Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:14, 28 December 2009

Climategate scandal

Climategate scandal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Content fork or POV fork (not sure which) of Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident. In reliable sources the "Climategate" moniker is identical to the topic of the latter Misplaced Pages article and has no independent existence. Further, the term "scandal" is inherently POV until shown otherwise by a strong consensus of reliable sources (such as the Teapot Dome scandal). Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:42, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• Note - from article creator. "Climategate" is without question a notable topic that deserves encyclopedic treatment. Does ayone dispute that? This is not intended as a fork at all, but routine organization of a large subject matter consisting of a series of related events into multiple sub-topics that cannot readily be shoehorned into a single article. The current article by its title, and much discussion on the talk page, is about the hacking incident that is but one of several aspects of the affair. There has been much debate and edit warring there so it is hard to figure out where consensus will come to rest, but the current status quo for that article is that it has that limited focus. There has been a lot of discussion and widespread approval there that information about the creation and playing out of the scandal does not belong there, and should instead be treated in its own article. Yet that article has become something of a portmanteau, with long sections talking about the "hacking" (i.e. unauthorized access and republication of private electronic files from a university computer), the scandal (as promoted and played out in the blogosphere, popular press, political arena, scientific community), the underlying actions of the scientists themselves, and the progress of climate change theory and research thereon. Budding one article into two siblings when it gets too unruly is not a "fork" at all, it is simply good organization. As for the title, there was some discussion at Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, and there seemed to be a preference for appending "Scandal". I have no particular preference. Whether we call it a scandal, controversy, incident, or just leave the descriptor off is a question for the editors to decide, but it does not affect the notability of the subject. Keeping things NPOV is an ongoing responsibility of editors, no reason to avoid dealing with a controversial topic. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• Redirect to Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident for now. This is basically a duplicate. --TS 00:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - I think Wikidemon is probably correct in that there should be a page for the public controversy (as opposed to a controversy about the science) that has since ensued. This is mostly because there are some strong feelings at the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident article in favor of focusing the article on the hacking incident as opposed to the ensuing controversy. Separating the two articles would help to clarify each and I think would do a lot of good. Finally, as the name can always and probably should be changed (as I indicated on the talk page prior to the AfD), the debate here should be restricted to the content / direction of the page. jheiv (talk) 01:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• JHeiv above may have a point, but this is not the way to achieve a separate controversy page. This page should clearly be a redirect to Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident. Oren0 (talk) 01:12, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• Keep - It is disingenuous to argue on the one hand that Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident is NOT appropriately named Climategate scandal, and then here argue that such an article is nothing more than a content fork for that same article. There are those that argue that the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident is NOT about Climategate and is NOT about the scandal at all. Given this a separate article focused on the scandalous aspects of the precipitating incident described at Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident makes a lot of sense. --GoRight (talk) 01:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• Keep per GoRight. The existing Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident is a mess, starting with the misleading title. At least this one is starting with what people actually call the affair. Pete Tillman (talk) 01:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• Delete - disgraceful example of a POV fork with a completely non-neutral title. Legitimacy of "Climategate" terminology is in question, but the use of "scandal" is shocking. Reviewing administrator should be aware that this should not be decided by !votes, because climate skeptics keen to push their non-neutral POV will doubtless be herded by their echo chamber into this AfD in order to add legitimacy to the "scandal" fantasy. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• As I wrote earlier, please try to avoid discussing the article title, which I think everyone agrees could be chosen differently, but rather the content / direction of the article. Other than the title, could you enumerate your disagreements with the content / direction of the article? jheiv (talk) 02:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• I already did so, describing it as a "disgraceful example of a POV fork". It's essentially covering the same ground as Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, only focusing on the negative aspects of the controversy arising from the incident. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident is narrowly focused on the hacking. The hacking itself is hardly notable, so an article which concentrates on the controversy is needed. This is not a POV fork, as multiple attempts to add public controversy angle to the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident article were shot down by the very same editors that are arguing for deletion now. For example, TS wrote on the talk page, I think it's probably not encyclopedic to use the term , and I've removed it. Given this position, his suggestion above to redirect the Climategate scandal to Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident is a bit puzzling. Dimawik (talk) 02:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• Keep Thanks for pointing that out Dimawik. So there is already an article about the email leaks/hacking. In that case the people here who are trying to turn this article into a duplicate are blatently engaging covering up any mention of the actual climategate scandal. This article has been interfered with by at least one person (William Connolley)who is in the leaked emails and with ties to realclimate I think it has and is being corrupted from its original purpose. I suspect further media coverage will put pressure on Misplaced Pages to sort this out. Maybe those who are corrupting this article fear journalists raking over it. I'm sure it'll already have been raked over so its a little late for that.188.222.59.18 (talk) 02:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC) This template must be substituted.

Would you consider a friendly request to at least remove the editors name (and this edit with it) from your post? jheiv (talk) 02:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• For the time being I've moved the article to Climategate POV fork for reasons that must be obvious. The use of the term "scandal" in the title of an article about this event contravenes our most fundamental policy, Neutral point of view. --TS 02:45, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

It was just quickly moved back to Climategate scandal -- maybe there could be a quick resolution on the talk page? jheiv (talk)

Well, restoring this POV fork as a redirect to the parent article would be the most obvious resolution. --TS 02:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that Climategate is a parent article WRT hacking incident. Dimawik (talk) 03:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no article called "Climategate", and unless Misplaced Pages changes its rules on the neutral point of view there probably never will be. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:07, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Blanking the article is pretty aggressive given that there's an active discussion here with a (very early tentative) majority of good faith "keep" opinions that specifically address the "POV fork" issue. That is more or less an early snow close, and really ought not to be done in arguable cases. I chose Climategate scandal rather than simply Climategate, because of opinions expressed on the talk page of the hacking article that "scandal" is the proper way to title "-gate" controversies. I was trying to be less controversial, not more. Other titles are just fine to, such as just plain "Climategate". Adding "POV fork" to an article title does not seem very serious. Surely you must know that using an article title to disparage the merits of the article is more than a bit soap-boxy and unencyclopedic. Might as well move it to "Somebody's dumb idea for an article about Climategate". - Wikidemon (talk) 03:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Even if there were a majority of !votes for "keep", that should have little bearing on the result of this discussion. There is no way an article entitled "Climategate scandal" could possibly survive scrutiny with anyone remotely familiar with WP:NPOV. Clearly the closing admin will have no choice but to insist on deletion. There is nothing to salvage, since anything neutral has apparently been lifted more or less wholesale from the neutral article. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• KEEP*: the UEA itself recognises two separate issues. The theft/leak of the e-mails. This it reported to the police. And the conduct of its scientists exposed as a consequence. This they are investigating. Note, Steve Jones has stepped aside not because of the theft but because of questions over his conduct. Watergate is not about the breaking into a hotel room, but the behaviour of Nixon thus exposed, as a consequence. Two issues, two articles. Paul Beardsell (talk) 03:14, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• AfD debates (Science and technology)
• AfD debates