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Google glacial melt 2035 and see how many hits you get. Look above for the rest of my arguments mark nutley (talk) 23:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

You are hardly uninvolved with this article Stephen. Oh, and TS, why'd you remove the list of those for/against? Was it because the talk pages show a clear case for inclusion? You also removed my editting to make my post look ugly. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, you are quoting WP:COATRACK which is NOT wikipedia policy, and indeed, the talk pages show the vast majority of involved wikipedians voted AGAINST making it policy due to, among other things, its potential abuse for keeping relevent info out of articles. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

As for "spin" I can only present the counterarguments that your side has made - like your quoting of non-policy. It isn't my fault that it looks bad. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:19, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

We don't use votes for this kind of thing (hence I guess people are commenting not voting) we use arguments here WP:UNDUE is a heavy argument against including this, given how much coverage IPCC gets and how little this one has got. OTOH is is hardly something to get worked up about. --BozMo talk 19:57, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

This RFC is so grossly biased that it will inevitably accomplish nothing. The first argument "WP:UNDUE Specifically is stated to apply to viewpoints - the proposed section contains facts." is so amusingly incorrect that it makes the cases against the authors viewpoint quite effectively. This discussion should be at the AR4 page - as TS has said. The text is clearly UNDUE; it is inaccurate (it speaks of the report instead of one of several); I don't believe the 3 sources stuff; etc etc William M. Connolley (talk) 21:04, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Everyone is well aware of your bias Connolley. If there are any facts that need correcting then you are free to point them out. Anyway, you are welcome not to "believe" anything you like, but the sources we have say otherwise. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Just my 2c: The error isn't a mere typo, it's a gross error on a topic that's used as one of the main examples of climate change in the media. If it was a mere typo, I'd agree, it'd just be nitpicking. But there is more going on here, it's a mistake that's the result of sloppy work done by the IPCC and it also happens to have been reproduced frequently in the media; both the number being used incorrectly (as is mentioned above) as well as by media pointing out the mistake. The FIRST hit I get on google is a big player, CNN: "The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding quicker than those in other parts of the world and could disappear altogether by 2035 according to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report." and another editor mentioned a BBC article that pointed out the error, so it's not just obscure climate change bloggers writing about these things. So yeah, this perhaps little mistake has had considerable consequence and has been picked up by the big players in the media, so it's well worth including. Considering the article even has a praise section for the IPCC, I think it's not throwing the article off from a NPOV either.BabyNuke (talk) 21:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

You are aware that all that this shows is confirmation bias - right? If you look for something that you know is there, then when you find it, it shouldn't come as a surprise.... Yes, it is an error - No, it isn't important in this context. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Removed per undue wt. and full of errors. Should be in AR4 if anywhere. Vsmith (talk) 22:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

If there are errors then list them and source them. The undue weight complaints are completely without merit. Also, the cry to put some information into satellite articles, where less people are likely to see the information and even fewer people are likely to discuss it seems like a tactic to keep it out of the encyclopedia. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

This article gets more traffic, and therefore more outside opinions (as shown by the number of people who keep restoring the section). Anyway, we don't need policy to keep it in, we need policy to keep it out - and a reliable source has stated that the IPCC has caused "major confusion" - obviously it can't be undue if an outside expert thinks it is important (plus the other reasons against the UNDUE charge). TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:01, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh no, you're wrong there. We do need to establish whether there is consensus and policy support. I don't think the case has been adequately made yet. Edit warring to get it in won't work unless we establish consensus. --TS 00:04, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

From a dictionary

con⋅sen⋅sus  

1. majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.

2. general agreement or concord; harmony.

Currently the majority want this in, therefore a consensus has been reached. mark nutley (talk) 00:15, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The policy support is trivial. Please review WP:V and WP:RS. --GoRight (talk) 03:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

We probably don't have consensus, else you wouldn't be having such a devil of a time getting it to stay. Vsmith, I, Kim, William, and Stephan have removed it. Some of those inserting it are scibaby socks (certainly Jong-C having now been permanently blocked as a scibaby sock). So it doesn't look like consensus at all. --TS 00:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

And yet there are still more just on this talk page who want inclusion - and even more, obviously not socks, who've restored the text, but not gotten involved in the talk page. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:05, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Who? I see Nutley, Bluefield and Goodlocust doing the reverts. All voted above. Please name the (non-sock) others and be very careful with such claims. There is such a thing as reputation. --BozMo talk 08:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess you missed GoRight, VegasProf's edits - also, Cadea and BabyNuke, said they want this included. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Meh. This bit is a clear example of a breach in the much ballyhooed IPCC process. As such it is appropriate to list it here rather than bury it in the report. The weight of the issue comes from this fact alone. It derives it's weight from the weight of the IPCC process and the importance and the claims thereof. --GoRight (talk) 22:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, the IPCC and its proponents have always loudly shouted that they use peer-reviewed literature to make their assessments - this has now been categorically shown to be false. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Shall we produce a tally from the opinions above to make an orderly assessment of the state of consensus? Or will that be viewed as pointy and controversial? --GoRight (talk) 22:59, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thing is we don't decide things by vote. Anyway, didn't you do that further up the page, but not including ones who made a change either way with edit comments? If you do a list please exclude socks, include article editors and mark me down clearly as "unable to generate a flicker of interest from anywhere deep within my soul on this issue". And if you get anything other than "no consensus" stand in the corner until you can recount straight. :-) --BozMo talk 23:17, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Why included article editors? The initial criticism was that the source wasn't good enough, but that criticism no longer applies. Also, some people appeared to just be reverting the edits of the sock. If someone wants to put their name on the list then they are welcome to do it, but we shouldn't count article editors who are unwilling to state and defend their reasons for reversion and who may have changed their mind.TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

In 2009, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) published a report, Climate Change Reconsidered, which broadly critiques the IPCC findings. Coauthors Dr. S. Fred Singer and Dr. Craig Idso and 35 contributors and reviewers say this 880-page report "contradicts the IPCC’s central claims, that global warming is man-made and that its effects will be catastrophic". .

Connelly, please discuss why you reverted my edit and make a positive contribution towards compromise (Misplaced Pages:Revert_only_when_necessary). This change, included above for reference, is neutral, factual and verifiable. As a summary of much scientific literature critical of IPCC results, it is useful to record here to avoid clouding the criticism section with a myriad of studies references. Julien Couvreur (talk) 21:50, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

They're just these guys. You're sourcing this to their website. Can I start a club and get my stuff into Misplaced Pages? --TS 22:03, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

There are two independent issues: whether the criticism is correct and whether it exists. We can argue whether it is correct, which is a matter of opinion and research, but it incontestably exists. This report is valuable to wikipedia in that it summarizes existing criticisms (Or do you question the referenced studies too?). In the spirit of compromise, how about a shortened formulation such as "Climate Change Reconsidered, published in 2009, is a critical synthesis of a number of scientific studies which differ from the IPCC AR4 findings"? Julien Couvreur (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Won't fly. Simple existence is not good enough, it needs to be notable. You being interested does not establish notability. The lack of a WP article is indicative of a lack of notability William M. Connolley (talk) 22:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

All the sources I can find suggest that "NIPCC" is just this bloke and a few of his mates. Do we have any reliable source to say otherwise? --TS 00:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you questioning the expertise of the authors or contributors? Which ones? Just to take one author, Fred_Singer (see credentials and expertise), as an example, why do you question his reliability, as opposed to Stefan_Rahmstorf (I took a random source already included in the page)? Julien Couvreur (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Certainly. Just look at their publication records William M. Connolley (talk) 23:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

While WP:NOTABILITY generally refers to whether an article should exist, or not, allow me to borrow a brief passage from WP:FRINGE:

"A fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. References that debunk or disparage the fringe theory can also be adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents."

Given the perspective here which is analogous to that articulated in the highlighted portion, and recognizing that a WP:NOTABILITY argument is also inherently a discussion of a topic's WP:WEIGHT, I would argue that this article more than adequately establishes the WP:WEIGHT of this topic in this context. --GoRight (talk) 01:54, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you explain this a bit further? I'm just not seeing the relevance of this self-selecting club and its website to this article. --TS 02:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's interesting. The existence of a source which describes the report as "self-evidently nonsense" should be taken as an argument for inclusion in this article? Actually, I'll quote the full context of that description:

"In concluding, We’d like to level with our readers. Some of us thought that the “NIPCC” report was so self-evidently nonsense that we shouldn’t even give it the benefit of any publicity. But it does give a great opportunity to give the RealClimate ‘wiki’ a test ride."

Hm. While references that debunk can be evidence of notability, that passage from WEIGHT shouldn't be misinterpreted as meaning that disparagement in and of itself automatically counts as notability. I'm not sure that it would improve our article here to include – based on these sources – a passage like "Criticism of the IPCC report by a fringe group has been described as "self-evidently nonsense" by a reliable source." TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

If it were "self-evident nonsense" they wouldn't have bothered to respond. The very fact that they took note of it means it is notable. --GoRight (talk) 02:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Are we really writing about "Notability" here? I thought it was a matter of Due Weight. "Notability" is a guideline that is used by some people to determine whether a subject is important enough to merit its own article. Here we're discussing whether a reference to criticism of the IPCC by an ignored and derided fringe organization would be merited, under our Neutral point of view policy, specifically the Due Weight clause. --TS 23:47, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

A notability argument is inherently also a due weight argument. --GoRight (talk) 03:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

An editor can reject the concept of "notability" (I do) without rejecting the neutral point of view. The question is whether to include an opinion when the only secondary source appraising it is a blog item and derisive in tone. That speaks to weight, not "notability". There isn't any weight to speak of. --TS 03:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Please go back and reread this thread and pay particular attention to the argument being presented. --GoRight (talk) 00:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

The NIPCC meets all notability standards for due weight here and the Heartland Institute publisher has a wiki article. The exclusion is abusive, the remover's offer no progressive compromise in favor of obtuse arguing, perhaps forcing escalation. The NIPCC can be attributed with faith in the reader (and little faith for article ownership). Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 00:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

What on earth does "all notability standards for due weight here" mean? Notability is a content guideline and due weight is part of the Neutral point of view policy. Notability concerns whether a subject merits a separate article. Due weight as applied here determines whether we include the opinion of NIPCC. Since the only reference to their opinion we have is to a derisive comment on a blog, we're not going to be including it. It would be like including criticism by the flat earth society in the NASA article. --TS 00:35, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Absurd extrem POV ... if at least it would be like "A fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory." as above in wiki guidance. Please notice the "OR" in the criteria. It is notable because it specifically addresses the IPCC. Please find a middle way to notability. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 00:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

That would be an argument if you were to create an article about the NIPCC (which btw. has already been done - and rejected in AfD) - but not an argument for its inclusion into an article. The whole argument here is silly (sorry), it seems to be (correct me please):

A fringe subject might be notable enough to have an article, therefore any mention in another articles of this fringe subject is ipso facto due weight.

Say what? Please go read WP:NPOV again, pay good attention to the due weight section. If it is fringe then it shouldn't be included. Significant minority positions must be mentioned - but fringe is per definition not a "significant minority". --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I read NPOV UNDUE and the first thing it says is "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." The Heartland NIPCC report is well above fringe and even if it were, it would still be HIGHLY RELEVANT to this article. Please follow WP:ONEWAY and the toxic negativity vanishes with constructive progress. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 07:31, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

HNY. Ok, to move the conversation forward clearly you claim "well above fringe" which others here seem to dispute. So what is your argument for this not being a fringe source? --BozMo talk 09:35, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Well if you look at the credentials of the guys who run it i would say they are well above fringe. --mark nutley (talk) 10:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

"Fringe" doesn't mean "lacking qualifications in the field." It means "espousing ideas that have little or no currency." NIPCC are fringe, and if they hadn't cleverly chosen a name that sounds a bit like IPCC I doubt this thread would have gone on so long as it has. --TS 11:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes tony, although you are correct that their qualifications are not relevent i just looked over the wp:fringe rules, in this part ] it cleary states "A fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. References that debunk or disparage the fringe theory can also be adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents."

So the wp:fringe rules clearly state that the NIPPC can be used due to the fact a notable group (The IPPC)has both referenced and disparaged the NIPCC mark nutley (talk) 14:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a bit dubious given the provenance of the debunking--RealClimate is a useful source on climatology, but it is by no means a "major publication". Note that even if it were, the very page you cite also says:

Fringe theories should be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way. However, meeting this standard indicates only that the idea may be discussed in other articles, not that it must be discussed in a specific article. If mentioning a fringe theory in another article gives undue weight to the fringe theory, discussion of the fringe theory may be limited, or even omitted altogether. If no independent reliable sources connect a particular fringe theory to a mainstream subject, there should not even be a link through a see also section, lest the article serve as a coatrack.

Really we're wasting our time even discussing this. It isn't going to happen unless major independent publications treat this idea prominently and seriously. That needs a bit more than a flippant dismissal on a climatology blog. --TS 15:17, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry tony, is that in reply to me? I did not cite real climate as blogs are not reliable sources mark nutley (talk) 15:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I did misread you. Do you have a link for the IPCC addressing the NIPCC "in a serious and prominent way"? I've scanned this discussion and don't see any prior reference to this, but that could be a New Year hangover problem. --TS 15:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry no, i just had not said real climate :) however the following for independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way. try the following

• The Washington Post
• CNS News
• The Telegraph

All reliable sources which connect the topics. --mark nutley (talk) 15:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

The Washington Post piece is written in a light-hearted way and doesn't present NIPCC as a serious organization. They obviously think these chaps are flat-earthers. CNSNews.com is not to be mistaken for a serious news organization. The Telegraph piece is an opinion piece by Christopher Booker, who for reasons amply documented in our article on the man, is not taken seriously on matters of science. --TS 15:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok tony, you say the washington post is light hearted and think they are flat earthers, so under this part of wp:fringe References that debunk or disparage the fringe theory can also be adequate, then they can be used. cnsnews, i fail to see a problem with them. They have a readership, those readers read about the nipcc. The Telegraph, yes it is an opinion piece, once again that does not matter you asked for independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way. you got them. --mark nutley (talk) 16:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• This is not a credible organisation. It appears to be just more of the usual suspects trying to appear more significant than they are. You could change my mind by showing me peer-reviewed publications in major journals which cite this body as a significant authority in the anthropogenic global warming denial movement. Guy (Help!) 16:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

These are not serious pieces. Read Misplaced Pages:Fringe and see if you can understand what they're getting at. The Post piece for its frivolity, the CNSNews for its provenance and its uncritical regurgitation of a news release, and the Booker piece for the man's abysmal reputation on science.

Note also the term "independent" here certainly compromises the Booker commentary, as he's been a partisan critic of the NIPCC and the global warming consensus for some time. --TS 16:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Man you guys are hard to please :)

How about Senator Hatch NIPCC Report

Climate Science International

The Register

I honestly think i have provide enough links to prove that the NIPCC meets wp:fringe requirements --mark nutley (talk) 17:03, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

If you're down to suggesting that El Rego is a useable source, you're lost William M. Connolley (talk) 17:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

If all you can do is say dismiss just one of the links out of hand then it is you who are lost.

Who and why is "El Rego" not a useable source btw? And this is about wp:fringe and weather or not the NIPCC meets the criteria for inclusion based on it. From the links i have provided i believe i have proved the NIPCC can be used. mark nutley (talk) 17:39, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

El Rego is The Register. And i'm sorry to tell you that neither of your references are reliable sources. (your #2 link is incidentally from almost the same people as the NIPCC (check about us).

"Neither" ??? I have so far posted six links which prove the following or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. References that debunk or disparage the fringe theory can also be adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents." That is the basis of wp:fringe I have covered it quite well and all i get from you guys is you dismiss a few of the sources, you need to prove why they do not cover or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. References that debunk or disparage the fringe theory can also be adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents." as stated in wp:fringe --mark nutley (talk) 18:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Your whole approach is faulty. By demonstrating that the NIPCC is WP:FRINGE, you will ipso-facto be demonstrating that it shouldn't be mentioned here (per WP:WEIGHT). I tried to point that out before. (notice btw. that the climatescienceinternational link that you provided is an astroturf group, that definitively *isn't* independent (take a look at the overlap between authors of the NIPCC and their "About Us" link. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry kim but no, the rules according to wp:fringe means they can be used as a source. However with regards to wp:weight it clearly states, Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. so given that neutrality requires we fairly represent all viewpoints means the NIPCC should be used to give balance as the sources are reliable. From all the links i have provided i believe i have shown the prominence of the NIPCC which also means they can be used. --mark nutley (talk) 18:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Argh! Stating that a source is WP:FRINGE automatically means that the source doesn't represent significant minority. Therefore you are biting yourself in the bum by trying to demonstrate that the NIPCC is fringe. (btw. i agree that they are). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Sigh, Why do you guys only respond to one point at a time, it doth lead to large and unwieldy threads. Someone above said they could not be used as they were a fringe group, i have shown how they can be used under that rule.

Now care to address my point about your weight argument? --mark nutley (talk) 18:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Ho hum, time to hop off the fence. However distasteful to some and for whatever self serving reasons, journalists and others may have given a little notability to the criticisms of a small group setting themselves out as alternatives to consensus. So what's the big deal about listing them with a small amount of detail about what they have said? Perhaps I am getting too apathetic but I thought Nutley won this thread somewhere back with the Washington Post link and we should put something along those lines in here. --BozMo talk 20:35, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm baffled. That link just looks like the usual crud. Why is it winning? William M. Connolley (talk) 22:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Count me as baffled as well. An article that basically says that they are a fringe group, makes them suddenly have due weight !? Hmm? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:27, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

We generally eg list any kind of marginal criticism of big entities as soon as they get any notability, even if it is saying they are fringe etc. When there are few critics there is a kind of weight from being one of few, as soon as notability gets passed, even if that means being noted as a pimple. And it helps to know how substantial critical groups are cos everyone has them. --BozMo talk 22:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

So we just throw weight and npov out the window? "substantial critical groups"? How are they substantial? Sorry - but i'm as baffled now as i was before. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Long and not today probably. I am not suggesting throwing anything out of the window. This is a long article about a complicated organisation, not a science article. The criticism section looks long and thorough but is not, at present it has some rubbish in it including which appears to be written by someone so stupid they do not even know what a lowest common denominator is (unlike any 11 year old still doing maths) but lacks mention of any of the groups which set out to discredit the IPCC. These groups exist, obviously, attract some interest because it sells papers, and once they meet a minimum level of notability to allow them to be mentioned have weight because they are exactly what they are; and rare and of interest because of it. So yes once enough notability is proven they should go in. No other anti IPCC group is mentioned. Their transparent feebleness such as it is can only be to their detractors glory. --BozMo talk 23:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Bozmo, that link to nybooks leads to a page not found? Is it also possible to try and exhaust this current discussion before we continue the arguing in arbcom remedies below? We will get no-were if we keep jumping all over the place. --mark nutley (talk) 11:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

So any chance of finishing off this discussion? I know everyone has jumped into the probation piece but i really think we should focus on one thing at a time if we are to get anywere :)--mark nutley (talk) 22:53, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well as there have been no arguments put forward against this since the 2nd i have to assume that the NIPCC can be used as a source for criticism as was suggested. I believe i have proved it is a reliable source and there have been no objections made within the rules i shall begin work on an inclusion for this article --mark nutley (talk) 21:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

No. Whatever gave you that idea? --TS 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we got to agreeing it as a source but there was some scattered agreement that mentioning the existence of the NIPCC as a criticism might be ok. --BozMo talk 21:54, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Sorry, but you are misreading silence as consensus. The NIPCC falls under WP:FRINGE which means that it isn't a useful source here. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

@tony Well the fact that none of my reasons for them to be used have not been rebutted plus what bozmo said above plus the fact that they can be reliably sourced outside of their own organisation. @Kim, dude i proved above that they can be used under wp:fringe so thats a non argument. --mark nutley (talk) 22:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Mark, you have to obtain consensus. That doesn't mean waiting until everybody is tired of arguing with you, and then declaring consensus. --TS 22:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Tony i am not declaring consensus :) I am suggesting i do a small write up to include in the criticism section, and then present it for discussion. --mark nutley (talk) 13:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom Remedies

This negativity has gone on too long in abusing due weight. It may be time to look at the ArbCom remedies here Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Neutral_point_of_view_as_applied_to_science and Misplaced Pages:Scientific_consensus

The NIPCC is a notable reliable source published by a reputable Heartland Institute and validated by other reliable sources. The Heartland Institute expressed a conflict with the RealClimate bloggers . Of which, the remover is self identified member. I suspect these conflicts have rolled over into Wiki and are disrupting the community for their POV and abusing a resolution to NPOV. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 19:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

No, your statements are simply wrong. NIPCC is not reliable (actually, it's not only not reliable, it arguably is not at all), and Heartland is not reliable on scientific issues either. You declaring things otherwise does not make them so... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Climate change is not a conflict between opposing blogs, nor is it a political choice. What to do about it is a political matter, and the Heartland Institute may have a say in that within the US. If the US right, in their ongoing efforts to do absolutely nothing about CC, feel they have to try to discredit the whole of science to make their point, that is up to them. But they won't be able to alter Misplaced Pages's fringe and notability policies to help them - there're too many people here who know what they're talking about. --Nigelj (talk) 21:10, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Stephan Schultz, which cited higher power gives you the authoritative strength to make your negative claims? Please affirm the community with links. Nijelj, please stay on the ArbCom topic. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:15, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah ZP5, are we all then born notable, reputable and reliable until negative media proves otherwise? Nay, rather we are born naked and helpless and the onus is on those claiming repute and notability and reliability to prove it with references I think. --BozMo talk 21:26, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Verification and Validation: BozMo, I was assuming eds were faithfully following the NIPCC report discussion. 1) I verified the report to be RS here, 2) Other NPOV seeking eds have agreed. The NIPCC report exists, 3) it was published by the reliable Heartland Institute, 4) theses independent reliable sources validate it's existence ,, , , , , , , , . Stephan Schultz, the status of the NIPCC organization is irrelevant to the report's reliable source existence. Non-bias Wiki editors know a reliable source when they see one. (Note: I was born with the freedom to include reliable sources in wiki without NPOV disruptive teams). Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 23:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Please try again ZP5. That paragraph does not make sense or match the meaning of the words. In particular I think you are using the word "reliable" in a manner a little special and not in the way in which Misplaced Pages does. I have now looked at these sources and none seem to provide much supprt for repute and notability and reliability--BozMo talk 07:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll make it simple for you, too: My point was that there is nothing for ArbCom to arbitrate here, just silly point-making from those who don't understand. --Nigelj (talk) 21:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Nigelj, zulupapa5 has not asked for arbitration, he is looking at past findings by arbcom as a reference to this discussion. --mark nutley (talk) 21:56, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, they haven't looked at this. Those links were about Pseudoscience and Scientific consensus; this is about a US political think-tank masquerading as a 'scientific' authority. --Nigelj (talk) 22:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Erm nope Neutral point of view as applied to science

1a) Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of :::significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers

to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience. So you see legitimate scientific disagreement --mark nutley (talk) 22:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Significant is the key word. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

How many signed the Manhattan Declaration? Is that not a significant alternative? --mark nutley (talk) 10:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The Manhattan declaration does not give an "alternative" (in the scientific sense). Its a declaration of people sharing a viewpoint, and the people that have signed the declaration are for the most part not anymore qualified than you or I in stating such a viewpoint. It may be relevant in Global warming controversy though, if it is considered an important statement by secondary sources. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:14, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok if we ever reach an agreement here i`ll head on over there and we can begin the arguing anew :) I look forward to your reply on the above thread btw. --mark nutley (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Your comment above is certainly not contributing to a pleasant environment. I invite you to remove it, and then this, in the spirit of a New Year William M. Connolley (talk) 20:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I've removed negativites, and reopend the reliable source discussion. Let's work for a NPOV in the new year. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 00:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Now we have the glorious new article probabtion, what about unlocking the article to see if Peace has broken out? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well before we do that how do you currently feel about the recent addition? ]

I think we should trash out the current arguments over content before we unlock this article --mark nutley (talk) 20:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I think what I thought above William M. Connolley (talk) 21:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Can everyone agree on whether the Himalayan glacier section should stay in or be removed while the current RfC runs? If so, I (or someone else) will ask Jayron32 whether they think it would be a good idea to change the article status to unprotected with a very low tolerance for edit warring. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well naturally i think it should stay in regardless of the rfc run :) but i`m not fussed about it being unlocked, however i suspect ip only contributors or socks will revert like mad if it is unlocked and the disputed text removed --mark nutley (talk) 21:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a view on it but Mark would you be broadly happy if it was in AR4 instead? --BozMo talk 21:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

We don't need to worry about IP's if the article is semi'd; socks can be dealt with. I want the text out; I have the same objections (none of which have been addressed) before it goes anywhere else. The text is *wrong*; but dumped into the crit-of-ar4 article we could at least try to fix the wording William M. Connolley (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, however i would like to point out that when we tried to add it there the same people who will not have it here refused it there. I do believe that there should be a criticism section here to provide balance to this article, the IPCC make a lot of alarmist statements and i honestly this those should be brought into perspective. I can`t speak for the others who want this included here either so you`d have to ask them.Looking at WMC`s gives me pause for thought though. He says the test is wrong, but has yet to offer any compromise on it, he says he wants to fix the wording, sorry but for that i read "spin it to look better", perhaps i`m wrong on that only time will tell mark nutley (talk) 22:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source for the notion that the IPCC is widely regarded as "alarmist" then we can consider how to present that. I've seen the term "alarmism" a lot, but only from a relatively small group of committed global warming skeptics. I'm not sure this would merit a lot of space, but perhaps a mention might be merited. --TS 22:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, lots of the "criticism" isn't really criticism in the IPCC section and some would be considered "UNDUE" based on the arguments about keeping out the section of the IPCC's use of non-peer-reviewed lit. The peer-review/glacier section contains some real criticism with some bite - and blows holes in the oft-heard argument that the IPCC should be trusted because they only use peer-reviewed science. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I am generally sympathetic to the current criticism section being poor but I don't suppose you would like the kind of one which I might write either. What is in my view entirely missing is mention of broad brush dismissive critics as opposed to micro critics. If any of the full-body criticisms have notability (and I suspect some do) we should work out which are the most notable and include something about them. As above, I think the most notable will de facto have enough weight for some mention provided they meet notability. Meanwhile on glaciers I am on the fence, but if WMC suggests dumping into AR4 and fixing it there, which others have suggested above then I think the option is open to do it and I would support it there. --BozMo talk 22:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

When I initially wrote the "glacier" section it was titleed "Use of Non-Peer-reviewed Literature" - this is quite important since supporters of the IPCC always talk about how they use peer-reviewed papers. The glacier segment of it is also important, certainly more than other sections considering how often people talk about how the glaicers are melting because of global warming and other such nonsense, but it was added merely as a way to demonstrate the inaccuracies of using non-peer-reviewed sources, which we can all agree the IPCC did indeed do. As for being in AR4, there isn't really a good place for it there, and this criticism so strongly contradicts what supporters say of the IPCC that it makes it notable. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Count me as a supporter of such a rewritten criticism section. I agree with your view, that the section in general is poor and focused on micro-criticism. What is needed is process and methodology criticism. My thoughts in that direction would be some of the recent criticism, stating that the IPCC has outlived its usefullness - i believe Tol, Pielke Jr. and others have levelled such recently.

As for the Glacier thing, i believe i have made my opinion on the extreme undue weight clear. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC) Something like this would be a starter here. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:18, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Here`s an idea, WMC says he is against the use of non peer reviewed literature section being in although he say`s if it goes into the AR4 article it would need to be rewritten.

So why does`nt WMC write it up in a way he deems it to be appropriate and then we can discuss that, currently all we have is "It`s got mistakes" or "It`s poorly written" but no actual alternatives being given. So any thoughts on this? @Kim i believe i refuted your wp:weight argument above, please respond there --mark nutley (talk) 09:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

An excellent suggestion. Give us a good faith alternative that addresses the issue which you would find acceptable. We can't find a compromise if you don't want to help find some middle ground. --GoRight (talk) 09:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

See Criticism of IPCC AR4 William M. Connolley (talk) 21:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Protection level

Assuming that there is an intent to apply these new probationary sanctions even handedly, I hereby object to any change in the current protection level of this article unless and until a warning comparable to this has been issued here. --GoRight (talk) 22:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems fair to me --mark nutley (talk) 22:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Rest assured, anybody who edit wars on this article is looking for a block. --TS 22:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll rest more assured after they issue the warning. I have noted a strange phenomenon regarding when the page protections just happen to be applied to various articles. It does not appear to be random. This page is currently an anomaly in that respect, and I note the lack of a substantive warning regarding the removal of contested material here. --GoRight (talk) 22:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Ummm....yes, I very much hope that page protection is not applied randomly. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

As an admin who has no involvement in this article, I can confirm that edit warring will result in a block. If a consensus forms to unprotect the page I will consider doing so and keep an eye on it. Chillum 22:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Might you also consider specifically warning people regarding the addition or removal of contested material, per my example above? It would put my mind at ease. --GoRight (talk) 22:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Make it a 1rr - it makes it more difficult for people to skirt the rules with tag teaming reverts. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

To forestall further WP:edit warring, any editor who adds or removes contested material from this article without first attaining consensus here may be blocked from editing. To be clear: any edit which another editor has reverted in whole or in part is contested. --TS 23:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your support, Tony, but I would prefer to have an administrator actually stand up and say this. --GoRight (talk) 23:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The probation notice is at the top of this page. --TS 23:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

In order to be correctly encyclopedic, this article must report the fact that the IPCC has been widely criticized, including by many scientists. (I have personally read many such articles.) A number of those criticisms are mentioned in the article already, and should stay there, along with appropriate refutations of those criticisms, if any. No one reading this article should get the impression that the IPCC is not controversial, because it is. Vegasprof (talk) 23:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you support your "widely criticized" with reliable sources? How do you define "widely"? And when you say controversial, then what is your basis for it? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Before I answer that, Kim, let me ask a question: Do you claim that IPCC is not controversial? Vegasprof (talk) 00:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, i would claim that the IPCC isn't controversial. Limited sections of the political spectrum, (primarily) within a limited number of countries, do consider it controversial though, but these are (to my best knowledge) not representative of any major political, scientific or NGO standpoint. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I have seen only one poll that addresses the IPCC directly. A Rasmussen poll published last month that found only 22 percent of Americans consider the UN to be a reliable source of information on global warming. That less than a fourth of the public in the world's second-largest democracy (and the country that provides the largest share of the UN's funding) trust the UN on matters of global warming seems to argue strongly that it's controversial, regardless of whether ones believes the controversy is justified.

That said, it may be hard to demonstrate how many of those 150 million or so people have spoken out to "criticize" the IPCC. Do you have reliable sources to support the idea you are trying to capture? --DGaw (talk) 01:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a full source or a link for that poll? Thanks. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry - but we are not here to discuss whether or not my personal opinion (which i gave in good faith) is correct or not. Can we get back on track? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 02:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Apologies, Kim, I may have been unclear. My last, "Do you have reliable sources to support the idea you are trying to capture?" was directed toward Vegasprof. In the absence of an RS that says the IPCC is "widely criticized", I don't think that formulation can be added to the article. If he/she believes the contention contention that the IPCC is controversial is relevant here,he/she will need an RS that supports the idea--and will need to frame it in a way that is supported by the source.

As for the rest, it was meant to be on track. You said you were not aware of any major political standpoint holding the IPCC to be unreliable, and asked Vegasprof to provide support for the contention that the IPCC is controversial. I responded by providing evidence. Am I to understand you do not find that evidence persuasive? --DGaw (talk) 05:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, i do not find the "evidence" persuasive. Public opinion polls tell us absolutely nothing about how controversial the IPCC is regarding the science or amongst policy makers. And the US is (i'm sorry to say) rather an outlier with regards to this issue, both in the sense of the public opinion or the way that this issue is politicized. It may be worth mentioning the publics opinion - but we'd need a summary over time (since the first report to now) as well as in space (rest of the world), otherwise it is too specific. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

There is quite a lot of discussion above and elsewhere on improving the criticism section. Do please provide some more sources about criticisms, it would be timely to help us rework it. --BozMo talk 23:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Vegasprof (talk) 00:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Possible Sources for Criticism Section

Let's start gathering some possible sources. Feel free to add yours here too. Please just include the sources and a brief excerpt in this section. Discussion of the proposed use of these sources can be addressed elsewhere. --GoRight (talk) 07:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(1) Interview with Roger Pielke, Sr.

EcoWorld: What is your criticism of the IPCC?

Pielke: Mainly the fact that the same individuals who are doing primary research into humans’ impact on the climate system are being permitted to lead the assessment of that research. Suppose a group of scientists introduced a drug they claimed could save many lives: There were side effects, of course, but the scientists claimed the drug’s benefits far outweighed its risks. If the government then asked these same scientists to form an assessment committee to evaluate their claim (and the committee consisted of colleagues of the scientists who made the original claim as well as the drug’s developers), an uproar would occur, and there would be protests. It would represent a clear conflict of interest. Yet this is what has happened with the IPCC process. To date, either few people recognize this conflict, or those that do choose to ignore it because the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed, and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow.

(2) Censorship Threatens Truth on Climate NOTE: We should try to find a more direct reference for this quote from Michaels.

As a UN body, the IPCC must not allow itself to be captured by one scientific faction or another. It needs to give fair representation to all views. Indeed, the IPCC is supposed to take into account all peer-reviewed literature, including dissenting views.

Is this actually happening? No, says Michaels. "The last IPCC compendium on climate science, published in 2007, left out plenty of peer-reviewed science that it found inconveniently disagreeable. These include articles from the journals Arctic, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Earth Interactions, Geophysical Research Letters, International Journal of Climatology, Journal of Climate, Journal of Geophysical Research, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Quaternary Research."

(3) ROYAL SOCIETY REBUTTAL - Probably not usable directly but may provide additional pointers to other sources.

(4) "With the apparent solar :cooling cycle upon us we have a ready explanation for global warming and cooling. If the present :cooling trend continues, the IPCC reports will have been the biggest farce in the history of :science." - Dr. Don Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus - Geology, Western Washington University Nothughthomas (talk) 09:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Criticism section: broad (methodology/process/legitimacy) or narrow?

I think this is the wrong approach, This is once more micro-criticism and focusing on (the usual) individuals with minority opinion on climate change. There is a whole slew of social science/political science literature out there, that examines the IPCC processes and methodologies. That is where we should start looking. Pielke Jr (not Sr) would be the one to look at. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, KDP, I don't take a stand on that either way. You may well be correct. But this is my attempt to embrace the new era of probationary sanctions and to try and foster an actual consensus based on the sources available. You allude to the existence of sources that you feel are superior to those that we are finding. Rather than leaving us hunting for your needle buried in a hay stack perhaps you too could embrace the spirit of collaboration and provide them? --GoRight (talk) 22:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Kim, please give a definition of "micro"-criticism. And why do you say "minority opinion"? Scientific truth has nothing to do with majority/minority anything. Vegasprof (talk) 18:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Micro-criticism is criticism of small parts of a large picture. When looking at the whole it has very little substance or meaning.

How do you determine scientific "truth"? Is Pielke Sr. stating the scientific "truth", or is it his peers, who are significantly in the majority? For Misplaced Pages we determine this not by seeking "truth" but by presenting the prevalent scientific opinion, and mentioning significant minority viewpoints. When Pielke Sr. is arguing that everyone else is wrong, then it may possibly be that he is entirely correct - but it is not our judgement to make... What we see is a single individual who is arguing a position which the majority of his peers do not seem to share. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that Pielke's criticism is "micro" at all. It is a blast leveled at the entire IPCC report. And what really counts is whether Pielke (or whoever) has the professional "weight" required for his opinion to be taken seriously, which he clearly does, and which Al Gore (for example) clearly doesn't. And, despite what you say, he is by no means the only "weighty" person who disparages the IPCC report. Vegasprof (talk) 22:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the right approach, GoRight. I have stuff to contribute, which I hope to post today. Vegasprof (talk) 18:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

One of the assertions made above is that the IPCC should not have useed the WWF report, because that report wasn't peer reviewed. Who says this is an IPCC rule, and where is the appropriate rulebook? This article says The IPCC reports are a compendium of peer reviewed and published science and links to which is broken (argh, I hate this stupid orgs that can't even maintain a website). However, it now seems to be at . This includes Contributions should be supported as far as possible with references from the peer-reviewed and internationally available literature, and with copies of any unpublished material cited. Clear indications of how to access the latter should be included in the contributions. I would read that as clear evidence that while P-R lit is preferred, non-P-R lit, provided it is internationally available, is permitted. In this particular instance (Himalayan glaciers) the WWF report *is* widely available, so using it (I argue) falls within the IPCC rules. That makes the text "IPCC lead author Murari Lal claims there was no mistake about the glacial melt, but admits they didn't use peer-reviewed papers - breaking an IPCC mandate" that misc people have been reverting back in wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 20:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

What? "That makes the text "IPCC lead author Murari Lal claims there was no mistake about the glacial melt," of course there was a mistake they were 300 years out on it.

Also from the IPCC principals journal Non-peer-reviewed sources will be listed in the reference sections of IPCC Reports. These will be integrated with references for the peer-reviewed sources. These will be integrated with references to the peer reviewed sources stating how the material can be accessed, but will be followed by a statement that they are not published. They did`nt do that either did they? --mark nutley (talk) 21:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Can i ask you to turn down the bold-facing? If you want emphasis on something, please use italics or underline it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

What WMC was referring to, and which is rather obvious is the last part of the sentence: "...but admits they didn't use peer-reviewed papers - breaking an IPCC mandate" which is clearly incorrect. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It isn't a requirement - see Annex 2 here (page 14 of 15). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The BBC source used in the section says:

"Incidentally, none of these documents have been reviewed by peer professionals, which is what the IPCC is mandated to be doing.

We have a reliable source that says they are mandated. You appear to be doing OR in order to say it isn't mandated, and it seems to me that anyone can show a section where it doesn't say it is mandated - what matters is the section that requires the mandate or a source that talks about that mandate - and we have the latter. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, the BBC rather clearly made a mistake, they sometimes do. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

We don't need to report an error purely because a RS makes that error. I'm going to take the erroneous text out, unless someone can provide a good justification for keeping it William M. Connolley (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

So you are telling me that your original research has determined that a reliable source is in error? This is not good enough and is obviously against wikipolicy. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm - what exactly is it that makes the IPCC principles document a non-WP:RS? And where do you figure it is written that we must propagate an error when we know that it is one? (it would be rather bad editing if we did - wouldn't it?) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

<outdent>Hey look, I can do original research and find statements from their website that say they use peer-reviewed literature!

"The IPCC assessment process is designed to ensure consideration of all relevant scientific information from established journals with robust peer review processes, or from other sources which have undergone robust and independent peer review."

Again, here at wikipedia, and I'm surprised you don't know this yet, we try not to use primary sources or original research - otherwise you have editors determine what is "right" and what is "wrong" - wikipedia procedures state that information must be verifiable with reliable sources - not "right." TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of stating the obvious the quote about what "the IPCC is mandated to be doing" is not equivalent in meaning to "breaking an IPCC mandate" since there is a clear difference in meaning of the word "mandate" in the two cases. The current text is not supported by the BBC wording. If this isn't obvious to anyone "what the IPCC is mandated to be doing" in a political context (per Singer and BBC) amounts to anything anyone say they expect of them. "An IPCC mandate" though is legalistic wording and implies something to do with their legal obligations or statues. This is meanings (1) and (3) in my OED but someone can find an online version I am sure. --BozMo talk 22:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) That isn't their rule book. Direct quotation from their rule book shows that use of non-P-R lit is permissable. Accordingly, I've removed (some of) the incorrect text from that section. Also, it should be noted that the BBC report says Incidentally, none of these documents have been reviewed by peer professionals, which is what the IPCC is mandated to be doing. Murari Lal, a climate expert who was one of the leading authors of the 2007 IPCC report, denied it had its facts wrong about melting Himalayan glaciers. But he admitted the report relied on non-peer reviewed - or 'unpublished' - documents when assessing the status of the glaciers which your version paraphrases as "IPCC lead author Murari Lal claims there was no mistake about the glacial melt, but admits they didn't use peer-reviewed papers - breaking an IPCC mandate". Your version looks like it is ML saying they broke the mandate. The Beeb text is rather different - the mandate claim is completely unsourced (nor is the claim that none of these are PR obviously true) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Their "rule book" as you call it also makes it clear that they should be using non-peer-reviewed stuff carefully and certainly not in the way that they did - that exception to their rule, was meant to apply to things like industrial research that wouldn't be peer-reviewed, but which was necessary to help determine the application of policy - they clearly were not doing this. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'm glad you've agreed that they *are* indeed allowed to use non-PR stuff - the only debate now is over exactly *what* non-PR stuff. I don't agree with your interpretation of only things like Ind R - but that really doesn't matter, because that question is non-urgent and non-exciting William M. Connolley (talk) 22:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

{e/c}May i point out that your link is for WGI not WGII? It is entirely possible that this is the case for the WGI. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh-er, that is indeed a very good point William M. Connolley (talk) 23:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. I find WMC's observation and argument here quite interesting. So he is arguing that the IPCC reports are NOT based only on peer-reviewed literature? Well, given that the standard here on Misplaced Pages for discussions of scientific fact IS the use of only peer-reviewed literature does this not mean that the articles on the IPCC reports, which purport to represent scientific facts, should be deleted per WP:UNDUE? --GoRight (talk) 22:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Faulty argument. The IPCC reports are peer-reviewed. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I must agree with Connolley in this case - the IPCC is not scientific and therefore not a reliable source in the matter of global warming. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) A nice piece of light relief, but easy to bat away. First off, I'm not aware of the use of non-P-R lit in the WGI report (you *did* know all this stuff is only about WGII, didn't you?). Secondly, there is no requirement at all for P-R literature itself to be based only on P-R lit. The IPCC reports themselves are P-R'd (and before you ask, no, that doesn't make them immune to all error; nothing is) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

"IPCC reports themselves are P-R'd" - Really? By whom? The reports are WP:SPS with respect to the IPCC, are they not. Their internal processes cannot peer-review themselves. What independent peer-reviewed source or journal published these reports after subjecting them to their peer-review processes? Maybe I am wrong, I don't claim to be an expert on the IPCC reports, so help a poor fellow out and explain this to me. Who actually publishes the IPCC reports? --GoRight (talk) 23:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Why has WMC altered disputed text without consensus in clear breach of this pages probation? mark nutley (talk) 22:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Good question, I haven't looked at the policy enough to know - perhaps he made a mistake and we should give him a chance to self-revert. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I asked him on his talk page to provide a reference to the consensus. --GoRight (talk) 22:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

As did i but he removed it --mark nutley (talk) 22:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

People. Are you all seriously saying that we should propagate an error that we know is an error? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm saying we should follow wikipedia policy. But if you want to "interpret" things then it is clear, by my interpretation, that their proposed additions did not follow the spirit of the exception section for peer-reviewed research - since it didn't follow the spirit of that excemption then they did in fact break their rules. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The probation terms on this page appear to have been set at 1RR rather than consensus only. At least that's my reading of the above. GR asked for consensus only but got 1RR. It was discussed around the place I think --BozMo talk 23:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

You are correct, BozMo. The terms set by Ryan above are WP:1RR, so if people are so inclined they can revert WMC's WP:BOLD edit that completely lacks consensus (I assume since he declined on his talk page to point me to where the consensus for his change was determined). --GoRight (talk) 00:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You can't argue both sides of the fence, ESPECIALLY not on the same talk page over the same topic. That's just nonsense. WMC is using a technicality to try an wikilayer away a valid criticism given the prevailing posturing here on Misplaced Pages regarding the IPCC reports and the science that underlies them. Well, if that technicality calls the peer-reviewedness of those reports into question it is fair game to call their use on Misplaced Pages into question as well. --GoRight (talk) 23:04, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Say what? Have you even looked at the change that WMC made? He removed the error - not the criticism. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

@Bozmo, it was said no contested text would be removed nor added if protection was removed, look in page protection section above @Kim, Are you all seriously saying that we should propagate an error that we know is an error I ask you to look at WMC`s edit and tell me it`s not been spun? name changed and then this IPCC lead author Murari Lal claims there was no mistake about the glacial melt apart from it being out by 300 years of course. --mark nutley (talk) 23:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

GR, given the above can you offer text on the PR nature which reflects the source better than the words WMC removed? Viz that the text cannot refer to "an IPCC mandate" since the RS doesn't but could to what people feel the IPCC is mandated to be doing? I think including that some people feel it broke expectations of the IPCC is legitimate but breaking a mandate per sae is completely unsupported. Then we can decide if here or at AR4 --BozMo talk 23:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Completely unsupported? I quoted the exact passage from the source - the BBC! TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No. As I've pointed out, the (former) article text is not a quote from the BBC, it is a misleading paraphrase William M. Connolley (talk) 23:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

A misleading paraphrase? I shortened, ""Incidentally, none of these documents have been reviewed by peer professionals, which is what the IPCC is mandated to be doing." - into something like "breaking an IPCC mandate." That isn't misleading at all - that's paraphrasing. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the phrase says: The IPCC is mandated to do P-R. Not the IPCC must use P-R. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Not as far as I can see, or at least not in the reverts you did perhaps there is an original contribution in the article history? I can see completely unsupported words like "breaking an IPCC mandate" in the article versions but in the source only stuff about being outside what the journalist feels the IPCC is mandated to be doing which has a totally different sense? --BozMo talk 23:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you rephrase? I don't think I understand what you are trying to say. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, you appear not to have paraphrased you appear to have completely changed the meaning (unless I misunderstand which is your text). I suggest you read the above. WMC pointed out that the text switched attribution. I pointed out that "what the IPCC is mandated to be doing" in a political context (per Singer and BBC) means anything anyone says they expect of the IPCC. "An IPCC mandate" however is legalistic wording and implies something to do with their legal obligations or formal statues. These are completely separate meanings of the word mandate listed separately in the dictionary. Switching from expectation to formal statue and simultaneously changing attribution from a journalist to an IPCC officer does not look like "exactly quoting" --BozMo talk 23:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

<outdent> Wait wait wait....so you are arguing that while I used the same word I somehow "changed its meaning" to make it "completely unsupported" by the source? I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous - the only distinction is in your interpretation, which is completely subjective. I used the same word - I simply shortened (paraphrased) it.TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't be abusive, especially when three people are being very patient in explaining something to you. You changed the meaning whilst claiming that you used the "the exact passage". I think you need to consider where you are standing on this more carefully. --BozMo talk 00:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Abusive? There was no abuse - you seem to subjectivly interpret a lot of what I write in the worst possible way. I used the same word that the journalist used to describe what they did - the word didn't change its definition because I shortened the passage a bit. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me, i want to know what is being done by connolley`s edit to contested material in breach of the agreement made before page protection was removed? At the moment i see everyone being sidetracked into an argument which only serves to hide this breach of trust? --mark nutley (talk) 00:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I answered above. AFAICT no admin gave a "no non consensus edits" ruling, one gave a 1RR ruling and one a "no edit warring" ruling. If you think someone made a edit which went against a ruling above talk to the admin who made the rule. --BozMo talk 00:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

FWIW on the edit warring one which you could try but I think given that he did not revert the whole passage out as in previous reversion wars but only changed a few words in it, it is hard to argue it is edit warring. --BozMo talk 00:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Bozmo, it was agreed man, even ts said he would block anyone adding, altering or removing contested text it`s right there in article protection. I hate it when people break an agreement.

I have re-edited the article back to the way it was prior to WMC`s revisions. I was trying to talk here, my arguments above go unanswered and then this breach of trust takes place. So is it a case of they can`t win an argument so ignore it and then edit the article into a nice positive light, sorry but thats just plain wrong. mark nutley (talk) 00:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Mark, I just put a note on your user page. AFAIK TS is not an admin and said simply anyone doing it might be blocked (not by him). GR asked 2/0 to make this statement, 2/0 discussed it with me User_talk:2over0#Edit_waring_warning_at_IPCC_please_... and decided not to. Please don't try to start a fight on it. --BozMo talk 00:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I have replied and self reverted Bozmo, i am however still fuming at WMC`s breach of trust --mark nutley (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This] is unsupported by discussion. The previous text "compendium of peer reviewed and published science" doesn't imply that everything is peer-reviewed, and the new text seems quite frankly to be pointy, and is certainly not as GR stated "Per talk page discussion on P-R sources". --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC`s edit`s were not supported either but you do not seem to have an issue with that? --mark nutley (talk) 00:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Could you please stay on-topic? Even if i concede your point (which i do not), then two errors do not make a right. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It is on topic, you can`t complain about one but not the other. --mark nutley (talk) 00:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "doesn't imply that everything is peer-reviewed" - I never claimed as much, but I fail to see how this is relevant. You are only making the argument that my change didn't substantively alter the meaning of the text so why are you complaining? Doing so seems rather disruptive to fostering a collegial atmosphere here.

" is unsupported by discussion ... and is certainly not as GR stated" - Please see this section, , wherein WMC clearly states:

"I would read that as clear evidence that while P-R lit is preferred, non-P-R lit, provided it is internationally available, is permitted."

I was merely being WP:BOLD and reflecting his position in the article. My reference to "Per talk page discussion on P-R sources" was to that. Are you now contesting WMC's position?

"the new text seems quite frankly to be pointy" - Please be mindful of the new probationary sanctions coupled with assumptions of bad faith, especially when they are actually articulated as you have here.

Regardless, the standard on this page at least seem to be WP:1RR and not consensus as BozMo pointed out above. I have not violated WP:1RR. --GoRight (talk) 01:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

What is the difference between "published science" and "as well as other internationally available non-peer-reviewed materials" ? And what your background/references are for creating this dichtomy? Does it accurately describe what the IPCC is doing without breaching due weight? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

My references are WMC's references and my argument is WMC's argument. If you feel that either are found wanting, please take the matter up with him. --GoRight (talk) 01:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but could you please summarize the parts of WMC's argument that answer my questions? As far as i can tell, WMC hasn't made this edit, but you have.. In fact i rather strongly suspect that WMC wouldn't agree with your edit - so somewhere there is a disconnect. So please answer yourself. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

"could you please summarize the parts of WMC's argument that answer my questions" - I already have above (i.e. see the quoted bits and follow them back to their sources as provided by WMC). Please stop asking the same questions over and over again. That could be considered tendentious behavior and therefore disruptive editing under the climate change probation. I don't believe any sanctions are warranted at this time, however. --GoRight (talk) 02:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

GoRight is indefinitely blocked--effectively until he agrees to work with other editors. Meanwhile does anybody know what argument he was claiming to have made, and more to the point does anybody honestly think the edit makes the article more accurate or better in any way? --TS 08:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If we are talking about the same thing, it is not immediately obvious to me that his edit was wrong but I haven't read the whole article context and am really tight for time today. Anyway I would want more discussion before we take in out during his block. His point AFAICT was that if the IPCC reports are free to use internationally published non PR material then they are not a compendium of PR. They are themselves PR so they would be a PR compendium but not a compendium of PR. They would be a compendium of PR and non PR material which is what he wrote. Its an obvious point (peer review is not a pedigree thing and you can have peer reviewed material made of non PR). But moving the PR to a different place in the sentence might be an alternative or maybe there is a subtlety on the relationship between a compendium and its references which I haven't looked at. It is not entirely clear in what manner the reports are a compendium to me and if someone can explain precisely that would be fine. --BozMo talk 09:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Oops, I just took it out. Well, if you like it we can re-add it. I don't agree with BozMo's suggestion that the text should stay during GR's block - that is a curious interpretation of convention, and inappropriate given that GR's block was for - and I quote - You are blocked. Basically for being a complete waste of time. I argue that GR's addition is controversial, and that there was no attempt prior to addition to support the text. Nor, indeed, has there been any attempt afterwards - all the conversation above has been along the lines of "I didn't like something else, so I did this". That won't do William M. Connolley (talk) 09:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that there were clearly stated objections to GoRight's edit, and would add that he stonewalled requests for a proper explanation, perhaps realizing that his claim that William M. Connolley had argued for the edit would not stand the "sniff" test. I think it's appropriate that William M. Connolley, who should know whether or not he supports the edit, should revert it. --TS 10:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I'd missed that. Yes, I was merely being WP:BOLD and reflecting his position in the article is certainly a misunderstanding of my position. I don't think anyone else has made this same misunderstanding, but I'll be happy to explain further if anyone likes William M. Connolley (talk) 10:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I notice above that someone has said I was merely being WP:BOLD and.... I suggest that BOLD is not a good policy in these delicate times. I propose an extension to the existing community probation explicitly discouraging BOLD edits from articles under the probation. Since the issue arose here I'm talking here first; if this gains any support it can go to the probation page William M. Connolley (talk) 10:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the Be bold policy is perfectly fine. The trouble is that some people don't read it. A better name might be "Be bold!...but please be careful"--the names of the first two sections in the policy. Being bold doesn't give anybody carte blanche to make an edit for which there is clearly no consensus, and the recently reverted edit was just such an edit, because GoRight supported it by the false premise that another editor had argued for it. Obviously that's not so much bold as suicidal. --TS 10:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe, but I think it would be good to see it "officially" tempered a bit. BOLD says "Of course, any changes you make that turn out badly can be reverted, usually painlessly." which is very easily taken as an excuse. At the moment we're sort-of in a regrettable position of having one policy (be bold, you can be reverted) whilst the probation strongly discourages reverting! William M. Connolley (talk) 11:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm i see, now you have made you bold edits with no consensus you wish to prevent any other editors from rectifying the incredible spin you have put on the article? If you feel that wp:bold should be suspended perhaps you should replace the contested text you removed? Which was an obvious breach of the agreement to have page protection removed. --mark nutley (talk) 12:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You are mistaken. I didn't claim BOLD, unlike GR, and indeed I discussed it beforehand, unlike GR. If you indeed believe my actions were an obvious breach, then you should report them for enforcement. If you don't believe yourself, then don't William M. Connolley (talk) 15:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No i`m afraid you are mistaken, i never said you claimed bold and i never said you did not discuss your changes. I said you made a bold change without reaching consensus and in a breach of honour against the decisions reached in the above article protection section. I am still considering if i should report it, or is there a time limit on these things? --mark nutley (talk) 15:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Mark has added the following text in this edit:

However the 2035 date was still being used by Jean-Pascal van Ypersele the IPCC Vice-chair in a meeting at the UNFCCC in Barcelona on 3 November, 2009.

The IPCC was accused by India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh of being "alarmist" in their estimated projections of Himalayan Glaciers melt.

The problem isn't so much with the text as the sohurcing. The first source is a PDF containing a transcript of a speech . That looks a tad too close to original research to me. We're not journalists.

The source for the second statement puzzles me greatly. It is an external link to the Misplaced Pages article Retreat of glaciers since 1850. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for in that article.

Beyond that there may be due weight problems, for all I know, but the most glaring problem at the moment is the inappropriate sourcing. --TS 14:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry i linked to the glaciers article as there is mention of them in the addition. the part about india`s enviroment minister is already linked in by WMC in his previous edit (bbc link)sorry the .pdf is hosted on the ipcc website (check url) --mark nutley (talk) 14:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I tried cleaning up the references a bit. I substituted the BBC reference in the immediately preceding paragraph as a reference instead of the Misplaced Pages article Retreat of glaciers since 1850, which I've removed, and I gave the PDF reference a ref tag. See what you think of it. --TS 14:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks tony, i really have to get the hang of ref`s don`t i :) mark nutley (talk) 14:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a controversial edit made with no attempt at discussion. I object to the edit, and the failure to discuss William M. Connolley (talk) 15:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I objected to your edit and you blew me off, you certainly had no consensus for it and to have the cheek to whine about mine is hypocritical. I also fail to see how it is controversial, it is well sourced and obviously pertinent to that section of the article. Perhaps you should say which part is controversial instead of objecting to it just for the sake of it mark nutley (talk) 16:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I've taken MN's added text out. There is clearly no consensus for it - indeed, no-one has spoken in its favour. You'll immeadiately note the contrast to the text change I made, which generated considerable support.

Also, the text itself makes no sense. However the 2035 date was still being used by... However? However what? The BBC report is dated 5th Dec, so something from Nov does not count as a however William M. Connolley (talk) 17:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You had no right to do that, only you have spoken against it and no the revisions you made gathered only support from your supporters. I see plenty above who were not happy with what you did. something dated from nov counts as it shows how much the IPCC messed up. Once again you make changes to push your pov without discussing it. You show a blatant disregard for WP process and refuse to debat changes to the article which will not suit you POV. mark nutley (talk) 18:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This talk of "right" is meaningless. What I did gathered support from people who supported it and (a point you seem to have persistently missed, so I'll repeat it) was discussed *before* I made the change. You were opposed to removing a clear error from our pages, because that error fitted your POV. You're now adding text you know to be controversial with no consultation beforehand. You've now made a number of PA against me - that my edits are "obviously" against the probation and that I'm showing a "blatant" disregard for process. These are all false claims by you. Back off, or its the enforecement page for you.

Now, I've asserted above that your text makes no sense and provided a justification for that assertion. You've made no attempt to defend your text at all. Perhaps that is because it is indefensible William M. Connolley (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Do not threaten me, you got support only from your supporters as well you know. I have made no false claims and if you feel i have go get enforcement. I have no need to defend my text, the facts speak for themselves. You have yet to say why is it controversial. mark nutley (talk) 19:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't know that. I've said your text makes no sense, and provided a reason why. You've rather noticably failed to defend it William M. Connolley (talk) 19:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Christ almighty your good at obfuscation ain`t ya, answer my question why is it controversial? mark nutley (talk) 19:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Since there is an enforcement request, I popped in here to try to get some understanding of the context. I must say I'm dismayed at this subthread. MN and WMC, you BOTH need to "back off" from going at each other's throats, I think. ++Lar: t/c 19:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

WMC did refactor, see his strike, above. Words softened. Message about the same. ++Lar: t/c 22:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the "however... still being used.." part is completely wrong, not to mention original research. The dates do not fit neither "however" or "still" (since the BBC article is dated after the event). I also question the expansion of a section that is already is RfC'd for WP:UNDUE concerns. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well no surprises there kim agrees with WMC :) Still waiting to hear why it`s controversial.

Your wp:undue concerns were addressed above you have yet to bother to reply. mark nutley (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Lars, you have my apologies, however try to understand my frustration and what is happening here.

WMC is making changes to existing text without consensus, he is reverting good faith edits without offering an alternative which i believe the project rules say he should. When article protection was lifted we were assured that no changes could be made without consensus, WMC has ignored this and gone ahead with business as usual. I will try to remain calm but the way things are going it is not surprising if i get angry. mark nutley (talk) 19:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No, he's making changes to your text without your consent. The edits have been discussed and have support beyond just WMC. So, be constructive not obdurate. Guy (Help!) 21:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No you are wrong, this was the disputed text ] which wmc altered without consensus when the consensus was for it to stay, he also altered it without discussion and made the announcement after the change, so i fail to see how he got support for that change when it was done with no discussion. Also that text was not mine, it was the good locusts addition. Yes he did revert one of my additions, once again without discussion first or any attempt to offer alternatives. --mark nutley (talk) 22:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Connolley's earlier edit, which you dispute, was not a change to the essential meaning of the text, so it was not against the spirit of the RFC (which is ongoing as far as I'm aware). You addition, likewise, was well within the spirit, although perhaps the fact that you expanded a text whose presence in the article was already disputed is pushing it a bit. Nevertheless I don't think either of you acted outside the spirit of the probation.

However in the opening of this section I raised several points about the new text. While I worked with you to improve the sourcing the problems stil remain, and it is still a borderline edit because it's an expansion of a disputed section that is under RFC. I think it's quite in order for other editors to refactor or remove it.

The only problem I have is that it was William who did it, and often his editing strays, as you have observed, into the realm of Ownership of articles. I hope William does not mistake my defense of his editing here for a licence to act as a gate-keeper for any and all changes. We're trying to get out of a vicious cycle where point of view editing leads to a group of "defenders" fighting those edits, which gives the impression that they are taking ownership of the articles, and that in turn alienates the defenders from Misplaced Pages mainstream, which encourages the POV editors, and so on. We should address both concerns to arrive at an acceptable editing environment on Misplaced Pages's global warming articles. --TS 22:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Continuing the long slow painful death by 1000 cuts of this section:

The IPCC's 4th report has been criticized by Professor J Graham Cogley for using three reports, by the World Wildlife Fund, UNESCO, and the magazine New Scientist, none of which were peer-reviewed, to make the case that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035

This text isn't in the BBC report, and it is wrong. The text of the IPCC report is available to us all, and it is clear that the source for the 2035 claim is a WWF report. Allow me to quote you the IPCC text:

Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).

The text in this article is an inaccurate paraphrase of the BBC report, and needs to be corrected William M. Connolley (talk) 18:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Lots of people have edited this page since I added this. Last chance to complain...? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Complaint added, please post your proposed revisions before adding to the article.

Consensus must be reached before further changes are made. mark nutley (talk) 21:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, I know this game: what you mean is that your agreement must be obtained before your edits are changed. We call that WP:OWN. Instead of fighting you should propose improved wording starting fomr the text William has proposed. He is right that the previous paragraph was an inaccurate paraphrase. Note also the other comments showing that IPCC is at liberty to use these sources if it wants; there was a long argument over text saying the opposite. So, please be constructive rather than obdurate. Guy (Help!) 21:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm asserting that the existing text is wrong. You're saying you "complain". What does that mean? That you think the text is in fact correct? As Guy says, you need something of substance not just "no" William M. Connolley (talk) 22:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

@ JzG, no i am not saying it needs my consent i am saying any changes to the article should have consensus, which i believe is part of the article probation.

@WMC i am not just saying "no" i am saying i would like to see your proposed changes before you edit the article so a consensus ca nbe reached by all editors, not just me mark nutley (talk) 22:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You failed to make any substantive objections. You haven't defended the existing text as accurate, which is good, because it plainly isn't. I've replaced the existing text with one that corresponds rather more closely to reality William M. Connolley (talk) 22:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The BBC article says, "The IPCC relied on three documents to arrive at 2035 as the "outer year" for shrinkage of glaciers.

They are: a 2005 World Wide Fund for Nature report on glaciers; a 1996 Unesco document on hydrology; and a 1999 news report in New Scientist."

and in a few other spots Cogley mentions his criticisms based on these reports. You are destroying the readibility of this section - you did the exact same thing in the Carbon sink article where you claimed something wasn't in the source and then altered the text to your liking. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I've provided you with the text of the IPCC report, above. If you don't believe me, you are free to read the text yourself - it is online. To assert that the IPCC relied on the NS is obviously wrong. We've already agreed that the BBC have erred in reporting this incident William M. Connolley (talk) 22:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome go to the reliable sources board and persuade them that the BBC isn't reliable - I'll go with them rather than quotes from you (I didn't see a link). Of course, perhaps you have a source from "Real Climate" to better make your case? TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference between stating that the BBC is not reliable, and pointing out that a specific article makes errors, and thus isn't reliable for these informations. Now do you acknowledge that the Beeb made mistakes - or are you simply arguing the rather extreme view that we must propagate errors despite knowing that they are indeed errors? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

And again, quoting a small section of the report says absolutely nothing about what is in the rest of the report. Logically, this is the same as saying, "This loaf of bread doesn't have nuts, therefore, none of the bread in the bakery has nuts." TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You haven't even glanced at the report have you? Chapter 10 section 6 subsection 4 (page 493) 'The Himalayan glaciers' is the one that is talked about. It fills less than a column on a two-column page in the report. So it shouldn't be that hard to verify for you. It cites 3 references: (WWF, 2005), (Hasnain, 2002), (Shen et al., 2002) - the first we know, the two others are:

• Higashi, H., K. Dairaku and T. Matuura, 2006: Impacts of global warming on heavy precipitation frequency and flood risk. Journal of Hydroscience and Hydraulic Engineering, 50, 205-210.
• Shen,Y.P., G.X.Wang, Q.B.Wu and S.Y. Liu, 2002: The impact of future climate change on ecology and environments in the Changjiang - Yellow Rivers source region. Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology, 24, 308-313.

Both of which are P-R literature, and none of which matches the Beebs description. (it is also rather easy to check that neither New Scientist nor Unesco are cited in the report ... there is a reference listing). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

<outdent> Yes there is a reference listing - for that chapter. Proving they aren't in one chapter of a very large report by only looking at the references from part of that report is quite silly - or were you arguing the glacier topic only appears in that section? TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, I've already referenced this before, which I find unbelievable since you've both been at wikipedia for a very long time, but WP:VERIFY, a core policy of wikipedia states, "The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true."

You are attempting to ignore core wikipedia policy in order to do what you want - and I have a very hard time believing you are unaware of this. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:V is not a suicide pact. If you can verify that a source is incorrect (we can), then its a straight-forward editorial decision not to use that information, just because something is written in a reliable source, doesn't mean that it must be quoted. Hopefully you aren't really arguing that we should use material that we know is wrong - are you? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

<outdent> Again Kim, you've looked through the haystack, found a needle and conluded there is no hay. I think I've demonstrated quite clearly that you and Connolley will continue to ignore wikipedia policy and evoke your own rules over clearly stated wikipedia policy. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Where a secondary source is clearly contradicted by a primary source, the secondary source is obviously not reliable in that instance. There is no such thing as a categorically reliable source. If we want to report this matter reliably we should locate a more reliable source. If there are no or few other sources, then this speaks to WEIGHT and perhaps we should reconsider whether the particular item is important enough to merit coverage. That is, while I have no particular problem with the notion of reporting problems with AR4, particular statements about AR4 should be reliably sourced. --TS 01:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no clear contradiction Tony - they've merely quoted parts of a very large document and said, "See! It isn't in the entire document!" Besides, primary sources are not preferred for wikipedia use - again, something senior editors should know. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You are talking past people not to them. Kim's statement above is admirably clear: the section is a very small part of a large report, it cites three references of which two clearly are peer-reviewed, and these easily verifiable facts conflict with the BBC. The BBC has got it wrong. They do sometimes. Even if they hadn't, cherry-picking this one small part of a large report is likely WP:UNDUE in itself. What you are suggesting is that we include text that you like based on a source that says something you like even though it's pretty easy to show that the source you like got it wrong, because the source you like is secondary. That's gaming the system. The prohibition on original research is to prevent novel syntheses being made from published sources. Kim is not presenting a novel synthesis and neither is William. The text as currently formed looks accurate to me having checked the sources. Guy (Help!) 11:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I have decided to take a break from climate related articles but before i do i want to point this out "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005)." If this actually happens then it will mean absolutely noting will have happened, Himalayan glaciers only cover around 100,000km2 now. 500,000 is actually extra polar glaciers. This is why the report is so wrong, they got the year of expected melt wrong and the actual author never said they would be totaly gone, unlike the IPCC. They did not get the size`s right. They made alarmist statements on the back of this report and caused a lot of confusion. This is why the original text was far more realistic than what it has been changed to. There were three non peer reviewed used in the report the article now says one. It also states from the IPPC`s own journal Non-peer-reviewed sources will be listed in the reference sections of IPCC Reports. These will be integrated with references for the peer-reviewed sources. These will be integrated with references to the peer reviewed sources stating how the material can be accessed, but will be followed by a statement that they are not published. This was not done and is yet another mistake which is being brushed aside. I did ask about this above but as usual it was ignored. --mark nutley (talk) 11:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You should just have taken the break. All you've done above is repeated the ssame errors. There were three non peer reviewed used in the report - no, there was the WWF report. If you think there were any others *used* in the IPCC report, you've yet to provide evidence that they do so (please cite the section they are used in if you believe it). And indeed, no-one has provided evidence that the WWF report was non-PR. That appears to be an unjustified assumption. This is why the original text was far more realistic... No, the original text was wrong. I changed it, and those changes have stuck, because everyone here who has looked at it objectively has agreed with those changes; and those few who have objected have failed to just ify their positions. Repeating the same errors, as you've just done, is not helpful.

The problem is that you bury some good points by failing to let go of the ones you're so clearly wrong about. They did not get the size`s right - well actually, you may be right about that (I haven't checked). If you'd drop all the unproductive wrangling about the number of sources, we could maybe talk about that. If you want to make productive changes you have to learn to drop points wher you are clearly in error William M. Connolley (talk) 12:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Mark, the date looks like a typo. The BBC suggests it's a typo and so do the experts they cite. I would challenge you to write a report anything like that big without any errors at all. I'm not seeing any proposed improvement over the current text here, so I think it's probably time to stop discussing this particular issue. Guy (Help!) 13:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I note that this reference, is broken. I believe that WMC observed the same thing above. I have been looking for the replacement and I have found . Since I don't know what the original was I need confirmation from someone that knows that this is, indeed, the new version. Can someone confirm this please?

Assuming so, the new reference states:

"The authors will work on the basis of peer reviewed and internationally available literature, including manuscripts that can be made available for IPCC review and selected non-peer reviewed literature. Source, quality and validity of non-peer reviewed literature, such as private sector information need to be critically assessed by the authors and copies will have to be made available to reviewers who request them."

The current text of the "Scope and preparation of the reports" section states:

"The IPCC reports are a compendium of peer reviewed and published science."

I believe that this description is an inadequate summarization of what the actual IPCC document states and therefore leaves the reader with a misleading impression as to the source material that can be part of the IPCC reports. I believe that it is important to make clear to the reader that in some cases "selected non-peer reviewed literature" may have been used. Indeed, we already know of one such case which has come to light already. There may be more that are as of yet not known for similar reasons.

I would propose that we change the existing statement to:

"The IPCC reports are a compendium of peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed published and unpublished literature."

I believe that this better reflects the actual statement from the IPCC in this regards, but this assumes that the reference to "manuscripts that can be made available for IPCC review" is a reference to unpublished works. If this is incorrect then the "and unpublished" could be dropped from the above. Thoughts? --GoRight (talk) 03:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

GoRight, As I said above, I think you have a point and if we discuss it carefully you have a good chance that it will get support so please be patient as we try. My question was does a peer-reviewed compendium (=? summary) of non peer reviewed work count as peer reviewed (probably, I think it does). So the technically accurate statement would be

"The IPCC reports are a peer reviewed compendium of peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed published and unpublished literature." ?

not pretty I know. But as a baseline does everyone agree that this is the accurate statement, given what WMC dug out etc? --BozMo talk 08:28, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think either of these are acceptable. If you want to know what goes in IPCC reports, then the answer is "peer-reviewed lit" 99.x% of the time. Your formulations above give undue weight to the non-P-R stuff. The original "peer reviewed and published science" is delicately ambiguous and covers what actually happens. Also, "we already know of one such case which has come to light already" is incorrect: we do not know if the WWF report was P-R or not. Also, I dont know what "non-peer reviewed published and unpublished literature" means. If it implies use of "non-peer reviewed unpublished literature" then I think it is wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 08:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

If you can find a non OR basis for 99.x% I might immediately agree with you. Otherwise I am comfortable on my fence. Do you object to "The IPCC reports are a peer reviewed compendium of published science." which appears slightly more accurate given the previous comments. --BozMo talk 21:41, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be comfortable with that wording (which is itself a carefully worded reply) William M. Connolley (talk) 21:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The use of the phrase "peer reviewed compendium" is not accurate. The compendium in question is a self-published report. If some organization X produces a report using internal processes which include peer review does that make the resulting report peer reviewed? I argue that no this is inherently inadequate to be considered peer reviewed in the sense normally applied to that term within the scientific community.

For example, let's assume that X = Bob and Sally's Climate Research, Inc. which is owned and operated by Bob who holds a Ph.D. in climate science and Sally who also holds a Ph.D. in climate science. This organization has formal internal review processes which consist of Bob and Sally reading each others sections of jointly produced reports. Would the scientific community consider a report produced by this organization and published on their blog to be peer reviewed? I think not. The IPCC and its reports are nothing more than a glorified version of Bob and Sally's Climate Research, Inc. No externally run peer review process has ever been applied to the final reports.

How would people feel about "McKitrick and McIntyre Climate Research, Inc." and their self-published reports? Or how about the unattributed blog posts on RealClimate? I see no reason to consider the IPCC reports to be any different with respect to the issue of being peer reviewed. --GoRight (talk) 01:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I find this edit grossly WP:POINTy. If Bob and Sally or M&M have a public peer review process that involves thousands of scientists, and then get, say, 30 National Academies of Science to support their reports, their reports can be called peer-reviewed, too. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 02:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing pointy about it. It is a valid argument which uses an extreme (i.e. on one end of a logical continuum) example to illustrate the point that no organization can peer review its own outputs. --GoRight (talk) 02:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Leave the sentence out altogether or don't have qualifiers: "The IPCC reports are a compendium of climate change science." and then move on to the next thing that needs fixing. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I would find this acceptable, although I believe that it should be changed to say something to the effect of "independently researched climate science" to highlight that the research itself does not come from the IPCC. --GoRight (talk) 02:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. Still no progress. Let me break the ice with another compromise proposal:

"The IPCC reports are an internally peer reviewed compilation of potentially peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources."

This gets an acceptably accurate description of both the inputs and the outputs of the IPCC process. Thoughts? I'll let this sit a day or so but if no responses are forthcoming I will assume that implies consent. --GoRight (talk) 07:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

And what exactly does "potentially peer reviewed" mean? And what is your reference for it? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 07:43, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I suppose some wordsmithing of this might be in order. I had intended it to be parsed as:

"The IPCC reports are an internally peer reviewed compilation of potentially ( peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources )."

The source is the same as listed above, namely:

"The authors will work on the basis of peer reviewed and internationally available literature, including manuscripts that can be made available for IPCC review and selected non-peer reviewed literature. Source, quality and validity of non-peer reviewed literature, such as private sector information need to be critically assessed by the authors and copies will have to be made available to reviewers who request them."

Let's try this then:

"The IPCC reports are an internally peer reviewed compilation of sources which may or may not have been peer reviewed themselves."

Better? Acceptable? --GoRight (talk) 07:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that you didn't answer my question, could you please do so? So that i can get a feel from where you are comming.

No, i do not think that your new proposal is better. The original sentence is better, and doesn't have an undue focus on "may or may not have been" which seems to be POV in disguise. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not being evasive, I thought I answered your question. What part do you consider unanswered? My wording is a full summarization of the text I quoted above whose source is listed at the top of this thread. The text clearly indicates that the reports will be "on the basis of peer reviewed and internationally available literature, including manuscripts that can be made available for IPCC review and selected non-peer reviewed literature." This clearly indicates that non-peer reviewed literature might form the basis of the reports. I want the text of the article to accurately and explicitly reflect that fact just as it has been in the original source text. --GoRight (talk) 08:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

There's the source link copied to here for your convenience. --GoRight (talk) 08:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well that is very nice original research ("clearly indicates that non-peer reviewed literature might form the basis of the reports"), but strangely enough that is not what sources say. If you have serious sources that suspect this, then please put them on the table, we are not here to speculate. (and in case you want to do original research, then i suggest you take a tally of the number of PR vs. non-PR references in the reference sections of the IPCC reports - strangely enough your "indicates" and "might" get blown to bits from that). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:59, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

What is unsourced about "The IPCC bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific literature"? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 09:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you believe that this statement is sourced, please point me to the source. The burden is on those including the material to provide the sources. Lacking any suitable source the statement should be removed. --GoRight (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

for me it looks like there are relatively few images helping the reader to get a picture of the activities and result the IPCC does deploy. the image below seems to add up nicely with the already existing text and thus supports the purpose of easing the access to information contained in the paragraph. i think it further makes clear where the IPCC published predictions do significantly differ from what a simple statistical analysis of world climate would produce from climate date humans recorded out in the wild.

i ask for your support for this addition. (2010 - the year i started asking for other peoples support before editing something in wikipedia.)) --Alexander.stohr (talk) 15:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Does this have any reliable source? As far as I can tell it's statistical nonsense. Obtaining a 42 year "period of oscillation" from 120 years of measurement? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:36, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Oscillation is everything for cliatology, see this article on US-Today. If you doubt that 42 years cycle, you might want to apply the mathematical method of fourier analysis to the publically available original data. Having some 120 dots should allow you to extract aplitude, frequency and phase value of the included frequencys up to some few percents precision. You might be even in state of add 10 more years of measurement to that. (BTW wikipedia explicitely allows you to mathematically process data, e.g. for calcuating the age or birth date of a person from public data, but that rule is not limited to that.) --Alexander.stohr (talk) 16:51, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

WIkipedia allows "routine calculations". A Fourier analysis hardly is routine. Moreover, the choice of a linear increase with cyclic variation as the underlying model is pure original research. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:57, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks like pure WP:OR to me. The sources cited on the image page include only other WP images, and so on up the chain. There are no error bars and no source for the numeric data, let alone whatever smoothing functions may have been added to the numeric series, least of all for the fourier analysis or its extrapolation into the coming decades. Total fantasy, from what I can see. It must be a very attractive fantasy for anyone who just bought a new coal-fired power station, or Hummer, though! --Nigelj (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Whats wrong? Any sort of trend analysis (advanced math: FFT, standard math: mean value & slope & average deviation & max deviation calculation; you will find the wikipedia articles on that on your own, i am sure) is routine for making such data more meaningful for the human eye. Those toolset is in fact not a part of a 16 button pocket calculator, but it is e.g. for MathLab, Mathematica, free Octave and a bunch of other programs that are the standard programs for preparing and visualizing such data. In most computer languages bind the matching library (like GNU scientific math library) and call one function for getting the values. Its routine for that sort for data. BTW, your human ear pair all the time does this - convert a signal into its frequency (by a few hundreds of selectively tuned cells) and phase (by probing the form of the incoming edges) components. It even can do acoustic localisation with that. And be assured I truly did not built that curves in any way my selves. The only thing I "added" was taking the frequency out of the diagram with sort of a ruler and writing it down in numbers to that legend object. You can do that as well - nothing complex because that data is already there. Just load it in an SVG viewer and check the temperatures periodicity. And even if it would not be periodic, the max deviations around the averaging linear approximation would make the very same long term perspective - for the pure climate data so that the IPCC specific prognosis (based upon their theoretical models) is as outstanding different as it is with any other standard prediction method. By the way, the mathematical determined increase trend is some 0,7-0,8°C/100 years. Read this for a comparison: But the warming trend in 1909-2008 (the fastest “modern” 100-year trend) was +0.87 °C per century. (source article) The value in the diagram is probably a little bit lower since the additional few years are a "high" and thus damper the slope. A very clear diagram for the missing years from 2000 compared with the IPCC data can be found here in this article. The data is out there. And if you even don't trust that - print it out in A4 and then take a ruler for determining your own linear approximation, even if chances arent that high that you will get to something that different. Its all just about to create a diagram out of it that combines it in an evident way to show whats needed. --Alexander.stohr (talk) 21:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, it's sourced to two private blogs, is it? A person with a ruler can disprove all the combined decades of work by thousands of climate scientists? And get it published for the world to see on Misplaced Pages? It's amazing what people can do these days. I'm amazed that none of those scientists saw it coming - if only some of them had paid attention in fourier analysis lectures when they were younger. --Nigelj (talk) 22:08, 17 January 2010 (UTC)