Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy

Ongoing discussions on article naming

Related discussion: Move proposal: move this article to "Climatic Research Unit Incident"

Can we make a decision on this?

It's clear from the above discussion that words like "Climategate", "hacking", "scandal" and "controversy" are deemed inappropriate (by policy, guideline and general consensus). "E-mail" is fine, but seems unnecessarily limiting. Can we therefore come to some sort of agreement over a new name? These seem to have the most support thus far:

• Climatic Research Unit documents incident
• Climatic Research Unit files incident
• Climatic Research Unit incident

I propose that we pick on of these (I personally favor "Climatic Research Unit documents incident", but I'd support any of the three), establish a consensus and do it already. Variations can have redirects. What say you, shipmates? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

A concrete "Request for move" is in progress above. It's quite close to ending now. The discussion of the article title can continue, though. As you may see in the lists, though, opinions for and against the current proposal are quite evenly matched, so consensus on a widely acceptable alternative is probably going to be difficult to achieve. --TS 14:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see where the consensus, policy or guideline is against the word 'hacking'. If you read the 'oppose' comments above, many of them oppose that proposal because it doesn't include 'hacking'. Equally, many above agree that the main media focus has been on the e-mails, not the other documents, so this should be reflected here. Where do you get the idea that we have to get moving on renaming the article? Why can't we wait until there is some new evidence, for example an arrest, or a published investigation, or a statement from one of the parties, and discuss the name in the light of finding out some more facts about whatever actually happened? --Nigelj (talk) 15:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

My primary desire for moving the article is the limiting "e-mail" qualifier, since other files are also involved. Also, "hacking" (while supported by reliable sources) is probably unnecessary. I realize that some editors specifically desire these words to remain in the article name to help control the scope of the article, but that shouldn't really be necessary. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the need to "control the scope" of the article, but this was a hacking incident and so the name fits. I see some pressure from some editors who are quite open about wanting to limit the scope to the ensuing controversy (arguing that, in their view, this is what the media are doing) and that explains to me why those particular editors support a name change, but since this is a hacking incident being investigated by the police that's a good enough reason for me to include the word in the title. --TS 15:20, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, if, apart from the vocal minority who want 'Climategate' or something like it, the majority of other editors are happy with the present title, why just keep proposing that we have to discuss the same thing (removing the two descriptive words in the title other than 'CRU') over and over? --Nigelj (talk) 15:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) - But surely having "hacking" in the title is a presumption that a hacking has actually taken place, without that having yet been proven? And I think everyone agrees that "e-mail" should either be changed to "documents", or "files", or simply omitted. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any evidence to suggest a "majority" of editors are happy with the present title. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

On hacking, the speculation that it's something other has been done to death on blogs and even on Wikipedia, but strangely not in any reliable source. This is because there is no evidence that it was other than what has been reported both by the Climatic Research Unit and by RealClimate: hacking. Not unsurprisingly, the Norfolk Constabulary--a county-wide force that has experts of its own--has called in a specialist Metropolitan Police e-Crime unit and is calling it "criminal offences related to a data breach"--hacking to you and me. --TS 19:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but until that has actually been proven, it is still based on speculation and not cast-iron facts. I am utterly convinced it was hacking of some nature (certainly it was an unauthorized access of data), but Wikipedia must be absolutely certain before such a controversial term is used in the title of an article. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It's been stated by all the significant people involved. --Nigelj (talk) 21:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

So? Until the investigation has run its course, nobody can categorically state that hacking has occurred, which means it is inappropriate for use in the title of the article per WP:NAME. This spirited defense of the word now has me concerned. What compelling reason is there for "hacking" to be in the title? Why is "hacking incident" better than "incident"? -- Scjessey (talk) 22:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

This is special pleading. On Wikipedia we rely on what is verifiable, not what is provable beyond all doubt. When the police launch a kidnap investigation we describe the incident as a kidnapping, even if eventually the facts are found to be different. To make an exception for this case, we would need a reason, and the only reason I see here is that, in the face of all the evidence and without any countervailing evidence, some people want it to be something other than a hacking incident. --TS 23:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Things like, "The glorious liberation of the truth from evil scientists"? --Nigelj (talk) 23:21, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

"Special pleading" or otherwise, we are talking about the title of the article. When there is any doubt at all, we have to err on the side of caution when it comes to article naming (that's a policy, not a guideline). And I don't want to hear any of that "some people want it to be something other than hacking" crap, because I do think it was hacking. My argument is purely about a matter of policy, and some of you are responding as if I'm a "denier". Perhaps I should request a third opinion on this matter, because I'm starting to wonder if we don't have some ownership issues developing here. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

There isn't any reason to doubt. No reliable source has suggested anything other than hacking. I call it special pleading becuase it's a classic "you cannot say the earth is not flat" argument. --TS 23:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, please. You cannot equate my concern for following article naming conventions (entirely a policy-based objection) with believing the world is flat. I ask again: Why is "hacking incident" better than "incident"? -- Scjessey (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, we had a WP:RS at one point in the article, but it's since been removed. If I get a chance, I will try to find some more WP:RS. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty of reliable sources that use the term "hacking". That is not the issue here. The issue is that the word qualifies "incident" when it isn't yet certain that hacking was involved (although I personally believe that it was). -- Scjessey (talk) 00:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok read this "East Anglia University has gone out of its way to promote itself to students from the former Soviet Union. Its website says that 33 Russian students currently study there. It is not known if they have fallen under suspicion as part of the police investigation." Were Russian security services behind the leak of 'Climategate' emails? from Daily Mail. As an student you're on the inside … Nsaa (talk) 00:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the question mark at the end of the headline, and the extremely speculative nature of the quote from the article (classic Daily Mail style to invoke McCarthyist fears of the long gone Soviet Union) should provide you with a clue that this article in a tabloid newspaper is not a reliable source on anything except the obsessions of its proprietor and editorial staff. --TS 00:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

So Daily Mail is known for simplifying and distort the truth? Here's yet another Source "On November 17th an anonymous whistleblower downloaded email and data files from computers at the Climatic Research Unit and," 'Climategate' Exposes the Global Warming Hoax in Pravda. Nsaa (talk) 00:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Pravda! --TS 00:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Ha ha just your comment on Daily Mail and long gone Soviet Union … Nsaa (talk) 00:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If you listen to this Youtube Clip Lord Monckton on Climategate: Whistle Blower, Not A "Hacker" you may wonder if he's right. Why did a "hacker" removed all personal information like e-mail-addresses, names etc.? Typically a Whistle-blower activity. But since we only have Daily Mail, Pravda etc. we should STATE in the article name that's a hacking incident? Get real! Nsaa (talk) 00:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Seriously? You want to cite Monckton? No. Just no. If you want anyone to take you seriously, please try to find a higher calibre of sources than blogs and YouTube videos from fringe figures. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Now there's typical AGW alarmist Watermelon argumentum ad hominem content-vacant suppressive authoritarian WikiNazi rottenness if ever it got posted online. Don't address Monckton's (or Nsaa's) position, but strive to fault the source as such. "Objectivity" and "consensus" and "impartiality" indeed. Just good old "Wiki-bloody-pedia" (to use Mr. Monckton's ever-so-apt characterization) as usual. 71.125.130.14 (talk) 15:14, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I've come up with two above Daily Mail and Pravda. Listen to a person don't hurt. Instead of attacking me you could try to dismiss his analysis and pointing where he went wrong. And no, I don't suggest adding primary sources videos like the above Video. Where do I propose that? I just say try to listen. And hacking is POV and should go out. Nsaa (talk) 01:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I can see that none of you are taking this seriously. Nobody has been able to answer my question (Why is "hacking incident" better than "incident"?) despite me asking it twice. All I am getting in response is the Chewbacca defense. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, let's break this down a bit. The article title currently has four components: (1) Climatic Research Unit (2) e-mail (3) hacking (4) incident. (1) is uncontroversial - I don't think anyone has suggested altering or removing that. (2) is reasonable, since the focus is primarily on the e-mails. (3) is defensible, since the circumstances in which the e-mails were released is a major part of the controversy - the way that the CRU was targeted by criminals has been roundly condemned by scientists and politicians. (4) is an element on which I'm amenable to change. "Incident" is perhaps misleading, since it implies a single discrete event at a single point in time. That would be accurate if the article was solely about the hack. But since it's not just about that but also covers the subsequent controversy, I think it's an unsatisfactory term. "Controversy" would, I think, be a more suitable term. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Nice one! So Remove (3) hack and Change (4) and we get Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy which is a far better name and more neutral in tone. But since others strongly has rejected controversy we just stick to incident for the moment. I.e. Climatic Research Unit e-mail incident and goes for this now. Nsaa (talk) 01:15, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I wonder why controversy again is proposed? Just for distorting the question from Scjessey (Why is "hacking incident" better than "incident"?)? Nsaa (talk) 01:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I've been researching this and "controversy" in the title is perfectly acceptable in this situation. I'm currently drafting an explanation which hopefully will be done soon. Unfortunately, I only have 2-3 hours a day to devote to Wikipdia so "soon" could be tonight or this weekend. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:03, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I have been embroiled in titling discussions that involved the word "controversy" before. In most cases, the word was deemed inappropriate per WP:WTA. The facts of the incident are not in dispute, so there isn't anything "controversial" about it. I'm not a fan of "incident" either, but I cannot think of a suitable alternative. I don't know why anyone still insists on the "e-mail" qualifier - coverage of the emails has been more significant because they are easier to follow, but quality analysis of the other data is beginning to appear as more time passes. -- Scjessey (talk) 11:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to discourage further discussion on this, but removal of the term "hacking" seems moot for now as a concrete proposal to do just that is on Requested moves and at the end of the seven day discussion period (subject to backlogs) an administrator will make a determination on whether consensus exists for that action. --TS 14:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Based on the voting results so far, it appears that there is broad support for renaming the article, but consensus breaks down upon when deciding what the new name should be. Several editors have expressed reservations about the use of the word "controversy". However, it is perfectly acceptable given the situation. According to WP:AVOID, "controversy" is OK if reliable sources also use the word "controversy". I found dozens of reliable sources which use the term "controversy" so I believe that issue is addressed.[6][7]

In addition, we have several precedents for using the word "controversy" in our article titles. As other editors have noted, we already have Killian documents controversy and Global warming controversy.

What's more, I found 7 articles which passed peer-review to achieve Good Article status, all of which use the word "controversy" in the article title:

AACS encryption key controversy

Essjay controversy

Faeq al-Mir arrest controversy

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

Controversy over the usage of Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man

Old Court – New Court controversy

White House travel office controversy

plus 2 more which passed a second peer-review to achieve Feature Article status:

1996 United States campaign finance controversy

John the bookmaker controversy

Given the fact that dozens of reliable sources use the term "controversy", I believe that the standards within WP:AVOID have been met. Given the fact that we have several precedents for using word "controversy", including an article in this very topic space, Global warming controversy, as well as 9 different articles which have passed peer-review to reach achieve Good Article or Feature Article status, I think it’s OK for us to use this for the article title. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree, per my comments above. What exactly is "controversial"? Why use the word when we don't have to? I would argue that other articles have resorted to the use of the word because of poor decision-making by those involved. How about "Climatic Research Unit mountain out of a molehill" for a title? -- Scjessey (talk) 21:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Whether the controversy is legit or not is irrelevant. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. It's not our place as Wikipedia editors to say that reliable sources are wrong. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The great flaw in this theory is that most of the reliable sources out there refer to the incident as "Climategate", which we have already established is inappropriate. The great thing about Climatic Research Unit documents incident is that it is accurate and neutral, whereas anything with "controversy", "scandal", "hacking" or "Climategate" characterizes the incident unnecessarily. I should also point out that Wikipedia's policy on naming conventions makes little mention of reliable sources or verifiability. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

We determine whether a source is reliable. If a source is wrong on the facts, it isn't reliable. --TS 22:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:V, mainstream news media are reliable sources. Are you seriously arguing that BBC News isn't mainstream news? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

If our verifiability policy really did claim that the mainstream news media are intrinsically reliable, then that policy would be incorrect as written. It lists mainstream news media as among the more reliable sources. We must still use our judgement (which is one reason why we have reliable sources guidelines, for use in helping us to make a determination). Without breaking a sweat, any reasonably well educated adult could pick up today's edition of the mainstream newspapers and find factually incorrect statements--statements that contradict more reliable sources, for instance--in those newspapers. It follow that all sources, including newspapers, must be handled not blindly but with judgement. That's our job as editors. --TS 10:48, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Obviously judgment has to be employed when using sources - some are "more reliable" than others, especially when being used in a particular context, and sometimes generally reliable sources make individual errors. However, one can make a broad statement that mainstream media sources generally speaking fall within WP:RS. Also that they are actually a pretty good guide to what something is currently called in mainstream, non-technical discourse.

As to the name itself, "incident" is simply inaccurate as a matter of English language. We are not dealing with an "incident" here, which suggests a single event, we are undoubtedly dealing with a running "controversy". To me that seems to be a fairly accurate - and neutral - description, not to mention one that is commonly used in the media. Acknowledging that doesn't mean acknowledging that the CRU documents reveal controversial or bad behaviour, it simply means acknowledging that the alleged hacking of the material, and, more importantly, its content, has generated a controversy. That seems rather undeniable, even if one thinks that the real controversy is how the material has been exploited by fringers and denialists. "CRU e-mail controversy" seems to cover the issue pretty accurately without being either too woolly or POV. And as noted, there is precedent. --Nickhh (talk) 14:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with "incident" (the hacking seems to have been a one-off event). Controversy would be better, however, because the fall-out from the hacking has been fairly protracted. --TS 15:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

After much consideration, I have been persuaded that using the word "controversy" would be acceptable (although still not ideal). With that in mind, I am hoping that we can form a consensus around the title "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy". Such a title allows for the fact that only a small percentage of the stolen data were emails, and eliminates the troublesome "hacking". A possible alternative to consider would be "Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy", which implies hacking without actually saying it. Do either of these seem worthy of support? -- Scjessey (talk) 12:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

How about "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking"? This removes the problematic implications of "incident". I don't accept that having the word "hacking" in the title stops us discussing the fall-out from the hacking. However having "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking controversy" makes it sound as if the sole controversy is over the hacking, and missing the word "hacking" out altogether would give too much emphasis to the controversy over the e-mails, which has been rather small beer in the scheme of things. Should anything ever come of the fuss over the emails (withdrawal of major climatology papers, etc), then at that point I would say we should probably call it the "Climategate scandal", but at this stage nobody can make such a prediction. --TS 03:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hacking has not been proven and should not been used because it is being used by political opponents of skeptics. Many the of the "reliable sources" have expressed support for AGW and are conflicted. A neutral word should be used until there is evidence to support hacking. And indeed we see many reliable sources now backing away from the claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjmcdonald29 (talk • contribs) 04:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that hacking shouldn't be used, most security experts have said already that it was probably someone from inside. My opinion is that the article should be called "Climategate Scandal". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Echofloripa (talk • contribs) 16:23, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that "hacking" is inappropriate, but not for the reason you give. The "most security experts" claim is nonsense, quite frankly. There is no chance whatsoever of the article having either "Climategate" or "scandal" in the title. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate is how it is know everywhere. The same thing is valid for the global warming page. Global warming per se doesn't relate to human causes. Even so it is called that as that is the most common use of the world.Echofloripa (talk) 11:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate

I vote for using Climategate as the title because that is how it is reported. The Wikipedia guidelines against using "-gate" apply to phrases made up by Wikipedia editors, and to minor scandals. I don't think that this is a "minor" scandal. In fact, there are many Wikipedia articles about various -gates. Therefore, in my opinion, not using Climategate when that is the obvious choice is nothing more than very strong POV pushing.

By the way, of the 157 MB of released files, only about 8 MB (5%) were email. Q Science (talk) 23:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Second the motion, particularly in light of recent evidence (and it's getting into the wonderful, "reliable" MSM[8][9] so beloved of Wikipedia apparatchiki, too!) on how AGW propagandists who had been infiltrating Wikipedia since 2003 in a concerted effort to suppress soundly skeptical science on the subject of the AGW fraud and to slander scientists critical of the CRU correspondents' mendacity have degraded the intellectual integrity of this online encyclopedia for their own nefarious purposes.
If "Climategate" flames these bastiches, all the better. It is the term by which this whistleblower revelation is known throughout the world in spite of MSM "spiking" and Watermelon censorship, and the continuation of this duplicitous denial is no longer tolerable. 71.125.130.14 (talk) 12:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)— 71.125.130.14 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Note: There is circumstantial evidence showing that 71.125.130.14 (talk · contribs) and 98.232.27.135 (talk · contribs) are the same editor. Viriditas (talk) 10:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no scandal, unless you are referring to the scandalous press coverage full of misrepresentations, or the scandalous statements of lies made by energy-financed politicians? -- Scjessey (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I would support the title "Climategate" but respect the arguments against such a change, as well. I believe that it can be argued that the professor's actions created a scandal by failing to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and that most readers will be more familiar with the term "Climategate" over the CRU or the IPCC or UEA. But, like I said, at this point I am easy. Nightmote (talk) 19:08, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiki policy states that the most common name must be used for naming an article, and that name is "Climategate" as already has been used or recognized by such reliable sources as The Economist (here), Reuters (here), The New York Times (here), The Guardian (here), CNN (here) and most of the other language Wikipedia sites. The discussion above clearly reflects an effort to cleanse/sanitize this controversy, and most of the arguments presented to keep other titles are just flagrant original research as these titles have not been used by any RS but here, reaching the ridiculous point that now "controversy" is considered lack of NPOV. Please' let's call things by its name! There is no wondering Wiki's NPOV reputation is being tainted (see this and here) I proposed this matter to be settled once an for all by a group of real neutral admins/experience editors (anyone who has contributed in GW or climate change articles should be excluded, including admins). In the meantime I will add three of these RSs in the lead to support the use of Climategate.-Mariordo (talk) 18:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

There are few things uglier than a row of references in the middle of the first sentence of an article. These are totally unnecessary, and your edit is borderline pointy. Please self-revert, or someone will remove them on your behalf shortly. In future, please build a consensus on the talk page before making controversial edits. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I did change the word "some" for "several" so given the contentious nature of the article, in this case several RS are required to support that edit. I do not think that adding RS requires consensus, did you read the content in these references? Instead of format reasons please provide a more solid argument for requesting the deletion.-Mariordo (talk) 18:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

What you don't seem to understand is that the wording and format prior to your changes existed because of painstaking discussion and deliberation by many editors that led to a consensus. You came along and changed that without prior discussion, and made it ugly. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:57, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Would you please point me to such discussion? Do this discussion considered the same references I provided? News and points of view evolve through time, I had followed some of this discussion and waited until sufficient RS use the term. Furthermore, why the ref from Reuters in better than the Economist, or yet, the more recent from CNN. I will check the discussion you mentioned (please provide me the link), but clearly it used to be "some" and now is "several", are you sure this discussion is not out of date. Finally, I gave my opinion about the name change above, but the edit refers only to "several".-Mariordo (talk)

Please don't edit war, Mariordo. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

You will find the discussions in the archives. I'm sure you are just as capable of using the search tool as I am. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I am an experienced Wiki editor with not a single 3RR sanction on record, so please refrain from patronizing me, one rv is not an edit war, and you can be certain I will not reverse more than once. Let's go back to what matters, please provide the solid arguments to reject those RSs other than "ugly" (to the best of my knowledge those refs have not been included before, or correct me if I am wrong), also I am waiting for the link to review the specific discussion you are mentioned above (the archive is very long and I am raising a very specific issue), justifying "some" and picking only Reuters as the RS.-Mariordo (talk) 19:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

As an "experienced Wiki editor", you will doubtless be aware that any time you revert a revert, it is considered edit warring (whether or not you have broken WP:3RR). There is nothing wrong with your sources. They are simply not needed, and the long line of sources in an article lede (especially in the middle of a sentence) is ugly. And "an experienced Wiki editor" should not need help searching the archives. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:34, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Per the first line "...referred to by several sources as 'Climategate'..." This is as fallacious and absurd a statement as you will ever see. Might as well say, "referred to by virtually everyone except Wikipedia (and perhaps a few delusional fringe 'sources') as 'Climategate'" -- Newspeak is apparently alive and well in this transparently slanted approach. Indeed, not only is "Wiki's NPOV reputation ... being tainted," as Mariordo points out, Wikipedia's rep is fast becoming laughable. Also, per the FAQ citing the supposed "Wiki standards" you have this little bit of delicious hypocrisy: "Article names are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality to satisfy Wikipedia's neutral point of view requirements. The use of 'scandal' or '-gate' frequently implies wrongdoing or a particular point of view." Well, then, how is the phrase "hacking incident" not guilty of this same "breach" of protocol? Particularly since, as noted throughout this discussion and elsewhere, the "hacking" aspect is debatable both from a practical and a legal perspective.MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 18:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)— MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Welcome to Wikipedia. If you had bothered to read this talk page, you would note that the current title of the article is under discussion (and has been for a couple of weeks). Personally, I don't like "e-mail hacking incident", and would prefer "document incident" (although I am starting to lean toward "document controversy"). It is not a good idea to introduce yourself to a Wikipedia discussion by making bad faith assumptions and accusing fellow editors of hypocrisy. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:57, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks for the "welcome" with the predictable dose of condescension. I have, in fact, been following the farcical "debate" here since day one, with growing disgust. The appalling and blatant propagandism and lack of authenticity in the deliberately synthesized "angle" that's being plied. Obnoxious levels of disingenuousness, sorry to burn you, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em. So yeah, I am finally, after several weeks of observing, putting in my two cents. Problems with that? It's still a "free" Wiki, is it not? Welcome to Wikipedia!MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 19:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are unable to follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for civility and good faith, then perhaps you should find something else to occupy you. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Please specify my intolerable lapse of "civility and good faith," you who called out another editor's changes as "pointy" and "ugly" in most impolitic fashion. Further, do you have some jurisdiction here to cast aspersions on one's opinions while others on your side fling vitriol and innuendo wantonly and freely? If you do have jurisdiction of some sort, forgive my ignorance, but to be honest I really don't care much either way. Lastly, do you have a problem with myself and others expressing ourselves with strength of convictions, because you are awful quick to jump on the "format" and "protocol" high-horse, rather than discuss substance.MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 19:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

"There is no scandal" US News & World Report has named Climate-gate one of the Top 10 Political Scandals of 2009.[10] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:53, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The opinion of some sub-editors sitting in an office seems like an odd criterion for determining whether an event is a political scandal. The inclusion on the list of clear non-scandals such as Sarah Palin's premature resignation as Governor of Alaska illustrates what a very unreliable criterion inclusion on that list would be if used for that purpose. --TS 21:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Uh-huh. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Well we have repeatedly run up against instances where editors have advocated a naive, robotic approach to reporting. There's a serious issue here. We don't write articles from newspaper reports. We carefully assess all reliable sources. Somebody who says Sarah Palin's resignation was a political scandal doesn't know what the word "scandal" implies. --TS 22:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

"We carefully assess all reliable sources" I believe that's an argument in my favor. Consider the WP:UNDUE weight given to a minor element in the lede. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

You and the police and the FBI seem to have irreconcilable differences on the correct use of the word "minor". --TS 23:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The police have their policies, we have ours. If you want to write for the police, more power to you. But here on Wikipedia we're supposed to be following WP:NPOV. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

And you see a conflict between the two? Odd, I thought we were supposed to report significant facts, and the police investigations are significant facts. The word "minor" applies to neither, whether on Wikipedia or in a police station. But I fear we're drifting off the topic of this thread so I'll leave you with the last word if you want it. --TS 03:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not a question of who gets the last word, it's question of writing good Wikipedia articles. Yes, absolutely, there's huge difference between the two. One is completely irrelevant and the other is one of the pillars of Wikipedia. I suggest that if you don't like WP:NPOV, you should take it up with the editors there. Please let us know how it goes. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

If you don't think that the police POV push in a fashion unacceptable to Wikipedia, you are naive beyond words. I suggest a strong dose of Radley Balko crime reporting.TMLutas (talk) 04:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Climategate is the name used for their versions of this article in the Spanish [11], Norwegian [12] and Swedish [13] wikipedias. I agree that the current English name is unacceptable. Pete Tillman (talk) 23:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Searching Google for "Climategate" yields 9,150,000 hits. Searching for "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident" yields only 30,900. In order to limit the search to reliable sources, I decided to try Goggle News instead. Checking news for "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident" yields 7 hits (that is seven). climategate yields 6,669. (Of the seven, 2 are by WMC, 1 is on the IPCC site, and 4 use the name "climategate" at some point in the article.) As stated by Mariordo (below), Wiki policy states that the most common name must be used for naming an article. As the searches show, the only sources using the current title are wikipedia and those references that specifically reference wikipedia. The rest of the reliable sources use climategate. Per our own style guide, there is only one possible choice. To ignore overwhelming common usage is to create the story, not report it. In fact, the current name supports Solomon's claim that a few people have made wikipedia their own private propaganda machine. Q Science (talk) 05:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Is this article still not referred to as Climategate? That is clearly the predominant moniker used in the press to refer to this incident. This should be changed forthwith. --GoRight (talk) 06:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it should not be changed. See Q1 of the FAQ in the header. Viriditas (talk) 09:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I put the consensus from the above discussion at 8 in favor of changing the title to Climategate to 2 opposed. That seems a pretty clear consensus to me. Did I count incorrectly? --GoRight (talk) 06:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no such consensus. Please list the names in favor of such a change below. You are ignoring all of the archived discussions on this topic and I find that highly disruptive. Viriditas (talk) 09:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

As I commented somewhere in the archives, searching Google News for "Climatic Research Unit" with or without "climategate" shows about 60% of the stories about CRU currently use the term. 60% is a quite large fraction and supports the use of that name, but at the same time it is also misleading to suggest that the term is being universally used. Dragons flight (talk) 06:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you support the change, or not, as an editor? --GoRight (talk) 06:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no consensus for a change, and related moves (such as those found in this discussion) have not found consensus at this time. I would like to refer you to Q1 of the FAQ for this article, GoRight, as well as this NPOV noticeboard discussion As Time magazine made clear, ""Skeptics of global warming, who have long considered climate change a fraud, refer to the incident as "Climategate," with obvious intimations of scandal and cover-up."[14] That should tell you all you need to know about the problems with such an article name. Viriditas (talk) 09:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

In this conversation there is. Might I remind you, consensus can change. You don't get to try and lock in an old view by putting up a FAQ, especially on an issue as volatile as this one. When the mainstream media continue to use climategate to refer to this incident over time it is only a matter of time before this article will have to follow suit. So, we need to keep testing the current state of consensus (as we are here) to determine when that time has come. --GoRight (talk) 18:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Most of the articles that mention "climategate", do so by saying something along the lines of: or, as some have put it, “Climategate.” They usually put the word in scare quotes, do you suggest we include the scare quotes in the name as well? It's not like we don't acknowledge that some call it climategate, it's just we shouldn't make it the name of the article, but rather choose a neutral name.
—Apis (talk) 16:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The BBC reports they had the material 1 month before it was reported hacked. Either the hacking report is false or the reported date of the hacking is false or the BBC report is false. This article is in error on that point.

Climategate is the name that will be recorded in history. Whether wiki chooses to make itself irrelevant through misplace application of rules about creating words through the use of "gate" is a choice for wiki. Already wiki has become part of the story on Climategate and this article is part of the cited evidence being reported. What has changed is that now the whole world is watching, and wiki needs to wake up to this fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.71.192 (talk) 17:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The BBC story which is repeatedly trotted out by the less-informed blogs has long ago been debunked--the latest instance was on this very page yesterday. Perhaps we would be able to proceed with editing more quickly if people wouldn't repeatedly come here with ignorant nonsense they picked up from silly blog. --TS 19:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I added this point as question 9 on the FAQ. We probably need to put a lot more debunking of nonsense on the FAQ. --TS 20:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I vote for calling the article Climategate, as that is the most commonly used term, just as the article about Panthera leo is called Lion. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Q Science said, "By the way, of the 157 MB of released files, only about 8 MB (5%) were email." I think that statistic should be added to the section of the article called "Content of the documents." It also seems odd that the only subsection in that section is the one about the emails. Perhaps the info about the rest of the documents doesn't have any reliable sources - yet. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Grundle, what happened to: "He is topic banned from editing or participating in discussion of any political or politically controversial article..?" -- Scjessey (talk) 21:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Funny how you didn't post a link to support your claim. Grundle2600 (talk) 23:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I did. I posted it at WP:ANI, because this is not the place to get into lengthy meta discussion about your agenda-driven editing. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The quote which you attribute to me is not what I said. I posted the accurate quote at that section. Grundle2600 (talk) 00:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

You're wrong, Grundle. You promised not to edit anything related to climate change, yet here you are. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we have a consensus to rename this article Climategate, as it is almost always called and as some above have established. Mamalujo (talk) 01:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no such consensus. And even if there were a thousand editors all insisting we called it "Climategate", that would still not happen because it would be against policy. Even Watergate is not called "Watergate" on Wikipedia (it's called Watergate scandal, and only because it is the name of the hotel), and that's the source of all the "-gate" bullshit. Most reliable sources that use the term have it in scare quotes for a reason - because it is a term cooked-up by the skeptics to make more out of the incident than it really is. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Is there consensus to call it "Climactic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident"? That's a lot more loaded than referring to it by the common name. In any event, if we have consensus we have consensus. Policy does not trump consensus, it is a creature of consensus. If people reach a consensus that a content position satisfies Wikipedia policies, nobody gets to say "you're wrong, and because I know policy better than you do I get to interpret it." You should know that from quite a few battles where people in the minority were claiming that they are right no matter what anyone thinks. This isn't a BLP or copyright type of thing. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Wikidemon, and it's time to call the question. This is getting ridiculous. Pete Tillman (talk) 06:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Inaccurate name: Climategate is not the hacking incident

The opening line is false, "The Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as 'Climategate', began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich." This article seems to be discussing the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, which by all means did happen in November, 2009. However, implying that this "incident" is referred to by some sources (who?) as Climategate is a false statement. Climategate is about the documents, code datasets and information revealed from the "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident." This information did not begin in November 2009, that's when the hacking incident that this article talks about happened. But Climategate is referring to the state of climate science over the past decade. It's the information revealed from the "incident" that this article is discussing. One of two things needs to happen: (1) the improperly referred to name "Climategate" should be removed, or (2) information about Climategate should be added to the article. Both the hacking incident and Climategate are not one and the same. 98.232.27.135 (talk) 23:42, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Note: There is circumstantial evidence showing that 98.232.27.135 (talk · contribs) and 71.125.130.14 (talk · contribs) are the same editor. Viriditas (talk) 10:30, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

What exactly is revealed by this affair about the state of climate science over the past decade, that isn't known from peer-reviewed sources? Do you have a reliable source for the notion that our knowledge of the state of climate acience has been advanced as a result of this hacking incident? --TS 00:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, no mainstream scientific source - as opposed to hyperventilating bloggers and self-appointed amateur "auditors" - have corroborated any errors in the CRU's data, let alone the rest of climate science, as a result of this incident. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:26, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think that ... uh ... IP, there makes a nice point. It can be reasonably argued that the hacking of the data is a crime. It is also reasonable to argue that the impact of the hacking stands apart from that crime. It would then be reasonable to discuss the scope of that impact based on reliable sources. TS and CO, you can reasonably posit that the effect has been minimal and transient; you cannot reasonably argue that there has been no effect. As I have stated elsewhere I am no longer pursuing a name change because I bow to the WP "-gate" policy, but I remain sympathetic to the idea and continue to be troubled by statements that "there is no spoon". Nightmote (talk) 01:15, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly not denying there's been a political impact, but that's separate from any scientific impact. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:31, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The reputation of the various journals that have been exposed as caving to pressure from outsiders has been damaged. Is that scientific enough? There has been a diversion of budget to review 160 years of UK data as a result of this loss of confidence. Is that not a scientific impact? There's a world-wide scramble to see if all the climate data's real with reports coming out of Australia (the Darwin zero controversy alleging GHCN hanky panky to get a 6C/century global warming rise) and Russia (the IEA report alleging cherry picking warm stations) at least hinting at scientific misconduct. No doubt a lot of those attempts at verification are going to be coming out in the months and years ahead. You really think there's no scientific impact? Really? TMLutas (talk) 04:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Non-blog citations for all of those claims, please. There has been a lot of hyperventilating by anti-science activists but I've certainly not seen any data being retracted. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Chicken or the egg. Dynablaster (talk) 01:22, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

In this instance, many deny the existence of a chicken. For them the egg stands alone. Nightmote (talk) 01:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Anon makes at least one valid point: it is an inaccurate name. This is an ongoing controversy that clearly has extended beyond the initial November hacking. Unfortunately, nobody here can agree what the new name should be. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd be happy to take climategate out of the lede William M. Connolley (talk) 13:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with whatever IP wrote this, but I feel that the word "ClimateGate" shouldn't be taken out until it can be put somewhere, since there are large numbers of people who believe that "ClimateGate" does change the dynamics regarding anthropogenic climate change, as per wikipedia's significant minority opinion policy (Rush Limbaugh and Anthony Watts come to mind as huge supporters of this view, and they together have tens of millions of listeners/readers). Freiberg, Let's talk!, contribs 13:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

That's poor justification. There are billions of people living on this planet, and only a tiny "fringe-sized" minority of them follow Limbaugh or Watts. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

As opposed to the insinuated "vast majority" that buy the "planet has a fever" philosophy wholesale? Please. Whether you hate him or hang on his every word (I do neither), you refer to perhaps the utmost political pundit in America, having one of, if not the largest followings of any political commentator, and you then go and compare Limbaugh's inarguably humongous audience to the world population in order to try to make the downplay work so you can stick that "fringe-sized minority" comment in there? The saying going around is, "who are the 'deniers' now?" In other words, the horse has fled the barn, sayonara horse. (If you can get your "digs" in, why not the rest of us?) As for the primary issue in this sub-section -- by all means, DO disentangle the "alleged 'hacking incident'" article from the Climategate redirect; make them two discrete topics. No? Ahhh. But of course; that would go against the agenda of the self-important self-appointed Wiki "elites" who have bullyragged other would-be contributors and tortured this article to shoehorn it to their point-of-view, and deliberately hijacked the "Climategate" terminology with that slippery redirect, as part of the whitewash. Objectivity is, at this point, sham. I'll re-adopt an attitude of "good faith" as soon as the Wikibully cover-up artists unlock their kung-fu grip on this "article." As jfcj1 says in this talk page, "Why not just rename it 'The Official Wiki Warmist Coverup and Propaganda Page'?" It's as plain as the nose on your face; this charade fools nobody. It's no wonder Wikipedia is losing editors in droves. It's being turned into another propagandist tool; and as such will eventually become a coffee-klatch.MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 05:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The idea that Rush Limbaugh and his views are representative of anything but a tiny minority--even of the American public--is as persistent as it is erroneous. A recent poll commissioned by BBC World Service and performed by GlobeScan found that only 6% of the 24,000 people polled in 23 countries did not want their country to reach an agreement at the Copenhagen conference to deal with global warming. --TS 12:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Say what? "Erroneous"? The knowingly false claim that a majority of Americans are liberal "progressives" (we all know it's far to the contrary) and the propaganda attempting to portray worldwide belief in the AGW theory as "all-but-universal" -- these propositions are as laughable as they are persistent among those of the type who have assumed a death-clutch on this "article" while squatting all day even here on the talk page. In the scientific community alone there are many thousands who are experts in this and/or ancillary fields of study, who have been raising serious questions even from years back. You lasering in on a ludicrous BBC poll (BBC being the British version of TASS) like that further illustrates the horrendous POV-ism going on both on the main page and behind the scenes here. When one's premise requires one to try to "downplay" challengers to the AGW "debate is over" crowd by stating, in effect, that "it's only Limbaugh's audience which is 'fringe' compared to the world population" -- when you start citing polls that are clearly off the mainstream (check one of the two- or three-dozen other polls to use for citation; Gallup or something credible would be nice; oh wait, that might not serve your "intent") then you've not only got a flawed premise and an obvious agenda, you've departed the road of scholarliness. Add to it how editing to this article is jealously guarded by the self-imposed "authorities"; add to it the continuous recurrence of "we already discussed that didn't you read the talk pages and we don't want to discuss it no more now let's refocus" as a response to anyone who tries to talk straight (yeah we heard, the debate is over, somehow that doesn't quite make it); add to it the continuous implication of "I am a seasoned Wikipedia editor -- welcome! peon noob" -- add it up and you've got a seriously un-Wiki-like dynamic going on here. At best it's a travesty; at worst it's sinister. But I guess there are those who will determinedly ignore the elephant in the living room; but he's a growing boy, that elephant. OK, the rustic rabble shall return to the tillage. For now.MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 18:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Can we re-focus? There are (as far as I can tell) two issues under discussion: 1)"Should the article be re-named Climategate?" and; 2) "Is the hacking the central topic or is the content of the emails the central topic?" Regarding (1), there is reasoned opposition to the title "Climategate" based on wikipedia policy and the idea that the term implies guilt where none has been proven. To avoid mentioning the almost universally-used term "Climategate" in the introduction, however, would be blatant POV-pushing. Regarding (2), it is pointless to continue to argue that this main thrust of Climategate is computer hacking at a college. The fallout - scientific, political, professional - has almost nothing to do with how the data were released. In a year or two, Climategate may be seen to be a flash in the pan. Or not. But the significance - however great or however small and of whatever duration - lies in the data and how the world reacted to those data. Nightmote (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

In addition I would like to re-suggest that e-mail is not the only thing that was stolen, so it should be removed from the title to be more general. Ignignot (talk) 16:56, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that "e-mail" is an unnecessary part of the title, and somewhat limiting. As I said elsewhere, I am leaning toward "Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy" or "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy". -- Scjessey (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

(@ Nightmote, after ec) - I think that is only partly right. First of all, I think you are right that "Climategate" should not be in the article name, but should definitely should be in prominently mentioned in the lede. This would be consistent with the way other "-gate" stuff has been treated. Beyond that, however, I must disagree with you. The most significant issue of this matter is the theft of data. Everything else branches out from that, including:

• How the data were stolen (technical details).
• The investigation (by police, university).
• Why the data were stolen (just because? Agenda-driven?)
• Whether or not the release of this data was timed to coincide with the climate conference.
• The scientific impact (minimal).
• The impact on public opinion (some impact, particularly in the US).
• The political impact (minimal, some embarrassment to UK gov, exploitation by some US politicians).

All of these are legitimate points worth covering, and there may be more, but it is still the data theft that should form the central focus of this article. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think ScJessey's approach is close to the one we've followed so far as the situation has developed, and it seems to work well. --TS 17:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

"The most significant issue of this matter is the theft of data." No it's not. Suppose it had been the English department's archives that had been hacked/leaked — who would care about the incident? It's the view behind the curtain at the way climate science has been done that makes this noteworthy.

—WWoods (talk) 19:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The article is slanted such that it comes across as a POV condemnation of the hacking incident, consisting of email excerpts followed by numerous quotes from AGW proponents supporting the argument that the emails mean nothing and that AGW continues to be real. I don't see that as productive; we already have an Global Warming article, right? The investigation is ongoing; accordingly, we can't assume that a whistleblower released the files out of a sense of altruism, and we can't assume that the theft had overtones of international conspiracy. What does that leave us? The bare facts (what files were removed, when, and when they were disseminated) followed by a BRIEF pro/con assessment of significance (four or six quotes from James Hansen and others of similar prestige, giving no undue weight to either side) and an assessment of *concrete* impacts (quotes from leaders at the Copenhagen summit, data confirmations undertaken by the IPCC, death threats, etc.). The Climategate sandwich is, at the moment, all bread and no Climategate. Nightmote (talk) 19:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiki policy states that the most common name must be used for naming an article, and that name is "Climategate" because after more than a month it has been already used or recognized by such reliable sources and mainstream media including The Economist (here), Reuters (here), The New York Times (here), The Guardian (here), CNN (here). This fact has been recognized by most of the other language Wikipedia sites, as they call this article Climategate. The discussion above clearly reflects an effort to cleanse/sanitize this controversy, and most of the arguments presented to keep other titles are just flagrant original research as these titles have not been used by any RS but here, reaching the ridiculous point that now "controversy" is considered lack of NPOV. Please' let's call things by its name! There is no wondering Wiki's NPOV reputation is being tarnish (see this and here) I proposed this matter to be settled once an for all by a group of real neutral admins/experience editors (anyone who has contributed in GW or climate change articles should be excluded, including admins). And to keep a decent minimum of NPOV the word "some" in the lead should be changed to "several" (all the refs are in the history I provided were deleted because they look "ugly" and "pointy", with no discussion of the substance), or simply "also known as Climategate"-Mariordo (talk) 23:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Using a common name is fine, unless that common name happens to violate other policies, such as WP:NPOV. WP:PRECISION is a more useful and relevant part of the naming policy. We have an ongoing discussion about what the article name should be, and we must strive to select something that is both neutral and descriptive. "Climategate" is neither. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I like Scjessey's earlier suggestion: "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy". I'd also be find with "Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy" since that's what the majority of reliable sources are focusing on. The nice thing about "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy" is that it side-step the 'e-mail vs source code' issue. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring the fact that the term Climategate is now used by neutral mainstream media (and RS too -The Economist, NYT, etc) it blatant WP:OR, no matter how we try to find support in other WP policies. Some of the arguments that were valid a month ago are not necessarily valid now.-Mariordo (talk)

Wikipedia has a different set of policies and guidelines than the media. We don't justify the use of article titles based on what the media decides; "If it bleeds, it leads" is not an encyclopedic approach. And since there are BLP's involved, a slanted article title is not acceptable. Viriditas (talk) 09:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Not at all. The arguments that have been made consistently are based on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a non-negotiable core policy of Wikipedia. Specifically WP:NPOV#Article naming: "A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality." Names incorporating -gate are deprecated in another key policy, Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Descriptive names, which specifically mentions the example of "Attorneygate" (which we refer to as Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy). We do not use -gate in article titles because that breaches the fundamental principle of neutrality, and no amount of campaigning by partisans is going to override that principle. The principle of NPOV cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Bottom line - this article will never be called "Climategate". -- ChrisO (talk) 10:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hm, I'm warming to Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy, suggested by ScJessey above. This would remove the potentially ambiguous term "hacking" and go with the unequivocal "theft", which is at least as well supported by reliable sources. As a freebie we get "data" which is more accurate than "e-mail". --TS 13:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

This makes me happy. It appears that reasonable editors from both "sides" of the debate are beginning to coalesce on a possible title. Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy has the advantage of being descriptive, accurate and neutral. All reliable sources have said that the CRU servers were accessed illegally, so "data theft" accurately describes that without using the controversial "hacking", while still leaving open the possibility of a "leak" (which would still be the illegal theft of data, just not "hacked"). Climatic Research Unit documents controversy also has support. To my mind, it widens the scope of the article and slightly shifts the focus away from the most significant detail (the data theft). I concur with comments above that basically say this article "will never be called 'Climategate'" - it does not really matter how many !votes or cries for "Climategate" there are, because it will always violate Wikipedia policy. People arguing for this non-neutral, comic-book term would have to get the Wikipedia policy on this matter changed in order for them to have a shot at getting their way here. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, first I don't think there are two 'sides' here with regard to the name of this article and I'm not sure if characterising even the name as a two-sided confrontation when we're all trying to help is really helpful. Back to reality, and I have been worried by references to 'data' and 'data theft' in the title here before because the whole purpose of the CRU revolves around climate data, and many of the emails that are discussed refer to the data and the other documents include a lot of source code that processes climate data. So 'data' in this case is a specific term, already in heavy use; and what was stolen was not that data, at all. It makes me think of someone on one of these talk pages recently who wanted to educate us that what Watergate was about was someone stealing some tapes to prove that Nixon wasn't a nice guy. I think it's easy to set up the basis for confusion in these cases. I'm happier risking confusing someone as to the fact that many of the documents stolen were not actually emails, than having them tell me in 20 years time that someone stole/liberated all the climate data from CRU in 2009. --Nigelj (talk) 14:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a very good point. Perhaps "[CRU] e-mail theft controversy" is as close as we can get without setting up potential confusion over whether or not raw data was stolen. --TS 16:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

When I said "sides", I was referring to those preferring "hacking" or similar terminology and those preferring "Climategate" or a more ambiguous version of what we have. Perhaps "positions" would have been more accurate. That aside, I see the point concerning the possible confusion over the use of "data" in the title; however, "data" is still the correct word when attempting to describe "computer files" of varying types. I would rather not have an overlong title ("Climatic Research Unit computer files theft controversy"). Bear in mind that it is normal for the very first sentence of the lede to explain the meaning of any title that needs any sort of disambiguation, so a title change would usually mean also changing the first sentence. You'd end up with something like this:

"The Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy refers to an incident in which data of varying types from a UK-based climate research institution were illegally copied and disseminated. Referred to by some sources as "Climategate", the controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents made over the course of 13 years." blah blah blah.

I think that would remove any concerns over the use of "data" in the title. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, "data" makes you think of "scientific" climate data, and that's not part of the documents, thus "data" is misleading. Almost all news rapports have discussed only a few of the e-mails and not really any of the other files. Regarding hack/theft I think it might be wise to wait for the police investigation to complete, then we will know more about the illegal act and we can hopefully make a more informed decision.
—Apis (talk) 19:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It isn't going to be misleading if it is explained in the first sentence of the article. Besides, "data theft" is accurate legal terminology in the UK, as I recall. "Hacking" should be removed from the title at the earliest possible convenience, because it is a loaded term almost as inappropriate as "Climategate". -- Scjessey (talk) 21:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The rest of the world calls it "Climategate". How long are we going to hold out on this? It's a broad term that refers to the whole incident. It's not particularly negative either, the term is used in a silly postmodernist way. If we want to have different articles about different aspects of it - the hacking, the scandal, the underlying science, the internal debate among scientists, the aftermath, we can come up with different article titles. But whatever it means there is clearly something notable out there called Climategate, and I think that is the focus of this article. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

That's simply not true. "Climategate" is a non-neutral term cooked-up by skeptics to feed controversy. Most reliable sources only use the term in scare quotes, and those that don't are simply too lazy to be nuanced. The word is already described in the article, but we certainly shouldn't break Wikipedia's policy and lower the encyclopedia's standards just because a herd of skeptics stomp their feet in unison. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The name is the name. There is no widely used alternative, and it's not for us to coin our own lingo simply because we don't like the terms other people use for things. "America", and the resident "Indians", are also non-neutral terms, in that case cooked up by the geographically and culturally challenged. Desolation Canyon is an awfully judgmental term for a piece of geography, blind man's bluff is a slight on the sight impaired even if it's the most PC term for the game, and Donner Pass is named for folks who ate each other. Whatever a word's origins, once it becomes accepted as the name for something we've got to respect the sources and not invent our own. If you look at the definition of scare quotes, that's not what is happening. Scare quotes are used to signal that the term is referenced to someone else, so as not to create the impression that the writer endorses the literal meaning of the term. Here there is no literal meaning: we do not mean to dissuade the reader from thinking we claim the existence of an operable perforated physical barrier to a point of entry to a bounded-off area, with climate on one side and no climate on the other. The quotes are used to signal that we are referencing a newly coined term. The rules of when to use single versus double quotes are complex and varied, but it seems that the sources that use double quotes ("climategate") are attributing it to someone named or unnamed, those that use single quotes ('climategate') are referencing it as a defined term, and those that use it without quotes are either being informal as you say, or they simply acknowledge that it is in common use. In any event it gets 7.5 million google hits and 6,000 current google news hits on my browser, which is an astonishing number, half as many as Brittany Murphy. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm shocked and perplexed by the reluctance of apparently intelligent people to accept that the obvious title should be Climategate. "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident" is a good title for a single event such as Sarah Palin's e-mail hacking incident since the hacking itself was a bigger story than the information it revealed (despite the efforts of Leftists to sell the opposite) Besides the indisputable factual errors in the title, that the majority of the released information were emails (most were other form of documents) and that the information was acquired through hacking (it could have been a whistle blower), do we not all agree that the majority of mainstream sources refer to this incident as Climategate? Its a rehtorical question of course since its a fact that most mainstream sources refer to this incident as Climategate somewhere in the title and according to Wikipedia's own rules that should be enough. But the problem is that Wikipedia's rules are taken at face value when its convenient to Leftists and meta-analyzed out of existence when not. So since mainstream media refers to this incident as Climategate you are now splitting hair as to what exactly is mainstream media and when it is relevant ("It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.") If thats the way its going to be why have rules at all? The people in power should just do whatever they want and spare us the pretense. The reason liberal news and radio is failing so miserably is because liberal ideologues such as you make everything so predictably dull. Wikipedia has been in a decline for years, do you ever ask yourselves why?Professorteeth (talk) 04:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally

Exactly what difference does it make what the article title is? "Climategate" redirects here. This article is the #1 google result (in my browser at the moment) for the word "Climategate", which appears as an alternate name in the first sentence. The reader gets the exact same content, whatever we call it. Is there any hurry to sort this out? I would propose that a few months from now we'll know whether the term "climategate" stuck, or whether there's a different term for the broad incident. In the meanwhile, I am sympathetic to the claim that "hacking incident" != "x-gate" controversy. The purloining or leak of the emails is just a small part of the picture.
The current name is quite ungainly and fails to encompass the broad scope of the article, which is about more than just the fact that some computer files were compromised. If we want a literal, descriptive title, I would take a cue from the Financial crisis of 2007–2009 article, and call it something like "2009 climate change email incident" or something like that. That's still not quite it. Exactly what is this incident? It's a scandal whipped up by climate change deniers / skeptics / whatever upon the revelation that some climate change scientists were rude, ornery, and spin-conscious about the message they were putting out and the public perception of their work, and engaged in private conversations and planning that were unseemly to some. Condense that to 4-6 words and you'll have a good title. But if we can't agree on it and brevity escapes us, I wouldn't lament. Titles aren't the most important thing in the world. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The difference is that its an attempt to rewrite history. Wikipedia is suppose to report the story and not attempt to influence it. As currently written, anyone not familiar with this incident who glances at the title will walk away thinking that this is all about hacking when in reality its all about climate science fraud. Does anyone here really believes that this story made the news because society is so shocked by the act of "hacking"? No, its news because scientists who are paid through our tax dollars have manipulated data for decades and that faulty data is being used right now to justify one of the biggest power grab in the history of man kind. Professorteeth (talk) 05:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Possible sources - Climategate and Wikipedia

• Solomon, Lawrence (December 19, 2009). "Wikipedia's climate doctor: How Wikipedia's green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles". National Post. The National Post Company. Retrieved 2009-12-19. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Ball, Tim (December 7, 2009). "Climategate; The Supporting Cast - Thought Police Anyone?". Canada Free Press. canadafreepress.com. Retrieved 2009-12-19. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Cirt (talk) 07:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The Lawrence Solomon piece is part of a long series of opinion columns in the National Post. The Canada Free Press piece is so full of distortions and rank falsehoods that even linking to it from Wikipedia would raise serious concerns related to our biographies of living persons policy. --TS 13:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay okay okay, just suggestions. No worries, Cirt (talk) 16:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Solomon's article is hilarious. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The Solomon and Ball reports are consistent with what I've learned while trying to discuss and edit Wikipedia articles related to climate. One need only read the discussion above to see the extreme double standards when applying the rules on reliable sources, depending on whether they tend to confirm or refute the dominant editors' beliefs, which are now way out of the mainstream. BTW, TS, what specific errors did you find in either of the reports? I didn't find any. Flegelpuss (talk) 12:07, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The ridiculous accusations of deliberate deception are the most obvious falsehoods. There are other lies which involve detailed claims, but those big lies are the ones that stand out. The article is apparently written by a retired geography lecturer who has occasionally been misrepresented by third parties as a climatologist. I notice that a note appended to this piece by him again repeated the false description of him as a "former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg." --TS 12:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/12/i_am_all_powerful_part_2.php William M. Connolley (talk) 12:19, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I thought WP:LINKSPAM was not allowed. WTF? --GoRight (talk) 06:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I do agree that there is a serious conflict of interest here after reading all the article editing. This is definitely a controversial issue that needs both views clearly mentioned without a clear settlement. CrazyC83 (talk) 19:25, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention using this talk page to promote his personal blog. Bill, if the content of your blog is helpful in improving the article, just copy and paste your blog post here. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:10, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

No, WMC's posting of the URL is quite right. He has every right to defend himself against the attacks being aimed at him by Solomon, Ball and their followers. However, it's not really appropriate to use Wikipedia to do so. Therefore the appropriate thing to do is to respond on his blog and direct people to his response (and the associated debate), exactly as he has done above. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:32, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

"The other view" on this matter, as expressed by bloggers and opinion pieces in the right-wing media, is that these scientists are liars, frauds and conspirators to destroy the civilised world. All of these opinions fail our WP:BLP policy as none of them have been proved in a court of law or by an officially sanctioned investigation. These will come out if there is any case to answer, and then we'll report all the sordid details that are exposed. Until then, there is no COI and there has been no biassed editing here - just reflections of the facts as reported by reliable sources, as it will continue to be. --Nigelj (talk) 20:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

No, the other view on this matter, as expressed by bloggers and opinions pieces in the left-wing media, is that these scientists are beyond reproach, and any such evidence that shows otherwise needs to be automatically labled as "lies" or "slander", and deleted by the AGW cabal. No biased editing? That's funny, and intellectually dishonest, but we seem to be getting quite a bit of that from the left nowadays, huh? 75.150.245.244 (talk) 18:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Nigel: AFAIK, as long as we're citing third-party reliable sources, we should be fine in most all situations. Exceptions include religious beliefs, sexual orientation, people who are relatively unknown, dates of birth, names of family members, etc., none of which currently applies to this topic.

Crazy: I suggest you familiarize yourself with WP:BLP so you know what's allowed and what's not. It's extremely important that you cite third-party, reliable sources. You can't use op-eds or blogs for controversial material about someone else. Which reminds me. I hope we're not using RealClimate or ClimateAudit as sources for controversial material about each other or for anyone else. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:10, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

You are using them, just do a search for RealClimate and you will find 50 something links. And it appear that a few are about opinions of the writers and not factual statements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Painlord2k (talk • contribs) 18:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Lead getting cluttered again

In earlier discussions I remarked that the lead had become very congested with multiple source references. As the lead is only supposed to be a summary, the use of multiple references at that point is not necessary. As I had done before, since the lead had again become congested, I have removed secondary, tertiary, and other references. One is enough. --TS 21:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The lead is cluttered because profoundly biased editors have insisted on packing every possible negative and speculative word -- "illegal", "stolen", "hacked", etc. into the lead and repeating these flames as many times as possible. We even have a specific quote about the alleged hack in the lead -- quotes obviously don't belong in a lead, for crying out loud. And as another editor commented above, the first sentence in this lead is out-and-out false. "Climategate" as used by well over 90% of the people using that word refers to the content of the documents and the extremely controversial behavior described or embodied in them, and to the resulting investigations and reviews of the documents and of the work of Jones, Mann, etc., not to the alleged hack. CRU is an open scientific research institute holding public scientific data, not a secret weapons research facility or repository of credit card numbers or anything else sensitive, so a breach by itself is not notable. It has only been made notable by what was revealed in the documents and the resulting political storm and investigations. Flegelpuss (talk) 12:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

You say "quotes obviously don't belong in a lead", but out lead section guideline seems to contradict your claim in at least two places:

• Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although specific facts, such as birthdates, titles, or scientific designations will often appear in the lead only, as may certain quotations.
• 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.

There are at present two brief quotations in the lead, both from the University's confirmation announcement stating that "data, including personal information about individuals, appears to have been illegally taken from the university and elements published selectively on a number of websites." and "that personal information about individuals may have been compromised." I don't see anything wrong with those--they seem uncontroversial and confirm that the university is taking this theft seriously. --TS 13:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Was the server hacked? Pt 2

Yes, the server was hacked. Whether the hacker was an insider or an outsider is unknown. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Was it hacked? They state that they had (the compilation of documents), the "file" sitting on the server. If this were the case, then an insider would only need to copy the file using their credentials...this would not be a case in which the server was reconfigured or reprogrammed. If the person who obtained the emails did not use authentic credentials to obtain the information, then one could say the server was hacked. There are notable people who believe that the data may have been leaked rather than hacked.Smallman12q (talk) 23:02, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Monckton would not be a reliable source for the colour of the sky, let alone an issue such as this on which he has absolutely no knowledge whatsoever. We're not going to add speculation, period. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The logic behind such a statement is ad hominem abusive and therefore irrelevant. Smallman12q (talk) 23:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

You are abusing the word logic here, thought processes would have been better. --GoRight (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

All the reliable sources say it was hacked. That's what we go with. --TS 23:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that's a sensible response. I do agree that for now it seems that the mainstream media is stating that the emails were hacked, but there are other sources still saying they may have been either hacked or leaked. [15], [16], [17], [18], [19].Smallman12q (talk) 23:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say "the mainstream media". I said "all the reliable sources." I am not referring to any speculation or opinions by any journalists, pundits or commentators. I am referring to statements of fact by reliable sources. --TS 00:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

ROFL. This is an incredible position for you to have taken given what you stated just an hour later, [20]. --GoRight (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware the sense of both comments is identical. --TS 20:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Analysis-Leaked Following is proposed summary text:

“Network specialist Lance Levsen analyzed the emails and documents in the FOIA2009.zip file.[21] Emails were numbered and saved without headers while only one out of 402,839 emails was selected. The computer system topography indicates emails were archived at a gateway server, not from departmental servers or individual computers. Documents by contrast appear “dumped”, by the University's FOI Officer. Levensen concluded: “The details of the files tell a story that FOIA2009.zip was compiled internally and most likely released by an internal source.”” This gives objective factual basis for the argument that the file was collected by an FOI officer and leaked, rather than "hacked".DLH (talk) 03:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You're seriously suggesting that we publish a blog article by a former weatherman as a reliable source? --TS 04:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

No "speculation or opinions by any journalists, pundits or commentators", got it. In that case, we've got some work to do on the sourcing. The first instance of the word hacking is sandwiched between two references. [22] which is an opinion piece and [url=https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/CRU-update] which is a primary source and does not use the term hack or hacking in any case. The next use of the word comes with a BBC news story [23] but has no actual quote stating that the server was hacked, paraphrasing the spokesman's quoted statement that information was taken illegally. The mention of the internal investigation and the story's own computer expert talking about having care with permissions so that users don't have access to inappropriate directories leave the impression that the use of hacking is a journalistic speculation designed to drive traffic and not a proper news conclusion. And really, that's about it for reliable sources. It's a conclusion that's not documented very well and seems to be mainly about jumping to the convenient conclusion that it was not a leak.

You really want to watch that 3rd reference in my list. If that sort of paraphrase is acceptable then Pachauri's recent incendiary slander in the Indian Express really ought to be in the article too. His accusation that journalists Christopher Booker and Richard North's news piece "were coming from the same group of people who had tried unsuccessfully to discredit the IPCC and the “irrefutable science” on climate change by hacking personal emails of some scientists a few weeks ago" is rather intemperate and comes as a bit of a non-sequitur because the news report is an ethical/economic conflict of interest piece[24]. TMLutas (talk) 03:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

That's an interesting take on matters. The problem here is that you're focussing on the word "hacking" rather than the question of whether the hacking took place. --TS 04:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with TS that the source doesn't meet the requirements of reliable sources. That said, the analysis is interesting, and if the mainstream media would actually do their job, instead of flitting to the next ambulance, we might have a RS weighing in. However, the mandate of WP is well-established, so we can point out these observations on talk pages, which may be leading indicators of material eventually reported, but we can't include them in the article until better sourced.--SPhilbrickT 14:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The "analysis" is little more than speculation, and very inaccurate speculation at that. Anti-science activists have claimed that the files were part of a draft FOI release solely because of the filename. But the filename was clearly created by the hacker. The first version of the zipped file was uploaded to RealClimate under the filename foia.zip. The same file was then re-uploaded to a Russian FTP server under the name foi2009.zip. This "analyst" appears to be ignorant of that fact, and equally ignorant of how the UK FOI regime works - much of the stolen material would never have been releasable under FOI in the first place. The "analysis" is junk, I'm afraid. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

We don't have to worry: there are going to be enquiries and maybe a trial, that's when more actual reliable facts will emerge. Until then, we have captured the significant statements of the significant parties already and there is no need to rush after more 'news' - there is none. On the subject of that blogger quoted above, he is confused, or just being confusing. He says, "only one out of 402,839 emails was selected". What does that mean? In an email client, you can 'select' an email to read it, but in a zip file, no files are 'selected' unless you display them in a zip client and select one. He draws conclusions from what the "computer system topography indicates". Does he mean the folder names within the zip file? They are only an artefact of the zip file, not of the computer that made the zip, or where the data came from. Even they look like the folder structure in some gateway server that he is familiar with, that does not mean that the "emails were archived at a gateway server" - those folders could be (re-)created in any zip file on any laptop. Anyway, how does a gateway server prove that they were "dumped by the University's FOI Officer"? A gateway server could be hacked externally as well as anything else - better maybe. The hackers could have had weeks to pre-process the data, rebuild the zip file, rename files and folders inside it, rename it... He is misusing a tiny bit of technical-sounding jargon to appear (to the non-technical) to prove whatever he likes. This is why it's not worth debating the present worthless speculation. Let's wait for serious investigations to report some actual facts. --Nigelj (talk) 15:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

He misses the most obvious thing... All of the mails are Jones' - the simple item is that all of these were in a unix mail folder on the same machine (probably labelled tree-work/temp-work or something like that, and then zipped it up [no need to hack into different machines or any of the other stuff]. The hacker took this file and dumped the mails into a directory as txt files (simple operation)). All of the network analysis is simply fluff. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer Review: CRU emails

One the more controversial topics in the CRU emails surrounds the peer review process.

Email from Michael Mann to Phil Jones 11 March 2003 RE: Prof. Mann's expresses his concerns and strategy at preventing opposing papers from being able to claim they have been peer reviewed after a skeptical paper is published by "Climate Research". The following is a summary of the key points of the email.

Prof. Mann comments that Soon & Baliunas could not have cleared a "legitmate" peer review process. Prof. Mann concludes that "Climate Research" has been hijacked by skeptics. Prof. Mann list De Frietas, someone in his department as hijackers. Prof. Mann also speculates on the positions of the editors on the editorial board. Prof. Mann believes the only choice was to ignore the journal and stop submitting papers to, and citing papers in it.

Email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann and others on the cc list Prof. Jones states he is going to tell "Climate Research" that he will have nothing more to do with them until they get rid of the troublesome editor. Prof. Jones notes that a CRU person is on the editorial board but not the person dealing with the papers —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjmcdonald29 (talk • contribs) 03:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe the peer review discussions are covered in the article already, from reliable sources. --TS 12:32, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

New information's come out [25]. It looks like a good source. Any trouble with it? TMLutas (talk) 03:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It's an opinion piece, and cannot be considered to be a reliable source for anything other than the opinion of Patrick Michaels. Whether Patrick Michaels' opinion belongs in the article is another question. --TS 04:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe it is important to have a separate category for peer review as it is a key issue, the WSJ article is a reliable source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjmcdonald29 (talk • contribs) 04:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Tony it is not neutral or fair to consider every skeptic as an unreliable source. Please suggest a skeptic you would consider a reliable source. There is all kinds of opinion in the posted article with zero evidence to support them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjmcdonald29 (talk • contribs) 04:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I've already told you. As I said above, Patrick Michaels is a reliable source for the opinion of Patrick Michaels. The only question is whether we think Patrick Michaels' opinion is significant enough to go into the article. I am undecided on that. If we use Michaels' opinion, we will of course make it absolutely plain that his words represent his opinion and only his opinion. --TS 10:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I believe that established experts in the field ARE considered WP:RS for statements of fact. This is the argument continually set forth to justify the inclusion of tripe from RealClimate. So in this case your assertion appears to be vacuous. --GoRight (talk) 18:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's the relevant bit from WP:RS: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." An editorial is effectively self-published material which is why it is normally treated the way you mention. However, Michaels is an established climate expert with peer-reviewed publications in that field and as such he is more than qualified to discuss the peer review process as it exists in that field from an insider's perspective. --GoRight (talk) 19:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You know what, TS? I've decided that it's OK for me to lose my patience with you a little bit. You believe that a quote from Spencer R. Weart should be in, but that a quote from Patrick Michaels should be excluded? I'm going to go with the previous request, TS, that you name an honest-to-God hard-line skeptic that you will accept as a bona fide reliable source. It is time to put up or shut up when it comes to NPOV, and if you're not willing to accept that there *is* another side to this discussion, then I am going to find it increasingly difficult to accept that you're seeking any kind of consensus on this article. Nightmote (talk) 16:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You write "You believe that a quote from Spencer R. Weart should be in, but that a quote from Patrick Michaels should be excluded? "

No that is not what I believe and indeed it contradicts what I wrote. If you're going to lose your temper, please first get your facts right so that you will be getting angry over something rather than nothing. --TS 16:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It's important that we don't fall into the trap of turning this into an article about the global warming debate. It is also important that we don't fall into the trap of giving skeptics like Michaels a platform by distorting WP:NPOV. For every AGW skeptic you can probably find a thousand who are not, so the skeptic POV is actually fringe POV. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

" ... As it is, just one qualified expert has been consulted, to our knowledge, and this is what he has to say. I think the quotation should remain ... " (TS on stub-worthy Weart) "Qualified"? Maybe so. But if Weart is significant, then so is Michaels. And if Michaels isn't qualified, then it is fair for me to ask (twice, now) for you to name a skeptic that you are willing to accept as a Reliable Source. Scjessey this has nothing to do with whether AGW is "fringe" or "non-fringe" - this is about the UEA data breach and whether an editor is willing to acknowledge that there exists an honestly-held opposition view without injecting his *opinion* whether that reliable source is right or not. Any Creationist can acknowledge that Darwin is a reliable source for statements on Evolution without compromising his/her beliefs. So, TS - name me the skeptic's Darwin, already, and make me eat crow. Nightmote (talk) 17:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You're missing my point. It's hard to find a "legitimate" or "qualified" skeptic of climate change because it's such a fringe view. In otherwords, having such a view virtually eliminates them reliable source contention. To use your own analogy, AGW is mainstream science in the same way as evolution is (considerably revised since Darwin's time, of course), and people skeptical of evolution are generally regarded as having a fringe view also. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you got it backwards, Nightmote. Darwin is the scientist, creationists are anti-science, climate research is a science. Who's the one who's right among the creationists? When you tell me that, I'll try and find the CC denier who's right. --Nigelj (talk) 17:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that Nightmote is trying to find a Kent Hovind to "counterbalance" a Stephen Jay Gould. Which seems to be very much a case of promoting a false equivalence between fringe and mainstream scientific viewpoints. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. That's a better way of saying what I was trying to say. Ride that dinosaur! -- Scjessey (talk) 17:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

(Undent) I beg your pardon, but I am afraid that you have ALL missed my point. Darwin is a Reliable Source regarding Evolutionary Theory. The Bible might be cited as a Reliable Source for Creationist Theory, or Michael Faraday or Johannes Kepler or Isaac Newton. Reliable sources for the oppostion viewpoint. Climate research *is* a science, and certain scientists now stand *accused* (not convicted, by any means) of improprieties involving data fudging and corrupting the peer review process. Many scientists are standing up to defend the accused scientists' good names. Other scientists are standing up and demanding more openness and transparency, or suggesting that the billions of dollars of government funds are just as corrupting as the billions from Big Oil. Reliable Sources for the varying points of view exist, but if TS is unwilling to accept that individuals of good conscience exist on BOTH sides of the issue, then consensus on article neutrality cannot exist. STILL waiting for a name, TS. One name. One person of good conscience and reputation that you don't agree with. Nightmote (talk) 17:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I think I see part of the problem. This is not a scientific dispute; this is a dispute about how the scientists are operating, and one does not need to be an active scientist in the field to have a credible opinion about whether some of the actions suggested in the E-mails would be improper. What we need is a noted reliable ethicist to comment on this, except that there is no such animal. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Arthur. What you wrote is far more productive that most of what I've written. Nightmote (talk) 19:54, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

No, I think the problem is that there is no Bible quote that says you can pollute the atmosphere by burning up all the fuel in just a few hundred years and leave the crippled earth like a 'used kleenex' when you're done with getting rich and spoiling yourself in luxury. Even creationists have stuff to quote, these CC deniers are out on their own. Anyway, this is an article about an e-mail hacking incident and, until the investigations/hearings/trials are published we cannot speculate in the way bloggers and op-ed writers can. We can only report the facts via the reliably published statements of the involved parties, as we've done. --Nigelj (talk) 18:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's not forget that there is no confirmation that the scientists have actually done anything wrong. All we have at the moment are allegations. Your hypothetical ethicist would be in the same position as all the other commentators - speculating, without any firm knowledge of whether there had actually been any ethical violations. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little perturbed that, despite my pointing to the fact that it's contradicted by my own prior words, Nightmote continues to misrepresent my position as being opposed to the quoting the opinion of Patrick Michaels as an expert climatologist. I note that we already do, in fact, quote Michaels as such, and there's no question of that quote being removed simply because his opinion is opposed to that of most climate scientists. But I'll take up that matter, if necessary, with Nightmote himself, as it's an interpersonal matter. The fact is that I'm considering wheter we might incorporate Michaels' opinion piece into the article, and if so, how we should do it. Nightmote could not be more wrong. --TS 18:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, I beg your pardon, TS, but you argued in writing for the inclusion of Weart's quote, and then stated in writing that you were "undecided" on the Michael's quote. I am willing to concede that I may have inadvertently misrepresented your position (for which I apologize), but surely you can see where I might be confused? My position on *both* quotes is that they have little bearing on the article and should be removed, but if Weart's quote should remain describing the unprecedented attack on science, then some balance is required to identify the source of the outrage. Nightmote (talk) 19:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for acknowledging that I'm undecided on inclusion of the Patrick Michaels quote. If you think his quotes shouldn't be included, then why are you attacking me for considering that they might be? If your purpose is to confuse me, if have succeeded.

I do not understand your argument on balance. Do you contend that Michaels is an expert on the history of science? --TS 20:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Weart is an AGW-supporting author uninvolved in the controversy. Your observation in another section, along the lines of "we can't include everybody" applies equally well to Weart. If I am attacking you (though I tell you that I am taking issue with your *position*, not with *you*), it is only because you took the time to defend Weart, but are on the fence regarding Michaels. Michaels is at least as well-qualified to comment as Weart, though based on my initial edit you ought to know that I feel the entire section is superfluous. Nightmote (talk) 21:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Weart is "Involved in he controversy" by virtue of having written a book on the history of global warming? Good grief! --TS 22:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Uh, did you mean to type "uninvolved"? I wrote that he is an AGW-supporting author, and that he is uninvolved in this controversy. What I mean by that is that there was a break-in, there is an ongoing investigation, and there is fallout. My (I believe defensible) position has been that the article ought to be limited to the clearly identifiable events and consequences, limiting quotes and opinion (and controversy) to a minimum. So (for instance) I think that it would be great to say, "The files were removed, the school claims they were stolen, some professors have received death threats, and the police are investigating this as a crime" but not so necessary (or pertinent) to include what professor Weart or professor Michaels or former Vice President Al Gore has to say unless that person was in a position to effect policy (President Obama isn't involved in the controversy, but his *opinion* of the controversy has significant bearing on US policy). Weart's quote might influence what President Obama thinks, but it is what President Obama says and does that are significant. If Professor Weart was appointed tomorrow as the new Global Warming Czar, I would then say that his quote was hugely important. I would support including external links to each and every one of these quotes, by the way. It's not that Professor Weare or Al Gore doesn't matter or isn't well-informed, it's that in the final analysis their opinions aren't pivotal. Nightmote (talk) 00:22, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread your "uninvolved" as "involved". Mea culpa. On the subject matter, I think I've already remarked that Weart is cited as a science historian. What we're writing here is, technically, a historical article. Weart can be expected to have the long perspective that others do not, and that helps us to make this article a bit better than it would otherwise be. --TS 00:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking that the inclusion of his quote invites "dueling experts" and the blizzard of quotes under which the facts are buried. Nightmote (talk) 00:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Arthur laments the absence of a citation from a "reliable" ethicist. Actually I believe the AP article cites an ethicist, or something close. During the past four days we seem to have become a little paralysed and haven't really incorporated the AP piece into the article, and I think that's a mistake. So, perhaps a reboot is in order. --TS 18:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: To seek consensus before acting

This article covers a pretty controversial event, and partisan views are evident everywhere. I would like to propose that editors seeking to change the article first win consensus for their change on the talk page, unless the proposed edit is completely uncontroversial (like fixing a typo). For example, irrespective of the merits of the inclusion, this edit by Nightmote is clearly designed to provoke, rather than improve (as implied by the edit summary of, "Expert commentary. Let's time this.") - very unhelpful indeed. This would be similar to having the article fully protected, but conducted on a voluntary basis that allows us to make minor changes without administrator assistance. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support - As proposer. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - The existence of this poll. The policy is already stated in the infobox at the top as well as the means to resolve conflict. -- User:Chelydramat ^{This cursed Ograbme!} 19:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - WP:BRD is tried and true. --GoRight (talk) 19:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

  I see that Scjessey has chosen to reinstate his personal attack even after it was properly even redacted. And letter for letter the same. Not a small attempt to correct the problem. Scjessey, please refactor your clear accusation of bad faith editing. --GoRight (talk) 04:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• I'm neutral on this. One of the complaints made about the climate change articles is that they are "owned". Whether this is true or not is another matter, I don't believe they are, but a general resolution on consensus prior to all edits would tend to act as a hold on all edits, and I think that situation could become rather unhealthy. There are some merits, but too, I can't support this at present. --TS 19:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose (thanks for the redaction) My edit was made in good faith and refected my genuine opinion. I do not want to engage in an edit war, nor do I intend to, but I have grave reservations that some of the editors are unwilling to acknowledge that Reliably Sourced opposition opinions exist. but I am concerned that I seem to be unable to make headway towards "consesnsus" in the face of "bold editing" and rapid reverts. Nightmote (talk) 20:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Agree (probably for the first time ever :) with GoRight. This is unnecessary and diametrically opposed to how Wikipedia is supposed to work. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:14, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Eh. In general, it's a good idea to discuss major changes here first, but I think it's best to follow established WP policy otherwise. Pete Tillman (talk) 21:14, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. How is this any different than locking down the page again? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Existing Wiki policies are enough. Regular editors need to be more patient with newcomers to avoid the negative sense of ownership.-Mariordo (talk) 01:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

This is all well and good, but time and again it has been proven that editors have been unable to "do the right thing" and continue edit contentious, tendentiously and disruptively. If this sort of poor behavior doesn't stop, I will have no choice but to request full page protection and have this limit imposed - a far less convenient solution. GoRight is wrong in saying "WP:BRD is tried and true", insofar as it only works effectively on relatively quiescent articles. In contentious articles like this, it is a recipe for disaster that constantly sparks edit warring. Complaints of ownership are indeed a problem, with one or two editors imposing themselves with overly-rapid discussion closures/archiving and unilateral edits that other editors would prefer to see discussed. Editors expressing a skeptical view (and in some cases, fringe view) have just as much right to have their concerns addressed in a meaningful discussion as those expressing a mainstream view. Everyone needs to calm down, talk about things more, and stop acting in ways that create discord. Although Nightmote's edit (referred to in my comment above) was made in an antagonistic manner, the editor makes a valid point about rapid reverting being a problem; however, bringing it to the talk page first would have been infinitely preferable. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I take issue with you refering to my edit as "antagonistic", and with your double dismissive reference to my position as "fringe". I have been very patient, made every effort to discuss issues and seek consensus, and improve what I consider to be a bloated and off-topic article. I made several comments regarding Weart, including the observation that he was uninvolved with the UEA situation, relatively unknown, and that his quote wasn't particularly accurate. My deletion was in-line with WP policy, as was the revert. My subsequent quote addition and editing were also per WP policy. "If in doubt, leave it out." Isn't that your position? Assume Good Faith. Nightmote (talk) 22:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

As I explained in my comment above (refactored earlier, but restored by me), your edit summary was unnecessarily antagonistic. If you hadn't used the edit summary to be pointy, this wouldn't have come up. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:33, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

My comment was general. Your comment was specific. My comment was aimed at editors who have been hovering over this article and reverting anything that didn't support their POV. Your comment was aimed at *specifcally* me, was very personal, and is unnecessary. (expanded) And, because this bears repeating, the deletion was made in Good Faith in an effort to improve the article *after* discussion on the current talk page and in an archived talk page. Not everybody agreed with my deletion, but not everybody agreed with the inclusion of the quote in the first place. As for blocking the article (again) I see little consensus for your position on that. Nightmote (talk) 00:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I see that Scjessey has not only chosen to restore a previously redacted personal attack, but he has chosen to make things worse with "Although Nightmote's edit (referred to in my comment above) was made in an antagonistic manner ...". Another clear personal attack. If anyone is being antagonistic here, I would humbly submit that it is Scjessey and his inflammatory comments. --GoRight (talk) 04:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: delete "Similar incidents" section

This section was added without a clear consensus -- see earlier discussion here -- and doesn't seem to be notable enough to merit a separate section. Perhaps a mention in passing elsewhere? See this National Post article for a complete report; this is the cite we should use, if we retain a mention of this (single) incident. Dr. Weaver is a redlink, and appears to be a publicity-seeker, and a bit paranoid. Note this line from NP: Weaver "believes the campaign is driven by the fossil-fuel industry, citing "a war for public opinion." " Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

He may be a redlink on Wikipedia, but he's an IPCC lead auithor. --TS 19:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Apparently, this breakin was just one of others at the University of Victoria. From a forwarded Anthropology Dept email notice:

"I’ve just learned that there have been a number of office and lab break-ins across campus in recent days–initially Science & Engineering buildings, but now Cornett & BEC. Psychology has had several offices and labs broken into, and last night there were break-ins in second-floor offices in BEC. Entry seems to be happening by jimmying/forcing locks."

Probably not the shadowy minions of Exxon after all. --Pete Tillman (talk) 23:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

That's strange. The campus spokeswoman the National Post contacted confirmed that breakins, attempted hacking, and impersonation of technicians at CCCma (yes, specifically the CCCma, the climatology building) had taken place, and I fail to see how they can all be written off in the flippant manner your blogger does. According to Weaver, the office break-ins were last year while the hacking attempts were in the past few months.

And needless to say your blogger is not a reliable source on matters pertaining to CCCMa or crime. Weaver and the Post's University contact, however, are reliable sources who corroborate one another. Your blogger simply tries, and fails, to spread misinformation. --TS 01:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

New expert commentary

Thomas Sowell has published an article today about this controversy[26]. I plan on adding the following quote to the article:

"People who have in the past applauded whistleblowers in business, in the military, or in Republican administrations, and who lionized the New York Times for publishing the classified Pentagon papers, are now shocked and outraged that someone dared to expose massive evidence of manipulations, concealment and destruction of data— and deliberate cover-ups of all this— in the global warming establishment."

I'm certain that many of you here don't agree with many of Dr. Sowell's opinions. However his notability can't be ignored. -- User:Chelydramat ^{This cursed Ograbme!} 19:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

What relevance does this blogged opinion have to the event? Everybody has an opinion on this. We can't include them all. --TS 19:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Blogged? Dr. Sowell is as far from a blogger as you can get. His published works far exceeds that of Spencer Weart. Then again, to use the standard you're using here, the whole Reactions section can be deleted since it's just a bin of quotations without any summation of the event in question. -- User:Chelydramat ^{This cursed Ograbme!} 20:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You added his commentary to "Other expert commentary". What is this fellow's expertise? --TS 20:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Sowell has written more books than Weart and is probably better known within the general population, but he is an economist and social commentator who's work (as far as I can tell) has had nothing to do with climate science or any physical sciences at all. In contrast, Spencer Weart is a physicist and science historian who's produced The Discovery of Global Warming, a highly detailed account of the development of the science behind AGW. Obviously, Weart's comments are far more relevant than anything Sowell would have to say.--CurtisSwain (talk) 21:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell from the Wikipedia article he's an economist, It's hard to see how this comment is relevant to his field of expertise?
—Apis (talk) 22:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

It was stated elsewhere that this event has had no significant scientific fallout, but some public fallout. Sowell would not be my first choice, but he is a reasonably well-known and authoritative conservative social commentator from National Review, and his opinion in that article is defensible. However. This quote is part of the slippery slope of including opinions from people not directly involved in the event; his opinion is Reliably Sourced, on the subject, and respected by a percentage of the population, but has little relevence. Nightmote (talk) 00:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

YouTube video

Are we seriously using a YouTube video for a cite on the James Inhofe/cap and trade bit?[27] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

"Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia"

I'm not sure what use (if any) we could (or should) make of this, but here's James Delingpole's take on this article, and other things Wikipedian:

“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.

Happy(?) reading -- Pete Tillman (talk) 02:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

This definitely belongs in the article. Who could fail to be impressed by Delingpole's calm, reasoned presentation and his evenhanded analysis of the evidence? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Our article is clearly biased but his accusations against William Connolley regarding this article are unfounded. Bill is not the problem here. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Whatever. The news article is rather disingenuous. When pundits have nothing else to do they make stuff up about Wikipedia. It speaks ill of the Telegraph that they print such factually wrong nonsense even in an editorial. But they're also the paper that ran with a news story about the World Net Daily piece about the Barack Obama article and failed to issue a correction when informed it was a set-up. If that experience is any guide, better batten down the hatches because this article is in for a large influx of newbies and trolls. Meanwhile, might as well add a {{press}} template. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with AQFK. Whatever the problems with this article if any, and whatever problems WMC may or may not have had in other Climate Change related articles, it's clear WMCs activity both in the talk page and in the article has been rather limited for the past 2 or 3 weeks and all this WMC controlling the article that some conspiracy theorists like to sprout is nonsense. Personally I stopped even bother to read what Delingpole writes when I read the first article someone here linked and found him talking up Ian Wishart Nil Einne (talk) 06:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Running scared. Great stuff!--82.29.1.10 (talk) 06:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed re-add: "code and documentation" section

This article previously included a section about the code and documentation included in the FOIA zip file. TS removed this section here. Numerous reliable blogs, editorials, and news sources have written about the code and associated readme file:

• CBS News: [28]
• Washington Times: [29]
• Computer World: [30]
• Pajamas Media: [31]
• The Atlantic: [32] [33]
• New York Times: [34]
• London Telegraph: [35]
• The Weekly Standard: [36]
• Sydney Morning Herald: [37] [38]
• BBC: [39] (video, becomes interesting at ~2:00)

And so on. Therefore I submit that information about the code and readme should be reinstated. Thoughts? Oren0 (talk) 03:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. --GoRight (talk) 07:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)