Talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

More than a scientific body

The discussion above shows some confusion about the IPCC which I've tried to resolve by clarifying the lead. The IPCC is an intergovernmental scientific body, involving both scientists (and other experts where appropriate) and representatives of 120+ governments. The review procedure involves both, and summaries for policy makers are subject to line-by-line approval by all participating governments. Note that I've also worded the Nobel Prize bit to correspond more closely to the source, and have moved that to follow from the other plaudits rather than mixing it with the basic description of the IPCC at the start of the lead.
Weart describes it as being formed as "a new, fully independent group under the control of government representatives" and "neither a strictly scientific nor a strictly political body, but a unique hybrid. This met the divergent needs of a variety of groups, especially within the United States government, which was a prime stimulator for the action." There's more in Weart, and my aim is to improve sections of the article using his history as a basis. Work in progress. . . dave souza, talk 22:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Good. "Weart" is, of course, Stephen Spencer Weart and his book is "The Discovery of Global Warming". I believe it has a good reputation, but be careful of not getting too wrapped up in any one source.

And the citations here are still wretched. I am almost ready to start hacking on them. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 19:38, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

IPCC citations

As part of IPCC citation work I have created a Talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change/citation subpage that documents the canonical format (and other subpages with the AR specific details). Hopefully all that is clear, and will be satisfactory. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Ken Caldirea resigns from AR5, criticizes outcomes of AR4

New Directions for the Intergovernmental Climate Panel By Andrew Revkin, NY Times, December 21, 2011

Kenneth Caldeira: "Can anybody point to any important positive outcomes resulting from the IPCC AR4 process? Is there reason to expect a greater positive impact from the IPCC AR5 process?

I am all for scientific reviews and assessments, and I think the multi-model comparisons reviewed by the IPCC have been especially useful. However, it is not clear how much additional benefit there is to having a huge bureaucratic scientific review effort under UN auspices..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tillman (talk • contribs) 00:06, 24 December 2011‎

.... Again, I think the IPCC has been extremely useful in the past, and I believe the IPCC could be extremely useful in the future. But, if the IPCC is to be extremely useful, it must re-invent itself, so that it efficiently supplies decision-makers with the most important and reliable scientific information while placing a minimum of additional burden on the scientific community.

(As an aside, I recently resigned as a lead author of an IPCC AR5 chapter simply because I felt I had more effective ways of using the limited amount of time that I have to engage in scientific activities. My resignation was made possible because I believe that the chapter team that I was part of was on the right track and doing an excellent job without my contribution. Had I had a scientific criticism of my chapter team, you can be assured that I would have stayed involved. So, my resignation was a vote of confidence in my scientific peers, not a critique. It is just not clear to me that, at this point, working on IPCC chapters is the most effective use of my time. Also, I do want to be careful not to pre-judge IPCC AR5. It may turn out to be a far more efficient and effective vehicle for scientific communication than I now anticipate.)

An important question is: How can the IPCC be made into a more efficient and effective vehicle for scientific communication? It would be good to have this discussion before the AR6 train leaves the station.

[Dec. 23, 11:08 p.m. | Updated | Caldeira, noting quite a bit of Web chatter about his withdrawal from leading the writing team for a report chapter, offers an expanded comment below.]

Call it naivete, but I was surprised when the last remnants of the climate-science denial team erupted with glee in the blogosphere at my remarks on the IPCC made on Dot Earth earlier this week. This shows that I may have been wrong about the effectiveness of the IPCC, as at least this marginalized faction thinks that the IPCC is an important and effective too for scientific communication -- important enough that they feel it is worth their time to try to weaken its influence.

Instead, I was looking for was to strengthen the IPCC, ......"

Thanks, Pete, we can rely on you to pass on gossip from the climate-science denial team blogosphere. . dave souza, talk 07:54, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome, Dave. I imagine Andy Revkin and the NY Times would be a bit surprised to be labeled as part of the "climate-science denial team blogosphere" .... And Merry Christmas! Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 13:53, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Before you go, do you have any intention of cleaning up the mess on Ken Caldeira, the reason for his resignation having been made clear to you? — ThePowerofX 19:56, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Now that you have raised the matter here, does that make Wikipedia part of the "climate-science denial team blogosphere"? And what is the point in raising the matter here in the first place? From what I read, Caldeira was criticising the IPCC's effectiveness in communicating the message, not the science it was based on. So what is your point? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:45, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Style etc. edits

I'm going through and making edits mainly for readability and style. I might be a bit bolder than that if I find problems that are fairly easy to resolve. In the long run I would like to see the subarticles on the individual reports either improved and extended, or merged in here. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

By "individual reports" you probably mean the several Assessment Reports (right?). There is a very significant difference between an organizaiton, and the reports of the organization. And the IPCC's Assessment Reports are so immensely notable that there should not be any question of their not having separate articles.

I want update the IPCC citations. (Some are atrociously bad.) And the current References section, containing the notes (footnotes), should be renamed to Notes. I hope there is not objection to that. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I did mean the four existent and one planned Assessment Reports. Certainly there is independent notability for the Reports per se and I very much hope that we have enough for one article on each. The current quality of the dedicated articles is very variable though. On your second point, of course no objection, very welcome. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Problem with citation format?

[Kim made the following comment on the citation subpage, which I have taken the liberty of moving here for comment -JJ]

Citations following the guideline, does not adhere the requested citation format in the AR4 reports. User:KimDabelsteinPetersen

Yes. Or more precisely, not exactly. E.g., see Le Treut, AR4 WG1 Chap. 1, bottom of page:

Le Treut, H., R. Somerville, U. Cubasch, Y. Ding, C. Mauritzen, A. Mokssit, T. Peterson and M. Prather, 2007: Historical Overview of Climate Change. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

The principle differences are:

1. The IPCC requests listing of all principal authors. This is contrary to all standard bibliographical practice (I can image the wail that would go up here if we "had to" include all of them). So we go with standard practice, and cite only the lead author (plus "et al.").
2. The example does not list specific location (page or section) within the source. Of course – the example is for the whole chapter; they expect professionals to know how to cite specific passages. (Whether we should cite specific passages is being argued in various other places.)
3. The example incorporates the entire "full reference" to the "whole work" that includes the chapter (everything after "In:"). This is the repetitive part that so bloated prior attempts to do a proper IPCC citation. The major improvement that I have brought here is include the full reference to the work only once (usually in the References), then link to it.

The canonical format developed here is is not exactly in accordance with any other "style", but I believe is a quite reasonable, even optimal, compromise that is proably as good as we can expect. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:14, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The "canonical" format (by what notice is it canonical?), does indeed have that problem, and thus it should be listed as a problem with your proposal. Yes, the citations are long, but then again this is how the IPCC is cited in papers, journals and other media where "professionals .. know how to cite ...".

• Le Treut, H., R. Somerville, U. Cubasch, Y. Ding, C. Mauritzen, A. Mokssit, T. Peterson and M. Prather (2007) IPCC AR4 WG1 2007 ed. Chapter 1: Historical Overview of Climate Change Science ISBN 978-0-521-88009-1 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1.html 

or

• Le Treut, H., R. Somerville, U. Cubasch, Y. Ding, C. Mauritzen, A. Mokssit, T. Peterson and M. Prather (2007) "1.4.2 Past Climate Observations, Astronomical Theory and Abrupt Climate Changes" in IPCC AR4 WG1 2007 Chapter 1: Historical Overview of Climate Change Science ISBN 978-0-521-88009-1 http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-2.html 

is long ... but contains all of the information that is recommended by the IPCC. (note: it uses your #3) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps too long: not only is recitation of all but the lead author contrary to standard citation practice, the long string of names that do not signify tends to bury such other information that does signify. The only reason for doing so is to gratify the IPCC in giving more exposure to the coauthors, which in any case seems too minimal to be of any worth. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 02:16, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Which "standard citation practice" states that you can abbreviate the authors list in the reference/bibliography section of your work? (do try not to confuse in-line citation such as (Hansen et al(1981)) vs full citation Hansen, J.; D. Johnson; A. Lacis; S. Lebedeff; P. Lee; D. Rind; G. Russell (1981), "Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide", Science (213): 957–966 ). Some journals shorten the reference list because of space problems - but afaict (from doing a spot check (on the paper cited here - it has 500+ citations)) most do not. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 02:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Still waiting for an answer to this.... (btw. chosing a template makes it possible to cut authors down (or up), without doing any change to the articles), which again makes text versions bad. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see your comment. As you are not familiar with standard citation practices I would suggest reviewing (for example) sect 16.16 of 13th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS): 'References in the text or notes to works by more than three authors use only the first name followed by "et al." or "and others" (see 15.17-19).' (MLA and APA are similiar, though I don't have exact citation at hand.) Now that is in regards to what CMOS calls "note" references, equivalent to short citations, or, on WP, in-line citations. And you are correct to distinguish between them and the full reference or citation, where a complete author listing is usually expected.

In trying to look forward to how things should be there is an immediate question: are these in-line cites? Or the full reference? Note that the full references I created for the ARs list all of the lead editors. But should the rest be "short" or "full" format?

The distinction between them is rather undercut by current practice in most articles here in not making such a distinction. E.g., (to grab some examples at random) in Global warming controversy: notes 6, 93, 95, 111; in Global warming: notes 31, 50-52, etc. I skipped over citations I have revised, but even there: if you go back to a version of Global warming from before I started revising (say the version from July) many of the citations ("full references") used "et al.", and many also provided no authors whatsoever. Which is part of the problem of trying to stay consistent with the extant "style": there is no consistency, no "style" to speak of. So if you have a complaint how multiple authors are handled: surprise, the problem is everywhere. You really should directing your ire more generally, not just to my attempt to improve matters.

Even if we go with "full" format there is another problem: some styles (e.g., APA) suggest truncating the author list after eight or nine (which is what the citation templates here implement). For something like Le Treut (Chap 1, AR4 WG1, above) you would get a full list. But Chapter 2 has fifteen authors, so it would get truncated to "Forster, et al." That some chapters get a full list of authors, and others only one, introduces an apparent inconsistency. My recommendation is that (for the IPCC citations) we always use the "et al." form, which increases consistency, and avoids having to modify citations depending on whether they are intended to be "in-line" or "full reference".

I have given much thought to opitimizing this "style" across a range of issues. If you can suggest improvements please tell us. Perhaps you can also justify them. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 02:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for not answering immediately, i've been busy. So in other words - your response is (cooked down): No citation practice,despite your assurances that it was "standard citation practice", actually says that you should cut down authors in the reference section of an article. They in fact state the opposite. Do note that "in-line citations" referenced in citation practice, is the visible part of citations in text - not the Wikipedia versions, which are merely a way to create the reference section while writing text.

As for your description of APA ... that is incorrect - it would be trucated to Forster, (+7 author names) et al. [trucating the list after 8-9 authors]

Building a citation template for IPCC citations would solve this - you can use citation/core to truncate author-lists at which ever point is needed. Do take a look at the IPCC template that i've started. (by the way: I do beg of you not to assume what i know/not know about citation practices as you do in the first line of your comment - you failed there again). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I could also "beg of you" to not be so snide with your "do try" kind of comments?

Perhaps you might also pay closer attention, and not misrepresent matters? In actual fact the "standard citation practice" I cited (CMOS-13, sections 16.16 and 15.17.) does say to truncate ("cut down") authors "in the text or notes". Now before you start screaming that I misrepresent you: yes, I see your qualification of "in the reference section of an article." Can you see "in the text or notes"? Can you see that we have two different situations here? Do you not read my comment about this? Do you possibly not understand the difference "text or notes" and bibliographic references? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I've specifically adressed that we have 2 situations. But the situation that we specifically are talking about, is the reference section. You specifically (even explicitly) are referring to truncating the author list in the reference section.

I don't know if you are deliberately confusing what Wikipedia is calling "in-line citations" (here it references the "invisible" ref tags that automagically gets routed to the reference section), and what citation standards call "in-line citations" (which are explicit visible in text citations such as "Hansen et al(2007)", referencing the reference section - Wikipedia does not usually use this style - but instead has ^[1] kind of links). .... but can we please agree that this is two different things? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:54, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I have been thinking our argument is analogous to my saying "drive on the left [side of the road] in England", and you saying "no, no, no, drive on the right in Denmark". There is no "no" about it; each statement is quite correct, given the qualification of where. (Right?) At this point the essence of this argument is the where: "in-line" (or textual) citation, implying the "short" form, or complete bibliographical "reference", implying the "full" form. I believe your objection (at this point) is based on the assumption of the latter case.

I say this assumption is the essential point in dispute, and definitely questionable. Don't be misled because the html/wiki construct used to create notes is named "ref" (short for "reference"), or that the actual notes are generated by a template named "reflist", or that this is often done in a section named "References". Okay, perhaps you don't agree, so let's look at usage.

You often invoke what "Wikipedia does" (or does not) as authority, so let's look at actual Reference sections. In most cases use of the short form – evidenced by "et al." or "and others" – is sufficiently prevalent to dispel any claim of consistency, and indicates ambiguity (if not outright error). I do not claim that justifies the short form; I claim typical usage is ambiguous at best, not in itself establishing the full form.

You could argue that the "References" of this article are fairly consistent, having only three instances of "et al." in 121 footnotes. I would have to object, because the citations here are so putrid as to be quite unreliable (and that any considered form would be an improvement). In particular, many of these citations omit the author attribution entirely, providing no guidance as to typical practice. (Even to being negative guidance.)

For an example of a "References" section just as you envision it (with "full" references), look at Puget Sound faults#References. Or even Global warming#References. But note that in both cases there is also a Notes section, which collects the notes, and uses the short form. This kind of dual structure resolves the ambiguity of which form by distinguishing and separating the functions served. If all articles (or all climate change articles?) were like that, then the citation format could be more specifically adapted. As things are, the format has to cope with this ambiguity of usage. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:31, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

After having counted to 10 several times and taken several breaks from the keyboard - i will try again:

I am talking about the section in every article in which the references are located, whether it be called "notes", "references", "bibliography" or whatever other name an article may give it. Or in other words the section in which the full citations are given.

Pudgett sounds is a bad example - since it uses harvard style.

Global warming is a good example if you had used a version before you changed it. [1]

Both are examples of how you do things - not examples of typical wikipedia usage, or even of proper citation usage as described in various Manuals of style.

Can i please ask you to try to read: What it is that i write, without attempting to deduce what i might think, and ask if a specific point is unclear? Because quite frankly, so far this has been something of a Gish gallop. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Calm down Kim, we're both on the same side on the larger issue.

To the extent this is a "Gish gallop" (interesting term, thanks for bringing to my attention) it is because one point connects to another, and I am willing to follow your lead. E.g., this discussion started with your comment that the citation form I am promulgating "does not adhere the requested citation format in the AR4 reports", particularly regarding author attribution. I explained why, claiming "standard citation practice". Which you questioned, and I cited CMOS-13 (sec. 16.16). Which you said (essentially) wasn't applicable for full bibliographic references. Where upon I said you are assuming that is the proper context, but I question that assumption. So, yes, we have covered a bit of ground, and to the extent the main point depends on any subpoint I am willing to address any point you think is relevant.

As to "deducing what [you] think": if I took your (and indeed, anyone else's) words alone, and strictly literally, I would often be quite baffled to make sense of them. It is because I allow for the possibility of unstated assumptions (etc.), of a different frame of reference (even if it is not exactly yours), that I do not take you for a blithering, nonsensical, idiot, but might actually make sense in some context. That we differ in some opinions is not a matter of right or wrong, but (largely) of context. (E.g., are we using English driving rules? Or Danish?)

I think you misunderstood the point of my examples (above). In part I was trying to show that "typical wikipedia usage" is generally trash, and quite worthless in supporting your point. (Which I do not take as diminishment of your point.) I was also providing examples that better support your view, and also trying show my understanding of your concept of how full (bibliographic) references should be formatted. If those were not good enough, how about taking on a climate change article (one of the smaller ones, but with a fair number of IPCC citations) and formatting the citations in the way you think best?

The one point in all of this I find unclear is this: why are you so adamantly opposed? For all the points you have raised (and I believe I have addressed), or might raise: is there some central issue I have missed? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:59, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

So lets take it a step at a time:

Can we agree on this: In the full citation section, no manual of style argues that citations can be cut down to one author + et al, you can cut the number of authors down - but as the APA states - it should only be done on papers/books of more than 8 authors, and in that case it can be cut down to 7-8 authors + et al. (or A0,A1,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6 et al).

In case you do not agree - i will ask you to quote/link the citation style that advances this view. (if you refer to CMoS, i'll ask you to refer to a new version, preferably the online version (which is complete)). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:19, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

One step at at time is fine, even preferred. We are not quite aligned on what the issue is, so let's first clarify that. I suggest it is about using either short citation format, where the author list may be truncated to a single lead author (plus "et al." or "and others", of course), or full citations/references, which are essentially bibliographic, and list all (or some large subset) of the authors. In essence, this issue comes down to whether the first chapter of AR4 WG1 should be cited (in part) as: "Le Treut, et al.", or: "Le Treut, H., R. Somerville, U. Cubasch, Y. Ding, C. Mauritzen, A. Mokssit, T. Peterson and M. Prather" (but without the bolding). Whether, in the latter case of "full" references, longer author lists can be truncated to 8 (or some other number of) authors is not the issue, as it does not distinguish between short and full formats.

Are we agreed that the present issue can be formulated as the use of either short or full format, the truncation of the author list (to a single author), or not, being indicative of short or full format? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry? I asked a clear question. And you didn't answer. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:47, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

No, you did not ask a "clear" question (and certainly not a simple one). You made an ambiguous qualification, an assertion ("manual of style argues..."), and then.. well, I can't decide if your discussion of APA is intended as a further qualification of the question, an illustration, or an argument. With all that encumberance and ambiguity I can't see what the question is.

Let me help you simplify your question. How about we just drop any consideration of how more than (say) six authors is to be handled? That is not the issue here. The issue is whether (in some context) multiple authors can be truncated to a single author. (As I have been doing.) Allow this simplification, and we're about half-way to an answerable question. Okay? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Sigh! So let me cut up my question into the simplest possible one:

• In the full citation section: Does any manual of style allow for citations being cut down to only one author + et al.?

There, it is cut down to the simplest part - we can take it further later. I'd appreciate if you answered only this question, and not embellish it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Not the simplest possible form of the question. You still have that qualification: "in the full citation section," which I find ambiguous. Do you want to drop that entirely? Or would you accept an alternative qualification: "in the full format form of a bibliographic reference? If you accept that then, in that case, I would agree with you, that no manual of style truncates a full, bibliographic reference to a single author. Is that acceptable? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I do think you know what section i'm talking about. Most wikipedia articles only contain 1 reference list... The exception being, the case of using Harvard style references, and then there are 2. And we aren't talking about Harvard inline citations here, which would require a second reference section. Yes, i do mean the full bibliographic reference, which in this case for IPCC chapters is described in the preface to each chapter. And that is the one that you want to cut down to one author despite that "no manual of style truncates a full, bibliographic reference to a single author". --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Convenience break 2

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Finally we get down to the core issue. Because I have never (?) disagreed with you about what any MoS says about the full, bibliographic reference. But what about short (or shortened) citations? (What some styles call the "note" form.) That is the real issue here: you keep assuming the reference (full) form in all cases, while I distinguish between that and the note (shortened) form. It comes down to whether certain "citations" (to use the term loosely) should be in short (truncated) or full (non-truncated) format.

BTW, use of separate "Notes" and "References" (or "Bibliography" or whatever) sections is not a requirement that arises from using {{Harv}} templates. Examples: IPCC Third Assessment Report uses {{Harv}}, but has no "Notes" section, while Mercantilism has "Notes" and "References", but no instances of {{Harv}}. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually you have disagreed with me on what various MoS's says - in fact you claimed that shortening full citations down was standard[2] (in fact you claimed it was "contrary to standard citation practice"). This apparently, you've finally agreed, isn't the case.

Now as for the "short" citations - they are really irrelevant here, since we aren't (and haven't at any point) been talking about these. (so they can't be the "real issue"). The references you make to IPCC chapters here aren't short citations - sorry. Unless we're doing double (or in case of the IPCC refs triple) indirect citations - we're talking about full citations. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

No, you are talking about full citations. You also continue to misstate what I have said, and I am getting tired of discussing it. If anyone else has any comments to make perhaps this is the time to do so. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:32, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I know I started this, so perhaps ought to comment now, but I don't have much to say. It's good sometimes to focus on detail, and it's good to be consistent. But it should not be so difficult as this to work out how best to format references. There are policies and guidelines, and we can if necessary get editors who are professional librarians to comment. The only really important thing is to give enough information to readers so that they can verify info and find further reading. I eventually worked out what Kim meant by "metadata", and I see the point but we aren't actually required to enable people to generate databases of sources out of our articles. You can't readily do it from a printed book either. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, Judith. I have wondered if my focus on getting the details "right" – intended to enable a high standard of citation usage – might be part of the meta-problem here, in raising consternation that such a high standard might become required. Well, I would raise the minimally accepted standard, as many of the existing citations don't meet even Wikipedia's minimal expectation. But the important point is that what I recommend is flexible, and any variant thereof would be an improvement over what we have now. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Kim: I suspect you are not yet entirely satisfied on all points, which I would prefer to resolve. On the other hand, if you want to take a break – that's fine, but I also want to get back to fixing citations, and soon. I would also suggest an alternative: why don't you select one or two climate change articles and fix up the citations (or at least the IPCC citations) in whatever style or format you think is best? I am inclined to having some degree of consistency with the citations/references, but that doesn't mean everything need be done just one way. The format I have been developing is flexible enough to accommodate different preferences; it might well accommodate yours. Even if you come up with a distinctly different approach, having two styles is much preferable to the many crappy citations on this and other articles. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

(Convenience break)

Another problem with your changes is the loss of metadata. To explain it simply: An automated tool cannot rework your changed references (the non-citation based versions) back into citation templates - the information to do so is ..... lost. Bibliographic processing capabilities of the references has been lost as well.--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:44, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your English here. What are "bibliographic processing capabilities of the references"? References don't have capabilities. Do you mean "have been lost"? So long as we stick to the general principle of including enough information to allow readers to track down references and verify the content, erring on the side of inclusivity, then we are OK. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:18, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Kim, due to my own ignorance in this tech area (or publishing) I did not follow it either. What sort of auto tool are you referring to, what do they do, and can you provide an example of their source material and their output? Alternatively, a link to something (short!) that explains the basics you are talking about is just as good. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Whats the most cited paper on the climate change pages outside of the IPCC? Is a question that can be answered with tools easily when you use citation templates. Without them it would be extremely hard. Basic indexing, collecting bibliographic information for a specific topic area etc. etc. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:40, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Basically Judith, when data is marked up with the citation template, a tool can examine the data and understand what it is about. Collecting bibliographic data, would be a tool that collects up the citations and be capable of answering questions such as "How many unique papers of James Hansen do we cite?", "Who is the most cited scientists on the climate change pages" etc. By not marking citation data as such (fx. by doing it manually), you lose that capability. You also lose the capability of making a large search/replace formatting change on the pages (for instance changing to another citation method).

There are 2 aspects of citations - the most important one is for verification to our readers, and the second one is generic. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:38, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Btw. references certainly have capabilities (albeit not by themselves :)). They have the capability of telling you loads of information about a specific citation. Who's the author(s), who published it? when was it published? Where was it published ....

If you just write "Hansen, James; Travis, Larry D. (1974) 'Light scattering in planetary atmospheres' Space Science Reviews. Vol 16, no. 4, pp 527-610" - you have all information there, but it is useless to a tool, because the tool can't determine what is what. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:47, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Regarding metadata: let there be no doubt that I am all in favor of it, and in that regard fully concur with Kim. And of course it is through the use of citation templates that metadata is identified and can be extracted for whatever other purposes, which is partly why I am also a strong advocate of using templates.

I believe (correct me if I am wrong) the basis of Kim's statement of "loss of metadata" is that the examples I have provided are not in template form. However, templates are not precluded. I have not templated the examples because I did not anyone to think that templates are required. I have to run now, but perhaps tomorrow I can provide a templated example. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:53, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, cover me with a surprised look! Most of your changes of IPCC citations have been to convert citations to text. (Example:[3]). Not only have you collated book citations into harvb book references (laudable!), but at the same time you've removed the citation templates for the specific pages/sections and exchanged it into text (not laudable!). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 02:06, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Kim, using the DIFF you provided can you please provide an example or two of how you would have done it differently (without the not laudable part)? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 06:06, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

As I said before, I have not been implementing the citations in template form lest anyone think templates were required. But to show that it can be done, here is an example:

Le Treut et al., "Chapter 1: Historical Overview of Climate Change Science", Section 1.3.1: The Human Fingerprint on Greenhouse Gases, http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1.html , in IPCC AR4 WG1 2007.

I have added an explanation and other details at Talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change/citation#Citation templates. I think it could be argued which way (formatted text or template) is better, but that is irrelevant to the point here: this style is neutral in that regard. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:22, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Putting the "in <Harv>" outside of the template removes the linkage between the actual citation and the book. Again loosing metadata. Why exactly is formatting more important to you here, than actually getting the citation right? But even outside of the metadata issue.... Take a look at the asymmetry of your choice:

Chose citation templates: One change in the citation templates could solve the formatting problem you have on all articles.

Chose formatted text: All citations on all articles, will have to be changed.... manually.

Now that assymetry tells me that formatted text is a very very bad choice. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:06, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Have you not read my previous comment? The "style" (formatting) I am recommending does not preclude using citation templates. As I said before, I was converting citations (of a very mixed colleciton of "styles") into formatted text because I didn't want anyone complaining I was prejudiced for templates. (As a matter of fact, I am, but I didn't want it to be an issue.) If the editors here want to establish use of templates as the preferred style I am quite willing to do that. As to putting the Harv link inside or outside the template, I presently favor the latter, but am willing to consider the matter. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree Kim's word choice is frequently needling, and often wonder if that is carelessness or craft. On the other hand, JJ, you manage to work in some digs of your own. So as I follow the discussion (not really knowing enough to have an opinion) I regularly wish you both you guys would work harder to wordsmith your remarks as though you were the other guy. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

You may want to consider that nuances in my writing shouldn't be interpreted, since i'm not actually a native english speaker. So do consider that it might be neither "carelessness or craft". --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:45, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Who objects to the use of citation templates, and why? --Teratornis (talk) 03:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Lots of editors, actually, though perhaps no one present on this discussion. I suspect what you are picking up on is Kim's objection that I did not use a citation template in the improvements I was proposing. Which is bogus, because – as I explained above, and demonstrated – those proposals are fully compatible with citation templates, but I chose to demonstrate them without the templates, lest some of the less attentive editors take fright that templates were required. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

POV on the citation subpage

I've tagged the citation subpage, since it mostly consists of one editor's view on how things should be. While everyone (probably) agrees that consolidating IPCC citations is a good thing, several critical choices have been made on that page, that makes it problematic:

• It is proposed/addressed/reads this as if policy... and is put as such on several articles.

Sorry if that is the impression. It is meant as recommendation. -JJ

• Page is in the wrong namespace. (if this is to be policy/MoS stuff - it should be in Wikipedia namespace).

The material is specifically on citing the IPCC ARs. Where else should it be? -JJ

• Page has no talk-page, making discussions virtually impossible to find (or do)

This talk page seems to be adequate. I considered some other possibilities, but reckoned they would be too obscure. -JJ

• Several choices regarding metadata and other formatting have never been discussed (or are only now being discussed).

I reckoned the option to not use templates a plus with some editors. At any rate, this "style" in no way precludes use of templates ("metadata"). -JJ

• An editor is already changing citations in a way that makes it close to impossible to reverse.

Not impossible to reverse, but I understand your point, that it in some cases it might be messy. I believe the issue here is the removal of templates. This was done for consistency. If there be consensus to for consistent use of templates then this should be done as a forward looking change, not a reversal. And this can be readily done as all of the information need is present in the untemplated (formated text) form. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

• ... etc...

I think a that there has to be a discussion about this, and that this should be from a bit more than a single persons viewpoints. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:25, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd just like to add that I think JJ has acted in good faith, since he has been fiddling with ideas and soliciting input since last fall and the discussion is only just getting started. I thank JJ for all the work and imagine the delay in getting substantive feedback and idea that the work may be re-done may be frustrating. I thank Kim for knowing enough about the subject to offer substantive feedback. I hope ya'll can set frustration with each other's past edits and past silence aside to work out a compromise. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 08:57, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree, there is no doubt that this has been done in very good faith. I just feel that this is the time to pull the brakes, and reflect on what is being done, before we enter an area of no return. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for the kind comments. NAEG has suggested that I am pushing this too hard, so I would like to reiterate: it is not a policy proposal, only an evolving recommendation. And reflection/feedback is how we evolve it.

I am going to comment on Kim's points, but please understand: those are not intended as argumentation, but only as clarification as to why certain choices were made. Which is not claim that these were the best choices, only to show the rationale. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Views of scientists

Amusing to see, here and in at least one other article, an attempt to replicate misinformation from a recent WSJ opinion piece. Among the attention it's attracted, Peter Gleick's commentary at Forbes gives a reputable overview, with links to a better representation of scientific opinion: the letter from 255 NAS members should be cited in the "controversies" section, if it's not covered already. . . dave souza, talk 18:43, 28 January 2012 (UTC)