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Harv system multi editor longterm maintenance

Using the former system of citation... which I will characterize as a Wild West undisciplined use of full-citation templates right in the text.... the text got hard to read and often full citations to major RSs were duplicated. Well, that's bad and annoying. However, when correctly deployed with a WP:REFNAME we had the benefit of little clickable supra-script letters in the reference section, showing each inline citation to any given reference. I'll call this "auto-RAUMS" for "Automatic Reference Actually Used Monitoring System".

If I understand the new harv based system, we lose the benefit of auto-RAUMS. So now if eds want to find all instances where reference A is cited in the text, they'll need to do some sensible manual searching.

On a related note, if an ed deletes text with short cites (like I did the other day), we now expect that ed to audit the remainder of the text to see if any of the references in the deleted section are still cited in the remaining text, and if not, the ed should also do a manual deletion of the full citation from the reference section. (Which I failed to do, but Femke took care of.... Thank you, Femke).

If all of the above is true, the only way to maintain synchronicity between the text and the reference section will be our collective paying attention and manually monitoring all future changes with this in mind.... a problem we don't have with the old chaotic messy system based on the citation templates, which despite its horrors at least provided the auto-RAUMS function.

Is that about right, more or less? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. I think the short-cite system is necessary for books and reports (avoid repetition and make sure people insert page numbers), but getting more and more doubts about the long-term sustainability of the rest of the system. It would be lovely if a bot were available for keeping the synchronicity between text and references, but alas. Now that we don't plan on going through FAR, I'm not going to focus much time on other people's citation style anymore: as long as the citation is full and clear I'm happy (says the inner voice in me fighting the perfectionist). Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:59, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
I hear you on the page numbers... it would be nice if people were forced to input something. Knowledgeable editors can use multiple pinpoint cites for the same reference using Template:rp, which renders, for example like this...
Ebeneezer was visited by Marley's ghost[1]: 25 , but by the end of the story he was safe and sound in his own bed with a new view on life and the climate change WikiProject.[1]: 152 .

References

  1. ^ a b Dickens, Charles (1847). A Christmas Carol. Chapman & Hall. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
As an aside, if FAR comes back to life and the job is ready except for polishing citation templates (the kind I know) I will help go through them and brush them up. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:37, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
Apologies, @Femkemilene: I just noticed all the uses of template:rp at sea level rise, so obviously you already knew about it. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:11, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

My apologies for being MIA. I am having some major computer difficulties (and shortages of sleep), but will try to limp along as fast as I can. I do like "Wild West system" (may have to steal that), but want to give the rest more contemplation before responding. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:57, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Continuing: Please don't use {rp}!!! It is an abomination, and (as has been said before) a blight on the world. It is an obscure usage that is quite baffling on first sight, and does not improve with famiarity. Note that quite a few knowldgeable editors choose to not use {rp}.

The underlying flaw with {rp} is that it applies to the note ("<ref>"), not to the full citation most editors put into the note. One advantage of using harv templates is that they refer directly to the full citation, whether it is in another section, or in another note. Nor is {rp} even needed: it is not notes that need pagination, but citations, for which Harv is definitely the superior solution. E.g., the second "ref" above could be a second note with a short-cite: grey. Named-refs and {rp} not needed.

Similarly with back links (the "^ a b" thingies): they also apply to the notes. Getting a similar system for full citations would be a fair bit of programming, which we are not likely to see any time soon. But the inconvenience of not having back links for full citations is far out weighed by the advantages of not using named-refs.

As to maintenance: when removing a short cite, it is easy enough to search the rest of the article for the lead author's last name to see if there other instances. As to checking for any unused full citations: a script could be written to do that, but that is not a high priority. Nor much of a problem. In fact, I slipped in some extra but as yet unused IPCC citations partly in anticipation of short-cites replacing some full citations. And if that does not happen right away, there's no harm if they are there. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:11, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

rp is immediately intuitive to me, and I find it really easy to explain. So we have a difference of preference there. If I were writing a legal brief or academic paper, I'd do something different, but I don't do those in wikicode. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:21, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
It is "immediately intuitive" once you understand what it means (which contradicts the essence of "perceiving directly"), not when you first come across it. But even with that understanding it is still a limited and inferior fix for the intrinsic problem of providing in-source specifiers when using named-refs. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:37, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
That's one view. I love it, find it simple and perfect. You disagree of course. It will serve little purpose to pound the table for our respective opinions and preferences, let's just accept that we see the matter differently. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:02, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
While you're thinking about it, I have fallen love in with List-defined references, which has never really been discussed in prior threads.
I think the major prior threads are
not yet archived
If I missed any, please just insert them into the list here, with my grateful prior permission
The work that's been done here is wonderful... THANKS!! I am not suggesting we revert any of that. (eee gads, no!!) But before we replicate this approach on other pages I would like to compare pros/cons with the list-defined references approach. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:56, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
The key thing about LDR – and the one thing I like about it – is pulling the full citations together in their own section. But other than that it is just named-refs, with all of the disadvantages of named-refs. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:15, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Ah, this is useful. Please list the top three disadvantages of named-refs. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:06, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
[Not ignoring you, just focusing on getting past a really bad day. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2019 (UTC)]
Sorry to hear that, and hope both you and your computer troubles are feeling better soon! Meanwhile... wow you weren't kidding when, in some earlier exchange, you criticised some of the help files. I have since done a LOT of reading and experimenting in my sandbox, and the result was that I did a lot of tweaking at Help:Shortened footnotes (my changes) and the documentation page for the harv template family (my changes). I also noticed you changed the basic pattern from cites for AR4 and simplified them for AR5. Put all that together and I finally understand what's going on with harvnb now. Then we have the error finding script. The next piece is that we need an easier way to add a new one, something that will compete with the dummy visual editor drop down templates (liked by dummies like me). The ProveIt gadget creators have just received a grant to do a massive upgrade, so hopefully harv support will be included. Anyway.... when you're doing better, please look at those two support docs I linked and make any changes, or add anything (comparing REFNAME/LDR to HARVNB that I overlooked). Or just discuss it here, either way. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:21, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. The situation is getting less bad, and I'm making some progress. Thanks also for any help re the Help pages. I haven't seen what you have done, but it you would have to try hard to not improve them. :-)
And yes, the existing AR4 (and FAR, SAR, and TAR) recommended citations use harvnb in a different way. But it wasn't that workable; don't use them!


Reasons for not using named-refs are of two kinds: technical, and mind-set. Which are "top" rather depends on how one wants to look at them.
At the technical level a primary problem is the dependency of the slave ref on a main ref. If the master named-ref does not exist one gets a big, red error message. But that also occurs if the master is simply in a different section; an editor cannot tell if the problem will go away when the edit is saved. Inversely, there is no warning if an editor removes a master named-ref (or a section containing it) that a slave named-ref is dependent on, but there will be big, red error messages elsewhere (and possibly unnoticed) when the article is re-compiled.
Redundant full citations (as we have seen at Global warming) arise because editors don't realize that two similar full citations (especially for complex citations such as the IPCC reports, with which editors have been differently creative) are for the same source. (This is slightly mitigated by using LDR, but see below.)
Probably the worst technical disadvantage is the inability to customize a named-ref, such as with page, paragraph, or section numbers, explanatory comments, or to reference multiple sources at one time. (The {rp} template is an ugly kludge that, at best, handles only page numbers, and in an unsatisfacory manner.)
Under mind-set is the reinforcement of several mistaken concepts, such as named-refs being the only way to do citations on WP, and that full citations must be in the main text, which straitjacket understanding and practice of citation. While, technically, LDR means named-refs don't have to be in-text, yet that practice is so deeply imbued in the use of named-refs they are, in practical terms, inseperable. Having full citations in-text is effectively a consequence of using named-refs.
But there is a deeper, more pernicious, problem. Use of named-refs arises solely from the problem of "re-using" a source – that is, referring to a source from more than one location – when universal citation practice is that each source should have exactly one full citation. The clever replication of a note seems to solve that, and massive usage has blinded most editors to the standard practice everywhere else (outside of WP) of using some form of short-cite (shortened citation, etc). It reinforces the mistaken notion of many editors that full citations must be done using named-refs, despite its serious disadvantages.
Hopefully all that is satisfactorily clear and cogent. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:48, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, sorry about the long delay in replying. Here I will only address your three technical points, which appear in your comment in paragraph 2, 3, and 4 respectively.
First, the master-slave name issue. This is the most persuasive of the three but for me it still isn't even close to a black and white determining factor. Using named inline citations, if what you call "master" doesn't exist, there will always be a big red error message, unlike in harv where there is no message at all (unless one has installed a script to provide an error message). If an editor deletes a needed master inline citation, a bot will "rescue" it after the change is published. The harv system lacks this proection, i.e., one can remove needed "anchor" citations from the bibliography and never be told a harv error was introduced. When one is editing just a section (instead of the whole article) the error-message capability is, as you point out, partially impeded. I say partially because the editor who uses "preview" gets messages say Cite warning: <ref> tag with name FOO cannot be previewed because it is defined outside the current section or not defined in this article at all. This is hardly fatal to the use of inline named refs, since the harv system doesn't even provide that much of a message when previewing changes to a single section.
Second, you complain that using named references, its possible for editors to redundantly provide full citations to the same thing. Its also possible for less-than-careful editors to enter slightly different parameters on a harv template and bibliographic reference, so redundancy isn't unique to one approach vs the other. Moreover, redundancy irks the perfectionists but impedes neither the five pillars nor WP:ARBCC#Purpose of Wikipedia.
Third, you say Probably the worst technical disadvantage is the inability to customize a named-ref, such as with page, paragraph, or section numbers, explanatory comments, or to reference multiple sources at one time. (The {rp} template is an ugly kludge that, at best, handles only page numbers, and in an unsatisfacory manner.) I don't wish to belabor the ILIKE/IDONTLIKE dispute about template rp so I'll just note that we have extensively stated our differing opinions elsewhere, and there are workarounds to each of these challenges. Contrary to one thing I said about template:rp, on reflection it isn't intuitive but then again nothing about any kind of citation is intuitive. It's all learned. For me learning the meaning of rp|pg in a superscript was a short step (because of my prior background and way of doing pinpoint citations). As soon as that template was explained it was easy to automatically apply that knowledge. But if we're honest all the way around, we also had to learn what footnotes are, what bibliographies are, what any form of notation means. On the one hand I agree with you it would be nice if the programmers could invent some smoother ways to handle those advanced features you mention, when using named refs. But there are workarounds, that many eds including you don't like, but there are workarounds. So this isn't a silver bullet to determine consensus. And in the great scheme of things, I put enormous emphasis on making editing inviting to the widest possible range of people. Newbies already find citation intimidating. In my view, if we all forget our prior learning, true noobs can overcome the challenge using inline citation faster and easier than using harv (especially with the non-existent error reporting for harv). For me, getting new eds involved should override efforts to make our articles look like the professional literature. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:48, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Caution: malformed harv citations on this page kill the clickable "show" buttons for some people

Be kind to harv citations and try to get them right, but the problem seems to be a user script that was borked. Issue resolved for this article anyway. dave souza, talk 09:33, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Notice at the top of our page there are a bunch of banners that use Template:Show button. WikiProjects, News, the FAQ... they all use a clicable "show". CAUTION! I just learned that including a malformed harv citation on a talk page will kill the show button function. Its a bug in the code, apparently. Alas, the default behavior does not pop up a flag Help:Cite error when we screw up harv citations like it does for standard inline cites using "ref" tags. So please be careful when using harv cites on this page! (In other threads we discuss a user script that page regulars may want to install.... this script does put up big red text for harv cite errors. Its very useful!) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:28, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Oops, sorry about that – thanks for fixing them! . . dave souza, talk 19:03, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
well, who knew? Besides, apparently it only affects people with certain scripts in their user configuration (like me). Thanks for helping discover a bug. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:56, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

What kind of "malformed HARV citations" are you talking about? The history shows you put some "nowiki" tags around some harv templates, but I don't see how they are malformed. What "certain scripts" are you referring to? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:29, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

In this thread, a malformed use of harv is one that triggers a harv error using user script User:Ucucha/HarvErrors, which I have loaded in my user configuration. With that script running, and malformed use of harv triggering errors, somehow-or-other Template:Show button on this page was disabled. Other eds who do not have the script running had no problems. You can read the debug discussion, as far as it has gone, here, along with diffs you can experiment with, assuming you are willing to play with the user script also. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:26, 8 August 2019 (UTC) PS I just messaged the creator of the Harv Error script, in case you want to chime in or watch. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
NAEG: This is nonsense! You're blaming this button problem on "malformed" harv templates, but it appears this is a problem only when you run the HarvErrors script. So--don't run HarvErrors! Also: you have not explained just what constitutes "malformed". I suspect it is something HarvErrors objects to, where upon it blows up something else. That's NOT a problem with Harv.
I did read your "debug discussion", and I note Izno's comment: "100% on your end ....". Also the discussion at User_talk:Ucucha/HarvErrors#Show_button_bug, where Redrose64 says he has no problems, and noted that you had not followed the directions for use, but had added other code. So quite possibly this is not even a HarvErrors problem.
The bottom line here is that I am little peeved with your blasting out "CAUTION malformed HARV citations on this page will kill ...", when it appears that is not at all the case. It is an out right libel, and I think you should correct the record. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:52, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
If you're peeved, then email or my talk page is vastly superior. For now the message is "don't screw up harv citations" and regardless of reason, that's a reasonable message. I'm still working on the root cause and will say something substantive when I have something substantve to say. But I will say this... without an error checking script I'm opposed to any use of harv because its way too easy to screw up and then leave the article without knowing you screwed up. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:57, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

UPDATE... JJ's approach yesterday made me overlook the important part. Malformed harv citations are indeed one ingredient in killing the show button, but they are not the only one. At the time of this thread yesterday that was the only ingredient I had identified. Further testing, after posting this thread, uncovered the second ingredient. One must use Harv Errors user script. But wait there's more. If you engage in unprotected software sex and set things up to just import the script (per instructions) it all works fine (until the script gets hacked). I prefer the PC condom approach of copying the source code to my configuration. Only then does the combination of malformed harv citations plus copy-pasting the Harv Errors source code produce this problem. Yesterday I already posted to the script author to see if they are willing to debug that and when its really all nailed down nice and neat I will eventually say more. I think I said all that yesterday. And all this rather misses the point. Malformed citations of all kinds are an evil curse. What makes malformed harv citations an insidious evil curse is the lack of a default error flag when you screw up. So people blithely change articles and go their way, unaware that can of trash fell off the back of their truck and someone else has to clean up the roadsides. We really need the programmers to give us a default fix for thatNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:34, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

What peeves me is not so much that you think there is a problem with use of Harv, but that you BLASTED out that opinion with your "CAUTION malformed HARV citations ..." section header. (And having done that here, this is the place to correct that.) At WP:TPG this comes under the heading of Keep headings neutral (emphasis in the original).
What also peeves me is your quickness to fault "malformed" Harv citations, without any explanation of what constitutes "malformed". (Like we used to say on the Help Desk: I'm not a mind-reader, you have to give me some clues. Like, perhaps, error messages seen?) At this point there is yet no evidence that the problem you encountered is anything but (as Izno said) "100% on your end".
BTW: if your real concern is (e.g.) typos in the template parameters causing the link to break, the way to check it is to click on the link when you're done. Which I do as a matter of course. That does not require a script. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:27, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
As I said above, In this thread, a malformed use of harv is one that triggers a harv error using user script User:Ucucha/HarvErrors, which I have loaded in my user configuration. Seems to me there's little point in bickering. So I'm going back to the constructive endeavor, which I've spent half of today doing already, by learning javascript and testing bits of code to try to help everyone have a real fix. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:46, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
That might suffice as a definition, but as it is entirely specific to your use of a script in your user configuration, and entirely out of sight to anyone else, it is entirely uninformative. Please SHOW us examples that we all can look at. What is this "harv error" your script is presumably displaying?
What is entirely unconstructive is your making wild accusations which you cannot support. If you would be more forthcoming with the basis of your statement perhaps we could sort out the real problem. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:56, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
Only on Wikipedia do we have silly billies that let this escalate . Can this discussion be hatted now? I've updated the title with the new information you two have discovered about the source of this bug. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:48, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

UPDATE Acknwoledging that not everyone thinks I have been talking about a real issue, in case some future third party stops by here, I'd like to sum up the bottom line after a heap of debugging in hopes it helps you. The original issue only exists if one copies the userscript to their common.js file instead of using the import command. It doesn't matter if you import from the author or from yourself, if you import the script it is (presently) working as intended. If you want to know why importing matters, it was suggested at v:pump(technical) that mediawiki might execute code in common.js at one time in the sequence, except for import commands that it might execute at a different time, and this could possibly explain the different behavior. That's as far as I cared to dive into this. The bottom line is, if like me you dislike importing code from other users, just copy the userscript to your own userspace (giving credit to the author) and import it from yourself. Then all works as it should. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:02, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

SR15 Global Warming of 1.5°C references

  • As a supplement to the cited AR5 definition of global warming (referring to WGIII) I've added a citation and quote of the GW definition from p. 51 of the SR15 report Chapter 1: Framing and Context; Executive Summary. There are variations on the wording in the SPM p. 24 Box SPM.1 and Annex I: Glossary p. 550, but these are a bit more complicated and the p. 51 definition looks best to me, expanding on the AR5 definition. . . dave souza, talk 21:43, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
  • The new IPCC website SR15 page uses advanced web design to make it harder to find information! The section and chapter headings listed here at Global warming#IPCC reports have all been given the same url – https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ – which merely leads to the SR15 page, giving slightly convoluted access to most of the content but not the page numbers which only show on the pdf downloads. In these edits I've therefore added that link to the main reference as linking to the online version of the book, and made a start on adding the pdf urls to individual sections or chapters, with page numbers. Any comments? . . . dave souza, talk 21:43, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes. I think there's been some confusion of "glossy" for "advanced".
The current SR15 citations are an initial Q&D hack to have something in place, more detailed revisions are in the works. I'm working on the AR4 WG1 citations now, but I can expedite the SR15 citations if the current ones are more annoying than you can stand. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:50, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, not a rush from my viewpoint. Just that I'd had to look at some of the pdfs for the page numbers, and thought it worth making them available for anyone looking up the inline citations. Will let the detailed revisions take their course. . dave souza, talk 01:00, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. Okay, probably on the order of "soon", but not quite that soon. I'm thinking within a week. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:38, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
See WP:IPCC citation/SR. Check 'em out, let me know if you see any problems. They've got a really crummy way of handling updates (changing the URL), so 1) it took a while to sort out what URLs are the latest versions, and 2) those URLs will be the latest and greatest ... until they're not. I haven't copied them into this article (yet); may wait until you (or ?) has looked them over. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:55, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, will do that as soon as time permits, have other things to sort just now. Minor tweak to your comment as the title is singular! . . dave souza, talk 10:33, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
  • The formatting of the full report highlights as a pdf link both the title Global Warming of 1.5°C., and the extended subtitle – "An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty" – can we avoid highlighting the subtitle as part of the link, possibly even make it a quotation? dave souza, talk 14:01, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
The highlighting is pretty much all or nothing, as the templates don't have a subtitle option; the link uses the entirety of what is assigned to |title=. And that is the whole title, if for no better reason than to be pedantically complete. We could shorten the title (strictly speaking, there is no "sub" title there), but I don't know if that would be a good idea. Of course, someone copying this somewhere else could shorten it (it would not be exactly kosher, but I wouldn't object). And I think that is better than providing only an incomplete title, which would take some work to extend. Well, perhaps the extended part could be provided but commented out. Which could be uncommented at an editor's discretion. Though I'm not fond of that. -JJ
Yes, good point. I was thinking of "Website: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/", but it seems to me most people would understand a plain url. My copy of CMS is so old they don't address urls, so I ought to check for more modern practice. -JJ
  • Not sure why we'd want to cite IPCC SR15 Summary for Policymakers WMO 2018 when there's a standard IPCC version, but it could happen – can we enclose this in a separate box or in brackets? . . dave souza, talk 14:01, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
Citations are given to both versions of the SPM because there is a difference (mainly the pagination is offset), and it is to be expected that both will be found and cited. I think we should not box the WMO version. Note that the citations are not identical: the WMO version, being "stand-alone", has an italicized instead of a quoted title, includes a publisher and ISBN, and does not link to the AR. Yet, aside from two pages and the pagination, it appears to be entirely identical to what is in the AR, and patently IPCC work, which is why it should be included under the IPCC, not the WMO. -JJ
  • IPCC SR15 Technical Summary – this has its own url, – which has a link to the pdf with an explanatory heading "This is a compilation of the Executive Summaries from the chapters." Since the executive summaries look clearer in the chapters, where they're shown in context, maybe add a note to that effect to our formatted reference, and use that url rather than the url for the pdf. . . . dave souza, talk 14:01, 22 August 2019 (UTC) No further comments for now! . . dave souza, talk 14:44, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
At one level this is the old question of whether to link directly to a specific pdf, so the reader can get it in one click, or link to a covering page, which gives more options, but also requires more work. and could lead to ambiguity as to the specific file. I have been somewhat variable on this before. But given the URL for the whole report, I think the components ought to be specific. (Note that each of the chapters has its "own" url, with multiple option, differing from TS mainly in being on a different branch.)
On a different level: I don't know what you mean by the executive summaries looking "clearer" in their own chapters. (Different resolutions?) But as to collecting the several executive summaries with out any added value, I could see recommending that they be cited directly in their original chapter. Is that what you have in mind? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:44, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

using "crisis" in wikivoice

Please consider adding to the conversation at Talk:Greta_Thunberg#Using_'Existential_crisis'_in_Wikivoice NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:57, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Our WikiProject is now up and running. If people want to continue being asked for input on related important articles, can we agree they follow the talk page of that project? This talk page is already quite bloated. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:40, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
We can agree that would be really nice, but there is no requirement that subject editors participate in the subject's project page, and this page has long played this role. Compare the number of page watchers at both. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:16, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you!

I haven't been to this page in many years. Back then it was troll-filled mess of misinformation and baseless opinion. I wanted to thank the community of folks who have brought the page to it's current state. This is awesome! You've really taken the "controversy" head on and taken a stand for reality. I love the talk page Q&A that lays it out in clear, uncertain terms.

I quit editing wiki because I couldn't handle the battle. So, again, kudos and many thanks to you of much persistence and commitment.

Warm regards, Wallace Mann --2601:647:5401:2DBF:843B:D5B5:6235:D8D3 (talk) 14:57, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words! Over the last five years I've been active on Wiki, I've noticed the discussion here becoming less of a battle, and more of a true collaborative project. We've learned not to engage with trolls too much and focus on the real deal. Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:15, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Best way to show thanks.... come back and join us! We're all volunteer and many hands make light the work... stop by WP:WikiProject Climate change if you like. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:31, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments from GOCE editor

Hi all. I recently finished a copy edit of the article per a request to the Guild of Copy Editors. I hope that it improved the article overall and I apologize for any mistakes or oversights on my part. Below are a few observations and potential substantive changes that occurred to me while copy editing that I thought I should bring here for broader discussion.

1. Charts and figures. I think the "temperature change in the last 50 years" map would be the best first graphic for the article, as it instantly expresses in an intuitive way the points "global" and "warming." The graph that is currently there is a bit more technical; I suspect most readers will not know what "Lowess smoothing" means, and even "Global Land-ocean Temperature Index" and "Temperature Anomaly" may not be clear to all readers. While "warming stripes" are supposed to provide an easy to understand depiction of global warming, the graphic on the right with warming stripes for every country in the world is very difficult to figure out. I wonder if it could be removed. In the "Physical drivers climate change" graph, I'm not sure what "Reflectivity used land" is supposed to mean. The "ship tracks" satellite image is intended to help illustrate a concept related to global warming, but is not directly an example of global warming, and so it might be removed for clarity. I think the 6-m seal level rise map should be deleted; it depicts an extreme scenario not discussed elsewhere in the article, and even then it is difficult for me to see any red color on my screen without clicking through to see it full size. There have been no doubt a great many magazine cover stories about global warming. I wonder if a different cover could be used instead of the Ms. magazine cover, possibly something from a more widely read and/or more international magazine, or even a cover from the late 1980s, when the issue first rose to prominence, which would better tie in with the accompanying text.

2. Opening sentence. My attempt to revise this got quickly reverted. That's okay, I wasn't aware of the previous discussion around it, although I can easily imagine. Still, I think it could be polished. It seems that there are three points being made in the sentence: 1) the basic definition of "global warming"; 2) its context within the broader concept of "climate change"; and 3) both direct and indirect evidence support its existence. Trying to fit all of these into one sentence is just a bit clunky, which is why I rewrote it as two sentences:

Global warming is the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system. It is the most prominent component of current climate change and has been demonstrated by direct temperature measurements and by measurements of various effects of the warming.

The break also helped remove the slight initial ambiguity over whether "global warming" or "the Earth's climate system" is "an aspect."

3. The rest of the first paragraph. I'm sure every reader of this talk page is aware of the issue of how the terms "global warming" and "climate change" are used sometimes interchangeably, sometimes not, in both formal and informal writing. I think the opening paragraph is correct to note that these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. However, I think if we try to draw the distinction that climate change is "both global warming and its effects" then this article would have to be called climate change, since it is indeed about both global warming and its effects. Also, the hatnote seems to have a different idea of what climate change is: "climate trends at any point in Earth's history." (This definition does seem to align better with the article at climate change.) I would suggest something like:

In this context, the terms global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably, but some authorities use global warming to refer solely to temperature increases, and climate change to refer to both global warming and its effects, such as changes in precipitation and impacts that differ by region, while others use global warming to refer to modern changes in climate and climate change to refer to variations in climate throughout the Earth's geologic history.

These are just my two cents; I'm sure that there have been previous conversations about these points on this talk page, so feel free to ignore this if I'm not adding anything new to the discussion. Cheers, Tdslk (talk) 01:24, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Since it was probably my reversion, have adopted your point 2 with addition of a comma. Not sure if "aspect" would be better than "component", or maybe "part"? The earlier debate was in the context of defining GW as the current climate change, "current" moved to the second sentence leaves more room for it also referring to paleo GW. . dave souza, talk 05:20, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
Have been puzzling a bit over 3, here's some brainstorming:

In this context, the terms global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably. More formally, global warming refers specifically to a trend of increasing surface temperature around the world, commonly related to a pre-industrial baseline. Climate change is any measurable long term change in the climate, global or regional, which includes global warming and other aspects such as changes in precipitation and impacts that differ by region. Climate change has occurred throughout the Earth's geologic history, including prehistoric periods of global warming, but observed changes since the mid-20th century have been much greater than those seen in previous records covering decades to thousands of years.

This draft ties climate change into the last sentence, though of linking "previous records" but the source also compares recent changes to earlier instrumental records. . . dave souza, talk 07:03, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments! You've been a great help. I'm quite impressed you never really changed the meaning of sentences, but did make them more readable!
1. Charts and figures.
  • I'm not overly enthusiastic about the second figure now. It portrays a 5-year average, and with our definition of climate being a 30-year average it's a bit confusing. It also doesn't go as far back in time as I would want. I seem to remember that you can play around with what is displayed on NASA's website, so I could maybe make a graph comparing to an earlier period. Alternatively/in addition, we could simplify the wording in the first graph, leaving out the word Lowess and only specifying that in the comments. Most people are not interested in these details. We can drop the word Index and change the word Anomaly to Change. The only disadvantage is that we'd have to do this yearly. I can make a script that plots the entire graph for us, possibly loading in some updated temperature series from NASA from their website automatically.
I've checked The GISS GW figure creator. If I try to plot temperature compared to pre-industrial, I basically don't have Africa, South-America, Middle-East, China, nor Antarctica. Not really an option therefore for me. Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:44, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
  •  Done About the warming stripes: we just had a discussion about this a couple of days ago and I expressed concern that it might not be clear for non-experts. Your confusion confirms my suspicion and I'll seek consensus to remove it (or will do it boldly..)
  • I made the graph with reflectivity used land. What this means is that when land is converted from forest to agriculture, the albedo or reflectivity changes. It becomes less dark, which contributes to cooling of the planet. If you can come up with a better description, I can change it in a minute. I wanted to avoid the word albedo, but maybe reflectivity is not much better.
  •  Not done I do think the ship tracks are directly related to global warming: aerosols like that added together have a huge cooling effect, that has potentially masked fifty percent of the GHG warming
  •  Done Two SLR figures are too much indeed. The 6-meter SLR is not as far-fetched as a long-term consequence as one might think though. I might try add a better specification to the long-term effects section. Maybe we could add in the text the biggest cities that are at risk as well.
  • About the Ms. cover. I'd never heard of it before, and now that I've actually clicked the linked, I concur it's niche. A quick search for alternatives on Commons did not lead to any other magazine covers, but that might be because I didn't find the right search combination yet. I've been considering to replace it with a protest placard as an accompanying figure in the climate movement section below. The school strikes for climate are a worldwide protest with good material available on Commons. As always, I find it quite difficult to assess neutrality in the use of figures. What do you all think about that? (updated Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:43, 27 August 2019 (UTC))


3. The rest of the first paragraph. I've not bothered too much with the first paragraph so far, as I'm planning to start the discussion of having climate change and global warming both pointing to this page. As it's been suggested twice recently again that the current situation is confusing, I might bring forward this discussion. It's proven to be quite sensitive, so I'm making sure to prepare well. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:06, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
Re the current first graph and other similar graphs, it will be great to have these updated: if possible, rather than "relative to the 1951–1980 mean" it would be helpful to show temperatures related to the 1850–1900 baseline (adopted by AR5 WGIII and SR15 as an approximation of pre-industrial global mean surface temperature).
Awaits ideas for merging the articles with trepidation, my own feeling is that treating this as a sub-article to Climate change would work, with a bit more attention to using WP:SUMMARY style to produce a condensed version where appropriate. . . dave souza, talk 09:31, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
The consequence of getting the 1850-1900 baseline for the spatial figure is probably that Antarctica, the western side of south america and some parts of africa will have to be greyed out, as insufficient information is available. As far as I'm aware, the Berkeley Earth data set has the best spatial coverage, and from playing around with that data some months ago, I found those gaps. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:56, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that emphasises why different baselines are used – I was thinking of the line graphs, where the temperature anomaly axis has a 1951–1980 baseline. It would relate better to overall warming if that was the standard pre-industrial 1850-1900 baseline, but I accept that may not be feasible. . . dave souza, talk 09:09, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
comment by NAEG Thank you very much, Tdslk| That was a mighty effort that has borne much fruit.
Re (1) no comment now.
Re (2) First the 2nd and 3rd points are related. In 2014 we spent several months working out a first paragraph (culminating thread and agreed text here). Last fall there were passionate attempts to rename this article to "climate change". To quell that debate, Dave crafted the new first paragraph text and went live with it in about Nov 2018. The 2014 consensus text had changed a bit, but not that dramatically. In response to the name-change demands, that paragraph was overhauled in Nov 2018 and its also been tweaked a bit. It is my view that the overhaul failed to resolve the name-change problem and introduced a new problem that didn't exist before.
Continuing on just point 2...... The new problem I refer to has to do with "most prominent". What RS establishes the "prominence scale" by which we measure the various aspects and effects of climate change? What RS even defines "prominence" in this context? If you are watching the flames creep over the ridge you probably think more about increased wildfire risk. If the rains didn't come (or the floods did) and your village has disbursed as climate refugees you probably think most about climate migration. If you are an Inuit on a permafrost coastline watching the land slump into the ocean day after day you might think most about climate grief. So what the devil is "most prominent" and where is the RS? We could partly overcome this problem by changing "most prominent" to "most reported" or maybe "most familiar", but nitpicky editors might challenge this if we don't provide an RS and as I float the suggest I'm doing WP:OR based on my own daily climate news reading. In my view, the whole thing is a convoluted way to implicitly explain why this article is called "global warming" instead of something else, which leads into point 3....
Re (3) I agree that the article is misnamed. The perennial argument is whether it should be named "global warming" vs "climate change" and that argument goes on and on and in many directions rather like a frack gas drill bit. I think it misses the point. The two open compound words "global warming" vs "climate change" are so entwined the best way to resolve the merry-go-round and reduce the frequent surprise and comments by new readers and editors is to rename this to something like Human-caused global warming and climate change (a redir pointing here) or, in event Wikipedia decides to follow suit with many media outlets, Climate crisis (a poorly developed new article which is currently about the phrase 'climate crisis' itself). At this time I'm personally not interested in advocating for either one, because we already know how the discussion is going to go. William will say "don't mess around with it", and others will correctly point out problems that would be hard to overcome due to our past history, abundantly mis-directed links to the two articles, and some general disorder in the climate pages. And so whether we rename it or not, I believe we need to clean house by going through the climate pages to clean up their organization and presentation at least on many of the higher level articles. This is already underway and what I hope the new WP:WikiProject Climate change will continue to focus on, at least at first. New editors are welcome to join us there! Just add your name to the participants list and jump in. As I see it, it is easy create categories and banners but its a lot harder to decide on an administrative goal (some possibilities are listed here) and then craft the best categories and banners to serve that goal. I'm watching and trying to learn from others how cats work, but I do think we need to start by designing our tasks and goals and then ask whether the cat and banners we have serve that purpose. After a lot of this sort of work happens, we'll be better prepared to tackle the extensive tangle of wikilinks in preparation for a name change debate that might resolve more problems than it would create.
Thank you again, @Tdslk:
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:33, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for your kind comments about my edits. A few scattered responses to the above.

1. While I like the idea of a map of changes in temperature at the top of the page, I'm not beholden to the specific map at the top of the article; I think Dave's suggestion is good.

2. Thanks for the explanation on "reflectivity used land." I wish I had some magic phrase that would fit there, but it's not easy. "Land use changes to reflectivity" might almost fit.

3. I'm not the least bit surprised to hear there is a long history about what to call this article and whether to have a separate article about a different, if related, topic at climate change. My general preference is to provide what the reader is looking for. I think this page provides the information most readers would be looking for when they look up "global warming." I'm afraid that most readers who look up "climate change" might also be searching for the information that is found on this page. I think that the vast majority of uses of the term "climate change," whether by scientists, politicians, journalists, or the general public refer to global warming and related modern climate phenomena. If most people understood the article "climate change" to be about general climate fluctuations throughout geologic history, with little or no mention of modern anthropogenic changes, the article would not have 133,000 pageviews in the past month (compared to, say, 35,000 for climate). Therefore, I do think that one or the other of the terms should be a redirect, but I do also understand why folks might not want to revisit that discussion.

4. I meant "most prominent" in the sense of most broadly discussed. I don't have a reliable source for that, I think I was basing that off of my sense of the state of the public conversation around the issue. I can't argue that in certain specific situations other aspects will be more pressing. Tdslk (talk) 06:12, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Re 4: without looking at the context, "most prominent" might work better as "predominately" or "dominated by" – for sources it's worth looking through Talk:Global warming/Archive 75#Sources: global warming definitions, relation to climate change which tried to set out all relevant defining statements. It doesn't include the SR15, so worth checking that as well! . . . dave souza, talk 07:19, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
In context and considering the source, suggest changing the second sentence (about GW) from "It is the most prominent component of current climate change" to "It dominates current climate change", or "It is the dominant factor in current climate change", which is justified as the paleo evidence is of it overturning a long-term interglacial cooling trend. . .dave souza, talk 09:19, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
BOOOO HISSSS jargonly eye crossing technobabbling gobbledygook (sorry Dave). In the US, in places like Boulder and Ithaca hairdressers and cookiebakers and beat cops might have double PhDs and spend their Fridays talking Chaucer and particle physics at the coffee shop. But I live in a town with high poverty and low education and we should burn with desire for hairdressers and cookiebakers and beat cops to come to this article and want to read it, and then EXPLAIN IT to their peers. In my view, phrasing like justified as the paleo evidence is of it overturning a long-term interglacial cooling trend doesn't help. If we go with the lead proposal we'd have to explain it in the body, and its the latter that is problematic here. QUESTION, as you craft this language what level readership are you shooting for, and are you thinking of writing WP:ONEDOWN? Part B In addition, I submit that warming is not the "dominant factor" because warming is a symptom. The dominant factor is the buildup of greenhouse gases. No wait, that is also a symptom. The dominant factor is our business as usual approach to fossil fuels and land use. No wait, in some RSs that is also a symptom and those sources say real dominant factor is using economic models that they say depend on economic growth forever. There are RSs for each of these. In my view, we should go back to the 2006-2018 convention of using the COMMONNAME meaning of "global warming" and abandon the effort to assauge the name-change reform advocates by adopting a technical presentation. That's the real issue here, in my view. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:31, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Oh lawdy, ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens! Shorthand meant for informal discussion, but good point about "dominant factor". Looking again at the sources linked above bring back "aspect" used by two sources, firstly: "Global warming is causing climate patterns to change. However, global warming itself represents only one aspect of climate change." – the EPA (pre trumpesization). So, suggest instead of "It is the most prominent component of current climate change" have "It is a major aspect of current climate change," or even "the main aspect". Could you run that past your local barbershop (in harmony) and see if it works? Goes back to reading 18th century science on the topic. . . dave souza, talk 09:32, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
"A major" is rather indisputable but "the main" is just "most prominent" in other clothing. But if we go with "a main", that will beg for a rather obvious cleanup tag - {{clarify}}, with reason asking, If global warming is a main component of climate change, what are the other "main components", and why is the global-warming-main-component getting special attention here?. I submit this somewhat silly result is yet another indication that this article's title and this article's scope are mismatched.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:38, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Ha, comments reappeared – think I've got too many tabs open for this antique laptop. Have boldly gone for "a major aspect" as seemingly the least offensive to the good folks of Ithaca (even Homer nods?) . . . if other wording wanted, note that the Physical drivers section has "Scientists have determined that the major factors causing the current climate change are greenhouse gases, land use changes, and aerosols and soot.<ref IPCC AR5 WG1 Summary for Policymakers|2013|pp=13-14" . . dave souza, talk 20:58, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Re 3: Interesting is as well that peaks in climate change and global warming readership coincide, giving additional evidence that people are looking for the same (https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=last-year&pages=Global_warming%7CClimate_change). I've added this to my sandbox, in which I'm preparing the background information needed for this discussion. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:56, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Possible figure to replace Ms magazine

This thread refers to the image now in use in section Global_warming#Public_opinion_and_disputes NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:44, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I've looked to the photos we have of climate denial and protest. The first one didn't lead to any useable figures. These are seven figures that are high quality and are taken, as much as possible, from around the world. I've tried to take pictures from global protests, except the one from Australia, which is a good example of the friction between trade and climate action. Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:40, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Possible figures for the public opinion section


Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:40, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

A reminder for all re terminal punctuation in notes.

A reminder re the need for terminal punctuation: Unlike the {{cite xxx}} family of templates that automatically adds a terminal period (fullstop) (whether you want it, or not), the {{harv}} templates do not presume to add punctuation. Notes should always have terminal punctuation (typically a period); appropriate punctuation must be added explicitly. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)

Okay. Added them to the example page as well. Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:16, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
I fixed about 130 instances. One complication is where harv has been used with |ps=: "Quoted text.", where the period is before the closing braces, so one has to check whether the template involved is harv, cite, or citation. I think we should quash the use of |ps= with the harv templates. There is no reason for it, as {(tl|harvnb|...|ps= : "Quoted text."}} is actually more easily done as {(tl|harvnb|...}}: "Quoted text." And it confuses the essential function of harv (link to a full citation) with this function that has nothing to do with linkage. I may do something about that; I wonder if we ought take a position.
I was also a bit surprised at how many full citations remain in the text. Like I sort of knew that (in a vague intellectual way) just from examining the Notes. But having to wade through them made that knowledge more substantive. It might also be a sign of not spending enough time in the wikitext of late. :-] ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:00, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Use video or GIF instead of still-shot heat map?

You may already be aware of numerous animated heat maps (GIFs or videos), such as this in Commons, or this at NASA. Should one of those animations be substituted for the stationary (still-shot png) heat map that is now the second-highest image displayed? Or would a GIF/video be "too much motion" for the layman? Just a thought. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:29, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

I suspect it might get too crowded. Not for the layman per se, but for people that prefer not to get distracted.. I'd rather have a quiet screen I think. On the German wiki, they've got the warming spiral animation which is not distracting to me though. I'm not sure. Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:56, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Figure last two millennia

Version 1
Version 2

I spent a shamefully long time to produce the new figure for the temperatures of the last two millennia. Scientifically, the biggest difference is that there is no discernible global medieval warm period. The previous graph was a mixture between Northern Hemisphere and global reconstructions, with the NH reconstructions having a pronounced warming in that period.

The paper I got this data + methods from uses a 30 year low-pass filter. Fluctuations that go faster than that are not included. This makes the graph nice and smooth, but also means that it doesn't really show the last 15 years of warming. I think this might be confusing and we could opt for decide on either a 10-year smoothing, or to have a different smoothing for the instrumental record.

This is version one. In version 2 I'd like to make the tick labels bigger, maybe remove the red line at 0, maybe remove the Year CE. I'll probably also try to figure out how to save it in a different format. Are there any more requests for version 2? Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:32, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Made version two. Now with a 15-year lowpass filter, more colour, and better font sizes. Which one do people prefer? Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Very impressive graphics! My observations/suggestions:
  • Including confidence intervals is brilliant, and definitely adds credibility. Maybe the specifics ("95%...", "68%...") should be in the graphic itself.
  • The color contrast between red and gray (Version 1) makes Version 1 easier to see the line, for me at least.
  • Since "red" usually signifies "hot", it's counter-intuitive for Version 2 for the lower temperatures to be red, and rising temperatures to be black. Maybe the lower temperatures should be blue, and rising temperatures red.
  • Putting the label "Instrumental" on the left, and "Median proxies" on the right, is the opposite of the graph itself (early proxies on left, recent instrumental on right).
  • From the Commons image page, I could find the cited articles referring to the actual data (good). However I could not find a link or listing of the actual data itself (good for verification).
  • To answer your questions: I generally favor including legends ("Year CE" etc.) on scientific line graphs. (Not necessarily so for Warming stripes or Climate spirals since their target audience is a bit different.)
  • I agree: Shorter-term filtering is better—unless the graph becomes too choppy/jagged.
Thank you for all your work. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:42, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Many thanks for the excellent work. Good points made by RCraig09, particularly the colour choice and positioning of labels.
Comments: https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201788 is linked twice, in the second case the sentence ends with ", as." – so that appears unfinished. By the way, that page gives links to the dataset, presumable "the actual data itself".
Any reason for the label saying "temperature difference" instead of "temperature anomaly"?
Can you state the baseline period, preferably as a label but it could appear in the caption.
Don't think we need to say "Year CE" as "Year" should suffice and avoid arguments about AD – MOS:BCE says "In general, do not use CE or AD unless required to avoid ambiguity (e.g. The Norman Conquest took place in 1066 not 1066 CE nor AD 1066)..." Also, MOS:MILLENNIUM suggests the scale should start at 1 as there's no year zero. . . dave souza, talk 17:37, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think the figure is much improved now and I inserted the new version into the article. @RCraig09: I've not reverted back to grey as I think it's good to give prominence to confidence interval and problem is less with red. @Dave: The reason I used the word difference is that anomaly is jargonny. As a non-native English speaker I'm basically only familiar with this word in science, not really outside of it... Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:01, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks, looks great! Agree anomaly in this context is jargon, "difference" raises the question 'what difference?' On the basis of TAR 2001 fig. 2.20 suggest it would be clearer to the uninitiated as "Temperature difference (°C) from 1961–1990 baseline"
Afraid I don't follow how the 68% confidence appears to be the darker blue, and the 95% the paler blue further from the median proxies. Either my poor eyesight or misunderstanding. . . dave souza, talk 21:21, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Totally excellent. FYI: I normally add some very thin horizontal grid lines. Also, I am assuming that non-serif fonts are most common in scientific charts, but I think that serif fonts are a bit friendlier for non-scientists. See my example for lines & colors. But these items are purely stylistic. I'm 100% supportive of your most recent Version 2. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:32, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
@Dave Souza. I think adding w.r.t. the 1951-1980 for the y-axis label would indeed improve understanding. I don't understand your confusion about the confidence intervals completely, so sorry in advance if my response doesn't address your concern. It's common to have the 1 standard deviation confidence interval be the darker colour, and the larger 95% confidence interval be the lighter colour. This latter is a bigger region, as we're 95% sure the 'true' value of the temperature lies within that region, whereas we're only 68% sure it lies in the dark region.
@RCraigh08: In terms of grid: I like my graphs to be as empty as possible, but don't object strongly to grids. My reading of the serif page is that it doesn't really matter for readability which font is used.
I'll put code online for others to play with. Have to sort out the copyright thingies first, as I'm adapting code provided by the original authors. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:57, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, Femke Nijsse, that's a very helpful response, I'd not understood the confidence intervals previously, apologies for putting you to the trouble of explaining .
It will be great if you can add the baseline years for the y-axis label, the years involved need confirmation as they don't seem to be obvious from the source info. As discussed previously under #Comments from GOCE editor, it would be ideal to shift 0 to the 1850–1900 baseline adopted as an approximation of pre-industrial global mean surface temperature, but I appreciate there may be good reasons for keeping the baseline where it's currently shown on the graph. Thanks again, . . dave souza, talk 18:35, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

the 24hr major edit notice

@J. Johnson:, are you just tweaking citation content and formatting or are you tackling content also? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

In the end I didn't do anything, having found the task to be more daunting than I had anticipated. (More on that just above.) Basically I am only tweaking (though that is starting feel like an understatement) the citations, but the tweaks are complex enough that doing them bit-by-bit would be more excruciatingly pedestrian than I have patience for. The alternative is to download a whole section to work on, then replace it with the revised version. Which would over-write any intervening edits, therefore the notice. I'm contemplating how to improve the work flow. Part of the problem is (in numerous cases) inclusion of substantial quotations, which makes it harder to sort out the templates. Also tracking down all the named-refs. Meanwhile, stay alert for notices! ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:15, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Whoa nellie. Some of those quotations finally quelled denialist BS in the past. If you swing too big an axe on them you could be reopening some of those windows, which could have the unintended effect of re-opening lame past disputes. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:49, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Off-topic. The merits or demerits of moving/reformatting quotations was discussed in the previous section. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:28, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Peer review?

If I'm correct, I've now dealt with all tags (citation needed/better citation needed) in the text except one (arctic sea ice, will wait for September IPCC report). I've checked external links with that checklink tool (didn't understand all of their warmings though). Copy-edit has been done as well, so that the text reads well. Is it time for peer review? I've been so bold so 'reserve' a date to be considered as TFA for December 2, the start date of the 25th Conference of Parties. While I'd like to improve the current page further, I'm happy with what we've got now. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:13, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The history section needs rewritten. This is one of a series of articles where worthy efforts to bring to attention the research of a forgotten lady scientist have resulted in the misunderstanding that "The greenhouse effect was proposed by Joseph Fourier in 1824, discovered in 1856 by Eunice Newton Foote," – oh no she didn't, see History of climate change science#Paleoclimate change and theories of its causes, 19th century which is being updated, and note that Foote provided experimental proof that visible light warms CO2 etc, while Fourier and Tyndall were interested in IR getting blocked by greenhouse gases.
Also to be checked, paleoclimatology has been mis-defined on WP as though it only refers to prehistoric climate, the AR5 glossary correctly states "Paleoclimate Climate during periods prior to the development of measuring instruments, including historic and geologic time, for which only proxy climate records are available." . . dave souza, talk 15:02, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
You seem to know a lot about it, so please go ahead and rewrite it. (On a side note, are you aware the term lady scientist is sometimes used as a derogatory term for women in science?). I've written quite a few articles about women in science and it's always difficult to distill the truth when much of the information is written by feminists and some of the debunking done by anti-feminists. Even before Eunice Foote was inserted in that sentence, the sentence was quite disengaging. Do people want to have a list of names? Years seem more interesting to me...
The first sentence of Paleoclimatology seems to encompass too much, rather than too little in comparison with the IPCC definition: the entire history of the Earth up till now. The article is in a dire condition anyway. I know WP values verifiability over truth, but the IPCC definition is a bit weird: we developed thermometers way before we deployed them on a large scale, and that period is definitely part of palaeoclimatology. Would be good if we could find another RS with a more sensible definition. Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:52, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, I know very little about it so am researching away to find enough to properly summarise reliable sources on the topic, and overcome the dross such as the Smithsonian excitedly telling us that "This Lady Scientist Defined the Greenhouse Effect But Didn’t Get the Credit, Because Sexism" or a symposium held to to credit "physicist Eunice Foote for her role in discovering the principal cause of global warming". Have just now read what I think is the best overview; Jackson, Roland (13 February 2019). "Eunice Foote, John Tyndall and a question of priority". Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science. The Royal Society: 20180066. doi:10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066. ISSN 0035-9149. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Footnotes 7 & 8 cite the excellent woman scientist Katharine Hayhoe whose Facebook post notes among other things that the credit "truly liss with John, rather than Eunice", and a well known lagomorph who goes into the problems with Eunice's apparatus for measuring IR.
Didn't know "lady scientist" was derogatory, Leila McNeill at the Smithsonian doesn't seem to have got the memo – or was maybe being sarcastic.
Think the IPCC's "the development of measuring instruments" would indeed make more sense as "the deployment of measuring instruments", but at least it's clear that it covers recentish times before instrumental records (rainfall, humidity etc. as well as temperatures) were global. The paleoclimatology article is also on my todo list, haven't found many references so help with that will be much appreciated. Thanks, . . dave souza, talk 21:25, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
Tags, yes, but there's a lot of work needed that has not been tagged. Just in the matter of full citations in the text (Notes) there's about 40 instances. (I'll append a punch list of some of the work I see.) There's another matter of whether IPCC chapters need to be archived or have access dates, but I'll start another thread for that. Also, I think we really need to resolve (to the extent we can) any qualms regarding key definitions or concepts prior to any outside review. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:15, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Notes (as numbered today; go by the key words) that appear to be full citations, or otherwise need work.

  • 22. "Status of Ratification of the Convention"
  • 23. "First steps to a safer future:"
  • 24. "Conference of the Parties"
  • 30. Hawkins, et al, BAMS
  • 46. Hawkins "ShowYourStripes"
  • 67. Russell
  • 91. "Is the Sun..."
  • 97. "Thermodynamics: Albedo"
  • 99. Lindsey
  • 113. "Patterns of greenhouse warming"
  • 114. "NOAA GFDL Climate Research Highlights..."
  • 118. ✓ Belcher (Carbon Briefs)
  • 119. Séférian
  • 124. "Arctic permafrost"
  • 136. Pistone
  • 141. Stott, Peter (2017) ...
  • 150. "Global Warming and Polar Bears"
  • 172. "This article incorporates public domain mateiral..."
  • 180. American Society for Microbiology
  • 189. Carrington
  • 199. "The CAT Thermometer"
  • 203. "The Montreal Protocol"
  • 206. United Nations Development Program. "Reducing emissions..."
  • 213. NASA's Global Climate Change
  • 216. "New Report Provides..."
  • 219. "UN expert"
  • 220. Lane
  • 221. "Stop emitting CO2"
  • 225. "Paris Agreement"
  • 226. "Ratification Tracker"
  • ✓ 240. "The Paris Agreement: Summary"
  • ✓ 245. Academia Brasileira [list from "G8+5 Academies"]
  • ✓ 254. Montlake
  • ✓ 260. "Oil Comapany Postions"
  • ✓ 267. Weart, Spencer (2008)
  • ✓ 268. Weart, Spencer R. (February 2014).
  • ✓ 269. Weart, Spencer R. (February 2014).
  • ✓ 276. Conway
  • ✓ 277. U.S. Senate
  • 281. "Minutes"
  • 282. "Darebin"

Checking items that have been fixed. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:39, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

@Dave: For general articles such as climate system and palaeoclimatology, I find Google books to be a good resource. Many introductory chapters of books, and sometimes more, are digitalized and it's these introductions that contain the information we're interested in. The book I added yesterday for the definition is for instance available, with a couple of pages of text that we could integrate into the article. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:27, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@JJ: Would you be willing to tackle this problem? I've noticed my motivation isn't really suited for wikignome work. About archiving: not a requirement for FA, so I'll leave that up others. Not a priority, as links still work and I expect them to work for at least another 10 years. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:27, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

The problem with "gnomish" work is that there is so much of it. I'm sure you all won't have it all cleared out by the time I get to it. Just don't roll the carpet up while I'm still crawling around on it!
I'm about to open a discussion about the need for archiving. Gotta' check if there are any WP-level issues. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:20, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
I must admit I'm not great with indirect speech. JJ, could you clarify whether you would want to wait with peer review until all citations have been sufficiently cleaned, or do the cleaning in small chunks while peer review of content is ongoing as well? My preference is not wait too long with peer review. I'm currently making an updated figure for temperature last 2000 year and if that's done I'd like to move forward. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:32, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
I think we should do as good a job as we can, including cleaning up all these little citation messes, prior to peer review, so they don't get in the way. (Which — unless someone else jumps in there Real Soon! — I anticipate starting on next week.) Also, we should review the citation standards so that we have a solid, reasonably stable basis for resolving any citation issues. Another thing (not citation!): I think we should review the lead section, to see if we can summarize the article in about half the space. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:49, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
Looking forward to your help with citations! About the lede: I've already reduced it with 20% before, and I think it might be desirable to cut it with another 20% and/or write it in simpler English, but a 50% reduction will probably remove essential information. I will opt not to work on the first paragraph until after the discussion of whether we want to clean up article naming between climate change and global warming. I'm well underway with writing a proposal for that, but not entirely sure about timing. Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:39, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
P.S. We should also get the in-source specifiers (page numbers, etc.) for all the cited bits. I presume peer review is more than just copy-editing, and if we are going to verify content against a source we really will need specification. Which I think is also a requirement for FA. That's a lot of work to catch up on, and perhaps will spur us to be more strict about such details in the future. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:18, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
My goal for peer review is three-fold: I'd like further comment on the figures used, I'd like content verification and feedback on structure. One of the reasons I asked the GOCE to do their magic before the peer review is that is will not focus on ce.
In terms of page specification: I think it's perfectly in line with FA requirements what we do now. We specify it for reports (typically more than ten pages) and don't specify it for scientific papers (typically less than 10 pages). We sometimes specify both a section and a page number for reports, which is distracting to me and seems unnecessary. I can't see anything in the FA requirements that specify we have to use page numbers for short documents (it says to provide page numbers where applicable in WP:citing sources) and see that in recent month articles have been accepted as FA did not always specify page numbers for scientific papers. I really think we'd be wasting our time if we pursue this. (of course if an occasional page number misses for larger document, that should be resolved.
Furthermore, many scientific articles are now primarily read online, which means that the whole concept of page number doesn't help verification. Faster to cntl F the info than find a PDF version of the document. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:00, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
In medical articles, the only scientific area I know well, giving page numbers for papers is positively frowned upon. This I think reflects the general practice in medical literature; essentially what is being referenced is the paper as a whole, normally as summarized in the abstract. This may change a bit if a very specific figure is being referenced. Johnbod (talk) 14:59, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
Same for climate science and physics. Not a thing people do. Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:49, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

The practice of scientific and medical journals is hardly applicable here. For one thing, those are in a realm where a high-level of professionalism is the norm, and writers are largely trusted to get their facts right. Also: journals tend to be very parsimonious of space, to the point of omitting article titles, brutally abbreviating journal names, and rarely providing author's personal names. And: their model of referencing is much like our "one-instance fits all" named-ref system, where providing specific page numbers might (horrors!) require multiple "references".

From our core content policy of WP:Verifiability we have the instruction (at WP:PROVEIT) that sources should be cited "clearly and precisely (specifying page, section, or such divisions as may be appropriate)."

While it can argued that we don't really enforce that, that is due to the difficulty of doing so with named-refs (and the general distaste for {{rp}}), not for any good reason to not do so. And with the use of short-cites (e.g., harv templates) there simply is no good reason to not require in-source specification (such as page numbers, etc.). The argument that "cntrl F" eliminates the need for specification is plainly faulty: not all sources (not even pdfs) are searchable; searches with exact text can fail for reasons of typography or hyphenation; searches with keywords (where exact text was not quoted) can be troublesome in not finding the target, or finding the wrong one. So why not just grab the page number along with the rest of the citation details?

In general, making the contributing editor's task easier by not requiring an in-source specification only makes the subsequent task of verification harder. (Which can rebound back to the original editor when a point is challenged, and you have to dig through your notes to find just where that point comes from.) It also suggests a certain slackness, and some degree of hand-waving.

For all that the bulk of Wikipedia articles (and editors) are quite sloppy about much of this, my understanding is that we are trying to create a Featured article worthy of inclusion among "the best articles Wikipedia has to offer". I think we should do the best we can, not what merely passes. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)`

I respect your dedication to having everything as good as possible, but I won't be helping with this project. I think my motivation primarily and expertise secondarily is better employed elsewhere. I think this project will costs about 20 work-hours (bit less than 10 mins per article?), which I think is not worth it. Feel free to start this project, but let's first make sure everything is in the short-cite/full citation model. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:02, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Recent edits to "Climate crisis" section

I have just reverted two edits (here and here) by Notagainst. In particular he added and changed some text (without citation) to what appeared to be a personal POV. (There were also citation problems, for which I have left him a note.) While checking against the existing source (Hodder & Martin 2009, available here) it seemed to me the previous content is a bit weak, and warrants checking. On the off-chance that anyone is looking for a little extra work to do. :-) ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:25, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Citations were provided as you note in your comment above. Notagainst (talk) 09:33, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Negative – citations were not provided in the form or place established for this article. And in your second edit the material you added and modified at "Climate crisis" was not supported with any new citation, and did not appear to be supported by the existing cited source. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Citation standards are nice, but God has not written them in stone with bolts of fire, much less provided the even higher authority of a broad Wikipedia-community consensus to make any particular format mandatory. Sure, there is a guidelines that nice folks who want to be polite should make an effort to learn and follow a local consensus. But their failure to do so can not be the sole reason for a revert. In this case, though, I agree the edits are problematic for POV wikivoice reasons. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:45, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Please pay closer attention. The basis of the reverts is because they were problematic (possibly POV, uncited and/or mis-cited content); 'not for any standards failure. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:23, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
NEAG. You have been editing WP a lot longer than I have. But it seems you have a tendency to revert many of my edits and often the only attempt at justification you provide is POV. My impression is that your POV prevents you from seeing the reality of climate change as documented by multiple RS. As far as I can see, it has nothing to do with wikivoice. Wikivoice is not claiming CC is happening. RS are claiming it. Am I missing something here? Can we try and come to an understanding on this please? Notagainst (talk) 03:43, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
I have just looked up wikivoice. There is no such thing on wikipedia - it redirects the reader to the page on NPOV. Please explain why a section on the global warming page about the potential for climate crisis, with links to RS, is not neutral. Notagainst (talk) 04:16, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Notagainst: Quite aside from any substantive issues (such as wikivoice), there is process issue here, where you have repeatedly tried to raise the "Climate crisis" sub-section to a full section. Three of us (myself and now Mikenorton, as well as NAEG) have reverted this, which you should take as a strong hint that you do not have consensus for that. Please consider the concept we call WP:BRD: it's okay to Boldly edit, but when that is Reverted you should proceed to Discussion (such as here). It is not okay to persist in edits that other editors reject; that would be edit-warring. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:14, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I asked a simple question. You have not answered it. Instead you engage in tendentious editing by "Ignoring or refusing to answer good faith questions from other editors"... "Editors should listen, respond, and cooperate to build a better article." You are not making any attempt to co-operate. Three against one does not mean there is a consensus. If you refuse to conduct yourselves with good faith, it just means you are able to dominate.

I have a Graduate degree in Criminology and this year, I am taking an Honours paper in Crimes against the Environment. I do know some thing about this topic. However, I can see I am wasting my time trying to improve the scope and quality of these articles.Notagainst (talk) 22:37, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

NotAgainst, you sound like me back in 2011 when I was new. In the lead of this article, I tried adding two bits from the professional lit to the lead. One was glaciologist Lonnie Thompson, lead author of a paper done under auspices of the Vatican Science Academy, writing that "climate change is a clear and present danger". I was reverted. Another was Rachel Warren, writing in a theme issue from the UK Royale Academy, that at 4C some parts of the world will be uninhabitable and in many others ecosystem services on which civilization depends will fail. I was reverted. Or my very first edit (this one, about the limits of human survival without artificial cooling. Reverted. They were all in Wikivoice. Helpful editors tried to teach me to actually read and then implement the bullet points found at WP:WIKIVOICE. Notably that we tell about contentious issues without engaging in them. We tell the various sides without putting excessive WP:WEIGHT on the sides that agree with our own personal Confirmation bias. These were hard lessons for me. The great thing is, the more I start to understand what they were trying to teach me, the easier it became to recognize bits of our community's collective writing that did a good job of this. And that writing strikes me as far more persuasive simply because its obviously trying to present views and the evidence for views in a way that lets the evidence speak for itself without sounding like a rhetorician giving a speech underwater. Yes, a lot of advocacy writing just bounces off the surface of the audience's mind because our audience is saturated with advertising and persuasive rhetoric. A lot of the audience crave unbiased info and the possibility of learnign and deciding for themselves. Yes, lots of RSs use the "crisis" linguistic framing. There are academic papers about the linguistic framing. We could tell that they are doing it, and we could tell why. Which is different than doing it ourselves. I'm troubled that you apparently only just looked up WIKIVOICE after we've been fighting this same argument at [{Talk:Climate crisis]] for many days already. But that's our mission. Note the bullet point about neutral language and reporting about debate not participating in it. If like me back in 2011 you can start to take this stuff to heart you can really make a difference here. Good luck! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:26, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Polling

We've got a paragraph full of polling that is a bit too big in my opinion. I've hacked at it quite often, but still not entirely satisfied. Today @C.J. Griffin: added an interesting poll about the US. Being US specific, I'd normally say we should not keep it, but it does shine some light on a new thing: do people feel we're in a climate crisis? If we decide to keep it, what other information from this paragraph should go to not give undue weight to polling. Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:49, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

If memory serves this section was really but back a few years ago and seems to have grown again. I'm ok with axing or merging to Public opinion on global warming NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:57, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
I think the only bit of information that is vital to this article is showing that even with lay public, there is a majority in every country (I thought now even including the US, but not entirely sure) that trusts science. I'm okay with axing the rest, but some other information should probs stay to keep it in context. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:12, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Warming stripes: prominence, mobile compatibility and citations

@RCraig09: recently added two high-quality warming stripes data visualisations into the article. I myself think it's not a problem, maybe even good, if we include popular data visualisation methods. The German wiki does the same: they show the warming spiral. Since there was no consensus to add warming stripes to the see also section, I'd like to assess whether there is consensus to add it as a figure. I see a couple of small problems with the current implementation

  1. Prominence: by adding two figures, the figure gets quite a bit of prominence. I think I'd remove the local one, as the interpretation of differences is not that easy for a lay public. The comparison North and South is easier to interpret
  2. Mobile compatibility: the wording above/right doesn't work on a small screen
  3. References: they don't comply with the agreed citation style, but let's not worry about that till we have solved the other two objections.

Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:50, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

It's a paradox that warming stripes are "popular visualization methods" yet you think they are "not that easy for a lay public" to interpret. I think both are easily interpreted by the public—that's their design and purpose! Given the choice between the two graphics, however, I would keep the "stacked" graphic since it conveys both regional distinctions (vertically) and global similarities (horizontally) with a thoroughness and immediacy I've never seen illustrated, anywhere, by any graphic. Secondarily, the North-vs.-South graphic was chosen because it corresponds to pre-existing text in the second paragraph of the section, and epitomizes (is the broadest example of) the section's title, "Regional trends", like no other graphic I've seen, on Wikipedia at least.
1. Re prominence: they're merely part of the "Regional trends" section, which happens to be early in the article. The graphics aren't a good fit for the "See also Regional effects..." linked page since that sub-article is ultra-specific; so one or both warming stripes should remain here, methinks.
2. Re mobile compatibility & 3. Referencing: I concur with Femkemilene to fix later.
—RCraig09 (talk) 18:54, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
I think the standard warming stripes are easy to understand, I like them. Derivative work (for instance my design here: https://www.nature.com/nclimate/volumes/9/issues/8) can be more confusing. We had a discussion in the office when the local striping 'tapestry' came out about why Europe is so more variable, compared to the Americas. In 'your' (excellent!) warming stripes page, a possible reason is lead bare: Europe has small countries, so that you'd statistically expect more variation. But maybe I'm reading too much into this and non-scientific contributors might indicate better whether it's clear. I do think that you can put in in the background section of regional effects.
NEAG proposed we make the 'observed temperature' section a bit more broad, dealing with other observed heating (deep ocean, ice melt). Adding the figures is the opposite direction. I'm good with either way, but I though I might make you two aware of these different possible directions of improvement of the article. Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:22, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
Hardly a paradox. Given the the campaign to promote warming stripes it is a reasonable question whether they are actually, genuinely popular, or merely promoted. And difficulty of interpretation is likely a retarding factor. Note that I am not saying they can't be useful, and perhaps they are useful scientifically, but a graphic that requires some training to understand is not suitable for a general, non-expert readership. (Same reason why we don't use seismic reflection diagrams.) On the otherhand, if there is some simple explanation that makes them accessible, fine, we can always use good graphics.
It might be warranted to strengthen the "Observed temperature" section (given the widespread disbelief in global warming), but how would adding "figures" be "in the opposite direction"? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:21, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
No training needed for the default graph I'd say, that's not a worry I have. In the opposite direction by making the text more focused on surface temperatures, instead of making it broad. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:26, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
Well, you're a scientist, and probably a quick learner. So did you really understand these warming stripes figures right off the bat, the very first time? Or could there have been a little bit of learning? I have in mind that way, way back computer users had to be taught that "entering" something meant typing it it and then pressing the key marked "Enter". Or the instructions in old telephone books on how to "dial" a telephone. So simple that the instance of learning is soon forgotten, and the knowledge seems "intuitive". ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:39, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
- First, the word popular was clearly meant in the sense of "layman-oriented"—and not in the sense of "everybody-loves-them"; and that "everybody-loves-them-popularity" (what you call "genuinely popular") is as irrelevant as the social media campaign that promoted awareness of global warming and, obviously, not of the (free) graphics themselves. What is relevant here is that it is a paradox to claim that a layman-oriented graphic has "difficulty of interpretation".
- Second, the graphics were broadcast by >100 meteorologists to the general public. Again: the graphics were designed for non-scientists to intuitively understand!!! The laymen I've shown one to, understood it immediately with none of the "training" you mention. The larger (stacked) graphic—again, the broadest yet most detailed GW diagram I've ever seen—itself has explanatory legends, but could, if necessary, be readily explained in a single sentence—in case the existing legends and the simple North-South example aren't deemed enough.
- Third, the "Regional effects..." See-also-article deals with the effects of GW, and not global temperature change itself. I chose these two graphics as being specifically applicable to this article's section title, "Observed temperature changes"/"Regional trends". —RCraig09 (talk) 02:54, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
About the learning: the same goes for knowing how to read a line graph, which we've added prominently in this article. More technical knowledge is needed for those and it's a well-known fact that these graphs are often misinterpreted by a lay public. Less training is needed to see blue is cold, red is warm in those warming stripes. I'm now convinced they can stay in if we can address points 2 and 3, but would like to hear from other frequent editors. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:50, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. I have never found it entirely credible that some people don't (allegedly!) understand line graphs, but they likely didn't have engineers for parents.
The "red" and "blue" conventions are learned, though so commonly understood they can (generally) be presumed. The smaller warming stripes diagram at Global warming#Regional tends is readily seen as a comparison of two strip charts (more precisely, "one and a half dimension" bar charts). But while it is reasonable enough to us nerdy types that those are likely time series (and presumably "recent" on the right?), it is not all the case that it's obvious to others. On a basic principle of communication of information that chart is faulty in not labeling the axis. (At the very least, I would expect the beginning and ending years at each end of the chart.) While the larger chart has labels, it is scrunched down so much that they are not legible, and many readers (most?) will miss enlightenment simply because they're not curious enough about those little squiggles to enlarge the figure. If that graphic is to be used it needs to be large enough to be legible. And the smaller one needs to be labelled.
But even with those fixes I am still not convinced that these are better than standard line graphs. Keep them if you insist, but I would want to see them paired with the corresponding line graphs. At the very least that would be a kind of Rosetta Stone for two different graphical techniques, which could work in both directions. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:42, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
- North-South graphic: The just-modified legend (diff) explains the North-South graphic completely, essentially "labeling the axis".
- Stacked graphic: Given the textual legends, the main thrust of the 'stacked' graphic is also apparent even for those you call "not curious enough" to (gasp!) click on it. For "the curious", the 'stacked' graphic's inherent image legend details what is possibly the broadest yet most detailed GW graphic ever produced—for which a ~200-line (what you call) "standard" line graph would be a confused mountainous jumble of jagged line segments.
- "Better?"For immediate perception of general concepts—appropriate for an overview article such as this—warming stripes are tailor-made. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:23, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm an old guy. A few years ago I took a bunch of undergrad classes thinking of starting a medical related career but that petered out. But the experience provides me with recent anecdotal observation that is relevant here. My classmates (mostly 18-24) tended to stiffen up when they had to read a simple graph with an x-y axis. So I'd just like to say that when someone says it's obvious or it's intuitive the sentiment might be predicated on education that is now so internalized the fact that it was learned is forgotten and the application of the training is entirely subconscious. But anyone who has mastered the conventional X-y type of graph, and knows to study the labels on the x y axis to figure out what is being conveyed.... that person is able to apply the same skill set to any other form of visual presentation. So in my view the is/is-not intuitive discussion sort of misses the point. All of these presentations require a baseline of knowledge to comprehend. If our target audience is college and per WP:ONEDOWN we try to write for highschool level, let's presume A-level high-school students. Such students can read graphs, no matter how they are constructed. As for how these are used in this article, at most I think we should have one and hope the curious go to the article(s) where we go into more depth with more examples. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:07, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Perceptive observations about the psychology of learning, NaEG! Concerning your last sentence, though, I think the inclusion/exclusion of graphics should be based on their substantive content (and accessibility, also) more than on their data visualization style per se, as not to exalt form over substance: who would arbitrarily limit the number of line charts or heat maps in an article? For "A-grade" high schoolers, warming stripes—which are essentially a one-dimensional heat map—are probably more accessible. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:23, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
thanks for the compliment, and I guess maybe I would "arbitrarily limit heat maps or line charts" in this top level and summary article. The topic is broad enough that arguably significantly different things might want to be conveyed, and one could make the case for using a graphic for each. But I'd like to save the nuances and breakdowns and sub-thisses and sub-thatsses for our sub-articles. I don't have an example of excessive use in mind, just mouthing off about a general point about generalized summations at our top article. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:52, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

For the record (not to revert or argue): The most recent expressed opinions seem to be:

  • Femke wrote "they can stay ... but would like to hear from other frequent editors."
  • J. Johnson was concerned about legibility and readability and what's the "best" graph, but wrote "Keep them if you insist".
  • Tdslk—visiting from WP:GOCE—wrote that the stacked graphic "is very difficult to figure out".
  • NewsAndEventsGuy preferred a single instance of a graph, but wrote that "A" high school "students can read graphs, no matter how they are constructed"
  • I say: The "simpler" (North-South) graphic plus the textual image descriptions for both, made the stacked graphic trivially easy to understand—not "better" for all purposes, but actually more appropriate for general readers precisely because the graphics are visual and intuitive. In essence, the stacked graphic is both the most comprehensive (~195 countries) and most detailed (x ~118 annual readings, each) global warming graphic I have ever seen, and is readily understandable in less than a minute—to those who try. There is resistance to anything "new", but we should not surrender to that resistance when it takes mere seconds to read the legends and understand the graphics. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:44, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
It's generally best to not include argumentation in summations, but other than that this seems a fair summation of views. I would note that my objections – and possibly Tdslk's as well – are potentially addressable. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:48, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
(The original version, removed from the article on 27 August 2019)
A comprehensive color graphic showing global warming trends since 1901 in each of almost 200 countries, grouped by continent to show both regional contrasts and global similarities over time. The graphic demonstrates that warming occurs differently in different regions, but the globe is in a consistent warming trend over time (BBC article) (text amended by RCraig09, 2019-09-09)
Newly created and uploaded, 2019-09-09. Contains both "stacked" country-level graphics and global average.

Same description applies.
To J. Johnson (JJ) (and others): Are you implying that increasing the size and readability of the in-image text legends (axis labels) on the "stacked" graphic, would take care of your concerns and you'd support its re-introduction into this article? (i.e., Is it worth my generating such a graphic? I would enlarge the continent names along the vertical axis, and the years along the horizontal axis — but the country names would have to remain tiny). Link to existing Commons image. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:28, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
My objection is that they are not clear in what they communicate (i.e., it is not clear how to read them), and in my initial comment I said: "if there is some simple explanation that makes them accessible, fine". And subsequently I provided specific criticism, which, if fixed, would likely make the figures more readable. I can't say whether such work would completely address my concerns without seeing the result. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:23, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
Alrighty then! I'm requesting consensus from J. Johnson (JJ), Femke Nijsse and NewsAndEventsGuy etc. re whether the new graphic, with enlarged legends and added explanation, sufficiently overcomes objections. I continue to think it encapsulates global warming in both breadth and depth, and is painfully simple—ideal for an encyclopedia. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:34, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for this! I think that my issue with complexity was to explain the regional differences and the patterns in the figure, which is a whole new topic. I think I disagreed with JJ about warm/cold not being clear. blue is cold, red is warm is quite obvious to me. Furthermore, NEAG indicated that he would like to focus this section more on a broader set of observations than only surface temperature, which I agree with (maybe not to the same extent, I only want a slight refocus). A fourth figure about basically the same thing does not add much, imo. Maybe try and find a different page? Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:54, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

My earlier point was not that the red-blue convention is not clear, but that it is learned. In this new graph it is probably not necessary to state "Blues = cooler", simply put a blue "Cooler" on the left and red "Warmer" on the right. (That much I think most readers can figure out.) Likewise, "Time" is not necessary, now that the labels are big enough to see without having to dive into the figure. Nor is it necessary to explain that in the caption, which is a step removed from the graphic. What might be added is the reference point to which these colors are relative, or even the range. (The bar in the original version showed the range, but not the reference point, nor even the scale.)
Does the caption really need to explain this is a "comprehensive color graphic"? Is that not obvious? And instead of "in each of almost 200 countries" etc., could it not say something like "Measurements from 188 countries [or whatever the number is] (grouped by continent) show a global trend of approximately 2°[?] C warming in the past century"? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:00, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
@RCraig09, thanks for those tweaks, that's really cool, this version is very nice. I agree with JJ's apple-polishing suggestions. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:54, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Femke Nijsse, J. Johnson (JJ), and NewsAndEventsGuy. Your discussions have made me "step back" and have a broader perspective, and I note:
1. The top chart, the line chart File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg, is detailed in time (1880-2018), but lacks detail in space (geography)
2. Conversely, the second chart, the heat map File:Change_in_Average_Temperature.png, is detailed in space (global map), but lacks much detail in time (comparing temperature change between only two time periods). Actually, it belongs in the "Regional trends" subsection rather than at the top of the article.
3. Significantly, the new "stacked" graphic is comprehensive in both time (1901-2018) and space (detailed down to country level).
3a. Accordingly, the new "stacked" graphic best summarizes the subject of the article—global warming! It singlehandedly captures the crucial observation that warming occurs differently in different regions, but the globe is in a consistent warming trend over time.
3b. Femke, the new "stacked" graphic does not repeat what other figures do. It has more information, condensed in single graphic. With larger legends and new captions, it's easy for readers to understand.
3c. Yes, it is bold of me to suggest that the "stacked" graphic belongs at or near the top, and not merely in a subsection.
4. JJohnson, I'm feeling whipsawed by your indications of what was once hard to understand, and what is now obvious. In any event, since warming stripes are "new", I favor including more explanation in legends and captions, but of course that's routine editing, balancing understandability with technical completeness.
5. NaEG, I understand your desire to discuss trends other than surface-level temperatures, but that is a separate sub-topic that can be dealt with separately, perhaps by supplementing the "Regional trends" sub-section.
6. Afterthought: I could add a global-level warming stripe (extracted from this Hawkins-color-scheme example) to the bottom of the "stacked" graphic—to ensure that localities and the global average are explicitly juxtaposed.
Regrets for the verbiage, but the more I think about this graphic, the more important I think it is. —RCraig09 (talk) 05:09, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
7. Supplemental: Femke's new graph, File:Temperature_reconstruction_last_two_millennia.svg (with a 2,000-year perspective), could be at the top, to supplement the stacked graphic's 118-year detailed representation. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:32, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
That which I have said needs some explanation, or at least an explanatory, readable label, and that which does not need explanation, apply to different elements.
As my explanations and suggestions seem to discomfort you I will henceforth not bother with them. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:06, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Discussion continued below, in the section, "Re-arranging & adding figures near top; ..." —RCraig09 (talk) 20:06, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 September 2019

Please add to Section 6.2 Adaptation the following sentence

Important tools for adaptation to climate change are the so called "climate services" defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as services "that provide climate information to help individuals and organizations in making climate smart decisions". (Source: Global Framework for Climate Services, https://gfcs.wmo.int/). In Europe a Copernicus Climate service was established in year 2017, funded by the European Commission and implemented by the Ecmwf (see https://climate.copernicus.eu/). Vic58 (talk) 14:40, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion! Unfortunately, we cannot include this sentence as it is a) too technical b) it contains external links to pages outside Wikipedia and c) it gives undue weight to work done by EC and ECMWF. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:49, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
Could you please help in modifying my request? Indeed as a climate researcher yourself you agree that wp readers should be informed about climate services? They are not mentioned anywhere in wp..
I'm a physical climate scientist myself, so have little knowledge about climate services. A climate service is simply information about climate tailored towards people that have to make decisions, right? My impression is that this topic would be better covered in the climate change adaptation article. That article is in a horrible state, so not the best example if you want to learn edit Wikipedia. That page is not protected, so please add a line about it there (without the links, use them as a reference instead, using the cite button). I'll check and improve the sentence so that it better fits into Wikipedia. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:15, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
In addition to the points Femke mentions, there is a constant tendency towards bloating that needs to be resisted. There is MUCH more that could be said in connection with this topic than can be handled in any reasonably sized article. Another tendency to resist is getting too detailed in some peripheral aspect. Not everything related to a topic, even if it is interesting and has reliable sources, should be included, and it takes some discipline to keep an article focused on its topic. As Femke says, what you wish to add might be better at an article more directly focused on adaptation. What we have here on adaptation is necessarily just a review of some key points. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:09, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Current citation work (September, 2019)

The main work in August was working on the rest of the AR4 citations, which I have just finishing uploading at WP:IPCC citation/AR4. Not absolutely complete, but I think complete enough for nearly all CC article needs. And although very much reviewed and checked and tested I have no expectation of perfection, so I would not mind at all if fresher eyes would see what I might have missed.

At this point the older recommendations at Talk:IPCC Fourth Assessment Report/citation and Talk:IPCC Fifth Assessment Report/citation should be deprecated, decommissioned, and perhaps deleted. I'm not certain the best way of handling that.

I have commented at #Peer review? (above) on some of the remaining citation work I think needs to be done. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:35, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

You indicated you'd be tackling the remaining citation work next week right? Thanks again for that, really appreciate to have that burden taken off of me :). Femke Nijsse (talk) 22:01, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I think I'm on track for that. Might even start tomorrow. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:07, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Well, a bit of setback, as I am feeling rather daunted by what I have found. Extracting the full citations is hard enough when all the text run together. It's substantially harder when the template itself includes quoted text. This applies also to harv templates, where text is being incorporated using the |ps= parameter. Which is absolutely pointless when using any Harv template as such; I suspect 'ps=' exists only so sfn can misuse it in the same way as 'ps=' is misused in the {cite} templates. (I am more strongly convinced that it and 'quote=' ought to be deprecated and suppresed.) Anyway, the use of sfn templates would explain why, of the ~70 named-refs in the article, about 20 of them are singletons. Which can't be suppressed without checking the whole atticle for any dependent refs. All of this is firing me up for banning all named-refs (regardless of how they are used). Which might preclude the use of sfn templates. That wouldn't really be a loss, but some editors might complain.
I am also wondering if we could delete all (or most?) instances of 'quote=' and 'ps='. That comes from an older practice of including a whole passage from the source where to support a partial quote or paraphrase in the text. It might be a good idea to review each case to see if the quote is really necessary. (Anyone want that task?)
And I am contemplating how to proceed. It might be easier to remove all named-refs first, so changes in a section don't cut-off something in a different section. And tonight might a good time to make some applesauce. :-) ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:04, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
I may have left the more difficult ones still in the text, sorry for that. All okay with you taking the quotes out of the harv templates and/or throwing them away completely. I've deleted quite a few of them without giving it much space in edit summaries.
I'm okay with you removing named-refs if you feel strong about it. I'm not okay, absolutely not, with banning it. Since we've established this citation standard, I don't think a single new person correctly used it. Even when I posted on their talk page in a request to fix their citations, they did improve them, but none managed to actually comply with our standard. This only gets worse if we add another demand to the list. Plus: whenever people make a mistake with deleting named-refs, a bot comes really fast to clean it. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:19, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
Initially I dove in at the lead, which appears to be the most challenging patch of issues. I'm going to try starting at the end and working back. If I resolve all of the non-singleton named-refs the singletons can be cleaned out pretty easily. Hopefully VE and sfn won't keep adding them.
The first quote I looked at closely (Montlake 2019) shows a variance with what is stated in the text. I spent ten minutes last night trying find a better formulation, then decided to ignore it. I have been a little concerned about losing some information, but if that should be an issue we could always recover them from the history. So I gather we're okay deleting them, and restore if and when necessary.
Passing editors don't know about the standards (yet); it may take a little while to get folks up to speed. One of my tasks is to arrange for a notice that pops up in the edit box. I didn't do it earlier as I reckoned it wouldn't sit well to tell editors there is a standard before the article is largely in complaince with that standard. (I think we're nearly there!) Also, we might want to give the standard another look. Polishing it up a bit might help "sell" the concept.
Another idea I've had is a template that could be added to non-conforming edits that puts a message on the editor's Talk page on the lines of "Thank you for your edit. However, it needs to be brought into conformance with this article's citation standards; please see ...." But I don't know if that is even possible. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:12, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Please don't remove quotations from references where they provide immediate clarification of what the inline citation is referring to, and allow searching of the source for the relevant text. The latter is important when trying to find a particular point in large documents. In highly contested topics, quotations are invaluable for explaining the basis of text, and in aiding scrutiny of its basis on sources. . . dave souza, talk 09:17, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@Dave. I think you might be right for some quotations in the lede, but many of the quotations don't seem to add much. They've been used as well to creep in some POV content. I think they can be useful if they're from scientific articles that are usually not accesible, or from offline books that are not easily checked. Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:48, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@ Femke, thanks; agree – it's a judgment call and quotes should be kept where they're useful, deleted where they're POV creep . . , dave souza, talk 10:50, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Okay. The same argument also applies re page numbers, as many sources are not searchable. Part of the problem here is that often the quotes seem to have been grabbed haphazardly. E.g., the Montlake 2019 citation had a quote that did not support some text. But it was covered in the Abstract, so I reckoned that to be okay. This gets into what I suggested earlier, about verifying everything back to the sources. I'd rather not have to do that when I'm fixing citations.
"POV" can creep in anywhere. Is there any particular problem with quotes in notes? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:26, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
You're doing an immense amount already so not a priority when fixing citations, but before FA review, someone's going to have to verify all citations and quotes. The "quotation in citation" option works well and is easy to implement, as far as I can tell notes is just another way of achieving the same thing. . . dave souza, talk 06:35, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
I think the specific form of "quotation in a citation [template]" does not work well, and really is not easier than simply appending the quote after the citation. (Even better is to prepend the quote, as the general convention is that a citation follows the quote.) A case in point of not working well: when I searched for missing terminal punctuation in the notes a simple search for instances of "}}</ref>" was not sufficient; I had to also check whether the closing braces were for a template and parameter that would supply a termnating period, or some other template that does not. Which was made harder when there was a longish bit of text being quoted. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:30, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
That sounds ok, for example ref name="AR5 WG1 SPM p4">{{Harvnb|IPCC AR5 WG1 Summary for Policymakers|2013|p=4|ps =: Warming of the climate system is unequivocal..... [shortened for talk purposes! ..}} would become ref name="AR5 WG1 SPM p4"> Warming of the climate system is unequivocal...etc. .. [{{Harvnb|IPCC AR5 WG1 Summary for Policymakers|2013|p=4}} – that looks reasonably easy to change. Note the "ref name=" system is used so the same quote and reference can be used in two different contexts. Hope that works for you, haven't checked how it affects the terminating period. . . . dave souza, talk 15:25, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Sort of fine, except for the named-ref ("ref name=") business. Your example is better presented (switching to chapter 1 for brevity) as replacing
  • <ref>{{Harvnb|IPCC AR5 WG1 Ch1|2013|p=95|ps= : Science may be stimulated ....}}</ref>
with
  • <ref>"Science may be stimulated ...." {{Harvnb|IPCC AR5 WG1 Ch1|2013|p=95}}.</ref>
Which works just fine. (Though "Harv" might be better for the latter. And both could be augmented with |loc=§1.2.) In the latter the opening and closing braces are closer together, making it easier to identify the template and its parameters, and the terminal punctuation is explicit and right where it is expected. Any needed quotation is done right well outside of the citation, and doing it in the citation only makes matters more complicated.
If two contexts really need exactly identical citation – which suggests they could be redundant – then the citation should be duplicated, not the note. Though I would modify the notes so they are not exactly duplicate. This cute little trick of making something appear in more than one place is not needed, and is no end of trouble. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:34, 10 September 2019 (UTC)


A small problem with how we have structured the "Non-technical sources" section: essentially it is divided into sections by periodical (taken broadly), which leaves no way to add a single book or article for which is not a periodical. Strictly speaking each periodical should be a main entry, with the items under it sub-entries prefixed with the doubled "**". (See example.) I'm going to attempt a mass edit to implement that. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:35, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Apropos of the question NAEG asked in the following section: okay, sometimes I will tackle content where it is not verified. Like the edit I am about to make, where content taken from AR4 WG2 Ch18 about heat-related mortality left off two important caveats. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:32, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

@JJ: For me it works best if you could put some tag in the text. Mortality is quite well researched, important, and some improved statement should remain in the text. I'm not not always paying sufficient attention to edit summaries. Femke Nijsse (talk) 23:10, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
I just noticed your comment. I took out that statement for several reasons, including being limited to Australia, and having only medium confidence. While mortality might now be "quite well researched", in the source provided (AR4) there was no indication of that. Also, for the purpose of showing significant effects from GW there were better examples. Of course, unless we are showing the situation at a particular time we should be using the latest and greatest sources, which is now AR5. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:40, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
The statement in AR5 about this is more encompassing, and iirc in SR15 even more. I'll dig up some more recent research, but this topic seems to be consistently mentioned in sources about CC, that I do think it has the prominence to appear in this article. I'll add some more updated thing back when I've got the time next week. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:47, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
That will be good. Thanks. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:46, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

On specifying "In" for the containing work

Femeke: Regarding the prefatory "In" for the work that contains the cited source: this is supposed to be automatically supplied by the cite template. That this is not done in our usage is a deficiency of the software, which I am hoping will be corrected in the not too distant future. If we supply the omitted "In" now we will have to come back and remove it later. I think it would be better (less jarring?) to tolerate the lack of "In" now than have to fix doubled instances later. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:48, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Re-arranging & adding figures near top; changing "Regional trends" to "Sub-global trends"

Per the discussion in the above section on "Warming stripes:..." involving Femke Nijsse, J. Johnson (JJ), and NewsAndEventsGuy, I propose some changes:

Click at right to show/hide proposed image arrangement
Click at right to show/hide proposed image arrangement
TOP:
Add to TOP: Two millennia of mean surface temperatures according to different reconstructions from climate proxies, each smoothed on a 15 year time scale, with the instrumental temperature record starting in 1858 in black.
Add to TOP: Most recent 118 years: Global warming trends since 1901, with almost 200 countries grouped by continent, demonstrate how warming occurs differently in different regions, but that the global average (bottom graphic) is in a warming trend.
Add to SUB-GLOBAL TRENDS: Average global temperature changes exhibit geographic variation in temperature changes from a 1951—1980 average to 2014—2018.
Keep in SUB-GLOBAL TRENDS: Land vs. sea: Annual temperature anomalies (thin lines) and smoothed data (thick lines) for average temperatures over land (red line) and ice-free sea (blue line).
Keep in SUB-GLOBAL TRENDS: Warming stripe graphics (( blue=cool, red=warm) exhibit greater recent temperature anomalies for the Northern Hemisphere[] than for the Southern Hemisphere[]
1880 (left) — 2018 (right) )
Add to SUB-GLOBAL TRENDS: Warming stripe graphics show how temperature changes have differed for different layers of the earth's atmosphere.
  1. Adding to TOP: a long-term (Femke's two-millenia) chart — a comprehensive overview of globe as a whole
  2. Adding to TOP: an intermediate-term (comprehensive color array — benefits described in this diff).
  3. Rename the "Regional trends" subsection to be "Sub-global trends" (or similar) to broaden the concept along lines suggested by NewsAndEventsGuy to not just look at surface temperatures.
  4. Moving the existing heat map from the top down to "Sub-global trends" since it only compares two "snapshots" of the earth—much less time-wise information than the new color-array image
  5. Keep the land-vs-sea graphic in "Sub-global trends"
  6. Keep the north-vs-south Hemisphere in "Sub-global trends"
  7. Add new atmospheric layers image to "Sub-global trends"
Reasoning:
R1. The proposed "Top" images summarize global warming both as completely and concisely as possible
R2. The "Sub-global trends" (or similar) images show various dimensions of global warming.
R3. I favor extra legends & captions for warming stripes; though they are simple, they are "new".
R4. My captions are preliminary; feel free to edit them above to avoid disruption to the article itself. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:49, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your radical proposal! Some first thoughts (don't have time to properly address everything now, sorry). With all the work you've been doing, I'm wondering whether it's time for a sub-article. We have to make tough choices in what figures to use, and there is a wide range of information about sub-global warming. Maybe something like: global warming patterns, delving into all the things that your figures address.
    • Long term to TOP: I'm not that keen on this (yet), but don't know why.. Maybe because it's just not the image we typically use?
    • I'm not in favour of adding the comprehensive array, for reasons previously stating (too full, it took me quite some time to understand the differences in variability). (Sorry I changed my mind on this)
    • I'm okay with rename, but maybe an even better name can be found. (I've been staring at the regional trends name, and haven't come up with better one, so I'll go for your improved name).
    • I'm not married to that heat map. I'm trying to get a better figure for mitigation, and if it's good, we could put that one there. One figure showing climate change, the other one what we 'have to' do against it in the lede would be good.
    • I'm against adding more figures about temperatures at different location (height f.i.). I'm convinced this article is about as long as we want it to be and adding more stuff (be it figures or text) would deteriorate the article. Also, while warming at different heights is important to understand the greenhouse effect, it's not that important for most living creatures and is typically absent from short descriptions of climate change like our article. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:00, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks; my further thoughts:
a. I agree about restricting length of the article, so I can concur with omitting the "atmospheric layers" graphic.
b. The most important concepts we can convey on the all-important "first impression" are short-term and long-term global warming, in proper perspective. Therefore I propose:
> Moving Femke's 2,000-year graphic to the top (is a good lead-in and perspective to the existing 1880-2018 graph). Maybe precede with a 7,000- or 16,000-year graphic?
> Moving the heat map down to "Regional trends" sub-section
> Simplifying captions to summarize what they imply rather than discuss technical details (regression, confidence level, proxies, etc.) Those technical explanations can be put in a new "Technical notes" section above the present "Notes" (reference) listing (example: Warming stripes#Technical notes).
> Femke, I'm not sure of what kind of graphic could show "mitigation" — keeping in mind WP:NOTCRYSTAL
c. Another important concept to convey is how global warming varies (geographically and otherwise). I continue to believe the colored array presents the best summary, yet the most detail, of any global warming diagram I've ever seen. Now that legends are larger and the caption is clearer , I think it's readily understandable in addition to being eye-catching for our general audience (the purpose of climate stripes in the first place). I think it's much easier to understand blue-and-red, than local regression -and- Lowess smoothing. But I sense opposition to whatever is "new" or "different" and I acquiesce in leaving it out of this generic article for so long as that is the apparent consensus. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:29, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
b. I'm not entirely certain that 2x warming is the most important thing for an article about climate change. It has many more aspects than only the observed warming. Maybe here again, the fact that this article is called global warming, but is actually about the broader term of climate change, might lead to our disagreement. This article mainly follows the scope of the IPCC reports + some 'non-science' content (history f.i.). You can see that they don't focus on paleoclimate in their synthesis report summary for policymakers, giving us a good indication that we shouldn't overly emphasize either.
> Currently, there are no graphs of the entire Holocene that are of good enough scientific standards to be added here. They are outdated, and were a bit iffy back then (there wasn't enough scientific understanding to make a non-iffy figure). I've done a quick search of scientific literature, and there might be some reconstructions done since then that we can use, but not entirely sure. Apart from that, I don't think two timeseries figures are suitable to be included in the lede. Our article is about the current climate change, which has more aspects than warming.
> I'm okay with moving the heat map down.
> See the section Talk:global warming#Replace figure with something like in this report which figure I'm talking about. This is about what NEEDS to be done to have decent chance of keeping warming under 2 degrees. There are ample RSs for graphs like this, so I'm not too worried about WP:NOTCRYSTAL.
> Good idea to put details of Lowess smoothing and other technical terms in the notes. I've asked (few weeks ago?) one of the contributors to the first figure whether they can remove that from the figure itself. Feel free to adjust the notes a bit. Maybe not introduce a third type of notes, but add it to the first type.
c. Thanks for acquiescing! I know it's difficult to do when you feel strongly about it. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:05, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
- 🤔🤔🤔 I had not appreciated that Global warming was not about... global warming!!! 😂😂😂 :-D :-D :-D It's sad that the GW and CC articles don't clearly distinguish from each other. But unfortunately Wikipedia follows common usage of terms, and thus perpetuates confusion rather than clarify. 😒 :-\
- I think "Notes" (References) & "Sources" are very different from my proposed "Technical notes", because /*Technical notes*/ will be editors' generally UNsourced explanations. I will think about it more. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:39, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
Well, there are some variances of thought on the proper focus and distinction of this article, not fully resolved.
I wasn't aware you were actually proposing a "Technical notes" section, but I very much doubt that we need an entirely new section (and sub-section) merely to explain the "technical" details of the warming stripes figure. For what I would consider truly "technical details" (I suspect we may differ on that term) of the graph, such as the data sources used, processing applied, etc., the appropriate place is with the graph itself. I.e., on its source page at WikiCommons. If there are any particular points ("technical" or not) that need to be mentioned in the article (such as how to interpret it?), but perhaps not suitable in the caption, then the appropriate place is in a note. That is what they are for. But I see no reason why your figure should require its own section to explain it. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:11, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

@ RCraig09: I think we're actually following the common usage of the terms from 1990 / early 2000, not the current one where global warming has fallen out of fashion. I'm preparing a big proposal to have climate change and global warming both point to this article and have this article possibly renamed into something like (global) climate change or global warming AND climate change. The draft proposal can be found at User:Femkemilene/sandbox. When I'm ready, I'll probably have some community input about the structure of the discussion before launching it for reals. @ JJ: I think the technical details would be about other graphs, such as the first one that describes some sort of lowess filter that even I haven't heard of before. I'm okay with putting that kind of info in the image description instead of notes. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:58, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Technical details I would take as describing how the figure is constructed, such as what sources, how the data has been massaged, etc. In short, everything necessary to show the figure's validity, such as might be found in a journal's "Methods" section, but not generally of interest to the reader. In a scientific article this would, of course, be included to the article using it. But at WP figures can be used in multiple articles, so the supporting data should be in the figure's source page, not at some article that uses the figure. Anything that a reader needs to understand the figure, that is not covered in the figure itself, should be in the caption ("description"?). Notes in the caption are usually about where the figure came from, or perhaps some information like why it differs from some similar and well-known figure, or such. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:09, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
To restate/clarify:
a. Re "technical details": what I was referring to are things like Lowess smoothing & regresssion, that are now within the images and/or in textual captions already—things that for our lay audience should be either converted to common language or omitted. Distracting details that might be important are what I proposed for technical (foot)notes—to be less distracting/confusing to the layman reader. (Agreed: non-techy, credibility-related content such as dataset sources can be in tiny form in the images, or on the Wikimedia Commons pages.)
b. Such technical details are in some existing tech-laden images, and not in what you (J. Johnson) say is "my" figure. In fact, warming stripes inherently omit such techy details for laymen such as WP readers—again, that's warming stripes' strategy!!! No one implied a warming stripe image "should require its own section to explain it". The opposite is true.
Also:
c. Anyone: I'm not sure if there's a reason why the references are in a section called "Notes"—unlike any other WP article I've ever seen. Has anyone considered changing Notes --> References?
d. The fact that Notes (i.e., References) all seem to be cited, linked, reliable sources is the reason I suggested a separate, hopefully-tiny, "Technical notes" section that contains WP editors' common-language explanations (unsourced). Either location is fine with me.
e. Femke, I agree that the terms GW and CC have been used vaguely, inconsistently and confusingly; it's unfortunate that Wikipedia has followed the lead of the public—rather than sticking closely to the literal language, "global warming" and "climate change". I support your proposed efforts (in principle) to somehow clarify the terms for the reader (if only to thwart those who ridicule the "change" from GW to CC). Huge project. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:34, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
"Lowess smoothing & regression" is just the kind of technical detail that our non-technical lay audience is not interested in. It is of even less relevance than the details of exactly how satellite data analyzed, and filling the article with this kind of effectively imponderable detail only lowers the information content, and is more likely to intimidate all but the most determined reader. As I have said before, technical details about the construction of a figure should be documented in the figure's source page. If you really must include "important but distracting details" in the article, use a note. The regular kind of notes are quite fine for this. Just because they are mostly used for citation does not preclude their use for explanation.
The term "references" has many conflicting usages, which has been a major impediment in both the use of citations, and in discussions about citations. Part of the problem is due to the original HTML use of "ref" (short for "reference") for a specific kind of "reference" more precisely known as a note. This and other poorly conceived practices — hallowed by long usage and generally associated with the use of a "References" section — are what make citation at Wikipedia so notoriously difficult. "Notes" is used here to indicate a more precise meaning and use, distinguished from the common, piss-poor practices that editors might otherwise automatically assume. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:25, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
I can appreciate the IPCC family of references has special challenges, but in general my understanding & experience are consistent with MOS:NOTES, and in ten years I haven't found or seen citations to be notoriously difficult. Regardless, I'm boldly simplifying some captions now; maybe "Notes" won't even be needed. Consensus will decide content and form. —RCraig09 (talk) 05:53, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Any use of the term "references" is inherently ambiguous (though the implication of only two meanings is quite an understatement) and tends to lead to confusion. That you cope with citation without great difficulty is probably because you (like myself and others) have come up with an interpretation – including selection of what to ignore – that works. The problem with this is that we don't all share mutually inter-operable interpretations, which does lead to conflict. Which is exacerbated by a lot of flat out incorrect documentation, so appeals to documentary authority often just increase the conflict. Avoiding the use of "references" (and using more specific terms) helps to reduce confusion and misunderstanding. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:53, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Replace figure with something like in this report

The following figure is now used in the article

Refer to caption and image description
The graph on the right shows three "pathways" to meet the UNFCCC's 2 °C target, labelled "global technology", "decentralized solutions", and "consumption change". Each pathway shows how various measures (e.g. improved energy efficiency, increased use of renewable energy) could contribute to emissions reductions. Image credit: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.PBL Netherlands Environment Agency,2012

I think this figure is too full, maybe doesn't convey latest research (2012), and doesn't convey that well how much of a break in policy is needed to go to 2 degrees. I found the following UNEP report on Twitter today with better figures: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/22070/EGR_2017.pdf. How about we try to get figures similar to the one on page xvii or page 59?

The copyright statement from the report states (correction from previous edit):

This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-profit services without special permission from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. UNEP would appreciate receiving a copy of any publication that uses this publication as a source.

Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:31, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to bring bad tidings, but don't think "non-profit only" will do – see Commons FAQ, "The licenses must allow for commercial use and the creation of derivative works." If you can use the [non-copyright] data to make a figure and upload it under a free license, that will be great. . . dave souza, talk 21:25, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Noooooh. For future reference, does in any form imply that we can use it for derivative works? I did interpret it that way, but wasn't sure whether that is correct. I only have a vague idea where I can get the data, so it'll be a while before I've created this figure. Do you think it's worth pursuing? Femke Nijsse (talk) 06:27, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
I'm not an expert, but think that the data the UNEP report has published is not copyright, and it's fair use to list that data. The particular graphic design is copyright, but graphing the data is ok if using your own design of weight, colour and font. Had a related problem with the hockey stick graph where I wanted to show historic graphics and wrote to the IPCC asking for permission, but their copyright agreement with the authors forbade that. It's ok to plot a graph using the same data or one by someone else using the same data when they agree their own copyright version can be published under an open license (that page mentions the procedure), or even a fake graph which the Wegman Report put in the public domain as a US government publication. So, you don't really need to research the data, get it from the report and make your own figures as long as the graphics are clearly different. You can always try getting UNEP to agree to open licensing, but the IPCC wouldn't agree. . . dave souza, talk 16:22, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
Dave is spot-on. Images ("graphics") are copyrightable, data (generally) is not. And when permissions are keyed to "educational" or "non-profit" it's really another way of saying "not for commercial use". And WP content must be okay for commercial use. The one exception is "fair use": in some cases, where there is no alternative – typically book covers – a reduced image can be used. But it's a pain in the neck to get permission. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:17, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
P.S. Re the question raise: I think that figure is.. well, perhaps not so much as too full as too scattered, not conveying a clearly evident message. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:34, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

I've sent a request for permission to the UN and to the original creator of the figure, using one of the example letters to do so. Wikipedia say 50% of requests are honoured. If it doesn't work, I'll ask the original creator for the data he used to recreate my own version. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:21, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Update: the email address of UN seems to not exist or smth, got error back. Don't know whether the original creator can give permission for the figure to be used. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:25, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
caption=New figure

As I didn't get a response and was tired of waiting, I made my own figure. This only contains the information of TOTAL CO2 emission reduction, no info about the different technological possibilities to reach this type of emission reduction. Any suggestions for improvement before I add it? Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:57, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Big question: shall I add something like business as usual? The new SSPs have a better definition of what that is than the bare RCP scenarios. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:03, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
A couple of ideas on a first look-over. 1) Add a vertical dashed line at the current (helps to distinguish historical reality from the projected need. 2) Yes, add the projected "business as usual" line. The caption could say something about "this is where we are going, these are where we need to go". 3) Revise the title. To me, "consistent with" seems to suggest "well, that's fine", where perhaps a more accurate message is "this is what we damn well MUST match in order to be consistent with" the Paris Accords. Perhaps "required for"? Perhaps I'll have some better ideas later. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:19, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Removal of useful polling information

This information was obviously useful. User:Femkemilene, could you please add it back somewhere in the article, since it demonstrates the variation of concern of different parts of the world? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 11:44, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

It's already in the article :). There is an entire (bloated) paragraph on different polling questions. See Global warming#Society and culture#Public opinion and disputes. Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:15, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
OK. Thanks for pointing that out. The problem is that the information is somewhat overlapping between the information to which you link, and this part of the lede's content. Maybe the word "globally" can be removed from the sentence, "Globally, a majority of people consider global warming a serious or very serious issue," as it does not really serve much purpose and, if anything, actually confuses the information explained in the poll? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:24, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I think it might actually be more confusing if that word is cut out. In every country a majority (of varying size) is concerned. If you leave out the world globally, people will be wondering about who we're talking here. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:53, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I'm about to take a small whack at that bloated paragraph. But the whole section ("Public opinion") is poorly done, and needs a complete re-do. Perhaps a consideration of what it contributes to the article.
Selfie City: please understand that the lead ("lede") paragraph is supposed to be a succinct summarization, or even a preview, of the article, and merely "useful" is not a sufficient criterion for inclusion. Of course, having said that, yes, we do need to do some serious trimming and summarizing. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:31, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
@J. Johnson: I know what a lede is. However, all of Wikipedia's content should be useful, whether it is a summary or not. Cutting out a word, as I suggested later per above, could be "useful." Also, in reply to User:Femkemilene, the source given for the "globally, a majority..." says that "very conerned" is a minority in the U.S. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 16:18, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
@Femkemilene: See, if you look at the first graph, none show a majority for the U.S. Consequently, "globally" should be removed. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 16:20, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
Read the article in a bit more detail, and you'll find the quote "Majorities in all 40 nations polled say it is a serious problem". The graphs only show people that find it a very serious problem. I'm not against removing this sentence altogether from the lede, or trying to find more recent polling (the global strikes & extreme weather and all seem to move concern up quite a lot..). Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:29, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
Why not just remove the sentence, then? The sentence says, "Globally, a majority of people consider global warming a serious or very serious issue." So we should remove "very serious," or remove it altogether. My point is that it's still not entirely accurate. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 16:34, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
While I disagree that the sentence is inaccurate or ambiguous, I'm not wedded to it at all and have deleted it from the lede. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:48, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
Selfie: The issue is whether that detail should be in the lead. And there you seem to have missed the key word: summarization. Merely useful, or informative, or even important (in some sense) does not warrant inclusion in the lead; that is what the rest of the article is for. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:00, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
What's your point? You're trying to launch an argument on some obscurity that doesn't fit into the latest developments of the issue at hand. I'm saying that a sentence should be removed. I think you've lost track of where this discussion is headed. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 19:44, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Additional work needed (September)

The small "Food and water" section (under "Effects/Humans") needs revision. Partly because half of it relies on a derivative EPA webpage now withdrawn (which I am about to tag), and partly because the points cited are Afro-specific. I would be very surprised if a more global view could not be found in AR5 WG2, which is, after all, the successor to AR4 WG2 sources the EPA report was based on. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:17, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. Should have some time maybe this week to tackle this. AR5 WGII has a very annoying structure, where all regions are treated separately. Some problems are more accute in certain regions, but that's not always that easy to distill from the reports. I'm sure all the information is there, so I'll dig a bit (or I'll try to find some review papers discussing this). Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:43, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Summarizing so broadly can be challenging, but that's why we're paid so grandly. Right? :-]
I haven't looked closely, but doesn't the WG2 SPM have a suitable summary? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:01, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
It might be my lack of expertise here, but I find the WG2 summary vague in quite a few aspects. I'll have a closer look at it & at other reliable sources. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

BTW: while I am thankful for all the work you are doing, I am particularly thankful to see the Met Office bit about "Arctic sea ice" gone. That looked to be definitely obsoleted by later work, and even dubious. Which is a persistent problem – I'm seeing quite a few really soft bits that need not only re-writing, but even re-researching. I'm glad I don't have to do it all myself! ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:51, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

I spent quite some time trying to find an updated version of that claim, but it seems that this metric (when is Arctic ice-free for first time) is not really used that much anymore, but instead at what temps do we get ice-free summers. There is little inertia in the Arctic sea ice, so it does make sense to frame it in this way. I'm really happy that you're tagging all these claims, as I've been working on failed verification for this article for too long to still see what's wrong. At some point, we must have found all errors, right? Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:25, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, at some point. Though as you know, the challenge is not so much in the finding (which is why we need in-source location), but fixing, replacing, and/or re-writing. But I think we are making good progress. And I think I'll have some stuff just for you later today. :-) ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:51, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Dang, didn't get it done. Sorry. Okay, likely tomorrow. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:02, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
SROCC is in! These are all marked as "DRAFT" (I have adjusted your short-cites) because (per the IPCC) they are "Subject to Copyedit". Case in point: you may notice a discrepancy in the author listing for chapter 4. The draft did not alphabetize them, contrary to the other chapters and other information on-line; I am anticipating they will be alphabetized. When there is a finished, published report I'll add the new (and possibly revised) forms, and the existing short-cites can be switched as they are verified. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:18, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

New ocean report

New report, https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/home/, seems to provide information about tropical cyclones, the collapse of AMOC, sea ice retreat, sea level rise and more! JJ, would you be willing to add it? (I've already added one short-cite to it, but unfortunately, my back has finished working for now). With this report added and implemented, I am even more ready for review (and or discussion about naming)! Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:01, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Sure. I'll work on it tonight. Are you likely to be citing any of the supplementary materials? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:35, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Probably not. I'll probably only use the SPM and the individual chapters. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:35, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, there is now a complete set of full citations for the SROCC at WP:IPCC citation/SR. Currently cited as "DRAFT", as they are still subject to copy edit and re-pagination. I'll add citations for the finished report when it is definitely finished and published. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:19, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 September 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiPIvH49X-E 71.115.81.94 (talk) 08:55, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Try not to be silly William M. Connolley (talk) 09:25, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Reference errors

  1. Harv error: link from CITEREFIPCC_AR5_SYR doesn't point to any citation.
  2. Harv error: link from CITEREFIPPC_SYR_SPM2013 doesn't point to any citation.
  3. Harv error: link from CITEREFNCADAC2013 doesn't point to any citation.
  4. Harv error: link from CITEREFUNEP2010 doesn't point to any citation.
  5. Harv error: link from CITEREFIPPC_SYR_SPM2013 doesn't point to any citation.
  6. Harv error: link from CITEREFIPCC_AR5_WG22014 doesn't point to any citation.
Thank you, DrKay. You may have noticed that we are doing a major revision of how citation is done here, and in the interim will probably be making more of a mess. When things get sorted out (in a month?) it would be good to check these again. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:33, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
They're still happening. DrKay (talk) 19:03, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Re your recent edit summaries here – "User:J. Johnson get it right please" – and here — "it's not worked, and I can't be bothered to track the error" — are not particularly helpful, and perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to shoot from the hip. I have bothered to track "the error". When you attempted to correct an actual link error here you "corrected" the wrong end (at the full citation). I reverted that, and then went to correct the problem at the short-cite. At about the same time you went to a different short cite that links to the same full citation, and changed that.

In case you haven't noticed, there is currently a LOT of work being done on this article, so some "dust" is to be expected. If it bothers you so much to "correct the mistakes of its editors" it would be a good start to make fewer of them yourself. Or at least bother to not proceed blindly. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:02, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

You don't correct incivility by being uncivil yourself. I did very carefully track the error as shown here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_warming&diff=prev&oldid=918666430. You refer to my edits [1][2][3][4][5] as "wrong". They are not wrong. For example, "Kyoto Protocol 1997" didn't link to the short citations, which were called "UNFCC 1997" [2 c's]. Furthermore, "UNFCC 1997" didn't link to any full citation (because they were neither called "Kyoto Protocol" to match the original harvid nor "UNFCCC" [3 c's] to match the new automatic harvid). The citations were wrong at both ends. My edits corrected them. Your comments are both rude and unjustified. DrKay (talk) 20:40, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
I agree that this is not something to get agitated or rude about (both of you?). It's only some citation errors that we do fix in due time (usually immediately, sometimes after a week). Is there a particular reason that you want us to fix them faster? Does it show up in some category that should be empty or otherwise interfere with your editing practice? If so, sorry for that. It's a lot of work to convert all of this, and sometimes after having done half an hour of work on some citations, time's up and bed calls (like now). Wikipedia doesn't have a deadline. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
I misunderstood J Johnson's comment from June as an invitation to help check ref errors in a month. I've been checking every month since. He now tells meI infer from his request for me to "make fewer" edits and "at least bother to not proceed" that I am not to make any further edits. So, I will not. The loss is not mine. DrKay (talk) 21:11, 29 September 2019 (UTC) Amended per WP:REDACT. DrKay (talk) 22:16, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
No, I did not refer to your edits as "wrong", and most certainly have not told you "not to make any further edits". If you are going to complain about incivility I will remind you that misrepresentation of others is considered behavior that is unacceptable. What I said is that you "corrected" the wrong end of a link, and that should not proceed blindly. Nothing uncivil are rude there, or in any of my comments; that all seems to be on your side. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
My comments are no worse than yours. If you've not been uncivil, then neither have I. DrKay (talk) 22:05, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Please do keep in mind that communicating over the internet requires a bit more tact and civility than normal communication, as people can't see you. @DrKay: I think we've found a working routine for fixing the citations here and that it might indeed be a bit difficult for you to help us. I forgot that you offered before (may even have asked the help myself). Thanks for checking in! I think we've got it now, though. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:30, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@All,
I wish we'd ban the use of the three letter string "you" and instead require various templates such as

Template:You-I have advice and would like to be your friend
Template:You-I would like to know more about your view, please clarify
Template:You-Caution to prevent future problems please read ''WP:Foo''
Template:You-Yeah you, you stupid idiot
Template:You-Fuck off
etc.

One reason Wikipedia is losing editors I believe is our culture that tolerates WP:Gaming the system by those who keep their toxicity to just below the threshold for admin action. But as a general rule if You-I have advice and would like to be your friend feel the need to use "you", its usually better to do it at user talk. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:40, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

"feared" vs "stoked fears"

A couple days ago, I changed the following sentence...

"[American conservative think tanks] challenged the scientific evidence, argued that global warming would have benefits, feared that concern for global warming was some kind of socialist plot to undermine American capitalism, and asserted that proposed solutions would do more harm than good."

...to...

"[American conservative think tanks] challenged the scientific evidence, argued that global warming would have benefits, stoked fears that concern for global warming was some kind of socialist plot to undermine American capitalism, and asserted that proposed solutions would do more harm than good."

...based on the cited source, which says:

"... the conservative movement continues to push against such calls with warnings that the agenda for climate action is part of a socialist plot to undermine the American way of life."

I didn't expect this to be controversial since it was simply a closer re-phrasing of the source, but my change was reverted, twice. I'm open to other re-phrasings, but "feared" is a poor fit, IMO. The think tanks are clearly not just passively "fearing" a socialist plot; they are actively promoting this fear, per the citation. Kaldari (talk) 16:55, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

The source is Montlake 2019 ("What does climate change have to do with socialism?"), available here.
The sentence in question could be written better, but the addition of "stoked" makes it worse. Note the structure of the sentence: American CTT challenged, argued, feared, and asserted. Changing "feared" to "stoked fears" suggests that the CTT were stoking fears. That is, making those fears greater, with the target of that stoking – whether themselves, or others – left unspecified. Which is not what Montlake says. The introductory note says (emphasis added): "... One of the most vocal strains of opposition to mainstream climate science appears to be rooted in fears of socialism." Further on the article quotes someone: "Climate skepticism is deeply rooted in the foundational priors on the right" (emphasis added). Further on the author refers to "their long-standing fear". It is possible that talk of climate action – and particularly of climate effects and climate responsibility – "stokes" these fears in some conservatives, but that is not what Montlake says. I see no indication in this source that conservatives are "are actively promoting this fear".
An improvement to the sentene would be moving the "feared" clause to the end, casting it in a form such as: "It has been suggested that these responses arise not just from protection of economic interests, but also from a deep seated fear of a 'socialist plot to undermine the American way of life.'" ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:28, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, the article contains other sentences about the public's fear of socialism, but the sentence we're editing is about the conservative think tanks and their actions, which is most directly addressed in the sentence I quoted above (and the surrounding context). Kaldari (talk) 23:37, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Since the only person to offer an opinion is the person who reverted my changes (J. Johnson), I'm going to list this at Wikipedia:Third opinion, and see if we can get a 3rd opinion. Kaldari (talk) 23:30, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps one is enough, if backed with a valid argument. And you have not responded to my point that no where does the source say "stoked", nor to my point that your changed also changes the structure of the sentence. Nor have you explained how you get "stoked fears" out of "push against such calls with warnings". or where this source says the CTT's are "actively promoting this fear, per the citation." In short, you have shown nothing to support your view on the matter. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:00, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
The article first talks about how opposition to climate change is related to fears of socialism, then it says that "one faction in the conservative movement" is blocking progress on climate change by warning that it's a socialist conspiracy. Then they cite some specific conservative think tanks as examples. If you put that all together, it's saying that conservative think tanks are stoking fears of socialism. That's basically the gist of the entire article. But if you're going to insist that we avoid any interpretation whatsoever, I'm fine with making it a more exact reflection of the source. And I have no idea what you're talking about as far as changing the structure of the sentence. I changed one verb to a different verb. The sentence structure is still identical. Kaldari (talk) 06:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
For future reference, I changed "feared" to "warned", per the source. Hopefully that's a more acceptable (and accurate) paraphrasing. Kaldari (talk) 22:00, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Your "put that all together" is the kind of extrapolation we should avoid doing.
I am not entirely happy supporting content about what the deniers have done (argue, warn, etc.) with a source that is focused on only one reason for why they have done so (fear of socialism). The source's discussion of the latter is incidental to the main topic, and therefore weaker. Additional sources would be good here, but probably good enough for now. 23:48, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

On having more than one item in a note

@MarnetteD: Thank you for tackling that bare url (here). However, we should discuss your premise for removing the second item ("Official list of current members ...") from that note. In your edit summary you stated that "two items in one set of ref tags doesn't really work". I beg to differ. We do that quite often, and I am not aware of any problem. Perhaps you would explain how you think it doesn't work. I would also note that the link to the list relates to which countries are parties, so it really needs to be where it applies, and not in the External Links section. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 03:38, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I knew that I was guessing at how you would want that item handled in this article and I figured the odds would be good that my guess would be wrong. The first problem is that neither reflinks nor refill will fix bare urls if there are two of them in one set of ref tags. Next, my expectation is that readers will have a hard time distinguishing which ref is what if they click on the link. Or to put it another way how will they know to click on one link - read its info - return to the page and click on a second one in the same numbered ref. Your experience with refs is different and I am not saying that there is anything wrong with it I'm just relating my years of experiencing fixing bare urls. You can certainly move it back but my suggestion is to use a second set of ref tags. After I moved it I also had a thought that the one I moved to the ELs might work better as a footnote than as a reference since it goes to a list rather than a specific item but I can certainly understand it you think that suggestion is wacky. One last request if you still need it converted to a citation after you move it please use a {{Bare URLs}} at the top of the article. That inline bare url tag is difficult to find in a brief article and in this one it took me almost two days to track it down in this one :-) My apologies for any problems I caused in this situation and best regards to all who take care of this article. MarnetteD|Talk 04:44, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Nothing is perfect on the first try, right?
Yes, our experiences differ, which is why we are having this discussion, so we can share and thereby profit. E.g., I did not know that 'reflinks' can handle only one bare url in a note, so that is something to consider. Also, why is tracking down a "bare inline" tag difficult? Does it not suffice to just search for "Bare URL"?
I don't understand what you say that "readers wll have a hard time distinguishing which ref is what if they click on the link", nor this bit about "click on a second one["ref"?]in the same numbered ref." Perhaps you would explain that some more. Do note, though, that we do have a bit of a terminology problem here. E.g., where you said that one url "might work better as a footnote than as a reference", I do not understand how you distinguish "footnote" and "reference". (I have found the latter to be used in eight or ten different ways, so generally avoid using it.)
I look forward to your comments. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:07, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello again. the inline tag is small and can only be seen in the reference section of the article. In an article with almost three hundred refs like this one it can easily be missed and I had to go through them several times to finally find find it. To see what I mean scroll to ref 231 here. The {{Bare URLs}} sits at the top of the page and also has the benefit of giving easy access to activate refill which the inline one does not. I see that there was some separation of the two items that were in one set of ref tags by having "Official list of current members available at" in black in the ref. If the second item is formatted into a cite that will turn blue and IMO readers will see what looks like one long ref. If you want to move the item back to the body of the article I would suggest formatting it like reference 273 in this article. For the diff between notes and ref sections see the (foot)note section here Claude Debussy#Notes followed by Claude Debussy#References. I notice that this articles ref section headers are different from most that I edit so my suggestion may not be workable. This may still be unclear so whatever you can work out in dealing with this is fine. MarnetteD|Talk 00:52, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
The distinction between the sections titled "Notes" and "References" at Claude Debussy (and many other articles) is only one of several possibilities, which close examination shows to be ambiguous. In particular, "references" carries a lot of baggage with most editors; I find it better to use other less loaded, more specific terms.
I don't understand what you mean regarding "ref 231". (Your diff is to a name correction.) The note currently numbered 231 is: "IPCC AR4 WG3 Ch1 2007, Executive summary." Is there a problem with that?
Regarding the tag: why do you have "go through them several times" to find that tag? Why not use the search ("find") function? In your browser window, hit ctrl-f, enter "Bare URL" in the box, and your browser should take you right to the spot. Right? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:27, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
Use the link I left to scroll down to see what ref 231 looked like before I made my edit - the edits since then have changed things. My browser window does not work the way yours does. MarnetteD|Talk 23:13, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
Okay, so you are referring to the note you edited (currently #229), which I had previously tagged with "Bare URL". Your point is that: the tag is small and hard to see, right? Well, this gets back to what I keep saying: use your browser's search/find function. Does your browser not have such a function? What kind of browser are you using? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:51, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm glad you were able to see how small the tag is. I'm afraid my computer skills are minimal so I look for things in the old fashioned slow way. Thanks for the suggestion though. It might help in future work with bare urls. MarnetteD|Talk 00:35, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
My point is that "small and hard to see" isn't a problem if you use search. Send me e-mail if you'd like some assistance.
On the fixing of bare urls: if reflinks or refill work only on a minimal note (i.e., containing only the URL, which to me is a bug) I would offer the following work-around. Do a temporary edit that splits the note (like inserting "</ref><ref>" tags), fix the bare url, then remove the inserted tags. If I find a suitable candidate for trying that I will bring it to your attention. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:15, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

<ref>{{cite web|url=https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetailsIII.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=XXVII-7&chapter=27&Temp=mtdsg3&clang=_en |title=UNTC |publisher=Treaties.un.org |date= |accessdate=2019-10-04}}</ref>

OK here is the item as formatted by reflinks. I will let you make any tweaks and then insert it into the proper place in the article as you see fit. You can try asking the programmers about what you want to change re the two ref fix bots. Unfortunately the talk page for both programs seems to get little to no response so you might try at the WP:VPT. MarnetteD|Talk 01:29, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

"Citation standards" review

After reviewing the citation standards I propose making, in the "Full citations" section, the following addition (item "p", regarding newspapers) and tweaks.

Full citations

+ a: Every source to have exactly one full citation with complete full bibliographic details.

+ a': "Full bibliographic details" requires attribution of authorship, date, and title.

+ b: Those Full citations are put in the "Sources" section (not in the text, not in <ref> tags).

+ c: For consistent formatting, templates are used for full citations.

+ d: There are two systems of formatting in Wikipedia: Citation Style 1 and 2 (CS1 and CS2). CS1 formatting style is preferred here: use {{cite xxx}} templates, or {{citation}} with |mode=cs1.

+ d: Full citations to be formated as Wikipedia "CS1" style. Use {{cite xxx}} templates, or {{citation}} with |mode=cs1.

+ d': {Cite} templates to include need |ref=harv (or similar) to enable linking from short-cites (see f).

+ e: Reports with different authors/editors for the chapters and full report (such as the IPCC) can be cited using a separate full citation for the chapters and the full report.

+ e: Full citations for sources contained in a work (such as separately written chapters in a report) need not include the details of the work if they include a link to a full citation for the work.

+ e': Citation of IPCC reports should be done as recommended at WP:IPCC citation.

+ p: Full citations of newspapers and similar periodicals (but not journals) should be listed chronologically under the publisher.

+ f: Dates in DMY format

+ g: Multiple authors: only the first five need be listed. If more than four add "|display-authors=4" set |display-authors= to 4.

+ h: For human authors and editors, use |last= and |first= or equivalent separate name parameters, not |author= or |editor=. Use |author= for group or institutional authors.

+ i: Initialization, or not, of authors' personal names per source.

I'll have suggestions for the rest tomorrow. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:51, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm okay with all of your edits, except the removal of the explanation of CS1 and CS2. 99% of editors will have no idea what that means, and please please let's make it as easy as possible, even if that mixes statement of the standard a bit with explanation. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:32, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Please remind me, where is this list going to appear? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:43, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
You can find it in: Talk:Global warming/Citation standards, which also includes some example of how to actually do it. This is linked at the top of talk page (This page has agreed on a consistent citation style blah blah). We were also thinking of providing a link to this page in the editing screen (which now only screams Discretionary sanctions).
(This probs goes against guidelines, but innovatingly having multiple tabs on top of this talk page would really be lovely. We can cram things that are interesting, but not directly relevant (such as Denver Post review) into a separate tab. We could alternatively make one of our archives dedicated to outdated/historical top banners. This way the FAQ and the citation standard are more obvious). Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:50, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
I bet there are some eds who are masters at cleaning up that stuff in a sexy way without inventing any new wiki toys. Maybe ask for help at the V:Pump? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Having additional "tabs" at the top of the page – such as "Read/Edit/New section" etc. — is not a matter of any guidelines, but of the underlying Wikimedia software. Which I suspect is not an option. On the other hand, an edit notice (in the editing window) can link to the standards, and should suffice. More on this later. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:30, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
I think it's more like 50%, but still: There's a question of just how much explanation of CS1 is warranted. (Is "a WP citation formatting style" sufficient?) I think a wikilink could suffice, but the obvious candidate (HELP:CS1) is more about using the templates than what the style is. (HELP:CS2 is a bit more informative, but linking to CS2 to explain CS1 would undoubtedly spur many "fixes".) I think we really need a good, little essay explaining the CS1/CS2 style differences, which could be a fun project, but a bit tricky, and not likely to show up any time soon. So: the floor is open for suggestions. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:36, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
I have inserted "Wikipedia" in 'd' to qualify "CS1", which may help. I think a wikilink would be most helpful, but, as before, I don't see anything useful to link to. If we find there is any confusion on the point we could put a brief explanation in the (yet to be written) explanatory text. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)


[Belated insertion of introductory sentence.]

I propose that the remainder of the citation standards be split between short-cites and notes, and augmented (new items bolded), as follows.

Short-cites
  • j: In-line citation of content to be done with short-cites (such as created with {{harvnb}} templates or similar).
  • l: In-line citations to should show location (e.g., page or section number) of cited material within the source.
  • r: Short-cites for periodical articles (including non-peer-reviewed news articles in journals) may use an identifier that combines the publication's name and date. (See examples.)
Notes
  • s: In-line citations and explanations are usually placed in notes (created using the <ref>...</ref> tags).
  • n: Use of named-refs (the "<ref name=" construct) to duplicate notes is strongly discouraged.
  • m: We don't use the {{rp}} template, which inserts a number directly into the main text.
  • k: All notes, including {{Reflist}}, to be should appear in the "Notes" section.
  • t: All of the in-line citations and explanations pertinent at a given point in the text should be bundled into a single note.

Not yet perfect, but striving for better. Comments? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Again, I'm against strongly discouraging named refs. Let's just discourage it without a adjective? The word pertinent can be changed into about, so that people without an academic education can understand. Rest of it, nice! Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:50, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
To paraphrase Lord of the Rings, The way is shut. It was made by the Harv and the Harv keep it. The way is shut! So instead
Delete n and m
Add New editors are strongly encouraged to learn the citation guidelines above, and all editors are asked to convert any nonconforming citations to this system.
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:06, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Femke: I thought "strongly" was your addition, no? Well, I am strongly for discouraging named-refs. Even more so today, as I just reverted an extended edit by RL0919 that undid a bunch of my previous work by re-introducing named-refs. I can put up with named-refs being introduced initially (because an editor used sfn?), but I am pretty annoyed at havng my work undone. (And hot enough that today might not be a good time to argue about it.)
Perhaps we can strike "strongly", but "n" should be kept, as nmaed-refs are endless trouble. We should also keep "m", as 1) we really don't use {rp} (which is a bit of hint), and 2) we really shouldn't use it. It is an ugly bit of mystification that is quite unnecesary.
NAEG's "New editors ..." statement is not actually a standard. But a good comment, and I like it well enough I have already added it. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:20, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Was strongly my addition? If so, I've changed my mind a bit towards not wanting to scare off people new to the citation standards. I'm okay with named-refs and okay with the compromise to discourage it. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:51, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Use of {rp}

So let's consider {{rp}}. Is there any reason we should allow it? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:09, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

While in general I don't mind {{rp}}, we're already using short-cites, so there is no advantage here. Let's be clear and not use it. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:48, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes: let's be clear about not using it.
In our previous discussion of this NAEG was inclined to use {rp} as being intuitive, but in his last comment on this (above, at 23 August) he allowed that "intuitive" is learned. Some years ago I argued against it, but I don't know if we need to present an argument (or rationale). Let's just say we don't use it, and hopefully that will be sufficient. Any instance of someone using it is indicative of other problems, such as not understanding the use of short-cites. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:33, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Examples

What's our specific purpose for the examples? A quick explanation of how to use harvnb for those that don't want to click over to {{harvnb}}? Examples illustrating the standards? (And I should add an example of citing newspapers, but I haven't worked out just how to fit it in.) Reassurance? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:24, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

All three of those yes! :). Also showing the nice formatting we use. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:46, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

and formatting pictorially to set up a sexy visually attractive comparison with examples of what NOT to do NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:58, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
I understand the concept of "visually attractive comparison", but not clear on specifics. Also, sometimes it is best to not show "wrong" examples as that may reinforce the image. But I'll see what I can come up with. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:40, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

How about adding

~~New editors are to be THANKED for any RS-based addition that passes bare minimum WP:Verification. It's OK to ask them to reformat their additions to match this protocol, but in the interest of editor retention and [{WP:DONTBITE]], experienced editors are encouraged to either try to teach editors about these standards or just fix citation formatting. Either way, do not revert otherwise acceptable additions purely on the basis of citation formatting. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
Quite aside from the mistaken notion that "bare minimum WP:Verification" guarantees inclusion, or this red-herring of reversions "purely on the basis of citation formatting": perhaps you would take on the task of thanking new editors, and teaching them about these standards? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2019 (UTC)


I have revised Talk:Global warming/Citation standards as discussed, and resequenced the enumeration. And am working up some examples. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

And I have just finished revising the "Examples" section – now "Tutorial with examples" — to concisely and clearly cover all of the basic cases. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:17, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

EPA quote

Fact: Climate change is real and it is happening now. The U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have each independently concluded that warming of the climate system in recent decades is "unequivocal". This conclusion is not drawn from any one source of data but is based on multiple lines of evidence, including three worldwide temperature datasets showing nearly identical warming trends as well as numerous other independent indicators of global warming (e.g., rising sea levels, shrinking Arctic sea ice).


— U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Note #2 ("near the top of the article") quotes the EPA "Myths vs. Facts" statement. This is such a strong, definite statement (see box) that I think it ought be quoted in the text. And perhaps in box as done here. I can see this as an organizing statement which sets the stage for the several figures that follow. Comments? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:10, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

This dates back to the pre-post-facts era, still up on the EPA website but undated. Clearly related to "Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration of the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act / Regulatory Initiatives / Climate Change / U.S. EPA". Environmental Protection Agency. 14 April 2011. Retrieved 16 September 2011. – which has been vanished from the current website, though presumably still on their archive or snapshot. . . . dave souza, talk 11:50, 30 September 2019 (UTC) Context: Climatic Research Unit email controversy#United States Environmental Protection Agency report, the page was at "Myths vs. Facts: Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration of the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act / Regulatory Initiatives / Climate Change / U.S. EPA". Environmental Protection Agency. 14 April 2011. Retrieved 16 September 2011. but that link no longer seems to work – the page is now at this page. . . dave souza, talk 12:13, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Huh?
Not "related", but the very page. There is another source which should document the date.
So are you okay presenting that quote? Does anyone have an objection? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:19, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
I'd like more time to think whether to add this US source. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
It's good to have an international perspective: Femke notes it is a "US" source and not international... Further, (as I understand it) the EPA is "downstream" from NASA, NOAA, IPCC, etc., which may be bad (less directly authoritative) or good (may project more "reliability" as a "secondary" source). It's a great quote, and my only concern is that there might be a more authoritative source for a similar quote. I like quote boxes, but especially on a contentious subject they should be used in moderation (not a problem here). For what it's worth, the earliest Wayback Machine archive is July 2017. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
It is indeed a great quote. I don't believe any source would be more authoritative except the IPCC or GCRP. But the point of the quote is not to simply repeat what other more authoritative sources have said at much greater length (and with all the boring scientific nuances), but to present the key point simply and effectively, and to affirm the authority on which it is based. It is actually a tertiary source (reporting on the secondary review by the IPCC and others of the scientific literature), and yet quite reliable.
That this is a "US" source should not matter. Our principal authoritative sources for all of this are the IPCC reports, which are thoroughly international. As to a US perspective: that the EPA made such definite pronouncement on the matter reflects the reality that the US is the hatchery of climate denialism. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:42, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Looking in the archives, this page states the date and context:
On July 29, 2010, EPA denied ten petitions. "The petitions to reconsider EPA's "Endangerment Finding" claimed that climate science can't be trusted, and asserted a conspiracy that calls into question the findings of the [IPCC, NAS, U.S. GCRP]. After months of serious consideration of the petitions and of the state of climate change science, EPA found no evidence to support these claims." The "Myths v Facts" page is linked there, under "Resources".
So, it's a snapshot from 2010, pre AR5 and before the current administration's efforts to hobble the EPA. But very well stated. . . dave souza, talk 05:20, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
The reason I'm emphasized the US focus what A) it's a bit weird to have three US sources so prominently explicitly mentioned and more importantly B) for countries in which climate denial is not really a thing (all countries except Australia & US?), this is such an open door statement that focus on it is weird I think. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:10, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Because this article seems to be the central location for discussing the issue, I moderately agree it's a good place for the scientific consensus quote box, though it may inspire sniping from drive-by denialist editors. I think the quote box is even more appropriate at Scientific consensus on climate change and Global warming controversy and possibly somewhere in Climate change denial. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:06, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Agree, and with Femke – it's not the ultimate worldwide list of authorities; the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are cited as [I think] their reports formed the basis for the EPA determination in December 2009 that climate change caused by emissions of greenhouse gases threatens the public's health and the environment, as covered on the main EPA Denial of Petitions page. Eloquent, but a box would take up space better used for an illustration or graph. In my opinion. . . dave souza, talk 20:39, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I like Rcraig09's suggestion of using this on other pages. Agree with dave souza that figures are probably a better use of space, and we've got plenty of those already! Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:49, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't know why "figures are probably a better use of space", as the quote gets right down to what (for many people) is the key issue, whereas the figures only show things that indirectly support that key issue, that indirectness giving the deniers scope to quibble and cavail.
I agree that that quote in a box is also appropriate for those other articles. But none the less so for this article, in affirming that GW is real. The differences are in the precise focus and handling in each article. E.g., at the scientific consensus article the focus is on the basis and extent of the consensus, and "real" is the result. Here it affirms the reality of the topic (without which there would be no basis for an article). We give a light-weight overview of why CC/GW is considered real (so the readers don't have to traipse over to other article), then move on to content about GW (such as its effects).
I do not understand why it should be "weird" to prominently mention the US EPA. They pronounced this great quote, and for the audience that matters most the EPA is probably the most authoritative source to be had. Nor do I understand what is meant by "an open door statement". Perhaps the "weirdness" is because non-anglophone audiences don't understand why denial is an issue? Well, they should. The U.S. contributes nearly one-fifth (~18%) of CO2 emissions, and the denial-induced paralysis in the US affects everybody. Even Adaman Islanders that have never heard of the US.
So again: why are figures "probably a better use of space"? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:34, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
Rethinking: international perspective is critical for real issues in the real world, but the context we're considering here is the English-language Wikipedia. Accordingly, I favor expressing this (EPA) scientific consensus prominently because of the persistent denialist undercurrent in the U.S. (and, according to Femke, in Australia). The quote box seems appropriate both in the other articles I've suggested above, and also here in this "top level" article. P.S. At this point, it's a good use of space! (The polar bear and helicoptor/wildfire pictures can go!).
First of all, This quote is about denial Stage 1 (denying warming is happening), which is not a big thing anymore, not even in the US. According to the linked Guardian article Most climate contrarians have come to accept that the planet has warmed significantly.
The English Wikipedia is the international wikipedia and a US-focus is explicitly against NPOV policy for topics that are not related specifically to the US (explanatory FAQ: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Anglo-American_focus). From hesitatingly being against it, I'm now very strongly against it as it not only gives undue weight to the temperature aspect of climate change, but I have to consider it NPOV as well. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:45, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
This is likely to be an interesting discussion.
Femke: I submit that GW denial is still "a big thing", particularly in the U.S., and consequently for everyone else on this planet, the U.S. being a major impediment to reducing CO2 emissions.
That this is still a big thing in the States is somewhat obscured since the mainstream media stopped "balancing" the scientific position with denialist views. But polls show that approximately half of the U.S. populace is still in denial. More importantly, a majority of the U.S. Senate opposes any climate change response, and need I mention the current administration's intent to withdraw of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement?
This on-going denial is manifested even on this page. E.g.: just last night there was this edit (since deleted), stating: "Global warming isn't real. Although many think it is, it is just a hoax made up by democrats." Even if most "climate contrarians have come to accept that the planet has warmed significantly", what Nuccitelli was referrng to was the pushing of denialism by prominent deniers; I don't see that most believers have accepted the reality of warming.
Denialism has been, and remains, a significant, even integral, part of this topic, and therefore ought to be addressed in this article. The EPA statement goes straight to the core issue that GW is real, and the need for doing so is not obviated simply because a majority of our readers (or editors) find it obvious. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:33, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
"Climate Change Attribution.png" . . . (great chart, but outdated)
I appreciate your (Femke's) perceptively distinguishing exactly what people are still denying (the warming itself vs. what is causing it). However, I doubt many non-scientists (WP readers) truly appreciate that distinction, and denier reasoning is still foggy, confused and persistent (example: Trump ridiculing Greta). After compiling the above 3-chart image, I was struck by how the unprecedented nature of recent warming is, by itself, one of the most convincing arguments that humans are causing that warming! The U.S. EPA is merely used as a secondary (tertiary?) source that cites the (international) IPCC, so I don't think it violates NPV (though the sourcing is not ideal). Other WP articles I've mentioned above may be better destinations for the quote box, but the public is less likely to read them and I think it's ~OK here in the absence of a quote or image that is more comprehensive (proves warming PLUS human causation)—if one exists! —RCraig09 (talk) 02:23, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
I've just discovered the Robert Rohde chart at right, which is used in several WP articles already. It captures causation. Unfortunately, it's outdated. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:44, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@JJ: I never said climate denial in general isn't still a big thing and my primary goal of editing Wikipedia is making sure that good information about climate is available from a trusted source to fight climate denial. Instead, I said climate denial STAGE 1 is not a big thing anymore. As of May, it was only 5% of the US population that said climate isn't changing at all.[1] Stage 2 (humans cause it) is still a thing, albeit restricted to a few countries around the world, and I would be more willing to accept a quote refuting this. I've tried to strengthen the article in refuting Stage 3 (it's bad) and Stage 4 (there's nothing we can do).

@ RCraig: I like that figure as well! I've been thinking of recreating it, but haven't found the right data to reproduce it. Might look into it again later. In my assertion the quote might be POV, I'm not trying to argue that EPA brings in the POV, but more so that putting emphasis on Stage 1 climate denial brings in POV. As most recent polling shows that this type of denial is not even a thing anymore in the US, I'd say my major objection has shifted from Anglo-American POV to WP:UNDUE weight. Interacting with a lot of climate deniers, I do very much think they know the difference between denying climate change or denying the cause of climate change. This is not as difficult as to require a scientists background. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:06, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

FYI: Somewhat-updated similar IPCC figures FAQ Fig. 5.1, page 393 (2013). Sorry, original data not presented. :-\ —RCraig09 (talk) 18:13, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Harvey, Oliver Milman Fiona (2019-05-08). "US is hotbed of climate change denial, major global survey finds". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
I recall when denial of any warming, or at least not as long-term climate change (which slides into belief of not human-made), was running over 50% in the U.S. I thought the "Stage 1 denial" was still running around 15%-20%, but perhaps the uptick in progress made in the last year or two has been greater than I had reckoned. If the remaining 5% is not significant (though that is questionable, particularly in the Senate) then it might unnecessary, even unrelevant, to refute it. But I don't see that as being a NPOV issue. And the historical fact of denialism is still important for illustrating the flimsy character of stage 1 denial, and for explaining why we have lost a generation in responding. Both of these points are directly applicable to stage 2 denialism, and therefore the quote may still be relevant. Though I allow perhaps not as the lead figure. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:53, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
I do agree that denialism is one of the facets of explaining WHY we've lost this generation is responding. Before we explain WHY we have to maybe state more explicitly THAT we have lost a generation. Currently, the only sentence given context like that is about the Copenhagen Agreement. I'm not entirely sure where and with what kind of sources this information should be added though. Currently, the subsubsection about controversy doesn't have a figure, so there is space there for a quote. I'm still not hugely in favour (because I think we shouldn't focus too much on it), but there it doesn't compete with figures that I find more valuable. Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:24, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
Yet another section that could be rewritten better, then perhaps a good place for the quote. I could get into some of that, but for now I think the citation work has higher priority. And I may have a suitable edit notice; see above. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:11, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Peer review before TFA

JJ: you previously indicated that you wanted to get some more citation work done before we go to peer review. I'd really like to have the peer review done before the article is featured on the main page, which is now scheduled to happen on December 2. If we don't put it up for peer review soon, I'm afraid we won't have time to properly address all reviewers before December. Can I sign it up? Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:16, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

"scheduled?" What does that mean? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
@NewsAndEventsGuy: sup? Check it ——SerialNumber54129 11:08, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Not that much, we can still withdraw or postpone. Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests/pending. It's customary to have a 'hook' on why the article should be refeatured, which is, in this case, the start of the COP25 on December 2. Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:00, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Ach so, a procedure I didn't know about. Thanks NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:03, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
I generally don't like to have quality driven by schedule, and I think we have a LOT of work to do before peer review. But possibly we could get it done "on schedule". I wonder if there might be other good events/dates later in December, but I can see some desirability of hitting Dec. 2. How soon do want to start peer review? Is the whole of November sufficient for peer review? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:22, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
We could push towards the end of the COP (December 14?). That gives us two extra weeks. I think I need more outside input. A lot of things I don't like about the article still, but don't have the inspiration to know how to improve it. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Which is to say that 2 Dec. is a soft target (not a "dead" line), and we're okay if there's a few days slide. With the likely spike in public attention I'd rather aim for the earlier date. I'm willing to give it a try. What kind of schedule are looking at with peer review? And how does that fit in with FA? (I'm okay with not making FA by then, provided the article is "pretty damn close" to it.) ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Personally, I favor removing it from the schedule until completion of the rename process, and then, depending on teh outcome, making FA quality edits to reflect the outcome. That's far enough down the road that being on the calendar seems premature to me. But that's just me. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@JJ: I don't quite understand your question: And how does that fit in with FA? Could you clarify? @NEAG: would you favour having the renaming discussion first before peer review? That has some advantages. I'd like to start the renaming procedure here at the earliest when there is consensus that climate change's WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is this article and that it shouldn't refer to climatic changes in general. A possible, but tight, schedule is:

- launch renaming discussion for climate change on October 13.
- rename CC to whatever we decide on October 26
- launch renaming discussion for GW on October 27
- possibly rename GW on November 10 + insert changes
- Sign up for peer review November 17
- Have peer review completed December 17??
- Postpone TFA till January.

Considering we won't even make it in these conditions, I concur with NEAG that we should abandon our date in the calendar :(. We don't need a hook (why feature on that particular date) per se, but it would be good to have. Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:04, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Cripes, this again? It is quite a perennial issue.
NAEG is quite right that any considerations of name should precede FA consideration. Indeed, as the name sets the scope and focus of an article, setting the name should precede all other work. I had thought the matter was more or less settled to not rename ("move") this article, the last request to do so (June 2018) having been closed as "No move. It is apparent that there's a lack of consensus for any of the suggested titles", and the last discussion on this having fizzled out just last July. If this is not settled then we should STOP ALL WORK until we agree, permanently, on which direction we should be pulling. Which will certainly blow any schedule, but I don't see any way around that — unless we make a determination that the name is settled, and there is to be no "re-" about it.
Femke: you presume too much. Particularly, you presume that there will be a rename, perhaps anticipating a discussion result that is yet to come. I point out that this matter has already been discussed multiple times over the years, and every proposal to rename has failed for lack of consensus. If we have to do this again I think we should go the whole nine-yards and through every argument, even taking it to Arbcomm for a definite stake through the heart of the issue, so we don't have to keep revisiting it. I see two alternatives: either the name is settled, and we move on, or it is not, and we have a full and proper debate to settle it. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:30, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
@JJ. I agree that it's not certain we'll rename. I give it about a 50% chance that it'll work for this page.
Note, there is zero discussion about changing the scope of this article. It is already been written to cover the scope of the IPCC reports, there is little work in terms of content for this article. Only the first paragraph will need rewriting. Frankly, it doesn't make sense to stop all work if there is a renaming discussion coming up.
Let me point out that over the last 6 months I've analyzed past discussions, analyzed use of the terms in literature (Google, Google Scholar, UK parliament archives, Google books), read all relevant policy. Plus, the renaming discussion we're preparing is not a shot in the dark like the previous ones that got shut down before they properly started. This should be a discussion to settle it at least for another five years. I don't see Arbcomm getting involved in here as we have clear policies what to do in case of no consensus (no rename, and new discussions allowed).
Before we can start the discussion here, the 'easy' discussion to rename the climate change article must be held. I've collected ample evidence why its current title doesn't work in User:Femkemilene/sandbox Q1.1. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:09, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps we should move this discussion into its own thread, especially as I am unclear as to what kind of rename you would do that would entail only a rewrite of the first paragraph. Short of some very cogent argument that settles the matter in very short order, I am doubtful of FA status by December. And I think I shall have to spend more time at Talk:Climate change, which will delay completion of various tasks I have undertaken here. So for your initial question re signing up for peer review: at this point that seems premature. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:38, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Okay, clear. I'll postpone the TFA. There are different options in the air as a potential new name. I would propose climate change (as per UNFCCC definition), which corresponds with this article's scope and the IPCC reports. The article already uses global warming and climate change as near-synonyms. Other people propose things like human-caused climate change or global warming and climate change. I think we should not put the rename under a new threat YET as it is we should have one renaming discussion at the same time and the big fish to fry is the fact that the naming of the climate change article leads to widespread confusion (one example, we've got an estimated 4500 blue links that should come here but instead go to climate change). Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion for change to second sentence

What would you think about changing "It is a major aspect of current climate change," to "It is the main cause of current climate change,"?

Chidgk1 (talk) 08:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd argue greenhouse gases are the cause of climate change and global warming is either used as a synonym or it is a major aspect of climate change. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:11, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
(A) Human activities are the main cause, says IPCC.
(B) The sentence was created in the latest lead tweak that attempted to mollify complaints about the scope and title of global warming versus current form of climate change. When we solve the real issue this lead will likely be redone, and that's the best way to resolve Chidgk1's comment NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:17, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
I guess I was subconsciously making an assumption of global warming being defined as the average temperature change at the actual surface of the globe i.e. the land and ocean; whereas climate is a property of the atmosphere. But on further reading I understand the satellite to measure the surface temperature was only put up this century. I had not properly read the definition in the first sentence. So although I understand (correct me if I am wrong) in practice the warming is measured to be the same, I am guessing scientists stick with the definition in the first sentence to have a consistent series with 19th and 20th century land based weather station temperature measurements, which would be air temperature slightly above the surface. So I withdraw my suggestion as it would be inconsistent with the definition in the first sentence.Chidgk1 (talk) 14:28, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Satellite? Don't think any satellites were put up to measure surface temperatures, but satellites measurements of microwaves from the troposphere have been used to infer Satellite temperature measurements which are adjusted to relate to surface temperatures in the instrumental temperature record. . . dave souza, talk 19:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Thinking about this further I think the definition of "global warming" in the first sentence of simple:global warming will be better for non-scientists after I have made a slight tweak over there. Take a look if you have time and especially if you are good at explaining stuff to kids.Chidgk1 (talk) 15:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
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