Talk:Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Discussions about the article's tone

Arguments supporting an unbalanced and overly negative tone

I think this article is much too negative and a smear campaign against BP. As a company, BP has a fine record, and is much safer than many others. Oil spills happen, it is inevitable. This fear mongering does nothing, and seems designed to fit the lib and MSM agenda of preventing american energey indepenance by making it illegul to drill in Alaska, where there is OIL. If you dont like it, fine, but no need to sensationalize some relatively minor event as if it were a gigantic asteroid about to kill 100 million people.

This article is a sad and cynical exercise in yellow journalism.

To improve it, there needs to be more info about the process of oil extraction, the frequency of oil spills, BPs technological advances and fine safety record, and the need of oil to make the american economy run without giving money to terrorists. There needs to be an effort to establish the CONTEXT of this, so that it is not turned into some political dem/lib point scoring stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.38.89.212 (talk) 10:28, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

If you hadn't already been temporarily blocked for "disruptive harassment and racist editing" I'd invite your no-doubt well-balanced contributions. Paulscrawl (talk) 14:28, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I agree with him though. It is a bit too anti-BP. People seem to be forgetting that this whole thing might not have been BP's fault and whatever the case it was a freak accident. --Half Price (talk) 14:51, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Paul - so, you have nothing against the substance of my argument, you just want to name call? FYI, I was blocked by one of the zionists's for making an edit to the judaism page, which is not surprising. This whole thing about the spill is pretty ridiculous. BP is being made into a scapegoat, and Wikipedia is part of the lynch mob. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.38.89.212 (talk) 15:06, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Is there a constructive suggestion about how to improve the article? USchick (talk) 15:42, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

The substance of the suggestion, I think, was to add more context about BP and drilling in general. However, this article is about the current disaster, which is unfortunately a very negative topic. The context is available in the related articles BP and offshore drilling. Thundermaker (talk) 16:51, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

This edit was apparently meant to add balance to the article. Drmies (talk) 09:47, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Arguments supporting an unbalanced and overly positive tone

I think the article is far too positive, in the general attitude about the situation. There are tar balls, oil globs, and oil sheen washing ashore on the tourist beaches of 4 U.S. states, and entering into the inner wildlife areas, carried inward by incoming tides, which every oil company knows will flow inland daily. Water-level tide tables are published for these areas, every day: the rising tide comes from Gulf waters moving into the inner waterways. It is even possible to calculate the millions of gallons of water predicted to enter each day, and determine what percent of that water will contain tar balls, oil globs, and surface sheen. For weeks, experts have said that 18-inch floating booms would be ineffective, and recommended 48-inch booms (1.2 m), for deepwater areas, be placed near tourist beaches and inner waterways, but it didn't happen. Those larger floating booms were not available in time, and masses of oil came ashore, pushing oil 3 miles (5 km) into protected areas. At this point, every beach community, of the eastern Gulf, needs to prepare its own barriers against the oil, and there are plans to bill BP, by charges against a multi-$billion escrow account, for the work actually needed to keep the oil from coming inland. Search the webpages and find many reports of tourists leaving beaches due to the tar on the beach or the smell of oil in the air. Over 100 birds per day are being rescued for shock and cleanup. Hundreds of birds have already died. Fishermen are wondering if the spawning grounds for Bluefin tuna and Gulf shrimp have been contaminated, to reduce or poison next year's catch. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Arguments supporting a balanced tone

I think the article is well-balanced :D MichaelWestbrook (talk) 17:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Censorship

I don't mean to be a pest, but is anyone else concerned that there is a combined effort to limit public access to information? Why are BP contractors answering the phones at the US Coast Guard? Why are citizens turned away from public beaches? Why is the media denied access? If you insist on removing this information from each place, it needs to be addressed in a new section that deals with information blackout. USchick (talk) 17:56, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Summary style is a bitch, something I'll venture to say we've all learned the hard way from more experienced editors. This is a big article with lots of juicy details. However, the first source in Media reactions section covers censorship well and those two retained paragraph sum it up nicely. Future roundup articles may someday soon replace these sources to document catalog of attempted & successful censorships. Keep your eyes peeled for those. Paulscrawl (talk) 18:06, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

: There are confirmed CNN sources about a media blackout and the FAA has issued a no fly zone. I'm posting this while the rest is under discussion. USchick (talk) 01:53, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I may have experienced some censorship myself. I posted a question to eng-tips.com, an engineering forum I have been a member of for years. I got a reply, but before I could get to the website, my question and the reply were deleted, and my account blocked. Repeated attempts to contact the editor have been ignored. My account is still blocked. I don't believe BP is behind this, because it would be a PR disaster if some memo directing it were leaked. Rather I think that some member of the forum who has connections with BP, or perhaps one of the companies responsible for the equipment that was the subject of my question, took it on himself to do the censorship. It just seems to be a knee-jerk reaction, not a well-planned strategy. It might have worked, had they been able to stop the leak in a few weeks. Now, their censorship efforts have backfired, and BP is looking worse than if they had just let the discussion go where it may. --Dave (talk) 17:05, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Censorship is kind of uncool. We seem to learn more on Obamas asskicking retorics, but less on his leniency as to not share the blame on others. He has also blamed the traditional ties that are between the oilcompanies, and these Gov't bureaus that are meant to controll them. No one cares to mention that Obama has been in office since 2009, so these are not his 100 first days. No real change has happened in Obama's energy policy

For whatever reason, it is not newsworthy that the rig was registered in the Marshall Islands. Why are they to be blameless? Is that funded in the Law of the Sea, or is it just that no one has noticed?(82.134.28.194 (talk) 09:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC))

BP public relations - sponsored link buy

(Started this new section for discrete question, formerly in Censorship section - Paul)

I believe the discussion of BP's use of Google's sponsored links is biased against BP. The links are clearly labeled, and there is nothing unusual about BP buying these links. We should focus our criticism of BP on what they *do* with the media exposure they buy. IF they want to publicize their cleanup efforts, that's OK. If they mislead, that's not OK. --Dave (talk) 17:25, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I disagree: perfectly objective fact & quote of expert, with clearly labeled illustration. I did, however, add the necessary word "sponsored" (as in image legend, required to illustrate quote from expert), with edit summary that speaks for itself: + "sponsored": no one can buy search result, only a sponsored search result; still, NPOV w/ corp. SEO expert cited & important part of section "BP public relations" Paulscrawl (talk) 23:23, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

There is actually a science to search, namely, statistics. See secondary source, New Scientist, BP buys 'oil spill' sponsored links for search engines: "Studies of the effectiveness of sponsored links suggests perhaps as many as 30 per cent of people will head to their marketing material." Cited primary source from New Scientist is peer-reviewed Jansen, B. J. 2007. The comparative effectiveness of sponsored and nonsponsored links for Web e-commerce queries. ACM Trans. Web 1, 1, (May 2007). -- I added former, secondary, source to anchor claim of corp. SEO expert quoted, and need for illustration. Bottom line: this strategy is a very big part of the BP PR story and in itself, as described in BP PR section, perfectly neutral and certainly notable: try Googling BP "oil spill" "sponsored link" for abundance of news analyses, well beyond perjorative: some note the relative novelty of it, as in first source cited. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 00:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Good work Paul. Adding the word "sponsored" at the right place makes a big difference in the interpretation of this section. I would add even further neutrality by changing the statement "most people cannot distinguish between such paid search results and actual news sites" to "most people cannot distinguish between sponsored links and actual news sites", or perhaps "most people cannot distinguish between sponsored links and Google's normal search results.

Google makes a big effort to keep sponsored links separate, and avoid the truly dishonest practices of many advertisers in elevating their ranking in Google's search results. Google isn't 100% successful in this effort, and the result is a big industry offering services such as websites with phony links, click fraud, and other dishonest tactics. I would not be surprised if some of this is happening now around "oil spill" and other current search terms, but if BP were caught being involved in it, that would be headline news. Likewise, if they were caught being directly involved in censorship like what I have experienced (see my comment under Censorship), that would be big news.

As for what seems to be BP's over-emphasis on PR, my take is that all big corporations do this. For an entertaining look at how the oil industry "quantifies" PR see Section D.5.4 "Reputation Consequence, C sub R" in http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/640/aa.pdf. BP is definitely at level 5.

--Dave (talk) 11:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done changed final clause per your NPOV suggestion to read: "most people cannot distinguish between sponsored links and actual news sites." Thanks. Nice paper, BTW -- gotta love quantification of such qualitative factors as "reputation": engineers gone wild! Paulscrawl (talk) 17:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Ouch! Don't blame this "marketing speak" on us engineers. I think most would have the same reaction as you and I did. The rest of the paper (and many others in that MMS series) are good engineering. Now, if we could just get our bosses to listen. --Dave (talk) 11:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Media blackout

I'm beginning to understand why all of a sudden editors appear out of nowhere, with no previous history on Wikipedia, with a renewed interest in this topic. :-) I'm posting this for discussion and clearance. USchick (talk) 20:29, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

In April, Obama authorized SWAT teams to investigate 29 oil rigs in the Gulf and said his administration is working to determine the cause of the disaster.[1]

On May 11, Department of the Interior released a press release announcing that the inspection of deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico found no major violations.[2]

On June 9, the FAA issued a no fly zone over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and affected area until further notice. [3]

According to the New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security is limiting access to the area for major media outlets including ABC News and CNN. [4]

According to the European Union Times, the United States has ordered a complete media blackout over North Korea’s torpedoing of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform owned by the World’s largest offshore drilling contractor Transocean that was built and financed by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd.[5]

re: This link: [6] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.32.182.180 (talk) 19:49, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Your first source -- CBS News -- only mentions SWAT, but not the number of rigs. EUTimes seems to exist only to get different nations and races to hate each other more than they already do. If you want to start a new section titled "crackpot theories," then go for it, otherwise I'll be helping to remove your unreliably sourced agenda from the article. - JeffJonez (talk) 13:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The EUT is an unreliable source and most likely a hoax. USchick (talk) 13:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

There are 5 footnotes given for the statement that a North Korean torpedo attack caused the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Only two of those references actually mention a torpedo attack, and one of them is a summary of speculation based on the other. The cited truthout article actually ridicules the conspiracy theories rather than supporting them, stating that "the impetus for the tale is so vague and thinly rendered that it strains the limits of credulity". The one source reference (EUTimes) is also just speculation. This is extremely misleading. Aa74233 (talk) 14:03, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Ecology

Hi, I'm definitely not an expert here, but ocean life is a tremendously important thing, and just subjectively, if you look at bays like in New Jersey where small amounts of oil have leaked, those marshes look dead. As someone who grew up by the sea, with such rich diversity of life and changes (small plankton that would sparkle like stars, clams that would spurt out when you walked nearby etc etc), I just can't believe that the only concern here is 'higher up the food chain.' How bad is it going to be, I would like to know? I don't care about crops and food chains, is the whole actual Gulf Coast and a huge section of the Atlantic Ocean going to be badly polluted now? Is it going to be like those huge stretches of the American Coast where there is now nothing living? Where are the credible, balanced experts here that can weigh in on this and answer my questions? Createangelos (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

"Is the whole actual Gulf Coast and a huge section of the Atlantic Ocean going to be badly polluted now?" Yes. :-(

Intellectuals solve problems. Geniuses prevent them. – Albert Einstein USchick (talk) 15:30, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done added interview with coordinator of 140-scientist, 15-nation, all-species inventory of Gulf of Mexico completed last year. Good insights on entire food chain at all depths in area of spill; he discusses effects of Loop Current, hurricanes, & comparison to Exxon Valdez long-lasting effects; also linked to summary of primary source, with great map of species in vicinity and link to affected species database. That's the state of the science today: all else is speculation, as interviewed expert freely acknowledges. Paulscrawl (talk) 18:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi,

Thanks for that. Somehow I sense that the problems will be more extensive than can be conveyed by counting species, just from my anecdotal experiences, for instance a Maine beach where there were huge mussels on all the rocks, and any tidal pool had so many little creatures in it, when I was a kid. Now the mussels are the size of a fingernail and tidal pools seem emtpy of life. This is over 40 or 50 years, far away from any oil spills.....yes I guess counting species is a way of expressing it. Anyway thanks. Createangelos (talk) 12:20, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Preliminary BP source

The details BP presented are slanted in technical ways. This primary source may be useful for article development comparison and checking on chronology and well hardware.--Stageivsupporter (talk) 06:05, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

US dumping ground of unexploded explosives

2007 Minerals Management Service indicates a growing concern about Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) located in close proximity to deepwater exploration and development sites within the Gulf of Mexico [7] U.S. military dumped chemical warfare agents in U.S. coastal waters prior to 1970. [8] US Nautical chart explosives in the Gulf [9] Location of explosion [10] USchick (talk) 14:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I appologize if I sound rude, I'm just wondering what the relevance is? Jcarle (talk) 05:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Reference: Insurance Market Impacts Study

The Deepwater Horizon Disaster: Insurance Market Impacts StudyGeo8rge (talk) 22:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Pension holdings

BP is a popular stock with pension plans so perhaps that aspect should be recognized in any ownership section.

• US and UN: [11]
• BP is obviously owned by many British and other pensions. Geo8rge (talk) 22:37, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

BP shares represent 1/6 of British pension holdings, by some sources, and a considerable amount of US mutual fund holdings. However, loss of market capitalization or expected dividends affects only BP shareholders and those who sold at loss, not company at all, which already got its money from market, except to the extent company owns its own stock. What goes up, goes down: you lose money only when you actually sell at a loss, or when you lose expected dividends, not otherwise. Not particularly relevant to oil spill. More relevant to BP article: BP stock may well be a bargain for speculative raiders intent on takeover, a point already cited in article. Might be relevant to BP PR and public reaction. Paulscrawl (talk) 02:57, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

If Stocks are worth less than what you paid for it, that becomes income deductable. It is the next thing, that you have a tax reduction.(82.134.28.194 (talk) 09:29, 15 June 2010 (UTC))

Not in my country. Kittybrewster ☎ 10:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

"Not in my country." Really? What country is yours? I am so curious! See, I am confused here. As long as we are discussing your personal take on this environmental disaster, I mean, pensions, stocks, taxes, what have you, in your country, as opposed to some other human's country, does that mean killing off entire species of the Animal Kingdom, who don't claim any country, who just want to flap their wings and fly, or breathe oxygen through their gills, reproduce and carry on the natural cycle of life, does that mean I can forget for at least a second, while contemplating the financial situation in your country, that those animals may not care one way or another anything about Wikipedia's take on pension holdings? But please, continue, say more, as I see you do with each and every edit, where you always meticulously express in every edit summary that is not marked "m" (minor edit) what it is you are doing, allowing for other editors to not be baffled or perplexed, allowing them to trust that you have no agenda, but rather that your intentions are noble and democratic, open and forthcoming. Yes, I am all ears regarding your country. Please do tell. After much research, I know I will get an earful. MichaelWestbrook (talk) 10:47, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The fact that BP's top executives may not take a loss is important to the article especially if we are talking about criminal investigations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.125.171.215 (talk) 23:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Transocean helping with the cleanup?

Are Transocean helping up with the clean up at all? i know that BP have taken full responsability for the clean up, which I think they have to as it is their concession and their oil, but it seems odd that there has been nothing public from them as from what I was reading, they owned and operated the rig? Discojim (talk) 04:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

odd? hmmm... perhaps this reliable source will shed some light, as well as a plethora of other RSs: CBS "60 minutes" investigation of Deepwater Horizon blowout, aired May 16, 2010 MichaelWestbrook (talk) 04:39, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I should have just googled it. found the info. Transocean are leasing ships to BP for the clean up operation... http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0615/What-BP-s-partners-are-doing-in-Gulf-oil-spill-cleanup also in the news http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/No_cheap_way_out_for_Transocean.html?cid=9100278 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Discojim (talk • contribs) 00:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Kevin Costner's Technology

Is this section really worth being its own section? Shouldn't this be lumped under containment and cleanup? It seems to me that machines purchased from this one company would be as meritorious of having its own section as the company that produces booms for BP.

In addition, if this is worth its own section, why is it called "Kevin Costner's Technology?" The company developed the technology, not the actor. Should we call the article "Tony Hayward's Oil Spill"?

--asdfsdf, 70.15.7.72 (talk) 04:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Support -- altogether disproportionate emphasis. One good source can consolidate various public suggestions. Paulscrawl (talk) 06:35, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support Kevin Costner made some god awful films. ok, j/k. I support because then we should include hundreds of other solutions as well. Let's keep this article concise, please? MichaelWestbrook (talk) 07:04, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support Strong support - way too much emphasis. Gandydancer (talk) 15:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

There has been no support for keeping, it so I removed it. Perhaps if someone feels strongly about it they can try it somewhere else... Gandydancer (talk) 17:47, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I restored the section with new title [12], so as other companies also suggested their own decisions for cleanup the Gulf. Feel free to add there any new information about other ways and companies that really are able to save the Gulf. Krasss (talk) 19:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

Deepwater Horizon oil spill → BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill — The current name, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, implies that Deepwater Horizon spilled itself out into the Gulf of Mexico. This is in no way correct. The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion was in fact the initial cause of the ongoing spill, but again, it did not itself spill oil. Deepwater Horizon being a an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig, is also considered a Drillship. Therefore, it is a vessel. This vessel, unlike a tanker, does not hold any oil therefore does not have any oil to spill. (I appologize for the overly kindergarden explanation of the facts, but people seem to continuously miss the point.) This distinction is important because it makes the current name factually and technically incorrect. Previous discussions about the renaming this page to Gulf of Mexico oil spill were rejected on the grounds that it did not make the name sufficiently accurate or unique based on the fact that this was not the only oil spill to ever occur in the Gulf of Mexico (refering to the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill). This being the case, I believe that adding the reponsible party to the name (which is very well known publicly) makes the new proposed name BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill both factually and technically correct as well as sufficiently unique. Jcarle (talk) 05:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose; the well created by Deepwater Horizon did create the spill, and while BP is certainly a responsible party, there is not enough evidence so to say to say that they were the only responsible party, as a rename would indicate. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:45, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support, but... amend with descriptive additional name "Deepwater Horizon", rather than "Gulf of Mexico"... my final suggestion, already suggested by others in archives of this talk page, is "BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill"... MichaelWestbrook (talk) 06:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support Per WP:COMMONNAME. Most people recognize it as the "BP Oil Spill". --WikiDonn (talk) 07:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose again. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:51, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

(see archive 4 of this talk page for my complete argument supporting this requested move and reasoning for specifically describing the oil spill with the proper adjective "BP Deepwater Horizon" weeks ago):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill/Archive_4#Request_to_rename_article_to_BP_oil_spill_of_2010 MichaelWestbrook (talk) 06:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Neutral about the original proposal so far. There is no single common name and several names, including Deepwater Horizon oil spill, are in use as common names. However, if renamed, I definitely prefer BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill over BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Although quite a number of search results could be found for BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill by Google search, Google News gives only 464 results for the phrase "BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill" which is not significant compared to some other options. Also, "BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill" is misleading as it suggests that Deepwater Horizon was owned by BP. This is incorrect. Beagel (talk) 07:40, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

"Also, "BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill" is misleading as it suggests that Deepwater Horizon was owned by BP. This is incorrect." ~ Beagel

Beagel, Paulscrawl logically refuted your argument of "misleading by suggestive description" premise over a week ago, yet you had nothing to say in return then, and still have nothing really to say now, I see. You are merely repeating yourself. We heard you then. Now please, tell us why attaching "BP" to "Deepwater Horizon" as a proper adjective preceding "oil spill" is precisely misleading? Keep in mind, and be careful, my friend: Attaching "Deepwater Horizon" ALONE, (under your semantic precision agenda) it may seem to some (including myself) to this oil spill, is probably just as well misleading, is it not? If Transocean owned Deepwater Horizon, as your logic "leads" a reader to follow, then am I being facetious, so to speak, by feeling that you accept (conveniently neutral) its rig as the most responsible factor in the entire equation? So then, would it be so grossly exaggerated that I associate Transocean as more the cause of this oil spill than any other entity when I see this article in big bold letters? I welcome your thoughts. Take your time, as I have taken mine for almost two months now, to form your rebuttal. This is not a game. I am taking this very seriously. Information is key here. Let's split hairs when necessary.--MichaelWestbrook (talk) 08:29, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I apology for the off-topic comment but I think it would be better to comment the topic, not other editors. I find the comment addressed directly to me some way patronizing and not encouraging to express views about the topic. I believe that this was not intentional.

Additional comment about the renaming: I don't think that the title of this article should make anybody more or less responsible than he/she is. Wikipedia is not about "naming and blaming" and NPOV should be kept. So far, I also do not oppose moving the article to BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill as the original proposal of this discussion. However, I strongly oppose the name "BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill" because:

1. Deepwater Horizon drilling rig is owned by Transocean, not by BP
2. phrase "BP Deepwater Horizon" suggests that Deepwater Horizon is owned by BP. However, it is possible to use both "BP" and "Deepwater Horizon" in the title if "Deepwater Horizon" is not directly placed after "BP".
3. Both, "BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill" and "Deepwater Horizon oil spill" are more commonly used than "BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill"

Beagel (talk) 10:26, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Understood. I need a break from here. My emotions concerning this tragedy are getting the better of me. I really don't care what the title is. We all know the truth. It is just sad. But I gas up my car just like the next fellow. So this article might as well be called "Michael Westbrook's Gulf of Mexico oil spill". But please, when the oil is finally all removed decades from now, please, I beg you, don't make a Wikipedia article titled "Kevin Costner's Miracle Oil Spill Rescue" --MichaelWestbrook (talk) 11:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose Taking a line that has been mentioned during previous requested moves, BP is not the only party involved. Transocean owned the rig (hence why I also oppose BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill) other company were silent partners, the blowout preventer was manufactured by yet another. I see huge NPOV issues with the requested name. There is already a family of articles developed, handling a requested name on the topic lead but not the sub articles is not the appropriate way to go. Lastly, oil spills have followed a pattern of naming; location or ship + oil spill, the proposes title does not respect that strategy.--11:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Labattblueboy (talk • contribs) 11:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support Jcarle's reasoning sounds good to me. I support change to BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Gandydancer (talk) 12:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Neutral, leaning opposed The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon means that there can't be another spill associated with that name, making the article name descriptive and unique. Putting "BP" into the name seems more like a journalism headline than an encyclopedic headline, and in the form "BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill" seems to tempt the gods into giving BP another Gulf of Mexico oil spill for us to write about. The blame game will go on for years, and may never be solved. htom (talk) 15:08, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Strong oppose, as per all the solid arguments against made since the article started. To recap: it is misleading and opinionated to include BP in the name when there are so many other players involved and so many fingers being pointed. To do so goes against what Wikipedia is all about: logic and neutrality. The article is not improved by naming it "the BP oil spill" or something like that. The basic reason you all seem to want to change the name is to vent a little bit of anger at BP. That's completely understandable, but is not a valid reason to change the article name. Every other oil spill article that I know of on Wikipedia is named according to the same logic, I see nothing to suggest this should be any different. TastyCakes (talk) 15:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Mind reading only leads to anger and frustration since it suggests that others are being dishonest - it has no part in consensus forming. Please assume good faith on the part of others. My decision is not based on anger at BP, and I sincerely doubt that that is the basis for most of the others here. Gandydancer (talk) 17:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting anyone was being dishonest, but I do think a lot of people that want to insert BP into the name are basing their opinion on emotion rather than detached observation. Putting BP in the name only serves to peg more blame and responsibility on that company, a completely understandable human reaction but one which is at odds with Wikipedia's principles. TastyCakes (talk) 17:52, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

With your way of seeing the situation I could as easily suggest that you are the one who is basing your opinion on emotions rather than detached observation. As for your statement that "Putting BP in the name only serves to peg more blame and responsibility on that company", why so? BP got caught with their pants down, but what's new? A while ago it was the banks. As another editor remarked, we are all responsible...but in this article it still is BP there with their pants down. Gandydancer (talk) 23:10, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

And what is your opinion on how I see the situation? Regardless, you can suggest what you like but I disagree, I don't feel particularly emotional about this. To put it one last time, it was not just BP that was "caught with their pants down", naming the article as though it was is inaccurate and biased. Quite simply, I don't see any advantage to calling it "the BP spill" or some such variant, other than assigning more blame to BP (ie such a renaming would not help in finding the article or making its name more specific, informative or so on, but would break convention and make the title intrinsically judgmental). As far as I can see, the only reason to assign more blame to BP is if you're angry with them, which is not a valid reason on Wikipedia. But I've said what I think of this issue several times now and I really don't want to bicker back and forth. I'll live with whatever the closing moderator thinks is consensus. TastyCakes (talk) 23:28, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

My opinion about your opinion is that it is just one of many ways to look at the naming of the article. I've read them all and the one that seems most reasonable to me is to call it the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill because it is in the Gulf and they were doing the drill. Gandydancer (talk) 12:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support: I have opposed renaming this article many times. However, the name of the disaster as used in the media has changed. It is referred to now as "Disaster in the Gulf" or something similar, and BP is almost always mentioned in the first sentence of any report on the topic. I must therefore say that the name of the article as used in Wikipedia does not match mainstream media, and someone looking for the article may be confused. I therefore believe the name of the article should be changed, and the current name be redirected. N419BH 16:41, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose assigning blame in the article title. Would set a really bad precedent.

Note a certain other incident, which didn't have the benefit of happening in 2010.. the Sedco 135-F rig, operated by Sedco Energy for Pemex caused a blowout of the Ixtoc I well, caught fire and sank, resulting in an oil spill capped nearly 10 months later. Sounds familiar? Behold the Pemex Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In any way, "Commonly blamed" has no place in the title. - Skullers (talk) 17:56, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - Current title is neutral, and various redirects point to it. No reason to rename the article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• STRONGLY SUPPORT "BP" heads the article title, no matter what follows "BP", as long as common sense prevails...

again, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill/Archive_4#Request_to_rename_article_to_BP_oil_spill_of_2010 MichaelWestbrook (talk) 06:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - Without convention, any number of possible combinations can be proposed, as the previous discussions will attest. But there cannot be, an established, universally agreed-upon common name for this as the event unfolds. Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events):

Where: Gulf of Mexico → Macondo Prospect → Deepwater Horizon

What: disaster/catastrophe → oil spill → blowout

When: ...of 2010. Not of BP, or whoever. I don't support a rename, but IF you wanted to completely ignore the vessel involved, this gives you a perfectly bland Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010. At least until "The Great Spill" catches on... - Skullers (talk)

• Comment - I am amazed at how many people want to exclude the use of BP in the name yet at the same time accept the use of Exxon in the Exxon Valdez spill. Did Exxon manufacture the ship? No. So why are we using Exxon? Because they were the operating party at the moment of the disaster . Whether or not other parties were also responsible along with BP is not being refuted by naming BP in the proposed name change, BP was the operating party at the moment of this disaster. I quote, U.S. President Barack Obama says the U.S. government will hold BP fully accountable for a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.. Did the BOP fail? Yes. Was it BP's fault? Maybe, maybe not. Does that make BP less accountable? No. Just because the BOP failed and BP did not manufacture it, it doesn't make it someone else's disaster. When Air France Flight 447 crashed, no one started calling it the Airbus Crash. It was called the Air France crash because Air France was the operating party at the moment of the crash. I don't want to argue for who's right, who's wrong, simply try to keep in mind, naming the page BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill simply attributes the page name to one that's factually correct (since BP was the operating party), sufficiently unique (let us hope there is never another BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico) and easily identified by the general public (ask the public who made the BOP, most people can't answer you, ask people who spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico and I assure you everyone will answer BP immediately). Jcarle (talk) 02:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Jcarle, the Exxon Valdez was the name of the ship. Exxon has (or at least had) a habit of doing so. Same goes for Air France Flight 447, that's the name of the flight path, and the naming pattern used for such incidents. The Deepwater Horizon on the other hand is not owned by BP, it's leased by BP but owned by Transocean. Oil spills follow the strategy or location or ship + "oil spill" or "spill" Your method and logic don't really seem to apply in this instance.--Labattblueboy (talk) 02:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Exxon Valdez was the name of the vessel. Planes do not have individual names so identifying plane crash articles the same way as oil spills seems, to me, unworkably vague, naming after the flight name (which happen to include the airline) is thus the best available choice (which is why it is the convention, not just on Wikipedia but everywhere). Oil spills are, of course, a completely different situation, much more akin to other disasters, which do not generally include the company name on Wikipedia (or elsewhere, I would argue). Examples include the Bhopal disaster, the Texas City Refinery explosion, Piper Alpha and of course most oil spills. TastyCakes (talk) 02:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I can understand your reasoning behind willing to exclude BP from the page name. Would you at least agree that Deepwater Horizon oil spill is in fact factually and technically incorrect? Perhaps a move to 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill may gather more support? Jcarle (talk) 14:47, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would call it incorrect, misleading perhaps, but isn't it equivalent to saying "Air France Flight 477" is incorrect because it was the plane, not the flight, that crashed? Using the rig name uniquely identifies the source of the leak in a neutral way. That said, I agree that naming it geographically would also be neutral and I wouldn't mind that. The only argument against such a name is that all the other oil spills (from tankers or platforms that don't actually store the oil) are named like this article, unless more than one vessel is involved in which case the geographic location seems to be used. Anyway, you can put me down for a strong oppose on anything including BP in the name, a neutral leaning opposed for switching to a geographical name. TastyCakes (talk) 15:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - reprinted from Archive 4 of this talk page, I feel the need to remind editors who may be undecided...

Consider this from WP:Article titles:

Neutrality and article titles

Conflicts often arise over whether an article title complies with Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy. Resolving such debates depends on whether the article title is a common name (taken from reliable sources) or a descriptive title (created by Wikipedia editors).

Non-neutral but common names

When a subject or topic has a common name (as evidenced through usage in a significant proportion of English-language reliable sources), Wikipedia should follow the sources and use that name as our article title. Sometimes that common name will include non-neutral words that Wikipedia normally avoids (Examples include Boston massacre and Tea Pot Dome scandal). In such cases, the commonality of the name overrides our desire to avoid passing judgment (see bold italics below). This is acceptable because the non-neutrality and judgment is that of the sources, and not that of Wikipedia editors. True neutrality means we do not impose our opinions over that of the sources, even when our opinion is that the name used by the sources is judgmental.

It seems to me that by avoiding "BP" in the article title, we discredit the facts and reliable sources, deferring instead to our opinion that the name used by the sources is judgmental.

Also, may I add that I am noticing repeated arguments for keeping the spill named "Deepwater Horizon" because it would "follow convention" as Deepwater Horizon was the "name of the vessel". Okay, first may I ask why is it so necessary to "follow convention"? And secondly, did BP overrule the vessel's operator (Transocean) prior to the blowout, which caused the blowout, which caused the explosion, which sank the "vessel", and most importantly, began the gushing of oil from a mile down before (and regardless of) any explosion or sinking? Am I abusing Wikipedia like a "crystal ball" by saying that BP overruled Transocean when Transocean wanted to slow things down to better gauge the safety of the drilling process hours before the tragedy? In essence, that BP took over operational procedures of Deepwater Horizon, at least clearly immediately prior to the evening of April 20, 2010? Is there no reliable source to that end? MichaelWestbrook (talk) 15:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Why is it necessary to break convention when breaking convention would only introduce bias? I'm all for breaking convention when it makes sense. Breaking convention because we want to judge BP in the title just this one time is not a good reason. To your second question: not that I have seen, at least not that won't almost certainly be hotly contested in court later. I don't think they've officially said what they think went wrong, so proving who was in charge of the rig at the time is likely to be heavily disputed. Anyway, as Baseball Bugs has said, this is a fruitless argument that is unlikely to lead to change and I don't think we should waste any more time on this most minor of changes (adding two letters to the title). People can find the article and read the article just fine. At the end of the day I don't really care what the title is, I've said what I think is the better title, but I don't want to spend any more time on this. TastyCakes (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The questions I posed are for all editors to contemplate, not directed at you TastyCakes. And I am disappointed to see that just because editors have differing viewpoints, that there is a perception that discussing the philosophy behind an edit request (or lack of edit) is "fruitless" and a "waste of time". What if I felt discussing "nuclear options" is a waste of time? Should I comment there under that talk page section that I don't think you should be wasting time? How would that make you feel? There are editors who are contributing to this section, and there were editors who contributed to other article rename sections. Perhaps they valued their time spent doing so. MichaelWestbrook (talk) 16:41, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Others can make their own judgments, but in my opinion arguing over whether to include BP in the title has been a distraction from actually improving this article. I was one of those that spent time "contributing to the rename section", and I did value the time I spent doing so, which is why I'm going to stop, starting now. Please don't inject drama into this, let's just move on. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, I assure you I didn't mean to belittle the editing you've done on the article. It seems to me everyone has given their reasons for wanting to move or to leave the article, now lets just let a moderator decide and move on with other things in the mean time. TastyCakes (talk) 16:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

lol you didn't hurt my feelings. I was just articulating a point. No drama! :D MichaelWestbrook (talk) 17:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Units - Archive 5

"Could we replace liters with cubic meters? Beagel (talk) 18:26, 11 June 2010 (UTC)"

What was the reason for modifying the units to cubic meters? Cubic meters are not a commonly used measurement by general public. An overwhelming majority of the world measures in liters, with the US gallon next by number of users. I understand natural gas is commonly measured this way in the industry, however using a more obscure unit makes it less human readable, defeating the purpose of wikipedia. As a research scientist myself, the liter unit is dominant for liquid volume measure. 74.94.247.150 (talk) 15:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Cubic meters are what the oil industry overwhelmingly uses when talking about volume in metric units. Liters are just too small, it looks almost comical to have such a large quantity measured in liters, like measuring the amount of water in a swimming pool in teaspoons. Yes teaspoons are common and people are very familiar with them, but they are inappropriate for numbers of that scale. That is why I think Liters should be changed. I was under the impression that the reason it hasn't been changed already is that there's some kind of problem with the conversion template. TastyCakes (talk) 15:53, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

We have a quite large figures here. For most of human beings there is no difference if you have 1 million, 10 million, or 100 million liters - these figures just too large for imagination. Beagel (talk) 16:15, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Charity

I found some interesting info about this cell phone company that is doing charity contributions for the oil spills. I'm going to edit the Charity section of the article to include this new info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ezanawit (talk • contribs) 21:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi there. I have deleted your entry because I feel it is too narrow for this broad article. However, you may want to try and do something with this article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37682417 Perhaps Mad Mobile could be included with other charities that are trying to help. I see you are new at editing, so perhaps you may want to discuss your entry here before posting it. Good luck! Gandydancer (talk) 22:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

New flow estimate

Now up to 60,000 bbl/day... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Unit conversion done here by the Washington Post Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:08, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

This Article should be renamed 'BP Oil Spill'

This article should clearly be labelled the BP Oil Spill, not the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I don't know why, with 37 million google results, the phrase 'BP Oil Spill' is not the real title. 'Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill', by the way, has only 7.9 million results. This smells like BP's editing to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.92.189.166 (talk) 22:28, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Please see move proposals above. You might want to make your case here. TastyCakes (talk) 22:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

There's no reason to waste time renaming it just to push a political agenda. You can already get to it by entering BP oil spill, which actually has two different entries, so that's another reason not to mess with it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

In fact BP oil spill now redirects directly to the 2010 incident, so that's another reason to leave things alone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:14, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I find your comment "There's no reason to waste time renaming it just to push a political agenda." insulting to Wikipedia's editors in general (those that "waste time" in your opinion, while they devote valuable time contributing constructive discussion with only the intent to improve this article) and grossly sophomoric to assume these editors, whether a minority or majority, are pushing a political agenda. Please refrain from such baseless generalizations of Wikipedia's editors. Please assume good faith. Thankyou. MichaelWestbrook (talk) 09:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me, as I try to be polite, but frankly I lose patience with pointless debates. There is nothing to be gained, no benefit, from renaming the article. If you look around wikipedia, you'll see that far too much time gets wasted on debating the names of things, especially given that redirects make the particular names of articles unimportant. Every second spent debating such an issue is a second taken away from doing something more constructive. And the only obvious reason for renaming the article is to take a factual, neutral label and try to make the article title more overtly put the blame on BP. Don't lecture me about good faith. I can read English. Thankyou kindly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

If everyone applied your reasoning to the way they contribute to Wikipedia, this whole place would simply be a pile of dribble and conjecture frought with endless theorem about everyone's agenda. Jcarle (talk) 14:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear option

Is there an article covering the nuclear option? If no, could someone create one? (and reference the wells the Soviets killed also) 70.29.212.131 (talk) 05:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

See Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Jcarle (talk) 14:56, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Its a good question, as the Soviets used the method several times to close wells. We should have an article on that specifically. Maybe Soviet nuclear well collapses (just stubbed). In theory, a relief well could be used to lower a nuclear device deep underground. If the relief well is for example 200 meters away, the blast would have to be of about sufficent power (kiloton-low megaton range) to collapse the well, and would have be at a sufficient depth to contain that blast. As I understand it, the relief wells aren't close enough for a shallow, low-yield blast (I don't understand why they can't just drill close and shallow bypass relief wells). The device would have to be close enough to the well to have an impact, and deep enough so that the blast is contained entirely underground. Added to that the blast would have to be contained entirely in the rock strata, so as to not disturb the well source, as that might make things worse. So its non-trivial.

Jcarle, that's not an actual response to the question, and that is not an article on the actual topic the anon is asking. The anon asked about an engineering concept, to which you are replying with a political concept - completely unrelated, and completely beside the point. The engineering concept does not involve nuclear weapons, and thus the NPT does not apply. It uses nuclear devices, which are conceptually quite different from nuclear weapons. Environmentalists might even like the idea, considering what the spill is still doing. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 15:49, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, I think it's a fascinating (if terrifying) concept that could definitely warrant its own article. Has anyone seen any sources on the Soviet use (assuming they actually did use it)? Or any good sources of information on the subject in general? TastyCakes (talk) 16:01, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

BP public relations

I heard on NPR, that BP is legally required to control which information is released, because it effects stock prices. Also, the section here starts "initially BP downplayed it, but really the spill kinda grew. 67.176.160.47 (talk) 05:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

What is the estimated volume of the oil reserves that might escape

BP and the President are talking about getting through this while never mentioning what the total potential volume of escaping oil might eventually be. What is the worst case? There does not seem to be some line in the sand number of oil volume that if exceeded the USA will take BP off the case and put some other team in charge, that would be a logical algorithm to approach this issue. 71.127.28.55 (talk) 17:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

It's an interesting question, but I don't think there are any published data on how much oil might ultimately escape. The "worst case scenario" is for the pressure of the oil and gas in the reservoir to drop so low that it can no longer push it to the surface. In a regular oil well, that's known as primary recovery and is typically only a few percent of the total volume in the field. Since we don't know the total volume of the field, how much oil there is relative to gas or even the reservoir pressure, getting a meaningful number is unlikely (BP estimated initial volume as as 50 million barrels, so you could ballpark it based on that as I did here, but that is an extremely rough estimate that I'm not very confident in any more). The people that could probably best estimate that would be BP, and while I'm no public relations estimate, I'm pretty sure they're not going to be publishing those numbers any time soon. TastyCakes (talk) 17:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Actualy, the worst case is the levels of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico become so great that it becomes a Magor desilate zone with no ability to support marine life. Presently BP has made offers and had local fisherman hired on to help with the cleanups but there also rejecting any workers that have media ties. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WatchingDragon (talk • contribs) 18:19, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

End of the world

this article is now 10x longer than oil industry and 6x longer than that to which 'end of the world' redirects. just sayin'.Toyokuni3 (talk) 18:33, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

U.S. government prevents other parties from helping in cleanup

I propose that we create a new section called "U.S. government prevents other parties from helping in cleanup" and include the following:

Although the Netherlands uses skimmers to clean up oil spills, such devices are banned by U.S environmental regulations, because the skimmers allow a tiny trace amount of the oil to remain in the water.

The governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and the United Nations all offered to help clean up the oil, but the U.S. government turned down all of their offers of help because it would have violated the Jones Act.

Actor Kevin Costner demonstrated his own technology that could be used to clean up the oil, but the U.S. government would not allow that either, because the technology could only clean up 99.9% of the oil instead of 100%.

Back on the Chain Gang (talk) 18:54, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Should i have Semi protected the page?

(DJO CODY (talk) 20:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)) i protected the page. TO Avoide potientiol MEdiea attention stuff. like argueing. IF i have made a mistake please fix it and notify me on my talk page under the section titiled my MISTAKES. thank you(DJO CODY (talk) 20:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC))