Talk:Climatic Research Unit

Suggestion

That last line could stand to be expanded upon at least a tiny bit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.183.238.180 (talk) 22:42, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

EMail Controversy

The Phil Jones quote gives undue weight to one side of the issue and is covered in the main article.Flegelpuss (talk) 06:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

On the ClimateGate Wikipedia page, there is information to the effect that "BBC climate correspondent Paul Hudson stated that he received the chain of leaked e-mails on 12 October...." Wouldn't it be more correct to inform that while the upload to the Internet for wide-scale examination did not occur until 19 November, the hacking itself had to have taken place sometime (probably shortly) before 12 October? 71.125.159.106 (talk) 21:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

National Review

Stuff from mathgeek that no-one wanted
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Math.geek3.1415926 (talk · contribs) is quoting a National Review opinion piece to make an assertion of fact.[1] This isn't acceptable, as it violates a fundamental principle of WP:NPOV#A simple formulation: "Assert facts, including facts about opinions — but do not assert the opinions themselves." It's also not verifiable, as the cited words do not appear in the source. The statement that the CRU was "resisting requests" is an interpretation of a statement of opinion attributed to an opinion writer - not even a journalist, but a think tank staff member. The way to deal with this is to do what WP:NPOV says: "When we discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion." I've done this in this edit, where I directly quoted the writer's views and attributed them to him by name. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC) The edits I made that you reverted cited a book and the Guardian, rather than the National Review opinion piece as you claim. You are in violation of the three revert rule by having reverted sourced material three times. I improved the refs per the discussion, but you have removed sourced material three or four times now.Math.geek3.1415926 (talk) 19:23, 26 November 2009 (UTC) The book citation is useless - there is no page reference and no indication of what is being quoted. The Guardian source says nothing about refusals. It says: "There have been repeated calls, including Freedom of Information requests, for the Climate Research Unit to make public a confidential dataset of land and sea temperature recordings that is "value added" by the unit before being used by the Met Office." You are misrepresenting it quite blatantly. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:28, 26 November 2009 (UTC) Clearly the statement in the article should include "after repeated calls including Freedom of Information requests" which would be WP:V as asserted fact by the Guardian writer and not a matter of opinion. Personally, I would suggest that not giving material "after reopeated requests" would be understood by most people to mean they declined the requests. Un fact, how else might one read it? Collect (talk) 20:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC) The Guardian article attests to FOI requests being made. It says nothing about FOI requests being "refused" or "resisted". It therefore can't be used to support a statement that the requests were refused or that the CRU has been "resisting" the requests. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC) Per request for outside opinion: the information is being slanted in a way not intended or directly stated by the source. This is wp:SYN. The source clearly states that the data set is confidential, but doesn't say why it's confidential or why the requests were denied. In fact, it implies that the requests were made for political purposes, not altruistic or scientific. There are lots of data sets in the world that have been requested but not released for various reasons (often just to create a stir by publicly demanding something that is illegal to obtain), so I'm not sure how notable this event really is. At the most, it might be OK to say that "there is a confidential dataset that was requested but not provided..." purely stating the facts. "Failing to" or "Resisting requests..." is clearly POV. T34CH (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2009 (UTC) As one of the emails clearly stated that the person hoped no one mentioned that the UK has an FOI act, it is reasonable to state that here. And the email which asked that a person delete all his emails also could be mentioned. Otherwise, why not accept tby consensus that the group did not respond to FOI requests? No one in any RS has claimed that anyone was told the material was "confidential" in response to the requests or that, indeed, any response was made, so that part is not particularly relevant as a claim. Collect (talk) 21:39, 26 November 2009 (UTC) What I saw as the relevant paragraph was: The alleged emails illustrate the persistent pressure some climatologists have been under from sceptics in recent years. There have been repeated calls, including Freedom of Information requests, for the Climate Research Unit to make public a confidential dataset of land and sea temperature recordings that is "value added" by the unit before being used by the Met Office. The emails show the frustration some climatologists have had at having to operate under such intense, often politically motivated, scrutiny. So basically "there's a confidential data set and someone is mad (or pretending to be mad) they can't see it. This irks some climatologists. They said so in the emails." What other information do you think the passage should provide, and what text should source it? As far as I can tell, this is all being blown out of proportion. Comments like this one suggest that this is just another one in a long string of sexed up media games. Are there sources that point to anything in the emails with enough context to actually prove anything? Because otherwise the whole paragraph should be restructured out of WEIGHT and BLP concerns, and suggestions that some scientists committed academic malfeasance should be backed up by verifiable RS sources, not sourced to some blogger's interpretations). T34CH (talk) 08:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC) This is basically being driven by people who have a preconceived view that the e-mails confirm the existence of a vast international conspiracy; they are not at all interested in weight and sourcing considerations. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC) Amazingly enough, it does not appear in the source that the group told anything to the people making the FOI requests that the data was "confidential." In science, moreover, data sets are not generally confidential as it is necessary for others to examine methodology etc. Dat can not be reviewed if they are secret <g>. Collect (talk) 13:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC) Your standard of amazing must be much lower than mine. The article also doesn't say that the group(s?) wasn't told the data set was confidential either. It also isn't mentioned that the group was or wasn't told it was a "value-added" data set, but it does say that's the reason it's confidential. Imagine there is publicly available data on the order of 1000's of terabytes, and somebody pays to have the relevant 2 megabytes distilled from that. The new data-set is value-added and not public. A much better direction for this talk page to take would be to ask, "where is the clear indication of wrong-doing?" T34CH (talk) 20:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Copyright

A comment and reversed edit: "Implying copyrights prevented release is inconsistent with the rest of the article". If so, then the rest of the article would be wrong. Midgley (talk) 00:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anything is being "implied". The CRU has stated explicitly that it can't release the data because it doesn't own all of it. This is reflected in the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:01, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The article states that the CRU can't release the data, not that the CRU has stated that it can't release the data; this seems stronger to me than is justified by the sources. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:06, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, the new flow does make more sense and is more accurate. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

It now appears much of the raw data was destroyed -- making it hard to be released. Collect (talk) 21:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It appears that the data they "destroyed" is still available at NOAA. (ie. they deleted their copy) And that data isn't the same data that is being talked about in regards to the release (since it isn't part of the CRU temp. record) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It certainly appears that much of the original data of the CRU was destroyed. NOAA has the "value-added data" and NOAA's own raw data. I find no place which asserts NOAA has the original raw data. And it is not the fudge-factored-data which is what scientists the world over would seek -- can you imagine if Darwin only left fudge-factored diaries to prove evolution? Or if Einstein had thrown out any notebooks which showed relativity had a problem? Yet, we are being asked on a "trust us" basis to accept that the raw data was strong and compelling? In which case, why add fudge factors? It is the known presence and uncertain size of those which are a large part of the furor, after all. Collect (talk) 11:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This of course is wrong since NOAA archives does have the raw data. (and it is stated by the CRU that NOAA has the data). Even if NOAA didn't have the data (which they do), the individual national met. offices have them. So your whole "fudge" soapboxing is baseless. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

NOAA only has the NOAA raw data -- I did not find any news article stating that NOAA has the raw data which the CRU said was destroyed. I did find cites for NOAA having the massaged data set. [2] makes it clear that NOAA has its own data-set, and its own graphs. "CRU is not the only group in the world that is tracking the change in global-average near-surface temperature. There are at least three other groups, two in the U.S. (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA), and one in Japan (Japan Meteorological Agency, JMA)." [3] from a person who is defending the CRU does not make the claim either. It says they "aggregated" data -- including their own raw data. They massaged the data, and it is that data which was furnished to others. No claim is made that the CRU's own raw data is extant except in the "aggregated" form. The reason this author gives for keeping data hidden is "any discrepancy at all is often used to shut down new explanations." Um -- it is "discrepancies" which are the most important data! "it will sharpen the rhetorical knives between how to communicate with people that are “ignorant” and those that are “deceptive'" sure sounds like it is the folks found with hands on the delete button who intend to go on the offensive on this. What we have? A person strongly defending the CRU can only say that NOAA has its own raw data. And that is the closest I can find -- the ftp site you give does not assert it is the CRU raw data, Thanks! Collect (talk) 11:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not just "NOAA raw data" - perhaps you missed the acronym GHCN (global historical climatology network), NOAA are the official keepers of the station data. NOAA has value-added data as well (and a temperature record, where they have calculated the global average, as has NASA and the british met office) - but you asked for the raw data. Of course they aggregated/value-added the data, thats what science is about! You are still going on as if the data is "lost" - it isn't - its there and you can fetch it if you want. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Addendum -- the ftp site does not anywhere near include all raw data ( the files are not all that large, by the way) -- ut even makes a point that data which did not fit the pattern were deleted <g> as "erroneous." Yep -- delete data which do not fit in. Collect (talk) 11:58, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Just in case you missed it - the data that they "discarded" is located in the file "v2.slp.failed.qc-1", specifically if some researcher finds that it is valid after all. As for the "anywhere near" comment - this is ASCII data mostly consisting of numbers, which compresses rather well, do try to download the data and decompress and check it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Climate data discarded

Editor Ratel reverted my new section, substituting what appears to be an irrelevant quote from Phil Jones: diff. Talk about it here if you disagree, please.

Sorry for the untitled rollback -- edit in haste, going out-of-town. --Pete Tillman (talk) 16:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't seem irrelevant to me. Look at the source. Shouldn't we defer to the CRU rather than hearsay in newspapers on issues like this? ► RATEL ◄ 23:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Re [4] - CRU doesn't own any data, it doesn't do any raw obs. It only collects data from other sources, generally from national meteorological offices. They own the raw data, and are (at least in theory) responsible for keeping whatever raw data is required (or at least, I'm moderately sure this is so, though open to correction) William M. Connolley (talk) 23:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The Times is pretty much the gold standard for reliable news reporting in the UK, and is unquestionably a reliable source. I don't think you can just discard their report -- as you (Ratel) just did, a second time.

Pretty clearly, we need both the Times report and CRU's reply (if any). The E&E report is earlier, and appears to be a different dispute, with CEI. I'm too tired to sort it out tonight, but what you have in the article now makes no sense, at least to me. The E&E article is also very confusing -- is this really a reliable source? It looks like a mishmash of competing press releases. --Pete Tillman (talk) 04:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It appears to be about the same issue. In any event, if it's this opaque from the recent sources, it should not be on the 'pedia at all. NOTNEWS etc. ► RATEL ◄ 04:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The Times is pretty much the gold standard for reliable news reporting in the UK - this was true in 1800, perhaps, but has long been false. As I've said, its wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 12:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• So -- Ratel & WMC -- are you willing to work towards making a consensus-acceptable section of this? What Ratel has posted is unacceptable on its own, not least because it is opaque to most readers. The Jones quote in the article cited (E&E) comes from a UEA press release, so we may as well use that. Unfortunately, the CRU website is operating "on emergency backup", with no access to recent stuff. So here's a draft:

First DRAFT Climate change data discarded (see 2nd Draft, below)

Discussion ended, no changes to content proposed
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
According to The Times, the CRU has discarded much of the raw temperature data on which its predictions of global warming are based. The original data, stored on paper and magnetic tape, were dumped "to save space" when the CRU moved to a new building in the 1980s. This means that "other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years," the Times reported. The CRU was forced to reveal the losses following requests for the data under the UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In an earlier statement, CRU director Phil Jones disputed charges of data deletion, stating that: "The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends. When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends, so we've taken them out. Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks. We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world. --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC) It is really hard to know where to start. If you really think that makes any sense, then you simply haven't got a clue. the CRU has discarded much of the raw temperature data on which its predictions of global warming are based is twaddle - CRU does data, not models. It doesn't do predictions (or it may have a tiny sideline, but it isn't responsible for the ones you're thinking of). So they question is, do you realise how little you know about this stuff? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC) (e/c) Why, thank you, WMC <G>. The Times story is +/- the story I've heard over the last few years. Despite your previous snark, The Times remains a RS, and this is a serious effort to present neutrally a charge and a response. Deal with it. Pete Tillman (talk) 20:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC) William M. Connolley is right that the first phrase is wrong (or twaddle as he so trenchantly observes); the discarded data was used to calculate a temperature record, not to make predictions. Otherwise this seems basically good to me, and I really cannot see why people are being so difficult. Lighten up folks, and assume good faith. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:58, 1 December 2009 (UTC) You're right, I'm right. I'm quite prepared to *assume* good faith, but I've seen this stuff pasted around all too much. Well, this is Tillman's good faith test: is he able to admit that his first sentence is simply wrong, or is he going to keep repeating "The Times remains a RS"? Once we've got him past the first sentence, we can start talking about the rest. Or shall we just leave him behind stuck on the first sentence and continue without him? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC) Did you see the "DRAFT" bit, as in "invitation to mark up and correct"? And do you remember WP:No personal attacks? Pete Tillman (talk) 20:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC) Indeed, it is draft. So, I've pointed out what is wrong (with the first sentence) and your response was not "oh dear, yes I see I was wrong, thanks for correcting me" it was "The Times remains a RS, and this is a serious effort to present neutrally a charge and a response. Deal with it". So I am dealing with it: we can't have a huggy caring-and-sharing consensual edit-fest here unless I can carry you along in agreement. So, without changing the subject, can you actually answer the question psed above, viz, is he able to admit that his first sentence is simply wrong, or is he going to keep repeating "The Times remains a RS"? You see, the two are linked. JAJ and I agree that the first sentence is wrong. That, obviously, is not compatible with your source being reliable William M. Connolley (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC) William, I was assuming that Pete Tillman meant a reliable source in the sense of Wikipedia:Reliable sources; it seems to meet the criteria as far as I can tell, and our joint opinion that the opening of the article is wrong is arguably based on Original Research. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 21:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC) Perhaps William would like to propose a revised version of sentence 1? Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC) I'm sure we can come to that. I haven't given up on Tillman yet. He is, basically, sensible. He *is* capable of admitting his first sentence is wrong. Give him a second chance; don't be impatient William M. Connolley (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC) I've jsut noticed that PT has quietly struck the original assertion I was disputing [5]. It isn't a graceful way of admitting error, but it will have to do. That is all swept aside now; we can move on William M. Connolley (talk) 12:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC) William, you're basically sensible too, when you're not trying to score silly points. Would you rewrite the damn thing the way you'd like to see it? I'm in the middle of something else. In haste, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC) That is alright, there really is no hurry about this I think. Indeed I've been trying to encourage people to slow down on this for a while. Finish what you're about and then get back to us William M. Connolley (talk) 21:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC) Question I am having trouble understanding why the Times are not considered an RS, could someone explain please? Unomi (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC) Is anyone saying it isn't? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC) It strikes me that on which their predictions of global warming are based. is a direct quote from the Times article and I haven't seen presentation of sources which contradict the statement. The objection to Tillmans draft seemed to be rooted in the position that the Times did not reflect the truth. Unomi (talk) 23:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC) There is a difference between the Times being reliable, and the article being reliable. In fact it raises quite a bit of red-flags. (1. is the prediction part 2. that other academics aren't able to test whether it has warmed (ie. forgetting that there are several independent Temp records) 3. stating that this is a new revelation (follows after the email thing) which is incorrect) 4. states that it is one of the main evidences for the IPCC (which it isn't either)) - see also the sections above. This is exactly what Wikipedia:Reliable source examples#Science article in the popular press warns about. All in all, a significant number of red-flags which indicate sloppy reporting, and suggesting that we by editorial discretion shouldn't use it as a reference. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC) 1. Looking at the publications of CRU it seems that they have indeed published predictions. 2. Are there for their aggregate data? 3. Placing the disclosure as following the email leaks does appear to be counter to evidence at hand, but such a timeline does not seem to be attempted to be inserted. 4. CRU did contribute extensively to the IPCC. See their full list and search for "ipcc" If you have sources which point other inaccuracies than the disclosure following the leaks it would be helpful to me as I am not privy to them. Unomi (talk) 02:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC) 1. Really? Cite us a few. 4. This is you proving that you don't understand (hint: that they contributed doesn't make this one of the main "evidences") William M. Connolley (talk) 23:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC) Please see CRU history: CRU has also played a major role in attempts to predict future anthropogenic climate change, and some of its consequences... CRU's work with these models led directly to the global-mean temperature projections given by the IPCC in 1990 and to corresponding projections of sea-level rise. .. This work by CRU was the first attempt to consider the full spectrum of anthropogenic influences on climate in an internally consistent way. This methodology has improved, but the same basic approach is still used and remains a vital tool used by the IPCC in the construction of future climate projections... Their own profile states CRU staff have been heavily involved in all four assessments, probably more than anywhere else relative to the size of an institution (see IPCC AR4 Authors).. WMC, as you seem to understand all this much better than anyone else, and presumably would know where to find indication that the Times article fails as an RS, could you perhaps give sources which contradict it rather than have editors in engage in OR to counter your, at this point, bare assertions. Unomi (talk) 11:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC) "CRU has also played a major role in attempts to predict..." yes, but it doesn't actually *do* the predictions. Look, even Tillman has given up no this point [6] - are you really still arguing for it? William M. Connolley (talk) 12:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC) It does look like The Times article has problems, as both WMC & KDP have pointed out. See this analysis and commentary by Texas climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, who doesn't appear to have any axes to grind: "I know this is going to shock y'all, but there was nothing unethical about CRU throwing away the raw temperature data. This is because CRU IS NOT THE ARCHIVAL SITE FOR THE RAW TEMPERATURE DATA. The individual nations that collected the weather observations are responsible for their archival. If things proceeded as they normally do, CRU wrote to Burundi, say, and requested copies of their climate of their climate observations. Someone in Burundi made them a magnetic tape or Xerox copies of the data and sent it to CRU. CRU processed the data and got it in the form they wanted. Having no need for the copies of the original data anymore, they tossed them. ... In summary, there's no evidence that they destroyed data. They destroyed extra copies of data that they didn't need anymore. The originals, as far as we know, were and are in other hands." --scroll down, this is a reply to readers asking about the Times article in question. So we need to refigure here. Nielsen-Gammon also notes that "Any regular reader of Climate Audit knows that McIntyre and his allies have struggled for years to pry information out of Phil Jones and his group, and that Jones has resisted at every turn." -- which isn't directly applicable here, but CRU is hardly off the hook. Enough for now, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC) And here are Roger Pielke Jr.'s comments on this, which are interesting: [7] This is turning into a research notebook. Anyway, it's not clearcut, fer sure. Pete Tillman (talk) 04:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC) And at the Nature science newsblog: [8]. Wikipedian Ron Cram's comment (pace, not usable here) outlines some problems with UEA's reponse. Cf. Monbiot's "trainwreck" remark. Pete Tillman (talk) 04:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC) Oh, you're back. But could you avoid adding new stuff until you've had time to address the unsolved problems above? If you're abandoning the old stuff as no longer viable, it would be helpful to indicate which: perhaps you could strike it out William M. Connolley (talk) 09:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC) I'm working on it. Patience, please. Pete Tillman (talk) 15:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC) Please read what I wrote: But could you avoid adding new stuff until you've had time to address the unsolved problems above? William M. Connolley (talk) 15:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC) William: I can read. I haven't added any new stuff since you asked. I'm busy, OK? -- Pete Tillman (talk) 18:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC) What would you think about quoting the pre-Climategate CRU: Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data. Of course, this quote (post-Climategate) disappeared along with the page on the CRU Web site, but the quotes are preserved, for example, here. Dimawik (talk) 18:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC) There's a new statement from CRU that I thought we should use for the reply: CRU statement (DRAFT): No data has been lost. The collection of land surface air temperature data by the Climatic Research Unit goes back to a time when there was insufficient computing data storage capacity to retain all versions of data records on computer - unlike today when all versions may be kept thanks to greater storage capacity. ... Much of the earlier data exists in World Weather Records volumes (published by the Smithsonian Library) and, of course, original data will still be available from the appropriate national meteorological services. ref name=Natdat> CRU statement in response to 'data loss' claims (scroll down) at The Great Beyond, Nature (magazine)'s science news blog, November 30, 2009 I'm just not sure what this should be the reply to -- several things I guess, including the flawed Times story. I keep hoping someone else will post something.... I have some responses to this CRU statement (and the previous one), but haven't put them together yet. Pete Tillman (talk) 20:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC) I think we should quote both statements. Since they contradict one another, in one of them CRU is not telling the truth. Since we don't know which one is incorrect, why do you suggest to choose the latest? They both come from the RS of equal value (since it is the same RS), so WP should use both until the controversy is resolved. Balance of opinions here should be preserved. Dimawik (talk) 21:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC) Good point. There are actually three CRU statements, all of which seem self-contradictory. We should quote all three. New draft coming along, hope to post today. Pete Tillman (talk) 22:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC) Since they contradict one another or even all of which seem self-contradictory - undoubtedly this is obvious to your experienced eyes, but for the newbies here like me could you point out the obvious contradictions? PT, you said you weren't going to post new stuff till you'd answered above; alas it seems I cannot rely on your word William M. Connolley (talk) 23:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC) Dear WMC, What you essentially ask me to do is OR - which is mildly surprising. I will not bite, instead, my proposal is to put two (or three?) excerpts together in chronological order so that the reader can figure out by him(her)self if these pieces are contradictory on not. We will put no OR comparing the statements in any way, positive or negative. From your point of view it wouldn't hurt, as you seem to assert that all CRU statements are non-contradictory - so I do not expect any objection from you. Am I correct? Dimawik (talk) 00:16, 3 December 2009 (UTC) No. It is clear that you want to quote them *because* they are, in your perception, contradictory. I've called you on that, and now you're backing off: suddenly what seemed to you so obvious is errm so hard to see that it becomes OR. Don't fear! This is the talk page, not the article page: you are allowed to lay out your arguments here clearly William M. Connolley (talk) 09:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC) Dear WMC, Yes, in my opinion these releases are contradictory; I am not backing off. However, arguing the merits with you is useless in this case - as the results cannot be put into the article anyhow. I therefore propose a simple solution: three quotes and no OR, this balanced approach will allow the reader to judge him(her)self. It works for me, I see no reason why it should not work for you. After all, you stated that the three releases are not-contradictory; thus repetition will not hurt your position. Please argue your own side, not my (non-existing) backing off. Dimawik (talk) 10:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC) It sounds to me like an over-reliance on selectively reading primary sources - if there is some point about contradiction to be made and no reliable secondary source has picked it up and done the analysis for us, it seems there is nothing to say, so is this un herring rouge? --Nigelj (talk) 09:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC) I am not proposing any analysis; just three quotes that, according to WMC's statement above, are saying pretty much the same thing. In my opinion, they say different things - so let's simply put all of them into the article and let the reader judge. The sources (one source) are reliable; the same source is quoted elsewhere by WMC et al. without any reservations; why not use it here? Dimawik (talk) 10:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC) I think we need to have a look at WP:PRIMARY. It says, "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." Many of us here on the discussion page are educated with specialist knowledge, and we're not sure there's any point to be made by quoting all this primary stuff. If 'in your opinion' there is a point to be made, that is irrelevant. "Secondary sources are ... [used] to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims." [ibid]. If there are no such secondary sources, then there is no point to be made, for the purposes of a WP article. --Nigelj (talk) 10:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC) I'm puzzled. Why should we add 3 quotes that all say the same thing? It's pointless William M. Connolley (talk) 12:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC) Why not wait til you actually see them? -- Pete Tillman (talk) 15:16, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Ice Man

Thanks to CW for adding some history. I've cut this bit though:

He was then known as the "ice man" for his prediction of global cooling and a coming ice age but, following the UK's exceptionally hot summer of 1976, he switched to predicting a more imminent global warming.

Particularly at this delicate time I'd rather not have controversial unsourced assertions on here. Furthermore, I'm rather doubtful about it - Lamb doesn't figure in the global cooling saga to my knowledge. Perhaps that is a lack; but it definitely needs a source William M. Connolley (talk) 12:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

He certainly wrote quite extensively about global cooling, though his position on global cooling is less clear. Whither Climate Now? Nature 244, 395 - 397 (17 August 1973) is a good place to start. In any event I doubt this page would be the right place for it. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 12:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The citation provided at the end of the paragraph supported the entire paragraph, not just the final sentence and this included the global cooling matter. We don't need to fork the reference to cite every sentence do we? As this seems to be a misunderstanding, I shall restore this sourced material. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:31, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

At first glance the source looks good. Thanks, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:50, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, for this page. Thanks to CW William M. Connolley (talk) 13:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

• I can see no reason at all, other than an attempt to make the CRU look inept, to put this on a page about the CRU. Put it where it belongs, on the bio page for Lamb. ► RATEL ◄ 11:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• These details come from a general history of the unit. As related by this and other sources, the first director was significant in the establishment of the unit and he is still respected for this early work, as indicated by the naming of the unit's building in his honour. His professional work at the time was the work of the unit and was successful in attracting further sponsorship for the unit and suggesting a fruitful line of research. This history is naturally set in the context of the time and no suggestion of ineptitude is made. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It tends to make the man and the unit look ridiculous. It should be removed. It's not key to the history of the CRU and belongs, if anywhere, on Lamb's page. ► RATEL ◄ 12:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

1. The detail comes from a history of the unit, not from a biography of Prof. Lamb. The source seems to be impartial, being written by a reputable historian of education, author of other works such as Education, economic change, and society in England, 1780-1870. Please explain the nature of the ridicule which you perceive and why it would be proper for us to ridicule Professor Lamb but not the CRU. Your suggestion seems to be that we would make the CRU look good by removing this account of their early history. Please explain how this is consistent with our policies of neutrality and abstention from advocacy. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
2. For comparison, please consider the other major source for this section, "The Climatic Research Unit at Twenty-five Years. That source was written by members of the unit, including Prof. Lamb himself, and so is unsatisfactory, as they are not sufficiently independent of the topic to be a good source for statements such as "win the argument decisively". We should prefer independent historians to first-hand accounts. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure you guys know what you're referring to, but could someone quote here the reference for the disputed statement (which I assume is the one italicised at the top of this thread), so it's clearer what's being debated? --Nigelj (talk) 14:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• The reference is Michael Sanderson (2002), The history of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, p. 285, ISBN 9781852853365. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Nigel, he's referring to an obscure reference to Hubert Lamb as the "ice man" in a book on East Anglia university. Interestingly, I did a google search on "hubert lamb" "ice man" "east anglia" -austria (I excluded Austria to stop getting hits on Ötzi, the Ice Man) and came up with only one hit, the one used by Col Warden. That's simply not good enough for a potentially pejorative reference to someone's past in an article about a section of a university. Give it up CW, this dog won't hunt. ► RATEL ◄ 14:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• You have yet to demonstrate how this is, in any way, perjorative. The interest of climate scientists in global cooling at that time is well known - that's why we have an article on this and similar topics like nuclear winter. Trying to present this topic purely in the context of current thinking is not the historic perspective which we aim for. And note that, in the 1970s, the internet did not exist and numerous contemporary sources are still not online. Please see WP:GOOGLE which explains the limits of such searches. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

CW, this rare titbit of arcane data about Lamb has no place in a short article about a college unit. You know it. It doesn't belong. It doesn't even flow with the text; it stands out like a sore thumb. Deniers and sceptics are always saying how "warmists" used to be in panic about a new ice age, and now they're panicking about heat... you must think we were born yesterday. Your motives are transparent. Stop. ► RATEL ◄ 15:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:AGF and WP:NPA still apply. We are here to see if the ref is RS by WP standards, not to call a cite "arcane" or "derogatory" and most specifically not to impugn "deniers and skeptics." And I find impugning motives of editors to be a tad improper, indeed. Collect (talk) 16:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• Only Ratel seemed to oppose this sourced sentence and, as there was no consensus for its removal, I have restored it. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This is misleading and taken out of context. If you check the source [9], you will see that the "cooling" prediction refers to the normal ice age/glaciation cycle, on the order of 10000 years. This is very different (and, BTW, not even incompatible with) AGW operating on a time scale of centuries. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:19, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to use of the source, but it seems to give an inappropriate emphasis to what was probably only ever a journalistic conceit. This is an encyclopedia so use of terms like "ice man" in the context of scientists doing their job of studying the climate doesn't seem right. Or are we going to refer to entomologists by the journalistic name "bug man"? --TS 20:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

No, that term is used to refer to us computer scientists. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• The context here is the breaking of the then consensus about climate stability. That Professor Lamb was then known for his predictions regarding cooling is a fact reported by a work of academic history, not a piece of journalism. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You are still confusing time scales. Milankovitch cycles were worked out during WW1. Another glaciation in 10000 years was not "a break of the consensus". There was no change of opinion here, only a change of focus. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:59, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) I think, will all due respect, that that is a dreadful misrepresentation of his scientific career. The source says, "Professor Lamb came to Norwich as "the ice man", attracting much attention for his prophesy of world cooling and a future ice age within 10,000 years. Within a few years in Norwich, in which the heat wave of 1975-76 had intervened, he had switched to warning of global warming...". You have changed that to "He was then known as the "ice man"", although we can't find a single other record of that name being applied to him, have left out the timescale of ice-ages, and have made it sound like he single-handedly reversed climate change science on the basis of one hot summer, rather than respecting the humorous 'college-rag' style of the original. Also, what is this 10-month interval doing in an edit war? It wasn't only Ratel, but WMC, Jonathan A Jones (above) and Atmoz as well who opposed your edit at the time. Now you have Tony, Stephan, and me saying it doesn't seem right in this context. So, 'no consensus for its removal' and 'restore iceman sentence per talk'[10] is stretching it a little. --Nigelj (talk) 21:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• The source is not a "college rag" but a respectable work of history. WMC endorsed inclusion of the text, following clarification of the sourcing, by stating above "Agreed, for this page. Thanks to CW". Colonel Warden (talk) 21:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This is becoming hard work, but if you look just above that, he said "Thanks to CW for adding some history. I've cut this bit though:" and quoted the exact passage that you just re-added, on 3 December 2009, with reasons. What is your point? Do you believe that you have a consensus here for this edit at this time? --Nigelj (talk) 23:15, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• Both WMC and Jonathan A Jones stated that they were content with the sentence in question once we had a citation which directly supported it. The sentence seems to fairly summarise what the source says. Your objections seem weak as you do not seem to be understanding the discussion which took place. The editor who raised further objections previously was Ratel. I gather that he is now banned from Wikipedia. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:20, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Current version has an error in this sentence: "He [Lamb] had led research into climatic variation at the Met Office and was chair of the UN's World Meteorological Organisation, which already studied climate trends and the effect of pollution upon them." The source cited (Sanderson, 2002, "The history of the University of East Anglia, Norwich") says he was chair of WMO, but he wasn't. They don't even have a chair. List of former WMO presidents doesn't include Lamb: [11]. Lamb's page says that he was "a member of the WMO Working Group on Climate Fluctuations" which is correct but perhaps not sufficiently notable for a page about CRU? I'll edit the page to remove this error. TimOsborn (talk) 10:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Second drafts, CRU climate data-discard controversy

Following are two competing drafts, the later one first:

a. CRU climate data-discard controversy, draft by User:Ratel

The CRU responded to press articles that implied the unit had discarded vital climate data with this statement:

No data has been lost. The collection of land surface air temperature data by the Climatic Research Unit goes back to a time when there was insufficient computing data storage capacity to retain all versions of data records on computer - unlike today when all versions may be kept thanks to greater storage capacity. ... Much of the earlier data exists in World Weather Records volumes (published by the Smithsonian Library) and, of course, original data will still be available from the appropriate national meteorological services.

In an earlier statement, then-CRU director Phil Jones disputed charges of data deletion from others , stating that:

The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends. When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends, so we've taken them out. Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks. We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world.

Climate Audit data requests

Barraged with numerous FOI requests for the original climate data from climate change sceptical non-climatologists (Nature reported that in the course of five days in July 2009 the CRU had been "inundated" with 58 FOI requests from Stephen McIntyre and people affiliated with his blog Climate Audit requesting access to raw climate data or information about their use), Jones refused them all, citing the confidentiality agreements regarding the data between CRU and the nations that supplied the data.

b. CRU climate data-discard controversy, draft by User:Tillman

According to The Times, the CRU has discarded much of the raw temperature data which it had gathered from weather stations around the world, and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The original data, stored on paper and magnetic tape, were discarded "to save space" when the CRU moved to a new building in the 1980s. This means that "other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years," the Times reported. The CRU was forced to reveal the losses following requests for the data under the UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The CRU responded to the Times article with this statement:

No data has been lost. The collection of land surface air temperature data by the Climatic Research Unit goes back to a time when there was insufficient computing data storage capacity to retain all versions of data records on computer - unlike today when all versions may be kept thanks to greater storage capacity. ... Much of the earlier data exists in World Weather Records volumes (published by the Smithsonian Library) and, of course, original data will still be available from the appropriate national meteorological services.

In an earlier statement, then-CRU director Phil Jones disputed charges of data deletion from others , stating that:

The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends. When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends, so we've taken them out. Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks. We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world.

Still earlier, in August 2009, the CRU posted the following notice on its website, apparently in response to Roger Pielke Jr.'s FOIA request:

We are not in a position to supply data for a particular country not covered by the example agreements referred to earlier, as we have never had sufficient resources to keep track of the exact source of each individual monthly value. Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data."

John Nielsen-Gammon, a climatology professor at Texas A&M, previously uninvolved with the CRU controversy, had this to ssay:

There was nothing unethical about CRU throwing away the raw temperature data. This is because CRU IS NOT THE ARCHIVAL SITE FOR THE RAW TEMPERATURE DATA. The individual nations that collected the weather observations are responsible for their archival. If things proceeded as they normally do, CRU wrote to Burundi, say, and requested copies of their climate of their climate observations. Someone in Burundi made them a magnetic tape or Xerox copies of the data and sent it to CRU. CRU processed the data and got it in the form they wanted. Having no need for the copies of the original data anymore, they tossed them. ... In summary, there's no evidence that they destroyed data. They destroyed extra copies of data that they didn't need anymore. The originals, as far as we know, were and are in other hands."

Climate Audit data requests

[PT note: as this seems the most cotroversial section, perhaps this should be greatly shortened or just dropped for now -- Pete Tillman (talk) 19:15, 13 December 2009 (UTC)]

"Any regular reader of Climate Audit knows that McIntyre and his allies have struggled for years to pry information out of Phil Jones and his group, and that Jones has resisted at every turn."

Pielke, Jr. describes what he calls the "bizarre contortions" CRU went through to avoid releasing its climate data to Steve McIntyre and Climate Audit. CRU first told McIntyre that he couldn't have the data because he was not an academic. His colleague Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph, then asked for the data. He was turned down, too.

Faced with a growing number of FOI requests for the original climate data, Jones refused them all, saying that there were confidentiality agreements regarding the data between CRU and the nations that supplied the data. McIntyre’s blog readers then requested those agreements, country by country, but only a handful turned out to exist, mainly from Third World countries and written in very vague language. Then Pielke Jr., who is also an academic, filed a request for the same data. CRU's response rejecting Pielke's (and similar) requests is quoted above, and was later reported by The Times, the first MSM account of the CRU climate data-discard controversy.

---

This is a manufactured controversy. As we know, no data has been lost, data which it had gathered from weather stations around the world is badly ambiguous. Anybody who wants *the original data* should ask the custodians of the original data, which is the appropriate NMS. So no, your proposal is unacceptable. I can make a counter-proposal for you to reject, if you like William M. Connolley (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

It's also obviously undue weight on recent news. The coverage you're proposing is way excessive for its relative significance; it would completely unbalance the article. Summarise, don't write a sequel to War and Peace. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking, I discovered that the stupid Times quote was in the article already, so I've taken it out. In the precoess I've effectively done the counter-proposal [12] William M. Connolley (talk) 19:18, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, and no problem. Pete Tillman (talk) 19:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a manufactured controversy in your opinion, William. Multiple WP:Reliable Sources disagree with you. Please edit the Times section to what you feel is accurate, while avoiding OR. The bit you question is almost a direct quote, and it's rebutted later, by CRU & the A&M guy. This is a "charge & response" section (as you know, W....). Nor is it at all clear that CRU's "Value added" records can be reconstructed, certainly not easily. Nor is it clear that the data was actually dumped -- see below.

As for WP:Undue Weight: please. The CRU aricle is in the midst of a major expansion, and this is a very important topic. But please indicate how to shorten it -- or just do it -- this is a draft, intended for markup & comment. Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Chris, I agree it would be better to shorten this. But I think what I've written is accurate, and I'm tired of fussing with it. Your help would genuinely be appreciated on this. And you should see all the stuff I already took out! TIA, Pete Tillman (talk) 20:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

• Tweaked draft, shortened it a bit, added a subpara. for better readability. Chris & WMC, among the things I tossed were refs to the leaked emails, since WP:Not News. But there were plenty of them, and this topic is inextricably intertwined with the FOIA request section over at Climategate -- and that seems the place to pursue that angle, as the thing ages a bit. But this one isn't news at all -- CRU has been refusing to supply data to "skeptics" since (at least) 2005. As JNG notes in the draft, this isn't news to anyone who follows CA & RC . And it constitutes a good deal of the more-notorious of the leaked emails. McIntyre, Pielke Jr. and McKitrick are all mentioned in them, as is the (apparent) CRU strategy for denying their FOIA requests. All three (ims) have confirmed tht the (leaked) emails they sent CRU are authentic. Best, Pete Tillman (talk)

What it looks like to me is a one-sided story made up from very biassed and non-notable, or primary, sources. If we were to use it in the article, it would need at least as much again from 'the other side of the story' for balance. Then it would be ridiculously long. Much better to have a couple of sentences of pre-digested pre-balanced analysis from a sensible, reliable, secondary source. If no such source exists, then that is all the more reason to drop it until one does. --Nigelj (talk) 21:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Nigelj, I tried to report both sides fairly & neutrally. If you look at the refs and word count, it looks fairly well-balanced to me. As for brevity, if I could remember the old saw about I'd have written a short report, but didn't have time -- well, you get the picture, it's not like I'm getting paid for this... Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 03:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Why are you still using the Times article - despite actually having agreed that it raises red flags about its reliability/research on this particular subject? (how can we trust it on FOIA then?) Other than that i agree with Nigelj above, and would add that its A) Too long B) Way too dependent on quotes. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Kim, I think you're making too much of the Times bloopers -- these are typical reporter misunderstandings. Overall I think he got it about right. Do you have something specific from the Times that's still wrong in the draft? (as did WMC, fixed)

As for length & quotes, specific suggestions/edits most welcome! I like quotes, myself, and may have gotten carried away. TIA, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that:

1. This topic (data hiding/deletion) is too important to leave it out of the article. After all, Jones stepped down aside for some reason, and it is not email hacking. So intellectual honesty requires us to mention the data and FOI controversy in some detail.
2. To uninitiated people around the word who read the emails Jones sounds like trying to hide and delete data (personally, I think he was afraid to reveal his sloppiness, not malice - but very explicit attempts to hide the data are hard to explain in a benign manner), thus the subject is notable
3. The topic is important independently of the email leak; the allegations about precisely this type of conduct by CRU were made for years, the leak just provided some substantiation for these allegations.
4. It is unlikely that truly reliable secondary sources will appear soon (before the investigation is complete). Unlike the partisans on both sides, folks with truly analytical type of mind will be waiting on the sidelines to see the outcome of the investigations to avoid making an uneducated judgment.
5. Thus, we are stuck with primary sources for now. I see no harm in publishing a selection of quotes from CRU, and a lot of good. Anyone who feels the opposite should try to argue this "no harm" statement as opposed to simply trying to delay adding the quotes. How Wikipedia listing irrefutable information (from the CRU's mouth, with attribution) can contradict its goals or hurt the article when the alternative is just to censor the news? The balance of quoting the primary sources seems positive. Let's make the article better.
6. I therefore would like to see the critique of Pete's work to be constructive: let's either explain the harm that will be done by publishing the quotes, or argue about the quotes to be listed. Better yet, let's just edit Pete's draft above.

Dimawik (talk) 16:15, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Jones' didn't "step down" permanently, he temporarily stepped aside to avoid the impression of inappropriate influence during the investigations. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:41, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for correction. I changed my comment above so this transgression against the English language (I knew this detail about Jones) does not detract us from commenting on the substance of my post. Dimawik (talk) 16:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion died down; time to move text onto the page? Note that the first section currently also includes some of the information on the topic. My suggestion is to leave it as it is for now and discuss changes once the new section stabilizes. Dimawik (talk) 17:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course not. The clear consensus above was that it is a manufactured controversy, with undue weight on recent news and primary sources, reported one-sidedly without balance, too long, way too dependent on quotes and raises red flags. The fact that the author has argued back against every point raised, without substantially altering the text, does not mean that he won any of the arguments. Consensus is not about getting the last word in. Some of us are too busy to keep repeating ourselves. --Nigelj (talk) 18:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Would you please present evidence to support your assertion that there is a "clear consensus" that this is a "manufactured controversy"? Thx, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I wrote "The clear consensus above was that it is..." then went through the discussion above extracting a phrase or two from each comment you had received, skipping over your answers to each. That, as you know, was one of them. --Nigelj (talk) 19:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Huh? I meant "consensus", as in WP:consensus against posting the draft, as Dimawik suggested we do. Pete Tillman (talk) 20:54, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

As written by Pete Tillman, the section almost entirely consists of the quotes from the CRU's mouth. How can it be "manufactured"? If you disagree with suggested wording, please propose your own. The topic is clearly very notable, so we do a disservice to readers and WP by just omitting it. Dimawik (talk) 23:01, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• For this topic, there are no good secondary sources in the press yet that summarise it succinctly and accurately. Until such exists, it should only get the barest of mentions and should give Jones (per BLP) the benefit of the doubt. ► RATEL ◄ 00:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

If you folk want to start this discussion all over again, then I am going to be more brutally honest about the piece above. It is highly biassed, with excessive amounts of emotive language based on unacceptable sources and it's being proposed for the wrong article. It starts and sets the scene with a long quote from a blog that says, "...struggled for years to pry information out of Phil Jones and his group, and that Jones has resisted at every turn" (emotive, biassed language highlighted). It talks of CRU's "bizarre contortions" sourced from another blog. Etc. All it is about is a bunch of bloggers trying to extract megabytes of copyright, pre-owned, raw data from a government-funded research establishment, that does not own that data, by a concerted amateur bombardment. But it's mostly sourced to the bloggers themselves. Eventually they hit on FOI and were probably about to succeed, when someone hacked the servers. This is probably a story to be told, somewhere on WP, but in about two lines, based on a sober reliable source (or two) that has predigested all the bile and venom and then expressed the facts in ordinary English. We all made suggestions above, hoping that Peter or someone would tone down, cut down and re-source the proposal, but the wording has hardly changed at all during the discussion. Now, I have no energy to rewrite it as I believe that this is the wrong article for the story anyway: it will probably end up as a sentence or two in Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident after the official enquiry has put the whole story of that incident together. It is not part of the description of the CRU, but part of the news story that is unfolding as the CRUehi. Now, is that clearer, why the text above is not going in this article? --Nigelj (talk) 01:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Dear Nigelj, (1) This section is clearly relevant to the article, as a typical person aware fo the CRU knows it as the place where the Climategate happened. (2) There is a complete proposal for addition into the article. There are precisely three quotes that you identify as biased:

• ...struggled for years to pry
• Jones has resisted at every turn
• bizarre contortions

If these are reworked/removed, will you be OK with the text? If not, can you identify the pieces of the proposal you do not like - and the reasons behind your dislike - more precisely? Dimawik (talk) 02:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Please read WP:HEAR --Nigelj (talk) 11:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Dear Nigelj, WP:HEAR talks about re-discussing the consensus. Perhaps, I missed the editors reaching this consensus. Would you mind to point me to the discussion where the said consensus has been reached? Dimawik (talk) 21:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Summary of data loss issue

Trying to read this an an outsider, all I can see are unsubstaniated charges of data deletion (with an implicit charge of covering something up) that have been comprehensively answered and refuted by the CRU. That is the only encyclopedic inclusion that should be allowed. Possibly two sentences, with the first sentence detailing the claims, and the second (and possiblly a third) giving the CRU response. Anything else gives undue weight to the denier blogosphere, and by casting aspersions of dishonestly on the CRU staff, contravenes BLP. ► RATEL ◄ 03:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that CRU in its original statements clearly agreed that there is some data lost, so the charge is quite substantiated. Later CRU changed its wording to indicate that no data was lost. I think all three statements of CRU on the topic shall be quoted showing (in my opinion) the 180-degree reversal or (in WMC's opinion) an extreme consistency. If indeed the data loss was "completely refuted" in CRU's statements, then quoting all three of them - as proposed by Pete Tillman - agrees with your position of "giving the CRU response", doesn't it? Dimawik (talk) 08:15, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreement with editor Dimawik (who should take a bow, for the idea of serially quoting all 3 CRU statements.) Ratel, do you agree? Shall we publish at least the (corrected) Times article quote and CRU's replies? Would this answer (for instance) editor Nigelj's (major) objections? Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 14:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

PS: I'd prefer to replace the (somewhat problematic) Times lede with another RS -- has anyone seen a better one? TIA, Pete Tillman (talk) 14:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with quoting large amounts of primary source quotes in the expectation that the reader will be able to do some kind of analysis in their heads while reading it. We should depend on a reliable secondary source that has analysed the whole situation and summarised a balanced overview for us (and our readers). I don't believe that such a source yet exists, and I think we will have to await the outcome of the planned enquiry into the whole incident.

One reason that this is a complex issue, and that each primary-source quote is heavily dependent on its original context, is that there have been several accusation related to 'data loss' levelled at CRU, and they have responded to each accusation separately:

1. In the 1980s some primary data may have been deleted from CRU databases due to the costs of storage at that time. No data was lost here as the original recording stations keep copies of all their data, it was only CRU that was trying to amalgamate all station data into one database. The Met Office has recently said it still has all the original data.
2. Some station data may have been found to be inaccurate during some time periods due to 'urban heat island effects' or 'discontinuities'. Some of these data may have been excluded (not 'lost') from certain summaries due to legitimate doubt about its validity, when compared to more reliable data.
3. There have been accusations that a piece of code found in the hacked documents could automatically discard a data point on some criteria and continue without logging the discard. It has not been made at all clear if that was prototype, test or production code, and if it was production code, which published papers, if any, relied on its output, and how many, if any, data points met the exclusion criteria.

With complexities like this, screaming "Foul!" at every mention of the words 'deleted' or 'removed' is far from fair. However, all of this is conjecture, synthesis and WP:OR until we find it in a reliable and informed secondary analysis of the whole situation. Expecting, by selective quoting of primary sources, to implant the ability to do all this analysis into every reader's mind is equally nonsensical. If science was that simple, we could all be scientists, which we are not. --Nigelj (talk) 14:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I see no problem with using primary sources when secondary do not exist yet. Once the secondary sources arrive, I will support replacing primary sources with secondary ones. In the meantime, suppressing the information does not seem to be a service to WP. After all, a lay person who knows what the CRU is, most likely learned about its existence through following this controversy. Why not present the excerpts from CRU PR that (in WMC's opinion) clearly refute the allegations of the deleted data? Dimawik (talk) 01:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

PT, you asked what I'd agree to. I've edited it to show the version that I would endorse. ► RATEL ◄ 15:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm travelling, and (basically) offline (checking email at public library). First impressions: It's very odd to say "The CRU responded to press articles..." without citing any, don't you think?

"Barraged with numerous FOI requests for the original climate data..." McIntyre has rebutted this, ims, so should probably be quoted. If we use "barrage", it would have to be a direct quote or sounds POV (imo). Why did you toss the third-party A&M guy? He seems the most even-handed secondary source we have so far.

Thanks to Nigelj as well. Now I have a better idea of your objections. Agree it's a complex situation. Will work on this again when I return, probably Thurs 12-10. In haste, Pete Tillman (talk) 20:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

---

• I've posted both drafts so that they can be easily compared. Does someone care to create a third draft, for consensus? Pete Tillman (talk) 19:15, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest including neither. The hacking article has all the detail needed for this as a "news" story. For a scientific story, there is no content at all. Draft (b) is obviously wrong; draft (a) is better, but nonetheless gives more weight to this ephemera than it deserves William M. Connolley (talk) 21:43, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, have to agree with WMC here despite my efforts at forming a draft, Pete. Suggest you wait until this all dies down as see if any of it sticks. At the moment less and less of it looks substantiated. WP is not a news portal anyway. ► RATEL ◄ 00:35, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

CRU Data-dump faked?

Archived, no RS. Remove this if/when reliable source(s) pick it up.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
See CRU’s Jones Supposedly Lost Data Used In 2008 and elsewhere, so far just in the blogosphere. "As I suspected and showed below, the raw data could not have been deleted. So now we have something to look forward to now that CRU as agreed on full disclosure." (same source). Indeed. Pete Tillman (talk) 18:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC) This is so obviously not a RS I wonder why you're putting it here. No, I wouldn't trust them to have understood. You're heading off into right-wing wing-nut black helicopters territory here William M. Connolley (talk) 18:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC) Nope, just waiting for more info. Agree this isn't RS, disagree with your conclusions. And you're being silly, or are in denial, imo. Love, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC) Ah well, we'll see. But I don't think this is a good place to dump non-RS's. If you're gathering refs, could you use a sandbox on your own page? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC) Ordinarily, I'd agree. But this does have a bearing on the "data dumping" controversy, as I'm sure you realize. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:29, 3 December 2009 (UTC) It has the bearing that the poster hasn't realized the difference between having all the value-added data and having discarded some of the raw data. No one has ever claimed that CRU has dumped all data - just the data that wasn't relevant. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC) You may be right, but I thought he found some "middleware", intermediately-massaged data. There are certainly plenty of data-mangling software tools showing up in the leaked CRU files -- tho, of course, no proof they were actually used in published products. (Eric S. Raymond seems to be keeping track of them here, if you're curious.) This one needs some time to mature before becoming encyclopedic, or vanishing off into the blogosphere.... Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC) Of course CRU doesn't work from raw data. It takes it and, in your words, "mangles" it in order to rule out data transcription errors, urban heat island effects, and any amount of other data errors. This isn't an issue. --TS 02:35, 4 December 2009 (UTC) The issue, of course, is if CRU's "value added" manipulations are defensible, and reproducible. Many outside observers are dubious. This may be something else we should add in the revamp article (but not by me, I'm sick of it.) Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC) This is verging on treating Wikipedia as a forum. We work from reliable sources. If reliable sources state as a fact that valuable data has been lost, or that the temperature data produced by the Climate Research Unit is irreproducible, then we report that. Meanwhile these "many outside observers" will just have to wait. --TS 03:18, 4 December 2009 (UTC) RS's: oh, to be sure. If I recover from the above effort, maybe I'll put something together -- if it exists (yet). Anyway, this bit has gotten a bit out of hand, I agree, and will hereby withdraw unless/until RS's appear.... Adios, Pete Tillman (talk) 03:52, 4 December 2009 (UTC) CRU didn't throw away the raw data. That's because CRU never had the raw data to begin with. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

"some sceptics allege" vs. "it has been alleged"

I don't know if this needs discussing but I don't want to risk getting into an edit war over what seems like a fairly minor point so I'm bringing this to the talkpage. The sources cited give no indication that climate change sceptics are the only people making these allegations. George Monbiot, for one, has repeatedly made these claims. So 'some sceptics allege' seems like weasel-wording when compared to the impersonal passive construction.--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see Monbiot making that allegation. Can you quote, here, the text that you think does so? In the meantime, I put it back William M. Connolley (talk) 11:42, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The link was removed for some reason. Here it is. In the third paragraph: "some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:NPOV - which is a non-negotiable policy - requires us, when we discuss an opinion, to "attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion". Formulations such as "it is alleged" are weasel words. As the very first paragraph of WP:WEASEL says, "If a statement can't stand without weasel words, it does not express a neutral point of view; either a source for the statement should be found, or the statement should be removed. If, on the other hand, a statement can stand without such words, their inclusion may undermine its neutrality, and the statement will generally be better off without them."

When discussing who holds a particular view of the stolen e-mails, we therefore have to attribute it. Not doing so breaches neutrality and is unacceptable. We cannot use sources which give a particular view as "examples"; we need a source that explicitly attributes a viewpoint to a particular party. I've therefore re-sourced the statement about who holds this view, as required by WP:NPOV, to a BBC article published today that addresses that specific point. The article says: "Critics of the scientific consensus have claimed that the e-mails undermine the case that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing global warming, and have dubbed the issue "ClimateGate."" This is the kind of source we need: it says who holds a particular POV and reports what they are claiming. An article that just presents a POV without attributing it to any party isn't much use for our requirements here. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The writers of the articles I cited are reporting that there is evidence of these actions. These are the 'who'. I wrote 'it has been asserted that there is evidence' but I could have written 'there is evidence' as this was what was in the articles cited, I was just worried it would strike you as POV and you would revert it again. Maybe you're right though, shall we go with 'there is evidence' instead? Verifiability or whatever? Here are the sources in question:

• Johnson, Keith. Climate Emails Stoke Debate The Wall Street Journal. 23 November 2009.
• Bailey, Ronald. The Scientific Tragedy of Climategate Reason. 1 December 2009</ref> a number of the leaked e-mails contain evidence that scientists had conspired to manipulate data.

Perhaps we could say "some journalists reported" or "some journalists are reporting," though it feels weird. I just don't want to give the impression that it is exclusively climate change sceptics that are viewing this as evidence of excluding scientists from the peer review data and of altering data since that's patently not trut.--Heyitspeter (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've fallen into the trap I described above of using sources as examples. The argument you're advancing is essentially your own and one that has not been published in reliable sources, which you're trying to source by combining other sources (which have problems of their own, since they're opinion pieces). This is original research by synthesis and isn't allowed on Wikipedia. What you need is a source that explains who makes a particular claim, not simply examples of someone making that claim. The source needs to be reliable and verifiable, obviously (so no blogs), and it needs to be a news report, since opinion pieces are really only useful for attributing a view to the author of that piece. The BBC News report I cited in the article meets those criteria: it describes who makes the claim, it's a news report, and it's from a very reliable source. You need to find something comparable to support the argument that you want to make. If you can do so and bring it here, I promise we can discuss whether it's usable in the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is the Wall Street Journal citation with the relevant section quoted:

• Johnson, Keith. Climate Emails Stoke Debate The Wall Street Journal. 23 November 2009. "The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others. In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with."

--Heyitspeter (talk) 19:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I understand your concern that writing 'it has been alleged' without specifying who looks a bit dodgy. But it would also be dodgy to suggest that climate change sceptics are the people alleging that the emails show evidence of attempts to exclude dissenting viewpoints and to prevent the release of data, as the article suggests now, when reliable secondary sources are reporting that the emails do show evidence of this (whether the evidence is definitive or not). I'm open to suggestions on how to word this.--Heyitspeter (talk) 20:15, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

CRU stuff: leaked or stolen?

Leaked or stolen?
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm sorry (but unsurprised) that this stupid bit of edit-warring has been imported here from Talk:Climategate. As I pointed out there (in an archived comment), far more RS (then) used "Leaked" vs "Stolen." Since then, the developing consensus is that this was almost certainly an inside job, quite possibly by a whistle-blower. "Stolen" is now used largely by partisans who would prefer the public to look at the actions of the (supposed) hacker(s), rather than the implications of the leaked documents. Also, no credible evidence has (so far) been presented that any of the leaked docs were altered or fabricated. Therefore, using "stolen" in the lede of this section appears to be POV pushing, by those who hope the whole thing will blow over. --Pete Tillman (talk) 18:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC) You are confusing the method of the theft with the fact of the theft. "Leaking" and "hacking" are methods. They are possible means by which data can be stolen. The fact of the theft is undisputed by any reliable source I've seen. The UEA is the owner of the data; it has stated repeatedly and unequivocally that the data was stolen. The method by which the theft was carried out does not affect the fact of the theft. Compare it to a bank robbery: whether the robbers use a getaway car or flee on foot, it doesn't change the fact that the bank's money was taken. As the owner of the stolen data, the UEA is the only party competent to state whether it authorised its release . I've repeatedly challenged editors on Talk:Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident (please note the correct article name) to provide any source to the contrary and to explain why any third party would be competent to dispute the UEA's statement about the violation of its property rights. So far, silence. I note that you've not provided any source either. Furthermore, your change to the article falsified what the cited source says; like the other reliable sources that address this point, it calls the data stolen. Please do not attribute speculative motives to editors and third party sources. It is discourteous and your comments border on a personal attack - please cut it out. We are guided by what reliable sources say, not by editors' partisan speculations. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC) "On Tuesday November 17, a substantial file including over 1000 emails either sent from or sent to members of the Climatic Research Unit (‘CRU’) at the University of East Anglia, was downloaded on the RealClimate website, together with meteorological station data used for research by CRU into the rate of the Earth’s warming, particularly over the past 150 years, and other material..." --from Sir Muir Russell to head the Independent Review into the allegations against the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). So it's not so clearcut as you think -- IB this is the most recent CRU press release re the leak, and attitudes evolve over time, particularly with a new Director in charge. Mind, the next "Note to editors" reads "A police investigation is currently underway into the source of the theft." The point is, even CRU is not pressing the theft as the biggest part of their problem now. It is to "determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data..." (same source). --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:36, 4 December 2009 (UTC) Curious how you missed out the next line in that statement: "A police investigation is currently underway into the source of the theft." Selective quotation is not helpful. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:03, 4 December 2009 (UTC) Dear ChrisO, I would like to use the opportunity to state that precisely this phrase is quoted by Pete Tillman literally few lines above your puzzling comment. It might be wise for you now to say "Ooops" :-) Dimawik (talk) 20:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC) "Ooops" :-) -- ChrisO (talk) 20:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC) NP. But a reminder that I do try to be honest and balanced re this stuff, regardless of my personal beliefs. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 20:52, 4 December 2009 (UTC) I agree with ChrisO. Whether an inside job or not, it was theft. even CRU is not pressing the theft as the biggest part of their problem now - well no, of course not. Dealing with crime is the job of the police (though I assume CRU are aware enough to realise that little is likely to be discovered). CRU are, reasonably enough, focussing on things they can do something about. But I can't see why that affects the fact of the theft at all William M. Connolley (talk) 23:30, 4 December 2009 (UTC) Whistleblowing is not theft. The leaked materials do not appear to be a random email archive, so some insider involvement, perhaps inadvertent, is extremely likely. We should not reach conclusions on the theft theory before a detailed investigation is completed. Before that, I would prefer therefore to qualify CRU's "theft" statements by saying, "according to CRU". For some reason, this phrase constantly gets stricken out without any discussion. Dimawik (talk) 23:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC) If property is taken without authorisation it is theft, period. "Whistleblowing" is a possible defence against charges of theft but it does not alter the fact that a theft has occurred. But that is irrelevant anyway, since there is no suggestion that a whistleblower was involved: the data was obtained by hacking CRU's server and its distribution was attempted by hacking RealClimate's server. On the face of it, it would seem to have been a rather crude attempt to frame RealClimate for "accidentally" releasing the files. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC) Hey, I was going to say that. But I'll say it anyway: Whistleblowing can be theft - and it would be in this case, if whistleblowing was ever used as a defence. Which is what it is, as ChrisO says - a public-interest defence against being prosecuted for theft William M. Connolley (talk) 23:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC) For Dimawit's benefit: Diebold whistle blower faces theft charges ► RATEL ◄ 00:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC) I don't know where did you folks get these ideas (other than CRU press releases). As far as I know, the break-ins into email systems in the US are typically prosecuted under US Title 18 Part I Chapter 121 — Stored Communications Act (SCA) law, which says nothing about either theft or larceny. Occasionally, the Privacy Act of 1974 is used, again the one with non-theft wording. I do not know about the British law, still, would you mind to substantiate your claims that the break-in (if it happened at all) constitutes theft? For Ratel's benefit: in the case you quote the theft charges were dropped, leaving just the "unlawfully accessing the company computer" charge, so your example works against you. Dimawik (talk) 01:03, 6 December 2009 (UTC) The whistelblower in that case, Stephen Heller, agreed to a plea bargain and paid a $10K fine. And you say this works against my point? How? ► RATEL ◄ 01:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC) I meant precisely what I said; leaving just the "unlawfully accessing the company computer" charge means just that, the theft charges were dropped. This does not contradict your (also correct) statement. See, for example, here (The LA County DA's statement says Heller pled to "unlawfully accessing the company computer in connection with its legal representation of Diebold Inc."). Once again, there were no theft charges at the end of the day. That said, the CRU is not in the US, and the circumstances will be different. Still, belief that reading someone else's email is theft needs to be substantiated. P.S. It might make sense to look up the definition of "theft" in Wikipedia to understand my concerns (there can be no intent to permanently deprive the owner ... of ... property, larceny on top of it requires stolen property to have value). Dimawik (talk) 01:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Was the data removed and disseminated without the University's permission? Yes. Was that an illegal act? Yes, almost certainly. Was it an "inside job"? Nothing to suggest it was, and much evidence to suggest an outside job. Has the incident revealed that AGW is a scam? No, not in any way (pending investigation outcome). What is the likelihood that the entire episode is a pre-Copenhagen smear paid for by big polluting industries that stand to lose billions from any carbon tax? Extremely likely (let's hope it gets exposed one day). ► RATEL ◄ 03:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Was the data removed and disseminated without the University's permission? Yes. - Agreed 100%. Was that an illegal act? Yes - again I agree, but, again this illegal act most likely isn't theft, so I prefer to either remove this word (and its derivatives) or attribute it to the CRU. Was it an "inside job"? Nothing to suggest it was, and much evidence to suggest an outside job. - There is no evidence whatsoever either way; CRU's statements (while it was still under prof. Jones) cannot be counted as evidence. Some experts in computer security say this seems like an insider job, common sense suggests the same (the archive has very little size - do we really expect hackers to sift through email before releasing them? do we really expect a hacker to name his or her file FOIA.zip?) Dimawik (talk) 08:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Too much OR. CRU says theft and stole. Nobody has proved otherwise. The rest is speculation. The "securoty expert" quoted is guessing, and his words could equally be interpreted to mean that deniers (who are insiders in the climate scene) were to blame. Basically, you are not allowed to bring your interpretations to the page, so the word you "prefer" is irrelevant. Your speculations about what hackers may or may not do are also irrelevant (but to answer your question: YES, I do expect hackers paid by polluting industries to sift through data looking for the most incriminating emails, and to know about the denied blizzard of McIntyre FOI requests. Duh). ► RATEL ◄ 08:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC) CRU says theft and stole. Nobody has proved otherwise. - this is precisely what I am asking for: change "data were stolen" to "according to CRU, data were stolen", nothing more. hackers paid by polluting industries - wow, a conspiracy theory in the alarmist camp :-) Dimawik (talk) 08:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC) It was their data, they own it. Nobody is in a better position than them to say whether they 'gave it away'. 'released it', 'accidentally exposed it' etc. What they say is that it was a theft and someone stole it. They called in the police. (It'll turn out to be a paid-for job, IMHO, but we'll see) --Nigelj (talk) 11:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC) There is actually no other possible source for the status of the data - since the UEA is the owner, it's the only party in a position to say whether it was stolen or not. I've repeatedly challenged editors to produce any source that would challenge that or to explain why any such source would be competent, but so far I've heard nothing but crickets. This whole "whistleblower" meme is based on nothing more than completely unsourced speculation. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC) I don't know where do you live, but in the UK the only party in a position to say whether something was stolen or not is the court, not the owner :-) Before that, credible allegations are usually made by the law enforcement. To see other problems with your reasoning, note that any of the intended recipients of an email has a full right to access it. For example, if prof. Jones had sent an archive of his emails to some person outside of CRU, this person can rightfully access them. Whether (s)he can publish emails is a different matter, but even if there is a non-disclosure agreement involved, this may be simply a (civil) contract violation, not a (criminal) theft charge. That's why saying "as stated by the CRU" or "alleged" before word "theft" is the only honest way to describe the situation. Dimawik (talk) 16:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Note also the problems with your use of the word "owner" here. In case of data, email in particular, it is hard to say who is the "owner" in the regular meaning of this English word. Definitely in case of email at least the sender and any of the recipients can do whatever they want with the email (limited, perhaps, by the copyright laws in the particular jurisdiction and some agreements in place). Most of the recipients are employed and (presumably) have signed some agreement with their employers regulating their use of email at work, so these employers have some say as well. Since most of the organizations involved are partially on either US or UK taxpayer's payroll, the corresponding agreements certainly introduce some government ownership in the results of the research, and the picture becomes even murkier. Add the Freedom of Information laws to the mix, and it is quite possible that the break-in simply finally delivered the goods to the rightful "owners", i.e., taxpayers :-) Dimawik (talk) 17:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC) This is all WP:OR and not a little bit of WP:SOAP. Have you a reliable source that says the e-mails were not stolen, but liberated by and for the people, their rightful owners? We should be talking about how to improve the article. --Nigelj (talk) 19:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Dear Nigelj, Note that you are the one using the word "liberated", not me. I also did not propose any of my text to be included; it was simply an explanation (it can be sourced - so it is not OR - it just does not belong to this article). To clarify: the crime clearly has been committed, just not theft. All I request is that CRU words about theft are presented as such, prefixed with "according to CRU". Why do you think that (100% truthful) clarification is bad? Dimawik (talk) 20:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Because that phraseology implies another legitimate viewpoint, e.g. that they have been liberated by and for the people. --Nigelj (talk) 20:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Until theft charges are at least filed, this ambivalence is indeed a correct position for WP, in my opinion. Quoting an accusation as a fact is not a good idea. Dimawik (talk) 20:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC) I think you are confusing the language used when talking about a specific person who is accused of a crime (e.g. Mr X allegedly stole...). There is no reason to use such language when talking about the existence of a crime. All the legit sources quote that CRU say that this is a theft. We have no legal reason to be coy about that. --Nigelj (talk) 21:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Not only have we no reason to be coy, but to couch the act in any other terms would require SYN, OR and/or weasel words. Dimawki needs to cease with the bloviational attempts to spin this as a humanitarian act by a whistleblower — a scenario that exists only in the wishful thinking of the blogosphere. ► RATEL ◄ 23:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Insertion of speculation of a "leak"

On this subject, see Talk:Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident/FAQ Q5. --TS 00:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The claim of "hacking" is clear speculation. Wikipedia should stick to unbiased terms like "exposure" or "release." Answer Q5 clearly conflicts with the neutrality requirements expressed in answer Q1. --74.248.53.52 (talk) 01:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Recent POV edits

Spoisp recently added some material to the article which is extremely biased and includes unsourced personal editorialising. The addition of "incriminating" is not supported by the cited source in that sentence, which says nothing of the sort. The remainder is badly sourced (using blogs, which are not reliable sources - see WP:RS) and grossly partisan. Per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, "The neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject, nor does it endorse or oppose specific viewpoints." Adding claims of wrongdoing that are worded as proven fact is completely inconsistent with NPOV. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. There are serious biographies of living persons (BLP) problems with that added section. --TS 02:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Article probation

Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under 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. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Lede

SBHB has changed the lede to include others in the compilation of data. While this is doubtlessly true, the basis for the changed sentence is this one from the CRU's site:

"Consisting of a staff of around thirty research scientists and students, the Unit has developed a number of the data sets widely used in climate research, including the global temperature record used to monitor the state of the climate system, as well as statistical software packages and climate models."

A new source would need to be referenced in order to make this change. However, since this article is about the CRU and not about the data bank of the world-wide climate community, perhaps we should revert back to the original. Surely the CRU has indeed developed some of the data sets itself. Thank you. --Yopienso (talk) 16:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Did Phil Jones delete emails?

Just for the record here--the source counted unreliable--Prison Planet--about Phil Jones's deletions of emails, was merely quoting from a Nature article. Here's the original. I'm not sure the little insinuation about his deletions belongs in the article, since everybody deletes emails, don't we? I should delete more! In retrospect it looks sinister, especially in the light of his indisputably wrong-headed email suggesting certain emails be deleted. But if the only trouble was sourcing, that's not a trouble. A trouble to me would be having it in this particular article; I'm not sure it's even noteworthy enough to be in the Jones bio or the email controversy article. --Yopienso (talk) 02:13, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

"CRU email controversy better heading, partisan term covered in text"

Dave, on what grounds is that a better heading? Not on the grounds of common usage or any WP policy!

Climategate is no longer a partisan term. Time and again a number of us have shown that virtually every source uses the term.
Again, Scientific American routinely uses the term, sometimes in scare quotes and sometimes not, sometimes as "so-called":

• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climategate-scientist-cleared-in-inquiry-again/
• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uk-police-close-climategate/
• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/second-batch-of-stolen-climategate-messages-emerges/
• William L. Chameides does. http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/sciencescandals0810/ And the blog is a RS for his usage. He seems to have also published it in SA. http://www.wikisearch.net/history/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
• In the prologue of his book on the hockey stick, Michael E. Mann wrote, "Pundits dubbed the wider issue of the hacked e-mail 'climategate" . . ." He calls the controversy climategate dozens of times throughout the book, usually without scare quotes, and even calls a whole chapter by the name.
• Nature" wrote back in 2010, ". . . in what is now called 'climategate'." (Those aren't scare quotes, but are for Use–mention distinction.)

Nature went so far as to explain the usage of the term in a piece highly applicable to your edit: ". . . and the affair will be forever known as Climategate." And, "At the height of the controversy, senior figures called for journalists not to use the word, which they argued lent false seriousness to far-fetched claims [. . .] One lesson that must be taken from Climategate is that scientists do not get to define the terms by which others see them and their place in society."

You know that all the major newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters use climategate. It's not jargon--it's common usage.

It's really time for WP to accept the term. YoPienso (talk) 09:01, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Stop picking at the scabs William M. Connolley (talk) 10:17, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't think this is the right venue to attempt to re-open the argument about the best heading for this topic in Wikipedia. This specific article is about CRU, not about the manufactured scandal, and in my view highlighting the controversial label gives undue weight to attempts to smear the reputation of the unit. It's quite sufficient to mention, as the body text does, that this controversy was dubbed "Climategate". . . dave souza, talk 19:06, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I respect your opinion, Dave. Here's mine, with some background, fwiw:

• First, I brought the issue to talk as the golden mean between edit-warring and being silenced. I won't edit war, but I'm done with meek silence when I perceive misguided edits. This is the only appropriate venue for discussing the recent edits and reversions of the subtitle.
• This article is on my watchlist and I saw what appeared to be 3 editors trying to update the terminology. It's chagrining to find one is a confirmed and another an alleged sockpuppet of Scibaby and the third a s.p. of one Tafortos. Nonetheless, I perceived a new consensus forming and wished to lend my weight to it. Hence, my good-faith revert.
• I follow your argument about the topic of the article, but its weakness is that you won't allow the common term to be used in the article about the manufactured scandal, either. Therefore, I can't help but conclude your real reason is that you're simply determined to suppress the term across all articles.
• Bottom line: I find the refusal to follow the sources a breach of WP policy and a POV attempt to right the great wrong of the media coverage of the hack and of the scientists who were its victims. YoPienso (talk) 01:21, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dave souza: Please explain why we should not follow the sources. YoPienso (talk) 00:48, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

When you write "virtually every source" that's the same as "not really every source" – the first few sources cited in this article don't use the contrarian framing, its use appears in some news articles but the Muir Russell report only quotes it once in the body text, where it's the title of contrarian book. That book title is repeated once as a footnote, and another footnote quotes the similar title of a contrarian opinion piece. The most recent source uses quotes as a distancing device;

The Earth's surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the "Climategate" affair has concluded.

So, why the push to highlight this framing in a subtitle here, when it's not agreed as the title of the main article on the manufactured controversy? There's nothing wrong with showing the usage in context in the body text, as this article already does.. . . dave souza, talk 06:29, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Not every source has to use the term, just the great preponderance, which they do. As you know. (There's your double standard again--not really every source calls ID or IC pseudoscience.)

The first several sources in the CRU-ec section of this article were written within a week of the term's coinage; quite logically they don't employ it.

Why do you call a 2011 article "the most recent source"? I don't object to using quotes as a distancing device. Here's from an actual recent article by a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper: "What we've previously learned from episodes such as Climategate is that scientists' emails can be cherry-picked and used out of context to confuse the public about issues around which there is solid scientific consensus."

Considering his place in the controversy, Mann's abundant usage of the term throughout his 2012 book is sufficient by itself to establish Climategate as the common name.

The only reason it's not agreed to on the main article is because you and your buddies won't allow it.

The CRU is the very seat of Climategate! That's why the term should be in a subtitle. Most of the public had never heard of the CRU until Climategate broke.

You didn't answer why we shouldn't follow the sources; rather, you equivocated on the word "virtually." You have a broad intellect and are widely informed; of course you know the majority of RSs call it Climategate. So, why shouldn't we follow them? YoPienso (talk) 19:24, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

In both instances the coined word is shown in context, a passing mention in Jack Payne's viewpoint, and in Mann's case it's set in the context of The Climate Wars The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. That phrase may become commonplace, but I'd remain doubtful about using it as a Wikipedia heading in place of global warming controversy. Most of the public are still unaware of "climategate", and it's political framing which is inappropriate when introducing the topic to someone who's come to the article to learn about CRU without already being aware of code words. In the same way that we're conversant with the topic and know that "skeptic" commonly means "climate change denialist", so too "climategate" takes some decoding. For many, it still suggests international climate science hoax. As for which sources, they all have to be evaluated as to whether it's a passing mention, or distanced in quote marks, or generally avoided when the aim is to write a dispassionate account. From our perspective, weight has to be given to mainstream scientific views. . . dave souza, talk 21:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC) edit: fix red link dave souza, talk 13:38, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Are you saying we wouldn't put it in context? Clearly, we would. As you know, it's long been commonplace, Dave. So you're saying we shouldn't follow the reliable sources--Mann, Grandia, SciAm, Nature, every print and broadcast news source I'm aware of--because they could confuse the public? YoPienso (talk) 21:32, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that this article comes under BLP, as it says at the top. As far as I'm concerned it's ok to use the contentious label in the body text where it's shown in context, but not a good idea in a [sub]section heading where it's not shown in context; it creates an instant impression that isn't dispelled by subsequently reading the body text. Even following the lead of several of the sources and 'framing' it with inverted commas isn't good practice for a Wikipedia heading. As a much cited blog noted in December 2009, "The now commonly used term 'ClimateGate' to refer to the case of the East Anglia stolen emails is an extremely effective frame device that instantly–if not falsely–conveys that there is wrongdoing, politicization, and a cover-up on the part of mainstream scientists." We don't need that as a heading on a BLP article. . dave souza, talk 13:38, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

But that blog was written almost six years ago! For this issue, you can't get a more mainstream scientific view than Mann's. Please give Nature's editorial, "Closing the Climategate," a thoughtful read. Written almost five years ago, it already embraced "Climategate"* as the common term. Nature is accepted at WP as a reliable voice of the mainstream scientific view; I find the tone of this neutral, balanced essay quite different from the defensive one here at WP. As you insist elsewhere, we're obligated to follow the sources, regardless of the consequences. YoPienso (talk) 14:33, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

*(Those are not scare quotes, but quotation marks used as a specifier. Many instances in which scare quotes are allegedly used around the term are in fact just such usage. See here. That's not to say scare quotes are never used with the term; they are.)

Disagree, we're obliged to take account of the BLP aspects of negative framing aimed at damaging the reputation of CRU scientists and don't have to use it as a heading . . . dave souza, talk 15:06, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

So, the reason we should not follow the sources is to protect the scientists involved in Climategate?

Alternate wording: So, the reason we should not follow the sources is to protect the scientists who work at/with the CRU?

Would either of those accurately express your rationale? YoPienso (talk) 02:22, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

You're not proposing simply "following the sources", you're selectively proposing that a misleading term commonly isolated by "quotation marks" be elevated to the section heading in an article which is about the CRU faculty, not about the climate wars. The WP:STRUCTUREsection of NPOV policy requires "Pay attention to headers, footnotes, or other formatting elements that might unduly favor one point of view," which the proposed heading does in contravention of weight policy.
You've cited Mann, his recent comment discusses the context, and also quotes a sentence from his book; Perhaps "climategate" was the moment when the climate change denial movement conceded the legitimate debate, choosing instead to double down on smear and disinformation, a tacit acceptance that an honest, science-based case for denying the reality of human-caused climate change and the threat it presents could no longer be made. . . . dave souza, talk 07:52, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

No, I'm not. (Whatever "selectively proposing" means.) The point of view that must be favored is the mainstream scientific one, which has adopted the term climategate. That section in the article is entirely about an incident in the climate wars. And it must be included as it was a major event for the CRU.

The paragraph Mann quoted from begins, "The legacy of the manufactured climategate scandal . . ." No quotation marks. Near the end of the paragraph he wrote, "Finally, I believe that the climategate attacks represented . . ." (p. 252) No quotation marks. It's just the standard usage since, as Nature explained, "the affair will be forever known as Climategate."

Do you agree that the RSs overwhelmingly use the term climategate? YoPienso (talk) 13:42, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

[Saving a place here for Dave's reply.]

Most of the people who wrote anything about this were very partisan on the denial side, with a few trying to respond to them at the time. The reason not to link this incident with Watergate is because they are so different. In one, an array of clandestine and illegal activities were discovered and exposed by investigators, the exposure of which brought down a US government and destroyed the careers of those exposed. In the other, an illegal attack on a computer system showed that the scientists were doing nothing wrong, apart from fending off what was effectively a DDoS attack of FOI requests organised against them. Adopting this attempt at framing in Wikipedia's voice would be completely unencyclopedic. --Nigelj (talk) 19:12, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

• While the term was coined and first proliferated among partisans, within weeks it became the common term. Please see my references above to Mann, Grandia, Chameides, SciAm, and Nature. Please check the reliable news media.
• WP wouldn't link it to Watergate; that was done years ago by reliable primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. We cannot undo it or throw it down the memory hole.
• WP merely follows the RSs. What WP shouldn't do in its own voice is invent euphemisms like CRU email controversy. YoPienso (talk) 00:52, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

No one's offered a cogent argument against following the reliable sources per WP:V.

Furthermore, advocacy for the partisan term, "CRU email controversy," breaches WP:NPOV:

Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias. Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them. [Bolding in original.]

Also: Prefer nonjudgmental language. A neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject (or what reliable sources say about the subject), although this must sometimes be balanced against clarity. Present opinions and conflicting findings in a disinterested tone. Do not editorialize.

As noted above, some editors seem to have become part of this controversy, defending the scientists instead of describing what befell them. These editors believe it is disparaging to the scientists to use the common term Climategate even though that's what the reliable sources, including at least one aggrieved party (Mann), have adopted. Policy forbids us to write about the event in a tone sympathetic to the CRU.

So I'm changing the partisan, almost-never-used term to the one most frequently used by the media, Scientific American, Nature, scientist/victim/activist Michael E. Mann, scientist/"outspoken global warming activist" William L. Chameides, blogger/activist Kevin Grandia, and many more. YoPienso (talk) 05:28, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

When you decide to resurrect an old, discredited and much debated idea for article text, and three people come back to say they think you're still wrong, and then get bored with telling you you're wrong, and no one comes up saying they agree with you, it's not right just to make the change anyway. You know that. --Nigelj (talk) 12:22, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Dave deflected each of my questions and never gave a straight answer to why we shouldn't follow the sources or if he agrees that the RSs overwhelmingly use the term climategate. You explained why you don't like what the sources say. At Wikipedia we go with the sources, not individuals' opinions.

Regarding consensus, freezing out a discussion is not consensus. Even if a consensus of silence were valid, WP:NPOV overrides consensus: This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus.

• WP:V: "In Wikipedia, verifiability means that anyone using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it. When reliable sources disagree, present what the various sources say, give each side its due weight, and maintain a neutral point of view." You and Dave want to ignore the sources, favoring your beliefs. Giving due weight in this case requires using the term climategate.
• WP:IMPARTIAL: "Wikipedia describes disputes. Wikipedia does not engage in disputes. A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently impartial tone; otherwise articles end up as partisan commentaries even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even where a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be introduced through the way in which facts are selected, presented, or organized." Selecting a rarely-used term over the broadly-used term fails this policy.
• WP:BLP specifies that we should simply document what the RSs say. Dave argues that using the term climategate gives undue weight to attempts to smear the reputation of the unit. In fact, the RSs use the term so broadly that the failure to use it constitutes undue weight in trying to protect its reputation.

So, instead of being bored with me, please answer this question: Do the RSs use the term climategate consistently and more abundantly than any other term? Thanks, YoPienso (talk) 13:17, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Stephan Schulz: Thanks for you edit summary: "Not an improvement. Break PLS. Stick to the established names." What is PLS? Please note that by policy we must stick to the names established by RSs, not by long-term usage in WP articles. Please read the above discussion and engage here. Thanks, YoPienso (talk) 18:34, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Yopienso, you say above that, "failure to use [the term climategate] constitutes undue weight in trying to protect its reputation." I think this is where you're going wrong. It seems you're trying to provide some kind of due-weight balance between the amount of rightful criticism we direct at the CRU, and the amount we allow it to get away with its wrongdoing. The problem is that after 8 or 9 top level reviews, it was concluded that there was no wrongdoing (absolutely none, zero*) uncovered at the CRU by the theft and exposure of these emails. In other words, there is no balance to strike. The science was found to be unimpeachable, and the scientific findings of the unit all still stood. It was a monumental waste of time. Of course, climate denialists never want the facts to get in the way of a good bit of doubt, and so they do keep on about it - in print, online, and elsewhere, as you have shown. There is no need for us to accommodate their machinations here in article text, Wikipedia's voice, or in our headings.

* The IT department at CRU could be criticised in that they allowed hackers to access the files. Also there was some criticism in the reports about data openness and response times to FOI requests. These had nothing to do with the e-mail hacking incident, or the contents of the emails, but they were criticisms. --Nigelj (talk) 19:04, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Nigel. I'm not trying to provide due-weight balance wrt criticism; I'm demonstrating that failure to follow the sources in the usage of the common term, climategate, reflects an editorial choice to deny due weight to the majority of RSs.

From WP:BLP (specifically,WP:PUBLICFIGURE): "In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article – even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out." Multiple reliable third-party sources document that the common name of the so-called "CRU email controversy" is climategate. In this case, the incident is duly covered in the article, but behind a defensive euphemism.

We could argue forever about what I said/what the policies say/how to interpret all that/etc. Let's not. I invite you to answer the question: Do the RSs use the term climategate consistently and more abundantly than any other term? Thanks, YoPienso (talk) 19:34, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to that, as I have not seen all the relevant RSs. Actually, trying to find them all, and totalling them up seems like WP:OR to me. To validate that statement what we'd need is an RS that explicitly says what the majority of sources call it, by someone else's counting. But that is not my point. My main point, as I said in my first post in this thread, is that the only reason the construction -gate exists is in reference to Watergate where scandalous wrongdoings were uncovered to the extent that a corrupt superpower government was brought down due to its illegal and immoral activities. Trying linguistically to link the complete lack of wrongdoing uncovered at the CRU with the extraordinary wrongdoing uncovered by the watergate scandal is an example of Framing (social sciences), which is widely used by political activists. This is why it is listed in WP:LABEL, saying, "The suffix ‑gate suggests the existence of a scandal." To me it makes no difference how many people you find who are involved in this attempt at framing the email theft as having uncovered some unexplained but implied scandal, or how many people you find discussing this framing. The overriding fact still remains that there was no scandal - no wrongdoing was discovered and no illegality or lies were being covered up. That's all that counts: the reliably sourced bundle of reports that say over and over again that the emails showed no scientific misconduct whatsoever. No scandal: no -gate. --Nigelj (talk) 20:43, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Please look at the relevant RSs to which I have linked and referred on this page before continuing to assert your opinion on whether the incident should be called climategate. The issue is that it is called that by RSs. YoPienso (talk) 20:54, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Of course, I have looked at those. What I said that I have not seen all the relevant RSs: Google tells me that 558,000 results mention the term, I have no idea how to search for those that don't. As I said, evaluating these millions would be OR. I also said that that was not my point. Finally, my point was not based upon my 'opinion', but upon the nine top level reports on the incident - do you want me to list their URLs here? --Nigelj (talk) 21:03, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Why should we follow the preferences of a few WP users instead of the usage by Mann, Chameides, Grandia, and the editors of major scientific publications? YoPienso (talk) 21:19, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about the cryptic abbreviation. I'm talking about the "principle of least surprise" - unless there are very good reasons, a Wikilink should go to an article with the same name as the link text - indeed, many of the original Wikis did not even have a syntax for piping. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

After a short break..

• Hi, take a few days break from the internet and.... YoPienso, you seem to be making this argument on the wrong page. We do cover the incident here, but it's not the main page for it. We rightly show the -gate name in the body text in context. What you're disputing here is the topic heading; WP:STRUCTURE policy requires care over a header "that might unduly favor one point of view" where it should not be made "difficult for a reader to fairly and equally assess the credibility of all relevant and related viewpoints".
  Fairness here requires due weight to mainstream science, but "As climategate' crystallized as the incident’s defining signifier, global warming skeptics had succeeded at narrowly crafting the terms and scope of rhetorical engagement; lexically, the proactive adoption of 'climategate' as a referable, salient moniker framed the data leak as a necessarily scandalous — and therefore newsworthy — event."[13] We shouldn't go with that framing in heading a section of an article about the university department, and we should be clear in the text about the falsity of that framing.
  Though "climategate" often (but not always) appears in discussion of this incident, it's not that widely known about in the general English speaking public, and the implied smear should not set the context for discussion of this incident in an article about the CRU.
  Usage of the term is common, but inconsistent: sometimes "so-called", sometimes with quote marks attempting to distance the frame, sometimes in partisan sources with clear intent to smear scientists.
  Don't know where you got the idea that "WP:BLP specifies that we should simply document what the RSs say", WP:BLP#Balance specifically requires that "Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation and section headings are broadly neutral. Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association," which is clearly the case with -gate monikers. . . dave souza, talk 21:09, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back! "In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say." Straight from WP:BLP; I pasted it in above, with links. YoPienso (talk) 21:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

You're quoting only part of WP:PUBLICFIGURE, and that refers to body text, WP:BLP#Balance applies specifically to headers. . . dave souza, talk 21:44, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:BLP#Balance: Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints; the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation and section headings are broadly neutral. Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association, and biased, malicious or overly promotional content. I assume you're focusing on taking care that section headings are broadly neutral. If so, please see my comment immediately below. The RSs call it climategate, so that's the neutral term. Your preferred term is defensively partisan. YoPienso (talk) 21:53, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

We don't decide what's neutral; what's neutral is whatever the RSs say. YoPienso (talk) 21:21, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

What RSs consistently say is that this is a fake scandal, and that -gate gives a false impression. You may titter about it, but Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy does suggest a precedent. Sadly, it's not a reference to Ken Cuccinelli#Virginia seal. . . dave souza, talk 21:44, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for injecting some humor into the discussion. I did titter. :) I agree that the RSs call it a fake or manufactured scandal or some such. Yet, they still use the term! In headlines, even, and chapter titles. Ergo, so do we. YoPienso (talk) 22:26, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

To Nigel: I'll continue here below the convenient break Dave punningly made. Please note that none of the RSs to which I refer and cite on this page are attempting to frame the incident as a scandal. Prime among them is Michael E. Mann, a distinguished scientist, a victim of the smear, and an activist. Grandia and Chameides are on his side in the "climate wars." The others are mainstream scientific publications that 100% support the scientific consensus on climate change. Besides these sources, major reliable broadcast, print, and internet sources consistently refer to the incident as climategate, "climategate", or so-called climategate. In other words, they use the term instead of avoiding it. It's contrary to policy (and common sense!) for us to avoid using it. YoPienso (talk) 21:35, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

The contentious term is often used by those trying to respond to the framing as an alleged scandal, but we don't have to use it as a word taken out of context. The word can be, and is, used with appropriate clarification in the body text.. . . dave souza, talk 21:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Agreed! But it's like the label "Methodist." I come from a long line of 'em, and know it was originally a pejorative but was quickly adopted by the Wesleys as their own. I won't speculate on Mann's opinion of the label "climategate," but I can attest to his usage of it. We don't take it out of context! We set it plop into context.

This is no longer a contentious term. Please re-read The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. I am right now. On p. 208, Mann wrote, : . . Saudi Arabia was the first country to call for an investigation of climate scientist in what came to be known as climategate . . ." Why won't you accept that?YoPienso (talk) 22:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

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