Talk:Piers Corbyn

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An entry from Piers Corbyn appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 18 March 2007.
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[edit] Wired?

The current version of the Wired article seems to differ substantially from Googles cache of it William M. Connolley 22:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it does. I just looked it up before reverting you, the information you removed is in there. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who is PC?

There is a genuine disagreement about whether PC is an astrophysicist or meteorologist (Personal attack removed--UBeR). I would prefer to describe his as neither, but simply say what he is known for William M. Connolley 19:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Would it it help accuracy if one stated his actual degree? I can confirm he attended Imperial College as I met him there many times. I know he was in the Physics Dept but I am not able to confirm if he completed his degree, I just assume so. - Andy O. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Obrienaj (talk • contribs) 08:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


He provides meteorological consulting. That makes him a meteorological consultant. Saying he's an astrophysicist is misleading - he doesn't have an astrophsics consultancy; and saying he's a British citizen is so general as to be meaningless.

Personally I don't like the guy but just because he's not got any Met Office training is no reason to deny that he makes his living as a meteorologist, and a very well known one at that.

Usually the term meteorologist is applied to someone with a degree or certification in the specialty. IF Piers does not have these qualifications, perhaps the term "weather forecaster" would be more accurate ? Andy O. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Obrienaj (talk • contribs) 08:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to argue this point but the recent edits by single purpose accounts are clearly intended to be disruptive. I didn't know there was a weather mafia but well, you learn something new every day.

andy 22:40, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

How about we change the first sentence to: "...is a controversial British meteorological consultant, best known for his claims..."? I.e. not a meteorologist as such but certainly someone who makes money out of selling a meteorology service. It's a duck of sorts, although a funny-looking one. andy 09:11, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I guess I could go for your compromise. I'm rather unsure that we have good sources to demonstrate his work though - most (all?) of it is essentially sourced to PC himself. William M. Connolley 09:22, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Piers Corbyn did a degree at Imperial College in Physics, he then went on to become a weather forecaster using astrophysics as his main tool for predicting the weather, rather than conventional meteorlogical methods. I would say this makes him a weather forecaster, an astrophysicist, a meteorlogical consultant but perhaps not a "Meteorologist". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.156.80 (talk) 19:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prot / unprot

I unprotected the page. We're talking happily. If the anon won't talk, then it can be semi'd William M. Connolley 09:22, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Superstorm prediction

Isn't it a bit early to say his prediction was proven false? Not that I think it will happen, but five days is the generally accepted forecast horizon for conventional meteorology. Then how can satellite images taken the 20th of November prove anything? 82.95.201.33 (talk) 23:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

There was quite a bit more in there that was wrong: We are predicting three waves of storms to hit the British Isles and Scandinavia. The total effect is likely to be bigger than the storm of 1987 and aspects of them will have similarities to the tempest of 1703... The first is set to lash the nation from October 26 to November 1 and will affect most of Britain, he said... Winds will reach 80-100mph and there could be some tornado activity. But this is just the “warm-up”. From November 8 to 13 another system will batter the nation with winds of between 90mph to 110mph. While the worst affected areas will be Scotland and Northern Ireland it will still pack a hefty punch elsewhere. But the final, most intense period will be during November 24 to 28, he said. Wind speeds will reach hurricane force, with gusts potentially topping 130mph. William M. Connolley (talk) 09:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
The prediction of the superstorm has not been removed from his website, it's on the front page in large red letters as of now, predicting the storm to arrive by 1st/2nd December 2007. I have removed that sentence for the time being Tripper (talk) 18:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Here it is, in case it changes later:
Important Severe Weather Warning

HIGHEST RISK PERIOD FOR DANGEROUS WEATHER EVENTS EXTENDED TO 1st / 2nd DEC 2007

We continue to forecast the British Isles and the North Sea area are likely to be hit by a major storm(s) and associated substorms including possible tornado type events starting to show from Weds/Thursday 28th/29th Nov. These storm systems will then move into Scandinavia and have important impacts - in order of danger - on: Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Wales, England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, NW Germany, North Netherlands, North Poland and the Baltic States.
This is a superstorm period likely to include winds gusting to over 100mph from Hurricane Force winds. This is the 304th anniversary of the devastating Tempest of 26th/27th Nov 1703 (modern calendar) in which thousands of people died in southern England and when Portsmouth was destroyed. Although there are some similarities concerning solar forcing factors of storms developments, events of the 1703 magnitude are NOT forecasted for this period.
William M. Connolley (talk) 19:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edits by Piers

This bio has been edited by Piers in a distinctly non-NPOV fashion; it will require a lot of hacking back (puffing of early papers; over-hype of success of 2007 predictions) William M. Connolley (talk) 18:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It was too bad; I've reverted it. Just to take the intro; Piers is best known for *claiming* accuracy, not achieving it. Piers has a strong commercial interest in making his bio look good. Google [1] doesn't find much in the way of papers.

Also, what to do about edits like this [2]? The dew ponds stuff is intrinsically non-verifiable, but interesting. It obviously fails RS. But its harmless William M. Connolley (talk) 23:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Piers continues to edit and doesn't discuss, quite likely because he is unfamilair with wiki. I shall report this to COI and warn him William M. Connolley (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Now SEW is reverting without discussion. Which presumably means he thinks "a British meteorological consultant best known for his ability to predict the weather up to one year in advance" is defensible. I don't William M. Connolley (talk) 21:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Yet another problem with the PC/SEW version: In 1979, following some years of activism, he studied astrophysics at Queen Mary College, London, and wrote scientific papers on the mean matter density of the universe and the Cosmic string loop theory of galaxy formation - what were these papers? I can't find them. Where were they published?
What are we to make of the skill of his forecasts was proven by significant returns (about 40% profit) on a total of around 4000 weather bets placed on a monthly basis with William Hill at odds devised by the Met Office between 1988 to 2000 at which time William Hill banned his (too profitable) betting account. Nevertheless he still bets on the weather at times in various ways through various bodies in association with others. Is any of that verifiable? It has no source. Could in various ways through various bodies in association with others possibly be any vaguer? It is unacceptable William M. Connolley (talk) 14:57, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Journal paper

We link to a journal paper in the The Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, but the URL does not seem to work. Does anyone know the title of the paper? ~ UBeR (talk) 17:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Updated. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. ~ UBeR (talk) 17:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:COI

Instead of speculating about me and making up things some would do well to ask me or go to source. Degrees are easy to check for example. I have a first class degree in Physics from Imperial College and an MSc In Astrophyics from Queen Mary College for example. For WeatherAction actual forecasts (rather than taking exerpts from newspaper reports) you can ask via www.weatheraction.com or www.lowefo.com (where storm etc reports with sources - we (WeatherAction) always use reliable sorces for weather reports are also available). Libellous material against me being edited into a biog of me is totally unacceptable and I will take the matter further. Meanwhile I will attempt again to edit the the defamatory item into an honest version. This however is becoming a farce. Piers Corbyn —Preceding unsigned comment added by PiersCorbyn (talk • contribs) 22:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Please specify here any portions of the article that you feel libellous and those points will be addressed. Further massive reverts or edits violating WP:COI will result in a much longer block. Vsmith (talk) 23:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for talking, Piers. I wonder if you might address some of the problems I've raised with your version. For example, wrote scientific papers on the mean matter density of the universe and the Cosmic string loop theory of galaxy formation - could you provide exact references to those papers please? William M. Connolley (talk) 00:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article review

I'm reviewing this article for a number of compliance issues. This note is mostly for Piers, to understand what's up and why.

Removal of text

I have removed text such as the following. It is unencyclopedic and unsuitable:

  1. Talking to readers -- "This unacceptable activity includes inserting false statements in his biography in Wikipedia so if you are reading this please keep a copy for future reference before it gets falsified" (we don't talk to readers in articles)
  2. Apologetics -- "Weather Action ... does not receive state subsidy" (the article does not say it has, no need to say it hasn't)
  3. Promotion/styling -- "the power of his predictions ... the skill of his forecasts ... demonstrated forecasting skill ... success has netted him and his company a wide range of weather sensitive customers ..." and so on (inappropriate style; whether the underlying statements are factual or not, we don't promote)
  4. Self published text -- "proven skill verified ... " and so on (eg, cites from websites you have involvement with, such as weatheraction.com or lowefo.com)
Citable evidence needed

In addition a large number of statements need to be removed as hearsay unless an independent and reliable source can be shown for them. This is not because they are true or untrue, it is because there is a site policy that we do not say anything that canot be backed up by a good external source that is not connected with the subject, nor a "blog" or "forum" or the like, nor a newspaper or editorial that's just repeating your words unchecked. None of these are good evidence of the kind we use. A proper news, academic, scientific or other source is usually required, that can be checked.

In this area I need you to find a source for the following statements. I accept that there may be no sources for some of them, that's unfortunately not uncommon:

  1. A source that confirms your betting history or ban with Hill Samuel. Every source I have, is essentially repeating your description. I'd like something that is not just your word on it - not because of trust, but because as a matter of policy we cannot take a persons word for it as evidence, in any article we have. Found, though evidence of ban still needed.
  2. Dates, titles, publications and page references of each paper stated to have been published.
  3. The dates when your business was listed on AIM, the company name (and number at Companies House), and whether you were the owner, or what position you held (we don't have any of this right now). Found
  4. Evidence of the 2007 claims - where these can be confirmed to have been published, or amended.
  5. I have concerns about placing total reliance on the 'Wired' article of 1999 as a sole source for certain information. One long bio article in a website/magazine, has limitations.

Thanks!

FT2 (Talk | email) 04:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Re Wired - agreed. Its also rather clear that all the info in the wired article has come straight from PC rather than journalistic research, so really its just PC speaking, again William M. Connolley (talk) 09:18, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Notes from PC.

1. re immediate above. Oh yes 'rather clear' so you have spoken to Wired??? They did plenty of independent research. Curious you want to talk most about teh longest ago studies too.

2. Doing me or anyone down does not make those who do such better people.

3. I removed "Because Corbyn does not publish his prediction techniques in scientific journals, his methods are not taken seriously by official weather prediction bodies." because this is a false statement. I suggest you name any official weather prediction body which states they do not take our forecasts seriously. I think there are no such bodies. I have correspondence and have had meetings which indicate what we do is taken very seriously at very high levels of Govt and 'official' bodies (phone me if you want +447958713320). Their problem is what to do about it.

4. I removed "Scientific studies and reports conclude that solar activity is not responsible for global warming.[1] " because (a) it is irrelevent to my case that there is no statistical evidence in 22,000 years of data that CO2 controls world temperatures or climate. (b) it is nothing to do with my biog (c) It is entirely refutable and I have done so.

This is just another case of the sort of innuendo some are intent to heap into my 'biog'. Although I recognise and thank vey honest and serious objective people too, what is going on in wiki is farce. Why should 'biogs' (and I never started mine) be riddled with misrepresentation and malevolent innuendo?

Piers Corbyn

I also take issue with the ""Scientific studies and reports conclude that solar activity is not responsible for global warming.[2] " bit. If you actually read the source article all it says is that sunspots are unlikely a causative factor in global warming. It does not say that all solar activity is ruled out, as a matter of fact there is a section in the article titled "Sun Not Off the Hook for Warming" that goes on to explain that not all solar activity can be ruled out as much of it is not fully understood yet. It's interesting because the actual article is titled "Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says" but then it immediately contradicts itself. I guess I could see how the editor who added that source could have made that mistake by reading the title, but in general I find it's good idea to read the entire article if I'm going to use it as a source instead of just going off the article headline. I any event, I'm removing this line as it's not pertinent to a biographical article on Piers Corbyn and the statement isn't truly supported by the source it cites. Elhector (talk) 19:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] www.lowefo.com

I removed "( The full forecasts are available via www.lowefo.com )". If the forecast is there, its not obvious. This just looks like commercial spam. To point out the obvious, there would also need to be evidence that the forecasts had been there *before* the event William M. Connolley (talk) 19:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

"For info in English, see the page Netherlands." is not obvious enough? -- SEWilco (talk) 20:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Its a touch vague, don't you think? Perhaps you could find a URL for the november "forecast", and some evidence that it was made a year ago? William M. Connolley (talk) 22:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)