Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy

Maybe something that could be used in a new section Leading up to the incident?

In the article Peer-to-Peer Review: How ‘Climategate’ Marks the Maturing of a New Science Movement, Part I, Patrick Courrielche writes "What was triggered at this blog (the Air Vent) was the death of unconditional trust in the scientific peer review process, and the maturing of a new movement – that of peer-to-peer review. […] Remember these names: Steven Mosher, Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, Jeff “Id” Condon, Lucia Liljegren, and Anthony Watts. These, and their community of blog commenters, are the global warming contrarians that formed the peer-to-peer review network and helped bring chaos to Copenhagen – critically wounding the prospects of cap-and-trade legislation in the process. One may have even played the instrumental role of first placing the leaked files on the Internet.". First of all, is this a proper source for this kind of analysis? Nsaa (talk) 01:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No. It's just another Andrew Breitbart blog. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

... and what's wrong with Andrew Breitbart? Nsaa (talk) 02:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It is not a case of what's wrong with Andrew Breitbart - it is just the WP does not generally use blogs (ie. opinion) as sources. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There is already a surfeit of opinion on this topic. We don't need yet more, particularly from fringe commentators. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Nsaa's intent that the effects of ClimateGate on science should be discussed. Particularly the peer-review process and public trust in science. Agree with the others that that particular bog entry is not the best way to go about it. Although I enjoyed that story and agree with nearly everything said, it's still a blog, which wikipedia usually avoids. Perhaps one or more of these links could supplement or replace the blog link? Climategate: Science Is Dying (WSJ) On environment, Obama and scientists take hit in poll Political polarization on environmental science (Washington Post) (first question in that link is regarding public trust in scientists) Sarah Palin On ClimateGate, Copenhagen: Beware Politicized Science (CBS) John Derbyshire: Trust Science But Don't Trust Scientists (CBS) Cringing Over Climategate (Forbes) 'Climategate' May Hold Lessons on Openness for Researchers Under Pressure (Chronicle) 'Climategate' resolution underlines concern over data falsification (RSC) 'Show Your Working': What 'ClimateGate' means (BBC) Open Science and climategate: The IPCC/CRU needs to take a leaf out of CERN's Book (Free Software Magazine) --Magicjava (talk) 06:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree about the need for assessment of the impact on science, but that may be rather premature. A couple of these links that I've looked at suggest ill informed opinion pieces. Can you point to specific links out of them that you think are balanced and accurate, and not just first reactions to the news? Thanks, dave souza, talk 10:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd start with these:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR2009121800002.html On environment, Obama and scientists take hit in poll (Washington Post) Article discussing results of scientific poll.

Political polarization on environmental science (Washington Post) Results of scientific poll.

'Climategate' resolution underlines concern over data falsification (RSC) (Discusses House Resolution 954 to preclude future infringements of public trust by scientific falsification and fraud)

Open Science and climategate: The IPCC/CRU needs to take a leaf out of CERN's Book (Free Software Magazine) (The article is bias, but the section on the Peer Review is good. It discusses the short comings of Peer Review and the advantages alternative Double Blind Review, which is what the Open Source community uses) --Magicjava (talk) 08:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The first two appear to make no mention of the emails stolen from CRU – you seem to be synthesising your own interpretation of the polls, but from what I can see they're not admissible on this article. The chemistryworld article looks useful both for noting a continuing discussion on standards before and after the incident, and for description of political moves by a Republican making use of the publicity – what happened to House Resolution 954 introduced on 8 December? Rather reminiscent of the various Academic Freedom bills. The Free Software Magazine seems, surprisingly enough, to be promoting OSS, but looks very badly informed about the IPCC process and in my view lacks credibility. The IPCC process is something we should describe, as it's evidently widely misunderstood. dave souza, talk 11:44, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Misleading cite in section "Naming of the incident"

The first sentence of Section "Naming of the incident" mischaracterises the content of its cite. The current sentence is:

'Analysis by FactCheck concluded that sceptics who allege that the documents show fabrication of evidence of man-made global warming are portraying it as a major scandal, using the term "Climategate".[19]'

The cite refers to http://factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/ wherein we find the only "analysis" for this is the following assertion:

'Skeptics claim this trove of e-mails shows the scientists at the U.K. research center were engaging in evidence-tampering, and they are portraying the affair as a major scandal: "Climategate." '

This is neither an "analysis" nor a "conclusion", it's a mere assertion with no attempt to support it.

If we attempt to fix the Wikipedia sentence by removing the references to "FactCheck", "analysis" and "concluded" we end up with:

'"Sceptics who allege that the documents show fabrication of evidence of man-made global warming are portraying it as a major scandal, using the term "Climategate".[19]'

But this new sentence is self-evidently invalid - e.g. its reference to "sceptics" is unscoped - not every sceptic would agree with the term "Climategate". It's a bad claim even in its source - the FactCheck item.

The sentence should either be dropped, or an alternative and superior source should be found. Cadae (talk) 11:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. --Magicjava (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, would question why the naming of the incident is even in the article. Is there a "naming of the incident" section in wiki's coverage of Billygate? Of Camillagate? Of Monicagate? The closest I can find is something like this: "The scandal is sometimes referred to as "Monicagate",[5] "Lewinskygate",[6] "Tailgate",[7] "Sexgate",[8] and "Zippergate",[8] following the "gate" nickname construction that became popular in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal." for the entry on the Lewinsky scandal.--Magicjava (talk) 08:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I've added a dubious tag to the cite to mark this. Since no one seems to be defending this sentence here, propose we delete it soon. JPatterson 00:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

Maybe because quite a lot of people who work on this article are either (a) asleep, or (b) watching NFL playoff games. Propose we leave it where it is until there's been more discussion by regular Wikipedians. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The whole Factcheck article is an 'analysis' of the situation. The sentence you quote is analysis. As for the alternative, it seems rather lacking in a good source. What skeptics? Who are we talking about? Who came to this conclusion? The existing wording ties an actual source (Factcheck) and represents is an their analysis, not an incontrovertible fact. Guettarda (talk) 07:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

But the article incorrectly states the FC piece made a conclusion about the source of the term. I can find no such conclusion. Please help us out by citing the specific sentence in the FC article that supports the claim. JPatterson (talk) 00:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The statement in the article is based on the "Summary" that "Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming." and the "Analysis" that "Skeptics claim this trove of e-mails shows the scientists at the U.K. research center were engaging in evidence-tampering, and they are portraying the affair as a major scandal: "Climategate." Saudi Arabian climate negotiator Mohammad Al-Sabban went so far as to tell the BBC: "It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change." He said that he expected news of the e-mails to disrupt the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen this month. An article from the conservative-leaning Canada Free Press claims that the stolen files are proof of a "deliberate fraud" and "the greatest deception in history."....."

To meet the concerns expressed, I've quoted "are portraying the affair as a major scandal: 'Climategate'." directly, and removed the tag. The statement doesn't preclude the idea that others are using the term, but it's the self-described analysis by a generally accepted neutral source. Do please find similarly neutral sources analysing the usage and reaching their own conclusions. . dave souza, talk 11:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Trenberth email

This edit removes an unsupportable weasel and adds some CV info to Trenberth's intro. (see discussion on Passive weasels above). I could find no critic who actually said this although a lot of secondary source claim they did. It didn't really add anything to the discussion anyway. The implications are clear from the email excerpt and Trenberth's response speaks for itself. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:02, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The quote itself is just a snippet and perhaps should be expanded to include the part where Dr. Trenberth mentions the observations are not supplying enough data to verify or refute the energy balance model. --Magicjava (talk) 06:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree in principle, do you have a specific secondary source in mind that presents the extended extract from the email that you were thinking of? Please note that we don't want to synthesise our own extract from the purloined email itself. Thanks, dave souza, talk 11:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

There's a source on Media Matters here. It's the 2nd claim down the page. Dr. Trenberth's "travesty" is that the CERES satellite is showing warming of something like 6 watts per meter squared (i.e. more than 6 times what is expected from the models), yet temperatures are going down. It's pretty clear from the full quote that A) Models don't match actual measurements, and B) Dr. Trenberth believes the CERES satellite measurements are wrong. Hard to disagree with him in this case since the weather looked nothing like what the satellites said it should be. --Magicjava (talk) 23:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that source looks useful and gives links to relevant articles. Something to build on. . . dave souza, talk 11:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Raw data

Also, the data supplied by the Met isn't raw data. This is an issue that is associated with climategate and is well known by the public. Even Jon Stewart was concerned about it.--Magicjava (talk) 09:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The Had part is supplied by the Met, and we have a well sourced statement that the HadCRUTS code is maintained by the Met. The video which you link is not presently available in my country, but it is summarised, presumably by Mr. Stewart, as "E-mails stolen from scientists don't disprove global warming, but it puts a fresh set of Energizers in the Senate's resident denier bunny." Was that what you meant? . . dave souza, talk 10:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Dave, I'm not seeing a link to CRU's raw data in any of the links you supplied. Could you be so kind as to post a link directly to the raw data? --Magicjava (talk) 04:29, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you missed this link and the CRU update 2 which starts "Over 95% of the CRU climate data set concerning land surface temperatures has been accessible to climate researchers, sceptics and the public for several years... over 95% of the raw station data has been accessible through the Global Historical Climatology Network for several years..... The University will make all the data accessible as soon as they are released from a range of non-publication agreements." That should help your search for the 95%, you'll have to make requests directly to the other national met organisations for the data they have so far refused to release. Note that the CRU's webserver is currently being rebuilt after the security breach, some documents may be on google cache. In the meantime, you can also obtain a lot of the datasets here. Unix system required for processing, Microsoft Access isn't up to it apparently. . . dave souza, talk 09:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Dave. I've been looking for that data for a while and, yeah, I never made the connection between GHCN and CRU. And yes, I have a UNIX system. :) --Magicjava (talk) 10:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Glad to assist, will be interested to hear how you get on with that data. . . dave souza, talk 23:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Met page here still says the raw data was thrown out in the 80s. See Questions and answers about the data sets items 1, 2, and 3. I must admit that keeping track of all these different raw and processed data sets is confusing and perhaps an explanation of them and their inter-relationships is worth its own wiki page. --Magicjava (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, short sighted skimping on spending in the 80s, admittedly electronic data storage was horrendously expensive then, what a shame the treasury wasn't under someone as keen on fully funding "The integrity of the scientific evidence" and "the reputation of British science" as Lord Lawson... oh, wait a minute! Fortunately, item 4 notes that "There are three independent sets of global temperature" so hope the US organisations weren't as short sighted. Suspect that the climate scientists are equally frustrated with the difficulties of compiling this data, and a Wikipedia article on the whole issue would be a good thing. Bit beyond me, I'm afraid! . . dave souza, talk 23:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Also seems that GHCN unadjusted data is not unadjusted after all. At least according to this blog post. --Magicjava (talk) 16:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• Where’s the data? – "Much of the discussion in recent days has been motivated by the idea that climate science is somehow unfairly restricting access to raw data upon which scientific conclusions are based..... However, many of the people raising this issue are not aware of what and how much data is actually available.... [ RealClimate ] has "set up a page of data links to sources of temperature and other climate data, codes to process it, model outputs, model codes, reconstructions, paleo-records, the codes involved in reconstructions etc." – Data Sources . . . dave souza, talk 11:14, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
• From the Met Office FAQ – The raw sea-surface temperature observations used to create HadSST2 are taken from ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set). These can be found at http://icoads.noaa.gov/ ." Regarding HadCRUT3, GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and NCDC (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) global temperature analyses, "The datasets are largely based on the same raw data, but each analysis treats that data differently." Presumably raw data enthusiasts can get it from the two U.S. sources if they don't trust the British organisations, and from CRU update2, "The warming shown by the HadCRUT3 series between the averages of the two periods (1850-99 and 2001-2005) was 0.76±0.19°C, and this is corroborated by the other two data sets." . . dave souza, talk 11:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Semi?

This [6] shouldn't be necessary William M. Connolley (talk) 11:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

IBMers against science? Such edits still seem pretty rare, surprisingly enough, so I don't think semi would usually be applied in the circumstances, but worth keeping under review. . . dave souza, talk 12:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Has James Delingpole really been editing wikipedia? Nil Einne (talk) 12:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Nah, he's no IBMer, nothing so technical. Just some journo and pundit. . . dave souza, talk 13:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Some confusion here I think... (1) the vandalism referred to by WMC came from an IBM IP address and (2) Delingpole was ranting about Wikipedia (and sending swarms of ranters here), not editing it himself. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I was struck by the edit summary of "Loosers!" What are we being too loose about here? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly IBM's standards are slipping... -- ChrisO (talk) 01:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean the IBMer said the Delingpole blog was commentary from an 'uninvolved editor'. I don't see how his blog can be commentary from an 'uninvolved editor' unless Delingpole himself is an editor on some area of wikipedia. Of course it's easily possible the IBMer was wrong, I was just wondering if he wasn't and there's something I missed Nil Einne (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Who are "sceptics of anthropogenic climate change"?

they are Climate change denial deniers ?? sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 13:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting link, but the "skeptics" label is a self-description that appears in most of the sources. There are various degrees of denial, and the more scientifically literate opponents of the current consensus accept that there is a man-made contribution to climate change, and that the climate is changing for the warmer, but dispute whether that man-made contribution is statistically significant. Jolly hockey sticks! . . dave souza, talk 14:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

new "password" Scientific opponents global warming? no? then Climate change denial.. "pump it" :P sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 14:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear what you are trying to say. Hipocrite (talk) 14:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Methinks the young one should stick with the Slovakian Wikipedia. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

why? I feel "at home", finally you have achieved pure post-socialist newspeak , congratulations sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 16:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't want to go too far off topic with this Dave, but it hasn't warmed in about 12 years. :P --Magicjava (talk) 23:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree, remember it's not possible to "Hide the decline" much longer … The mini ice age starts here Nsaa (talk) 00:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"Individuals who oppose action on global warming" :O Blacklist-List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming - are they? sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 13:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No sign of a blacklist, notice that they're not necessarily experts on climate. Rather reminiscent of A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, but much more reputable. . . dave souza, talk 14:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The second half of the lede

I saw recently that that there were two versions of the second half of the lede vying for prominence in the revert process. The obvious compromise seems to be to combine the two, which is what I have just done. The main points covered in the second half are as follows, and space-wise as well as in terms of summarising the main points of the article I see no reason why we can't mention all of them:

1. Allegations:
   1. withholding scientific information,
   2. interfering with the peer-review process of scientific papers,
   3. deleting e-mails and raw data to prevent disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act,
   4. "cherry picking" data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.
2. Refuted by
   1. The University of East Anglia,
   2. other scientists,
   3. scientific organisations,
   4. elected representatives and governments from around the world
3. Typical refutation points
   1. a smear campaign,
   2. intended to sabotage 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit.
4. Announcements re future
   1. independent review of the allegations will be carried out by Sir Muir Russell
   2. Phil Jones, to stand aside

--Nigelj (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Im general I like the synthesis. I do think there is still some improvements in tone that could me made. "emails show" is too close to "emails prove". I prefer "emails indicate". Also "collude" seems unnecessarily inflammatory. JPatterson (talk) 19:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point, I've changed the word. . . dave souza, talk

So, we had consensus for this for best part of a day, but then along comes this edit and it is all lost again. If we are going to take all the references out of the lede, how are we going to stop random people coming along and deleting whatever they like from it, saying "missing citations". This is a potentially serious problem since we can't simply revert such nonsense any more. --Nigelj (talk) 13:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I've added a commented out reminder that there are citations in the body text, per WP:LEAD, the wording of that reminder is of course open to review. . dave souza, talk 14:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

New news at last!

And quite interesting too: the local newspaper has reported that the National Domestic Extremism Team is now involved in the police investigation.[7] It looks like they may be pursuing some interesting lines of enquiry... -- ChrisO (talk) 20:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

So does this now make this article part of the War on Terrorism^TM? Guettarda (talk) 20:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Domestic extremism is usually taken to refer to neo-Nazi groups, animal rights extremism etc - organised groups rather than just "lone wolves". The involvement of the NDET suggests that the police are exploring the possibility that the hack was the work of a criminal conspiracy rather than just a lone right-wing wacko. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, this sheds more light on it (from the Beeb): ""At present we have two police officers assisting Norfolk with their investigation, and we have also provided computer forensic expertise. While this is not strictly a domestic extremism matter, as a national police unit we had the expertise and resource to assist with this investigation, as well as good background knowledge of climate change issues in relation to criminal investigations." [8] I'll work this in somewhere. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like Delingpole was on about this a couple days ago. Guettarda (talk) 20:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The inevitable comparison between people who think the Medieval Warm Period may have had an indistinguishable climate from now and people who believe in ethnic cleansing is sickening. If we're going to add this, can we please keep it as concise as possible? Ignignot (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the more appropriate comparison is between the anti-science activist(s) who hacked the server and the anti-science activists who've been terrorising medical researchers for years (and who were a major reason for the NDET being established). Anyway, I've added a suitably neutral bit to the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That comment isn’t helpful. We know nothing, literally nothing about those who were responsible. While they may turn out ot be activists, there’s no evidence they are anti-science. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were pro-science. In any event, I have no objection to the edit you made, but it would be useful to keep wholesale speculation to a minimum. SPhilbrickT 23:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd guess that using criminal means to deliberately sabotage the work of a leading research institution doesn't qualify as "friendly to science". -- ChrisO (talk) 01:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, sabotage, interesting choice of words considering the data from this "leading research institution" was ONLY released. Furthermore, since NDET (if they actually did it) did not attach any message to the e-mails about why they did it, it cannot be argued that they were pro-science or not, that is ridiculous, the only thing they could be is pro-truth. - Gunnanmon (talk) 06:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

We all share some views with people who have taken them to extremes. Or more to the point, once governments invest their resources in things like NDET (or SWAT), their arena f use is going to broaden, if for no other reason than to justify spending the money on them in the first place. Guettarda (talk) 21:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

What was added by ChrisO was fine by me. Ignignot (talk) 21:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

<offtopic light relief> One-upmanship by Al Gore ;-P . . dave souza, talk 18:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Inhofe

This edit[9] and its quick revert caught my eye today. It seems weird to have to frame a quote by a well-known politician by stating that he is "an outspoken sceptic of climate change". On the other hand, I don't think you could understand his statement that Climategate is the last nail in the coffin of AGW theory without understanding that his views are beyond just s-k-eptical (he would probably object to the British spelling), but outside the mainstream. I think the need to qualify his statement is an indication that maybe it's not the best statement to add here, because it's not representative of mainstream thinking, even mainstream American conservative / Republican thinking. If his position / statement is noted in the article because it is a noteworthy thing, as opposed to being in the article to illustrate legislators' reaction, then we need more context than just calling him a skeptic. Thoughts? - Wikidemon (talk) 23:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Last week we reached a consensus on removing inflammatory labels and characterizations from all intros, a move I think that has greatly improved the article. In particular, we agreed that "skeptic of climate change" is an unsupportable characterization. The person who re-inserted this characterization inserted a cite in an attempt to get around the consensus, but the cite doesn't support it. We'd have to use "the most outspoken critic of man-made global warming alarmism in the United States Senate" to be accurate and that seems silly to me JPatterson (talk) 00:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

ehm.. "Timeline" - "An anonymous post from a Saudi Arabian IP address[10] to the climate-sceptic blog The Air Vent,[4] described the material as "a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents" and defended the hacking on the grounds that climate science is "too important to be kept under wraps".[11]" ... climate-sceptic... who? sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 00:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

If your point is that we missed one or that this wording needs to change, I agree JPatterson (talk) 00:39, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Inhofe is a self-described skeptic and by all indications proud of it; sift through these links for details. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:57, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

There's no doubt he's a skeptic. But "climate skeptic" and "climate change skeptic" are nonsensical and pejorative. There was broad agreement using such labels (alarmists, warmers, deniers etc.) in the article was amateurish and non-encyclopedic. The wikilink that's provided in most cases makes their AGW position clear. JPatterson (talk) 01:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No, "skeptic" is just a brand name. "Contrarian" (or "denialist", the more common term, but apparently less common in peer reviewed sources) is the term used by academics why have written about this phenomenon. Guettarda (talk) 01:51, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, I'm not sure why labels of this sort are necessary except to give another arrow in the quiver of editors on both sides who want to push a POV. Denialist (a neologism that can be precluded on WP:Avoid Neologisms alone) in particular is a pejorative term meant to associate those who challenge the AGW orthodoxy as akin to holocaust deniers. Contrarians (another neologism), while not as bad, still begs the question of scope. Who's to say how much they disagree with and what their views are. Fairness and WP:BLP dictates we let people speak for themselves and not apply labels which can not be sourced. JPatterson (talk) 02:37, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Been discussed already. Please take the time to search the archives. Guettarda (talk) 06:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer not to. Do you have any opinion on this recent edit? - Wikidemon (talk) 08:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it's useful to provide enough context to answer the question "why him"? After all, he's one of a hundred US senators, and he represents a state with less than 4 million people. So context is useful. Guettarda (talk) 16:02, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, then, why him? - Wikidemon (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Good question. IIRC, when it was discussed before he was included because he was such a prominent "skeptic". Don't think he really should be there, but it's not a fight worth fighting for me. Guettarda (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

He's prominent because his rhetorical statements are colorful and extreme enough to make press, although it's not clear from the article or sources whether his making these statements has any meaningful effect on the public debate. The two archive discussions I read simply contained a few editors' opinions that we should not fill the article with qualifiers like calling him a skeptic, which I think is a pretty good prescription for all articles on all subjects. Going back to my original statement, I think the fact that he needs to be qualified as a skeptic to provide context for his statement is a good indication that his statement isn't all that important - if it were it would have a stronger context more relevant to the article. I doubt we have consensus right now to remove his statement, but over time if people keep questioning it, maybe down the road we should. His own article mentions climate-change skepticism -- actually, outright denial -- as a major legislative agenda item for him, so it would be more informative to mention that in the context of his own article than here. Wikidemon (talk) 20:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that we remove his statement from this article, at least until it's woven into some larger context? I'd say go for it, pending further discussion, of course. Guettarda (talk) 21:04, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd certainly go with that: he does look a bit out-ranked in the 'Elected representatives and governments' section. Has Obama not said a single word on this incident? That's amazing. What he said is looking a bit extreme and already dated too - in those first few days of the news-fest, extremists like him thought this would bring down the whole of climate science at a stroke and it clearly didn't. --Nigelj (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, then. I'd say wait another 12-24 hours to see if anyone else cares to weigh in, then go for it if warranted and point to this discussion to demonstrate consensus. *whew* - Wikidemon (talk) 22:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm all for removing Inhofe from the article. He gets lots of press coverage because he's willing to go out a limb with the full-on ignore-all-facts denial stuff, but nothing he says carries any meaningful weight - particularly outside the United States. Getting back to the original discussion though, I partly agree with Jpat that the characterizations of individuals are unnecessary if their BLPs already describe them. Inhofe's BLP already covers his extreme stance on AGW, so there is no need to repeat it here. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

New edit to the lead is problematic.

In this edit, Sirwells removes the entirety of the response from the accused and their supporters. I wonder how this is in keeping with WP:NPOV. The information he removed was all sourced in the main body of the text. I'd like to hear from Sirwells as to why he came back from his year and a half hiatus to make this change. Hipocrite (talk) 13:21, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Because it was not sourced. You had scientific organizations calling it a "smear" campaign. See subsequent edits by Oren0 (who did a better job then me if fixing your misleading statements then me) and related talk discussions. Sirwells (talk) 04:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I, too, raised this, in #The second half of the lede above, but no response yet. It's better discussed here where everyone can see. --Nigelj (talk) 13:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted it. It removed the part of the lede that was summarizing the mainstream view. Certainly not a move towards NPOV. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Kim. If Sirwells or anybody else thinks they can justify the previous version, they should give reasons and obtain consensus here before altering the lede again. --Nigelj (talk) 13:48, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the revert, which happened while I was implementing what I hope is a new improved version, together with a commented out reminder that references are in the body text. I'll be glad to consider any objections to the new wording, and if there's popular demand am willing to return it to the version as reinstated by Kim with the addition of the commented out reminder. dave souza, talk 13:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Since the 1RR probation is community-based, perhaps we can request that the terms of the probation are altered to take into account issues such as this? There would need to be a clause added to the probation - something like this:

The lede of Climatic Research Unit hacking incident is a summary of the article body. It lacks references because all material in the lede is fully cited in the body of the article. Within reason (and the judgment of administrators), text that has been removed from the lede because of the perceived lack of citations may be restored without concern for violating the one-reversion per day (1RR) stipulation.

Now this is just a rough idea, and it is probably full of loopholes, but you get the general idea. Maybe something like that could work? -- Scjessey (talk) 14:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Exceptions generally are a bad idea, in my opinion - I've seen the BLP exception to the 3RR misused often enough. Dave has added a hidden comment to the text: <!--in accordance with [[WP:LEAD]], this summarises fully cited statements in the body of the article and is supported by these citations. Please discuss any proposed changes first.--> I would rather ask that this be considered part of the article probation. If someone ignores it, warn them. If they continue to ignore it, then report them.

Even with the 1RR, there are lots of people here who can revert an obvious violation of the rules. Putting more power in the hands of one editor makes edit wars more likely. Giving the decision formal backing, on the other hand, frees editors to act without the fear that their actions will get them banned from the article. Guettarda (talk) 14:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Seconded. We've got enough issues with 1RR, we don't need to make it worse.--Heyitspeter (talk) 18:19, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, there's this. Maybe a specific exception would be appropriate. Guettarda (talk) 14:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I would like to stress that the abovelinked section contains my personal musings on best practices - I have no intention of trying to change the editing restrictions here just now. It does, however, remain true that re-inserting a reverted edit by anyone can be edit warring and repeatedly failing to seek consensus here for edits that any reasonable observer would know to be contentious can be disruptive. These are true on any article, just more so here. - 2/0 (cont.) 22:19, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear...the conversation there caused me to stop and think, and was offered as a good alternative to my opining. Guettarda (talk) 22:49, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, these edits to the lead change the meaning, and have not been discussed. Guettarda (talk) 16:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I see they've been reverted. I believe that was the correct course of action. Guettarda (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Allow me to explain: JettaMann (talk · contribs) made the following edits:

1. Took out wiggle words "what were" and replaced with "they" since it was the UEA people who described this.
2. Added "some" in front of Scientists, officials... because you can't blanket say that all scientists agreed.

I have reverted both of these edits for these reasons:

1. Others besides those at the UEA have also described the incident as a smear campaign, noted and cited in the body of the article.
2. Aside from "some" being a weasel word, the sentence does not say "all scientists agreed" (despite what JettaMann said in the edit summary). Again, this is elaborated upon in the body of the article.

In future, I would expect JettaMann to seek consensus on this talk page before making meaningful changes such as these. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Yet another edit to the lead without consensus.

This edit to the lead, which is not discussed, moves the word "many" from being a descriptive term about the people who "suggested that it was intended to sabotage the then imminent December 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit." to being a descriptive term about the scientists that consider it a smear campaign. This is a violation of Wikipedia:FRINGE#Particular_attribution. I don't quite know why people are making substantive changes to the lead without attempting to reach consensus or explicitly offering to revert their changes, and not even disclosing these substantive edits in their edit summaries. Ahh well. Hipocrite (talk) 18:42, 12 January 2010 (UTC)= (e/c)Maintaining the basic meaning of the lede, as a summary of the article, is made more difficult by misleading edit summaries like this one. "More descriptive, better flow" you would not expect to describe moving the word "many" from describing those who have "suggested that it was intended to sabotage COP15" to describing the number of "other scientists" who disapprove of the attack (I paraphrase here). If Heyitspeter (talk) feels that that wording better summarises the cited information in the body of the article (which it doesn't), the place to state a case would have been here, not under the cover of such a misleading edit summary. --Nigelj (talk) 18:56, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

What we’ve got here is a failure to AGF. First, the original sentence was long and rambling. Heyitspeter’s edit broke it into two, more easily digestible sentences and moved the word “many”. The break into two sentences matches the edit summary “better flow”. As for the word many, it then (and now) modifies a phrase including only two names. The lede isn’t referenced (that’s acceptable) so we look for sabotage in the main article and we find it, with one reference attached. The reference is bad, but purports to support a claim from one person, Trenbeth. Even if you track down the right reference, I don’t think anyone would argue that Trenbeth supports the word “many”. In contrast, the first part of the sentence, where “many” was moved, does make reference to many entities. So the edit description, “more descriptive” is warranted. I think the edit is better, although there is still work to do. Reference #50 is bad, and needs to be found. Even if found, the lede mentions sabotage claims by Pachauri and Brown, but I don’t see them in the main article. SPhilbrickT 22:59, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you try searching for Pachauri and Brown in the main article? Hipocrite (talk) 23:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I was rushing to meet my ride, and didn't search for Brown. I now see the reference to Brown in the main text, but this just makes the situation worse. We use a very strong- value laden word like "sabotage" in the lede, but the statement supporting the lede doesn't use the word, not is it in the cited reference. We do have the word "sabotage" in the main article, but that isn't in support of the word in the lede, it is a different usage. Furthermore, we don't know for sure that the main article usage is supported by the cite, because the cite is bad. We have a sentence claiming that "many" suggest sabotage, but the related sentence doesn't use sabotage and doesn't support the usage by anyone, and only two if one argues that "undermines" justifies "sabotage" (it doesn't) but even that strained argument doesn't support "many" Two doesn't imply many. So there are lots of problems. The edit by Heyitspeter was a good edit, cleaning up a couple of the problems. Why on earth was it reverted? There's no good justification for a reversion to a version that is badly flawed.

I think it should be returned to the Heyitspeter version, I request that you undo the reversion (I'd do it myself, but I'm not quite sure how to count reversions - and there are strict limits here - however, I'm sure you can undo your own edit without problems. Do you agree?--SPhilbrickT 02:41, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

To explain my revert of Sirwell's latest edit, "Michael Mann, Eric Steig and Richard Somerville have described the incident as a smear campaign" is misleading, since it gives the impression that this claim was only made by these three people. Guettarda (talk) 03:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Smear Campaign

The following is currently in the lead: "The University of East Anglia, other scientists, scientific organisations, elected representatives and governments from around the world have described the incident as a smear campaign, and many, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and IPCC's head, Rajendra Pachauri suggested that it was intended to sabotage the then imminent December 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit."

There are a lot of things claimed in this snippet, and I don't that they are all supported by the body of the article. Who has actually called this a smear campaign:

• UEA: check
• Other scientists: some have claimed this, but a greater number of the uninvolved scientists currently in the article are quoted expressing concerns than are quoted calling it a smear campaign (note that claiming "this doesn't affect the science" is distinct from calling it a smear campaign). At best, this should say "some other scientists".
• Scientific organizations: the only scientific organization quoted in the article that claims anything like this is the AGU. At best, the accurate statement would be "one scientific organization"
• Elected representatives and governments from around the world: Not at all in the current article. The only person quoted making a statement at all like this is Gordon Brown, and it's hard to extrapolate "representatives and governments from around the world" from one person.

I don't think that this sentence is at all justified by the body of the article, and I don't see why the opinions of several scientists that did have concerns don't merit a significant mention. Oren0 (talk) 05:07, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The above referred to this revision. I since modified the lead in this edit. I believe the current lead better meets WP:NPOV and is more in line with the content of the article. Oren0 (talk) 05:26, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Oren0. Sirwells (talk) 06:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

In defense of the following sentence: "[S]ome scientists have described the incident as a smear campaign...[s]ome other scientists have stated that the incident reflects a problem", in the Climatologist section I count 4 responses from uninvolved scientists indicating 'smear campaign' (Wegley, Pierrehumbert, Karoly, and Pitman) and 3 who claim it indicates a problem (Michaels, Curry, Von Storch). Both points of view, plus the one that it doesn't affect AGW science, are all significant in the article and should therefore all be mentioned in the lead. Oren0 (talk) 07:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

1. And what's your defense for the conversion of decent prose into bad prose?
2. I take it that you satisfied yourself that before you chose to count names in this article, you satisfied yourself that this is representative of the balance of what's been said? I take it that you're not using this article as your source? Guettarda (talk) 15:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Please be civil.--Heyitspeter (talk) 00:08, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I note that your edit to the lead again violated Wikipedia:FRINGE#Particular_attribution, in that that you again attribute the Copenhagen disruption to merely two of the multiple citations. Please correct this. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 11:34, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

@Hipocrite: I didn't change the attribution of the Copenhagen statement. It is exactly as it was in the Guettarda's previous version. @Guettarda #1: If you think my writing is bad, please improve it or suggest how I might do so. I don't claim to be the world's best writer but the previous revision contained a 50+ word sentence that I found very unpleasant to read and I find my revision more readable. But I have no ego about such things, so feel free to fix it and I don't believe such a fix would count as a reversion. @Guettarda #2: The lead should be representative of the article. I have made the reactions mentioned in the lead reflect the major ones in the "reactions" section. If you think that section is unbalanced, then that section should change first and then the lead should change to reflect that. Oren0 (talk) 18:01, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not accurate, Oren0 - specifically, your edit here removed "and many, including," which makes it appear that only Brown and Pachauri suggested that it was intended to sabotage. Hipocrite (talk) 19:08, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You're right, I did change the meaning there. But I don't believe that "many" is sourced in the article. Currently, the only people in the article who make this claim are the two in the lead and Trenberth. Are there others quoted as saying this in reliable sources, or are there sources that claim that many people have said this? If so, those sources should be in the article. As it stands, I don't think the "many" claim is justified by the body of the article. Oren0 (talk) 21:52, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The lead should summarise the article. That's not the same as saying "the lead should consist of original research drawn from the article. Guettarda (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The use of "Smear" in this context is confusing and probably linguistically incorrect. The supposed hacking of the information itself could not be said to be a smear campaign, even by the definition of a smear campaign from a very general point of view. By the comments of those closely involved, the disemination of information was not coordinated in any specific sense. The Hackers (if you will) simply released thousands of emails and other documents into the wind with no specific focus on any of them. Now it could possibly be said that some have taken the information and presented it in a way that is considered to be a "Smear Campaign", however to take that approach changes the focus of the article from a simply hacking incident to the more commonly used term "Climategate" which could then, by definition, be called a smear campaign. The other alternative is that the information release was done by a whistle-blower in an attempt to discredit EAU and the named scientists, but under this alternative, it also becomes "Climategate". So, "Smear Campaign" should not be used because it does not correctly follow the meme that is currently being presented. Arzel (talk) 18:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The paragraph as rewritten was putting undue emphasis on the "smear campaign" statement, though a number of commentators have noted the attacks being made on the reputations of scientists rather than credible attacks on the science. To emphasise more significant points, I've changed it to "The University of East Anglia and climate scientists have described these interpretations as incorrect and misleading, with the extracts being taken out of context in what has been described as a smear campaign." The sentence "Some other scientists have stated that the incident reflects a problem with scientists not being open with their data." promotes a fringe view without giving the clear expert majority view that 95% of the data is publicly available, the remainer being witheld by national met offices and not be the scientists concerned. I've rephrased it as "Though nearly all climate data is freely available, a number of scientists have said that the incident reflects a general problem of scientists not being more open with their data." Of course there has been a subtext of complaint that the scientists were not more open with their private emails, and we need to clarify the context of that. As for the meme of "Climategate", that is essentially a one-sided partisan label and needs no further promotion from us. . . dave souza, talk 19:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The sentence "Some other scientists have stated that the incident reflects a problem with scientists not being open with their data." promotes a fringe view without giving the clear expert majority view that 95% of the data is publicly available. What evidence do you have that this is a fringe view? We currently quote 3 climatologists, two of whom are not AGW skeptics, making this claim in the response section. Again, the lead must summarize the article. If you think the response section is giving undue weight, fix it there first and then the lead should reflect that. As for "Climategate" in the lead, that has been discussed to death and there has been a consensus that as the most common term in reliable sources it belongs in the lead. You're welcome to bring this up again of course but if you do I ask that you do it in a separate section as it's unrelated to this discussion. Oren0 (talk) 21:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Your wording presents it as if it were an either/or case, which it isn't. Your presentation also gives equal weight to both opinions, when in fact, few people appear to have said much about the "open with data" idea. It may or may not be a fringe view, but it's certainly not a view that deserves equal - or even roughly equivalent - weight. Guettarda (talk) 22:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

If "people appear to have said much about the "open with data" idea", then why are both UEA and Mann's university both launching investigations? This is a major theme of this incident. Madman (talk) 22:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

@Guettarda: I feel like I'm repeating myself here. About as many scientists are currently quoted in the article expressing this "trouble with data openness" idea as are quoted claiming "smear campaign" (3 and 4, respectively). Therefore, the two should be presented roughly equally in the lead. If you think the article should be proportioned differently, propose that. But the lead is currently an accurate representation of the views in the article, in proportion to the number of people quoted who make them. Oren0 (talk) 03:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The lead should accurately reflect the article, yes. But not so as to be misleading. The article uses illustrative quotes. One of the unfortunate side-effects thereof is may be to create a false sense of equivalence. Not good, but difficult to avoid. When writing the lead, we need to take that into account. The lead needs to represent the article, but it really needs to be written with an eye to the underlying sources. To count quotes in an article and then use that to determine due weight is deeply misleading. It's taking the article as a data source, and using it to come to a conclusion about notability. That's totally unacceptable. Guettarda (talk) 15:57, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Lead sentence

Why is Climategate removed from the lead sentence over and over again by some authors? Ok, they hate it, but it's established beyond doubt that this is the name used by (nearly?) everyone including (most of?) the (AGW standing) Newspapers. So please restore "Climategate" in the lead section as a compromise since some of the newspapers uses that. Who coined it has nothing to do in the first lead section by WP:UNDUE. And it should be in bold per WP:BOLDTITLE

Proposal change from "The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident came to light in November 2009 with" to Climatic Research Unit hacking incident (commonly known as "Climategate") came to light in November 2009 with". Nsaa (talk) 21:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree. The most common term in reliable sources shouldn't be buried. Oren0 (talk) 21:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Except that most reliable sources don't call it that. So we shouldn't either. Guettarda (talk) 21:55, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Why is it inserted over and over? It's not the name of the thing. Most reliable sources use it in quotes. The name is part of an attempt to spin the thing into a made-up scandal. And we really shouldn't be using Wikipedia for advocacy. Clear enough? Guettarda (talk) 21:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - "Climategate" already appears in the article's introduction in a non-neutral manner. I see no compelling reason for it to be in the first sentence, since there would not be room for the necessary explanation of the term to be included. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

  There is no need for a detailed explanation in the lead. Arzel (talk) 00:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Agree - "Climategate" should be the article title. That is how sources on both sides of the issue refer to it. It is how the Wall Street Journal and MIT refer to it. Since a number of POV pushers won't allow that, it should be in the first sentence. Oh, and claiming that "Individuals who oppose action on global warming called the incident 'Climategate'" is completely bias. There is no way anyone has a reliable reference for that. Q Science (talk) 23:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

  Er... no. The MIT source puts "Climategate" in quotes, indicating it isn't their own usage. The WSJ only uses it in the title of that opinion piece, and the WSJ is tainted by the small matter of its biased owner. And we aren't even talking about the title in first place. And referring to fellow Wikipedians as "POV pushers" does not assume good faith. Fail all around, really. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

  In titles, many people use quotes to draw attention to a specific word. This is frequently done because bold and Capitalization can not be used to set off a word in a title. Through out the rest of the article, the word is used with capitalization to set it off, and without quotes. If you watch the "The Great Climategate Debate" video (2 hrs, at the bottom of the page), you will here the term "Climategate" used regularly by people on both sides of the controversy. Your claim makes no sense. As for whether or not the WSJ is biased, that is irrelevant. It is a reliable source for this type of information. And there are hundreds of others. (Such as Climategate: Anatomy of a Public Relations Disaster published at Yale.) It appears that the only people not using "Climategate" are those trying to do damage control. Specifically, people with a very strong POV, such as Greenpeace and the embarrassed University, refuse to use the term. Q Science (talk) 08:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Agree - There is little doubt that "Climategate" is the primary reference to this incident. I had not even heard of the other terms "Swifthack" and one I can't remember until I saw it being discussed here. Regardless of whether the scientists actually did hide or delete data or did manipulate the review process, the general concensus is that what they did was not quite right. Arzel (talk) 00:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

  Regardless of what you may think, we simply cannot use this POV term without some explanation. There is not enough room in the first sentence to do that explanation any justice. The current treatment is perfectly acceptable. Also, your "general consensus" about their actions is complete nonsense. Their reaction to McIntyre's badgering was perfectly reasonable. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

  "POV term" used by everyone? The term do not need an explanation more than that it's commonly used? The first paragraphs don't explain things, it's just a summary of the article without citations (which should be present further down in the main body of the article) Nsaa (talk) 01:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

  (e.c) Swifthack has only one WP:RS source and some 10 more blogs referring to it. Terms like Warmergatedailymail,E-mail-theft-gate (used by Senator_Barbara_Boxer ) [10], Climate Denier Gate [11], Climategate controversy Scientific American[12], Climategate scandal belfasttelegraph nearly all looks more used … Nsaa (talk) 01:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

So you're saying they all should be treated as names? Guettarda (talk) 13:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The logic here is simple. Any name that can be reliably sourced can be mentioned in the "naming" section, with proper attribution if it's only used by a small number of sources. The most major name in reliable sources (Cliategate) should get the most exposure there, and the lead, being representative of the article, should mention that name. Per the manual of style, alternate names mentioned in the lead should be bolded and appear in the first sentence. Therefore, "Climategate" should appear bolded in the first sentence, and other names should not per WP:WEIGHT. Does anyone here dispute that of all the alternate names "Climategate" is used in more reliable sources by at least one order of magnitude? Oren0 (talk) 17:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no policy (or even guideline) that states (or even suggests) that "the most major name [] should get the most exposure", nor any that say that common redirects must "appear in the first sentence." So let's have no more of this made-up "logic" okay? The term is given adequate billing in the lede, with alternative terms being banished to a section later in the article. This is consistent with the advice given at Wikipedia:Lead section#Alternative names, which quite clearly states:

"If there are more than two alternative names, these names can be moved to and explained in a "Names" or "Etymology" section; it is recommended that this be done if there are at least three alternate names, or there is something notable about the names themselves."

Not only do we have three or more alternate names ("Climategate", "Warmergate", "Swifthack"), but we also have something notable to say about them (we have already discussed the TIME article). Logically, the current arrangement is the most appropriate. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

If those other names were being used even remotely then I would agree. However, there is simply no question that "Climategate" is the by far the most widly used term. Climategate outnumbers them in reference by at least 25:1. Arzel (talk) 23:45, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Climategate is not the title - it is an alternative name (see Scjessey just above here), it shouldn't be bolded but instead described in a section on names/etymology. Let it go people, this has been discussed to death several times. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

And that means what? It is only being discussed because of some irrational fear of having it included into the lead. Arzel (talk) 23:45, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that you're only discussing it because of some irrational fear you have, but as you're not a mind reader you must assume good faith and accept that others have rational reasons for concern about undue weight being given to a propagandistic term. . . dave souza, talk 23:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

How in the world can one give undue weight to the term that is used over 95% of the time to describe the incident? And who is claiming it is a propogandistic term? I will accept rational reasons for concerns, but to this point I have yet to see any. Arzel (talk) 04:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you read the arguments put forward by those who see this differently. You're under no obligation to agree with other people, but it's sort of expected that you read what people have said, if you're going to engage in a discussion. It's especially rude to demand that people repeat themselves, just for you. Guettarda (talk) 05:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• Agree.--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Nature; Climate e-mails: man's mark is clear in thermometer record

Interesting letter in a recent Nature, especially in view of the way some septics have tried to make von S their poster boy:

Nature, 7 January & Science, 8 January 2010 [13]

Correspondence: Nature 463, 25 (7 January 2010) | doi:10.1038/463025a; Published online 6 January 2010, Hans von Storch[2]1 & Myles Allen[3]2

We welcome debate about the ethics of science prompted by the language of some of the hacked e-mails from the UK Climatic Research Unit ([4]Nature 462, 545; 2009). Rightly or not, this has created concerns about the scientific process. But it is critical to point out that no grounds have arisen to doubt the validity of the thermometer-based temperature record since 1850.

Both the detection of climate change and its attribution to human activities rely on the thermometer-based temperature record (compiled by the Climatic Research Unit and other institutions). They do not rely on proxy reconstructions of temperature over the past millennium, which are based on indirect evidence such as tree rings. Reconstructions contribute less to our understanding of climate than the thermometer record because of uncertainty both in these reconstructions and in the drivers of climate change before the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media have confused the two. The thermometer record shows unequivocally that Earth is warming, and provides the main evidence that this is caused by human activity. This crucial record remains unchallenged.

Commentators have suggested that the e-mails disclose a 'team mentality' among prominent climate scientists. Some people may have gone too far in promoting particular viewpoints, so an independent enquiry and open discussion should help to re-establish public confidence. However, it is absurd to suggest that there is some kind of global conspiracy involving all climate scientists.

We and our colleagues have worked with the scientists at the centre of this controversy. We have examined, used and at times criticized their data and results -- just as they, at times, have criticized ours. Our disagreements have no bearing on our respect for other aspects of their work.

William M. Connolley (talk) 22:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, William, that's a significant source for the response of mainstream scientists to the debate and to media misrepresentation. Will try to review how to place it in the article. . dave souza, talk 17:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Mabe they jump the conclusion? "Unfortunately, the mainstream media have confused the two. The thermometer record shows unequivocally that Earth is warming, and provides the main evidence that this is caused by human activity". The first part has already got a lot of attention by M. CRU has used just temperature station in hot spot. Ex. in the old soviet picked ca 60 out off some 210 station (25 %) readings.Russian IEA claims CRU tampered with climate data – cherrypicked warmest stations They've not removed the 'hot spots' (uban development etc.) ... and how can they claim that the rise of temperature is due to human contributions? We all know that the MWP was ca. as warm as or above the current environment[14] (hey, the Vikings made a living of farming on Greenland: From our article: "Interpretation of ice core data suggests that between 800 and 1300 AD the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a mild climate, with trees[citation needed] and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th degree [10] What is verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has experienced dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years.[11]"[15]. This has disappeared from Hockey Stick ... Since the tree ring proxy data didn't support this ... Yea!— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nsaa (talk • contribs) 00:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Nsaa, please sign your posts. Your incoherent statement suggests that you're paying too much attention to unreliable fringe bloggers and commentators, an effort to begin to understand the science would be more constructive. . . dave souza, talk 17:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't play that game again. You call it WP:FRINGE, I don't. It's fringe that Greenland was warmer? Nsaa (talk) 21:10, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not a game. And, for what it's worth, they're growing vegetables in Greenland these days. Guettarda (talk) 21:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

(e.c) In a letter to Nature you got this reaction from David R. Bell as reported in Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre - Nature Anti-FOI Editorial Criticized (sorry forgetting that this is FRINGE according to some of you?)

Climate e-mails: lack of data sharing is a real concern […]Your Editorial (Nature 462, 545; 2009) castigates “denialists” for making “endless, time-consuming demands for information under the US and UK Freedom of Information Acts”. But you do not mention the reason — that the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has systematically tried to avoid revealing data and code.[…] Science relies upon open analysis of data and methods, and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has a clear data-sharing policy that expects scientists “to cooperate in validating and publishing [data] in their entirety”. The university’s leaked e-mails imply a concerted effort to avoid data sharing, which both violates the best practice defined in NERC policy and prevents verification of the results obtained by the unit. Asking for scientific data and code should not lead to anyone being branded as part of the “climate-change denialist fringe”.[…] David R. Bell Molecular Toxicology, School of Biology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham

Nsaa (talk) 21:17, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

So, a Molecular Toxicologist is remarkably ignorant about how much data is readily available. I trust he has made all his personal emails available to the public in a spirit of open sharing. Not an expert on climate, and probably has as much credence in that field as Prof. Stuart Burgess, Professor of Design & Nature, Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol, has in biology. . . dave souza, talk 21:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Again a attack on the source. If you don't se the problem that CRU didn't share the ground data used, and the method they used for calculating the CRU-datasets for the global temperature is clearly your problem. That some of these emails also reveals that the scientist withheld it since they then got scrutinized is extremely troubling. You attacking the guy Writing to Nature is just not very elegant. Nsaa (talk) 21:37, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

"Withheld" is a strong term that indicates wrongdoing. It is my understanding that virtually all of the data were routinely made publicly available (the body of available data is enormous). They became understandably uncooperative when they were flooded with requests for data by an individual who wished to use that data to attempt to discredit their work. For all we know, some of the data may have been covered by corporate nondisclosure agreements (since some of the CRU funding is from the private sector). Another thing to consider is that is it quite routine for some newly-acquired information to be held back until researchers have a chance to publish, so that their work might get proper attribution. There is so much we don't know, and it is clear that random scientists from other fields of study are just as clueless as we are. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You have probably right in the Non disclosure stuff, but before both the raw data used and how the world temperature series are open for scrutiny by independent highly qualified persons (and others) the world can not trust most of the scientific work who base it's conclusions on these datasets. That's quit simple if you understand the scientific method (every work should be repeatable by other scientist – What happens if Homeopathy get the same treatments as these datasets? Then we would get extremely much more money used at Quack-medicine. The Homeopathy medicine work as pointed out in the peer reviewed Magazine Homeopathy. How did you come to these conclusion? No we want reveal the ground data or the methods to create the randomize group ... Just go for it and do the same kind of argument on this area). Nsaa (talk) 22:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

<ri>"[B]efore both the raw data used and how the world temperature series are open for scrutiny by independent highly qualified persons (and others) the world can not trust most of the scientific work who base it's conclusions on these datasets." - This is relevant to the article somehow? This isn't the place for you to broadcast your opinions. Guettarda (talk) 22:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Add this sentence to [#Other_responses]

Add this sentence to Climatic Research Unit hacking incident#Other responses

From

Other responses

[...]

Pennsylvania State University announced it would review the work of Michael Mann, in particular looking at anything had not already been addressed in an earlier National Academy of Sciences review which had found some faults with his methodology but agreed with the results. In response, Mann said he would welcome the review.

to (addition in bold)

Other responses

[...]

Pennsylvania State University announced it would review the work of Michael Mann, in particular looking at anything had not already been addressed in an earlier National Academy of Sciences review which had found some faults with his methodology but agreed with the results. In response, Mann said he would welcome the review.. 2 January 2010 Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives made this 12 page brief about Pennsylvania State University's investigation of the conduct of Michael Mann; "The Pennsylvania General Assembly should commission an external and independent investigation of Mann in order to avoid PSU’s glaring conflict of interest."

[…]

References

Is this fine? Nsaa (talk) 22:44, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the opinion of a right-leaning Pennsylvania think tank would be relevant, quite honestly. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

A Think tank is a think tank. It looks just fine … Nsaa (talk) 23:03, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Not really, no. It looks like an irrelevant opinion from some nobodies. A right-leaning think tank is always going to favor business interests over planetary interests (unless they are a particularly unusual species of right-leaning think tank). Putting this into the article would be a quite serious violation of WP:WEIGHT. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think this is really getting to be one degree of separation too many. This is a reaction to a reaction to the incident. PSU isn't directly involved, not the way UEA is. We wouldn't include every comment on UEA's course of action. PSU is a step further away from all this than is UEA. The think tank is a step further away.

Now that aside, there's the question of why we care about what this think tank has to say. Are they notable? Their Wikipedia article has no third-party sources, which is always a red flag. Guettarda (talk) 23:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Michael Mann is the scientist that's responsible for Hockey stick-graph. This was the graph that has made governments already spent billions of money on CO2 reducing schemes ... Not relevant? Nsaa (talk) 23:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This article isn't about the hockey stick, or about climate change in general. Guettarda (talk) 00:01, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, this is secondary to the question of why we should care about the opinion of this think tank? Guettarda (talk) 00:02, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

In any case, as our article says, the hockey stick thing has already been reviewed, that time by a semi independent organisation (the NAS) which found some fault with his methodology but agreed with his conclusion, as our article says (I know because I added it and checked it's still there) and the PSU have made clear they're not going to bother to re-review that only new allegations Nil Einne (talk) 00:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

(e.c.) @Scjessey:I see your argument and partly agree that the sources them self do not have enough weight. I don't see your rallying about "always going to favor business interests over planetary interests" (this has nothing to do with this article - but I see that you indicate that business is damaging to the environment, yeah lets see. How do the world prosper? Who let ordinary people use telephones for nearly free all over the world (like services like Skype) - Doomsdayers like Paul Erlich was telling us that we runs out of resources in 2000. ahh the world is still here... . It's capitalistic well managed societies that achieves that growth). Whatever. Have you read the piece and made up a meaning of it's Content? Not interested?

The point they make is obvious a good one. You don't investigate yourself, both in terms of money interest involved and missing of it's reputation… Lets see ExxonMobile investigates their own pollution of a river? That's just fine isn't? We can hope that a more major news source made this point so we can use it. Nsaa (talk) 23:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"You don't investigate yourself." - Sorry, but that's incredibly naive. Right-leaning organizations exactly like this think tank constantly lobby governments to promote "self-regulation" (instead of government regulation) for big businesses, financial institutions, etc. They call for independent reviews for stuff they don't support, and internal reviews for things they do support. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:57, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

(EC)I don't think the ExxonMobil (I presume you meant this rather then ExxonMobile) comparison is a particularly good one, we are talking about Pennsylvania State University reviewing one of their researchers, this is similar to ExxonMobile reviewing one of their researchers or other staff when wrongdoing is alleged (which surely happens all the time), not ExxonMobil reviewing their pollution of a river. I should add they are, according to their own words, following a well defined policy of theirs which isn't surprising and I strongly suspect if it were a less controversial subject, no one would even raise a peep. Finally whatever the merits of such an approach, it happens all the time, e.g. medical organisations (the AMA for example) will review the work of a doctor member when wrongdoing is alleged and many people particularly conservative organisations support self-regulation of some sort for many things. In any case, you could easily argue that they could easily respond the opposite, to protect their image and fundraising ability they may overreact to any allegations of wrong doing. Anyway while Scsjessey's comment wasn't perhaps necessary or particularly helpful to the discussion since it raised unnecessary arguments, I too agree that the comments of some random organisation with no real connection to the people involved or science isn't particularly relevant for the article Nil Einne (talk) 00:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I see now that the Think tank (as far as I've seen is nothing like Reason_Foundation, Fraser Institute, Heritage Foundation etc.) make it possible to add because of the current environment on this article. As to the argument about self regulation. Nothing wrong with that. But a proper investigation can mean that the world will stop spending and planning to spend trillions on totally unnecessary cost. Nsaa (talk) 00:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

What makes you think that PSU is incapable of holding a "proper investigation" into the conduct of one of their researchers? Furthermore, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the behavior of humanity is causing a potentially disastrous change to the climate of the planet, so surely a significant investment to reverse that trend (to "cancel out" humanity's impact) cannot possibly be characterized as "unnecessary" by any thinking person. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

In any case, it seems to me that it is the government's who rely on such work responsibility, if they don't trust the PSU to conduct their own investigations if they feel it is necessary. In fact I believe this was what happened last time, wasn't it the US Congress or something which got the NAS to review the hockey stick thing? Some have called for such investigations but so far it seems few governments have expressed an interest, perhaps because they do trust the PSU or perhaps because they recognise that even if Michael Mann was guilty of wrong doing and the PSU hid it, there is so much evidence that it ultimately will make little difference or perhaps because their sick dickering around with such stuff since last time they tried it the results were nothing earth shattering. Either way, this isn't helping the case of adding the views of some random organisation to the article Nil Einne (talk) 00:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Further looking at the only secondary source presented so far, which I've just realised is a blog, it's stated that the Pennsylvania State Senate Education Committee Chairman has already said he'd conduct an investigation if this one is a whitewash so I see even less reason to include the views of some random organisation Nil Einne (talk) 00:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Scjessey, it seems to me that you're here mostly to argue in favor of AGW theory rather than trying to make an honest effort to reduce the massive amount of POV present in this article. Am I correct? -- Femmina (talk) 02:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

No. I do not edit with any agenda other than the betterment of Wikipedia in general. And I see no evidence of a "massive amount of POV". -- Scjessey (talk) 14:26, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you may be missing the point that what you call "AGW theory" is the mainstream, consensus scientific position, just as is evolution by natural selection or the earth going round the sun. By design, Wikipedia focuses on the mainstream scientific viewpoint and gives less time to minority POVs or the viewpoints of non-experts. And I note that those making accusations against the scientists in this affair are overwhelmingly either fringe figures within the climate science community or are non-experts. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

ChrisO, AGW (which may be partially correct) and Evolution by natural selection (which I believe is correct) are Theories. The action which dictates the movement of the Earth around the Sun is a Scientific Law, but even the absolute reason why the Earth follows a specific path and or has not flown out into space or crashed into the sun are also Theories, albeit pretty strong theories. If WP is going to be governed by the scientific method, as you claim, then it should follow true scientific method and not dogmatic ideas like those that resulted in the condemming of scientists that would dare suggest that the Earth travels around the Sun. Even from a statistical point of view you/we should all be worried about research which always proves the positive. In a highly variable field like weather prediction or climate modeling, at a minimum one out of every twenty papers should show a disenting view. According to you, there is no reliable dissention. I find this statistically impossible to believe. Arzel (talk) 18:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

See evolution as theory and fact. This may correct some of your misconceptions. Guettarda (talk) 21:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Ha, you expect me to believe a controversial WP article? A fact indicates that it is true, ie, 100% true, no other possible alternatives. Arzel (talk) 00:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

No, but I was hoping you'd take the opportunity to correct your misconceptions. Like any good Wikipedia article, the real value is in the refs. Guettarda (talk) 00:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I did check the article and the refs, and most of the argument of "fact" appears to based on a defense of evolution against inteligent design, where by admitting that it is a theory would give weight to those that don't believe in evolution. But it is a rather poor approach to try and tie numerical facts to the theory in order to state that it is a fact. Like I said, I believe that the Theory of Evolution is correct, but that doesn't mean it is absolutely true. It really comes down to semantics, the issue here is the confusion between scientific concensus and scientific fact. A current concensus view is that Dark Matter exists, and thankfully that article sill refers to it as a theory. Arzel (talk) 04:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for proving me right. You're very biased and you have no right to speak on behalf of Wikipedia. Furthermore this article is NOT about AGW theory, it's about the hacking incident. If I wasn't a good Wikipedian I would say that you're acting in bad faith, trying to slip your agenda for support of the AGW theory in a place where it doesn't even belong. But what am I thinking? That's surely not the case... -- Femmina (talk) 11:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Italics in the lead?

Yesterday I changed the lead text "Climategate" from italics to bold. I assumed that being in italics was an oversight, as I've never seen italics used in this manner in a WP lead and I'm not sure what italics inside of quotes would even mean. This edit by User:Dave souza changed it back to italics. What is the explanation for this? Climategate is an alternate name that redirects here and as such should be bolded. Oren0 (talk) 02:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Swifthack also redirects here. Are you proposing that be bolded as well?

Seriously though, we've discussed this already. We. You. Me. So why are you presenting this as if you don't already know the answer? Guettarda (talk) 03:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a consensus that Climategate belongs in the lead. There is no such consensus for Swifthack. Yes, if Swifthack was in the lead it would be bolded as an alternate name. But that isn't the conversation here. I don't recall you and I ever discussing whether the term should be italicized. Please enlighten me: what does it mean for a term to be in quotes and italics, as differentiated from just quotes? Why do you believe that the manual of style guideline for bolding doesn't apply here? Oren0 (talk) 04:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

But wait, your argument is that Climategate needs bolding because "is an alternate name that redirects here". If that's your argument, then alternate names that redirect to this article need to be bolded. If, on the other hand, it's just because you want to privilege one POV over the other...then it's bad.

And now it gets worse. This edit is horrible. "[S]ome scientists have described the incident as a smear campaign...[s]ome other scientists have stated that the incident reflects a problem". Seriously? Shouldn't we try to write something that doesn't sound like weaseling, and that's written in moderately decent English? Finally, to top it all off, in an article that's clearly written in English English, it's not acceptable to Americanise the idiom. Come on - all else aside, can't you try to abide by something as basic as that? This sort of tendentious editing is unacceptable, especially given the article probation. Guettarda (talk) 07:20, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Strike comment per [16] Guettarda (talk) 07:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

To consolidate discussion, please discuss this change at #Smear_Campaign where I have already elaborated somewhat. Oren0 (talk) 07:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Problems with "Naming of the incident" section

This section opens with a quote from "Fact Check", which seems to have nothing to do with the history of the name.

Here's the FC quote in full:

Analysis Skeptics claim this trove of e-mails shows the scientists at the U.K. research center were engaging in evidence-tampering, and they are portraying the affair as a major scandal: "Climategate." Source

Note that the title of Fact Check's article is “Climategate” -- our quote (by my reading) simply reiterates the article name. So this quote appears inappropriate for this section's lede.

The entire section appears overweight and, to my eye, appears to exist mainly to provide a justification for removing Climategate from the article lede. Am I missing something? --Pete Tillman (talk) 04:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a source that has been seen as neutral by editors of different sympathies in the debate, and its analysis of the debate clearly indicates that the term is used in "portraying the affair as a major scandal" rather than a tempest in a teapot, as others would have it. The section describes naming of the incident, and the WP:LEAD summarises the content of the article so, if anything, the section provides justification for the inclusion of "climategate" in the lead. The views of any other similarly neutral observers on this topic will also be welcome provided of course that they're attributable, so do please find sources we can add. . . dave souza, talk 17:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I note the present wording, "Individuals who oppose action on global warming called the incident Climategate, which became a commonly used term for the incident." Um, seriously? "Individuals who oppose action on global warming" named the incident "Climategate"? Um, it just got called that by the media, and those who don't like the name probably just need to get over it. This is original research, and bias, and just plain wrong. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:18, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It does seem to be a rather blatant example of poisoning the well. »S0CO^{(talk|contribs)} 04:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty well established that the term was coined by anti-science activists in the blogosphere. The media latched onto it because it's catchy and because they're lazy - they didn't coin it. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:33, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

This very article suggests that it isn't well-established. --Heyitspeter (talk) 23:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty well established? You say that, giving not a single piece of evidence, just like the article. What evidence can there be; RealClimate didn't use the term, ergo...? Evidence, please. This is sheer fantasy. Alex Harvey (talk) 03:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for improving NPOV

Here's a big problem with this article as I see it. It is loaded with citations, quotes, opinions, etc from the very same group of people who's credibilty is under question by the leaked emails. For example: Michael Mann and Phil Jones opinions are both featured prominently under the "climatologists" reaction to the incident section. I suggest this article could be much less biased if it featured the opinions of scientists, experts, etc who are neutral and NOT involved in anyway to the leaked emails. They shouldn't have to climatologists either. I'd like to see what credible scientists in other fields of study have to say about whether they think scientific misconduct occurred or if they believe behavior shown in the emails is normal. Sirwells (talk) 07:10, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It might be worthwhile to have a separate response subsection for the responses from those who wrote the emails, distinct from responses from outsiders. As for your other suggestion, if you can find other reputable scientist responses that you think should be in the article, you should present them here. Oren0 (talk) 07:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a really good idea to me. I couldn't think of an appropriate subsection title but if you can I'd say go for it.--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I might also add that finding scientists and experts who are "neutral" is going to be difficult, because virtually all of these people support the work that has been done by the CRU; work that echoes that of others, and work that supports what has lead to the mainstream scientific position. Furthermore, who shall be the arbiter of who is "neutral" and who is not? -- Scjessey (talk) 14:38, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The article deals with allegations about previously private emails and other data, we present the views of those who wrote each email or ar responsible for the documents, and the views of others on the meaning and significance of each email or document. Moving or presenting criticism out of context fails WP:NPOV], particularly if minority views are shown without the mainstream perspective, and is deprecated in WP:LAYOUT. Hope that helps. We do of course welcome expert opinion which is properly verifiable to a reliable source. However, credible scientists in other fields of study may be speaking outside their area of expertise, and their views have to be treated with care. . . dave souza, talk 16:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it could be very helpful to separate the views of those directly involved from those not directly involved. If most statements by scientists not directly involved have been favourable to the CRU - and I think Scjessey is correct in saying they are - then that is a useful fact for readers to know. I argued a long time ago that we do not need so many responses as we have at present. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:26, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

How about a split into these three subsections: "reactions of those implicated by the emails", "reactions of other climatologists", "reactions of other scientists"Sirwells (talk) 15:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

New info on the Climategate data-release timeline

-- available in a long post at Climate Audit here. Clarifies some interesting details of the data release. Worth reading -- some bits might be appropriate for that section, here. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 22:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

So now we are using the talk page to publicize McIntyre's blog posts? -- Scjessey (talk) 22:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Please explain how it is you think that anything in that blog post can be used in this article. I can't figure out what we could possibly use, but I must assume you have something in mind. Guettarda (talk) 22:55, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

This revert by Tillman puts back the misleading idea that much or most data isn't available, refuted by reliable sources as described above. The edit summary claims that "the calculations to "add value" remain obscure" – calculations aren't data, and the IPCC requires openness about calculations, which are published with the scientific papers on the subject. The fringe view of a blog should not be used to obscure this. As another issue, the first mention of IPCC in the lead should be expanded to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as is standard practice. . . dave souza, talk 23:09, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

WP does not use blogs as a source of references since they are not a reliable source. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 05:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

This is not Conservapedia. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

death threats

I'm not watching this page, or likely to get into any arguments here, but I did just note a section, "death threats". I think having a section devoted to this is a seriously bad idea that may encourage other readers to send even more death threats along. I would suggest removing this section again, or at least restructuring the article so that there is no such section heading. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't find that reasoning persuasive. In general, we cannot remove factual material simply because someone might take actions. While there are some counter-examples, I don't see this as one of the exceptions.--SPhilbrickT 17:49, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I see the death threats thing is included in the introduction again. This was agreed upon long ago by consensus here that this was giving undue weight to a piece of information.JettaMann (talk) 16:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Not that I recall. Can you point to a discussion that ended in that consensus? Anyway, consensus can change, and there doesn't appear to be consensus that it should be removed at this point in time. Guettarda (talk) 16:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Zorita's Reaction

I added a reaction from IPCC author Eduardo Zorita (link here and many other places http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/11/calls_to_ban_cru_scientists_fr.html). I believe Zorita's reaction is uniquely relevant to this article, since he fully acknowledges that he has placed his own career in jeapardy by going against his collegues, which further demonstrates the way IPCC climate scientists bully anyone disagreeing with thier views and conspire block and prevent journals from getting published if they go against thier "mainstream" views (as is being shown in the leaked emails.) Zorita has made a bold move with his candor. Sirwells (talk) 06:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I took Zorita out, together with your unmarked revert [17]. I'm sure we've discussed Zorita before, but since it is probably lost: Zorita's view isn't particularly notable, but does seem to be entirely unfounded. Puffing him up with "UN IPCC contributing author" fails WP:PEACOCK. And your source [18] doesn't look good. Perhaps you'd care to use this convenient blog [19] instead? William M. Connolley (talk) 09:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

He has also been similarly quoted in the Wall Street Journal's "Notable and Quotable", which seems to quite directly disagree with your assertion that his view isn't notable. "His views are unfounded" is not a rationale for exclusion either. What makes Zorita's opinion less notable than several people who are currently quoted in the article based on a single news story? Oren0 (talk) 17:33, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't support the Zorita inclusion. Sounds like someone angling for a headline. His arguments aren't particularly cogent. While he may be notable, he isn't notable enough (e.g. Obama) that every utterance becomes notable. We don't included every utterance of every Tom, Dick and Harry (although we could use a little more Harry, but that's an aside) even if notable. While I snarkily would like to quote the "I am not a layer" line, that's not on-topic.--SPhilbrickT 18:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, it isn't clear this even belongs here. Zorita's allegations against Rahmstorf etc, bizarre as they are, would belong at crit of IPCC if anywhere (no, I don't think they belong there either). Zorita's views aren't notable; he is a very junior co-author to von S; nor are they cognently argued William M. Connolley (talk) 18:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with M. Connolley. Don't support Zorita inclusion. NickCT (talk) 20:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It should be mentioned that Zorita sent or received a number of the climategate emails. In addition, a number of other emails accuse him of fraud and/or discuss how to exclude him from the IPCC inner circle. As a result, his opinion of climategate is as notable as Mann or Trenberth. Q Science (talk) 20:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the sourcing seems to be of poor quality. Even the WSJ link trumpeted by Oren0 just reprints Zorita's own blog, so it can only be used as a source for what Zorita is saying (rather than as a source for whether or not what he is saying is notable). Agree with Sphilbrick that this seems to be someone looking to raise his public profile. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Watch the BLP stuff. You are basically accusing someone of media grandstanding. Ignignot (talk) 21:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that the above two posts by William M. Connelley, as well as any other posts or edits by this person be discarded as a biased influence and therefore ignored and/or reverted. This editor is known to be an associate of Mann, Jones, and others implicated by the climate--"word of which we do not use" emails. See [20]. This is not meant as a personal attack. I am merely trying to help improve the NPOV of the article.Sirwells (talk) 15:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

This sort of comment has no place here. If you have COI concerns, the place to raise them is WP:COIN. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

All constructive contributions are welcome, especially on a talk page. And WMC's connection has been discussed at the relevant noticeboard and the general opinion is that there's nothing amiss with his editing this article. Guettarda (talk) 15:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

NASA NCDC GISS "Climategate" ?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/14/john-colemans-tv-special-tonight-global-warming-the-other-side/ http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=30000 "In a new report, computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. Government's two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Ashville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. Smith and D'Aleo accuse these centers of manipulating temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and location of weather observation stations. The report is available online at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf. "
""When the differences between the warmest year in history and the tenth warmest year is less than three quarters of a degree, it becomes silly to rely on such comparisons," added D'Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is "scientific travesty" that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda."
forest wildfire.. games of words, notquench.. sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 21:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

With the greatest respect, this talk page is intended to discuss improvements to the article. This appears to be nothing more but the promotion of your personal point of view. Recommend you start a blog or something. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I think he is talking about a tv show in the states which airs tonight about climategate John Coleman’s KUSI meteorologist Tv Special Tonight – Global Warming: The Other Side --mark nutley (talk) 21:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

So? Coleman is just a TV weatherman who happens to also be a global warming denier. Wikipedia should not be used to promote fringe nonsense. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

bingo.. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/14/john-colemans-hourlong-news-special-global-warming-the-other-side-now-online-all-five-parts-here/ sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 04:48, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I think this is relevant and fits perfectly to the "Similar incidents" section.Echofloripa (talk) 12:54, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Got a reliable source to clarify your thoughts? . . dave souza, talk 13:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Here and here Echofloripa (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Delingpole's blog isn't a reliable source. And regardless of reliability, the Judicial Watch piece doesn't appear to support the claims made in Watts' blog. Guettarda (talk) 14:48, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Plan to make a minor edit to lede

Proposed edit

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change head Rajendra Pachauri are among those who have suggested that the incident was intended to sabotage undermine the then imminent December 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit.

Rationale: the word "sabotage" is a highly charged word which should be used with caution. In this situation, where we are not characterizing an action, but summarizing how others characterize it, the word should either be directly used by others, or the others words should unequivocally support the usage (even then, we would need a good reason for not using their actual characterization.) Here is the Brown cite: [21]. It uses the word "undermines" but does not use the word "sabotage". Here is the Pachauri cite: [22]. It uses the word "influence" but does not use the word "sabotage". There are other Pachauri cites - I checked most of them and did not find the word "sabotage". I did a quick google search for Pachauri and sabotage, and received some hits, but most were headlines not supported by actual words from Pachauri.

Arguably, we shouldn't even use the word "undermines" in connection with Pachauri, but I think the word doesn't unfairly characterize the tenor of the two articles. However, "sabotage" does not appear to be supportable.

I'm not going to make the edit immediately, I'm looking for some feedback, in case someone is aware of a cite I missed, or shows I missed someone in one of the cites, or has a better solution. I understand, by definition, that some want the word "sabotage", but is there any solid rationale for such a charged word?--SPhilbrickT 21:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support this thoughtful and reasonable proposal. "Undermine" is explicitly supported by the Gordon Brown comments, and implicitly supported by the Rajendra Pachauri comments. "Sabotage", while within the same ball park, is hard to justify with the cited references. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Compromise proposal I cannot support anything with the particular attribution. More than just Brown and Pachauri stated the goal was to xxx Copenhagen. As such, I am willing to compromise on sabotauge which I prefer to undermine which others prefer if the particular attribution is fixed. Hipocrite (talk) 21:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support on sabotage => undermine. I do agree with Hipocrite though that it is misleading to limit this to Brown&Pachauri. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support proposal, note that current wording doesn't limit it to Brown&Pachauri, as modified it would read that they "are among those who have suggested that the incident was intended to undermine the then imminent December 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit". . dave souza, talk 22:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
• Sure.--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I just made the edit - thanks to all for the feedback. --SPhilbrickT 23:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Climategate Analysis by John P. Costella

McSly (perhaps legitimately) removed this link that I had provided on the article page:

http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/

I'm posting it here instead, in case others are interested. Simon Kidd (talk) 07:06, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Assassination Science is an interesting website. The same people believe the Zapruder film is a hoax, the Apollo moon landings were faked, and that 9/11 was an inside job. The ASSASSINATIONSCIENCE.COM main page displays links to AULIS.COM and MOONMOVIE.COM. Wikispan (talk) 08:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Blog/diatribe by the usual anti-science activist type. Not a valuable source for anything except maybe an insight into the mindset of these folks. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a good edit. Looks like a conspiracist website, which probably isn't an appropriate external link, much less an appropriate "See also". Guettarda (talk) 14:52, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Discussion to shut out dissenters

Currently under content of documents, we are stating that the e-mails "included (..) discussions of efforts to shut out dissenters and their points of view", the source used to back this up states that the e-mails suggest that this takes place and of apparent efforts to exclude people from the ipcc. This was brought up before and was changed into the current form by consensus of a few editors, but it seems the article is now stating it more strongly than the source does. Especially as there are other sources that do not agree with this at all. I am not sure what is normal here and I understand suggest is a weasel word, but to just remove it means we are saying it actually happened, when I think no reliable source has stated this. 83.86.0.82 (talk) 11:29, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

A good point, the wording reflected the skeptical position shown in early articles by the WSJ and the Daily Telegraph (not to be confused with the daily Greenock Telegraph). More recent sources have provided more balanced views, in the interim I've used the sources already cited and rephrased it a bit to make it clear that these are allegations. Hope that helps, goes out to buy today's Tele. . . dave souza, talk 13:02, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

"There have been assertions that these discussions indicated efforts to shut out dissenters and their points of view, and included discussions about destroying files in order to prevent them from being revealed under the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000" This is an awkwardly worded sentence. The first part is in the passive voice, and so it makes the second part sound like "these discussions... included discussions about ..." Ignignot (talk) 15:05, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

WHTM (ABC news) Article about Penn State Investigation

What about using this this?

"Penn State professor Michael Mann is globally known for his research on global warming. His work concludes that temperatures rose in the 20th century largely because of man. But recently released private e-mails suggest Mann - the researcher - overstated the impact of man - the species - on climate change, and then tried to cover it up."

"Penn State is investigating. But Stephen Bloom, a Cumberland County attorney and Penn State graduate, says an internal inquiry isn't enough.

"Penn State has such a vested interest in keeping the big research dollars that are flowing in as a result of global climate change research they're doing now," said Bloom. "It's hard to imagine how Penn State can truly take an independent look at the situation.""

"Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers says results of the inquiry are due by the end of January." Echofloripa (talk) 17:03, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Local news station parroting non-notable (and also local) Conservative Commonwealth Foundation, and a comment from a non-notable conservative lawyer (who might plausibly be described as a global warming skeptic from anecdotal evidence). -- Scjessey (talk) 17:15, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Mann's e-mails and the Penn investigation are already well-covered in the article. Speculation by locals is not important unless actual charges are brought. The Four Deuces (talk) 17:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's just wait for the "results of the inquiry" at the end of the month, and then reactions to that. "No news yet" is all we have here. --Nigelj (talk) 17:29, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

We get 3 climategate deniers / anti-science opinions,anyone else? Your opinions of notability will always depend how pro-AGW it is. Why should I be surprised?Echofloripa (talk) 17:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)