Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy/Archive 33

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Recent changes

I've made a substantial number of changes to the article to update various bits and fix some things. I won't bore you with the trivial stuff like spelling corrections, making the dates consistent and linking or delinking, but here are the main items:

I should add that for sources on the SAP's report I've relied principally on the report itself, per Tony's suggestion, using the media as a source for quotes made by the panel during the press conference held earlier today. All of the quotes from the report that I've added have been quoted by the media, so they're not just quotes I've dredged up; I've used the media articles to identify the key quotes from the report rather than trying to make personal choices about which quotes to use. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


The statement that "the CRU's statistical methods were also criticised" is incorrect. The relevant statements are:

  • Although inappropriate statistical tools with the potential for producing misleading results have been used by some other groups, presumably by accident rather than design, in the CRU papers that we examined we did not come across any inappropriate usage although the methods they used may not have been the best for the purpose. It is not clear, however, that better methods would have produced significantly different results. The published work also contains many cautions about the limitations of the data and their interpretation.
  • After reading publications and interviewing the senior staff of CRU in depth, we are satisfied that the CRU tree-ring work has been carried out with integrity, and that allegations of deliberate misrepresentation and unjustified selection of data are not valid. In the event CRU scientists were able to give convincing answers to our detailed questions about data choice, data handling and statistical methodology. The Unit freely admits that many data analyses they made in the past are superseded and they would not do things that way today.
  • Like the work on tree rings this work ["Temperatures from Historical Instrumental Records"] is strongly dependent on statistical analysis and our comments are essentially the same. Although there are certainly different ways of handling the data, some of which might be superior, as far as we can judge the methods which CRU has employed are fair and satisfactory. Particular attention was given to records that seemed anomalous and to establishing whether the anomaly was an artefact or the result of some natural process. There was also the challenge of dealing with gaps in otherwise high quality data series. In detailed discussion with the researchers we found them to be objective and dispassionate in their view of the data and their results, and there was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda. Their sole aim was to establish as robust a record of temperatures in recent centuries as possible. All of the published work was accompanied by detailed descriptions of uncertainties and accompanied by appropriate caveats. The same was true in face to face discussions.

In the above I detect much commendation of the CRU's use of statistics, and no concrete criticism. --TS 01:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I notice now that the same error is repeated in the body of the article, in the section "Science Assessment Panel", which incorrectly states: "The panel criticised the statistical techniques used by the CRU researchers."
I find these errors particularly surprising because I warned yesterday afternoon that precisely this kind of error would occur if care was not taken with the Panel's statements on the CRU's use of statistics, which are very positive--the Panel was obviously impressed both at the way the Unit handled statistics (whether in its publications or face to face) and at the way in which the Unit conscientiously updated chronologies in the light of new statistical methods. The Panel expressed surprise that the Unit didn't work with specialist statisticians. That is, at most, a criticism of their working practices, and only makes the Panel's impression of their statistical competence more significant. --TS 02:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
That's a fair point. I've reworded the relevant lines to cleave more closely to the text that you've highlighted above - see diff. Any thoughts? -- ChrisO (talk) 08:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Serious, Serious, POV issues

Does no one really care to make a serious attempt at NPOV? Jones resignation is portrayed as a temporarily "standing aside", no mention of the FoI act illegalities that were only left unprosecuted because of statute of limitation issues, Jones' revelations about how he lost data, nothing about the harsh criticism from the Institute of Physics (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm), many other scientists who were sharply critical, or any real of the political fallout from this? Fell Gleaming(talk) 22:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Jones has only temporarily stood aside - he hasn't resigned. See [1], which makes it clear that his successor, Peter Liss, is only the acting director while the reviews are ongoing. See also this Daily Telegraph story, "Professor at centre of climate change email row stands down temporarily." We already deal with the FOI Act issue in Climatic Research Unit email controversy#Information Commissioner's Office. You should note that no wrongdoing of any sort, let alone "illegalities", have been proven; it's not simply that the CRU can't be prosecuted because of the statute of limitation issues, but they also can't be investigated because of the same limitation (so no guilt or innocence can be established in the first place). -- ChrisO (talk) 22:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
How about this well-sourced statement, "Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008." [1] Fell Gleaming(talk) 23:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah yes, the sourced statement that the ICO later described as having been inaccurately described in the press, and the Select Committee found was not supported by adequate investigation, so they required the Muir Russell inquiry and/or the ICO to carry out a proper investigation. Prima facie evidence that it's a hyped up statement. . . dave souza, talk 23:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Fell, just suggest here what you would like to add, with accompanying citations, and we'll discuss it. Cla68 (talk) 22:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

We've got (yet another) quote from a random communications professor implying the whole thing is meaningless, but the statement from the 31,000 member Institute of Physics, specifically requested as part of the House of Commons investigations just happened to not get mentioned? And the lede written to imply that no scientists found any wrongdoing? Allow me to quote a bit from the IoP statement:


And no mention of the uproar in the British Press? Or any of the thousands of screaming calls for Jones' head on a silver platter? Even Warmists like Monbiot are calling for him to quit. How do things like that just accidentally get left out? Fell Gleaming(talk) 22:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, you've certainly made your agenda clear. ("Warmists"? Does that mean we can call you a Denialist?). Might I suggest a less combative approach? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
ChrisO, please don't personalize article talk page discussions. If you are unable to comply with this, I suggest stepping away from the article. Fell, please add the other responses you mention to the "Other responses" section in the article. If any of them get removed, we'll discuss it here. Please make sure they are worded neutrally and cited to RS. Cla68 (talk) 23:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
It's not personalisation to comment that Fell seems to have both a flawed knowledge of the facts and an unnecessarily combative attitude. I suggest that he should first seek some feedback from other editors before adding content that has doubtless been omitted purposefully. Fell, why not come up with a form of words and post it here for comments? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
It's also curious that Cla68 chose to ignore FG's "warmist" jibe and instead to focus solely on your objection to it. Your objection should have been made in more dispassionate terms, but that doesn't excuse FG's original language. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:36, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
My agenda is to create a well crafted article that accurately captures the situation. What we have here is a whitewash. The entire name of the article is wrong. Call a spade a spade. This should be the Climategate Controversy -- the name its known by. Did we forget WP:COMMONNAME when this article was created? Fell Gleaming(talk) 23:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Please Fell, don't start that argument again. Even though I agree with you, it won't get us anywhere. Cla68 (talk) 23:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Some people did indeed lose their heads over this, but most kept cool and waited for the truth to come out. The dust is now settling and we have a much clearer picture of what happened. What one or two clowns have said in the meantime doesn't really matter. That's why inquiries are commissioned: to determine the facts and dispel misconceptions and rumor Tasty monster (=TS ) 23:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Tony, did you just call Monbiat a clown? That's a BLP violation. Cla68 (talk) 23:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The Institute of Physics is "one or two clowns" ? Fell Gleaming(talk) 23:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The submission was said to have been written by only one or two individuals in an IoP subcommitee, so... -- ChrisO (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The official APS position statement on climate change was written by three individuals in a subcommittee. I believe something similar is true for the AAAS statement. Do you then support removing their statements from the scientific consensus on global warming list? Fell Gleaming(talk) 01:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the IoP's controversial statement, we did have a paragraph on it but it was removed after discussion. We could always reinstate it: . . dave souza, talk 23:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The committee invited written submissions from interested parties on the three issues that it will examine, by Wednesday 10 February. It has published 55 such submissions received by that date. Submissions have been received from the University of East Anglia, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Met Office, several other bodies, prominent scientists, some global warming 'sceptics', some MEPs and other interested parties. Each submission includes evidence and viewpoints from the body or individual concerned as well as a declaration of their interests.[2] The report submitted by the Institute of Physics expresses concern about the CRU's scientific integrity.[3] According to this report, the emails reveal evidence of "determined and coordinated refusals" to comply with scientific traditions through "manipulation of the publication and peer-review system" and "intolerance to challenge".[4] This report was used by climate sceptics to bolster claims that the problem of global warming is exaggerated. This forced the Institute of Physics to confirm that its position was that "the basic science is well enough understood to be sure that our climate is changing, and that we need to take action now to mitigate that change."[5] Many experts considered that the correction was still inadequate, with climatologist Andy Russell describing the allegation of data suppression as "incorrect and irresponsible". The institute said that the statement had been prepared by their energy subcommittee, but would not reveal who had produced it. It did say that the subcommittee included an IOP official named Peter Gill, whose company provides services to the energy industry and who has written that for many people, the subject of anthropogenic global warming "has become a religion, so facts and analysis have become largely irrelevant".[6] The institute said that Gill was not the main source of information and that other members of the sub-committee were also critical of CRU. Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat member of the Science and Technology Select Committee, said "Members of the Institute of Physics ... may be concerned that the IOP is not as transparent as those it wishes to criticise." However the institute told the Guardian that the submission was "approved by three members of its science board" and supplied comments from an anonymous board member stating "The institute should feel relaxed about the process by which it generated what is, anyway, a statement of the obvious... the points [the submission] makes are ones which we continue to support, that science should be practiced openly and in an unbiased way."[7]
  1. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese
  2. ^ "Science and Technology - Memoranda". House of Commons. Retrieved 27 February 2010.
  3. ^ 'Climategate' Scientist Admits 'Awful E-Mails,' but Peers Say IPCC Conclusions Remain Sound - NYTimes.com
  4. ^ Climategate scientist questioned in Parliament - environment - 02 March 2010 - New Scientist
  5. ^ Institute of Physics forced to clarify submission to climate emails inquiry | Environment | guardian.co.uk
  6. ^ Times Online - Energy consultant 'influenced climate evidence'
  7. ^ Climate emails inquiry: Energy consultant linked to physics body's submission | Environment | The Guardian
Fixing of reflist formatting will be welcomed. . . dave souza, talk 23:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The basic problem starts in the lede, which implies that no one found any evidence of wrongdoing. The position of organizations like the IoP and the Information Commmisioners Office should be reflected there, along with a statement about the tremendous uproar it caused. The lede implies there isn't any controversy at all. Fell Gleaming(talk) 23:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
But nobody has found any wrongdoing. That's the point I made above. There have been claims and allegations but the recent reports have rejected those.
On the IoP issue, I suspect this would probably be undue weight on what is really a very minor issue. The IoP's submission seems to have had little public impact and no impact at all on the select committee's findings, which repudiated at least some of the submission's claims. I don't really see why the IoP's rather contentious submission needs to be highlighted here. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
"The IoP's submission seems to have had little public impact" What is your source for this? Fell Gleaming(talk) 00:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
If the reverse is the case, then it should be possible to demonstrate significant public impact. If it isn't possible to demonstrate, we assume it hasn't had such an impact. --TS 00:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I see, so a statement from a phone interview with random communications professor had enough public impact to warrant notability, but the official statement of a scientific organization representing 31,000 physicists, commissioned specifically to report on the incident, did not? Fell Gleaming(talk) 01:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Are you referring to Krosnick? Krosnick is no random professor, and he presented his findings in a briefing on at the Capitol Hill. As for the Institute of Physics, they seem to have changed their tune and today they simply reported that "The scientists at the centre of the row over the hacked climate emails have been cleared of any deliberate malpractice by the second of three inquiries into their conduct.". --TS 01:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
How do you construe that as "changing their tune"? They have not retracted nor abrogated their original, official statement, nor does a clearing of "deliberate" malpractice excise the majority of the points the IoP raised. Fell Gleaming(talk) 07:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Fell Gleaming refers to "thousands of screaming calls for Jones' head on a silver platter". There were indeed death threats, and these were and perhaps still are being investigated by the police. This information is no longer present in the article, presumably because the death threats were a transient phenonemon which quickly subsided once the police announced that they were investigating. --TS 01:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The death threats were still reported to be ongoing (at the rate of a few a week) when Phil Jones was interviewed by the Times a couple of months ago. There's an interesting related article by Clive Hamilton here. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Institute of Physics

A submission to the Select Committee written by the Institute of Physics got a little attention in the blogs, some of the press and even here, perhaps because it seemed to give credence to serious allegations of impropriety. In the event the import of the Institute's submission was rejected, and even drew rebuke from members of the Committee. I'm not sure whether it merits cover, but I should say that it probably doesn't merit much cover, because its influence was nil. Tasty monster (=TS ) 00:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The removal of the old reference to the IOP's submission seemed to be discussed in Archive 32 (just search on "IOP"). --TS 02:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Inaccurate claim

Marknutley added the following claim:

The UEA was heavily criticised by Professor David Hand, the president of the Royal Statistical Society, over what he said "They used a particular statistical technique that exaggerated the effect [of recent warming]".[1]

In fact, if you read the article properly, Hand's criticism had nothing to do with the UEA - it relates to the hockey stick graph developed by Mann et al, who of course doesn't work for the UEA. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It also says it criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics so shall we put it back with that instead mark nutley (talk) 07:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
It also says "The hockey stick graph was a key part of the scandal. In the e-mails, UEA’s Professor Phil Jones referred to a “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperatures suggested by certain sources of data. A similar trick was used in the hockey stick graph". Looks like we have a reliable source to call it a scandal now as well mark nutley (talk) 07:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
See Tony's comments under #Recent changes above. I think he has a valid point. I'm mulling over how to respond to it. Note that David Hand was actually very complimentary about the CRU's use of data (see his comments here). Note also the tone of Lord Oxburgh's remarks - "he said the reviewers found that the scientists could have used better statistical methods in analysing some of their data" - which is rather different from saying that the scientists had failed. "Room for improvement" is not the same as "failure". As for "scandal", this has been discussed endlessly here - don't reopen that word to avoid, please. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:01, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Mark, this definitely ties into the ClimateGate scandal (as the FT reporter himself concluded), but I don't see Hand "directly criticizing" the UAE here. That appears to be synthesis. Fell Gleaming(talk) 08:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The following passage from the report, highlighted above by Tony, is worth noting: Although inappropriate statistical tools with the potential for producing misleading results have been used by some other groups, presumably by accident rather than design, in the CRU papers that we examined we did not come across any inappropriate usage although the methods they used may not have been the best for the purpose. This is more a case of "could have done better" rather than "did something wrong". -- ChrisO (talk) 08:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I am unsure how you get did nothing wrong from this statement failures in handling statistics Failing is doing something wrong, do you mean nothing wrong in their refusal to share data or their methods? mark nutley (talk) 08:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The problem in this case is that, Hand's statement led with mitigatory language, which means leading with "criticism" doesn't appear neutral. Directly quoting that the methods "may not have been the best" would be better. Fell Gleaming(talk) 08:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
MN's statement reflects a lack of understanding of the science, and was correctly removed. It is regrettable that he is adding material that he doesn't understand. It cannot be a co-incidence that this suits the POV of his "side" William M. Connolley (talk) 08:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
William, I'm going to ask you to abide by your civility restriction and self-revert your last comment. Fell Gleaming(talk) 08:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I see nothing uncivil about that remark, in fact I had to check the talk page history to check whether or not the said remark had already been removed. Mark is reflecting a lack of understanding of the science. StuartH (talk) 10:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Erm, what does understanding the "science" have to do with Professor David Hand the president of the Royal Statistical Society saying a graph shaped like an ice hockey stick that has been used to represent the recent rise in global temperatures had been compiled using “inappropriate” methods and the UEA saying they criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics. this is not about the so called science, it is about mistakes made. Are you perhaps saying that the enquiry by the UEA and David Hand do not understand the "science"? after all, i am just quoting them mark nutley (talk) 10:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I think it's been well demonstrated that you are misquoting them and that you are engaging in inappropriate synthesis that does not reflect the original sources. StuartH (talk) 10:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I beg to differ, i have not misquoted anything. Nor am i engaging in any form of synthesis here, i copied and pasted the above quotes from the ft`s article, how am i misquoting when it is word for word the same? mark nutley (talk) 11:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The actual quote was "It used a particular statistical technique...". You changed the start of the quote to "They", and stated that the UEA was the "they" being referred to. The word was "it", and "it" referred to the graph. The evidence that you misquoted and misrepresented the source could hardly be clearer. StuartH (talk) 11:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That`s called readability, it read better that way. And as he was talking about the uea then yes it was the they he was refering to, as they used the same junk methods mann did. Now instead of chasing strawmen how about suggestion an alternative for the text i ahd put in? mark nutley (talk) 11:36, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

You are never, ever supposed to change the wording in a quote because you think it has more "readability" that way, particularly not if it completely changes the interpretation of the quote. Your edit was inaccurate and dishonest, and had no redeeming merit. I think the burden's on you to suggest an edit that does not violate multiple Wikipedia (and possibly legal) policies. StuartH (talk) 11:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I just read the FT article you guys are discussing, and as far as I can tell the comments specifically refer to the hockey stick graph; however, the comments about the CRU statistics are used as context. Incidentally, the FT writer claims the report mentions "failures in handling the statistics", but that is not the case. As has been said previously, the press consistently misrepresents the facts about every aspect of this incident making it necessary for anyone working on this article to make sure every reference is checked for accuracy by corroborating it with others (if available). -- Scjessey (talk) 11:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Mark's persistent inability to parse Hand's and the Panel's very plain and clear praise of the Unit's use of statistics is unfortunate, and it's pretty much a worst-case example of the kind of thing I warned about yesterday.

Sloppy treatment can result in damaging falsehoods being inserted. Those falsehoods must be removed under the BLP.

Please note that I am not advocating edit warring, but I hope all parties will be sensible about this.

The Panel praised the Unit's handling of statistics but said they could do better if they worked alongside specialists. That's not what some more careless readings of the report have said, both here and elsewhere. We have higher standards of accuracy than anybody else. Tasty monster (=TS ) 12:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Tony i am curious were you get, they were praised when in the article it clearly says "it criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics" Now were i come from, that`s far from praise. Now unless someone suggests an alternate text to what was removed i will have to assume it was removed for wp:idontlikeit and shall have to put it back in mark nutley (talk) 12:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
As I noted above, it was the FT writer who said this, not the report. The word "failure" does not appear anywhere in the report, in fact. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

If the article you are quoting says flatly that the Panel criticised the Unit for mishandling statistics (which it did not) or implies in any way that the Panel found the Unit's use of statistics to be inappropriate (an opinion the Panel explicitly rejects in its report), then your source is not an adequate representation of the report's conclusions and should not be relied upon as a representation of the facts.

There is no shortage of more accurate articles on the report, so those containing significant errors don't need to be given undue attention. Tasty monster (=TS ) 12:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

If on the other hand you go back to the article and find it the case that Simon's suggestion, that the article does not say what you thought it said, holds true, then this indicates again the pressing need for care in our treatment of the facts. Tasty monster (=TS ) 13:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
We use what the sources say, if the source says "it criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics" then that`s what goes in. Tony, do you have any links to these plentiful sources saying they handled statistics properly? mark nutley (talk) 13:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I note that you've had your misreading explained to you once by another editor, and have acknowledged it to the extent of replying to it, even if you did not understand it. Unless there are others who don't yet understand the way in which you misread the article, we can now move on. Tasty monster (=TS ) 13:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Revert

This edit shows a revert, without a proper summary, of an edit of mine that averted a misrepresentation of the sources. I have now extracted the relevant quotations from the citations showing that the "climate change skeptics" attribution is not represented by most of them. You can check these at the reference section: [[2]]. I'd like to see the edit restored, and will do so myself pending a good reason not to.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that your version is more NPOV and better supported by the sources. Cla68 (talk) 20:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Your version is both more neutral and more accurate, agreed. I'm sure the editor in question will self-revert it. FellGleaming (talk) 20:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I didn't revert (here's a clue: I don't spell "sceptics" as "skeptics"). The "climate change skeptics" wording appears to have been in the article for some time - I don't know when it was added. My edit was to change "The emails prompted allegations by climate change skeptics" to "The emails were widely publicised and prompted climate change skeptics to alleged" [sic - now fixed] as you can see here. Next time I'd appreciate it if Heyitspeter could read diffs properly before making unjustified accusations. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm amazed at the utter disregard for an {{inuse}} template. Sure, it's not backed by policy, just basic courtesy. Guettarda (talk) 20:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

As you would have noted if you'd viewed the disputed edit, the inuse template was added with said edit, not before. The template as not disregarded.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Frankly, that is an excellent point. Almost every conflict on Wikipedia begins with a violation of basic courtesy in some way or another. If we can focus on upholding it, we can probably avoid most conflicts. See also: Wikipedia:Etiquette. Viriditas (talk) 21:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Actually this edit by Heyitspeter was incorrect. Edit summary = ("climate change skeptics" attribution not supported by the sources authored by Johnson, Fahrenthold, and Randerson. See those sources) The sources didn't include the ones by Johnson, Fahrenthold and Randerson, but rather those by Hickman in the Guardian and Revkin in the NY Times, both of which explicitly attribute the stir in the blogosphere to "skeptics". Plus, I'll put in one more RS for the same statement, and revert this passage back to the form it was prior to when ChrisO made it a bit too concise ([3]) such that it lost the sequence of (1) The emails being uploaded to skeptic websites, (2) climate change skeptics' allegations on the blogosphere, and in turn (3) widespread attention in the media (much of which used the word coined on the blogosphere--"climategate"). ... Kenosis (talk) 23:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
These sources are included at that link, and are misattributed. Look closer? I do not know why these reliable sources were since removed. I will readd them. --Heyitspeter (talk) 03:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Hopefully this is phrased in a sufficiently agreeable manner, with attribution given clearly.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Hopelessly pov, pushing the views of the WSJ and some Libertarian magazine as though they in any way represented a reasonable overview. As discussed earlier, a more concise overview of the article is appropriate here, so I've trimmed out the cruft and modified wording a little. If more explanation is needed, it should come from properly independent third party sources. . . dave souza, talk 08:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Ambiguity in the lead

The following paragraph from the lead is highly ambiguous in making its attributions:

Three independent reviews into the affair were initiated in the UK, two of which have now concluded. During the reviews, the CRU's director, Professor Phil Jones, stood aside from his post. Reports by the House of Commons' Science and Technology Select Committee and an independent Science Assessment Panel commissioned by the UEA concluded that there was no evidence of malpractice on the part of the CRU and Phil Jones[2], though they did find that there was room for improvement in some of the CRU's working practices.[2][3] The scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity" was determined to not be challenged by the emails[4] and there was "no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit."[2] The UEA was criticised for a "culture of withholding information"[5] and although the CRU's use of statistics was generally commended, some of their methods may not have been the best for the purpose[2]. The reports concluded that Phil Jones had no case to answer[5] and that better statistical methods might not have produced significantly different results.[2] The CRU's detractors were also criticised, with one of the reports deploring the tone of their criticism and finding that some of the criticism had been "selective and uncharitable".[2] The findings of the third review have yet to be published.

It's not at all clear to which report the various statements belong. If someone with a better knowledge of the sources wants to sort this out it'd be appreciated. Feel free to use this space to propose drafts, or just edit the article directly.--Heyitspeter (talk) 04:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

There's some merit in showing which is which, as the reports cover different areas, with some overlap. . . . dave souza, talk 08:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes.--Heyitspeter (talk) 19:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Conflict of interest claims

I added a brief sentence about this following the report's conclusions. Fell Gleaming(talk) 04:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You forgot Oxburgh's oil industry connections, and the refutations of these "charges". Something needing resolved if this sentence is to remain. . . dave souza, talk 08:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. I don't think text that omits his cahirmanship of Shell (not the most obvious place for an eco-freak) can be considered unbiased William M. Connolley (talk) 09:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Then add it, don't simply remove the text. Arzel (talk) 13:26, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


Conflict of interest claims should be covered in the context in which they were made. I think we get this broadly right at least in the latest revision I looked at. A brief paragraph outlines the claims and the source (climate skeptics).

We could, and perhaps should, emphasize that these complaints, or at least some of them, were made before the inquiry reported its results. It wasn't just a case of sour grapes.

It might also be as well to juxtapose the claims with the statement that the Panel members had been recommended to the University by the Royal Society. This considerably weakens the implications of the claims, at least for those skeptics who are not also advocating a conspiracy theory involving one of the world's most prestigious scientific bodies. Tasty monster (=TS ) 14:19, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the suggestions made on both sides are valid. Point out the COI criticisms were made before the paper aired, and also note that Oxburgh was independently appointed by the Royal Society. I don't think anyone could consider that anything but neutral and balanced. Fell Gleaming(talk) 16:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Page protection and warning

And here we go again. Page fully protected for a day. Next time, I will examine the edit warring far more closely, and issue unilateral topic bans to those I believe to be most disruptive. NW (Talk) 15:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

New ref

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100503/hari William M. Connolley (talk) 09:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Should be required reading for editors here, especially the ones this statement applies to: Many Americans assume that if a story has been in the news section of a reputable English newspaper, it has been fact-checked. Guettarda (talk) 13:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The death threats

Early versions of this article referred to the death threats resulting from the hysterical and vile lies that were posted on some blogs about the climate scientists.

For reasons I do not quite understand, those terrible acts of intimidation, which were investigated by the police in several countries and are surely one of the most worrying aspects of this affair, no longer seem to be mentioned at all in the article.

I propose that editors move to restore that content. A regular editor assures me that Doctor Jones mentioned the ongoing campaign of intimidation in an interview as recently as two months ago, so evidently the threats have become a harsh and cruel reality to at least one dedicated, honest, and now vindicated scientist.

It's time to put all those facts into the article, now that the situation is much clearer and any doubts about the scientists' honesty (not to mention their admirable fortitude in seeing off the false accusations) have been laid to rest. Tasty monster (=TS ) 20:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This seems a bit premature. We should wait a couple of months to see how the past (and future) events are interpreted. We have people pronouncing a general "vindication" while there are obvious gray areas to this story. The death treats are unfortunate but not unheard of in these circumstances (scandals).130.232.214.10 (talk) 08:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

An interesting interpretation is given by the IP contributor, how "gray areas" are reason for WP to not report death threats against CRU scientists. This after two separate investigations clear the CRU of the "scandalous" charges such as professional misconduct (criticizing them instead for evasion of Freedom of Information Act requests, with one of the few remaining grey areas being that the original electronic theft of the material is still unresolved). Yet death threats against the CRU scientists are merely "unfortunate but not unheard of in these circumstances". Bizarre. Anyway, TS, what RSs report such threats? ... Kenosis (talk) 12:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. Whether and how any remaining 'grey areas' are cleared up is irrelevant to the issue of death threats made to the scientists. I found reports in the UK press: Guardian (Dec 8th) http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/hacked-climate-emails-death-threats, and The Sunday Times, Feb 7th: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017905.ece. The Times piece (based on an interview with Jones) was thought newsworthy by the BBC, who covered the same material here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8502823.stm. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 12:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'd have preferred the whole write-up of this even to have been a bit slower, we could ahve avoided many of the unpleasant arguments had we waited a bit. But it is too late to call for slowness now William M. Connolley (talk) 21:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

As I remarked above, the death threats are covered in earlier versions of the article, so it may be worth our while to examine the sources that are used in such coverage. Someone mentioned a more recent interview with Phil Jones where the threats are discussed.

Earlier discussions on this talk page, presumably now archived, referred to related reports of intimidation of other climate scientists, as well as fraudulent attempts to gain access to offices of other institutions conducting climate research. I'm not sure whether we would want to cover break-ins etc here, though, even though some sources make the connection as it would tend to dilute the focus of the article and the sources are engaging in speculation for the most part.

Perhaps there is enough material to merit a stub article on the general subject of dirty tricks played on scientists, but I would have to think about that. Perhaps the police investigations will eventually throw up concrete information that would merit such an article. Tasty monster (=TS ) 14:30, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Squiddy, your last link seems to be the recent story I referred to above. I'm really rather surprised that this has not been covered here in recent months, given the availability of such material. The terrible price paid by scientists for the lies and false accusations spread about them is one of the most significant aspects of this affair. Tasty monster (=TS ) 14:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the discussions on that issue took place at a point when you were taking a short break from the article. As I recall, certain editors did not want to include the intimidation of scientists because they felt the threats has not been proven, were exaggerated or were just not important. (I've been struck by the consistent desire of some to minimise or eliminate any mention of wrong-doing by "sceptics" - the intimidation, the hack itself, the pre-hack abuse of FOI to harass the CRU, and so on.)
So how do we deal with the threats in this article?:
I think we should certainly describe the personal impact on the scientists involved, particularly Phil Jones, for which the Feb 2010 Times article would be our key source. However, it's clear (per Clive Hamilton and other reports) that there's a general trend of climate scientists being targeted with death threats and general intimidation, and that this is directly related to the current wave of right-wing extremism being fomented in particular by the US Republicans. There should easily be enough source material for a para or two - perhaps in Global warming controversy? -- ChrisO (talk) 16:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
US Republicans are driving death threats against climate scientists? Give me a break. Eco-violence is a domain of the far left. Arzel (talk) 13:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm still taking a "hands off" approach to this article (and indeed, for the past two weeks to all articles even remotely connected to climate change, because I have noticed that extraordinarily good work results regardless of whether I edit the articles. All editors involved are to be commended on the consistently high quality of the articles. My comments may be taken only as those of an intelligent, well informed reader.

On the notion that there may be a large organised element, I regard that as interesting but far too speculative for an encyclopedia, which as I've said more than once deals in facts rather than suspicion and rumor.

On the trend towards unreason and rabble-rousing, well there is plenty of that and it speaks for itself, but for the most part it is ignored by reasonable people and probably doesn't merit coverage here. Tasty monster (=TS ) 17:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

[4] may be a useful link William M. Connolley (talk) 21:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

IMO, people who issue death threats should be hunted down with dogs and hung up by their thumbs. But the sad fact of the matter is that such threats are so common for those in the news that they hardly qualify as notable. I got them back when I was a student writing for my university paper. Kauffner (talk) 01:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That is not a problem. Please let us know which article on Wikipedia contains your biography and we, Wikipedia, will decide whether to include a reference to those death threats.
It is not acceptable to use the "they asked for it" argument. You know that. There is nothing in Wikipedia policy that says we don't write up a rape if the victim was wearing a short dress. There is nothing in Wikipedia policy that says we ignore a beating because the victim was a prisoner. There is nothing in Wikipedia policy that says we ignore death threat because the victim is a scientist. --TS 02:38, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reminder: TS is, for techical reasons, Tasty monster
Good lord, that isn't what he was saying at all. If Al Gore stubbed his toe this morning, he probably didn't "ask for it", but we're not going to put it in his entry, either. A murder is notable. A rape is notable. A death threat generally isn't...unless the police have charged someone, or at least independently verified the claim. The simple truth is that countless people in a bad PR position claim to have received "death threats". It's a common and easy way to generate sympathy. Fell Gleaming(talk) 03:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Note that hundreds of Wikipedia articles include mention of death threats,[5], including an article on a global warming contrarian. Equating death threats that were taken seriously enough to be investigated by the authorities to stubbing one's toe is wholly inappropriate. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
You counted them all? As for the Ball article, that's one short sentence. I wouldn't complain about that here...but loose talk is flying here about adding reams of material, even an entire article on the subject for god's sake. Honestly, people need to get a sense of balance. Fell Gleaming(talk) 06:17, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
The threats have been reported quite widely, and have sparked police or FBI investigations on both sides of the Atlantic. They also give an insight into the depth of feeling involved, and show the lengths to which some of the more extreme partisans are willing to go. IMHO they deserve a mention in this article (although not a whole article to themselves). It needn't be more than a sentence or two, and wouldn't add significantly to the bulk of this article. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 08:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, I at least am not proposing a separate article on the death threats--there obviously isn't enough material. I am proposing that we cover them at appropriate length and prominence in this article.

Some related issues were discussed and I proposed that we might one day have, as a result of police investigations, sufficient material to go towards a separate article on dirty tricks played on scientists. In my view, if ever written this would not be an article solely about the targeting of the Climatic Research Unit, nor solely about the harassment of climate scientists.

In any event, I do not think we have sufficient material for such an article at present. But we do have more than enough on the death threats to enable us to cover them (as we did in earlier revisions). Tasty monster (=TS ) 18:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't see including alleged death threats in this article at this point. Several sites give this:

“There were death threats,” he says. “People said I should go and kill myself. They said they knew where I lived.” 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.

I am not doubting that there were death threats, but there are no details about them. All Jones specifies is suggestions that he commit suicide. This would more properly go in the remarkably brief biography of Phil Jones. Yopienso (talk) 18:40, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

As remarked earlier, not only Jones has been threatened and police investigations were initiated in several countries. it would be difficult to find more serious or pertinent subject matter currently absent from the article. Tasty monster (=TS ) 18:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)

They were not just made to Jones, though. The Guardian article linked above starts:

Two of the scientists involved in "Climategate" – the e-mail hacking incident at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, UK – have been emailed death threats since the contents of their private e-mails were leaked to the world. No further information can be revealed about these particular threats at present because they are currently under investigation with the FBI in the United States. Many other CRU scientists and their colleagues have received torrents of abusive and threatening e-mails since the leaks first began in mid-November 2009.

Note that 'Many other CRU scientists and their colleagues' have been threatened, and these emails arrived in 'torrents' since the leaks first began. So it would be appropriate to put it in this article, surely? Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 18:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is a revision from late December in which the death threat investigations are covered. The relevant references seem to be 5 and 22 to 24. Tasty monster (=TS ) 19:17, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely appropriate, Squiddy, and thanks for the link to the older version, TS. Imho, that information should be restored. Seems to me "hate mail" may be a better name for some of the communications. Jones's bio could still be expanded. Yopienso (talk) 19:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
comment I have some doubts as to whether the death threats warrant a mention. I say that because the references that are available simply mention the existence of death threats without any further details. Many of them are also careful to use the qualifier "alleged". There are no comments from investigating authorities (is there?) and no indication of the content of the emails except for Jones' comment that "People said I should go and kill myself". Until and unless further detail is made available, I don't think it's worth including. Thepm (talk) 21:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

There was an e-mail to Jones from Ben Santer that said, "Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."[6] Why isn't this in the article? Why didn't Jones report it to the police? Kauffner (talk) 05:55, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

A blog source, and at least in the UK feeling tempted to violence isn't a crime, misreporting such statements is irresponsible and may be a crime. Consider yourself admonished. . . dave souza, talk 07:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
It was published on the site of a major newspaper. It's certainly not self-published, i.e. the negative meaning of blog. Here are the same claims in a New York Times news article and here is the original e-mail. I don't doubt that it is legal to "feel" anything you like, but writing threatening material is another matter. Kauffner (talk) 07:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

In what way is that email relevant to this discussion?

I'm not asking for a response that attempts to draw some link between that communication and the police investigation of death threats, I'm asking in what way your comments are likely to improve the article's coverage.

I ask this because, right now, your comments seem to be asking us to engage in some kind of original research to draw a connection. Tasty monster (=TS ) 08:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

"In what way is that email relevant to this discussion?" The email is relevant because the controversy is not simply about accusations of scientific fraud. It also includes charges of stonewalling and silencing critics, hiding data and ignoring FOI requests, manipulating peer review, and others, as well as a general climate of intolerance to dissent. Fell Gleaming(talk) 03:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

That is an interesting observation. If Santer had sent an email to Michaels saying that he was going to beat the crap out of him the next time he saw him, that would be a threat of violence, yet since he sent it to Jones it is not? Change "beat the crao out of" to "shot" and does it change? Change "Michaels" to "the President" and does it change? In general, though, I agree that any mention of threats should be minimized, unless they have been shown to be actionable. If everyone's bio here included the few times that someone else wished they would die, then that is all WP would be. We could create a death threat template ("Times wished to Die", "Times wished they would commit suicide", etc..). Arzel (talk) 13:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
One argument used against inclusion here carries no weight whatsoever IMHO. Saying "The country where I live is so violent that everyone gets death threats" is no reason to expunge mention of them from relevant articles on Wikipedia. In the UK, among the professional science community, within specialist research groups, well-documented death threats are quite extraordinary. --Nigelj (talk) 14:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Can we have a little bit of reason please?

  • If A privately says to B "I am almost in a mind to kill C" then that is a slightly problematic, but normal, way of expressing strong feelings. (Assuming, of course, that A doesn't mean it, as usual.)
  • If the private communication between A and B is published by a third party it is not the fault of A.
  • If A says to C "I am almost in a mind to kill you" then it is a threat. Saying something like that directly to the person generally has a higher threshold. A deliberately crosses it, risking (or desiring) that C take it seriously.
  • If A privately says to B "I am almost in a mind to kill C, then that is no excuse for D writing to E: "I know where you live and will kill you." Regardless of any connections between the five.
  • The appropriate weight to give a threat in our articles is approximately determined by the weight it receives in reliable sources. This is normally correlated with how much space it gets in the reliable sources. This very obviously does not apply when a source says the following: "No further information can be revealed about these particular threats at present because they are currently under investigation [...]." In that case the best thing we can do is report everything that is contained in the source. Hans Adler 14:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
As above, Hans, where I live, and in the work I have done, no-one has every talked about killing anyone. Any such talk would be completely extraordinary. --Nigelj (talk) 14:26, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry if I was misleading. My point was that even if a legitimate climate researcher had written about killing a "skeptic" in a confidential email, there would be no problem. But it appears that the worst "violence fantasy" that could be found was "beat[ing] the crap out of" someone at a conference, of all places.
I don't know where comments like that made by Kauffner come from. It's all so illogical that it seems hard to believe that somebody actually believes it makes sense. Hans Adler 22:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
The content of the leaked CRU e-mail is what is this article is supposed to be about. Threats and other notable aspects of this e-mail are being excluded because they don't fit the "martyrdom of Dr. Jones" narrative. And "Why don't you commit suicide?" is certainly a very rude thing to say, but not necessarily a death threat. Celebs get death threats all the time, especially if this sort of material counts. I gather that where ever Nigelj is employed, a threat to "beat the crap out of" someone qualifies as light banter, but suicide and death? Just don't go there. Kauffner (talk) 02:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
You are confirming my use of the word illogical was appropriate. Hans Adler 07:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I think obtuse might be even more appropriate... -- ChrisO (talk) 08:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it helps to get personal about this. There seems to be consensus for the inclusion and it has been performed. --TS 17:11, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not agree that there is consensus to add the material about death threats. Of course took them seriously, that's what we pay them to do. If it had been anything other than idiotic nonsense, we would have heard something by now. The fact that months have gone by without a single report of anyone being charged should be evidence to anyone with a clue that there wasn't anything beyond the usual tendency of idiots to act idiotically. I request that you revert the addition, and if you are really convinced there is consensus, do a poll.--SPhilbrickT 16:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Rv: why

I removed some stuff; I agreed with DS's reasons William M. Connolley (talk) 09:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

At least some of what was added back to the lead seems to have been a retread of material previously removed after considerable discussion following the two independent reports vindicating the work of Phil Jones and the Unit.

My view on this, which I think has attracted a lot of support, is that the story has moved on and for BLP reasons if nothing else we should avoid unduly dwelling on the refuted charges of deliberate manipulation in the lead. They should be covered fully in the body. Considerable weight should be given to the almost universal rejection, and the eventual decisive refutation, of the false charges.

I urge all editors to settle any differences by further discussion, not edit warring. Tasty monster (=TS ) 14:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, these accusations are outdated. They may have been made in good faith, but they have been shown to be in error. They should thus not be covered as if they were facts. Guettarda (talk) 15:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
The accusations that some believe we should "move on from", are still the heart of the story here. The fact that some or all of them have been proven baseless doesn't mean they are no longer part of the narrative. It is impossible to understand what all the fuss was about if we remove any reference to the original accusations. Removing them from the lead is blatantly POV and will lead to a bland, whitewashed article leaving the reader puzzled about why we have an article on this at all. Thparkth (talk) 15:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • raising questions whether the emails showed scientific misconduct and mishandling of Freedom of Information requests by the CRU. vs. The ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'' reported the emails revealed apparent efforts to withhold scientific data and to ensure the [[IPCC]] include their own views and exclude others.<ref name="Johnson_2009-11-23_WSJ" /> The [[Information Commissioner's Office|ICO]] stated that the emails revealed that freedom of information requests were possibly 'not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation' but that they would not investigate further due to [[statute of limitations]].
    • Note the days on the WSJ story. Four days after the files were posted on the Russian server. That's too close to the events to have any sense of perspective.
    • The subject here isn't the WSJ's reporting, the subject is the actual set of events.
    • Presented without appropriate context, your version gives undue emphasis to accusations of misdeeds. Giving undue weight to allegations that have been largely disproven is misleading and creates WP:BLP problems.
    • Your wording replaces a sentence meant to summarise a number of sources with the opinion of a single source. This gives undue weight to the WSJ article, while minimising the other skeptics. Note the actual paragraph in the article:

Climate change sceptics gained wide publicity in blogs and news media,[reference] making allegations that the hacked emails showed evidence that climate scientists manipulated data.[reference] A few other commentators such as Roger A. Pielke said that the evidence supported claims that dissenting scientific papers had been suppressed.[reference] The Wall Street Journal reported the emails revealed apparent efforts to ensure the IPCC include their own views and exclude others and to withhold scientific data.[reference] Reason reported that the CRU evidently plotted to remove journal editors with whom they disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked.[reference] The ICO made a statement that the emails revealed that freedom of information requests were 'not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation' but that they could not prosecute due to statue of limitations.[reference]

Many commentators quoted one email referring to a "trick" used in Mann's graph to deal with the well-known tree ring divergence problem to "hide the decline" that particular proxy showed for modern temperatures after 1950, when measured temperatures were rising. These two phrases were taken out of context by climate change sceptics including Senator Jim Inhofe and former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin as though they referred to a decline in measured global temperatures, even though they were written when temperatures were at a record high.[reference] In their inquiry into allegations of research misconduct, Penn State reviewers found "[t]he so-called 'trick' was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field."[reference] The Parliament of the United Kingdom select committee inquiry concluded that "[Trick] appears to be a colloquialism for a "neat" method of handling data," and "[hide the decline] was a shorthand for the practice of discarding data known to be erroneous".[reference]

Guettarda (talk) 16:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Note the days on the WSJ story - it's not required for the WSJ to have had "a sense of perspective" at the time. We are reporting the events of the controversy, not correcting mistakes made during it by newspapers.
The subject here isn't the WSJ's reporting - The way the media reported this story is a key part of the story itself. It's a controversy.
undue emphasis to accusations of misdeeds - it is impossible to give "undue emphasis to accusations of misdeeds" in an article that is essentially about accusations of misdeeds.
undue weight to the WSJ article - the WSJ's reporting was typical of that in the early days of the controversy. More sources could be added, if you want to clutter up the lead, but there's no excuse for using "undue weight" as an excuse to remove any mention of the basic criticisms at the heart of the controversy.
Thparkth (talk) 17:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree fully with the reversion of this material. Specific points of concern:
  • Citing the WSJ's opinion is undue weight on that newspaper's views - there is no indication of what makes the WSJ any more authoritative than any other newspaper which has opined on the affair.
  • Highlighting the ICO's views here without any context gives a misleading impression of the status of the FOI issue, suggesting that it's been resolved.
  • "concerns remained about attempts to stonewall critics and hide data" - this is very POV language (basically reiterating denialist claims as fact) and I'm pretty sure the reports didn't say anything like that.
  • I'm uncomfortable about including the denialist smears of Lord Oxburgh. There is a clear BLP issue here, given that it's essentially an insinuation of impropriety. We may well need to add something if only to rebut the smears, but it will have to be very carefully worded and sourced and discussed beforehand - it certainly needs more than someone just slipping it into the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
    • Hmm, I had missed that bit. Guettarda (talk) 17:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • We are reporting the events of the controversy, not correcting mistakes made during it by newspapers
  • The way the media reported this story is a key part of the story itself
  • the WSJ's reporting was typical of that in the early days of the controversy

    While it's possible that this information should be in the article, it isn't now. Not to mention that moving this sentence to the lead does not achieve this goal.

  • there's no excuse for using "undue weight" as an excuse to remove any mention of the basic criticisms

    The "basic criticisms" were there already. The "undue weight" issue refers to giving undue weight to a single source, when the article includes several sources and criticisms.

  • And what about the BLP issues? Guettarda (talk) 17:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
This is the lede we're talking about. Sure, typical and prominent arguments used during the height of the controversy should be covered in the body of the article, but we're discussing promoting just one or two (WSJ and Reason magazine) to the lede. Now that the official reports are coming in, and the facts are becoming known, all the initial speculation and fury needs to be more clearly put into its true place - i.e. signifying almost nothing - as the incident drifts into the past. --Nigelj (talk) 18:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Still working on this solution. Alternative proposals welcome

The WP:UNDUE arguments displayed here consist in statements that representing the views of "a single source" is itself a violation of that policy. I hope this clear restatement is enough to show that such an argument is invalid.

Parsing out the sources for clear attribution was an attempt to avoid misattributing the allegations to "climate change sceptics," a mistake made in an earlier version of the article. If you have a compromise wording feel free to place it here. The disputed paragraph is as follows:

The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). According to the university, the emails and documents were obtained through the hacking of a server. The emails prompted allegations by climate change skeptics[6][7][8] and widespread publicity in the media. The Wall Street Journal reported the emails revealed apparent efforts to withhold scientific data and to ensure the IPCC include their own views and exclude others.[9] Reason reported that the CRU evidently plotted to remove journal editors with whom they disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked.[10] The ICO made a statement that the emails revealed that freedom of information requests were 'not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation' but that they could not prosecute due to statute of limitations.[11] The UEA and CRU rejected the allegations[12][13] and a number of academics, climate change researchers, and independent reports found that most or all of the allegations of fraud were baseless, though concerns remained about attempts to stonewall critics and hide data.[12][8][14]

Happy editing.--Heyitspeter (talk) 19:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Including allegations about code as per UNDUE:

The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). According to the university, the emails and documents were obtained through the hacking of a server. The emails prompted allegations by climate change skeptics[6][7][8] and widespread publicity in the media. The Wall Street Journal reported the emails revealed apparent efforts to withhold scientific data and to ensure the IPCC include their own views and exclude others.[9] Reason reported that the CRU evidently plotted to remove journal editors with whom they disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked.[10] The ICO made a statement that the emails revealed that freedom of information requests were 'not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation' but that they could not prosecute due to statute of limitations.[11] The BBC and Computerworld also raised concerns about the quality and accuracy of the CRU's coding methods as prompted by coding documentation released with the emails.[15][16] The UEA and CRU rejected the allegations[12][13] and a number of academics, climate change researchers, and independent reports found that most or all of the allegations of fraud were baseless, though concerns remained about attempts to stonewall critics and hide data.[12][8][14]

I am happy with compressing these attributions into fewer sentences, perhaps by exchanging specific attributions for the words "Newspapers," "Magazines" and "News broadcasts," or something similar. What I am not happy with is subsuming these attributions under "climate change sceptics." That would violate WP:OR/WP:V. Nor am I happy with excluding them entirely. That would violate WP:UNDUE. In any case, I encourage editors to work towards a better phrasing of this information.--Heyitspeter (talk) 19:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Your proposed version ignores all of the concerns which I raised above. It's not a serious proposal. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
You have misinterpreted this subsection and apparently failed to read it through to the end. Here is a place to display the disputed paragraph clearly so that editors can propose compromise wordings. Please do so.--Heyitspeter (talk) 19:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't see the point of changing the lede - what we have now is good enough. I don't think any reasonable justification has been made for this revision. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
To paraphrase the justification given in this section: Subsuming these allegations under "climate change sceptics" would violate WP:OR/WP:V. Excluding them entirely would violate WP:UNDUE.
The present version (undergoing an edit-war stalled by a full protect) takes the exclusion route. That's not okay.--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Please re-read the section above. You see to have misunderstood the UNDUE issue. Guettarda (talk) 20:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Let's remember, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings." There's still one more investigation underway, and when that report is in, this will all have to be done over. The final result--general support of the scientists--is perhaps a given, since they're 2 for 0 at present. Just saying, today's version will be reworked anyway, so let's not get too worked up about it. Yopienso (talk) 21:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Effectively 3-0, considering that we've had three investigations reporting so far with one outstanding: Penn State first, then the House of Commons, then Oxburgh, and finally Muir Russell. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
This argument isn't relevant. Let's focus on finding a proper formulation of the paragraph in question.--Heyitspeter (talk) 23:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Of course it's relevant. The point being made is that what we have now is a provisional description of this affair.. Obviously it's highly relevant that the scientists have been found to be "squeaky clean", as Lord Oxburgh put it, by every investigation so far. However, Muir Russell is going to be reporting in more depth than any of the other reviews; we should have his report by the end of May. Until then there is no point in aiming to be "definitive" about this affair because it could all be subject to change when MR's report is published.
And by the way, please don't abuse archive tags like you did here. Archiving is not meant to be a way of stopping on-topic discussions that you disagree with. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
The discussion is off-topic, though I do not particularly disagree with many of the claims made in it. Please respect WP:AGF. I am merely trying to focus discussion so that progress can be made. And progress would be nice. I have now inserted a line in lieu of archiving.--Heyitspeter (talk) 10:01, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Another way of looking at it

While I agree that the nonsense about "Hide the Decline" and all the rest originated with less scrupulous or less informed elements among the skeptics, and this is readily supported, I think we would be wrong to say that its penetration was limited to the committed critics of the scientific mainstream. Even in the early days, as Heyitspeter shows, there were some people prepared to absorb and disseminate the theory of a "Climategate" conspiracy as fact to a wider public.

If my way of looking at it as expressed above holds true, then it follows that we can write of public concern originating from the wide dissemination of very negative interpretations of the emails that originated from their very selective presentation. I believe one or other of the reports mentions the selective presentation, and if so we're on firm ground.

So we can answer Heyitspeter's concerns without dragging in Reason, the WSJ, Old Uncle Tom Cobley And All. We say that the selective presentation and lurid interpretations led to public concern. Tasty monster (=TS ) 03:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm only an occasional editor in the climate change space, and I don't subscribe to any of the polarized opinions that characterize the discussion here. I'm a compromiser. But I'm puzzled by the suggestion that "dragging in" a reference to the Wall Street Journal, one of the most respected newspapers in the world, and using it as an illustrative example of how serious newspapers were treating the story at one point in time, would be a bad thing similar to relying on "Old Uncle Tom Cobley" as a source. I'm fairly certain this debate would not arise in any other topic area. I'm fairly certain that most other wikipedians, and indeed, most other English-speakers in the world at large, would be surprised to see the WSJ being treated as a questionable source. Thparkth (talk) 11:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Dragging it into the lead, not dragging it into the article. Guettarda (talk) 13:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Exactly right. A number of editors have expressed reservations about directly citing those sources in the lead. Heyspeter says he's doing so because he thought the existing wording seemed to imply that only committed climate skeptics had said the emails seemed to bring the the validity of the science into question. My proposal is intended to suggest an alternative wording that I hope would satisfy all. --TS 14:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Cool (though I do not think the 'the validity of the science' is the object of most of the allegations). Can you propose a piece of text here?--Heyitspeter (talk) 10:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I would just add short comment. Public opinion is not Science but Science is also not Public opinion. Writing the article based on the Science does not change Public opinion any more than Public opinion will change the Science. Both need to be covered: The Science and the (public) perception of the Science.130.232.214.10 (talk) 11:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Kenosis, 19 April 2010

{{editprotected}}

An issue in the first paragraph of the lead. I propose substituting the following at the beginning of the third sentence of the first paragraph of the lead:

  • "The emails were used to support allegations ..." -> "Some of the statements made in the emails prompted allegations ..."

The proposed change makes it clearer, in a concise way, that it was not all the emails, or even the bulk of them, but rather that it was a relatively small, relatively specific set of selected statements within the emails which prompted the allegations. It also eliminates the NPOV issue of the use of the words "were used to support allegations", which are potentially misleading, strongly implying that the statements successfully supported the allegations, which the official inquiries found was not the case w.r.t. many of the allegations. The words "Some of the statements made in the emails prompted allegations" resolve this potentially misleading implication.
... Kenosis (talk) 16:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Kenosis (talk) 16:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this works. The emails didn't "prompt" anything; they weren't a causative agent. The previous wording, "The emails were used to support allegations", is much more satisfactory, as it gets the chain of causation right: other parties made allegations for which the emails were cited in support. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah, good point about the word "prompted". How about the words "Some of the statements in the emails were used in support of allegations ..." ? ... Kenosis (talk) 17:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that works better, but I'd go further and say: "Some of the statements in the emails were used to support allegations by...", and attribute the allegations specifically to the, erm, allegators. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
This is already in the lead, with three RSs cited in support. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Not done for now: Please replace the request when you have a consensus. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Quite reasonable. Thanks for checking the request. ... Kenosis (talk) 20:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Eh? The emails prompted allegations, plain and simple. While some of the allegations had been previously made by a small group of individuals, the release of the emails is what sparked the allegations among the world at large. The obfuscatory language isn't helpful. Fell Gleaming(talk) 04:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, I think ChrisO's point was, roughly, that the emails didn't prompt anything, but rather, climate change skeptics acted based upon the content of some of the emails, i.e. they made conscious decisions, exercised free will, to use the emails in support of allegations against the CRU scientists. Emails don't inherently act, or prompt, anything--they just sit there and wait to be read and interpreted. As I said, I accept this as a "good point". I also still think the word "prompted" is a reasonable, less formal way of expressing what happened. Either way it's clear, as MSGJ noted, that there isn't consensus for my proposed change. ... Kenosis (talk) 04:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's the point I was making. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Chris - the proposal is a step in the wrong direction. I understand the point of the proposal was to emphasis that only some of the emails, rather than all of them, played a role, but "prompt" is quite the wrong word.--SPhilbrickT 16:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Cause and Effect

Here is something that could be included regarding changes in policy.[7]

Quote: "Phil Willis, a Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of the Science and Technology Select Committee, said that scientists now needed to work on the presumption that if research is publicly funded, the data ought to be made publicly available.

“Following the Climategate furore at the University of East Anglia the message came out loud and clear from the select committee report and from Lord Oxburgh’s report that data has to be made publicly available in order that there is no question of anyone hiding anything,” he said."130.232.214.10 (talk) 16:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that should be included as a direct effect on the politics of publicly funded science in Britain. I cannot see the science spokesmen of the other main parties saying anything significantly different. --TS 17:08, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
There is a problem here: the MPs are being rather self-serving. The *problem* with releasing the data was governments (including the UK) refusing to allow the data to be released. See http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2010/03/govt-policy-reprehensible-says-science.html William M. Connolley (talk) 17:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't see a conflict there. The point isn't the self-serving nature of the MPs' statements (that's a given) but the rise of the subject in the debate over national science policy during the hustings for a General Election. --TS 17:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I do, or at least I think so. The implication I take from scientists now needed to work on the presumption that if research is publicly funded, the data ought to be made publicly available or data has to be made publicly available in order that there is no question of anyone hiding anything is that the scientists have been trying to avoid releasing data. There is, apparently, no awareness that much of the problem has been caused directly by governemnt. Indeed if research is publicly funded, the data ought to be made publicly available is, I think, directly contradicted by UK govt policies (which I can't find, of course, so I'm open to correction). What I'm trying to say is that I've no objection to this idea being raised; but if (as is inevitable) there is a question of "how is to blame for not releasing the data" we don't exhonerate the govt; and Willis does appear to be doing that. In this respect I think [8] can be used; it is a blog, but by an acknowledged expert William M. Connolley (talk) 10:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The issue has also been commented on by the Oxburgh panel report –
"3. It was not the immediate concern of the Panel, but we observed that there were important and unresolved questions that related to the availability of environmental data sets. It was pointed out that since UK government adopted a policy that resulted in charging for access to data sets collected by government agencies, other countries have followed suit impeding the flow of processed and raw data to and between researchers. This is unfortunate and seems inconsistent with policies of open access to data promoted elsewhere in government.
4. A host of important unresolved questions also arises from the application of Freedom of Information legislation in an academic context. We agree with the CRU view that the authority for releasing unpublished raw data to third parties should stay with those who collected it."
The difference here is that someone who collected data for his own use is being forced to provide it to someone with no expertise or intention to make scientific use of the data. There are clearly wider implications for research, but it's a different circumstance to the CRU situation where they were working with data compiled and archived by others. . . dave souza, talk 21:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

There's also the interesting point from the Times article that "The university said that much of the data was in paper form, or on floppy disks and would take too long to transfer to a digital version." Since depute IC Smith says it will just take the uni 12 hourse to collate the data, presumably photocopies or straight transfers of whatever is on the floppies will be appropriate. However, more nosy demands from Keenan for emails to search for suspected conspiracies.[9] A Liberal Democrat land fit for paranoia. . . dave souza, talk 21:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Willis's view is highly notable since he is chair of the select committee. I suggest that we leave out "a Liberal Democrat MP". In fact, I think he was speaking as chair of the select committee, so that should be the salient descriptor. Oxburgh report and Times are also good sources so a very brief discussion of the role of the UK govt. in allowing access to data can be included from them. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:04, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Past tense – he was formerly chair of the select committee, since parliament was already prorogued he was speaking as LibDem candidate for Harrogate and Knaresborough. Normal service may be resumed on 7 May. . . dave souza, talk 14:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect ref

Reference 8 Report of the Science Assessment Panel does not work anymore as the article has moved. Current url is http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/SAP (mentioned on the following cru page: http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/oxburgh)

Can someone fix this reference link as I'm not allowed to edit the page? Cmaessen (talk) 11:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The refuted accusations should only be mentioned in the lead in the context of their resounding dismissal

Nearly every reasonable commentator over the past five months has dismissed the wild accusations of data manipulation and other deceptive practices, and now two independent investigations that looked at those accusations have also dismissed them.

It is therefore past time this article stopped giving prominence to those blatantly false and damaging allegations in the lead, except to note that they were found to be false. They can still be covered in detail in the article, again giving due weight to the fact that they were found to be false. Tasty monster (=TS ) 22:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've shortened the line listing the allegations to the following: "The emails were widely publicised and prompted allegations of scientific misconduct and evasion of Freedom of Information requests." That summarises the two broad categories of allegations. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Note that what was refuted was not that "accusations of x, y and z were made" but "the truth of x, y and z contained in accusations." The accusations and their content must be reported even when they are refuted. To avoid doing so would require a rename. We have a controversy, not a refutation on our hands.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
The allegations are dealt with in more detail in the body of the article, your pushing of "teach the controversy" misrepresents the general body of informed opinion on the issues and should not be given undue weight in the lead. . . dave souza, talk 08:10, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Please recall the title of this article.--Heyitspeter (talk) 05:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Hand

May be worth noting:

Addendum to report, 19 April 2010 For the avoidance of misunderstanding in the light of various press stories, it is important to be clear that the neither the panel report nor the press briefing intended to imply that any research group in the field of climate change had been deliberately misleading in any of their analyses or intentionally exaggerated their findings. Rather, the aim was to draw attention to the complexity of statistics in this field, and the need to use the best possible methods.

http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/SAP William M. Connolley (talk) 10:33, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

This seems to be quite clear even before this addendum. Bad judgment, borderline competence or generally bad practices are not covered by this statement. I'm just pointing this out as the discussions and edits of the past week seem to interpret a complete vindication... but a vindication of what? As I read it a vindication of intentional fraud and intentional deception nothing more.130.232.214.10 (talk) 11:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

No. The correction was necessary because some newspapers took comments out of context and printed stories claiming or implying that the Panel had strongly criticised Mann. And if you think the report only found the Unit not guilty of intentional Fraud and intentional deception and nothing more, you either haven't read the report or have skipped over the report's copious praise of the way the Unit handled statistics. Your hint that the Unit may have been guilty of "bad judgement, borderline competence or generally bad practices" is not supported by the report. Tasty monster (=TS ) 13:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

You appear to be directly advocating for original research and against WP:V. Please review these policies.--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm puzzled how "read the source" amounts to OR and fails V. Please do elaborate. Guettarda (talk) 13:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
This is what I was referring to: The correction was necessary because some newspapers took comments out of context and printed stories claiming or implying that the Panel had strongly criticised Mann.--Heyitspeter (talk) 05:50, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Read the addendum as posted in full by another editor, citing the source, in the comment at the head of this section. --TS 03:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"UAE" = University of East Anglia

{{editsemiprotected}}
Excuse me for being pedantic. I notice "UAE" several times in the article, but what it means is not specified. Re-reading the lead it is obvious "UAE" = "University of East Anglia". But the acronym should be specified as per wp:MOS#Acronyms and abbreviations. The addition can be made in the first sentence in the article.

CURRENT TEXT

"The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU)."


SUGGESTED TEXT (addition bolded in red)

"The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU)."

Thank you, Happy Editing! --220.101.28.25 (talk) 04:49, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Done, Mikenorton (talk) 12:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
or,  Done Thank you Mikenorton! --220.101.28.25 (talk) 04:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

More media comment. Another source?

An up-to-date media analysis and comment, from Reuters: [10] Kudos to Ratel for finding it. --Nigelj (talk) 18:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I repeat myself (archived perhaps prematurely):
   "Scientists say there is a wealth of data showing the planet is warming, that it's being triggered by rising levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and that man is to blame."
My, my. No, actually scientists say that the planet is warming (following the cooling following the warming...etc), and that greenhouse gases (read: water vapor) certainly play a part in the warming, and probably in the cooling. Man is to blame? No. No rational scientist believes that man is to blame for this particular warming (if indeed it is to resume), or for the previous episodes of warming. Man certainly influences climate locally, and perhaps globally, but not to the extent of forcing change. I realize that the construction of the rational scientist, these days, is likely to be as attractive as the idea of the rational Christian, but that is the mark of the times. Deal with it.
So far as the whining about the abuse goes, these limp-wristed ideologues had best gird their loins, if they have any, because it's just begun. It hasn't even hit SNL yet. Get your popcorn and beer. Oiler99 (talk) 05:14, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Scientific community

At some point the section on responses from the scientific community seems to have been removed from this article.

This is how it looked in late December, 2009: [11].

I notice that, for instance, Former CRU leader Tom Wigley's response to the death threats ("truly stomach-turning") is not present in recent revisions of this article, and yet this is the principal effect of the hacking and the now comprehensively debunked accusations.

The immense outpouring of support from other scientists and scientific institutions has been removed from the article, while the false and now debunked nonsense is given undue attention.

We obviously wouldn't want to restore six-month-old content without review, but looking at the huge amount of support from the scientific community it wasn't a hard punt, in late December, to stop editing this article and await developments. Apparently in the meantime some serious degradation has occurred. Time to bring the article up to date by looking at the removed content--some of it from prominent figures such as Wigley, Hansen, and Michaels. It appears that comments by competent and prominent scientists--not all of them favorable to the CRU's position--have been arbitrarily removed. --TS 03:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Good point. We also seem to have lost the responses of scientific organisations – and even at that, Climatologists under pressure : Article : Nature doesn't seem to be on the list of that time. . . dave souza, talk 06:20, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
This is very important. My very best wishes to those who try to restore important details that have been lost or blurred over the months. Now that the major reviews have reported (just waiting for Muir Russell) it is clear which way the language can be simplified, in the same way that all the 'allegedly's and other conditionals disappear from legal case reports after trial verdicts are in. --Nigelj (talk) 07:40, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't doubt that this content was removed in an orderly and above-board fashion. We should perhaps look at the archives and see if we can find the discussions about the removal. It may have been, for instance, that various conspiracy narratives being pursued noisily on blogs temporarily drowned out the clear message from the overwhelming majority of the scientific community and the opinions of the more level-headed commentators.

The section on responses from scientific organizations can be restored en masse, and I think this is something that could be done immediately. It could then be updated in place to reflect any new comments by scientific organizations that are not submissions to inquiries. Tasty monster (=TS ) 14:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Inaccurate misrepresentation

Electroshoxcure is banned. Hipocrite (talk) 11:56, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The statement that: "...a number of academics, climate change researchers and independent reports found that most of the allegations were baseless.[3][5][7]" is an inaccurate misrepresentation the articles cited. That's not what those stories say at all.Electroshoxcure (talk) 17:55, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that perhaps the allegations weren't totally baseless even though no actual wrong-doing was found? Or, that only the reports found while the academics and researchers said? Or, should most be replaced with all? Please explain what you find wrong with the sentence. Yopienso (talk) 02:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
The three articles cited are
  • Climategate: Science Not Faked, But Not Pretty which states in the first sentence "E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.
  • The second story says "documents... from the University of East Anglia (UEA) also seem to show that academics on both sides of the Atlantic discussed deleting sensitive emails to evade Freedom of Information requests from climate change sceptics."
  • And the third story is titled "University in hacked climate change emails row broke FOI rules"
So quite obviously the sources are being totally misrepresented. They clearly state that there were problems at the UEA and support several of the allegations made. Let's not be dishonest and lie to our readers about the facts. That kind of behavior is shameful and immoral. Electroshoxcure (talk) 18:56, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Nice pole vault. Brushing aside 'skeptics' is the same criticism expressed several different ways. Wikispan (talk) 19:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Nope. Most of the accusations were baseless ("trick", "hide the decline", "last nail in the coffin of climate science", "falsified data", "scientific scandal", etc.) Saying "the research itself wasn't faked" isnot an accurate representation of the situation. Guettarda (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree. I see no problem with the cited section, which is fully supported by the footnotes. ScottyBerg (talk) 20:12, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
I do see a problem. Most of the accusations were determined to be baseless, but some were found to be accurate, per the comments above. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:20, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, not really. Talking of "problems" is unsatisfactory because it gives the impression that the CRU's research was "problematic". Since the reviews found the research to have been done fairly and properly, that's not an accurate reflection of what they said - they were supportive of the CRU's approach but said there was room for improvement in certain working practices. Talking of "accuracy" is also misleading because none of the reviews has attempted to verify the actual research - they only looked at how it was done, not what it concluded. But more fundamentally, the sentence in question simply isn't needed; it says nothing that isn't said in the following paragraph. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Rv: why

It was a minor puff for the BH blog; not sure why it was in at all William M. Connolley (talk) 13:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe because the resignation of campbell is notable? mark nutley (talk) 13:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
What does it have to do with Parliament? Guettarda (talk) 14:21, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Lede

Good work there, ChrisO. Two thoughts: 1. Shouldn't we say "refute" instead of "reject"? If the CRU had been able to reject the allegations, that would have settled the matter! If we made the switch, I think we should also drop the "strongly." "Adamantly refuted" makes them sound like foot-stompers. "Denied" is really a better word, but, unfortunately, has come to connote a denial of truth. 2. Your revision of 22:50, 3 May 2010 with the sentence, Subsequent independent reports found that the CRU's scientific research had been done fairly and properly, though there was room for improvement in some of the CRU's practices, seems to me the best way to conclude what's supposed to be a quick overview of the event. Otherwise the reader is left hanging as to the outcome. We can't assume the average person who pops into WP to find information will read what follows. Yopienso (talk) 07:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, but doesn't that sentence simply repeat what is said in the following paragraph? Read the sentence and then read the next para - you'll see what I mean. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:06, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm, yes, I suppose so. Forget my second suggestion, then. I'm going to adjust a couple of minor things. Ciao--Yopienso (talk) 09:01, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Although the word is often misused, technically to refute means "to prove something false"... Evercat (talk) 11:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you are correct. But we are really splitting hairs here. The text as is can hardly be misunderstood. Allegations are usually denied. But again... splitting hairs.85.77.215.206 (talk) 12:58, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Refute
1 : to prove wrong by argument or evidence : show to be false or erroneous
2 : to deny the truth or accuracy of <refuted the allegations> http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdic/refute
See my note above on why I rejected ;-) "denied"--it's the perfect word, but in today's cultural climate, ;-) often connotes the denial of a factual hot-button issue (as in "holocaust denier," "climate change denier,") rather than the denial of a falsehood. Anyone's free to change it!  :-) Yopienso (talk) 13:21, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
"Rebutted" might be an alternative... -- ChrisO (talk) 13:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
What about "rejected"? ScottyBerg (talk) 13:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
See above in this section why I replace "rejected" in the first place. "Repudiate" is another possibility. "Deny" is really the best if it weren't for the new baggage it's picked up. I'm not passionate about this point. Yopienso (talk) 14:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't see that, sorry. I'd suggest that perhaps you may be putting more authority into "reject" than is warranted. It just means they oppose, that they disagree strongly, that they say "no way!" It doesn't mean that they are in a position to squash them. I have no problem with either rebut or repudiate. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The term "denied" looks problematic to me, as Yopienso says above it's rather easily misinterpreted. So, have changed it to "issued rebuttals of", if others don't like this change an undo is ok by me, and won't be considered a revert in terms of sanctions. . . dave souza, talk 20:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment moved from main

Unfortunately you've picked up a couple of commonly propagated falsehoods. Part two: How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies | Environment | guardian.co.uk covers the latter point, the former is probably a misinterpretation of an interview with the BBC. . dave souza, talk 07:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Here's from the BBC:

B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
C - Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8511670.stm Yopienso (talk) 08:35, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Science Museum nonsense

somebody just parroted some bit of nonsense about the Science Museum in South Kensington. Apparently this nonsense has come to the attention of the Science Museum themselves, and they've issued a rebuttal. This only underscores the importance of our verifiability policy. Check your facts, friends.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/about_us/press_and_media/press_releases/2010/04/Climate%20science%20statement.aspx

Tasty monster (=TS ) 03:31, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Specifically:


"There are always areas of uncertainty in any scientific topic, and climate science is no exception. We respect people's right to disagree and we will address the issues raised, but the gallery will always return to the fact that the weight of evidence supports the conclusion that climate change is real, serious, driven by humans and needs to be addressed."

That isn't a description of a "climate neutral" exhibition. All of us, Times reporters included, must take care with the facts, with so much nonsense already flying around. Tasty monster (=TS ) 03:48, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

You very obviously do not understand WP:V. Please review.--Heyitspeter (talk) 04:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Please be civil. Making a comment like that to someone like Tony, who probably had a hand in shaping the policy, is nothing more than a gratuitous insult. Making it in this context is simply nonsensical. Verifiability is a minimum requirement for inclusion. Starting from what's verifiable, we work towards what's germane. Guettarda (talk) 05:38, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
My point was the same as Rapley's and the museum's: "Our objective is to minimise the shrill tone and emotion that bedevils discussion of this subject, satisfying the interests and needs of those who accept that human-induced climate change is real, those who are unsure, and those who do not.” Wikipedians tend to pit the enlightened against the benighted, as just expressed above with "parroted some bit of nonsense." Not only the Times, but Reuters, used the word "neutral." Rapley's intention isn't to eviscerate science, but to be courteous and informative rather than smug and dismissive. Activists at change.org and Greenbang took him to task after the Times and Reuters articles were published; the European Network of Science Centres and Museums [12]has the most rational report I've been able to find.
Peter, that would be Wiki-lawyering--both Reuters and the Times are indeed on the list of reliable news agencies [[13]]and, by cracky, they said so!--but we know their reports are flawed. Nikki Gloudeman of Mother Jones blogged at change.org [14]that the museum had "back-pedaled." Whether they back-pedaled or were frankly misrepresented, the new exhibit will not be "climate neutral," so let's drop that. Yopienso (talk) 04:40, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

We don't care whether they were misrepresented or not. The news release makes it plain that they do not agree with the news reports, and reiterates that the exhibition will emphasize the findings of science and not seek false balance. Even if they did, our neutral point of view policy would still stop us giving equal weight to science and rubbish. Tasty monster (=TS ) 06:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Adding refs

In this edit a ref is added without adding the actual ref [15]. Where is the <ref name="British Parliamentary" /> defined? It should be added to the ref section, where it is missing for the moment. Nsaa (talk) 12:49, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Use for example this 

<ref name="Author_Date_Publisher">{{cite web
  | url = MANDATORY
  | title = MANDATORY
  | last =
  | first =
  | authorlink =
  | coauthors =
  | work =
  | publisher =
  | date =
  | format =
  | language=
  | doi =
  | accessdate =  
  | archiveurl = SHOULD BE USED ON PAGES ALLOWING ARCHIVING - USE A SERVICE LIKE webcitation.org or archive.org
  | archivedate = MANDATORY IF archiveurl
  | quote = 
 }}</ref>

and add it to the ref.section.Nsaa (talk) 13:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I've restored the text as it was before the addition of unsourced changes. Nsaa (talk) 20:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Actually, if you had cared to look at what was causing the problem, it was a simple error in a reference tag. The item was referenced but the tag was faulty. I've fixed the problem now. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

English usage question

Back to this sentence, "The emails were used to support widely-publicised allegations by climate change sceptics that the emails showed scientific misconduct and mishandling of Freedom of Information requests."
Does anyone agree this would be better? "The emails formed the basis of widely-publicised allegations of scientific misconduct." 06:48, 9 May 2010 (UTC) Whoa--forgot to sign! Yopienso (talk) 10:12, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Again, the problem with this is that it omits the chain of causation for the allegations - i.e. emails stolen → denialist blogs make allegations → right-wing think tanks endorse allegations → mainstream media report and reiterate allegations. It's important to note that the allegations came from a specific section of opinion. The media's role was basically to amplify and reiterate the allegations, not to originate them. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I see...finally. :P So what would be appropriate would be something like,

The emails were posted on a climate change denial blog and then claims of scientific misconduct went viral throughout the media.

The language is too casual, but that's the gist, right? Yopienso (talk) 23:26, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Outcome?

It is disappointing that SV has reverted the "outcome" [16] without making any attempt to discuss. This article isn't called "CRU email release", it is the "CRU email release controversy". The outcome of that, is vindication of CRU (insofar as it has an outcome that can be summarised so briefly) William M. Connolley (talk) 09:14, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I've modified the outcome line to the following: "Theft of a quantity of material relating to climate change research; scientists cleared of wrongdoing." I don't think we need to enumerate the exact quantities of material that was taken from CRU's servers (too much detail for a one-line summary) but it's essential that we mention the key outcome, i.e. that the scientists were found to be "squeaky clean" as Lord Oxburgh put it. The use of the word "release" is unsatisfactory because, as has been discussed previously at length (check the talk page archives) it implies a voluntary action, whereas the vast majority of reporting - and the university itself - has been unequivocal in referring to the material being stolen by a hacker. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:05, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Editors are encouraged to be bold and edit without initial discussion at all times, provided their edits are reasonable, and SV's were, whether you agree with them or not. That particular infobox parameter is inherently problematic, and you cannot blame that on her. Let's remember to criticize the edits and not the editor. Viriditas (talk) 10:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Note the reverted bit. I seem to recall a process called bold, revert, discuss. We've had the bold edit from SV, [17], we've had WMC modifying it (technically the reversion stage) and we've had SV reverting that modification [18] without comment. The discussion stage seems to have been left out for some reason. I think it's about time we had a bit more collaborative editing. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
And her revert was justified. She replaced an unsourced claim with a sourced summary from a RS. She should be receiving thanks, not derision. Viriditas (talk) 11:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not deriding her. I'm simply pointing out that there was no discussion or explanation of the revert, simply an assertion that "this was the outcome of the event". [19] That's not good enough. A reversion with no explanation or discussion of why the previous edit was faulty simply isn't collaborative editing - it amounts to little more than saying "I'm right, you're wrong". There needs to be genuine collaboration here, not bulldozing. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:24, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
The previous edit said "Vindication of CRU" with no source. She replaced it with "Leak of over 1,000 emails, 2,000 documents, and source code pertaining to climate change research, 1996–2009" followed by a link to Reuters. Best editing practice encourages replacing all unsourced statements with sourced claims. Viriditas (talk) 11:28, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Granted, so why not give that explanation in the edit summary or post something to the talk page explaining the edit? All I'm asking for is better communication. I always make an effort to document why I'm making a particular change (e.g. [20]). It doesn't take much effort and it saves trouble with misunderstandings and people feeling slighted by the changes I'm making. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:50, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Although no rational person could honestly come to the conclusion that there was no wrongdoing, it seems to be the conclusion as reported, so we must go with it. However, it's not a valid conclusion that CRU was hacked. The majority — but not the "vast majority" — of the sources say that it was hacked. A number, including the most reliable uninvolved sources, say "hacked or leaked". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I think you're letting your biases show when you claim that "no rational person could honestly come to the conclusion that there was no wrongdoing". I don't see any particular reason to suppose that you (or for that matter any of us) know better than the distinguished professional scientists who reviewed the CRU's work and cleared it - when it comes to a question of science we have to defer to the scientists. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

For the same reason we had to sit on our hands on certain questions until the Select Committee and Oxburgh reports were published, I think we need to avoid giving an outcome until the final report is delivered by Muir Russell. We should, rather, say simply "inquiries pending". Tasty monster (=TS ) 10:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Arthur, all of the reliable sources say hacked. Some sources that have no information at all speculate on "leaked". Since they know nothing and are contradicted by reliable sources, it would be silly to describe their fact-free speculation as reliable or verifiable. Tasty monster (=TS ) 10:33, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

That's correct. There's been a pernicious speculative meme, spread by bloggers who are obviously uncomfortable with the criminality involved in the theft of the emails, that an "insider" could have "leaked" the material. There's never been any evidence cited to back that claim - as you say, it's entirely fact-free. The claim also ignores the fact that this incident involved two hacks - one of the CRU and one of RealClimate's servers, which the hacker attempted to use as the vehicle for distributing the emails in an apparent attempt to embarrass RC. For some reason, the people who speculate about a "leak" fail to mention the RC hack, even though it's been described in far more detail than the CRU hack. Note that the Oxburgh inquiry refers unequivocally to "the hacked emails" [21]. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
We consider Nature and The Guardian reliable; they recently said "leaked" to the exclusion of "hacked."
"A string of controversies - including leaked emails from scientists accused of manipulating data,.." [22]
"After months of controversy, the University of East Anglia climate unit was exonerated last week over the leaked emails affair." [23]
Please don't exaggerate so; a source with no information at all cannot even speculate. Some writers use "hack" for obtaining the emails and "leak" for disseminating them.
Back to that pesky little box, the theft was the source of the controversy, not an outcome. I agree with Tony that inquiries are pending, but will still trot out my little "Initial investigations exonerate scientists of fraud" for everyone's judgment. Yopienso (talk) 10:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I think we can resolve this simply by adding the word "provisionally" to the summary, as in "scientists provisionally cleared of wrongdoing". Three of the four inquiries so far have given them a clean bill of health, which we need to acknowledge. Muir Russell is very unlikely to be the odd man out but Tony does have a point in saying that the matter won't be settled until that final inquiry reports. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't like this. There was nothing at all "provisional" about the exhoneration; any subsequent reports won't affect the existing ones. If we can't agree about this infobox, why not just remove it? It was added with no attempt at discussion; if it is causing hassle, just delete it William M. Connolley (talk) 21:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Suppose (as a thought experiment) Muir Russell produced a radically different result and "convicted" the CRU of all manner of horrible sins. Wouldn't that overshadow the previous reports? Since the vindication of the scientists in the previous reports was so strong, the practical effect of Muir Russell is only really going to be to confirm the earlier verdicts. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Overshadow, yes. But (a) I think its wildly unlikely (and anticipating it in here would be CRYSTAL or summat) (b) the word 2provisional" is still a bit wrong, as the existing reprts aren't. How about this: if the thing isn't finished (as you say, MR isn't in) then the thing doesn't *have* an outcome. It only has an outcome if its finished William M. Connolley (talk) 21:52, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Nature and the Guardian have no more information on this than you and I, so they're obviously not reliable sources on whether there has been a hacking or not. The police and the university, on the other hand,are clear that this was a hacking. Tasty monster (=TS ) 11:00, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, that's an entirely bogus argument. Nature and the Guardian probably have no more information than you or I, but they are the reliable sources. The university is not a reliable source as to whether they are the victim of a hack or the source of a leak, and the police have said that they are investigating it as a "data breach" (aka hack), not that they found or even believe that it was a hack. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:50, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
This argument is spurious, as the linked sources are "G Magazine, Australia's #1 consumer sustainability title" (not Nature) and The Observer, a Sunday title in the Guardian group – the Guardian itself has used "hacked" more recently. . . dave souza, talk 09:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
We are unlikely to hear more from the police until the investigation is completed, and probably not much, even then. If they find it was probably a leak, they would not be allowed to comment unless they also find that someone lied to them, and if they find it was a hack but are unable to identify the hacker, they may not want to let the hacker know what little they found out, so he/she could cover her/his tracks better in the future. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
As for my statement that "no rational person could honestly come to the conclusion that there was no wrongdoing", I'm including wrongdoing by UEA, as well as CRU and the individual scientists. The Commission, IIRC, found misfeasance by UEA. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:57, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid you recall incorrectly. The Oxburgh group found no wrongdoing but took the view that there was some room for improvement in the CRU's working practices. Oxburgh, in fact, made a point of praising the integrity of the CRU's science. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Isn't it a bit odd to say that the outcome of the Climatic Research Unit email controversy was "Theft of a quantity of material relating to climate change research; scientists cleared of wrongdoing."? Surely the theft (if that's what it was) was the cause of the controversy? Thepm (talk) 21:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Hey, that's what I said right at the start. Sadly SV reverted-n-ran :-( William M. Connolley (talk) 21:39, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
That's a good point. The infobox template itself is a bit odd, as it seems to have been written to focus only on serious crimes or disasters (see Template:Infobox news event for an overview of the fields). There is nowhere to add a cause. I've had a go at tackling the line you mention by replacing "Theft..." with the following: "Controversy over scientific integrity and working practices; scientists cleared of wrongdoing." What do you think of that wording? -- ChrisO (talk) 21:41, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I prefer ChrisO's proposed wording on the understanding that there is consensus that "scientists cleared of wrongdoing" is correct. It might be better to use the modifier "substantially" or something similar if there are ongoing enquiries. I'd actually prefer that the line 'scientists cleared of wrongdoing' be deleted altogether, but knowing the passions involved here I doubt that will happen. Thepm (talk) 21:49, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

@CO: Looks a lot better, thanks. @Thepm: see comments above William M. Connolley (talk) 21:52, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
@WMC - the comments above suggest that there are ongoing enquiries (Muir Russell).
In that case I would not support the bald statement "scientists cleared of wrongdoing" although I suspect that will be the outcome. I think the outcome to date has been;
  1. Controversy over scientific integrity and working practices
  2. Increased public discussion of climate change science
  3. Continuing enquiries into scientific conduct .

Thepm (talk) 22:17, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

  • The current "outcome" is obvious, "First two of three investigations clear CRU of wrongdoing". Once the third investigation's findings are released, then the statement will need to be changed to include what the third investigation found. Cla68 (talk) 01:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Penn State Inquiry as an "outcome"

I notice that ChrisO has changed "outcome" from "Scientists cleared of wrongdoing by two separate investigations, with a third ongoing" to "Scientists cleared of wrongdoing by three separate investigations, with a fourth ongoing."

Is the Penn State inquiry considered part of the CRU email controversy? I suspect yes as the report stated "These accusations were based on perceptions of the content of the widely reported theft of emails from a server at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Great Britain."

Given that it is, then the "outcome" should be "Scientists cleared of wrongdoing by three separate investigations, with two others ongoing" given that there is a subsequent inquiry being conducted into "Allegation 4".

My personal opinion is that outcome should be blanked. The outcome of all this is not really known yet and probably won't be known for many months. Thepm (talk) 22:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Outcome again

Scientists cleared of wrongdoing is too broad for now. They've been cleared of scientific fraud and another investigation is pending. Tasty monster (=TS ) 23:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Guys, would the world stop spinning on its axis if the "outcome" section of the infobox were removed? Just asking. Like, I don't even know why it's there. I didn't even notice it until now. In a situation with a murky outcome, or where there is controversy as to the outcome, why can't we just let the facts speak for themselves and not require editors to squabble about how to summarize what happened? Huh? ScottyBerg (talk) 23:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Excellent idea. If we can just delete the "outcome" bit, I think that would be best for now. Thepm (talk) 23:36, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Fulfilled.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
For a little while! ScottyBerg (talk) 22:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
The infobox reads like a cheap tabloid headline. Please reconsider.85.76.17.119 (talk) 11:16, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be enough sentiment at this time to remove the "outcome" portion of the infobox. I'd raise the issue again, but the press of real life is taking its toll. ScottyBerg (talk) 13:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Personally I would agree with the removal of the outcome but you're right it doesn't seem like we're going to get consensus on this anytime soon (which IMHO demonstrates my point above, although it has stood for several hours now) Nil Einne (talk) 01:28, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Verifiability and reliable sources

I think that we have a serious problem when we have an editor accepting grudgingly ("probably") that the Guardian knows no more than we do, them goes on to falsaly claim that they are reliable sources and the University is not. The University has access to the facts, the Guardian does not. The police have access to the facts, we do not. Both the University and the police are treating this as a hacking (yes, they are, stop trying to twist words). The statements of the police and the University make the fact of the hacking verifiable. The statements of all other parties establish only that people who know nothing about the matter have different opinions, as would be expected. Falsely claiming that a newspaper is somehow (by magic?) a reliable source on a matter of which it knows nothing except what is in the public domain does not make that paper's unsupported opinion a verifiable fact. Tasty monster (=TS ) 22:59, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

  1. The university qualifies as a self-published source on the details of the data release, so cannot be used in Wikipedia articles except as to their opinion. It's as simple as that. They may be "reliable", in an objective sense, but not in the Wikipedia sense of WP:RS.
  2. The police have access to facts that we do not, and have not and probably will not say anything we can use unless they have sufficient information to make an arrest. They are treating it as a "data breach"; it doesn't mean they have evidence or believe that it is a "data breach".
The investigative committees (which haven't investigated that), and the newspapers, are all we have. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Fifteen minutes ago I opened a new section below, Verifiability and reliable sources, saying substantially what Arthur has just said. May I move Tony's and Arthur's comments there in chronological order? They don't really pertain to adding refs. Yopienso (talk) 04:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Fine with me. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Done. Yopienso (talk) 23:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

This is wrt the assertions that the Guardian and Nature know no more than we and that the UAE and not these two publications are the RS. With their professional staffs of reporters, editors, and scientists, particularly at Nature, it's unlikely they don't know more than we.[24] It's certain that they know far more than I. The editor of Nature was originally part of the Russell committee. But, as Arthur said, that's beside the point--he and Peter are correct that we are not abiding by WP:V: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." I suggested to Peter we drop it since we know the reports are flawed, but this is actually WP:SYN. Nonetheless, "However, it is understood that even the most reputable news outlets occasionally contain errors. Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Wikipedia article is something that must be assessed on a case by case basis."[[25]] That's Tony's well-taken point. Both the Guardian and Nature are recognized as WP:RS. Certainly the very entity under investigation--the UEA in this case--is not a RS! The police are necessarily quite mum on this and have referred to it as a "data breach.:[26]Contrary to what I wrote above, it is not at all clear the information was hacked. What is clear is that the CRU did not comply with FOI requests.[27] Yopienso (talk) 03:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Sources needed – your links above were to "G Magazine, Australia's #1 consumer sustainability title",[28] (not Nature) and to a subhead in The Observer [29] (a Sunday title in the Guardian group) while the article itself called them a "host of emails, illegally obtained from the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia" – the Guardian itself has used "hacked" more recently, in "The letter is a response to negative publicity following the release of thousands of hacked emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA)", – Leading scientists condemn 'political assaults' on climate researchers | Environment | The Guardian published on 6 May. As for the CRU, it is not at all clear that they did not comply properly with valid FOI requests, as there are exemptions written into the FOIA, the ICO has yet to investigate the case (though it has announced that there is a prima facie case), the accusation is denied by the university, and the case has not yet been tested in court. . . dave souza, talk 09:46, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Dave, for pointing out I've inadvertently given wrong references. I don't have the time right now to find the right ones. Sorry to make a mess. It is clear that the CRU did not comply with FOI requests. It is not clear if they should have. I haven't prejudged this. Yopienso (talk) 23:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Any blanket statement to the effect that a given source--much less a newspaper--is an intrinsically reliable source is absurd on its face. The propagation of that fiction about the verifiability policy is unfortunate. The claim that the leak was not due to a hacking is not reliably sourced, and the claim that it was a hacking is verified by both the university and the police, who have indicated on reason to suppose that it was not a hacking. The suggestion that the university is not a reliable source on this matter is almost as stupid as the claim that the Guardian, which has no first hand information, somehow is. That is the "Alice Through the Looking Glass" version of the verifiability policy. Tasty monster (=TS ) 09:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Further, I notice that Yopienso falsely claims that the university is the subject of the police investigation, and does so in order to impugn their reliability. I suggest that he withdraw that blatant calumny and associated false accusation as soon as possible. Tasty monster (=TS ) 09:59, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Though that claim might be implied by the post by Yopienso, I think it's sloppy writing rather than an explicit false claim – the UEA and the CRU have been under investigation by inquiries, but of course were not the subject of police investigations into the hacking. Either way, the UEA and CRU are of course reliable sources for their statements, which have been supported by the outcome of the inquiries to date and so have more credence than the necessarily speculative newspaper reports. . . dave souza, talk 10:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Or careless reading. Of course I did not intend to suggest the police are investigating the university! The UEA and CRU are reliable sources for their own statements--duh!--but not for their own innocence. Yopienso (talk) 23:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
TS, as usual writes nonsense in regard Wikipedia policies. UEA and CRU are self-published sources in regard the hack/leak, and cannot be used for such in any Wikipedia article except for noting their claims. As for the police, as I noted above, they should not be releasing information as to their investigation. As far as I can tell, they haven't. If you have evidence of anything other than that it was reported to them as a hack and that they are investigating it as a "data breach", please provide that evidence.
As for the "looking glass", TS may be correct, but it's Wikipedia WP:POLICY that reliable sources be used, and self-published sources are rarely reliable.
The FOIA claims have not yet been investigated, so all we have to go on is the "prima facia" case statement by the Commission that (now, retroactively, according to the Parlimentary committee) should have investigated and UEA's denials (if any — actually, I don't see any denials from UEA or CRU of FOIA violations, only a complaint that they weren't informed, but I may not have seen all the references.)
I don't see a Nature article referenced here, but [30] seems to be a reliable source from the Guardian as to informed speculation, at least. (This talk page is too long to track down all the sources claimed by editors, especially since some of them are incompatible with my primary browser.) Yopienso and TS need to specify in this section what references they are referring to.
I really don't see Yopienso as saying or implying that UEA is under investigation, except possibly for FOIA violations (both section 50 and section 77; one investigation apparently not started, and one under way). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:36, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm just now trying to sort this out, and am frankly lost. I don't think it's important enough to spend time on. Seems I was saying the professional journalists know more than we do and and not only denialists are questioning whether there was in fact a criminal hack. Not sure we need that information right now. Yopienso (talk) 01:09, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

English usage question in the lede

I'm still having a problem with this sentence, not because of context, but lack of readability.

The emails were used to support widely-publicised allegations by climate change sceptics that the emails showed scientific misconduct and mishandling of Freedom of Information requests

How would this be?

The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate") began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU). According to the university, the emails and documents were obtained through the hacking of a server. Climate skeptics’ allegations that they revealed misconduct within the climate science community were quickly publicised by the media. The UEA and CRU issued rebuttals of the allegations and called in the Norfolk Constabulary, who is conducting a criminal investigation of the server breach.

Rationale:

  • The controversy didn't start with the hacking (theft) but with the leak (posting on Air Vent). Therefore, the second sentence properly gives the back story.
  • I've looked for the "right-wing think tanks' endorsements," but can't find them between the leak and the media running with the story. Seems the mainstream press was right there on top of it without any goading from any think tanks. What think tanks, anyway?
  • The last sentence could be better, but I think I'm over and out for now. Yopienso (talk) 01:27, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
OK, I went ahead. Also tried to bunch together those three refs after "provoking the controversy" but made a muddle. Can anybody do that? It looks so much tidier and is easier to read without all those superscript numbers in the way. (Also nearly deleted the sentence about the rebuttals by accident--some of you would never have believed it to be an honest mistake. Whew!) Yopienso (talk) 15:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
To Hipocrite: Yes, that was an "and splice"--conjunctions join two nouns or verbs or thoughts or whatever. It seemed better to me that two choppy sentences or my original suggestion above, "The UEA and CRU issued rebuttals of the allegations and called in the Norfolk Constabulary, who is conducting a criminal investigation of the server breach." Your edit doesn't seem any better imho but I'm fine with it. I was really aiming at that tangled thing about the emails being used to prove what the emails said. Cheers! Yopienso (talk) 15:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, it's less than pretty, but the way it was before took two totally unrelated things and "anded" them together. Hipocrite (talk) 15:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Lede still violates WP:NPOV

Hello! The lede still implies, contra WP:UNDUE, that climate change skeptics are the people making allegations of misconduct. Here is a proposed version from the most recent archive that we can work with as a template for the creation of a better version:

(1) The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). According to the university, the emails and documents were obtained through the hacking of a server. The emails prompted allegations by climate change skeptics[6][7][8] and widespread publicity in the media. The Wall Street Journal reported the emails revealed apparent efforts to withhold scientific data and to ensure the IPCC include their own views and exclude others.[9] Reason reported that the CRU evidently plotted to remove journal editors with whom they disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked.[10] The ICO made a statement that the emails revealed that freedom of information requests were 'not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation' but that they could not prosecute due to statute of limitations.[11] The BBC and Computerworld also raised concerns about the quality and accuracy of the CRU's coding methods as prompted by coding documentation released with the emails.[15][16] The UEA and CRU rejected the allegations[12][13] and a number of academics, climate change researchers, and independent reports found that most or all of the allegations of fraud were baseless, though concerns remained about attempts to stonewall critics and hide data.[12][8][14]

Good luck!--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:38, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

If we want to avoid specifics, we could go with something like the following:
(2) The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). According to the university, the emails and documents were obtained through the hacking of a server. The emails prompted allegations of efforts to withhold scientific data and to ensure the IPCC include their own views and exclude others,[9] of attempts to remove journal editors with whom the researchers disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked,[10] and of failures to appropriately fulfill requests under the Freedom of Information Act.[11] The BBC and Computerworld also raised concerns about the quality and accuracy of the CRU's coding methods as prompted by coding documentation released with the emails.[15][16] Climate change skeptics argued that the emails cast doubt on global warming.[6][7][8] The UEA and CRU rejected the allegations[12][13] and a number of academics, climate change researchers, and independent reports found that most or all of the allegations of fraud were baseless, though concerns remained about attempts to stonewall critics and hide data.[12][8][14]
Let me know what you think or just propose an alternate. Happy editing.--Heyitspeter (talk) 21:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Provides massively undue weight to old data. Hipocrite (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

But it's still true that climate change sceptics are not the only ones making allegations of misconduct. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:12, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's true, and either one of Heyitspeter's proposed ledes would be an improvement.--CurtisSwain (talk) 08:54, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
No, they wouldn't. The lead is supposed to summarise the article, in a balanced fashion. Not only are these proposals rather badly unbalanced, they also contain material which is not present in the body of the article. Guettarda (talk) 22:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
(ec) We need to keep in mind that this article is about the CRU email controversy. That is that a series of emails were released, accusations were made and the MSM had something to write about for several weeks. In that sense, the science is almost irrelevant. I'd compare this article to the Scopes Trial article. In that article, the science of evolution is almost irrelevant (it's not even mentioned in the lead). For this article, the lead needs to say that the article is about the release of a bunch of emails and the ensuing kerfuffle. HiP's attempt above does that pretty well. I prefer the second version. It says what the article is about without trying to explain/justify everything in one go. Thepm (talk) 23:11, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2010/05/stop_mccarthylike_attacks_on_c.html William M. Connolley (talk) 22:35, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

When the responses from scientific organisations are restored, that one should be added. Tasty monster (=TS ) 23:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
While it is true, WMC and others, that skeptics are using the leaked documents to make allegations, it is not true that they are the only ones doing so. Our lede is in fact POV. Since this leak, the only people who wouldn't at least wonder about the CRU's conclusions are those who blindly worship them as purveyors of Truth. (Yes, wondering is far different from attacking.) Here are some comments from non-skeptics:
"The result was unequivocal: something was wrong with the average temperature data in Oceania. And I also stumbled upon other small errors in calculations." That's from John Graham-Cumming at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7028418.ece
“I’m not a climate sceptic, I think it’s pretty sure that the world is warming up, but this does show why the raw data and not just the results should be available,” said Dr Graham-Cumming. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7028362.ece
And the BBC's Roger Harrabin asked some very pointed questions of Phil Jones. An activist site berated Harrabin, but he seems to be a rational soul who is neither activist nor denier....as Wikipedia should be.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/16/bbc-interview-phil-jones-climate-science-when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife/
Now, are these allegations of misconduct? No, they are allegations of mishandling, of fallibility, and are proofs of human error.
Everybody's missing what's wrong with this sentence:
"The emails were used to support widely-publicised allegations by climate change sceptics[1][2][3] that the emails showed scientific misconduct and mishandling of Freedom of Information requests."
Simplified, it says, "The emails were used...to support...allegations...that the emails showed...misconduct and...mishandling."
If we support the content--and we may not--the rendering should be something like, "The emails formed the basis of widely-publicised allegations that the scientists were guilty of misconduct or mishandling of data and Freedom of Information requests." Yopienso (talk) 23:50, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
The question is where those allegations came from. Clearly they originated with denialist blogs and right-wing think tanks, and were then taken up by sections of the media. I think it's important to note the sequence of events here: the blogs created the initial framing of the story, which the media then reported fairly uncritically (and as it turned out, wrongly). So when we say that the allegations were made by denialists, perhaps we should be saying that they originated with denialists. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:08, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
WP:OR applies to talkpages as well. Please stop speculating. It unnecessarily clutters the page. --Heyitspeter (talk) 02:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The notion that the accusations can be disengaged from the denial campaigns is inherently biased. It is to ignore the statements of scientific organizations and of the most prominent qualified scientists. The article is indeed biased. It has been stripped of the opinions of the most reliable sources. Tasty monster (=TS ) 00:40, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, TS; we were writing at the same time and I got an edit conflict notice. To what article do you refer?
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding where Guettarda and WMC and Chris and Tony are coming from: what I'm concerned about is the polarization in the article and on the talk page.
Now I'll paste in my response to Chris:
I agree that an apparently criminal skeptic or group of skeptics provided the basis for allegations: until the emails were leaked, how would anyone know about the CRU's methods? The scientists were anything but transparent or forthcoming. This [31] NYT article shows your point exactly, yet it correctly predicts "...the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists." That article is almost 6 mos. old, but I don't see anything in it's been shown wrong. In what sector have those questions been raised? Among the non-partisans, those who analyze without bias. And this line [32]utterly substantiates your point: "... hacked e-mails from a British university were seized upon by skeptics as evidence that the case for global warming had been exaggerated." Yet it's in a report of the London Science Museum's becoming "climate neutral"! And The Times [33] actually avers there have been "revelations of malpractice by climate scientists." My personal opinion is that Wikipedia would do well to follow the museum's lead: "Although there is an extreme faction who very much disagree, there is a much bigger contingent who are not convinced. We want to welcome them into the debate by being as neutral and fairhanded as we can be."[34] Yopienso (talk) 01:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Me? All I've said so far was that material that's not in the article shouldn't be in the lead. There's nothing to be gained by discussing HiP's proposals. Until someone suggests a proposal that we can work with, we're just going to be spinning our wheels. Guettarda (talk) 02:49, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The material is in the article under the section entitled "Content of the documents".--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
No, it isn't. Guettarda (talk) 03:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
It is.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Flat-out falsehood HiP? You do realise that WP:TE isn't an instruction manual, right? Guettarda (talk) 04:52, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite happy if the lead summarises the known facts: hacking, death threats, ridiculous accusations, authoritative refutations, and ongoing investigations that have so far merely reinforced the ridiculous nature of the accusations. The fact that some sources are still pushing discredited accusations should certainly be mentioned, but only in the context that they have been discredited. Tasty monster (=TS ) 03:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

My proposal respects your concern. Will you support it?--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Our lead has to be careful not to support the ridiculous discredited accusations, and these proposals are unacceptable as they downplay the clear primary part played by 'climate change skeptics" in making and promoting these accusations, and getting them reflected in the media. . . dave souza, talk 09:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Addition will not be made

I will be adding proposal (2) to the lede within 24 hours pending further objections. All of the concerns raised thus far have been addressed, save for ChrisO's, which consisted of an OR violation and should ipso facto be ignored.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe you've been politely asked not to do so. Please don't engage in disruptive editing. Viriditas (talk) 02:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I was not, and would not respect such a request sans rationale. To my knowledge the concerns have been met.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:22, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
You don't seem to "get" it. There's a tag at the top of this page. Let me repeat the words for you here: "This article has been placed on article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision." If this isn't making sense, feel free to ask questions. Viriditas (talk) 03:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Haha. Please review the definition of disruptive editing. And note that unwarranted and unhelpful accusations violate WP:CIVIL.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
There's nothing funny about threatening to make edits that multiple editors have asked you not to make. Perhaps Wikipedia isn't the place for you. Here, we engage in consensus-driven edits. Viriditas (talk) 03:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Per my comment above - no. You cannot add material to the lead that's not in the article. Guettarda (talk) 03:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
You appear to be in violation of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
There's a consensus against your edits here. We "hear" it just fine. Viriditas (talk) 03:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't think you're following the conversation. I'm responding to the point Guettarda raised above, as referenced by him here.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
You were asked not to make the proposed edit by multiple editors. End of discussion. Viriditas (talk) 03:46, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
The discussion between you and I is over, though for different reasons. You because you believe you've won, god knows why. Me because you've made yourself look silly enough, and contributed little enough of value here, that I see no need to engage you further.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
You guys need to take your personal argument to your user talk pages. As far as HP's proposed intro, I don't fully agree with it, but since it isn't any better or any worse than what the article currently has, I won't revert it if you add it. Cla68 (talk) 03:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I would fully support moving it to Viriditas' talkpage. I do not think it contributes to this page and should have ignored him/her. If he/she will consent I'll make that move. If he/she takes the initiative consider this an endorsement.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:58, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Or we could collapse it? I've always been partial to those.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:59, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I support keeping this discussion here uncollapsed as it is 1) not personal, and 2) a clear and concise record of consensus against Heyitspeter's proposed edits. Viriditas (talk) 04:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it really matters right now as long as the intro more or less summarizes the current state of the article. The elephant in the room is the third investigation report, which should be out within the month, right? Until then, this article is kind of in a holding pattern. I predict that once that report is issued, within two or three months we'll see a number of additional books published on controversy, which is great, IMO, as it will provide a slew of RS to use to polish this article. Cla68 (talk) 04:04, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
My prediction is that instead of a slew of RS to polish the article, we will get a slew of partisan commentary we can start new arguments over. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Seriously HiP, stop it with the bullshit accusations. For starters, your proposed text includes "the BBC and Computerworld..." but there is not mention of "Computerworld" or "Computer World" anywhere on that page - not in the text of the article, not in the references. Your claims to the contrary are simply untrue. Guettarda (talk) 04:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


So where do things stand now? I don't see a consensus. By my count, Hipocrite, Guettarda, and Viriditas disapprove Peter's suggestion. Arthur, Tony, and I tend to agree with it but fall short of endorsing it. For my part, it's absolutely fine for him to go ahead, but also absolutely fine for it to be subsequently edited. Edited and tweaked, but not reverted. Curtis and Thepm approve. Have I misunderstood anyone? Has anyone changed his mind?

Guettarda, I just asked HiP the same question, though as a question, not an accusation. He discovered the ComputerWorld part has been moved to the article on the CRU documents. You'll find it at the very bottom. My suggestion was that he drop that from the lead. The BBC part is in the last paragraph of the documents section of this article, so it's fine. Does anyone see anything else in his 2nd proposed paragraph that's not included in the main body?

It would be helpful if anyone who objects to his going ahead would respond here with concrete specific, not generalized, objections in a collegial spirit of working together on the article. Yopienso (talk) 04:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

HiP has a long history of nonsense like this, and in this case he's making claims that are obviously false. He even appears to go so far as to admit it, with his link to WP:HEAR above. Guettarda (talk) 04:52, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Guettarda, but that comment is neither concrete (specific) nor offered in a collegial spirit and is therefore unacceptable. Please do not introduce ad hominem attacks into this section. HiP's history is irrelevant to my question. What is false about his claims in the 2nd paragraph he presents for our approval? Please enumerate and briefly explain, providing RS for any factual differences. Yopienso (talk) 05:03, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Whoops! I missed Cla68, who is willing to let HiP go ahead even though she doesn't agree with it 100%. And ChrisO--I can't tell if you're for or against. Yopienso (talk) 06:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Refraining from reverting is not the same as "go ahead". It's effectively a vote of neutrality. You have a strange notion of consensus, Yopienso. Viriditas (talk) 06:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's how I interpret Cla's remarks, too, and have her, Arthur, Tony, and myself under that column on a sheet of paper here on my desk. I have you, Guettarda, and Hipocrite under Disapprove and Curtis and Thepm under Approve. I would prefer that each editor speak for himself. Please tell us specifically on what grounds you disapprove.
My notion of "consensus" is "general agreement." My opening line, you'll note, was, "I don't see a consensus." I'm hoping to see one and trying to facilitate that. Yopienso (talk) 06:36, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Better yet, why not help draft a more accurate lead? This article has a huge number of problems, from basic layout and structure to prose and composition, to neutrality and weight issues. Viriditas (talk) 06:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
If I remember right, me, Guettarda, and TS had each offered a suggested article outline several months ago. Perhaps these should be drug out again and discussed. I believe all three are still valid ideas. Cla68 (talk) 06:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm still getting the hang of collaborative writing, Viriditas! HiP's 2nd seems accurate enough to me, just a bit thick around the middle, maybe some WP:UNDUE. He knows I'll feel free to edit it if it gets into mainspace. What are your objections? And, hi, Cla--are you for, against, or neutral? Maybe you could find those outlines.--Yopienso (talk) 07:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
My objections are many and space is limited, so I'll summarize: Neither proposed versions above are an improvement on the current lead. Viriditas (talk) 07:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

What is false about his claims? Yopienso, as you yourself mentioned, the proposed text mentions "BBC and Computerworld", but there is no mention of "Computerworld" anywhere in the article. And yet his response to this is has been:

  • The material is in the article under the section entitled "Content of the documents".--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
    • This is untrue; a careful examination of that section and the refs cited therein shows no mention of "Computerworld"
  • It is.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
    • Here he not only repeats the false claim, he now links to a section on the policy on disruptive editing. To his patently false claim he now either accuses me of disruption, or he admits that he is being disruptive. Either way, it's an unacceptable response.
  • You appear to be in violation of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
    • Again, he links to the same section of the policy on disruptive editing. Here he is clearly making an accusation against me. And yet, contrary to his claim, there is still no mention of Computerworld in the article.

Now I'm not saying it was never in the article. But it's not there now. It's trivially easy to check - just his [Control-F] and look for computerworld or computer world. Never appears anywhere in the article. HiP's behaviour here is simply disruptive. Instead of discussing problems with his proposed changes, he simply denies they exist. Guettarda (talk) 06:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

What I see here is that you are peeved with him. I've already explained the misunderstanding over ComputerWorld, so that's behind us. Ideally, he would apologize to you for mistakenly insisting and you would graciously understand that the last time he checked it was there. He wasn't lying, but was not up-to-date. But my aim is to get on with this article, not to sort out these petty grievances. I'm understanding that you have no further objections beyond presumably wanting to see these lines substantially trimmed:

The emails prompted allegations of efforts to withhold scientific data and to ensure the IPCC include their own views and exclude others,[4] of attempts to remove journal editors with whom the researchers disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked,[5] and of failures to appropriately fulfill requests under the Freedom of Information Act.[6] The BBC and Computerworld also raised concerns about the quality and accuracy of the CRU's coding methods as prompted by coding documentation released with the emails.

HiP, can you accept that? Who can propose a rewrite of those lines? It's way past my bedtime....Zzzzzzzz Yopienso (talk) 07:15, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
This proposed change gives undue weight to relatively minor allegations, and omits the primary controversy which was a series of generally untrue or fraudulent accusations by "climate change skeptics" as described in the sources to the article. If editors want to reintroduce detail of the "code" allegations, specific proposals are needed for the body of the article and not for the lead. The current lead paragraph is concise and reasonable in terms of weight. Expanding the lead to mention the more tentative concerns raised by non-sceptics and so forth must not give undue weight to these concerns or give the impression that the skeptic views were more widespread than they were. If done, it would be necessary to add balance by showing the various views that the emails did not show wrongdoing – this was removed as duplicating the exonerations produced by the various inquiries. . . dave souza, talk 09:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
No, the current edition gives undue weight to allegations from skeptics. The proposed version is more balanced. It does not imply, over and against the reliable sources, that skeptics are the only people making the relevant allegations. As per that policy something like the current proposal must be included.--Heyitspeter (talk) 18:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

@Yopienso and Guettarda: Sure. Here is one possible revised version:

(3): The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). According to the university, the emails and documents were obtained through the hacking of a server. The emails prompted allegations of efforts to withhold scientific data and to ensure the IPCC include their own views and exclude others,[9] of attempts to remove journal editors with whom the researchers disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked,[10] and of failures to appropriately fulfill requests under the Freedom of Information Act.[11] The BBC also raised concerns about the quality and accuracy of the CRU's coding methods as prompted by coding documentation released with the emails.[16] Climate change skeptics argued that the emails cast doubt on global warming.[6][7][8] The UEA and CRU rejected the allegations[12][13] and a number of academics, climate change researchers, and independent reports found that most or all of the allegations of fraud were baseless, though concerns remained about attempts to stonewall critics and hide data.[12][8][14]

Let me know what you all think.--Heyitspeter (talk) 18:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

For a start, it' a clumsy attempt to avoid the obvious general term of hacking for the unlawful theft of the documents, and it's out of sequence putting the wider reaction to the "skeptic claims" before the skeptic allegations which started the controversy. Not an improvement. . . dave souza, talk 19:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks to all editors for your input! Sorry the weekend's over and I don't have time now to carry on. Please see my recent comment below under "English usage question." Perhaps later tonight I can pop back in. Yopienso (talk) 23:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
The statement about hacking/unlawful theft was a copy-paste from the mainpage. I did not write that. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that you had written it :) . Feel free to edit the mainpage on that score and we can add the rest in after it. As for your other worry, please find a WP:RS that states that skeptic allegations started the controversy. It sounds like WP:OR to me, and I can see no prima facie basis for it.--Heyitspeter (talk) 00:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Here it is, paragraphs 5,6,7. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/23/hacker.climate/index.html Yopienso (talk) 02:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Reddit. That doesn't cite the sentence in question. Dave Souza is arguing that newspapers are taking their own statements directly from skeptics. That's not in any RS I'm aware of, and I can't conceive of an RS saying it.--Heyitspeter (talk) 22:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Dave was saying the controversy was picked up by the MSM after skeptics alleged the emails showed misconduct on the part of the scientists. As nearly as I can find, the emails were first posted on Air Vent, a skeptic blog. See "Leaked FOIA files 62 mb of gold" at [35] Days later they said, "Well the drive by media is getting a part of the story but we all know they cannot be counted on to figure anything out on their own. You wonder why circulation is down my friends, here is a great example. This scandal is the biggest thing to hit climate science ever, and the leftist media took several days to even begin covering it. Now they’re covering it incorrectly. At the same time the conservative side declares global warming has ended." [36] The site I gave you above doesn't say word-for-word, "The skeptic allegations started the controversy." It says,
"The hacker then posted a link to the 61-MB file on the blog Air Vent.
The hacker's message that accompanied the link read: "We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents."
Doesn't that mean the Air Vent blog started the controversy? Yopienso (talk) 23:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Maybe this is overly obstinate, but I may as well make my thought process clear. Dave stated: "it's out of sequence putting the wider reaction to the 'skeptic claims' before the skeptic allegations which started the controversy." It's true that the release of the emails and documents by a skeptic started the controversy. It's not true that skeptic allegations started the controversy. And it's not true that the allegations in the mainstream media were a reaction to claims made by skeptics. I am happy with putting the allegations by climate change skeptics ahead of the rest. It just seemed clearer to place them at the end to distinguish them from reports made by the mainstream media.--Heyitspeter (talk) 02:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Here is an alternate, taking these considerations into account:

(4): The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (dubbed "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the Internet leak of thousands of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). According to the university, the emails and documents were obtained through the hacking of a server. Climate change skeptics argued that the emails cast doubt on global warming.[6][7][8] Reports in the media claimed the emails showed evidence of efforts to withhold scientific data and to ensure the IPCC include their own views and exclude others,[9] of attempts to remove journal editors with whom the researchers disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked,[10] and of failures to appropriately fulfill requests under the Freedom of Information Act.[11] The BBC also raised concerns about the quality and accuracy of the CRU's coding methods as prompted by coding documentation released with the emails.[16] The UEA and CRU rejected the allegations[12][13] and a number of academics, climate change researchers, and independent reports found that most or all of the allegations of fraud were baseless, though concerns remained about attempts to stonewall critics and hide data.[12][8][14]

I appreciate your attitude, Peter. What I'm finding, though, is that the MSM reacted to the skeptics' claims. "The material...was published...by climate change skeptics who claim efforts had been made to manipulate data..." [37] Or look here: [38]
I'm guessing the alternate just above is from you. It just seems too detailed to me for the lede. Yopienso (talk) 04:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
To leave out the allegations that define this controversy violates WP:LEAD. To include only allegations from skeptics violates WP:UNDUE: Therefore, (4) looks sufficiently detailed, not too detailed.--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
(I've followed the link. If you reread it along with your pasted sentence carefully I think you'll see that "skeptic allegations ... started the controversy", at least where 'started' is taken in its active sense [if taken passively it would be vacuously true and not worth saying] is not corroborated by them at all.)--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Once again, you seem to by trying to play up relatively minor criticisms and downplay the central part played by "skeptics", presenting "skeptical" claims as though they were mainstream, giving undue weight and support to the "skeptic" claims and unbalancing the lead. Not an improvement. . . dave souza, talk 12:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Open letter from National Academy of Sciences

Should this be included somewhere? Open letter: Climate change and the integrity of science Tayste (edits) 00:14, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

As far as I cn see, that open letter doesn't specifically mention this topic. I think it could be considered for mention in the Global warming controversy article. Cla68 (talk) 00:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I have suggested that it belongs in the section about responses from scientific organisations. To suggest that the letter does not refer to this appalling attack on scientific integrity is not credible. Tasty monster (=TS ) 00:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
it belongs in the section about responses from scientific organisations. I don't think so. The letter is from the individual scientists and they are specifically "not speaking on ... behalf of their institutions" Thepm (talk) 00:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point. We must make it plain that this group of 255 distinguished American scientists speak on their own behalf, as a group, and not on behalf of the Academy. Tasty monster (=TS ) 00:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The letter does not say anything about the CRU controversy, Tony. So, how do you know it's referring to this incident? It seems to me to be addressing the general debate concerning AGW, and therefore the global warming controversy article is the more important place for it. Cla68 (talk) 01:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, of course. "The recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular" obviously is totally unrelated to the fallout from the CRU incident. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:13, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I didn't say that. The letter, however, doesn't mention the CRU. So, all we can assume is that they're referring to the at large debate on AGW which includes a lot more issues than just the Climategate emails. See here and here to see what I mean. I think this letter is related to the much bigger picture than just the Climategate incident. Cla68 (talk) 01:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

In his recent comment on Huffington Post, the contact person for the letter Peter Gleick makes the connection explicitly. This is not a matter on which there can be honest debate, he's told us what it refers to. Tasty monster (=TS ) 01:26, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you have the link handy? I've never seen a remark from the comments section of an Internet newspaper used as a reliable source, but I could be wrong. Cla68 (talk) 01:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks Dave. I would say, based on that article, that one or two sentences on the US Academy's open letter would be appropriate for this article. It looks like it also should be mentioned in one of the IPCC articles. Cla68 (talk) 01:33, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Good point. We should also take into account the next paragraph after the one I quoted – "Its call for an end to "McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association" appears to be jibe at Republican senator, James Inhofe, who has called for a criminal investigation into US and British climatologists whose email exchanges were stolen from UEA. The letter also condemns the 'harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them.' " . . dave souza, talk 01:44, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
So you believe this letter, which is not a formal statement by any official body, should be included...but the formal statement from the Institute of Physics (which was critical of the scientists involved) doesn't deserve a mention? Odd bit of logic, there. Fell Gleaming(talk) 01:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Do you have the link to the Institute of Physics' statement? Cla68 (talk) 01:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Ah, the IoP's formal submission to the Select Committee which was drafted by a small subcommittee, repudiated by many members of the IoP, and the subject of controversy resulting in "clarifications" largely disowning the statement. Any mention of that has to go over these issues, and note the impact of that statement on the committee's decision. As discussed previously. . . dave souza, talk 01:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I found something on it. We probably could have something on it, but in order to include all the background drama associated with that statement would be a headache. I'm willing to give it a go, however, if others are. Cla68 (talk) 01:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I think that source covers the basics, there was a detailed draft discussed here at the time. As discussed above, we should review coverage of responses to the incident by scientists and scientific organisations, as included in this version. . dave souza, talk 02:04, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
The IoP's formal submission to the Select Committee which was drafted by a small subcommittee -- This is true of the formal statements by the NAS, AGU and other bodies, which are included in the articles on climate change. Why do you believe this case should be any different? All formal statements by large bodies are done this way...how else can tens of thousand of people draft a single statement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by FellGleaming (talk • contribs) 02:08, 10 May 2010
You undermine your own case – a statement signed individually by a large number of eminent NAS scientists is more significant than a submission to a committee, drafted by a few unknown individuals and repudiated by named members of the IoP who have significant expertise in the subject. . dave souza, talk 09:59, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

SBHB, why did you remove my talk page comment here? [39] Fell Gleaming(talk) 01:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Result of an edit conflict (overlapping edits). I've noticed this sort of thing occasionally -- apparently the software isn't perfect. Please restore at whatever position you think appropriate. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Cla68, it's difficult for me to post the link right now. I tried but it disappeared somehow. You'll find it if you google on Gleick and Huffington. Tasty monster (=TS ) 01:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

We should certainly discuss the controversy about the Institute of Physics' official submission to the Select Committee, in the section on that inquiry. If we do not, that's another significant omission on top of all the other statements from scientists and scientific organisations that are not currently in the article. Tasty monster (=TS ) 02:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

(ignoring some of the above and answering the original question) - yes, that response is relevant and rather significant, so it should be worked in as appropriate. However, it is a response to the wider issue of (what the National Academy and many sources describe as) denial of science and attacks on scientists in favor of politics and self-interest, not just this one incident. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

As recently discussed here, there's a good case for restoring a better summary of responses from scientists and scientific organisations. The easiest approach would be to simply re-add the content together with the newer announcements, then simplify or pare it down as appropriate. Some points may be already covered in "Other responses". . dave souza, talk 16:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ Harvey, Fiona (April 14 2010). "Global warming graph attacked by study". www.ft.com. Retrieved 15 April 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ a b c d e f Report of the Science Assessment Panel, 14 April 2010
  3. ^ House of Commons Science and Technology Committee "The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia" 31 March 2010.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference hoc was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Randerson 31 March 2010 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference Guardian 20 Nov was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference NYTimes 20 Nov was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cite error: The named reference fc_2009-12-10 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference Johnson_2009-11-23_WSJ was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference Reason_12/2009 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference Randerson_2010-01-27_Guardian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cite error: The named reference Moore 24 Nov was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference 2010-04-06_CRU_statements was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference ap_2009-12-12 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference computerworld was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference newsnight-code was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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