wiki

Regular readers will know that über-quack Mike Adams got himself into a bit of a pickle last week. Basically, he wrote a now-infamous post in which he likened scientists working on GMOs to Nazi scientists and pro-science bloggers refuting the sort of nonsensical fear mongering (from a scientific perspective) Adams and other anti-GMO activists like to use to demonize GMOs, calling for a list of “Monsanto Collaborators.” And, lo and behold! Such a list appeared a couple of days later in a website called MonsantoCollaborators.org! (Note that the website now only returns a message, “Bandwidth…

"Learn more" is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more: SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. We are already seeing big media calling us names. In many jurisdictions around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation that prioritizes overly-broad copyright enforcement laws, laws promoted by power players, over the preservation of individual civil liberties. We want the Internet to be free and open, everywhere, for everyone. Refs * Google * Beeb * Wikipedia blackout forces students to copy from printed 'hardcopy websites'

This post is about the ridiculous "hide the decline" video. I watched it when it first came out. It wasn't funny, it was dull. Apparently it has now been pulled from YouTube, but who cares? But... because the thing is anti-science, the std.anti-science septics on wiki feel inclined to have an article on it. Sigh. There enough real subjects to create articles about without wasting time on vapour. I really ought to point you to the current version, and the current edit war: should this edit be included - viz, is the fact that some guy with a blog thinks the video is funny worth noting? I don't…

Off in Wootsup land someone called Gudfry is having trouble with the portrayal of Monckton on wikipedia, saying: I see Connelly and his "tag-team" are at it again. This time it's about the many disputed entries about Lord Monckton, the prominent anti-AGW campaigner. Many contributors have argued that they have chosen a picture of him which is unflattering, and at worst, deliberately derogatory - which is agaist wiki rules. After a temporary removal, there has been an edit war which Connelly's tag-team have won, insisting that it stays. See "Discussion" page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

"Part I" is very presumptuous. I might never write part II. Ah well, I press onwards in hope. I'm going to take my text from Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia and see what we can learn about wiki's workings from the way people misunderstand it. I should warn you that blog is mostly recycled Solomon. Before I go on (well actually I wrote this *after* I went on, but I came back up here, that is one of the marvels of modern tech) I'll point out that the LS/JD article is riddled with amateur errors that a moments time from someone competent at wiki could have fixed. This is genuine modern…

Richard "Dick" Davisson in the courtyard outside the physics building at the University of Washington (2000 or 2001). Image courtesy of Christophe Verlinde. I have been lucky to know a lot of talented scientists while I was working my way through school. One of my very good friends (and drinking pals), physicist Richard (Dick) Davisson, was the son of Nobelist, Clinton Davisson, who won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1937. Interestingly, his maternal uncle, Sir Owen Willans Richardson, was also a Nobel prize winner in Physics (1928). Sadly for all of us who knew and loved him, Dick died in…