Talk:William Connolley
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[edit] Deletion debates
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This article was nominated for deletion on September 8, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep. |
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This article was nominated for deletion on July 30, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep. |
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This article was nominated for deletion on February 14, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep. |
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| 1 Pointless Bickering |
[edit] This person isn't famous or interesting
So why does he have a wikipedia page? Is it a private joke? Wikipedia shouldn't be about private jokes because people read it and take it seriously —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.45.210.17 (talk • contribs) .
- This is not a new discussion. Most people disagree with you. See the archive (link on this page).--Stephan Schulz 15:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I suspect most people do not disagree, but casual visitors should note that William Connolley also happens to be a Wikipedia Administrator. Note also the contrast in length and apparent important between this page which is an article about a "Senior Scientific Officer" (actually quite a lowly post) at the British Antarctic Survey and the non-article about Professor Chris Rapley, head of the BAS, which is a mere paragraph on the main BAS page. Professor Rapley has for example recently featured in a Radio 4 debate on global warming with James Lovelock. I could find no mention of this important figure, William Connolley, in the said discussions between leading scientific figures on climate change. MarkThomas 19:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- Mind reading aside, why don't you create a page on Professor Rapley if you think this is important? Why is an existing deficit in one part of Wikipdia a reason to create one somewhere else? --Stephan Schulz 19:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It may be the case that the Rapley mention is of reasonable length and appropriate, and if that's the case, then this page is disproportionate and over-extensive. I would suggest it be reduced to a few sentences. MarkThomas 19:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- Well, at least that is a valid hypothesis. However, a short visit to WP:PROF and a look at Rapley's Bio tells us that he does qualify as notable without any doubt (just as recipient of multiple honorary professor positions and being awarded a CBE). So he should have a full article. --Stephan Schulz 20:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
This is fair comment Stephan, I will look at adding one for him and also making a better page for BAS, which deserves one - quite surprised William Connolley hasn't done this though, seeing as he actually works there. Perhaps too busy editing his own? :-) MarkThomas 16:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
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- FYI, I just deleted Rapley's bio blurb as a copyvio. Dragons flight 20:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
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- I agree that William Connolley is a vanity page. If you disagree - shoot me. --SandyDancer 20:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
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From all appearances, the people who show up whining about this article are trying to get some sort of passive-aggressive retribution on the user. He passes notability as determined by 3 AfD's and WP:PROF. We don't care if you dislike him, get a life and make some productive edits elsewhere. --tjstrf talk 21:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
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- I love the way that the whole WP:CIVIL thing goes out the window on this talk page! Hey - tjstrf - why don't you get a life? Go make some useful edits elsewhere? I don't dislike the subject of this article - who is a nobody - I just don't think it is right that he is exempt from WP:VAIN. --SandyDancer 21:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I think it is arguable whether Will passes WP:PROF or not but the observation that many people do seem to come here in retaliation seems to be accurate. JoshuaZ 21:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)`
I spend a lot of time doing constructive edits. It's simplistic to allege that the reason for disputing this page is to do with reliation and to be honest, a smear on all those many editors who have challenged it. The reason behind the challenges is simple; Connolley is not notable enough outside Wikipedia to merit this page. He is notable within Wikipedia and is also a pal (apparently) of J Wales and that's the reason for the page surviving. This is to do with Wikipedia being objective or not. The way the cabal rally over this page leads one to suspect not in some cases. MarkThomas 21:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- Comment I don't think anyone meant to imply that every person who makes comments about deleting this is doing to it retaliate, just that many are. If you think it should be deleted then AfD it. JoshuaZ 21:22, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
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- There isn't any point, doing so would just invite abuse from the group of fellow admins who defend the article. --SandyDancer 10:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
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- He is clearly more notable than many of the crackpots that show up on AFD. But it is by no means obvious that he is more notable than some run-of-the-mill Assistant Professor who may get deleted under WP:PROF. (Is he really more than a glorified post-doc with blogs?) What I find disquieting is that so many of the keep votes did not concern themselves with independent evidence of notability. Instead, many just repeated "he is notable", "bad faith nom", and so on. That really makes it look as if a WP insider is getting special favors. Leibniz 22:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
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- To both Leibniz and Sandy's comment, I would think and hope that an AfD made by an essentially uninvolved user in good standing in the project would be taken more seriously than the previous AfDs. JoshuaZ 13:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
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- Are you suggesting myself & L are indeed "uninvolved users in good standing" or that we aren't? Question not meant to be aggressive by the way I am just asking for clarification! I have had no beef with Connolley before, I have no view on him as an admin - though I suspect he is excellent in role, he wouldn't command such loyalty if he wasn't. --SandyDancer 14:06, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
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- I would think that both you and Leibniz would be in that category (unless there is some interaction between you and Will that I missed). JoshuaZ 14:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
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This article survived three AfD votes so I don't see any point in arguing anymore about whether the subject is notable or not. The Wikipedia articles on Global warming and related subjects are probably among the most viewed articles on the subject on the English internet (judging by my Google search tests) and he is a major factor in that. He's not the first person to gain at least some notability due to his efforts on Wikipedia. The article doesn't discuss that facet of his notability to much of an extent, I assume because not many secondary sources discuss it. It might should be discussed more in the article if the sources support it. Cla68 07:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
With all due respect to everyone up above, and to Dr Connolley himself, may I suggest this debate moves on? I feel the problem with the article (as someone else said) is not its existence but that it is much too long compared to the (apparent), relative importance of its subject? I invite you to compare the length of this article to the length of these other Wikipedia articles on a few random climate science/politics "figures" that I plucked off the top of my head:
- Dr James Hansen: approx 1800 words.
- Dr James Lovelock: approx 980 words
- Dr William Connolley: approx 900 words.
- Sir John Houghton: approx 800 words.
- Dr Robert Watson: approx 500 words
- Sir Crispin Tickell: approx 400 words
- Dr Stefan Rahmstorf: approx 350 words
- Dr Michael Oppenheimer: approx 250 words
and, for comparison:
- Sir Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal): approx 575 words
I calculated these very, very hastily so don't hold me to them. I'm making a broad-brush point here :)
It is a standard principle of most encyclopedias that the length of an article correlates with the relative importance of its subject. (You might say Wikipedia doesn't have to observe the conventions of a paper book, but even online it would be absurd to devote 500 pages to Mickey Mouse and only five pages to Winston Churchill.) IMHO, this article might be less contentious if it were a little shorter and more humble. For example, does it need to include so many publications? The article on Dr James Hansen doesn't include his publications: it links to his homepage, where he lists his own publications. Perhaps the William Connolley page should follow that example?
Also, some of the details may or may not be minutae (as someone up above said), but their relevance needs to be made clear. Some may say details like being a parish councillor distract from the more important aspects of Dr Connolley's work. Perhaps the importance of the detail is just not being spelled out? A detail like this could mean "He really wanted to be Prime Minister, but all he's managed to do is become a parish councillor". Or it could mean: "He has absolutely no interest in being Prime Minister, because he believes politics is only truly effective at the most local, community level". If the former is true, the detail is not worth including; if the latter is true, the detail is an important part of the bigger picture. Marcusswann 13:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- No, WP:NOT#PAPER. We should as a general rule include as much referenced data as we can whatever the subject is so long as it does not make the articles unreadable. We do not, never have, and never shall begin to remove information simply to meet some subjective standard of what is more "deserving" of disk space. --tjstrf talk 13:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
William Connolley is not notable in his field. His publications were insignificant. He is not regarded as anyone special within his field of study or research. A publication does not make someone notable. If that weren't true, there'd be literally thousands of nonsensical articles on unimportant and minor scientists flooding Wikipedia. Three failed AFDs do not mean much when there's already a WP:COI and their reasons given are inane. ~ UBeR 03:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
- Again, if you think so, then AfD it. JoshuaZ 03:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
- [Unproductive discussion archived to Talk:William Connolley/ArchiveBickering]. --Stephan Schulz 23:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Possible WP:AUTO problem
I've no great objection to the existence of this article, but looking back at the edit history it seems substantial parts of it were written by Dr Connolley himself. I thought this wasn't allowed? (Incidentally I also reckon the references to his being a parish councillor of a tiny village etc. give an impression of this being a vanity page, regardless of who added them.) Ben Finn 00:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- The rule you are looking for is WP:AUTO. It is a guideline and allows for reasonable exceptions. I've checked the last year or so of edits, and have not found anything substantial inserted by William (he fixed a few links, spelling, and so on). Very early in the articles history he added a couple of publications. The parish councillor (what is that, anyways?) was added by User:Ssilvers, probably because he found it noteworthy. --Stephan Schulz 00:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
