Wikipedia's gotten a somewhat unfair rap as a hotbed of leftie propaganda. Not that there aren't lefties in positions of influence in the Wikipedia organization and not that they're hesitant to put their opinions on the pages of Wikipedia but there does seem to be a realization that if they're seen as too partisan the support they lose won't be offset by the support they gain.

Global warming is one of those flashpoint issues and Wikipedia's issued it's first really tough banning as a result of some over the top behavior:

QuoteAs the world saw in the Climategate emails last year, global warming advocates have a habit of demonizing anyone who disagrees with them. Now comes the Wikipedia version of this story.

The influential online encyclopedia is written and edited by anyone with an Internet connection, and contributors are supposed to stick to a fair recitation of the facts. So it's news that last week Wikipedia acknowledged it had been hijacked by global warming alarmists who squelched dissenting science. A group of Wikipedia arbitrators banned British blogger William Connolley from participating in any article, discussion or forum dealing with global warming.

Mr. Connolley is a former Green Party candidate for local political office and until 2007 was a climate modeler for the British Antarctic Survey. He is also a missionary for the view that humans cause global warming, and over the years he used his power as an "administrator" on Wikipedia to rewrite the site's global warming articles. He celebrated such controversial scientists as Penn State's Michael Mann, of Climategate fame, and he presented even disputed global warming science as fact. He routinely deleted entries that presented competing views and barred contributors with whom he disagreed. He also smeared scientific skeptics by rewriting their online biographies.

All of this was an embarrassment for Wikipedia as it became more widely known, and last year it stripped Mr. Connolley of his administrator rights. He nonetheless continued his campaign, and last week Wikipedia's group of seven dispute arbitrators banned him from the topic entirely. They also banned other posters who had turned Wikipedia into their global warming propaganda outlet.

This is reminiscent of the Climategate emails, which showed global warming evangelicals using their academic positions to subvert peer review and close publications to dissenters. Wikipedia's 310 million unique visitors were also being fed only the Connolley-Mann line. That's not a scientific "consensus." It's censorship, and Wikipedia deserves credit for finally, if belatedly, stopping it.

Here's the link.

Quote from: bama_beau_redux on October 25, 2010, 02:08:49 PM


I am glad to see Wikipedia fighting back against partisans and hacks of any kind.
Corporate reichwing America actually rewrites Wikipedia whenever it can.
While Mr. Connolley is correct about climate change, and while he was right to
challenge or amend inaccurate or less than truthful Wikipedia entries by climate
change deniers, he still should he held accountable if indeed he too crossed the line.

You are too cute...

Quote from: bama_beau_redux on October 25, 2010, 02:08:49 PM

I am glad to see Wikipedia fighting back against partisans and hacks of any kind.
Corporate reichwing America actually rewrites Wikipedia whenever it can.
While Mr. Connolley is correct about climate change, and while he was right to
challenge or amend inaccurate or less than truthful Wikipedia entries by climate
change deniers, he still should he held accountable if indeed he too crossed the line.

Nice try but you can't have it both ways.

Any of those corporations been banned? No. Therefor whatever "corporate rewriting" is occurring isn't offensive enough to result in the banning that Mr. Connolley rightly earned.

Quote from: bama_beau_redux on October 25, 2010, 02:08:49 PM


I am glad to see Wikipedia fighting back against partisans and hacks of any kind.
Corporate reichwing America actually rewrites Wikipedia whenever it can.
While Mr. Connolley is correct about climate change, and while he was right to
challenge or amend inaccurate or less than truthful Wikipedia entries by climate
change deniers, he still should he held accountable if indeed he too crossed the line.

The whole theory is a lie, it's akin to claiming the sky is falling.

Maybe I should start a Wiki page about the dangers of chunks of sky colliding with the ground and it's impact on Earth.

Quote from: bama_beau_redux on October 26, 2010, 01:30:46 PM
Why not?  I started one on the hobblyenpoopinator.  It was there all of two days.

At least the hobblyenpoopinator is real and not a theory, maybe not worth a damn, but does keep out microwaves.