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Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy/Archive 14

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Proposed re-add: "code and documentation" section

This article previously included a section about the code and documentation included in the FOIA zip file. TS removed this section here. Numerous reliable blogs, editorials, and news sources have written about the code and associated readme file:

And so on. Therefore I submit that information about the code and readme should be reinstated. Thoughts? Oren0 (talk) 03:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. --GoRight (talk) 07:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. "Me too" is not a "thought". And GoRight? Pajamas Media is not more reliable than The New York Times. OrenO, do you understand the difference between an editorial and a news story? Viriditas (talk) 11:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Blogs, editorials, and opinion columns are generally not reliable sources. This has been discussed before, is it so difficult to search the archives?
—Apis (talk) 12:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I discovered that blogs are referenced quite a bit when it comes to the pages describing Michael Mann, the Hockey Stick controversy, etc..etc.. Interesting that it's ok for one side to use these things, but not the other. Jeremyrainman (talk) 18:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)— Jeremyrainman (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
I deleted the section on 28th November when information was very sparse. I thought the section was downright dodgy and not up to Wikipedia's standards. The discussion leading up to this removal is here in the archive. But that was over three weeks ago so it's a good idea to see whether things have changed. Do we now have material to write a section on analyses of the code?
(By the way I took the liberty of correcting "London Telegraph" to "Daily Telegraph" in the first comment in this section. Just as there is no "London Times", and no "Times of London", there is no such newspaper as "The London Telegraph".)
Looking at Oren0's list, we have:
  • CBS News: a piece dated November 24, 2009, an opinion piece by Declan McCullogh. Nothing new since the removal of the section from this article.
  • Washington Times editorial, another opinion piece, dated November 27, 2009
  • ComputerWorld, an aside in a column about network security, dated November 25, 2009
  • Pajamas Media, a blog published on November 24, 2009
  • The Atlantic: November 25, 2009 and December 3, 2009. Opinion columns. One refers to the Declan McCullogh blog, the other simply publishes the opinion of "a reader."
  • New York Times, apparently December 1, 2009. I cannot read this for some reason (possibly my browser is rejecting its cookies).
  • Daily Telegraph, December 8, 2009. Actually written by a technologically literate person who has sat down and read one of the conspiracy theorists' favorite pieces of "evidence". He proceeds to tear the conspiracy theories to tiny pieces.
  • The Weekly Standard. A clearly marked opinion piece, dated December 14, 2009.
  • Sydney Morning Herald: December 5, 2009 and December 7, 2009. The December 5 piece is good and includes a comment from Michael Coughlan, the head of the National Climate Centre at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. His comment on the nature of the programmer's problems, though he admits he is speculating, is the first thing approaching expert commentary on the code I have seen. The December 7 piece, as far as the code is concerned, simply repeats the content of the December 5 piece.
  • BBC, a NewsNight piece on December 4, 2009. This is essentially a coder repeating for NewsNight what he wrote on his blog. The problem I have with this is that he's analysing a software bug in a piece of code of unknown significance. Garbage in, garbage out.
So things have moved on a little since November 28. Enough for a new section? No. The source code has apparently played very little part in this affair. --TS 15:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
There is no Wikipedia guideline that news blogs or editorials can't be cited in an article, only that they are cited as the author's opinion. If you read the deleted section, it does just that. Add the two news articles and this story has way more coverage than the responses of many of the individuals who get whole paragraphs in this article. Oren0 (talk) 19:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
There's a policy, not a guideline, prohibiting the use of self-published sources for info on third parties: it's called Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, to wit: "Never use self-published books, zines, websites, forums, blogs or tweets as sources for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject ... Living persons may write or publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if: ... 2. it does not involve claims about third parties or unrelated events." -- ChrisO (talk) 20:24, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
First, familiarize yourself with the "self-published" part of that policy. None of the listed sources are self-published. This policy doesn't apply to editorials published in reliable sources. Secondly, this particular issue doesn't fall under BLP anyway. While some parts of this article relate to BLP, it's hard for me to imagine how discussion of leaked code could be interpreted as being about a living person. Oren0 (talk) 06:29, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with Johna Till Johnson but she says that, "One of the scientists included both on his e-mail signature — which means that anyone receiving an e-mail from this guy had access to his files. This may have been the source of the hack; in fact, some folks have theorized that a recipient of the e-mail was the source of the data dump.".[13] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Included both what? --TS 21:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there hasn't been much public discussion about material other than email. Both the title and the opening paragraph leave the impression that it was mostly email. I'd like to see a summary of the contents in the introduction, and a more general title. I would think it would be possible to find a slightly more detailed characterization of the non-emails than the brief listing at the beginning of the Documents section. My personal views are probably not relevant here, but the only part of this whole stuff I've personally read is a long file of commentary by a person doing adjustments in data. I've had to work with real-world data from time to time. His comments looked like a person doing his best to cope with a really messy reality. (My biases, by the way, tend to be in the skeptical direction, but I didn't see any smoking guns there.) Hedrick (talk) 14:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The Article Is a Cartoon

Granted, I've only skimmed through this page, but the entry begins with the "stolen stolen thief stole stole" narrative, covers some facts in the middle, and then goes off on a tangent about death threats at the end, so that the reader is led to believe that what is at issue is really sin: the sin of stealing compuer files, and the sin of issuing death threats to public figures (who normally, of course, never receive death threats).

Anthropogenic Global Warming is referred to as the "mainstream" view, multiple times.

A FAQ tamps down dissenting views by explaining, reassuringly, that a website with an aggressive pro-AGW stance thinks the files were exposed by a "hacker," rather than a "whistleblower." Now THAT is a reliable source!

Until this article can be re-written with a NPOV, it should simply be taken down; right now it's an embarrassment. Scooge (talk) 11:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, we'll get right on it. Thanks for your great suggestions. Number 2? Please remove this article. We've got our orders. Viriditas (talk) 11:16, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
This "hacker" versus "whistleblower" issue is a False dichotomy. The hacker could have been an insider. Not a lot of reliable sources have focused on this aspect, but you can read more about it here. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
How is a "whistleblower" not an insider? Jeremyrainman (talk) 16:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
But we don't know for a fact that it was an insider. It might have been. It might not have been. Furthermore, even if it was a insider, we have no idea what the motivation was. Was it to expose the potential misconduct of 3 or 4 scientists? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe the leak has nothing to do with AGW. In the real Watergate scandal, Mark Felt's apparent's motivation was because he was pissed after being passed over for a promotion. We simply don't know. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
The whole "whistleblower/insider" thing is mere speculation by the uninformed. All reliable sources are treating it as a hacking. --TS 21:14, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Please explain how calling this incident "hacking" is not speculation. Nothing has been proven, this could have been a hack or a leak, no one knows. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.221.226 (talk) 22:10, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
FAQ Q5. We report the known facts from reliable sources. We don't do speculation or indulge arguments such as "How do we know Saturn isn't really a gigantic blimp?" --TS 22:35, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Hacking in this context is an unverifiable claim, not a proven fact. No reliable source has proven this incident was either a hack or a leak. Any statement to this effect is speculation by definition: spec·u·late - to take to be true on the basis of insufficient evidence —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.221.226 (talk) 01:37, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Take your concerns to the police. Perhaps they'll call off their investigation. --TS 01:41, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
That is exactly what I am talking about. It must be investigated before anything can be proven and stated as fact (hack or leak), yet this article says "hack" 11 times. You tried to be cute but unwittingly proved my point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.221.226 (talk) 06:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed page move

I'm starting a new section because the previous sections have been hijacked by people demanding we call everything "Climategate". I'd like to propose that the page be moved to:

  • Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy

This proposed title has already attracted some support, and I believe it to be both accurate and neutral. We cannot allow the existing, inaccurate and misleading title to remain any longer - in fact, it has been the subject of ridicule both within and beyond Wikipedia. This proposal is not intended to close the renaming debate completely, but it is intended to remove ambiguity and define a proper scope. There is nothing preventing "Climategate" from being a redirect in the same way as "Watergate" is only a redirect. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Oppose What exactly is controversial about the data theft? Whether it was done by an insider or an outsider? If so, there's a dearth of WP:RS to support this aspect of the controversy. Instead, the controversy is focused on the e-mails, the potential misconduct of 3 or 4 scientists and how this controversy relates to the overall AGW political debate. I suggest "Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy" or "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • The "controversy" part refers to the consequences of the data theft - the bit you seem most interested in, as far as I can tell. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • It isn't just the emails that are the focus, the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file is references by plenty of RS's, for example. Also, it looks like whoever got the data and emails didn't get it from hacking an email account, he or she also had to have access to the filesystem. Ignignot (talk) 15:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I have proposed this before, but it would be my second choice because I believe that the data theft is the most important and significant detail of this entire incident. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Wrong. This issue is a current and ongoing event, not an historical event. It says clearly that terms such as -gate "should not be used in article titles on current affairs".

Oh well, denialist in one matter, denialist in others, I guess. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

False. 75.150.245.244 (talk) 17:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Except when it comes to the WP:UNDUE weight given to the death threats in the lede. Not only is WP:NPOV negotiable, it's ignorable. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
False. http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions. "Using names and terms most commonly used in reliable sources, and so most likely to be recognized, for the topic of the article. First. Rule. 75.150.245.244 (talk) 17:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

How about "Climatic Research Unit email and data divulgation "  ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.253.56 (talk) 15:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Strongly Oppose - Both the page move and Scjessey's continued assumptions of bad faith and personal attacks on his fellow editors. No one has "hijacked" anything. The page SHOULD be named Climategate. --GoRight (talk) 15:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Why not ? It's being voilated to satisfy your agenda. 75.150.245.244 (talk) 17:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • (a) There is no such policy and repeating factually incorrect material after this has been pointed out to you suggests an intent to deceive, and (b) Your repeated and flagrant personal attacks are unwelcome. Please comment on the edits and not the editors. --GoRight (talk) 16:22, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I think your misrepresentations about me can be safely ignored from now on. Your comments are typical of agenda-driven editors frustrated by Wikipedia policy. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:38, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
False. Obviously. 75.150.245.244 (talk) 17:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Maximal Support in the strongest of terms, because that's worth at least 3 or 4 times as much !voting mojo as your basic Strongly Oppose LOL. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose It was not the (main CRU) data that was stolen, so this is misleading. (How many times are you going to raise this? Until after we're all dead? Until you get a consensus by sheer repetition?) The present title is fine until some new facts emerge. Do you really think Wikipedia is "the subject of ridicule" due to its fact-based articles and titles? While you keep raising this, you can see what the Big Oil fan-club want to do with it. --Nigelj (talk) 16:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment GoogleNews gives 5996 hits for Climategate, 4584 for climate change emails, 4004 for climate research unit, 3506 for cilmate emails, 62 for Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, and 32 for Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy. Being a political progressive who strongly believes in anthropogenic global warming and who up to now has been uninvolved in this article or discussion, I find the arguments against using "climategate" to be disconcertingly poor. — goethean ॐ 17:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • That is nonsense. We strive to come up with a title for the article which is both neutral and accurate. "Climategate" may be popular in Google (not relevant, so who the hell cares?) but it is neither neutral nor accurate. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Google News results reflects the fact that ClimateGate is what the event is called by reporters. Reporters write the articles which comprise the media. You are undoubtedly familiar with this process. Who the fuck cares, indeed. It's very clear what you do and do not care about. — goethean ॐ 18:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • That is simply not the case. Most reporters using the term are either using quotes to show that it is a "populist" term, or are simply to lazy to do a proper job. "Climategate" is a convenient (but silly) word that works nicely in headlines, and on alarmist blogs. The actually number of Google hits is irrelevant to the appropriateness of the term. It could be eleventy-billion and it still wouldn't matter. There were countless thousands of Google hits for "Obama muslim", and they were all obviously wrong too. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
or are simply to lazy to do a proper job
Or they aren't real reporters, right? User:Scjessey thinks the term is silly. Case closed. — goethean ॐ 20:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the data "theft" is not the issue, and only a small part of the event. That would be like calling Watergate the "Presidential secret break-in unit illegal disclosure scandal" - Wikidemon (talk) 17:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
    The data theft is the most significant detail of this matter. The controversy that followed is based on misunderstanding, sloppy reporting and climate change skeptics from the fringe. Everything revolves around the theft of the data. The Watergate thing was differed in that it actually uncovered a scandal involving Nixon, whereas this incident has uncovered nothing. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:35, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

...I disagree the content of the emails suggest serious scientific misconduct and a deliberate attempt to prevent FOI. The similarity to Watergate is clear -where is your NPOV?MarkC (talk) 12:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

This article would be improved by adding these images which show how they used a "trick" to "hide the decline."

The talk archive contains this discussion, where someone closed the discussion, and added the message, "The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion."

Since no consensus was reached in that discussion, I would like to continue the discussion here.

The green line in this graph, which shows a decline in temperature, mysteriously disappears during the duration when it showed a decline. This set of images should be included in the article.

In the previous discussion, the main reason that a consensus was not reached was because of disagreement over whether or not the Daily Mail was a reliable source. I think it's a reliable source.

I also think this article would be greatly improved by the inclusion of the graph.

I don't know the copyright status of the graph, but fair use allows publication of copyrighted material for "commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship," so I think the fair use policy would apply here.

I am interested in establishing a consensus for including or not including the graph in the article.

What do other people think of this?

Grundle2600 (talk) 20:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

It's an article in the Daily Mail. We have entire articles citing the science of this matter, and the science isn't going to be overturned by an ignoramus publishing his nonsense in a tabloid newspaper. --TS 20:16, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
+1--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. This article is not about global warming, or the methods used for calculating it. This article is about a data theft, the investigation of that theft and its direct consequences. The graph would be inappropriate. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
You are wrong, this has been discussed many times. The title may be misleading, but it is in its phrased such not to restrict adding content about the controversy but because no name has been agreed on yet to more aptly describe the article without using words to avoid.jheiv (talk) 07:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
How am I wrong? We are trying to come up with a new title that more accurately describes the incident in a neutral way. What's wrong about that? -- Scjessey (talk) 14:43, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I think it should be in the hockey stick controversy article. That needs a little bit of cleanup, actually. Ignignot (talk) 20:24, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Ah, Mr. Sidaway has set himself up as a judge of what constitutes reputable sources. And he's tossing insults at journalists. Nope, no agenda-pushing going on here.
This is so, so bad for Wikipedia. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 20:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
We are all tasked with determining what constitutes a reliable source. That is a major part of our job as editors. --TS 21:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Technically, it is not showing a decline in temperatures, but a decline in a particular tree-ring proxy that did not match correlate with thermometer records. Tree-ring proxy measurements are not a substitute for temperature, which again is part of the issue. The trick and the specific decline in question are best explained here. Jeremyrainman (talk) 21:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments everyone. I do disagree with the claim that the graph has nothing to do with the article. The graph is about how he used a "trick" to "hide the decline," which is something that the article does include. Adding this graph would make the article better. If the main argument against inclusion now is that the graph has nothing to do with the article, well, that argument is wrong. The graph is a visual representation of something that is cited in the article, so it is relevant. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The slanted presentation and the poor sourcing are what makes this graphic unacceptable. Graphics from peer reviewed sources are available. --TS 21:12, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Are there any such sources that demonstrate the selective exclusion of Briffa's series? If not, then I suggest that the more neutral approach since this controversy centers around scientific gatekeepting would be to allow this and show what was done. In fact, there are actual comments from IPCC reviewers asking for this data not to be truncated. Jeremyrainman (talk) 21:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Do we have a reliable source for this? The way I see it we're supposed to be writing from an historical perspective, so leaping on every single blog posting would be a poor use of our time. --TS 21:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
(after ec) Well, it's in between. This article is not a podium to try to prove or disprove climate change or its man-made contributions. That battle, if any (Wikipedia is not a battleground) belongs on the various Climate change articles, which may be covered by some arbitration remedies. However, we are covering the disclosure of some computer files and the aftermath from that. If those particular scientists produced a graph, and if there is a notable graph produced by others involved in the controversy, then if sourced and of due weight (and subject to copyright and non-free image policy) those graphs may be suitable for inclusion here whether or not they are POV, scientifically sound, etc. A random partisan or pundit weighing in does not deserve mentioning. However, if that pundit manages to make themselves part of the incident, perhaps. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:24, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Wikidemon, you said, "If those particular scientists produced a graph, and if there is a notable graph produced by others involved in the controversy, then if sourced and of due weight (and subject to copyright and non-free image policy) those graphs may be suitable for inclusion here whether or not they are POV, scientifically sound, etc." I agree. So for now, we won't include any such graph. Grundle2600 (talk) 22:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

It is also worth reading Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident/Archive_8#Trick and worth noting that our own File:1000 Year Temperature Comparison.png truncates a Briffa series at 1960. For a view of what it looks like truncated slightly later (but still not the full reconstruction), see the end of the UEA statement [14] --Rumping (talk) 02:19, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, especially for the link to the chart. Grundle2600 (talk) 03:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Note: It has been decided that, despite the title, this article is not only about the hacking incident but also the controversy that has arisen as a result of the emails. Please don't use the excuse that "[blank] is not what this article is about". jheiv (talk) 07:10, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Sentence misrepresents source

{{editprotected}}

See the first paragraph of this section of the article for the following fragment: "and discussions that some pundits and commentators believe advocate keeping scientists who have contrary views out of peer-review literature".

It cites this article from The Wall Street Journal, which in no way mentions pundits or commentators. The quotes relevant to the sentence in question that are included in the WSJ article are as follows:

"Some emails also refer to efforts by scientists who believe man is causing global warming to exclude contrary views from important scientific publications."

"The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others."

"A partial review of the hacked material suggests there was an effort at East Anglia, which houses an important center of global climate research, to shut out dissenters and their points of view."

Given this, can an administrator please change the fragment to, "and discussions of efforts to shut out dissenters and their points of view," in keeping with (and keeping) the relevant citation from the WSJ?--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The use of the words "apparent" and "suggests" is a weasel by the writer so that he can give the appearance of saying something without making a substantive factual statement. You fell for it. --TS 23:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
a) The point being made is that the WSJ article is listed as a citation for a sentence that it does not support. Please respond to this point if you feel the need. b) Remember you're talking about a writer for the WSJ, not an editor on Wikipedia. If the author reports that these emails "suggest x" or indicate "apparent x", then we can say so in the article. --Heyitspeter (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't think the opinion of a WSJ writer can be reported as fact. If you think our verifiability policy says so, you're wrong. I think the WSJ sourcing is poor for this statement and we can find better sources--I'll do so without delay. --TS 00:50, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The WSJ article is not an editorial, it is a report on the CRU e-mail incident. He was reporting the contents of the e-mails, not waxing poetical.--Heyitspeter (talk) 06:40, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

We don't have consensus for this proposed edit, so I've demoted the "editprotected". The question of whether the Wall Street Journal piece is a news piece or not is neither here nor there. If it is used, as you seem to want to use it here, to represent the reporter's opinion--which he writes as opinion--as fact, then that's an unacceptable use. --TS 09:45, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Template addition

Can an administrator add the following template to the article?: {{Unbalanced}}

We've even got a writer at The Telegraph calling this article unbalanced, but the sentiment has also been expressed by numerous editors on this talkpage. Thanks!--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

We've addressed the "writer" (James Delingpole) many times now, and I think you are well aware of that fact. Do you understand the difference between an opinion piece and a news story? Viriditas (talk) 23:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Viriditas, please read my post before making irrelevant comments. That was an example of a person who has discussed the biases in this article. Just an off-hand mention.--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Now I think I see what is going on. Viriditas, Heyitspeter, please would you consent to our closing of these two sections (this one and the one started by Viriditas about a proposed FAQ addition)? They are just distractions to our business here and only serve to increase polarization. --TS 00:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

? I'm sorry if it looks that way. I honestly believe the template applies. Sources are variously being misrepresented, included and/or excluded unjustly. If we don't have consensus we don't have consensus, but I don't know that the section should be deleted.--Heyitspeter (talk) 06:45, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't find it unbalanced. The mainstream view is the mainstream view, whether you like it or not (and I'm somewhat skeptical). But the article makes it clear what the main issues are in the emails and why they concern some people. I suspect a better analysis is possible, but that would be the dreaded original research. Relevant people are quoted, which is all Wikipedia can do. It's clear that the CRU people are True Believers, and that they said things I wouldn't have said. It's not so clear that they confessed to misrepresentation. I believe some people will consider this article unbalanced unless it maintains that the document release is some kind of smoking gun on the science. It's a controversy, and Wikipedia's job is to make clear why it's a controversy and what the positions are. I believe it does so. Hedrick (talk) 15:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

New York Times versus Pajamasmedia blog

I had this article protected while we work out the sourcing for Pielke. I had considered removing the thing altogether but decided that this was unlikely to end the edit war.

Could we spend abit of time analysing what Pielke has said and deciding whether the New York Times (which is normally quite good on this) has accurately expressed Pielke's views? From my summary of the New York Times article, Pielke's tone seemed to be quite different from that quoted from pajamasmedia. Is that because of the individual editors who summarised the respective external articles for this Wikipedia article, or is there an underlying difference? --TS 22:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of whether protection actually needed, which became quite acrimonious and off-topic. Protecting admin has been contacted.
TS, please stop full-protecting the article whenever you want to discuss an edit. That doesn't help the article improve.--Heyitspeter (talk) 22:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
See the protection policy and note that I did not make the decision to protect. I regard protection as a frequently useful alternative to blocking those who are edit warring. --TS 22:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
See this section of the page you linked to: "Isolated incidents of edit warring, and persistent edit warring by particular users, may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others."--Heyitspeter (talk) 00:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
This problem is precisely why I opened this discussion, which was soundly rejected. If everyone had followed my advice, we would still have an unlocked article. C'est la vie. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Since GoRight is arguing for the change (and the article is currently protected on his version), he should be here explaining his rationale. Is there a reason he's not? Viriditas (talk) 23:01, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Patience. Not everyone is always on wikipedia. And let's try to avoid using this kind of logic on Wikipedia. --Heyitspeter (talk) 23:22, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
GoRight is on Wikipedia edit warring. And he never used the talk page to support his edits, like he's supposed to: WP:BRD. He knows the drill. This is quite strange considering the vast bulk of his contributions consist of talk page comments. How can you explain this discrepancy? It almost seems like GoRight only uses article space to edit war. So what does he use the talk page for? Viriditas (talk) 23:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Bickering will not resolve our differences. Let's look at the two sets of source material and see if we can work out which one to use and how to summarise it. --TS 00:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The pajamas media piece is here: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/pielke-sr-climategate-emails-just-a-small-sample-of-a-broad-issue-pjm-exclusive/

Actually it looks pretty good, although I still have serious problems with the use of a blog. The problem, however, is the summary. Here's how the summary now in our article quotes him:

Professor Roger Pielke Sr., an atmospheric scientist at CIRES at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a professor emeritus at Colorado State University, a former Colorado State climatologist, and an active critic of the IPCC process stated, " ... (W)ith respect to the RealClimate dismissal of the emails, however, there are serious issues exposed by the emails — including the goal of these scientists to prevent proper scientific disclosure of their data, as well as to control what papers appear in the peer reviewed literature and climate assessments. The IPCC assessment, with which major policy decisions are being made, involves the individuals in the emails who have senior leadership positions."

This isn't really a fair summary of the tenor of his statements. Pielke also speaks on climate change itself, and on the question of misconduct he is quoted by pajamas media as saying "I will defer to independent assessment of this particular episode," then says he perceives this as part of "a much broader goal of the leadership of the IPCC process to control what science the policymakers receive." He also makes suggestions about how the peer review process sould be improved.

Although as usual Pielke airs his concerns about the role of the IPCC, his actual comment on the CRU emails (the subject at hand) is that he will defer to independent assessment. If we choose to use pajamas media, we should not omit that.

The New York Times piece is here: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/critic-of-climate-oligarchy-defends-case-for-co2-driven-warming/

The piece currently reverted summarises this as follows:

Roger A. Pielke, a prominent meteorologist specializing in climate change who believes that the earth is warming and humans are at least partly responsible but who has been critical of the IPCC and what he describes as the "climate oligarchy", dismissed the notion that the CRU emails would have a long term effect on the science, though he listed several detailed reservations on the methodology. His conclusion on the hacking was that "If there is a positive aspect of the exposure of these e-mails, it will encourage governments to appoint climate science assessment committees which do not have the blatant conflict of interest that currently exists where the same scientists who are leading and participating on the committees that write these reports are evaluating their own research work.

The New York Times piece also incorporates an update which links directly to this piece on Pielke's own blog. Pielke's views on climate change and human involvement in it are complex and nuanced, but the New York Times link has the advantage that anybody curious enough to click the link in that article will get it directly, and unmediated, from the horse's mouth. Although Pielke is not a climatologist, his main experience is directly related to the science of climatology and as an atmospheric physicist I think he's an expert whose view should be in the article. However I'd like us to get this right, and with the best sourcing possible. --TS 00:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it might be possible to use both sources, with the NYT supporting the core claims and PM illustrating whatever is already supported. I don't have a problem with that, although some might. Viriditas (talk) 00:41, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Well that may certainly be a way forward. As with many of Pielke's opinions, this one is quite carefully thought out and hard to capture. The essence seems to be: he thinks the CRU affair shows holes in the peer review process and a lack of openness, and as usual he sees systemic problems involving the IPCC, but he defers to independent assessment on the question of whether there was malpractice. --TS 00:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I am certainly open to finding some compromise on this point to end the edit warring. Please note that the version I have been advocating wasn't actually written by me, I just prefer it to the current alternative. If we are after Pielke's opinion here, I always prefer to go to his own statements for that rather then relying on someone like Revkin to tell us what Pielke said instead of just using the man's own words, especially in light of the fact the Pielke felt it necessary to "correct" Revkin's statements about his opinion. I have a similar problem with us paraphrasing Pielke ourselves because (a) that seems awefully close to WP:OR, and (b) why do we think we can do it any better than Revkin was able to. The Pajamas Media piece may not be as high a quality of a source under ordinary circumstances, in this case it is basically just an interview and so there is not a lot of "interpretation" introduced as there is with the Revkin piece.

It is far too late for me to think clearly on this right now so I will try to take a look at it tomorrow, but the 24th and the 25th are both days where I will have very limited time to address this issue. I will, however, definitely come back to this to try and work out a compromise that addresses your concerns. Others are certainly welcome to weigh in on this point as well. --GoRight (talk) 09:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

In response to V in the collapse box above, I was simply focused on other things and unaware that this discussion had been opened. Regarding my lack of talk page commentary on this point, I thought that my edit summaries in this case were sufficient to convey my primary concerns. I apologize for not being more forthcoming. Now that there is a thread dedicated to this point I am happy to participate here ... within the bounds of hopefully understandable time constraints over the next couple of days. --GoRight (talk) 09:43, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Our text based on the NYT piece looks far more balanced and thoughtful than picking a few sentences out of context from the raw interview. That is the benefit of secondary sources - that they predigest complex statements into fewer well-chosen words for us. Using direct quotes from the interview is a classic case of using a primary source (we are only after Pielke's opinion here, and his words are the primary source for that). Having said that, even the NYT piece is a blog. If we want some opinion that is critical of the CRU, can't we find something notable enough to have actually appeared in print in something like the NYT, rather than only in one of their employees' blogs? That way it will have had editor and sub-editor review at least. --Nigelj (talk) 13:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

What I don't see here is anybody agreeing with the notion that we should not cite the New York Times, which was what some editors were edit warring over. I think we can probably say that we now have consensus to include some kind of report based on the New York Times. Similarly there seems to be no strong objection to the use of Pajamas Media, but there is some concern about quote mining. Is that a reasonable summary? --TS 21:27, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

No, you do not have consensus to include a report based on the NYT. The past two days have been holidays for many people so calling silence a consensus at this point is, at best, premature. --GoRight (talk) 02:48, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

So, would anybody object to the following?

Roger A. Pielke, a prominent meteorologist specializing in climate change who believes that the earth is warming and humans are at least partly responsible but who has been critical of the IPCC and what he describes as the "climate oligarchy", dismissed the notion that the CRU emails would have a long term effect on the science, though he listed several detailed reservations on the methodology. His conclusion on the hacking was that "If there is a positive aspect of the exposure of these e-mails, it will encourage governments to appoint climate science assessment committees which do not have the blatant conflict of interest that currently exists where the same scientists who are leading and participating on the committees that write these reports are evaluating their own research work.

This is the version which is currently reverted. --TS 00:42, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I object. I am reviewing both sources again so that I am in a better position to propose a compromise. --GoRight (talk) 02:48, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm okay with that. I know we're all busy doing other stuff too and some of us don't have easy computer access, so take your time and we'll get it right when we're all agreed. --TS 03:00, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
OK, just to make certain we are working from the same base of sources, I have read the following in their entirety and my discussion moving forward will be based on them:
Let me begin our discussion my analyzing your proposed text in detail.
"Roger A. Pielke, a prominent meteorologist specializing in climate change who believes that the earth is warming and humans are at least partly responsible but who has been critical of the IPCC and what he describes as the 'climate oligarchy'" - So far, so good, This appears to be clearly supported by the sources above.
"dismissed the notion that the CRU emails would have a long term effect on the science," - I am having a hard time seeing anything in Pielke's actual statements to support such a sweeping statement. The only part of Pielke's position quoted in the NYT piece that even deals directly with the CRU emails is the penultimate paragraph of Pielke's quote, and in that he was clearly indicating that he was concerned about the communications aspects implied by the emails and that they represented only a small sample of what has been going on for years. So, I take issue with claiming that this amounts to his saying that there is "no long term effect on the science". Clearly a skewed review process will have a long term effect, but more importantly his comment doesn't even seem to be addressing the core part of that statement. Can you please explain why you feel this is a reasonable summary of Pielke's position based on the NYT article?
I will also note that I believe Revkin's analysis of Pielke is highly spun. For example, the title is "Critic of ‘Climate Oligarchy’ Defends Case for CO2 in Warming". This is a technically true but clearly misleading summary of what Pielke has actually stated. He clearly believes that GW is occurring. He clearly believes the CO2 has some impact. His main argument, however, seems to be that CO2's impact may NOT be the most significant of the human caused forcings and that we need to take a broader perspective than just CO2. Revkin is clearly trying to leave the reader with the impression that Pielke is backing that IPCC line when, in fact, he is not. The same issue rest with Revkin's statement that "I think it is worth noting that he says that the data issues don’t detract from clear evidence of a long-term warming trend and that carbon dioxide is “a major climate forcing” (along with many others)". Note that the bit Revkin delegated to the parens is Pielke's primary point whereas the bit outside the parens was merely a preamble to his stating his main point to set a proper context. Again, this is clearly misleading the reader as to Pielke's actual opinion.
"though he listed several detailed reservations on the methodology." - This is truly an understatement. He listed several PAPERS that he has written regarding the IPCC process, not just listed a couple of bullet points.
"His conclusion on the hacking was that 'If there is a positive aspect of the exposure of these e-mails, it will encourage governments to appoint climate science assessment committees which do not have the blatant conflict of interest that currently exists where the same scientists who are leading and participating on the committees that write these reports are evaluating their own research work.'" - I also disagree that this is "his conclusion regarding the emails." His conclusion regarding the emails is actually in the previous paragraph where he points out that they are indicative of a much larger problem that has been occurring for years. This is merely an attempt to find a silver lining in the storm cloud that is the preceding paragraph. So I would argue that, at best, this summarization of his conclusion is incomplete.
I don't have any more time tonight to focus on this, but I want to list the primary points that Pielke makes in the sources listed above so that we might provide a reasonably accurate summary or at least assess the accuracy of Revkin's before we rely on it alone. --GoRight (talk) 04:15, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to create a separate page to discuss "Climategate" name

It seems to me that there is a strong and sizable core of people who believe that policy and comonsense preclude this article being called "Climategate" or anything containing the word. A sizable stream of people keep coming to this article, and some who have been here for some time, think the opposite. It's a fairly sterile debate and nothing is likely to come of it in the near future. But obviously it's been a perennial discussion topic since the earliest days of the article.

I propose that we place all such discussion into a subpage /climategate, and direct all who want to argue about the subject to go there. --TS 19:35, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

We could run it like a tourist attraction... 'Roll-up, roll-up. Have your arguments here'... Place a few adverts on the subpage... Make a fortune I reckon... --Nigelj (talk) 19:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't think that's going to work. Might as well call it /wishing well, or /the black hole. It is annoying having to constantly explain why "Climategate" isn't appropriate, but that's just the way it is. Perhaps the answer in Q1 of the FAQ can be expanded, or perhaps we can give the explanation its own sub page. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:47, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
My idea is that we can clearly direct people here and threads or parts of threads that turn into repetitions of the proposal and its for and against arguments can be moved there. If we agreed to do this it might work quite well. --TS 19:52, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
It would need to be a permanently-manned subpage that gets as much attention as this one, otherwise everyone will simply come right back here. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
We've had two separate RFCs running in subpages. There was no issue with that. --TS 20:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth, Climategate redirects here, so I really don't see the big deal, but I oppose spinning off parts of the discussion to other pages. This talk page is here for this article and I am wary of attempts to quell debate, no matter how unproductive it may appear. I view RFCs as a special case, conducted out of the limelight for good reason. Dhatfield (talk) 20:15, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The problem isn't people discussing it in the wrong place; it's people ignoring what has already been said and making boneheaded demands that the article title must be changed, now, stat!. It's a behavioural issue, not an editorial one. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough: I shudder to think how many times the discussion has been had in those 13 archives (that I haven't read). Dhatfield (talk) 21:00, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
It makes sense strictly from the point of view of organizing things to create a subpage. I would move all discussions concerning renaming the page there, because they're all relevant, and leave a long-term note at the top that the subpage exists. If anything ever starts to gain consensus there a courtesy notice on this page would be super. That lets people who want to discuss that see the arc of prior discussions, and frees up this page to discuss other things. It doesn't marginalize anything IMO, it makes it easier to hold the discussion. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I want to give this a go. How about a large, bold note at the top of the page saying discussions are ongoing and they're at /climategate, and update the FAQ to mention this too. New discussion starters and people who inject the Climategate move proposal into existing discussions can be directed there. I don't see that this would be a problem as long as we make a prominent enough notice so that the ongoing discussion will not be missed. --TS 21:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the proposal, it will look like putting the dirt under the carpet (and providing more fuel to the gosip about Wiki manipulation or bias on GW articles), as the use of Climagate has been an important issue/complaint all along. Second, before moving forward I think it is prudent and decent to wait to hear the opinion of those editors that have been proposing Climagate (like me) before proceeding (and avoid the "ownership" issue of the article). Considering we are now in the holidays, please wait patiently for the other editors to comment on this proposal, most of the opinions above come from editors opposed to the term Climategate.-Mariordo (talk)
Consolidating discussion to a specific place is a housekeeping issue and doesn't need protracted debate. It's neutral as to the success or failure of the proposals. If you want to see that as a cover-up I can't stop you but it isn't. Other people would say the opposite, that creating a persistent page devoted solely to discussing one single issue gives it too much credit. I don't think either is a valid objection. The point is to keep things orderly. That's why we have archiving, and headings, and bullet points and lots of other stuff. When a single distinct issue takes up half of the talk page on an article for a couple weeks it's often helpful to set aside a special place for it. Another approach is to move sections around so that all the discussion on the topic happens under a single heading. That works too, but not as well - you end up having to collapse and combine redundant discussion topics a lot more actively there. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:16, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
And if it helps, I favor calling it Climategate, to the chagrin of some other editors I know... - Wikidemon (talk) 02:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
No, that isn't really helpful at all LOL. I'm surprised, actually. I know that you are intimate with most of Wikipedia's policies, so it makes no sense to me that you would favor such an inaccurate, ambiguous and non-neutral title. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:24, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Just stay off my favorite article, Fajitagate. We are not going to call it "2002 San Francisco police fajita-confiscation incident". - Wikidemon (talk) 02:42, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Wikidemon, I would like to point out that the term "Fajitagate" was intended to be used and is applied somewhat humorously. If you go back to 2002 and read the accounts of the incident in the local Bay Area press, this will become apparent. The difference is that "Climategate" was not used humorously, but was applied to a group of scientists in order to associate them with a criminal act (see the Time magazine piece I've quoted several times). The irony is that if there was a criminal act, it was not perpetrated by the scientists, but by the thieves who stole their data and released it. This bizarre use of a term to turn the tables on the victims can be described as nothing other than propaganda. Viriditas (talk) 03:26, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
There is actually quite a list of -gate controversies/scandals, see List of scandals with "-gate" suffix.-Mariordo (talk) 02:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Wow, that's ... impressive. I guess. Thanks -- Pete Tillman (talk) 03:47, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Startling evidence of just how stupid the media can be. What a load of sheep. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:17, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
There's more to it than that, actually. "-gate" did not accidentally come into popular usage; it was deliberately propagated by the late William Safire as a way of raising every minor Democratic controversy to the same level as Watergate, with the apparent aim of defusing the potency of the Watergate label. Not coincidentally, he was a former Nixon administration speechwriter. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Mariordo expresses strong opposition, and urges us to hold off during the holiday period. Others say this proposal shouldn't need protracted discussion. While there isn't a tidal wave of support for the idea, some people seem to think it would be useful to gather the discussion in one place. Is that a reasonable summary of opinion expressed so far? --TS 10:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, fair enough.-Mariordo (talk) 17:33, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
The rule against "gate" does not apply in this case. The rule exists to prevent words from being artificially created in WP. The rule does not apply in this case because the word "Climategate" is not being created artifically for inclusion. The word has come into existance through common usage as evidenced by such things as number of Internet sites that now contain the word.24.87.71.192 (talk) 23:13, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Stop making things up, please. Your claims about Wikipedia's policies are flatly untrue. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:42, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I appreciate the analogy. In Watergate, it was the burglars (i.e. hackers) who took the fall. But, "Climategate" already redirects here, and the article acknowledges quite clearly in the very 1st sentence, "...also known as "Climategate"! Plus everything else FAQ#6 says. Besides, "Climategate" is just so...cheesy.--CurtisSwain (talk) 12:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Is factcheck.org a reliable source?

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.

Discussions here have concluded that FactCheck.org is generally a reliable source. Additionally, the writers at FactCheck cite their own sources, and these sourced may in turn be useful resources for writing Wikipedia articles.

There is a section on James Saiers here [15], dealing with email references to exclusions from peer review, that I thought would improve the article. This is my first foray into wiki editing so any help/advice would be appreciated. RCA101 (talk) 20:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

FactCheck's articles are often alarmingly similar to our own, and this is no exception. From a brief scan I don't see much that's new. There may be some problems with sourcing FactCheck, however, as despite the Annenberg family's strong association with President Reagan many people perceive the Foundation as having a strong political bias against modern American conservative thinking. --TS 20:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Honestly, I wouldn't consider that a disabling factor. You have to bear in mind that modern American conservatism considers any strain of thought that doesn't agree 100% with it to be "socialism" or "communism" or even the dreaded "Liberal Fascism". Would you accept a veto on evolution science sources because American social conservatives consider those to be examples of "anti-conservative" thinking? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:34, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't have any problems with FactCheck. I'm just saying, it can be controversial to cite a well balanced and accurate source in the context of the US media and the extreme conservatism of modern US politics. --TS 20:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it's a reliable source. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
This article has been discussed before on the talk page (although I'm sure its deep in the archive now) and it seemed that (then) consensus was that this was a RS. jheiv (talk) 21:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Factcheck is a reliable secondary source. They are also non-partisan, non-profit and cite their sources. --mav (please help review urgent FAC and FARs) 21:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The earlier discussion was here. It was acrimonious as I remember, mainly because some editors wanted to push their own favorite opinion columnists. --TS 21:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Regrettably, some parties also appear to interpret any source that does not agree with them as being "biased". There is also evidently a meme in some quarters that Factcheck is part of the vast left-wing conspiracy. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Reality has a well-known liberal bias. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 02:31, 26 December 2009 (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.

CRU Incident timeline - draft (very drafty)

I've taken a very weak stab at a CRU Incident Timeline. I originally thought it would be a section within this article, but discussion up thread convinced me it should be a separate article. However, it is inextricably linked to this article, so I wanted to get some feedback before investing too much time.

Issues not requiring comment:

  1. I know it needs a proper intro
  2. I know the formatting of the table and the dates needs work
  3. I have included some references, but not all, and need to add relevant references for every entry (In addition, I need to read each reference and make sure it is the right one).
  4. It's very incomplete - I don't need suggestions for specific additional itmes now, let's debate whether the concept has merit first

Requested comments:

  1. The timeline deliberately starts before the hack - my intention is to put the hack and follow-on events into a context with prior events.
  2. I am considering coloring the hack row to distinguish it from the others, to indicate an anchor, demarcating events before the hack from events post-hack (I think there's a bad joke in there somewhere)
  3. I know I want columns for CRU events and another one for events such as IPCC releases - I have a third covering reactions to the incident. I'm thinking that may be too broad, but I haven't identified good alternative candidates
  4. There's a tension between the desire for a very short entry in the box to keep the table manageable, and long enough so it isn't misleading. One option is to wikilink back to this article, but any thoughts on how to meet both goals would be helpful.
  5. Anything else

--SPhilbrickT 22:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

At a quick glance at the prehistory, you've got nothing about the fuss over Soon and Baliunas. The way you write the timeline, it looks as if the Climate Research fuss was simply because some guys at CRU decided to get back at the journal for daring to publish a paper whose conclusion they didn't agree with. That's what some ignorance people have said and what some other ignorant people believe, but the reliable sources tell us a different story. The date of publication of Soon and Balliunas should be included. The date of publication of the report repudiating the paper should be included. --TS 22:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about "Met Office announces plans to review temperature records". Wasn't that an erroneous report? As I understand it the Met Office clarified that they decided to publish their data, and that's it. --TS 22:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Tony, as I said, it's incomplete. Soon and Balliunas is obviously relevant. Regarding the Met office sumarization, the current article says "the Met Office indicated their intention to re-examine 160 years of temperature data". Do you think that's wrong, or that my summary wording is misleading? I thought "review" was weaker than "re-examine" but I can use that word. Thanks for the quick response - I'm noting you didn't say it was a worthless idea, but I assume you reserve the right to conclude that after more thought :) (added Soon and Balliunas paper) --SPhilbrickT 23:11, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I think your work overall is much needed, and even if it doesn't make it into the article in this form the list is useful and has already begun to inform my thoughts about the affair. I'm very grateful for the hard work you have put into this. Excellent work. Greetings of the season, and thank you. --TS 00:03, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are interested in Penn State's response (specifically concerning Mann), here are some links:

jheiv (talk) 20:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The timeline is a great idea. Keep going with it.--CurtisSwain (talk) 09:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

equation of climategate and denialism

So it's ok to gin up the term denialism and justify that? But even though the most COMMON public usage for the hacking incident is "climategate" we can't use that? This is Orwellian. You are trying to influence the language, not reflect it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.25.240.97 (talk) 04:56, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, George Orwell's theories on language involved coining catch-phrases to subvert the literal meaning of things, not using long explicit literal descriptions in place of brief informal terms. They are, in effect, saying we should use "supplemental passenger restraint system" instead of "air bag". The arguments given by those opposing "climategate" are that this is a loaded word that conveys a judgment about the events. So quite the opposite, that they are opposing a shifting of the language that they see as being influenced by those trying to impugn the scientific community, not trying to cause one. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Exactly...instead of reflecting that reputable sources have already predominently labeled the kerfuffle as Climategate...they intervene with a different PC name to try to protect. It is an act of advocacy. Then denialism is the dagger not the sheild. ;) Anyone recall the coining of "swiftboating". Joy...joy! - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.25.240.97 (talk • contribs)

Denial is to Climategate what Stichelton is to Velveeta. But, 76.25.240.97 actually has a pretty good argument. We need to move the Denial article out of the dairy aisle. --CurtisSwain (talk) 12:43, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed FAQ addition

Explaining the use of James Delingpole as a reliable source for this article. Viriditas (talk) 23:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

That would be petty. --Heyitspeter (talk) 23:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I think you could extend the FAQ question about use of blogs written by non-experts. Delingpole and Solomon from whom he sources his latest piece are simply opinion mongers. --TS 23:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
If we do so, can we include with it a blurb on avoiding blogs published by primary sources with a vested interest in how this event is framed, such as Real Climate?--Heyitspeter (talk) 00:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
You could try that, but the RealClimate blog was involved in the affair (as a victim of hacking) and it's necessary to source that. It's also the case that the RealClimate people are experts in the field--irrespective of their involvement in this affair (which aside from the hacking is minimal), and their opinions are relevant. --TS 00:43, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Keep in mind that RealClimate was brought up at WP:RSN and consensus there was that it's only an WP:SPS for this article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Enough with the alphabet soup. Please explain what you mean in English. Was the conclusion of this discussion that RealClimate can be used, or not? --TS 05:41, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Ah here we are: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_50#RealClimate. Conclusion: hunky dory, with some provisos. They're experts in the field and can be quoted as such on their expertise. They're also the victims of a hacking and their description of this can be used in the article. (But why did Itsmejudith seem to think the Graun was in any way an involved party?) --TS 05:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
She's referring to the Guardian's coverage of the Trafigura case as an analogy - she's not saying they were involved with the CRU hack. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Ah, I see it now. The "recent injunction" she mentions in her reply pertains to a completely different case. --TS 14:45, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I meant. Itsmejudith (talk) 01:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

James Delingpole: Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia

Yesterday I added a press coverage of this article to to this talk page, but just hours later it was removed. I realy strive to WP:AGF here. Hopefully it will not be removed again after my reinserting of it. What do James Delingpole say in his blog at The Telegraph about this article?

Nsaa (talk) 10:43, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The editorial is utter bunk, and misrepresents a lot of things about Wikipedia. He's pandering to the disgruntled conspiracy theory fringe. If an editor said that stuff here on the talk page it would be a WP:AGF, WP:NPA, a WP:BLP violation, and soapboxing. It singles out and attacks one particular editor very disingenuously. However, it is a press mention of Wikipedia and so it only makes sense to add it to the "press" template, as you have done. - Wikidemon (talk) 10:56, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe it has anything to do with the "press", nor is it an editorial. It's an opinion piece written by James Delingpole on his blog, which is hosted by blogs.telegraph.co.uk. His profile on that site says, "James Delingpole is a novelist and polemicist who specialises in tormenting the liberal Left. He does not believe in man-made global warming."[16] How is this a reliable source for an encyclopedia article? Viriditas (talk) 11:33, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Trust the Daily Telegraph to come up with a pithy and accurate description of Delingpole. I think we should find the National Post's own description of Solomon. If it's as good as the above description of Delingpole, I think I'll put both of them in the FAQ so that we can save lots of pointless discussion with people who think either of them is writing as a journalist. --TS 14:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The editorial is not utter bunk and should not be removed from this talk page. While the incurably anal might argue that if it isn't suitable for the article, it doesn't belong on the talk page, I respectfully disagree. It doesn't belong in the article, but it is useful for editors to know that this page is being viewed by many outside viewers and there is a significant sentiment that the article is not unbiased, not balanced and not neutral. Thus, it has value in this talk page. We need to strive to make this article balanced and neutral—reminders that multiple observers disagree should help give us the energy to make sure this article is the best it can be. --SPhilbrickT 15:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Balanced and neutral is one thing. Pandering to self-styled "polemicists" with a preconceived agenda is another. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added an item on this to the FAQ, as Q10. --TS 16:12, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement "Should Delingpole's and Solomon's opinions become influential we will report them in this article." By definition, if they become influential it will mean that the article is edited to be a better article. There's no justification for the inclusion in this article. More generally, shouldn't proposed additions to the FAQ be discussed?--SPhilbrickT 22:00, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it could be worded better, but by "influential" the FAQ means "their criticism of Wikipedia's coverage becomes widespread and colors the general view of the affair." So if, say, the BBC starts reporting as a fact that Wikipedia has been manipulated as Solomon and Delingpole claim, then we'll report that. On FAQ maintainance, my approach is Be bold. If I add something to the FAQ, and it stays there, I assume that I did it right. --TS 00:24, 25 December 2009 (UTC)


I've removed the "press coverage" template because the Delingpole piece poses a BLP issue and "press coverage" templates are typically permanent fixtures on an article talk page. Charges by columnist Lawrence Solomon, repeated uncritically by columnist James Delingpole, have been investigated at the appropriate noticeboard. Unnecessarily broadcasting those charges, which were found to be grossly inaccurate, would be inappropriate in the context of a "press mention" tag. --TS 17:25, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:28, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The FAQ item explains reasonably (but unnecssarily IMO - this will all blow over in a few days) why it is not in the article. It does not explain why it is not in the press coverage template on the talk page. What's the policy / guideline basis for refusing to acknowledge that there's a newspaper editorial critical of this article based on the inaccuracy of claims made in the editorial? I'm just not getting it. I don't see anything at BLP that covers this. On the face of it, it's a disservice to the project and its editors to have a system for documenting coverage of Wikipedia articles, yet refuse to acknowledge pieces deemed unfairly negative. Without a complete picture, the system isn't reliable. As I like to say, we're all adults here, and children too if they behave. I think we can take it. Perhaps we could ask the editor in question if he objects. We're also in a funny situation regarding the piece itself. Most newspapers have some standards with respect to the news blogs they publish, so we treat them differently than a SPS. Is this an exception? If the Telegraph has different standards is the status of their news blogs as reliable sources in question, or just this one? - Wikidemon (talk) 17:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The Biographies of living persons policy covers all mentions on Wikipedia. As we've investigated the charges and openly acknowledged them to be grossly inaccurate, it would be inappropriate permanently to draw attention to them on the pretext of "press coverage". The press coverage template is a "nice to have", not a policy requirement. The BLP is an absolute necessity. We should not unnecessarily broadcast charges against any living person that we know and acknowledge to be grossly false. The two blog in question, by the way, are opinion columns, not news items. --TS 17:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't see that in the BLP policy. It seems to be an extreme (and unwise) interpretation to read the policy to mean denying obvious unpleasant truths, in this case that we have detractors among major media news blogs. I'm pretty sure that is not what the policy says. We mention that Wikipedia Review and Encyclopedia Dramatica exist, in article space no less, and they are each much worse. Cataloging press mentions of Wikipedia so that we can talk about them goes beyond "nice to have". Whereas it's of narrow help in drafting individual articles, it's very important to understanding the project's place in the larger world. The only principle I could see for excluding them is if the template by design is not intended to cover opinion and op-ed pieces. That's fair, but in that instance it would make sense to have a parallel system for tracking them too. Incidentally, my question over the reliability of the Telegraph is the same whether they are opinion pieces or outside analysts. Reputable newspapers generally have standards for the factual claims made on their opinion blogs. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
It's a straightforward application. An identifiable person has been falsely accused. We've acknowledged the falsehood of those accusations in discussion in an appropriate investigation. We may discuss that accusation in context (as we did on the noticeboard and in the FAQ) but gratuitously and permanently broadcasting it here without any kind of commentary would be both unnecessary and damaging to that individual. --TS 18:12, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
If it's straightforward, could you cite the part of BLP that covers this? I just don't see it anywhere in BLP. It's not an external link, if that's what you're suggesting. Acknowledging the truth is not "broadcasting" anything, it's logging press mentions. If it were broadcasting, it would be inappropriate to include favorable mentions too. Getting to the merits, acknowledging that editorialists trash Wikipedia and its editors is simply being honest; burying that because it's unpleasant will not lead to a better encyclopedia. If we want to add context, why not also use the template to link to our onwiki discussion? - Wikidemon (talk) 18:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
All of the BLP is against this. We don't broadcast unqualified attacks on living persons. We discuss them in the FAQ, in context. We discuss them on this page, in context. We discuss them on WP:COIN, in context. We do not pass them off as regular mentions in external media. We do not ever risk having a reader come to this page and not see that the attacks have been assessed carefully and determined to be grossly false. We are not a blog. We do not promote harm to living persons and we take all reasonable steps to avoid doing so. The onus is on those proposing the inclusion to demonstrate that this does not violate any Wikipedia policy. --TS 19:20, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Could you please give me a reasoned answer? It's an earnest question. No, there is no burden to demonstrate that everything we note on a talk page complies with policy - you have that completely backwards. If you're going to cite a policy that purportedly prohibits someone from noting something on a talk page the burden's on you to show which section of policy it violates and how. I have read the entire BLP policy and see nothing even close to preventing us from speaking the truth here, which is that the news blog of a very prominent publication had an entire opinion piece specifically about this article. Again, the individual in question is right before us. Why not ask him if he objects to the mention? Protecting Wikipedia administrators against claims of bias and abuse of tools, however faulty is far afield from the purpose of BLP, and sets a bad precedent. Acknowledging a fact is not "broadcasting" it - imprecise loaded language like that only clouds issue. We are logging press mentions for the benefit of interested Wikipedia article editors. This is such a mention and there is nothing about it that is not "regular" - the "news" templates are full of links to opinion pieces. Casual readers do not just happen upon them. Wikipedia editors do, and they are better served in their capacity as editors by knowing the reality as it exists than reality filtered through a self-protective defense. We're grown up, we can be trusted with this stuff. I normally hate to see the word "censorship" bandied about, but whatever the intent is here the effect of redacting negative (but not positive) major news outlet pieces from our list of media mentions is censorious. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
You've had all the reasons there are, as far as I'm aware. I see no reason to repeat them. As you know we have discussed the allegations here and elsewhere. All I'm saying is that we won't broadcast them without any context because that would cause damage to living people. --TS 20:19, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Again I've reinserted {{Pressmulti}} template at the top of this discussion page after it again was removed by Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs). The inclusion of this on the talk page is fully appropriate and he cannot just claim WP:BLP in this circumstances. Please report and discuss that matter on WP:BLPN if you think you have a case. Stop edit waring about it. Nsaa (talk) 03:46, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Is this a real comment? You're justifying linking to a random, extremely pointed attack piece on an editor by saying that "the article has been mentioned in the media"? While I might not agree with some of the cited editor's edits, spreading garbage like this link is the opposite of how to handle it -- I don't think that this link you keep restoring even comes close to appropriate or worth a mention on any talk page. jheiv (talk) 04:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a farce. I've not made any judgment about the content of Mr. James Delingpole entry at the Telegraph, I only see that he mentions this article, and so its proper to populate the {{Pressmulti}}. Please direct me to a policy saying something else. I see that Stephan Schulz (talk · contribs) removes it by stating "Taking out the thrash. We don't spread lies per WP:BLP." (Revision as of 2009-12-26T09:20:07). I restores it again and ChrisO (talk · contribs) removes this section with the comment "trash removal again" (Revision as of 2009-12-26T11:39:36) both without discussing it here. This is very bad behavior and it's maybe even a violation of the WP:BLP policy by attacing Mr. Delingpole with quotations as given above as examples. Your reasoning here is very bad by using WP:BLP as an exquisite to get rid of something that may be very damaging for some parties (after seeing how I nearly got a 3R after restoring mentioning of Climategate, with three solid main newspaper sources (no blogs, opinions etc.) in the article I have a very bad feeling here). You see working like this just strengthens the position to guys like Delingpole (fine for me). Don't you all see that? Secondly iff linking to his article is a breach of WP:BLP, Why is it not removed from this discussion tread AND the archived one "Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia"? Using BLP here is logical failing! So please restore it again mr. ChrisO. Nsaa (talk) 00:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
We discuss the Delingpole and Solomon pieces, in context and with proper references to related discussions, in the FAQ. Reasons not to include another permanent reference at the top of the talk page, without any context, have been given. There is no need to have two permanent references to either of those opinion pieces on one page. --TS 01:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
This is false statement. I don't see any reference to this article on the top of this page (under Q10 I assume). We should not discuss it. Please read WP:OR. We should make a reference to the actual article. This is basic, so please restore it. Nsaa (talk) 01:33, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
If you check Q10, you're right, you will find a reference to Delingpole's article. That being so I don't understand why you claim categorically that this page contains no reference to the article. Is your problem here the fact that the FAQ is transcluded into this page? That's a mere convenience, to make it easier to maintain the FAQ.
Policy does not require us to maintain a press log, it's merely a courtesy. Where there are BLP problems, as here, extending that courtesy would be grossly inappropriate. --TS 03:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Tony's correct in hia assessment. There's no good reason to link to "press coverage" when that coverage has serious BLP issues. There's no real reason to link to press coverage, it does nothing to further our mission. It's really just a way of boasting, a relic of a simpler time when any press was a big deal. Guettarda (talk) 03:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Precisely--some of us can remember those far-off days when one would search breathlessly on Google News to see if there were any references to Wikipedia that week. --TS 04:11, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
This seems to be an unresolved edit page management dispute. At this point I think we need some wider input, either at BLP/N or an RFC. I see this as burying negative coverage of Wikipedia under an erroneous claim of BLP. A variety of weak arguments have been given for removing it, for example that we don't "broadcast" garbage like this, and then that we're already linking to it once so a second time is redundant - anyone see the contradiction? As an editor paying attention to how Wikipedia fits into the larger world, I want to know what people are saying about the article I'm working on - good, bad, indifferent, and mean-spirited. There are plenty of good reasons to track external comments, not just self-congratulatory. If we pick and choose which media sources to cover, and ignore those critical of the article and the editors here, we're giving the editors a distorted picture of public perception of Wikipedia. I don't see anything particularly unique about this situation. Media hit pieces come out regularly whereby conservative (generally) activist writers accuse Wikipedia of impropriety for discounting their version of things. Either we filter them out, or we include them, or something else, it's a generalized issue. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:44, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I've raised the issue at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident. The second claim about already linking to it is not true even if TS claims so further up this thread... by stating " If you check Q10, you're right, you will find a reference to Delingpole's article. [...] --TS 03:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)" Please cite the exact sentence were the article is referenced Tony Sidaway (no it is not. That a article exist and we don't mention it in the article is true, but no references to it is given thats a lie as far as I can see). Nsaa (talk) 11:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
You want me to cite the actual sentence? "The items in question are opinion columns by James Delingpole and Lawrence Solomon." It's the very first sentence. --TS 12:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding NPOV and Edit Wars

Just spitballing; there are statements we all agree to, and there are statements that are (to a greater or lesser extent) non-neutral. In the name of a balanced article, maybe we could come to an agreement regarding removing editing deleting augmenting statements identified as partisan ... I dunno. I'm kind of fuzzy-headed on the whole thing, and it's probably a non-starter. (grin) I mean, what we're having trouble with is determining what, exactly, is "neutral". Maybe some of you guys can come up with a better way to avoid toe-stepping while still pursuing a balanced and well-written article. Nightmote (talk) 16:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Everyone is really sure they know what the neutral points are. The intersection of everyone's ideas is the null set, unfortunately. Ignignot (talk) 16:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't think so. F'rinstance, the whole "death threats" thing. Most everyone agrees that it could/should be in the article, but the prominence of the mention is in question. We're all certain that a police investigation is underway, though we differ on what to call the removed computer files, and whether the files were removed by an insider or an outsider. I'm just wondering about approaches we might try to minimize edits *likely* to cause objections, while still encouraging vigorous debate. Nightmote (talk) 19:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
We just call things what the reliable sources say the people directly involved call them: If the BBC say, that Norfolk police say, that they are investigating the theft of e-mails and death threats, etc... All the rest is supposition by people who weren't there, haven't been asked to investigate, never saw the server logs, etc. So we give prominence to the facts as reported in the reliable sources, and we skip the rest or mention it in passing. The only problem is other people, here on the Talk page, who really liked some of the supposition they read in their favourite blog and want it in the article. Usually we just have to say no, and they get stroppy and bounce around in a huff for a while. There's no big problem: no new policies are needed, no deep philosophical discussions to have. --Nigelj (talk) 19:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The fundamental problems, it seems to me, are a lack of critical thinking skills in some quarters (taking bloggers' speculation as fact without stopping to ask "how do they know?") combined with a disdain for the so-called "mainstream media" (if it's not being reported by Fox News, it's not true). This is not the first time nor the first article I've come across this issue. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:50, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
It can also be seen, from a Wikipedia perspective, as a reliable sourcing issue. The media often muddies the waters here because most journalists are not particularly good at, or even interested in, presenting complex scientific issues, and they're aware that most of their readership don't care much. The temptation to present an interesting story often mars accurate reporting, and as an encyclopedia we have to wade through that dross and identify the most reliable sources--those that most accurately portray the facts. You can't do that without understanding the background, and if you don't understand it then you're at the mercy of whatever the reporters say.
Earlier I expressed satisfaction that we have been pretty successful in avoiding the facile tropes into which many of the journalists have cast this story. There are signs that the air is clearing and a more hard-edged reporting may yet emerge. I hope we will soon have much better sources, and who knows, some new facts may emerge soon.
I understand that the university expects the independent investigation to be completed by the spring, and the result of that will undoubtedly have a huge impact on the shape of the Wikipedia article. --TS 10:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually, there are good journalists who specialize in writing about science and often have science-related backgrounds, but for some reason we aren't hearing from them on this issue. The question is, why not? Viriditas (talk) 11:21, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Sadly, there aren't many left who draw paychecks. I pretty much lost what little respect I still had for CNN when they canned Miles O'Brien and the rest of their science team. --mav (please help review urgent FAC and FARs) 19:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's not assume too much

Obviously this topic is controverisial, so I hope I am not adding to that, but... the lede of this article says the issue began when the server was "hacked". I question the veracity of this assertion. Has this been demonstrably shown as true? I know I've read assertions that it was a "hack". But, I've not read any proof that an investigation by authorities has concluded this. The BBC article we link to says "A university spokesman confirmed the email system had been hacked and that information was taken and published without permission.", but as we know, this is a partisan issue and we should not be re-prinitng the spokesperson's POV as fact. Indeed, for anyone familiar with acadamia squabbles, it's easy to imagine that the emails were in fact leaked by a disguntled insider, rather than "hacked". Am I missing something here or are we too easily willing to accept at face value mundane media explainations? I suggest that we need to carefully examine whether we've accepted being spoon fed by the supposed accuracy of some media reports. And, the spokesperson quote could indeed be parsed in to two distinct assertions a) there was a "hack" and b) the information was taken without permission. Indeed, by the seemingly redunant nature of these statements, one could easily conclude that there is an attempt to mislead. Why would a "hacker" need permission? Isn't that the essence of hacking - no permission is required? I suspect that this statement is shrewdly crafted - it's a conflation in that if there was indeed a "hack" it was not required that the hack succeeded in getting control of the information and relasing it. Rather, I read that statement as 'there was a hack (stop)'. 'Information was taken and published without permission (stop)'. One need not be guilty of a hack to have taken the information. Instead, one need only have released it without permission. Acting without permission is not always a hack. One could have legitimate access to the information - but be under rules that prevent its redistribution. To follow this further, "taken" is one act - one which could have been authorized - as in take a copy off the server onto your workstation for review, but "published without permission" is clearly a distinct act and that act could defniately be done by an insider and no hack would be required to do so. Anyway, this is not merely inane theorizing, but rather, I am asking all posting here to consider if we have been perceptually "framed" by the media reports and if so, has our perpsective been tilted? Suffice it to say, unless I see that there was a bona-fide investigation by police authorities who conclude that the means of dissemination of the emails did arise directly from a "hack", I suspect the center's spokesperson's comments to be a conflation and I do not accept the premise that a "hack" is the source. Myself, I suspect a disgruntled insider. Also, please keep in mind that the best way to discredit one's opposition is to claim they acted illegally. Without proof the release itself stemmed from an illegal hack, then this "hack" is nothing more than name calling which has taken root in the media. For myself, I think the email dissemination should be characterized as stemming from an unauthorized release. Whereas accepting the premise of "hack" - though widely reported in the media as such - is not backed up in the media by anything other that the center saying so. But, they are players in a partisan battle and clearly have a POV to defend. This immediately ought to cast doubt on unverfied assertions. Please go back again and look at the BBC article [17] it's only conjecture/assertion that there was a "hack". Most of the actual evidence points to an unauthorized release and that is NOT the same as a "hack". 216.153.214.89 (talk) 19:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

You're proposing that we replace verifiable information with speculation. See FAQ Q5--TS 19:26, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I am doing no such thing. Rather, I am stating that we should stick to the facts and the facts are: a) the release was unauthorized and b) that unauthorized release has been alleged to have originated via a "hack". The media reports on this are just that - media reports. If we do no critical thinking ourselves, we do nothing more than re-print the media framing of the topic. I invite others here to critically examine the veracity of the media reports and ask ourselves if we haven't too easily accepted the assertions of "hack" at face value. It's been several weeks now - have there been any follow up reports? Has proof of an actual hack been released? I know for sure this started with reports of a "hack", but now that the dust has settled, I ask the question: Is there any actual public proof that an actual illegal hack was indeed the source of this leak? If not, we need to to state that this started with "reports of a hack" not "a hack". The distinction matters. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 19:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
"Critically examine the veracity" is basically a call to conduct original research. Unfortunately, Wikipedia rules require us to rely on the word of reliable sources - which overwhelmingly refer to the incident as a "hack". -- Scjessey (talk) 19:42, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
You miss my point and you are confused about OR. Thinking something through for one's self is not per se "OR". Rather, posting into the article one's unsupported conclusions is. And I am NOT suggesting we do that. However, I am suggesting that the accusations of "hack" are getting stale in that no proof of an actual hack having occurred has been released - and it's been several weeks. Don't commit yourself to fallacies of logic here - merely shouting "hack" and calling in the police doesn't make it a hack. And at the very least, if we continue to blithely parrot "hack" at some point we are obliged to at minimum mention that NO PROOF OF AN ACTUAL HACK HAS BEEN MADE PUBLIC. Personally, I think the phrase "reports of a hack" is more accurate as that's all we actually link to. We link to media reports of a hack - reports made to the media by the center itself. This was not independent investigative journalism by the media - it was not a look-see with actual proof. The media reports all singularly trace back to the center claiming "hack". The center made a report, the media repeated that report and everyone seems content to accepted it at face value. I am not. I've waited patiently for weeks for actual proof of a hack to come forth and none has. The lack of follow up proof undercuts the original report by the center to the point where it make sense to describe the starting point not as "a hack" but "reports of a hack". Do you understand this distinction? Please comment on the distinction I am attempting to put forth. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 20:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
TYPOGRAPHICAL EXUBERANCE notwithstanding, our obligation is to report what reliable sources say about the matter. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:33, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you or do you not understand the distinction between saying 'began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server' vs. 'began in November 2009 with the reports of "hacking" of a server', yes or no? If you don't, then there's nothing to discuss. The issue here is that by this point, the storyline of "hacking" should have some proof to it. If not, then we should make it clear that is was an alleged hacking. If you don't see why, you are too close to this issue. The hacking was "alleged" some weeks ago. That allegation was reported in the media. If we state that this controversy began with reports of a "hacking" then we are being 100% accurate, there is no OR violation and we are not simply swallowing hook line and sinker the center's version of events - which is an alleged hacking event that still has not been proved true. We are not inventing facts and we are not going against reliable sources. Rather we are making clear what the reliable sources say: there was hacking reported (but not since proved true). So, I'll advance the question again: Do you understand the distinction between saying it started with "a hacking" and "reports of a hacking"? What's known to be true is that the emails were disseminated. What has not been proven true is the center's allegation of hacking. You are taking sides in a partisan battle if you refuse to see this. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 02:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed copy edit suggestion

While working on a time line, I felt it was clear that the response of the IPCC belonged in the time line, as well as in the article. However, I notice that IPCC responses are the first paragraph of Other responses, the sixth paragraph of Climatologists, and the first paragraph of Scientific organizations. While the organization is very important, three separate mentions, two of which have overlapping citations, seems a bit much. My view is that the IPCC is best characterized as a scientific organization (though I understand the view of those who feel it is a political organization). I think the response of the IPCC is best positioned in that paragraph, rather than in the other two.
I'm proposing the removal of the material from the other two places, and perhaps expanding the entry in the scientific organizations section. (To the extent the views of the IPCC as climatologists as opposed to an organization is needed, there are already two paragraphs from IPCC lead authors.)
Does anyone disagree with this reasoning? If so, we ought to decide whether the paragraph in Scientific organizations is sufficient, or reqrite it if aspects of the other two paragraphs warrants inclusion, then remove the other two entries.--SPhilbrickT 19:31, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

You may want to have a look at Mohib Ebrahim's Climategate timeline here. I've just started to look thru it -- he obviously spent considerable time & effort to create it. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:48, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Just took a glance so far—quite a resource, thanks for the heads up.--SPhilbrickT 20:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Looks like yet more conspiracy theorising nutjobbery to me, I have to say. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:49, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I've just looked at it too. The introduction is rather overripe, with phrase like "the shaky foundation underpinning the AGW enterprise", "plug the holes in the leaky boat and keep up appearances." Desperate nonsense of the kind we've done well to avoid by insisting strictly on the very best sources available. --TS 21:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
It's already been announced that Sir Muir Russell is going to chair a full investigation into all of this; the police are also investigating it. The Met Office is looking into it and so are the IPCC. When these people publish the results of their investigations, then we'll have reports with timelines, blame, recommendations, the whole works to pick over. These are people with no axes to grind and full access to the actual facts. Jumping the gun with Mr Mohib Ebrahim's personal views, or anybody else's for that matter, would do nothing but harm to Wikipedia's reputation. We are not a news feed of every personal opinion as published. --Nigelj (talk) 21:38, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Can we return to the section subject? I appreciate the timeline link and related commentary, but this section was created to debate whether three separate paragraphs in three separate sections for IPCC reaction are appropriate. I've seen no disagreement yet, but it's premature to assume consensus.--SPhilbrickT 21:42, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I think IPCC sources are cited appropriately. Let's look at them:
  • Jones e-mail of 8 Jul 2004: IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri quoted in defence of the IPCC's editorial processes.
  • Other responses: Rajendra Pachauri again on what the IPCC would be doing.
  • Climatologists: Pachauri and some lead authors quoted directly on their response.
  • Scientific organizations: Statements issued by IPCC WG1.
The IPCC is a very large organization intimately involved in collating and summarising the science. Of course they're going to be quoted a lot, as a group and as individuals in their various capacities. --TS 21:57, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
My comment above was added here in the light of the section subject. I shall try to explain what I said more directly: Trying to condense the most important events, activities, statements and opinions of the key players in this saga into a simple timeline is clearly a value-laden activity. Knowing whose actions to emphasise and whose to omit involves value judgements. When independent experts, with full access to the facts, eventually do so we should report it. Until then, using someone else's, or doing our own such WP:SYNTHESIS would not only be against policy, but would do WP no good. It would be unreasonable, given the IPCC's key role in climate science in the world, not to mention that they (a) consider the affair to be "a serious issue and we will look into it in detail", (b) support the scientists involved and (c) consider the individuals singled out in these email exchanges to be part of a bigger consensus that has not lost its internal consistency. These are the three paragraphs, and I think they're in the right places for now. (Note that a proposed restructuring is already underway) --Nigelj (talk) 22:08, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm apparently not making my point clearly. Please pretend my question has nothing to do with a time line. Because it has nothing to do with a time line. The article contains the reactions of various parties. The reactions are generally included in the section most relevant to them. So, for example, political organizations reactions are in the political organizations section. I noticed that we have reactions of the IPCC are in

  1. Climatologists
  2. Scientific organizations
  3. Other

I think we should reach consensus on which category best describes them (I propose Scientific organizations) and put the IPCC reactions in that section, not scattering them all over the article. --SPhilbrickT 23:05, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

IPCC stuff is necessarily going to be scattered all over the article, for reasons I have outlined above. --TS 01:26, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
It is understandable that an IPCC response to a specific email belongs with that email, but "other Responses" by its very title if for responses not belonging elsewhere. Rajendra Pachauri is not a climatologist, so his comments don't belong in the Climatologist section. If it makes structural sense to have an IPCC response in another section, that's fine, but let's gather together all those responses that can be gathered together.--SPhilbrickT 04:50, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Inaccurate name: Climategate is not the hacking incident

The opening line is false, "The Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as 'Climategate', began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich." This article seems to be discussing the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, which by all means did happen in November, 2009. However, implying that this "incident" is referred to by some sources (who?) as Climategate is a false statement. Climategate is about the documents, code datasets and information revealed from the "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident." This information did not begin in November 2009, that's when the hacking incident that this article talks about happened. But Climategate is referring to the state of climate science over the past decade. It's the information revealed from the "incident" that this article is discussing. One of two things needs to happen: (1) the improperly referred to name "Climategate" should be removed, or (2) information about Climategate should be added to the article. Both the hacking incident and Climategate are not one and the same. 98.232.27.135 (talk) 23:42, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Note: There is circumstantial evidence showing that 98.232.27.135 (talk · contribs) and 71.125.130.14 (talk · contribs) are the same editor. Viriditas (talk) 10:30, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
What exactly is revealed by this affair about the state of climate science over the past decade, that isn't known from peer-reviewed sources? Do you have a reliable source for the notion that our knowledge of the state of climate acience has been advanced as a result of this hacking incident? --TS 00:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware, no mainstream scientific source - as opposed to hyperventilating bloggers and self-appointed amateur "auditors" - have corroborated any errors in the CRU's data, let alone the rest of climate science, as a result of this incident. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:26, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I think that ... uh ... IP, there makes a nice point. It can be reasonably argued that the hacking of the data is a crime. It is also reasonable to argue that the impact of the hacking stands apart from that crime. It would then be reasonable to discuss the scope of that impact based on reliable sources. TS and CO, you can reasonably posit that the effect has been minimal and transient; you cannot reasonably argue that there has been no effect. As I have stated elsewhere I am no longer pursuing a name change because I bow to the WP "-gate" policy, but I remain sympathetic to the idea and continue to be troubled by statements that "there is no spoon". Nightmote (talk) 01:15, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm certainly not denying there's been a political impact, but that's separate from any scientific impact. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:31, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
The reputation of the various journals that have been exposed as caving to pressure from outsiders has been damaged. Is that scientific enough? There has been a diversion of budget to review 160 years of UK data as a result of this loss of confidence. Is that not a scientific impact? There's a world-wide scramble to see if all the climate data's real with reports coming out of Australia (the Darwin zero controversy alleging GHCN hanky panky to get a 6C/century global warming rise) and Russia (the IEA report alleging cherry picking warm stations) at least hinting at scientific misconduct. No doubt a lot of those attempts at verification are going to be coming out in the months and years ahead. You really think there's no scientific impact? Really? TMLutas (talk) 04:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Non-blog citations for all of those claims, please. There has been a lot of hyperventilating by anti-science activists but I've certainly not seen any data being retracted. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay in responding, it just slipped my mind. The 160 year review. The Darwin zero bit is indeed confined to the blogs for now but that doesn't mean there's no scientific impact, merely no Wikipedia impact. The IEA report isn't peer reviewed, but lack of peer review does not mean no scientific impact. TMLutas (talk) 19:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Chicken or the egg. Dynablaster (talk) 01:22, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

In this instance, many deny the existence of a chicken. For them the egg stands alone. Nightmote (talk) 01:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Anon makes at least one valid point: it is an inaccurate name. This is an ongoing controversy that clearly has extended beyond the initial November hacking. Unfortunately, nobody here can agree what the new name should be. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I'd be happy to take climategate out of the lede William M. Connolley (talk) 13:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm sure you'd be happy to remove Climategate from Google altogether. - MrGuy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.42.157.119 (talk) 09:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with whatever IP wrote this, but I feel that the word "ClimateGate" shouldn't be taken out until it can be put somewhere, since there are large numbers of people who believe that "ClimateGate" does change the dynamics regarding anthropogenic climate change, as per wikipedia's significant minority opinion policy (Rush Limbaugh and Anthony Watts come to mind as huge supporters of this view, and they together have tens of millions of listeners/readers). Freiberg, Let's talk!, contribs 13:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

That's poor justification. There are billions of people living on this planet, and only a tiny "fringe-sized" minority of them follow Limbaugh or Watts. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
As opposed to the insinuated "vast majority" that buy the "planet has a fever" philosophy wholesale? Please. Whether you hate him or hang on his every word (I do neither), you refer to perhaps the utmost political pundit in America, having one of, if not the largest followings of any political commentator, and you then go and compare Limbaugh's inarguably humongous audience to the world population in order to try to make the downplay work so you can stick that "fringe-sized minority" comment in there? The saying going around is, "who are the 'deniers' now?" In other words, the horse has fled the barn, sayonara horse. (If you can get your "digs" in, why not the rest of us?) As for the primary issue in this sub-section -- by all means, DO disentangle the "alleged 'hacking incident'" article from the Climategate redirect; make them two discrete topics. No? Ahhh. But of course; that would go against the agenda of the self-important self-appointed Wiki "elites" who have bullyragged other would-be contributors and tortured this article to shoehorn it to their point-of-view, and deliberately hijacked the "Climategate" terminology with that slippery redirect, as part of the whitewash. Objectivity is, at this point, sham. I'll re-adopt an attitude of "good faith" as soon as the Wikibully cover-up artists unlock their kung-fu grip on this "article." As jfcj1 says in this talk page, "Why not just rename it 'The Official Wiki Warmist Coverup and Propaganda Page'?" It's as plain as the nose on your face; this charade fools nobody. It's no wonder Wikipedia is losing editors in droves. It's being turned into another propagandist tool; and as such will eventually become a coffee-klatch.MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 05:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
The idea that Rush Limbaugh and his views are representative of anything but a tiny minority--even of the American public--is as persistent as it is erroneous. A recent poll commissioned by BBC World Service and performed by GlobeScan found that only 6% of the 24,000 people polled in 23 countries did not want their country to reach an agreement at the Copenhagen conference to deal with global warming. --TS 12:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Say what? "Erroneous"? The knowingly false claim that a majority of Americans are liberal "progressives" (we all know it's far to the contrary) and the propaganda attempting to portray worldwide belief in the AGW theory as "all-but-universal" -- these propositions are as laughable as they are persistent among those of the type who have assumed a death-clutch on this "article" while squatting all day even here on the talk page. In the scientific community alone there are many thousands who are experts in this and/or ancillary fields of study, who have been raising serious questions even from years back. You lasering in on a ludicrous BBC poll (BBC being the British version of TASS) like that further illustrates the horrendous POV-ism going on both on the main page and behind the scenes here. When one's premise requires one to try to "downplay" challengers to the AGW "debate is over" crowd by stating, in effect, that "it's only Limbaugh's audience which is 'fringe' compared to the world population" -- when you start citing polls that are clearly off the mainstream (check one of the two- or three-dozen other polls to use for citation; Gallup or something credible would be nice; oh wait, that might not serve your "intent") then you've not only got a flawed premise and an obvious agenda, you've departed the road of scholarliness. Add to it how editing to this article is jealously guarded by the self-imposed "authorities"; add to it the continuous recurrence of "we already discussed that didn't you read the talk pages and we don't want to discuss it no more now let's refocus" as a response to anyone who tries to talk straight (yeah we heard, the debate is over, somehow that doesn't quite make it); add to it the continuous implication of "I am a seasoned Wikipedia editor -- welcome! peon noob" -- add it up and you've got a seriously un-Wiki-like dynamic going on here. At best it's a travesty; at worst it's sinister. But I guess there are those who will determinedly ignore the elephant in the living room; but he's a growing boy, that elephant. OK, the rustic rabble shall return to the tillage. For now.MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 18:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Can we re-focus? There are (as far as I can tell) two issues under discussion: 1)"Should the article be re-named Climategate?" and; 2) "Is the hacking the central topic or is the content of the emails the central topic?" Regarding (1), there is reasoned opposition to the title "Climategate" based on wikipedia policy and the idea that the term implies guilt where none has been proven. To avoid mentioning the almost universally-used term "Climategate" in the introduction, however, would be blatant POV-pushing. Regarding (2), it is pointless to continue to argue that this main thrust of Climategate is computer hacking at a college. The fallout - scientific, political, professional - has almost nothing to do with how the data were released. In a year or two, Climategate may be seen to be a flash in the pan. Or not. But the significance - however great or however small and of whatever duration - lies in the data and how the world reacted to those data. Nightmote (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
In addition I would like to re-suggest that e-mail is not the only thing that was stolen, so it should be removed from the title to be more general. Ignignot (talk) 16:56, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree that "e-mail" is an unnecessary part of the title, and somewhat limiting. As I said elsewhere, I am leaning toward "Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy" or "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy". -- Scjessey (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
(@ Nightmote, after ec) - I think that is only partly right. First of all, I think you are right that "Climategate" should not be in the article name, but should definitely should be in prominently mentioned in the lede. This would be consistent with the way other "-gate" stuff has been treated. Beyond that, however, I must disagree with you. The most significant issue of this matter is the theft of data. Everything else branches out from that, including:
  • How the data were stolen (technical details).
  • The investigation (by police, university).
  • Why the data were stolen (just because? Agenda-driven?)
  • Whether or not the release of this data was timed to coincide with the climate conference.
  • The scientific impact (minimal).
  • The impact on public opinion (some impact, particularly in the US).
  • The political impact (minimal, some embarrassment to UK gov, exploitation by some US politicians).
All of these are legitimate points worth covering, and there may be more, but it is still the data theft that should form the central focus of this article. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I think ScJessey's approach is close to the one we've followed so far as the situation has developed, and it seems to work well. --TS 17:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
"The most significant issue of this matter is the theft of data." No it's not. Suppose it had been the English department's archives that had been hacked/leaked — who would care about the incident? It's the view behind the curtain at the way climate science has been done that makes this noteworthy.
—WWoods (talk) 19:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
The article is slanted such that it comes across as a POV condemnation of the hacking incident, consisting of email excerpts followed by numerous quotes from AGW proponents supporting the argument that the emails mean nothing and that AGW continues to be real. I don't see that as productive; we already have an Global Warming article, right? The investigation is ongoing; accordingly, we can't assume that a whistleblower released the files out of a sense of altruism, and we can't assume that the theft had overtones of international conspiracy. What does that leave us? The bare facts (what files were removed, when, and when they were disseminated) followed by a BRIEF pro/con assessment of significance (four or six quotes from James Hansen and others of similar prestige, giving no undue weight to either side) and an assessment of *concrete* impacts (quotes from leaders at the Copenhagen summit, data confirmations undertaken by the IPCC, death threats, etc.). The Climategate sandwich is, at the moment, all bread and no Climategate. Nightmote (talk) 19:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Wiki policy states that the most common name must be used for naming an article, and that name is "Climategate" because after more than a month it has been already used or recognized by such reliable sources and mainstream media including The Economist (here), Reuters (here), The New York Times (here), The Guardian (here), CNN (here). This fact has been recognized by most of the other language Wikipedia sites, as they call this article Climategate. The discussion above clearly reflects an effort to cleanse/sanitize this controversy, and most of the arguments presented to keep other titles are just flagrant original research as these titles have not been used by any RS but here, reaching the ridiculous point that now "controversy" is considered lack of NPOV. Please' let's call things by its name! There is no wondering Wiki's NPOV reputation is being tarnish (see this and here) I proposed this matter to be settled once an for all by a group of real neutral admins/experience editors (anyone who has contributed in GW or climate change articles should be excluded, including admins). And to keep a decent minimum of NPOV the word "some" in the lead should be changed to "several" (all the refs are in the history I provided were deleted because they look "ugly" and "pointy", with no discussion of the substance), or simply "also known as Climategate"-Mariordo (talk) 23:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Using a common name is fine, unless that common name happens to violate other policies, such as WP:NPOV. WP:PRECISION is a more useful and relevant part of the naming policy. We have an ongoing discussion about what the article name should be, and we must strive to select something that is both neutral and descriptive. "Climategate" is neither. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I like Scjessey's earlier suggestion: "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy". I'd also be find with "Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy" since that's what the majority of reliable sources are focusing on. The nice thing about "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy" is that it side-step the 'e-mail vs source code' issue. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Ignoring the fact that the term Climategate is now used by neutral mainstream media (and RS too -The Economist, NYT, etc) it blatant WP:OR, no matter how we try to find support in other WP policies. Some of the arguments that were valid a month ago are not necessarily valid now.-Mariordo (talk)
Wikipedia has a different set of policies and guidelines than the media. We don't justify the use of article titles based on what the media decides; "If it bleeds, it leads" is not an encyclopedic approach. And since there are BLP's involved, a slanted article title is not acceptable. Viriditas (talk) 09:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Not at all. The arguments that have been made consistently are based on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a non-negotiable core policy of Wikipedia. Specifically WP:NPOV#Article naming: "A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality." Names incorporating -gate are deprecated in another key policy, Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Descriptive names, which specifically mentions the example of "Attorneygate" (which we refer to as Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy). We do not use -gate in article titles because that breaches the fundamental principle of neutrality, and no amount of campaigning by partisans is going to override that principle. The principle of NPOV cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Bottom line - this article will never be called "Climategate". -- ChrisO (talk) 10:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hm, I'm warming to Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy, suggested by ScJessey above. This would remove the potentially ambiguous term "hacking" and go with the unequivocal "theft", which is at least as well supported by reliable sources. As a freebie we get "data" which is more accurate than "e-mail". --TS 13:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

This makes me happy. It appears that reasonable editors from both "sides" of the debate are beginning to coalesce on a possible title. Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy has the advantage of being descriptive, accurate and neutral. All reliable sources have said that the CRU servers were accessed illegally, so "data theft" accurately describes that without using the controversial "hacking", while still leaving open the possibility of a "leak" (which would still be the illegal theft of data, just not "hacked"). Climatic Research Unit documents controversy also has support. To my mind, it widens the scope of the article and slightly shifts the focus away from the most significant detail (the data theft). I concur with comments above that basically say this article "will never be called 'Climategate'" - it does not really matter how many !votes or cries for "Climategate" there are, because it will always violate Wikipedia policy. People arguing for this non-neutral, comic-book term would have to get the Wikipedia policy on this matter changed in order for them to have a shot at getting their way here. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi, first I don't think there are two 'sides' here with regard to the name of this article and I'm not sure if characterising even the name as a two-sided confrontation when we're all trying to help is really helpful. Back to reality, and I have been worried by references to 'data' and 'data theft' in the title here before because the whole purpose of the CRU revolves around climate data, and many of the emails that are discussed refer to the data and the other documents include a lot of source code that processes climate data. So 'data' in this case is a specific term, already in heavy use; and what was stolen was not that data, at all. It makes me think of someone on one of these talk pages recently who wanted to educate us that what Watergate was about was someone stealing some tapes to prove that Nixon wasn't a nice guy. I think it's easy to set up the basis for confusion in these cases. I'm happier risking confusing someone as to the fact that many of the documents stolen were not actually emails, than having them tell me in 20 years time that someone stole/liberated all the climate data from CRU in 2009. --Nigelj (talk) 14:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
That's a very good point. Perhaps "[CRU] e-mail theft controversy" is as close as we can get without setting up potential confusion over whether or not raw data was stolen. --TS 16:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
When I said "sides", I was referring to those preferring "hacking" or similar terminology and those preferring "Climategate" or a more ambiguous version of what we have. Perhaps "positions" would have been more accurate. That aside, I see the point concerning the possible confusion over the use of "data" in the title; however, "data" is still the correct word when attempting to describe "computer files" of varying types. I would rather not have an overlong title ("Climatic Research Unit computer files theft controversy"). Bear in mind that it is normal for the very first sentence of the lede to explain the meaning of any title that needs any sort of disambiguation, so a title change would usually mean also changing the first sentence. You'd end up with something like this:
"The Climatic Research Unit data theft controversy refers to an incident in which data of varying types from a UK-based climate research institution were illegally copied and disseminated. Referred to by some sources as "Climategate", the controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents made over the course of 13 years." blah blah blah.
I think that would remove any concerns over the use of "data" in the title. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I disagree, "data" makes you think of "scientific" climate data, and that's not part of the documents, thus "data" is misleading. Almost all news rapports have discussed only a few of the e-mails and not really any of the other files. Regarding hack/theft I think it might be wise to wait for the police investigation to complete, then we will know more about the illegal act and we can hopefully make a more informed decision.
—Apis (talk) 19:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
It isn't going to be misleading if it is explained in the first sentence of the article. Besides, "data theft" is accurate legal terminology in the UK, as I recall. "Hacking" should be removed from the title at the earliest possible convenience, because it is a loaded term almost as inappropriate as "Climategate". -- Scjessey (talk) 21:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
The rest of the world calls it "Climategate". How long are we going to hold out on this? It's a broad term that refers to the whole incident. It's not particularly negative either, the term is used in a silly postmodernist way. If we want to have different articles about different aspects of it - the hacking, the scandal, the underlying science, the internal debate among scientists, the aftermath, we can come up with different article titles. But whatever it means there is clearly something notable out there called Climategate, and I think that is the focus of this article. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
That's simply not true. "Climategate" is a non-neutral term cooked-up by skeptics to feed controversy. Most reliable sources only use the term in scare quotes, and those that don't are simply too lazy to be nuanced. The word is already described in the article, but we certainly shouldn't break Wikipedia's policy and lower the encyclopedia's standards just because a herd of skeptics stomp their feet in unison. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
The name is the name. There is no widely used alternative, and it's not for us to coin our own lingo simply because we don't like the terms other people use for things. "America", and the resident "Indians", are also non-neutral terms, in that case cooked up by the geographically and culturally challenged. Desolation Canyon is an awfully judgmental term for a piece of geography, blind man's bluff is a slight on the sight impaired even if it's the most PC term for the game, and Donner Pass is named for folks who ate each other. Whatever a word's origins, once it becomes accepted as the name for something we've got to respect the sources and not invent our own. If you look at the definition of scare quotes, that's not what is happening. Scare quotes are used to signal that the term is referenced to someone else, so as not to create the impression that the writer endorses the literal meaning of the term. Here there is no literal meaning: we do not mean to dissuade the reader from thinking we claim the existence of an operable perforated physical barrier to a point of entry to a bounded-off area, with climate on one side and no climate on the other. The quotes are used to signal that we are referencing a newly coined term. The rules of when to use single versus double quotes are complex and varied, but it seems that the sources that use double quotes ("climategate") are attributing it to someone named or unnamed, those that use single quotes ('climategate') are referencing it as a defined term, and those that use it without quotes are either being informal as you say, or they simply acknowledge that it is in common use. In any event it gets 7.5 million google hits and 6,000 current google news hits on my browser, which is an astonishing number, half as many as Brittany Murphy. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm shocked and perplexed by the reluctance of apparently intelligent people to accept that the obvious title should be Climategate. "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident" is a good title for a single event such as Sarah Palin's e-mail hacking incident since the hacking itself was a bigger story than the information it revealed (despite the efforts of Leftists to sell the opposite) Besides the indisputable factual errors in the title, that the majority of the released information were emails (most were other form of documents) and that the information was acquired through hacking (it could have been a whistle blower), do we not all agree that the majority of mainstream sources refer to this incident as Climategate? Its a rehtorical question of course since its a fact that most mainstream sources refer to this incident as Climategate somewhere in the title and according to Wikipedia's own rules that should be enough. But the problem is that Wikipedia's rules are taken at face value when its convenient to Leftists and meta-analyzed out of existence when not. So since mainstream media refers to this incident as Climategate you are now splitting hair as to what exactly is mainstream media and when it is relevant ("It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.") If thats the way its going to be why have rules at all? The people in power should just do whatever they want and spare us the pretense. The reason liberal news and radio is failing so miserably is because liberal ideologues such as you make everything so predictably dull. Wikipedia has been in a decline for years, do you ever ask yourselves why?Professorteeth (talk) 04:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally

Exactly what difference does it make what the article title is? "Climategate" redirects here. This article is the #1 google result (in my browser at the moment) for the word "Climategate", which appears as an alternate name in the first sentence. The reader gets the exact same content, whatever we call it. Is there any hurry to sort this out? I would propose that a few months from now we'll know whether the term "climategate" stuck, or whether there's a different term for the broad incident. In the meanwhile, I am sympathetic to the claim that "hacking incident" != "x-gate" controversy. The purloining or leak of the emails is just a small part of the picture.
The current name is quite ungainly and fails to encompass the broad scope of the article, which is about more than just the fact that some computer files were compromised. If we want a literal, descriptive title, I would take a cue from the Financial crisis of 2007–2010 article, and call it something like "2009 climate change email incident" or something like that. That's still not quite it. Exactly what is this incident? It's a scandal whipped up by climate change deniers / skeptics / whatever upon the revelation that some climate change scientists were rude, ornery, and spin-conscious about the message they were putting out and the public perception of their work, and engaged in private conversations and planning that were unseemly to some. Condense that to 4-6 words and you'll have a good title. But if we can't agree on it and brevity escapes us, I wouldn't lament. Titles aren't the most important thing in the world. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The difference is that its an attempt to rewrite history. Wikipedia is suppose to report the story and not attempt to influence it. As currently written, anyone not familiar with this incident who glances at the title will walk away thinking that this is all about hacking when in reality its all about climate science fraud. Does anyone here really believes that this story made the news because society is so shocked by the act of "hacking"? No, its news because scientists who are paid through our tax dollars have manipulated data for decades and that faulty data is being used right now to justify one of the biggest power grab in the history of man kind. Professorteeth (talk) 05:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
While the current title is inappropriate (attempts are being made to craft one that is more accurate), "Climategate" is simply not appropriate. If "Watergate" isn't appropriate, then "Climategate" certainly isn't. There is no evidence whatsoever of "climate science fraud", and this article should not be giving any credence to lies of that astonishing magnitude. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Who said "Watergate" is not appropriate? That article is misnamed as well, and probably leaves a lot of readers scratching their heads. But we're here and that article is somewhere else. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Watergate Scandal is a fine title. Everyone refers to it as Watergate and it was a scandal. How about changing the title for this article to Climategate Scandal? The issues of hacking vs leak and whether or not there was climate science fraud can be covered in the body. Professorteeth (talk) 19:35, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Two problems with this approach. Firstly, "Climategate" violates WP:NPOV. Secondly, "scandal" violates WP:NPOV and is totally inaccurate. Recommend lifting the stylus from your vinyl, since you keep playing the same screeching noise over and over again. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Because "Climategate" is a ridiculously POV term used either by those with an axe to grind, or to mock those wielding said axes. Not that I'm much of a fan of google-as-proof, but news search shows a far bit of in-quotes usage, which signifies derision. Tarc (talk) 19:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Scjessey, I recommend you take your head from out of your ass. Any objective person can see the blatant one-sided bias of this article. James Delingpole said it best:

If you want to know the truth about Climategate, definitely don’t use Wikipedia. “Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy”, is its preferred, mealy-mouthed euphemism to describe the greatest scientific scandal of the modern age. Not that you’d ever guess it was a scandal from the accompanying article. It reads more like a damage-limitation press release put out by concerned friends and sympathisers of the lying, cheating, data-rigging scientists [18]

Professorteeth (talk) 20:01, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

'Best' is not quite the adjective I would choose. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
The term "Climategate" in common usage has wider meaning than the purported hacking of UEA (it has not been establised as fact). Climategate has grown to refer to the politicization and suppression of climate related information, including competing points of view in science as to the causes of climate change. The UEA emails are put forward as one example of this. WP has also become part of the story, with suggestions that some contributors have exibited non-NPV.24.87.71.192 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:44, 25 December 2009 (UTC).

Much of the above discussion in this section id entirely off topic. The original point is correct. Climategate is not about the theft/leak/release of the CRU documents. It is about the behaviour exposed by the docs. Compare with Watergate, which is not about the breaking onto a hotel room. It is about the behaviour of Nixon and his administration exposed as a consequence. Paul Beardsell (talk) 02:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate is the ensuing scandal, not about the theft/leak/release of the docs. No one here says different, as far as I can tell, but there is considerable distraction above. Paul Beardsell (talk) 02:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

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