Encyclopaedia21

Welcome!

Hello, Encyclopaedia21, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

A study on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies

If you are viewing this page regarding a request I have posted on your talk page and want to know more about the study, you can either get the survey questionnaire via my webpage. Or you could email me at encyclopaedia@educ.gla.ac.uk.

Also, a few users have expressed concern about preserving their anonymity. I understand that email communications would impinge this to some extent. Unfortunately, I have not planned to use online survey websites or other alternatives, and it is too late to change methodology at this stage of my research. However, as in all research projects, the anonymity of participants will be preserved in the results published. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 09:41, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Click here to leave me a new message. Thanks!!!

Are there scientific certainties? I had not been aware. A central problem in this topic is the difficulty of dealing with what we might call scientific consensus, or scientific near-certainties, and the disproportionate space given on Wikipedia to unsubstantiated assertions in politically fraught areas. I suggest that you begin by talking about evidence-based work, preponderances of evidence, and disproportionate space devoted to small or paltry bodies of evidence. When you have worked out a protocol to stop the fanatics from editing in vast amounts of copy sans real evidence, do let the rest of us know. .Historicist (talk) 21:23, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for raising that point. I really hope some of the filled questionnaires from the participantig Wikipedia users will touch on that. In all cases, the summary of the survey results will be posted on my webpage for all to see... obviously not now but in a few months time Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 22:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments

I've noticed your messages to people's pages regarding scientific controversy. Just wondering, but have you heard of WikiProject Science? I'm sure you can ask the pople there about it with a higher likelihood of a response than going up to random people. PXK ^T /_C 16:27, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, those people are very much not randomly selected... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

As explained here. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:46, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to participate. I read the questionnaire but didn't think I understood the questions well enough to answer. Sorry! -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

So am I. Nils Simon (talk) 19:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Not participating is OK. I fully understand that the questionnaire may not be pertinent to all users Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 19:47, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Sending talk page messages asking people to email you might not be the best way to get responses, especially given the fact that you are a new user with no history here. I'm not about to give out my email address to some random person who requests it. I suggest you set up your survey process such that the anonymity of the participants can be preserved.--Srleffler (talk) 21:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I know. I fully realize this now. But changing the way how I am approaching people and collecting feedback from them would require that I first apply for ethical approval at my Uni, which can take four to six weeks. I will remember this for future studies. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 10:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Happy to participate. Have you tried looking at online survey websites?--naught101 (talk) 08:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. Could you please go tomy webpage and get the survey questionnaire from there. Or just email me at encyclopaedia@educ.gla.ac.uk. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 09:56, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't follow. Where's the survey? DirkvdM (talk) 09:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi. The survey questionnaire can be downloaded on my webpage. I could not find a way of putting it on Wikipedia… and I was not sure that would be appropriate. I was sort of expecting that people interested in participating would automatically email me, which does not seem to be normal practice here. Sorry for the confusion. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 09:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I got your message. You just mentioned putting your questionnaire on Wikipedia. I'll dump text from it here: User:Encyclopaedia21/Survey (if unwanted, delete the text and request deletion). I thought this might be helpful as you reform how you're going about making your request, which you seem to be doing.

Personally, my area of interest only bushes on the topic of global warming. But I see the value in your survey. It would be worthwhile to better classify the societal context of global warming science. I wish you luck in your pursuit, although I doubt that I would be a very valuable data point for your research. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey, the survey page is great!!! Thank you soooooooo much for doing it. I have no idea where it is stored though... and I am unclear on how would people fill it if they are interested. I guess, this will just to show them the survey questionnaire, right? Not for them to fill in or anything. Or do I get it all wrong? Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The link I created exists as a "subpage" of your user page. There, it is your personal sandbox, so to speak. It's stored on the Wikipedia servers, but it doesn't interfere with work anyone else is doing. It's just wikicode, so people can't "fill it out". Presumably they could email you.

As other people here are commenting, you should be mindful of the means you use for promotion of your survey. All are welcome here, and it's totally cool for you to create an account and info about what you're doing and your survey. But as you can see, posting on other user pages gets mixed responses, and NEVER promote this on article or portal discussions. That could be a quick ticket out. I would recommend, as a start, the official Wikipedia IRC, which exists for Wikipedians to 'connect' with each other. Otherwise, maybe third party forums. Good luck, but be prepared for callous responses. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning. I will have a look at the external forum you suggested, even just to understand what are other channels of communications available. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 21:20, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Spam

"Wikipedia is not a space for personal promotion or the promotion of products, services, Web sites, fandoms, ideologies, or other memes. If you're here to tell readers how great something is, or to get exposure for an idea or product that nobody's heard of yet, you're in the wrong place." -- from WP:SPAMMER. --John Nagle (talk) 17:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, in fact, I am confused about all this as I am not sure what would be the way to get in touch with Wikipedia users if not on Wikipedia itself. Yes, I have read the policy pages, but honestly, I did not realize that what I am doing falls under "personal promotion or the promotion of products, services, Web sites, fandoms, ideologies, or other memes" Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 17:52, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how the spam guidelines apply here. There's definitely a precedent for surveys of Wikipedians; see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_in_academic_studies#Survey_and_poll_results. I've used Google to look into this case and by all indications Ms. Rasoamampianina is exactly who she says she is, and is doing this for academic research at a respected university. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't...this user is fully entitled under this premise to contact users for her research. It's up to individual editors to either participate or not.--MONGO 00:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Make sure you interview William M. Connolley

I posted on his talk page that he should participate, otherwise the survey will fail (because you would miss the editor who has academic experience in this subject and who made the largest contributions to the wiki article on global warming). In fact, you could do with interviewing only him. Count Iblis (talk) 02:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Connolley represents only one (outdated) POV on this issue. It would be a disservice to the subject and Wikipedia to interview 'only him'.Dikstr (talk) 21:22, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

In July 2008, the CBS News website carried a story titled "Wikipropaganda On Global Warming" [1] in which Lawrence Solomon exposed the control exercised by William Connolley & others over Wikipedia articles related to Global Warming. It is well worth reading. ~ Rameses (talk) 06:54, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Uncertainties and mystifications in Wikipedia's global warming articles

Dear Encyclopaedia, thanks a lot for your offer but I am afraid that it is one that I will have to refuse because it seems as a waste of time. While I admire Wikipedia as an amazing resource that beats most classical encyclopedias on most topics, global warming is a topic where it is being made irrational by activists.

In the context of Wikipedia, the most obvious activist who makes it impossible to keep balanced and accurate articles about the climate change, its accuracy, and the certainty or uncertainty of various statements, is William M. Connolley, an official of the British Green Party. The reason why one single activist became so powerful with the topic is that he was spending hours with edit wars on Wikipedia and cared about the topic so much that despite his obvious bias and lousy scientific credentials, he became a kind of administrator on Wikipedia.

It makes almost no sense for more qualified people than himself to try to improve the articles, starting with global warming, so that they're more than mentally limited ideological booklets of the Green Party. I have given up the desire to fix this segment of Wikipedia a long time ago, and I am afraid that your request won't change anything about it. Unfortunately, similar control by incompetent and often downright dishonest people extends from Wikipedia to much more important institutions in the society, so Wikipedia's outrageous alarmist bias and misinformation about the climate is probably just the most innocent tip of this iceberg. --Lumidek (talk) 20:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't know if you (User:Encyclopaedia21) will get useful data for your original research plan, but you sure get a nice selection of texts for a study on Wikipedia discourse culture. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

In response to Lumidek, Connolley has made what I would consider to be well referenced additions to our article space. If anything, he's been one of the few editors out there that have been willing to stand toe to toe with those that refute climate change evidence, even when it is backed by easily cross referenced sourcing from peer reviewed and published authors.--MONGO 00:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd be glad to help on Global Warming issues, particularly with engaging on the science, and community aspects. Regards John D. Croft (talk) 10:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Response to global warming issues

I am the starter and one of the primary authors of the article Retreat of glaciers since 1850...I have also started numerous stub articles on individual glaciers as well as made numerous edits to related issues. I believe global warming is a fact, but I disagree with the premise that humans are the primary only reason we are seeing increasing temperatures and I also do not believe that a great deal can be done by humans to mitigate increasing temperatures unless the world's population is reduced 50%, via birth control. I have my opinion, but I have generally stayed away from the climate change debate overall. I would suggest if you haven't contacted them that you email Wsiegmund and especially Peltoms, both of whom made the Retreat of glaciers since 1850 a viable article and in the case of Peltoms, you'll be addressing one of the best glaciologists in the United States...here's his website: [2]--MONGO 00:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I hope you will be able to participate in the survey. And thanks for the information above. I found it odd that neither Wsiegmund or Peltoms were on my list of people to contact. But then, I realized it is because Retreat of glaciers since 1850 is not on the Index of climate change articles, Category:Global warming, Category:Climate change. I am not sure what are the criteria for articles to be listed under these categories, but may be the Retreat of glaciers since 1850 could at least be in one of them? Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 12:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Just did it. As you can see, Wikipedia is a work in progress. If you see something that should be done but hasn't, it is probably because no one has gotten around to it. Most people take more from Wikipedia than they give back; Wikipedia is mostly edited by a dedicated few. Most people think of Wikipedia as a free encyclopedia, but it is a gift that comes at the expense of the editors' time. More often than naught, people try to use Wikipedia as a platform for their own agendas rather than trying to make Wikipedia the best encyclopedia possible. From my experience, since templates are more visible, can be updated across articles, can be edited from one page, and, in the case of a Navbox, are easily accesible, they tend to be edited more often than categories and thus are a better guide. That is why the global warming template should be more helpful to you than the categories (lists of articles are usually isolated and thus equally unhelpful).--Jorfer (talk) 21:07, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the global warming template and I have to agree that is seemed more helpful to me to have the list of articles categoriezed in that way, rather than as done under the Category: Global warming and Category: Climate change thing. However, I am not sure how new comers can see templates and access these as there is no immediate link from Wikipedia main page. But there was already a discussion on whether the global warming template should be "portalized" or not here Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 11:41, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

It is accessible from any page that {{Global Warming}} is placed on. If you go to the article Global warming for example and go to the bottom of the page, you will see the template. If you click "v" on the top left, you get taken to the template. If you click "e", you get taken to editing the template. If you click "d", you get taken to the discussion page.--Jorfer (talk) 18:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

See below for some additional comments about searching and navigating on Wikipedia that I am about to add. I don't want to shove them in right here because they would interrupt the flow of other comments. --Teratornis (talk) 22:29, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to further clarify before anyone thinks I am not suggesting global warming is a farce. Again, I believe it is true, the evidence supports this finding and I adhere to such evidence. But, in qualifying my previous comments, I wish emphasize that I believe that global warming is occurring due to a myriad of causes beyond human CO₂ contributions via fossil fuel consumption. Deforestation (by humans of course) is overlooked.--MONGO 00:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to give you some hard data for your research on the amount people view an article versus edit it, here are the traffic statistics for the Emissions trading article. There are 72,938 views in May 2009 for the article compared to the 29 edits (by 16 users) during that period of time as can be seen here.--Jorfer (talk) 21:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for this. I will probably use this in later stage of the study. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 11:09, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

A different answer on climate change

Hi, I read your survey, and have responded on my discussion page. As it happens, I worked in the same general area as some professionals working on aspects of climate change. My perception may not be very helpful to your survey, but it is an answer of sorts. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 23:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Response

I emailed my response to the survey (since you have your own page on the University of Glasgow's site, I trust you are with the university). Make sure it didn't end up in your spam folder (I know that happens to mail I want to receive sometimes).--Jorfer (talk) 00:01, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Filled out your form. Couldn't send it to the e_mail address you provided.Dikstr (talk) 21:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you very much for coming back to me. Do you want to try sending the form again at encyclopaedia@educ.gla.ac.uk. I just checked my mail settings and it is working fine Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 10:31, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

OK. Sent again 6/5/09Dikstr (talk) 16:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Ency - I'm not sure why I got the survey request, since I haven't contributed to any WP global warming articles that I know of. I do have some thoughts on the presentation of difficult scientific issues, so if the survey results from someone who hasn't contributed to GW articles would still be considered worthwhile, pls let me know. Novickas (talk) 20:49, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Novickas. From my database, it seems that you have edited to the article on Geography and wealth. I am unclear why is that article listed under both Category: Global Warming and Category: Climate Change... but it is there. But even if that article is not really related to GW&CC, I was sort of expecting that may be you have written other articles that could be pertinent to this study. Anyway, I would still be interested in hearing your opinion on the coverage of scientific uncertainties/controversies in Wikipedia if you want to email me. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 20:56, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I'd forgotten all about that article. (Really should be called climate and wealth). Don't remember adding those categories myself, but they're relevant. Thanks, I'll consider filling out the survey; may take a while. Novickas (talk) 21:31, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't know if you're aware of these, or if they would be relevant in your paper, but here are three Arbitration Committee cases on science coverage: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute/Proposed decision, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Paranormal/Proposed decision, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Cold_fusion/Proposed_decision. Novickas (talk) 13:56, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Obedium

Errrm, have you looked at http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:Obedium ?

If you don't know what that means, we can explain William M. Connolley (talk) 22:14, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

And User:SpinyNorman? It would behoove you to look at user pages and filter a bit. A bit of selective care at this level would make some of us more receptive mayhaps. Vsmith (talk) 22:20, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

And [3] William M. Connolley (talk) 22:37, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi all. Yes, I should have paid more attention to userpages and avoid contacting users who are no longer active. And I begin to understand the problem behind users with several accounts. So, I see what you mean now. Thanks for the comment Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 11:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Another thing you should perhaps note is disruptive editors. Obviously wikipedia is open to anyone with internet access. To give the same weight to all doesn't necessarily work. Wikipedia is exceptionally inclusive so when editors are labelled disruptive it is not for their opinions (unless not backed up in any reasonable way), or general bias, it is most likely because they are genuinely disruptive as per Wikipedia rules. This often has nothing to do with general disagreement between different camps. Wikipedia is exceptionally tolerant, therefore editors really have to go far far beyond the limit of beyond to be banned (e.g. an editor could replace a major article with the word F*** a couple of times and still not be banned). An idea of an editor's disruptiveness can only be gained by a detailled study of their activity. Polargeo (talk) 22:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia and complexity

Hello Encyclopaedia21, I'm still deciding whether to participate in your survey. I don't object to the idea, nor even to the execution very much, but I haven't actually contributed much to climate change articles per se. I have more edits in the articles relating to topics like peak oil and renewable energy (especially wind power). Since renewable energy would seem to be among the few credible options for mitigating climate change, I suppose that could count, but I'm not much of an expert on the debate about whether humans are warming the globe. My perspective is to have concluded that global warming is but one of several highly compelling reasons to stop burning fossil fuels - humans have no choice but to stop burning fossil fuels sooner or later, so let's get on with it. Either we stop burning them, or we dump that problem onto future generations. I view resource depletion and energy security issues as equally compelling motivators. But my area of greatest activity on Wikipedia is answering questions on the Help desk, which is where we watch users struggling with the monumental complexity of this novel experiment in mass communication. You may find something useful on my subpages:

• User:Teratornis/Theory of Wikipedia (the title overstates what the page contains so far)
• User:Teratornis/Tips for teachers (this one is in somewhat better shape)

Also check out WP:TMM for a free online book about Wikipedia, and see the Editor's index for an overview of Wikipedia's complexity. This complexity is enormous and colors everything that happens here, not the least (in my opinion) by intimidating and excluding people who aren't comfortable with reading and quickly understanding detailed instructions. I suspect (without any rigorous evidence) that so-called cranks of every stripe are less likely to feel they need to consider anybody else's rules, and Wikipedia tends to drive them away in due course. Elsewhere on the Web, you will find all sorts of bloggers and pundits maligning Wikipedia, and while many of their criticisms have merit, some percentage of the critiques are more or less simply raging against the kind of intellectual orthodoxy and consensus that naturally arise on Wikipedia. For example, of all the various ways that people can choose to think, critical thinking seems to be the most productive method for bridging gaps in personal backgrounds and tastes. People who reject critical thinking or apply it only selectively are only able to get along with people who share their particular biases and unexamined assumptions, putting them at odds with most of the incredibly diverse Wikipedia community. On Wikipedia, a sizable fraction of contributors can recognize logical fallacies and factual errors, so the kind of discourse that works in much of the real world fails here.

For people who are comfortable with abandoning preconceptions and learning how Wikipedia works, Wikipedia satisfies at least one of the conditions for psychological "flow", namely the existence of clear rules. Wikipedia is an unusually well-ordered online environment, created by and for people who like to make their rules explicit. This differs from most real-world venues, where many social rules are implicit, sometimes maddeningly so. Wikipedia also has the odd property that users of all skill levels participate, both in terms of their domain knowledge of the articles they edit, and their knowledge of Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, and procedures. Part of learning to function here involves being able to deal with a constant stream of strangers who may or may not know how the site works. Fortunately, since the rules are all in writing, one only has to link to the relevant policy or guideline page to shift any argument about procedure away from one's own person to some page which is effectively above any individual. Arguments about content can be trickier, because Wikipedia's policies and guidelines do not pass explicit judgment on the full scope of what is true and what is not. Instead we shift responsibility for "truth" onto the reliable sources we cite.

Mastering Wikipedia is probably the equivalent of a year or two of college-level study, with many specialized skill areas that might correspond to graduate-level study (for example, becoming a MediaWiki hacker). One common new-user error is to underestimate the complexity of Wikipedia, and I suspect this is in part due to the deliberately welcoming nature of the user interface. It really is easy to start editing, but far from easy to determine exactly what sort of edits will "stick". Wikipedia tries to look easy to encourage new users to try, and then more experienced users mercilessly remove the new user transgressions when they fail to follow all the rules that would take them months just to read through and understand. The result is a Pareto distribution of edit count. Of the 48,432,276 registered user accounts, the vast majority have few edits - they experimented a little and gave up. Perhaps only about 100,000 people have edited enough on Wikipedia to have a fair understanding of how it works, and as you go up the scale of edit count you find progressively smaller numbers of progressively more prodigious contributors. The result is a kind of hierarchy in which users earn influence by investing time to become ever more skilled at parsing the rules. I like to say that in any dispute on Wikipedia, the side with the best understanding of the rules "wins". As a corollary, it is possible that the rules are so complete and so definitive that if everyone had a perfect understanding of them, we might not have any disputes at all (except when well-informed users want to change the rules, but leaving and starting one's own wiki is always an option too). I merely speculate, of course, because we are very far from the situation of everyone perfectly understanding the rules, and we will probably never get close to that state due to constant turnover in the user community. Maybe decades in the future, advances in artificial intelligence will enable the software to directly embed all the site rules, and apply them to edits as users make them, but that is not currently imaginable, so we still rely on human intelligence to enforce the rules after the fact (that is, after other users have spent the time to make edits for others to critique).

While I'm rambling, I might also mention that I happen to think Wikipedia itself exemplifies a climate change mitigation strategy that seems to get little attention, namely the fact that on Wikipedia we have remote collaboration on a massive scale without any real need for face-to-face contact or even getting to know anybody much. What Wikipedia does is probably as complicated as anything humans do, and we do it all without needing to drag bodies around. Since dragging bodies around by current technology burns a lot of petroleum, anything that enables less dragging of bodies has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Almost the entire educated class works with information at least part time, and much more of this work could probably happen over wires if the Wikipedia approach extended further (for example, in the form of enterprise wikis). In other words, I think Wikipedia's contribution to humanity (pardon the lofty phrasing) is not just in the content of the articles, but a possibly even greater contribution is the method the community has developed for creating the encyclopedia (and for training new users). Granted, we have a long way to go with the training of new users, but Wikipedia is already learnable by people who are sufficiently smart and motivated. We probably still rely too much on the do it yourself philosophy of reading the friendly manuals for Wikipedia's method to really go mainstream. The great mass of average people require formal education to learn anything complicated, with active human teachers to direct and motivate them. --Teratornis (talk) 05:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Teratornis. Thank you very much for pointing me in all these additional resources.

Reflecting on your long comment on newcomers participation and further involvment in Wikipedia, I understand that mastering Wikipedia's rules can be crucial for effective participation. Teaching users to follow rules seems one strategy towards success, but could better collaboration be another one (though I do not know how)? I mean, it is normal to have arguments and disagreements as knowledge progresses this way. But I have the impression that there is sometime deeper tension between Wikipedia users. Am I wrong? To which extent do these tensions affect the development of the encyclopaedia and the creation of a new form of community as you mention above Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 10:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is too large and diverse to characterize, like the Blind men and an elephant. It's like a big city, which has every aspect of human experience going on simultaneously, from street crime to fine arts. At best I can attempt to characterize my experience of the parts of Wikipedia I have experienced so far. I have found different parts of Wikipedia to be very different. For example, the Help desk is mostly a fun place where people help each other and say thanks for getting help. Nothing like the battleground that emerges in some other places. Although the Wikipedia talk:Help desk page has had some bickering between the people who design the Help desk (the "regulars"). I guess two of a trade never agree. Articles about controversial topics pose some unique challenges. It's hard to write about climate change from anything resembling a neutral point of view because nobody can be neutral about it. Either you believe burning all the fossil fuels will trigger the next anoxic event and a mass extinction of most large animals including humans, or you believe it's somehow all a hoax calculated to advance a green Marxist agenda (or something). Just writing about something that might imply people will have to consider driving and flying less is guaranteed to produce hysteria as these are god-given rights to many people. The bulk of Wikipedia is nothing like that. Most articles are about boring topics that nobody cares about except a few oddball enthusiasts, because the subjects don't really matter. See WP:EIW#Contro. There are other things people can work on that are more technical, such as template editing, which don't usually involve much controversy because hardly anybody understands the technical details. As far as whether Wikipedia can improve some aspects of how it works, I'm sure improvement is possible, and to some extent Wikipedia has a self-correcting nature so it tends to get better on its own. (I've seen some noticeable improvements in the three years I've paid attention, such as the Editor's index. Wikipedia is a remarkable platform for innovation, and we have excellent Darwinian selection of the good ideas.) If some aspect of the project chronically fails to work, it fails to be fun and people tend to leave. Not paying the participants tends to soften the bloodsport nature one might see in politics, for example. Careers are generally not on the line here. People can afford to be wrong. The ease of setting up alternative wikis such as Conservapedia that cater to specific points of view probably acts as a pressure-relief valve for Wikipedia. Someone who wants to promote a particular point of view will find much more enjoyment on a wiki where everybody thinks the same way. There's no point in staying on Wikipedia unless a person is willing to engage different points of view. But I imagine not all Wikipedia users are equally aware of the other wikis. Some people do get into bitter disputes here as if Wikipedia is their last option, with both sides crying "Not one step backward!" It might not help that Wikipedia gets more views than any other wiki, which increases the incentive to get one's views published here. One problem with the POV-specific wikis is that one ends up preaching to one's own choir. For example, could anyone who isn't already on the far right take Conservapedia seriously? --Teratornis (talk) 11:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Survey feedback

Hi, I'm not sure what relevant articles I have contributed to, or whether they involve any controversy... I have looked at the questions on your survey and I don't think they are relevant to how I contribute here. I suggest you do a little editing and gain understanding of how things work. I don't see how you will get decent results or be able to formulate appropriate questions without having a basic understanding first. I have previously ignored a survey request from a university researcher because they, like you, haven't used Wikipedia yourself. Regards. -- Barrylb (talk) 10:32, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for coming back to me. You were in my list because you have contributed to the article on carbon offset and more on overpopulation, which are listed under the Index of climate change articles. But it is OK not to participate in the survey if you think the sort of edits you are making are not really dealing with the presentation of scientific uncertainties/controversies. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 10:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Survey feedback 2

Hi, You were interested in having me participate in a short survey on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies in articles pertaining to global warming and climate change.

I find there are several ways of creating a point of view neutral article. The key is to cover the key facts as they are known from the most reliable sources and let the reader make the conclusion. One weakness of this is that people make up their minds based on pragmatism and not the rigors of science which also must prove the contrapositive.

For example (in the Peak oil article) there are people that believe in abiotic oil. Essentially, they believe that oil is made by the earth itself. And, these people reason due to abiotic oil, we cannot ever run out of oil. The scientific community on the other hand now *knows* oil comes from a biological process. The scientific community feels certain because all oil samples from all oil wells in the world contain biomarkers for life and there is no counter example - naturally occurring oil that does not have a biomarker. In a sense, believers in abiotic oil are right in there with the Flat Earth Society. Nevertheless, the peak oil article has had to deal with this "scientific controversy" because it's part of the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) that the opposition throws up against peak oil.

In other places, there are several competing theories in order to explain a certain phenomenon. For example, with climate change, the largest majority of glaciers in the world are retreating, but not all. So it's not as clear cut as abiotic oil. It is pretty clear it is happening, but the exact cause has not been 100% clearly demonstrated. In this case, we've layed out the various potential causes - humans, the sun's emissions, etc, etc. And, it's left for the reader to make up their own mind. It would help if you read-up about how to deal with the neutral point of view NPOV.

I would be happy to take your survey. kgrr ^talk 14:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Also see the links under WP:EIW#Contro, WP:EIW#Dispute, and WP:EIW#NPOV. Wikipedians have elaborated on the meta-topic of how to handle disputes about what is true, to an almost unbelievable extent. Since Wikipedia has articles about almost every area of human knowledge, we carry on our own versions of almost every argument going on in the outside world, although not necessarily with the same proportional representation, since Wikipedians are a statistically odd group. Note that we have a failed proposal:

• Wikipedia:Scientific point of view

I also concur with the advice of other respondents to spend time learning to edit on Wikipedia - as with any other anthropological study, it's hard to grasp a culture without immersing oneself into it. Unfortunately, the time required would be substantial. But I don't see any way around it, if you want to write knowledgeably about Wikipedia. Editing on Wikipedia is so different than anything most people have experienced before that it's really hard to understand quickly. My experience here has been a succession of incorrect assumptions which I later had corrected through exposure to how things work. Even after three years I'm still learning new things and getting occasional surprises. --Teratornis (talk) 02:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi all, thank you very much for your comments and for telling me where to check for more info.

Yes, I am fully aware that I have to get used to editing and becoming a Wikipedian myself. I have known that Wikipedia will be one of my case studies for my PhD for more than two years but it was deliberately decided that I should not get involved before the data collection phase really starts. That may not be the ideal as previous knowledge of Wikipedia could have helped me design the study better and could help me have a better understanding of what people are really telling me.

That decision was taken so that in addition to the survey questionnaires and exchanges with participants (in public talk pages, personal emails or phone-interviews), part of my research could reflect on my own experience of becoming a Wikipedian. I doubt that during the 12 months dedicated to data collection, I will have the chance to learn and experience everything. But I hope that, at least, I will be able to talk about common challenges encountered by newcomers trying to contribute to articles and trying to become more involved in the community life. Hum, now that I think about it, trying to help with article translation because of my past experience with similar task may not be the best strategy to become more involved with Wikipedia. And it has limited relevance to dealing with scientific controversies/uncertainties. I suspect new comers typically start by trying to add comments/amend existing articles (am I wrong?) I should probably do the same... (ahem) when I feel brave enough to start Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 18:25, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Ideally, new users would start by making small changes to existing articles, then watching to see what other users do with their edits. But some users take the opposite approach - their motivation to start editing is to create entirely new articles right away. Wikipedia deletes a lot of new articles, many of them by relatively new users, for failing to comply with our policies and guidelines. (Deletionpedia displays many of our deleted articles.) Some people look at Wikipedia and instantly assume they know what it's for, while others like you are more prudent. As to what you "should" do, that depends on how much time you want to spend here, and your personal tolerance for having your work reverted or deleted. As with many other skills, the more time you spend "sharpening the axe" (reading the manuals, reading the articles, observing other people's edits and what happens to them), the less time you will spend "chopping the tree" (making edits only to see them go "poof"). However, even highly experienced editors can get into bitter content disputes with other editors if they aren't careful. It's hard to get everybody to agree on exactly what "neutral point of view" means, since no human is neutral about anything that matters. --Teratornis (talk) 23:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Side question: who is/are the missing actor(s) in the statement "That decision was taken"? Did the people who decided you should start your project without the benefit of much Wikipedia editing experience themselves have any Wikipedia editing experience? --Teratornis (talk) 23:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi again. thanks for all the comments. Right now, I am just looking at existing articles to see where I could start but it does not seem to be such an easy task after all. I may revise a little bit my methodology in future stage to find a way of analyzing the informations from the various pages mentioned above.

As for your comment "re: missing actors", writing in passive voice is simply a habit I got from the past. When I was in Madagascar, we were encouraged use what we call "the passive of modesty" , even in scientific writing. I thought I managed to get rid of that habit, but here is a blatant evidence that I am still playing with it every now and then. So, to answer your question: I suggested the entire methodology when writing my research proposal. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 14:34, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I would start with what you know. I just dove right in, and it has been a learning process since. My first edit was creating the article for my high school, Dade Christian School. It was quickly nominated for deletion, but it survived, and I quickly learned about Wikipedia:Notability when its sister school, The Master's Academy, and the church presiding over the schools, New Testament Baptist Church, articles I created were deleted. A good way to get started though is to take a research paper or part of a research paper and incorporate that into an article. For example, I took a research paper I had written on Rudolph Peierls in high school and used it to improve that article. Give it a shot. You're coming in to help, not with the intention to vandalize Wikipedia like many including Lisa Daniels.--Jorfer (talk) 03:48, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments about navigating on Wikipedia

In reply to the discussion in #Response to global warming issues above about the relative merits of Index of climate change articles and the {{Global warming}} template:

• See Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates (WP:CLN) for an overview of three major types of navigation tools on Wikipedia. Categories tend to provide the most complete listings of articles in given topic areas at a given time, because it's usually easier for editors to categorize an article than to manually edit it into a list page or a navigation template.
• You can use the What links here feature to see which articles transclude a particular template, for example:
  • Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Global warming
• Jorfer correctly states that Wikipedia is a work in progress. The longer you follow Wikipedia, the more evident this will become. Lots of creative people are experimenting here with new ways to write and organize information. It's a fun place to innovate, but there are also lots of ideas that don't catch on. When you look at a particular part of Wikipedia, it's hard to be sure how "finished" it is. There are lots of inconsistencies and omissions that become apparent as you spend more time reading articles in a particular topic area. Sometimes you can't tell whether an omission is deliberate, or just a matter of nobody getting around to it yet.
• You mentioned the hierarchical organization of {{Global warming}}. Be aware that Index of climate change articles only started about a year ago (not long in Wikipedia time), and is currently a somewhat crude form of index: merely a one-level alphabetic listing of article titles. For examples of more-developed hierarchical index pages, see the Editor's index to Wikipedia and the Editor's index to Commons. Index pages for articles on Wikipedia are a relatively new idea and don't seem to be at a high state of development yet; WP:CLN does not even mention them.
  • I've thought about writing a hierarchical index of renewable energy topics. If I do, I will start it as a user subpage before moving it to the main (article) space. Given the overlap between renewable energy and climate change it's difficult to draw a clean boundary between the two topic areas, so a hierarchical index of renewable energy topics would be straightforward to extend to cover climate change.
  • There are probably fewer editors on Wikipedia trying to organize articles than write the articles. So don't be surprised if the navigation tools are less complete than the articles they attempt to organize.

In addition to relying on the navigation tools that other editors have built, you can search Wikipedia. Due to the size and value of Wikipedia's content, search technology is another active area of development here. For example, see what turns up when we search for "list of global warming topics" with the {{Google wikipedia}} template:

• Search Wikipedia with Google for: list of global warming topics

That finds several partially overlapping pages, including these on just the first search results page:

• Glossary of ecology
• Wikipedia:List of controversial issues
• Outline of energy
• Index of climate change articles
• Index of environmental articles
• Index of meteorology articles
• List of environmental issues
• Outline of ecology
• Lists of environmental topics

To get a comprehensive overview of climate change topics on Wikipedia, you would have to look at all those pages, and more. --Teratornis (talk) 23:06, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Vanessa

What is the survey some people speak of. I'd be glad to complete it for you. John D. Croft (talk) 10:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi John, thanks for the interest. Yes, I have left a short note about it on your usertalk. You can either get the survey questionnaire via my webpageor you could email me at encyclopaedia@educ.gla.ac.uk. It says on the form that it has to be returned by June 15th, but in fact, the deadline is June 30th. So, hope to hear your comments. Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 14:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipropaganda On Global Warming

I think that you might find the following information from a published article useful to your study. As an editor who tried to introduce balance to the Global Warming articles and was completely shut out by the group in firm control of this area of Wikipedia, I can verify that what Lawrence Solomon reported in his article is true and accurate:

In July 2008, the CBS News website carried a story titled "Wikipropaganda On Global Warming" [4] in which Lawrence Solomon exposed the control exercised by William Connolley & others over Wikipedia articles related to Global Warming.

Solomon wrote: "Naturally I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that Oreskes’s work had been vindicated and that, for instance, one of her most thorough critics, British scientist and publisher Bennie Peiser, not only had been discredited but had grudgingly conceded Oreskes was right. I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so. Peiser wrote back saying he couldn’t see my corrections on the Wikipedia page. I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made.

Turns out that on Wikipedia some folks are more equal than others. Kim Dabelstein Petersen is a Wikipedia “editor” who seems to devote a large part of his life to editing reams and reams of Wikipedia pages to pump the assertions of global-warming alarmists and deprecate or make disappear the arguments of skeptics.

I soon found others who had the same experience: They would try to squeeze in any dissent, or even correct an obvious slander against a dissenter, and Petersen or some other censor would immediately snuff them out."

Solomon said of one administrator: "by virtue of his power at Wikipedia, Connolley, a ruthless enforcer of the doomsday consensus, may be the world’s most influential person in the global warming debate after Al Gore." Solomon further alleged: "Connolley routinely uses his editorial clout to tear down scientists of great accomplishment such as Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service and a scientist with dazzling achievements."

Solomon charged Connolley with flouting wikipedia rules: "Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, and it has a code of civility. Those rules and codes don’t apply to Connolley, or to those he favors."

"Peisers crap shouldn’t be in here,” Connolley wrote several weeks ago, in berating a Wikipedian colleague during an “edit war,” as they’re called. Trumping Wikipedia’s stated rules, Connelly used his authority to ensure Wikipedia readers saw only what he wanted them to see."

Finally Solomon condemned Wikipedia's credibility on Global Warming stating categorically: "Any reference, anywhere among Wikipedia’s 2.5 million English-language pages, that casts doubt on the consequences of climate change will be bent to Connolley’s bidding." ~ Rameses (talk) 01:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Cranks of every stripe detest Wikipedia. See for example the history that led to the formation of Conservapedia. There is also CreationWiki for people who reject the scientific consensus on evolutionary biology. I imagine members of the Flat Earth Society would feel oppressed on Wikipedia, but I don't know if any flat-earthers have tried their hand at Wikipedia editing yet (I wish they would, it would be fun to watch). Holocaust deniers and the 9/11 Truth Movement get coverage here, but it's not very sympathetic. It would be nice if Wikipedia really did have some influence in the real world; I'd like to think my modest contributions here are not a complete waste of effort. However, I see almost nothing in my real life experience to suggest that many people have a clue about most of the topics that interest me here. And incidentally, Wikipedia does have policies and guidelines that govern what we do, but by some remarkable coincidence, it seems that virtually everyone who rejects some aspect of well-supported scientific or historical consensus seems to also have great difficulty grasping how Wikipedia works - so they tend to write blogs in outside media where they complain about the injustice of it all. I have some ideas about why this is so, perhaps it relates to the Dunning-Kruger effect, and to the type of self-assuredness in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence a person must have to disbelieve a well-supported consensus. The same sense of "everybody else must be wrong" may handicap a person's ability to appreciate the collective genius embodied in Wikipedia's rules. Someone who is habitually idiosyncratic may have trouble understanding how to use Wikipedia's rules to advantage. In any case, Wikipedia is a work in progress, so if in another 50 years it turns out that Fred Singer's conservative political bias really did manage to nullify the absorption spectrum of atmospheric carbon dioxide, then people of that generation can enjoy burning up whatever fossil fuels we might have refrained from burning, and future Wikipedians can set the record straight on global warming. Since fossil fuels are finite, we can be quite certain that people have to stop burning them sooner or later, so what's the harm in stopping sooner? If the argument is that fossil fuels are essential to an advanced civilization, then it would seem advanced civilization is doomed in any case. If civilization can survive nature's command to stop burning fossil fuels, then civilization can survive its own choice to leave fossil fuels before they leave us. The worst that can happen with not burning fossil fuels now is that somebody else can burn them in the future. The fossil fuels we burn now won't be available to people in the future, so everybody who burns fossil fuels today is non-negotiably regulating the rights of the unborn. --Teratornis (talk) 03:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The fact that you consider anyone who even questions Global Warming a "Crank" speaks volumes of how balanced or encyclopaedic, Wikipedia really is. Wikipedia now resembles nothing so much as George Orwell's Animal Farm, where those in charge have taken over and mis-apply the rules to shut down alternate opinions and to further their own agendas. I have been an editor of Wikipedia since 2004, and I am saddened that even the "Global warming controversy" article blatantly seeks to discredit the global warming skeptics rather than set out the global warming controversies in a balanced and fair manner. I am not the only editor who thinks this is so - see [5]. I continue to hope (perhaps over optimistically) that Wikipedia can still be freed of this stifling control and become the peoples encyclopaedia that it was meant to be. ~ Rameses (talk) 05:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a large difference between questioning something, vs. continuing to repeat the same Fox News-style questions while steadfastly ignoring the answers. I don't consider everyone who questions the scientific consensus on global warming to be a crank, only the large majority of deniers who seem blissfully unaware of the readily-available answers to global warming skeptics. I have yet to meet a global warming skeptic who seems to have even the most elementary grasp of what has already been debated. The situation is similar with special creationists, most of whom seem to think the Piltdown hoax proves that scientists are motivated by politics rather than a search for truth. Check out the discussions on The Guardian - there are global warming skeptics who claim, in apparent seriousness, that the low concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means it cannot influence the Earth's surface temperature. Never mind the absorption spectrum anyone can measure in a laboratory. A "crank" is someone who fails to grasp what it takes to challenge an aspect of scientific consensus. The same meta-cognitive deficiency is on full display with people who have no special ability in music, sports, etc., but who believe in their own minds that they can compete with the best (we laugh as they make fools of themselves at the American Idol tryouts). Particular aspects of scientific consensus can turn out to be wrong, or (more likely) incomplete, but the odds are strongly against some random person becoming the next Newton, Darwin, or Einstein who forges a scientific revolution. If someone does discover a compelling reason to believe that burning all the Earth's fossil fuels cannot possibly trigger the next anoxic event, let them collect their Nobel prize. Until that happens, I'll put the cranks in the same box with all the soothsayers, dowsers, mystics, faith-healers, etc., who cannot win the Randi Prize. Naomi Oreskes surveyed 928 refereed scientific papers on global warming and could not find one which rejected the scientific consensus. Call it Animal Farm or totally unfair or whatever you like, but none of the Fox News skeptics seem able to come up with a publishable reason to question the scientific consensus. --Teratornis (talk) 00:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is, in fact, the closest thing to a people's encyclopedia that currently exists, in terms of its popularity. More people read Wikipedia than any other encyclopedia. That doesn't mean Wikipedia relies on a democratic definition of truth. If we did, we would have to state, as a fact, that God exists, because a majority of the world's English-speaking people believe that claim to be true. Fortunately for God, he's still got some gaps to hide in, so for the time being the existence of God is not a scientific question. But anthropogenic global warming certainly is, and this is probably one of the aspects of scientific consensus that stands in greatest contradiction to popular belief. The vast majority of ordinary people display no detectable concern about continuing to burn fossil fuels, and a sizable fraction either deny that burning fossil fuels can possibly influence the climate, or doubt that the influence would be harmful. Wikipedia can certainly report on who believes what. We have a List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming. --Teratornis (talk) 01:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Encyclopaedia21. Please see my posting on what I view as a serious threat to Wikipedia's reputation on my talk page, and also at Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Vegasprof (talk) 23:13, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Let me know what you would like to know.

Ill participate.

Best, Ron --Ronjamin (talk) 14:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia will have a personal virus soon. Developed by me. 24 hours. Spread the news... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.68.234.177 (talk) 23:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Participating in GW discussions

Since I am publishing on this topic I think it is better left to others at this point. It is hard to be both a ref and a player. Thank you for the message though, and best on the editing. Stirling Newberry 22:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)