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Global warming

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This article has gone through massive effort to organise it well. It is well-sourced, both in print and in text, and I think it has a balanced point of view. I think it is one of the epitomes of colloboration. By nominating it for FAC, I hope any further objections, which there probably be, will be brought to light more quickly in which case we can quickly rectify them. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 16:40, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: whether the subject is important and current is not the point. Whether the article meets the criteria is the point. — Johan the Ghost seance 19:15, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see his comment in a good light, in fact the reason we have FA is to show WP's best articles and if important subjects get chosen we will get more people coming and watching what WP looks like and they will see that there is some factual accuracy and real encyclopaedic information in WP's core. Lincher 19:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The style is a major problem. It is not just about conveying highly technical content, it is also highly controversial - there have been edit wars in the past over single word. As to summarising the content - these are the summaries! Every section is a summary of another article and so attempts to summarise what is in the main articles. I cannot really see how much more summarising there is to do without just turning it into a portal.--NHSavage 12:33, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. I've long felt that the article was too long and that, as a summary article, there was too much detail which belonged in the daughter articles. --Richard 20:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: I quite agree that the subject is important, and it would be great to have an FA on Global Warming, but this article looks to me like it needs a bit of work, mainly in terms of editing it into cohesive and compelling prose.
    • "Global warming is a term used to describe..." I know the subject is controversial, but this seems a bit tentative. Can't we come up with an agreed formulation of "Global warming is..."  ?
      How about "Global warming is an increase in average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans over a geologically short period of time." TimL 19:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      I've tried refers to the increases to see if that flies.... William M. Connolley 19:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      I guess I'd prefer "is" to "refers to". But it's OK. — Johan the Ghost seance 22:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The second sentence is quite crowded for a lead which is supposed to be a summary. How about "The scientific opinion on climate change is that the average global temperature has risen significantly due to human activities", and move the detail and references into the main article.
      I tried removing "UN" and the dates; this shortens it. Cutting as expressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and explicitly endorsed by the national science academies of the G8 nations is also poss... OK, I've done that too William M. Connolley 19:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      Better. Still a little more than I'd expect in a summary, perhaps. — Johan the Ghost seance 22:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again in the lead, "The natural greenhouse effect keeps the Earth about 33 °C warmer than it otherwise would be; adding carbon dioxide to a planet's atmosphere, with no other changes, will make that planet's surface warmer." Seems a little awkwardly added-on, and suddenly talking about "a planet" seems jarring. Maybe this should be moved to the main article too.
      Its already in lower down! I've rm'd it from the intro. William M. Connolley 19:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      OK. — Johan the Ghost seance 22:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • "other climate changes including rises in sea level": is "sea level" really climate?
      Maybe not. I've rm'd "climate" William M. Connolley 19:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      OK. — Johan the Ghost seance 22:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This sentence:
      "Such changes may increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heat waves, and hurricanes, change agricultural yields, cause glacier retreat, reduced summer streamflows, or contribute to biological extinctions."
    switches from being a list of items to a list of verb phrases and back, which is highly disconcerting.
    • "there is a further warming of perhaps 0.5 °C to 1.0 °C — already committed but not yet realised." -- unclear meaning, and superfluous hyphen.
      I moved that down and added more expl. William M. Connolley 19:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      OK. — Johan the Ghost seance 22:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Layout could do with work: there are no fewer than four floated boxes (in addition to the contents) above the first heading, which is too many. With anything other than a very narrow browser window they end up overlapping, which is ugly.
      I have tried to address this by removed one of the figures from the lead and reformatting the template. I think it's an improvement but then other mightn't.--NHSavage 20:42, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      It's better, but the lead still looks like a jumble of boxes. It would help if "Terminology" could be moved farther down, and/or if the "Subtopics" template was at the end (like Panama Canal or World War I). Maybe try organising the boxes like History of the Jews in Poland. Maybe more space could be made by moving some of the diagrams into the sub-articles -- there seem to be a heck of a lot of them in the article. Sorry to be picky, but an FA is supposed to "exemplif[y] our very best work." — Johan the Ghost seance 22:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Some language could be more formal and encyclopedic in tone; eg. "from not knowing the volume..."; "there is uncertainty about the climate sensitivity.";
    • Inconsistent references style; eg. "(Smith, 2005)", "[7]", "(BBC)", "(Reuters, February 9, 2006; archived)". I would suggest changing to <ref>; yes I know this contentious, but Wikipedia:What is a featured article? says "the meta:cite format is strongly encouraged", and three different citation styles certainly doesn't look good. The use of inline references in particular screws up print and aural rendering, which impacts users with particular presentation requirements.
    • Second paragraph of "Historical warming": is this too much detail, since it reaches no conclusion about which was the warmest year? Why not just say that 1998 and 2005 were the two warmest years?
    • "Globally, the majority of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions arise from fuel combustion. The remainder is accounted for largely by "fugitive fuel" (consumed in the production and transport of fuel), "... this could use some clarifying.
    • In "Potential negative effects", "reductions in the ozone layer (see above)" -- no prior mention of ozone.
    • The "Responses" section suddenly leaps to a super-wikilinked style; the surge of blue is quite jarring. Links like "automobile", "consumer", "countries", don't add context.
      I've gone over this and removed the less relevant Wiki-Links. --Stephan Schulz 20:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      Still looks really blue to me. "Coal reserves" links to "Major coal producing regions", which doesn't really talk about how much coal is there; "climate change" was previously linked; I don't think that linking to "United States" and "Australia" really adds context to this section; ditto "public intellectuals"; ... — Johan the Ghost seance 22:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      I took out some more. I left the first link to US and Australia, though, and the public intellectuals (there was some debate about them on talk). The first para under the enumeration is really blue, but it all seems to be pertinent.... --Stephan Schulz 23:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      Better -- blue, but blue that adds context. — Johan the Ghost seance 08:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Most of all, the article just looks like it needs a serious editing pass -- or several. I fixed a few obvious typographical issues, but the text basically lacks flow -- see criterion 2(a).
    — Johan the Ghost seance 22:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • support I appreciate the various formatting questions but think it rqather regrettable that content doesn't count for more William M. Connolley 08:35, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand your frustration, but in Wikipedia "Featured" has a specific meaning, which is all about the quality of the article, not the importance of its subject. This is important, because it means that ultimately all Wikipedia articles can become Featured, at which time we'll have a wonderful encyclopedia. If you want to propose a separate process to highlight "important" articles, I guess the village pump is the place to go. — Johan the Ghost seance 11:12, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't say important! What I'm talking about is content quality over formatting. I find it very frustrating (and am fairly close to abandoning any interest in the FA process) to spend so long on twiddly formatting, against actual content. I appreciate that the format has to be up to some acceptable level, of course William M. Connolley 11:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, I misunderstood. In general, I don't think the formatting is a big issue here, or certainly not something that should take much time to fix. It's already better. — Johan the Ghost seance 22:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: in terms of stability, I looked through the history, and there is a lot of reverting etc. That is fine, but when was the last time there was a substantial change to the article or a protracted revert or edit war (say, of more than a day)? Batmanand | Talk 08:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think there has been any revert war for ages (months; more). IT gets anon vandalism/POV pushing, of course. And the content is also stable (scientifically; I think some got shuffled a while back). William M. Connolley 09:00, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    In that case, support. Batmanand | Talk 21:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, I have fixed the 2 red links, tested the images at very low resolution and they look great, merged the terminology box, moved the subsection box to the end, the graphs have been moved to the right and unjammed in sections, removed false "see also" ozone reference, stripped the responses section of all non-essential wikilinks, fixed "such changes" sentence, and fixed anthropogenic fuel sentence.
      • Big improvement as regards layout. I have two more comments, but these are low-priority:
        • You have a bunch of "thumb" images with sizes set. The problem is that this overrides the user's expressed preference for thumbnail size. For example, I have a huge monitor, and in my preferences I set all thumbnails to display at 320px. Which is great, until I come to "Global Warming" and it doesn't work. Against this, I appreciate the desire to have things like graphs visible in the main article.
I have now fixed this.--NHSavage 14:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good! — Johan the Ghost seance 12:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Copyediting and references soon to follow.
      • I see this is being the biggest hurdle right now, so let me try to clarify my objection. Basically, I'm looking at criterion 2(a), "the prose is compelling, even brilliant". Right now, I think the article has the facts and the NPOV, in other words the bones, but it needs the flesh of good prose to make it read like an article from beginning to end. At the moment the body looks like a list of references introduced by pretty terse comments. Just look at the first para of "Historical warming of the Earth": 4 sentences, 4 facts, but no feeling of the paragraph leading me through the facts, explaining how they relate, or what the overall significance is. Here's my lame effort at fixing it, though as I don't understand the technical issues, this may not be factually accurate, so please don't use it without serious vetting:
        The key indicator of the existance of global warming is a sudden change in global temperature trends in the recent past. Although detailed temperature monitoring is a recent development, it is believed that global temperature was relatively stable over the past one or two thousand years prior to 1850, with various fluctuations, which are possibly local, such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age. Since 1850, however, temperatures have trended upward: relative to 1860-1900 the global temperature on both land and sea has increased by 0.75 °C; detailed temperature analyais available since 1979 shows land temperatures increasing about twice as fast as ocean temperatures (0.25 °C/decade against 0.13 °C/decade (Smith, 2005)). Temperatures in the lower troposphere have increased between 0.12 and 0.22 °C per decade since 1979. Of particular concern is that this change is simultaneous with the development of human industry, and the consequent rise in the production of pollutants.
      • I'm not saying that this paragraph is FA-worthy, but maybe it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. I sympathise with how hard this is for a deeply technical, high-level article like Global warming, so I've tried to find examples of FAs that tackle the same problem. Quantum mechanics looks like a good example.
    • Now two of the suggested fixes were strange to me and probably others and need clarification. Why should the history of Global temperatures have LESS detail? I don't imagine that is an actionable objection or work-point. Also, the section headers seem all essential to me, so which ones specifically should go? I agree there are a lot of them, but I don't see which ones are unnecessary for a featured article. Thanks much! Judgesurreal777 01:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Historical warming of the Earth" goes into a big debate about whether 1998 or 2005 was the warmest year. There are two problems with this:
        1. you don't provide the answer;
        2. it seems to me that it clearly doesn't matter, since they were obiously very close -- "a few hundredths of a degree" -- and obviously both very warm.
        So, why not just say that all folks concerned agree that 1998 and 2005 are the warmest two years on record?
      • I guess the "Section headers" comment isn't addressed to me...?
      • — Johan the Ghost seance 09:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, featured article status will give the community more excuse to resist changes to the article. This is an especially inopportune time for such resistance to be encouraged. There is a rash of publishing going on in advance of the next IPCC reports. The climate science underlying global warming is in a state of flux and rapidly maturing, a difficult task amid political controversy.--Poodleboy 21:27, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    This is completely wrong... there is a lot of new pubs, but its all confirming the old stuff, so the article remains pretty stable William M. Connolley 21:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Your comment would be more credible if you were scrambling to delete recent results that threatened your POV.--Poodleboy 15:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Frankly I now give up on any hope of this becoming a featured article. I had been working on the other comments as I thought this was an important article. But given that "Consensus must be reached for an article to be promoted" and the fact that there will a large amount of publications on this for the forseeable future so PB will never accept this as FAC what's the ****ing point?--NHSavage 22:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I feel your pain, but please don't be discouraged. "Consensus" doesn't mean "unanimity"; irrelevant or invalid objections should, and will, be ignored. In my opinion, Poodleboy's comment comes under that heading, as it does not relate to the FA criteria or any other aspect of Wikipedia policy that I'm aware of. This is an important article -- in my opinion the most important one in Wikipedia. But, and for the same reasons, it's going to be about the most difficult article to get to FA. The good news is that you've done 95% of the work -- you've got a comprehensive list of facts, with concensual support and references. I know that that was extremely hard. Now you just need to get a writer who understands the subject to put a layer of good, compelling prose over it, and you're there, as far as I can see. — Johan the Ghost seance 12:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is an inoperable objection that cannot be resolved. I move for it to be struck out. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 06:47, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    What are you saying is an "inoperable objection"? Poodleboy's idea that "FA status will give the community more excuse to resist changes, etc."? Or the comment by User:NHSavage?
    I assume you mean that Poodleboy's objection is inoperable but the positioning of your comment makes the meaning a little ambiguous. --Richard 07:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    The objection is ludicrous. Making an article featured doesn't prevent it from tracking new developments. See eg. Panama Canal which just acquired a whole new section, "Third Set of Locks Project", within 24 hours of the information being published, despite being featured. Global warming science is always going to be in a state of flux, the same as just about every other aspect of human knowledge. Global warming is always going to be one of the most -- if not the most -- difficult article in Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean it can't be featured. — Johan the Ghost seance 12:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and I just learned today what a POV fork is. On reading the WP:POV fork guideline, the following question immediately occurred to me: How would you argue that Global warming controversy is not a POV fork?
Now, you might ask "What does that have to do with Global warming being a featured article?" The answer (IMHO) is: If Global warming controversy is a POV fork, then so is Global warming and the two articles should be merged into Global warming. If that's true, then the content in Global warming controversy has not been adequately covered in Global warming and therefore Global warming should not be FA. I will withhold my vote pending an answer to this question.
(NB: I am not an opponent of global warming but I have been observing that a lot of anti-global warming edits have been slapped down in the month and a half that I have been on Wikipedia.)
--Richard 00:58, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your concern but I do not believe it is justified. The controversy is mentioned in the article not ignored. The controversy article is not really a fork any more than any of the main articles included in the global warming template are forks.--NHSavage 06:19, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. See What content/POV forking is not. Also see WP:NPOV#Undue_weight as for why we do not include any uninformed opinion into the article. This is a controversial topic. Hence it is edited a lot by people who are blindly parroting Rush Limbaugh or The Day after Tomorrow. It's also a complex scientific topic. Hence many of these edits don't improve the quality of the article and are struck down. But this goes both ways. See e.g. the discussion on Talk:Global warming/extreme weather extrapolation graph --Stephan Schulz 07:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Since I've tried to add to this article and other related ones in the past, I don't feel that I should vote on the nomination. However, I will point out that, although the scientific explanations of elements of the theory are excellent and well-presented, I believe the article to be unnecessarily biased towards one point of view. If you'll look at the "discussion" page for the article, including the archived discussions, you will see that many have tried to assist in making the article more neutral. Their comments usually generate pejorative, and often personal, responses from the supporters of the "as is" article. It's true that some have tried to make the article biased the other way, i.e. anti-global warming theory. However, community contributors who have taken a cooperative approach to attempting to address the issue and appear to genuinely want to have as neutral an entry as possible, have usually received the same treatment as those with an obvious agenda. Although complaints are common throughout Wikipedia of articles being "hijacked" by a certain group who won't allow, or very reluctantly allow even minor edits to an article, I believe this article is an example of how sometimes those complaints do have some validity. Cla68 14:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any concrete examples? I've been watching this article for a long time. I have seen a few reverts that are arguable, but nothing on substance. As for "genuinely want to have an article as neutral as possible" - well, intention is irrelevant. What is relevant is if the article is improved by an edit. --Stephan Schulz 09:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say to look at the content sub-headings on the current "Discussion" page for the article starting at "Neutrality" and reading down from there. There's also some good examples of pejorative responses in those entries, including some from an active editor/protector of the page who voted in support of it for FA status. It's obvious that the article draws it's share of trolls and vandals. But, community members who've tried, with good faith or good intentions, to participate in refining the article have been treated, in my opinion, in an unnecessarily dismissive and rude way. Whether my opinion on this matter is valid or should have any bearing on the FA nomination for this article, I'll leave up to the rest of the community. Cla68 16:05, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've read through that section and the few that followed. I found a useful debate, no abuse. WMC and Silverback have a history of debate without pulling punches, but neither has complained so far. This is a contentious page, so it's unreasonable to expect all happy faces and agreement all around...and I'd say that's a good thing. --Stephan Schulz 18:25, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The deletion of the Solanki material and the hostile dismissal of model albedo problems are two examples. I hope you will assist me in inserting legitimate peer reviewed material, even if it disagrees with William's POV.--Poodleboy 03:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I've been spoiled by the more genteel debate the seems to exist in most of the history-related articles. Again, if the community accepts how this article has developed and continues to evolve, then that's that. The community's opinion, of course, trumps my sensibilities on the matter. On a slightly different subject, if the article did add the new in-line references that several community members here suggest, I think the way would be clear for this article to get a clear FA support consensus. Although, I think the stability of the article may be a factor. Cla68 23:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I understand it is a contentious issue, but it's like the neibour next door who just had 3 or 4 mature trees cut down (they had to be affecting either human life or property damage, and i suspect neither, and suspect she didnt obtain a permit or even have an arborist visit, and if she did that would make me even more shocked, they wernt affecting anything, and if they were, removing them has created far more problems than there suposedly were there while they existed) sorry to rant, but anyone who dosent accept the fact of what we're doing to this planet, in my opinion, is mad. Don't take me as a raving 'greenie', believe me, there are plenty of trees out there that need to be cut down, it's just a matter of doing the right 'right' thing. Putting subject matter asside, this article contains amazing information, one of the best combined, overall sources on this 'much needed to have attention drawn to it' issue. Great referencing, well researched, lots of other places to back up and support the article. I can't believe this hasnt become a featured article already. The statistics speak for themselves. Nick carson 08:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So called 'Global Warming' is a mere political tool used by socialists to proffer yet more guilt by the successful in order that they can exact yet more taxes. The so called 'Carbon Credit' companies set up by the people who push this theory are enough proof that its merely profiteering by socialists and victimization of the general public, with emphasis put on the successful who falsely feel guilty based on lies told by the likes of Al Gore. If this wikipedia site were to be truly fair then it would mention these facts. I do suspect that the socialists have some measure of control over this site, however, due to it being riddled with lies elsewhere. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.94.189.182 (talk • contribs).

You are about a year late (and wrong, but that's another issue). --Stephan Schulz 07:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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