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Investigation into Michael Mann at Penn State

The University of Pennsylvania has entered into an investigation of the behavior of Michael Mann. Michael Mann was one of the principle researchers in the email exchanges in the hacked emails.

"...e-mails reveal that Mr. Mann might have committed a variety of acts that constitute significant and intentional scientific misconduct, including data manipulation, inappropriately shielding research methods and results from peers, and retaliating against those who publicly challenged his conclusions and political agenda."

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2010/01/23/commentary/op-eds/doc4b5a2e41299e5579065379.txt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.92.131 (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

This article conforms to the BLP criteria. Only referenced information is used, with the citation. You may suggest that the entire article be transcribed. May I suggest the article title and reference? ie 'Mann-Made' Global Warming?

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2010/01/23/commentary/op-eds/doc4b5a2e41299e5579065379.txt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.92.131 (talk) 02:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Is this section geared towards improving the article? I don't see how it is. Perhaps the first person to not respond wins. Hipocrite (talk) 13:15, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a copy-paste comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.92.131 (talk) 13:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
DUDE! Seriously, learn to sign your comments! Click on the (talk) on the signature of your IP to find out how.130.232.214.10 (talk) 13:57, 3 February 2010(UTC)

Inquiry into climate scientist moves to next phase: From Penn State Feb 3, 2010

RA-10 Inquiry Report: Concerning Allegations of Research Misconduct Against Dr. Michael E, Mann, Department of Meteorology, Department of Earth and Mineral Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University

"In looking at four possible allegations of research misconduct, the committee determined that further investigation is warranted for one of those allegations. The recommended investigation will focus on determining if Mann "engaged in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities." A full report (http://www.research.psu.edu/orp) concerning the allegations and the findings of the inquiry committee has been submitted."

http://live.psu.edu/story/44327


Worth noting that the stuff above is cherry-picked to hell and back. Consider this quote from ars technica:
"After having examined the relevant e-mails, other e-mail provided by Mann, and interviewing Mann himself, the committee determined that there was no evidence that Mann destroyed, suppressed, or falsified data, or misused any confidential or privileged information obtained during peer review or from embargoed papers."
A different kettle of fish indeed. While additional investigation continues, it is apparently based on the volume of complaints rather than their veracity - imagine that! (source) -- Scjessey (talk) 21:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Climategate Analysis

Climategate Analylis by John P. Costella This should also be linked to this article. http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/climategate_analysis.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.92.131 (talk) 18:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Not a reliable source. Hipocrite (talk) 18:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes they are. You'd better explain that one. You mean "I disagree with what they publish so therefore it is not reliable" right. Or is there a legitimate reason why you label them as not reliable. Explain "reliable".142.68.92.131 (talk) 19:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:RS they are not a reliable source as they do not have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Hipocrite (talk) 19:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Agree, not RS, in fact they specifically oppose peer-review. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
It's a fringe advocacy organisation with a pretty poor reputation for factual accuracy. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

That isn't true. Please provide proof that they have publish false information. This what Jone or Mann might do. Just find an excuse for not including someone's work because they don't necessarily agree 100% with your POV. John Costella is a reputable researcher with credentials that exceed most editors in here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.92.131 (talk) 21:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

No, he's not. John Costella is the owner of [1], which states that 9/11 was done by the US government, not by terrorists, among other lunatic fringe ideas. It's time for you to go. Hipocrite (talk) 21:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Just provide a citation for this liable. Here are his credentials: John P. Costella, B.E.((Hons.), B.Sc.(Hons.) Ph.D.(Physics) Grad.Dip.Ed. I'd say he has earned the right to have an opinion about science. Would you please post your credentials? and a link to his 9/11 claims? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.92.131 (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC) I did a "whois" on the domain name: Domain ID: D148170851-LROR, Domain Name: scienceandpublicpolicy.org, owner unknown. How do you know who owns it?

You are looking at the wrong web page. This is his home page. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The article to which I was referring was carried on scienceandpublicpolicy.org. His work is also already referenced in wiki wrt image processing, the bulk of his academic work.(better purge those too.) http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/James_H._Fetzer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.214.226 (talk) 22:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC) So since John P Costello, is already a cited reference in wikipedia, then why not include this addition excellent work carried on scienceandpublicpolicy.org? Other wiki editors have acknowledged his work. those wor don't have an axe to grind.142.177.214.226 (talk) 22:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Costello may or may not be a reliable source on certain topics. That does not make him a reliable source on all topics. In particular, competence in image processing does not imply any competence in climate science or scientific processes. And SPPI is a known advocacy group with no credibility. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Costello is well published and frequently cited in scientific papers and in wiki as I have shown. To dismiss his work based on accusations of incredulity demands a citation about either his work or the site. I have asked for, and the critics here have yet to produce, a justifiable disqualification for his work or that of SPP. Disagreeing with his conclusion is not sufficient justification for his exclusion unless of course he is aka Galileo.
I'm well published and frequently cited in scientific papers[2]. So is WMC. So are several other editors here. Will you accept our report? Or are we also Galileos? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
If you have written on the subject at hand and it is carried in a publication and can be referenced then of course you can submit a report. Fill your boots. Disagreeing with Costella, does not elevate to justification to disallow inclusion. You, as an academic, ought to know that. It is particularly because you disagree with him that you have to scrupulously inhibit your compunction to silence his work. Please provide justifications for his exclusion. I have provided, the work, the reference and its relevance to the subject.142.68.165.13 (talk) 00:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Excerpts from this report should be included in the Reactions to Climategate section. Right now the reactions are like a kangaroo-court where only people favorable to AGW theory are allowed to be heard. John P Costello has impeccable credentials. JettaMann (talk) 16:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
JettaMann, are those IP addresses you? Hipocrite (talk) 16:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
JettaMann, I am inclined to agree with you, they ought to be included.. someone erased my affirmation, someone who doesn't agree with you and me I presume.142.177.62.236 (talk) 17:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Mann Results

[3] So Mann was mostly cleared, with further inquiry planned for whether his conduct deviated from accepted practices for scientists in his field. Ignignot (talk) 21:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Ensuring the welfare of laboratory animals? Huh? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
It's from Penn States pre-existing standards for "Research Misconduct," specifically. --Heyitspeter (talk) 21:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

In other words, Mann was not completely cleared. I'm a glass half full kind of guy. "The recommended investigation will focus on determining if Mann "engaged in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities."142.68.92.131 (talk) 21:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

My interpretation is the following. The university followed standard practice and could not find any obvious wrongdoing or fraud. Quite as expected. However, they have left a HUGE opportunistic hole in case there is anything they might have missed. I am stating this because the university investigation will continue and what we put on this page will need to be amended and we need to be prepared for that as well. I think there are a lot of people in the scientific community that don't like Mann's "style" but that is not a crime. Possible bad science and incorrect findings do not translate to intentional fraud. We should not wait 120 days to update this page but that's when we get the final say.130.232.214.10 (talk) 11:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
As you say "Possible bad science and incorrect findings" are bad enough.142.177.62.236 (talk) 12:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Here is a relevant source for discussion purposes only. [4]130.232.214.10 (talk) 12:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Reversion in error

I'm interested in this revert, which undos my moving some text to a more appropriate area and inserting a reference. Perhaps it was a mistake? Hipocrite (talk) 17:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. replacing a well sourced statement with a fact tag is vandalism as far as I'm concerned. You should be able to revert without penalty. One quibble, to avoid [WP:SYN] issues, I'd replace "most" with "nearly all" which is how the source phases it. JPatterson (talk) 17:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
It's not vandalism, it's got to be a mistake. Hipocrite (talk) 17:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC) PS - agreed on most to nearly all. Hipocrite (talk) 17:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Lead not reflective of the article

Since the article rewrite, the current lead is not at all representative of the article or of the sources on this subject. Currently, the article goes into great detail about emails that have been reported upon all over the place, but in the lead the only hint of the controversy of those emails is "the material caused a controversy, dubbed 'Climategate', regarding whether or not the e-mails indicated misconduct by climate scientists", and the FOIA result. This needs more exposition, as several allegations have been made, both my skeptics and non-skeptics, regarding these emails. To have more discussion in the lead about scientist threats than about email controversy is a gross WP:NPOV violation, given the coverage in reliable sources. The lead reads as if the major story here is a hacking and oh, by the way, some random people may have implied that these emails indicate some problem. The reliable source coverage of this story is not to that effect at all and focuses most on the contents of the documents and the ensuing controversy (or asserted lack thereof). The lead needs to reflect the balance of sources and article and spend more time discussing the controversy of the documents. Oren0 (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


While I appreciate what you are saying, I think this is actually part of a much larger problem. The massive rewrite, while admirable in intent, has been a mistake. I would prefer to see the entire article reverted back to the version immediately before the massive rewrite. This will also restore all the lost references that forced me to do this to your last edit. All that is happening now is that we are slowly adding back all that was lost, which is a waste of everyone's time. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Lost refs will be fixed by the magic ref-fixing bot. Just leave them broken for a little bit. Hipocrite (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
That's only part of the problem though. A lot of people did a lot of work that just got deleted, and now an awful lot of that work is getting added back in bits and pieces. The result is a bit of a mess, quite frankly. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
The old article was worse, I think. What parts of the removed stuff do you think added substantial value? Hipocrite (talk) 18:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Note that this becomes moot if the rewrite is reverted as I propose below. Then individual changes could be discussed and agreed upon. I think trying to discuss the reversion of several sections at once will be a nightmare. Oren0 (talk) 18:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I like Hipocrite's restructuring. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Code and documentation redux

This edit replaced a nice, simple, clear explanation with something more complex, designed by committee (including me) up above. I suggest that this wording is used, under the restored heading, rather than what's been restored there.

Suggested wording

The quality of some of the source code included in the documents has been criticised,[1] and an associated README file has been interpreted as suggesting that some data was simply made up.[2] Myles Allen of the Climate Dynamics group at Oxford has said that the code under discussion is not that used in actual climate reconstructions, which is maintained elsewhere.[3]

--Nigelj (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you show me where this version was discussed above, maybe I'm missing it in the collapse boxes? The shortest text I see above is under #Modified_Even_shorter_version, which is still much longer than your proposed text. I just restored the section as it was before its removal and I'm not necessarily attached to the current version. I don't oppose concise text for this, though I do believe it belongs in its own section. Oren0 (talk) 18:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't matter now as the edit was reverted. --Nigelj (talk) 19:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Need non-involved reactions

Since the rewrite, the current "reactions" section is really an "inquiries" section, as the only reaction from a person is Pachauri's. This article needs a proper "reactions" section where the reactions of experts on both sides of this issue can be discussed to some degree. The current article is missing discussion about why this whole incident has generated controversy, and numerous reliable individuals have been quoted on the issue. I don't believe that the laundry list approach previously used was the right one, the thing to do is to discuss in proportion the major reactions (ranging from "no big deal" through "problem with openness" and perhaps including "disproves AGW" if sourced enough) with a representative person/quote or two for each. I think a 2-3 paragraph section would do. Without this, I think the current article misses the point in some ways. Oren0 (talk) 18:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Write a section here or on a sub page for people to review. Hipocrite (talk) 18:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: revert article rewrite

Per User:Scjessey above. While I applaud the effort of User:Nightmote in this edit, a complete article rewrite without any consensus is almost assuredly a bad idea. There were several good ideas in this rewrite, but I think the right place for this article lies closer to the "before" than to the "after". If we leave this, we're going to have tons of discussions to get all of the things that shouldn't have been removed back in. Instead, let's revert the article back and work on implementing individual fixes from the rewrite with consensus. Even though the original edit didn't have consensus, it may be best to get opinions here on whether the change should be reverted before doing something drastic again. An edit war over the whole article would obviously be unacceptable. Oren0 (talk) 18:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

  • Support - This was a great experiment, but it is forcing us to rehash old debates that didn't need to be dug up. A new WP:BATTLEGROUND has sprung up over what gets added back, and what doesn't. As soon as that started happening, I knew this was doomed to failure. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Where? I don't see it. What do you want put back in, and where is this so called battle? Hipocrite (talk) 19:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
This dosen't even present a reason, let alone one I could dispute. This is not a vote. What was removed that should stay? Why? Hipocrite (talk) 19:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
The reason is it is far too great a change to make without consensus. I have objections to the re-write that are too numerous to list here, starting with the fact that it eliminated all of the specific allegations and lacks any cogent RS analysis from critics. The scandal, and it is now a scandal by any feasible definition, is growing in importance, (witness the guardian series, hardly a skeptical hotbed, and the effect it is having on public opinion in the UK). I think the re-write is much improved in terms of composition and flow but minimizes the incident, still puts to much emphasis on the hack, and lacks an adequate framework on which to cover the fall out. JPatterson (talk) 19:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
What sections from the old article would you like put back? Hipocrite (talk) 19:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
The second paragraph in the lead although I would prefer we resurrect [this discussion] to achieve consensus on a re-write, the code section over which hard fought consensus was achieved and the public reaction section per our discussion above. But as SCJ points out, everyone's going to have their own hobby horses and we'll be right back where we started with nothing to show but hard feelings. JPatterson (talk) 19:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, if you know that everyone is going to want their own pet section in, why not weigh the costs and benefits of fighting for your pet section vs the ability to keep all of the other crap out? If someone would like to propose a rewrite to the lead, go crazy. Hipocrite (talk) 19:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
The new 2nd para is much more apposite than the old hodge-podge. Times have moved on and so must the article's focus. When the inquiries and police investigations move on, a lot of what we had would have gone anyway. More of what we have now may well survive longer. --Nigelj (talk) 19:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood. HC asked what I would like to put back in, to which I responded [a re-write of the old 2nd paragraph]. The new 2nd paragraph is not comparable to the old 2nd paragraph, which has been eliminated. JPatterson (talk) 20:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Almost every single one of the removed sections made the article worse. I support the rewrite in full, and am willing to defend any specific problem that anyone has with it. If you have a problem with some of the information removed, please present that problem. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 18:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
You must understand that eventually it will all be put back. It is inevitable. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Disagree. Examples on request. I've shrunk articles before. Hipocrite (talk) 19:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Disagree. The remaining text is consensus text - nothing was added. If we revert, we revert back to the edit war version, where everyone on both sides of the (a)isle kept adding "just one more" superfluous quote. I don't own this version. I'm not married to it. But I (humbly) submit that it goes a long way toward avoiding the "he-said-she-said" point-scoring mentality. I strongly support the re-removal of the in-depth email analysis in favor of giving the emails a separate article with a wikilink. If we focus on what happened and avoid the analysis, we'll make a better article and avoid the drama. Nightmote (talk) 19:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
On that, I'm going to boldly insert Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident/emails after AQFK's recent edits that I think provide the notations that were necessary. Hipocrite (talk) 19:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, Hipocrite. Go for it. That is a much more readable format. --Nigelj (talk) 20:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

While we're simplifying the lede...

How about we shorten the following sentence...

"The Information Commissioner's Office stated that the UEA had breached the Freedom of Information Act by not dealing properly with requests for information related to climate science research made by David Holland, a retired engineer, but as sanctions had to be imposed within six months of the offence it was too late to impose them."

...to...

"The Information Commissioner's Office stated that the UEA had breached the Freedom of Information Act by not dealing properly with requests for information related to climate science research made by David Holland, a retired engineer."

...or even...

"The Information Commissioner's Office stated that the UEA had breached the Freedom of Information Act by not dealing properly with requests for information related to climate science research." A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I recommend shelving (:D) this until after the discussion about reverting the massive rewrite. That being said, I prefer the first suggestion but I would also support the second. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Just to point out again that the version missing out who made the requests is misleading in suggesting that all requests were included in the ICO's opinion, not just those raised by Holland. An option would be "dealing properly with requests one individual made for information related to climate science research." Note that the crucial request was for emails, relating to private discussions about the research rather than to the research itself. . . dave souza, talk 23:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

"The Indian government is backing Pachauri to the hilt. Let there be no doubt on that. There is no wavering in the support of the Indian government. The Prime Minister and others in the government are supporting him as chairmen of IPCC. Let there be no two opinions on that," Mr Ramesh said.

This is the first time that the government has come out in support of the IPCC chief after Glaciergate. IPCC has acknowledged its error over the rate of disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers. The Centre had supported the study by former deputy director-general of the Geological Survey of India, VK Raina, which had challenged IPCC’s claim that the Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035.

Mr Ramesh, who had been at the receiving end of scathing attack from the IPCC chief reiterated the government’s support. "The government backs Pachauri as the chief of the IPCC at the highest level. Past is past."

Repeated reverts

This article is under active development, and recent efforts to focus on coverage of rather than participation in the incident and associated furor are commendable. Locking the article from editing interferes with this effort, but so does this incessant edit warring. Under the auspices of Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation, I am placing this article under a content revert restriction for one month. No revert may be undone within 24 hours absent a strong consensus here that the first edit improved the article. Gaming the system by respecting only the letter of this restriction is disruptive. If you add text and someone else removes it, get consensus here that the article is better with the text; anyone re-adding substantially the same text without such consensus will be blocked for edit warring. If you remove text and someone else replaces it, get consensus here that the article is better without the text; anyone re-removing substantially the same text without such consensus will be blocked for edit warring. Thank you, - 2/0 (cont.) 23:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how this improves the situation. You have all but made it impossible to make any changes to the article that anyone else disagrees with. It doesn't seem much different than simply having the article be locked. Arzel (talk) 00:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Before everyone yells at me ....

I swear that I made this huge edit on good faith. I didn't dicsuss it here first because it's so huge, but the text that's left is stuff we all agreed on. I just really pared it back. Nightmote (talk) 19:46, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I didnt say "we" because I wanted Hipocrite to be able to disavow all knowledge. Nightmote (talk) 19:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I support Nightmote's edit, but accept that if someone reverts it we should progress to discussion. Hipocrite (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
It's better than some of the versions I have seen! Perhaps small is beautiful. But I don't understand the section on the identity of the hackers: this sticks out like a sore thumb as much weaker than the rest IMHO. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree and boldly removed it also. Hipocrite (talk) 19:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
However this ends up, my thanks to Hipocrite for fixing the refs, and to all of the editors who provided weeks and weeks of effort to create the article. All I did - I swear - was to remove everything extraneous to the core story. I expect a revert, but I hope we can talk about this. Nightmote (talk) 20:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Hey, I also deleted all the emails! But yes, I think NM and I are eagerly awaiting someone to ask us to justify some or all of our removals. Hipocrite (talk) 20:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
OMG, don't let the Information Commissioner hear you saying that! (;-P . . dave souza, talk 20:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
There is very little reason we would all be looking at this event/article right now, were it not for the unusual content and character of the emails which were hacked/distributed. To reduce the description of the content of those emails to 2 very small and general paragraphs will leave the honest reader wondering what all the fuss was about. I urge the restoration of the more specific email information. Moogwrench (talk) 20:16, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I've added them back for the reasons you state, though I only read this just now. Open to argument.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:26, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I've only just realized what has happened here after being out for a big chunk of the day. Holy shit, dudes! You must have testicles the size of bowling balls. I'm going to need to cogitate over this for a bit, and maybe have some booze and a bit of a lie down. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't think I've ever edited this article, but it's been on my watchlist from day one. Anyways: I think the massive cut and trim by Nightmole is a HUGE step in the right direction. The article had become way too bloated with interesting but overly detailed info. And for the record if the choice is between this "Content of the documents section and this one, my preference is the short one. The ideal length is probably in between, but I suspect it'll be easier to find that happy medium starting from the pared down version and building up rather than starting with the detailed version and pulling stuff out. Yilloslime TC 00:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Emails

Do we really need to go into the minute and extreme detail on every single one of the emails? It's such a waste of the reader's time. Can't we summarize it? Hipocrite (talk) 20:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Further, is it really fair to include the gory details of each and every one of the emails but not allow the gory details of each and every one of the responders (5 Reactions to the incident, 5.1 Climatologists, 5.2 Scientific organizations). Is anyone willing to step across the barricades and work to fix the article? Hipocrite (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Agree with restoration of detail about emails, I put a lot of work into that :-/ However, are we now at the stage where we can go for topic headings rather that dates and authors of specific emails? For example, the jolly hockey stick bit fits a descriptive title, the various letters about deleting data/emails can be grouped in relation to the FOI requests. That could allow more concise treatment of the emails. . . dave souza, talk 20:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Anything to shrink that section down so that the article isn't a gory rehash of the emails. It's just excessive - especially now that they are actually 1/2 of the text of the article. Hipocrite (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
No, we don't, though what would be nice would be the text of the e-mails at the heart of the controversy, as is and was present in the article (cf. Moogwrench's comment above). It's not a waste of the reader's time. On the contrary, anyone coming across this page and not finding any e-mail text will undoubtedly look elsewhere. This saves a trip.
I generally like this use of WP:Bold, though, by the way.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
But you can't have the text of all the emails, because they're not published in a reliable source. So, given that what you can get is 6 or 7 emails and scads of paragraphs going over all of the gory boredom, do we really need it?Hipocrite (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
On the contrary. All of the e-mails included are sourced by RSs, and often by multiple RSs. You can refer to the article for them.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought you were talking about including a database with all of the emails in them. Yes, the 6 or seven emails we go through word by tortuous word are fully sourced. Hipocrite (talk) 20:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
The Guardian is linking directly to eastangliaemails.com in their stories. I assume there was a good reason Wikipedia does not? Also I would like to keep the emails but not clumped together. Maybe they could merged into (new) topics as suggested? Appreciate the effort, this version of the article is better!85.76.70.109 (talk) 20:46, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a policy against linking to copyviolations or stolen goods, as in many Youtube links, so best to play safe. Also, per synthesis policy we should find a secondary source to select which ones to discuss. . . dave souza, talk 20:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
@Hipocrite: And I'm sorry for using the phrase "On the contrary" twice in one conversation. That was annoying on my part.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I am engaging in a rewrite of the gratituous parsing of the emails - see Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident/emails. Hipocrite (talk) 20:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite: To your first point, the e-mails need to be the article. In fact, that's the reason why I came to this article in the first place. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I wanted to know what the e-mails said, if they were taken out of context and how. To your second point, I believe that balance is already in the article. At least it was the last time I checked. To your second point, reliable sources are cited, at least they were the last time I checked. BTW, it's a bit of exaggeration to say we're covering all the e-mails. AFAIK, there were hundreds if not thousands of these e-mail. We're only covering a handful. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

My rewriting of the execessive email section is open for comments- please see Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident/emails. Comments welcome. Hipocrite (talk) 21:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite: Rearranging the article content based on issue rather than by e-mail is an excellent idea. I don't think anyone's really attempted to do this given the contentious nature of the article. But now that it appears as if the admins are finally starting to get fed up with both warring factions, maybe we can finally make some progress on improving the article's structure. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure so much commentary from the e-mail authors should be included. As per WP:BLP "Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to take sides; it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone." Can we find secondary sources to replace commentary by Phil Jones, and also perhaps the UEA stuff? Or just take them out flat.--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:21, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Presumably we've not tape recorded these statements, but are sourcing them to reliable secondary sources which establish their noteworthiness. In view of new analyses that are emerging, we should be able to incorporate all statements into more of a narrative structure. As for your NPOV quote, see also the undue weight section, particularly in relation to the scientific consensus, giving "equal validity", and the pseudoscience section when showing positions of antiscience denialists. . . dave souza, talk 22:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Please don't use phrases like "antiscience denialists". It really doesn't help anyone. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 22:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
It was to emphasise the range of views – outside science, there are clearly views expressed that don't have any scientific backing, and there's been a long campaign against scientific findings. "Even McIntyre denounces the more vocal sceptics with their conspiracy theories."[5]. . dave souza, talk 22:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
You're confusing "understanding of climate science" with "understanding of research ethics," and mistaking "the scientific consensus" for "the consensus of CRU researchers." This article is only tangentially related to Global Warming, as people kept pointing out when the news was first broken. Even beyond these points I'm puzzled by your response: WP:BLP isn't invalidated by WP:Undue... --Heyitspeter (talk) 00:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I kept a *brief* summary of the emails in my original effort. But as I thought about it, Hipocrite's edit made really good sense. The emails may have caused the controversy, but they're not the controversy. A link to the emails text should be sufficient, and goes a long way towards removing contentious material from the article. The email text is indisputable, but then we start adding explanations and interpretations - all from reliable sources, all from respectable authorities, and all really just supporting our individual POVs - and we get bogged down. I propose either reverting to the summary *or* providing a bare-bones presentation and an external link to the emails. Maybe some enterprising souls could produce articles on each email and we could wikilink to 'em. (grin) I mean, they're either noteworthy or not, right? Nightmote (talk) 23:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
With care over balance and weight, the section as it was could be split as a detailed article about the emails, and treated as a main article for a concise summary style statement on this main page. We could note the main issues here, and use them as section titles on the sub-article which would remain usefully informative for readers wanting detailed background. . . 23:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
For what it`s worth good job nightmote and hippocrite. There is wp:bold and then there is common sense :). Way better now, i`ll look over it a bit more later when i wake up properly, i was up half the night (kids ill) and am off out on a job in a bit, just want to say, well done guys :) mark nutley (talk) 07:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Much better now. Congratulations. I changed the headings, see if you like it. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a note that in the next few hours, baring comment, I'll be taking Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident/emails live. Hipocrite (talk) 14:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Reads well. Is there repetition in Trevor Davis' comments? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it doesn't explain what the controversy is about. It quotes the e-mails and provides an explanation, but fails to mention what critics have claimed. Please don't go live until explanations of what the controversy is about are included. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Is that in there now? What content should be moved over? Hipocrite (talk) 15:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I see now - some got commented out. I tried to reinclude it. What other critics complaints failed to make it over? Hipocrite (talk) 16:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Public Reaction

The incident took place during a time when public certainty in the United States about the cause of global warming was declining. Harris Interactive, in a Harris Poll conducted shortly before the CRU e-mails came to light, reported that those in the United States who answered yes to the question "Do you believe the theory that increased carbon dioxide and other gases released into the atmosphere will, if unchecked lead to global warming and an increase in average temperatures, or not?” had declined by 20% between 2007 and 2009 to 51%.[4]. In December, Angus Reid Strategies conducted a tri-national poll which found that between November, 2009 and December, 2009 those who agreed with "global warming is a fact mostly caused by human activity", declined 11% in Canada (to 52%), 3% in the U.S. (to 46%), and 4% in Britain (to 43%).[5] The same poll found that only about 1 in 5 Canadians had followed the CRU controversy closely, while 57% had not followed to story at all.[6]

Request that this section be returned as no consensus was reached on its deletion. It is well sourced, multi-national and I'm working on additions. Thank you JPatterson (talk) 17:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Take a giant step back for just one section and consider if the article is really better with that section in it, even if it's well source and multi national. Does it help the article explain what happened, or is it just an avenue for warring factions to duke it out? I haven't looked closely at the section yet, but we should really consider if a section helps the reader understand, or is just a place for bickering. Let's look over it together? Hipocrite (talk) 17:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Of course such discussions are always welcome but should take place before entire sections are removed. I propose we put it back so we have something concrete to look at while we discuss it. Thanks JPatterson (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I've pasted the section above, so we can talk about it. Having reviewed it, I actually think it's a violation of WP:OR by WP:SYNTH.
How dat? Everything in this section is contained in the cites. JPatterson (talk) 17:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Here's a cannonical synth example - John Doe admitted to having sex with Jane Roe(source). Jane Roe has herpies(source). The above paragraph says a lot about public opinion on AGW, then says something about the CRU controversy. What does A have to do with B, and are we implying C? If we're not, why are A and B in the same paragraph? The only think in the source that has to do with this article (as opposed to an article about public perception of global warming) is the last sentence. Hipocrite (talk) 17:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I know what synth is. The only statement that is not a direct report of poll findings in the whole section is "The incident took place during a time when public certainty in the United States about the cause of global warming was declining.", which is completely verifiable. The cite shows the historically trend is in fact declining. This is neither OR nor SYN. The rest of the section is verifiable fact. We draw no conclusions at all so there can not be SYN issues by definition. JPatterson (talk) 18:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, wait. Here's the problem - my herpies and john doe article dosen't draw any conclusions either - but it certainly implies that john doe has herpies. The poll section you have above doesn't drawn any conclusions either - but it certainly implies that the CRU caused people to lose confidence in global warming. Let me ask you - why is public opinion before the incident relevent? Hipocrite (talk) 19:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You're reading something into the section that is not there. It does not infer cause and effect. Again, the introductory sentence states "The incident took place during a time when public certainty in the United States about the cause of global warming was declining.", a statement which the rest of the section goes on to support. It is not about cause and effect Remember, I wanted to add "even while consensus that human activity is contributing to global warming was growing among scientist" to that sentence but am prevented from doing so by my sanction. It is this juxtaposition between the science and public opinion and the impact of the scandal on widening that gulf that I think gives an interesting context to the incident JPatterson (talk) 20:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The trouble is that there are two separate articles in one here (yes, I know we've had this discussion before). The para above is not really relevant to the "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident," which was an incident whereby emails and other documents were obtained and then released by party(ies) unknown. It is relevant to the "Climategate Scandal" (or whatever name you might prefer) which was the public reaction to the release of those emails. "Hide the decline" and "redefine peer literature" and so on belong firmly in the second article. So does the background of Public Perception of Global Warming science, which is what the para above discusses. Thepm (talk) 21:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I oppose expanding the section to include this. Does anyone doubt my skeptic status? You shouldn't. But this section (however well-documented and sourced) deals with how people *feel* rather than with something that happened. The polls in question would be tangentially relevent if the decision of an authority figure were explicitly and directly impacted by the polling results. By way of example: "President Obama, citing recent polls (ref/ref/ref), indicated that the US Government would no longer be pursuing (legislation) ... " The polls themselves aren't pivotal. What's the Russian word for the masses? Narod, isn't it? The opinion of narod is changeable, and including this would include a committment to including *all* polling data. No thank you. Nightmote (talk) 13:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Rv: why

I took out the code section again. As I said before: it is broken. It has no RS's, and is laughably wrong to anyone with any familiarity with the area William M. Connolley (talk) 22:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Consensus was for that to stay, it has a rs as well you know, please self revert --mark nutley (talk) 22:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
WMC's contention that the BBC News is not a reliable source is complete BS. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Let's take another tack: the section in question is irrelevant. Code documentation is good practice, but it is nothing to write home about when code goes undocumented. More than that, the problems with error-handling are universal to all computer programming. What does this have to do with the subject of the article? I say that this section serves absolutely no purpose. Why do those who want to see it stay think it's relevant? ScienceApologist (talk) 23:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a lengthy section on the emails, but no real discussion of the additional documents. I think this section contributes to the article, by providing further detail on these additional documents. Overall the article suffers from trying to cover both the 'hacking incident' and the 'ensuing controversy' all in one article. This section is highly relevant to the ensuing controversy.00:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC) Thepm (talk) 00:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, this section did not really discuss the additional documents at all. From what I understand, these "additional documents" were mostly "attachments" to the e-mails. Simply positing that they were relevant to the ensuing controversy doesn't make them so. I understand that Newsnight paid a commercial programmer to discuss the codes since they couldn't themselves provide any interpretation of them. That's not surprising. But the statements offered by the "expert" were essentially, "these codes had bugs and were poorly documented". How did that contribute to the controversy? What reliable sources indicate that these attachments were controversial in any way? ScienceApologist (talk) 00:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Its a notable part of the controversy. It goes to process and controls at the CRU which is quite relevant. WMCs contention that its "laughably wrong" is itself laughable. The opinion piece he finds so compelling addresses none of the issues raised by the BBC piece (non-existent documentation, no audit trail, buggy code) and simply knocks down a straw argument the BBC piece didn't make. All that aside, we've been through this, we've reached consensus on language. Non consensus edits like WMCs violate the terms of probation and should be self-reverted immediately. JPatterson (talk) 00:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
You seem to think that just by repeating "we have consensus" you can make it so. You are wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 00:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
We banged out a section that most editors agreed was a big improvement. This section has been in a long time. The burden for gaining consensus for removal is on your shoulders. Please self-revert. JPatterson (talk) 00:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
From what I'm seeing, there are a lot of rationales from the people arguing to remove the text and not a lot of rationales from those wanting to keep it. If you care to engage in the discussion and explain why the text is at all relevant, that would go a long way toward explaining why he should revert. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
The rationale for removal is "we have one opinion piece from a non-expert (in this case a non-computer science expert) who claims a real expert in the field quoted by a RS is wrong. If you accept this, you will have no choice but to accept it when the skeptics use the exact same rationale to lay waste in the global warming article space. Unless of course hypocrisy sits well with youJPatterson (talk) 00:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Um, the rationale I provided is that the section is irrelevant. As far as the tit-for-tat proposal you outline, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS seems to be a much deprecated argument in these parts. Tell you what, you provide a reliable source that explains why this section discussing e-mail attachments is relevant to the controversy and we'll discuss how to include that in this article. Fair? ScienceApologist (talk) 00:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"It goes to process and controls" -- How? All the sources I've read about this simply indicate that the code was poorly documented (which is de rigeur) and had bugs (which is de rigeur). It's a lot like saying, "this text has spelling errors and lacks a table of contents". Controversial? More like not at all relevant. Anyway, I'd like to see a reliable source which indicates that these codes were somehow relevant to the controversy. That would be great. I'll remind you consensus can change and right now, I'm arguing that it should change in favor of WMC's approach. I challenge anyone to find a source that indicates that this subject is at all relevant beyond people who don't know what they're talking about getting excited (which, if that's the true rationale, could easily be included in a one-liner elsewhere in the article). ScienceApologist (talk) 00:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Have you looked at the spaghetti code?? Have you read the harry_readme which chronicles poor harry's failed attempt to untangle the mess that is "our [CRU's] flagship product". If that's what passes for de rigeur in those circles then that is relevant indeed. JPatterson (talk) 00:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, you haven't yet offered a reliable source to back up your contentions, and I think you've strayed away from the purpose of talkpage as you are discussing your poor understanding of the details of the code architecture, which I can tell is a mystery to you. That's okay, but your befuddlement and amazement at how scientific coding happens in practice is hardly something on which to base editing an encyclopedia. If you want to verify that this stuff is unremarkable, go to your local university's physics department, knock on the door of one of the graduate students, and ask for a sample of their code. Then decide if it is spaghetti. It is not only de rigeur in those circles: it is de rigeur in all related circles as well. This includes those circles which, say, discovered exoplanets, decoded the human genome, and solved Fermat's last theorem. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh, it's apparent to all that the code has no architecture, that's the point, or rather Dr Graham-Cumming's point, who BTW is an expert on how code should be written and was featured in a story by a reliable source. That's the standard for inclusion. And ss poor harry said, "this place [CRU] needs a data architect, and now". JPatterson (talk) 01:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Well, first, all code has architecture by definition. Your statement that "the code has no architecture" is like saying, "that building has no three-dimensional form". Sure, you may not like the form and may think that it is in terrible shape and dangerous, but it still exists. This is just illustrative of the problems we have with people who are not familiar with scientific coding trying to make any kind of points about the subject. You're simply embarrassing yourself. Secondly, just because you have a source that doesn't make your trivia relevant the standard of inclusion is much higher than that which again reminds me that you haven't posted any source that discusses the relevance of this section to this subject. Thirdly, cherrypicking quotes is not really making your case any stronger. My offer is still on the table when you're ready to do the actual work of writing a decent encyclopedia. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
One can build a structure without an architect, I just wouldn't want my kids sleeping in it. I let the first one go by but I'll ask you now politely to please avoid personal attacks. I couldn't care less about your opinion of me but such attacks further degrade the editing environment and encourage similar behavior in others. They are also a violation of this articles terms of probation. As to your offer, I'll again point out the the burden for establishing consensus (also a probation requirement) on removal of a long standing section rests with those who favor removal. JPatterson (talk) 02:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I understand that you aren't familiar with the jargon of coding, and I apologize for any personal attack you interpreted in my response. Just FYI: code architecture is something that all code has. It's just the form of the code. Every code has one or more architects, those being the programmers who wrote the code. In any case, since you haven't provided any reliable sources to demonstrate relevance, we're done here. Let me know when you find one. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
That would come as quite a shock to my employer as I am in fact the chief software/firmware architect for an API from which we derive a substantial portion of our revenue. And your naive contention notwithstanding, software architectures must be designed, they do not spontaneously materialize. It is not, as you seem to believe, a fancy word for structure but rather a specification for how the pieces interact and interrelate. I note here your focus on relevance which I shall take up below. JPatterson (talk) 21:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, I'm confused over this entire discussion. A reliable source was cited which demonstrates its relevance. I don't understand why you keep asking for one. What exactly about this source does not address your concerns? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
You've linked to the RS guideline, please note that sources can be reliable for one subject and inadequate for another. The sources cited show that rather a poorly informed programme was broadcast in the early days of the affair. That might be suitable detail for a sub-article on the context, but in this article it gives undue weight to misinformation without getting to the real issues with the famous code, if any. A better source is needed. . .dave souza, talk 17:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Dave, I would point you here and note that Graham-Cumming's blog satisfies the top two criteria (note only one is required). The Times has named it one of its Top 30 Science Blogs, satisfying criteria 2 and criteria 1 is satisfied by being featured on the BBC, Times and in numerous other publications. Thus we could use his analysis directly, which I may take a crack at once I get editing privileges back. JPatterson (talk) 02:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I think I was pretty clear, the "reliable source" cited does not make any claims as to the relevance of this subject. What we have is a discussion by Newsnight analyzing some e-mail attachments. That's not any more a claim to relevance than any other shoddy analysis attempt. If Dr. Oz discusses his opinion of a particular aspect of some new medical issue, that's not necessarily fodder for writing an entire section in the article about that medical issue. Relevance demands much more than a singular source from the media. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
The issue of reliable sources and weight are separate. If you believe that BBC News is not a reliable source for this article, then I suggest that you take the matter up at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. If you can achieve consensus with editors there that BBC News isn't reliable, then come back to us. Regarding the issue of weight, I would think that having an entire article devoted to this one aspect of the controversy is undue weight. Having one small section is not. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
It's all relative. See above, and note that the article talk page is more appropriate for this level of detail than forum shopping. . . dave souza, talk 19:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


@MN: no, there was no consensus for it to stay. Nor was there consensus to remove it. Please don't pretend. There was disagreement both ways. @SA: agree. @AQFK: not exactly civil of you, old fruit. But no: Newsnight is good enough within its own field, but quite out of its depth here, as was its "expert". For the latter, Cumming's blog is interesting [6]: note the number of times he has to go back and say "oops I was wrong" William M. Connolley (talk) 00:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm 100% behind WMC on this. Newsnight was wrong, and we have a reliable source that said they were wrong. They may as well have pulled some random code out of the cloud and analyzed that for all the use it was. If these two sources were matter and antimatter, they would annihilate one another. And that is exactly what should happen here. The section has no value whatsoever. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Since John Graham-Cumming is such an admired expert, we can presumably quote his self-published opinion that "My take on global warming is... unless you can demonstrate to me that it's false I'm going to believe the scientists who've been working on it. Pretty much the same way I do about any other bit of science. That's how science works, unlike politics."[7] . . . dave souza, talk 00:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

WMC this is the third time you've removed this section without consensus and with the same rationale (in the face of WP:V). That's extremely disruptive.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that WMC was right in removing this irrelevant section. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Your repeated and unsupported contention of irrelevance falls on its face. The code comprises the bulk of the released data and it is mentioned in numerous press accounts describing the released documents. For the article to pretend otherwise and simply ignore the code aspect of the controversy just plays into the hands of wikipedia conspiracy theorist. You may of course argue that the code is not relevant to the scientific findings but to say ot is not relevant to the controversy (which as I recall is the subject of this article) is absurd. Here is a sampling of articles dealing with the code aspect.
And then there are the geek squad line-by-line analysis taking place on any number of blogs. Are these reliable sources? I would certainly argue that this one is. Dr. Graham-Cumming is an acknowledged expert who's been taken note of in reliable sources. You are certainly welcomed and encouraged to provide RS content that questions the significance of these analyses to the scientific conclusions. What you can not do is refute their relevance to the controversy. That contention fails prima facia. JPatterson (talk) 18:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
At least we're getting somewhere now. Let's analyze each source. The CBS news blogs source is totally unreliable and all Declan McCullagh does is speculate wildly about things he seems to know nothing about. At the very least, we can garner about a sentence from that source along the lines of "A number of climate change denialists were interested in analyzing e-mail attachments that included source code and program documentation." The Andrew Sullivan blog actually links to one of the better sources on the subject: here that gives such short-shrift to this subject that it's almost laughable: "Here is Harry’s summary of the situation: Aarrggghhh!" Pajamasmedia is such a bad source of anything that we'll just let that sleeping dog lie. The Reg's description of the situation was even shorter at a single clause, "although dwarfed by the source code". And finally we have another right-wing media unreliable source in the American Thinker. Okay, so if that's your best then I say I'm even more convinced that WMC is on the ball here. Thanks for helping me understand that. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
So you think it right that the code and documentation released be just ignored then? Noting to see here move along. This has a reliable source, it is a major part of this controversy and it should be reinserted. mark nutley (talk) 17:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
If it's a major part of this controversy, other reliable sources should by now have given it more informed attention. Please look for such sources. . . dave souza, talk 17:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
(e/c) Well, it's not our choice, it's the lack of reliable sources. We have two, that really do annihilate each other: The BBC says it's crap code and the Guardian says, but you forgot to ask what it's for, it's certainly not for IPCC use. The two pieces analysed might be doodles, experiments, teaching aids, students' homeworks. The BBC forgot to ask. I only voted to keep the pair in as placeholders for now. If you have any other reliable analyses, bring them on. If not, I think we'll have to wait for the inquiries. --Nigelj (talk) 17:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Reliable sources discussing the state of the code. CBS News The Atlantic WSJ Mentions harrys readme and the state of the code The TelegraphHow the code was tortured to give the desired result, there are plenty more out there about the code and how bad it is. --mark nutley (talk) 18:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Blog, The Atlantic (which isn't noted as a scientific source) quoting the first blog for its "expertise", blog, and an early column in The Telegraph briefly giving the uninformative opinion of Christopher Booker. Did I miss something? . . dave souza, talk 19:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
(e.c.)Let's analyze these sources, shall we? All you've given us here are the primary source blog documents of people who can only rightly be called NOT scientists and political anti-scientists. Well, there's also an editorial for the Telegraph by a similar such person. So, I can see this as primary source evidence for what these folks believe, but that's about it. Certainly the section in question was silly and didn't address the fracas from the perspective of the fact that there's a bunch of people who know nothing crowing about their own scientific illiteracy. So where does that leave us? Oh yeah, supporting the decision to remove the section. Thanks again! ScienceApologist (talk) 20:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I would say everything, CBS News, WSJ, Your opinions on booker are an irrelevance, The atlantic mentions the harryreadme.txt file and thus questions the code. The simple fact of the matter is this is well sourced, and belongs it this article. --mark nutley (talk) 20:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

We have rules about primary sources which you need to read. In this case, you've only relied on deprecated sources from people who don't know what they're talking about. This is relevant too. Read it, learn it, love it! ScienceApologist (talk) 20:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be having trouble distinguishing between two orthogonal concepts. You asked for proof of relevance which has been amply provided. One need not be correct on a matter to be relevant, witness any number of know-nothing yet powerful politicians. Correctness and relevance - two different things. Learn it, embrace it, love it. JPatterson (talk) 21:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
It is now painfully obvious that this belongs in this article, the code released is 95% of the foi.zip, enough links have been given to prove not only the relevance but also wp:notability I fully intend to reinsert this section as it is both wp:rs and wp:notable anyone who says this does not belong in this article needs to step back and ask themselves, what is this article actually for? it does not just cover the e-mails, it is about the entire leak mark nutley (talk) 22:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Refocus

Here's the edit that all of this is about: The CRU files also included temperature data processing software written in Fortran and IDL as well as programmer comments and a readme file.[59][60] On BBC Newsnight, software engineer John Graham-Cumming said that the code lacked clear documentation and an audit history, and included a bug in its error handling which, if it occurred, would ignore data without warning.[23] Myles Allen, head of the Climate Dynamics group at the University of Oxford, said that the code investigated by Newsnight had nothing at all to do with the HadCRUT temperature record used for climate reconstructions, which is maintained at the Met Office and not at CRU.[25]

Here's the part of the article that no one has disputed yet: The quality of some of the source code included in the documents has been criticised,[23] and an associated README file has been interpreted as suggesting that some data was simply made up.[24] Myles Allen of the Climate Dynamics group at Oxford has said that the code under discussion is not that used in actual climate reconstructions, which is maintained elsewhere.[25]

Can someone tell me why we're fighting about A vs B, exactly? Hipocrite (talk) 18:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Very good point. The issue is covered in the article in as much detail as the sources can reasonably sustain, reliable sources giving at least one detailed account showing proper expert analysis is needed to explain this issue. . . dave souza, talk 19:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
The weighting of the opinion of Graham-Cumming about the source code is not something that I think belongs in the article. I actually do dispute the phrase parts of B as well, especially because the criticisms are fairly flat: akin to someone making a big deal about misspelling a word or having to deal with the day-to-day frustrations of handling data and models. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I believe the contention is as follows: A contains information that B does not, and that information should be presented in the article.--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Rut Roh Scooby - title may need a change

Looks like they found the guy how may have done it which would mean it was a leak, like security experts and anyone with sense has been saying. The title should obviously be "Climategate" since nobody is going to search for "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" and, failing that, the title shouldn't assume "hacking" (a crime) is involved. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I think a more reasonable title would be Climatic Research Unit leaked e-mails controversy. But we should wait until it's determined whether they really were leaked or not. Remember, we're not here to right great wrongs. The incident was widely reported as a "hacking" and if it is indeed shown to be a "leak", well, then, we'll deal with that then. Right now we've just got rumors and hunches. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, it was also reported as being leaked, and when experts in security were interviewed, they put it at a much higher probability that it was a leak not a hack. Your post reminded me of Quantum Leap :). TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
If it turns out to be this guy, it changes nothing. He is not from the CRU, but from a separate department of the UEA. "Hacking" may be inaccurate, but we can always change it to "theft". Either way, it certainly isn't "Climategate" and never will be. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Scjessey. "Climategate" is simply sensationalism and not at all WP:NPOV. Birthgate anyone? ScienceApologist (talk) 00:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Ah, so climategate, which everyone uses to look up the incident, is "sensationalist" but "theft" and "hack" is more moderate than "leak?" I'd say that I'm having trouble understanding the reasoning, but unfortunately I think I do. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
TheGoodLocust, why do you keep jumping to conclusions that people are guilty, using sources that don't have such findings? We don't guess the future here. Abwarten und Tee trinken. . . dave souza, talk 00:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Jumping to conclusions? Like Scjessey was flat out advocating original research by calling it a "theft" even though the guardian article refers to it as a leak (because they were from the same university)? The point, which Scjessey made for me, is that the current title is biased (and quite likely inaccurate). TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

(undent) I don't see that that story is little more than a statement that someone who works in the same building as the CRU was interviewed by the police and talks with right-fringe bloggers. Is there more than that, somewhere in there? Hipocrite (talk) 01:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh please, not every skeptic is "right-wing." TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
The Guardian page entitled "Hacked Climate Science Emails" [8] is currently running three stories: one states that the emails were hacked by somebody at GMT+4, one implying they were leaked by Paul Dennis, and one suggesting they were left on an open ftp server. The editors appear to see no conflict in these different accounts. Amusing if nothing else. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

(e.c.)I'm open to a renaming of the article. The "hacking" aspect is only part of the story as far as I can tell anyway. The other part is, of course, that people who aren't very smart have invented all sorts of conspiracy theories about the "implications" of these e-mails. Would you prefer Climatic Research Unit e-mails? That seems pretty straightforward, unassuming, and NPOV to me.ScienceApologist (talk) 01:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Climategate is the best title for the obvious reason that it is the way pretty much the world refers to it. Sirwells (talk) 01:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Yep, but the proposed title it far better than the current title. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Okay, but I prefer Climatic Research Unit e-mails controversy over just Climatic Research Unit e-mails. Does anyone really think there's no controversy?Sirwells (talk) 01:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree. The most commonly used name is 'Climategate' and that's what I think it should be called. Accepting that we wont get consensus on that, Climatic Research Unit e-mails controversy makes more sense. Thepm (talk) 02:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'd like to apply the KISS principle, which would indicate Climategate should be the title, but failing that I think the Apologist's title is the next best thing. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't care who wants what. At the end of the day, this is a single news story with a bunch of ifs and maybes, and nothing has changed yet. The title will stay as it is for the time being, unless or until something concrete gives us a reason to reconsider. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
That's the spirit! Unfortunately, everyone here, except you, has expressed desires to change the title. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
That'll be because everyone else is asleep, bearing in mind that it's three in the morning in East Anglia. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Small matter like sleep shouldn't stop people from posting here. Actually you're right, many of the regulars here have not commented and it wouldn't be right to change it until they have had an opportunity to do so. Doesn't stop the rest of us from expressing an opinion in the meantime and at present that opinion seems to be that the title should change. Thepm (talk) 03:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Are you implying that people from the University of East Anglia, who have a direct conflict of interest, are participating in the evolution of this article in order to whitewash it? If so then I demand you identify these accounts so they can be notified that their actions are breaking wikipedia policy. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Sure! You can safely assume that everyone who disagrees with you is from the UEA. I'm wearing my special UEA pajamas right now. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Well you stated it was 3 am in East Anglia, the assumption being that people in East Anglia weren't getting a proper input. The only question is who are these people from East Anglia that you were worried didn't have a say? TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Notwithstanding Scjessey, who seems to think we all have to run everything by him, It would seem the two choices (at the moment) are (a) Climatic Research Unit e-mails controversy or (b) Climatic Research Unit e-mails. I vote (a).Sirwells (talk) 03:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
No, we have the excellent choice of leaving it alone until something changes. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

<outdent> I vote for option B (but without the hyphen in "emails"). TheGoodLocust (talk) 04:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Climategate should be reserved for an article discussing the perception of scientific scandal, its dimensions, and the denials of same. It will have the advantage of the ability to incorporate other events of similar nature such as the China UHI revelation, the pruning of world temperature stations from 6000 to 1500, the Darwin Australia homogenization, New Zealand’s National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) data adjustments, NOAA's adjustments to Central Park data and others, and any further events that may transpire. I realize the Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a newspaper, but there should be provision to accommodate future events without unnecessary flurries of activity.

The other article (the residual of this current) should preserve the discussion of the origin and compilation of the file and of the release of the documents and any legal proceedings or ramifications which may ensure. It may not have the "legs" of the Climategate article, and with luck should not attract anywhere near as much partisanship and umbrage.Oiler99 (talk) 03:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

*Strong Support Oiler99, I think your phrasing above is POV, but I agree with you in substance. I have elsewhere mentioned that I think we have two quite distinct articles in one here. The initial release of the files containing emails (and other documents) is one matter, together with questions related to the provenance of those files is one matter. The resulting controversy related to the various allegations and subsequent inquiries is a separate matter altogether. The first is probably Unauthorised release of CRU files or something like that. The second is clearly Climategate. That's what everybody calls it. Thepm (talk) 03:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose any change in the title at this stage. The Guardian report is speculative (and note that the scientist they interviewed says: "The police left me very much with the impression that they were working on the theory that this was an outside hack and was done deliberately to disrupt Copenhagen.") Wait until the official report is published later this month, then decide. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no reason to change the title at this time, as ChrisO said that article is purely speculative. So to continue speculating, we might be faced with the possibility that we will never know who did what. Ignignot (talk) 14:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Good article?

Aside from replacing the email section with my proposal, what else do people think needs to be done (aside from stability) to this article to get it to good article. Pictures would be nice - can anyone think of some pretty pictures to put in places? People's faces might be relevent, if we're careful about what context they are in. Any thoughts? Hipocrite (talk) 14:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I see the Graun, also running thin on image ideas, used a staged 'hacker' here. I didn't find much on commons; this is what a webserver hack may look like to the hacker, but it's not really much use. Do we have mugshots of Jones et al? I'll go and look. --Nigelj (talk) 15:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
How bout I draw a picture with crayons of a group of malicious scientists plotting to push a liberal agenda on the righteous peoples of the world, thus restricting their rights to do awesome stuff like drive SUVs and run lawn mowers for no other reason than to hear it roar? removed by Hipocrite (talk) NickCT (talk) 15:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I've gone one step further and now drive my lawnmower to work and run my SUVs for no other reason than to hear them roar. Of course, I had to remove the catalytic converter to enhance the effect. Ignignot (talk) 16:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Seems premature for pictures. You know what I'd like to see? Some sort of organizational chart might be nice. But I guess there really isn't one - we're talking about individual scientists for the most part. The one thing I noticed whan I hit "the real world" was how very small my professional community was. There were, like, 25 or 30 firms, and maybe 100 key players. We're forever hearing about the list of 2,000 skeptic scientists or the "overwhelming majority" of AGW proponents. But what sort of numbers are we talking about? Are the email scientists at CRU pivotal? What role have they played - historically - in shaping IPCC and GW policy? That has the potential to be original research, and a big no-no, but information like that would help me (the reader) to put this into context. Nightmote (talk) 15:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Concur with Nightmote on this. Until the admins do something to rein in the two warring factions, this seems premature. That said, I'd love to be proved wrong on this. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
What ever happened to the workspace page that Guettarda and Tony Sideaway initiated to rewrite the article? I thought that their efforts were making progress. Cla68 (talk) 21:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Both TS and G were driven away from the article. Hipocrite (talk) 01:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I left also. I don't feel like I was driven away, I was just nonplussed by the lack of progress. In spite of that, I thought that Guettarda and TS were genuinely attempting to improve the article. Does the article draft page still exist? Cla68 (talk) 02:19, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete the "e-mails" leader?

Hey all, what about deleting the leader to the "E-mails" subsection. It strikes me as redundant/uninformative. We could leave the header and go straight into the e-mails.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The basic problem with this article

I'm really not very good at writing articles like this because all I see are a bunch of terrible sources. The closest thing to a reliable source I've seen is John Tierney's exposition in the New York Times, and that isn't even really very good.

Here's the issue: right now we've got an overabundance of primary sources none of which can tell us anything about their staying power and many of which are just simply wrong. Let's look at which primary sources can be deprecated immediately:

  1. Any source that claims that this incident is somehow damaging to the case that global climate change is real and is the way scientists describe it is happening.
  2. Any source that claims that the e-mails indicate a conspiracy to mislead the public
  3. Any source that claims that the e-mails indicate illegal activity or unethical behavior on the part of those writing the e-mails
  4. Any source that claims that the source code attached the e-mails indicates a major problem with the science of global warming

I submit that sources such as these can be used as sources which are making personal opinion claims, but these opinions must be couched as essentially without basis and fringe to maintain a reliable reference work.

What would be really great would be a secondary-source analysis of this situation, but we'll likely have to wait longer fo that to emerge.

ScienceApologist (talk) 21:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

  1. Public polls would disagree with your assessment that this hasn't harmed the case of AGW.
  2. Well, the emails did talk quite heavily about how they grafted temperature data onto proxy data in order to create a hockey stick graph - that could easily be interpretted as an attempt to mislead the public. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  3. The emails flat out talk about avoiding FOI requests, deleting their emails/files and other things that are considered unethical. Even Monbiot, a huge environmentalist, says they were unethical - as well as many of their colleagues. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  4. No comment really, I have little insight into this part of the topic. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
This. Very this. Macai (talk) 22:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  1. Why do public polls matter for scientific arguments?
  2. Do you have a degree in science? Because that interpretation of the e-mails looks to me like an ignorance of how proxies in science are used.
  3. Illegal activity is only determined in a court of law. Ethics is entirely subjective.
ScienceApologist (talk) 22:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  1. Who said anything about scientific arguments? It is a plain fact that this incident has damaged public opinion regarding the subject.
  2. Yes, I do have a degree in science. Why does that matter? Scientists shouldn't be grafting two sets of data together in order to get a graph looking the way they want.
  3. Yes, ethics is subjective (and you brought up ethics - not me), and in the court of public and professional opinion their ethics have been found to be lacking. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  1. You used the word "somehow" in your original claim. Damaging in the eyes of public polls is an example of it being "damaging somehow".
  2. Ad hominem. Just because someone does not have a science degree does not make their interpretations wrong. Attack the argument, not the arguer.
  3. Ethics has been the basis of many scandals, especially the Mark Foley scandal and the Lewinsky scandal.
Macai (talk) 22:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  1. Public opinion is irrelevant, and so are polls. Lots of people thought dinosaurs could be recreated with the help of frog DNA and some Cray supercomputers after Jurassic Park came out. The public are ignorant folks who believe in dumb stuff like "clean coal" and Jesus.
  2. Different data sets are grafted together all the time. It is the combination of data from various sources that strengthens evidence. Putting together a clear picture of the last couple of thousand years is extremely difficult, requiring multiple data sources and even judgment calls over the validity of some of the data. These experiments and processes are repeated by other groups, which is why the prevailing consensus among scientists is that global warming is real, and humanity is increasingly involved in exacerbating the problem.
  3. The blind statement that "in the court of public and professional opinion their ethics have been found to be lacking" has no basis in fact. A few people have come out to say that there have been lapses in judgment, but that's it. No big deal. Cannot compare in any reasonable way to massive lapses in judgment like invading Iraq without cause, or taking bungs from lobbyists. When Dick Cheney was told public opinion was against him, he famously replied "So?"
  4. It is my understanding that the CRU scientists were subject to constant demands for data, much of which was being used by pseudoscientists to try to discredit their work. I can totally understand their reluctance.
-- Scjessey (talk) 00:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Just a quick comment on civility: Is it appropriate, or even necessary, to insult as people who "believe in dumb stuff like ... Jesus" on this thread? I assume that anyone who said something like, "Atheists are complete morons" would be guilty of incivility, apart from the fact that a person's religiosity has nothing to do with improving this article, so why not the other way around? Please think about this, Scjessey. Moogwrench (talk) 00:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I deemed it to be a reasonable example. Sorry if you don't like it, but I'm one of those folks who sees religion as an impediment to science - and one of the significant motivators for the science-denier movement. If religious folk feel offended then perhaps they should pray for a thicker skin - atheists put up with worse shit all the time. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
So you think it's acceptable, then, for religious people to lash out in kind, with comparable consequence (or lack thereof) to your comments? I mean, if you're a user advocating free speech, I totally agree, but I want to know if you think that "get a thicker skin" is a valid answer when the argument is directed toward over-sensitive atheists and AGW proponents. I kind of doubt you do, however, since you claimed that you want to exclude anybody that disagrees with you about climategate being a scandal in the discussion about the article's title. Macai (talk) 00:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'm an atheist and I thought it was pretty rude. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
  1. Your prejudices are quite irrelevant :).
  2. Data can be combined, but not the way they did it, and rather dishonestly too. You don't make a graph using one set of data, stop using that data, and then use another set of data just so the graph tells the story you want it to tell.
  3. Yes it has a strong basis in fact, they've been criticized by their fellow scientists from the IPCC (on the AGW side no less) and, obviously, by the public at large.
  4. Yes the "demands" would be constant since they constantly refused to release their data in full. If they'd just release their publicly-funded data and methods instead of doing their best to hold onto their precious data then they wouldn't have been asked so many times.
And for heaven's sake, can you quit bringing up Republicans and/or religion in all of your posts? TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
May the Holy Father forgive us our sins. May He save Scjessey from eternal damnation and show him the Light! :D Sirwells (talk) 00:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Um, forget about salvation or whatever, I'd be content with people staying on topic and avoiding gratuitously insulting people who believe differently than they do. Moogwrench (talk) 00:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

AGW IS a religion to its adherents.Textmatters (talk) 23:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Reverting Hipocrite's edits

I disagree with Sirwells' assessment[9]: "reverting hipocrites edits. sorry, you're changes were massive and you did not seek consensus in talk." Hipocrite did seek consensus in talk and no one objected. I'll leave it to someone else with more free-time to find diffs. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Where? Point them out to me and I'll self-revert.Sirwells (talk) 04:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I think I'm pretty well done trying to reach compromise and consensus on this article. My attempts to play fair have all failed miserably. Instead, I'm just going to join one of the warring factions. Hipocrite (talk) 04:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I hope that's not the case. I for one have taken note of your collaborative efforts of late and commend you heartily for them. We need more people willing to put down the weapons (or at least put phasers on stun) and work together respectfully. I think you and NM may have hit upon a model that could work. Two editors, one on each side, pairing up to work together. I know I enjoyed that with dave on the emails awhile back. Their work product would have some sort of agreed to gravitas. It would be really helpful then if each involved editor defended the work product to those on his side. I.e. Once a proposal is up, the skeptic editor responds to skeptics and the proponent editor to proponents. Could go a long way to improving the editing environment. My only suggestion is that we take smaller bites. :>) JPatterson (talk) 04:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Take one side on odd numbered days and on the other on even numbered days. With any luck you can be topic banned for edit warring with yourself, thereby liberating you from further involvement in this madness. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:07, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps. Hipocrite (talk) 04:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
{EC}Please don't. Your efforts here are very much appreciated. Can the admins please rein-in both warring factions? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
My efforts are over unless I see someone from the warring faction I disagree with support serious sanction against Sirwells. Hipocrite (talk) 04:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Gragagaaaaaa. I'm losing my mind. okay fine I reverted my revert. Now someone please ban me for 1RR violation. It's the only way... Must... break... free...Sirwells (talk) 04:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
If there are any admins willing to take up my request, I will happily accept a topic ban of 6-12 months if only to extricate myself from this insanity. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Nope. I asked first! you have to stay. Sirwells (talk) 04:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Nope, all the editors here are acting in bad faith. There, I just violated LessHeard vanU's warning. Please topic ban me. I will voluntarily accept anything from 6-12 months. I'm serious about this. I don't want to deal with either of the warring factions anymore. As I've said before, this article is like a train wreck. I know I should look away but can't. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Most recent contributions

Dave - it's my perception that your latest contributions express a specific POV. I've outlined my concerns here and I'd be grateful if you could either explain why my perceptions are wrong or revert your edits.

1. You have inserted the words shown in bold in the following sentence;

  • Officials from the Information Commissioner's Office have stated that the e-mails show that requests made by a climate change sceptic under the Freedom of Information Act were "not dealt with as they should have been," and that the CRU breached rules by withholding data.

Can you identify precisely were the ICO state that the requests were made by a 'climate change sceptic'? Can you explain the relevance of the personal views of the requestor?

2. You have inserted the words shown in bold in the following sentence;

  • A November 1999 e-mail authored by Phil Jones described his preparation of a graph diagram for the cover of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) statement that year

The reference here does not indicate that the email contained this description of Jones' preparation. Are you able to provide a reference that indicates that the email in question "described [Jones'] preparation of a graph diagram for the cover of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) statement that year"?

3. You have inserted the sentence shown in bold as follows;

  • Critics charge that scientists were suppressing scientific research by trying to keep dissenting views on global warming out of an IPCC report. Both papers were included in the report.

It's also not clear to me how it could be clear which two papers are being referred to. I can't see anything in your references that make this clear. Can you explain how we know which papers Jones is referring to? Assuming that we can establish which papers are included, the reference you provide here does not support the statement that "Both papers were included in the report". If it does support the statement, can you point me to the specific section that does? Thepm (talk) 12:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Please do not name sub-sections for a specific editor. Tarc (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Thank tou for you enquiry, Thepm. As always, I seek a NPOV giving clarity and due weight as required.
1. Without something along the lines of the added statement, readers might think incorrectly that the finding referred to all requests. In past iterations, we've noted that the finding was about requests made by David Holland, a retired engineer, but the stripped down version is cited to a BBC article that doesn't name him. It says that Deputy Information Commissioner Graham Smith "said the requests were made by a climate change sceptic in the 2007-2008 period". So I followed the source. If preferred, we can use a different source and name Holland, as previously.
2. Due to rushing a bit, the intro was cited to CRU update, it should have been cited to CRU update 2. Thanks for picking that up, reference corrected accordingly.
3. The reference states "Jones wrote of two controversial papers that 'Kevin and I will keep them out [of the IPCC report] somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!' But both papers under discussion, Kalnay and Cai (2003) and McKitrick and Michaels (2004), were cited in one of the three working group reports from which the 2007 IPCC report is synthesized." Note that the three working group reports are published as part of the full IPCC Fourth Assessment Report report, the papers were cited and discussed in WGI. We can rephrase the statement, do you think we should give the names of the papers concerned?
dave souza, talk 17:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
1. You're right, we need to be clear that although there were multiple requests, they all relate to one 'incident'. I notice that the article now says "an individual" rather than "a climate change sceptic". This seems to make the point without being POV.
2. From reading your references, it seems that the email wasn't about the WMO graph, but referred to the WMO graph. I've made [an edit] to reflect this and clean up some phrasing around the issue. Please let me know if I've messed up any points.
3. My problem here is how can we know that those two papers are the ones under discussion? I guess there'd have to be a statement from one of the email participants stating which papers were being discussed. Without knowledge of which papers were being discussed, I can't see how we can state that "the papers were included in the report." If you can't provide a specific reference to that effect, I think you should take that statement out. Thepm (talk) 21:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Jones e-mail of 16 Nov 1999

I must admit, article looks better now after the big overhaul. I'd like the following inserted into the final comment on the "nature trick" email.

"Before the incident, other research in which Mann was a contributing author had found similar results with or without the tree ring records. [41]"

The point here is that this statement should not give the false impression that Mann's Hockey Stick graph was independently validated by other researches. Sirwells (talk) 04:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You're bringing in the hockey stick controversy which wasn't quoted in references used at the time that was put together – as this shows, the graph was validated by other researchers. That's a source which should be reflected in our article. No objection to clarifying that the specific study had Mann as a contributing author, but we must be clear that the scientific consensus supports a form of Mann's thesis.
This article gives a useful overview, concluding with the IPCC 2001[10] "claim that 'it is likely that the 1990s have been the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year of the millennium'. Most researchers, including Briffa, now believe that statement was correct." It describes how other emails show that the dispute at that time was between Mann and the CRU research by Briffa. Interestingly, the detailed IPCC Chapter 2 report[11] shows the downturn in the tree ring reconstruction in its graph. The Jones email was about the graph for a WMO Statement,[12] which I've not checked out. McIntyre, who was on the scene later, brought in the IPCC 2007 report. Our section would be better retitled, perhaps "Tree ring proxy reconstructions", and there's getting on to be enough material for it to be a standalone article with a brief summary in the main CRU hacking incident article, summary style. . . dave souza, talk 11:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
It appears there are no objections to my edit referenced above (that the specific study had Mann as a contributing author).Sirwells (talk) 00:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I've made the above edit, just so you all know. (article page is unlocked now). Please discuss it here first, if you are thinking of reverting it.Sirwells (talk) 23:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
My feeling remains that the change gives undue weight to the minority views, as several sources have stated that the overall picture rests on multiple lines of evidence so the tree rings have limited significance. Still to revise. . dave souza, talk 13:37, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Time to rename it to "Climategate scandal"

I just read the FAQ and the reason cited was basically that we can't use either "Climategate" or "scandal" let alone "Climategate scanal" because it implies wrongdoing. I mean, here's what it says right now verbatim:

Article names are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality to satisfy Wikipedia's neutral point of view requirements. The use of "scandal" or "-gate" frequently implies wrongdoing or a particular point of view. Such terms are words to avoid and should not be used in article titles.

Well, if this is the case, then we need to rename Lewinsky scandal to Oval Office fellatio incident, List of corporate scandals to List of corporate incidents, Watergate scandal to Watergate office complex incident, Bofors scandal to Bofors corruption incident, Enron scandal to Enron bankruptcy incident, Mark Foley scandal to Mark Foley instant messenger incident, Political scandals of the United States to Political incidents of the United States, and quite a few others that I'm not going to bother mentioning.

This standard of not using "-gate" or "scandal" doesn't apply anywhere but here.

So one of the following will take place:

  1. Consensus will change as a result of my compelling argument against the previous consensus,
  2. All articles that have the terms "-gate" or "scandal" in them will be renamed to a euphemism of what the article is about, or
  3. There will be a massive de facto concession that there's a double standard here.

Thanks. Macai (talk) 07:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Hahaha beautifully argued. I'm in.--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Your "compelling argument" is nothing of the sort, and this has been discussed to death already. Please see Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Controversy and scandal. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Pulling the "discussed to death card" is confused. Stuff happens. Rehashing a discussion is warranted after new information arises, new people show up, etc.--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
There is no new information and this is not the first time Macai has been involved with this article. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
ChrisO goes with option number three. Macai (talk) 08:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Nonsense. WP:WTA makes it clear that "scandal" and "gate" are to be avoided except in historical cases where the term is widely used by reputable historical sources. This is not an historical case, it's a current event. As for other article titles which may not comply with WTA, the other stuff exists argument is invalid - if one or two articles don't comply, that doesn't mean that this one shouldn't as well. Plenty of articles do comply. Compare Killian documents controversy ("Rathergate") or Dismissal of US attorneys controversy ("Attorneygate"). -- ChrisO (talk) 08:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Can we consider this a motion for the counterproposal, "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy"?--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
No, it's a way of telling Macai that his proposal is unacceptable, since it's irredeemably POV. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Prove that it's POV to say that a scandal is a scandal. Macai (talk) 08:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Chris is not the one going around in circles. You are. Wikispan (talk) 11:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
You're right. I am going in circles; around Chris. The fact that he resorted to ad hominem attacks in place of an actual argument placed him in the objective wrong in this discussion. Sorry if that bothers you. Macai (talk) 20:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
So let me get this straight, Chris. It's a current event. That means it's going on now. As in, more emails are coming out, and CRU is continually being hacked or leaked or whatever? Is that correct? Because if it's over, it happen an historical event. Period.
Also, notice how I didn't make the argument that we should necessarily change this article based on the fact that others don't comply with a mandate; see option #2.
Furthermore, your source is talking about the inclusion or exclusion of articles, not in the naming scheme of articles. Macai (talk) 08:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Since it's the subject of current reporting, it is plainly a current event. You will not find it being referred to in "reputable historical sources" (such as academic books) because it's far too recent for that. As for "not in the naming scheme of articles", I can see you haven't read Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Controversy and scandal properly. It says of "-gate" and "scandal": "They should not be used in article titles". Pretty clear, I'd say. You should also look at WP:NPOV#Article naming, which requires neutral article titles to be used. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
@Macai - love your work. Fully support. @ChrisO - I think that your argument was a fair one pre-christmas, but Climategate has become the standard term. Can you advise of any other terms that are used to label the event and the subsequent controversy? Thepm (talk) 08:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Since Macai's work appears to involve moronic Rush Limbaugh-influenced vandalism [13], you might want to rethink your praise for him. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
ChrisO - I've admired your work here and elsewhere. I know you disagree with what I'm saying, but I really hate to see you posting this sort of message. Please go get a cup of tea and take a few deep breaths. Thepm (talk) 09:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
ChrisO calling others work moronic is not they way we work on wikipedia. So please stop name calling other peoples work like this. Nsaa (talk) 11:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Ad hominem. Your move. Macai (talk) 09:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
If you guys are not willing to read Wikipedia guidelines, why are you even here? Wikispan (talk) 11:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
We have reached this "e.g. Boston massacre, Tea Pot Dome scandal, Edward the Confessor, Jack the Ripper - are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources." from Wikipedia:NPOV#Article_naming stage for Climategate scandal/Climategate controversy now . (Nearly) every source now uses som variant of this. Even
The second piece ChrisO is refereing to is a style guidline and should be "attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions". Nsaa (talk) 11:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the useful link to the statement that "Almost all the media and political discussion about the hacked climate emails has been based on brief soundbites publicised by professional sceptics and their blogs." A mainstream scientific point of view that should be incorporated into description of the "scandal" aspect of the article. . . dave souza, talk 12:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

No. Stop bringing it up and work on something that might actually get consensus. The arguments against Climategate as the name have been done to death - bringing it up again and again and again reeks of an unwillignness to work with others. Hipocrite (talk) 12:06, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

  • Yet again, "Climategate" is clearly a pov spin, a label being used by one side of the argument to obscure the case that there is a significant human caused contribution to global warming. . dave souza, talk 12:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Stop bringing it up? If you care to read my links just given above from the Guardian and The Independent so will you see that even these publications has now (as of 2 February) start using Climategate in some way or another as an description on this scandal/controversy. It may be a pov spin in the start, but now it isn't anymore. Why else would Guardian/Independent now start using it? Nsaa (talk) 12:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
These are articles about the arguments being put by "skeptics", most obviously in the Guardian article. That's just a part of the incident. Note extensive use of inverted commas around "climategate". Framing in that way may be acceptable in some news media, but is inappropriate for an article title. . . dave souza, talk 12:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Consensus is not forever. The fact that this issue has been raised in the past should not prevent us from raising it again. Especially now that it has become obvious that the usual lable applied to "the controversy following the unauthorised release of emails and other documents from the Climatic Research Unit" is Climategate. The name Climategate appears to be the most commonly used name. Are there other names that are more widely used? The current title is clumsy and presumptive. It needs to change. Thepm (talk) 12:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Your proposal remains one-sided and not appropriately neutral for this article. Further proposals welcome, but effort would be better put into improving the article itself. . . dave souza, talk 13:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
There really isn't anything to discuss here. Words like "scandal" and those ending in "-gate" are essentially prohibited on Wikipedia per WP:WTA and WP:NPOV. The fact that other articles make use of them is irrelevant, because in many cases they predate Wikipedia (and are thus "grandfathered in"), or are simply wrong and ought to be changed. I'm open to discussion on changing the title (and I've gone to extraordinary lengths to help reach an agreement on a new title in the past), but there is no way I would support any version that includes "Climategate" or "scandal". Furthermore, I think there is a clear majority of editors who will agree with me on this, particularly because investigations are still ongoing. Calls to get these non-neutral terms into the title will not be successful, so the efforts of those calling for them would be better spent on trying to work out a compromise that will satisfy everyone. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I want to weigh in on the side of ChrisO and Scj. This said, I agree that "consensus is not forever". I think we should try to establish some test for when an article can be referred to as "gate" or "scandal". In my mind the test should be this - When a super majority (i.e. >66%) of randomly sampled news articles and RS covering the incident unequivically refer to the event by the term "gate" or "scandal", Wikipedia should do the same. I don't think "Climategate" has met that test yet (unlike events like Watergate, and the Mocia Lewinsky scandal probably do), though I acknowledge that that could change. NickCT (talk) 14:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Concur with ChrisO, Scj and NickCT. We have a specific guideline which states that articles should not be named with the "-gate" suffix. See WP:AVOID. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Well Dave you say "Climategate" is POV spin, but all the defenders of the Climategate scientists have pushed the "hacked" meme as a way to distract from the contents of the emails - the implication being that they were "victims" of a crime instead of whistleblowing (which is usually praised). If you are against POV titles then you should agree with ScienceApologist's proposed title of Climate Research Unit emails. Are you going to be consistent in this matter? Or are you going to insist that a crime was committed against these poor misunderstood scientists? TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Do you actually think your above comment assists in creating a cooperative environment where editors with differeing perspectives work with eachother to improve the article? Why, or why not? Hipocrite (talk) 18:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Regardless, the title and lead sentence need to be changed in light of the new evidence. The theory that CRU was hacked is unlikely at best, yet the title states this as a fact. Additionally, the idea that we can't use the word "scandal" to describe the even because it is current is marginal at best. The Foley Scandal was called a scandal from the beginning for example. Arzel (talk) 18:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm just trying to get things back on track. One side says "Climategate" is biased and the other side says the current title is biased. There has been a proposed middle ground and we should be working towards that which is what I was attempting to do. TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"The theory that CRU was hacked is unlikely at best," ?!?? Really Arzel? Really? NickCT (talk) 19:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Security experts have stated that it was most likely an internal leak. The other option is that they left their server open - which is something they've accidentally done in the past. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:06, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

No compelling counterargument

None of the arguments in this thread against changing it to "Climategate scandal" have addressed the fact that many other articles are referred to as "scandals". If no compelling argument is made within twenty four hours, consensus will be overridden as per WP:NPOV. Thank you. Macai (talk) 20:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sirwells supports option number 1 for the reasons Mr Macaii outlined in his inital post. The "this has aleady been argued to death" excuse does not hold water. (Sorry RC / AGW crowd, but you do not own wikipedia articles.)Sirwells (talk) 21:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Per WP:AVOID, "scandal" and "-gate" are words to avoid when naming articles. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Are you for option number two, then? Yes or no, please. Macai (talk) 21:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
That's a false tricotomy. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
That's not a false tricotomy at all. Either the "don't use -gate and scandal" rule applies, or it doesn't. Period. Macai (talk) 21:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
The rule does apply. There are no article titles which violate WP:AVOID as far as I am aware. Of course, Wikipedia has lots of articles so there might be violations, but I am not aware of any. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
So you're in favor of option two, then? Here's a list of article names with "scandal" in them:
And that's only going through the second page of a Google search for "site:wikipedia.org scandal". "Scandal" is found all over the place, including very recent events. (I wouldn't consider the Mark Foley scandal ancient history; it's not even been half a decade yet.) Macai (talk) 21:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
OK, clearly I was wrong. I wasn't aware of most of those. (But some of those aren't violations such as the Teapot Dome scandal. According to WP:AVOID, it's OK if a history journal uses the term.) Anyway, if you want to make the case that those articles need to be changed, you need to bring this up to those talk pages. Mistakes made by editors in other articles can't be used to justify repeating those mistakes here. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
NP, bro. The case I'm trying to make, though, is that I think it's fair to call this a scandal, seeing as it is one, and that it's easily "historical". I mean, if Mark Foley is historical, why not this? I'm kind of under the impression that anything taking place in the past, but not ongoing, qualifies as "historical". Macai (talk) 22:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to ask QuestForKnowledge if he knows of any examples on wikipedia where WP:AVOID has caused an article about a widely known scandal or controversy to be renamed. Climate-gate is the only example I can think of. (of course wikipedia is a large place so there may be others, but I don't know of any.)Sirwells (talk) 21:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're getting at but no, not that I know of. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
My point is that perhaps WP:AVOID needs some work. I believe the intent is correct, we can't have conspiracy theorists running around calling everything a scandal. However, in the cases such as this, where nearly an entire population has labeled it xxx-gate, the appropriate name of the article should be xxx-gate. It seems to me you are using the "...except in historical cases..." bit as justification for other, somewhat olders scandals being excused from your WP:AVOID. This is splitting hairs and does not respect the intent of the rule. macai's arguement is a good one. If every other scandal is labeled simply for what it is, it's wrong to put never used but more "politically correct" label on climate-gate.Sirwells (talk) 22:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Look, I didn't make the rules, I'm just trying to follow them, that's all. We have a guideline that says not to use these words. That's good enough for me. I'm not here to think. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
So let me do the thinking for you then :D (that was a joke, I actually do respect your opinion). I think what we have here is a compelling case of WP:IAR.Sirwells (talk) 23:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

This seems a little disruptive. Here's an argument: the vast majority of people who understand climate change don't think this is a scandal. Only one particular group (the denialists) think it is a scandal. Therefore the title should not include "scandal" any more than the Apollo moon landing conspiracy theories should be called "Proof that man never went to the moon". ScienceApologist (talk) 21:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

From scandal:
"A scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed."
This is clearly a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations, and in the public eye, it certainly damages the reputation of an institution, individual, or creed. Just because people who, in your words, "understand climate change" don't find it to be a scandal doesn't make it a non-scandal. It'd be comparable to say that since "people who understand" that Lewinsky's blowjob was ultimately unimportant don't find the Lewinsky scandal to be a scandal, that we should therefore call it the Oval Office fellatio incident. Macai (talk) 21:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Why is this still being discussed? At what point do the constant calls to violate Wikipedia's policies and guidelines with "-gate"/"scandal" terminology be called tendentious to the point of outright disruption? That POV-pushers keen to misrepresent reality have been allowed to continue like this for weeks and weeks without sanction is, frankly, outrageous. To this day, there are only allegations. Despite comments from the toothless ICO, no wrongdoing has been properly asserted and no criminal charges have been filed. In fact, the only suggestion of criminal activity has been directed toward whoever stole the data from the CRU servers. Some ethical questions have been raised, but nothing that could be described as scandalous. The notion that this incident has attracted the sort of attention that was afforded Watergate, or Lewinsky, or any of the other real scandals cited above is patently ridiculous. The constant insistence that this article be renamed to accommodate these non-neutral terms is highly disruptive, and serious consideration should be given to handing out topic bans. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
It is an objective fact that conspiracy to corrupt scientific process ("Kevin and I will keep them out somehow") is scandalous. All the reliable sources agree me on this one. This is an immutable reality that you're trying to white wash. People like you are the POV-pushers, not those of us who want to call a spade a spade.
Furthermore, you have expressed in this message desire to exclude anybody from the discussion that does not agree with you. This constitutes intent to white wash the climategate issue, and your message will be used as evidence for this claim. If anybody else agrees with this perspective, it constitute conspiracy to white wash the climategate issue.
In the meantime, your input will be disregarded by me and any with two brain cells to rub together until you come up with some valid points to make. Macai (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

@scjessey - The lack of criminal charges being filed does not militate against the allegation of scandal. Neither Lewinsky nor Foley were subject to criminal indictment. Professional societies typically have ethical rules which they enforce with sanctions, outside the criminal justice system. Some of these qualify as scandals, especially with doctors and lawyers. I do not plump for the use of the word scandal in the title of the proposed article, but I do support its consideration on rational grounds. I do believe that Climategate needs to be in the title, and that it needs to address the allegations of scientific misconduct, rather than the release of the FOIA.zip file. Oiler99 (talk) 06:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem is, as they say, that there's no there there. There isn't an actual scandal. There's no "-gate". The only evidence of wrongdoing is on the part of the hackers, whomever they may be. Everything else is just political spin, faux outrage, and imagined misdeeds. Guettarda (talk) 06:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The scandal exists in the perception of many, including many scientists, that scientific method has been perverted in the interests of goals thought to be righteous . This has been and is being debated. It may prove unfounded. And the elevated morality of the putative motives is not being questioned, but the behavior is. And that is what the scandal consists of. Oiler99 (talk) 08:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
No wrongdoing = no scandal. No matter how much the far right tries to spin it. Guettarda (talk) 14:33, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Nonsense. Neither Lewinsky nor Foley were guilty of wrongdoing. The scandal in Watergate consisted not in the "third-class burglary" but in the coverup and its ramifications. Scandal merely requires public discussion of socially-disapproved behavior which is either flaunted, or discovered and publicized, both implying lack of discretion. Compare Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron, Parnell, Emma Hamilton, and, perhaps unfortunately, the Piltdown Man. Theologically, "giving scandal" is considered sinful as it is liable to induce others to sin. We certainly do not want scientists in training to believe that they can manipulate data to their desired ends with impunity. Not to imply that that is necessarily what took place, but that is what the concerns, yet to be refuted, allege. And how did the far right get in here? Sokal was a Marxist and he took the Left to task for intellectual dishonesty. Oiler99 (talk) 19:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Failure to produce compelling counterargument; name changed in compliance with NPOV

The name of the article has been changed to Climategate scandal in compliance with WP:NPOV. I know I did it quite a bit early, but the thread has been largely abandoned and similar arguments popped up elsewhere. No more discussion was going to take place here. Macai (talk) 08:09, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Another Bold Proposal

I informally proposed this a few times, but I'm wondering what sort of a response this will garner. I'd like to take the existing email section - including the code and whatever else was removed from the UEA/CRU server - and chop it back to the brief summary put together by Hipocrite, with a wikilink to a brand-new separate email article. Here's my rationale:
1. The overall readability of the article will be improved.
2. As more and more emails become public, it will become necessary to evaluate each one.
3. With a separate article, it will be possible to selectively wikilink to it from Global warming or Scientific misconduct or from any other article without the need to drag along the debate on how the documents came into the public sphere or why. Nightmote (talk) 14:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I need to noodle on this, but I should note that I would have moved my summary live this morning if the article wasn't locked. Hipocrite (talk) 14:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I think the proposed other article on 'more and more' of the emails will be spectacularly dull. According to this recent analysis, the emails were heavily filtered for maximum Copenhagen impact, "But many are completely innocuous, or indeed show the climate researchers in a good light, holding rigorous internal debates". No interest there for sceptics, I think. Let's just get Hipocrite's e-mail rewrite in asap, and leave it at that. --Nigelj (talk) 14:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Your statement, Nigel, is unrealistic. The files removed from the server are significant. The emails section was restored because it was observed that curiosity about the emails and their content was one of the reasons readers came to this article. My point is that the lengthy analysis in this article makes the article a little harder to read, and more contentious. A separate article will allow those with a more in-depth interest the opportunity to read selected emails and analysis, allow other articles to wikilink, and keep *this* article focused on what is known to be true rather than on what may or may not be proven in the fullness of time. Nightmote (talk) 15:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I would also add that whether one is a skeptic or not is of no consequence regarding the value of the article. I'm quite certain that both skeptics and believers will be only too happy to parse every bit of those emails to bits-n-bytes. Nightmote (talk) 15:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:CrapGhetto sounds like an interesting essay :). I'm (locally) warming to the idea. Hipocrite (talk) 15:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly support this idea, see summary style. Each article would have to fully meet neutral point of view standards, and the concise summary in this main article would outline the overall conclusions without going into all the "he said, she said" sort of build up. The sub-article could start as the full section incorporating the most recently added info but restoring any significant deletions, with an overview summarising the main background. It could expand from there. . .dave souza, talk 16:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned by "keep *this* article focused on what is known to be true rather than on what may or may not be proven in the fullness of time" (NM above). Presumably the other (e-mail) article is not going to be the one for "what may or may not be proven in the fullness of time" either? Best to keep all articles based on what has happened, and does exist, isn't it? Just a worry, please clarify if poss --Nigelj (talk) 17:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Fair question. If we (as editors) are willing to acknowledge that there are varying honestly-held, reliably-sourced opinions on the significance of the content of the emails and codes, then it is reasonable to split the article. This article can deal primarily with the facts surrounding the theft and the consequences to the various involved individuals. The (theoretical) email article can focus on the more-difficult-to-define nature of the files that were stolen, their significance (if any), their impact on the AGW hypothesis (if any), and their impact on governmental policy (if any). As it stands, we have too many possible conflicts: the data were stolen/the data were leaked/the emails mean nothing/the emails are significant/AGW is fact/AGW is fiction. If we split this, the article becomes more readable to the casual reader, the opportunity to more closely examine the emails and their significance still exists, and we make consensus more likely. I really see it as win-win-win. Nightmote (talk) 18:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually - I'd like to retract and restate. The email and code article should (in theory) be limited to a description of the files and their content, with explanations (as necessary) for any computer code. *If* the files are significant, they will have impacts on the IPCC, the AGW hypothesis, and various international treaties. As impacts are identified, the files article would be updated, and the appropriate article wikilinked. Make more sense? Nightmote (talk) 18:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not a scandal, but it is Climategate

I don't see how we can avoid calling it Climategate any longer. That's what it's known by everywhere else in the world and continuing to ignore this is POV in and of itself. I don't see how you can seriously argue that it's in any way POV to use the word Climategate. I notice that the latest issue of Scientific American calls it climategate, a recent report by the National Weather Service calls it Climategate (and funnily enough refers the reader to this page!). Even Penn State refers to it as Climategate when they need to be clear what it is they're talking about [14]. I don't actually thin the term Climategate is positive or negative any more. It's just the name that's applied.

I've asked before and have not received an answer. If it is not commonly known as Climategate, what is it known as? What other name is commonly applied to the incident that occurred last November that resulted in the unauthorised release of around 1000 emails and a similar number of documents? Certainly it's not known as "Climatic Research Unit Hacking Incident". The only time I've seen that phrase away from wikipedia is when someone is poking fun at wikipedia's perceived bias.

Now, as for the word scandal, I think it is inappropriate. Whether or not the incident resulted in a scandal is highly contentious. It certainly resulted in a controversy, so I would suggest Climategate Controversy as an appropriate name, but I would be just as amenable to Climategate Incident. I would not support Climategate Scandal and I do not support the current title.Thepm (talk) 05:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Hear him!!Oiler99 (talk) 05:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
No. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
No you won't hear? Or no you are unwilling to answer my questions? Thepm (talk) 11:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
How many times does this have to be said? "Climategate" can only refer to the controversy that followed the incident being described by this article. At best, you could argue that "Climategate" could be used as a section heading....hmmmmm.... compromise proposal forming in the misty part of my brain - will think on this... -- Scjessey (talk) 14:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Update to this train of thought: I considered whether or not we might be able to give "Climategate" a dedicated section, since the controversial aspect of the incident is real, and it would give the increasingly-notable term a little more exposure. However, I realized that this really falls foul of WP:CRITS. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Is it really "increasingly notable"? I get the impression that for the most part this tempest in a teapot had pretty much blown over, and is only back in the public consciousness because of the release of the Penn State report. Guettarda (talk) 21:41, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Why do you say "increasingly notable"? The phrase 'Climategate' has been used fairly consistently since before xmas. I'd say that discussion of the incident is greater over the last few days (ie since the Mann Report was released) but the use of the word Climategate to refer to "the unauthorised release of emails from the CRU and the subsequent controversy surrrounding that unauthorised release" has been pretty consistent. Probably because it is so much shorter :) Thepm (talk) 22:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Why do you say "increasingly notable"? I didn't. Simon did. I disagreed with his assessment. Guettarda (talk) 01:06, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Well! I'm glad we got that settled. Thepm (talk) 01:52, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I used the phrase "increasingly notable" because it seemed there had been an apparent increase (in my opinion) of the use of the non-neutral term in the British media. I have done no specific analysis to back up this "hunch" though. Either way, the point is moot. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
'"Climategate" can only refer to the controversy that followed the incident being described by this article. At best, you could argue that "Climategate" could be used as a section heading' — Scjessey.
It's the other way around — the leak/hack should be covered in a section of the article on 'Climategate', explaining the origin of the controversy. By itself, the fact that a university computer system was insufficiently secure is in no way noteworthy. What's interesting is what was revealed.
—WWoods (talk) 06:33, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
WWoods hit this on the head. This entire article is, and always has been, backwards. And it all starts with the name. The primary things covered by reliable sources are the contents of the documents and the ensuing controversy. The hacking is background, not the reason this whole thing is notable. This is why, at the very least, the article should be Climatic Research Unit documents controversy. However, any attempt to rename is inevitably forked into proposals to call it Climategate (which people always oppose, choosing the style guideline WP:WTA over the policy WP:V) meaning that consensus is never reached. Oren0 (talk) 19:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The name should now be "Climategate scandal", as per NPOV

As has been firmly established here, there is no argument in compliance with WP:NPOV that allows for this article to not be named "Climategate scandal". After having changed the article, it was quickly deleted. Macai (talk) 08:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Your link doesn't work for me. WP:NPOV#Article naming includes "Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. 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." While proper names for events which incorporate non-neutral terms such as Tea Pot Dome scandal are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources, the section refers to Main policy page: Wikipedia:Naming conventions which, under Descriptive titles, notes that "a political controversy in the United States was nicknamed "Attorneygate" by critics of the government, but the article title is the more neutrally worded Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy.... See Wikipedia:Words to avoid for further advice on potentially controversial terminology." Even if a title is legitimate, that doesn't mean that it's neutral or that we have to use it.
WP:NPOV#Neutral point of view requires that we should not endorse any particular point of view, WP:NPOV#A simple formulation that we "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." WP:NPOV#Impartial tone requires that "The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view." The framing of this as a -gate social or political scandal clearly presents it in the terms of the anti-action on AGW side of the debate, undermining the scientific majority view on what is essentially a scientific topic with political aspects. We should give due weight to the majority scientific view which can be taken as a necessary assumption in this article. dave souza, talk 09:07, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
The current article title is fine, as has been discussed here ad nauseum. It is NPOV now, Climategate is a stupid media neologism that has no meaning, and the word "scandal" is inaccurate. Drop the politics. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
The current title is not fine - it says a crime was committed (hacking), which is something the defenders of the climategate scientists keep on throwing out there to distract from the emails (making the current title inherently POV). ScienceApologist suggested a perfectly NPOV alternative title and we should work towards it. TheGoodLocust (talk) 09:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the article title probably should be "Climategate", because I'm seeing that term used in just about every article on the subject that I've read lately. Would someone please start a content RfC here on that? I think there are enough people watching this page that the RfC should get fairly good participation. Cla68 (talk) 09:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Please stop ignoring WP:WTA: "The words scandal, affair, and -gate are often used in journalism to describe a controversial episode or in politics to discredit opponents. They typically imply wrongdoing or a point of view. The use of one of these words in an article should be qualified by attributing it to the party that uses it. They should not be used in article titles except in historical cases where the term is widely used by reputable historical sources." Climategate is not going to be used in this article's title, period. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
(e.c.)This is not a WP policy, so stop yourself. And if you read on the top of the page it states "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." WP:WTA (my bolding). I.e. the 'Climategate' term is established way beyond what should be required to have it as an article name. This is what this debate/controversy/scandal is known as by every secondary source reporting on it. So as of one of our cornerstones (See the second of our Wikipedia:Five_pillars which states "That means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics.". This is not done in the present title (hacking, heres one article that says something else leak), but will be fulfilled iff we use the 'Climategate' (with '). So yes we should have a broad WP:RfC on this aspect know. Nsaa (talk) 11:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Since "Climategate" is a redirect to the existing article title the necessity of having it as a title is moot, the phrase will take the searcher to the correct place. As that aspect is resolved, then it is necessary to consider the neutrality of the proposed title. Per references to policy noted above, "...gate" and "scandal" are not good titles since they infer an opinion (and the references in the media are likely journalistic shorthand; every week there is a new "...gate" and a "scandal" every day - it sells newspapers). The question of whether the current title is npov also is one I think that bears consideration, from the points raised here. What was ScientistApologists suggested alternative? LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Climategate is dreadful. Scandal is inappropriate. End of. Kittybrewster ☎ 11:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree that "scandal" is inappropriate. Your argument against Climategate however, while it is no less cogent than any of the other arguments against the word that have appeared here, is irrelevant. Whether or not it is 'dreadful' is beside the point. The fact is that pretty much all of the rest of the world refers to the incident as 'Climategate'. By not using that name here, we are expressing a point of view. Thepm (talk) 12:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose rename, per KB, LHVU, CO, SA etc... Also reasoning is highly spurious, as changing the name as proposed would introduce bias. As the redirect exists, it is also moot. Verbal chat 11:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Prepare to a RfC

I've just created a subpage Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_hacking_incident/Climategate_usage to just collect usage and definition by (secondary) sources of the term Climategate. Please only add what considered WP:RS (i.e. blogs is not relevant in this discussion except for blogs on newspapers under full editorial control by the newspaper per WP:RS and WP:V). Please add more and different sources both in time and in coverage. Nsaa (talk) 12:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

You're wasting your time. "Climategate" is a POV term which WP:WTA explicitly deprecates. It is not going to be used in the article title, period. Please move on and find something more constructive to do. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
You seems not to have read this right above. We uses what the secondary sources uses, not something POV like "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" (hacking is not NPOV as shown in the edit I just gave you ... Nsaa (talk) 13:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Since you appear to be determined to be tendentious, I'll put you on notice: if you pursue this further I will ask for probation enforcement against you and a general injunction against proposals to include "Climategate" in the article title. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
"Since you appear to be determined to be tendentious" strikes me as unhelpful. The words after the colon stands on their own, without the characterization at the start of the sentence. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Wow, I don't think I have seen such a blatent display of WP:OWN in my time here. Why not just rewrite the article to your personal preferences and be done with anyone elses thoughts. Arzel (talk) 15:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Can you tone it down a bit? This really isn't necessary. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with ownership. It has everything to do with adhering to established guidelines on Wikipedia content; namely, that we do not use the cliched "-gate" to name an article. Whitewatergate, Travelgate, Rathergate are all redirects, not the titles of their respective articles. Tarc (talk) 15:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I was going to say something similar. The only "blatant" stuff here is Arzel's misunderstanding of WP:OWN and mock outrage. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:19, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Could you simply address the issue at hand, without making characterizations of another editor? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
And coincidentally I'm sure, all those scandals are something democrats would like "damage control" on :). TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
How is that comment helpful? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I was pointing out that Tarc's scandals were all unfavorable to democrats and it is shocking, just shocking, that wikipedia wouldn't name them by their well-known names. :)TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Attorneygate. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I'd never heard of the term "Attorneygate", but I was aware of the incident. However, I do remember Travelgate, Rathergate and Whitewatergate being thrown around, although one I heard the most was Travelgate and Whitewatergate was usually just referred to as Whitewater. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
While that interpretation is possible (though, of course, it requires the assumption that Wikipedia is a tool of Democratic activism), it's also possible (and perhaps more plausible) that the right wingers are better at spinning things into "-gate scandals". After all, there's this issue, which is decidedly not a scandal about climate, but has been quite effectively spun into one. Guettarda (talk) 21:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Well Watergate scandal includes both "-gate" and scandal - so much for your theory. Hell, wikipedia won't even call Hugo Chavez a dictator despite being called that in nearly every source imaginable. There are obviously problems regarding left-wing bias in wikipedia. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Watergate was named after the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. - go and read -gate. It is not an example of a "-gate" name, since the snow clone "-gate" suffix was only coined after Watergate to claim similarities with that affair. The article title uses "scandal" because it meets the criteria set out in WP:WTA#Controversy and scandal: "They should not be used in article titles except in historical cases where the term is widely used by reputable historical sources (e.g., Teapot Dome scandal, Dreyfus affair or Watergate scandal)." -- ChrisO (talk) 22:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Two thoughts with regards to the original suggestions: (i) examples of usage can't be used to demonstrate usage; it's meaningless unless you provide a comprehensive analysis of usage, and (ii) if it's in quotes, you can't really cite it as an example of usage; that's quite explicitly non-usage. Guettarda (talk) 21:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
And furthermore, examples of usage outside Wikipedia are not strictly relevant, since Wikipedia operates under neutrality standards that don't apply to often partisan media outlets. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Of course - I meant my comment to be on the use of examples to make a case. This issue of whether such a name would be in keeping with policy and the naming convention is entirely another matter. The latter is an appropriate discussion to have, but before we have a discussion, we need to be clear that the underlying "facts" used to support the arguments actually are facts. Guettarda (talk) 21:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
  • If most of the mainstream sources are using the term "Climategate" to refer to this incident, then there's nothing wrong with using that title for the article. As someone said above, we use what the secondary sources are reporting. The current title doesn't work, as it isn't being used by many of the sources, at least the ones that I have seen. Any ideas on an alternate title? If not, it appears that "Climategate" is beginning to reach consensus support here on the talk page. Cla68 (talk) 22:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Claiming that there is a consensus for "Climategate" is both untrue and irrelevant. That term violates WP:NPOV#Article naming's requirement for article names with the "highest degree of neutrality" and "-gate" names are explicitly deprecated by WP:NC#Descriptive titles. We do not use "-gate" names for articles. This article will not be called "Climategate" and NPOV cannot be overridden by any supposed consensus (which in this case doesn't exist anyway). This has been discussed many times before. Now please desist. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
ChrisO - I don't think it's helpful to keep declaring that it's been discussed before so it shouldn't be discussed again. Sometimes consensus changes. If you don't agree that it should be called Climategate (or some derivation thereof) then just say why.Thepm (talk) 22:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
My opinion remains that the title should be either Climategate Incident or Climategate Controversy simply on the basis that this is what everyone else calls it. I would not support calling it Climategate Scandal. Thepm (talk) 22:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Consensus may change but the policy has not, and WP:NPOV in particular cannot be overridden by a supposed non-existent consensus. Since policy deprecates the use of "-gate" names, a "-gate" name is not going to be used in this article title. It's as simple as that. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
"Climategate incident" appears to be a neutral title supported by the RS, so that title gets my vote. Cla68 (talk) 22:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
It is not remotely neutral and names of this type are explicitly deprecated by WP:NC#Descriptive titles and WP:WTA#Controversy and scandal, so no. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
What? "They should not be used in article titles except in historical cases..." Uhm? This is a historical case, since it happened in this thing we call the past. "Climategate scandal" stands. Macai (talk) 23:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
No, it's an ongoing current event. Or had you overlooked the constant news reporting about it? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
The Bush administration is still mentioned in the mainstream media as well. The Bush administration must therefore be an ongoing current event. "Climategate scandal" stands. Macai (talk) 23:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm sick of this flaring up every three days and causing so much bad blood that it prevents progress on improving the rest of the article. How about we all accept that any title which has -gate or "hack" is never going to gain widespread acceptance and move on to trying to find one that can. Someone posted a reference to what the Wall Street Journal called the incident prior to Climategate catching on. It struck me at the time as being something everyone could probably live with (no -gate, -no hack), but now I can't find it. Does anyone remember?. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

Prepare whatever you want. This will never happen. Hipocrite (talk) 01:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to check Infotrac and ProQuest NewsStand tomorrow (if they're available) to see how much "Climategate" and other terms are used as titles for this event, then add the references I find (if any) to the sub-page that NSaa created and we can go from there. Cla68 (talk) 08:10, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Fine, go ahead and waste your time. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I found 287 references to "Climategate" in NewsStand. I'll start posting the refs to the sub-page. It will take awhile. Then I'll check Infotrac. Cla68 (talk) 23:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Do please have a look for reputable historical sources rather than just concentrating on news outlets, and when tabulating them take care to show when the term is used in "inverted commas" to indicate it's a partisan label. A breakdown into partisan sources would also be interesting, but not alter the basic point that it's a pov label. . . dave souza, talk 23:21, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if some of us feel that it is a partisan label or not, we just report what the sources are saying. If you'll look at the list of sources that I just added, I think it's clear that "Climategate" is currently the title that the majority of the media and world public is using to describe this subject. I think we're ready to start the RfC. Cla68 (talk) 00:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what the media call it. Policy specifically deprecates -gate article names, and NPOV prohibits the use of POV article names in general. No RFC is going to override NPOV. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but there are only two things that will prevent this article from being renamed as "Climategate": 1) if the RfC doesn't establish consensus for the change, or 2) if Wikipedia's administration intervenes and contravenes our content dispute resolution process. I don't think that #2 will happen. I don't know about #1 but believe that an RfC is appropriate because we are currently in a dispute over the article title. Cla68 (talk) 00:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Who made charges that...

In this unlabeled revert, Heyitspeter states "It wasn't (just?) skeptics. This misrepresents the sources," when reverting who made charges that the e-mails showed bad things. Here are the sources, with quotes from each, bolds mine:

  • Guardian 20 Nov: "Climate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege they provide "smoking gun" evidence that some of the climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support the widely held view that climate change is real, and is being largely caused by the actions of mankind."
  • NYTimes 20 Nov: "Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change."
  • Moore 24 Nov: "said Lord Lawson, Margaret Thatcher's former chancellor who has reinvented himself as a critic of climate change science. "They were talking about destroying various files"
  • BBC 3 Dec: "At the time that the theft of the data was revealed, some climate sceptic websites picked up on the word "trick" in one e-mail from 1999 and talk of "hiding the decline"."

I'm not accusing Heyitspeter of intentionally lying about misrepresenting the sources - clearly he was just mistaken, or didn't look at the sources before saying they said something they didn't say. Apparently the revert restriction prevents me from correcting Heyitspeter's obvious mistake. I guess he'll self-revert on seeing this, right? Hipocrite (talk) 10:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Heyitspeter's recently added ref:

(ec)This is a strange sort of admission, I suppose, but here goes: I was wrong, but now I'm right... I had added the section in question from a very old version of the article and thought they included certain refs when they hadn't. I've now added refs that "feature" the same allegations coming from non-skeptics. Thanks for bringing this and sorry about mucking things: up. --Heyitspeter (talk) 10:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
And your new ref shows that someone who is not skeptical made all those other changes exactly where? Please revert to the version supported by sources - if you don't do so, I'll probably bring this up at the probation board. Hipocrite (talk) 10:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
You can revert the citations I've added, and 2/0 has made it very difficult - nigh impossible - for me to stimy any such action. So that would probably be a faster/easier route. But it's your call. First please look at the refs provided and note that asserting that "skeptics" made the allegations in question would be WP:OR.--Heyitspeter (talk) 10:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't intend to revert any of your worthless citations, however, I'm going to ask you to find quotes from those citations which show "allegations" made by people who were not climate skeptics. That's what you falsely alleged I misrepresented in sources. Now I'm accusing you of misrepresenting your sources - I found quotes for you, now do so for me or self revert. Hipocrite (talk) 10:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It wasn't me, but Heyitspeter did the right thing in this particular case. Criticism has come from a broad range of people, including (but not limited to) George Monbiot[15]. BTW, I strongly encourage anyone who's hasn't already to check out my user page (not my talk) for my summation of the situation regarding this topic and the problems we're having with this article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

A simple yea or nae will suffice

I suggest renaming the article to Climate Research Unit email disclosures. This avoids pov regarding popular media references to it being a "...gate" or a scandal/controversy and also avoids the pov of emails being hacked (and also the fact it is what was disclosed rather than the method of disclosure that generates the interest). LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The main problem is with the word "email." Why not, Climactic Research Unit documents controversy? Climactic Research Unit documents disclosure seems too vague, e.g., they disclose documents literally every day, should we include those documents too? And so on.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:46, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I believe you were looking for a simple "nae"...--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Royal mess - needs admin help attention

The last edit made a royal mess of the article. Had it happened a few minutes ago, I'd assume someone would be working on it, but it happened hours ago. Can an admin someone look into it? --SPhilbrickT 15:28, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It was just a simple cleanup that was needed, no need for admin tools. Anyone can remove unused refs. Guettarda (talk) 15:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Oops, my bad. I saw the lock symbol and mistakenly thought we were back to full, not partial protection. Thanks for the cleanup.--SPhilbrickT 16:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Phil Jones interview

Articles have appeared in the British MSM about an interview given by Phil Jones to The Sunday Times. He confirms "death theats" and mentions thoughts of suicide. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:54, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

See the PJ article William M. Connolley (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Two Sunday Times articles seem to cover much of the same ground, one isn't very useful here, but the other gives some information on the numerous requests for "data [that] was available online, making the FoI requests, in Jones’s view, needless and a vexatious waste of his time... He also suspected that the CRU was the target of a co-ordinated attempt to interfere with its work — a suspicion that hardened into certainty when, over a matter of days, it received 40 similar FoI requests." It gives some details on that issue, and goes on to the threats, stating "Two more death threats came last week after the deputy information commissioner delivered his verdict, making more work for Norfolk police, who are already investigating the theft of the emails." So, confirmation of a point in the article, should be briefly mentioned in the body text. . . dave souza, talk 18:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Fluffy kittens

I have been advised that there are many contributors to this page who are insisting that the other parties, those whose viewpoint is opposed to theirs, like or dislike fluffy kittens according to their stance or viewpoint relating to World Cuteness Liability. I would give notice from the posting of this section that any editor claiming another contributor has a pov relating to fluffy kittens unsustained by application of WP policy will be blocked for 12 hours. Just try it... That is all!!! LessHeard vanU (talk) 02:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh here we go again.... Do you have a reliable source proving that fluffy kittens as so-called "cute"? Sirwells (talk) 02:34, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
im afraid the inability to either prove or disprove the cuteness of fluffy kittens lies at the heart of Godels incompleteness theorem, rendering any effort in this universe devoid of substance. still, they ARE cute...Mercurywoodrose (talk) 08:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
If a fluffy kitten is completely enclosed in an opaque box, the cuteness coefficient of the kitten is inherently unknowable until the box is opened.--SPhilbrickT 16:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Not only is the fluffy kitten's cuteness unknown, it is not determined until someone opens the box. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for New Title

For the title of the new article, may I suggest File:Prince logo.svg? It can be referred to as "The Article Not to be Known as Climategate"Oiler99 (talk) 04:34, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The article title is already as laughable as your suggestion, so I second it. - Gunnanmon (talk) 23:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
or how about ? JPatterson (talk) 23:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
How about we rename the article to reflect a more accurate description to it current editors: "A Huge waste of time"? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Another Proposal for New Title

Climatic Research Unit Data Breach Controversy

"Data breach" is how the investigators refer to the incident. This gets rid of the objectionable and possibility inaccurate "hacking". JPatterson (talk) 16:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

  • Replace controversy with consequences, and you have my full support. LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
    But that changes the focus of the article from the illegal access and dissemination of the data to the controversy that was whipped-up by all the AGW skeptics after the fact. Better to keep it more ambiguous, like Climatic Research Unit data breach (which is more inclusive). -- Scjessey (talk) 16:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
We don't know if the data access was illegal. It could just have easily been an insider, which if I understand UK's laws, may not have been illegal. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
But either way it was a breach, no?JPatterson (talk) 17:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
No evidence or reliable source to back up "insider". MSM virtually unanimous on "stolen", "theft", "hack"-type language. Data was definitely taken and disseminated without permission. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
You don't understand the UK's laws then. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Quite possibly. I'm not a lawyer and don't pretend to be. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:Naming Conventions lists a series of characteristics for the "ideal title" (I'm kind of newish, so I'm still reading this sort of stuff). So, is the proposed title recognisable? not really. Is it easy to find? not really. Is it precise? not at all. Is it concise? not at all. Is it consistent. not really. If I ask the same questions of the title Climategate Incident I get the answers Yes, yes, yes, yes and not really. Thepm (talk) 19:47, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes I like Scjessey's title, which I think was proposed on the probation talk page. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

'Data breach' is just proceeding-in-an-easterly-direction-speak for 'hacking incident'. How do data breaches occur? Someone leaves a computer in a way that is less than secure, and someone finds a way into it. 'Finding a way into it' is a hacking incident, and what ocurs is a data breach - you have data that you shouldn't have. It doesn't matter if you are a member of staff moving data, or altering file access permissions, without the authority of your employer, or the Russian mafia. Data breaches occur because of hacking incidents that succeed. There is no reason to change the title at all; there is certainly no reason to change it into a mouthful of PC Plod-speak. --Nigelj (talk) 21:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

No, "data breach" opens up the door to it being a leak, a hack, or an unsecured FTP server. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:12, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
The 'leaker' would have had to gain access to files that he was not supposed to be accessing in his day-to-day work (i.e. not authorised by his/her employer), then put them onto an internet-facing server, again against in-house IT policy. IT people are not supposed to access the emails of other staff or copy or zip them; research staff (i.e. recipients of the emails) are not supposed to access internet-facing HTTP or FTP servers and load their emails there. These are both examples of 'hacking' the security layers of equipment belonging to the employer. The purported unsecured FTP server (unless an insider set it up as per hacks above) would have to be found by the outsider trying many possible FTP addresses, and/or logon details until hitting on the one(s) that led the emails and documents - known as brute-force hacking. All this is supposition until the inquiries report, but they all involve some kind of hacking by insiders, outsiders or a conspiracy of both. 'Hacking' is the right word in every case except if the UEA management wanted the emails officially published. --Nigelj (talk) 12:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
The difference is that an insider would be protected under Britain's whisleblower law, whereas "hacking" implies illegality. Kauffner (talk) 12:43, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Could you provide details of this UK legislation? Whistleblower Protection Act appears to be American, and there are no links in the category to legislation affecting England. My suspicion would be that the act remains illegal, but the claim of public interest allows a defence. . . dave souza, talk 13:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Amazing compromise title that will satisfy both the "hack" camp and the "controversy" camp!

I present for your amusement, with tongue firmly in cheek:

Climatic Research Unit hacks

Double entendre FTW! -- Scjessey (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I have been toying with an acronym that would result in CRUnch, but am confounded by the "h"! LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Horror? TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, the newly spun-off article is CRUd. Guettarda (talk) 01:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of splitting article

After Dave spun off a portion of the article into Climatic Research Unit documents, Hipocrite trimmed the material in this article, per the MOS. CoM has now restored this material, creating an near total duplication between the two articles. In my opinion, the spin off was appropriate, and given that, it was appropriate to replace the section with a summary. I don't see the point of duplicating the material in both articles. I am proposing that we re-instate Hip's version, or something like it, per the MOS. Guettarda (talk) 18:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This version with the fixed references section seems to be the appropriate one. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:12, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Can someone point out where the proposed split off was discussed? I'm not finding it. Thanks. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:46, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Follow the link I just gave, or look at #Another Bold Proposal before it's archived. . dave souza, talk 20:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Dave, could you self-revert the pointer to your soon-to-be-speedied child article? Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 20:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It was created to keep a lot of worthwhile information that was removed in your earlier bold trimming, and as such stands as a self-sustained detailed article which is useful in documenting this issue. Summary style should have been followed at the outset, there's no good case for a speedy. . . dave souza, talk 20:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It would be helpful if the section title was more useful and specific. I looked for relevant discussion a few times, but didn't see anything that looked like a discussion of splitting the article up. "Another bold proposal" could mean anything and it's a busy discussion page.

I suggest we reopen that discussion with a better thread title so people know what's being suggested and we can garner broad involvement in this substantial proposal.

A new article on the documents and what they contain is fine with me. The main article still needs to cover the controversy over the e-mails and the repurcussions we've seen. I would think a sub-article of that title should focus on the documents themselves and what they contain. ChildofMidnight (talk) 20:37, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Check it out, it's essentially the info that was in the "Content of the documents" section before that was drastically reduced. WP:SUMMARY should have been followed then to preserve useful detail. I agree with Hipocrite that the section on this page can now afford to be a lot more concise, but wasn't expecting such a drastic change. However, there are advantages in keeping a more general statement on contentious issues here, and thrashing out the detailed arguments on the sub page. . . dave souza, talk 20:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
(ec)So, let me see if I've got this straight CoM: you're saying that because the title is unclear, we should rehash the discussion, despite the fact that no one was opposed to it (including, it would appear, you)? Interesting proposition. Guettarda (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Right. Because it's a busy talk page, because the previous thread wasn't titled more transparently, because the discussion involved only a few editors, and because the major change garnered some objections when it was implemented, we should revisit the issue and resolve how to move forward. I'm not sure why you're being so aggressive with me. I've offered an opinion that I think is pretty reasonable and indicated that I'm open to compromise. The issue is being discussed, there hasn't been any edit warring or disruption, so I'm not sure what you're finding problematic. I've answered your questions on my talk page extensively and been very patient with you. AfDs last 7 days in order to provide a chance for editors to weigh in. It seems only fair and courteous that we work through this issue a bit and give everyone a chance to weigh in, so we make sure that we've covered all the bases. I haven't said we shouldn't move forward or that we shouldn't make changes (as other editors have when they object to attempted improvements). In future a link to the discussion on the talk page in the edit summary of a big edit like that might be helpful so people know what's going on. Cheers. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, I haven't had time to read everyone's opinion here but my initial thoughts are two-fold. One, I think there is enough content here to justify a sub-article. Two, I'm not sure this is the right time to spin this off. Until the admins are willing to actually do something substantial to rein in both warring factions, another article to argue about will only add more drama to the proceedings. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:13, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I share some of your concerns, but I don't think we should just dig in and resist changes. I'd like to see a clearer statement on the scope of the new article v. this one and what it's purpose is. Is this round 2 of the attempted separation of e-mail issues from the "hacking"/ dissemination? Is the new article intended to cover the documents more comprehensively than is possible here? What will the relation of the two article be after the split? Is one a subarticle? Is this still the main article? Are they co-equals? Sorry about all the questions. But those are my concerns. I'll try to avoid commenting further for a while so others can weigh in. The straw poll below and further discussion and brainstorming seems like a good idea. I don't think I'm the only one who missed the original discussion. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
To respond to your concerns, the version you've restored is drastically shortened from the original detailed section. The new sub-article keeps the original detailed information and references, and is split with the intention of a WP:SUMMARY style section here covering the essentials of the sub article. As you say, the new article intended to cover the documents more comprehensively than is possible here. This remains the main article, and the length and comprehensiveness of the summary is a matter to be resolved here. Hope that helps, dave souza, talk 13:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Given the overwhelming consensus reflected below, including editors from all of the various camps, that the one paragraph summary (the way it's done on nearly every other article) is the best way forward, I'll be instituting that in approximately 3 hours unless someone has a reasonable objection. Of course, that would not cut off discussion while the article is in this format, so if you can convince the overwhelming consensus that they were wrong while the article is in the form the overwhelming consensus approves of, that consensus could change, but I see no reason why 2 editors saying larger and 2 editors saying smaller should stop 8 editors from saying in the middle from having the article reflect "in the middle." Hipocrite (talk) 15:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I concur. In fact, I'd say get right on it and revert back to this version before additional edits make it more difficult. I can't do it myself because of an unrelated ArbCom restriction. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Options

Just a straw poll to try to understand what people are saying. Please add any that I might have missed.

Delete the spun off article, return this article to its original form
  1. -Heyitspeter (talk) 03:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC) If by "original form" we mean "what it is now," with no redirect to the spun off article and a more or less detailed discussion of the documents, with quotes where appropriate.
  2. Moogwrench (talk) 04:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC) This isn't an AFD, but FWIW, I think the amount of information being discussed here does not require a separate article. I think these three choices overlap and are somewhat confused. I think both the FOIA issues (more part of the response) and email content are both important issues central to the controversy surrounding the dissemination of the data, and that any summary for any split/fork should adequately covered the breadth of the controversy. The "incident" itself is not the focal point of the news coverage, what was revealed is, so I find it curious that significant attention to incident (i.e. filenames, data going from one IP to another, multiple quotes, etc., etc.) is included in the article, without objection, but the "it" of the article, the true meat of the controversy (details, quotes, etc.), needs to be siphoned off into a sub-article? It doesn't make much sense.
    Check the links I've added below, the longer original version before the drastic cut to the current version on 6 February has a lot of significant information, now included in the sub-article. The shortened version as it is now makes the article more readable, though it could usefully be condensed further and has some problems with balance. If there's no sub-article then more detail would be appropriate here. . . dave souza, talk 11:56, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Retain the spun off article to deal with the e-mails and their contents; and per WP:SUMMARY only retain a short summary of issues related to the e-mails.
  1. Guettarda (talk) 20:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
  2. Scjessey (talk) 21:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
  3. Seems a better article split — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
  4. dave souza, talk 22:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
  5. Nigelj (talk) 22:21, 7 February 2010 (UTC) I don't see the distinction between this and the next option as I don't know which part of WP:SUMMARY would be different to "this [is] the main article [...] retaining coverage of the key issues and controversies". I prefer an option that cites an editing guideline to one that tries to redefine one.
    CoM replaced pretty much all the content spun off in the original daughter article, and I originally phrased the alternative to reflect that. I can only surmise that this is what he has in mind. Guettarda (talk) 22:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
    To clarify, CoM put back essentially the drastically shortened version trimmed in Hipocrite's edit of 6 February which omitted significant details and sources. The spun off article is taken from the much longer and more informative version before that, and can develop from there. . . dave souza, talk 11:50, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  6. I think I can live with this. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  7. Let me make sure I understand the options - violate WP:SUMMARY, grow this article back into the disaster it once was, or get some of the crap of this page? Right. Perhaps this "probation" thing should have someone actually enforcing it. Hipocrite (talk) 12:06, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  8. Nightmote (talk) 14:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC) The meaning and impact of the *content* of the emails has not yet been determined, and can be documented and argued in good faith at length on the spin-off page without making this article unreadable and confusing.
  9. JPatterson (talk) 15:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Retain the spun off article to provide a more complete coverage of the documents involved; and keep this as the main article by retaining coverage of the key issues and controversies related to the e-mails.
  1. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:16, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
  2. Oiler99 (talk) 00:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC) Excellent. Now the current article can confine itself to the conduct, attitudes, and behavior that the rest of the world has been talking about for the last two months. Perhaps under the title of Climategate?
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