Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy

Theft, Hacked, Leaked, or Left

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Det Supt Julian Gregory and detectives of Norfolk Constabulary are working on this case with a team from the Metropolitan Police. Wikipedia is not a forum, and we don't engage in speculation on talk pages.

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There appears to be a long running low level edit war over whether to describe the incident as data theft. Beyond the fact that data theft appears to be what the majority of reliable sources say, an important point that perhaps people are missing is that whether hacking was involved or an "insider" released the information, it would still likely constitute data theft. In fact our very own article emphasises the fact most data theft is perpretrated by employees and the like, not by external intrusion. The only cases I can imagine where it would perhaps not be data theft is if someone inadvertedly put the information on a public server although even then there may still be some dispute since it is unlikely anyone would genuinely believe the information is intended to be public. P.S. Also, if people genuinely saying it was a hacking incident is inappropriate, they should properly start a discussion to rename the article since it seems to me calling something a hacking incident is more serious then a few mentions of theft Nil Einne (talk) 13:10, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. There are hints of insider involvement, but without a credible case that the person leaking owned the docs (which is almost beyond imagination), it was data theft. If backed up by RS, it may be fair to note speculation about insider involvement, but only as speculation, not as established fact. In any event, I suspect that aspect will be resolved fairly soon, so we shouldn't expend too much energy debating the point.--SPhilbrickT 13:15, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. If this is an internal leak, then there are whistle-blower protections. The comparison most apt is probably the Pentagon Papers. This isn't referred to as document theft. Depending on the views of a writer, they might use terms like "whistle-blower", "leak", "security breach", but not theft. Perhaps a more neutral term needs to be used: "unauthorised release" or "data security breach"? The article currently is claiming external hack and theft. This can be viewed as partisan. Slowjoe17 (talk) 15:12, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

In a fantasy world, perhaps, but not in reality. There is no evidence of an internal leak. Viriditas (talk) 13:59, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The unreceptive position that a theft must have taken place because there is no evidende of an internal leak is quite incredulous. Anyone who is intelligent enough to be a regular Wikipedia editor and that hasn't stooped to partisan editing should accede that the possibility of a whistleblower (i.e. an inside job) is a real one, not a far-fetched one belonging only in a fantasy world. And no, we don't have to request a claim that the leak is the work of an insider to accept that this is a real possibility. If there is merit to the plentifold allegations that this entire debacle constitutes a monumental scientific fraud, then it would not be hard to imagine how someone on the inside with a tortured conscience might commit the acts which brought the documents in question into the hands of AGW critics. __meco (talk) 14:19, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

We don't speculate on Wikipedia talk pages about hypothetical leakers that might exist. This may come as a shock to you, but what we do, is talk about how to improve articles with the best sources that we have at our disposal. A theft did take place, and it has nothing to do with speculating about a leaker. Stop trying to connect the two. Unless you have actual evidence, there isn't a connection. You're either here to write an article about the data theft at CRU, or you are here to push a POV that isn't based on the evidence at hand. Which is it? Viriditas (talk) 14:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Since we're NOT SUPPOSED TO SPECULATE on Wikipedia, calling it a hack is against the rules you so properly city. We have NO evidence of a hack, other than Phil Jones' self-serving accusation (just as we have NO evidence of global warming, other than Phil Jones' cooked books and his computer code full of "fudge factors" that are all positive for recent years, and negative for times decades ago. When the CRU presents evidence of a hack, it can be called a hack. Until such time, Occam's Razor leans towards it being either the act of a whistle-blower, or (since there is significant evidence in both the computer code itself, and in previous errant leaks of accidentally putting files on a web server that they did not intend to release) that this is typical data mismanagement because Jones and CRU apparently wouldn't hire anybody with any IT professionals (for fear that anyone outside the cabal would have blown the whistle a decade ago?) In any event, there is NO EVIDENCE of outside intrusion into CRU, so claiming that it was a hack is fraudulent. Just like Jones. Akulkis (talk) 09:32, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Akulkis. There are only accusations from former chief of CRU, Jones, but he mentioned no evidence of outside theft or hacking presented so far. Anika (talk) 22:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

To me this discussion provides a great insight to the wisdom of the no-news-rule. I pledge for leaving it as it is atm, and discuss the matter in future, when this point has been clarified (or if it'll become obvious that there are no intention by RS to clarify it). 84.72.61.221 (talk) 18:03, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. We only have allegations of theft. No evidence. No parties. Not only could it be an inside release, it could even be an accidental release as happened at the same site earlier this year. At most, it can be called "alleged theft." Doesn't innocent-until-proven-guilty apply here, particularly with absolutely zero evidence of it being a criminal act?Mr Pete (talk) 20:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

At this point, it would seem best to refer to an "alleged theft" or unauthorized release, unless directly quoting a RS. --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that, as of this writing, we have 12 cites to "leak" or "leaked" files, vs. 2 cites for "stolen" and none for "theft" (in article titles). Pete Tillman (talk) 05:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Left? The FOIA material appears to have been on a server external to the CRU. Blog moderators suggest that the most likely cause is the files were placed on an external server without proper password security. Accordingly they were available to the public to read/download. No evidence has been given that this was not the case. See: The CRUtape Letters™, an Alternative Explanation. The CRU promptly changed all passwords and switched from their external file server to an older data set on an emergency file server. See More on the RC Hack. Security specialist Pete Holzmann has a similar perspective Mr. Pete to Andy Revkin "In my experience, among security non-specialists by far the most common way that confidential information is released is through accidental disclosure. The second most common is purposeful disclosure by someone who either didn’t know the data was confidential, or someone who did know but released it anyway. External attack, particularly the kind that requires some kind of break in, is way down the list." Stating the data was "stolen" without evidence, when timing and CRU actions suggest it might have been "left" is POV favoring the CRU. Recommend discussing each of the options without favoring "Theft" or "stolen". I added "Leaked, or Left" to the section title as an example.DLH (talk) 04:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Per Tillman's note of no references for "theft" while there are numerous articles on "hacked", I changed "theft" to "hacked" in the subtitle. "theft" could be mentioned later in the text if evidence emerges for that.DLH (talk) 20:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually the ref we use when we mention theft explicitly uses the word 'stolen' which for the vast majority of people implies 'theft' if you're going to debate whether it does that's up to you I have no desire to participate. Regardless, while it's acceptable to add additional words to the topic of this discussion, please don't remove one of the words I added as the topic starter and discussed in my original comment as it's misleading. Or to put it a different way, this discussion clearly included the discussion of using the word theft, so please don't remove it from the topic regardless of the outcome of the discussion. Nil Einne (talk) 05:33, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Should this be renamed "Climatic Research Unit e-mail disclosure incident" (replace hacking with disclosure in title) since its not been verified that it was hacked versus an insider vs some inadvertent disclosure? Jmcnamera (talk) 19:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I know I should resist but I can't. Anyway sure of course we should be trusting someone who says "Often the FTP server for an organization may also be the organization’s external web server as the two functions are often combined on the same CPU or hardware box." and "by putting it in an FTP directory which was on the same CPU as the external webserver" (emphasis mine). Clearly an IT expert we have there... Nil Einne (talk) 09:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This issue in itself justifies a section discussing these claims of hacked versus leaked vs left. The overall title is a separate issue. DLH (talk) 01:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

We don't have any reliable sources for the notion that it isn't hacking. We have plenty of reliable sources for the notion, accepted almost universally, that it's a hacking. We go with the sources. --TS 02:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Using NPOV to allow Phil Jones to play the victim is indeed ironic. Would this be allowed if the subject was different, as in murder? Eric Barnes (talk) 16:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• Please, no edit-war on this again, people. There's no real consensus, sfaict, but we do need to enforce WP:NPOV. Thx, Pete Tillman (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

As I sit here in Houston's earliest snowfall on record I can only be amused by those defending the obvious bias in the unproven claim the emails were "hacked." They were obviously the subject of FOIA requests already and it's obvious by the confirmed genuine emails the disgraced scientists have tried to stonewall the public despite the lawful requests. There is little evidence of a hacking. The claim originated with the disgraced scientists at the CRU. As there is equal evidence of a deliberate leak by insiders within the organization the word "hacked" presents a point of view that has an obvious bias. The article's title needs to be changed. --DaleEastman (talk) 21:32, 5 December 2009

I think "liberated" (i.e., liberated to the public as law justifies and the researchers attempted to block, regardless if the process may be legally questionable) is an appropriate term.

Joe Sixpack

Editor: Global Implications of Mankind

A prestigous journal

http://goldismoney.info/forums/showthread.php?t=429018 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.177.23.147 (talk) 16:41, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Prestidigitatious, perhaps, but not prestigious. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Is there any evidence to support the hacking theory? soros (talk) 02:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hiding the decline/data "trick"

Changed data' to decline/data as hiding the decline is the primary quote. (Data has also been hidden, but that is little known.) DLH (talk) 00:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC) Recommend a section on Hiding the data trick" as a major issue arising from these CRU emails. See How “The Trick” was pulled offDLH (talk) 17:22, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, that's a reliable source for sure. We'll get right on it. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

But "any eco-related scare for which the prescription would result in a massive transfer of power to the political class is bogus" applied to AGW is at least doubly wrong, hence right! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:39, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Given the widespread MSM discussion of "Mike's Nature trick," it's odd that the only discussion of that "trick" in the Wikipedia article is drawn verbatim from the RealClimate site's damage control effort. If the publications of right-wing pundits and the "denier" blogs (many of them created and maintained by credentialed climatologists who had been frozen out of the referee'd professional journals by way of the CRU correspondents' co-option of the peer review process) are not "reliable sources," how is it that the CRU correspondents' own principal advocacy site has become acceptably "reliable"? 71.125.155.89 (talk) 17:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Mu. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:05, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the article eventually needs such a section, but I think it is premature at the moment. I gather that the "trick" is a reference to the need to conjoin instrument based temperature records with dendrology based temperature records. This is a legitimate need, and it is plausible that the mechanism for doing so is both appropriate and described as a "trick". However, it would be nice to see reliable sources discussing this in a NPOV before adding the material. The blogs I've read so far are breathless and biased, and "conclusive" without even a pretense of examining all issues.--SPhilbrickT 19:00, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Steve McIntyre was the IPCC reviewer who explicitly warned the IPCC “don’t cover up the divergence”. See the IPCC documentation: Show the Briffa et al reconstruction through to its end; don’t stop in 1960. Then comment and deal with the “divergence problem” if you need to. Don’t cover up the divergence by truncating this graphic. This was done in IPCC TAR; this was misleading (comment ID #: 309-18) Boris - if you have a better site showing the graphs before / after please provide it. This issue of "hiding the decline" is iconic, core to both the scientific and political controversy, and is most widely known. It needs a major section to describe the development from Brifa 2000 which was cited in the caption to IPCC Fig 2.21, to Jone's email, and the subsequent recent disclosure of the full data that Brifa had deleted in his 2000 figure, and the programmer's commenting dealing with such deletion after 1960 - in the Harry Readme file. Obviously there would be quotes from protagonists, antagonists, and reviewers. The link I gave has the best graphics I have found.DLH (talk) 20:21, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

What specific data were contained in ESR's plot? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but Watts forgets to mention that the divergence is described in specifics at page 472-473 in Chapter 6 of the AR4 WG1 report. They also specifically note the 1960 cut-off-point. I find it very very hard to call something a "cover-up" when it is described in detail in both the report (and of course also in Briffa et al.(2001), which the AR4 cites) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:05, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Mann claimed: “No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, grafted the thermometer record onto any reconstruction.” In “A good way to deal with a problem” McIntyre notes: “However, although the “real” Briffa reconstruction goes down after 1960, the series in the diagram attributed to “Briffa (1999)” goes up. The decline in the Briffa reconstruction is not shown; it is hidden.” However, in: How “The Trick” was pulled off McIntyre notes: “There is no mention in the IPCC report of the deletion of Briffa reconstruction data after 1960. Nor is there any mention of the deletion in the IPCC reference (Briffa 2000) nor, for that matter, in the article cited by Gavin Schmidt (Briffa et al 1998). These articles report the divergence, but do not delete it. (Briffa et al 2001 does delete the post-1960 values.)”DLH (talk) 02:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but the statement by McI that "There is no mention in the IPCC report of the deletion of Briffa reconstruction data after 1960" is quite simply wrong, please check page 473 like i asked...(i quote (emph. mine)):

Briffa et al. (2001) specifically excluded the post-1960 data in their calibration against instrumental records, to avoid biasing the estimation of the earlier reconstructions (hence they are not shown in Figure 6.10), implicitly assuming that the ‘divergence’ was a uniquely recent phenomenon, as has also been argued by Cook et al. (2004a).

A thing like this is one reason amongst others that blog postings aren't reliable sources on Wikipedia. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that does not fly. You would then have to delete ALL RealClimate references. The whole CRU emails explosion was led by WattsUpWithThat, with a 350% increase in traffic, followed by a 500% increase at climateaudit.org and similar tripling at realclimate.org and climatedepot.com. MSM came in very late. McIntyre was an IPCC reviewer and his objections were documented at IPCC. etc.DLH (talk) 00:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Note McIntyre explicitly distinguishes in his comments between (Brifa 1999), (Bifra 2000) and Bifra(2001). See the original posts.DLH (talk) 02:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Boris - Thanks for the ref. "hiding the decline" is a direct quote from Jone's email, not whether we think it is hidden or not. As you note, the IPCC WG1 Ch 6 p 472-473 states: ““Several analyses of ring width and ring density chronologies, with otherwise well established sensitivity to temperature, have shown that they do not emulate the general warming trend evident in instrumental temperature records over recent decades” . . . “In their large-scale reconstructions based on tree ring density data, Briffa et al. (2001) specifically excluded the post-1960 data in their calibration against instrumental records, to avoid biasing the estimation of the earlier reconstructions (hence they are not shown in Figure 6.10), implicitly assuming that the ‘divergence’was a uniquely recent phenomenon” That IPCC statement vs McIntyre is the heart of the statistical or scientific issue -(i.e. is this cherry picking or legitimate?) These are statements that need to be quoted or summarized together with select graphs.DLH (talk) 03:12, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

See above: IPCC reviewer: “don’t cover up the divergence” IPCC Reviewer McIntyre statement.DLH (talk) 03:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

All of this is original research, and none of it is covered in reliable sources. Therefore it doesn't belong here. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't understand how you read that. All the material is published/posted by others, none of my posts. I was listing materials to summarize.DLH (talk) 02:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Are blogs acceptable or unacceptable sources of information for Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by LVAustrian (talk • contribs) 18:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem here is that the skeptical spin on "Mike's nature trick" and "Hide the decline" aren't really making much serious talk. And if you're arguing that we should take them seriously because, despite this, some blogs mention them, well this isn't going to work. If on the other hand you had a reputable blog giving an opinion of a blog owner whose opinion independently would merit comment, then it might end up in Wikipedia. --TS 02:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

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• Our section on "Hide the decline" presently ends with the RC rebuttal, arguably a WP:primary source. I propose to rebut this with Climate Audit's “A good way to deal with a problem” (quoting Gavin Schmidt), and "Still hiding the decline" the best rebuttals I've seen online.

Samples: "While they’ve [Phil Jones & CRU] used the actual Briffa reconstruction after 1960 in making their smooth, even now, they deleted values after 1960 so that the full measure of the decline of the Briffa reconstruction is hidden." (2nd CA source)

"The decline in the Briffa reconstruction is not shown; it is hidden. Gavin Schmidt of real climate says that this is “a good way to deal with a problem”. I disagree (and recorded this disagreement in a related context in connection with IPCC AR4 as discussed elsewhere.) (1st CA source)

Perhaps we should quote McIntyre's IPCC review remarks (and Briffa's comments rejecting same) as well -- public records.

Ordinarily we prefer citing secondary sources. However, it seems to me that rebutting a primary (RC) with another primary (CA) would be appropriate. --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I have added a secondary source (Michael Mann reported in a US newspaper) for the claim that the "decline" discussed concerned a decline in tree ring metrics. --TS 04:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Or why not cut to the chase and and demand that all sources are "peer reviewed by the scientists" - the "scientists" being the small group of politicos writing the emails. And what is more, realclimate is simply the mouth piece for these self-reviewing "climate scientists", so when it comes down to it, their views are only the veiws of yet another bunch of bloggers anyway - the only difference is they get paid to produce their blogs! So, can we please stop this crap about who is saying what (remember wikipedia is only really another blog!) and use the normal criteria of whether enough people are reporting something to make it notable. Isonomia (talk) 10:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Penn State launches new investigation of Mann

Penn State is investigating Mann as a direct consequence of this incident. [6] Impeccably sourced & clearly relevant to the issue at hand. Any good reason why this shouldn't go on the page? Ronnotel (talk) 01:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It might be appropriate to make mention of the fact that Mann's comments are being reviewed by Penn State (their words). The statement that he's being investigated is premature. --TS 01:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

(EC)Actually, it says "reviewing", not "investigating". Yes, I would wait until some third-party, reliable sources start covering this. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, reviewed is better, my bad. Ronnotel (talk) 01:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Farnshon (talk) 06:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The above user appears to be a sleeper sock created seven days ago and activated for the first time 60 minutes prior to this comment. Viriditas (talk) 07:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Interesting how quickly he got into the thick of it, and very soon after this talk page was semiprotected. --TS 08:25, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I concur with TS that the term "investigating" would be better served with "reviewing". The subject is clearly relevant, as the press release specifically mentions this incident. Should be included.--SPhilbrickT 12:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

While this article in the Penn State Daily Collegian is from a student-run paper and therefore not ideal, I would think a campus paper is considered a reliable source in the context of a situation like this. I will go ahead and add a brief mention since there seems to be consensus here. Ronnotel (talk) 13:18, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Here is the text I added. Please let me know if anyone has any suggested edits and I will gladly make them: As a result of the information contained in the leaked documents, [[Penn State]] announced that it would begin a review of Prof. [[Michael E. Mann|Michael Mann]].<ref>{{cite web | author = Laura Nichols | title = PSU investigates Climategate | source = [[The Daily Collegian (Penn State)|Daily Collegian]] | date = 2009-11-30 | accessdate = 2009-11-30 | url = http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2009/11/30/psu_investigates_climategate.aspx}}</ref> Ronnotel (talk) 13:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought that while the page was locked that we're supposed to reach consensus before making changes to the article? In any case, drop the "As a result of the information contained in the leaked documents". What information? That's WP:OR not contained in the student newspaper. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe there is consensus, but am willing to be convinced otherwise. In the mean time I will revise as you suggest. BTW, the phrase at issue was from the press release cited above (i.e. it wasn't pulled out of thin air). However, I have removed as you correctly suggest because the secondary source should have precedence. Ronnotel (talk) 13:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

[7] should not have been added to a protected page. Please take it out William M. Connolley (talk) 14:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, but please explain why you think this is controversial. Ronnotel (talk) 14:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Ronnotel, I'm neutral as to your edits and don't think you've done a nit of harm or anything, but I would say nobody should be editing this article through protection unless there is overwhelming and settled consensus on this talk page for someone to go ahead and make a given edit. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Given that there are no stated arguments for not including the material I deduced that there was consensus. Ronnotel (talk) 14:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I understand, it looked to me like you were being very careful, I'm only thinking, one might wait until there is also a looming consensus along the lines of, "Ok, that's settled, now, would an admin please make the edit?" Gwen Gale (talk) 14:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Using your admin bit to edit an article in which you already had staked out a partisan position is a massive no-no. Arbcom has nailed admins to the wall for far less. Lt. Gen. Pedro Subramanian (talk) 14:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Consensus can be inferred from silence but it's clear now that consensus was not there (why did this additional input only become apparent after the good-faith edit was made?). Everyone please stop hyperventilating. This edit can easily wait until article is unprotected but I fail to see how the project will benefit. Ronnotel (talk) 14:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The project is indeed harmed by protected pages, but they're mostly taken as a lesser harm. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:53, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks like consensus to me. Has anyone objected to the factual nature of the edit or the relevancy? I see some process questions, but not a substantive objection to the content. I'm a bit puzzled why the actual wording used differs from the proposed wording, which I thought was better.I've reread and see the discussion.--SPhilbrickT 15:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

There is an aweful lot of talk on this page. It is not reasonable to assume consensus based on silence. This page has lots of problems - the current text including climategate is just one of them. Just about everything here fails WP:NOTNEWS; adding yet more news through protection is definitely wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 15:50, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I've read WP:NOTNEWS before, but I reread it to see if I had missed something. It is not applicable. This is hardly "Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism". Let's concentrate on making this a better article.--SPhilbrickT 16:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

As a humorous aside, I note that "climategate" gets 12.6 million Google hits while "global warming" gets just under 10. (Yes, I'm well aware that Google hits are not the be-all and end-all of relevance). I assume no one would take seriously a proposal to remove the term "global warming" from WP.--SPhilbrickT 16:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

This topic is notable and will most likely become more notable. Hence, I don't think WP:NOTNEWS has any sway here. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It also has to be recognized that not sticking to WP:NOTNEWS can make it unreasonable not to allow appropriate violations of WP:OR to place the latest news in the correct context. That context cannot always be given from published sources, but it can often be extracted from information after proper synthesis and analysis that is not yet done in a reliable source. Count Iblis (talk) 16:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether it's your grammar or my brain cells, but between the two we seem to have arrived at a situation where I don't know whether you're saying we should stuck to "Wikipedia is not news" or the very opposite. Obviously we should comply with Wikipedia's policies but you seem to be saying this would risk original research. Could you clarify? --TS 19:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The silence was possibly due to the fact that it was night time in the Americas and a lot of the English-speaking editors here were probably sleeping. Anyway, to satisfy WP:UNDUE, I would wait until reliable sources start covering this. Right now, the only paper that has covered this is a local paper, student run paper at that . A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

There is now a reference to it on the New York Times In a related announcement, Pennsylvania State University said it would review the work of a faculty member who is cited prominently in the e-mail messages, Michael Mann, to assure that it meets proper academic standards. So I think this can be added now. Ignignot (talk) 15:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't read the article, but if the NY Times is covering it, we should add it to our article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:44, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Should also appear in Michael E. Mann, as well -- though, last time I looked, the Climategate deniers were still valiantly holding the line there against a "see also" to this article! (shakes head) Pete Tillman (talk) 21:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There are no Climategate deniers. Tom Harrison ^Talk 21:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal - article addition re: Mann review

Okay based on the lack of feedback I feel I should try to move this forward. I'm proposing the addition of this under an "Other inquiries" subsection. If the IPCC section remains short, I will combine the two into the other iinquires section since I don't see much point having a seperate section for two brief paragraphs.

• Pennsylvania State University also announced it would review the work of Michael Mann, in particular looking at anything had not already been addressed in an earlier National Academy of Sciences review which had found some faults with his metholodology but agreed with the results. In response, Mann said he would welcome the review.

adding the following to the reflist:

The most contentious part of this is probably going to be the mention of Mann's previous review. I felt that necessary since it was a part of the statement and the fact that they only have/are going to look at some things is of direct relevance to the review. And if we are going to mention that review, it seems to me the findings of that review are of relevance. Given the apparent dispute over the findings of this review, the opinion of the chairman of the organisation that conducted the review seems the most neutral description. However I'm not strongly pushing this part, if people feel it's too contentious/problematic we can simply remove that part.

People may also dispute whether it's necessary to add Mann's response. I feel it's only fair given this directly concerns him even if his response is what everyone would expect.

BTW I did look for additional mention of the fact PSU is conducting a review of Mann but couldn't really find anything except blogs and other junk. However the AP story with Mann's response which I found as a result of the search combined with the earlier NYT story is enough IMHO. There's also [8] (permanent link/archive) but I didn't use it.

Also I should add that I found 3 versions of the AP story. They basically say the same thing I think. I was originally going to use the Sacramenton Bee version as that was the first version I found but it doesn't archive particularly well [9]. I then considered the NYT version but that doesn't archive at all due to the robots.txt. So I finally chose the Google version. That does give an error but I felt it better then any of the alternatives.

BTW, while not relevant to this page, I don't think this automatically means it belongs in the Mann article. Issues of WP:Undue and WP:NOTNEWS come in this since it could easily be a very minor thing in the life of the man (pun not intended) if the review finds absolutely no fault.

Nil Einne (talk) 04:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Go for it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 07:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I've done it. I did rename the section to Other responses rather then Other inquiries as it fitted in neatly with the existing sections. Also it did occur to me earlier that the wording could be misinterpreted to mean that was the university's description of the result of the NAS review but it didn't seem that likely and I couldn't work out a way to clarify without making the sentence even longer. Nil Einne (talk) 14:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate is the clear public consensus - please change the name.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Despite this and several other discussions (see archive 5 and archive 6) no consensus has emerged to rename the articlee.

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Everyone including the very pro-warming BBC are now calling these event "climategate". [10]. "Climategate" (as a single word) now has 1.5million hits on google. In contrast: "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident" has a mere 3,870 hits. That is nearly 400:1 against the current name.

To put that in context I wondered what some editors here considered to be "notable" and so googled 'william connolley' (returning any page with these two words anywhere) to see how many google hits warrant the inclusion of the William Connolley article. I found a mere 28,500 hits 3x as many as for the title! (Of which 8830 appear for "william connolley climategate" - which to be honest must be just random noise as there are 9120 for "william connolley bananas"). Isonomia (talk) 15:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

That isn't actually noise. His controversial and sordid relationship with bananas is well documented, and attempts to cover it up by Dole and Chiquita have prevented it from being accepted by the mainstream. Ignignot (talk) 15:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Strongly reject, per Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Controversy_and_scandal and WP:GOOGLE. Hipocrite (talk) 15:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Hip and for the reason he cited. While the term "Climategate" is probably the most widely used name for the subject matter of this page, the subject matter of the page is still rapidly evolving. It simply has not settled sufficiently into the historical record. However, I think it's only a matter of time before someone issues a formal admonition, gets fired, or resigns. Then the argument for changing the name will become more compelling with a colorable scandal to point to. Evensong (talk) 17:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. There is no point speculating. A lot of very excitable right-wingers are jumping up and down with their hair on fire at the moment, but that does not make it a "colorable scandal". Even if any resignations or sackings occur the article is not going to get renamed "Climategate" for the reasons I set out above - it's a violation of NPOV. The policy issue will not go away. When Dan Rather resigned after the Killian documents controversy, our article on the subject was not renamed to the POV term "Rathergate". Likewise when Alberto Gonzalez resigned following the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy we did not rename that article "Attorneygate". -- ChrisO (talk) 18:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The rule we've cited is not as absolute as you appear to believe, and, therefore, the future name of this article is probably not as immutable as you predict. However, we can both agree that now is absolutely not the time to change the article to "Climategate", and that is all that really matters when addressing present edits. Evensong (talk) 19:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I was responsible for writing that particular policy years ago; it's been stable for a long time and is standard practice now, so I think I'm fairly well placed to say what the policy means. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Good of you to tell us, CrisO! Where ambiguities of text abound, documents are construed against the draftsman. Evensong (talk) 18:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The article is not going to be renamed to your suggested title, as it would not be compatible with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. Article names are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality to satisfy Wikipedia's requirements. The use of "scandal" or "-gate" frequently implies wrongdoing or a particular point of view. Such terms are words to avoid and should not be used in article titles. For a point of comparison, the Wikipedia article on the "Rathergate" incident is titled Killian documents controversy. That sort of descriptive titling is our standing approach. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm neutral on this, I wholly agree with the en.W policy on -gate, I think it's "dumb" how the media is wont to tack on a suffix from a 37-year old scandal onto new scandals (I guess there may be some link to the word watershed and its meaning, thence stemming from Watergate, which makes this so easy for journos to do), I agree nevertheless that the search term is Climategate because that's what most sources are now calling it but meanwhile, Climategate redirects here so I think it highly unlikely many (if any) readers are being lost. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It's simply because it's become a shorthand for lazy journalists and it's convenient for use when space or wordcounts are tight. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Even used in HuffingtonPost ... it appears to now be exceptionally common (hundreds of current news stories use the term). Collect (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Exponential growth -- Google now claims 16+ million hits on the single word. Collect (talk) 16:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how many sources use it. "Rathergate" is widely used as well but we don't use it because it's not a neutral or encyclopedic title for an article. Please see WP:GOOGLE. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

BBC radio this morning reported on developments but didn't use it - if it was indispensable they would have. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm dubious about that assertion, but as I said above it doesn't actually matter who uses it. We have a clear policy against using such terms as article titles and our standing practice is not to do so. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Google news searchable stories from the last week on "University of East Anglia", "Climate Research Unit", "Phil Jones", etc. with either +climategate or -climategate suggests that about 40-50% of news stories are using the term right now. So, it certainly isn't an indispensable title. Whether it is the best possible choice of title, I don't know. Dragons flight (talk) 16:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Note that Google News picks up a lot of unreliable sources (blogs, fringe websites, etc) so this is not a reliable indicator of how mainstream the term is. It's been promoted heavily by anti-science activists in the blogosphere (and originated with them); your Google News search will be picking up a lot of that traffic. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I know this will go exactly nowhere, but I would like to suggest Climate Research Unit science controversy. Surveying the reliable sources and the reaction to date, this story really isn't whether or not the purloined data was "hacked" or not (IMHO, it's far more likely to have been intentionally leaked by someone involved in responding to an FOIA request). The story that is forming is the impact this event will have on the scientific community and what harm may have been done to the scientific process itself. While different sides are saying predictable things about what the leaked information says about AGW, all sides seem to generally concur that the materials are an indictment of the way Science itself was practiced by CRU and others at the center of this episode. I don't think it's at all surprising that the first concrete reactions from this event have been administrative actions taken by CRU and Penn State against the main individuals involved. Clearly, these actions are in response to the perception of poor science. Ronnotel (talk) 16:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

They've neither admitted nor implied any wrongdoing. The investigations are the university administrations covering their asses. Ignignot (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes and I guess one should say that the title we have, Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident , is indeed unsupported. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

We have to wait to see whether the term catches on. At present the story itself is more often covered by sources like Fox News and is attracting little mainstream media interest. When the term "ClimateGate" is used it is usually in quotations, indicating that it is not yet generally accepted, and may never be. The Four Deuces (talk) 16:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Mainstream media -- as in New York Times [11] "A longtime observer of climate science cautions those on all sides of " climategate" to prepare for less certainty as answers emerge" [12] "as some have put it, 'Climategate'" and so on. BTW, RS/N routinely finds Fox to be an RS, so I am unsure why it is not accepted here. Washington Post [13] etc. Use of a word in quotation marks does not mean anything more than it was not a word in prior common usage. Collect (talk) 18:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Collect, of the sources you cite, two of them say that some people call it "Climategate" while the third source is actually from a posting by a reader of the NYT. So far MSM do not accept the name and imply that it is not generally accepted. The Four Deuces (talk) 05:47, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

There were millions of Google results for 'Climategate' before this hacking incident took place. The term has been in use for some time. Dynablaster (talk) 19:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It was 1.3 million this morning when I first thought of posting, it is now 1,580,000. That's 280,000 hits in nine hours. Isonomia (talk) 19:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Funny, I get 21 million. Either something is weird, or google hits are not a panacea for determining such trends. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

At the moment the only thing which is certain is that CRU and emails were involved. We'll have to wait to see what the last part of the event should be named. It has been widely discussed whether this should be called a hack or whistleblowing event, but one or two small pieces of information are unknown. What else develops is more unknown. At the moment we're watching side effects of the Watergate burglary appearing, without enough information to write Watergate scandal. The Climategate redirect ensures that the web searchers can find this article, and beyond that we'll have to see. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Now in major media sans quotation marks in headers. [14] Kansas City Star. [15] Calgary Sun. [16] Calgary Herald. [17] Boston Globe. [18] Forbes. [19] Atlantic. [20] Telegraph. [21] Even AccuWeather. Collect (talk) 20:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're wasting your time. Article naming is determined by Wikipedia's policies alone. It doesn't matter how many sources you find - if the name violates NPOV, which it does, it's not going to be used, period. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Current title is atrocious. Can't we do better than "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident"? Henrybaker (talk) 06:44, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Face facts- The name is CLIMATEGATE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu_ok37HDuE

(36,506 views)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydo2Mwnwpac

(96,805 views)

"Climategate now gets 20 million hits on Google. If you google in 'global warming' you only get 10 million." - Dr. Pat Michaels. You can watch him being interviewed here, where this quote is taken from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTP4NSPdZWs

If anyone has evidence of a more popular name for this scandal, they should 'put up or shut up'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.8.157.210 (talk) 22:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree that the name is Climategate.

That being said, if a reader knew very little about the ordeal and wanted read two different encyclopedia's to get a better understanding about it; when compared side-by-side, it seems like Wikipedia is discussing a different event than Conservapedia.

• Wikipedia - 'Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident' <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident>
• Conservapedia - 'Climategate' <http://conservapedia.com/Climategate>

Based on the information presented, it seems like Wikipedia is discussing the controversy about the incident which released the data, while Conservapedia is discussing Climategate. So, in that case, maybe the name of this article doesn't need to change. This article goes no further into the subject than the incident where the data was released on November 19. It's not a bad thing, it's just not talking about Climategate - thus, shouldn't be called Climategate. 98.232.27.135 (talk) 04:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Then why does Wikipedia redirect "Climategate" to this article? As it stands, this is THE Climategate-esk article on Wikipedia, therefore its name needs to change to Climategate. If anything, "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident" should be a section within this article and not the article itself. -MrGuy

Wikipedia does have deeper coverage of the subject, but it's not in the English version of the article. See the other languages. -- SEWilco (talk) 02:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The ongoing investigations into this incident and the ramifications of it are clearly being called "Climategate" in all references and news articles except here. The article name really ought to be changed before NOT using it becomes a violation of NPOV. --Textmatters (talk) 15:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, seriously? This is what we're calling this on Wikipedia? Maybe we should change the article title for the color Blue to "Yellow/Green Color Mixture". Come on guys, this is Climategate. ==DioseeWarrior== —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.178.22.16 (talk) 01:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"Climategate" is not going to happen, given the balance of editors on this talk page, and the hyperbolic nature of the title. There are more worthy areas where effort can be focused to balance the article. I posted a topic about this, but it appears to have since been archived - why is "e-mail" still a part of the article's title? Beyond emails, much of the content which was leaked and has been a matter of dispute is (to be blunt) absolutely wretched climate model code and documentation which suggests efforts to shape these models to produce artificial results that tow the AGW line. »S0CO^{(talk|contribs)}

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Bring in some of the more thoughtful analysis of the politics and sociology?

We're starting to see some more thoughtful analysis of the politics and sociology of this. For example, Mike Hulme, "The Science and Politics of Climate Change," The Wall Street Journal Online, December 4, 2009. Granted, what we see now will be commentary rather than sociological research, but some of it is pretty good and the commentators are getting enough perspective that they're beginning to think through how it may have all happened and what the implications are. It would be important to stick to newspapers of record, clearly identify who the commentators are, and make sure we include a mix that includes all sides, but it could turn the article into something more useful than "he said . . . she said." EastTN (talk) 16:12, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not really politics (at least not political science analysis) and not sociology. I'm sure there will be sociologists of science poring over this but they won't publish for another six months at least. We're going to have a large number of people invited by good quality media sources to comment - for example Jonathon Porritt was on BBC radio this morning - and have to decide how to deal with all of them. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I grant that it's not the kind of research that a political science professor would do in an academic setting, but there's a great deal of good political reporting and analysis that's provided by newspapers of record and leading magazines. Those can be as useful for articles on politics as the more academic sources. I think this is similar situation. I recognize how difficult it may be. My personal rule of thumb would be that we'd want to look for reports and commentary in leading newspapers and reputable magazines, articles that are focused on analyzing the debate rather than participating in the debate, and we'd want to bend over backwards to try and report all perspectives in a neutral way. I don't know if we could get to consensus, but if we could I do think it would result in a better article. As an aside, what did Porritt have to say? Was it useful, and is it something we can find in text form somewhere? EastTN (talk) 16:56, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should start a "Reaction to the Reaction" section!

All joking aside, The NYT Freakonomics Blog also has a pretty broad look at the reactions and analysis. Ignignot (talk) 16:23, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree - that's a nice one. I didn't mention it because it was a blog, but perhaps it could make the cut since it's essentially a standing column sponsored by the NYT. This one might be a possibility as well: Bryan Walsh, "As Climate Summit Nears, Skeptics Gain Traction," Time, December 2, 2009. It will be tricky to get to a consensus on sources, but I do think that we're starting to see some analysis that could strengthen the article if it's handled well. EastTN (talk) 16:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's another one that, while not quite as much focused on the political and sociological analysis, is pretty interesting in the way it tries to handle things: Peter Kelemen, "What East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change," Popular Mechanics, December 1, 2009. EastTN (talk) 16:37, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

As I recall, Porritt just said that the global warming scientific consensus held. It was on the radio, therefore ephemeral, and really just an example of how much here-today-gone-tomorrow commentary is out there. The BBC News website is where to look for the main developments and commentary. An article in Time should in principle be notable comment. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the BBC site. If you get a chance, take a look at the WSJ article by Hulme ("The Science and Politics of Climate Change"); I thought it was quite good, and it's what got me thinking about this. EastTN (talk) 18:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

There's another from the Christian Science Monitor: Peter N. Spotts, "‘Climategate’: leaked emails push scientists toward transparency," Christian Science Monitor, December 4, 2009 EastTN (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's another interesting analysis of how the emails are playing out: David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin, "In e-mails, science of warming is hot debate," The Washington Post, December 5, 2009.EastTN (talk) 21:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Protected page edit request

{{editprotected}} (awaiting consensus from discussion below before submitting)

Proposed edit

Please could you insert the following (minus the quote box)as the third paragraph in the Reactions to the incident section - i.e. as a new paragraph after the text "talks at the December, 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit." and before the text "The American Association for the Advancement of Science has". If inserting it near the top of that section (warranted, I believe, as an investigation by the United Nations seems more noteworthy than reactions from most other bodies) isn't acceptable please place it at the bottom of that section instead. It's unlikely to be controversial as it's a factual statement that mirrors the text used in multiple references. Brumski (talk) 20:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The United Nations announced an investigation by its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change into claims that the CRU manipulated data to favour the conclusion that human activity is driving global warming, saying that the claims were serious and they wanted them investigated.

References

(to enable them to display correctly in the proposed edit above)

Discussion

The references lead to something called www.ft.com? but I agree that reactions from the UN should go into the article, as discussed before. Before requesting that the page be modified it's better to wait a little so others have a chance to comment to see if there is consensus.
—Apis (talk) 20:21, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I had linked both references to the same Financial Times story. I've corrected the Mail on Sunday reference so that it now links to the correct article on their site and added another reference from The Guardian. I've placed the editprotected template back as it only suggests discussion "If the proposed edit might be controversial". Given that the proposed edit is a simple factual statement, is a direct mirror of the phrasing used in multiple highly respected mainstream news sources and that you and others agree it should be in the article it seems impossible for the proposed addition to be controversial. In addition, the reviewing admin will assess it's controversy value before adding it and will refuse to add it if it is or can be controversial. Allow them to reject the proposed edit if you think it isn't warranted. Brumski (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Please gain consensus before using the edit protected template. Restore when consensus exists on exact wording. -Atmoz (talk) 21:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you both (and anyone else) please state what is controversial about the requested edit, what your objections to it are and what needs changing to accommodate those objections? Brumski (talk) 21:36, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

See the discussion under "stagnation" above. Adding what RP said is fine; adding the FT's misrepresentation of it isn't William M. Connolley (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I see the controversy now, thanks for that. The 4 well known WP:RS that I provided and an additional 2 that I have added say the following - is that not sufficient? "The UN panel on climate change is to investigate claims that UK scientists manipulated global warming data to support a theory that it is man-made" Mail On Sunday. "The head of the UN's climate science body says claims that UK scientists manipulated data on global warming should be investigated" BBC. "The United Nations climate change panel is to investigate claims that scientists at the University of East Anglia in the UK manipulated data to support the case that human activity is driving global warming" Financial Times. "Claims that scientists at the University of East Anglia manipulated global warming data to support a theory of man-made climate change will be investigated by a United Nations panel, the university chairman said today" The Guardian. Also "The United Nations panel on climate change has promised to investigate claims that scientists at a British university deliberately manipulated data to support the theory of man-made global warming" The Times and "The United Nations panel on climate change is to investigate claims that scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit manipulated global warming data " The Telegraph. Brumski (talk) 23:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Repeating the same wrong words just won't help. You need to engage with the objections already raised William M. Connolley (talk) 23:39, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I quoted the words to demonstrate that the proposed edit directly reflects the articles in 9 WP:RS. I believe I have engaged with the objections raised previously - although there was a lot of text there were only two objections raised by two people. 1) One was Apis who mentioned "I generally agree that we should alow for the dust to settle a little so we get more than one news source to compare from". There are now 9 sources instead of one, so there is more than one news source so that objection doesn't seem valid any more. 2) The other objection was from you and was "The BBC seems to have got it wrong" (supported by an assertion that the BBC routinely gets things wrong, with an example) and that "We are not, however, obliged to repeat their mistakes" and that by allowing the story to settle we will avoid repeating the BBC's mistake. So, your objection seems to be essentially that the BBC is wrong. To help with that objection (which I didn't know about when I compiled the text - i.e. I did not use the BBC as a source) I have provided 8 additional well respected WP:RS sources. There are 9 sources now included in the proposed text and that proposed text directly mirrors what they say: it's a strictly factual statement that reflects the sources and there is no POV to it. Is that a correct assessment of the objections and if not, can you restate or re-summarize them? If you have any additional objections can you state them as well. Thanks.Brumski (talk) 00:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I personally would leave out rather problematic words "...to favour the conclusion that human activity is driving global warming". To me it seems these are header/lead words added by media, however RS's. I short, the words are: imho not needed, as header text not worthy material to wiki and, just creating needless debate here. With simpler facts we should add this and also UEA own investigation announcement into article. Just my 2 eurocents. --J. Sketter (talk) 06:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Also I'd consider adding the reasons for these 2 investigations being done (credibility & reputition of these institutions). --J. Sketter (talk) 06:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

---

I've been trying to find the actual interview online, it apears to be made by this radio program: The Report but it won't be available online until 20:00 Thursday 10 December 2009... Ah, but now I found a snippet on the BBC News Briefing 4 December 2009. As far as I can tell he says:

"We certainly will go into the whole lot and then as I said we will take a position on it. We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet [unclear] swept under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we certainly will look into it in detail"

The BBC News article quotes him as:

"We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it," he said.

"We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail."

Well, what can you say, crap journalists can't even get their quotes right. It looks like the IPCC has only made the following official statements so far:

• Statement by the IPCC Chairman
• Further elaboration by IPCC Working Group I

BBC might have 'overstated' what he said. If we want to include this now, I suggest we write something like:

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said that the IPCC "certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet", it's a serious issue and they will look into it in detail before taking a position on it. However he has also stressed that "the processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report".

Any thoughts?
—Apis (talk) 06:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree this is an important distinction people often miss (not just here, there was a similar issue in the Swiss Minaret controversy article for example). There's a difference between an official statement from the IPCC or another organisation, a statement made by an individual on behalf of the organisation/representing the organisation and a personal statement from someone high up in an organisation but who isn't claiming everything he's saying is the official view of the organisation. An official statement would usually be clearly identified as being an official statement. Something someone says on radio is unlikely to be an official statement but could be made on behalf of the organisation or could simply be personal comments. We need to clearly differentiate the three when writing Nil Einne (talk) 09:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added an additional reference from the Wall Street Journal to my proposed edit above. I don't think there is a basis in policy for deciding that 11 reliable secondary sources are wrong and that, because of that, 1 primary source should be interpreted by Wikipedia editors and used in place of those sources. Additionally, asserting that the BBC has made a mistake and that 10 reliable secondary sources have copied that mistake is original research and unsupported, except by a rhetorical argument that journalists are crap, based on something as weak as the difference between "as I said" and "he said". Could you include the text "The chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" at the start, and "he wants them investigated" somewhere in the text and adjust your current quote to "we certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet". Brumski (talk) 11:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The UN IPCC statement is obviously important and deserves inclusion. While it is a reaction, I beleive it belongs more appropriately in the call for inquiries section, as it is a call for an inquity. I suggest a level 3 subsection 3.2. I'm struggling with the exact placement. Chronologically, it occurred after the evetns summarized int he "East Anglia response" subsection, so belongs after. In terms of layout, it might be better to have the discussion of various calls for inquiry, followed at the end by a response section. In the interest of addressing this in small increments, I propose a small subsection after the response section, then, once East Anglia responds to the UN call, the response section can be moved to the end.

I note that Brumski added quite a few references. I interpret that number as attempting to insure that this was getting broad coverage. However, I don't think we should clutter the article with that many references, even though Brunski obviously went to some effort.

My proposal is to include two references, the BBC reference for the main point, and the Times for a quote (although the most relevant quote is in both references, there's some value to showing this is not a one-off article.)

Picking up on the point that this isn't an official UN announcement, I'll modify my proposal as follows, although still believing it belongs as a subsection under inquiries:

===IPCC promises investigation===
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) promises an investigation into claims that the CRU manipulated data to favour the conclusion that human activity is driving global warming.Pachauri stated, "We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail."

References

why is this not added to the article? 93.86.205.97 (talk) 19:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Added, Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:25, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps because we are currently discussing the precise wording?
—Apis (talk) 22:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to include Brumski's sugestions, wich I think are good:

The chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra Pachauri said that "we certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet", and that it was a serious issue and they will look into it in detail before taking a position on it. However he has also stressed that "the processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report".

I didn't do a very good job at motivating my version. I believed it was clear from the other context I presented. (The "crap" comment wasn't meant as motivation, it was just an observation. I just think it's bad when a journalist can't even be bothered to quote properly.) What Brumski say about sources isn't true. It was the BBC radio 4 news, a secondary source (although radio is not a good source for wikipedia for technical reasons, so it should be avoided in the article). Although it was the radio interview that the BBC article refers to. I also strongly object to any original research, but there is certainly no policy that we should include things we think are wrong, even if published by a RS. Apparently, even a RS can get it wrong sometimes. The IPCC doesn't appear to have made any official statements about it. I simply think we should avoid saying they have, and stick to what Rajendra Pachauri actually said (as supported by the source). No original research, just be careful about what we say and how we do it.

I think it's very important that the second qoute (or somthing similar) is also included, since that is the main point Rajendra Pachauri has been making, and it's also what is said in the official statements from the IPCC, both by himself and by IPCC WG-I. Maybe we should elaborate more on that?
—Apis (talk) 22:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Apis that it's important that the second part of the quote (or similar) is added - it's important for WP:NPOV. I would recommend adding it to the current text that is there already [22] rather than replacing that text with your proposal immediately above, essentially because I want "UN", "IPCC" (both as their full names) and "investigation" to remain in the text. If you're looking to add new text w.r.t. the UN response there is also Yvo de Boer's response [23] (this is not my opinion that you should expand it, just a source suggestion if you do: it shows two significant views by an important figure with respect to climate change in the UN; that the "correspondence looks very bad" and also why it looks bad, and also a defence of the review process). Brumski (talk) 15:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The above edit wasn't bad, but again it is slanted way too far against the sceptics so I added the sentence about Saudi Arabia.

{{quote box2 |width=100% | bgcolor=white |align=left |halign=left | salign=left | fontsize=100% | quote= The chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra Pachauri said that "we certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet", and that it was a serious issue and they will look into it in detail before taking a position on it. However he has also stressed that "the processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report". However Saudi Arabia has requested an "independent investigation" at the [[United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 ]]

--138.162.8.58 (talk) 22:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The comments from the Saudis should be mentioned, no doubt, but not here. I will try to add the other IPCC and Rajendra Pachauri statement to the existing text then. Not easy to discuss this wile some edit the article while ignoring discussion and so much BS going on elsewhere, but I can live with this solution.
—Apis (talk) 02:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Disruption

I'm going to revert and block just about anyone who edits disruptively. Let me know if anyone objects to that. Any admin should feel free to unblock if I've made a mistake, or don't respond quickly to a question. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I support this short-leash approach for this article, and intend to follow it too. Abecedare (talk) 17:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I support as well. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, you said that, AQFN, while making a series of seven edits, toning down mentions of 'sceptics', removing adjectives etc, none of which I see discussed anywhere here. --Nigelj (talk) 17:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:AGF--Heyitspeter (talk) 00:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Support in general. But -- how do we deal with undiscussed and highly contentious edits at variance with reliable sources?[24] Most of this is from anons so semi-protection seems like a good compromise. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to deal with that by reverting and blocking. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:01, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Nigelj, the removal of the adjective "strongly" was actually made by another editor who happened to have made his/her edit in the middle of my edits.[25]

Could the article be semi'd again? Without it I fear there will be rather a lot of "noise" edits William M. Connolley (talk) 21:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, and this may be a good place to complain about your content edit here [26]. You can make that edit, of course - though I disagree with it - but that comes very close to sucking you into the content dispute. I still hope you'll semi the thing though :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 21:33, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

We shouldn't use semi-protection just to prevent anons from editing, or to give an advantage to established editors, or to prevent the addition of neutral summaries of mainstream sources. It's better to block whoever disrupts, which I'm ready to do, and which seems to be working so far. If anyone is going to complain, it seems like it would be the anons I blocked. Of course you can object to my work on the page if you want, but your edit that I undid[27] is pretty problematic, since it was directly contradicted by the citation. Anyway, I'm not going to hang around all night, so any admin should feel free to undo me, or handle things differently. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:18, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

As I've said elsewhere on this talk page (and I thought we had agreement on this) the source is *wrong* (and you can tell that, by reading it. It is (regrettably all too typical) lazy journalism: paraphrasing a source to say something it didn't). I care about that William M. Connolley (talk) 22:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:V 93.86.205.97 (talk) 01:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it would be prudent to semi-protect this article. Madman (talk) 22:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

More anon junk [28] William M. Connolley (talk) 22:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Can an admin please semi-protect?
—Apis (talk) 23:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected article until 23 December, which was the cut-off date before full protection was applied. I have not cleaned any of the new additions; if such edits continue without clear consensus here, blocks may be applied. - 2/0 (cont.) 02:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Since there are objections to my approach to this, I'll step away and let others handle it. At this point the page is locked (though I think that's not the best choice) so there shouldn't be anyone to block. Thanks to all for your input. Tom Harrison ^Talk 13:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with this article, Tom. For the record, I think your approach is generally a good idea, but in this specific instance a stronger approach is needed, so I support the restoration of semi-protection. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Why is this quote not included in the article?

Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, stated:

"If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone."

Why is this quote not included in the article?

Grundle2600 (talk) 19:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

My own opinion is that this sounds like an idle boast, not connected to any specific event. While there are concerns that some information is missing, the relatively recent admissions of loss of data relate to time frames predating his statement. Further, the known losses of information in the 80's appear to be related to storage requirements, rather than attempts to hide data. (Not saying the decisions were good, just that the rationale seems to be unrelated to the quote.) If an investigation confirms that he did delete files without adequate cause, the statement may come back to bite him, but I think we need more to make it anything other than unfortunate wording. Finally, he refers to a "file" but without more specificity, it isn't clear what he is talking about.--SPhilbrickT 19:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The article is supposed to be about facts, not your opinion. Grundle2600 (talk) 22:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I do think that something regarding the how the e-mail authors discuss the Freedom of Information Act inquiries should be added at some point to the E-mail section. This is certainly one of the hot topics and Muir Russell will be investigating how the CRU responded to FOIA requests. Any such addition or quote would need to come from a WP:Reliable Source (Fox is OK but the NY Times or a British source would be best methinks) and we would want to add some sort of balancing here's-one-way-to-think-about-it-quote from the authors or other reputable sources. Madman (talk) 00:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not neutral to cherry-pick quotes from the emails to imply some ones guilt. If there is more to write about, like a court case, then we might be able to elaborate.
—Apis (talk) 00:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that we cherry-pick quotes, and we certainly shouldn't go into the archives outselves, but several of these e-mails (maybe 1%, if that's several) have been widely discussed in the press and the article should mention those particular e-mails. There're 3 e-mails highlighted in the artcle now and I bet we'll have 5 or 6 eventually. Madman (talk) 00:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not happy about the email quotes. There is still just speculation and accusations, and these are stolen emails. Still there might be some justification for trying to illustrate what some of the accusations are about. But simply adding the quotes without context or at least some response from the author isn't neutral. It's difficult to give a fair representation when selecting 1 quote from 1 private email out of more than 1000 from a period of over 10 years. Also worth to keep in mind that Wikipedia isn't investigative journalism, our goal isn't to expose some injustice, or present up to date news. To me it makes more sense to wait and see if there is something more to these accusations.
—Apis (talk) 01:44, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The entire reaction section is filled with cherry-picked quotes, most of which diminish the severity of this scandal, and the lies by the scientists in question. The quote should be included 03:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.53.136.29 (talk)

We should cover this as reliable sources do. If we can find some reliable sources which cover this quote, then it should be included. If Jones or someone else has explained or provided context regarding it, that belongs in here as well. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Here are a few reliable sources that we can use: A climate scandal, or is it just hot air?, Climate emails hacked, published, Who's to blame for Climategate?, U.K. Climate Scientist Steps Down After E-Mail Flap. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 05:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

BTW, the first article I listed above from the New Zealand Herald is particularly good at examining the content of the e-mails. I would prefer a little more depth, but it's one of the best articles about the e-mail content I've read so far. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 06:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[29] is probably a better link to the NZ Herald article since it doesn't open a print window on many browsers Nil Einne (talk) 06:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I fixed the URL in my previous post. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 06:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Because there's no way to make it look like it's no big deal, which unfortunately is what this article is trying to do when it comes to this whole issue. Counteraction (talk) 13:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Destruction of files seems to be one of the more commonly reported things in this whole affair; if there's some specific email that is being singled out in the mainstream press we should include it. Evercat (talk) 13:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I came to this talk page specifically to look for the reason for non inclusion of FOI. This particular issue has been widely reported and discussed by media. Non inclusion of this issue would give an appearance of censorship against sceptic side. Vapour (talk) 14:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, articles don't write themselves; someone needs to seize the initiative and add it. Evercat (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Naturally, the FOI (and other) concerns should be mentioned in the article. What I don't like is the inclusion of quotes from the e-mails unless there is some very good reason for doing so. In my opinion it adds nothing to the article. It neither proves or disproves innocence, and it's arguably unethical.
—Apis (talk) 19:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the links everyone. Grundle2600 (talk) 20:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Victoria Incident

Resolved

A new and similar incident involving theft took place at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis at the University of Victoria. Please discuss if and how this information is to be included in the article. The incident involved hacking attempts and physical theft.[30][31] ~AH1^(TCU) 20:08, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Deserves mention. There could be a section "similar incidents" for these and other occurrences. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:25, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

(e/c):I think the National Post is considered a RS, but this Andrew Weaver, their "key contributor to the Nobel prize-winning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," is a minor player at best and sounds paranoid to boot: ""The real story in this is, who are these people and why are they doing it?" Mr. Weaver said. ... "They're trying to find anything. They don't care what it is."

He believes the campaign is driven by the fossil-fuel industry, citing "a war for public opinion."

So, no, not for now. Mr Weaver's secrets appear to be safe. So far. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree; deserves mention William M. Connolley (talk) 21:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I also think it deserves a mention, it's similar to this incident both in time and nature, a "similar incidents" section sounds good.
—Apis (talk) 22:49, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

If this is similar, where has hacked information from CCCMA been published? Every server on the Internet gets hacking attempts. And every year computers are stolen from the university.[32] -- SEWilco (talk) 07:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

After reading how this came out in our article, I don't quite think this deserves the "ink" and the positioning it's getting. Goodness, this Weaver fellow doesn't even have an article of his own. I would favor striking the sentences or at the very least moving it down below Reactions. As it is, it's positioned two sentences before we even hear about the contents or reactions from others. Madman (talk) 14:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

BBC: CRU's programming 'way below expected standards'

link Grundle2600 (talk) 22:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe at some point more material on the non-e-mail files should be added to the article. As usual, we will need to source it and should offer counterbalancing or explanatory material. Care to post a proposal to this thread?? Madman (talk) 00:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

BBC News is definitely a WP:RS. Do we have any other reliable sources we can use for this content? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 05:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[33][34] -- SEWilco (talk) 08:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, SEWilco. The first looks good, but the second appears to be an opinion piece. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 08:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I concur that we need to add coverage of the non e-mail contents. The first cite is best in terms of coverage, but as a video, not preferred. The NYT cite is professionally done, but only tangentially mentions the point. The Sun piece is very on point, but a hastily thrown together opinion piece. I'm honestly torn which of the three would be best. Maybe there will be something better soon.--SPhilbrickT 15:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The third item is similar to a movie review which includes the reviewer's opinion. I included the third one because the author is labeled as a columnist, thus is being labeled has having an ongoing relationship with the paper. This is confirmed by our Toronto Sun article which states that Lorrie Goldstein used to be the editor of the paper and is now "Senior Associate Editor, columnist". So it's an opinion by a senior staffer who used to be head editor and knows the requirements for news. This is labeled as being a column, so it includes the author's opinions. It is not labeled as being an official editorial so we can't refer to it as being the paper's official position. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Specific E-mail copyright violation

Isn't posting the text of the E-mails a copyright violation, without the permission of the copyright holder (probably the authors, but possibly the authors' employers)? Perhaps not, for the purpose of commentary, but we may need to be careful. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

nope, it was published by news sources. 93.86.205.97 (talk) 01:03, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Just because it's Fair use for them, it doesn't mean it's WP:Fair use for us. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

shall we consult an Intelectual Property lawyer? 93.86.205.97 (talk) 01:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

i see there's no need. Wikipedia:Fair_use#Applied_to_Wikipedia 93.86.205.97 (talk) 01:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

My understanding of copyright is that in general the copyright belongs to that person who introduces the "creative step" in the work. That should mean that the email writer owns copyright in their own emails. However, employment contracts may claim to assign copyright to the employer. I'm not sure of US law, but in the UK we have the human rights act which allows freedom of speech (reportedly) particularly for journalistic actions. This should allow "free reporting" where there is a compelling need for journalistic purposes. Obviously, details that don't add to the "sum of human knowledge" ... specific email addresses, personal information that isn't pertinent to the story, should be omitted, but from a more practical note, the big newspapers have good lawyers, and it is safe to say that if several reputable newspapers in various countries have quoted certain sections - and continue to do so without action - then Wikipedia is safe to quote these sections - basically just use common sense and certainly don't pander to those trying to hide publicly available emails by falsely claiming that they can't be included due to copyright. Isonomia (talk) 10:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

it is my assumption that since emails should be available to others in england because of freedom of information law, it is a Public_domain there, and since british news sources published, it became public domain elsewhere as well. 93.86.205.97 (talk) 01:36, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

These e-mail are now in the public domain. Glocax (talk) 06:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything in Freedom of Information Act 2000 which affects copyright. Having a copy of something doesn't mean it is in the public domain. Maybe you're confusing public domain with something being in the public record (not the UK legal definition of governmental "public record"). -- SEWilco (talk) 06:24, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes this has been discussed before multiple times with links provided to various websites which make it clear things released under the FOI may still be subject to copyright. (There was some suggestion things are different in the US but I never saw any evidence for that although I didn't take part extensively.) I suggest anyone who doesn't understand the difference between copyright and other matters like requirements for release under freedom of information acts and the like read the various articles and multiple discussions if they are still confused. As SEWilco said, public domain is a term usually used exclusively to refer to copyright and if you aren't aware of that I would also suggest you read the various articles. In terms of the quotes, I don't think a discussion relating to copyright is particularly useful. We should make sure they aren't over used/excessivelly long but for reasons primarily unrelated to copyright. Nil Einne (talk) 06:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Short excerpts are acceptable, under fair use doctrine. Also, e-mail on government/taxpayers funded servers are subject to different rules. Glocax (talk) 06:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

No evidence has ever been provided for your second claim when it comes to copyright except for the well established and known fact that US federal government work is in the public domain which is irrelevant here. Instead as I mentioned above, evidence has been provided to the contrary. If you have some actual evidence you're welcome to provide it, if not repeating the claim ad nauseum is not going anywhere. Also as has been discussed before and mentioned below, bringing FOI acts into it is even more dubious given that these were not even released under the FOI and yes that may matter even if they were supposed to be. Nil Einne (talk) 07:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

If some of the emails were sent by U.S. Government employees then those emails may fall under the public domain. The entire collection is not public domain. -- SEWilco (talk) 19:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Correcting myself... this material was not released under the FOI so that doesn't apply until someone gets a copy of the same material through an FOI request. -- SEWilco (talk) 07:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

We have a WP:CV. Perhaps we should ask the editors there? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 08:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I have some personal and professional knowledge of the situation here, since I've been involved with the UK FOI Act on both sides of the equation - as a requester and as a releaser - and also with administering copyright and trademark issues. The bottom line is that FOI only affects access to documents. It does not affect copyrights held by the Crown or third parties. For instance, I could (in principle) request a copy of submissions made to the Government by Exxon-Mobil, but the copyright of those submissions would still remain with Exxon-Mobil. Copyright also subsists in documents produced by the Government. In contrast to the situation in the US, where government documents are non-copyrightable, UK Government documents are Crown Copyright. The Crown Copyright regime is administered by OPSI, the Office for Public Sector Information. The relationship between FOI and Crown Copyright is explained by OPSI in the Guidance - Freedom of Information Publication Schemes. This states, in para 2: "The supply of documents under FOI does not give the person who receives the information an automatic right to re-use the documents without obtaining the consent of the copyright holder. Permission to re-use copyright information is generally granted in the form of a licence." So in this instance, even if the stolen data had been obtained legally under FOI, the requesters could not legally have republished it without the permission of the copyright holder, the UEA. This does not affect their "fair dealing" rights (which is significantly different from "fair use" in the US) but fair dealing would not have permitted the wholesale reproduction we've seen of the stolen files. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, there is a useful discussion of this issue in today's New York Times by their Public Editor: "The [New York Times] lawyer, George Freeman, told me that there is a large legal distinction between government documents like the Pentagon Papers, which The Times published over the objections of the Nixon administration, and e-mail between private individuals, even if they may receive some government money for their work. He said the Constitution protects the publication of leaked government information, as long as it is newsworthy and the media did not obtain it illegally. But the purloined e-mail, he said, was covered by copyright law in the United States and Britain." [35] -- ChrisO (talk) 12:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Whatever the Public Editor says, the New York Times' political blog has a link to the Sarah Palin emails on Wikileaks [36], and our Sarah Palin email hack article also links to those emails. There seems to be no difficulty with links to copyrighted material. -- SEWilco (talk) 19:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the exact circumstances of that case, but I was under the impression that material produced by public officials in the course of their work is covered by US FOIA legislation or the state equivalents. But that's a bit of a red herring as far as this particular case is concerned - the status of the material is quite clear and so is Wikipedia's linking policy. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

FOIA is only a red herring if someone tries to invoke it. The above New York Times quote does not mention the NYT considering FOIA. As for the Palin emails, U.S. FOIA applies to U.S. Government work, not state workers. These documents were not acquired through any FOI (UK) nor FOIA (USA) process. If someone files FOI or FOIA (or the Alaskan equivalent for Palin files) and gets a copy of the same email through the formal procedure then the status of that copy will be different than these files, and the Palin files. -- SEWilco (talk) 20:04, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Since the CRU files were not released through FOI, and many of them would not have been subject to FOI in the first place, FOI is irrelevant in this case. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

interesting additions:

..university researchers may also find themselves in legal jeopardy if they deleted emails requested under the U.K.’s Freedom of Information (FOIA) legislation, a crime under U.K. law...

..Stephen McIntyre, a retired industry consultant who runs Climate Audit, speculated on his site that an insider may have leaked the documents and could be protected by whistle-blower law..[37]

..The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails. .. [38]

i see IPs tried to add some of this info with non-exact wording, but were reverted. 93.86.205.97 (talk) 01:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The first article is weak on a number of grounds.

• It's ancient, in the Climategate time frame
• The main point is a redundancy - it's illegal to break the law
• The "smoking gun" isn't smoking - it's a request to delete, not an admission of deletion
• It isn't clear that the proposed deletion is covered by the FOI request, while it seems likely, it isn't a slam dunk
• The deletion is specifically denied

The second link is much more relevant, but I see it has already been added.--SPhilbrickT 15:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Graham / insider quote

Some old material was inserted here and removed here. I see no consensus here regarding the inclusion of this speculation regarding insider involvement. As this article is currently highly contentious, it would be nice if it could be edited on a strict consensus-before-any-addition model. Can anyone point to such a consensus? - 2/0 (cont.) 04:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no consensus for inclusion, and it's another example of more edit warring by GoRight. Tom Harrison said it was going to block anyone edit warring in a disruptive manner on sight, but GoRight has not been blocked. Why not? Viriditas (talk) 04:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Tom harrison last edited before GoRight started editing. Also while I agree GoRight has had past problems and the (two) edits were inapproriate, as he/she has stopped I don't think there's any need to discuss blocking unless the edit warring continues Nil Einne (talk) 05:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The material was placed in the article before the protection, so the person who removed it after protection (ChrisO) did so without consensus or discussion. GoRight and others were merely reverting the non-consensus removal of the material.

Regarding the materieal itself, there certainly have been discussions all over the web that it could be an insider but I could find no Reliable Sources other than the security expert listed earlier, so I am content to leave it out unless further information or Reliable Sources become known. Madman (talk) 06:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks to me like the 5 Dec removal was by Atmoz, not Chris. Can I politely remind people, especially in a contentious situation, that removing cited material, leaving no relevant edit summary, and calling it a minor edit, is not desirable. --SPhilbrickT 15:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't notice that. In that case I agree with your assessment Nil Einne (talk) 08:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Given that we have a wealth of news articles which discuss this topic, I'm leaning towards the position that if we can't find any other sources, then maybe it shouldn't be in the article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 08:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that there never has been a consensus for the inclusion of Graham (see: Talk:Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident/Archive_2#likely_insiders.3F), it was re-inserted around 1 hour before protection[39] --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

As I said last time this was discussed, it's undue weight on one non-involved individual's personal opinion, particularly as it's strongly contradicted by a wealth of reliable sources speaking of a hack; the source also has something of a conflict of interest given that, as his blog shows, he's an activist climate change sceptic. This is not a neutral or disinterested source and there is no indication that his personal opinion has any basis in reality. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

There's a natural enough tendency on the part of editors who follow the skeptical and conspiracy theory line to try to exonerate the hackers. In the absence of concrete evidence supporting an inside job by a whistle-blower, however, it's really not on. There is apparently some evidence emerging that the Russian FSB may have been involved, which also tends to argue against speculation on an inside job. --TS 10:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Muir Russell in the lede

Resolved

I propose that the final sentence of the lede, "The review will be headed up by Sir Muir Russell, chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland." be removed from the lede. It's already mentioned in the body of the article itself. Since the lede is supposed to be a summary of the article, this seems more like a detail not significant enough to be mentioned in the lede. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 07:15, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Support. Too much detail. Viriditas (talk) 09:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Support as well. I am the one who added it there. It seems a non-contentious removal. I'll remove it now. Madman (talk) 14:24, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support bit late but pile on in case there's any dispute Nil Einne (talk) 14:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Obviously I'm outnumbered but as this is one of the few known facts in the case I would have preferred a brief statement left in. --TS 10:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

A few more suggestions for the lede

Currently, the lede only has one sentence that addresses what the criticisms are. Further, this single sentence only mentions one of the criticisms (withholding of data):

"Critics have asserted that the e-mails show collusion by climate scientists to withhold scientific information."

Fringe theorests have also claimed that the e-mails show an actual conspiracy by scientists to manipulate data. This is wholly different than not sharing data. A lot of reliable sources have focused on this aspect of the story so I think that it's important enough to warrant mention in the lede.

I also would like to see some stronger wording regarding the fact that these e-mails have not changed the scientific consensus that global warming is real and primarily man-made.

To keep the lede from getting too big, I suggest we remove the sentence "Professor Phil Jones, Director of the CRU, confirmed that the leaked e-mails that had provoked heated debate appeared to be genuine." It's mentioned in the body of the article, and since there doesn't seem to be any serious dispute over their genuineness, it doesn't seem important enough to mention in the lede. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 07:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Which sources about the consensus can be used? I think the White House mentioned something; has No. 10 issued a statement? If CRU issued a statement, can it be used? I do agree the lede mention of genuiness is redundant, and looks like the "Content of the documents" sentence would go better as the start of the following paragraph because then both CRU descriptions of the content would be mentioned together. -- SEWilco (talk) 08:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

There's the article from Scientific American[40]: "In fact, nothing in the stolen e-mails or computer code undermines in any way the scientific consensus—which exists among scientific publications as well as scientists—that climate change is happening and humans are the cause." A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree regarding the removal of the quote verifying that the e-mails are genuine - it was a legitimate question early on, but no longer important enough to deserve mention in the lede. As noted, it is covered.--SPhilbrickT 15:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Myron Ebell

Dd blocked for edit warring
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm re-inserting my comments about Myron Ebell. @Nil Einne:It is not correct to state that references need to be on this page -- facts mentioned are on the CEI page and appropriately referenced there. It's rich to state edits are inappropriate without prior discussion while simultanously reverting a good faith edit without any discussion whatsoever.Dduff442 (talk) 10:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC) re to edit summary: i don't see why this is liable to be controversial? 93.86.205.97 (talk) 10:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Can we just say that he is of the CEI? Have the arguments about how evil the CEI is over there William M. Connolley (talk) 11:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)` This is twice I've had my good faith edit reverted. You know well that reversion without *prior* discussion is against the rules. This is from the Washington Post article cited re the Ebell comments: But Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said this and other exchanges show researchers have colluded to establish the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. "It is clear that some of the 'world's leading climate scientists,' as they are always described, are more dedicated to promoting the alarmist political agenda than in scientific research," said Ebell, whose group is funded in part by energy companies. "Some of the e-mails that I have read are blatant displays of personal pettiness, unethical conniving, and twisting the science to support their political position." (Emphasis added) It is inappropriate to censor the good-faith edits of others in what is fundamentally a cooperative endeavour. I can't think of a good reason why anyone would want to hide relevant information from readers. Please make an effort to adhere to Wiki policy.Dduff442 (talk) 12:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC) I think you're confused how things work here. Firstly WMC who reverted your second edit did partake in the discussion. Secondly it is your responsibility to get Wikipedia:Consensus for any disputed change particularly on a contentious page. WP:Edit warring to add disputed edits is as I've already a rather bad idea and something likely to be seen as WP:disruptive and therefore get you blocked. When in doubt, reverting to the stable version is the norm, regardless of whether you agree with the stable version (except in a few cases like WP:BLP). This doesn't of course mean others don't have to partake in the discussion. Since no one has accused you of acting in bad faith, the issue of good faith edits doesn't come in to it. Good faith edits can be problematic too and when they are very problematic, reverting them is fine if you explain why. Finally bringing censorship into it is doesn't help anything and simply serves to poison the well. Nil Einne (talk) 12:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC) I suggest you take a read of WP:Verifiability. If you are going to make a claim about something, you should be providing references in this article to support the claim. You should not be telling people to go find them somewhere else be it on wikipedia or elsewhere. My edit summary was sufficient to explain why I made the reversion, I did not feel any need to further explain why I made the reversion as adding unreferenced claims is a particularly bad idea on a contentious page and several admins have threatened to block anyone who makes controversial undiscussed changes. In terms of why this is liable to be controversial, adding claims about something to a subsequent article without establishing why it's relevant almost always is. The issue of funding comes up in a lot of discussions. The obvious question is why don't you mention they're funded by Coca Cola or Pfizer or the Earhart Foundation or whatecer else? You may feel those specific funding sources are relevant because those parties have an interest in avoiding action over climate change but that's solely an editor's POV, something likely to be disputed and in any case always best avoided. If you have WP:RS which specifically mention the CEI's funding sources in relation to their statement here then you may have justification to include it in this article but I agree with WMC that really it's best just to leave it at the CEI article. Nil Einne (talk) 12:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC) The info was (i) already linked to in the CEI page and (ii) already mentioned in the Wash Post article cited. It is not 'solely an editor's POV' to think that the source of Ebell's funding is relevant to the article. Both Ebell and Exxon have a major conflict of interest here. The Post found this worth mentioning and so do I.Dduff442 (talk) 12:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC) As I said, it DOES NOT matter if the info is in the CEI page. It needs to be SOURCED HERE. If all that means you copy the sources here so be it (although as I've explained I don't think that's a good idea either but at least you'll actually be sourcing what you're adding then). Sorry for yelling but I'm sick of repeating the same thing again. Secondly the WP particle does not say that the CEI is funded by ExxonMobil and Ford. It does say they are funded by energy companies, but if you don't understand there's a difference between the two then you probably shouldn't be editing wikipedia since verifiability is a cornerstone policy and per WP:Verifiability, references need to actually say what you say they're saying, not something else that doesn't mean the same thing. I should add Ford isn't even an energy company by most definitions regardless of whether they have a COI. Now as to your new edit, I'm fine with letting that stand since it is directly supported by the reference relating to the statement, in other words, we have a reliable source directly establishing the relevance, unlike the earlier edits which were supported by no reference in this article (or at least inline to the sentence, I obviously haven't read all 50 current references) and for all we know may not have any sources establishing the relevance. And one final time to make sure I get through it DOES NOT matter if the info is in the CEI page, it needs to be sourced here Nil Einne (talk) 12:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC) It was never stated that Ford was an energy company and your remarks regarding this are fatuous. WP:Verifiability does not support your claim about the ref needing to be on the same page. The link was in the same sentence and was mentioned in my edit summary (and noted in yours). The revert was without any justification in these circumstances as you already knew the info was sourced. I refer you to WP:ROWN. Dduff442 (talk) 13:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC) To quote Mr Connolley, "Can we just say that he is of the CEI? Have the arguments about how evil the CEI is over there." As it stands now, it's blatant POV pushing ("Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think-tank funded in part by Energy companies, said" . . .) and really needs to be removed. Madman (talk) 14:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC) Explain how it constitutes a POV push, let alone a 'blatant' one. The information is of value in interpreting Ebell's statements. You'll note the edit only aligned the article with the editorial line taken by the Post, the source cited. That ExxonMobil etc. pay Ebell's wages is widely acknowledged fact, not POV. You have a job ahead of you in showing why this information should be kept from readers.Dduff442 (talk) 15:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC) If you must include CEI's funding sources, then you must must include the funding source for every source in this article, which really would drive this article off topic. Besides, there's already a link for the CEI in that sentence.Chelydramat (talk) 16:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC) A sourced comment gets deleted three times in one day without prior discussion in any case. Wow. The Washinton Post -- the cited source in this instance -- did not find the comment 'extraneous'. The remark was taken verbatim from the source precisely in order to avoid this kind of discussion. The source of funding (i.e. employer) is given of many of the persons named in the article, as is background information on their prior stances on climate issues (as with Von Storch immediately below). You are certainly free to add more, so please be my guest in detailing the funding of any other sources you wish. You are not free to censor relevant, sourced information. Discussion & consensus-building should precede deletion of material. We're headed for dispute resolution if this continues.Dduff442 (talk) 16:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC) That bit you added was not taken verbatem from the article and you know it. Did you think that nobody would actually go to the refferenced page? The Competitive Enterprise Institute page has plenty of uncensored information about it if anybody wishes to look into it. You've had two far more experienced users explain that to you already WP:NOTSOAPBOX .Chelydramat (talk) 17:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC) The exact phrase deleted was from the Washinton Post article cited[41]:"It is clear that some of the 'world's leading climate scientists,' as they are always described, are more dedicated to promoting the alarmist political agenda than in scientific research," said Ebell, whose group is funded in part by energy companies. "Some of the e-mails that I have read are blatant displays of personal pettiness, unethical conniving, and twisting the science to support their political position." Care to reconsider your remarks? Care to justify the remarks *exclusion* from the article in the light of any framework of journalistic or scholarly ethics?Dduff442 (talk) 17:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC) No. Though I missed that while skimming the article, that still doesn't change the fact that 1.) you're using this article as a soapbox and are verging on being disruptive 2.) Information about the CEI is readily available, therefore it's inclusion in this article is unwarranted.Chelydramat (talk) 17:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC) (EC) Discussion & consensus-building should precede deletion of material if it's deletion of existing material from a stable version. If you are adding a contentious change to an article, particularly one as problematic as this which was only recently unprotected and where admins have even warned against such behaviour, then reversion of this change is appropriate until it's established it belongs. If you genuinely believe WP:Verifiability and companion guidelines like WP:Citing sources do not require you cite claims in the articles you are making the claims in, then you have a serious lack of understanding of policy and given as I've often repeated this is a cornerstone policy and a extremely basic rule of wikipedia, I suggest you seek clarification elsewhere like WP:VPP or WP:Help Desk first since it's obvious no one here is getting thorough to you. Also your original two additions were not the exact phrase used in the Washington Post article, as you well know. The article does not mention any specific companies, and you included Ford which isn't even implied by the article as it is not an energy company. While you did later revert to using the WP wording, your comment above seems to imply that all 3 times the reversion was of you adding a verbatim claim from the WP which is clearly not true. (There have been 2 times now of course.) Incidentally I will not be taking further part in this discussion as I don't feel anything productive is going to come from it although I think it's well proven my point that the change was obviously contentious, even more so the version I reverted which wasn't sourced and had far more problematic wording. Nil Einne (talk) You've already stated you were 'fine' with its inclusion. Ford was mentioned as a source of funding in the CEI article and I neither stated nor implied it was an energy company. I only claimed the second edit was verbatim, not the first. As you pointed out, the phrasing was altered to reflect the source exactly. The material is not contentious -- nobody has disputed its factual accuracy. What has (subsequently) proven contentious is its inclusion -- an inclusion I justify on grounds of integrity as the material was already in the article and nobody voiced any objection to the Post article prior to my edits.Dduff442 (talk) 18:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC) (<- outdent) Discussion and consensus-building should precede insertion of potentially WP:BLP-violating material. My reasoning is as follows: The only reason for including the information is the implication that energy companies determine the reports from the think tank. That implication would be a BLP violation against the actual report authors if stated. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC) The WP:BLP objection is transparently without foundation. I made no statement about Ebell. I quoted a remark from a newspaper article already published and already cited about Ebell's employer. Even if I had remarked about Ebell, it is not possible to libel somebody by quoting the contents of a published newspaper. Dduff442 (talk) 19:03, 6 December 2009 (UTC) You made the implication, not me. The Post quote was scrupulously NPOV. I am not of the opinion that the public should be protected from facts. I'm putting in an RfC on this to get a wider spectrum of opinion, particularly from media experts.Dduff442 (talk) 18:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

'Source Code and Programmer Notes' section

If we are going to discuss these docs then a few groundrules may be useful.

1. Don't source statements in the article to blogs (WP:RS)
2. Can we first of all establish from a reliable source that these code files actually were used in the preparation of published results, and if so, exactly which published papers.

Re 2: I have a suspicion that these snippets of source code have become available because they were sent as attachments to the emails that were stolen. If this is the case, then they are unlikely to be part of the major code-base used at CRU. It is more likely that they were personal experiments by individuals to see how various types of analysis could be applied to the temp record database. Don't forget, UEA is a university, CRU is part of UEA, people go to university to learn, to teach and to do research. For all we know these might have been students' projects getting analysed here. --Nigelj (talk) 11:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

huh. wp:or. 93.86.205.97 (talk) 11:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Asking for reliable sources is original research? How do you come to that conclusion, then? -- ChrisO (talk) 12:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Like the email contents, if the code/programming is being discussed by Reliable Sources, then we should mention that in this article. We can put disclaimers around our mention, but we can't just ignore what Reliable Sources are saying about the non-email files, whether or not the RSs establish "that these code files actually were used in the preparation of published results, and if so, exactly which published papers". Madman (talk) 14:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO, I suspect the wp:or mention was to Nigelj's suspicion that the source code were attachments to emails. I doubt that HARRY_READ_ME.txt would have been attached to these emails. Nigelj can entertain the suspicion further by searching the emails for mention of the program and data files, but the results would be WP:OR. There have been diagrams produced which show communication relationships between the participants, but has an RS published known relationships between code and other items, including published material? That's more likely to appear later, after requests for records related to these files are completed. I haven't seen mention of such, but when using FOIA it is common to use one document to find related documents. So someone will ask for records related to a program and any published works. As with much of the story, we can't add it until it appears. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:41, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It has become all to common to make the blanket statement that blogs are not reliable sources. However, it isn't true. See WP:BLOGS.--SPhilbrickT 16:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

please don't cite essays when trying to make a wp:rs point. 93.86.205.97 (talk) 17:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It's an oversimplification to say blogs are never reliable sources, however, considering WP:BLP and WP:UNDUE, for practical intents and purposes, most blogs aren't acceptable for this article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Blogs are largely not acceptable (see WP:V), with one major exception: Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control (ibid., follow the footnote). Thus, the newspaper blogs can be squeezed in, while the Realclimate should be (largely) out. This is, of course, precisely the inverse of what is being quoted as the policy by the Team WMC. Dimawik (talk) 18:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you refer to as "Team WMC?" That sounds like a personal slur.

Secondly, why would you want to include poorly informed writers on newspaper opinion blogs, and exclude expert opinion from a scientific blog? That makes no sense at all in terms of our policy on reliable sources. --TS 18:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Dimawik, the other exception to blogs is if they're produced by an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been previously published by third-party, reliable sources - which is why RealClimate is in. In any case, we have in-text attribution. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Nothing personally aimed at anybody here: just a general thought... There's more to writing good articles for Wikipedia than finding on-line texts at random and paraphrasing them. You get nowhere if you first of all don't actually understand the subject matter. With that as a grounding basis, then you can work out what the article needs to say to summarise the whole topic in a sound and encyclopedic way and then look to the best reliable, verifiable sources to support the statements, and point the inquisitive reader to good quality further reading (by that stage these and other references will be well-known to you anyway, so its easy to pick and choose). If no such sources yet exist, then you know to hang fire until they do. I'm sorry if this sounds elitist, but really, people who have no idea what the topic is about, beyond what their morning newspaper has just told them, would never get an authorship contract with Britannica, so why should they expect editorial control here? 'Anyone can edit', yes, but not anyone can plan, design, and execute a good balanced article on a topic unless they have more than a passing acquaintance with the issues, and the underlying issues. --Nigelj (talk) 19:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

shall we try to put that in a new policy? joking of course. anyhow, that is why we have you here, to guide us in designing and executing this article. although, i must say that a visitor with a passing acquaintance with the issue can often make better observations with an unbiased mind than some editors deeply involved with the topic. in conclusion, i disagree with the second half of your thought -- rarely ever here anyone writes the whole article, but most users add bits and pieces. regards. 93.86.205.97 (talk) 19:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. It's all always a to-and-fro collaborative effort with everybody bringing their own knowledge, skills and background. People who know nothing at all about the topic still make valuable fixes to style, grammar, layout etc once there's something to look at. It's just when we get, "I found a mention in a blog or on Fox News, so now I want to write a whole new section"... --Nigelj (talk) 20:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

From Nigelj's comments one might assume that the editors working on this article are all experts in computer security, law, and software :-) Since this is clearly not always the case, I'd say that contributions from editors that are not professionals in the climate science shall be also welcome. This is not an article about the climate change, after all. Dimawik (talk) 21:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Counter-Argument to the "trick" explanation

Part of the wiki article quotes the explanation for the "trick". It is accurate, refers to the tree rings, and is commonly used. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't an intent to manipulate the data. I think it's fair to present the counter-argument to the counter-argument.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/understanding_climategates_hid.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+Climatescam+%28ClimateScam%29

Written by Marc Sheppard -- relation to this section specifically

"The first step was taken in the 1995 Second Assessment Report, when the above Figure 7c was replaced with a 1993 reconstruction from RS Bradley and Phil Jones himself that used 1400 AD as its base – effectively wiping the MWP off the radar-screen.

But it wasn’t until the 2001 Third Assessment Report (TAR) that the MWP simply vanished. This multi-proxy reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies appeared in chapter 2, page 134, of the Working Group 1 (WG1) report.

Of course, the first thing you’ll notice is that both the MWP and LIA have indeed disappeared. In fact, temperatures appear to trend downward throughout the millennium until a sharp jump upward last century. But if you look closer, you’ll also notice that the “reconstructed” series terminate in 1980. What forms the dramatic blade to the hockey stick shape (yes, this is indeed the famous “Hockey-Stick” graph) is instead the distal segment of the 1902 to 1999 instrumental data series.

Mann has recently claimed that the available proxy data ended in 1980, but even his coconspirators at RealClimate admit that’s nonsense. The truth is that the proxy data was scrapped because unlike those measured, reconstructed temperatures showed a marked decline after 1980. And, as the chart plotted temperature anomalies against what the plotters selected as the “normal” period and temperatures of 1961 to 1990, the reconstruction would have been quite unremarkable otherwise. So at the 1980 mark, the actual post-1980 measurements were actually attached to the truncated proxy series to create the illusion they were one.

The figure below, found on the same page of the WG1 report reveals this trick more clearly. This chart plots the original 4 reconstructions used: 2 from Mann et al, 1 from Jones et al and 1 from Briffa et al. Notice how all but the first series continue to trend downward around 1960 while instrumental readings begin to trend upward? And even that series ends abruptly in 1980."

See original link for images and PDF files attached to the explanation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marshzd (talk • contribs) 19:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we should stick with mainstream sources as the article so far has done. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

If you're interested, wiki already has an article dealing with some of this, Description of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in IPCC reports William M. Connolley (talk) 21:15, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

cbs report

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/12/06/climategate-finally-reported-cbs-climate-change-hoax use as reference? --BernhardMeyer (talk) 21:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean CBS or Newsbusters? The Four Deuces (talk) 21:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Newsbusters is not a reliable source, anyways. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I mean CBS. --BernhardMeyer (talk) 07:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

A lot of news organizations are producing some extremely sloppy journalism on this subject, treating unfounded allegations by skeptics as if they were fact. We have to be careful, as an encyclopedia, to distance ourselves from poorly researched press pieces, and to not fall into the trap of covering the news coverage rather than the facts. --08:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

likely insiders?

I've never edited a news article but i do believe the first sentence in the body shouldn't have the words "likely insiders" in it, neither of the articles, BBC or Time, mention the hackers as most likely insiders. If there is another article someone has seen as mentioning "likely insiders" it should be used to cite. MikelZap (talk) 03:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Removed. It's an opinion attributed to Robert Graham, not a fact as it is deceptively portrayed in the lead section. Viriditas (talk) 03:48, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing deceptive about it. It is stated as a fact in the source that it comes from:

Judging from the data posted, the hack was done either by an insider or by someone inside the climate community who was familiar with the debate, said Robert Graham, CEO with the consultancy Errata Security. Whenever this type of incident occurs, "80 percent of the time it's an insider," he said.

Note that "the hack was done either by an insider or by someone inside the climate community" is written as a statement of fact and is NOT in quotes. This is a statement being made by the journalist based on their investigation. The security expert's quote indicates an 80% probability that this is the case, hence the word "likely" is used rather than leaving it as an absolute statement of fact. --GoRight (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

That's not accurate. The statement is an opinion paraphrased from Robert Graham, CEO with the consultancy Errata Security, just like the article says. There is nothing factual about it. All opinions, no matter if they are paraphrased or quoted, must be attributed to their authors. If you don't understand how this works, then I invite you to read the NPOV policy. There is no "absolute statement of fact" here at all. All opinions require attribution, no exceptions. Viriditas (talk) 04:43, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

It won't take terribly long to publicize who did this. Then it will be known if it was an insider or not. So just wait. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thr r svrl srcs sng thr th trm "whstlblwr" r "nsd jb". thr f ths trms r spprtd b mltpl rlbl srcs Comfort & Joy (talk) 05:30, 26 November 2009 (UTC) stricken: sockpuppet of banned user scibaby Kim D. Petersen (talk)

I am not well-versed in this controversy. I would like to make a suggestion to bring us closer to consensus. In the lede, it states: "The unknown hacker, likely either an insider or someone inside the climate community, anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents." What if we just wrote: "The unknown hacker(s) anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents?" I say this because the first section also points out the hacker is "likely either an insider or someone inside the climate community" I'm not here to argue if the hacker(s) were insiders, though, one would assume they had some kind of inside presence. ThinkEnemies (talk) 06:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I've cut it back to this again. Graham's argument is a statistical one, in 80% of the cases it is insiders, but there is no means for us to tell whether this case is one of the 20% or the 80%. Since Graham has no inside information to the case, but is simply speculating it shouldn't be used, except as "X stated that in 80% of such hacker cases it is insiders" or something like that. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 07:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

It also appears from Graham's website that he's an activist climate change sceptic, which casts some doubt on his objectivity on this issue; he's not just speaking as a security expert. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:53, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

[42]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thr r nmrs srcs nd xprts tht ndct ths s n nsd jb. W shld rspct ths rlbl srcs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Institute of Klimatology (talk • contribs) 16:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC) Account blocked. [43]

I retrieved this discussion from the archive. GoRight is again trying to add this. I'll just add my support for not having it in the article. -Atmoz (talk) 22:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Given the above discussion, I'd say you were right to remove the material from the article. Guettarda (talk) 22:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I concur. The 80% quote is clearly an off-the-cuff generic reaction, not a measured, statistical analysis of the present situation. Even if correct, it’s highly likely that we will know whether the actual incident is in the 80 or the 20 soon. If for some reason, it remains murky, then it might be relevant to incorporate some expert’s opinion, but I’d like to see a more measured reaction reflecting the actual situation, not just a shoot-from-the-hip value.SPhilbrickT 19:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Monbiot in "Reactions"

I just looked and the "Reactions" section led with the opinion of, of all people, the journalist and activist George Monbiot, coming before the opinions of the UEA, several scientific organizations and several qualified scientists. As Monbiot has no scientific credentials of which I'm aware in this field, I've moved his opinion a good way down. To place his opinion first gives undue weight to lay opinion. --TS 01:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's not how things work around here. Weight is determined by its prominence in reliable sources, not on our own personal opinions. Monbiot's opinion has been cited by numerous reliable sources. Please keep in mind, TS, that WP:NPOV cuts both ways. You can't e-emphasize an opinion just because you don't like it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Well weight is a matter of editorial judgement. Number of reports is a very crude way to measure importance, and obviously Monbiot's opinion counts for a lot less than those whose opinions are above his after my edit. And with the best will in the world, I find it hard to conceive that Monbiot's opinion has been reported in more reliable sources than that of, say, Phil Jones, Michael Mann, James Hansen and so on. --TS 04:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy with the new format in which reactions are divided up into the sections labelled "Climatologists", "Mainstream science organizations", "Newspapers and other media" and "Think tanks and elected officials". On balance I'd prefer the "Newspapers etc" section to be last but this is acceptable. Within each section we should seek appropriate balance but should take care not to get into an adversarial dialog structure. --TS 10:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the division into sections is useful, but both the categories and what is included in them need further thought. "Thinktanks and elected officials" is a nonsense. If Ed Miliband says something, then that is the view of the UK government. Neither that nor the view of a US senator should be put on a par with comments from people who run thinktanks. The comments currently in the category "media" are confused too. The report from the DT is not a media view but a report of how others have responded. It is to be taken as a reliable report and should be in the appropriate category, and not attributed to the DT. The Computerworld quote is not the view of Computerworld but a reliable report of the views of others. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Added notes on source code and harry_read_me.txt

I added info on these, because they have been subject to controversy. If there is any bias, I'd appreciate editing. I write this in good faith because this subject is relevant to the topic, and I hope that we are not too agenda driven and can include a discussion of it. Much thanks!-WikilAGATA — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikilagata (talk • contribs) 02:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Deletion

I'm deleting the following from the article in accordance with WP:PSTS:

"According to the RealClimate website, in their response to the CRU hack, the "decline" being mentioned is a decline in tree ring sizes, not temperature. RealClimate characterizes the e-mail excerpt as follows:

The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the 'trick' is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term "trick" to refer to a "a good way to deal with a problem", rather than something that is "secret", and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the 'decline', it is well known that Keith Briffa's maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the "divergence problem"–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommended not using the post-1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while 'hiding' is probably a poor choice of words (since it is 'hidden' in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

"

I doubt this is very controversial, but I've been surprised before, so I figure I should mention it here. --Heyitspeter (talk) 02:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I've restored that lucid, scientific explanation, and also cited a Philadelphia Inquirer story that quotes Mann saying exactly the same thing. Given the amount of nonsense we've got in the article from people who nothing about the science, it's very unwise to remove what few good scientific sources we have. --TS 02:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that we have the secondary source, can we remove the primary source? Again, this is in accordance with WP:PSTS.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no reason to remove anything, and I'm afraid you are misinterpreting the policies/guidelines again. Because there continues to be confusion on these issues from you, please use the talk page before making these edits in the future. Viriditas (talk) 03:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe I am, and I fail to understand why you think this is a case of misinterpreting the policies/guidelines "again." Please be civil and engage with me rationally. If we have a secondary source that says "exactly the same thing" as the primary, and if primary sources are contentious in this case, let's go with the secondary. This shouldn't be a difficult decision to make.--Heyitspeter (talk) 03:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If we removed the clear RealClimate explanation we'd have to replace it with something else that does the same excellent job. We've got our secondary source, so there is no longer an issue. People come to this encyclopedia for an explanation of the issues, and RealClimate is a good source on this subject. --TS 04:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The key point here I think is similar that do when primary sources came up before, e.g. with the CRU-UEA response & investigation. It's best to avoid solely using a primary source as the source. If however we have a secondary source which says the same thing or even quotes the primary source, then using the primary source to back up the secondary source is useful for readers to get more information that may not be provided in the secondary source. Nil Einne (talk) 09:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The POV issue with quoting the RealClimate explanation is that critics are not saying thet the "trick" was simply truncating tree-ring data after 1960, but that it involved turning the trend line upwards by incorporating later temperature data into the smoothed series, even though the tree-ring data was declining from 1940 to 1960 (in line with temperature) and after 1960 (diverging from temperature). A UEA press release [44] illustrates the different visual effect between splicing and truncating in two charts; note that it does not show how the tree-ring data continued after 1960. NPOV could require also quoting from critics such as [45] --Rumping (talk) 16:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate -- or CRUgate

Since Wikipedia is in the middle of writing history at exactly the same time as History is out there busy writing itself, could I request of both Wikipedia and History that we try to do something about this awful new word that is in serious danger of coming into existence, viz. "Climategate". It raises so many questions that should never, ever be raised -- and certainly not anywhere near an encyclopaedia. For instance, should we capitalise the 'G' (CamelCase) or run it all into a single word (Climategate)? Could we break it up into two words? Um, hypthenate (Climate-Gate)? Argh. And beside, who exactly is guilty here: The hacker, the leaker, or the climate? A number of sensible writers have, to mitigate against such a looming linguistic catastrophe, opted for CRUgate, e.g. http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/?p=4156, http://www.crikey.com.au/topic/crugate/, http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/11/cru-gate-climate-conspiracy-or-much-ado.html, http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/in-the-wake-of-crugate-letters/, http://www.Free Republic.com/focus/news/2392001/posts. I say, we help them out, we help history out, and we add to the text the words, "... or CRUgate". Any support for this? (I'm serious). Alex Harvey (talk) 11:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I've just googled and there are now 2,580,000 hits for the word "Climategate" (around a million more than the last time I looked at the number). Regarding how it will be worded when the article changes its title, I would suggest the word everyone is using: "Climategate". And to be quite frank, it should be pretty obvious why its being called climategate: no one out there can think of a better name and you can see them struggling with the thought of "University of East Anglia, which is a little known University in England, from which some emails, may or may not have been stolen/leaked, and which may or may not be evidence of ... oh hell, why don't we just call it climategate". The analogy with watergate is obvious and was explicitly made in the papers today: Information was obtained illicitly (it is suggested) which some suggest is evidence that some people were being "economical with the truth". (Unfortunately, if I were to believe some editors, just by writing the above I will get myself banned from Wikipedia - but to hell with such censorship - so, so long and thanks for all the fish!) 88.109.63.241 (talk) 15:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC) Sorry the censors need to know who to ban! Isonomia (talk) 15:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No. Dancing around what to call it isn't getting anywhere, the page is going to stay as its current name and climategate will redirect and be a significant "Also Known As". This has been discussed extensively on this talk page already. Ignignot (talk) 16:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary. The controversy has almost nothing to do with how the emails came into the public sphere, and pretty much everything to do with what the emails contained. The "CRU Hacking Incident" will be dealth with by the IT firewall crew at the University. "Climategate" will be discussed by the leaders and scientists of the free world. "Climategate" may be a nothing more than a tempest in a teapot, but the current name is misleading and suggests that the *real* issue here is data security at East Anglia. Under this premise, the Pentagon Papers would have been called "Bob's Unlocked Desk Problem".Nightmote (talk) 16:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Google Climategate: Results 1 - 100 of about 30,400,000 for climategate. (0.28 seconds)

Google: "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident": Results 1 - 100 of about 37,600 for "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident". (1.22 seconds)

Google CRUgate: Results 1 - 100 of about 6,450 for CRUgate. (0.68 seconds)

The above in order of number of hits. Frankly, Climategate wins hands down. Wikipedia can play games all it wants to -- but people that come here will type "Climategate" into the wiki search and come to this page. It appears pointless to keep the current name. But whatever. SunSw0rd (talk) 19:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"CRUgate" is a completely fringe name. I've also seen "Hackgate" and "Deniergate", but I hardly think it's worth noting every name made up by some bloviating blogger somewhere. -- ChrisO (talk)

You're misusing WP:FRINGE, similar to how a lot of people misuse WP:BLP. -Atmoz (talk) 20:13, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No I'm not. Check Google News - six hits for the term, five of them blogs. This alternative term has negligible representation in reliable sources. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

'Climategate' at centre stage as Copenhagen opens

"The 'Climategate' row immediately took centre stage at the Copenhagen climate summit today when one of the opening speakers went out of his way to defend the scientific consensus on global warming from the attacks of climate change sceptics. "[46]

Due to the insiduous censorship here, I can't say anything more. Isonomia (talk) 13:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

XXX link XX brokXXXXXXweird. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"According to a report in the Times, UN officials have compared the climate change E-Mail theft with the Watergate scandal. In that the hackers who stole the data were probably paid for by climate change sceptics intent on wrecking the Copenhagen climate change talks."[47]

Again, I'm unable to make any comment due to personal threats (except thanks stephan!). Isonomia (talk) 13:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Stephan, if you're referring to my broken FreeXXXXRepublicXXXXXXXX link, I wasn't able to save the page with it intact because that nefarious site is on Wikipedia's spam filter (and I think you already know what this proves). ;-o Alex Harvey (talk) 13:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[48] and the surrounding history should be enlightening. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"Saudia Arabia told global warming talks on Monday that trust in climate science had been "shaken" by leaked emails among experts and called for an international probe,... The IPCC, which is the authority accused, is not going to be able to conduct the investigation," he said, referring to the Nobel-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).[49] <zip>Isonomia (talk) 13:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, we know for sure that Saudi Arabia would have no vested in interest in trying to prevent a reduction in worldwide carbon emissions. --Nigelj (talk) 20:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Attempt to manipulate the peer review process

I'm going to add the following:

Peter Kelemen, a professor of geochemistry at Columbia University's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, claims that the leaked emails reveal an attempt by Climatologists to disrupt the peer review process by threatening editors of peer reviewed journals with removal from their function if they decide to accept critic's papers for publication, which could have implications for the common argument that there is a consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming.

If you think it shouldn't be on there and people shouldn't hear about the attempt to keep "skeptics" from publishing their articles to scientific journals by threatening the editors of these journals with removal, please come up with a good argument here. Damage control is not a good argument.

Counteraction (talk) 13:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Please give people more than 2 minutes to consider your prosed text additions in future. I've removed the text for now William M. Connolley (talk) 13:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I also note that you've added this text before [50] and it was removed [51] with an indication that you should seek consensus on the talk page first. That was good advice William M. Connolley (talk) 13:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

While the article is worth reading, the author is not an expert, so I would leave it out. The Four Deuces (talk) 13:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Fact is, as it stands, this Wikipedia article doesn't mention anywhere that the e-mails revealed an attempt to get people removed from their positions as editors of journals if they published articles that disputed the "consensus". Seems to me such an event deserves a mention on this encyclopedia, but it keeps getting removed. Imagine if the Tobacco companies tried to destroy people's careers for merely publishing a study showing that cigarettes cause cancer. Does an e-mail first need an official explanation from Realclimate or something before we are allowed to add it here? Counteraction (talk) 14:04, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Counteraction, sorry, don't you know the policy. Only sources peer reviewed by the climate "scientists" are allowed on wikipedia climate articles. That is the rule that the "overwhelming consensus" of editors has determined and unfortunately, unless you can find one of these scientists in the emails who has published an article in a peer reviewed journal regarding climategate, then you are completely wasting your time. 88.109.63.241 (talk) 14:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but the source you're quoting does not say anything about "threatening editors of peer reviewed journals with removal", nor does it say that there was an "attempt by Climatologists to disrupt the peer review". It does accuse them of hubris and an "implicit attack on the basis of peer review". That is, of course, the nature of private correspondence. It's one thing to say "X should be fired" when venting. It's quite another to actually try to get them fired. But that's beside the point - the summary does not accurately represent what Kelemen says in the article. And that's a problem. Guettarda (talk) 14:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That's not true. It does mention it. Look at this:

It was even more troubling for me to read messages in which, in at least two instances, scientists discussed how to get associate editors removed from journals that published papers critical of their work. The theory seemed to be that the papers were so seriously flawed on scientific grounds that they should not have been published. (This is a common view among authors whose work is criticized.) Personally—having looked at the paper that generated the most complaint, by Soon & Baliunas in the journal Climate Research in 2003—I agree that the paper is scientifically incorrect. Still, incorrect papers make it through peer review all the time, generally because reviewers are not sufficiently vigilant. Despite this, it is very unusual to try to get editors fired as a result.

If anyone here can explain to me why it shouldn't be mentioned, don't hesitate. As it stands I'm just having my edits reverted and told that I'm making stuff up. Counteraction (talk) 14:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Because the article says nothing about "threatening editors of peer reviewed journals with removal" or "attempt by Climatologists to disrupt the peer review". No mention of threats. No mention of any "attempts to disrupt peer review". Nothing in the article to suggest that there was any action associated with the comments. Guettarda (talk) 14:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Again:

It was even more troubling for me to read messages in which, in at least two instances, scientists discussed how to get associate editors removed from journals that published papers critical of their work.

Doesn't this constitute disrupting the peer review process? Counteraction (talk) 14:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No, of course it doesn't. Private discussion ≠ action. Quite frankly, if you believe that an associate editor isn't doing her/his job properly, it's quite appropriate to discuss whether they should remain as associate editor. But that's entirely beside the point - the point is that there's no evidence that anything was done. If something was done, that's another issue (although, of course, not all actions to remove an editor constitute improper actions. Guettarda (talk) 14:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[outdent] I will have to agree with Mr (or Mrs) Action here that this is something that has been widely discussed in the press. I think we should add something along this line similar in format to the other 3 email sections: (1) a quote from the emails (sourced to a WP:Reliable Source) followed by some sort of rebuttal/explanation from another Reliable Source.

Here are some Reliable Sources: [52], [53], [54] (not sure whether this is news or opinion piece), [55]. There's also something from New Zealand (now where is that??)

Could we all agree to that in principle? Madman (talk) 14:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, I found some of the original e-mails after using Google:

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=484&filename=1106322460.txt http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=307&filename=1051190249.txt These are the e-mails where the climatologists discuss how to remove people from their positions, to prevent certain articles they disagree with from being published in peer reviewed journals. That's not very nice, is it?

If someone could use them to update the article, please do, since I'm being told that if I edit the article again I could get in trouble... Counteraction (talk) 14:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Basically we editors cannot quote directly from the emails, since those would be considered Primary Sources. See WP:PSTS. We can only (in most circumstances) quote from WP:Reliable Sources which quote the emails. Madman (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Reliable sources for what? They don't (as far as I can tell) support the idea that they tried to get an editor removed - if, in fact, Jones had acted on the email quoted, shouldn't that email be among the collection? The fact of the matter is that there's a huge difference between saying "I should do X" and actually doing X. Especially in private correspondence. None of the sources (as far as I can tell) support Counteraction's allegations that something wrong was done. Guettarda (talk) 15:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"Reliable sources for what?" Reliable sources for the contents of the emails. As has been mentioned in earlier threads, there are perhaps 5 or 6 e-mails that have been widely discussed/reported/dissected in the press (i.e. in Reliable Sources) and we should include short sections on these 5 or 6 (or 4 or 7 or . . . ) in this article. We have 3 e-mail sections now, and Mr Action here is proposing that we add a 4th that would revolve around this email from Jones: "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" I think we can do this in a non-accusatory and factual basis. You know, "just the facts, ma'am". Madman (talk) 15:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"Mr Action here is proposing that we add a 4th that would revolve around this email from Jones" - really? That wasn't what I got from Counteraction's post or her/his arguments here. I thought you were saying that these were reliable sources that supported Counteraction's proposed additions; my point was that they don't. So what would you suggest we add? Guettarda (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

This article isn't about what these scientists have or have not done with respect to the peer review process, it is about the public release of email and other information and its repercussions, including responses from other scientists. If other scientists are alarmed because they think that the emails indicate that some sort of unprofessional behavior is going on, then I think that belongs in the article - to clarify, we're not trying to say that the scientists are unprofessional, that would be a BLP violation I think. But if other notable people do then we can and should say that they have done so, as a reaction. Ignignot (talk) 18:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Granted. But the source doesn't support the claim made in the section that Counteraction added. Kelemen commented on what was discussed. Counteraction present it as if the discussions were actions. Guettarda (talk) 18:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposals

Re-reading the article shows a tone of cautious alarm at possibly unethical behavior, I think. I think it could be written as:

Peter Kelemen, a professor of geochemistry at Columbia University's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, claims that the leaked emails seem to indicate possibly unethical behavior by the scientists involved. (I am taking this from "If scientists attempted to exclude critics' peer-reviewed papers from IPCC reports, this was unethical in my view.") He also states that there might be an attempt to circumvent the basic peer review process. (from "Some of the stolen CRU e-mails state that if an associate editor of GRL was "in the greenhouse skeptics camp" he should be "ousted," suggesting that the e-mail authors viewed any critic of their work, no matter how ethical or well-informed, as incompetent. If so, this is a remarkable instance of hubris, and an implicit attack on the basis of the peer-review process, not a normal part of the give-and-take of scientific debate. ")

That might be a little too simplistic, making it strongly worded. His position is more nuanced than that (which is why it is about the same size as the wiki article! [[56]]) but I think that is the basic idea. He phrases everything in "might" and "maybe" which makes weasel words inevitable, unfortunately. Does anyone have suggestions? Ignignot (talk) 19:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I have expanded that thought, Ignignot, and added contrasting opinions and ended it with a big fact:

A few of the e-mails have raised concerns that their authors may have attempted to undermine the peer-review process.USA TodayWinnipeg Free PressBloomberg For example, an 8 July 2004 e-mail from Phil Jones to Michael Mann said in part:

"The other paper [written by sceptics] is just garbage. . . . I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"NZ Herald

Peter Kelemen, a professor of geochemistry at Columbia University's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said that "If scientists attempted to exclude critics' peer-reviewed papers from IPCC reports, this was unethical in my view."Popular Mechanics

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, responded that IPCC has "a very transparent, a very comprehensive process which ensures that even if someone wants to leave out a piece of peer reviewed literature there is virtually no possibility of that happening," WSJ. The University of East Anglia's commission will evaluate whether CRU's peer-review practices comply with best scientific practice.BBC

Any changes? Madman (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it also needs a specific rebuttal saying that no unethical behavior has taken place. Ignignot (talk) 20:48, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I think his own stated motivation is significant. He said it was garbage, and so must be kept out somehow. If he'd said it was 'highly damaging to our manufactured and shaky claims', that would be news. If someone writes rubbish in a WP article, you might say, "That is badly-sourced garbage and I'll get it removed somehow, even if I have to get the policy at WP:RS changed." I'm sure in the earliest days of WP, before that policy was very well tested, people really did say things like that, and that's why we have such hard-to-circumvent policies now. --Nigelj (talk) 21:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

We aren't talking about what Jones said. We're talking about Peter Kelemen's reaction to released emails (and some other reactions). There is no need to defend or explain his comments. Ignignot (talk) 21:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the rebuttal, I could find no Reliable Source that said that no unethical behaviour has taken place. We could say something to the effect that no charges have been filed even without a Reliable Source, couldn't we? But of course that's not the same. We do have the quote from the IPCC chair saying essentially that IPCC process can't be hacked. Madman (talk) 22:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Statements from elected representatives

I am dismayed that all mention of this source has been expunged from the article. Times have moved on and perhaps this one is now more germane. It is an opinion piece written by the UK prime minister, so is pretty central. Regarding the emails, he writes:

Let no one be in any doubt about the overwhelming scientific evidence that underpins the Copenhagen conference. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change brings together over 4,000 scientists from every corner of the world. Their recent work has sharpened, not diminished, the huge and diverse body of evidence of human-made global warming. Its landmark importance cannot be wished away by the theft of a few emails from one university research centre. On the contrary, the pernicious anti-scientific backlash that the emails have unleashed has exposed just what is at stake.

The purpose of the climate change deniers' campaign is clear, and the timing no coincidence. It is designed to destabilise and undermine the efforts of the countries gathering in Copenhagen today.

I propose summarising this as follows:

Gordon Brown has said that there is no doubt about the overwhelming scientific evidence that underpins the Copenhagen conference. The recent work over over 4,000 scientists, as represented by the IPCC, has sharpened and not diminished the huge and diverse body of evidence of human-made global warming. "Its landmark importance cannot be wished away by the theft of a few emails from one university research centre. On the contrary, the pernicious anti-scientific backlash that the emails have unleashed has exposed just what is at stake." he added, noting that the purpose of the climate change deniers' campaign is clear, and its timing is no coincidence. "It is designed to destabilise and undermine the efforts of the countries gathering in Copenhagen."<ref>

At the same time, I intend splitting the current sub-section, as raised by Itsmejudith, above into 'Elected national representatives' and 'Political organisations'. Currently, only Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute would appear in the latter.

Two questions: has anyone any objections, before I proceed? and can someone find a recent statement re the emails and docs from Pres. Obama? I find it hard to believe he has never mentioned them in any way, and so the article seems a bit lacking there. --Nigelj (talk) 14:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Why Obama? There are plenty of world leaders without putting in more US bias. Unless Obama says anything notable then please don't go out of your way to make this website look even more Wikipedia.US. 88.109.63.241 (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Only that he's another world leader, and I thought I'd try and be nice to our colonial cousins ;-) --Nigelj (talk) 14:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I would agree that a statement from Mr Brown would be appropriate. I do hestitate to put in large paragraphs because I'm afraid people won't read them. Madman (talk) 14:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I think, especially as the incident happened in the UK, a five-line reaction from the UK Prime Minister is about right. In the absence of any other comments although the article and this Talk are quite active, I think I'll go ahead. --Nigelj (talk) 14:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree - that should be the gold standard in the reaction section. Ignignot (talk) 15:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Done, with a few typos fixed too.--Nigelj (talk) 15:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I've had a Google for something from the US, but there seems to be nothing from Obama, nothing from his advisors since 2 Dec. --Nigelj (talk) 15:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Is Google censoring "Climategate"?

Use the talk page to discuss the article, not the event.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm sorry for raising this issue, because my gut feeling is that it is just a cock-up, but as I've no way to verify the extent of this story through my normal search engine and it certainly is true to some extent as I was wondering why climategate was coming up as "climate guatemala", I'd prefer to raise it and be told it is nothing than to ignore it. Oh, god, no idea how this would be put in the article, and with the current climate of censorship, I'm not sure I want to waste time trying, but here is the information anyway.[57][58] (And the examiner carries the story, but Wikipedia censors that link! Isonomia (talk) 16:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC) I think at some point we can dismiss claims like that as paranoid. There are roughly 3 million hits for climategate on google, so if they are censoring it they are quite incompetent. Unfortunately the polarized views on each side of the issue make some people draw the conclusion that there is a vast conspiracy (about a vast conspiracy (... )). And I'm not just talking about skeptics here. Ignignot (talk) 16:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC) It was kind of damned if I do raise it and damned if I don't! Hopefully that is the end to the discussion! Isonomia (talk) 17:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC) I've seen this too. There are, as far as I know, no Reliable Sources reporting this. If not, there's nothing for us here. Madman (talk) 17:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC) To the editor who removed this on the basis that "it was not a proposal to edit", of course it f***ing wasn't a proposal to edit, it was a request for other editors to help investigate because although my gut instinct is that it is not worth putting in the article, unless I raise the question and request other editors who are familiar with other search engines (I'm sadly dedicated to google) to check it out, how on earth is it ever going to get into the article, if and it only matters if there is any foundation to this. Isonomia (talk) 17:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Judith Curry's reaction

"Well, I mean, I believe that this was a blow to the credibility of our science. And I'm concerned particularly in the context of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC, Fourth Assessment Report. You know, 1,000 scientists contribute to this from 130 different countries. It's a process that takes several years.

So the IPCC is really the authoritative assessment of our science for policymakers. And some of these emails do mention the IPCC and trying to keep certain journal articles or papers out of the IPCC, and I think that's wrong."

See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121139996

"But the failure to distinguish between, like, the advocacy group, talk radio kind of skeptics versus scientists, researchers and even people on blogs who are actually doing analysis, you know, technical people analyzing the data and doing analyses, I think all of that kind of skepticism needs to be looked at, rather than trying to dismiss it in the way that I'm seeing, you know, in these emails."

Hope this helps others who want to contribute. Ann arbor street (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

-gate link?

While we're calling it ClimateGate, I'd like the link to list-of-gates restored, that [59] removes William M. Connolley (talk) 18:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I don't see any reason to remove it. While it isn't critical to the article, anyone seeing "Climategate" and knowing "Watergate" could wonder, "hey what other -gates are there?" and then find out that it gets tacked onto everything under the sun. Ignignot (talk) 18:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree too. It is an informative and encyclopedic cross-reference - just exactly what we're here for, with hypertext. --Nigelj (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

contradiction:

Blog post: ...when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate... [60]

Blog comment: ...At around 6.20am (EST) Nov 17th, somebody hacked into the RC server from an IP address associated with a computer somewhere in Turkey...and uploaded a file FOIA.zip to our server...[61]

which one is more reliable? 93.86.205.97 (talk) 19:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Am I missing something? What's the difference? --Nigelj (talk) 19:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

first says attempted to upload (implying failed), later says uploaded. 93.86.205.97 (talk) 19:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comitting unpublishable OR here but I think the attempt was to upload it to the blog, as opposed to just getting it on their server, which it appears they succeded in doing. I think our article is fine as is, but I can see the source of confusion. Hipocrite (talk) 19:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

that makes sense (server vs blog). thanks. 93.86.205.97 (talk) 19:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Posting entirely from recollection, I agree with the distinction. I think someone was able to upload the file, and tried but failed to post the “announcement” to the blog. The activity was noticed, and blocked and the uploaded file was removed.SPhilbrickT 20:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That is correct. The interesting question is why RealClimate was targeted. It seems to have been an attempt to frame RC for the distribution of the files. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That seems to be both OR and complete speculation. Maybe it was because they are the top climate blog and they wanted to show it to as many people as possible? Maybe it was because a login for the blog was included in the hacked email data? Maybe it was because it was just one of many attempted uploads? Maybe it was because many of the people at the CRU are involved with the blog itself? But the most important question is, where is there a source for any of this? Ignignot (talk) 20:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Alexa climateprogress.org+realclimate.org+wattsupwiththat.com+climateaudit.org -- SEWilco (talk) 21:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

why will have to wait for analysis or confession. -- SEWilco (talk) 21:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

which some have dubbed

Either it's called it or it isn't. If it is, it should be written as "also known as". If it isn't, it shouldn't be in the article. I don't particularly care which it is. CNN refers to it as climategate. They haven't dubbed it as such. Newsweek similarly refers to as climategate. ABC news too. With all the dubbing going on, I think I'm watching a foreign film. -Atmoz (talk) 21:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would prefer that this stupid, jokey "gate" nonsense was purged from Wikipedia as unencyclopedic; however, that fact remains that some sources (though by no means all) have adopted this retarded term for the incident. The usage is particularly prevalent in the US, where crawling information bars and "chyrons" have limited space. "Climategate" is not an encyclopedic term. At best, it is simply a moniker; therefore, "dubbed" seems appropriate (although I would prefer "which some refer to as..."). -- Scjessey (talk) 21:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I just don't think that dubbed sounds very encyclopedic, even though climategate is a stupid name. Instead of foreign films by the way, I was thinking that it should be called Sir Climategate of East Anglia. Ignignot (talk) 21:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I suggest using "Climategate" and "Climategate scandal" as alternate titles that redirect here. There's a strong tendency here in the Colonies to append the suffix "-gate" onto the name of any scandal, and so the term is gaining traction. Just trying to help. And calling it a "hacking incident" in the main title assumes that it was the result of hacking, so the word "hacking" should be removed. (P&W immediately covers his head with his arms, and flees from the Talk page in a zigzag pattern.) Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 21:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate already existed as a redirect, I added in Climategate scandal as another redirect. The hacking in the title thing is a huge can of worms that should be discussed in the appropriate talk section. Ignignot (talk) 21:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to correct someone way up there above, "CRU gate" has actually 690,000 hits -- here. (CRUgate, one word, around 6,000). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexh19740110 (talk • contribs)

As I'm sure most of you know, the number of hits Google generates is only loosely connected with the number of results it turns up. In this case, it runs out at 469 (and precisely zero of the 9 hits on that page are about climate). Guettarda (talk) 22:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I like "which some have dubbed". At this stage, it isn't a "thing", it doesn't have a name. But some have named the issue. Guettarda (talk) 22:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, let's recap something that I mentioned when we were discussing the inclusion of "Climategate". If people want to argue that "CRUgate" is in use they need to refer to reliable sources - not blogs - and a general Google search is next to useless in that regard (see WP:GOOGLE). Google News finds just six sources, five of them blogs and one an opinion piece, which use the term. [62] So it clearly is not in any general usage among reliable sources as opposed to the blogosphere. Second, it is original research to use sources as examples of usage. You need sources which specifically speak of the term's usage, rather than sources which merely use the term. Hence - for example - the Reuters source cited after "Climategate" says that the affair was "already dubbed "Climategate", and our article reflects this wording.

Turning to Atmoz's comments, "also known as" is problematic because, first, the existing wording specifically reflects the source, while that wording does not - it's one editor's own spin on it (hence OR). Second, "also known as" makes it seem that the alternate term is a general term for it, which it clearly isn't (hence also OR and rather POV). The term is not in general use like "Watergate"; it was specifically coined by anti-science activists to promote the incident as a scandal, so it is loaded with POV connotations. Given the very partisan way in which it's used we need to be careful about how we present it. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

There are no sources which refer to this as "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident". You're argument is disingenuous at best. -Atmoz (talk) 22:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You will also no doubt find that there are "no sources" which refer to "Rathergate" as Killian documents controversy or "Attorneygate" as "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy". Those names are used because of Wikipedia's policy on article naming and our avoidance of "gate" in article titles. (I wrote the relevant sections of those policies a very long time ago, so I know what I'm talking about here.) Wikipedia is not news: we deliberately avoid non-neutral article titles, and we make an effort to find descriptive article titles. Yes, "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident" is longer and clumsier but it has the huge advantages of (a) neutrality and (b) telling you something about the subject. "Climategate" tells you only that it's something about climate which someone considers a scandal. I'm not saying that "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident" is necessarily the best title (I didn't choose it!) but it's significantly better than a lot of the alternatives. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)But "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident", it's a descriptive phrase. Because it isn't really a "thing", it doesn't have a name. Just a descriptive phrase for the article title. Guettarda (talk) 22:57, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I just want to go on record as saying that this has has to be one of the lamest edit wars I've ever seen on Wikipedia. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Lamest edit war ever. Why not just say "widely referred to as "Climategate"" or somesuch? That would be entirely accurate. Evercat (talk) 22:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Simple. We have three groups of editors here. One group wants to maximize the damage of this controversy as much as possible. The second group wants to minimize it as much as possible. Then there's the third group who just wants to write a good article in accordance with WP:NPOV and WP:RS. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no objection to that if someone can find a source to support it. As I said, merely finding examples of usage isn't enough - what we need are sources telling us how the term is used (widely? narrowly? who uses it?). Otherwise it's OR and weasel wording. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Would this do as a source? [63] Evercat (talk) 22:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Seriously? A list of Google search results? What did I just say about "merely finding examples of usage"? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, seriously. It's not just an example usage, its an indication of how wide that usage is, which is what you asked for. Nobody looking at that link can deny that the term is widely used. About 600,000 hits contain both "Climategate" and "Climate Research Unit" [64] indicating that there's a substantial use of the term in this context. Evercat (talk) 23:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that is pure original research. It's an argument that's not made in reliable sources. I don't mind including the term, but if we're going to say anything about how the term is used it needs to be sourced. And you should know that Google tests are heavily caveated/deprecated. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not original research. I didn't do the research, Google did. Google is a fairly reliable indicator of how widely a phrase is used on the web. I think it's obvious you're trying to use the letter of Wikipedia policy to object to an edit that you know would be perfectly sensible and accurate. You don't actually deny that "Climategate" is being widely used, do you? [Edit: but see my comment below...] Evercat (talk) 23:18, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course I don't deny that it's widely used. But the point stands about using a Google search as a source in an article to make an argument that doesn't appear in any reliable source. You can't do that. If you don't believe me, go over to the reliable sources noticeboard. I'm afraid you're wrong about "Google doing the research". You created the list of search results from Google's database snapshot at that particular time. It can't be reproduced because the database is in constant flux and the results vary wildly. Google isn't even a fixed source, let alone a reliable one. This argument about using Google search results as a source is one that's come up time and again; basically, it can't be done because of Google's inherent instability and the general unacceptability of making novel arguments without reliable sourcing. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

'About 600,000 hits contain both "Climategate" and "Climate Research Unit"' - actually drill down and you'll find that "600,000" resolves to only 675 pages. Guettarda (talk) 23:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Well that's odd. Have I really been misled into thinking that Climategate is widely used when it in fact isn't? I suppose this is possible... Evercat (talk) 23:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Not sure. But with regards to results, see Wikipedia:Search_engine_test#Google_unique_page_count_issues and the reference cited therein. Google doesn't actually count pages that match your query. Guettarda (talk) 23:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Now it's beginning to be referred to as "hackergate" it seems [65]. Might be a bit too early to rename the article but perhaps we should add that to the list in the lead section. NB.
—Apis (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Channel 4 News called it "emailgate" the other day... Itsmejudith (talk) 23:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate is the single most common name for the incident. No other name has stuck. I don't actually care much what the title of the article is, but "Climategate" should be introduced without disparagement and the which some sources have dubbed Climategate wording is dismissive, therefore POV. It isn't serious encyclopedic language, either. Let's use neutral language with a more serious tone, the way articles normally use it: also known as Climategate. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"Climategate" has two problems. First of all, it's a very US-centric moniker that is little-used outside of US and US-influenced media. Secondly, it carries the implication of guilt on the part of the CRU, when in fact the guilt lies with the individuals or group who conducted the data theft. A fairer approach would be to say something like "which some media commentators have referred to as 'Climategate'". -- Scjessey (talk) 01:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You've given a good reason not to use "Climategate" as the article title, but none of those are good reasons not to neutrally note that it is a name very, very frequently used. It isn't just used in the U.S., either. Here's a Google News search limited to UK sources, showing results from many prominent sources. [66] (I did the search to show prominent sources.) -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It's still not ubiquitous enough to label it without a qualifier. "Some media commentators have referred to it as..." or "Some media outlets...", etc. Wikipedia itself must not apply this label, if you get my drift. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

also known as Climategate isn't "Wikipedia itself" saying anything other than that it's a name that's been used for it. No more, no less. Neutral. "Some media outlets" using the term is always assumed because it's obvious. Using a "qualifier" is Wikipedia itself making a statement about use of that term, which would be fine if there were something special about the term, but in this case there isn't anything special about it. If it's worthwhile, we might cite some source discussing the term and possible objections to it. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:47, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but using the term "also known as" would need a qualifier. "Also known as" by whom? Either you stick in a festival of corroborating references, or you simply say "some media commentators" and throw in a couple of representative references. There should be no doubt whatsoever that it isn't "Wikipedia's voice" using the term. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Plenty of "some" corrobation. Search the article for Climategate and you find there are already a half-dozen references which use the term. Go through the article's versions in other languages for more non-US-centric examples. Actually read the sources if you need more. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

AKA Climategate (as in, the name everyone uses) would need a qualifier, but "Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident," which no one, anywhere, "knows" it as, does not?Drolz09 (talk) 04:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

AAAS Reaffirms Statements on Climate Change and Integrity

I think this statement should go into the article.[67] The AAAS is a relevant organisation regarding all things science so their opinion matters. I also think we should start pruning out the comments by some of the less notable individual scientists.
—Apis (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. On the current dispute going on over the word "theft", not that they say: "AAAS expressed grave concerns that the illegal release of private emails stolen from the University of East Anglia..." Guettarda (talk) 22:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Name – a compromise: Climate Research Unit science controversy

As proposed by Ronnotel suggest above the article should change name to the more neutral Climate Research Unit science controversy as also ChrisO indicates above. Could this be a compromise between the Climagate and current name Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident? Nsaa (talk) 23:11, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Let me suggest an alternative - Climatic Research Unit files controversy. This is more precise, since the focus of the controversy is on the stolen files. The controversy is not about the CRU's science in general but about what the stolen files (supposedly) indicate about specific aspects of its science. Compare with Killian documents controversy. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"[W]hat the stolen files (supposedly) indicate about specific aspects of its science" - it's more than the science...much of the discussion has turned to behaviour and ethics. Not to mention, the "response" is as much of a story. Guettarda (talk) 23:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I'd have a problem with that. This isn't, primarily, about their science. No one has documented any evidence of scientific misconduct, as far as I know. Not to mention, the main news here is about the willingness of people to cherry pick quotes and turn them into a full blown attack on the scientific endeavour - something that's old hat for evolution denialists, but a fairly new tactic for the climate denialists. Guettarda (talk) 23:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Climatic Research Unit emails incident any use? (Translation of the French WP article title.) Itsmejudith (talk) 23:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Similar names have been suggested several times and the consensus has been not to use non-neutral words such as controversy. Please also see Wikipedia:Words to avoid.
—Apis (talk) 23:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I suppose we could go the whole hog and call it Theft of Climatic Research Unit files but I suspect some people on this talk page might have a problem with that... -- ChrisO (talk) 23:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You have a point on "files", since most of what was stolen apparently wasn't email. Guettarda (talk) 23:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I suggested it. I could live with a variant of Itsmejudith's suggestion, Climatic Research Unit files incident. I do think we should get away from "e-mails" if we can. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) On "theft" as well I think, because hack is rather vague, and we don't know the details of how the files where stolen.
—Apis (talk) 23:38, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"Theft" annoys copyright-skeptics like me :-) because nobody's been deprived of anything; the files were copied, not stolen, as would be obvious if they were physical files. Evercat (talk) 23:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

cf Data theft... Would you say it wasn't theft if your bank had been hacked and your bank account details had been taken? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

How about Some climate change deniers attempt to sabotage the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by conducting espionage on the Climatic Research Unit? On a serious note, the title should definitely not include the phrase "science controversy" in it. If the title is to change at all, serious consideration should be given to make sure it is a neutral title that everyone agrees on. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Please stop making incendiary comments in a discussion that is supposed to try to get us to consensus on a difficult topic. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It was not an "incendiary comment" at all. I was trying to prove a point - that there should be proper discussion and a cast-iron consensus for a neutral article name, if it is to be changed. Otherwise we end up with "move wars" and pointless bickering. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the "copying isn't theft" argument, but wouldn't the legal term still be theft? So lacking a better word, but perhaps that word is hacking.
—Apis (talk) 00:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I am stunned to read the above exchange. Where would the editors have stood on the Pentagon Papers? This scandal - and it is a scandal - has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that emails were hacked/stolen/released, and everything to do with the content of the emails. The possibility certainly exists that the email quotes were "cherry-picked", but the fact remains that (right or wrong) the professors have failed to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and the neutrality of the scientific community has been called into question. The current article name is convoluted, non-descriptive, misleading, and should be changed to reflect what *most* people on both sides of the issue are calling it: Climategate. Anything else smacks of damage control and spin.Nightmote (talk) 03:20, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Pentagon Papers sounds pretty neutral to me? It's not called Pentagate, nor the Pentagon Papers Scandal, not even the Pentagon Papers Controversy.
—Apis (talk) 03:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

At the very least, "incident" is obviously inappropriate. Never has the word incident been applied to an ongoing, multistage controversy before now. If you guys want to use incident, you need to make a separate article about the hack, and change this one to controversy, then get rid of all the hack nonsense that has no bearing on the science issues. And yes, it's Pentagon Papers, not "Daniel Ellsberg Larceny Incident" Drolz09 (talk) 04:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Jones e-mail

Nsaa just added this bit to the article:

====Jones e-mail of February 2, 2005====
On February 2, 2005, Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, wrote, "If they ever hear there is a [[Freedom of information in the United Kingdom|Freedom of Information Act]] now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone."<ref name=nzherald_20091128/>

The file mentioned was not actually deleted.{{fact}}

I think we have to be very careful about how we treat these e-mails. First, there's a risk of cherry-picking. Is this particular e-mail notable? Has it been cited by other reliable sources or just this one? Second, what is the context? Third, the "defence" looks awfully thin. What does Jones himself say about this, if anything? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Why do we have a simple quote, sans context, of the Jones email from Feb 2005? It's either a random quote, or it's an attempt to imply wrongdoing, without actually having a source to back up the implication. Which, of course, isn't permissible, per WP:BLP. Guettarda (talk) 23:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

There is indeed a risk of cherry-picking. That bit was deleted by William and restored by me, because the whole "destruction of data" thing is a widely reported topic that we ought to have something on. Even if the section is not neutral now, it will hopefully become so as it grows... Evercat (talk) 23:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the Globe and Mail, is it a reliable source? If so, there's this. Evercat (talk) 23:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

BLP doesn't allow us to use material that it "not neutral for now" when it's about living people. Guettarda (talk) 23:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not as if its untrue that he wrote it. But we need more context is all. Evercat (talk) 23:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a cherry-picked quote that implies wrong-doing. If we're going to suggest that people did wrong, we need reliable sources to back up the accusations. We can't print innuendo, not about living people. Guettarda (talk) 00:02, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well since 2 people have now removed it I will not be restoring it, but note the conversation above at "Why is this quote not included in the article?" - this whole destruction of data business is one of the hot topics that should be mentioned somehow. Evercat (talk) 00:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying that it shouldn't be discussed in the article. By all means - discuss it. Using reputable, reliable sources. But don't simply use a quote to imply wrongdoing. Guettarda (talk) 00:09, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

That's not my intention; though I can't speak for whoever added it to start with. Evercat (talk) 00:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Guettarda that something of this sort needs to be included. We mention that the UEA inquiry will be reviewing whether CRU violated FOIA laws/rules/etc, so we should say why they are looking at that. Madman (talk) 00:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• See "FOI subsection restored" section, below -- a fine spot to include it. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

FOI subsection restored

I've restored the FOI subsection which had previously been removed with the objection that it was somehow a BLP violation. Discussion at WP:BLPN showed otherwise. See WP:BLPN#Use of blog to source allegations of criminal wrongdoing by named individuals. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
By the way, here's the diff showing what we're talking about: -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, i don't agree with your reading of the comments on that board. Its a WP:SPS and it doesn't come under any of the exceptions to the rule (ie. he's not an expert). And since it is BLP material that we are talking about, then there has to be some very good reasons for ignore wikipedia rules. Find better and reliable sources. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no other way to read the comments at the BLP board. He isn't self-published, as is made abundantly clear by the section on the BLP noticeboard, which I'm surprised you didn't notice. The blog is published at the Science magazine website. Using italics doesn't make your argument for a BLP violation any better: It's been discussed in numerous publications by now and an inquiry has begun. The source is as reliable as they come: a journalist from a reputable publication where both he and his editors can be expected to be well-versed in libel law. And as for sourcing, the journalist himself uses sources: a British lawyer familiar with FOI and the British agency that handles FOI law. You didn't really read the BLP noticeboard discussion, did you? All this information is there. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

My, my, Kim, you actually participated in the BLPN discussion. I'd forgotten. All of your objections have been answered there, yet you repeat them here. Perhaps you'd forgotten those parts of the BLPN discussion in which your objections were answered with evidence. Again, please review them. It would save us the trouble of repeating them all here, although by this point, I think I might just cut and paste previous responses. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly enough there are only 2 (uninvolved) comments to that BLP request, one is ambivalent with a nod towards "No", and the other is positive. Thats not nearly enough to assert that it went in the way you want. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Please address the actual issues, which you failed to do in the BLP discussion. Please address the actual points I made here (after I already made them there). You objected on the basis of BLP and self-published sourcing. I've already shown that there is no BLP violation and the sourcing is not self-published. Do you have any other objections or any further BLP objections that haven't already been knocked down? -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not at all familiar with this aspect of the matter. Were any emails actually deleted? If they were, then absolutely it should be in the article. If they were not, then it all becomes speculative stuff from a blog that should not be in the article, per WP:BLP. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:32, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Please familiarize yourself with the BLPN discussion conveniently linked at the top of this section. All your points should be answered there. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

A simple "yes" the emails were deleted, or "no" the emails were not deleted is all I need. The discussion you refer to does not seem to focus on the salient point I am getting at. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been clearer. Your point is slightly off topic: the section is not about whether or not FOIA was violated but whether or not that is a possibility, based on what Jones said in some of the emails. The point that the journalist was making, a point made by other reliable sources as well, is that this is an area where Jones wrote some suspicious statements in the emails, and if emails or documents were deleted in the face of an FOIA request, there are legal consequences involved. The point is not whether or not anything was actually deleted -- something we have no way of knowing. This is an issue that many reliable sources have brought up about this well-known person, so there is no BLP violation in WP bringing it up. If you look at the BLPN discussion, this will be very clear, very quickly. Again, sorry I wasn't clear about that. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, what you have made clear is that you want to write about something that didn't happen. Some iffy-sounding emails that offer no proof of anything, that a few blogs and other sources have picked up on. Regardless of the outcome of that BLPN discussion, it does not seem as if the long-winded exposé that is currently being edit-warred in and out of the article is appropriate. If it gets mentioned at all, it would seem that WP:WEIGHT demands it be a one-line mention, or something of that level. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If you can't discuss this civilly, I'm going to ignore you. I asked you to familiarize yourself with the facts. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 02:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I have been perfectly civil. I am coming at this from the perspective of being an experienced Wikipedia editor, not an expert on climate change. The information you seek to include is about a nebulous "maybe" scenario, so it is clear that it does not warrant the enormous chunk that has been proffered thus far. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, edit warring of this section must stop. Until there is a clear consensus for inclusion of this controversial section (on this talk page, not some other meta page), it should not be in the article. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• Anybody still think it's a BLP violation to bring up possible FOIA violations? Apparently the University of East Anglia thinks it's a subject worth discussing: [68]

LONDON - The British university at the center of what climate skeptics are calling "Climategate" on Thursday named an outside reviewer and detailed what would be investigated. [...]

The university said Russell would also review: [...]

"Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the University’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act (‘the FOIA’) and the Environmental Information Regulations (‘the EIR’) for the release of data."

-- JohnWBarber (talk) 02:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying it is a BLP vio. My assertion is that it is a violation of WP:WEIGHT because too much coverage is given relative to the rest of the article, violating the neutral point of view. Clearly, we need to establish a consensus for what (if any of it) should be included. That is a discussion that should occur here, and not elsewhere. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

What I think you misunderstand is that the problem was with the source, and that criminal allegations are subject to WP:BLP. You cannot source that material from a blog, even if that blog is hosted by science (compare with a column in a newspaper).
—Apis (talk) 03:07, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Additional source

The Stolen E-mails: Has 'Climategate' been overblown'? From TIME. I'm a bit hesitant to actually edit this article, but perhaps worth citing briefly re: press coverage? It specifically addresses the debate over what to name the incident ("Climategate" vs. "Swifthack"?!?) MastCell ^Talk 00:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, anything Blahgate uses US-centric terminology. The term "Climategate" is only popular in the United States, and among a very few US-influenced media outlets. You would need a decent smattering of international sources to really justify using this term. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest you to try to search for "Climategate" in the French Google news. I bet you would be surprised by the very reliable sources openly reporting on Le Climategate. So much for the US-centric usage theory... If anything, it is in the US and UK that the mainstream media tries to avoid the word, while the rest of the world is having a ball using it. Dimawik (talk) 02:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It must be made clear that media outlets are using the term, not Wikipedia. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Wouldn't want wikipedia to use the most widely-known international media-sourced phrase available when "Climate Research Unit email hacking incident" was still available.Nightmote (talk) 03:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

We aren't talking about the article title, which should be as neutral as possible ("Climategate" implies guilt, due to the association with Watergate). -- Scjessey (talk) 03:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

US-centric? Not in Wikipedia? Take a look at the Wikipedia articles in other languages. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we need to mention the media. While I strongly support keeping the reference to Climategate in WP, personally I dislike the term. Unfortunately, no other concise label had appeared in time to become popular, and by now, I think, it is too late to coin one. The name of the article in WP is a non-starter for any media outlet for obvious reasons (again, I am not in favor of changing the name of the article). Something along the lines, "frequently referred to as Climategate by the media" will work for me. To Nightmote: in WP, there are rules that, if followed, really discourage the use of suffix "-gate" in the article titles - and I think that it is good for an encyclopedia (note that I am also an active supporter of keeping the word in the first sentence of the article). Also note that Google search is smart enough to find the redirect and thus our work comes up first in Google search for "Climategate". Dimawik (talk) 03:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I would be in favor of the "frequently referred..." construct you propose. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"Began...with the hacking of..."

This is simply inaccurate. The scandal began with the RELEASE of hacked data. The hacking occurred over a month prior to the scandal. Indeed, part of the actual controversy revolves around a BBC reporter choosing not to run the story, after being given the data well before it became public.

Incidentally, this is part of the reason that "CRU e-mail hacking incident" is an absurd article title. If you don't want to call it Climatgate (and I understand the reasoning even though I don't find it convincing) it should at least be called something like "CRU Controversy."

In any event, the opening line should be corrected to "began with the release of data acquired by hackers from the..." or something to that effect. Drolz09 (talk) 03:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

That sort of makes sense, but you could argue that it did begin with the hack if you regard the article as a sort of "timeline" of events. Personally, I think your interpretation would be correct because the "timeline" approach is more in the vein of a Wikinews article. I am opposed to the use of the word "controversy" in the title of any Wikipedia article, per WP:WTA. It is rare that a case can be made for its use to be neutral. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"The scandal began with the RELEASE of hacked data" - perhaps, but the incident began with the theft of the files. This is about the incident, so... Guettarda (talk) 03:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If incident is used here to mean "an individual occurrence or event," then you are correct, but in that case, it also ended with the hacking. If, on the other hand, incident means "an embarrassing occurrence, esp. of a social nature," then it began with the release of the emails. The reality is that incident is wholly inappropriate as a description of this controversy, and the sentence is still in error.Drolz09 (talk) 03:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"after being given the data well before it became public" do you have a reliable source that confirm this?
—Apis (talk) 03:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If BBC reporter Paul Hudson admitting that he got the emails on October 12 counts. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/11/climategate-cru-hacked-into-an.shtml Drolz09 (talk) 03:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, no, not in itself I think. :( There might be more about this later when the police investigation is complete. Very interesting though.
—Apis (talk) 04:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

So a BBC reporter admitting on a BBC blog that he personally received the emails on October 12, more than a month before this article says the "incident" "began" is not a viable source? What, would does the BBC need to report that a BBC reporter posted an admission on his BBC blog before it actually happened? Drolz09 (talk) 04:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

This issue seems to keep coming up as people seem to keep misinterpreting Paul Hudson's comment (although many people pointed out that people appeared to be misinterpreting his comment before any clarification) despite the fact he clarified the situation the day later [69]. There is no evidence he received any e-mails from any hack nor has he ever claimed he did. He did receive some of the e-mails discussing him which were copied to him. There has been some suggestion in news sources (well one that I saw) that the hacking began significantly before the documents were released but no evidence was provided for any of the claims Nil Einne (talk) 04:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I yield that point, although it is some remarkably poor wording on his part. That does not change the main point though, which is that the scandal/controversy began with the release of the data. The "incident" began and ended (or more properly, occurred/took place) with the hack. There is no way that the opening sentence is appropriate to the article. Drolz09 (talk) 04:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Climategate and CRU Hack as separate articles

I am not a wikipedia expert but it seems to me that these are in fact two separate issues. It's entirely possible for one person to be vehemently opposed to both hacking and scientific malfeasance.

The two issues really have no relation to each other; that is, whether or not the emails were obtained legally has no bearing on whether they reveal corruption. The opposite is also true; whether or not the emails constitute corruption has no bearing on whether they were obtained legally. The only reason that this would not be the case is if the emails had been manipulated by the hackers, but not only has no one alleged this--they have been determined genuine.

Accordingly, neither issue should taint the other on Wikipedia. If the emails reveal corruption, the article on them should not be cluttered with discussion of how the hacking was also corrupt. This amounts to instantiating "two wrongs makes a right" in an Wikipedia article. Again, the opposite is equally true.

Also, the hack occurred months prior to the actual scandal, and the hackers are unidentified. There is no reason to believe that they are even affiliated with the principle actors in the current scandal, but when they are discussed in the same article, they are effectively conflated with the skeptics, unfairly impugning the reputations of the latter. Drolz09 (talk) 03:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)