Talk:Richard A. Betts

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Use of "climate skeptic" as label

The term "climate skeptic" can have very different meanings. It can either refer to climate change denial or scientific skepticism. In the interest of clarity, the link should be to one or the other of these, and not to global warming controversy which is not a synonym. In the interest of neutrality, it is preferable to describe a person's actual views than to define them by an ambiguous and outdated label. IHaveAMastersDegree (talk) 20:04, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You might wish to reread some of the relevant Wikipedia policies at this point. The statement is sourced to an article by Leo Hickman which repeatedly uses the word "sceptics", sometimes in the phrase "climate sceptics", sometimes on its own. He never uses the words "deny", "denial", or "denier". As such it seems that you are breaking WP:SYNTH. If you believe that the page global warming controversy is not appropriate, then the neatest solution would simply be to unlink the phrase: it is better that a phrase not be linked than that bit be linked inappropriately.

You might also wish to review Help:Minor edit, and in partcular the text "A check to the minor edit box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the current and previous versions. Examples include typographical corrections, formatting and presentational changes, and rearrangements of text without modification of its content. A minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute." Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:28, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your input. It seems that the best way to prevent a WP:SYNTH violation to avoid linking "climate skeptic" to anything not mentioned in the cited article. Fortunately, Leo Hickman defines the term as he used it in his article as "critics of climate science" so the simplest SYNTH-free way to resolve the ambiguity is to use Hickman's definition. Betts himself refers to those he is engaging as "critics" and only uses the word "skepticism" in quotes which implies he doesn't normally call them that. After reading Help:Minor edit I agree that this clarification crossed the threshold and should not have been marked as minor. I will take care to avoid that mistake in the future (I am rather new at editing). — Preceding unsigned comment added by IHaveAMastersDegree (talk • contribs) 18:51, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's room for debate on exactly what phrasing to use here, but I think your version is defensible so I'm very happy to leave things there unless somebody else joins in the debate. I see that you have made quite a lot of edits of this kind, and it might be a good idea to go back through them and check for similar issues of verifiability and synth: you are learning fast for a new editor but I would be surprised if you haven't made a few mistakes in your first few edits. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:28, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your feedback. I enjoy the editing which is much more pleasurable and educational than passive reading. I am happy to spell out my reasons for edits on talk pages and look forward to the discussion. IHaveAMastersDegree (talk) 20:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Update: IHaveAMastersDegree has now been blocked. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:27, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]