Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy/Archive 31

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Three articles or one two??

I came here b/c I noticed the incubator draft article on this subject (which I obviously won't be transferring to mainspace unilaterally). I have no prior opinions, and clearly see from a review that a lot of people have some really strong opinions here...

Currently there are two articles on the incident:

this article, in theory about the incident itself
Climatic Research Unit documents, about the documents

This creates a problem because the controversy (or whatever you want to talk about) surrounding the content of the documents is by far the most covered aspect of the whole thing. That, of course, doesn't make it the most relevant thing necessarily though, leading to potential problems of undue weight.

There are two possible solutions. The first option is to rename this article to "Climatic Research Unit email controversy", "Climatic Research Unit document controversy", or some other variation as suggested above. This option has the benefit of not spreading things out too much, but the downside of de-emphasizing the incident which started the controversy.

The other solution, also suggested above, is to keep this article as is, but move the controversy material into a separate article, leaving only a summary here. This option reduces the chances of violating WP:UNDUE by allowing the third party reaction to the incident to be discussed in more detail. The downside, obviously, being that is spreads things out more.

I am willing to make a tough decision about whether there should be 2 or 3 articles, but certainly not unilaterally. As such, consider this a request for feedback on the two options. (There is currently a ton of discussion on the name, but considerably less on the possibility of spliting.) Please try not to get bogged down in the exact content of the (potential) article(s) for now, but instead concentrate on whether the content currently housed here is best handled in two articles or one. Thank you, ThaddeusB (talk) 00:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

It's definitely a tricky situation. One of the concerns is that most of the email controversy has been coatracked into this article, which should just be on the hack, while the controversy itself likely warrants its own article. I'm not entirely convinced one way or the other whether the "hacking incident" should remain as an article, but this article has become something that is better named "e-mail controversy" or something to that effect. We need some form of reorganisation of the content at the various pages -- this one, the documents one, and possibly some content from the "climategate" incubator (but without the title), but what form that eventually takes, I'm not sure. StuartH (talk) 05:54, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Stuart makes an excellent point here... I commented above that I think that the article should be titled with the unpopular and non-neutral name "Climategate"... however, I will amend my comments... I do agree that "Climategate" refers to more than purely the hacking of emails... it refers to an entire chain of events, including what occurred before the hack, what is alleged to have occurred before the hack, the hack itself, and what occurred after the hack.

So if this article is supposed to be purely about the hacking, then I can see not using "Climategate". That said... The problem with doing this is that such an article attempts to discuss the hacking without discussing any of the context that makes the hacking notable in the first place. I think that this is the reason why there has been a perception of coatracking in this article. The fact that someone hacked a bunch of email is not that notable... what is notable is what those email's said, how various groups interpreted what they said, the accusations and counter accusations that followed, and the fall out (and lack of fall out) that resulted. In other words, what is notable is "Climategate"... not the hacking. Blueboar (talk) 17:50, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

This was four months ago, but the article was originally was titled "Climategate" and was about the Climategate scandal. See here. Unfortunately, there have been a repeated series of edits which give undue weight to the fringe theory that the scandal is actually about the hacking. There's no need for a separate article. Just fix the undue weight problem. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I was originally in the "No name change - No new articles" camp. After reading comments by the Jimbo and others, I've come to think that claims of WP:UNDUE are justified. In my mind the "hack" itself seems notable, and the "contraversy" surrounding the documents seems notable. I would suggest then 2 pages, 1) Climatic Research Unit Hacking Incident covering details of the hack, and 2) Climatic Research Unit document controversy covering the contraversy that arose. Apologies for proposing a third solution and complicating.

I think if we are going to get anything done on this very contraversial page, we've got to setup a really clear poll on this issue.

P.S. This article has got far far more attention than it deserves. The world has moved on from this issue. There seem to be a bunch of conspiracy theorists keeping debate alive here. NickCT (talk) 18:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't think the disagreement is caused by conspiracy theorists. The media might have moved on, but we aren't a news source. Ignignot (talk) 19:03, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I, for one, am definitely not a conspiracy theorist... I am firmly in the "Climate change exists and is a concern" camp. However, I am a historian, not a scientist... so I am sure that I approach the entire topic from a different perspective than a scientist would. I have difficulty with isolating the hacking incident from the larger context surrounding it. Blueboar (talk) 19:19, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Really BlueBoar? It doesn't seem that hard to me seperate a "theft" from the thing that was stolen. NickCT (talk) 19:36, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this article was ever meant to be only a description of a hacking incident, and that is not what it is. It describes the known facts about that briefly and then goes on to discuss the major reactions to the incident, and it used to discuss the emails and documents too, and the notable reactions to those, but that has been moved into separate article for reasons of space. It also can and should go on to describe the effects the incident has had in the wider world. Much more about that will be clear when the investigations and reviews that are in progress begin to report. If anything becomes known about the incident's precursors and the selection of material for, and the creation the zip file, those elements of the incident too will be covered. --Nigelj (talk) 19:44, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

However, the title has been very useful in the last few months in maintaining the focus of the article - it's about an incident, its precursors, effects, reactions and ramifications, but it is not about 'everything that's wrong with climate science', science or scientists in general; it's not about errors in IPCC reports, or the cold winter we just had, or the Copenhagen conference, etc etc. With a vague - and getting vaguer - title like climategate it really would have been a coatrack for all of these things and much more. As it is, all these things have their own places in their own articles and we have a good structure. If there ever was a Climategate article, I think it should be about the term itself and all the meanings that have been attributed to it since its first usages back to at least 2008 (the domain name climategate.com was registered 5 Jan 08). --Nigelj (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I think everyone knows what Climategate is about, but if you think the term is nebulous, how about "Climategate scandal"? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I asked you this in a above thread and you never responded: What is climategate? Briefly describe it. In your explanation use two of the best sources you can find. Viriditas (talk) 21:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have missed it. Off the top of my head, here's a simple, one sentence definition of Climategate:

Climategate is a scandal^[1] that happened after private e-mails^[2] from the Climatic Research Unit were leaked onto the Internet.^[3]

Here's a slightly longer definition from Wiktionary[1]

A scandal involving the theft of computer records in November, 2009 which contained information about climate change research conducted at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England.

I'll search for sources in a couple hours. My dog has a basal cell tumor and is going for surgery tomorrow morning. I want to take her outside to play while it's still light out. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:20, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I can supply two more sources, although there is already a long list above at "List of reliable sources which use the term 'Climategate'" and another compiled by a different editor under "News sources referring to Climategate as a Scandal" on the talk page of the incubator article. Forthwith:

"Climategate" is a controversy that arose in November, 2009 following the unauthorized publication of electronic files on the subject of climate change research that had been obtained from a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England. from [[2]]

All those facts are found in articles from these two sources:

I think what Viriditas rightly wants to avoid is the suggestion that "scandal" would apply to the alleged actions of the scientists rather than to the public furor. Likewise, that "Climategate" would imply wrong-doing on the scientists' parts rather than refer to the whole event from hacking to public fallout. Note that the Slate article, which happens to have a hyperlink to this one, calls it the Climategate affair.

What must be accepted is that this is an encyclopedia, not a legal document or technical journal, and some readers will interpret words to mean one thing and others another. Yopienso (talk) 23:39, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I find it hard to take you seriously when you claim, as you do on the article incubator talk page, that you are working to try to gain "ascendancy over ideologues who want to spin it to the left." -- ChrisO (talk) 23:50, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Chris, please don't cherry-pick quotes to misconstrue my comments. The comment in full reads:

Please publish post haste! This, and Jimbo Wales' comments re. Climategate, renew my hope in the possibility that Wikipedia's stated principle of neutrality may regain the ascendancy over ideologues who want to spin it to the left. (Just please don't anyone accuse me of wanting to spin it to the right--I don't. Conservapedia exists for that purpose. It's dismaying when WP veers almost as sharply to the left as they do to the right--let's work together here for neutrality and verifiability.)

I take you very seriously as a threat to Wikipedia's neutrality and accuracy. [Whoops--another missed signature--sorry--signing several days later. Yopienso (talk) 14:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)]

Reply to Yopienso: The New Scientist link you provide above goes to a very short news item on the subject written by Fred Pearce. The term "climategate" is not used at all in the news article, but only in the headline, presumably for attention. The link to the Nature news brief, although only in abstract view, appears to use the term "climategate" in scare quotes, only in the headline. Could you provide a good source that uses the term consistently, in an actual article about the subject, and not in a headline designed to get the attention of readers? As editors have shown in the above threads, there are many articles on the subject that do not use the term "climategate" at all. Why should we use it? Viriditas (talk) 23:53, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

We should use it because it is the most widely used and recognized name for it and is far less awkward "The Climate Research Unit hacking incident."

The "ClimateGate" affair - the publication of e-mails and documents hacked or leaked from one of the world's leading climate research institutions - is being intensely debated on the web....As the repercussions of ClimateGate reverberate around the virtual community of global citizens... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8388485.stm Yopienso (talk) 00:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is my, very inexpert definition of what "Climategate" is:

Climategate is a chain of events, starting with various decisions made by several climatologists and discussed in a series of emails... these emails were subsequently hacked and made public... the emails, appear to show improprieties in the collection and retention of data concerning global temperatures readings and their release cause a public furor. This appearance of impropriety has, whether justified or not, resulted in increased public skepticism about the science behind climate change models, and an on-going decline in the amount of trust given to the scientific community by the general public on the subject of Global Warming.

No, that is not how I would phrase it in an article... but that is a broad outline. Blueboar (talk) 00:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Lots of people are following the line that 'climategate' started in November 2009. How does that square with the verifiable whois fact that climategate.com was registered in January 2008? Taking the historian's view of this implies that the events of Nov 2009 were long in the planning and part of a concerted effort by many people. It is widely surmised by reliable sources that the November date was simply chosen for the 'launch' of 'climategate' in view of the impending COP15 conference in December 09. The fact is that, until the history starts to get published, all of this is irrelevant to WP as it is WP:OR. Recently we counted at least seven independent reviews, investigations and enquiries under way into the CRU incident. When they start to report, people will have some facts to base the story upon and the story will be published and discussed. When that happens, we don't want to have to run around renaming articles again to come back into line with what comes out. Until we have reliable secondary sources, we do have enough evidence, and experience between us, to know to hold back on the speculation until more comes out. We are not investigative journalists any more than we are a news feed. There is more than enough doubt to know we should hold fire until more is known. --Nigelj (talk) 15:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"IPad" was used years before Apple Inc. made their product announcement, but that doesn't mean that the iPad article can't be named "iPad". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:25, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

True, so very true. Lightening the mood, have a look at: [3]91.153.115.15 (talk) 17:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Uninformed speculation

I've removed a reference to uninformed media speculation on the nature of the hacking. All reliable sources (those with access to actual evidence) are treating this as a hacking. The rest are engaged in a guessing game which has no informational value. Wait until the police investigations are completed. --TS 23:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Not true, at least two sources, including one, ComputerWorld with expertise in computer issues, have stated that it could be a leak from an insider. And, we include media observations and expert opinions in articles all the time. The statement that I added included the view that it was a hacker as well as possibly from a whistleblower (although I didn't use that word). So, what's wrong with a statement that gives both opinions, supported by reliable sources? Cla68 (talk) 00:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It's uninformed speculation, as I said. Handwaving. We discussed this to death and it evaporated like spiders webs. We go with the reliable sources. --TS 00:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Tony, your line of reasoning has already been debunked several times. Do I have to add an item to the FAQ? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Debunked in your mind perhaps, but Tony has a valid point. It's speculation by individuals and sources who have absolutely no direct knowledge of the case. What does it add? -- ChrisO (talk) 00:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It adds the fact that no one has established that the server was hacked. Besides, we're not supposed to decide whether reliable sources are "uninformed".

And Tony's comment is bogus. There are no reliable sources who have access to the actual evidence, as CRU and UEA cannot be considered reliable sources. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Do I honestly have to remind you that the threshold for inclusion on Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth? We have entire articles based on speculation. Even speculation that has been disproved. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:31, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I verified that Pearce reports that the data was hacked in New Scientist (2009-12-19) 204:2739. 4-5. Do we have reason to believe it wasn't? Viriditas (talk) 00:41, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The hacker could have been an insider. This is what expert analysis has indicated. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

According to whom and analysis of what data? They had holes in their servers going back to 2008. The simplest explanation is that anyone could have got the data. There's no need to appeal to an "insider" at all. And so what? Now that we've got the data, how does it change the face of climate science? Nothing has changed, and the shrill vocal cries of the climate deniers remains the same. Viriditas (talk) 01:06, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The "shrill vocal cries of climate deniers remains the same"? This is a very provocative statement. It presupposes that the documents indicate that nothing wrong took place, and that anyone suggesting otherwise is some sort of conspiracy theory lunatic. It's frankly a disgusting, intellectually bankrupt comment. I suggest you apologize for it to save some face. Macai (talk) 08:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you presuming and suggesting that something wrong took place? If so, what is it, and how has it impacted the climate science? If the answer is no and it hasn't, then who is "intellectually bankrupt" here? How much of our time has been wasted by foaming deniers complaining about climate science in the op-ed pages of American newspapers and on infotainment television shows, ranting, raving, and screeching about how climate science is a fraud and how scientists should be jailed and even executed? If anyone deserves an apology, it's the scientists who have been maligned and attacked by the cretinous talking heads for the last four months. Get to it. Viriditas (talk) 09:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

To some degree it adds an element of explanation for the public's perception of what occurred... which is just as important than what did or did not actually occur. Blueboar (talk) 00:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

We discussed before how this misrepresented what Computerworld actually wrote. I'm dismayed to see editors again misrepresenting the same source in the same way after having been corrected before.Hipocrite (talk) 01:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

This is the pattern: No matter how much discussion we have on each point, and no matter how many FAQ's we post, the same editors (and some new accounts with bright eyes and bushy tails) will show up to ask the same questions and pretend we didn't address them hundreds of times before. But, please, post the conclusions reached from the previous discussion on this below in brief bullet form. Viriditas (talk) 01:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to Tony's point which has already been discussed and debunked? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:11, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I have some sympathy with the notion that extensive speculation might at some point become significant. As far as I'm aware only a few isolated news articles have explored the possibility of an insider and none (no, not even Computerworld) have presented or even hinted at the possible existence of evidence to support this. A few months ago I was of a mind that, should the speculation become common public opinion, it might be worth mentioning (if only to underline that no reliable source has supported it). But that hasn't happened, so we're still going with the reliable sources and not bothering with the odd bit of guesswork.

Of course there are any number of blogs engaging in such speculation, but they're in the same boat as everybody else. A blogger is just a Wikipedia editor with a megaphone. --TS 01:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the media sources which have speculated on a "whistleblower" appear to be overwhelmingly op-ed sources. Actual news stories, on the other hand, speak overwhelmingly of the files being hacked or stolen. There seems to be a clear split here between the facts as they have been reported and the interpretation (or in this case, speculative repudiation) of those facts by individual commentators. As WP:RS says, "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements of fact without attribution." We are not doing anyone any favours if we mix reported facts and speculative interpretations by commentators who very often have an overt political agenda ("Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. However, some sources state that he was born in Kenya and is a secret Muslim").

By the way, the speculative lines in the article were appallingly badly written - "The Guardian, an article, states that..." Did nobody bother to read that before they pressed the "save page" button? -- ChrisO (talk) 07:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The missing "in" was my fault, and my fault alone. The earlier misrepresentation of sources was not, however. Hipocrite (talk) 13:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Informed Speculation

The article can be improved by not arguing that there is no reason to assume a leak rather than a hack. The appearance of the FOIA.zip article on the net should be treated NPOV.

From a hacker: "So you’re saying that any cave man can gain admin control of any WordPress blog at any time? Nope. There is a fix via a short script to patch the issue that is also well known. If you are saying that physical access of insider is the best explanation — I concur. A good root kit can do wonders, but physical access is better. When people have lost passwords, or a system won’t boot I routinely mount drives in another system (Linux or Windows) and pull of email files (hidden sometimes) and all the data files –as a courtesy aid to them. It’s quite straightforward. Even if the hard drive has a partial failure this works. Give a day or two to prep for an opportunity (writing parsing programs), then wait for the physical opportunity etc… I suspect that even under pressure I could have copied the files then created a program to obfuscate the email source and had it done in a weekend. Remote access slows down the process and requires good system control of the target workstations or server.I’m with you on this one, and could have done the work myself given a trusted position (or not even that trusted). This does not look like a script kiddy — not in the least. Professionally — I would never do what I am describing — except maybe this once.

As for the RC hack — I suspect that I would have found a password given access to CRU. So my sense is physical access is not necessary but made it 95% faster and gave 100% ability to do what was done." --Oiler99 (talk) 03:51, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Publishing climate data

According to my library system, Chadwyck-Healey published the climate data of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in 1992, and it has been publically available since that time. Can anyone talk about this dataset and whether it shows that CRU has a record of transparency that is being glossed over? Viriditas (talk) 00:19, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

This is not a forum for discussion. Are you suggesting an improvement to the article? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm suggesting that the claim that the CRU was "hiding" data is also bogus. We know that their dataset was corroborated by others, such as NOAA. The entire issue of "climategate" is a distraction. Viriditas (talk) 00:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Then go seek an Internet forum. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Better yet, why not document the incident in its entirety, from the beginning, like all good articles are supposed to do, perhaps starting with the December 2008 incident regarding the hole in CRU's web server. For an organization accused of hiding data, they sure didn't do a very good job of it. Viriditas (talk) 01:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It's quite the "distraction!" Phil Jones contemplated suicide, lost a stone, and is on beta-blockers and sleeping pills. He had to appear before Parliament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8502823.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8543289.stm

The e-mails show that Phil Jones, then-director of the influential climate unit at England's East Anglia University, refused to share his global temperature data, a key component of scientific evidence that the Earth is warming. Sidebar on recent USA Today page. http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-03-10-warming_N.htm Yopienso (talk) 01:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a significant topic, covered in outline at Climatic Research Unit documents#Freedom of information. We did discuss before how the raw data is held by archiving organisations, not by CRU. CRU update2 has a section on the point, headed "CRU climate data already ‘over 95%’ available". Also, in his statement, Jones says that "We have been bombarded by Freedom of Information requests to release the temperature data that are provided to us by meteorological services around the world via a large network of weather stations. This information is not ours to give without the permission of the meteorological services involved. We have responded to these Freedom of Information requests appropriately and with the knowledge and guidance of the Information Commissioner. We have stated that we hope to gain permission from each of these services to publish their data in the future and we are in the process of doing so." CRU Data Availability includes a link to a pdf of typical data agreements preventing full release, as with the NERC-Met Office agreement. In the scripted BBC interview, Jones responded that "Given the web-based availability of the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN), which is used by both NCDC and GISS, anyone else can develop their own global temperature record from land stations.... Before all the furore broke we had begun discussions with the Met Office for an updated set of station temperatures. With any new station dataset we will make sure we will be able to release all the station temperature data and give source details for all the series." This is emerging as a more significant topic than the original froth about "hiding the decline", and we'll have to improve our coverage of it. . dave souza, talk 10:21, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a big problem here that is contributing to the extraordinary length and contention of this page is that the more "activist" editors--perhaps not the precise word but the best I can think of at the moment, meaning those who have strong opinions on the guilt or innocence of the scientists and want to see only their opinion presented--are confusing a dispassionate narrative of events with a moral or criminal judgment. Our purpose is not to pass judgment but to tell "just the facts, ma'am," with impartial "So-and-so alleged..." "Other sources stated..." etc., not giving undue weight, of course, but neither ignoring any "inconvenient truths." Yopienso (talk) 14:39, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Our purpose also entails a responsibility to use reliable sources with care and discrimination. Although Joe Friday never uttered the words, "just the facts, ma'am," the process of collecting the "facts" (eyewitness testimony) from witnesses did not end there. Editors must at all times demonstrate common sense and good judgment using reliable sources, and they need to be used wisely. A good example of what I'm talking about can be seen, ironically, in a mistake that I myself made using a source, demonstrating poor judgment, based on my own ignorance. You can find it here. We do not simply copy and paste what sources say. Viriditas (talk) 02:58, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Hiding the decline

With this edit, A Quest For Knowledge described e-mails including discussions of "how to 'hide the decline' in temperatures" as a major focus of the scandal. That focus is covered in the Documents sub-article, and is well covered in Part two: How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies | Environment | guardian.co.uk as an email soundbite which is demonstrably false. Think we should put additional coverage of that "major focus" in this article? . . dave souza, talk 19:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The brand-new account that added that line looks very much like a Scibaby sockpuppet and has been reported to checkuser for investigation. I would like to remind AQFK that restoring a banned editor's edits is not permitted. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:06, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty bad that AQFK is restoring obviously invalid edits from a pretty obvious Scibaby sock. Hipocrite (talk) 20:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I see that semi-protection recently expired, which explains Scibaby's return. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:14, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Prolog has now restored semi-protection, though only for a couple of weeks. I've asked him to consider a longer period of semi-protection given Scibaby's persistence. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:21, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"Hide the decline"

This has been done to death. Please check the archives.

An article on Climategate without the "hide the decline" quote is like an article about the Munich Pact without the "peace in our time" quote. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you comparing Imhofe and Palin to Goebbels? ;-) More seriously, presumably you want a well sourced but brief statement on that much misrepresented quote. The source cited above covers its misuse admirably, will see what I can do. . dave souza, talk 20:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think the quote should be included. If you include the quote without any context or explanation of what it refers to or what it means, it's materially misleading. If you then include the context and explanation, you just duplicate the lengthy explanation that is at Climatic Research Unit documents#Climate reconstruction graph. There is also an issue of undue weight in highlighting just this particular e-mail. Bear in mind that the paragraph in question is merely a short summary that leads into Climatic Research Unit documents. It's preferable to describe the e-mails broadly without going into specific details, as then you don't end up with the problem of having to provide detailed context and explanations that duplicate the content of the documents article. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:37, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"If you then include the context and explanation, you just duplicate the lengthy explanation that is at Climatic Research Unit documents#Climate reconstruction graph." Then maybe that article should be deleted and we move that content here?
"There is also an issue of undue weight in highlighting just this particular e-mail". Dude, you're not getting WP:UNDUE. That quote is probably the most famous part of the entire controversy. It's against undue weight to not include it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:48, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Okay chaps, you know you can use any blog or forum on the internet to engage in this badinage. On Wikipedia it's off-limits. Discuss how to improve the article here.

AQFK--you would be right about the "hide the decline" quote in your 2 comments in this section, except for two facts:

1. This article includes allegations that "....climate scientists colluded[1] to withhold scientific information,"

2. The documents article has a whole 30-line section dedicated to that quote.

I think that takes care of it pretty well.

Dave--that's Phil Jones to Chamberlain! No decline in our time. ;) Yopienso (talk) 22:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Minor update – Statisticians reject global cooling - Environment- msnbc.com, more links at Global cooling bites the dust: Hottest January followed by second hottest February. Now March is busting out. « Climate Progress. Could be useful in other articles. . . dave souza, talk 22:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Hide the decline" pt 2

Actually, I don't think we've discussed it since the sub-article was created. If you can point me to that discussion, I'll take a look. I think that this is the first time I noticed that one of the most famous quotes from this topic isn't in the article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it's beyond obvious that the "hide the decline" quote incited controversy. Some say it has an innocuous background, others say it looks real bad. Show the quote, give both sides. It's not our job to say whether this quote should have caused controversy. It did cause controversy. End of story. -- Chadhoward (talk) 21:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Please do include relevant cited references in the article. Moaning about it here is marginally off-topic. --TS 23:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me? Discussing improving the article is "marginally off-topic"? May I remind you that nobody owns this article? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Go ahead and put some suitable, relevant material into the article. I have already commented that one section ostensibly devoted to improving the article was really just a moan-a-thon. Try not to prove me right. --TS 23:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Appropriate material added, briefly summarising the source discussed above. . . dave souza, talk 10:01, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I could prove you right even if I tried. In any case, how about merging the sub article back into this one? I think there's general consensus that the documents article is about as WP:NPOV as we're likely to get, so there shouldn't be any WP:NPOV concerns to add it back. Then we can delete the subarticle. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:05, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Propose a merge if you like. We got to this point by a process that I described here. It worked for me. Do whatever works for you. --TS 00:14, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I just thought I'd say that if (and only if) the documents article is merged back into this one, I would switch my !vote on the proposed name change to support, although I still think "documents" is better than "email". -- Scjessey (talk) 14:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Support merge and redirect back to this article. I've looked at the sources and we only require one article. Viriditas (talk) 21:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I would also like to see the documents article merged back in. Simon, the issue of this article's title and the future status of the documents article are really two separate things - please don't let the latter issue hold up a resolution of the first. If we can get that bigger issue out of the way we can get on with developing the article(s) properly without the endless distraction of the title. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:09, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate what you are saying, but I'm going to have to stand firm on this. I cannot support the name change unless the merger occurs. Obviously I am just one voice in this, and I can't filibuster the process; nevertheless, my support is conditional on the merger and I will probably throw my toys out of the pram if I don't get my way :D -- Scjessey (talk) 14:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Mike's Nature trick ... to hide the decline

I'm not willing to make any changes to this article myself, but I'll note that the following two sentences in the "Content of the documents" section are, in my opinion, NPOV and clumsy;

Many commentators quoted an e-mail referring to the "trick", or clever but legitimate technique, used in Mann's graph to deal with the well known tree ring divergence problem and "hide the decline" that particular proxy showed for modern temperatures after 1950, when measured temperatures were rising. These phrases were taken out of context by some climate change sceptics as though they referred to a decline in measured global temperatures, even though they were written when temperatures were at a record high.

I'd like to change the text as follows simply because I think it reads better;

For example some commentators quoted an e-mail referring to "Mike's Nature trick ... to hide the decline". While Jones has confirmed that the email is genuine, he and other commentators contend that the phrases were taken out of context. Jones states that "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do." <ref>Schiermeier, Q., "Storm clouds gather over leaked climate e-mails" <i>Nature</i> 462, 397 (2009)</ref>

My contention is that more detailed handling of the various opinions, explanations and responses belongs in the "Responses" section, whereas this section is only meant to give a short overview of the documents themselves.Thepm (talk) 22:15, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Your proposal weakens and misrepresents the clear majority view. It misses out the essential explanation, evident from the emails and context, that the "decline" relates to the divergence problem with proxies, not with measured global temperatures. It's not just Jones stating this, it's evident to the reputable science journalist who we cite. My own preference is for wording which accurately paraphrases the source –

The most quoted soundbite refers to the "trick", or clever but legitimate technique, used in Mann's graph to deal with the well known tree ring divergence problem and "hide the decline" that particular proxy showed for modern temperatures after 1950, when measured temperatures were rising. This was widely misrepresented as though it meant a decline in measured global temperatures, even though it was written when temperatures were at a record high.

The current wording isn't as good, and the start of the first sentence really should be improved. . . dave souza, talk 22:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

That's okay in principle but the grammar is weak (I find it almost unreadable as British English). Try:

The most quoted soundbite refers to the "trick", or clever but legitimate technique, used in Mann's graph to deal with the well known tree ring divergence problem and "hide the decline [shown by that particular proxy for modern temperatures after 1950, when measured temperatures were rising]." This was widely misrepresented as though it meant a decline in measured global temperatures, even though it was written when temperatures were at a record high.

--TS 23:01, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Having said that, the "Hide the decline" thing was some desperate nonsense that appeared on blogs in late November and early December, was quickly debunked and has played no significant part in any serious controversy since then. The only reason I can see for covering it now would be to make climate skeptics look pathetic. Why is so much talk page activity here of late centered around that? Trolling talk pages with long-dead arguments wastes our time and makes it look like we're digging up this ancient nonsense just to give it another kicking. --TS 23:19, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

From what I can see the issue started with this edit from Biltmowre, a now-blocked Scibaby sock, reverted and then re-added by A Quest For Knowledge. It's become a honey-pot ever since. --Nigelj (talk) 23:30, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

So, Scibaby is secretly batting for Team Science? Weird. These trolls are so difficult to read. --TS 23:36, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec)"The only reason I can see for covering it now would be to make climate skeptics look pathetic" This is a major focus of the scandal, perhaps the most famous. We simply report back what reliable sources say about a matter. If it makes climate skeptics look pathetic, that's not our concern quite frankly. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:39, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Well the reason I describe it as "the only reason" is because this subject is not what reliable sources are reporting on over the breadth of the affair. To dredge up this nonsense probably has no encyclopedic purpose here, though it might be part of more complete coverage in the other article, which can afford the space to discuss the development of the issue. --TS 23:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. We have to cover the controversy whether it's legit or not. In any case, I'm in favor of re-adding the sub-article's content back into this article. If we end up doing that, then this discussion and the article edits are moot. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

There's some contentious editing going on here on the definition of "trick." Is it necessary to define the word here? Doesn't the other article deal with that? If there's a consensus to define, I would go with the official Penn State wording, but it makes this recently-discussed sentence even more unwieldy. If a definition is inserted, the sentence needs to be broken into two more readable sentences. Yopienso (talk) 01:09, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

For the article to be balanced, there should at some point, be a non-judgemental explanation of what caused the controversy. Central to the initial controversy (or, at the very least, a very good illustration of what caused the initial controversy) is the extract "Mike's Nature trick ... to hide the decline". When the documents were first made available, it was widely quoted and a central discussion point. For that reason, to my mind, it belongs in the "Contents of the Documents" section. A detailed rebuttal of the criticisms that caused the controversy belongs in the "Responses" section. Nowhere in the documents does it say that "trick" is a "legitimate technique" or a "colloquial term" (although this may well be the case). Those explanations or rebuttals were made in response to the initial criticsms and a balanced account will deal with them separately. We need to move beyond this article being a coatrack for or against AGW and move toward it being an historical account of the CRU breach/hack and the ensuing controversy. Thepm (talk) 04:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

"and a balanced account will deal with them separately" - No. Criticism sections are a blight. We're writing an encyclopaedia, not a detective novel - we deal with the issues in one place. Guettarda (talk) 05:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe I've taken care of the unwieldy sentence that Yopienso pointed out. Good suggestion.--CurtisSwain (talk) 05:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Well done, that's much better. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:23, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. Yopienso (talk) 20:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

The controversy

Sources for couple of controversy issues: South Dakota's legislation, originally intended to include in climate science astrological and thermological dynamics but subsequently simplified a bit, and Senator Inhofe calls for criminal investigation of climate scientists. . . dave souza, talk 21:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Reliability of Climate Audit

ChrisO has removed a "blog-sourced" statement about the opinion of some skeptics. The blog in question is Climate Audit. Isn't Climate Audit a reliable source for the purpose of establishing the opinion of some climate skeptics? At the very least, it is certainly a reliable source for establishing the opinion of McIntyre. I would like to find out what the consensus is on this. At present the article misrepresents the opinion of SOME skeptics on "hide the decline" in quite an important way. Thparkth (talk) 20:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Climate Audit is a reliable source for it's own opinion, however, WP:WEIGHT should be established. Given that there are dozens of third-party reliable sources on the Climategate scandal, it shouldn't be too difficult to find some. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:18, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

And which climate scientists have expressed this opinion? Viriditas (talk) 21:24, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a reliable source for McIntyre's opinion. But why do we want McIntyre's opinion? If it's notable enough to include, we should be able to source it off a secondary source. If it's not covered by a secondary source, it's worth asking why we are interested in that particular primary-sourced, self-published comment. Guettarda (talk) 23:36, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales' editorial status

Moot, off-topic and definitely not useful here. Please find a more suitable place to discuss this subject.

This is wrt several comments from a few days ago asserting that Jimbo Wales is merely a contributor like the rest of us. While he is the very model of discretion, restraint, and civility, his walking softly doesn't mean he doesn't carry a big stick, even though he rarely wields it:

Apart from that, on occasion, "higher" bodies (e.g. the Arbitration Committee, Board of Trustees, or Jimbo Wales) can impose decisions regardless of consensus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Polling_is_not_a_substitute_for_discussion

Thank you, Jimbo, for Wikipedia and your fine example of respect for others. Yopienso (talk) 20:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

As Hans Adler has said above, Jimbo is effectively "some kind of constitutional king. He doesn't decide such things: because it wouldn't be healthy for the community." Please go and read Wikipedia:Appeals to Jimbo, which may clear up some misconceptions for you. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

? WP:DONTBOTHER doesn't address Yopienso's points. It states that appeals to Jimbo are generally not worthwhile, it says nothing of his editorial status. Are there other guidelines concerning this you could point us towards? Heyitspeter (talk) 00:02, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales had a surprising amount to say about it, Peter, right here. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=349311726&oldid=349308330 He speaks as a rational, informed person who in essence is saying that of course the row is called 'Climategate.' But the biased editors who insist that only fringe groups use the terms will never be convinced. There's no use trying; Wikipedia loses this round to bias. Maybe the whole game. Mr. Wales seems content to let his creation run wild.

Chris, the misconception is yours--I had no intention of appealing to Jimbo Wales. I was just saying that he reserves the right to make unilateral decisions. My personal opinion, which none need share, is that he is due a certain amount of respect just because he is, as Hans calls him, the "constitutional king." Whether or not I agree with him has no bearing on my respect for him. For the record, I totally agree with this:

One can firmly believe in science, the scientific method, the scientific consensus, etc., and still acknowledge the simple truth that the name of this incident which matches Wikipedia policy is "Climategate". I'm quite sure you wouldn't deny that this is, in fact, a scandal - and even some of the scientists involved have admitted that some of the emails were 'pretty awful', etc. If there's anything partisan here, it is the attempt to control political language by Wikipedia editors, no matter how well-intentioned. It is not up to Wikipedia to decide what it is called - it is up to the world at large, and they have - overwhelmingly - decided.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

And I totally disagree with his allowing those editors to pursue their harmful agenda. Regardless, I respect him. Yopienso (talk) 00:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Insofar as I understand the rules, the only legitimate argument left for not using "Climategate" is WP:IAR. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't see that as a legitimate argument, since WP:IAR is about not getting bogged down in rules when common sense will produce an improvement.

"If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_%22Ignore_all_rules%22_means

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Understanding_IAR

Since no one has responded to my last link above to the BBC, I think it's been established that the correct term for the row is "Climategate":

The "ClimateGate" affair - the publication of e-mails and documents hacked or leaked from one of the world's leading climate research institutions - is being intensely debated on the web....As the repercussions of ClimateGate reverberate around the virtual community of global citizens... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8388485.stm Yopienso (talk) 00:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The University of East Anglia itself used the term in January:

"Sir Muir Russell is currently conducting an Independent Review of the issues surrounding what has become known as ‘Climategate’ and we very deliberately made our handling of FOI requests part of the terms of reference. I look forward to receiving his report and as I have said before it will be published and I will act accordingly if he finds there is indeed substance in these allegations." http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/vcstatement

Therefore, there's no reason not to use it, although my personal preference would be to enclose it in quotation marks. Yopienso (talk) 01:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That isn't even remotely approaching the reality of what we're discussing here, but whatever floats your boat. I find it disappointing that the co-founder of the project is so eager to flout and disregard our policies and guidelines on the neutral point of view regarding article titles, and just as disappointing that the pro-Climategate faction is championing and enshrining his every word as if it is a pronouncement from the Oracle. Tarc (talk) 01:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Tarc: If reliable sources have adopted "Climategate" as the common name for this topic, that means it is neutral. (Again, boldfacing the "if" that begins so many of my sentences.) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

<ec> ChrisO is right about Jimbo's status and how his thoughts have the same credence as those of any other editor. However, the quote above is not The Final Thought on the subject from Jimbo – in this later comment

"Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy will be fine. The main point for me is that it eliminates the false notion that the scandal is primarily about the emails being leaked/hacked... this isn't news because it is a "hacking incident" but because of the content of the emails and documents. That's the key point for neutrality.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:36, 17 March 2010 (UTC)"

Is this the final word from The Oracle? It doesn't really matter, what counts is the emerging talk page consensus. And a BBC article from 1 December 2009 doesn't establish that the term has continuing significance, any more than occasional mentions in reliable sources that partisan sources have used the term. . . dave souza, talk 02:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Talk page consensus cannot be used to override WP:NPOV. WP:NPOV specifically states that it "cannot be superseded by ... editors' consensus" and it's one of Wikipedia's three core content policies, not to mention one of the five pillars. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:55, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Dave, for that update on Mr. Wales' opinion. Mine may also change re. how important this issue is. What can't change is the fact that Wikipedia at present is out of step with the mainstream media in not using the term, "Climategate," particularly as a title. You must not have noticed the 7 February and 1 March BBC articles I linked to recently. My question is, "On what basis is Wikipedia refusing to use the term 'Climategate'?" Please support all answers with reliable sources. My perception is that our refusal to adopt the widely used and recognized term makes us look silly and POV. Many of us have given dozens of reliable sources that show "Climategate" to be the most widely recognized term. Try asking your office mates tomorrow about the "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" and see if, after some groping for ideas, they don't say, "Oh, you mean 'Climategate'!" Yopienso (talk) 14:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
You started off this section rushing to the defense of Jimbo, which he really doesn't need any help on, and isn't the appropriate place to talk about it. Then you use that to immediately segway into a revival of an argument about the naming of the article, that has been absolutely 'done to death', and also has an appropriate place to talk about it. These arguments have a tendency to take over and fill any section where they are referenced, like a gas expanding to fill the space it occupies. Unfortunately here space is infinite, so the arguments are going on forever. Please don't find new places for that to happen. Ignignot (talk) 15:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

It needs to be pointed out that if we violate WP:NPOV and WP:TITLE, then people are going to keep coming in to complain about it. That shouldn't surprise anyone. If we named the Kristallnacht article the "German broken glass incident", people are naturally going to say, WFT?! A Quest For Knowledge (talk)
Stop it.Ignignot (talk) 17:11, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I already invoked Godwin's law a few weeks ago. Nobody listened. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Kristallnacht basically means "glass night" in German. It does not even mention that it was broken. It is a poor analogy. The Four Deuces (talk) 18:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
It's a fine analogy if you understand what I'm getting at. If we're not using the common name, people will keep asking why. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
It was an excellent example. In English Kristallnacht works as a title because it's just a name. English speakers can guess that it means something like "crystal night", but it's not really descriptive. In German, however, it is both the most common name to refer to the event and descriptive, expressing an anti-semitic POV. Which is why the German Wikipedia doesn't use the common name as a title. It also doesn't use the recent coinage Pogromnacht. It uses the descriptive title de:Novemberpogrome 1938. They have slightly different policies than we do, but as you can see they led to the same result in this case: Titles that express a POV about a current debate are out unless it is the POV of the overwhelming majority.

By the way, you are still lecturing other people about policy, aren't you? Is there any indication that you understand it? Hans Adler 20:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't work on the Germany version of Wikipedia so I have no idea what the rules are there. But here in the English version, POV-titles are legitimate article titles if they're the common name. See Jack the Ripper, Corrupt Bargain, Great Leap Forward and many others.[4] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:30, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I will simply assume that you know what you says makes no sense because in section #"Flow diagram" for checking a title we reached a point where it had to become absolutely clear to you, and that's the point where you stopped answering my arguments. Hans Adler 20:35, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Hans, your flow diagram is wrong on point #2. Per ~~WP:V~~ WP:NPOV, "Where proper nouns such as names are concerned, disputes may arise over whether a particular name should be used as (or in) an article title. Wikipedia takes a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach in such cases, by using the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources; proper names for people or events which incorporate non-neutral terms - e.g. Boston massacre, Tea Pot Dome scandal, Edward the Confessor, Jack the Ripper - are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources." And actually, you were the one who stopped answering my arguments. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

This comment is so strange that it's really hard to respond in a coherent way. So I will just address several independent points:

What you are quoting is from WP:NPOV, not WP:V, just in case anybody wants to look it up. By the way, my little policy reader has been archived and can now be found here.

You can't prove that point 2 doesn't belong in the diagram by coming up with another point that also belongs there (i.e. what you quoted from WP:NPOV).

What you quoted is point 3 of my flow diagram.

Points 1 and 2 are from WP:TITLE#Descriptive titles.

It doesn't make much sense for you to attack point 2 anyway. Without it it would be harder to use a title, not easier.

It seems to me that you continue to ignore the meaning of the words "used" and "consensus" in the passage that you are citing. Applied to our case it doesn't mean more than half the sources have the word somewhere, perhaps in quotation marks or introduced with "so-called". It means almost all sources use the word, and do so without any qualifiers. Hans Adler 22:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The overarching guiding principle to article titles, on the English Wikipedia, has been, is currently, and likely will be for the foreseeable future: Wikipedia:Use common names. That is the first idea expressed in every Naming convention, and there is a good reason for that. This is a ridiculous example of POV pushing at it's worst, and from exactly the group of people who shouldn't be doing that, since their some of the core editors of Wikipedia. This whole subject area has been turned into a surreal quagmire for months now, and over a fairly straightforward current events style article. Get back with the program here, folks. (*goes back to ignoring this silliness* hopefully the RM will close soon, so it's not continually in my face any longer. Sheesh!).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:26, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

There are some necessary exceptions to this "overarching guiding principle" and they have been codified in policy. It is simply not on to ignore them just because you don't like the result of applying them to the present case. That's known as cherry-picking. I don't know if that's what you are doing or if you just don't know about the exceptions. But that's what A Quest For Knowledge is doing. Hans Adler 09:44, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

What exceptions? You appear to be making up rules that have no basis in policy. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

What Ohms said. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:31, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
What I said. When you realise your position is untenable you simply withdraw from reasonable debate and try something else. This makes it appear a bit pointless to argue with you at all. Hans Adler 01:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

You're right about one thing. If I can't get my point across, I try something else. I was hoping that Ohms law, a very respected editor here, might get you to realize that your interpretation of Wikipedia policies is wrong. Clearly, my hope was unfounded. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe that was a bit too optimistic on your side. If Jimbo can't convince me without providing any actual argument, why should Ohms law? Hans Adler 09:41, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

So Jimbo, Ohm's law and me haven't provided an argument, only you? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

You got it. Hans Adler 13:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

"What Ohms said" is a carefully-parsed half-truth. We follow ALL policies, namely WP:NPOV. We don't get to cherry-pick the single one that supports one's position and ignore the rest. Tarc (talk) 01:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

But see, that's an argument in favor of "Climategate". The letter and spirit of WP:NPOV is that we, as Wikipedia editors, are not allowed to overrule reliable sources. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:55, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

"Overrule reliable sources"? There are reliable sources that discuss naming and usage? Please share these sources that you claim are being overruled. It's not very nice to keep them to yourself. Guettarda (talk) 02:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I do hope that you actually have sources that discuss this. It would really not be very nice if you were intentionally deceiving your fellow editors. Guettarda (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
If you're asking about etymology, no, that's not something I've researched. But if you're asking what is the common name used by reliable sources, then I direct you to this List of reliable sources which use the term Climategate. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

No, you clearly said "we, as Wikipedia editors, are not allowed to overrule reliable sources". So either you're talking about sources for usage, or you're making false claims. Because anecdotes do not make data. Your list is original research, not a reliable source. It's cherry-picked list that doesn't even bother to distinguish between usage and usage in scare quotes. Far more importantly, it says nothing, not a thing at all, about usage - do these sources use the term predominantly, or very rarely? Only in quotes, or never in quotes? The plural of anecdote is not data. More to the point though, if you're going to accuse people of ignoring sources, you need to provide sources. Sources that address usage. You either need to provide sources on usage, or you need to stop making false accusations against your fellow editors. It's that simple. Guettarda (talk) 14:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Like I said, I haven't researched the etymology of the term. However, CNN provides a definition here: Q&A: 'Climategate' explained. As for the quotes, that's not a qualification mentioned in WP:NPOV or WP:TITLE. So, you're making up a rule that doesn't exist. But even if you weren't making up rules that don't exist, I've already done some research into this area. I cross referenced some of the articles listed here with a history textbook and a political science textbook and found many instances of sources using the common name in quotes. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't pretend that you are not only ignorant of the use-mention distinction but also haven't even got an intuitive grasp of it. In this entire paragraph I am using the word "ignorant" once and mentioning the word "ignorant" twice. The policy speaks about use of the word.

Moreover, the policy's intent is very clear: Mentioning how NPOV a word is by checking whether it's used by a wikt:consensus (you also seem to conveniently ignore the meaning of that word, too) of sources. Therefore any source that makes it clear that it feels uneasy about using the term obviously doesn't count. Hans Adler 20:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Would someone please provide a reliable source that uses the phrase "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" to refer to the unauthorized publication of emails exchanged among climate scientists at the UEA? Yopienso (talk) 22:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
That's not what we are discussing here. The question were are discussing here is whether Climategate is a policy-compliant name. I am arguing that it is no more policy-compliant than the current name (or at least not much more so). I have proposed renaming this article to a policy-compliant name. You still have the chance to support the #Requested move. Hans Adler 01:04, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Using the imperative, you are asking AQFK not to pretend that he is not ignorant of the use-mention distinction (I missed the part where he claimed to know of or understand it)... or are you accusing him of not knowing/understanding it? And "haven't even"? Of course he wouldn't have an intuitive grasp of something of which he was ignorant. Talk about trouble with parsing and syntax!

Also, and more importantly, how is your above post not a perfect example of WP:OR itself? Or do you have reliable sources which indicate why certain other reliable sources sometimes place the word "Climategate" in quotes? To wit, how do you know that they feel uneasy about the word? Or do you merely suppose it? Other reasons, perhaps its status as a neologism, are perfectly acceptable alternative reasons behind this particular use of quotations.

Furthermore, your argument doesn't hold water because what you refer to as "mentioning" is self-referential. I have not yet seen a reliable source that focuses on "Climategate" the word itself (looking at etymological development, etc.). Instead, the sources have always employed the term when discussing the scandal, "using" Climategate to refer to the scandal, not the word. Moogwrench (talk) 22:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Hans: I'm not sure that WP:NPOV and WP:TITLE observe the distinction between use-mention. They certainly don't say anything about it. Regardless, if I produced a list of reliable sources which use (as opposed to mention) the term "Climategate", would that resolve your concern on this matter? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Here's one:

You need a steady nerve if, like me, you think it is a matter of evidence, not belief, that the world is warming as a result of human activity. After Climategate — the emails that appeared to show scientists using tricks to “improve” the evidence for global warming... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6999815.ece

Yopienso (talk) 00:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
It seems clear that right or wrong, there will be no consensus for a change of the article name to 'Climategate' or any variation thereof in the near future. Jimbo himself has expressed his support for the compromise rename which looks almost certain to go ahead. Given all this, is there any point in continuing this particular discussion? Will be article be improved in any way by editors here agreeing on who does or does not understand the use-mention distinction? Maybe it's time to call it a draw and shake hands before anyone gets provoked into making a starring appearance on the Requests for Enforcement page. ;) Thparkth (talk) 00:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed it's long since digressed from the original topic (which was never particularly relevant) of Jimbo Wale's editorial status Nil Einne (talk) 23:28, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

CRU Scientific Assessment Panel announced

CRU Announcement (22.3.2010) [5]

MSM coverage:

BBC [6] Guardian [7] Times Higher Education [8] Telegraph [9] 130.232.214.10 (talk) 16:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks very useful. Propose a new short paragraph in the UEA:

On 22 March 2009 the university announced the composition of an independent panel to reassess the science covered in key CRU papers which have already been peer reviewed and published in journals. The panel will be chaired by Lord Oxburgh, and members are to be members of the panel are: Professor Huw Davies of ETH Zurich, Professor Kerry Emanual at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor Lisa Graumlich of the University of Arizona, Professor David Hand of Imperial College London, and Professors Herbert Huppert and Michael Kelly of the University of Cambridge.

Any of the references would cover that statement, there don't seem to be individual articles for the unlinked names. . . dave souza, talk 18:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Would it be worth briefly mentioning each person's area of expertise? Thparkth (talk) 02:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

"dubbed climategate"

The dubbed climategate language in the lede was a long and complicated discussion that appeared to have reached consensus - which I stood aside from - that we would not bold it, not use it in paranthesis and not note who was the dubber. I was happy with bold and paranthesis, but I thought that just saying "well, it's climategate" was not fully factual. It was returned to the paranthesis and bolds from the lede without any note of it's genesis by Jprw, who I assume was unaware of the previous work on the topic. He and I were working out language through editing on the page, but then AQFK, who has made zero substantive edits to the article, decided to attempt a version even more sever than Jprw's first attempt.

I am basically finished dealing with AQFK - I find his unwillingness to listen to opposing viewpoints tiresome, and his willingness to twist policy to say what he wants it to say disingenuous. However, I feel that to just revert someone without noting why on a talk page is inapropriate, so I'll note it here for the record - you need to discuss and negotiate, either through iterative editing or talk pages, with people you disagree with. You cannot just take extreme positions and hope they cave to you. Hipocrite (talk) 18:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Why is the number of edits important? I think AQFK has brought a lot of substance to the table. I personally try to contribute by giving suggestions and raw data such as the section above for others to interpret. I have made zero actual edits on this article to date. Is my contribution not worth the effort? Time will tell. Are your contributions worth the effort? Time will tell.130.232.214.10 (talk) 18:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The "dubbed as" point is significant and was well discussed, the snowclone issue seems an unnecessary inference, so I've reformulated it to refer to it being a neologism commonly used by mass media. . . dave souza, talk 18:57, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec x2) Hipocrite's reference to snowclone is disingenuous, at best, and AQFK's edit summary gives adequate reason why it should not be in this article. Guidelines suggest "Climategate" should be bolded, as the redirect goes here, and {dubbed "Climategate" by global warming skeptics, but now generally accepted) seems reasonable. And it's an outright lie to say that AQFK has made no substantive edits to the article. On the other hand, I decline to speculate whether you (Hipocrite) have made any constructive substantive edits to the article. I can't say I recall any.

Dave's edit seems a reasonable approach, once the grammar is corrected. I don't think I should change it, but "which was commonly been used" probably should be "which commonly has been used", or if one wishes to split infinitives, "which has commonly been used". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, grammatical tweaks which keep the substance will be welcome. I've no comment to make here on other editors. . . dave souza, talk 19:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Of course, with his second revert of the day (1rr!), Dave has been reverted by Jprw. I have numerous content edits to this article, most of which have stuck. I am happy to detail them to you, but as compensation for me taking the time to detail them, you will have to agree to 0rr across all climate change articles. Hipocrite (talk) 19:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That they've stuck doesn't mean they're constructive. Still, I probably shouldn't have said that. I was trying to avoid the obvious reference to your user name being descriptive rather than nominative, which I still don't believe to be the case. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:43, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm eagerly awaiting your request that I detail my edits so you can determine if I'm being hypocritical. How much do you really have to lose, being placed on 0rr across all climate change articles? Only one non-sock needs to ask! Hipocrite (talk) 19:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I've introduced new wording once, Jprw again removed "dubbed" in Jprw's second revert, so I've dropped a reminder at user talk:Jprw suggesting self-revert and discussion. . . dave souza, talk 19:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

If you wish to define the history of the word, the proper place would be in the body. The use of the word is hardly limited to AGW skeptics at this time, so the strained definition in the lead is both out of place, and wants to present a specific point of view. I see no reason to change Jprw's very short, neutral, and concise wording. Arzel (talk) 20:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Here's a second endorsement of Jprw's formulation, per Arzel. Diff. Thanks! -- Pete Tillman (talk) 20:35, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

(e/c)I don't really see the difference between "often referred to" and "dubbed". And uh... it is usually referred to as "Climategate" in the media. With quotes. Ignignot (talk) 20:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

AQFK is one of a tiny few editors in these climate change pages who is sincerely committed to Wikipedia's neutrality. Add my voice to those supporting his improved wording. Alex Harvey (talk) 22:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The lede is wrong as long as the topic is the incident and not the controversy. I don't think anybody is calling the hack Climategate; the controversy is what carries that moniker. The successful name change should change that, however. Moogwrench (talk) 23:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, 130, Arthur and Alex. I appreciate the kind words. To be honest, I think we've made some nice progress over the last month or so. It appears as if there's widespread support for compromise name above and I've prepared a ToDo list of the remaining POV issues per Franamax's request.[10]. We're close, guys. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

So this is a campaign, then? With two competing sides? And you 'represent' the side making progress? Please explain how that relates to WP:NOT. --Nigelj (talk) 10:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes Yes YES! We represent the side that is not going: no... No... NO!!! all the time. (an attempt at humor)85.76.222.195 (talk) 10:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with following WP:NPOV. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I felt that the changes I made were copy editing ones -- it just seems to sound better now, but may still be able to be improved -- "often referred to as...in the media", for example. There seems to be an additional fixation that it is only sceptics of AGW that refer to it in this way, but on what basis are people saying this? Is there any evidence? If so, I will retract my wording in good faith. Jprw (talk) 09:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

That's right, the name, in quotes, is used by the media to refer to this, so simply saying "skeptics call it Climategate" is no longer tenable. I agree with the current language: "(often called "Climategate" in the media)," (after these two diffs [11]) and we could even leave out "in the media". We don't need the longer explanation in the lead because the topic just isn't that important, although it could be discussed in the body of the article (see the links I've provided in this comment). It's been noted before that these names tend to start out as part of partisan rhetoric then spread to people who are not partisans, get used in the media (first within quote marks, as has now happened) and may eventually simply become the name used by everyone. Isn't this how the words "Tory", "Whig" and "Yankee" and "Nutmegger" all start out -- as jeers taken up by even the ones jeered at? When a good number of sources such as the BBC and Washington post start calling it "Climategate" without quotes in their news stories, it'll be time to change the article name to that. By that point, the name "Climategate" may refer to a broader set of incidents, too. Just remember that it's an evolving name and as the facts change, it will eventually come up again for discussion. I hope the next time it's suggested for the article name that there will be a good number of news accounts from very reliable news organizations where the first reference to "Climategate" is not in quotes. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 16:32, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Just one quick point: the NY Times in a recent article said that climategate was how it was referred to by critics. I think that would be a good qualification to add, sourced to the Times. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:03, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

But you can't go by what just one says. Other articles don't present it that way. [12] [13] [14], note the headline here [15] [16] (Agence France Press: dubbed "climategate" in the British media) -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:58, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, John. Your footnote 46 goes to an article in the Telegraph dated 22 Mar 2010 uses "'Climategate' inquiry" in the title, "climategate' scandal" in the lede, refers to "a scandal known as 'climategate'" further into the article, and continues on to use "climategate" without scare quotes twice: "Prof Kerry Emanuel has commented on climategate before and is from the university at the centre..." and "One of the ongoing inquiries about climategate has already been criticised for employing scientists who were felt to have already made up their minds..."

Since I started writing this the footnote number has changed from 46 to 5. I'll just repaste it here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7498279/Climategate-inquiry-led-by-oil-boss.html Yopienso (talk) 02:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The newspaper distances itself from the name by putting it in quotes. But it doesn't simply say that only people who don't believe in AGW use the term, which was my point. Using the word in quotes seems to be the practice of the most reliable sources. If only for convenience, I think the quotes will eventually come off. If any of the official inquiries into this announce that they've found wrongdoing enough to punish anyone for anything, we'll likely see the quotes come down sooner because to use the word without quotes is to confirm that this is a scandal -- at least while it's still controversial. Eventually, when this story is no longer really reported on by the news media, the quotes will come off anyway, because there is no more convenient word for this than "Climategate" and no other name has stuck. The Telegraph seems to me to be a little ahead of the pack in dropping the quotes from the word further down in its article, but it goes against the grain of a newspaper to keep using quotes around the same word, and by initially using quotes they made their point high in the story that they don't consider the word theirs to use unreservedly. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Global warming sceptics tried to used the leaked memos to evidence that global warming science is a hoax which to them makes it a scandal. If it turns out that they are correct then the "Climategate" term will stick. Otherwise it will remain partisan terminology, like homicide bombers, Islamofascism and death panels. The Four Deuces (talk) 18:27, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

No, the term already has stuck. They don't have to be "proven right" for a name to stick. Even if every person on the planet, AGW skeptics included, thinks that this incident turned out to be rubbish in the end, when we hear the term "climategate", our minds will immediately go to this incident. Case in point, while I think the Lewinsky scandal was silly, when I hear "Lewinsky scandal", I think of Bill Clinton and his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky. I sincerely doubt many people think of anything else when they think "Lewinksy scandal". Furthermore, they already have been shown to be right. Since this isn't a forum for general discussion, however, I don't think it'd be appropriate for me to go into detail as to why. If you like, I'd be happy to take this to another place, like Google Wave, a forum, IM, etc.Macai (talk) 19:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

As soon as we reach the stage where we have "a consensus of historical sources", we will be free to proceed. Guettarda (talk) 19:54, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The only people who have any interest in the story are people who believe that global warming science is a hoax and the e-mails are evidence of skullduggery. The Four Deuces (talk) 01:12, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect. A sampling: [17] [18] [19] [20] -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Exactly what is being proposed here? It's clear that there is a controversy, and the controversy is known informally as "climategate", a term used by many, avoided by some, and often put in quotes for whatever reason. Qualifying the term according to who invented it or who used it would be hard, and unnecessary detail. Although I think the word "dubbed" sounds slightly quaint I can't think of a more direct way to say it. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The two authors that JohnWBarber cited who actually used the term "Climategate", David Frum and Megan McArdle are partisan. All the articles are from November 2009 with the exception of one from March which is about opposition to climate change science in general. Only partisans ever called it "Climategate" and as the story fades into obscurity it is unlikely that any term will stick to the incident. The Four Deuces (talk) 14:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Four Deuces, you said The only people who have any interest in the story are people who believe that global warming science is a hoax. David Frum, Megan McArdle and Walter Russell Mead do not believe global warming science is a hoax, as proven by the links I just provided you. (Actually, Mead seems a bit shakey on this.) Whether or not the emails are evidence of skullduggery is the subject of official inquiries, and these links show that even people who accept global warming science are concerned. But let's be very, very clear on this point: I've given you proof, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there are people who are interested in this story who do not believe that global warming science is a hoax. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Paul Hudson

The format was allowing me to edit question #9 in the collapsible file at the top of the page, but I decided to cut and paste it here since this page is on probation. Not sure about protocol here.

Apparently there's a mistake or at least a question about this. Paul Hudson himself said, "I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the worlds leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article 'whatever happened to global warming'. The e-mails released on the internet as a result of CRU being hacked into are identical to the ones I was forwarded and read at the time and so, as far as l can see, they are authentic." http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/11/climategate-cru-hacked-into-an.shtml The Daily Mail repeats and comments on this information. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230943/Climate-change-scandal-BBC-expert-sent-cover-emails-month-public.html On what basis does WP assert, "...some blogs and newspapers have misinterpreted this."? We don't do original research.

Yopienso (talk) 06:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Well firstly it's in the FAQ, not the article, so some leeway is allowed. In any case, I'm not sure what the dispute is about. Even before any clarification from PH, people had pointed out in the comments and other forums that what he meant was he was sent copies of the e-mails that concern him from some party involved in them. In his very next blog post, PH confirmed this was what he meant [21]:

As you may know, some of the e-mails that were released last week directly involved me and one of my previous blogs, 'Whatever happened to global warming ?'

These took the form of complaints about its content, and I was copied in to them at the time. Complaints and criticisms of output are an every day part of life, and as such were nothing out of the ordinary. However I felt that seeing there was an ongoing debate as to the authenticity of the hacked e-mails, I was duty bound to point out that as I had read the original e-mails, then at least these were authentic, although of course I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the others.

although it's not even apparent if he felt he had to clarify or it's just something that arose in his posting (in other words, he may have felt any controversy that arose was because of people grasping at straws).

As I've pointed out before, all this was before the Daily Mail's article, which doesn't say much for their journalism standards (hopefully no one thinks writing an article about some blog post and not even bothering to read it carefully let alone the very next blog post or the plenty of existing discussions pointing out the misunderstanding in many forums at the time is good journalism). I can't remember if the Daily Mail even indicated they had attempted to contact PH, if they did I presume he ignored them because he didn't want to waste his time on people with such shoddy journalism standards.

As I also pointed out before, postings in the Daily Mail's comment section which pointed out the article was crap (in a polite way) and had missed the clarification received many negative feedback, which doesn't say much for their readership or at least readers who participate in the comments section. No further discussion of this misunderstanding (or whatever you want to call it) has occured, not even by the Daily Mail AFAIK, I presume because they've all realised clearly PH did not receive the entire archive early on.

Nil Einne (talk) 23:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

P.S. It may be helpful if you also read the first blog post in it's entirety, in particular the paragraph before that which you missed is important (as is perhaps the paragraph before that which makes it clear it's just a brief comment):

But I will in the meantime answer the question regarding the chain of e-mails which you have been commenting about on my blog, which can be seen here, and whether they are genuine or part of an elaborate hoax.

The link above is in the original blog post. If you look at the comments on the blog entry from before climategate, unsurprisingly when climategate first blew up and before PH had said anything, the only specific e-mails people generally referred to were the chain of e-mails concerning him (why would they talk about random climategate e-mails on his blog?). Following the link is also a big clue.

In other words, from a careful reading of that blog entry even without the later clarification, it's clear that he's solely referring to the chain of e-mails concerning him, not the entire archive (which isn't really a chain anyway).

Nil Einne (talk) 23:55, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Yopienso, read the first sentence of the Daily Mail article, which comprises wholly and solely the following false statement:

The controversy surrounding the global warming e-mail scandal has deepened after a BBC correspondent admitted he was sent the leaked messages more than a month before they were made public.

This is the basis on which we say that Hudson's statements were misinterpreted. --TS 23:40, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I can't follow Nil Einne's thought. Not meaning to criticize--I just can't figure out what it means. Thank you very much, TS, for your direct answer. I did read that statement, which is why I raised the question here. How do we know the statement is false? Yopienso (talk) 00:08, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It's false because it contradicts Hudson's representation of the facts. --TS 00:22, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

This is what I've found he said:

"I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the worlds leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article 'whatever happened to global warming'. The e-mails released on the internet as a result of CRU being hacked into are identical to the ones I was forwarded and read at the time and so, as far as l can see, they are authentic." http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/11/climategate-cru-hacked-into-an.shtml What am I not seeing? Yopienso (talk) 07:27, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The bit where he says

"These took the form of complaints about its content, and I was copied in to them at the time. Complaints and criticisms of output are an every day part of life, and as such were nothing out of the ordinary. However I felt that seeing there was an ongoing debate as to the authenticity of the hacked e-mails, I was duty bound to point out that as I had read the original e-mails, then at least these were authentic, although of course I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the others." (already quoted above), which makes it clear that he had copies of the e-mails regarding his article forwarded to him, in the normal way. Mikenorton (talk) 08:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I thought I was just being inexplicably dense. Now I see someone is grasping at straws to tell the story the way they wish it had happened instead of how it did. Yopienso (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that you've got it yet. When Paul Hudson published a piece on Climate science on the BBC, there was an e-mail conversation about it at CRU. Somebody there copied him on that e-mail chain (i.e by selecting either cc: or fw:). Some time later, this set of e-mails got included in the 'hacked' documents. He recognised the ones he already had copies of and confirmed their authenticity in his blog and that's all there is to it - apologies if I've misinterpreted your last comment. Mikenorton (talk) 18:22, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes and if you read the original blog post in it's entirety, following the link and perhaps checking out the earlier comments before he'd said anything and think about it carefully, it's clear that this is what he meant in the first blog post. While the second blog post (which came before the Daily Mail article) helps to put any doubt to rest, it isn't really necessary, that's primarily what I was trying to say above. ~~As I said, I don't believe there is any remaining dispute in RS that that's what he meant (even if we're generous and include the Daily Mail here), but~~ if anyone here still wants to dispute it, there's further confirmation here from the BBC (see end). However it seems Yopienso isn't alone in still being confused about this since I came across [22] which suggests Maurice Newman remained/s? confused until ~March 13th at least. Nil Einne (talk) 19:01, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

So, Q#9 in the collapsible file should probably be deleted, right? Hudson received some of those emails on Oct. 12. I would guess it wasn't in the article because a strong editor or group of editors wanted to keep it out. Still, I'm not advocating for putting it in as it doesn't seem particularly notable; I'd just like to get the question and rather strange answer off the top of the page. This may have been a hot issue some months ago. Can we get a consensus on this? Yopienso (talk) 22:54, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry you still seem confused. There has never, ever been any dispute that Paul Hudson received e-mails relating to his article when it was published and that some of these e-mails were the ones from Michael E Mann and Stephen Schneider which appeared in the archive. It doesn't seem to have ever been explained precisely who sent these, it may very well be Michael E Mann and Stephen Schneider themselves, but whoever it was, it wasn't the person who hacked into the CRU and obtained the archive, it was someone who was part of this discussion and had legitimate access to these e-mails. (This is hardly surprising, if you're criticising a journalists work, it is resonable to let the journalist know of your criticism.) Some sources, including the Daily Mail seem to think that Paul Hudson received all of the e-mails from the hack, or at least some early sign of the hack, which is blatantly untrue, as confirmed by the BBC and Hudson himself, he had no way of knowing the e-mails he received as part of normal commentary of his article were going to be later stolen by some other party and then released. However when they were stolen, when there was still doubt of the authenticity, it was understable Paul Hudson to confirm he had received those e-mails at the time from one of the people involved in them and they were the same as what was in the archive. This is no different then if say Monckton was to confirm the e-mails in the archive, which were sent to him (some of them clearly were), were the same as the ones later released due to the hack. It's irrelevant to the current article, since there's no doubt of their authenticity and if the Daily Mail had claimed Monckton had received early sign of the hack because he confirmed the e-mails he had been part of were the same as the ones in the archive, they would be wrong and if this issue keeps coming up in the talk page, there would be no harm in mentioning this in the FAQ. Nil Einne (talk) 12:40, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Page move

Thank you, editors, who worked through this long process. Yopienso (talk) 00:13, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Given that the page has been moved, perhaps it's time to address the minor consistency changes that the move has introduced. For one there is a mix of "email" and "e-mail" in the text, and there are a few references to "the incident" that make less sense now. There may also be support for moving "Climatic Research Unit documents" back into this article. Does anyone see any other changes that need to be made? StuartH (talk) 00:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

You know, that was bugging me, too. I wasn't going to say anything, but since you bring it up, I think we should resolve this inconsistency. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

(Well, there's poor old Yopienso showing her ignorance again--the article wasn't retitled, it was moved!) Yopienso (talk) 00:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

To reflect the article title, I changed the lead, [23] for the most part simply rearranging phrases and sentences already there (although I added "presumably" to "hacked"). -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:58, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Moved Jimbo's comment below to its own section, "Jimbo's suggestion" & will tell him. I'm assuming he'll approve. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:43, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Here we go again

Well, I had high hopes that we had finally resolved all the major WP:NPOV issues yesterday, but thanks to this edit[24], the lede no longer summarizes the article nor does the lede explain what the scandal is about. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've reverted ChrisO's edit per WP:NPOV and simplified the sentence slightly. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

AQfK is absolutely correct here. Frankly, I think "about whether these e-mails indicated misconduct on the part of climate scientists." still doesn't do enough to describe the debate. Suggest we switch to "about whether these e-mails indicated attempts on the part of climate scientists to misconstrue or exagerate the effects of climate change." NickCT (talk) 13:24, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Following my last comment, I just want to note that I'm convinced this whole e-mail shinanigans is devious political character assasination similar to what happened to ACORN or Kerry's purple hearts, but I increasingly get the feeling that there is an attempt on this article to "smear" this smear campaign. I'd advise against this. We should accurately describe the issues at hand and offer notable counterpoints to the allegations. To do otherwise would violate NPOV.

Additionally, as I've said before, this article gets way too much attention paid to it. No one cares about these e-mails anymore ladies. NickCT (talk) 13:30, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It's getting attention primarily because it's an absolute obsession among anti-science activists and sundry right-wingers. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they do care about these e-mails, deeply so, and they're engaged in an aggressive advocacy campaign in which the e-mails are a major weapon for them. We get to deal with the consequences of that. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:57, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this idea, ChrisO, may be preventing you from really understanding what is going on with this article. The truth is that many people who are both pro-science and not "sundry right-wingers" are quite rightly disappointed at the conduct shown in those emails. If you believe strongly in the cause of educating the public about climate change science, then you have to be frustrated with scientists who - by their private actions - put such a stain on their own work. Understanding that many of the people who don't want this article to be turned into a smear of a smear of course don't want it to be a smear, either, may help you gain some peace and be able to work more happily with others.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:13, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

It's getting attention primarily because it's an absolute obsession among anti-science activists and sundry right-wingers. Eugene Robinson is nowhere close to being a right-winger, [25] nor is George Monbiot, nor is the majority in the UK Parliament, where inquiries were started. There have been plenty of scientists who have stated concerns about this. And even if it were true, since when did Wikipedia stop covering something because the primary interest was among right-wingers? It's pretty evident that Phil Jones did not step aside and official inquiries did not start primarily because it's an absolute obsession among anti-science activists and sundry right-wingers. This statement of yours is contradicted by overwhelming evidence:

John Beddington, chief science advisor to the UK Labour government, as reported in The Times of London (it isn't certain he was talking about the CRU incident specifically or if the Times read that into it, but the general concern is clear): Professor Beddington said that climate scientists should be less hostile to sceptics who questioned man-made global warming. He condemned scientists who refused to publish the data underpinning their reports. [...] He said that it was wrong for scientists to refuse to disclose their data to their critics: “I think, wherever possible, we should try to ensure there is openness and that source material is available for the whole scientific community.” [26]
Same source: Mike Hulme, Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia, said: “Climate scientists get kudos from working on an issue in the public eye but with that kudos comes responsibility. Being open with data is part of that responsibility.”
New York Times news article: The unauthorized release last fall of hundreds of e-mail messages from a major climate research center in England, and more recent revelations of a handful of errors in a supposedly authoritative United Nations report on climate change, have created what a number of top scientists say is a major breach of faith in their research. They say the uproar threatens to undermine decades of work and has badly damaged public trust in the scientific enterprise. [27]
The Guardian: Public conviction about the threat of climate change has declined sharply after months of questions over the science and growing disillusionment with government action, a leading British poll has found. The proportion of adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality dropped by 30% over the last year, from 44% to 31%, in the latest survey by Ipsos Mori. [28]
The BBC: The Populus poll of 1,001 adults found 25% did not think global warming was happening, an increase of 10% since a similar poll was conducted in November. The percentage of respondents who said climate change was a reality had fallen from 83% in November to 75% this month. [29]
Jonathan Leake, environmental editor of The Times of London: What those emails suggested, however, was that Jones and some colleagues may have become so convinced of their case that they crossed the line from objective research into active campaigning. [30]

It's time to retire this meme. It is provably false. From the very start, concern about this has extended across a wide swath of public opinion and public policy experts. Aren't you a critic of people holding onto opinions despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:45, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

AQFK is blindly reverting and introducing inaccuracies into the article. I updated the intro to reflect the current status and take out an incoherent misrepresentation. The issues are as follows:

I wrote that the Russell review had been instigated at the request of the UEA to review the e-mail exchanges and the CRU's policies. This is stated in this UEA press release. AQFK's version of the lede does not reflect the review's remit.
AQFK's version of the lede reflects the situation as it existed in December 2009 when the UEA first announced the review. It doesn't mention the second review of the science that was recently announced.
AQFK's version contains an incoherent part-sentence which has been slipped in without discussion: "about whether these e-mails indicated misconduct on the part of climate scientists." This simply doesn't belong in the sentence in which it appears. It literally makes no sense. "The ... controversy began... with the unauthorised release ... about whether these e-mails indicated misconduct on the part of climate scientists." What is that supposed to mean? If it's meant to refer to the Russell enquiry's remit, it's inaccurate. The remit, which you can read here, says nothing about "misconduct on the part of climate scientists". That's a gloss on AQFK's part - POV and OR. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:55, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

This needs to be sorted out. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Yep - at the very least, the tense is all wrong. A rv that inserts ungrammatical text is unacceptable. Guettarda (talk) 14:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

This is an article about a controversy. Your version of the lead removes any reference to the actual controversy, launching straight into a detailed description of the reviews taking place without ever mentioning why the reviews were set up in the first place. A neutral reader would be left scratching their head trying to figure out how we got from "some emails were stolen" to parliamentary inquiries. The possibility that the emails "might indicate misconduct on the part of the climate scientists" is the missing step, the focus of the controversy, and the main reason this article exists. There is no possible reason for leaving it out of the lead. That said, your point about the wording is correct - what we have now is simply ungrammatical. Thparkth (talk) 14:08, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

(EC)If there's a grammatical error, then simply fix the grammar. Using this as an excuse to remove long standing content is very disappointing. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know what the point you were trying to make was, so I left it out. I don't object in principle to including some mention of the allegations as long as it's neutrally worded and in the right place. The rest of the rewording was to update out of date content. I can't see what possible objection you might have to mentioning the review's remit, which you deleted in your reversion, or to mentioning the UEA's second enquiry into the affair, which you also deleted. As it is, your reversion has turned the clock back three months, making the lede out of date, and has introduced an ungrammatical and very unclear claim. -- ChrisO (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

ChrisO - See above "nor does the lede explain what the scandal is about." and "Your version of the lead removes any reference to the actual controversy". If you want to put your edit back in, fine. But it MUST MUST MUST give a brief explination of the actual contraversy. NickCT (talk) 14:14, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes - the attempted whitewash was a dis-service to the article. There's a reason it's called "Climategate" everywhere but here and pretending otherwise simply makes WP look silly and biased. Ronnotel (talk) 14:39, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

"called "Climategate" everywhere but here"? {{cn}}! Guettarda (talk) 14:49, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Nick, that's still no reason to re-insert incorrect text. That's why blind reversion is a problem. Guettarda (talk) 14:48, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The remit, which you can read here, says nothing about "misconduct on the part of climate scientists". ChrisO, when the Russell writeup indicates that they will be looking at whether or not there was "manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice", you don't feel "misconduct" is an appropriate word to use to summarize "manipulation or suppression of data"? What other word might you suggest instead? Remember that the lede is supposed to summarize, not give a specific quoted passage. Moogwrench (talk) 15:01, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

What does the remit of the inquiry have to do with the remit of this article? Thparkth (talk) 15:13, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

@ Guet - re "that's still no reason to re-insert incorrect text" - Point taken. I could have worked harder to undo the parts of ChrisO's edit that was bad, rather than blind revision. I'd invite you or him to redo the edit addressing the concerns stated above. NickCT (talk) 15:17, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I was merely addressing ChrisO contention that "If it's meant to refer to the Russell enquiry's remit, it's inaccurate." Moogwrench (talk) 15:36, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It is inaccurate. The remit says nothing about misconduct - a personnel issue - but refers to examining CRU's working practices. It's entirely feasible to imagine that the review might find that the CRU's working practices were sub-standard. That might in turn lead to disciplinary action against the scientists involved, but that would be an issue for the UEA. The review team is (needless to say) not part of the UEA and isn't in the management chain for the CRU scientists. However, I see that Thparkth has provided a new wording for the "misconduct" line which I'm happy with, so I'll restore the rest of the updating that AQFK deleted without any explanation and which nobody has objected to. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:57, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I've also added dave souza's paragraph on the new Scientific Assessment Panel, as per the discussion above at #CRU Scientific Assessment Panel. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

the remit says nothing about misconduct - a personnel issue -- not sure how "a personnel issue" is being defined here -- "misconduct" clearly extends beyond what may or may not be "personnel issues". The remit, which has already been linked to and is rather short, mentions various forms of misconduct: From #1:to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes. That would be very serious misconduct by scientists any way you look at it, if it turns out to be the case. From #2: and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice. Given the importance of the CRU to the IPCC and the overall, years-long debate about global warming, it sounds like that could be viewed as misconduct. The scientists are, after all, presenting their findings as authoritative science. From #3: Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with FOIA and "Environmental Information Regulations". The allegation about FOIA is that Jones and others deliberately violated FOIA, even conspired to do so, based on what Jones wrote in the emails. Sounds like misconduct. You know, the lead isn't so long that we couldn't expand it to include these concerns in it in more detail. They seem to pretty much run the gamut of concerns, and we could summarize all this into a sentence or two. It's important enough to describe in even more detail in the article than we do in the University of East Anglia subsection. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:13, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Show me where it refers to misconduct. You're reading something into it that isn't in the statement. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:43, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

We are not required to find a particular word in a source in order to use that word to summarize that source. That's elemental common sense. In fact, Wikipedia editors are encouraged to use their own words in summarizing content so long as the summary is fair and accurate. And we are not the only ones to say that the emailers have been accused of misconduct and then refer to the Muir investigation: From The Guardian, March 1: The controversy over the emails, dubbed "climategate" by some, has prompted allegations of scientific misconduct and attempts to keep dissenting findings from scientific journals. [...] The university has already set up a panel to assess the behaviour of Jones and colleagues, which is headed by Sir Muir Russell. [31] "allegations of scientific misconduct" is very obviously what Muir is investigating. The Scotsman (March 2) also refers to allegations of scientific misconduct and the Muir panel's investigation of "behaviour" by the scientists. [32] What else is meant by "behaviour" here other than whether the allegations of misconduct are true or not? There is no good reason for this simple, straightforward concept to be so difficult to understand. Investigations like this are set up to determine whether or not there has been misconduct. Do you have an alternate explanation for why the Muir panel was set up? Do you have sources that back up that alternate explanation? And how can this Guardian article possibly be read in any other way than as a reliable source telling us that Muir's panel is looking into whether or not misconduct was committed: [33]

Sir Muir Russell said it was not the review panel's job to "audit the Climate Research Unit's [CRU] scientific conclusions". Instead the inquiry, which will report in the spring, would limit itself to questions about how the scientists behaved, and whether they properly followed procedures. Russell said the inquiry would focus on specific issues raised by the emails, such as the way a distinctive "hockey stick" graph of historical temperatures was prepared, and suggestions that CRU scientists had abused the peer review system to keep sceptical papers from academic journals. It would also look at the high profile statement that climate scientists used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures inferred from tree ring data. The inquiry was set up and paid for by the university in the wake of allegations that the emails, released in November, showed scientists had manipulated data, censored critics and failed to comply with requests to share their data with critics.

Does anyone else aqree with ChrisO on this, or is this the only editor who does not now accept that the Muir panel was set up to investigate allegations of misconduct? Are we there yet? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:33, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that "misconduct" is a fair summary but why does it matter what the UAE statement says? If this discussion is about the lede, these are two separate sentences. The UAE statement need not support "misconduct" (although it does). A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:43, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) In order to remove the word "misconduct" from the lede, why not simply give more detail about what the panel is examining, i.e. the panel is examining whether the Unit followed Freedom of Information guidelines, etc. ? Cla68 (talk) 01:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Let's replace:

An independent review of the e-mail exchanges and the CRU's policies and working practices is being carried out by Sir Muir Russell at the request of the University of East Anglia, and a separate independent review is being conducted of the CRU's published research.

With (addition in italics):

An independent review of the e-mail exchanges and the CRU's policies and working practices has been set up to examine the behavior of scientists at the CRU, including whether they had abused the peer review system to keep sceptical papers from academic journals, manipulated or suppressed data contrary to accepted scientific practice, or otherwise not complied with best scientific practice. A separate independent review is being conducted into the CRU's published research.

How's that? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 02:01, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Why don't we try to make it a little softer, such as, "including questions concerning their involvement in the peer review process for climate change papers published in academic journals and responses to freedom of information requests for research data." Cla68 (talk) 04:17, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

It would be simpler just to use the word "misconduct" instead of spelling out the alleged incidents of misconduct that are being reviewed. Yopienso (talk) 07:42, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Believe me, there is a method to my madness. If we use generic, innocent-until-proven-guilty wording, there should be, hopefully, less edit warring. Cla68 (talk) 07:50, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

How about saying their scientific practices and compliance with policies are under review? To me, though, that certainly implies that something was wrong with the practices and that compliance was perhaps not the best. In answer to a specific question by JohnWBarber, I see no problem with the briefer "misconduct." Yopienso (talk) 08:13, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's reasonable to imply guilt over the mere fact that a review is being conducted. Either way, the current phrasing attributing "misconduct" claims to others rather than making the claim ourselves is vastly preferable. StuartH (talk) 23:40, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)I'll go along with Cla68's idea for now because I think it would be an improvement, and I'd rather see a good improvement now rather than wait much longer to see a better (more exact) improvement. Later, if the article changes much more on this point, we can revisit it. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:17, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

What the Russell Review is going to look into (i.e. its terms of reference) are clearly listed here, and so we don't have to debate what is going to be reviewed by them.

Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, [etc] to determine whether there is any evidence of manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.
Review the CRU’s policies and practices [re] peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice.
Review the CRU’s compliance [...] under the Freedom of Information Act (‘the FOIA’) and the Environmental Information Regulations (‘the EIR’) for the release of data.
Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for the CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds.

--Nigelj (talk) 21:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Krosnick

This material may belong here, or perhaps it's more suitable for public opinion on climate change.

Jon Krosnick is professor of communication, political science and psychology at Stanford University. Recently he presented a detailed, methodical analysis of a public opinion poll on US public attitudes to global warming--perhaps the first of its kind to take a scientific look at the effects of this incident on public perceptions of climate change. Krosnick's paper is discussed in the following articles:

Some scientists misread poll data on global warming controversy, USA Today, Dan Vergano
Stanford Researcher: Data Show That ClimateGate Has Had Limited Impact on Public Perceptions, Matthew Nisbet, Framing Science blog.
Majority Of Americans Continue To Believe That Global Warming Is Real, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University.

Krosnick's data was gathered in late 2009, but he says that from his experience US opinion is unlikely to shift much on a two-month scale. --TS 13:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Gallup poll [ID:nN11236876] * 48 percent of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated, up from 41 percent last year and 31 percent in 1997, the first time Gallup asked the question * 19 percent said the effects of global warming will never happen, up from 16 percent last year * 16 percent said it will not happen in their lifetimes, up from 15 percent last year * 46 percent said natural changes in the environment are more responsible for increases in the world's temperature than pollution from human activities, up from 38 percent a year ago * Conducted March 4-7 with 1,014 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent

Thanks, the Woods Institute page is particularly interesting, and refers explicitly to findings based on telephone interviews "from Nov. 17 to Nov. 29. During that time period, controversial emails from prominent climate scientists were leaked to the news media. The emails, which were hacked from a server at a British university, included vitriolic attacks on critics of global warming and raised questions about scientists manipulating climate data. The controversy, called "climategate" by global warming skeptics, soon made headlines around the world. But according to Krosnick, the effect on public opinion was minimal." Worth noting in this article, the freely downloadable pdf giving the full report uses effectively the same wording on page 2. On a similar topic, Joe Romm comments on what a Gallup poll shows, and on political developments in Texas. . . dave souza, talk 17:44, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Responding to the implicit question, I don't think the material is suitable here. If anyplace, ast the public opinion page, but my immediate reaction was under whelming. Of course the majority of Americans still believe that global warming is real. It is, and Climategate didn't do anything to change that conclusion. It has had a significant effect on public perception, but that question is missing the point. If anything, it is startling that belief in the existence of GW has dropped five points in two years, as that's a fair drop given the lack of new information. They may be experts, but if their goal was to judge public reaction to Climategate, they blundered.--SPhilbrick T 18:11, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Correction – they are experts, your self-claimed expertise or opinion as a Wikipedia editor is irrelevant. To the extent that our article touches on the effect of the story on public opinion, the expert opinion is highly relevant. . . dave souza, talk 20:34, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Correct - they are experts, but not necessarily on this topic. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

"Correction" implies an error. There's nothing to "correct". They may well be experts, but they blundered. No point in discussing further, as I do not see that this article touches on the impact on public opinion. Let's take it up at the other article if anywhere, and get back to issues relating to this article.--SPhilbrick T 21:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Sphilbrick, please don't blunder and bluster about like that. They're a reliable source with direct relevance to the issue of the effect publicity arising from the hacking incident is having on public opinion. Arthur Rubin, I'll agree that their expertise applies to that aspect, not to other aspects of the general topic. . . dave souza, talk 15:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Here's an interesting analysis from the left-leaning Slate.com.[34] Also, I note that they use the term "Climategate" without quotes. And they use the word "scandal", not "controversy". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

That link didn't work. What's the title of the article? Cla68 (talk) 23:40, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Try this: http://www.slate.com/id/2248236/. The title is "Climate scientists are getting a little too angry for their own good". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:44, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Matthew Nisbet is the author. He is not exactly what you would describe as a well-regarded scientific commentator. This pretty much sums up the problem with him. And this, from a fellow Scienceblogger, shows that he's been pushing the same line of argument for at least 18 months - well before the CRU controversy. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:53, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm still curious who registered the climategate domain name in 2008. Has anyone looked into it? Viriditas (talk) 00:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the title is "Chill out". I like this quote and I think it applies to this very article, although I don't know if any of the editors active here are actually climate scientists,

“

If communication researchers have trouble establishing clear evidence of a significant impact for Climategate, what explains the apparent overreaction by scientists and their bunker mentality? Past research shows that individuals more heavily involved on an issue, such as climate scientists, often tend to view even objectively favorable media coverage as hostile to their goals. They also have a tendency to presume exaggerated effects for a message on the public and will take action based on this presumed influence.

”

Cla68 (talk) 23:54, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I discussed this piece in the section #Krosnick above. This section seems to be spinning the same data beyond all recognition. --TS 01:22, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I've merged the two sections. --TS 01:27, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Why? The first section was about Krosnick. The other section was about Matthew C. Nisbet. Please self-revert. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:18, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Both sections are on exactly the same subject. Nisbet is merely a commentator on the subject, which is public opinion research by Krosnick. One of the problematic features of the forking of the discussion was the undue emphasis on a single comment, aggravated by the loss of context of the comment. --TS 09:17, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I've removed what looks like an appallingly one-sided use of a report on Krosnick from Matthew Nisbet--Krosnick isn't even mentioned, nor his findings. [35] --TS 15:17, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I've rewritten using the USA Today source and concentrating on what Krosnick actually said rather than peripheral comments (apparently gleaned from emails) attributed to unnamed members of a listserv. --TS 15:44, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Penn State climate professor: 'I'm a skeptic'

Mann's first interview since the university last month launched an investigation into his conduct.[36] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I've added information from it to the "Other responses" section. [37] There is information in the article that looks like it would be useful in the article on Mann. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 15:02, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

While that article appears to have some valid info that may have some use here, its title is a huge red flag. Using Mann's statement ('I'm a skeptic') as the headline plays off the generally understood meaning of 'skeptic' as it relates to global warming and blatantly, intentionally mischaracterizes him. As such, while the article's content appears to be reasonable, it does warrant greater scrutiny. Additionally, any use of it as reference on wikipedia should refrain from trumpeting the title.
--K10wnsta (talk) 18:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The title refers to Mann's drawing of a historically correct distinction between scientific skepticism and the stance of many who describe themselves as skeptics in the context of climate science. --TS 19:21, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. That is made clear when you get to the end of the article. But the declaration being taken out of context and used as the article's title smacks of tabloid sensationalism.
--K10wnsta (talk) 20:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo's suggestion on editing against one's POV

I moved this comment (below) of Jimbo's to this new section (from "Page move" section, above) so it won't be missed (I'll inform Jimbo and move it back if he's got a problem with this edit): -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:43, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I would like to add my personal and heartfelt "thanks" for the progress that has been made here. The spirit of cooperation shown in the final decision to move the page gives me hope that we might - possibly - be finally moving a bit past the spirit of harsh partisanship that has unfortunately characterized a lot of the talk page debate around this and related articles.

Wikipedia works best when people who may disagree - even strongly - decide to set aside their local partisan differences in the interest of simply getting the facts right and working very hard to achieve NPOV.

One thing I recommend to anyone who does consider themselves a partisan in this debate: spend 30 minutes imagining yourself to be a thoughtful critic of your own position, and look through the articles for things that ought to bother you - and change them. That is, make a change that is in some way "detrimental" to what you would argue for, were you here to write a polemical essay to persuade someone. It's not really easy, but it's worth doing, if for no other reason than to help convince yourself of the humanity of those with whom you have a disagreement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this is an extremely good idea. I've done a bit of it before in Obama-related articles. It helps give the editor who's doing it a better perspective and it tends to increase trust among editors. Since my own POV on this subject is that the scientists said some very suspicious things in the e-mails and yet I agree with their overall position on the science of climate change, I'll try to make edits contrary to both of those points in the next day or two (not sure what they'll be yet). The more difficult you find this kind of thing to do, the more helpful you'll find it to your own understanding as well as in helping to clean up the atmosphere here. If you were the only one editing this article, you would want to represent the opinions of all major sides to the controversy, so you'd make that kind of edit anyway. There are certainly improvements that could be made to this article from the POV of any side. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:43, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Something else that might be worth trying is to bring in editors who have no strong opinions one way or the other, just laypeople previously uninvolved. Just choose some editors by lot and ask them to participate. But here's the problem: In an article like this, the complexity is such that it's easy to be manipulated one way or the other. It's like when a complex business case is tried by jury. In my case I'm genuinely aloof from all the issues and just happened to see this on the Jimbo talk page. However, all the complex and heated discussion is simply intimidating, if understandable.ScottyBerg (talk) 21:50, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

A key issue, which I think Jimbo has overlooked or at least hasn't mentioned as far as I've seen, is that there have been no findings of wrongdoing against any of the individuals involved. Indeed, the only enquiry to have been completed so far - that of Penn State University into Michael Mann - exonerated him. There have been no findings of any kind about the quality of the CRU's scientific research. However, there has been a huge amount of frenzied rhetoric and accusations - here on this talk page, we've seen the scientists being denounced as "criminals" [sic] - and numerous people have spoken, like JWB, of their "suspicions" about what the e-mails said. But in the interests of basic fairness, to say nothing of BLP, we cannot use this article in the way that far too many people have attempted to use it, as a platform for denouncing the scientists and falsely presenting climate science as undermined or disproved. "Getting the facts right" is exactly the right approach to take, and I think we've done a pretty good job of it overall; but the key to that is making a distinction between facts that have been established and speculation that has not. Too often (and it's regrettable that Jimbo of all people has been guilty of this), editors have treated speculation as being as equal to facts. The key thing here is to keep an open mind, avoid speculation and not make assumptions that may be disproved in the near future. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:16, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. We absolutely must correctly describe the nature of the UEA investigations. The notion that some awful evidence of wrongdoing has been disclosed is wrong. We cannot say--and should not speculate on--what the investigations will turn up. We will know the facts in due course. Pretending that we know what will happen is wrong. --TS 23:31, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo never said anything about "falsely presenting climate science as undermined or disproved" nor did Jimbo say anything about "pretending that we know" "what the investigations will turn up." Nor am I aware of any current editor including such claims in the article. The fact that the scandal is ongoing doesn't mean we have to wait until it's over to explain what it is about anymore than we have to wait for the Arab-Israeli conflict to end to write an article about it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:43, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Tony and Chris and A Quest, you've been invited to improve the article in a way totally the opposite of your individual points of view but consistent with bettering the article. We are all capable of doing that. I'll do that (and I expect to edit in ways consistent with the points Tony and Chris and A Quest have just expressed). Will you do the same? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:47, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

False dichotomy. I've always sought to edit the article in ways consistent with bettering it, regardless of my opinion of the situation. I'm sure Tony has done the same. I'm not so sure about AQFK, given that he's already declared the scientists involved to be "criminals" (I must have missed the charges, trial and convictions - would you care to tell us when this happened?). -- ChrisO (talk) 10:13, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It can't be a "false dichotomy" to suggest that we all do some editing of the article in ways that go against our own personal points of view. You say that you've done so. Please provide examples. You say that TS has done so. Perhaps we could have examples of that. It really should not be so difficult to do this kind of thing if the first thing we're all committed to here is an NPOV result. I really want the subject of this thread to avoid being buried with side issues, so I'm going to hat off-topic comments or move them out of the thread. This isn't about the past, it's about going forward, so your comments to AQFK are irrelevant to the point at hand. Nor have you answered Jimbo's invitation or my question: Will you make some edits that reflect opposite POVs of your own? This question is not just for ChrisO, but for anyone reading this. Will you all do so? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 13:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Please stick to WP:NPA. Also, note that the opinion you are faulting AQFK for holding is shared by the ICO (citation citation).--Heyitspeter (talk) 10:53, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for providing a perfect example of what Jimbo is talking about. As this story makes clear, the ICO has said only that "the elements of a section 77 offence may have been found here" (note the conditional wording) but it can't investigate any further or come to any conclusion because the statutory time limit has passed. The UEA has pointed out that "there has been no investigation so no decision, as was widely reported. The ICO read e-mails and came to assumptions but has not investigated or demonstrated any evidence that what may have been said in emails was actually carried out." The issue of whether FOI requests weren't properly handled is one of the matters before the Muir Russell enquiry, which has not yet reached any conclusions on the issue. Needless to say, this is a very long way from saying that the scientists were "criminals". But you wouldn't know this if you spent your time reading the anti-science blogs, which have all trumpeted this as proof that a crime was committed - a conclusion that nobody, including the ICO, has reached. This is exactly what Jimbo is referring to by "getting the facts right" - stating accurately what is reported by reliable sources, without partisan misrepresentation. Remember, these are living people we're talking about: high-profile, distinguished scientists, leaders in their field, whose reputation is being attacked by those with an ideological and/or financial interest in discrediting their research. As WP:BLP makes clear, we have a responsibility to ensure that their situation is not being misrepresented. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:44, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

This is getting surreal. ChrisO, Jimbo specifically referred to you - by name - in his post.[38] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:58, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Is there a point to this remark? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Whoosh! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I take it that means "no". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:32, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It means that it went over your head. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you could be more explicit than "Whoosh" if your arguments are not being understood by others (myself included). StuartH (talk) 14:42, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The post that Jimbo was responding to was where ChrisO launched into a rant about "anti-science activists and sundry right-wingers"[39]

"It's getting attention primarily because it's an absolute obsession among anti-science activists and sundry right-wingers."

To which Jimbo responded[40]:

"I think this idea, ChrisO, may be preventing you from really understanding what is going on with this article. The truth is that many people who are both pro-science and not "sundry right-wingers" are quite rightly disappointed at the conduct shown in those emails."

The point that Jimbo was making was that just because someone is concerned about the conduct of these scientists doesn't make you "anti-science" or a "sundry right-winger". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:41, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

ChrisO, I'm sure you believe you are editing fairly, but your continued use of descriptions such as "anti-science" demonstrates that you are not as neutral as you think. I have largely avoided editing this article because my POV would interfere too much; I would urge you to consider similar restraint. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:18, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Chris, you have twice reverted my attempts to keep these off-topic comments from the thread about Jimbo's suggestion to edit in ways against one's personal POV. You're last revert's edit summary was "rm silly header, it's directly related". Yet I can find nothing in these comments between Heyitspeter's of 10:53 and yours just above at 14:58 that has anything to do with the suggestion Jimbo made at 01:10, 27 March about editing against personal POV. The title of this section from the start has been "Jimbo's suggestion". Instead of commenting on the suggestion, you've commented on other things. By insisting on keeping these off-topic comments in the thread, you are attempting to hijack discussion and being disruptive. I am trying to keep one discussion on track. That doesn't prevent you from discussing unrelated or even somewhat related points in a different discussion. Please allow the discussion on a subject that you don't seem to want to directly participate in to continue. If you can show how your comments relate to anything in Jimbo's 01:10 comment, do so -- but your 14:58 comment seems to be about as unrelated to Jimbo's as it can possibly be. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 15:19, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Not at all - you seem to have completely misread what I wrote. My very first line at 11:44 noted that Jimbo emphasized "getting the facts right". Heyitspeter inadvertently provided an example of getting the facts wrong by misrepresenting a source. I used that example to demonstrate what needs to be done to "get the facts right" - "stating accurately what is reported by reliable sources, without partisan misrepresentation." Since my comments specifically referred to Jimbo's original suggestion, it's hardly off-topic. The point I was making is that you don't necessarily need to "edit against your own POV" - what matters is getting the facts right, not worrying about whether you personally agree with the facts. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:26, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem with your response, ChrisO, is that you ignored everything else Jimbo said other than the four words "get the facts right". The point was, very obviously, to work with others, as can be seen in all three paragraphs of what he said, down to the final words. Nothing wrong with discussing the facts, of course. One fact not in the article is that there is an ICO investigation of a Section 50 complaint now ongoing. Another fact: this case is one reason why ICO officials want to suggest changes to FOIA laws, and the chairman of the parliamentary committee investigating the CRU incident also thinks the matter should be looked at. I could add all this to the article, but I'd much rather give you the opportunity to respond to the rest of Jimbo's comment by acting on his suggestion to edit from the other side. You'd also be helping the encyclopedia to "get the facts right". -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:27, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say that I have a strong point of view on the subject of this article. As I expect my point of view to be vindicated by the Pennsylvania investigation, the two East Anglia investigations, the police investigations and all other investigations, however, I don't see much reason to edit the article until such time as those investigations report, and indeed when they do I fully expect those findings to go into the article without controversy. I'm content to leave the bulk of the task of keeping Wikipedia up to date on the investigations to others, and as I've remarked elsewhere I think those editors, together, have done a superb job and produced an article of which Wikipedia can be proud.

Most of the speculative nonsense has either been kept out of the article or treated in an encyclopedic manner, and I'm confident that this practice will continue. I think the article has probably become easier to edit as the subject has become much less of a hot topic over the months and the news coverage has become slightly more accurate.

I think Jimbo's suggestion is a generally good one. I think many editors are already following it, if only by refraining from making the kind of contentious edit that used to be so common on this article. As a result we have an article whose balanced tone and concentration on the facts is admirable. --TS 15:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

TS, Jimbo's "generally good" suggestion is not followed simply by refraining from making contentious edits. You know that. If you decline to do so, that's certainly your prerogative, and no one should pressure you on it. Your point of view has not been "vindicated" by one investigating authority, the ICO, on one point, however: Graham Smith, the deputy commissioner, said: 'The fact that the elements of a section 77 offence [of the U.K. Freedom of Information Act] may have been found here, but cannot be acted on because of the elapsed time, is a very serious matter. (News report in The Times [41], ICO statement: The emails which are now public reveal that Mr. Holland's requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. further information here [42] ) [43]) This is one example of an element of this article that you or someone else with your POV could add that would improve the article in a way contrary to your POV. (It could be used to beef up what's in the first paragraph of the "Other responses" section.) If you or anyone else with your POV would improve this article by doing so, it would tend to help the person doing it and help the atmosphere here, because there's no better way to show that it's more important that the article be fair than that it reflect one's own POV. You certainly haven't refrained from improving the article in other ways, and I see you've just been doing it now, so you know it isn't perfect. Using phrases like "speculative nonsense" lowers trust and hurts a constructive atmosphere, doing so in a thread about trying to improve the atmosphere is an example of the problem. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 15:59, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

John, you may have missed the point that the ICO is not an investigating authority in this case. There is no ICO investigation because the matter falls outside the statutory time limit for such an investigation. It has not reached any firm conclusions (note the use of "may have been in the statement you cited). I dealt with this in my comment of 11:44 above. The article already covers the ICO's statement and the UEA's response. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

since it cannot now investigate the matter. The time limit appears to apply to complaints under section 77 of the FOIA, not section 50. What do you suppose this means: In the present case, the section 50 complaint has not yet been fully investigated and there will be exchanges of correspondence between the ICO and UEA as those investigations progress. Unless there is agreement on an informal resolution, a decision notice will be issued. The process is likely to take some months. [...] We will, of course, be following up on the section 50 complaints in due course. This was from a letter from Graham Smith, deputy ICO commissioner, to Brian Summers of the University of East Anglia, from the UEA's website. [44] I can tell you that one thing I have missed, despite searching for it on the Web, is an explanation of just what section 50 is and how it differs from section 77. The first paragraph in the letter I quote from may or may not indicate an answer to that, but I'm still a bit puzzled. In any event, it appears the ICO involvement here is not at an end. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:07, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Oh, here it is. [45] Section 50 is the appeals process from complaints about a public authority. The deputy ICO commissioner says that process is now under way. It's an investigation. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:18, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Here's an edit partly against my POV that I'm suspicious of Mann and the other scientists. [46] It partly confirms my POV as well, but I think the major element is against it. I'll be doing more later. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 16:02, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

John, you seem to presume to know my opinion, falsely claiming that the ICO has not "vindicated" it. Stop that. I have formed no opinion on the data protection matter because I do not have adequate information. As far as I can tell the ICO matter is fully and accurately reported in the article. --TS 16:13, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Of course, the critical point is that the ICO can't "vindicate" the UEA, nor can it "convict" it, since it cannot now investigate the matter. As you say, Tony, the article already reflects this fact accurately. This sort of misunderstanding is the core of my earlier point - that "editing against your POV" is secondary to the issue of getting your facts right. Jimbo's advice seems to imply that the problems we've had with this article have been due to editors not "editing against their POV". I'd say that the problem has been more to do with editors getting facts wrong. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:20, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

There has been a fair amount of "getting facts wrong", but I think that's to be expected on articles related to climate change. People show up at talk:global warming with all manner of misunderstandings, surprised to find that that those "facts" are not in the article.

In the early days of this article too, there was so much nonsense on blogs that people would regularly come here to "correct" our facts. This, for John's benefit, is what I was referring to as "speculative nonsense". There is some of that still, with people making highly questionable interpretations of the ICO's statement (both those erring in favor of and those erring against the UEA). I think we get it right, and we should be proud of the fact that we do get it right so often. --TS 16:26, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It would be hard to characterize the following as mere "speculative nonsense" involving "highly questionable interpretations of the ICO's statement", since it comes from Graham Smith, deputy commissioner of same, later backed up by a letter on ICO stationery from him to the University of East Anglia, from a reliable, third-party source: In a statement, Graham Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, [UK government's Information Commissioner’s Office] said: “The e-mails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information.” He added: “The ICO is gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law. We will be advising the university about the importance of effective records management and their legal obligations in respect of future requests for information.” So, what we have here is that the subject of this article has contributed to the ICO's determination to propose srengthening FOIA law because the statements in the e-mails are "prima facie" evidence of intent to violate the law as interpreted by the deputy commissioner of the ICO (indeed, Graham says here, The prima facie evidence from the disclosed e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by defeating information. It's hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence. [...] In the event, the matter cannot be taken forward because of the statutory time limit. [47]). I hope you don't think it is speculative nonsense for Wikipedia to cover what prominent ICO officials are saying about this on ICO stationery and in statements to reliable sources. It isn't there now in the "Reactions" section. It is an important reaction, after all. It would be such an improvement in the atmosphere around here if an editor who was expecting complete vindication of the scientists would add this to the article. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 16:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks like I missed some of this. Much of this is already there in the "Reactions" section, although the back-and-forth between what the university, Graham and the committee chairman said is trivial. The points I've made here are the important ones. That and the fact that the ICO is continuing an investigation of the incident under Section 50 of the law, as Graham's letter (linked above) states. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

John, I've no doubt that you mean well, but you seem to be going out of your way to characterize the statements of others, myself included, in a manner that cannot be accounted for by reference to our actual statements. Now it appears that you have been basing your assessment of the article largely on your own imagination rather than a reading of the article itself. Above you falsely claim that I am describing facts as "speculative nonsense". Again, please stop. --TS 19:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe this can be accounted for by reference to your actual statement, because it's cut and pasted from it: As far as I can tell the ICO matter is fully and accurately reported in the article. --TS 16:13, 28 March 2010 (UTC) Yet we don't say that ICO is investigating under Section 50. We don't say that ICO officials are asking for the FOI law to be changed in part because of this case, and we don't say that Phil Willis, chairman of the Science and Technology Select Committee, which is investigating, has said Given the seriousness of this issue, the fact that it has caused global consternation, and has given ammunition to the climate sceptics – to have such a serious breach and for there to be no recourse in law requires urgent attention by the government. [48] Also, The notion that some awful evidence of wrongdoing has been disclosed is wrong. [...] --TS 23:31, 27 March 2010 (UTC) Yet Graham Smith, deputy commissioner of the ICO, calls the statements in some of the CRU e-mails strong prima facie evidence of violations of the discosure law. That's in the article. Did you not read it? The fact that the elements of a section 77 offence may have been found here, but cannot be acted on because of the elapsed time, is a very serious matter. [49] Smith also said, Mr. Holland's FOI requests [...] were not dealt with in accordance with the [FOI] Act. [50] Is this accurate? Fact based? Is this not some of the most important information out there about this subject? It certainly isn't in the article. And do you think it helps or hurts us keep cool and come to consensus when you say Now it appears that you have been basing your assessment of the article largely on your own imagination. Apparently you're not catching everything in the article either. It doesn't seem like the article is just so complete that it couldn't use this information. Perhaps someone who thought that no evidence of wrongdoing had been disclosed might want to add some of the reaction I've just mentioned here to the passage where Mr. Smith characterizes some of the emails as hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence of an FOIA violation. Am I imagining it all? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I've now cleaned up that section a bit. I know it's easy to lose site of the fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia when there is so much politicking going on at the talkpage, but it's generally true that anyone can edit. You've obviously read the material and gathered the sources needed to cite the narrative you want to see included. That's the hard part, after which you can just start editing away. I wouldn't say this if it was just you. Many people are coming to the talkpage with complaints about mischaracterizations in the article page, which is just to create a middleman. Check out the changes I made and add your own if you see fit--Heyitspeter (talk) 04:02, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Someone said: Jimbo's "generally good" suggestion is not followed simply by refraining from making contentious edits. You know that.

I think I disagree with that. A better way of putting what Jimbo says is as follows: it is the essence of good scholarship to avoid overstating the facts, and looking at the wording from different points of view is part of that.

I think Jimbo's formulation, though common on Wikipedia, is over-clumsy and capable of misinterpretation. A contentious edit is one that somebody else will encounter problems with. We're seeing fewer of those as time goes on, which is to be expected. --TS 16:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

His concrete suggestion was to edit against your POV where that would improve the article. That increases trust because it's something concrete rather than an airy statement of NPOV purpose that others with a different POV may see as either insincere or deluded. It's hard to see either of those things if you actually demonstrate your NPOV principles with concrete edits to the article. Since NPOV is interpreted differently by people with different POVs, what's clumsy is to constantly argue for your own POV, complain about the other side's lack of NPOV editing and leave it to the other side to put in information that goes against your POV. It's too easy to fool yourself into thinking you're favoring an NPOV everybody can agree on when you're really only projecting your side's view of what an NPOV article would look like -- a view (usually sincere and usually interpreted as insincere) that is opposed to the other side's view of what an NPOV article would look like. If you edit contrary to your own POV you demonstrate open-mindedness in a way that's hard for the other side to ignore. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:54, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Am I the only one who get's the feeling this how long discussion is an example of what Jimbo was hoping we avoid? Okay there are some decent points made and some genuine attempts by ~~both~~all sides to engage each other in meaningful discussion but I'm also seeing a lot of the stuff which I'm guessing JW was hoping we avoid Nil Einne (talk) 18:42, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's an unproductive discussion if we're left with the view that editing for or against one's point of view is what Wikipedia is about. It's about, as Jimbo says, getting the facts right and presenting them in a way that commands consensus. Inserting one's point of view into articles isn't ever acceptable. --TS 19:23, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

if we're left with the view that editing for or against one's point of view is what Wikipedia is about. Tony, why not address arguments rather than mischaracterize them? Wildly exaggerating achieves nothing. You've said the article is rather good now, but I've demonstrated that the ICO is investigating the CRU and that information is not now in the article. Since you want to get the facts right, and since you're not shy about editing the article, please feel free to add the information. That would work under both the reasons I've put forth and the ones you have. Inserting one's point of view into articles isn't ever acceptable. Nonsense. If it helps an article achieve balance it's always acceptable, even necessary. Just as inserting the POV opposed to your own is sometimes necessary to achieve NPOV. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

If you think a fact is missing please add it. --TS 20:40, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Frederick Burr Opper's *Alphonse and Gaston*

I wouldn't dream of precluding you or someone who largely shares your POV from having the honor of fixing it yourself (or himself or herself or themselves). I think this is a golden opportunity you should not pass up. I'll give you 24 hours to reap the glory. Go on, swoop it up. Be my guest. I can see the barnstars shining now. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:20, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

"Inserting one's point of view into articles isn't ever acceptable" But that's exactly what's going on, isn't it? Both sides think they can override reliable sources by adding and giving undue emphasis to the content that expresses their POV while downplaying or removing content that's against their POV. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that is a helpful characterization of the situation. In the past three months, since I was regularly involved in editing the article. the article seems to have been edited well and in keeping with project goals. There is still a little friction on the talk page but as far as I can tell it hasn't harmed the article quality. I think it's better if we think less about "sides" here, because obviously we're now nearly all agreed on the facts and we nearly all agree on how to present them. The content is stable and has been for a couple of months now, and it's being updated according to the unfolding of events. I'm very happy with the way things are going and you should all be proud of the work you've done. A little less bickering and talking about "sides" would help. ---TS 20:40, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this [51] adequately responds to TS's point. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:20, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it's usually best to avoid suggestions that there are two sides and it's something I usually try to avoid but unfortunately failed to in this instance but I've modified my comment now. However there clearly is a strong degree of partisianship as JW mentioned even if it doesn't mean there are two distinct sides. Many people do have their own strong existing POVs and these are clearly part of the problem. And this article has clearly has continous problems, for example it took us until now to change the title despite widespread disastisfaction for a long time for quite a number of editors familiar with policy. And even then it was far from unanimous even if we achieved consensus.

And there are often comments which skirt the line of failing to WP:AGF from all sides including in this very topic (one of the reasons why I made my comment in the first place). I admit I've never really understood that. While there are people who come with bad intentions, a lot of the time people genuinely want to improve the encylopaedia, perhaps they're letting their own POV, misunderstanding of policy etc get in the way and so they may not be actually helping and may indeed be causing problems but it doesn't mean they don't believe they are improving even if they are seriously wrong. Note that none of this means we haven't made significant progress.

BTW, a key part of what I believe JW was suggesting that is IMHO being missed by some in this topic is that it's not simply a matter of being willing to include something that is 'against your POV'. I'm sure most people are willing to do so. Rather the problem is that people let their own POV get in the way and so miss problems (or sometimes make unnecessary mountains out of molehills) and therefore even if they are willing they rarely actually do it. I myself avoid articles relating to the Palestianian-Israeli conflict partially because I'm not confident I can avoid my own POV getting in the way (along with a host of other reasons).

What Jimbo was suggesting is similar to the ideas expressed in the essay Wikipedia:Writing for the opponent and is also somewhat similar to some common idioms/ideas, e.g. walking a kilometre in someone else's shoes. Note that saying your able to put aside your POV is great in theory, in reality it's very difficult for us humans to actually do so therefore it's helpful to actively try to see it from someone else's POV rather then just trying to approach the matter neutrally.

P.S. I earlier modified Tony Sidaway's comment by accident, I think from a drag and drop cut and paste/insert (I didn't realise it happened hence why I didn't revert it so I'm only guessing but I do do that on occasion so it's the most likely scenario). I apologise for any confusion this may have caused and thank Dave Souza for informing me and giving me the opportunity to rectify this mistake.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's clear from the discussions about the article title that a lot of editors simply don't get WP:NPOV. But more than that, how often do you see editors writing for the opponent? Quite honestly, I think I'm the only regular editor who does this. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:37, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

While I've agreed with a number of your edits and feel you have sometimes shown signs of 'editing for the opponent', I would be careful about making statements like 'Quite honestly, I think I'm the only editor who does'. Whether true or not it comes across as unnecessary boasting that could easily lead to disputes over whether it's true (this isn't after all an arbcom election or adminship candacy or even RFC or RFA where such explanation or defence of your editing history is to be expected) and is also likely to be offensive to anyone else who feels like they're 'writing for the opponent'. Of course it is something that is hard to do, for example the person who started that essay has been accused of often not following it himself and had various problems (which lead to a resignation as a bureaucrat and later admin, two RFCs and two arbcom cases leading to probation). Not everyone even agrees with the idea of course although obviously I do feel it can be a useful exercise since as I've mentioned on contentious issues like this most people have an existing POV and no matter how hard they may try, it can be difficult to put it aside so actively trying to see it from another POV rather then from no POV can be beneficial. Nil Einne (talk) 19:35, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Nil Einne, if you've ever seen an edit from me that only expresses a single POV, it's only because the other POV was already included in the article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Bias permeates nearly every page of Wikipedia. The fact that such a little topic has resulted in an inordinate amount of discussion, with the skeptics of Global Warming needing to scrape and fight, tooth and nail for every micro-change is proof of the systematic bias. This is ridiculous. 75.150.245.244 (talk) 19:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

It's because Wikipedia doesn't have an effective dispute resolution system. This is an article that should take a few days to write, not 4 months. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:13, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Muddle over ICO "press statement"

Early in a long sequence of edits, HiP removed the significant point that the ICO gave information to the press without notifying the university, and divorced the UEA's submission to the select committee from the content of that submission, calling it "a statement to Parliament" as though it was something different.[52] Much later, he misrepresented a source to misdescribe the ICO's original letter as though it was a new letter "that reemphasized its earlier press statement".[53] and then in the next edit moved the UEA's submission into the paragraph with his misstatement about "a statement to Parliament" with the edit summary For future editors: I believe the sentence I'm here moving should be deleted per WP:Notability (of course the UEA denies wrongdoing. that's uninteresting).[54] I find it astonishing to suggest not showing that the university has issued a defence explaining the case. We could revert this whole muddle to the earlier concise version, but as such mistaken interpretations seem possible it may be better to review and clarify the section. . . dave souza, talk 09:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Hey Dave Souza, to address your points successively: (1) I do not see the 'without notifying the UEA' bit as notable, but feel free to readd it. (2) "a statement to Parliament" and "a submission to the select committee" are roughly synonymous, as the select committee was a part of Parliament. I do not see this as misleading. You can change it to your "submission..." version if you like. I have no objections to (1)-(2) mainly due to their triviality/inconsequentiality. (3) A somewhat careful reading of the citation should make it clear that the letter under discussion was different from the original. (4) I'd like you to remove the rest of your comment (from 'and then in the next edit' down) which consisted of an off-topic personal attack and WP:AGF violation, as per: Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation/Requests_for_enforcement/Archive4#Comment_refactoring. That covers all of the concerns you raise here, but feel free to bring more to my and our attention. Thank you. --Heyitspeter (talk) 17:17, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Can I take it from this response that you're happy to see the university's response being properly explained? I'm glad to assume that your lack of interest in their response is overcome, and was unintentional, so strike that aspect of my previous comment. The previous version avoided going beyond news reposts, but with the information now available, a clearer picture is emerging, so we can improve this section. Firstly, the source currently used quotes the the ICO’s letter of 29 January 2010 which confirmed the ICO’s previous statement, i.e. the "press statement" which only seems to have been given to one or more newspapers, and doesn't appear on the ICO's Press releases page. You seem to have taken the second paragraph of the news report as referring to a second letter, but that's not whant the news report says. Will look at clarifying that for a start. . . dave souza, talk 18:06, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

What defense is that, exactly? A statement that they didn't do it? My 'lack of interest' has not been overcome and was not unintentional (whatever that means). I continue to be very uninterested in the fact that the UEA stated, again, that they did not commit a crime, and I believe that this information should not be included in the article as per WP:NOTABILITY and WP:UNDUE. However, I also do not mind including it, as demonstrated in the edit you cite wherein I moved the sentence to a position of prominence and did not delete it. You appear to be a victim of what we in the biz call the Hostile media effect. If you do want to argue for the sentence's inclusion (note that you do not have to), please provide us with arguments that consist of more than just confused sarcasm and baiting. (I've taken the liberty of removing the personal attack in lieu of striking it.)--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Come on, HiP, you know perfectly well that NPOV requires both points of view to be represented. That means that the university's response to the ICO's comments must be included. Following NPOV is not optional. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:21, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with ChrisO that NPOV requires that we have a response. I think it's important -- not at all WP:UNDUE -- to have the university's defense of itself, but the article should not bog down into the university's description of Smith's letter and some MP criticizing the university on its description. That part should be removed. This is a much better statement from the university that we can use in that place instead:[55]

UEA's vice-chancellor, Professor Edward Acton, said : "Given that the stakes for humanity are so high in correctly interpreting the evidence of global warming, we would [...] urge scientists, academics, journalists and public servants to resist the distortions of hearsay evidence or orchestrated campaigns of misinformation, and instead to encourage open, intelligent debate."

I think that's one of the best comments put out by the university on this. We could shorten it by starting the quote with "[W]e would" -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Your characterization of WP policy is false. Review WP:UNDUE and WP:NOTABILITY.--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:45, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Neither of which is remotely applicable to this case because we're talking about one party's response to another party's comments about that first party. It's hard to imagine what could be more relevant. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

@ChrisO and JohnWBarber. Relevance has nothing to do with WP:NOTABILITY and WP:UNDUE. --Heyitspeter (talk) 07:53, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I, for one, would be happy to see the university's response properly explained as an attempt to obfuscate ICO's findings of a "prima facia" case that UEA violated section 77, and that the letter's referring to "private E-mails" does not necessarily reflect anything in an ICO statement. (The ICO letter said "evidence from the published emails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure ....") But there were two letters from UEA to ICO, and one or more submissions from UEA to the select committee. The timeline for that section needs more work. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:08, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)the significant point that the ICO gave information to the press without notifying the university -- Dave souza, I don't understand why that point is important enough to include in the article. I'm wondering if readers would really care about that. I do think it's all right to have a quote from the university about not violating the FOIA. I can't even follow the description of whether or not one statement to Parliament from the university is part of another statement or not -- I don't see why we should care about that. By the way, I also don't think there's any reason to get into the details of what the university said to Parliament and when and how that differed from what the ICO's Graham Smith said -- it's basically trivial. I don't care whether or not the university put its own spin on Smith's statement and 99.9 percent of our readers won't, either.

I'd rewrite the whole thing this way (although, again, a quote from the university after the first sentence would be fine by me). My version includes the information that the ICO is currently investigating the university under Section 50 (I'd held off making the edit, hoping someone who thinks the scientists probably did nothing wrong would edit for the other side on this, but if it's up for discussion anyway, here's the version I'd written up already):

CURRENT VERSION:

With reference to freedom of information requests made by an individual, the Deputy Information Commissioner with responsibility for the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), Graham Smith, issued a statement which was published on 27 January 2010; "The emails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland's requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information." The deputy commissioner stated that the ICO could not currently prosecute due to statute of limitations restrictions, but was looking into other time-barred investigations to see if a case could be made to change the relevant law.^[4]

In its submission to the Science and Technology Select Committee, the university denied allegations that it had refused to release raw data in breach of the FOIA.^[5] The UEA said in a statement to Parliament that a letter it had received from the ICO showed that no breach of the law had been established, with the ICO statement only referring to prima facie evidence, and that Mr. Holland's request at issue concerned private e-mails.^[6]^[7] The ICO responded with a letter that reemphasized its earlier press statement: "the prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence." Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, stated that it would be unwise for the university to attempt to portray the ICO's letter in a positive light, as the correspondence would be examined by the Committee. When the UEA was asked to clarify on their representation of the letter, they stated that the point being made in their submission was that "there has been no investigation so no decision, as was widely reported. The ICO read e-mails and came to assumptions but has not investigated or demonstrated any evidence that what may have been said in emails was actually carried out."^[8]

PROPOSED VERSION:

With reference to freedom of information requests made by an individual, the Deputy Information Commissioner with responsibility for the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), Graham Smith, issued a statement which was published on 27 January 2010; "The emails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland's requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information."^[4]

In its submission to the Science and Technology Select Committee, the university denied allegations that it had violated the FOIA in refusing to release raw data.^[5] Smith wrote in a January 29, 2010 letter to a University of East Anglia official that "the prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence." Although Section 77 no longer applies in the CRU case, a complaint against the University under Section 50 of the FOIA was under investigation by the ICO, Smith wrote: "In the present case, the section 50 complaint has not yet been fully investigated and there will be exchanges of correspondence between the ICO and UEA as those investigations progress. Unless there is agreement on an informal resolution, a decision notice will be issued. The process is likely to take some months."^[9] Phil Willis, chairman of the Science and Technology Select Committee, called Smith's statement about the alleged violation of FOIA regulations "an extremely serious charge," He said both the select committee and Russell's panel would investigate the matter.^[10]

Graham said the ICO was "gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law."^[11] Willis said, "Given the seriousness of this issue, the fact that it has caused global consternation, and has given ammunition to the climate sceptics—to have such a serious breach and for there to be no recourse in law requires urgent attention by the government."^[10]

REFERENCES

^ http://www.slate.com/id/2248236/pagenum/all/#p2
^ http://www.technewsworld.com/story/The-UN-Climategate-and-the-Viral-Webs-Hot-Air-68817.html?wlc=1268955240
^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/20/climate-sceptics-hackers-leaked-emails
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference Randerson_2010-01-27_Guardian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference guardian 2010-02-25 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference HoC memoranda was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Norfolk News - EDP24 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Times 2010-02-27 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Smith, Graham, letter dated January 29, 2010 to Brian Summers, posted online at the University of East Anglia website, retrieved March 28, 2010
^ ^a ^b Randerson, James, "University in hacked climate change emails row broke FOI rules", The Guardian, January 27, 2010, retrieved March 28, 2010
^ Webster, Ben "University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’", The Times, February 27, 2010, retrieved March 28, 2010

I think it's important enough to add to the article that (1) the ICO is looking into the matter under Section 50 while Section 77 can no longer apply, and that the matter will take months to resolve and even then may result in an informal resolution; (2) this case is part of what's prompting the ICO to suggest changes in FOIA legislation, (3) the chairman of the parliamentary committee investigating this thinks the current gap in the law "requires urgent attention by the government" and (4) calls Smith's assessment of the alleged violation "an extremely serious charge". -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:10, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm not averse to discssing the Section 50 issue but consider the current version with the edits I've made is more accurate and clearer regarding the sequence and implications of the Section 77 info. Are you sure that "looking into the matter" is an accurate description? The ICO letter of 22 January says they will be "following up on the section 50 complaints in due course." Note also that the ICO Memorandum to the select committee describes how "An amendment to section 77 to extend the time limit for prosecutions was debated in the House of Lords in July 2009 at the Report Stage of the Coroners and Justice Bill." and at that date there was a request for examples to show any systemic problems caused by the 6 month time set by the Magistrates Act. It also appears that there's not yet been a prosecution under Section 77, more on that later.

It's worth noting that the uni state that the ICO statement was given to a journalist on on 22 January 2010,[56] the press reports appeared on 27 January 2010 as stated previously. The correspondence which the uni released here includes their letter of 29 January and the ICO's letter in reply of the same date. That's the ICO letter of 29 January 2010 which the newspaper discusses: that letter also notes that the ICO statement of 22 January (punlished 27 January) was "put out in response to persisted enquiries from the Sunday Times journalist, Mr Leake." That's something that should really appear in the first para on the topic, will consider how to word it. . . dave souza, talk 19:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Re-reading your proposal, it looks not too bad on the section 50 issue, but that really has to be seen as a separate paragraph once the section 77 stuff has been clarified. The cases are distinct, because while section 77 prosecutions can be taken to a magistrates court, apparently by the ICO or the public prosecutor (with a maximum fine of £5,000 against individuals), the section 50 finding on a complaint, if finding the public authority at fault, results in a notice under section 52 to the authority giving instructions, and it's only if the authority fails to meet these instructions that the ICO "may certify failure to the court. The court may inquire into the matter and, after hearing witnesses or any statement on behalf of the public authority, deal with the authority as if it had committed a contempt of court."[57] So, a process there before sanctions. . . dave souza, talk 19:44, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec with below):::You're demonstrating to me that you know much more about this process than I do, so if you want to rewrite, please do. As long as (a) there are not too many details in the passage that are unimportant (I guess we all have our own ideas on that) and (b) the information I pointed out as important is provided to the readers, and (c) the version reads clearly, then I'm satisfied with any wording -- tinker with mine, or rewrite it any way you'd like. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The statement about the statute of limitations having expired is important because it establishes the reason for re-assessment (and intent to change) existing laws. Beyond retaining it's inclusion in some form, I think the brunt of John's proposed version is reasonable. Additionally, it meets the standard formatting requirements for a wikipedia article related to global warming. That is to say, it's needlessly wordy and 99% of casual readers will instantly tune it all out (if they bother to feign reading through all of it). However, the last passage could certainly be trimmed down to:

Willis stated, "...to have such a serious breach and for there to be no recourse in law requires urgent attention by the government."^[1] According to Graham, the ICO has begun gathering evidence to support the case for changing the law.^[2]

and still properly convey the relevant information.
--K10wnsta (talk) 20:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

**Addendum: Rereading my post, it occurs to me that the 'needlessly wordy...' statement could be construed as a knock against John's effort to improve the existing passages. Banish the thought. I am well aware he's simply doing what he can to get some lipstick on a...well, I understand he's working with what he's got and appreciate his effort.
--K10wnsta (talk) 20:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec with above) I don't mind cutting back on the wording in the least (with the caveat I'm about to mention). No offense taken, K10wsta. The reason I used the final Smith quote, however, was to point out that this controversy appears to be one of the reasons the ICO wants to change the FOIA law, or at least it will be used as evidence for the argument to change the law. If that idea (with its nuances) can be preserved, I don't care whether or not it's in a quote (although I'm not sure the quote isn't the quickest way to say it). As I reread it, the final Willis quote is pretty wordy and I think your version is much better (I slapped mine together pretty fast), although (style point here) the quote should start: "[T]o have such a serious -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:28, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

How about we combine all the passages, reword 'em, shuffle 'em around, give 'em a swift kick in the ass, cut out all the extraneous prattle and bureaucratic hoobajoo, and emerge from the ordeal with something like:

Phil Willis, chairman of the Science and Technology Select Committee, said "Given the seriousness of this issue...to have such a serious breach and for there to be no recourse in law requires urgent attention by the government."^[1] The Deputy Information Commissioner responsible for the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), Graham Smith, said the ICO could not currently prosecute due to statute of limitations restrictions but has started gathering evidence to support a case for changing the law.^[3]

--K10wnsta (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Brief and witty, but out of sequence as Smith made his "statement" long before Willis chipped in, and the comment by Willis is an interim comment by a politician rather than the outcome of the select committee inquiry he's chairing. Liable to revision as facts emerge. As an aside, there's a strong case for a prosecution to be brought to enable Jones to present a defence and at worst face a £5000 fine, the prima facie case is, according to the Guardian, based on this (illicitly obtained) email which suggests deleting emails, but does not state or show that they actually deleted any. . . dave souza, talk 21:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Therefore the ICO Section 50 investigation, I suppose. One reason I like both the Smith and Willis quotes is that they establish how important this matter is, a value beyond the purposes of this particular section. There have been some comments on this page knocking the idea that this whole controversy is important at all. I think it's valuable to have high officials involved in lawmaking -- especially the chairman of a committee looking into this matter and a high official of the ICO -- saying this controversy should help change the law. That they both use the word "serious" concerning the treatment of the FOIA requests is also important. Dave, the "politician" is tasked with both chairing the committee looking into aspects of this controversy and his voice may be influential in changing the law. Quoting him, or at least getting his views in there, seems particularly apt. When his committee issues a report, it will certainly be important to the article. In contrast, I don't see this as important enough to remain:

Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, told The Times that it would be unwise for the university to attempt to portray the ICO's letter in a positive light, as the correspondence would be examined by the Committee. The UEA told the newspaper that the point being made in their submission was that "there has been no investigation so no decision, as was widely reported. The ICO read e-mails and came to assumptions but has not investigated or demonstrated any evidence that what may have been said in emails was actually carried out."[51]

I think we have bigger fish to fry than this. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Agree with that in principle, though haven't had time yet to check details, but note that Evan Harris is also on the committee. Both seem to be Liberals, with an election approaching it'll be interesting to see how this develops. They're unlikely to gain power, but may have more sway than usual if it's a hung parliament. Even without being in the ruling party, their decisions will be important to this, but these are clearly preliminary remarks before the investigation started. . . . dave souza, talk 23:28, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

After removed the following passage:

The ICO responded with a letter that reemphasized its earlier press statement: "the prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence."^[4]

Dave Souza replaced it with this:

The university made available the ICO letter, which said that "the prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence."^[5]

The new sentence is not in the citation given, and the quote is found in none of the letters made available at that link. The quote is not from an earlier letter but is rather a clarification of that letter, as discussed in the article that cites the removed version (University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’). If someone wants to restore the earlier version that would be great. If not I'll do so myself tomorrow. (I don't believe I've made reverts, but I did make a lot of edits so I want to be careful.)--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Eh? this pdf, page 1, para 4. No italics on prima facie, otherwise identical to the same section quoted by the Sunday Times. . . dave souza, talk 21:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Ahh couldn't find it with my browser's search thing. My bad and thanks.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:26, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that explains it – pdf can include searchable text, as in the uni's letters, or can just be a photograph or photocopy, as in the ICO letter which means the text can't be searched or highlighted for copy and paste. . . dave souza, talk 06:57, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Occasionally particularly with old journal article you get both in that you're shown a scan of the article but there's actually text in the background and potentially even linked to each word, I presume from an OCR but not proof read well or at all (or perhaps is proof read well but for formatting reasons) Nil Einne (talk) 06:31, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Primary sources

Both POVs should be mentioned with weight based on their presentation in reliable sources. If there's an aspect to a primary source that the press failed to pick up on, it's against WP:NPOV to include it. (Again, I'm bold-facing the "if"'s that begin so many of my sentences because people seem to miss it.) I'm not saying that this applies to this particular case, (I honestly haven't looked into it yet) but I've noticed a tendency to quote primary sources (whether press releases or blog postings) which sometimes have the end result of overemphasizing a particular POV beyond their presentation in third-party reliable sources. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:56, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The press are also questionable as a reliable sources, both because they're giving an instant response to current affairs which is not necessarily accurate, and because of their political spin leading to distortions. That's the problem with trying to cover news rather than waiting for scholarly historical treatment. Thus, when the press cite info or refer to documents, it's normal research to look at the cited documents and see if they support the statements, while at the same time avoiding original research. The preferable option would be to wait for publication of the various enquiries and the judgement of reputable historians. . . dave souza, talk 22:05, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Some of the press accounts, like the 12-part Guardian series, were published months after the event. I realize you (and many others) have problems with that series and many have problems with many of the press accounts, but they're the best we have (that's the nature of a Wikipedia article about an ongoing controversy). We should certainly look at any source with a critical eye. For instance, the small Pennsylvania newspaper that was my source for the recent edition of information on Michael Mann is worth looking at with a particularly critical eye because it will tend to be less professional than larger newspapers who have reporters continually covering this issue. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:26, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking a bit about that. The Graham Smith letter is quoted in newspaper accounts. I think the parts we quote are quoted in those accounts. It's published on the Web by the university, which could be interpreted as a move that's against the university's best interests (other than the interest in appearing honest and open), and it's hard to believe that the pdf image posted by the university is changed in any way, so the letter itself looks like a reliable source to me. In this set of paragraphs we cite news accounts which quote from the letter. If anything, we could put another footnote after quotes from the letter, but do you think it's worth it? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:26, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

We just quoted the newspaper account before, but there's just been an argument (hope it's resolved) about whether there was one or two letters discussed in that account, and citing the letter itself seemed the best way of resolving the interpretation of the news account. These news accounts are day to day stories, not the overall analysis by the Guardian's 12 part series which is excellent is general, though some details are questionable and are indeed questioned on the web pages (click on the yellow bits, check the section at the bottom of the article before the readers' comments). The submissions to the select committee were after that Guardian series, and there's just been outline news coverage of these issues. . . dave souza, talk 22:36, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

(EC)Unfortunately, there are no peer-reviewed academic articles that we can reference so unless we delete the article, we have to go with the most reliable sources available. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Now that the press is questionable, how can we possibly maintain the high standard we expect of our articles related to global warming?
--K10wnsta (talk) 22:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference jrg0328 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Webster, Ben "University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’", The Times, February 27, 2010, retrieved March 28, 2010
^ Webster, Ben "University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’", The Times, February 27, 2010, retrieved March 28, 2010
^ Cite error: The named reference Times 2010-02-27 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference CruICO was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[1] ttp://www.slate.com/id/2248236/pagenum/all/#p2

[2] ttp://www.technewsworld.com/story/The-UN-Climategate-and-the-Viral-Webs-Hot-Air-68817.html?wlc=1268955240

[3] ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/20/climate-sceptics-hackers-leaked-emails

[Randerson_2010-01-27_Guardian-4] Cite error: The named reference Randerson_2010-01-27_Guardian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[guardian_2010-02-25-5] Cite error: The named reference guardian 2010-02-25 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[HoC_memoranda-6] Cite error: The named reference HoC memoranda was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Norfolk_News_-_EDP24-7] Cite error: The named reference Norfolk News - EDP24 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Times_2010-02-27-8] Cite error: The named reference Times 2010-02-27 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[9] Smith, Graham, letter dated January 29, 2010 to Brian Summers, posted online at the University of East Anglia website, retrieved March 28, 2010

[jrg0328-10] Randerson, James, "University in hacked climate change emails row broke FOI rules", The Guardian, January 27, 2010, retrieved March 28, 2010

[11] Webster, Ben "University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’", The Times, February 27, 2010, retrieved March 28, 2010

[jrg0328-12] Cite error: The named reference jrg0328 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[13] Webster, Ben "University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’", The Times, February 27, 2010, retrieved March 28, 2010

[14] Webster, Ben "University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’", The Times, February 27, 2010, retrieved March 28, 2010

[Times_2010-02-27-15] Cite error: The named reference Times 2010-02-27 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[CruICO-16] Cite error: The named reference CruICO was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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