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Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy/Archive 20

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Latest comment: 14 years ago by Hipocrite in topic I found a reputable citation
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Call for Inquiry Section -NPOV

Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Currently this section reads:

In the United Kingdom and United States, there were calls for official inquiries into issues raised by the documents, and calls for Jones' firing or resignation. Climate change sceptic Lord Lawson said "The integrity of the scientific evidence... has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay",[49] and the climate sceptic Senator Jim Inhofe also planned to demand an inquiry.[50] Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said: "There needs to be an assurance that these email messages have not revealed inappropriate conduct in the preparation of journal articles and in dealing with requests from other researchers for access to data. This will probably require investigations both by the host institutions and by the relevant journals." A government scientific agency could also conduct an inquiry, he said.

Issues:

...there were calls for official inquiries... - unsourced weasel. Who made the call? Where?
...Climate change sceptic Lord Lawson... In general we should eliminate labels of this sort unless they can be attributed to the person being labeled. In this case it is inaccurate to call Lawson an AWG skeptic as he is on record as accepting the mainstream view on AWG although he opposes on economic grounds the proposed mitigations.
...climate sceptic Senator Jim Inhofe also planned to demand an inquiry. Inhofe is skeptical of the climate??
...Bob Ward, ... No reference provided.

This section needs a complete rewrite.Jpat34721 (talk) 18:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

"Inhofe is skeptical of the climate?" Wouldn't surprise me. I'm soooo thrilled he's my Senator! Guettarda (talk) 18:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Reference overload in the intro is back

Latest comment: 14 years ago23 comments4 people in discussion

I thought we had reached consensus against the reference overload for Climategate in the into. I also note that the dubber of "Climategate" was removed - is there a source that says it was not a skeptic dubbing? Hipocrite (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm totally OK with removing some or most of them, but not all, especially given how contentious this heading has been in the past. EDIT: If I missed discussion of the reference over-load I'm sorry. Please link to it here. --Heyitspeter (talk) 19:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
There was a discussion about it. If you doubt Hip, try searching the archives. It's sort of the polite thing to try first. Guettarda (talk) 19:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
(ec) Ideally there should be no need for refs in the lead, since all its supposed to do is summarise the text. More to the point, adding a pile of refs like that smells like OR. Guettarda (talk) 19:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
All of the refs were third-party RS' citing the sentence explicitly, so I don't see how OR applies. As for "not sourcing at all," note that the sentence previous to "over-loading" was unsourced and the brunt of it was not corroborated by any of the 5-sourced version I added (and contradicted by one). We require citations for a reason.--Heyitspeter (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, I can't make head of tail of what you just said there. Guettarda (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Haha sorry. Try this version?:
All of the refs were third-party RS' citing the sentence explicitly, so I don't see how OR applies. --Heyitspeter (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Further more, I thought we had reached agreement that the dubbing was by skeptical sources, per the Time article, which reads "Skeptics of global warming, who have long considered climate change a fraud, refer to the incident as "Climategate,"". If there's a source that says it's called Climategate "in the media," please present it. I'm loathe to revert, but it appears that everyone else is, so I might as well, right? Hipocrite (talk) 19:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Contradicted by the LA times article in one of the five sources, which stated the WSJ made up the nickname.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

With regards to OR, the sentence says: "The controversy is often referred to as Climategate in the media". Only one source is needed - one that says "the controversy is often referred to as Climategate in the media". Instead, you have added a series of links which show it being referred to as Climategate, in the media. And that appears to be OR.

  • The first ref, to Reuters, said "Already dubbed "Climategate,..."[1] It documents the usage (but not the frequency of usage, nor usage in the media), and then goes on to not call it "climategate".
  • The second ref, the Time article, says "Skeptics of global warming, who have long considered climate change a fraud, refer to the incident as "Climategate,""[2] Again, it doesn't say that the media use it, it certainly doesn't' say that they use it "often". It's is, once again, just an example of usage.
  • The third ref, from the LA Times, says parenthetically "(a flap the WSJ dubbed "Climategate")"[3] This could weakly be taken to support the assertion that it is "referred to as Climategate in the media", although that would be a stretch. Certainly doesn't support the assertion that it is "often referred to" as that, by the media.
  • The fourth ref, from the Guardian, actually uses "Climategate",[4] albeit in quotes. But it says nothing about the frequency with which that name is used in the media.
  • The fifth ref, also from the Guardian, says "that the claims, dubbed Climategate"[5] It documents that they have been dubbed that, but says nothing of usage. It certainly doesn't support the assertion made in the sentence.

Quite simply, none of the references support the assertion made in the sentence. They are examples of usage, which could be held up to support the statement that "the term is often used in the media". But that would be classic OR: you would be using the reports as raw data, and drawing new conclusions based on this raw data. Which violates Wikipedia policy. Guettarda (talk) 20:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I didn't change the sentence to "referred to as 'Climategate' in the media" and it's definitely OR in that state. I'm up for Bold changes or whatever.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
You went with the passive voice "was dubbed." No better. Hipocrite (talk) 20:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
First, the passive voice was already in place. Second, is the passive construction really no better than blatant OR and SYNTH? Hip, let's cool off. I'm not trying to sabotage any articles, we can just talk about this. Three of the five refs say "dubbed" in the passive voice. Given the conflict between the LA times and TIME on the rightful subject of the active construction it seems appropriate to go with the passive.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
There's no conflict. One says the WSJ did the dubbing. The other says skeptics use the phrase. Use and initiation of the phrase are seperate events - more than just the dubber can use the phrase. Given that the LA Times is the entertainment section, I suggest we use the Time article, which is a reliable source for the use of "Climategate." Hipocrite (talk) 20:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Not to mention that the mere fact that someone 'dubbed' something by a certain name is not evidence that the person used the name. Information on usage needs to be sourced to articles which address usage. Guettarda (talk) 20:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The only sourced dubber is "The Wall Street Journal's ardently right-wing editorial pages," per the LA Times Entertainment section or we can use "Skeptics of global warming refer to the incident as "Climategate," per Time. I'll accept either. Hipocrite (talk) 20:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm wary of using the LA Times Entertainment section. Because, you know, it's an entertainment section, not news analysis. I'd go with Time, but others are claiming it's an unreliable source. Guettarda (talk) 20:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
(as a paranthetical, the LA times doesn't say right-wing editorialists dubbed the controversy "Climategate," though mention of right-wing editorialists does occur in the same sentence).--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
No one has explained to my satisfaction why it is necessary to talk about the origin of the term, which I doubt could be ever known with certainty. Further, the origin is irrelevant. What matters is that a reader understand that this article is about Climategate, which like it or not, has become the most widely used moniker. At first I objected to "dubbed" because I mistakenly thought it meant roughly the same thing as "coined", i.e. implied origination. Websters however disabused me of that notion. I think the the current "The controversy was referred to as Climategate in the media." is also fine. In my opinion, it doesn't need a cite as it is in the introductory paragraph and there is little or no controversy about the veracity of that statement. As others have pointed out, the cites do not directly address the issue of media usage. If you object to multiple cites as OR (a point well taken I think), the only option (short of the peculiar notion that we shouldn't mention the term at all) is to leave it uncited. As an aside, I think the intro is greatly improved from yesterday and is approaching NPOV.Jpat34721 (talk) 20:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I like that idea. I guess I'm worried the lack of citation will make the sentence hard to justify if someone wants to be stubborn about it, but maybe that's overly cynical.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course, none of this should be in the lead if it isn't already in the body of the article... Guettarda (talk) 20:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Very true. And it's definitely not mentioned in the body. However it's all over the reflist, so the alternate name should be mentioned somewhere, eh?--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
The whole issue of naming (Climategate, Swifthack, etc.) could be discussed in its own section on nomenclature, as we can find reliable sources. That avoids having to come up with a one-sentence summary sans context, which is really the thing that leads to the OR problems. Guettarda (talk) 21:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Where's the archives gone?

Latest comment: 14 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion

Where's the archives gone? (see the box to the Right and at the top)

Here all the archives should be listed default (see {{archives}}) Now I cant find the archives at all at this pages subpages. Looking back at the deletion log a couple of days, I can't find that anything has been deleted either. Where is the Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident/Archive 1 ... Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident/Archive 11 etc.? Nsaa (talk) 20:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Page was moved, page mover didn't move the archives. Guettarda (talk) 20:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
18 archives? FFS. Thanks for the help Prodego. Guettarda (talk) 21:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I was going to move the talk page myself (and move the subpages automatically) but someone beat me to it after I unprotected the talk page. Prodego talk 21:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry about the clumsy move. Thanks to you three (i.e., Hipocrite too) for helping me here. I've never moved a page with archives before.--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
That's ok, you need the move-subpages right, which is tied in to the administrator group to move subpages automatically. So you really couldn't have done it better. Prodego talk 21:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Really? That doesn't make a lot of sense... Guettarda (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I didn't even know admins had that. Should be seperated out and sent to trusted users (attach to rollback), at the very least. I'll review and propose. Hipocrite (talk) 21:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
(ec)Probably would have made more sense to move it back & use that to capture the subpages - should have thought of that before I started moving subpages manually. Guettarda (talk) 21:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all for the replies! If this page should be moved again it should be done by an administrator then. Nsaa (talk) 21:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

New Title Suggestion V22.0 Alpha Release - Free discussion for ideas, not positions!

Latest comment: 14 years ago62 comments29 people in discussion

I've been trying to think of ways in which we might be able to break this frustrating deadlock over the article's title. With a piece of paper and a pencil, I did a Venn diagram to look for common elements that we could agree on for a title. Here were my two sets of data:

Set 1 Set 2
Climatic Research Unit Climatic Research Unit
Data Data
Documents Documents
Files Files
Theft Leak
Stolen Scandal
Controversy Controversy
E-mail "Climategate"
Release Release
Hacking
Incident

From these sets, possible titles can be created from common values. I have eliminated obvious problem results like "Climatic Research Unit controversy" because they lack enough specific information, and removed adjusted for singular/plural mismatches:

  • Climatic Research Unit documents controversy
  • Climatic Research Unit document release controversy
  • Climatic Research Unit files controversy
  • Climatic Research Unit file release controversy
  • Climatic Research Unit data controversy
  • Climatic Research Unit data release controversy

All of these would seem to have some merit, and I hope these examples can be used to generate new discussion or promote new thinking. I quite like Climatic Research Unit data release controversy because it encompasses e-mails, code and other data, keeps the manner of release ambiguous (neither "theft" nor "leak"), and acknowledges that a controversy exists; however, I would prefer to see this thread used as a means to promote discussion about common elements instead of using it to advocate a specific position. I hope this proves useful. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Any of these would be much better than the existing title. Unless anyone has any new points to make, I suggest that we simply declare consensus reached, let you pick one, and ask an admin to unprotect and carry out the move. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:42, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Hear, hear! I as impressed with the ingenuity as I am tired of the topic (which is to say very). I think Scjessey's preferred title is spot-on. I also think consensus has been reached and agree with itsmejudith. jheiv (talk) 20:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
While I can agree that 'the more accurate the better', and Scjessey's proposed title is far better than the current, I specifically vote for Climategate, this is definitely a scandal and a coverup, even if you're too shy or afraid to read the CRU emails and munge through the data (I'm neither shy nor afraid), you can easily look at what people like IPCC scientist John Christy and people like him say:
No consensus on IPCC's level of ignorance http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081331.stm
The consensus the aforementioned 'white washers' keep talking about in these talk pages is a complete fabrication on their part, there is evidence of a scandal, a cover-up, there is evidence data was manipulated to reflect fallacies. In short the scientists making the claim (CRU for example) have the burden of proof, and that proof in science comes in the form of peer-reviewed journals and peer-reproducible results.
If the vote is down to the current title or Scjessey's proposal of Climatic Research Unit data release controversy then I definitely vote for the latter, though this is definitely '-gate'-worthy
Adam.T.Historian (talk) 20:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I like either of your last two – the ones using the word "data", as that is less specific than "documents" or "files", since what was leaked was more than just documents. Well, now that I think about it, maybe "files" is the most broad of the three. Whatever. I vote for whichever term of those is the most broad.  
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 21:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Note: I, too, like Climategate, but there are many problems with this (all previously enumerated but I'll rehighlight -gate as I think its instructive and demonstrates the power of the suffix). That being said, I am hereby begging editors who read this section to not oppose the move because you favor "climategate" but rather opine on whether the suggested titles are better than the current one. After the move, you are free to propose climategate again (I don't think climategate will be accepted for at least 6 months but who knows) but please don't derail this discussion as has been involuntarily done to previous move attempts. These titles are much better than the current one and we should take every inch improving this article that we can get. jheiv (talk) 21:18, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

(After about 20 billion edit conflicts have triggered a rise in the sea level) ... All of these are improvements, and thanks for the diligent effort! There's a question implicit in the title, about what the focus of the article is. If it's about the "hacking incident", then we are covering the unauthorized access and disclosure of the files - who did it, how, why, etc. If it's about the emailes / files, then it is about the conduct of the climate scientists - what they were talking about, what they were doing, and how that differed from the normal actions of scientists studying a subject. If it's about the climategate controversy, it is about the people and groups who raised the alarm following release of the files and began advocating against AGW (is that the right acronym?), how that issue reached the mainstream, and what resulted. A comprehensive article that is about the entire incident would have to address all three and give due weight to each. So far this article is not comprehensive, and focuses almost entirely on the hacking of the emails, and what the emails contained. The scandal surrounding that is barely addressed at all, but depending on how it plays out is probably the main event here, unless the substance of the allegations against the scientists is born out, in which case the main focus would be on their behavior, or unless the perpetrators get caught and there is a lot of fall-out from that, in which case that would be the main event. It's all a little early. Having said all that, I prefer "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy" if we're going to have one article cover both issues. First, most of what was released were documents, not data. Second, the salient thing is that they were documents, not that they happened to be in files - electronic or otherwise. Third, the word "documents" implicitly includes what happened to those documents, i.e. they were hacked and released. Adding the word "release" narrows the subject, and does not necessarily include the question of what was released. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to butt in, but if this article is not named climategate, do you favor any or all of these over the current title, "CRU e-mail hacking incident"? - Wikidemon (talk) 00:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Wikidemon. I believe that we are arguing over what this article is named because we cannot decide on what this article is describing (a data theft versus a question of scientific malfeasance), and until we have reached consensus on the scope of this article, the title will be under constant attack by one group or another. A fork has been proposed, and was attempted. I do not support the fork, but truly understand why it is proposed. Nightmote (talk) 02:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Tongue firmly in cheek, I will immediately support "CRUTape Letters" if it is proposed. I read that and thought it was brilliant! Nightmote (talk) 02:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
If truly pressed, I might go with "CRU Data Controversy". It avoids theft vs hack altogether and skips the "-gate" thing. Not going to fly, though. But if pressed, that's where I'd go. Nice and short and reasonably open-ended without being too vague. Nightmote (talk) 02:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I noticed that in the UK (the locus of the incident), "Warmergate" seems to outstrip "Climategate" for popularity. I didn't have that in my Venn diagram, but it wouldn't have changed the list of common elements. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Support for Climatic Research Unit data release controversy - with the intention of supporting Climategate at the next available opportunity Adam.T.Historian (talk) 22:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, there's a Watergate article, but that's because the scandal was named after a place - the Watergate complex. The term "Watergate" had no inherent implication of scandal. By contrast, every other instance of -gate is derivative and POV, since the term is used to "suggest unethical behaviour and a cover-up", as one source puts it. That's why Wikipedia rejects the use of -gate in article names about current affairs, because it slants an article from the outset. Compare Killian documents controversy ("Rathergate") or Dismissal of US attorneys controversy ("Attorneygate"). -- ChrisO (talk) 22:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose Clearly here on these talk pages and to "insiders" it has become a "controversy". However, to the general public, like me, it is an "incident". And, as I stated in the voting section, I strongly oppose "Climategate". Gandydancer (talk) 22:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Would you support any of the above titles over the current one? What if they used the word "incident" instead of "controversy"? - Wikidemon (talk) 00:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Wrong. This is referred to as a controversy at all possible levels in [WP:RS]. I've linked to CNN and a Nobel Prize winners panel to that effect at this talk page. Troed (talk) 13:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose "data release". Far too vague and ambiguous. As others have pointed out, "data" has a specific meaning in this context, since it can refer to scientific data - which is of course not what was stolen from the CRU. "Release" is highly misleading, since it implies that the CRU released the stolen material, which of course it did not. I could live with "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy", however. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Have you even seen the CRU data released? There is a great deal of 'scientific data' in it, models, custom programs, etc. Also, there was no data of a personal nature, so who was it stolen from, the British people in order that the British people could access the data? It's an ongoing investigation, your strong support of CRU isn't really helping the naming conventions discussion IMHO. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 22:47, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • The stolen material certainly included material of a personal nature, from what I've read about it - i.e. private correspondence - and it belonged to the UEA, not to the "British people". British universities are not run like American ones. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the American model of information ownership exists everywhere. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Perhaps instead of reading about it, you'll go and get a copy of the CRU data, then you will see that the emails are all related specifically to the work the CRU was doing. I mean the collection is so precise as to imply the possibility that it may've even been compiled by the CRU in anticipation of a UK FOIA request, since it's an ongoing investigation we can only wonder about this point. But regardless it is obvious that there was a great effort to disallow inclusion of all e-mails of a purely personal nature. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 23:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Much as it pains me to add to the bike shed: "data": absolutely not, there has been controversy over "CRU not releasing their data" which would cause obvious confusion. "documents": no, neither emails nor code are usually referred to as "documents". Indeed, I keep my documents in a separate folder from both my emails and my code. Simonmar (talk) 22:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Simonmar, couldn't both of these things be contained in different sections of an article named Climatic Research Unit data release controversy? I mean they are definitely related are they not? The CRU consistently refused to release their data, then their data is released without apparent authorization, wouldn't these both be fitting topics under an article named 'data release controversy'? Seems like a natural evolution, at least in my mind, one being the result of the other? Adam.T.Historian (talk) 23:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
What about "information"? Would that not cover everything we need it to?
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 07:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

←Reminder: I started this thread in the hope of getting people to come up with ideas for how to find common ground. It was not intended to be yet another place for people to stake their position and vote on stuff. Please try to stick with the original plan if possible. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Support for Climatic Research Unit data release controversy - I agree with Gandydancer that incident might be better, but I do think the proposed formulation is an improvement. --DGaw (talk) 22:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Support. I prefer Climate Research Unit documents controversy but any of those are better than the current title. BTW, as a software developer, I would consider source code to be a type of document. While I don't have any experience with FORTRAN or IDL, I have worked with C, C , C#, Visual Basic (classic and .NET), COBOL and RPG, and in every single case, the source code files have been plain old text files that can be opened in any text editor, word processor or IDE of choice. So I consider "documents" to be an inclusive term. But like I said, any of the above are better than the current title. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose Reliable sources focus overwhelmingly on the emails, not on "data." And to call this a "release" is absurd -- there's been no serious proposal by any reliable source that the emails were "released" which implies a voluntary action. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Climatic Research Unit data release controversy has a majority consensus so far, and might I add seems to be the best proposed name yet, as the article can cover both the initial refusal of the CRU to follow the valid science rule of peer-reviewed journals and peer-reproducible results, as well as the apparent unauthorized release of the CRU data as a result of their refusal. I don't see a better possible title, unless we're out to sweep under the rug any possible wrongdoing or bad science on the part of the CRU? I mean we are all after the facts here, aren't we? Adam.T.Historian (talk) 23:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • That is to say, both the refusal of the CRU to release their data or have peer oversight, as well as the apparent unauthorized release of the aforementioned data, are both controversies and both inseparably linked. I do believe we've struck gold with this title, it's succinct and can accurately cover the controversy from beginning to present day. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 23:18, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
"come back when you've got a clue." Spare us the personal attacks, Bill. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Really? "...I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !" - Phil Jones Email, 1109021312.txt - Gunnanmon (talk) 23:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • The sources showing that the CRU refused to release data are too exhaustive to name here, you can feel free to google "CRU refused to release data" and cherry pick what you consider to be reliable sources, allow me to offer a few here:
Global Warming ate my data - We've lost the numbers: CRU responds to FOIA requests
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/13/cru_missing/
Britain's Climate Research Unit to release data in wake of Climategate - Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) announced it would make its data publically available, something which it had refused to do previously. The unit however has admitted that it did not have access to much of the raw data required to reconstruct climate records because it had been deleted.
From the examiner, no idea why it's triggered a spam filter, it's a valid news site.
I must point out this thread was initially opened to cement the naming of the article to Climatic Research Unit data release controversy, for which we still have majority consensus. More sources can definitely follow, just let me know! Adam.T.Historian (talk) 23:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
No it wasn't. I opened the thread with a fresh approach to trying to come up with a better title, and I hoped it would lead to a free debate about the words and concepts all sides agreed with. Perhaps I made a mistake in expressing a preference, but I went to great pains to insist I did not wish this thread to become something where people staked a position for advocacy. Everyone else turned it into the usual votefest, for which I am utterly dismayed. I wish I hadn't bothered, quite frankly. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
FYI, The Examiner is being filtered to discourage editors from linking to it due to its extreme unreliability. Blacklisting is an extreme measure but sometimes it has to be done to keep out the worst of the crap. (If you get your information from The Examiner, I'd suggest you try casting your net a bit more widely.) -- ChrisO (talk) 00:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Examiner.com is not a valid news source, it's a blog. Generally speaking, it is not a reliable source. It's already come up on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard several times: Examiner.com = paid blogging no editorial oversight, Request to reopen discussion on Examiner.com and Examiner.com.
In fact, I was one of the editors who led the effort to have it blacklisted, so you have me (in part) to thank/blame. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose (to "Climatic Research Unit data release controversy") 'data' would be incorrect, there is rather little data, lots of documents and lots of emails. As others have pointed out, the main issue (so far) have been the emails. Release indicates voluntary/legal which certainly isn't the case. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Since we still have majority consensus for renaming the article Climatic Research Unit data release controversy, and no one is talking about the naming specifically, I will indulge you, however I will have to take your word for it that the examiner is blacklisted for topics unrelated to 'Climategate', as I'm not a news hound and am not familiar with all of the news sites intimately.

While Gunnanmon's comment alone proves my original point, here's one of my favorites, Russians complaining about misuse of their data, cherry picking of data, it also mentions refusal of FOIA requests:

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/30-11-2009/110832-climategate-0

Adam.T.Historian (talk) 00:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Da. Pravda being reliable organ of right thinking. People's newspaper resist bourgeois concepts of "factual accuracy" or "neutrality." Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
As an aside, I personally find it hilarious that right-wing Americans are suddenly fans of Pravda - possibly the world's most infamous newspaper. What is the world coming to? -- ChrisO (talk) 02:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Should I take this to mean that anyone such as myself who takes a strong stand to see Wikipedia NPOV honored are 'right-wing'? I suspect this type of 'false-dichotomy think' is a big reason this article has disgraced WIkipedia NPOV policy for so long. There is more to the controversy of data being released from the Climatic Research Unit than the incredibly biased name Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident could ever cover in good faith. This is why a majority consensus rightly voted to change the name to Climatic Research Unit data release controversy. In case you didn't know (which wouldn't surprise me at this point) misuse of Russian climate data is a valid component of this controversy. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 02:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per Kim. Not data. Oppose "release" - seems like an endorsement of the POV that "we don't know if it was released with permission or not" when no source supports that POV, only some editors here. And less than fond of "controversy". Guettarda (talk) 15:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
For the avoidance of doubt I have not suggested the info was released by permission. That would be speculation and almost certainly untrue. I cannot remember seeing anyone else suggest this either. That I oppose the use of the word "hack" when the means whereby the unauthorised publication took place does not mean that I think PJ himself copied it onto a USB stick and posted to Russia and Turkey! But some other dastardly person else might have, without permission, obviously. We don't know. The police do not yet know. The UEA/CRU does not yet know. When they know I bet we hear of it pretty damn quick. I am saying NO speculation should appear in the article. Certainly none of my wild speculations of this para! But "hack" is speculation too and the "theft" is, for the moment, just alleged. BTW "taking without permission" is not "theft". Paul Beardsell (talk) 01:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

How about Climate Research Unit Unauthorized Publication of Documents Controversy A bit wordy perhaps but inclusion of "Unauthorized" captures the non-voluntary nature of the process by which the documents became public and avoids the ambiguity and conclusion-jumping inherent in the term "hacking". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs) 20:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  • Support for Climatic Research Unit data release controversy. However I suggest even better would be Climatic Research Unit document release controversy -- because what was released were documents -- not data per se. SunSw0rd (talk) 21:00, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Pressmulti - removal of a piece with millions of readers? - Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia

Latest comment: 14 years ago41 comments11 people in discussion

Damian Thompson, Blogs Editor of the Telegraph Media Group, states the following in Happy New Year from Telegraph Blogs… "James Delingpole (whose Climategate posts attracted millions of page views in one week alone)". One of James Delingpole's pieces has been about this article Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia. According to some of our editors this article should not be mentioned at the top of our discussion page

It has been discussed here Archive_14#James_Delingpole:_Climategate:_the_corruption_of_Wikipedia and Archive_13#"Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia" and even an WP:BLPN has been raised by me at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident. Still this piece is not mentioned by us. Last the claim was that under opinion hit piece by climate skeptic - not legitimate press coverage in any possible way. For how long shall this piece go unmentioned at this page under extremely dubious claims? Nsaa (talk) 14:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

It's an opinion piece and should therefore go unmentioned unless multiple reliable sources report on it, as this would indicate sufficient notability of Delingpole's opinion. Such reports reliable sources, if they would occur, would very likely also be a basis for describing the various inaccuracies in Delingpole's text. Note that the Telegraph is an involved party here, and the complete quote is "our bloggers, who range from the mischievous and bloody-minded James Delingpole [...]".  Cs32en  14:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Correct. As you have shown his has been discussed. Arguments have been made for excluding it. And it isn't like this is article space - that template is a bit less important than WikiProject tagging - it's basically a tool for boasting that we're significant, a pat on the back for editors. So why keep bringing it up? It's a smear piece. It's full of errors. And it's trivia. Guettarda (talk) 15:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Recognising and acknowledging criticism is a just a Good Idea. That WP is held in regrettably popular disrepute over this issue is something that we need to deal with in one way or another. I'm not sure what the best way is, but I do know that ignoring it will not serve the encyclopedia well in the end. My preference would be that we link to it, acknowledge it. Perhaps in the new suggested FAQ question which actually deals with the issue as to why we think the wordlwide, headline grabbing, TV documentary making, Nobel discussion provoking controversy is about the leak/hack, when we all know different. To the shame of WP. Paul Beardsell (talk) 23:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
"Recognising and acknowledging criticism is a just a Good Idea". Perhaps. But that's not the purpose of article talk pages, and it's not the purpose of this template. Guettarda (talk) 04:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
That Delingpole says things which are maybe/possibly/probably/definitely not true is not the point. Delingpole is a very widely read columnist at one of the UK most established and respectable newspapers. It is not for us to say whether what he says is untrue, but to report what is being said. Paul Beardsell (talk) 23:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
If that newspaper is going to continue to publish trash like the Delingpole piece, it isn't going to be respectable for much longer. The fact remains that there is a consensus that this opinion piece does not deserve a place at the head of this talk page because it isn't real journalism and it disparages Wikipedia and Wikipedians with error-laden speculation and smears. We are under no obligation to include it, and so we won't. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
"It is not for us to say whether what he says is untrue" - On the contrary, it is. That's specifically our role. "Don't repeat gossip" is one of the principles of BLP. It's also our job to assess sources - pick the reliable ones. An article that gets its facts wrong isn't a reliable source. Regardless of who publishes it. Guettarda (talk) 04:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
On the one hand I am told we must ignore the fact that a newspaper cannot know that the hack/theft/leak was hack and disregarding the fact we know they speak through their **** we must say there was a hack, on their authority. On the other hand we cannot repeat what is said elesewhere by the same newspaper, as per your argument, above. What is it? My solution is not to repeat what Delingpole says as fact, and not to report the hack as fact. Goose and gander. Paul Beardsell (talk) 04:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Guettarda, please refrain from going the WP:BLP way again. That's handled here WP:BLPN for this case. 1. there's not established anything that says that {{pressmulti}} should be handled otherwise than other content on talk pages. Some of the latest arguments say that we should handle it like it was in the Article mainspace ("not legitimate press coverage in any possible way" and "An article that gets its facts wrong isn't a reliable source." etc.). 2. It's claimed that James Delingpole's pieces Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia is not a WP:RS. This is not relevant for the talk page discussion, but I can answer it altogether since these outrageous claims are made. Lest's read together then "Note that otherwise reliable news sources--for example, the website of a major news organization--that happens to publish in a "blog" style format for some or all of its content may be considered to be equally reliable as if it were published in a more "traditional" 20th-century format of a classic news story. However, the distinction between "opinion pieces" and news should be considered carefully. […]" and WP:V (which superseeds WP:RS) ""Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Where a news organization publishes the opinions of a professional but claims no responsibility for the opinions, the writer of the cited piece should be attributed (e.g. "Jane Smith has suggested...")." Wikipedia:Verifiability#cite_ref-3. I.e. Mr. Delingpole can be used as a Reliable source as long as he is attributed as the writer. So please don't remove this piece again. It's even ok to add it in the main space ... Nsaa (talk) 12:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
You asked a question. I answered it. You have already established that there is no consensus for inclusion. So please don't add material for which there is no consensus, especially when it is nothing more than trivia about the article. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 14:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Re-adding it will be viewed as disruptive. We are under no obligation to embrace opinion pieces that denigrate our project. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
"We are under no obligation to embrace opinion pieces that denigrate our project." Yeah, lets control the world of WP even more so that no criticism of WP is allowed under any circumstances. Seriously, the levels being taken to keep information out of WP is simply amazing. This material should be included, if WP is to ever be taken seriously in the future then honest inclusion of notable material should be included. Arzel (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Acknowledging that disparagement exists is not the same as embracing it. This being the talk page, not the article page, you ought to show consensus for disallowing stuff in routine informational templates. There may be such a consensus, there are certainly multiple editors objecting to this mention, something I think is misguided and only serves to further encourage the perception mentioned by Arzel above that this article has spun out of control and over the top in its defense of accepted science on climate change. I think we do look foolish here, even if we are doing so by advocating the right side of a ridiculous scandal. I wouldn't re add it myself, though, because edit warring is always bad. But as far as edit warring one side of an issue constitutes disruption, it takes two to tango. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Isn't the purpose of the talk page to discuss things to improve the article? The criticisms made by the article is about user conduct, which I don't think should be discussed here, but on other places. Like the accusations about Connolley has been on COI board. The Delingpole article talks briefly in general about the page and than goes on to accuse Connolley. We know these accusations are wrong as he didn't remove 500 articles because he didn't like it, he removed them because of Wikipedia guidelines and most of them had nothing to do with CC. I don't see what this article adds to the discussion to improve the article. It is just the opinion of one person, a person specifically hired to write in a controversial manner so to get a lot of attention. Constructive criticism about this specific article could be used here on this talk page. I don't see the op ed by Delingpole as constructive nor as specific about this article, it is about the state of CC articles in WP and the criticisms about user conduct.83.86.0.82 (talk) 18:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
It's part of the history of the article. When historians read texts it's not always because they agree with what the text says. The text itself is historical. Here we have, as part of the history of the article, a broadside attack on the article, Wikipedia, and its administrative corps, printed in one of the highest profile English language publications in the world and presumably read by tens or even hundreds of thousands of people. Likely, more people have read about this article than have read the article itself. On a prosaic level that helps explain some of the complaints and vandalism around here. At a deeper level it lets us know that calling this article "x x mucky x" instead of "climategate" sets a lot of people off and gives them cause to accuse Wikipedia of distorting things. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I've just reread the article Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia and is stunned by all the claims about how wrong this is. Can someone please give me some insight into what's wrong in this article? (Even if it's wrong it's not justifiable to remove it from the pressmulti-template - we do not do WP:OR, but it could be very interesting to note what's wrong whit the article - this start look like the unjustifiable attacks on Bjørn Lomborg and his book The Skeptical Environmentalist.).

As I see the Telegraph entry points to unjustified removal like this on [6] and a lot more very disturbing actions from some of our contributors. As for the last removal of this entry {{pressmulti}} it's tragic, but I understand why. At least two of the editors removing this link has attracted attention from James Delingpole ("one of his Wikipedia chums – name of Stephan Schulz"[7]) and Lawrence Solomon ("fair-minded Wikipedians tried to remove the graph from the page, as can be seen here. Exactly two minutes later, one of Connelley's associates [Tony Sidaway] replaced the graph, restoring the page to Connelley's original version, as seen here." Lawrence Solomon: Wikipedia's hockey stick wars). This article has been removed under varios reasons, mainly by the WP:BLP argument. Since this is handled at WP:BLPN and no what so ever arguments for keeping it out on this ground has been given this is not a valid argument, the next argument surfacing for keeping this out is that a lot of editors thinks it's trash (oh what a argument!). The latest one is that it's no consensus for adding it. For the last comment we can see that the prior arguments for removing it is not justifiable, claiming consensus for adding a standard template used on this kind of press coverage is ridiculous and as Wikidemon point out above, it's the removal of a standard talk page template that should have consensus, or it should be handled by the wider community to add such a claim (do we need consensus for adding critic of our editors, such articles will never be mentioned at Wikipedia ... because people under scrutinization will never allow this in. But please try to let the wider community go for such a policy in the appropriate policy pages). It's even more ridiculus claiming that my actions here is disruptive as done by Scjessey. I will ask him to re-read that policy. I've argued for all my actions here and given very firm grounds for keeping it as for Wikipedia's policy. Either you give a good reason for why it should go out and reach consensus for it here at the talk page or you will stop removing this from the talk page in the pressmulti template. Adding it again. Nsaa (talk) 22:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

As you yourself demonstrated, there's no consensus for adding this template. And since it's merely trivia, please build consensus first, before re-adding it. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 23:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Your actions are disruptive. You insist on adding controversial material to the talk page without consensus. And your actions are not justifiable by policy. It's merely a trivia template. One that happens to link to an article that's basically an attack on editors here and based on an article with serious factual errors. It doesn't contribute to building an encyclopaedia - which is, of course, the only purpose of this project. Guettarda (talk) 23:13, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Consensus is not required before adding routine information to a talk page. If two sides are edit warring over this they are both being disruptive. If you believe that a template is merely trivia you are free to nominate it for deletion, or advocate for changes in the template. In the meanwhile the template is the way we note media mentions of Wikipedia articles. I regularly refer to this template when I see it on articles for insight into how the world outside of Wikipedia is perceiving Wikipedia articles, something that is relevant to improving the article. If it doesn't do anything for you, you're free not to follow those links. Advocating for removing information from a talk page that others find useful because the contents of the link offend you isn't really a helpful way of building the encyclopedia. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
The template is trivia. It's trivia about articles. That doesn't mean it's useless. So please don't put words in my mouth. That specific bit of error-filled gossip isn't an appropriate link to add to this article. Guettarda (talk) 23:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Stop making these accusations about this piece like "error-filled gossip". Where's the Gossip? Where's the Errors? The article doesn't get more erroneous if you just repeat it enough times. (I've asked for what's wrong with it, but a answer is not possible to get …)? Nsaa (talk) 00:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
You also miss the point when you say that "[c]onsensus is not required before adding routine information to a talk page". It's not routine, it's controversial. It's not routine to add links to gossipy trash. And, quite frankly, Delingpole isn't even writing about this article - he's attacking editors. Guettarda (talk) 23:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
You don't get it? If you don't like this WP:RS article so please say so, but that is your (and some of the other editor here's opinion and is really irrelevant for this case). Where's the Gossip? Where's the Trash? Don't writing about the article... hmmm... let's read together again (you seems not to read the articles and policies ... ) "If you want to know the truth about Climategate, definitely don’t use Wikipedia. “Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy”, is its preferred, mealy-mouthed euphemism to describe the greatest scientific scandal of the modern age. Not that you’d ever guess it was a scandal from the accompanying article. It reads more like a damage-limitation press release put out by concerned friends and sympathisers of the lying, cheating, data-rigging scientists […] that the entry has been hijacked, as this commentary by an “uninvolved editor” makes clear."[8](my bolding) (You stated "Delingpole isn't even writing about this article" ... hmmm ... ) Nsaa (talk) 00:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to make it clear

  • Almost half of Delingpole's piece is a direct quote from Solomon's error-filled column. It's includes Solomon's clearly erroneous claims. Delingpole takes Solomon at face value. Nuff said.
  • Then there's a quote from another blog about WMC's de-adminning. Mind you, not a link to the Arbcomm case, but to another blog.
  • Then there's a bit about Delingpole's article being removed as a source in a BLP. So we don't repeat inaccurate gossip in our articles
  • Then he calls William ugly.

You seriously see value in that? Maybe as an example of the poor quality of Delingpole's work. But this isn't the place for press criticism. Guettarda (talk) 23:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I've asked for substantial evidence of why this article is riddled with errors. So far I've seen none. Please be specific. Either way this has nothing to do with removing the template, but can give your removal point sympathy (the last mark you did, didn't either I like, but I'm not a native English speaker so I'm not aware if this has other (deeper) meanings. As far as I see Ugly goes on the things he wrote, not the looks …). Above you also states that I'm disruptive. Please you should also re-read that policy and give me exact quotes on what ground you do this accusations. Your claim that there's a policy requiring consensus for adding the template is ridiculous. The template is added to talk pages with links to external news coverage, see and read Template:Pressmulti (and Template:Press) and make the very useful categorization Category:Wikipedia as a media topic. So it's ok to remove others contributions by calling it thrash? It's a very interesting piece connecting many of our editors directly to this scandal as far as I see. I now understand why so many are so eager to get it out even if it's a Reliable source that could go into the main article. Nsaa (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
You seem to have failed to read to read A 10 in the FAQs above, or to show any appreciation of the requirements of WP:BLP policy. Please do so. . . dave souza, talk 00:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
We're not discussing using it as a source for article content, so reliability is not at issue. I haven't seen any principled argument that BLP applies, just an assertion that it does. That discussion is better had at BLP/N because the proposition that poor quality or inaccurate articles should not be noted in the template due to BLP concerns has an applicability well beyond this particular encyclopedia entry. I get use out of it, for the very reason the template exists, and I have explained that in some detail. The accuracy or inaccuracy of the piece does not affect this at all. The function of the template is not to find reliable news sources on Wikiedia - you can go to the Wikipedia family of article for that. The function is to note what other people are saying about Wikipedia, and to have any integrity about it you need to acknowledge the good and the bad. If you don't get use out of it, you don't have to read it. There are obviously other editors who do. Anyway, I don't think discussing it in this manner is going to bring any resolution - there are multiple editors on each side and they aren't showing much sign of understanding each other's positions. I think we should organize this into an RfC and see just where consensus lies. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Agree on a WP:RFC on this. Can you make one (never done it before)? Nsaa (talk) 00:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
(e.c.) Ehhh... please make you aware of the WP:BLPN case at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident (raised by me). What about the FAQ A10 (written by Tony S) that's relevant for this discussion? Please? Nsaa (talk) 00:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
"I've asked for substantial evidence of why this article is riddled with errors. So far I've seen none." This has been discussed, several times. I don't remember where specifically. But if you haven't been keeping up with things and don't want to believe me, use the search function.
"Above you also states that I'm disruptive. Please you should also re-read that policy and give me exact quotes on what ground you do this accusations." If, as you claim on your user page, you're a bureaucrat, you know well that demanding exact quotes from policy is classic wikilawyering. Written policy follows the way we do things, not the other way round. But if you really insist on going that route, I would point you towards the first point under Signs of disruptive editing: "Is tendentious: continues editing an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from one or more other editors." As you yourself have shown, there's wide opposition to your additions.
"Your claim that there's a policy requiring consensus for adding the template is ridiculous." Again, I hate to go the route of quoting policy, but in this case you've really strayed into the absurd. Please see Wikipedia:Consensus. The "page in a nutshell" says all you need to read: Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making. This is policy.
"So it's ok to remove others contributions by calling it thrash?" (I take it you mean "trash"). My comments were not directed to your additions, but rather to the quality of the article to which you were linking.
"It's a very interesting piece connecting many of our editors directly to this scandal as far as I see." Well, since almost half of it is a verbatim quote of Solomon's error-filled piece, it's really only interesting from the point of view of how bad journalism can be.
"I now understand why so many are so eager to get it out even if it's a Reliable source that could go into the main article." Nope, you're mistaken. It's not a reliable source. It's already failed that assessment. Guettarda (talk) 05:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
1. You still claim that the article riddled with errors, without giving any evidence at all (I suspect that the article is not completely error free, but trash?) and you ask me to use "the search function". My point is exactly that. I've seen a lot of complaint that this is a piece of crap, trash, and so fort but no substantial analysis of the factual content. So these claims given over and over again is really on the edge on violating WP:BLP ("Talk pages are […]. Contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related or useful to making article content choices should be deleted,") for the living person James Delingpole (ohh no he is a "denialist" and then all kind of very bad attacks is allowed).
2."as you claim on your user page, you're a bureaucrat, you know well that demanding exact quotes from policy is classic wikilawyering.". First of all I'm not a Wikipedia:Bureaucrat at the English language Wikipedia, but on the nowiki as I state on my page: "This user is a bureaucrat on the Norwegian Wikipedia". I don't like wikilawyering, but under accusation like the ones I've been under here were I can't figure out that I'm on the edge on the mentioned policy it's just fair that it's given a reasonable interpretation of the rules so I now what I'm accused of. As far as I see I'm the part under groundless attack and removal of my contributions many times here (removing trash etc.. without any discussion etc. is not me but the some of the removalists comments (three as far as I've counted). The other argument given for the removal, violation of WP:BLP is again not justified, please read this cases WP:BLPN. So I'm the person arguing, with reference to our policy for inclusion of this piece.
3. The third argument about Consensus fails big time since all the prior removals is unjustified by our policy (see point 2. right above). You need to know that if people say "I don't like the piece, get rid of it", you can't use Consensus for keeping it out. I'm really looking forward to a wider community dealing with this series of argument.
4. "My comments were not directed to your additions, but rather to the quality of the article to which you were linking.". Ok, but as I point out in 1. above this comment is maybe not fit according to WP:BLP.
5. "Solomon's error-filled piece, it's really only interesting from the point of view of how bad journalism can be.". Again whats wrong with this piece (especially what Delingpole quote)? How bad journalism can be? I've just seen a lot of these accusations against these two journalist writing for big newspapers. I find it baseless without any real substantial error checking of the content. As far as I see this is only you and some other editors don't like it. So please direct my to some substantial discussion about this area (it do not matter for this case, but it could be interessting to read a real analysis of this.
6. You again states that "It's not a reliable source". Please reread my post at 2010-01-02T12:27:23 further up in this tread. It's a WP:RS piece (I quote our policy, you don't).
Nsaa (talk) 19:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
There is obviously no consensus for having this piece in an (optional) section of the talk page headers, given the number of editors who have removed it. Continuously arguing for its inclusion in the face of overwhelming opposition is tendentious - a form of disruption that might get you sanctioned under the terms of article probation if you aren't careful. You need to let this go. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
To be clear, Scjessey, how exactly is the argument that you are making in any way different than Nsaa's? Continually arguing against its inclusion while providing no justification for doing so reeks of WP:IDONTLIKEIT and is no less tendentious. There have been many attempts to label the article as false/erroneous/trash, but despite Nsaa asking several times for specific corroborating examples, these claims continue to be made with no supporting evidence. Really, the claimed "consensus" at this point consists of one side out of two groups of editors who are standing and butting heads. »S0CO(talk|contribs) 21:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Scjessey that this manner of discussion is not going to go anywhere. There is no consensus to remove it, no consensus to include it, and disagreement on how to apply consensus here or what the issues really are. Regarding Nsaa's point, some of the specific claims made against the Wikipedia administrator were evaluated and rejected as a matter of Wikipedia behavioral policy as explained in FAQ#10 (not really the same as a BLP or RS analysis, but helpful). Doing a more thorough review of the piece for its accuracies, inaccuracies, claims, allegations, and opinions, would be an interesting exercise but I think that goes way beyond the purpose of this talk page. Maybe something better suited for a blog? In any event, there are enough wildly inaccurate claims, and the author's entire output on his column lately has been strong opinionated advocacy against the mainstream view of climate science. Under the circumstances it would be very hard to consider this a reliable source. But that's not even the question here, the question is whether it is a media mention that should be noted in a talk page template. Despite my earlier suggestion, I don't think an RfC is going to help anything, so I'll just let that be. Delingpole's attempt to portray Wikipedia's Climategate coverage as a scandal never gained any coverage in the reliable sources, and poking around google news I don't think he's encouraged any other high profile columnists to write anything, so this looks like a flash in the pan. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

On this matter I see how a group of individuals removes a valid mention that this article has been mentioned by a Media Organisation ( a large one, where the responsible editor mentions that these articles by the removed journalist has attracted over a million reader just the last two month. There's have been claims about collusion at Wikipedia, and I see unfortunately tendencies of this both here and on how my (and others) insertion of Climategate as an alternative name for this controversy was removed over and over again even if it was sourced by many WP:RS sources (see one of the discussions here Archive_1#Name_of_article(archive deleted?) and my talkpage at User_talk:Nsaa#3RR_warning (my first such warning for my complete life on the wiki. Extremely bad, but I was not aware of how this page was protected to keep out some information by all wiki-means). How it is possible to assume WP:AGF under such conditions? (I will try as good as I can, and don't bother with people calling others work Trash, Wacko, Fringe etc.). The removal of this piece from our talk page will make Wikipedia as a project bad in extremely many people eyes from the outside and it will just "prove" the hypothesis given by people like Solomon and Delingpole that AGW related articles is "under control" of closely related people with an agenda. Nsaa (talk) 21:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

And we care what Delingpole and Solomon think why? Solomon's article is rubbish, and Delingpole quotes the rubbish as if it were true. I rather doubt that anything we do here will change their opinions. Guettarda (talk) 21:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Though it's been discussed a variety of places on-wiki, I think this is as good a link as any, since it's easy to find. Guettarda (talk) 21:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Again you call other living peoples writings rubbish. Please don't. I find the comments made by William Connolley on his blog nice work, and agree with many of his comments. As far as I see it's Solomon[9] who is making the wrongs here, not Delingpole[10] except for this comment "The guy who has been writing Wikipedia’s entry on Climategate (plus 5,000 others relating to “Climate Change”)" in the parentheses (and his article that's the case for this discussion). But this kinds of misunderstandings you find in all kinds of journalism (ex. our discussion about allegedly or not). But thanks for the first reasonable comment given about what's wrong with the (underlying article). Although removals like this one "And here he is again just three days ago, removing a mention of Climategate from Michael Mann’s entry" is not refuted or commented in the blog you give. Nsaa (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Just so I understand - this is an argument that we should include an article on the talk page where "saving the worst till last," means including a profile shot of a living person and saying that they are "ugly?" And the people wanting to include this can sleep at night? Thanks, but no thanks. Any more on this, and I'll be asking for people to be told to take a break. Hipocrite (talk) 21:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't attack other contributors on this talk page ("include this can sleep at night?" and "Any more on this, and I'll be asking for people to be told to take a break."). Nsaa (talk) 06:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for FAQ entry

Latest comment: 14 years ago21 comments8 people in discussion

A recurring theme at this talk page is the question of whether this is a controversy outside of "a few bloggers" or not. In several places people who seldom participate actively at this talk page vote "no" to title change suggestions with this as their seemingly sole motivation. I recently took the time to clarify this using WP:RS and came up with two that I think we can rely on enough for talk page purposes. One is to CNN coverage of "climategate", where they describe this as a controversy, and the other one is to a BBC World Nobel Prize winner panel where they spend a large amount of their total time with the subject of how this controversy affects the scientific community. When the fallout from the incident this article is about is brought up with the top scientists of the world I think we can safely say that this is beyond "a few bloggers". We should thus clarify this in the FAQ in the hope of making it easier to achieve consensus onwards. My suggested FAQ text below (adding the two sources I think are appropriate, I know other editors have more):

  • Q11: Why the repeated calls for describing this incident and its subsequent fallout as a "controversy"?

Comments welcome. Troed (talk) 15:05, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm probably one of these uninvolved editors, as I have never edited the artice's page itself. I therefore don't have any particular stake in one version or the other, and I am expressing my assessment of the proposal, based on my reading of existing Wikipedia policies and guidelines.  Cs32en  15:52, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I note that one of the sources is a YouTube ref. Some editors have a kneejerk reaction to YouTube, because many of the entries run afoul of copyright. I don't know whether that is an issue with this one, and it probably should be settled before including it. Other than that, sounds fine.--SPhilbrickT 16:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes I'm aware of that, however, since it's for talk page use and not the actual article, and we're only looking for clarification as to the importance of the controversy, I'd hope for it being enough. Troed (talk) 16:42, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
The programme ("Nobel Minds") is available from the Swedish state television as well (audio in English, subtitled in Swedish) until 21st of January. It also seems as if the Nobel Prize website itself will host the video later, since they've done so all the previous years. When that happens, it can likely be used as in the actual article as well. Troed (talk) 17:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, the "question" isn't really phrased as a question, and the answer is not clear. Guettarda (talk) 16:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
As I read it, the question appears to be Why have there been so many calls to describe [this incident and the subsequent fallout] as a "controversy"? If I've read it correctly, that's not a FAQ question at all. Guettarda (talk) 16:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
It is a frequently asked question. It is central to the scope of the article, and underlies almost all discussion here. Paul Beardsell (talk) 23:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Suggestion for re-phrasing? That the problem exists is visible by just reading through the Oppose-votes at the various sections about renaming, this there seems to be a need for this in the FAQ. Troed (talk) 16:55, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, I'm not sure what FAQ-worthy question you're trying to get at here. "Why have there been so many calls to describe this as a 'controversy'?" isn't a valid question. That's a question about the motivation of people wanting to use that word. It's not for us to speculate. The alternative question - "Why don't we call this a controversy" isn't a FAQ-worthy question either. It's an ongoing discussion. It's possible that you mean something else all together. But if that's the case, you'll need to explain what you mean. Guettarda (talk) 04:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
To be frank. Either this should go into the FAQ, since it's there to help editors quickly grasp something that is important but takes a long time to get into, or the FAQ should just go away completely. We have editors voting on the name of the article who seem to believe that there's no well known controversy - that does not help us in any way trying to get this article into better shape. There are good WP:RS clearly describing this as a controversy and thus it's not about speculation on people's motivation, as you described it. I will however have a go at re-phrasing it. Troed (talk) 11:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Again - what is "this"? What question are you proposing we answer here? It's not clear what the question is, let alone what the answer is. Guettarda (talk) 02:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
One of the first questions a new editor on this article will have is why it is not titled Climategate? That title is controversial and the FAQ should attempt to answer the question. There should not be a controversy about explaining the controversy.Jarhed (talk) 10:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, and that is dealt with in Q.1 of the FAQ. We're talking about a proposed Q.11. And I'm trying to figure out what question Troed is trying to answer here. Guettarda (talk) 16:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Please adjust for grammar/clarity and go ahead. Paul Beardsell (talk) 23:56, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree.Jarhed (talk) 10:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
I assume you both understand Troed's question. Since s/he hasn't answered my question as to what the question is, would one of you be willing to explain what you understand the question to be? Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 16:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
I read through the discussion and it seemed reasonable to me, and I want this editor to make the change he suggests so we can all read and comment on it. I do not need to know the specifics of it because I assume good faith.Jarhed (talk) 23:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

<ri> This seems to be a push for a change rather than a FAQ about how things are. A more appropriate Q and A would be:

  • Q11: Why does the title refer to an incident and not as a "controversy"?
  • A11: The leak of Climatic Research Unit e-mails and other documents was the incident which led to the controversy over the content of the leaked documents: this article covers both aspects, including the continuing investigations into the leak and the implications of the documents.

My tuppenceworth, dave souza, talk 23:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you - I fully agree that your suggestion is much more clear and yet conveys exactly what I was after (English is not my first language, after all). I fully support your version, with the links I found added somewhere around "controversy" for those wishing to verify why we put it into the FAQ. Troed (talk) 10:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd prefer this not make the FAQ. The answer is debatable, as indicated by the fact that the two proposed formulations of A11 are in tension with one another.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Swifthack?

Latest comment: 14 years ago41 comments15 people in discussion

I see that this term has been added to the lead. Is this really appropriate? Obviously WP:GOOGLE applies, but I don't see a single reliable source using this term on Google News. Does a single reference in one article justify double the lead coverage of the term "Climategate", which is used in hundreds of sources? Oren0 (talk) 10:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

"Swifthack" seems sourced to Time Magazine. Time Magazine is unquestionably reliable. Hipocrite (talk) 10:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
What about WP:UNDUE ? Swifthack seems to exist in one WP:RS only (and we include the citation of the term at length) while Climategate is to be found in numerous other WP:RS. My google-skills might've failed me though, but I searched over several pages of results. Troed (talk) 12:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
WP is not in the business of pro moting neologisms but reflecting terms in use. When a number of significant sources start using this new term, when people aware of the Climategate controversy don't say "huh? what?" to this neologism, then we'll reflect its usage here. Not before. I suggest. Paul Beardsell (talk) 12:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
We are supposed to represent both sides of a dispute. Since "Climategate" was coined to convey a specific meaning (-gate#Etymology, usage and history of -gate gives useful background info on the general subject of -gate names), we should note what that meaning is, and we should note that other parties disagree with that view of the issue and have presented an opposing perspective (i.e. that it is an artificial "scandal"). This sort of balancing of perspectives is simply what NPOV requires. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, but we're not currently following WP:UNDUE, as we should. Swifthack, from what I can see in WP:RS is a minority phrase which we do not reflect at all. Troed (talk) 13:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
"Swifthack" is reliably-sourced (Google News), although less popular. In this instance it would not be unreasonable to say that we should either have both neologisms or neither. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I could only find blogs and opinion pieces when going through the results from your link though? I still believe, after having gone through WP:RS, that it's a minority term compared to Climategate which is on the contrary well sourced and in active use. While I cannot ask Google Trends to only use what we would consider reliable media, this comparison pretty much says everything. "Swifthack" is used by a small small minority, not even registering on the map. WP:UNDUE clearly applies. Troed (talk) 14:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Actually, it would be unreasonable to argue that we should include both or neither. That argument implies they are of roughly equal footing. The neologism Climatequiddick is probably more accurate than either ClimateGate or SwiftHack, but it didn’t catch on, so it isn’t included. We don’t include terms because they accurately capture the event, we don’t include a rare term for political balance, we include terms that have wide acceptance in RS.SPhilbrickT 15:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Undue certainly applies. Climategate is widely used and has over 3.7M google hits. Swifthack I have never heard of and has only 57k hits. Swifthack should be deleted from the page. Poujeaux (talk) 17:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
"Warmergate" has also attracted lots of attention. So has "AnythingEndingInGATEIsRetardedGate". I think the lesson being learned here is that stupid, POV terms like "Climategate" have no business in a serious article, except in passing. For example: "The incident and resulting controversy has been also been referred as "Climategate", "Warmergate" and "Swifthack" by various commentators." Anything more than that would be embarrassing to Wikipedia. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I somewhat agree with your suggestion, but WP:UNDUE clearly requires us to say that "Climategate" is the descriptional name used by the majority. The current wording which tries to separate the names into two camps is actually completely false, relies on a single source and is trivial to disprove. Whether the extreme minority names "Warmergate" and "Swifthack" even belong here I'm inclined to say no - based on their (lack of) prevalence in WP:RS. As far as POV, reliable sources claim this to be a controversy, which would seem to justify "-gate", even though that's not up to us to decide upon. Troed (talk) 18:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, Swifthack? Something that no one in the MSM is using to describe this incident is being used in the lead? Furthermore the lead is now wording that Climategate is being used by only skeptics. This is both highly undue weight and presentation of orignal reasearch. If the same effort to keep out reliable information that is actually notable was applied to this there is no way it would be in here. Arzel (talk) 18:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Support removal of Swifthack - I kinda like “Swifthack”, but articles should include material based upon reliable sourcing, not on my personal likes. I’ll also echo Arzel’s comment, I don’t believe it is true that “ClimateGate is used only by skeptics, so it should be removed unless someone can cite some pretty solid evidence. (And not just some pundits assertion, some actual survey data.)SPhilbrickT 18:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
It's not a voting matter. The google-news query link at the start of this thread throws up a growing usage of this interesting new term, including Discover Magazine, Examiner.com and alternet.org as well as some notable blogs including The Nation, Science and the Huffington Post to name but a few. there is even a http://www.swifthack.com/ website. I think this neologism has taken hold and should be covered if others are here. --Nigelj (talk) 19:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, as far as I can see none of the sources you mention (I verified that the Discover Magazine mention is a blog entry) would be considered reliable. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I do not think usage of the word "growing" would be correct, but I'm basing that on a few Google timeline and trends searches I did earlier. Troed (talk) 20:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The sources quoted by Nigelj are reliable enough to verify that "Swifthack" is receiving some attention. Bear in mind that the "Climategate" neologism was invented in much the same manner as "Swifthack". Either way, it is clear that if one is going to use silly neologisms like "Climategate", we may as well note all the others too. My preference would be to exclude them all, since they are all non-neutral terms that advocate a position. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Support removal of Swifthack - WP:UNDUE states that "if a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents". Google reveals clearly that there are few if any prominent adherents to this awkward neologism and those blogging sites that do use it clearly are not POV neutral. Climategate on the other hand has clearly caught on and is in general use by neutral observers (e.g. NYT).Jpat34721 (talk) 20:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

"Climategate is widely used and has over 3.7M google hits". No, it doesn't actually. See WP:GOOGLE. If you work through, "Climategate" gets 680 hits, while "Swifthack" gets 513. Not that Google hits is the way to go. Until we have a reliable source that looks at the usage of the two names, I think we should be very hesitant to use either. In terms of page counts though, they seem to be running about equal (except, of course, that the top hit for "Climategate" is this article. So if you remove this site and mirrors, you're probably looking at similar numbers for both names. Not that there's any reliable way to find out. I think that as sources become available, we may want to add a section of "naming". Guettarda (talk) 20:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE isn't the issue here. This is not about two separate sources, one representing a majority opinion and the other a minority one. It's a single source that represents both opinions in the space of a single paragraph and explains the diverging viewpoints - one that it's a major scandal, the other that it's a big fuss about nothing. Those two viewpoints are certainly very prominently represented among reliable sources (basically the anti-science activists taking the first view, and the scientists taking the second). -- ChrisO (talk) 21:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
It's only a single source because you deleted another, separate source upon adding the Time reference. I've readded that source along with further citations that discusses "Climategate" (none of which, incidentally, even mention the word "Swifthack"). Your argument here feels unfair/dishonest to me.--Heyitspeter (talk) 04:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
That's not a useful source on usage. To begin with, it's a Nov. 21 article. Ancient history as far as this article goes. It's not an in-depth (or even superficial) analysis of what names are being used, or even what names were being used back then. Guettarda (talk) 04:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
There are more recent articles cited in the lead now along with that one, and the Time analysis has been kept, not eliminated. Sorry if I wasn't clear. (p.s., your definition[read:stipulation] of what constitutes "ancient history" with respect to articles on current events strikes me as arbitrary. I'm not sure how that distinction can be made in a legitimate manner...) --Heyitspeter (talk) 05:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Yep, that's an important point. Guettarda (talk) 21:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If we include mention of "Swifthack" let's do it in an aside, e.g., in a separate sentence from that detailing the nickname "Climategate." It would be giving undue weight to the "Swifthack" name to pretend that it is "just another term" people use to talk about the controversy, on par with the much more used "Climategate."--Heyitspeter (talk) 04:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

We have no sources on usage beyond the Time article, so saying that we should give more weight to one than to the other fails as WP:OR. Google, for what little its worth, gives pretty much an equal number of hits to each name, especially if you factor out Wikipedia and mirrors. So, unless there's a source saying one is much more widespread than the other, we need to treat them equally. Guettarda (talk) 04:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
See my comment 'three comments up', along with the recently (re)added references in the lead of the article proper.--Heyitspeter (talk) 05:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
You mean the one I replied to three minutes before you posted this reply? ;) Get with it - three minutes is more than enough time to edit conflict four times! Guettarda (talk) 05:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Hey I know we're more or less arguing here or whatever, but can I take a moment of vulnerability and ask what you mean? I've never really been sure what edit conflicts are all about...--Heyitspeter (talk) 05:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
When two people are editing a page at the same time, particularly if it's the same section the software will sometimes throw up an WP:edit conflict and won't save your changes. Nowadays the software is fairly good at resolving them itself but if it doesn't you will have to manually integrate your changes to the new version. In talk pages, this would usually simply be copying and pasting your comment. In such cases people may choose to add an (EC) or edit conflict at the beginning of the article. This let's people know that there was an edit conflict so their comment may be somewhat out of place and/or didn't consider some of the more recent replies which were saved before their comment which may for example already address what they were talking about. Alternatively, some may choose to reword their reply based on new comments. Of course, the longer you take to resolve an edit conflict, the more likely it is you'll get another one when you next try to save. This probably happens a lot when you have people like me who edit their comment many times after saving :-P Nil Einne (talk) 11:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Beautiful. Thanks for the response. :) I'm assuming the best way to avoid them is to draft comments first and reopen an edit window when you want to post? --Heyitspeter (talk) 21:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
That will avoid getting an edit conflict from the server and perhaps more importantly it should avoid the situation where you don't get an edit conflict (because the software automatically resolves it) but finding out after you post that there have been other replies. But of course you may still come across new replies when you do come to the page to post your draft which make your response redundant/repetious, clarify issues you were raised in your response or introduce things you didn't consider in formulating you reply and so you may still end up leaving an (EC) if you don't feel like reformulating your reply (I know I have). BTW, I should clarify that when you get an edit conflict the software does show you your reply (and the new version) so there's limited risk of you losing your reply if you have a browser which loses your reply when you hit the back button (of course you may automatically assume once you hit save and it finishes loading that you've saved your reply and not realise it didn't because of an edit conflict). So in some ways the software automatically resolving edit conflicts can cause more confusion on talk pages (although it avoids annoyance and can be a godsend on highly edited articles) Nil Einne (talk) 15:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Misleading Swifthack reference

"advocates of action on climate change dubbed it Swifthack in reference to the 2004 "Swiftboating" campaign against US Presidential candidate John Kerry, characterising it as "an invented scandal propagated by conservatives and the media that does nothing to change the scientific case for climate change."

This is misleading as it inaccurately attributes the characterization to "advocates on action on climate change" when in fact it came from the author of the Times article that is referenced:

Advocates of action on warming call it "Swifthack," a reference to the 2004 character attacks on presidential candidate Senator John Kerry by the group then known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — in other words, an invented scandal propagated by conservatives and the media that does nothing to change the scientific case for climate change.

Note the "in other words", clearly indicates that this is the author's invention.

This whole section should be removed or demoted to a lower section as it gives undue weight to a the view of a single individual. If the author of the Times article had posted this comment here originally, it would surely be removed. The fact that it appeared first in Time does not make it any more authoritative. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Except that the fact that it appeared in Time does, in fact, make it more authoritative, per WP:V and WP:RS. I don't see how the author misrepresents the views of "advocates of action on climate change," as they believe, according to him, that the incident is "an invented scandal propagated by conservatives and the media that does nothing to change the scientific case for climate change." Hipocrite (talk) 21:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
No one can authoritatively speak for an entire group unless authorized by that group. Perhaps you can provide a reference which shows how Mr. Walsh is qualified to speak to the beliefs of all "advocates of action on climate change,". This is as ridiculous as the unsourced-yet- quoted claim that Climategate has "obvious intimations of scandal and cover-up" or that it is only used by skeptics. This section, besides being poorly written, is clearly not POV neutral. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The suffix -gate has a standard meaning of "candal and cover-up". See -gate#Etymology, usage and history of -gate. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Sure but it applies whether one believes the scandal is in the hacking or in the contents of the hacking. In any case, the unreferenced quote, with "obvious intimations of scandal and cover-up" is a bush league weasel. Who is being quoted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)
Jpat34721, can I ask why this is your first edit of Wikipedia in nearly 3 years? -- ChrisO (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
As the old joke goes, up until now, every things been ok.Jpat34721 (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
ChrisO stop attacking the person here. Lets keep it to the argument about the case. If you think it's a socketpup, please take it to the appropriate place. Nsaa (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if you intentionally said "socketpup", but I have to say that is an awesome alternative word for sock puppet. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Ha ha ha as we say in Norway. Then I got another good laughter. Thanks :-) Nsaa (talk) 22:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Realclimate as a RS

Latest comment: 14 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion

On this section: "Before the incident, continuing research had already presented reconstructions based on more proxies, and found similar results with or without the tree ring records.[1][2]"

Realclimate is been used as a reliable source. Being it a blog and now knowing that realclimate has been used as a tool to push the AGW, how can we still have it been used as a RS, especially to try to prove that other reconstructions based of proxies found similar results?Echofloripa (talk) 17:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Please review WP:RS. It is very difficult to understand what your concern is. Hipocrite (talk) 17:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
My concern is in using Realclimate as a reliable source as to prove anything. Scientists involved in the scandal are also editors of the blog and in several of the emails RealClimate is offered to attack skeptics or to disprove any mainstream that would deny the AGW. A few examples (full list here):

"In order to be a little bit more pro-active, a group of us (see below) have recently got together to build a new 'climate blog' website: RealClimate.org which will be launched over the next few days at: http://www.realclimate.org"[3]

Michael Mann wrote: extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office. We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?[4] Echofloripa (talk) 17:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)


Realclimate indicates relevance of this work to the current incident. Please also note that Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia — PNAS covers the point you raise, and fully meets the standards for references on science. . . dave souza, talk 17:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree that we should try to find the original sources instead of always trusting the Real Climate blog to properly summarize them. While I might not know the names of everyone who posts at RC, at least Gavin Schmidt is referenced to simply as a "blogger" by some WP:RS. That said, I do agree that RC strives to uphold high standards for a blog. Troed (talk) 17:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The fact that included in their small group of writers is one "Michael Mann," who you can read more about here, seems to me to invalidate them as NPOV commentators on this article.--Heyitspeter (talk) 22:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
See also: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_50#RealClimate Simonmar (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC).

Depends on the context in which it is used, but mostly depends on what you feel should be the standards for Wikipedia content. In my opinion, no way is it a "reliable source" (as described in WP:RS), but considering the way the article is written and its overall quality...better than the rest.

Take a look at the text in this section:

RealClimate said that the paper in question...They said that the "trick" was...They said that scientists often use...According to them, the divergence...They said that those authors...

who or what is RealClimate? Why is its opinion important? There is a wiki link earlier in the article—but i am too lazy to click on it. As a reader i expect that if an article presents an opinion it should tell me how that opinion is relevant and give some indication of how much faith i can put in the statement. Looking at a footnote it seems that the text is a summary of this post on RealClimate (turns out it's a blog). Since the article has failed to tell me how this post is relevant i'll investigate for myself:

The CRU hack Filed under: Climate Science — group @ 20 November 2009

not very informative. I wonder who the author is? "group" does not tell me much, maybe it's one of these guys? Hmm, Michael E. Mann, that name looks familiar. So is this Mike explaining "Mike's Nature trick", some other contributor, or all of them together? Nowhere can i find who exactly wrote this post, and as a reader i think that is a pretty critical piece of information to have.

You can't just say something is or is not a "reliable source", you have to make an evaluation based on the article content and most importantly consider thing from the reader's perspective—at least give them the means to evaluate the reliability themselves. WP:RS does not contain some kind of recipe or formula that can be applied in all cases to decide on content. Maybe some critical thinking by editors is also required?

I'm not arguing that this particular paragraph should be cut. I think you should cut out the whole section—along with about ninety percent of the article. This talk page would probably be quieter, and the article would probably be more informative to the reader.—eric 01:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to delete that section, and i hate to say it but per BLP. You can't quote from a private email and imply that "Mike" and "Keith" did something wrong without clearly identifying Mike and Keith. You can't summarize a blog posting in the same section that may or may not have been written by one of the persons mentioned in the email. Most of all, if you are going to state that these people may have done something untoward, you can't do so with such sloppily written and confusing text.—eric 17:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Issue discussed and pretty much resolved at #BLP concerns? below. On the question of a science blog as a reliable source compared with mass media newspapers, the case of Darwinius#Publicity and media coverage is instructive. . . dave souza, talk 05:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC) p.s. note the connection with climate change mentioned here . . . . dave souza, talk 06:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Wacko alert?

Latest comment: 14 years ago9 comments7 people in discussion

Recently posted off in Wottsup [11]:

I would invite all readers to help improving the climategate article on wikipedia, which has been hijacked by alarmists that have a troop of sleepless zealots that work in conjunction with the aim to keep the page as useless as possible. Please bear in mind the use of reliable sources and read and add your views in the discussion page before changing the main article. We need more people to counter W. Connolley and his troop of alarmists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident

talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident

William M. Connolley (talk) 16:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Probably worth mention at the Climate change probation page. Semi-protection is always an option. Guettarda (talk) 16:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
At the moment, SPAs don't seem to be a huge problem. If it becomes one, I'm considering some sort of enhanced semi-protection (e.g. 100 edits, registered 3 months ago) I have no idea what the numbers would be at the moment. But right now there doesn't seem to be a huge problem. Prodego talk 17:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
The person who posted that comment to Wottsup is obviously a regular contributor to this Wikipedia topic, so it might not be a good idea to refer to them as a "wacko". This is a clear case of meat puppetry though, and that should probably be addressed in some manner. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Oh goody, I've always wanted to add User:JzG/Uninformed wingnut drivel to an article... -- ChrisO (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. I'd never seen that template before. Guettarda (talk) 18:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I've raised this matter at WP:ANI, in case anyone is interested. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've tried to AGF and made a comment on William M. Connolley (talk · contribs) talk page, but what happens? I get attacked, ridiculed, and minimalized. My point was don't use such words describing other people contributing to other web pages like wacko, Wottsup etc. Thanks! Nsaa (talk) 07:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry that you're offended by a little levity about potential meatpuppets. As for Watts Up With That? (or wottsup? in common English as spoke in the sarf) this post from the Big Yin may inform you a bit more about the issue that was so sneakily hidden away here. Please accept that going on about it is not a way of improving this particular article, and hence is inappropriate for this talk page which is governed by talk page guidelines. Hope that sets things to rest, do feel free to discuss it further on my talk page rather than cluttering up this article talk page. Thanks, dave souza, talk 08:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Unauthorized Publication section - death threats

Latest comment: 14 years ago13 comments4 people in discussion

I've tweaked this section slightly to (IMHO) improve the consistency and flow. The intent was no loss of information from the previous edit.

It seems to me the last paragraph on death threats should be moved as it doesn't have anything to do with the section title. Perhaps a subsection under reactions?Jpat34721 (talk) 21:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted it. The new text implied that what was "copied" was an already existing archive, we have no evidence of this, and while this is a common theory in the blogosphere it is not supported by sources. The second thing was the "there is no evidence that data theft occurred" which is wrong. Data theft did occur, even in the event that this is a "whistleblower" it is still data-theft (which may get lenience in court). This has been discussed to its death before. Change is certainly not in line with consensus, nor is it uncontroversial. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
You misread my edit. I didn't write that "there is no evidence that data theft occurred" but rather "It is not known when the data theft occurred." To your first point, neither is it known that the perpetrator compiled the archive from individual emails as the article implies. Given the title of the file, the alternate scenario is more likely. What is not in question is that a single file was uploaded (not "files" as the article states). I'm going to revert as I think the new text is unquestionably better, less redundant and more consistent. We should be able to easily resolve the archive versus file here.Jpat34721 (talk) 22:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, if Kim misread it, then so can others. That's reason enough to take a second look at it. Guettarda (talk) 22:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
"Given the title of the file, the alternate scenario is more likely" - that is your personal POV. (there are several arguments against this - one of which is that the zip archive has no metadata). And strangely enough that data-theft occurred is one of the few things that we do know (CRU certainly didn't release the data willingly => data-theft), what we do not know is: the circumstances, the perpetrators or the timing of the incident. You are speculating quite alot here, which is not NPOV. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Again, I'm agreeing with you on the data theft issue. The revised text makes (made) clear that data theft occurred! It correctly states that we do not know precisely when the theft occurred. As for the other issue you raised, again I'm not wedded to my language and am not trying to push a POV (I don't see even how a POV exists wrt the files vs single archive issue but if you do, fine). I was only trying to achieve consistency with our usage (file vs. files etc.) Jpat34721 (talk) 23:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
As Guettarda assumed, i misread the data-theft part - i'm sorry for that :) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

To address Kim's concern, I've replaced "archive" with "data". This seems to me to solve the problem nicely as data is generic and applies whether it was a single archive or compilation of emails that was stolen. Any comments on my concerns with the placement of the paragraph on death threats?Jpat34721 (talk) 23:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Much better thank you. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Grammar dispute - Guettarda thinks "stated that the server from which the data were taken" and later "a copy of the stolen data were uploaded" is correct. Seems to me that since copy is singular, was is correct in both instances. Am I missing something?Jpat34721 (talk) 23:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Data were taken. Copy was uploaded or data were uploaded. Datum singular, data plural. Nightmote (talk) 23:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks but I'm still unclear on the second usage - "a copy of the stolen data were uploaded". Here it seems a singular copy was uploaded. Isn't "of the data" just a descriptive clause that doesn't change the singularity of copy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)
OK, my mistake on the second one. Guettarda (talk) 01:29, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Since no objections were raised to my suggestion of moving the death treat paragraph out of the section on Unauthorized Publication and into Reactions, I'm going ahead with that edit.Jpat34721 (talk) 22:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

In order to be a better article, this still needs a rename

Latest comment: 14 years ago28 comments9 people in discussion

The current name of this article is still not honoring Wikipedia NPOV, the article named Climatic Research Unit Leaked Documents Controversy would've been far better for NPOV, the vote did have a majority, and nearly passed. I believe this article to be compromising Wikipedia credibility in favor of its own one-sided view. The present article name still smooths over the fact that the controversy began long before the documents were leaked, and implies the entire story is solely about a singular criminal act - as far as I know, the police have still not finished their investigation, and have still not confirmed that an outsider hacked a server, or that hacking was actually involved? The police will investigate any claims within reason, they must arrive at a result before there's any credible reason to call those claims by the name of the alleged crime, correct? Adam.T.Historian (talk) 01:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I would object to "leaked documents", of course. The chances of this being the result of leak are vanishingly small. We are essentially waiting for confirmation of what everyone already knows - that the UEA server was hacked, data was stolen (copied without permission) and then disseminated without permission. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
You spoil your argument with hyperbole. I note that the server has been described as difficult to access from outside. How much money have you got? Bet you it was a leak. I'm quoting great odds. Paul Beardsell (talk) 07:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
What, precisely, is "a leak"? I'm getting pissed off with that term ;) . . dave souza, talk 19:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm open to a more NPOV name. Also, does 'copied without permission' include whistle blowers? Whistleblowers actually have laws protecting them in some states/parts of the world. A more NPOV name does not of course, hinge on the word 'leaked'. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 01:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
A whistleblower copies without permission. If he gets away without being charged with breaking the law he still did not have permission. Paul Beardsell (talk) 07:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't matter whether or not whistleblowers are included, because there is no evidence whatsoever that a whistleblower is involved in this incident. I am now thinking the most accurate title would probably be Climatic Research Unit data theft, but that would only be a viable title in the event that the Norfolk police confirm a theft took place. I am one of those people who uses "data" as a word to describe all computer files/documents/code/emails/whatever, but some people object to the word because it may be confused with collected scientific data (which is where the idea of using "documents" came from). -- Scjessey (talk) 01:41, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes I'm still confident the best most neutral name proposed thus far was Climatic Research Unit documents release controversy, that's the title that had a majority of votes, but looking at my link bar up top, apparently not a 'super majority', or perhaps the neutral name took back burner for some other issue? Adam.T.Historian (talk) 01:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
By the way I too am one of those people that believe data can be a very general term, applying to emails as well as documents, but especially more so to source code which was also included in the leaked data, the only reason I used the word leaked is because the documents were definitely leaked, whether by a whistleblower or a hacker remains to be determined by the police, but like the word data, I'm not tied to the word leaked, so long as a more neutral article name ultimately wins out. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 02:05, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Data is a general term. In old computerspeak you processed data to get information. Hence the term "data processing". Also the term "raw data". Data is any collection of information, it can be random nonsense, it is still data. Paul Beardsell (talk) 07:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The problem with the current article title is that in my opinion the title doesn't fit the article. This article is minorly about the hacking incident and mostly about the resulting controversy (the term "controversy" is used loosely here, as people arguing whether the mails are controversial is still controversy). To me, therefore, either this article should be retitled in a way that indicates it's about the controversy or the controversy and the hack should be two different articles (as done with the analogousWatergate burglaries and Watergate scandal). Oren0 (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The only reason those articles are separate is because there is too much information to fit into one article (over 100Kb). That is not remotely the situation here - the info about the hack takes up only about 3Kb, last time I checked, while the info about the controversy is only about 30Kb. That is unlikely to change in the near future. I very much doubt that this article is going to get substantially longer than it is now, given the lack of new information. Regarding a rename, "leaked documents" is unsatisfactory for all the reasons given above. It is a POV name, since it rejects the university's own description of the files as stolen documents and sides with the anti-science activists who speculate that a whistleblower was responsible. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
1. The documents were definitely leaked, one of the few facts we know for certain right now, whether they were released by a hacker or not the police will provide consensus on. 2. There are many skilled and respected scientists who do not buy into anthropogenic global warming as it is being sold by Al Gore, so your comment about anti-science activists is not very accurate from where I'm standing. All due respect, the people most heated about this debacle from what I've seen, are scientists who have been snubbed by certain peers because their dedication to the scientific process trumped some bureaucratic need for artificial consensus. 3. I thought this article was now protected from certain types of negative comments, seeing that it is on probation. 4. As I've already said I'd happily do without the word leaked so long as a more neutral name saves the day, like Climatic Research Unit documents release controversy. 5. Again, the viewpoint that only anti-scientists are against Gore Warming is fallacious, there are many renowned and skilled scientists who oppose AGW as it is being sold. Hope this helps bring balance to the force.. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 18:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Adam, as others have indicated, "leaked" is problematic – it's vague slang. 2. Many pundits and bloggers involved in the "controversy" appear to reject global warming of any sort, the respected climate scientists I've read have a range of views but all accept that there is some contribution from anthropogenic warming, while a minority seem to dispute whether it is statistically significant. If the people "snubbed by certain peers" are who I think you mean, they seem to forget about scientific integrity when portaying a partial and inaccurate picture to the media. 4. As said before, "documents release" is misleading. 5. Your statement looks propagandistic rather than helpful. I want to see the science, and shades of view within science, properly represented. Unfortunately we also have to find a way of covering misrepresentation and inflated "controversy" from scientific minorities or fringe activists. . . dave souza, talk 19:07, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Again, this article is on probation, what happened to no 'assumptions of bad faith'? To me a lot of what people do here seems like Gore propaganda, but I was under the impression I was not to bring motives into question here? I am assuming the rules apply to all, of course. and "documents release" had a majority vote and was the most NPOV article name proposed yet, I do intend to try to bring that back up as an article name multiple 'camps' can get behind, whether or not you or I do not like it does not matter beyond our votes, correct? Adam.T.Historian (talk) 19:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Eh? I don't doubt your good faith, as my comments show I differ from you in analysis of the range of views amongst scientists, and think your proposals about "Gore Warming" look like a propagandist catchphrase you've picked up somewhere, hence not suitable for the article. Expressing your opinions is ok up to a point, but remember the purpose of this page is article improvement, and it's not a soapbox. Thanks, dave souza, talk 20:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
My point exactly, this isn't a soap box, implying there is an overwhelming scientific consensus - which there isn't, only encourages other people to point out it isn't true. As for "Gore Warming", there's a succinct roman expression that fits well "Cui Bono", who benefits? Do you know who the first carbon trading billionaire on the planet is? Now, I was not the first to digress, as the contents of this talk page will show. I do believe the present name for this article is a sugarcoat which does damage to WIkipedia:NPOV and as a result, Wikipedia credibility in general. Climatic Research Unit documents release controversy or Climatic Research Unit documents controversy are not my ideal choices for article names, but they are both more neutral than the present name, and make acceptable compromises to both sides of the issue. As you've already stated here, anyone who doesn't accept it must be an 'anti-science' person, this also is opinion. I mean if we're going to go on and on with opinion I'll gladly point out that if "Gore Warming" is successful, and a carbon tax/carbon trading derivatives scheme is successfully pushed upon the unwilling citizens of earth, the poorest people will not be able to afford to eat, and everyone including the poor will be obligated to pay carbon taxes, including increased taxes on farming, food, anything that is packaged or transported, etc. Now I originally started this thread in hopes of finding compromise on a more neutral article name, It is obvious to me who is on which side here so I don't really need to go on with sub-threads which deal with that and are off topic. Sincerely, Adam.T.Historian (talk) 21:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
When someone resorts to "Algore is fat" type arguments, it's a sure sign that they have nothing worthwhile to say. Please take that kind of political soapboxing to Conservapedia - it's not useful here. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:00, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
1. The only one I've seen say "Algore is fat" is you, ChrisO. 2. Since when is everyone who's concerned with the welfare of poor people defined as 'conservative'? 3. You have a problem with personal insults, this isn't the first time you've insulted me, ChrisO. 4. It's not lost on me that nothing in your comment contributed to the thread, which is about the renaming of this article to reflect Wikipedia NPOV. 5. I will ignore any future attempts by you to draw me out into a personal debate/insult fest, this article is under probation and your comment is absolutely uncalled for and contrary to the guidelines for articles which are on probation. 6. We had previously pointed out that much of what was being said was opinionated, you're the first person I've seen make a personal insult, please abide by the guidelines for probationary articles in the future, thank you. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 23:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Climategate/CRU Email Hack Controversy

I recommend Climategate/CRU Email Hack Controversy owing to these reasons:

  1. "Climategate" is gaining currency
  2. CRU = Climate Research Unit
  3. "Email" because much of the controversy stems from the perceived "caught in the act" allegations made against numbers of emails - in fact we list many emails with details
  4. "Hack" is sufficiently explained in the intro so as not to be POV in the title, but a lot of people of certain political stripes are convinced of "hack" so we need to make this easily google-able for them
  5. "Controversy" because in aggregate, these things have stirred up controversy

We can go into detail about the documents in the article, but most news sources so far have emphasized "email" so that's enough for our title as it's what people will google for.

If we include "climategate", "email" and "hack", we will put just about equal amounts of "controversy" against both ends of the POV spectrum, thereby keeping this in the middle. 7390r0g (talk) 06:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

"Hack" is not known, so can't be used yet. "E-mail" is but a small part of the leaked information and so is misleading. The only word for this controversy is the remaining word. Paul Beardsell (talk) 07:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
As stated before, "climategate" may be a popular nickname, but it's unsuitable as an article name and clearly pushes a pov in the issue. The controversy isn't confined to emails, it includes the the stealing and distribution of the data which is currently under investigation, and includes the widely misrepresented computer code that was also distributed for analysis. . dave souza, talk 07:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Policy also prohibits split names of this kind; see WP:NPOV#Article naming. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
No it doesn't, Chris, as I've already pointed out to you. You're straining WP:AGF, here & elsewhere.. Pete Tillman (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes it does, in plain English: "Also disfavored are double or "segmented" article names, in the form of: Flat Earth/Round Earth; or Flat Earth (Round Earth)". Apart from the POV issue, which is non-negotiable - "Climategate" will never be used in any way, shape or form in this or any other article name - there's a technical reason why split names of the kind proposed by 7390r0g can't be used. The MediaWiki software used by Wikipedia interprets the slash in between the terms as indicating that one term is a subpage of the other. Hence "Climategate/CRU Email Hack Controversy" would actually create "CRU Email Hack Controversy" as a subpage of "Climategate", just as Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard/Incidents is a subpage of Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Arghhh. I give up. There is a dearth of consensus-reaching desire here. 7390r0g (talk) 14:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Consensus does not mean that policy and common sense are sacrificed along the way for the sake of allowing a narrow POV usage of a pejorative nickname for the article. The "-gate" discussion has been done to death now, and it simply isn't going to happen. Tarc (talk) 15:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes Tarc, the closest we've gotten to date for a majority consensus article name would be Climate Research Unit documents release controversy, not my favorite, but still it's more NPOV than the current article name. Adam.T.Historian (talk) 23:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Richard Somerville

Latest comment: 14 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Implies that the CRU/IPCC people are the only prominent scientists[12]

Could someone explain this edit? I do not understand it nor its edit summary. We group related content together; we do not split it up into standalone sentences. I intend to group the material back in. If Heyitspeter was concerned about the wording, why didn't he just remove the word "prominent"? I'm at a loss to explain his edit as it does not serve any purpose that I can see other than to bait me into trying to edit war, as this was material that Oren0 recently removed and I restored. Viriditas (talk) 10:09, 6 January 2010 (UTC) ‎

The summary doesn't mean much to me either, and the edit clearly moved a statement out of context. Having looked at the source which referred to three leading scientists, Mann, Somerville and Eric Steig, I've rephrased it accordingly and placed it to follow on directly from Mann's statement. There doesn't seem to be an article about Steig yet, so I've given his UW affiliation. Heyitspeter also tagged the Jones email quote of 16 Nov 1999 with an edit summary that The "summarization" given for the quote isn't included in any form in any of the citations.[13] As I made clear when adding that version with names of the innocent redacted, that's an interim version until issues are fully resolved and it would be more helpful if editors could make constructive proposals at #Draft proposal for Jones e-mail of 16 Nov 1999. . . dave souza, talk 10:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't quite understand your problem with my addition of the "not in citation" tag...
As for my edit summary to the Somerville sentence, I felt that ending the first paragraph of the "Climatologist" section with "Other prominent climatologists, [etc.]" implied a contrast, that the following would be non-prominent climatologists, which isn't true. Thoughts? --Heyitspeter (talk) 19:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
As explicitly stated on the talk page and, as I recall, in my edit summary, that was an agreed interim version until the proposed revised version is agreed and inserted. It's a good faith summary of the msin points of the source, omitting the names first names of the otherwise unidentified accused as discussed for BLP reasons. Do you prefer the newer proposal? Tagging doesn't move the issue forward. Your thoughts on improvements will be welcome.
The source calls the three "leading scientists" and makes it clear that their field is climatology, so I've used that term rather than "prominent" which was unsourced. They do seem to be more prominent than many others, but that would be original research. . . dave souza, talk 20:05, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah I think I understand your concern now. Two things, I guess. That tag was more for the reader than the editor (though I think a tag displaying a flaw in the article should motivate editors). It's disengenuous to display three citations for a sentence most of which is not covered by the citation, and this holds at any stage in the article's history. Also, I'm not comfortable retreating to the interim version. I'd prefer changes were made to the article. As far as I can tell your proposed rewrite is being looked over as a possibility, not waited for as an inevitability, but I'll mosey on over to that section now. Lastly, regarding "Somerville," thanks for re-factoring the sentence. It looks nice.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

MIT

Latest comment: 14 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

Interesting to see an analysis of the hoo-ha rather than a contribution to it, more detail would be nice. . . dave souza, talk 21:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

An interesting read for several reasons:
  1. Uses "Climategate" without quotes
  2. Is careful not to assume, absent evidence, that a hack occurred
  3. refers to emails as well as other documents
  4. yet is clearly not from the so-called skeptics community--SPhilbrickT 00:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Not quite true.
  1. The only instance of "Climategate" is within a quoted title, so the "without quotes" claim is dubious.
  2. The article is about the validity of the controversy stirred up by the skeptics, and it rightfully avoids attaching the "hacker" label that could (in theory), open up the Institute to libel issues due to the lack of citations.
  3. What the article refers to does not, in itself, appear to be especially interesting.
  4. Exactly so. In fact, it rubbishes the media's portrayal of science and then blames political expediency for creating this sort of mess in the first place.
-- Scjessey (talk) 01:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Not really (except for #4)
  1. They would have called it “The Great "Climategate" Debate”, had they felt it appropriate to use the term with quotes. And the article reference is referring to the title, so they used quotes, but the name of the debate does not have quotes.
  2. So the institution could be subject to libel for using "hacker" but WP does not have the same issue? Doesn't pass the smell test. (And the citations claim is a red herring; WP needs citations, but newspaper articles do not.)
  3. "interesting" is in the eye of the beholder. I thought it was interesting. You thought not. I stand by my opinion.
  4. We agree. The media does a horrendous job of covering these issues. --SPhilbrickT 02:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Oops, I stand corrected on #1, the latest article didn't take care to get it right. [14]--SPhilbrickT 02:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Here's a direct link to the debate (as an aside this site doesn't use the quotes, and Jake Jacoby referred to hacking without qualification) here--SPhilbrickT 02:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

On nicknames

Latest comment: 14 years ago85 comments12 people in discussion

Since the material in the lead isn't supported by the ref (see #Reference overload in the intro is back, above), and since we shouldn't have material in the Lead that's not present in the article, I have removed the statement about "climategate" from the lead. I moved the nickname in its own section, and in the interest of NPOV I have restored full discussion of both nicknames. After all, we can't privilege one POV over the other. Guettarda (talk) 14:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

For the underlying structural logic, I've based it on what I did here. Guettarda (talk) 14:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Deleting the most widely used short-hand from the lead is silly as is your contention that its use somehow imparts a POV. There are tons of examples where the term is used by proponents of AWG. Your justification about citation is spurious, especially since in the same edit you removed all the other citations but left the text in tact! I repeat my contention that the most commonly used moniker by external sources needs to be in the lead to provide context for the reader and that it need not be cited. Further, as we were discussing this yesterday in an attempt to reach consensus, your unilateral action is premature, contentious and unwarranted.Jpat34721 (talk) 17:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
To me, it looks fairly obvious that Swifthack has almost no usage and Climategate has a whole lot. In fact that is 35 times as much. Based on that, it looks pretty non-negotiable (per WP:NCCN, WP:UNDUE) that we include Climategate, and do not include Swifthack. Unless someone has a better argument. Prodego talk 17:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I think (as TIME magazine apparently does) that the use of these names to promote a point of view is quite interesting. None of these terms are neutral, so they cannot be used as a title for the article; however, it is worth having a section in the article that mentions them in the same way the TIME article did. The new "Naming the issue" section seems to be on the right track, but I'd consider expanding it to cover public perception and the staking of positions in general. The popularity of "Climategate" is undeniable, but Wikipedia should not be used to promote its usage (or the POV it seeks to represent). -- Scjessey (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Article titles don't actually need to be NPOV - sometimes that isn't possible. They should be what the subject of the article is commonly referred to. I'm not sure what that is in the case of this article. Prodego talk 18:09, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Descriptive names is an excellent summation of what should be expected from an article like this. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The goal is to have an title that describes the subject in such a way that the readers can immediately tell what you are talking about. What we want is a title that will be universally identified. A 'nickname' isn't going to be that. But I'm not sure that the current title does justice to the article either, since half the time the article is talking about the controversy of hacking the emails, and the other half it is talking about the controversy of the content of the emails. Its hard to describe an article on two subjects in one title. Prodego talk 18:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
But the content is only in the news because of the hacking. Don't forget the third issue - the way the content was spun. Which derives from the first two. Guettarda (talk) 18:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Never trust the estimates - [15] vs [16]. Without opinion on using either or both. Hipocrite (talk) 18:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I currently get 457 Google hits for "Swifthack" and 702705 for "Climategate". So as far as usage goes, the difference is small. More to the point, we haven't got reliable sources for usage. We do have a reliable source which discusses usage - and it mentions both names. So that seemsed to be the way to go. Guettarda (talk) 18:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Then you are doing something wrong. Prodego talk 18:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
In what way? Have you read WP:GOOGLE? Guettarda (talk) 18:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Of course, but I get far far more hits for both terms: about 2.1 million for climategate and about 60k for swifthack. Obviously google isn't the end all of common usage, but such a large disparity is noteworthy. Prodego talk 18:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
(ec)And you read the article that's linked to a in footnote? Google's top line numbers are meaningless. Try this. Google each term. Now go to one of the other pages. I like to pick the [10]. Now look at the URL - it will say "&start=90" (or whatever, depending on which results page you clicked). Now change that number to something big. 900 is a good starting place. Now look at the number of results that Google actually found. That's the number that matters. Not the top-line number. Guettarda (talk) 18:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm getting 1,701 to 3 for current google news, with no reliable sources among the 3, so WP:GOOGLE does not even apply. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:41, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
And that's called WP:OR. Guettarda (talk) 18:48, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
WP:Google states that GoogleNews can be used to judge the news worthiness of a subject. "Swifthack" yields 4 results (all blogs). "Climategate" yields 1814. 'nuff said.Jpat34721 (talk) 18:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
It all refers to the same thing. I don't think anyone suggests that this article fails WP:N. Guettarda (talk) 18:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The point of my googlenews comment is not about the noteworthiness of the article, it's to prove that the media has overwhelmingly adopted climategate as a short-hand. Jpat34721 (talk) 19:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
To begin with, only one's a blog. But more importantly, it doesn't turn up the source we're using here. Which means that there's obviously something wrong with that search. Guettarda (talk) 19:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with the search. Geez. The source you're using here is too old to be considered news by Google. The search shows that the usage trend is strongly towards climategate.Jpat34721 (talk) 19:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
This has gone beyond the silly to the outright absurd. As I write this (it may very well be edit warred by the time I save) the article does not even mention the common name in the lede, and gives a parallel treatment more weight to the word "swifthack", which is a different sort of thing entirely and has not achieved any kind of status as a common name. I had thought that calling it "swifthack" was a rhetorical argument, not a real proposal. I see some good arguments on both sides for using the common name "climategate" as the title and primary identification in the article, versus a made-up descriptive title, but to downplay it entirely does not pass the smell test here. Any uninvolved reader who doesn't know the subject is not going to get a neutral picture from that about what's going on, and a reader who does is likely to be perplexed. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
We have only one reliable source on usage. So why should we replace sourced content with WP:OR? Guettarda (talk) 18:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
It's hard to take that comment seriously - are you really suggesting that Climategate and Swiftboatgate are comparable terms? First of all, usage is for the most part not a sourcing issue, nor is it OR to apply common sense and reason to how an article is named. But if we are talking sources, if there is only one supporting the self-consciously alternative name then the overwhelming weight is against it. The Time source passes the WP:RS threshold but it is not very convincing. It's a breezy attention-grabber intro to a lightweight analysis piece, and it just doesn't ring true. There are dozens, probably hundreds of sources that explicitly say "climategate" has been applied to the issue, and an order of magnitude more that simply use the term. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Look, we're talking about nicknames for the story. If you cover one, you cover all that we can provide reliable sources for. We don't pick one and say "sources be damned, we're only going with this one". That's a clear violation of WP:NPOV, especially when we're talking about names that themselves betray the user's POV. Guettarda (talk) 18:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I assume the source you refer is the Time article which isn't on usage, it's on origin. Secondly, you had no qualms about removing the citations for the rest of the assertions in the lead so your argument about OR looks disingenuous. Jpat34721 (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
"you had no qualms about removing the citations for the rest of the assertions in the lead" - yep, it's called following the Manual of Style. Guettarda (talk) 19:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Exactly, which is why we should mention climategate in the lead and it need not be sourced. You are arguing out of both sides of your mouthJpat34721 (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
No, you don't violate WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT to give everything equal time. It's hard to believe that argument is on the level. Who the heck calls it swifthack? If we wanted to be neutral we would not mention swifthack at all because it's an obscure POV coined term. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Do you have more sources discussing the name "Climategate?" Why not add that content into the part about naming the controversy? Hipocrite (talk) 19:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
There are plenty of sources, and if I find the time I'll work them into the article in incubation that's about the scandal. research. This one seems to be about the emails and the hacking incident, so the genesis and popular perception of the scandal terminology aren't terribly relevant. That would also be the place to add a sentence or two about swifthack, ideally if we get more than one source and know where it comes from and who's promoting that term. Most of sources for "climategate" aren't a whole lot better than the Time piece either, they simply say offhand that the subject is dubbed, called, has been labeled, etc., "climategate", without saying who did it, when, why - it looks like the kind of factoid a journalist would just fill in without If that other article stands, we can do with a simple link. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
We discussed this yesterday and found no references which supported the claims. The statement was sitting there tagged with "not in reference". So I removed it. If you can find refs that support usage, please do add them. Guettarda (talk) 19:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
(ec) We're not talking about giving things equal time - we're talking about totally scrubbing mention of one term, while putting the other at the top of the article. Despite the fact that it was not discussed in the article. Guettarda (talk) 19:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec)As of when I last checked, the obscure term got more than equal time. I'm not talking about scrubbing anything, I wouldn't add it in the first place. We might add a brief section in the article to comply with MOS, but you don't really need that to support an alternate title in the lede. You only need to source it if it's reasonably disputed, and it doesn't look terribly reasonable to dispute that "climate" is in widespread if not universal use as a name for the controversy. It's gaming to remove a citable and obvious fact for lack of citation. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't add "swifthack" to the lead. Please get your facts straight. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 19:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

(EC x 3)I am really having trouble following the thinking of the editors that wish to remove the 'also known as Climategate' from the lede. It is demonstrably true. It is the more common useage to describe the incident. What sourcing would those that want this removed, accept for inclusion? Arkon (talk) 19:26, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

(a) Material in the lead needs to be in the article. (b) Material that's not supported by references, material that has been discussed and tagged, should be removed from the lead after a reasonable amount of time. Which is what I did. Guettarda (talk) 19:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Neither of those is true as a matter of Wikipedia practice. See Oren0's coment below, for instance. Removing obviously true material for lack of citation is gaming. Are you actually claiming that the scandal has not been called Climategate? - Wikidemon (talk) 19:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
"Obviously true material"? Are you joking? There are no sources that support the statement, and several that contradict it. Guettarda (talk) 19:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Please scroll through the reflist. We (aka you [Guettarda] and I) have explicitly discussed the plenitude of references to 'Climategate' in the reflist of this article before (search the text "Very true" after following this link). See the same section for your comments on a discussion of the overloading of references to the statement that "the controversy was dubbed 'Climategate'." It's extremely difficult to assume good faith under these circumstances. --Heyitspeter (talk) 12:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Two different issues here

Just to clarify, there are two different issues here. One is whether a statement tagged with "not in citation given", which had been discussed here, should stay in the lead. Especially given that the statement was not covered in the article (as things in the lead need to be). The other was a section on nicknames. Guettarda (talk) 19:23, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

(EC AGAIN!)For this first, the discussion that you reference is a bit different that what was added and removed today. That section references 'in the media' while the last just stated 'also known as'. Arkon (talk) 19:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Not sure what you're talking about. The statement I removed did not say "also known as". Guettarda (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
"Also known as" has a problem, because just about every reference to the name is in quotes, or "dubbed climategate by the WSJ", or something of the sort. Guettarda (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
That thing about the quotes seems to be a new thing invented for this page. Lots of journalists put quotes around terms that are new to the reader, in need of definition, colloquial, are a reference to someone else's usage, and so on. So, quite the opposite, the quotes often mean precisely that something is known as the term inside the quotes. I do think using that language goes too far though. If we say it is known as or called Climategate we should add a word or two to say by whom. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Removing the unsupported statement from the lead was a no-brainer. That's just a copy-edit. Creating a section to discuss naming is another issue. It's the first step to determine whether (and what) nicknames belong in the lead. And if we're discussing nicknames, we need to use the things we can reliably source. Guettarda (talk) 19:26, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict):Your repeated assertion that the name needs to be in the body of the article is untrue. Per WP:LEAD: "When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form, and it may include variations, including synonyms." Climategate is a widely used name for this controversy, and therefore its inclusion in the lead is merited regardless of the body of the article. Also, the statement tagged "not in citation given" was for the "in the media" part of that sentence. The solution? Remove "in the media", not the whole sentence. Oren0 (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Agreed on all points. Arkon (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
(ec)Sure, if this were an article names "Climategate" we'd say "also known as ClimateGate or Climate Gate". But it's not a synonym. It's used in quotes in most sources, or "dubbed climategate by the SWJ". It's used that way because everyone realises it's a slur, it's an attack, it's political spin. It's not a synonym. Guettarda (talk) 19:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Wall Street Journal is not the party that "dubbed" it or calls it. I believe there's a reliable source that says so, but that's demonstrably wrong. It's just one instance among many. The reason why something has an alternate name is relevant to a discussion about how the naming came about, but it doesn't obviate the fact. The language, and Wikipedia, are full of instances where something gains a primary or variant name due to people's opinions about the subject. We can say that a Gobstopper is also known as a "jawbreaker" without worrying that the term is a POV marketing claim exaggerated to the point of silliness. That article, and Red Fox being known as Vulpes Vulpes, are very typical examples of usage of alternate titles here. Actually, nearly every article. The variations on the name are rarely cited. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Oh, come on. "George W. Bush, also known as Shrub," "Barak Obama, also called Barak Osama," "Bill Clinton, also known as Slick Willie." I could go on and on. Hipocrite (talk) 19:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Vulpes vulpes? That doesn't have to be sourced? See that thing on the right side of the page? It's called taxobox. And it has a line called "authority". So yes, it has to be sourced. Guettarda (talk) 19:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Okay, the fox and George Bush examples aren't exactly on point, nor is gobstopper. Let's not belabor the point, you don't remove obvious stuff for lack of citation. There are plenty of citations if you really want to insist on one, but that's really not the right way to describe it anyway. The hacking incident doesn't really have an alternate name. Climategate is a term initially promoted by the skeptics to refer to their notion that the scientists had done something wrong, as revealed by the documents. I don't think there's much disagreement on that. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The fact is that everyone uses quotes around it. Or most reliable sources do. That alone should be a big flag to calling it a synonym. Guettarda (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
"Wall Street Journal is not the party that "dubbed" it or calls it. I believe there's a reliable source that says so, but that's demonstrably wrong. It's just one instance among many" - we discussed this yesterday. We tried to answer the question then. It might have been helpful if you had spoken up then, rather than impute ill motive now. Guettarda (talk) 19:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm unclear how you're reading anything about motive into the statement of mine in quotes. I'm just saying, as an aside, that it's inaccurate to state that Wall Street Journal is the party that came up with the name. At least two widely read conservative pundits seem to have used the term before WSJ and it's not clear and I haven't found sources for whether one got it from the other or they arrived at it independently. The name bounced around the conservative blogs or a short while before making the leap to mainstream sources. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Why is this even an issue?

"Climategate" is a non-neutral term that seeks to give a whiff of scandal to the incident, and it describes nothing. Virtually all reputable reliable sources referring to the word use quotation marks to indicate it is not a neutral term, and those that don't are either plain lazy or biased against the CRU scientists in some way. It's popularity comes from (a) being the first such term to emerge, and (b) being extensively promoted by individuals and organizations seeking to discredit the scientific consensus of anthropogenic global warming. The popularity is undeniable and it must receive appropriate coverage, but it should never, under any circumstances, be promoted by Wikipedia as if it were a legitimate, non-neutral term. My personal preference is that it be given prominence in a section which discusses the term's use as essentially a pejorative (along with "Warmergate"), and how the "opposing" POV has attempted to counter with "Swifthack", "Hackergate" and similar constructs. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Your contention that "Climategate" is a non-neutral" is your POV. The term itself can not "seek" to do anything. Like it or not, it has become the near universal short-hand and as such, removing from the lead, besides being absurd, is itself not POV neutral. I would also point out that the term does not imply wrongdoing on the part of the CRU. You object because your POV is that there is no scandal. We are not here to debate that. We're here to document the controversy which is now commonly referred to as climategate.Jpat34721 (talk) 20:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
It's not "my" POV. It's universally accepted that adding "-gate" to anything is going to draw parallels with "Watergate". And we are not "here to document the controversy". We are here to document the facts as reported by reliable sources about the entire incident, not just your favorite bit of it. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Which was, roughly speaking, my rationale for creating a section to discuss it. Guettarda (talk) 19:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Note that :FactCheck.org uses "Climategate" exclusively and in fact is the title of its analysis. This is evidence both of its general usage and its adoption by unbiased sources. Jpat34721 (talk) 20:00, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Nope, it's an example of usage. See discussion just a little up the page. Guettarda (talk) 20:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Are you now denying that FactCheck is an unbiased source?? Jpat34721 (talk) 20:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
That's not what Guettarda was saying at all. And Factcheck ALSO uses quotation marks to indicate it isn't their term either. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is objecting to putting climategate in quotes. We're objecting to it being scrubbed fromn the lead altogether.Jpat34721 (talk) 20:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't need to be in the lede. In certainly needs to be in the article somewhere, perhaps even prominently, but I'm not aware of any reason why it needs to be in the lede. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:23, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
As others have argued (and in my view convincingly), it does need to be in the lead so that readers know that this article is the right place to find the information they are seeking. The chance that they heard about this as the "Climate research Unit hacking incident" is near nil. If the term is buried down the page somewhere, how will the reader know he's in the right place? Jpat34721 (talk) 20:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Nonsense. If people are genuinely searching for "Climategate", they will find themselves redirected to this article automatically. No more needs to be done than that. I'm bored of hearing this excuse, quite honestly. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Kinda tired of this quotation mark business. So... "Virtually all reputable reliable sources referring to the word use quotation marks to indicate it is not a neutral term" is OR. That is unless you have a source. Arkon (talk) 20:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
And I'm kinda tired of people abusing Wikipedia policy by claiming a statement on a talk page is "OR". It would be original research if I was putting in the article, but I am not. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:07, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
A source that it's meant to put a negative spin on things? Sure. Check the article. Guettarda (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
No, a source that states "Virtually all reputable reliable sources referring to the word use quotation marks to indicate it is not a neutral term". This statement is meant to somehow dismiss the thousands of refs that use Climategate as the name for the incident. As it stands, it's just IDONTLIKEIT. Arkon (talk) 20:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
There aren't thousands. There aren't even a thousand, counting us and mirrors. Guettarda (talk) 20:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Haha ok, hundreds. Changes nothing, but ok. Arkon (talk) 20:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
1,000 is a huge number of sources. That said, Google News does return over 1,800 for "Climategate", the majority of which are likely reliable. Oren0 (talk) 21:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Since Google itself can only find 705 pages (after promising millions), it's likely that Google News' top-line numbers are just as meaningless as standard Google. Guettarda (talk) 21:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
This analysis is wrong. Per what I left on your talk page and from WP:GOOGLE, Google searches only will take the top 1000 results and then prune duplicates. It is in fact impossible for any Google search to link you to more than 1000 results (really, try it), even though millions of pages do in fact exist. Oren0 (talk) 00:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I know this analysis isn't "Wikipedia approved," but I did a search of the archives of a few notable news sources for the terms "Climategate" and "Swifthack." The number of articles found that reference "Climategate" are CNN:14, MSNBC:1, FOX:32, AP:4. For "Swifthack" we have CNN:0, MSNBC:0, FOX:0, AP:0. So based on my admittedly imperfect analysis it looks like "Climategate" is used in the mainstream media, and "Swifthack" is not. SkipSmith (talk) 19:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

  • (e/c) This remains an absurd argument. It's almost as if the anti-Climategate folk here are actively trying to make Wikipedia look ridiculous (note: not an accusation or PA). Everyone else in the world calls the thing Climategate, and most (ime) don't even put it in "scare quotes" anymore. At some point, the reality of the outside world, and how language actually works, will penetrate even here. It will be amusing to see how long that takes -- but in the meanwhile, we'll continue to be a figure of fun to the world outside. And rightly so. Sadly, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
See #strawman in FactCheck paragraph in email intro below for advice on sourcing for such statements. You may think you're a figure of fun to the world outside, in my opinion we're acting responsibly and carefully in accordance with sensible policies, including WP:NOTNEWS and WP:SOAPBOX. . . dave souza, talk 20:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Cat among the pigeons

Sorry about the mess. Still don't understand why a section discussing usage is such a big deal. Or, for that matter, why it's odd that slurs and spin should not be taken at face value. But seriously...

  1. We can't use (or misuse) Google as a source for usage statistics. Not only is is WP:OR, it's also, quite simply, terribly prone to inaccuracy
  2. When reliable news organisations, the kind that do fact checking, put quotes around a word, it's pretty safe to say that they don't mean that it should be taken at face value. So you can't say "all these people use it, so it's the name". You could more reasonably take the use it in quotes as votes against that being the name. Of course, for our purposes, we shouldn't use them one way or the other.
    1. More to the point, "Climategate" has been accepted and acknowledged as a slur, as spin by a certain group, trying to draw comparisons to Watergate. Reasonable, reliable sources do not consider it anything like Watergate. We all know it's nothing of the sort - though, of course, that's not relevant to the article. And we can't propagate slurs, we can't propagate spin as if it were factually correct verifiable information.
  3. Usage is info, just like anything else. It needs to be sourced. It can't be sourced by to "I looked around and its obvious to me". That's not good enough.

Guettarda (talk) 20:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a bit Pointy, but I hope it might be effective: Source the title of this article then. I guarantee you that I can source Climategate far more than "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident ". Arkon (talk) 20:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
It's a descriptive term. Search the archives, your Q has been asked & answered. Guettarda (talk) 20:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, one that consensus was able to apply. Consensus here is also beginning to appear. Apparantly I wasn't being pointy enough :), but I will leave it at that. Arkon (talk) 21:00, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Removal of citations from lead

Latest comment: 14 years ago15 comments6 people in discussion

All of the citations from the lead were recently removed. As per WP:LEAD: "The lead must conform to verifiability and other policies. The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations, should be cited." As this is an extremely contentious article it seems to me that these citations should be re-added.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Everything in the lead should be covered in the body of the article, with appropriate citations. If it's not covered in the body, it should not be in the lead. Guettarda (talk) 20:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I think its good that the citations is moved down below the lead. Maybe it is a bit early although since it's so controversial and so much is deleted all the time (Climategate had for one moment 8 references - all removed now …. Nsaa (talk) 20:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Multiple references being used as data points, to argue for novel conclusions. Guettarda (talk) 20:13, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
A good example of this would be the reference-free lede of Barack Obama, where (thanks to racists, birthers, other fringey types) virtually everything has been hotly contended at one time or another. If it can work there, an article like this should be no problem. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Alright, let's do it! Hahah in any case the coolest articles I've come across are those with minimal-to-no citations and surprisingly accurate content. Gotta love the Anything goes mentality that crops up here and there on Wikipedia.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:33, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

So, this is why we need citations. The "skeptics named 'Climategate'" line has been disputed and was contradicted by one of the refs we had previously added to the sentence. Permission to re-add the refs to the lead?--Heyitspeter (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I've come to the view that consensus is impossible at this point in time. According to Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms the proper remedy is not use Climategate or any other neologism. The current version which reads "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of climate change" is terrible. First "sceptics of climate change" is a loaded and derisive phrase that paints with a very broad brush. I know of very few who are skeptical of climate change. After all, one of the arguments the AWG skeptics make is "that the climate is always changing". Thus the current phrase itself is a shorthand, and so suffers from the same problems (unclear, offensive rtc.) of neologisms that have not achieved near universal acceptance. Jpat34721 (talk)
Then let's stick with "dubbed 'Climategate'" and leave out the contentious reference to skeptics. Just because consensus is impossible on a specific edit doesn't mean consensus is impossible on related material. There are compromise editions that are less inflammatory than the current version. And this goes beyond the naming controversy. We have a "who?" tag as well because the relevant citations were deleted.--Heyitspeter (talk) 11:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I didn't get to this sooner, I was ahem, otherwise occupied. I'd be happy with your proposal but many here who see the term as somehow pejorative would I'm sure object. I take the lack of consensus to mean that the standards for neologisms use has not been met but that's just my opinion. If you feel otherwise, I encourage you to be bold in your editing. WP is not a democracy. Jpat34721 (talk) 20:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
You need to be very careful with applying WP:BOLD to this article, because of the WP:1RR probationary restriction. Removal of things recently added (and vice versa) are seen as reversions, remember. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
The WP:1RR just means you can only be bold once a day :>). I refer you to Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle for a process I think would work well here. So far, I have found the editors here to be pleasant and constructive, a good omen thinks I. Jpat34721 (talk) 20:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
It's rather dangerous to jump up to early threads, hours later, and suddenly recommend bold action. In later discussions, two good sources actually discussing the nicknaming (rather than just using a nickname) were found (Time and FactCheck), and the present section looks very good and balanced and it's certainly properly sourced. --Nigelj (talk) 21:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
This discussion is about whether or not "Climategate" should be used in the lead. While I think the section you are talking about is unnecessarily divisive and frankly silly I have no objections to its sourcing. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:43, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
The lead is meant to summarise the main points of the article, and that point now has its own small section, albeit at the end and it is summarised in the first line at present. --Nigelj (talk) 22:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm familiar with WP:BRD, but on hotbed articles like this it is an approach that can be somewhat inflammatory. As I like to say on my userpage, consensus before contentious. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I found a reputable citation

Latest comment: 14 years ago22 comments7 people in discussion

The NYT here declares 'or, as some have put it, “Climategate.”'. I propose we adopt this verbiage in the lead and cite this article if necessary. Jpat34721 (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It's hard to resit the temptation to put {{who}} after some on the talk page. I'd certainly do it on the article page. Hipocrite (talk) 20:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It's hard to read this article at all without adding {{who}} a few dozen times. I actually read the whole article through this morning. Guettarda (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
the 'who' for our purposes is the NYT. Your concern should be directed to them. For our purposes, the NYT says some call it climategate and that's all that's required for us to legitimately assert climategate as a legit neologism Jpat34721 (talk) 21:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it wasn't clear to you, but the "Some" in the NYTimes article merits a "who." The best source we have on the name is that it was dubbed that by sceptics. Since everyone agrees it was dubbed by sceptics (The LA times states it was dubbed by the WSJ editorial pages, the blogs say is was dubbed by that british sceptic), why are we removing that from the lede? I guess we could remove climategate from the lede alltogether again, but I tried to find a compromise (you know, where you don't get everything you want, and neither does everyone else?). Hipocrite (talk) 21:29, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
You keep going back to origin, which besides being irrelevant, is unknowable. The current dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of climate change is clearly OR. My solution, ("Climategate") in parenthesis with a cite to the NYT article which states "some call it climitgate" satisfies all of the objections raised thus far except of course, we just don't like it. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Except that the NYT says "some call it Climategate." If you put that in the ledge, you'd get an immediate {{who}} - IE "WHO calls it Climategate, exactly?" I don't know why you have a problem with the dubbing language, except that it wasn't you who wrote it. Can you explain, exactly, why the dubbing language dosen't work for you, noting that other people want to include Swifthack, and you'll need to find ground that makes both you and other people willing to accept the article? Hipocrite (talk) 21:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
We don't need to put that in the lead. It is standard practice to indicate common-usage neologisms thusly: ("Climategate"). In my view, we need not cite this near universal short-hand but if the consensus view is that a cite is required, we have a reputable source (NYT). My problem with the dubbing language is that it is incorrect (it is not only skeptics that call (dub) it climategate). And if instead you mean to imply that dubbed implies origin, it is OR and disputed factually (I found no less than 5 different claims of origin). Now, can you explain your objection to my proposal? Jpat34721 (talk) 21:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't mean to be rude, but you've edited four total articles, none of which have alternate titles - you couldn't possibly know "standard practice." The dubbing language is not incorrect - there is not an example of a single non-sceptical source using "climategate" without "scare quotes" to designate it was quoting someone else. I object to your edit because it is factually false - "Climategate" is a phrase that is not broadly understood to be equal to the subject of this article - rather, it is the neologism used by sceptics to describe it, per the unambiguous Time article. Hipocrite (talk) 22:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I was referring to standard publishing practices, not WP style. Are you now claiming that the average reader wouldn't have seen the style I propose many times and not recognize instantly what is being conveyed? The use of quotes simply means that the word was coined elsewhere. It does not have the meaning you imply. Non-skeptical use in quotes is use nonetheless and that is what we're debating. The question is, has climategate usage in the media (with ot without quotes) risen to the point where it mets the standards for [[WP::Neologisms]]. A number here think it has, a number think it has not. Since we are supposed to error on the side of "when in doubt don't use them", I suppose we should drop it altogether (as bizarre as that seems to many) and revisit this issue after some time has passed. Jpat34721 (talk) 22:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
It should just stay with 'also known as' to eliminate this objection. A strange objection I have to say, as your {{who}} is just begging for OR. Arkon (talk) 21:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
"Can you explain, exactly, why the dubbing language dosen't work for you, noting that other people want to include Swifthack, and you'll need to find ground that makes both you and other people willing to accept the article?" Hipocrite (talk) 21:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I didn't address this for a couple reasons. 1) I honestly am not sure I understand what you mean when you say 'dubbing language' 2) I thought you were asking Jpat :). As for the inclusion of other names for the event, if they are notable (in many refs/sources), I have no objection to them. Arkon (talk) 21:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

"dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of climate change" is incorrect. Everyone agrees that there are climate changes--its a fact. The skepticism here is whether it is caused by man or part of a natural cycle. I think it should be reworded to something like: "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of human-caused climate change" for example, or something similar. I find it hard to believe that this obvious omission eluded so many intelligent people here that I must conclude that this is a consciously or unconsciously placed straw man. Can anyone who disagrees please explain to me why I'm wrong? Professorteeth (talk) 06:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The self described "skeptics" seem to promote a range of views, from outright denial that there is any global warming to agreement that there is a human contribution to global warming with the reservation that they think it is insignificant in relation to other causes of global warming. The scientist "skeptics" seem to largely hold the latter view, and often refer to opposing AGW, anthropogenic global warming, which you very reasonably translate as "human-caused climate change". Easy to lose sight of the A in AGW, something to clarify. Thanks, dave souza, talk 10:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Interestingly, the Time magazine article cited for the usage says "Skeptics of global warming, who have long considered climate change a fraud" so that's where it comes from. . . dave souza, talk 10:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

To OP. That sounds like a very good idea. Thanks! --Heyitspeter (talk) 13:04, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "as some have put it" is weasely and leaves "who?" unanswered. Factcheck is clear that the phrase is being used by skeptics, see below. . dave souza, talk 15:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Souza, of course it is being used by skeptics. That isn't informative. Along with skeptics, the term is also being used by non-skeptics, including numerous writers for the NY times. I myself use the term to search for this article, avoiding having to type the entirety of "Climate Research Unit hacking incident."--Heyitspeter (talk) 22:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The FactCheck formulation

FactCheck, which seems reasonably neutral to me, uses the term in inverted commas in its title, says in its summary "Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming", and opens its Analysis with "Skeptics claim this trove of e-mails shows the scientists at the U.K. research center were engaging in evidence-tampering, and they are portraying the affair as a major scandal: "Climategate."... [ Mohammad Al-Sabban said] 'It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change'." That may give us a useful intro to the section. . . dave souza, talk 10:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Have implemented this proposal, summarising the statement as:

The analysis by FactCheck is that skeptics who allege that the documents show fabrication of evidence of man-made global warming are portraying it as a major scandal, using the term "Climategate".

Have also amended Walsh's statement to "sceptics of global warming", as discussed above. . . dave souza, talk 15:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

This section was just used to justify, yet again, the transition of the lead from "dubbed by sceptics" to "also called." Yet again, I note, as has been done over and over and over again, above, that "some have (xed) 'climategate'" leads me to ask "who are some." "Some" are "sceptics," per the scads of sources saying that. Stop reverting on the article to a version you know will make people you disagree with unhappy - I don't remove Climategate from the lead, you should not remove all the notations about who uses the phrase from it either. Hipocrite (talk) 22:31, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

POV edits in the lead (again)

Latest comment: 14 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion

Now that my good name has been restored (CrisO - rush to judgment much?), perhaps Guettarda would undo his revert as he used the false accusation against me as an excuse to reinsert his(apologies - JP) a POV into the lead. Thanks Jpat34721 (talk) 17:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Even though you are not Scibaby, you must remain civil. Do not accuse others of rushing to judgement when they were misled by a checkuser. Do not state that others are using a checkusers confirmation that you were Scibaby as an "excuse to reinsert [their] POV." Further, since Guettarda already self reverted here, you certainly owe them an apology. Hipocrite (talk) 16:34, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
There is nothing uncivil in my remarks. This is not the forum to hash this out but since you brought it up, ChrisO was not mislead by checkuser. That was another admin. His "evidence" against me was laughably flimsy. False accusations against those with whom you disagree seems pretty uncivil to me —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs) 16:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
And your apology to Guettarda? Hipocrite (talk) 17:01, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
You think Guettarda is the victim here?? I made a polite request for a revision and it was honored. I thank him for that courtesy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)
You made your request at 16:30, 7 January 2010. Guettarda made the revert at 13:16, 7 January 2010 - before your "polite" request that Guettarda not "reinsert his POV" . Have you considered making that apology now? Hipocrite (talk) 17:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
(after ec) - I'm glad you turned out to be legit, Jpat34721, because I hate wasting time arguing with socks. That being said, if I'd have been an administrator I'd have blocked you for repeatedly failing to sign your comments. </sarcasm -- Scjessey (talk) 17:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Guilty as charged :>) I plead old age and throw myself on the mercy of the court. Jpat34721 (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. I trust all editors will remember the importance of assuming good faith, both as policy and to avoid jumping to mistaken conclusions that other editors are acting to reinsert their POV. . . dave souza, talk 17:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree. My request was inartfully composed. My apologies to Guettarda. I trust we all all working toward the same goal, namely creating a page that does WP proud and provides a truly neutral view of this matter to the reader.Jpat34721 (talk) 17:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Hipocrite, this is between Jpat and Guettarda. I suspect Guettarda's skin is plenty thick enough. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:12, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference RealClimate 20 Nov was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ doi:10.1073/pnas.0805721105
  3. ^ http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=446&filename=1102687002.txt
  4. ^ http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048&filename=1255352257.txt
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