Harte et al.) raise serious issues over uncertainty in Thomas et al.'s projections. Botkin et al. argue that research and other errors in projection indicate overestimation. ~ UBeR 19:14, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

... thanks for all the fish

So does that mean you'll be doing less around here as well? I certainly wouldn't blame you for wanting to spend more time on more practical (and less confrontational) affairs. Dragons flight 08:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure. We'll have to see how it goes William M. Connolley 11:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see that UBeR has removed you from RealClimate as a contributor. Despite our current contentious relationship I do feel that it would be a shame to loose sight of your association and contributions there. Would you object to my creating an Alumnae Contributors section on the RealClimate page and reintroducing your name there for historical perspective? --GoRight 21:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't object; it might well be appropriate William M. Connolley 21:31, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If William leaves that means more work for me, and I really don't feel like it cause I'm damn well disgusted with Wikipedia right now. So it goes. Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're burnt out. I burnt out long ago. And William is leaving the climate field entirely. Why is it that anyone wants to contribute this place anyway? Dragons flight (talk) 05:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good question really. Love of truth I suppose. But the infighting is less amusing William M. Connolley (talk) 08:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, some of the people we're fighting with also love the truth. (Of course, we all know that "truth has a well-known liberal bias".) Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notifying you of some possible wrong-doing

An admin, User:Friday has had a lot of complaints made against her. Notably, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Friday#Admin_Recall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Friday#Personal_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Friday#Please_assume_good_faith

I'm a little concerned about it. Just bringing this to your attention. Malamockq (talk) 01:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The only complaint there that appears meaningful is PA, and thats not current. You neglected to mention your role. If the RFC materialises, let me know William M. Connolley (talk) 20:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 158: / Line 158: @@
 ::::::: To be fair, ''some'' of the people we're fighting with also love the truth. (Of course, we all know that "truth has a well-known liberal bias".) [[User:Benhocking|Ben Hocking]] <sup><small>([[User talk:Benhocking|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Benhocking|contribs]])</small></sup> 21:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
-:::::::: Let's here take a moment to remember what was the model-generated "truth" in 1999 [http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/1999/msg00181.html]. --[[User:Childhoodsend|Childhood&#39;s End]] ([[User talk:Childhoodsend|talk]]) 21:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
-::::::::: If you want to argue that economics modelling is far worse than climate modelling, I have no problem with that [[User:William M. Connolley|William M. Connolley]] ([[User talk:William M. Connolley|talk]]) 21:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
-::::::::::US$3/gal ''is'' low! ~ [[User:UBeR|UBeR]] ([[User talk:UBeR|talk]]) 21:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
-::::::::::Why would economic modelling be worse than climate modelling? Economic models are just as "advanced" as climate models, if not more. They can also recreate the past pretty well. But in matters of prediction, they have a bad track record just like in any other matter where humankind attempted to predict complex systems. "Scientists" trained to believe in and work with modeling think that models output is the truth, and they're proven wrong once the timeframe of their predictions has gone by. Nothing new there. --[[User:Childhoodsend|Childhood&#39;s End]] ([[User talk:Childhoodsend|talk]]) 22:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
-::::::::::That's one reason why I laugh so heartily when the same people who tell you how unreliable climate models tell you that with dead certainty that our economy will be devastated by trying to reduce CO<sub>2</sub> emissions. [[User:Benhocking|Ben Hocking]] <sup><small>([[User talk:Benhocking|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Benhocking|contribs]])</small></sup> 21:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
-:::::::::::Ben, we dont need an economic model to predict the overall outcome of overtaxing and government overspending - these are known elements, just like we know that overfishing is likely to destroy the fish stocks. --[[User:Childhoodsend|Childhood&#39;s End]] ([[User talk:Childhoodsend|talk]]) 22:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
-::::::::::::Hmmm... overtaxing + overspending = balanced? ~ [[User:UBeR|UBeR]] ([[User talk:UBeR|talk]]) 23:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
-::::::::::::Neither taxes nor government spending are required to reduce CO<sub>2</sub> emissions. As far as economic impacts, recent studies have shown that economies have actually improved following such cuts. [[User:Benhocking|Ben Hocking]] <sup><small>([[User talk:Benhocking|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Benhocking|contribs]])</small></sup> 23:14, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 == Notifying you of some possible wrong-doing ==