Wikipedia:Peer review/Global warming/archive1

Global warming

I came across this article by chance, and it looks good to me. It is a central part of a wider project and it seems that some relevant matters (read: political implications of global warming) have deliberately been moved to related pages, but otherwise it looks fairly complete. Stability could be an issue, though. Kosebamse 21:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article could use a graph showing the trend of the financial costs involved :) --James S. 03:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good, nice article, on a subject that definitely deserves a featured article. I do have a few comments:
1. Citation style: you've used inline URLs for citations, which is OK according to WP:MOS, but actually causes problems with the printable version of the page, and very much with audio rendering -- the problem is that in those versions of the page, the whole URL gets printed/spoken inline, which disrupts the text to a great degree. I don't think it will make it through FAC like this. Better to use {{ref|foo}} and {{note|foo}}, and a "References" section. Check out Panama Canal for what seems to be the preferred style.
  1. Umm, this has (a lot of) history. Where to start? Maybe [1] here. William M. Connolley 21:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]
    1. OK, I see the history. Still, I think the rendering issue is real, and I got dinged trying to get Panama Canal through FAC with just one inline link. Just a heads-up. — Johan the Ghost _seance 23:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
2. The lead section is a little big. Maybe move some of the detail out of there? The IPCC quote, for example.
3. It's great that there are so many references cited. To make it through FAC, though, you'll need to have a source for just about every significant fact. A couple of possible problem areas are: first paragraph of "Warming of the Earth"; first 2 of "Causes of global warming".
  1. Did the first one; not sure about the causes-of paras; what is unsourced there? The 30 oC is in the GHE article. William M. Connolley 21:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]
    1. Maybe it's ok, just liiks like a lot statements with no source (eg. "The climate system varies both through natural, "internal" processes as well as..."). — Johan the Ghost _seance 23:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
4. "Temperature record holds a discussion of the various records" -- unclear -- I would say "see Temperature record for a discussion of the various records".
  1. I've reformulated the section, hopefully it's clea[rn]er now. --Stephan Schulz 23:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Great! — Johan the Ghost _seance 23:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
5. "Pre-human global warming": "... that this caused the rate of rock weathering to increase ... As a result of this, carbon dioxide levels dropped back" -- explain how this works.
  1. I've added an explaining sentence...is this enough?--Stephan Schulz 23:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Yup, looks good. — Johan the Ghost _seance 23:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
6. "Effects": "the effects may already be being experienced" -- a bit awkward, how about "these factors may already be having an effect" or some such?
7. "Destabilisation of ocean currents": provide a summary.
  1. SS did this; I've modded his a bit. William M. Connolley 22:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]
    1. That's great! — Johan the Ghost _seance 23:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

— Johan the Ghost _seance 19:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think citation is an issue. I'm a fan of the <ref></ref> tags so could we simply replace them with that and format as needed? There are apparently some written references that go this way too; we can just format the written references as needed. To me the only thing that bugs me so far is the formalisation issue: too many parentheses, lots of special notation (since this isn't a chemistry article, we don't exactly need so many formulas unless it's an equation). What do you think of me removing or replacing most of the special notation in their word format until absolutely necessary (ie. disambiguating an acronym)? Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 11:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For a long time, this article has been at the center of strong POV and factual controversies (one Arbitration I can remember, likely more), so for that reason alone, it's unlikely to ever get featured. Circeus 20:15, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bit of a strange comment - do you mean "there is something wrong with it", or do you mean "people who don't like it are likely to vote it down"? I don't think the latter is worth worrying about. But if you mean the former, what? William M. Connolley 20:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I'm pointing out that FA must be void of controversies and POV issues, and I'm afraid it'll be difficult to reach that particular goal here. Circeus 20:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then I still don't understand you. I very much doubt that only articles on non-controversial subjects get FA. But... I doubt this matters much. If you can think of areas where the current article is POV, please point them out though. William M. Connolley 20:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I haven't even read the article. It is, however, a fact that it has been at the center of massive POV wars before, and for that it risks rejection as FAC. Circeus 21:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From What is a featured article: "article is uncontroversial in its neutrality and factual accuracy" and "an article does not change significantly from day to day and is not the subject of ongoing edit wars". Having a global warming article that is truly both uncontroversial and generally avoids edit wars is at least difficult, even if the last several months have been relatively peaceful. Dragons flight 21:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I find it surprising that an article about as important a topic as global warming faces such obstacles becoming featured, whereas it is relatively simple to get much less notable articles through. –Joke 02:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notability of the subject isn't one of the featured article criteria. Featured status is about the quality of the article; although of course the subject has to be notable enough to deserve an article in the first place. Also, I would say that the importance of the subject makes it even more important that we make sure that the article is correct, complete, neutral, and well-written. As for it being simple to get less notable articles through, I'd dispute that! I'm sweating pretty hard on getting Cape Horn through right now, and a lot of the current candidates are getting a lot of opposition. — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know this has been done to death, but the frustrating thing I find about using in-line links as references is that I have no idea what is being linked to: URLs can, and frequently do, change (as do, you might say, Wikipedia pages). The advantage is the directness. Is there any easy way to have both the in-line external links and a careful accounting of the references at the bottom of the page? Also, without references of the bottom of the page, the article precludes the grand academic tradition of reading only an article's references. –Joke 02:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Kyoto protocol (most of the food-fight happened there anyway) for a ref style that does that. I think thats called the "Harvard" ref style. What I find very frustrating is that the "cite.php" extension can in theory do both, but only seems to have fotnotes implemented :-( William M. Connolley 18:24, 14 February 2006 (UTC).[reply]