User talk:Ahaynes

Talk here

GMU

January 17, 2012 12:08 p.m. MST
Hi Anna,
CMD received a call from Dr. Dave Kuebrich (pronounced "key-brick") at George Mason Univ., an Associate Prof. of English and Chair of a Faculty Senate Committee investigating agreements with private donors (like the Koch brothers) and allegations of plagiarism, such as against Edward Wegman. He read the article about Wegman on SW, which you wrote and updated, and was interested to know if there have been any further updates since October 2011.

He also asked if we could put him in contact with you, or somehow get him an update if there is one?

[contact info excised]

He said the faculty has obviously been asleep on this issue and he'd like to correct that.

Let me know if you are willing to contact him or not.

Thanks,
Anne Landman, CMD Editor

Others - GMU's spokesman? - would likely be up to date; I'm not. - Anna

Deletions?

Dear Anna: I am wondering why you deleted the list of articles written by Willie Soon? Can you please revert to the version that included those articles and then add your changes to the paragraphs? If I revert so those links and research is not lost, I will lose your other changes to the article and I don't have time to piece together your changes that occurred with the mass deletion. Lisa

Hi Lisa - I thought that such an exhaustive compilation of Willie Soon's ccntrarian articles published in the contrarian journal Energy and Environment, lobbyist DCI Group's Tech Central Station, and the antiregulation Marshall Institute - this quantity of articles overwhelming the critiques of Soon, on his SW page - would better be sited on Wikipedia or on Soon's own website, if he had one. But you're the SourceWatch decider; I'll restore them, since this is what you prefer. Anna Haynes 19:16, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Anna! In general, that sort of compilation will help readers who want to understand more or critique that writer to have the resources to do so. If there are critiques of his works that people have written or compiled those would also go on the page. Since it is more like a stub article then a comprehensive one it may seem like the list is too much, but that is just part of the seriatim way the wiki article creation process works or sometimes does not work.

Misc

Anna, I've corresponded with Purdue University (letter and emails) about Anthony Watts. They confirm that he has no qualification from them, despite attending from 1975 to 1982. I have updated his page here with that info, and ask you to modify your blog on the topic. Thanks! Please respond on my talk page if necessary. Scribe 15:05, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Scribe, it'd be best if you uploaded the email/letter from Purdue to that effect. Anna Haynes 15:22, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Anna, please supply me with your email address. I do not want to upload the letter as it was addressed to my home. The emails are sufficient (cover the same data), and I can forward them to you. You can also obtain the same info from PU yourself. The University will confirm whether people attended and if they obtained a qualification or not. Scribe 23:09, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Punctuation

Just a small reminder: when using citations, the comma or period comes before the citation, not after it. To quote wikipedia "citation markers are normally placed after adjacent punctuation such as periods and commas." More here. Hope this helps. Scribe 12:20, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Scribe; I'm not always detail-oriented so the reminder.is helpful. Anna Haynes 18:43, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

You're still making the same error all over the place. ≡ SCRIBE ≡ 04:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Scribe. If you could say where you found a new instance of this (i.e., after your feedback above), that'd help. Anna Haynes 18:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Contrarian vs denier

I would ask you not to unilaterally make decisions about terminology, such as changing the universally used and accepted "anthropogenic global warming denier" to the pusillanimous euphemism "climate contrarian", and then go all over the site implementing your decision without any consultation.

Scribe, the term that's pusillanimous is global warming skeptic - which has been used all over the place at SourceWatch. "Contrarian" is a step up from that. Anna Haynes 16:21, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I also note that your skills with formatting and syntax are poor. Here are some of the weaknesses you should work on:

1. You tend to create single sentence paragraphs, each with its own subheading, making the page almost unreadable.

Interesting. The advantage of more-prolific subheads is that it allows the reader to assess the page's content, just from looking at the table of contents. And since (in newspapers at least) half the readers only look at the headlines, it seems wise to serve them optimally. Presumably there's a balance, though; I'll keep an eye on it. Anna Haynes 14:47, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

1. You are prone to inserting sentences in quotation marks, without context, and indented. You should be synthesising the data into readable and sensible text.

I concur that synthesizing is best; but adding quotes, if the context is made sufficiently clear, is a quick&effective way to get the information across. Also, indented text indicates it's a quote, doth it not? that's what blockquote does...(is this what you meant by your "formatting and syntax" comment?) Anna Haynes 14:47, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

There is more ... I just wish you would edit wikipedia for a while and let other editors show you how it's done. Scribe 06:00, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Scribe, I've tried editing Wikipedia and it is an exercise in frustration (content gets removed, for apparently ideological reasons) that I prefer to avoid; IMO it makes sense to work where there isn't some posse following behind with an eraser. Anna Haynes 14:47, 10 November 2011 (UTC) Also relevant: this WP discussion. Anna Haynes 20:28, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Climate change denier

Dear Anna: I concur fully with Scribe about the edits to purge reference to climate change or AGW deniers and replace them with the notion of climate contrarian. There are numerous articles linked to the original term and it is accurate. Please revert all the substitutions or uses of contrarian you have added to articles and restore the denier references. I really appreciate many of your efforts, Anna, but please do fix the contrarian edits. I am sorry we missed this sooner. If you are interested in making such a significant revision across many pages to remove terminology that has already been approved, I would ask you to propose it first for discussion please. I know you care about these issues very much, as do other editors. Thank you! Lisa

OK. Thanks Lisa, will do. In the case of Schnare, I wasn't comfortable saying he was still denying AGW based on a 2007 statement; since people's views can change over time, mine have. (maybe not lawyers' views, though...) Anna Haynes 14:47, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

(I should also mention that I hadn't been making wholesale changes, that report was hyperbole) Anna Haynes 21:41, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Anna, your recent edits to Benny Peiser have seen the insertion of the clumsy euphemism (coined by deniers) "contrarian" SIX TIMES onto the page, after both I and Lisa specifically asked you not to use it. I've blocked you for a week as a result. Scribe 03:28, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

For the record - I discuss the usage of terms, and the desirability of "contrarian", and cite others who agree that it's the more accurate term, on my User page - User:Ahaynes. (Not sure Scribe has any support for his terminology preferences, outside of SourceWatch.) Anna Haynes 21:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Report an error file

Where did you get agreement to start adding the "report an error" image and text to pages, as you did here ? ≡ SCRIBE ≡ 00:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Didn't get agreement, in fact I was asked to remove it (yow) - so have done so. (It's still on my Stubbier Template page, if anyone wants to see what Scribe and Sourcewatch Management objected to.) Anna Haynes 19:16, 24 December 2011 (UTC)