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Climate Change Editing Battle Waged on Hurricane Sandy’s Wikipedia Page

Nov. 5, 2012 10:45pm Liz Klimas

Ken Mampel and Others Keep Climate Change From Hurricane Sandys Wikipedia Page Until They Were Out Waited

Ken Mampel (Image via Popular Science)

You’ve probably never heard of Ken Mampel, but you might have seen some of his writing, especially if you went to Wikipedia to learn more about Hurricane Sandy.

Mampel was found to be one of the most active authors on the collaboratively written encyclopedia page on the storm that devastated the East Coast early last week. While scientists since the beginning of the storm were answering questions about the its potential connection with man-made global warming and politicians began discussing it later in the week, the Wikipedia page was void of climate change or global warming discussion even though it was become more prevalent in the media.

Popular Science’s Dan Nosowitz looked into why Wikipedia’s Sandy page remained silent on the issue. Here’s what Nosowitz wrote (Editor’s note: emphasis added):

Late in the evening of November 1st, a new section appeared at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, titled “Connection to global warming.” It was the first mention of climate change the article had had, and laid out the response from climate scientists, mostly stating that climate scientists don’t really know if the hurricane was caused in part or whole by climate change. I emailed Ken, who goes by the name Kennvido on Wikipedia, to get a response, and he wrote back: “thanks deleted again and told them to go discuss Sandy on the global warming page.” I reloaded the page and confirmed: Ken had eliminated any discussion of climate change. A few minutes later, I reloaded and the section was back, only with a big block warning, telling me that “The neutrality of this article is disputed.” By 10:23, that warning read: “An editor has expressed a concern that this Section lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole. Please help to create a more balanced presentation.”

Nosowitz wrote that Mampel (who operates under Kennvido as a Wikipedia editor) and others were removing posts about global warming and the hurricane with the arguments stating that the hurricane’s page was “not the place to push global warming when no evidence exists that this was a cause.”

Mampel, who is currently unemployed and doesn’t have a scientific background, said in an interview with Nosowitz, “I don’t believe that climate change bullcrap.”

At the time of this posting, a small section under the meteorological category discusses its relation to global warming.

Nosowitz eventually goes into the ins and outs of Wikipedia editing, which includes a variety of rules and often a “healthy back-and-forth amongst the contributors.” You can see the revision history for the Hurricane Sandy Wikipedia page here. Even Wikipedia Foundation’s Head of Communications Jay Walsh weighed in on the Hurricane Sandy editing for Nosowitz:

Walsh talked about a “good faith” versus “bad faith” edit: Ken Mampel really thinks he is improving that page by eliminating an unclear passage about climate change, so that’s a “good faith” edit. Which, for Wikipedians, means the system is working.

Still, Nosowitz worries about those who might have missed out on the global warming discussion on the site. He wrote that it’s a weakness of Wikipedia that anyone can edit (although eventually editing on this section became closed to new writers for the site) and at the same time the solution to this issue is that others can chime in an edit as well.

“Mampel can’t be vigilant against climate change’s mention in the Hurricane Sandy article forever,” Nosowitz wrote. “In fact, he couldn’t keep climate change off the page for an entire week–somebody else will keep adding that section until Mampel gives up.”

Be sure to check out Nosowitz’s full article regarding his interview with Mampel and Wikipedia editing as a whole for more details here.

Featured image via Shutterstock.com.

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Comments (33)

chkiaar
Posted on November 6, 2012 at 10:35am
You’ve probably never heard of me either, but possibly you’ve read some of my papers and writings at the University of Iowa and in Paintball Magazines.
I get so tired of this. Weather is cyclic!! Repeat after me, weather is cyclic!! We have warming and we having cooling. How do I know? The world is still here.
Lay a yardstick down, this is how long the Earth has been in existance. Now from one end, come in about 1/2mm, this is how long man has been in exixtance.
Storms have been in existance since the beginning of time and will continue to be after you and I are long gone. Kindof like the fighting in the Middle East.
Go Vote!! (but only once)

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kennvidogw
Posted on November 6, 2012 at 10:01am
Ran out of space… the rest

Water of the duck’s back. I thank ALL of you for the kind words here, those on Wiki (oh yes, some there believe as I did, but carried no high editor weight) and understanding you CAN separate politics from fact… BUT, evidently not on Wikipedia.

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kennvidogw
Posted on November 6, 2012 at 9:55am
This is the guy that did it, yup. I added the gw at the end of my name for the GW crowd. I AM SO HAPPY The Blaze picked this up. People like me who don’t believe in EnvironGore GW, but do believe in Climate Change can only understand. The two are separate. I do believe in Climate Change…of the earth’s own volition, like for the past millions and millions of years. I can’t do what did on the Wikipedia page, because I am a GW denier as was written in the piece in Popular Science. I am not angry with Dan and the Mag…he’s a nice guy and I didn’t have to grant an interview. I did what I did on the Hurricane Sandy main page, because I THOUGTH that Wiki believed in fact and not possible fact or conjecture. That’s the reason I took GW effects off the main Hurricane Sandy page and said go comment on it on the GW page where I thought it belonged…and did that ‘as a good faith move.’ Don’t put it on a hurricane FACT page. I love the science of weather and was born and bred on Long Island. Have been in broadcasting for 35+ years and from that aspect as a reporter and fact getter wanted to help all involved…the victims and those friends and family who know them. Most of the editors on Wiki don’t believe that and don’t believe a THINKING human being can separate the two: my personal belief and fact. I have been mercilessly attacked, even to the point of being banned from posting there on Sunday into Monday for 24 hours because of my view. How do I react to that? Wat

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Qoheleth
Posted on November 6, 2012 at 5:17am
This article does a good job of illustrating the pros and cons of the way Wikipedia is edited. They’ve worked long and hard to obtain and then maintain an objective editorial policy that tries to make Wikipedia a source of information rather than bias. On the whole, I think they’ve done a good job.
How Mampel personally feels about global warming should be immaterial. The editorial supervisors wouldn’t allow him to simply remove things because he doesn’t like them. He has to give reasons that stand up.
That said, “global climate change” enthusiasts seem to me like verbal ambulance chasers, running after every weather event, especially the big ones, and claiming that it’s somehow related to global climate change. It’s like when my daughter tried to show me that she could change traffic lights with her mind. (“See, it just changed!”) We don’t really know that climate is changing on a global scale. (We have some interesting localized activities and a lot of computer models.) We certainly don’t know that human activity is the cause (of what we don’t really know is happening :) ).

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- bobsmallcraft
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 6:20am
  I can’t believe that there are still intelligent people who believe in the discredited religion of man-made global warming. Read fresh political commentary at: http://smallcraftadvisorychronicles.blogspot.com/
  
  Report this comment
- starman70
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 7:25am
  There have been “Superstorms” throughtout the history of the world. Yes, there even have been hurricaines that have hit the northeast with devastating effects in the past. The big problem is that there weren’t that many people around to report on them. In early days, people just took storms like this in stride.
  
  Man made “Climate Change” is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the people of the world. Con artists from universities and even a former Vice President have milked BILLIONS of dollars for “Research” which it turns out was flawed and skewed, by cooperative data manipulation, in order to continue the scam, thereby vastly enriching themselves (Gore’s second mansion in California).
  
  There will always be large hurricaines. There will always be large blizzards and very cold winters. There will always be very hot summers. There will always be tornados and systems with flooding rains. There will always be droughts. This is the way the world works, has always worked and will always work, despite the fraudlent cries of idiot alarmists.
  
  Report this comment
ArchconfraternityOfStMichaelTheArchangel
Posted on November 6, 2012 at 3:06am
It could be worse than you think….

SPECULATION:
Joe Bastardi of weatherbell.com:
“…get used to it along the East Coast. Maybe not this kind of track, but we are in a perilous time because the Atlantic’s warm; the Pacific’s cold. It’s the 1950s all over again. It has nothing to do with global warming, it has everything to do with nature, and then we’ll go back to where we were in the sixties and seventies.”

Hannity: “So there’s a pattern to all this, right? This is not something unusual?”

Bastardi: Do you realize we had ten major hurricanes run the Eastern Seaboard between ’54 and 1960? Six of them in ’54 and ’55 — six hurricane hits — from North Carolina northward. So, you know, the old Bachman-Turner song, “You ain’t seen nothing yet…”?

FACT:
Rev 18:21 (1582 DR) And one strong Angel took up AS IT WERE a great millstone, and threw it into the sea,
saying, *With this violence shall Babylon that great city be thrown, and shall now be found
no more.

Compare the two:
Sandy
http://www.ctemploymentlawblog.com/files/2012/10/vis-animated.gif

typical millstones
http://www.stonepost.com/Millstones.htm

New York the great city, “melting pot” of many cultures and languages (Babylon)

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DeVain
Posted on November 6, 2012 at 12:04am
FFS…weather never happened before…..it was a occurrence of three systems converging at a place and time….nothing more. It happened before and I guarantee will happen again.

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Jenasus
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:47pm
I think Obama was trying to destroy the Statue of Liberty by using HAARP to create and guide Hurricane Sandy to New York, NY.
BTW there was a small earthquake in New Jersey today as predicted by HaarpStatus.com.
California prepare for earthquakes too and expect more earthquakes in the North East.
HaarpStatus.com also has links to Chemtrails in the USA.

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- MeteoricLimbo
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 1:06am
  Yikes-er!
  
  Report this comment
Jenasus
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:37pm
Hurricane Sandy was created using HAARP so Obama would look presidential before the election.
This might be hard for some politicians to grasp but climate change happens four times a year. Winter, Summer, Spring and Autumn.
As far as global warming goes all the planets in our solar system are getting warmer and the scientists do not know why.
Planet Earth came out of an Ice Age and is moving into a Heat Age.
The pendulum is in motion. Ice Age to Heat Age and Heat Age to Ice Age.
Just ask any Dinosaur, they will tell you all about it.
Prepare to be vaporized!

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- Wool-Free Vision
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 12:49am
  @ Jenasus
  
  Surely, you don’t really believe this, do you?
  
  If this really was a man-made storm, secretly manufactured by the president and his minions, don’t you think that he would have been better prepared to truly come across as presidential?????? His quick jaunt to New Jersey before rushing off to do more campaigning was HARDLY commendable behavior for a president. If he really could have planned this, then please explain to me why on earth there was such a cluster***k in the affected region and not an overwhelming and obvious Obama-as-savior performance???????????
  
  I usually let you ramble on with your nuttiness, my friend, because you do so little harm to yourself and others. But this time, it is just too obvious not to call you on it. Please, do yourself a favor and lay off the Alex Jones/Art Bell kind of theories for awhile. It’s not nearly as sinister and crazy as you seem to think it is.
  
  There is a lot of sinister stuff going on these days, I’ll grant you that. And, as such, it is understandable that one can get carried away with some of the more outrageous theories that abound. But, the sinister stuff is not magic, nor is it so pat as HAARP or the 9/11 conspiracies. It is about Marxism and socialism being propagated by useful idiots. Please, don’t fall prey to them.
  
  Buying into this kind of a conspiracy theory doesn’t equate to resisting the sinister perpetrators. Contrarily, it makes you complicit in propagating their garbage.
  
  Report this comment
- MeteoricLimbo
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 1:05am
  Yikes!
  
  Report this comment
- Jenasus
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 2:09am
  Wool Free Vision. Take the wool off of your eyes so you can see the light.
  You can also view Hurricane Sandy on the You Tube video which shows the path of the Hurricane complete with chem trails and chem bombs added to the hurricane from a satellite.
  
  Report this comment
ginger100
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:30pm
Climate change = Globalist UN world tax agenda. If they could apply that to thew 1% then they could apply the same to the 1% wealthy nations as well. You’ll never get rid of it once it is implemented, the endless jackpot for the world bank

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South Philly Boy
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:30pm
Global Warming + algore = FRAUD

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vic138
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:27pm
I thought HAARP caused a man-made hurricane to delay or stop the elections but it was early. Damn, its tough to keep up on all the weather related conspiracies…

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OhioRifleman
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:18pm
If Global Warming is supposed to be such a monstrous and pervasive problem, WHY IS IT FREAKING FREEZING OUTSIDE?

MMGW is counter-intuitive. Winter’s bite is ample proof that someone is throwing bullsjit in the hopes that some of it sticks.

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- TheCalmOne
  Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:35pm
  Because it tends to be colder in the winter time. Do you know why?
  
  Report this comment
- OhioRifleman
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 12:06am
  I may be getting drowsy at this time, but I’m pretty sure I was being extremely sarcastic with that last comment.
  
  BTW, yes, I do know what causes the changing of the seasons. I also know historical context of what older civilizations and religious groups (erroneously) thought caused the changing of the seasons. No worries there, amigo.
  
  Report this comment
- The-Monk
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 12:28am
  Hi OhioRifleman,
  
  He’s a troll….
  
  Report this comment
rickc34
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:12pm
God is just focusing his wrath on the blue states this last week.

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Conservative New Yorker
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:12pm
Slightly off topic, but I went to check my local forecast on weather.com. On the front page they had a ‘news’ article comparing BO to Romney about their energy policies. They tried to paint Romney as looking out for the big oil companies and not the environment.

The weather channel is SO in the bag for the Marxist, IMO. Sickening.

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- BernieKittyCat
  Posted on November 6, 2012 at 11:43am
  You realize that NBC owns The Weather Channel (weather.com), right?
  
  Report this comment
13th Imam
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:10pm
To the MMGW crowd, a Hot Day, a Warm day , a Cool Day a Cold day, a Rainy day, a Snowy day, a Foggy day, a Muggy day, a Cloudy day, a Dry day, is proof of MMGW. As long as CASH can be extorted from actual Taxpayers, and Politicians(mostly DEMOCRATS) can siphon off a piece of the action, the MMGW university so-called scientists will connect any weather to MMGW to keep this scam going .

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possom
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:10pm
Somebody might want to remind mother nature about global warming, ‘CAUSE ITS FRIGGIN COLD OUTSIDE’

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denkat56
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:06pm
Global warming has never existed, never will. This is based the fact that the dems and Obama says that there is. Especially when countries have to pay for their carbon footprints. Billions are spent, with no record of where the monies are going. It’s a scam, always has been, just another excuse to spend our taxes.

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- Displacedsoutherner
  Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:48pm
  The key phrase that gets left out of most discussions is “MAN MADE” when referring to Global Warming, the Earth warms and cools in long cycles and has for tens of thousands of years, e.g. have you seen a glacier in New York City lately?
  
  The scam is the Left’s religious zeal that all of it is caused by things (and by association people) of which they disapprove, and through their disapproval they enhance their status as wiser and more caring about virtually everything than the troglodytes, ie Conservatives, who still dare to demand consistent science on the subject.
  
  Try to explain to an MMGW zealot that an all electric car like a Nissan Leaf re-charged by coal or oil generated electricity has a larger carbon footprint than a contemporary highly efficient gasoline powered car of similar size and they’ll start equivocating, stuttering about alternate energy and green electricity…none of which addresses the central issue that, for them, feeling better about themselves trumps reality.
  
  The opportunity to bask in their own presumed righteousness negates the multi- continental trail of environmental damage done by the manufacturing processes involved in producing the flagship of Liberal Self Esteem, the Prius. So smug are they that any discussion that questions their place at the top of the societal evolutionary ladder is dismissed as ridiculous, blasphemous, ultimately too patently ignorant to be considered.
  
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Tankertony
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:03pm
Global warming: the Greatest Hoax ever foisted upon Mankind.

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- QuincySmith
  Posted on November 5, 2012 at 11:08pm
  Just ahead of oblama’s Hope & Change.
  
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The-Monk
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 10:57pm
Ah geez, does this mean I can’t trust WikiPedia?

And to think I believed all those JZS links.

Now I really feel foolish. : (

(end sarcasm)

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The-Monk
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 10:52pm
I case anyone is interested…..

Don’t know what the camera situation will be at the polls here in Tampa but……..

If you see a white male, about 6′ with brownish ****, 185 lbs and Freedom Works red and white “Fire Obama” bumper stickers on the front and back of his shirt……. well…… you know. LOL

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The-Monk
Posted on November 5, 2012 at 10:50pm
I forget who posted this earlier…. I think it was Anonymous T Irrelevant…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Jersey_hurricanes

NJ is not stranger to big storms and hurricanes.

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