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A news item involving Climatic Research Unit email controversy was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the In the news section on 24 November 2009.

This page is not a forum for general discussion about anthropogenic climate change or associated disputes. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about anthropogenic climate change or associated disputes at the Reference desk.

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

view · edit Frequently asked questions To view an explanation to the answer, click the link to the right of the question. Q1: Why is this article not called "Climategate"? A1: There have been numerous discussions on this subject on the talk page. The current title is not the common name, as is generally used for Misplaced Pages articles, but instead a descriptive title, one chosen to not seem to pass judgment, implicitly or explicitly, on the subject. A recent Requested move discussion has indicated that there is no consensus to move the article to the title of Climategate, and so further discussion of the article title has been tabled until at least June 2011. Q2: Why aren't there links to various emails? A2: The emails themselves are both primary sources and copyright violations. Misplaced Pages avoids using primary sources (WP:PRIMARY), and avoids linking to Copyright violations. If a specific email has been discussed in a reliable, secondary source, use that source, not the email. Q3: Why is/isn't a specific blog being used as a source? A3: Blogs are not typically reliable sources. Blogs may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Blogs should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable sources. Q4: Aren't the emails/other documents in the public domain? A4: No. Some of the hacked documents are covered by Crown copyright, others by private copyright. The Freedom of Information Act does not affect copyright. Q5: Why does the article refer to a hacking and to stolen documents? Couldn't this be an accidental release of information or released by a whistleblowing insider ? A5: Misplaced Pages reports the facts from reliable sources. In their most recent statement on the issue, Norfolk Constabulary have said that the information was released through an attack carried out remotely via the Internet and that there is no evidence of anyone associated with the University being associated with the crime. Both the University and a science blog, RealClimate , have reported server hacking incidents directly associated with this affair. The University has stated that the documents were "stolen" and "illegally obtained". Q6: Why is there a biographies of living persons (BLP) notice at the top of this page? This article is about an event, and the Climatic Research Unit is not a living person. A6: The BLP applies to all pages on Misplaced Pages, specifically to all potentially negative statements about living persons. It does not apply solely to articles about living persons. The notice is there to remind us to take care that all statements regarding identifiable living persons mentioned in the article or talk page comply with all Misplaced Pages policies and with the law, per the BLP. Q7: What do I do if I have a complaint about the conduct of other people editing or discussing this article? A7: Follow the dispute resolution policy. It is not optional. Unduly cluttering the talk page with complaints about other editors' behavior is wasteful. In the case of egregiously bad conduct only, consider contacting an administrator. Q8: I think there is inadequate consensus on a matter of policy. What should I do? A8: There are several options. Consider posting the issue on one of the noticeboards, or starting a request for comment (RFC) on the question. Q9: Why doesn't the article report that BBC weather reporter Paul Hudson received an advance copy of the leaked content? A9: Because it isn't true. In fact, the only involvement Paul Hudson reports (see here) is that he had been the subject of emailed complaints from CRU climatologists concerning a blog article he had recently published, and that he was able to confirm that those emailed complaints which had been copied to him by the senders, and which later appeared in the zip file of stolen documents, were authentic. That is to say, Hudson received some of the later leaked e-mails, but only those originally also addressed to him or the BBC, which forwarded them. It appears that some blogs and newspapers have misinterpreted this. This was also confirmed by the BBC on the 27th November 2009 and on the 13th March 2010 when the issue arose again. Q10: Newspapers have reported that this article and a lot of the global warming articles are being controlled and manipulated. Why don't we report that? A10: The items in question are opinion columns by James Delingpole and Lawrence Solomon. Misplaced Pages's guidelines on self-references discourage self-referential material unless publicity regarding a Misplaced Pages article is determined to be significant enough to be included. This requires the Misplaced Pages coverage to be a major part of the controversy. There is no consensus that the two opinion columns meet this criterion. This does not preclude coverage of those writers' opinions on Misplaced Pages in other articles, such as James Delingpole, Lawrence Solomon, Global warming conspiracy theory, and Criticism of Misplaced Pages, but that would be a matter for the editors of those individual articles. On specific charges against an individual named by Lawrence Solomon and repeated uncritically by James Delingpole, please see this discussion on the Conflict of interest noticeboard.

Issues related to this article have been raised at the Biographies of living persons noticeboard on 21 November 2009 (archived) 28 November 2009 (archived) 31 December 2009 (archived) 6 January 2009 (archived) and at Neutral point of view noticeboard on 7 December 2009 (active as of December 15, 2009) and at Requested moves on 11 December 2009 (failed) 23 December 2009 (active as of December 24, 2009)

A rewrite of this article is in progress, the outline is being developed at Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident/outline. Please discuss the rewrite at #Rewrite

POV Flag

It seems to me that since the POV flag went up on the article and probation started, there have been vast improvements in the content of the article and the civility in this talk page. Therefore I wonder if there is still any cause to have the POV flag up. What issues, specifically, remain? Ignignot (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Just for the sake of adding my two cents; I don't see any reason for the flag to remain. NickCT (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The relative stability of this article is a strong indicator that the POV flag is no longer necessary. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Great work, guys. It's looking really very good now. --Nigelj (talk) 20:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the trajectory is excellent but in my view removing the tag is a bit premature. There are a couple of thorny issues yet to be tackled (the section on code is a big one). I'd hate to see the good will on exhibit here be spoiled by someone feeling the need to reinsert the tag down the road. Just my 2 centavos Jpat34721 (talk) 20:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I also think it might be a little premature, but it was not immediately obvious what was drawing the POV flag. Since one of our todo list items is to find consensus on this issue, it might be useful to have the POV issues explicitly listed. If we can't find anything then I would obviously support the flag removal. Ignignot (talk) 20:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't really see anything of value in the code section at all. I'd just delete the section entirely. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

See? :>) Actually, I view the code section as a stub. It needs a lot of work but in my view, ignoring the code controversy all together would be a mistake. Jpat34721 (talk) 20:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

What "code controversy" are you referring to? -- Scjessey (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Google 'climategate code'. In a nutshell, many computer scientists who have examined the code are appalled at its quality and at the many undocumented fudge factors used to adjust the raw data. The question is, was this just throw away code or was it used to draw or influence any of the conclusions reached by CRU or the IPCC. Some say yes, some say no. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:12, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that any of this code was actually used? I've got thousands of lines of code on my hard drive that I've never deployed because it was development code, or experimentation. I'm seeing a section that speculates about the quality of code that may or may not have been used. There's no way to know if that code is a "representative sample" of the kind of code being used either. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The way I look at it, stories about the code are already out there. People can come to wikipedia and read the concerns about the code along with notice that it's unknown if the code was actually used, or they can see nothing here about the code and be left with whatever impression they got from some web site.--Magicjava (talk) 09:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm dubious of the methodology here: while Jpat34721, or anybody else worldwide, can point to something s/he "takes issue with" or is "bothered by", anywhere in the text, in the list below, we have to keep the POV tag? By that logic it should be easy enough for anybody to get every article on WP so tagged, surely? --Nigelj (talk) 20:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not how it is supposed to work. The tag is supposed to be used when there is an ongoing dispute about neutrality being worked out. There is no conceivable way that everyone is going to be happy with this article because of their own ideologies and biases, so it can get to the point where it is nothing more than a badge of shame. I firmly believe that we are beyond the "dispute" stage, and the tag can be removed. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I in no way meant to imply that my views have any more weight than any other editor here. We were asked if we would support the tag removal. I would not and gave my reasons why. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) The methodology is to just see what people still think are POV issues, and if those issues are enough to keep a POV warning tag on it article. As I said, it has definitely improved, I don't know if it has improved enough, and I don't think there is any discussion on what we can do to narrow this down. So let's talk. Perhaps my comment, "if we can't find anything then I would obviously support the flag removal," taken narrowly, might imply that I would not support it unless no one has a problem with anything. What I am looking for is if "a consensus among the editors that the NPOV disputes have indeed been resolved," (from the NPOV dispute page) already exists, and if not, why not. Ignignot (talk) 21:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. Remove the POV tag. Everyone who disagrees that it's biased has been chased away by multiple reverts and heaps of scorn and an aplphabet soup of accusations. Reliable Source discussions of bias in this article by the mainstream media have been successfully excluded even from the talk pages, and the chorus is finally in tune. Stick a BLP tag on the top, throw in a few quotes from Al Gore, and it's ready for prime time! /saracsm Nightmote (talk) 21:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't know what you're trying to say here other than maybe, "this is still not neutral". Ignignot (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Any fool can get consensus among those who already agree. Nightmote (talk) 21:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

You are too kind. I don't yet share your optimism that I am up to the task. Ignignot (talk) 22:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Har! Very good, except for the coffee through my nose part Jpat34721 (talk) 22:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is alomst irretrieveably broken. The AGW crowd are determined to avoid the use of the word "Climategate" for fear that someone, somewhere, might think that one of the water-walking sainted scientists might have done something wrong. This depite the fact that half of the world uses the term and every hit this article gets comes from a re-direct from "Climategate". The skeptics are bound and determined to include a declaration that " ... this is it - Global Warming is a hoax!" William Connelly - who is mentioned by name in the damned emails - is editing this article. Everybody who has ever *experienced* weather has been quoted in this bloated son-of-a-bitch, including dead people and barn animals. If I were in charge of this steaming afterbirth, I'd fire you all every writer and hire retarded monkeys with carpal tunnel to do the re-write. It's an embarrassment. A (deleted) embarrassment! And if this is the best we can come up with, then Misplaced Pages has well and truly jumped the shark. I'm avidly following this article with the same morbid curiosity I might exhibit whilst walking past a burning train wreck, and it still has the capacity to surprise me. By all means remove the POV tag, but don't imagine that the Badge of Shame has gone anywhere. Nightmote (talk) 23:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Well if that is the standard of debate, we're not going to get anywhere. Mostly because anybody with an IQ in double figures would rather do something else with their free time than engage with that. I thought there was some kind of admin system around here meant to improve the working environment? --Nigelj (talk) 15:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Admins block vandals, protect heavily vandalised pages, delete nonsense articles, and so on. What admin action are you requesting? Evercat (talk) 15:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I think he means the article probation thing. Guettarda (talk) 16:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Having not followed the article for the past week, it seems the it still suffers from the same POV issues I mentioned a month or two ago.

First, there's the POV title of the article. "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" gives undue weight to the hacking incident which is just a small part of the story. The majority of reliable sources are focusing the controversy that the e-mails generated. I suggest a neutral title such as "Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy", "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy" or "Climatic Research Unit data release controversy".

Second, there's the undue weight given to the death threats in the lede. Are the death threats noteworthy enough to include in the article. Yes, absolutely. Are they noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the lede? Absolutely not. Most reliable sources hardly even mention this. It simply appears to be a way for AGW proponents to play the victim card.

Third, there's the new POV violation with the "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change" bit. The term Climategate is used all over the media, not just by AGW skeptics.

And that's just the lede. I'll drop by in a few days or so and see if any progress has been made. Now back to the regularly schedule insanity. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I might add the absurdly-overweight "Similar incident" section with the loon at University of Victoria. SFAICT, this was a routine campus-burglary series (all over the campus), compounded by publicity-seeking (or whatever) by wossisname. I see it's been shrunk a bit -- certainly doesn't merit a section. Discussed in a couple of the archives; never a consensus to retain. Past news & irrelevant to this event, except in the mind of Prof Weaver. Prev. discussed here and here. --Pete Tillman (talk) 17:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. It seems completely appropriate and relevant, despite the spin you apply to the incident. It gives the CRU incident a little bit of context, and seems perfectly weighted. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

@Nightmote: hear, hear! It really is a laughable and a disgusting example of duplicity, word-game connivery, and pedantry. About six weeks in and the AGW spin-artists who have latched onto this page like a mongrel onto a soup bone, have pretty much alienated anyone with an honest interest in providing a straightforward, objective, expository, and informative account of Climategate. (Yes, that's what it's called, in spite of the silly and pathetic word-hijacking plied here on the irreparably compromised ol' Misplaced Pages. Nice work boyos!) What's funny is, that the phraseology -- on the article page and behind the scenes here -- isn't even cunning or subtle; it's over-the-top propagandism by dogmatic AGW adherents trying to do damage-control. "...dubbed 'Climategate' by sceptics" -- and that gets left alone for days! But just anyone try to put some straight-talk or a citation from a "sceptical" source (as the world goes into deep freeze; darn those pesky "sceptics" -- or is it "pescy"?) and the usual self-appointed "moderators" quash it. Weeks in, and now that the "pool" of editors has been reduced to a group of hard-line AGW sophists, this little "inner circle" has the audacious pretentiousness to call for "consensus and removal of the neutrality-dispute/POV flag." The fun never stops! I repeat: nice work boyos! MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 00:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I see Scjessey is applying the old "soap boxing" angle as an excuse to remove detractors' comments even from the discussion page; a predictable hypocrisy, particularly as I have noted innumerable instances of gross and blatant flouting of Misplaced Pages rules of conduct and engagement (Wiki etiquette if you will) from that very same person, all throughout these discussion pages. But it's an interesting new tactic; by all means let's not have any debate; by all means let's start whitewashing the talk pages too. That'll fool 'em. Stet. MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 04:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

PS, can someone tell me who appointed Scjessey the "guardian of Wiki rules of conduct and good faith" vis-a-vis this article and its talk pages? Because he, solely, has been jumping on me from within minutes my very first talk-page post, even directly coinciding with (if I recall correctly) incidents of he himself blatantly castigating another editor's changes. Not to mention sending little "warnings" to my account chastising me for speaking my mind, chastising me under the guise of "Wiki Rules and Regulations" -- again, the "warnings" solely from him. Just wondering; because he's all over this page, squatting on it, and trying to insinuate an intimidating manner -- for instance, giving little rules-lectures whenever a "noob" like myself has the temerity to chime in. And when it comes to the point of his removing my "disruptive" comments from the discussion pages (from my understanding, removing another person's talk-page entries without the most ironclad of reasons is a practice heavily frowned upon in Wiki rules; undoubtedly more so even than the supposed "transgressions" of my little diatribes; besides which I see others' posts here expressing at least as much anger and incredulity as I have; didn't you notice? -- and, hey, if we come across harsh and direct at least you don't get double-minded cozening and/or pandering rhetoric) -- anyway, when it comes to removing others' comments, it becomes a serious eyebrow-raiser. So by all means let's have maximum transparency here. Because, correct me if I am wrong, there's supposed to be no respect of persons on Misplaced Pages; but I perceive a double standard. Yeah, so much for "good faith." Apparently some here are "more equal than others." Spare me the "good faith assumption" cop-out when I see a nauseating amount of condescension and sanctimonious ridicule applied to other editors whose "angle" doesn't fall in line with those same "good-faith police" who felt it expedient NOT to call a spade a spade. If you weren't prepared to take the flak, you shouldn't have let subjectivity reign here. MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 04:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If you have a problem with an editor, the place to go is there, not here. Please see WP:TALK for how to use article talk page of articles. Additional comments on this subject here will be considered disruptive and summarily removed. --McSly (talk) 05:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, in all sincerity. Having said that, here's my problem: I never intended to get mired in a circular web of rules and protocols. When I originally came here weeks ago, I made a comment protesting the lead sentence. I do not feel the comment was excessive nor out-of-line with other similar sentiments from other users. I never "singled out" any particular editor; rather, within minutes I was singled out by aforementioned person who has clearly assumed a role as some sort of "moderator" here. More currently, when my talk-page comment got unceremoniously removed from the talk pages, that definitely seemed out-of-line with the conventional protocol -- my harsh or perhaps even confrontational (broadly speaking) language notwithstanding -- and I took that personally. Now I have seen others here on both ends expressing great disdain directly at other editors and their work, so I guess I don't wholly get it. I am by no means an "expert" on all Misplaced Pages rules (for which I am infinitely thankful) and, for instance, I am not versed in the proper method of addressing other editors -- even those who take it upon themselves to remove my comments; but as I said my initial address weeks ago was to no one in particular, and conversely I quickly got singled out for "instruction." If you feel it is proper to remove my comments henceforward and retroactively, be my guest. I will neither revert them nor protest further. I am quit of this mess. But I wonder what kind of dynamic is being fostered here. I think many would prefer to see furious debate, contention, frustration, and even outright arguing on these talk pages, rather than some jealously guarded politically correct forum. MacheathWasABadBadMan (talk) 05:45, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Please try to focus on the article. That's all. As you said, you aren't an expert. So when someone tells you "this isn't the place for comments like that", try to give them the benefit of the doubt, consider the possibility that they know what they're talking about. Guettarda (talk) 07:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

many would prefer to see furious debate, contention, frustration, and even outright arguing on these talk pages, rather than some jealously guarded politically correct forum - therein lies your problem. Most of us would rather editors work in a constructive fashion to make the article better rather then spend all their time outright arguing and yelling and getting frustrated with each other. If you think that's politically correct, thats up to you, but that's the way wikipedia and much of the world works. Nil Einne (talk) 10:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)-

Nil Einne, would that 'twere so. But it ain't. What people like NigelJ and Guettarda fail to realize is that this isn't a race to see who can pile up more reliably-sourced biased crap first. There has been (expurgated)-all in terms of "compromise" or "consensus" or "constructuve effort" on this article. It's been one small-minded revert after another, one more obscure "expert" after another, all in the name of getting the last word in or figuring out who has to move first to beat out the three-revert rule. Except that the pompous pinheads editing this article have been so damned self-important, combative, and contentious that it's down to a ONE revert rule. I have a point of view, Scjessey has a point of view, hell, even (self-redacted) probably has an ill-formed and rudimentary a point of view rattling around up there somewhere. But unless we're willing to accept eleven seperate articles, at least four of which will be written in crayon, we can't keep treating this article as a teeter-totter with piles of biased manure at either end. That's not "neutral" that's stupid. Until the gatekeepers and pedants stop gaming the system, this fatherless mess will continue to be an international joke. Nightmote (talk) 14:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

POV issue list

Now that we're getting close, here's a section to list remaining concerns.

• I still take issue with 'dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change' in the lead. Acoorded to Webster's dubbed = "to call by a distinctive title, epithet, or nickname". One can find many cases where the nickname is used by AWG proponents. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

"Dubbed by" is a compromise that no one will be 100% with. I would prefer Climategate not be in the lead at all, as it's inherently POV. You want the lead to say "CLIMATEGATE IS THE NAME OF THIS SCANDAL WHICH DISPROVES GLOBAL WARMING." You need to try to find middle ground. Please try to do so, as opposed to attempting to win every single disagreement. Hipocrite (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite, this comment is just inflammatory. Please be careful. Let's keep this discussion constructive.--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Please avoid putting words in my mouth. I am on record agreeing with your stated preference (leaving out the neologism altogether) or going with the simple ("Climategate") construct. BTW, here's another reference from a reliable source (Financial Times), written by a knowledgeable non-skeptic (Terence Cochran) who starts his article 'In the thousands of emails released last month in what is now known as Climategate', no quotes, no mealy mouthing, just states the fact that it is "now known as Climategate". FT article.Jpat34721 (talk) 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Jeez. That's complete nonsense, I'm afraid. It's not the Financial Times at all. It's an editorial in the finance section of the National Post, and it's part 2 of an opinion piece by a known skeptic (see this source, where Terence Corcoran trashes Kyoto). Wrong newspaper, wrong country, wrong characterization of writer, wrong spelling of writer (but I assume that's just a spelling mistake). -- Scjessey (talk) 22:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the articles we're written for the Financial Post (where corcoran is an editor), as a news article. Nothing in your response address the issue which is you keep saying that no reliable sources use Climategate, I keep proving you wrong, and you find spelling errors.Jpat34721 (talk) 22:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I've addressed your edits in a new section below. The edit summary about "balance" must've meant to be ironic. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite, in further response to your non-WP:AGF remarks above, I would point out that you have no faint idea what my POV re AGW is (although I'll tell you it is much more nuanced than you imply). If you will review my edits (e.g. this one), you'll see I have bolstered both sides. I think Dave souza and I would disagree about much and yet we've worked constructively together. We all want to get rid of the tag and we all want to create something of value here. Lets lower our voices and work together in good faith towards that end Jpat34721 (talk) 22:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. First, because we can do better. It's actually called Climategate by many skeptics and non-skeptics alike. Telling people what the controversy is called is more important than telling people who thought up the name (e.g., knowing that Watergate is called "Watergate" is more useful than knowing of who named it). Further, it's contradicted by this RS: . We need a compromise edit.--Heyitspeter (talk) 05:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change" is clumsy and looks like it's part of an edit war. At the very least, a cleaner phrase should be used. Just calling it Climategate is the cleanest of all, IMHO. It's what everyone calls it.--Magicjava (talk) 08:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

May I direct your attention here.--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

• I am still bothered that our first "meaty" reference is the AP story whose lead author is implicated in the controversy and whose main point, the views of the 3 scientists, are contradicted or at least clarified elsewhere. I'm happy that my edit to the WashTimes story was allowed to stand but surely we can find a less tainted source that makes the same point being cited. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The AP author is not implicated in anything. Because some blogs misunderstand how journalists interact with sources does not mean that you should let them guide your editing. Hipocrite (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

He is in the emails multiple times. Revkin stepped down from the NYT and his involvement was much less controversial. We can find a better source.Jpat34721 (talk) 22:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Your second point seems to be about sourcing, where you would leave the content unchanged. Surely that is not a POV issue but just a question of getting better citations? Ignignot (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

My position is that leading with such a one-sided and tainted reference is indeed POVJpat34721 (talk) 21:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I am now satisfied with the balance in this paragraph, assuming inclusion of either the Pielke or Corcoran quote and the clarifying remarks of the 3 scientists polled in the AP article. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• there's the POV title of the article. "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" gives undue weight to the hacking incident which is just a small part of the story. The majority of reliable sources are focusing the controversy that the e-mails generated. I suggest a neutral title such as "Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy", "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy" or "Climatic Research Unit data release controversy". (copied here from comments above])

Agree From ]

Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. ...Neutral titles encourage multiple viewpoints and responsible article writing. JPatterson 22:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• undue weight given to the death threats in the lede. Are the death threats noteworthy enough to include in the article. Yes, absolutely. Are they noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the lede? Absolutely not. Most reliable sources hardly even mention this. It simply appears to be a way for AGW proponents to play the victim card. (copied here from comments above])

Agree JPatterson 22:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

Maybe something that could be used in a new section Leading up to the incident?

In the article Peer-to-Peer Review: How ‘Climategate’ Marks the Maturing of a New Science Movement, Part I, Patrick Courrielche writes "What was triggered at this blog (the Air Vent) was the death of unconditional trust in the scientific peer review process, and the maturing of a new movement – that of peer-to-peer review. Remember these names: Steven Mosher, Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, Jeff “Id” Condon, Lucia Liljegren, and Anthony Watts. These, and their community of blog commenters, are the global warming contrarians that formed the peer-to-peer review network and helped bring chaos to Copenhagen – critically wounding the prospects of cap-and-trade legislation in the process. One may have even played the instrumental role of first placing the leaked files on the Internet.". First of all, is this a proper source for this kind of analysis? Nsaa (talk) 01:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No. It's just another Andrew Breitbart blog. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

... and what's wrong with Andrew Breitbart? Nsaa (talk) 02:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It is not a case of what's wrong with Andrew Breitbart - it is just the WP does not generally use blogs (ie. opinion) as sources. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There is already a surfeit of opinion on this topic. We don't need yet more, particularly from fringe commentators. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Nsaa's intent that the effects of ClimateGate on science should be discussed. Particularly the peer-review process and public trust in science. Agree with the others that that particular bog entry is not the best way to go about it. Although I enjoyed that story and agree with nearly everything said, it's still a blog, which wikipedia usually avoids. Perhaps one or more of these links could supplement or replace the blog link? Climategate: Science Is Dying (WSJ) On environment, Obama and scientists take hit in poll Political polarization on environmental science (Washington Post) (first question in that link is regarding public trust in scientists) Sarah Palin On ClimateGate, Copenhagen: Beware Politicized Science (CBS) John Derbyshire: Trust Science But Don't Trust Scientists (CBS) Cringing Over Climategate (Forbes) 'Climategate' May Hold Lessons on Openness for Researchers Under Pressure (Chronicle) 'Climategate' resolution underlines concern over data falsification (RSC) 'Show Your Working': What 'ClimateGate' means (BBC) Open Science and climategate: The IPCC/CRU needs to take a leaf out of CERN's Book (Free Software Magazine) --Magicjava (talk) 06:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree about the need for assessment of the impact on science, but that may be rather premature. A couple of these links that I've looked at suggest ill informed opinion pieces. Can you point to specific links out of them that you think are balanced and accurate, and not just first reactions to the news? Thanks, dave souza, talk 10:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Misleading cite in section "Naming of the incident"

The first sentence of Section "Naming of the incident" mischaracterises the content of its cite. The current sentence is:

'Analysis by FactCheck concluded that sceptics who allege that the documents show fabrication of evidence of man-made global warming are portraying it as a major scandal, using the term "Climategate".'

The cite refers to http://factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/ wherein we find the only "analysis" for this is the following assertion:

'Skeptics claim this trove of e-mails shows the scientists at the U.K. research center were engaging in evidence-tampering, and they are portraying the affair as a major scandal: "Climategate." '

This is neither an "analysis" nor a "conclusion", it's a mere assertion with no attempt to support it.

If we attempt to fix the Misplaced Pages sentence by removing the references to "FactCheck", "analysis" and "concluded" we end up with:

'"Sceptics who allege that the documents show fabrication of evidence of man-made global warming are portraying it as a major scandal, using the term "Climategate".'

But this new sentence is self-evidently invalid - e.g. its reference to "sceptics" is unscoped - not every sceptic would agree with the term "Climategate". It's a bad claim even in its source - the FactCheck item.

The sentence should either be dropped, or an alternative and superior source should be found. Cadae (talk) 11:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. --Magicjava (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, would question why the naming of the incident is even in the article. Is there a "naming of the incident" section in wiki's coverage of Billygate? Of Camillagate? Of Monicagate? The closest I can find is something like this: "The scandal is sometimes referred to as "Monicagate", "Lewinskygate", "Tailgate", "Sexgate", and "Zippergate", following the "gate" nickname construction that became popular in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal." for the entry on the Lewinsky scandal.--Magicjava (talk) 08:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I've added a dubious tag to the cite to mark this. Since no one seems to be defending this sentence here, propose we delete it soon. JPatterson 00:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

Maybe because quite a lot of people who work on this article are either (a) asleep, or (b) watching NFL playoff games. Propose we leave it where it is until there's been more discussion by regular Wikipedians. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The whole Factcheck article is an 'analysis' of the situation. The sentence you quote is analysis. As for the alternative, it seems rather lacking in a good source. What skeptics? Who are we talking about? Who came to this conclusion? The existing wording ties an actual source (Factcheck) and represents is an their analysis, not an incontrovertible fact. Guettarda (talk) 07:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Captious Introduction

I think there is a malicious association in the first sentence The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change relegating the use of the expression Climategate to climate change skeptics. It implicitly conveys the idea that anyone referring to the case as a scandal (as a name like Climategate relates) is to be suspicious of being a climate change skeptic trying to discredit the Climate Change Theory. Heathmoor (talk) 11:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The use of the term "dubbed" (which I personally dislike) is significant here. What the sentence is saying is that skeptics of anthropogenic climate change gave the incident the "Climategate" moniker in the first place. It does not say that these same individuals/organizations are the exclusive users of that term, so the sentence is fine as it stands. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

except that dubbed does not imply origin. According to Websters it means "to call by a distinctive title, epithet, or nickname". Thus our intro implies that only sceptics use the term "climategate", which is clearly false. Jpat34721 (talk) 18:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No, your interpretation is flawed. Even our own Wiktionary understands the term better than you do, it seems. Being an article about a British incident, perhaps the OED definition is most appropriate, which definitely implies origin. Now I understand what was meant by "attempting to win every disagreement." You have to argue absolutely everything, don't you? -- Scjessey (talk) 18:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You are being unnecessarily contentious here. It wasn't my interpretation, it was Websters. It seems the OED and Websters disagree. I accept the OED definition. Now you have the problem of providing a definitive WP:RS cite that documents the origin. As you well know, there are multiple, conflicting claims about who coined the term. Jpat34721 (talk) 19:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

But every single one of them comes from one AGW skeptic or another, so let's not be unnecessarily contentious about it. Do you really think it was coined by someone who supports the science of AGW? Of course you don't. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, I don't see the term through the same partisan lenses that you do. It seems benign to me. It is true that -gate implies scandal but hacking is a scandal, it could apply equally well to your POV. That being said, your position is clearly OR. If for example, we are to believe it started with a post on a blog, how are we to know the bloggers view on AWG? I've blogged on RC before, does that make you like me more :>) JPatterson 07:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

I don't see anything through a "partisan lens". I am only interested in making sure Misplaced Pages articles remain neutral. "Climategate" is not, and never will be, a non-neutral term for this incident. Any use of the word must be explained to ensure Misplaced Pages isn't seen to be advocating its use. That's a non-negotiable position based on Misplaced Pages policy. You seem determined to bring up the word "scandal" at every opportunity, even using "hacking" as a justification for using it. Then you turn around and accuse me of original research because of my "position". I've no interest in global warming whatsoever, and I've never participated in any discussion about it in any forum until I was prompted to visit this article by a thread on WP:ANI. I'm here to contribute to Misplaced Pages, not promote an agenda. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, sources from all parts of the political spectrum call it "Climategate". How the name came about isn't particularly interesting, just as they're not particularly interesting in any other -gate topic wiki covers. None of these other -gate topics have a discussion on how the name came about, and putting one here is probably undue weight. Again, as the article stands now, it reads like an edit war. There just seems to be phrases thrown in because one side or the other feels it's important to their cause, not because they're central to the issue. --Magicjava (talk) 19:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The entire introduction shows the strains from the battles between skeptics and believers. Perhaps it would be best to simply edit out all contentious material in the introduction and stick to the core facts? Perhaps something like this:

The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, aka "Climategate", came to light in November 2009 with the unauthorized release of thousands of e-mails and other documents from a server owned by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England. Allegations were made that the e-mails showed climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific information, interfered with the peer-review process to prevent dissenting scientific papers from being published, deleted e-mails and raw data to prevent data being revealed under the Freedom of Information Act, and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is. On November 24, the University of East Anglia announced that an independent review of the allegations would be carried out by Sir Muir Russell and subsequently announced that the CRU's director, Professor Phil Jones, would stand aside from his post during the review.

And move the rest to the body. Also, is there any independent confirmation that the material was hacked or are we taking Gavin Schmidt's word for this? --Magicjava (talk) 06:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Your proposal gives undue weight to the accusations, which are a minority or fringe view in terms of science, and does not present the majority view. If stripping it down, we should simply say that "Various accusations have been made that the emails reveal improper behaviour by the scientists, these accusations have been rebutted by the university and the scientists concerned. On November 24....." Can't say that aka "Climategate" works well for me, it's clearly a partisan label and should be described as such from the outset. . . dave souza, talk 07:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed to much space given to accusations, it's a bit rambling. I like your version, "Various accusations have been made that the emails reveal improper behaviour by the scientists", better. From there, just mention the independent review.

"Various accusations" is a nebulous phrase that imparts no information. The controversy isn't about various accusations, it's about specific ones. If this was an article about the recent Tiger Woods incident, we wouldn't say "various accusations have been made", implying perhaps that he fudged his score card. JPatterson 00:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I see your point, but still think the current into is too long and that part sounds like it was written by angry skeptics. Is there anyway to address the seriousness of the allegations in a more succinct way?--Magicjava (talk) 10:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

But this is different from "undue weight", I believe. The accusations have been made and it's not for the scientists to declare themselves found innocent. That is why there are ongoing investigations. As to use of Climategate, even The BBC and The Guardian use that term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magicjava (talk • contribs) 07:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)--Magicjava (talk) 07:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't bother with the link for once, but WP:UNDUE has a specific requirements about making appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and not presenting a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view. The relevant views are expert opinion on the science, not uninformed politicians, and therefore misleading accusations must be shown in context. In the interim, my proposal appears to have attracted some support, so rather than burden the lead with specific rebuttals to each point, I've implemented the proposed short wording above. Note that it's not just "various accusations", it's accusations of "improper behaviour by the scientists". Proposals for alternative phrasing will be welcome. . . dave souza, talk 11:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

We had reached consensus on the lead days ago. This proposed change was disputed above. "Varoius allegations" is nebulous. You've removed all information about the actual allegations from the lead and rendered it worthless. I've rv back to the original pending further discussion. JPatterson (talk) 17:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I've tried to tone down the lead with this edit. Comments welcome JPatterson (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find the majority viewpoint is regarding the science overall, not the legality or ethics of the particular scientists involved in this incident. Demonstrating that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, for instance, doesn't demonstrate that Phil Jones acted ethically in all of this. And, again, the scientists involved can't credibly declare their own innocence. With these new edits, the one part that looked like it was written by the skeptics has been taken out and it now looks like it was completely written by believers. Would suggest removing "dubbed "Climategate" by sceptics of anthropogenic climate change", the part about the death threats, and the part about scientists declaring themselves to be found innocent. We'd then have something like this: "The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, came to light in November 2009 with the unauthorised release of thousands of e-mails and other documents obtained through the alleged hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England. The University of East Anglia described the incident as an illegal taking of data. Law enforcement agencies are investigating the matter as a crime.

Various accusations have been made that the emails revealed improper behaviour by the scientists. On November 24, the University of East Anglia announced that an independent review of the allegations would be carried out by Sir Muir Russell and subsequently announced that the CRU's director, Professor Phil Jones, would stand aside from his post during the review."''

The incident is sometimes referred to as "Climategate", following the "gate" nickname construction that became popular in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magicjava (talk • contribs) 17:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Also, the intro now has zero citations.--Magicjava (talk) 17:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Intros don't need citations - they merely summarize information that is cited below. Hipocrite (talk) 17:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, as per WP:LEAD: "The lead must conform to verifiability and other policies. The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations, should be cited."--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

P.P.S.Also, while I hope to contribute to this article in a meaningful way, it needs to be pointed out that my account here is what I believe is called a "single edit account", meaning I'm only working on this article and have no real history of being editing wikipedia. These facts rightfully imply that less weight be given to my opinions than to the opinions of some of the more experienced editors. This should apply both when someone agrees with me and when someone disagrees. In short, I would recommend rewriting the article just on my say-so.--Magicjava (talk) 18:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Typo above. I wouldn't recommend rewriting the article just on my say-so.--Magicjava (talk) 18:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Trenberth email

This edit removes an unsupportable weasel and adds some CV info to Trenberth's intro. (see discussion on Passive weasels above). I could find no critic who actually said this although a lot of secondary source claim they did. It didn't really add anything to the discussion anyway. The implications are clear from the email excerpt and Trenberth's response speaks for itself. Jpat34721 (talk) 21:02, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The quote itself is just a snippet and perhaps should be expanded to include the part where Dr. Trenberth mentions the observations are not supplying enough data to verify or refute the energy balance model. --Magicjava (talk) 06:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree in principle, do you have a specific secondary source in mind that presents the extended extract from the email that you were thinking of? Please note that we don't want to synthesise our own extract from the purloined email itself. Thanks, dave souza, talk 11:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Harry_Read_Me.txt

Here are some of the more brow raising excerpts from the Harry_README.txt file which is a chronological documentation of the programmers (presumably CRU's Ian "Harry" Harris) efforts to untwist the CRU programs and databases

I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation - apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps? Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too. Meh.

I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight... So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!

One thing that's unsettling is that many of the assigned WMo codes for Canadian stations do not return any hits with a web search. Usually the country's met office, or at least the Weather Underground, show up – but for these stations, nothing at all. Makes me wonder if these are long-discontinued, or were even invented somewhere other than Canada!

Knowing how long it takes to debug this suite - the experiment endeth here. The option (like all the anomdtb options) is totally undocumented so we'll never know what we lost. 22. Right, time to stop pussyfooting around the niceties of Tim's labyrinthine software suites - let's have a go at producing CRU TS 3.0! since failing to do that will be the definitive failure of the entire project.

Ulp! I am seriously close to giving up, again. The history of this is so complex that I can't get far enough into it before by head hurts and I have to stop. Each parameter has a tortuous history of manual and semi-automated interventions that I simply cannot just go back to early versions and run the update prog. I could be throwing away all kinds of corrections - to lat/lons, to WMOs (yes!), and more. So what the hell can I do about all these duplicate stations?...

source Note that this is a different issue than the code itself, which has been criticized but as of yet, not tied to any CRU work product. The readme however talks about the sorry state of "our flagship product" and "rest of the databases", etc. I would like to start a consensus discussion about how we should handle this part of the controversy fairly. JPatterson 23:07, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

How is a five-paragraph quote compatible with fair use and our non-free content policy? Guettarda (talk) 04:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There are no fair use issues- it is a tiny percentage of the total document, it is being used for legitimate critical and analysis to enrich the general public, our use does does not supersede the ideas presented, and has no effect in its value. It passes all four factors of the balancing test. Which of the 10 criteria of WP:NFCC do you see as an issue? I see none. JPatterson 07:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

Four paragraphs without critical commentary? It's not the proportion of the work, it's the amount of material. As for the NFCC criteria - how about #9? Guettarda (talk) 14:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Look it up, it's the amount relative to the size of the work (that's why WP is not WP:RC :>). And they're not paragraphs, they're excepts scattered throughout the document. Besides they're taken verbatim from the CBS news website (one presumes they have pretty good lawyers familiar with FU issues). I don't understand your point on NFCC 9. We are working on an article which is explicitly permitted. 75.106.249.239 (talk) 15:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a massive quote, without critical commentary. And there's no suggestion of how this might be used to improve the article. Guettarda (talk) 20:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a notable part of the controversy and deserves to be covered. I'm not proposing we use the full quote. I'm thinking we acknowledge its existence and explain what it is (fully sourced of course), add a few excepts that highlight the primary concern that's been raised (integrity of the data and data adjustments prior to Jan 2006), and provide as much of the RC/CRU stuff that dave uncovered to provide context and balance. Want to take a crack at it? JPatterson 23:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

But you're using it here. And the same rules apply to the use of non-free content. Guettarda (talk) 15:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• To quote RealClimate, "HARRY_read_me.txt. This is a 4 year-long work log of Ian (Harry) Harris who was working to upgrade the documentation, metadata and databases associated with the legacy CRU TS 2.1 product, which is not the same as the HadCRUT data (see Mitchell and Jones, 2003 for details). The CSU TS 3.0 is available now (via ClimateExplorer for instance), and so presumably the database problems got fixed. Anyone who has ever worked on constructing a database from dozens of individual, sometimes contradictory and inconsistently formatted datasets will share his evident frustration with how tedious that can be." We should make it clear that HadCRUT is the dataset of monthly temperature records formed by combining the sea surface temperature records compiled by the Hadley Centre of the Met Office and the land surface temperature records compiled by the CRU, and the legacy CRU TS 2.1 product is not the same thing. HadCRUT3 is available from the Met Office. "without charge for the purposes of private study and scientific research, but please read the terms and conditions." For what it's worth, Reddit comments on the issue, "The final output of the code was published in a peer-reviewed journal quite a while afterward. It did not include any of the "controversial" sections of code in the original buggy work! It did not include the outputs that these code sections would have given, either!..... The most "controversial" sections of code were commented out, and were likely just debugging tools.... these sections of the code did not appear in the final product" It also notes that "almost all peer-reviewed articles, such as this one by Mann in Nature, include data freely available.(Just click "Retrieve Data"). Besides the climate model codes shared at the Real Climate link above on data, note that almost all model codes are made public, like NASA's here." . dave souza, talk 07:08, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Old code is still relevant, as the Global Warming issue has been going on for 20 years. How long was the public given climate information based on code that had serious problems? Also, the use of the word "buggy code" is vague. Code that deliberately increases temperatures by 0.5 degrees isn't "buggy", but without a good explanation of why it's raising temperatures 0.5 degrees, most people would not consider such code legitimate. --Magicjava (talk) 08:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like original research on you part: please find and cite reliable sources for your suppositions. Also note that most people would consider that misrepresenting testing code as the final product was a smear campaign, which is why we need a good well sourced explanation of such code before presuming that it's not "legitimate". . dave souza, talk 10:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC) clarified 11:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to propose we not get sidetracked with OR, FU etc. until we have reached consensus on whether we should include something on this issue and we have some proposed text to shoot at. OR at this point in the discussion seems perfectly ok, in relation to the question of relevancy. We just need to be careful that none of it slips into the finally text.75.106.249.239 (talk) 15:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

What changes to the article are you proposing? And upon what reliable sources are these based? Guettarda (talk) 20:14, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

No, not original research. You can find it here. Though I was wrong in saying it's 0.5 degree artifical increase. It's 0.25 degrees. --Magicjava (talk) 20:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Who's Robert Greiner, and why should we consider him an expert source on the topic? Guettarda (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Greiner's a professional software developer with a degree in physics. Also, NOAA admits to manually adjusting the data in a similar way, see here (this is where the 0.5 degrees upward adjustment came from).--Magicjava (talk) 03:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean what sort of relevant expertise does he have here? Since this is coming from a blog, the only way that the author would be considered a reliable source is if they are an expert on this subject. So what makes him an expert? Has he published on this topic? Can you provide some links to his publications on the topic, or to his professional CV? Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 07:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Answering this below, so we don't get the topic split into two. --Magicjava (talk) 10:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

And who in their right mind would use a non-notable blog as a source for anything anyway? -- Scjessey (talk) 20:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The Watt's Up blog has been referenced by major news outlets many times over the years. --Magicjava (talk) 03:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

But it's still just a blog. What makes it a reliable source on this subject? Guettarda (talk) 07:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not, obviously. Magicjava, please go and read WP:SPS. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I did some more research on this and believe it meets both reliable source in general and WP:SPS in particular. The article has been published by the news site News Buster here, which means WP:SPS shouldn't be an issue as it's been published by a third party news organization. It has also been referenced by the San Francisco Environmental Policy Examiner (which wiki is blocking for some reason) and the Herald Sun (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/climategate_an_australian_link), both of which are news blogs which I believe meet wiki's reliable source guidelines. This along with the fact that the original author is a professional computer programmer, a scientist, and an AGW agnostic, that it appeared on Watt's Up which has a long history of posting reliable information that meets the professional standards of news organizations, and that the article itself publishes the code it discusses seem to add up to a reliable, newsworthy source. --Magicjava (talk) 10:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Neither of these are reliable sources (especially not the heavily partisan Newsbusters), and the blog certainly isn't. So we have an unqualified opinion from a blogger, essentially. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd count them as reliable sources for the opinion of the blogger. The question is why we would be interested in the opinion of the blogger. Can you provide a link establishing him as an expert on this topic - such as a book published by a major publisher, or a number of peer-reviewed publications on this topic, or something of similar calibre? Guettarda (talk) 15:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• This June 2008 data sheet from CRU states that "From the beginning of January 2006, we have replaced the various grid-box temperature anomaly (from the base period 1961-90) datasets with new versions, HadCRUT3 and CRUTEM3 (see Brohan et al., 2006). The datasets have been developed in conjunction with Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office.... The earlier versions (HadCRUT2 and CRUTEM2 and their variance adjusted versions) can be found here. They are no longer being updated." Links are given for downloading the data from the Hadley Centre. The Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets page has a link to their CRUTEM3 dataset page. . . . dave souza, talk 14:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Raw data

Also, the data supplied by the Met isn't raw data. This is an issue that is associated with climategate and is well known by the public. Even Jon Stewart was concerned about it.--Magicjava (talk) 09:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The Had part is supplied by the Met, and we have a well sourced statement that the HadCRUTS code is maintained by the Met. The video which you link is not presently available in my country, but it is summarised, presumably by Mr. Stewart, as "E-mails stolen from scientists don't disprove global warming, but it puts a fresh set of Energizers in the Senate's resident denier bunny." Was that what you meant? . . dave souza, talk 10:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Dave, I'm not seeing a link to CRU's raw data in any of the links you supplied. Could you be so kind as to post a link directly to the raw data? --Magicjava (talk) 04:29, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you missed this link and the CRU update 2 which starts "Over 95% of the CRU climate data set concerning land surface temperatures has been accessible to climate researchers, sceptics and the public for several years... over 95% of the raw station data has been accessible through the Global Historical Climatology Network for several years..... The University will make all the data accessible as soon as they are released from a range of non-publication agreements." That should help your search for the 95%, you'll have to make requests directly to the other national met organisations for the data they have so far refused to release. Note that the CRU's webserver is currently being rebuilt after the security breach, some documents may be on google cache. In the meantime, you can also obtain a lot of the datasets here. Unix system required for processing, Microsoft Access isn't up to it apparently. . . dave souza, talk 09:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Dave. I've been looking for that data for a while and, yeah, I never made the connection between GHCN and CRU. And yes, I have a UNIX system. :) --Magicjava (talk) 10:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• Where’s the data? – "Much of the discussion in recent days has been motivated by the idea that climate science is somehow unfairly restricting access to raw data upon which scientific conclusions are based..... However, many of the people raising this issue are not aware of what and how much data is actually available.... has "set up a page of data links to sources of temperature and other climate data, codes to process it, model outputs, model codes, reconstructions, paleo-records, the codes involved in reconstructions etc." – Data Sources . . . dave souza, talk 11:14, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
• From the Met Office FAQ – The raw sea-surface temperature observations used to create HadSST2 are taken from ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set). These can be found at http://icoads.noaa.gov/ ." Regarding HadCRUT3, GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and NCDC (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) global temperature analyses, "The datasets are largely based on the same raw data, but each analysis treats that data differently." Presumably raw data enthusiasts can get it from the two U.S. sources if they don't trust the British organisations, and from CRU update2, "The warming shown by the HadCRUT3 series between the averages of the two periods (1850-99 and 2001-2005) was 0.76±0.19°C, and this is corroborated by the other two data sets." . . dave souza, talk 11:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Rename redux

The title of this article refers specifically/exclusively to a "hacking incident," which is unacceptable because its wording a) invalidates a lot of current and valuable article content, and b) is independently disputed:

a) much of the reaction section consists of climatologists pointing out that the science stands, that skeptics are wrong in their interpretations of the contents of the e-mails, that there are other institutes operating independently of the CRU that can give accounts of climate change that we can trust, etc. These are reactions to a controversy, to allegations, not to hackers or a hacking incident. These responses are worth keeping for the same reason the current article title is worth disposing of. The hacking incident isn't WP:notable when taken by itself. Hacks are carried out all the time. What's notable are the circumstances surrounding the extraction of data.

b) a skim through the archives will yield many, many disputes over the use of the term "hack" to describe the incident. Even when the term is mentioned in the article it nearly always comes with qualifiers like "allegedly" or "reported." Given these circumstances, including the term "hacking" in the article title is pretty silly.

For reasons (a) and (b) we need a new title. I suggest Climatic Research Unit documents controversy. Note that while I like this proposed title I'm not attached to it in particular. If you feel you have a better option I'd love to hear it. I just want something better than what we have. Thanks.--Heyitspeter (talk) 06:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

This isn't the only AGW articles that is POV in its naming. Misplaced Pages sucks; no control over content. CONSENSUS sucks; it encourages tag-teaming and forming groups to manufacture "consensus". That's all. • Ling.Nut 07:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Does your comment help build consensus, Ling.Nut? Hipocrite (talk) 07:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

No, in fact my comment explicitly rejects CONSENSUS in a limited number of cases.. My comment suggest that in content disputes as virulent and prolonged as this one, WP:CONSENSUS has no magic powers; in fact it is counter-productive, because it very strongly encourages the formation of tag-team gangs of bullies etc. (no accusations meant here). • Ling.Nut 07:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it would be totally inappropriate of you to accuse the hordes of new single purpose accounts of being directed off-wiki. Hipocrite (talk) 08:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to request this move in >24 hours barring reasonable objections.--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can people please stop requesting pointless moves taht clearly have no consensus and won't happen William M. Connolley (talk) 08:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Let's wait until some investigations have concluded before revisiting the article title. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

From ]: Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. Are you seriously contending the current title gets over this high bar? Self-appointed "keeps of the flame" seem intent on telling readers what the controversy is (it's a tempest in a teapot / it's the greatest scientific scandal in history that proves AWG is a fraud) instead of what the controversy is about- allegations of scientific misconduct that are refuted by those implicated. Like it or not, the controversy, as it evolved in the media, focused on the allegations and the defense of them, and not on the hacking itself. The current title, besides containing unsupportable OR, gives undue weight to the hacking which has receded to a tiny part of the controversy. JPatterson (talk) 16:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Compromise on "Climategate" in lead

Hey all. An attempted compromise edit was reverted here. Given that the relevant sources that have been incorporated into the article are themselves conflicted as to the veracity of the clause in question, and given that the clause has been repeatedly disputed here, I think we can agree that we need to adjust its parent sentence somehow. I hope we can either return the original compromise edit (preferably through a self-revert), or suggest another compromise here. Thanks.--Heyitspeter (talk) 07:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not a compromise to get everything you want and give nothing at all up. Here's a compromise for you - remove "Climategate" from the lead entirely. How's that work? Hipocrite (talk) 09:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a compromise in that it states the consensus we have all of us reached, that the incident has been dubbed and/or is known as "Climategate." What it leaves out is the contentious (and perhaps inaccurate) claim that it was dubbed Climategate by "skectics of anthropogenic climate change." This makes it a compromise, and brings the article in line with WP:Consensus. Does that satisfy you? If so, please say so. --Heyitspeter (talk) 01:01, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree. Hipocrite (talk) 11:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"Climategate" not "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident".. "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident".. not "Climategate"..

"Climategate" afair (scandal) burst, direct outgrowth "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident"

Climate change denialsk:Klimatoskeptik argue (included in the) "Climategate" = Hockey stick controversy + Global warming controversy + http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=IPCC_controversy&redirect=no

"Climategate" = (at the moment) Conspiracy theories

sk:Redaktor:Alamo 14:57 10 January 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 13:57, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

If I'm following you correctly, it is indeed a problem that there are attempts to broaden this specific unauthorised disclosure of emails and data, and the compromising of security on the CRU website, with the broader issues of human contributions to climate change. This article appropriately deals with notable claims and counter claims related directly to the disclosure, and makes necessary assumptions about the broader issues covered in detail in other articles. . Thanks, dave souza, talk 14:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Here's another proposal re Climategate in the lead, "The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident (or whatever we come up with for the title), ...", i.e we use the simple parenthisis-quote construct in common use for neologisms and link Climategate to the section on the naming controversy. Just a thought JPatterson 19:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

No. If we are going to use "Climategate" in the lede at all, it must be made clear that this is a pejorative term cooked-up by AGW skeptics/deniers to re-frame an incident of data theft as a scandal that somehow proves the science is wrong. There is no denying that this easy-to-remember name has "caught on", but Misplaced Pages's voice should not be used to promote it as if it were in anyway legitimate. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Scjessey you're "requiring" that this article include controversial material over which consensus has not been reached, which material conflicts with some of the sources we cite in the article. This position is untenable. --Heyitspeter (talk) 01:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Well that's one POV, one that could be explored fully in the naming section that we link to. Another is that the name arose organically, as a in "how long before this called Climategate", a quote attributed to, by one account, the coiner of the term. Look, I get that you want to discredit the whole affair, I get that you think "we have a controversy because skeptics have made it so, blowing up this molehill into a mountain." I get that you are "disinclined to sit still while skeptics attempt to use Misplaced Pages to pile even more bullshit on top of that mountain". Do you get that that is not your role to play here? JPatterson 21:09, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Who are you to say what my role is? As I stated earlier, I edit Misplaced Pages because I like the project and I want to make it the best it can be. From your editing record, it is clear you edit Misplaced Pages to promote your personal POV/ideology. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:14, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

So, are Jpat34721, 75.106.249.239 and JPatterson all the same user, then? --Nigelj (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It certainly appears so. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I changed my sig (not my account) and sometimes WP logs me off and I don't notice. Sorry for the confusion. JPatterson 21:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Except you haven't changed your sig. You need to go into "my preferences" at the top of the screen and do it, otherwise the signing bot will keep on coming along and doing its thing. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That's what I did. For some reason when I do the 4 tildes, it signs my name but still says my posts are unsigned. I guess I need to go back to using jpat34721 JPatterson 23:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, worked that time. Who knows JPatterson 23:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpat34721 (talk • contribs)

WP:SIG: "Signatures must include at least one internal link to your user page, user talk page, or contributions page; this allows other editors easy access to your talk page and contributions log. The lack of such a link is widely viewed as obstructive." - It could be that the lack of the relevant link or links is being seen by SineBot as a failure to sign appropriately. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, any idea how to link a signature to my user page? Nevermind, I figured it out JPatterson (talk) 03:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Having climategate at all is a compromise. I'm happy with this edit William M. Connolley (talk) 08:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

How so? If you take dubbed to mean "called", it's demonstrably false. If you take it to mean "coined" it's unsupportable OR. JPatterson (talk) 15:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"Dubbed" is verifiable. "Called" is not. We've been over this before. Guettarda (talk) 16:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

? We just need an RS that says it's called ClimateGate... Here's one: .--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Dubbed is not verifiable, unless you can verify (without OR of course) the AWG view of the poster on WUWT who appears to have coined the term. His post is earlier than any of the other references cited in the naming section. Please provide a reputable source that verifies his view on AWG JPatterson (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

An IP editor from Summit, New Jersey has changed the lead again to read "colloqualy known as." I've added some other colloquisms in. Hipocrite (talk) 16:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not such a bad idea, really. Guettarda (talk) 16:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I too like "colloqualy known as". It is neutral and avoids starting off the article with a food fight. JPatterson (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I have tried a compromise edit which combime colloquially known with a link from Climate gate to the naming the incident section. Comments? JPatterson (talk) 17:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I removed the both the edit of the anon (does it really matter where it is from? why bring that up?) and the obscure nickname-adding? Let's not pile onto an absurdity with an even bigger one, pls. Tarc (talk) 16:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You're right. My comment above was poorly thought out. "Colloquially known as" isn't without merit, but like everything I've seen other than the current wording, it's without source. Guettarda (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Another revert at compromise was attempted. Allow me to be perfectly clear - you are compromising with noone if the only nickname in the lead is "climategate," and it is not sourced to the creaters and current (ab)users of the name - AGW sceptics. Hipocrite (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The compromise wording was reverted to the wording without explanation yet again. I don't see consensus for this. Hipocrite (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

And another drive-by revert to the wording without explanation. Hipocrite (talk) 19:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey all. I recently made another attempt (reverted, I think accidentally). I figure I should display it here as it's pretty different than others and may get passed over if that's not pointed out. It drops talk of dubbing and coining of the term and sticks to the more informative, "What it's called." Here it is, with the reference brought out as a link:

The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, also called "Climategate", came to light...

Is this version agreeable?--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No. There is no evidence that it is "also called 'climategate'", but there is certainly a source (far, far stronger than the one your provide) that Skeptics portray the afair as "Climategate" and that Skeptics of global warming refer to the incident as "Climategate." Hipocrite (talk) 20:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I am seeing an awful lot of "climategate was named by agw sceptics" above, can anyone actually prove this? As just about every scandal since watergate has ended up being called whatever-gate by lazy journo`s then were is the actual proof that this name was coined by climate realists? --mark nutley (talk) 20:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The dubbing question is discussed along with some sources in the article in the section, "Naming of the incident." The clause is variously supported and contradicted.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't coined by climate realists, rather climate sceptics. Hipocrite (talk) 20:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Major structural change

I propose that we do away with the "Calls for inquiries" section, merging all the material into "Responses to the incident". Having a Calls for inquiries section is a legacy from the first days after the incident, when scientists and commentators had not had much time to respond, and UEA had yet to announce their enquiry. Now we have the benefit of hindsight, we can put the calls for enquiries into the context of responses generally. Comments? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

At some point, in hopefully the not too distant future, the inquiries that have been called will be returning some statements, results or reports. These we will certainly need to cover here. So, while I agree that the present heading is out of date, I suggest keeping the present coverage separate from other responses, maybe with a heading of simply "Inquiries", so that the results can be inserted there too? Only a thought. --Nigelj (talk) 16:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

A good thought.--SPhilbrickT 22:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Semi?

This shouldn't be necessary William M. Connolley (talk) 11:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

IBMers against science? Such edits still seem pretty rare, surprisingly enough, so I don't think semi would usually be applied in the circumstances, but worth keeping under review. . . dave souza, talk 12:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Has James Delingpole really been editing wikipedia? Nil Einne (talk) 12:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Nah, he's no IBMer, nothing so technical. Just some journo and pundit. . . dave souza, talk 13:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Who are "sceptics of anthropogenic climate change"?

they are Climate change denial deniers ?? sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 13:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting link, but the "skeptics" label is a self-description that appears in most of the sources. There are various degrees of denial, and the more scientifically literate opponents of the current consensus accept that there is a man-made contribution to climate change, and that the climate is changing for the warmer, but dispute whether that man-made contribution is statistically significant. Jolly hockey sticks! . . dave souza, talk 14:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

new "password" Scientific opponents global warming? no? then Climate change denial.. "pump it" :P sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 14:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear what you are trying to say. Hipocrite (talk) 14:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Methinks the young one should stick with the Slovakian Misplaced Pages. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

why? I feel "at home", finally you have achieved pure post-socialist newspeak , congratulations sk:Redaktor:Alamo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.244.196.122 (talk) 16:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The second half of the lede

I saw recently that that there were two versions of the second half of the lede vying for prominence in the revert process. The obvious compromise seems to be to combine the two, which is what I have just done. The main points covered in the second half are as follows, and space-wise as well as in terms of summarising the main points of the article I see no reason why we can't mention all of them:

1. Allegations:
   1. withholding scientific information,
   2. interfering with the peer-review process of scientific papers,
   3. deleting e-mails and raw data to prevent disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act,
   4. "cherry picking" data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.
2. Refuted by
   1. The University of East Anglia,
   2. other scientists,
   3. scientific organisations,
   4. elected representatives and governments from around the world
3. Typical refutation points
   1. a smear campaign,
   2. intended to sabotage 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit.
4. Announcements re future
   1. independent review of the allegations will be carried out by Sir Muir Russell
   2. Phil Jones, to stand aside

--Nigelj (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Im general I like the synthesis. I do think there is still some improvements in tone that could me made. "emails show" is too close to "emails prove". I prefer "emails indicate". Also "collude" seems unnecessarily inflammatory. JPatterson (talk) 19:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Towards Consensus of Goals

Since there is so much contention as to content I'd like to see how close we are on goals. Can we agree that:

• A notable controversy exists. Our goal is to chronicle the controversy and not pass judgment on the relative merits of the arguments of the various sides
• When completed, no one should be able to use this article to bolster one side of the controversy or the other
• When completed, the article should be cohesive, appearing to be written by a single author whose views on the controversy (or AWG) should be undetectable.
• That there are basically 3 sides to the controversy:

• It's a tempest in a teapot - supported mainly by those who fear the incident will hinder action of AWG
• It proves AWG is a hoax - supported mainly by those who want to prevent action on AWG
• It raises serious questions about the scientific process - Experts from both camps have expressed this view

and that the position of each of these sides needs to be covered fairly in the article.

• That BLP guidelines should be strictly adhered to
• That the tone of the article should be dispassionate and non-inflamatory

Is there disagreement with the above? Did I miss any? JPatterson (talk) 20:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You might want to get the acronyms right; it's not "AWG"... -- ChrisO (talk) 20:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

New news at last!

And quite interesting too: the local newspaper has reported that the National Domestic Extremism Team is now involved in the police investigation. It looks like they may be pursuing some interesting lines of enquiry... -- ChrisO (talk) 20:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

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