[WikiEN-l] Please stop bashing me

Thu Oct 9 13:37:19 UTC 2003

Sheldon Rampton is annoying me. I wish he would be more affable.

In previous posts, he's wished aloud for the ability to murder me by
electrocution. I laughed that off, but...

I don't appreciate personal remarks like
* "I don't think Ed is a total jerk" -- Is he calling me "a jerk", or
what?
* "he's just hot-headed" -- this feels like an insult
* "irrational about ... global warming" -- this _is_ an insult

On several occasions he has tried to discredit me with unfair tactics.
Ironically, a central theme of his books and websites are that SKEPTICS
try to discredit environmentalists with unfair tactics. Well, it seems
to me that he is targeting me with the same tactics he complains of in
others. To do this would be rank hypocrisy. 

I do not accuse him of hypocrisy, however; I say only, "If the shoe
fits, wear it." I beg Sheldon to ask himself sincerely if he's giving me
a fair shake or not; whether he's treating me the way he wants to be
treated himself, the way he wants environmentalists and scientists who
agree with his POV to be treated. 

I wish he would stop taking one minor counter-example to a trend and
calling it representative of a supposed counter-trend. He's free to do
that in his books and on his website, of course. He has a POV and like
all other advocates he has a right to assert it. If he wants to call
Singer, Lindzen and Lomborg names, that's fine: they are public figures
and parties to the debate. 

But I wish he would not treat me the same way as his ideological
opponents, in discussions with Wikipedians about how to write neutral
articles. I am not his opponent, nor am I a public figure. I'm just a
writer of encyclopedia articles. I'm trying to cover one of the top
controversial issues in the world - and do it neutrally.

I think my cooperation has been adequate, if not superlative. Rampton
hasn't given a single example of my having insisted on an unsupportable
point. In his previous letter, rather, he gave an example of just the
opposite. 

So why is he criticizing me? And on what basis? What am I doing that's
anti-Wikipedian?

I have no objection to Rampton's POV. What annoys me is his tactic of
maligning my reputation, and his insults and threats. After a point, it
gets beyond being a joke.

I can safely say that am at least AVERAGE at maintaining Jimbo's NPOV
style of contribution at Wikipedia. I daresay I would be right to claim
that I'm ABOVE AVERAGE at this skill. If the number and quality of
comments I've gotten on my talk page and this mailing list are any
measure, I may possibly be ONE OF THE BEST at maintaining neutrality in
my  contributions at Wikipedia.

Mr. Rampton's edits to Wikipedia -- after our first clash -- have been
utterly neutral. He can apply the NPOV when he wants, much to his
credit.

Yet the way Sheldon Rampton characterized me is unfair. If I were a
litigious person, I'd... - but I'm not. I seek no damages, no apology. I
just wish he would stop his unfair criticisms and take care to avoid
anything which would (in his opinion) constitute an unfair discrediting
attack, if it were aimed by a "skeptic" at an "environmentalist".

Unabashedly,

Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
From: Sheldon Rampton [mailto:sheldon.rampton at verizon.net] 
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 12:04 AM
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Anti-scientific bias has me hopping mad!

Jimbo wrote:

>And of course, as I've said, it would be inappropriate to ban people 
>without due process, and I tend to suspect that this case if studied 
>carefully would reveal the healthy debate that gives rise to NPOV 
>rather than any actual bannable offenses.

I agree completely. I would not have bothered criticizing Ed as 
strongly as I have if Ed had not announced his intention to ban 
people unilaterally. To Ed's credit, he announced his intention 
publicly before carrying through with it, thereby enabling people 
such as myself and Jimbo to cry foul before harm was done. For the 
record, I don't think Ed is a total jerk; he's just hot-headed and 
irrational about this particular topic (global warming).

Ed wrote:

>Sorry about my "false claim", Sheldon. Perhaps I was wrong to believe 
>Lowell Ponte, who attributed the "ice age" prediction to the NAS:

[Ponte quote snipped]

>Or maybe I was wrong to believe that S. Fred Singer was quoting Ponte 
>correctly.

Singer correctly quoted Ponte, but it was deceptive for him to 
suggest that Ponte's book represented the "then-prevailing mood" of 
scientists and environmentalists in the 1970s. Actually, Ponte is not 
and never was an environmentalist or a scientist. To the contrary, 
he's a former Reader's Digest editor and Hollywood publicist who 
writes nowadays for conservative websites such as GOPUSA.com and the 
David Horowitz website FrontPageMagazine.com. (Do a Google search on 
his name, and you'll see what I mean.) Like Ed, Ponte is a global 
warming skeptic. In other words, the guy who was hawking an alarmist 
book titled "The Cooling" in the 1970s is actually a member of Ed 
Poor's own clan. It's really laughably absurd that Ed (parroting Fred 
Singer) would quote Ponte now as an example of what "environmentalist 
fearmongers" were supposedly saying in the 1970s.

>Or maybe I just misunderstood the quote. You're an expert on 
>disinformation, and you probably have Ponte's book on your shelf.

Actually, I don't have Ponte's book, but William Connolley has read 
it and critiqued it in some detail. Those who are interested can read 
his critique at the following URLs:

http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/ponte.html
http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/nas-1975.html

As Connolley demonstrates, Ponte misrepresented the conclusions of 
the 1975 report published by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), 
titled "Understanding Climatic Change." The NAS report merely said 
there was a "finite" (and small) chance that an Ice Age could begin 
"within 100 years" -- hardly a "shocking" statement (as Ponte hyped 
it at the time), certainly not "hysterical" (as Singer claims now), 
and not at all a prediction (which is how Ed characterized the NAS 
report that he obviously never read).

Here I should remind people that Connolley, a climate modeler for the 
The British Antarctic Survey, is the very same climate scientist whom 
Ed mentioned by name as an example of someone  he wanted to ban from 
the Wikipedia. The irony here is that unlike Ed, Connolley has 
actually taken the time to read both the 1975 NAS study AND Ponte's 
book. Connolley went back to original sources, whereas Ed carelessly 
relied for his conclusions on a quote of a quote of a quote. This is 
only one example of how Connelley's scholarship is superior to Ed's. 
Any serious scholar knows the importance of looking at primary 
sources whenever possible. If you want to know what someone ACTUALLY 
said, you should go back and read the original rather than play 
Chinese Whispers. If anyone here is unfamiliar with the game of 
"Chinese Whispers," (sometimes called "Telephone"), here's a web page 
that explains it:
http://www.indiaparenting.com/funtime/partygames/cp001.shtml

For an example of how this sort of thing can get out of hand 
regarding serious issues, here's another URL:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa011701a.htm

Ed continued:

>On the other hand, if Singer correctly quoted Ponte, and if he in turn 
>correctly characterized the views of the NAS, then maybe my mistake lay

>in knuckling under to pressure from a biased, axe-grinding 
>environmentalist.

I assume that Ed had me in mind with his reference to a "biased, 
axe-grinding environmentalist." This is a fairly typical example of 
what he calls his "cordial" and "affable" approach to discussing this 
topic.

For those who think I'm wasting too much bandwidth on this or who 
don't like to see me bashing Ed, I apologize. Normally this level of 
detail belongs on a Wikipedia talk page rather than on wikien-l. If 
Ed will promise to comply with Jimbo's pronouncement against banning 
people without due process, I'll happily drop the topic so we can all 
move on.
-- 
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
--------------------------------
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l