Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy/Archive 30

Reliable sources search engine
If it helps, I created a reliable sources search engine. It does a much better job of filtering through the non-reliable sources than Google News search does. Google News picks up blogs, opinion pieces and even Prison Planet. My search engine filters through most of that junk. http://www.google.com/ cse/home?cx=010426977372765398405:3xxsh-e1cp8&hl=en

If it helps, we can use this tool to determine what the most common name in English is. I use this entensively when editing Wikipedia and found it to be incredibly helpful. For some reason, Wikipedia blocks Google search engines so I included a space between http://www.google.com/ and cse. Just delete the blank space and copy and paste the URL in your browser. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:58, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Many thanks! This is really useful!130.232.214.10 (talk) 08:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It seems to be broken, because I keep getting Faux News and the Murdoch Street Journal in the returned results, yet reliable sources like The Nation and Huffington Post appear to be missing. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Fox News is routinely found to be reliable on the WP:RSN.   Unfortunately, I don't know how to omit the opinion pieces from the WSJ  without omitting the news articles.  Is the HP reliable?  I can add  that one if it's not already in the search engine. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I was being sarcastic. I think your custom search is just fine, and quite useful. Bookmarked. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, unfortunately, Hans doesn't think it's trustworthy. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:15, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

List of reliable sources which use the term "Climategate"
A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Newsweek The Truth About ‘Climategate’
 * FOX News Britain's Weather Office Proposes Climate-Gate Do-Over
 * Politico Saudi Arabia calls for 'climategate' investigation
 * The Telegraph Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row
 * The American Thinker Understanding Climategate's Hidden Decline
 * US News & World Report Penn State Panel Clears ‘Climategate’ Prof of Three Claims
 * The Times Climate e-mails were hijacked 'to sabotage summit'
 * Reason (magazine) The Scientific Tragedy of Climategate
 * The Guardian How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies
 * Science News 'Climate-gate': Beyond the embarrassment
 * BBC News Climate e-mail hack 'will impact on Copenhagen summit'
 * Christian Science Monitor Will clash of science and politics undermine Copenhagen summit?
 * Columbia Journalism Review Hacked E-mails and “Journalistic Tribalism”
 * The Sydney Morning Herald 'Climate-gate' forces weather data review
 * Channel 4 News Phil Jones responds to Climategate emails
 * NPR Exploring Fallout Of Climate E-Mails
 * The Independent Climate change conspiracies: Stolen emails used to ridicule global warming
 * The Financial Times University rebuts ‘climategate’ accusations
 * Discovery News Climate Myths and Questions, Part III
 * Times of India UN to review its top climate panel IPCC
 * Slate.com Climate scientists are getting a little too angry for their own good
 * Reuters Science untarnished by "Climategate", UN says
 * TechNewsWorld The UN, Climategate and the Viral Web's Hot Air
 * The Scotsman Inquiry No2 into Climategate university
 * Nature (journal) 'Climategate' scientist speaks out
 * NewScientist Climategate scientist questioned in Parliament
 * Chronicle of Higher Education 'Climategate' May Hold Lessons on Openness for Researchers Under Pressure
 * The Economist The clouds of unknowing
 * Washington Post In e-mails, science of warming is hot debate
 * Globe and Mail Climategate's guerrilla warriors: pesky foes or careful watchdogs?
 * CNET Obama lauds green tech, Web site for earmarks
 * Alj Azeera On board the climate express
 * Winnipeg Free Press Canadian duo ripped in emails in 'climate-gate'
 * St. Petersburg Times 'Climategate' is part of President Barack Obama's Copenhagen baggage
 * Discover Magazine It's Gettin' Hot in Here: The Big Battle Over Climate Science
 * Houston Chronicle Energy industry has a greener shade at CERAWeek
 * Bloomberg Japan’s Draft Climate Bill Omits Mandatory Limit on Emissions
 * The New Zealand Herald 'Climategate' scientists face UK MPs' questions'

Just a few more. Most major news agencies have been using the term.
 * New York Times 'Climategate' Scientist Admits 'Awful E-Mails,' but Peers Say IPCC Conclusions Remain Sound
 * CBS News "the recent controversy surrounding 'Climategate'"
 * The Guardian "The "climategate" scandal involving the University of East Anglia"
 * USA Today "Mann suddenly found himself in the middle of the "Climategate" scandal"
 * BBC 'Climategate' expert Jones says data not well organised
 * FactCheck.org “Climategate” - Hacked e-mails show climate scientists in a bad light but don't change scientific consensus on global warming.
 * ABC News 'Climategate': Scientists, Politicians War Over Hacked E-Mails

This is all about whether or not we as a group want to follow the sources, nothing more, nothing less. Moogwrench (talk) 23:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * And the sources that don't use the name? After all, it's a consensus of sources. So an analysis of this sort is meaningless unless it includes a fairly exhaustive sample of how this name is used. You can't present only one side and say "see, proof". You need to demonstrate "a consensus of sources". Guettarda (talk) 23:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And just to be clear, when you're saying "a list of reliable sources which use the term", do you mean "a list of reliable sources which use the term exclusively", "a list of reliable sources which use the term predominantly" or "a list of reliable sources which have used the term at some point in time"? Guettarda (talk) 23:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And please distinguish "used in scare quotes" from "used", because, of course, as we have discussed many times, those are very different things. Guettarda (talk) 23:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Guettarda, with all due respect, those kind of different tiers and prongs and penumbras just aren't a part of Wikipedia policy. Policy is concerned with whether or not the term is generally being used.  It isn't going to say, well, 79% of the Fox News stories use the term but only 54% of the Guardian stories do.  There is no other common name for this controversy that is so widely used.  If you can suggest one, we can test it.  Quotes issue likewise--many neologisms have quotes around them when a word is newly coined or used in a novel way.  Excluding a common term just because people put quotes around it is not policy based. Moogwrench (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Policy is concerned with whether or not the term is generally being used" - actually, in a case like this it's concerned with whether there's consensus, but setting that aside, my questions are equally applicable to "generally being used". So again - are you using these examples to determine that these sources generally use the term? You have offered single instances of usage. Which are, of course, irrelevant, if you're claiming generality of use. Guettarda (talk) 02:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you put forward an alternative metric that would establish/disconfirm generality of use? -- Chadhoward (talk) 04:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The other side might win
After making useful points, some commenters frequently add something like, "plus, we can't do that because it would give points to the skeptics." An edit may give solace to a group one dislikes or disagrees with -- that is not a valid reason for or against any edit.

In addition, to help illustrate why these statements are misdirected and not useful for article collaboration, I'll say something I shouldn't have to say: I am not a skeptic; I believe temperatures have risen and may continue to rise, which carries risks; I have no reason to doubt much of the science I've read; etc. Hopefully that gives a clue about how senseless it is to infer that anyone who proposes, say, a change to this article's title is "on the other team" and is acting on base motives. -- Chadhoward (talk) 21:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Is it reasonable to infer that some of them are? What should be done about those? Hipocrite (talk) 21:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Infer what you like for personal purposes, but your inference shouldn't push you to be for or against any particular edit. -- Chadhoward (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you would find those numbers to be smaller than you think. I personally think the earth is warming.  However, it is also clear that some (see UN) are using the warming as a political wedge and some activists are likely overstating both the warming, the effects of the warming, and man's contribution (hence Climategate).  The Climategate controversy is largely about this, and not so much a rejection of the science that the earth is warming.  Some, however, have such a hair trigger that they assume than any disagreement implies that they are dealing with a science skeptic.  Arzel (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's actually the other way around. The activists claim that the warming is being underestimated by the IPCC, and that the conclusions are actually highly conservative.  Obviously, everybody needs to meet in the middle, but the use of the term "skeptic" here is absurd.  All good scientists are supposed to be skeptical.  "Denier" is an appropriate term given the evidence. Viriditas (talk) 21:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Also, what you write isn't true - no one has written anything like that. Hipocrite (talk) 21:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I've noted several instances, although prefer not to mention them specifically. Just trying to keep the mood light :) -- Chadhoward (talk) 22:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If you do notice things like that, please drop a note to the involved editors. Privately, quietly, but let them know they're slipping into too much of a battleground mentality. Guettarda (talk) 22:11, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I am a skeptic, and the sort of "sides" Chadhoward describes are indeed a bad idea. What everyone must accept is that neutrality requires us to show the majority view in climate science as well as the minority view shown proportionately, and must show the majority expert view of such minority views. . . dave souza, talk 21:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree. -- Chadhoward (talk) 21:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Right Dave, but this article isn't about climate science. It is about the controversy over some emails some people sent.  Nobody should treat this as a proxy battle over the truth of AGW.  But Hipocrite above says that the only reason one could possibility want Climategate to be the title is to undermine science, and that he thinks that this is my motivation... Moogwrench (talk) 22:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * As a working scientist I find the more important aspect of the controversy to be the questions raised about peer-review in general. At the University I work this has been the main topic of discussion not that AGW might be flawed. It's common knowledge that peer-review is not perfect but some of the allegations have been quite disturbing. So for me it's not about THE science (climate science) but the process of publishing of scientific results in general.91.153.115.15 (talk) 22:21, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That's the key, climategate is not about the science. It's a political and cultural event about process, the article should not (nor will it) become a coatrack for denialists. 99.142.1.101 (talk) 22:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Dave, are you worried that an edit that makes some climate scientists look bad fails to show the majority view in climate science? I hope you'll agree that that falls into the "we can't make that edit because the other side will win a point" category. -- Chadhoward (talk) 22:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * My only concern in that regard is that we accurately and proportionately reflect reliable sources – if a consensus of mainstream scientific views makes some climate scientists look bad, we show that. If there is context, we show that. If a notable minority view makes scientists look bad, we show that is a minority view in expert opinion, and describe the mainstream views of that minority view. The same applies to all – if significant sources make those attacking the scientists look bad, we show that as well. . . dave souza, talk 09:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with most of that, although I think it's possible for political events to make scientists look bad too. -- Chadhoward (talk) 15:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is, many people here seem to think that we are supposed to be evaluating the scientific merits of AGW here. This article is about what everyday people think about this, not scientists.  It isn't a science article, it is an article on a social controversy. Moogwrench (talk) 20:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a very silly argument. Encyclopedia articles are not about what "everyday people think".  Public perception on the climate issue has been targeted by special interests for decades, and the public simply does not know what to think as a result. Intentionally confusing people and then appealing to their opinion is disingenuous.  For more information on this topic, see Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (2010); Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming (2009); and Climate Change Science and Policy (2009). Viriditas (talk) 21:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I too see that as something to avoid, Moogwrench. -- Chadhoward (talk) 22:11, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Another silly argument. Encyclopedias don't avoid the primary topic of an article.  They address it directly. Viriditas (talk) 22:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The scientific merit of AGW is not the primary topic of this article. -- Chadhoward (talk) 23:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I honestly think this point is the one that has caused some much ruckus on these pages. It is absolutely correct, this article is -not- about the science of GW. Arkon (talk) 23:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, why are anti-science bloggers and their accompanying swarms of flying monkeys proclaiming that the controversy disproves climate change science? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Who cares? Whatever is going on in the skulls of those you or I disagree with, it shouldn't affect our editing decisions (except to put in the article, "some flying monkeys say...") -- Chadhoward (talk) 23:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The Flying Monkeys include the notable Sarah Palin and Senator Imhofe, and wp:weight requires us to schow their fringe views in the context of the clear majority scientific views on their views. Carry on. . dave souza, talk 23:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Chadhoward and Arkon, this manufactured "controversy" has had no effect on conclusions regarding climate science. Our editing decisions need to take this into consideration when Flying Monkey News tries to claim otherwise. Chadhoward, you claim that this is a social controversy, however, in the above discussion, I have provided at least three current reliable sources written by experts (Merchants of Doubt; Climate Cover-Up; and Climate Change Science and Policy) that show this has nothing to do with a "social controversy" and everything to do with a deliberate campaign of misinformation and misdirection, often times involving the same people and organizations over a period of years to decades in an attempt to deny the science, using the media as a vehicle for sowing doubt and portraying a false "debate" where one does not exist. Viriditas (talk) 23:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * this manufactured "controversy" has had no effect on conclusions regarding climate science I see neither Chad nor I saying it has (though I can't vouch fully for Chad's edits).  The rest I have no opinion on, other than to say that sources also exist which examine the behaviour of those at the CRU.  One does not exclude another. Arkon (talk) 23:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Another diversion. How does the behavior of those at CRU (personal email is personal?  Say it ain't so!) have any bearing on climate science?  We don't write articles about guilt by association.  The sources you claim exist, also by association criticize the science in the same breath.  We're not stupid, Arkon.  Anyone with a clue sees what's going on here. Viriditas (talk) 00:09, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Uh. I don't believe we are communicating. How does the behavior of those at CRU (personal email is personal?  Say it ain't so!) have any bearing on climate science?  It doesn't  That is what I (and I think Chad) am saying.  Sheesh. Arkon (talk) 00:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The sources that are being used by the deniers all make the same guilt by association arguments, implying that because CRU personal email was rude or that documents contained typing errors, these incidents call into question the entirety of climate science. If you don't see that, then please look at them. Viriditas (talk) 00:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Crap, I can't comment on the nebulous 'deniers' or their arguments. I can, however, tell you aren't arguing with me, but some strawman version of me. Disengaging.  Arkon (talk) 00:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There isn't a single thing "nebulous" about climate deniers - they deny the science and that's easy to observe. Please take a moment to search for any and all instances of "climategate" and read the articles.  Virtually all of the arguments against CRU consist of a fallacious guilt by association.  If you can't see this clearly, then I don't know what to say.  You say that the sources for either do not exclude one another, but in fact they do.  Criticism of behavior or process in particular is not criticism of the science as a whole. Viriditas (talk) 00:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Metrics for analysing use of "Climategate"
While it is my opinion that WP:AVOID, WP:NPOV and WP:TITLE rule out "climategate" regardless of its use elsewhere, one of the issues surrounding the term is which metric is used to determine the popularity or prevalence of the term. To apply the policy, we need to determine whether or not "climategate is" the "most common English-language name of the subject", "used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources" or "the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources".

Some editors have used Google searches for this purpose, but that includes sources that would clearly not be considered reliable, fails to address the context in which the term appears and gives only a raw number, without determining how many sources manage to address the issue without the use of the clearly loaded term.

Perhaps this should give us some guidance:

''Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article. In determining what this name is, we follow the usage of reliable sources, such as those used as references for the article.''

There are 49 such sources at the moment (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Climatic_Research_Unit_hacking_incident&oldid=350170598):

I've attemped to show whether or not the term appears, the context if it does, any other relevant information (pointing out that RealClimate, UEA, CRU and Penn State University may be biased), etc.

I believe this is a reliable metric, and that it shows the term is not "used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources", in fact it is a clear minority of sources using the term, some sources explicitly reject the term, while others distance themselves from it by making it clear that others refer to it as "Climategate". The phrase has caught on in some circles, but it is clearly a loaded and politically biased term. Most reliable sources manage to avoid it, and we should follow those reliable sources.

Please note that while I have made a good faith attempt to analyse the references, if there are errors here I apologise and I invite other users to contribute further to the analysis. I've included dates for the articles as well, in case those are deemed relevant (e.g. sources from very early in the development of the story may have appeared before the term was coined). I initially started this section on my talk page in case it cluttered up the conversation here, but I thought it deserved a wider audience. If this is overkill for the talk page, let me know. StuartH (talk) 11:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify, because it is important for applying the NPOV policy: If a source only talks about "Climategate" in inverted commas or in the form "so-called Climategate", then it is not using the term but mentioning it. This is something we can't measure with Google searches. (For a non-neutral title to be usable, it must be used by a consensus of reliable sources.) Hans Adler 12:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It should be pointed out that just because a source is biased does not mean it's unreliable.  All sources have a bias.  The only thing that matters is its reputation for accuracy and fact-checking.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Another flaw in your analysis is that it uses primary sources rather than independent, third-party sources. If you want to open this up to primary sources, there are over 5 million in favor of "Climategate". although I think we should stick to independent, third-party sources. But I'm open to discussing whether primary sources should be included.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Copngratulations on comprehensively documenting the media's propensity for slapping "gate" onto the end of any remotely political issue. Not that it changes anything, of course. I do think it's a scandal that they do this in an attempt to pretend that every trivial dispute is as earth-shattering as Watergate. This crisis should be called Gategate. Guy (Help!) 13:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Good analysis, thanks for putting the effort into it. Any demonstration of usage needs to look at usage, rather than cherry-picking. Is it too much to hope that people will follow your example? Guettarda (talk) 16:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that the November and possibly December sources should be ignored because that is simply too close to the event. I also feel that CRU and RealClimate should be ignored since they are both trying to spin the event as "nothing to see here". Newspapers are interesting because they typically use the term in some articles, but not others. Perhaps the list should be organized to make that a little more obvious. The fact that the term appears only in the title simply means that it is so well known that it does not need to be defined in the article. Q Science (talk) 21:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd be inclined to agree about November sources, but Google trends suggests that the term was already well established by December. As for including/excluding certain sources, or the significance of quotation marks, where the term appears (e.g. Titles), etc., I'm not sure what the best solution is. I just think that if we are to change the name to "Climategate" because that is used by a "significant majority of reliable English language sources", it needs to be demonstrated that it actually is used by "significant majority of reliable English language sources" (and I still maintain that there are still policy violations even if it is demonstrated). To do this, we need some form of quantitative measure of its use amongst reliable English sources, whether it be this one or another. If you feel you can organise the list a bit better or improve the methodology, go right ahead. It was admittedly a quick and dirty test, but I was actually expecting the term to be far more common. On the face of it, it doesn't look like "Climategate" has the support amongst reliable sources to justify a change against other policies and guidelines, and with the baggage the loaded term carries with it. StuartH (talk) 22:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Climategate: Peer -Reviewed Academic Journals & Academic Study/Comment
This section is intended to introduce and discuss climategate as viewed and studied by academia. Climategate is the subject of academic papers, comment and discussion from neutral, verifiable and reliable sources appearing in these peer-reviewed journals and other notable academic venues:


 * 1) Copenhagen, Climate gate and the Americans, Wochenbericht, Claudia Kemfert.
 * 2) A harsh climate[], Genome Biology, Gregory Petsko and signed as President, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
 * 3) If the Science Is Solid, Why Stoop?, Academic Questions, Stanley W. Trimble
 * 4) A random walk on water, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions (Referenced response) D. Koutsoyiannis
 * 5) Visual strategies to integrate ethos across the “is/ought” divide in the IPCC’s Climate Change 2007: Summary for Policy Makers, Poroi, Lynda Walsh
 * 6) On the Intersection of Journalism and the Climate Condition Debate[], Timbro, Roland Poirier Martinsson
 * 7) The Copenhagen Conference - A Post-Mortem, (working paper) Daniel Bodansky, (Note the links that follow are to support expertise, not to additional climategate related papers)
 * 8) Constructive communication, Nature Reports, Olive Heffernan
 * 9) ''‘Low carbon diet’: Reducing the complexities of climate change to human scale, (under review) Brigitte Nerlich

It's a very real cultural and political event discussed, recorded, studied and found everywhere but here.99.142.1.101 (talk) 17:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I find this an excellent new contribution. May I ask what search engine you use? I am only familiar with searching chemistry and engineering related topics. Maybe I can help out.130.232.214.10 (talk) 18:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Then please suggest ways of incorporating this information into the article. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 18:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My suggestion is a separate article titled climategate which would discuss, as the papers cited above do, the political and cultural events that arose from the confluence of events started by the CRU emails coming so close to Copenhagen and the resulting environment encompassed by what is referred to as climategate. The one thing it would not be: a review of climate science. 99.142.1.101 (talk) 18:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this would fit nicely into the Climategate article in the incubator.130.232.214.10 (talk) 18:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That is simply not going to happen, no matter how many single-purpose accounts show up in full-blown warrior mode to advocate for it. Attorneygate and Travelgate both function quite well as redirects to their respective article titles that satisfy WP:NPOV while covering both the incident and the aftermath. Tarc (talk) 18:36, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Look, besides being a WP:ALLORNOTHING argument to cite Attorneygate and Travelgate, I was able to find quite a few counter-examples of non-redirects, with tons more available at List of scandals with "-gate" suffix: Bandargate scandal, Betsygate, Bingogate, Coingate scandal, Corngate, Debategate, etc., etc. Moogwrench (talk) 19:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing those out, as minor scandals don't usually get as much traffic and eyes on them as the more well-known ones that I cited do. Per naming policy, I will work on fixing those shortly. Tarc (talk) 19:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am sure that you will get community consensus on the changes you make, instead of just going on a one-man crusade, correct? Going around to enforce one's personal interpretation of the policies on a series of articles without any outside input seems a tad disruptive... Moogwrench (talk) 20:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Truest me; what it "seems like" to you is not a concern of mine. Consensus will not be not sought out to bring articles in line with current policy.  I mean, seriously, Betsygate ?  We write articles about notable events, that doesn't mean we use the drive-by media's tabloid headlines. Tarc (talk) 20:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Tarc, please don't do that - I will consider it disappointing and disruptive if you go around changing longstanding articles on unrelated topics in order to push your agenda on this article. There is no policy against naming things something-gate - it will depend on the circumstances.  Please relax.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, excuse me? You of all people shouldn't need pointers on Wikipedia policy, but perhaps an WP:AGF refresher would be good all-around here.  I assumed that most of the articles noted in List of scandals with "-gate" suffix were just redirects, as the most common and well-known ones are.  It seems that some of the minor incidents are not, and what I expressed here is a bit of surprise, since that sort of thing is not in line with current article naming policy.  My position does not need more "support" by going and making any name changes; it already is supported. Tarc (talk) 21:15, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You were the one that brought up other -gate titles to try to prove your point. I think we agree that Climategate is far more notable and commonly used than Betsygate.  That said, changing article titles in an attempt to support your interpretation of a policy seems a bit disruptive. Moogwrench (talk) 20:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * My point is already amply proven by the ones I cited, and by the policy that they rely on; it needs no further support. Changing these minor scandals to be in line with naming policy is just something that simply should be done. Tarc (talk) 21:11, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, how would you incorporate that material in a daughter article? Guettarda (talk) 19:26, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, nothing to say about #1 (I can read some German, but only with difficulty, and without a cold, so that's out for the time being), and I don't have access to #2, although the abstract ("We should not be distracted by the debate about whether or not global warming is caused by humans; whatever the answer is, we urgently need to retard or reverse the trend.") sounds like someone calling this a distraction. Similarly, I'm not in a position to make much of #6 - no point in trying to work my way through Swedish, Not promising. #4 is a response, that gives passing mention to the issue in the context of geoengineering. It also references this article. Not something terribly useful.

As for the Trimble article - #3 - is a jeremiad, which is difficult to use, at the best of times. It comes from a journal published by the National Association of Scholars (do have a look at the group's article). The journal's "Aims and scope" starts with the comment " American higher education has been profoundly compromised in the past three decades. Standards have been eroded, the curriculum has been debased, and research has been trivialized or distorted by ideology." It is clearly an ideological publication. It's "instructions for authors" say nothing about peer review. And it has a link asking its readers to encourage ISI to index it. Not very promising for a journal with a pedigree going back to 1987.

The Walsh article, #5, certainly makes for interesting reading, but it's about the AR4, not this issue. The Bodansky working paper (#7) raises this issue simply to dismisse it as a "kerfuffle" of no importance to the science: half a sentence of dismissal. Heffernan (#8) mentions this issue in passing in the contexts of attacks on the IPCC. Similarly, the Nerlich et al. paper only mentions the issue in passing. I don't see anything we can use here. Guettarda (talk) 21:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, ditto on the Kemfert article (#1) - it's a one-page opinion piece, that dedicates less than a paragraph to this issue. Guettarda (talk) 21:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Also note that while some of these are peer-reviewed journals, none of the pieces appear to be peer-reviewed articles except the Walsh article on rhetoric (#5). Guettarda (talk) 21:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Full text of the Petsko article (#1) is available here. Worth reading, not sure it's useful here. Guettarda (talk) 22:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo's intervention and the pro-climate change editors lobby
I found Jimbo's recent intervention judicious, timely and appropriate. I also notice how the coordinated pack who fervently defend the scientism-religion of climate change immediately rose to strike him down. What a formidable show. What tremendous resources have not been allocated to hold the fort by attempting to spin this scandal to the tune of "this is no big thing - climate change science is as solid as ever". I notice how ChrisD still pretends to sobriety and judicious rationality whilst at the same time projects the image of the scientific community on the one hand being attacked by anti-scientific groups on the other. I just did a "ctrl-shift j" (What links here) for the article post-normal science, and I was surprised to see that none of the climate change articles link to this pivotally important subject. It's time that the integrity of the the science being conducted in this arena should be better exposed in related Wikipedia articles. __meco (talk) 18:04, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If you believe we need to link to that article, provide some reliable sources that make the link and work the material into the article. It is, after all, a wiki. Guettarda (talk) 18:11, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Heh. Good luck with that. Post normal science sounds like something that might appeal to the folks behind the wedge strategy. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:59, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Except whereas the "wedgies" confront and oppose mainstream science, proponents of post-normal science insidiously introduce their concept so as to be perceived as business as usual. In fact, the argument is that climate change science can be conducted by post-normal rules and still be accepted as pure science. That is a fraud, obviously, but it has not yet been addressed in the articles we have related to climate science despite the criticism being voiced against this commingling. __meco (talk) 19:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Please provide some reliable sources, and suggest how you think they should be worked into this article. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 19:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Meco, do you have any evidence that the conclusions behind climate change have changed as a result of this incident? I've reviewed the sources, and from what I can tell, they have not. Is climate change occurring Meco, and is there evidence showing it may have anthropogenic causes? Are either of these two things seriously in doubt, Meco? As far as I can tell, the answer is no. So then, what is this dispute about? Viriditas (talk) 20:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

"Flow diagram" for checking a title
I thought once all of the relevant policies are provided for convenient reference the cherry-picking stops. Perhaps I was too optimistic. Our articles normally use a common name (name used by the majority of sources) as a title. Exceptions happen when the title is inaccurate or expresses a POV. In the present case, the common name appears to be "Climategate". (Whether it is accurate depends on one's POV, so we only need to check whether it is ruled out because it expresses a POV.) The procedure for checking this, as implied by the policies, is as follows:


 * 1) Is the name descriptive? (e.g. "Attorneygate", "Jack the Ripper", "Attila the Hun")
 * No: There is no POV problem.
 * Yes: Continue with the next item.
 * 1) Is the name non-neutral? (e.g. "-gate", "ripper")
 * No: There is no POV problem.
 * Yes: Continue with the next item.
 * 1) Is the name used by a consensus of the reliable sources?
 * No: The title is non-neutral to the point that it creates a POV problem and we can't use it.
 * Yes: The title is non-neutral but can be used anyway. There is no POV problem.

I would appreciate it if editors who disagree with my analysis in the section above could indicate whether they believe (a) that this "flow diagram" is flawed, or (b) that "Climategate" is an acceptable title according to the diagram. Hans Adler 11:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's flawed because it's based on the assumption that Wikipedia articles aren't supposed to be biased. WP:NPOV is about editorial bias. That is, we are not supposed to introduce bias to counter the bias of reliable sources.  Our article on Intelligent design is heavily biased in favor of evolution.  That's exactly that way it's supposed to be.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This sounds like a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument to me. I think it would make sense if you could point out a specific point where the "flow diagram" is wrong. Perhaps number 3? Then how would you deal with the relevant paragraph from WP:NPOV in such a flow diagram?
 * Or are you just unhappy with the words I am using? If you can find better wording, e.g. instead of "There is a POV problem" or "There is a POV problem, but", then I will be more than happy to incorporate the improvement. Hans Adler 12:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Evolution is a case with special considerations that are not part of the above diagram: We have a clear hierarchy of reliability, with a consensus of the most reliable sources being contradicted by a significant minority of reliable sources of lesser quality. If you think something similar applies here we can open that can of worms, of course, but you should present a plausible argument that this is the case. Hans Adler 12:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, it's not a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument, it's a "you misunderstand policy" argument. If you want me to point out a specific point  where the "flow diagram" is wrong, it's here: "Does the name express a POV?".  This question is completely irrelevant.  It's perfectly acceptable that articles express a POV.  In fact, WP:NPOV demands it.  Until the light bulb goes on that  WP:NPOV means we as Wikipedia editors remain editorially neutral, I'm not  sure I can explain it to you, but I've often heard it said that WP:NPOV is itself a POV. Does that help? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As I suspected, it's just about language. In ordinary wiki speak "POV" has several related meanings, and it's hard to use it consistently in one of the ways as you are demanding. I tried to fix the language above. Thank you for your input, the wording is closer to the original text now. Does this address all your concerns? Hans Adler 12:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, it's not just about language, it's about a fundamental misunderstanding of what WP:NPOV really means. Do you agree that WP:NPOV means that we repeat the bias of reliable sources?  If you can't agree to this, then this discussion is going nowhere.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:NPOV. You seem to be claiming the opposite. If 60% of reliable sources are biased one way and 40% are biased the other way it is not our job to write an article with the bias of the 60%, pretending the 40% don't exist. We balance things out to get an unbiased article.
 * In the title such balancing is almost impossible. How we deal with this problem is described in the policies, and the flow diagram above is a simplified version of that description. You can't argue these details of the policies away with a bit of general hand-waving. Any attempt to interpret policy in such a way that the passages dealing with the problem at hand (how to title an article in the presence of a political conflict) would not be applied under any circumstances, and the opposite of what they say results in the specific case, any such interpretation attempt is obviously defective. Hans Adler 16:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You keep misunderstanding what I'm saying. If 60% of reliable sources are biased one way and 40% are biased the other way, then we write the article a 60%-40% mix (roughly speaking).  So, if reliable sources are biased in favor of the term Climategate, then we're supposed to repeat that bias and use that term. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * So if reliable sources are 70% biased in favour of "Climategate", we choose a title that uses the term 70% of the time? Excellent idea. Just think through the necessary changes in the MediaWiki software and submit a feature request. Hans Adler 18:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Article titles are a little different because we can only pick one. Let's try a thought experiment. Let's say 100% of all reliable sources use the term "Climategate". What should this article be titled? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Climategate" of course, see item 3 of the flow diagram above. Did you read it or were you only looking for superficial ways of criticising it? Hans Adler 09:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Aha! So the argument that -gate titles are forbidden is bogus.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 10:03, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, your argument that titles are forbidden or mandated is bogus. The validity of the exception allowing pov titles is what is questionable. Let's try a thought experiment. What if a minority of reliable sources use the term climategate to push an agenda, and many other reliable sources occasionally mention that the term "climategate" (note the quote marks) is being used by the first group to push that pov, but use other titles when describing the issue. What then? . . dave souza, talk 10:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) Arguing with you is like arguing with a creationist. You have found a minor inconsistency in policy:
 * WP:TITLE says descriptive titles such as "Attorneygate" are avoided but is not entirely clear as to what happens if they become the common name. It links to the guideline WP:WTA for "further advice". This advice includes in WP:WTA: -gate "should not be used in article titles except in historical cases where the term is widely used by reputable historical sources".
 * WP:NPOV is clear that in the unusual case when common names are non-neutral (as here), they "are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources."
 * Both policies agree that when a common name is non-neutral, it must satisfy a stronger standard than just being the common name to become acceptable. They disagree about what that standard is: "Wide" use (actually a rather lax condition per se) by only a very special type of sources, or a consensus of all sources. These are two different ways of preventing contentious POV titles such as "Climategate". While not formally equivalent, they probably have the same result in most if not all contentious cases, which is why they have not been harmonised yet. The fact that we have two different ways in which "Climategate" is unacceptable, which may contradict each other in other situations, is not at all a valid argument that "Climategate" is acceptable. Our policies are inconsistent, that's nothing new. They must be interpreted with common sense, in accordance with how they were meant. In this case the intent in both cases is clear with respect to this article.
 * Note I am not saying that the outcome for this article isn't somewhat accidental. It's conceivable that we could have slightly different formulations that express basically the same intent but so that "Climategate" would be acceptable according to one but not to the other. Or even that it would be acceptable according to both. One thing is absolutely clear, however: "Climategate" is a borderline case or very close to one. In practical terms this means that it's impossible to push its use through against a large number of editors who oppose it. Given that the term has been coined purposefully to begin with, as part of an unethical smear campaign against scientists, and got very wide traction on the basis of journalists' love of "-gate" words rather than the POV it expresses, the result – that the title will not be used – is the correct and just one, and policy is not broken in this respect. Hans Adler 10:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * First it all, knock it off with the personal attacks. Second, stop playing WP:ICANTHEARYOU games.  Climategate is a proper noun, not a descriptive name.  I already told you that several times and you keep ignoring this.  Third, if reliable sources adopt a term, that means it is neutral.  This is something else you keep you ignoring.  WP:NPOV is about editorial neutrality.  Wikipedia articles are supposed to be biased.  Or to state it another way, WP:NPOV is about editors being neutral, not article content or article names.  If you're unable to address what I'm saying, there is no point in continuing this discussion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 10:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This is getting too silly now. You just claimed: "if reliable sources adopt a term, that means it is neutral." With no qualification at all, not even that it must be a majority of reliable sources. Apparently more than one is enough. Wow. Regarding proper noun / descriptive name we simply disagree whether a title can be both. So long as "Attorneygate" is an example under WP:TITLE, I don't think that is at all absurd. But of course it's me who is not listening to you. Bye. Hans Adler 18:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Since detailed explanations of policy aren't helping, I decided to try something different and simplify my argument. Bye.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:31, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Fundamental misunderstanding of NPOV
WP:NPOV does not mean a lack of viewpoint, but is rather a specific, editorially neutral, point of view.(emphasis Wikipedia)  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Why do you label your comment a"fundamental misunderstanding of NPOV"? An editorially neutral title encourages different viewpoints, a pov-pushing neologism avoided by the better quality reliable sources, or used by them specifically to refer to a term used by an anti-science disinformation campaign, is not editorially neutral. . . dave souza, talk 06:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Isn't it obvious from things he said elsewhere? He believe that just like our article evolution is not "neutral" in the sense that it would treat creationism as a valid objection, NPOV also requires us to be "biased" with respect to "Climategate" and to push the anti-scientist POV. There is of course no basis for this argument. The constructions that we use to keep the creationist junk out of evolution are reliance on the most high quality sources and a global view (creationism is mostly an internal US problem). If we apply the same construction here, to the extent possible, then we can stop the discussions about the "Climategate" title right now because it fails to appear in the most reliable (i.e. peer-reviewed) sources in the first place. Hans Adler 10:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Our article on evolution is supposed to be biased against creationism.  That's what WP:NPOV means.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, it's not supposed to be biased against creationism. And it isn't. Quite appropriately, it says very little about creationism, but where it deals with it in the way that reliable sources deal with it. Creationism should be approached in the same way in the evolution article as it is in the creationism article - from the perspective of high-quality, reliable sources. Without bias towards or against a subject. Guettarda (talk) 19:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem with the current title
There's interesting discussion, above, about "Climategate" and while my views are well-known on that title (it is the obvious correct title based on policy, and the POV pushing in attempts to avoid it is quite clear). However, this particular note is not about that at all, and I am not conceding in any way that 'Climategate' should not be the title, since it should be.

Having said that, I think it may be wise to explore other alternatives. The problems with the current title are pretty obvious.

1. There is a scandal here, and I don't think anyone - even those who are the guilty parties in the scandal - is denying that. We have seen at least one quote from one of the participants in the emails saying that he sent "pretty awful" emails. Therefore, the word 'scandal' seems to be a neutral descriptor.

2. The scandal is not primarily centered on this as a "hacking incident". The current title is highly POV because it suggests to the reader that the scandal is that the emails were released. At the current time, to my knowledge, no one has been identified or pursued as the leaker, and there has been no actual proof that this is a "hacking incident" at all. It seems equally likely, again to my knowledge, that this was the act of a whistleblower, i.e. someone in a position to see these emails found them discomforting and released them to the press.

To put this in the context of NPOV, and to help people think about it, imagine if we had an article (do we? we might!) about some famous incident of a leak of documents embarrassing to the tobacco industry at their worst. Would we call it "Tobacco Research Labs hacking incident"? Or would we call it "The Camel Papers". (I am making up the example to illustrate the point, however I suspect we can find an example.)

My point here is to illustrate that calling it a "hacking incident" misses the point of why it is newsworthy entirely. Not just "misses" the point but actively misleads the reader.

3. Based on these points, what objections could there to be moving the article to a more accurate and yet completely neutral title. "Climatic Research Unit email scandal" is a simple and obvious first pass at it. Other titles could be proposed after a review of other historical incidents that have some reasonable similarity.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The funny thing is here that the people who are most keen on using the term "climategate" seem to have forgotten that in the prototypical Watergate incident the people doing the breaking and entering were very much the bad guys, breaking the law for sinister and venal ends - very much as they are here, in fact! Email scandal is fine, it was indeed a scandalous action. Guy (Help!) 14:26, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Addendum: Jeffrey Wigand is an example of what I have in mind. He was a whistleblower who came forward with unsavory information about a tobacco company.  We don't seem to have an article about the incident, though we could.  Just imagine what that article should be called.  Certainly not the "Brown & Williamson breach of employee confidentiality incident".  Further research into our best practices is likely worthwhile.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Scandal is problematic. I've supported before, and will support again, removing the word "hacking" from the title, as long as it's not replaced with "leak." Hipocrite (talk) 14:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Further, as I'm sure you're aware, your belief that this is a whistleblower is unverified and unverifiable. We don't include unverifed information in articles. Hipocrite (talk) 14:36, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not proposing that the title use the word 'leak'. We don't know that it is a leak.  We do know that it is a scandal, and we do know that the scandal is not primarily about how the documents came to light, but the content of the documents.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It is also completely contradicted by the key sources with direct knowledge of the issue - the university, the police and the independent inquiry, all of which have spoken unequivocally of a hack (Scotland Yard's specialist computer crime unit has been involved). Additionally, it ignores the undisputed fact that RealClimate was hacked to upload the stolen files. I'm frankly dismayed to see Jimbo latching on to a completely speculative hypothesis that has been promoted by political activists with no direct knowledge whatsoever of the circumstances. This is very poor form all round. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Excuse me? I did not latch on to a speculative hypothesis.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "It seems equally likely, again to my knowledge, that this was the act of a whistleblower, i.e. someone in a position to see these emails found them discomforting and released them to the press." Your words, Jimbo. "It seems" is speculative pretty much by definition, is it not? -- ChrisO (talk)
 * I am objection to "latch on" - that point is not particularly relevant at all to the substance of my argument. I personally think it is not just "equally likely" but "almost certainly" a leak from inside - time will tell if I'm right, but this is not relevant in any way to the current discussion.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You are entitled to your opinion. But you need to realise that it's speculation. And given the weight people give to your opinions, you need to make it clear that this is a purely speculative opinion. Guettarda (talk) 19:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes Jimbo, Chris is right. "Equally likely"? Sorry, there's nothing to substantiate that. Given the weight some people put on your every word, you need to get your facts straight before you weigh in. Guettarda (talk) 15:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As I and others pointed out earlier, we have no expert sources calling it either a "hack" or a "leak", and no reliable sources calling it a hack other than quoting UEA, CRU, or ClimateGate. The police refer to it as a "data breach".  (That being said, objectively, ClimateGate was hacked.  But we don't have reliable sources for that, either.)  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 15:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Claiming that "we have no expert sources" is completely wrong. The only sources with direct knowledge of the matter at this point are the police, the UEA, the CRU and the independent inquiry. All of them have said unequivocally that the CRU was hacked. There are no other "expert sources" because no other sources have direct knowledge of the matter. Every other source that has opined on the issue has done so purely speculatively on the basis of personal opinion. I might add that this "leak" claim originated with anti-science activists; it's interesting that few if any have sought to actually justify the hack. And as I've pointed out above, it completely ignores the undisputed fact that RealClimate was also hacked at the same tiem to upload the stolen files. Anti-science activists have preferred to ignore this because it can't be reconciled with the "leak" speculation. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * False, and falsified, before. UEA and CRU would call it a hack even if it were proved otherwise.  The police said "data breach", which is a fairly neutral term, at least in US English.  And the independent inquiry called it a hack, but went on to say they weren't investigating whether it was a hack.  So, no expert sources is clear.  (And ClimateGate wasn't hacked at the time; it was hacked later.)  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And, in any event, this is all completely irrelevant to the main issue. The point I'm making is that the controversy/scandal here is not in HOW the data was released, but the CONTENT of the data, which was spectacularly damaging.  So titling the article as if this controversy is about a "hacking incident" is wrong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Spectacularly damaging" to what? What reliable source says that? Please don't argue based on unverifiable information. Hipocrite (talk) 17:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Again Jimbo, given your position in the community you need to start getting your facts straight. Please. Stop for a moment, get your facts straight. That's all I ask. Guettarda (talk) 19:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the second time you've stated as much without explication (you have a a history). Consider deleting this and the other and replacing them with contentful alternatives.--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, Heyitspeter, LHvU said something about not repeating refuted claims. Since nothing I discussed at the time was refuted I assume his close was some meaningless platitude. And since he didn't bother to respond to my request for clarification, I can only assume that that was, in fact, what he had in mind. Guettarda (talk) 20:20, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * To Guy: Interesting point. But it's not always the people breaking in who are the bad guys, even if there was a breakin here.
 * (ec) In response to Jimbo Wales: It's not just the E-mail; it's the raw data files (not previously released, although they probably should have been) and analysis programs (in which some real climate scientists, even some of the ones sending questionable E-mails, have found potentially serious flaws.)  I'd have to suggest "Climatic Research Unit document scandal".  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think 'document' sounds fine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * To Hipocrite: "scandal" is not problematic. But if you insist on a falsely neutral term, "breach" sounds good.  And it's unverified that there was a whistleblower or a breakin, although it's likely there was one or the other.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Climatic Research Unit Incident or Climatic Research Unit Controversy would be fine, I think. Scandal is problematic, because it assumes the existance of a scandal. Controversy is fine, as there's certainly a controversy, but scandal implies something scandalous, which, in this case, is not supported by reliable sources. Hipocrite (talk) 14:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We don't need to assume the existence of a scandal! That's 100% verifiable.  There is no question that there is a scandal here, and there is no question that the scandal is centered on the content of the emails.  There are different views on the scandal (as there usually is).  But there is no question that there is a scandal.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The definition of scandal. "A scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed. A scandal may be based on true or false allegations or a mixture of both."
 * The definition of controversy. "Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion."
 * Per these definitions I find scandal a better fit as the reputation of the CRU has been damaged by the 'widely publicized allegations'. A simple 'Climategate' will do. A descriptive and per definition correct title is 'The Climatic Research Unit Scandal'.130.232.214.10 (talk) 15:19, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't feel a particularly strong attachment to the current title, and think there are likely better options there to be found. "Climategate", for the reasons outlined by myself and many others is certainly not one of those better options, and appears to go against Wikipedia policy. If we are to adopt a proper noun for the incident, that proper noun would need to be "used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources" and as demonstrated above, "Climategate" isn't. It also appears to violate the "Descriptive titles" section of WP:TITLE, which makes it clear that the most common name isn't used by default anyway.
 * The fact that it is a current event in which investigations are ongoing puts it in a difficult context. Not an intractable context, but we do need to be careful with loaded or partisan terms. I note that you referred to Swiftboating when another user raised the issue. But it's quite clear that the article is on the term "Swiftboating", and when the suggestion was made to similarly make "Climategate" either an article about the term or a disambiguation page about the multiple definitions used for the term such suggestions were rejected. The term is significant enough to be mentioned in the article, but it is certainly not the right title for it. StuartH (talk) 15:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I have previously supported Climatic Research Unit e-mail and document controversy, which I believe is a better title than what we have at the moment. Hans Adler has done an admirable job of setting out why "Climategate" is totally unacceptable. We should be aiming to find an acceptable descriptive title, not a POV nickname, and not a title that prejudges the case. We must not lose sight of the fact that the investigations into the case are still ongoing and no wrongdoing of any sort has yet been confirmed - indeed, the only investigation to have concluded so far (into Michael E. Mann) has exonerated him. Anti-science activists have sought to frame this issue as a scandal from the outset in order to convict the individuals involved in the court of public opinion and discredit them and climate science as a whole. The terminology for this affair has been a key strand in that effort. Clive Stafford Smith recently wrote (in a different context): "The botched Watergate burglary was of minor significance; the White House conspiracy to keep it secret drove Nixon from office. It turned the word "gate" into a suffix for every political evil." Living persons are being accused by partisan bloggers and columnists of all kinds of frauds and misdeeds, which is strongly disputed and in some respects already disproven by scientists and neutral commentators. NPOV and BLP dictates that we must be careful not to fall into the trap of endorsing a partisan framing of the issue that endorses one side's viewpoint from the outset. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (e/c) There's an aspect of how to "slice 'n' dice" the story here. We already have too much for one article, and so have this article on the incident and another on the (more notable of the) documents themselves. At the moment this is considered the parent article and so covers the precursors, the reactions to, and the consequences of the incident, as far as they are notable and verifiable. I think there could be room for a separate article on the term Climategate, including its first usages, its relationship with other similar terms, who uses it etc. We used to have a section on that here, but I see it didn't suit somebody as it's now gone. There are two potential articles that I don't feel we should have, although some people seem to clamour for them: (1) CRU scientists proved to be lying crooks - this one would break every WP:BLP policy, as it would be based on unsupportable lynch-mob sources including far-right blogs etc. (2) Climate science proved false - this one would be counter to the verifiable facts, as reported by every science-based RS, and would be based on anti-science denialist sources. The danger is that there are people here who desperately want to write one or both of these tracts, and would love to be able to do so under the title Climategate, as that fully sums up the sentiment: That these emails put the final nail into the coffin of climate science, by proving that it was entirely based on lies and malpractice. Much more reportable information will be known on these two issues when the investigations and reviews, currently in progress, begin to report. If their results justify such articles, of course we will write them; but not yet - just about everything that is not already covered in the two current articles is still mere speculation, and wishful thinking by some, at the moment. --Nigelj (talk) 15:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * As for "scandal", while you can fit this to the definition of the word "scandal", you can also fit it to the definition of the word "smear". Calling it one and not the other would require some seriously good sourcing. Guettarda (talk) 15:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That's nonsense, and you should know it. There's a scandal, which we're discussing.  There may be a smear, which doesn't seem to be discussed in this article.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 15:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Having read the emails, there doesn't seem to be a smear. The emails objectively speaking are, as even one of the participants has acknowledged, "pretty awful".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you're reading primary sources (hacked emails), applying your own understanding of what they mean and using that to justify the title of an article? Would it be appropriate to do the same to other articles - ones that you didn't feel so strongly about? Hipocrite (talk) 17:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense? Let's see - according to the OED there are 7 meanings of scandal OK, you're right. I can't fit this to the definition of the word "scandal". No way, no how. "Smear", on the other hand, still fits... Guettarda (talk) 16:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Religious use..."scandal of the cross" and things like that
 * pretty safe to assume we're not talking about it here
 * 1) Damage to reputation; rumour or general comment injurious to reputation.
 * Not the meaning we're talking about (based on the examples of usage & obsolete usage, it's closer to "slander")
 * 1) A grossly discreditable circumstance, event, or condition of things/A person whose conduct is that
 * Grossly discreditable? Nope.
 * 1) Offence to moral feeling or sense of decency.
 * Not what we're talking about
 * 1) The utterance of disgraceful imputations; defamatory talk
 * Nope
 * 1) Law. Any injurious report published concerning another which may be the foundation of legal action or An irrelevancy or indecency introduced into a pleading to the derogation of the dignity of the court
 * Not what we're talking about here
 * 1) Combination like scandal-bearer, scandal-monger, etc.

The actual event fits #2, although we can disagree as to who is doing it to whom. Even a suggestion that E-mails should be deleted in response to an FOIA act fits #3. #4 fits, although it's not what we're talking about, due to GW bias. #6 fits (FOIA comments). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Meaning #2 is "damage" in the sense of slander. So "smear" would be equivalent. Guettarda (talk) 18:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Calling that comment "grossly discreditable circumstance" is ridiculous hyperbole, as is calling it "moral feeling or sense of decency". Seriously - a lot of nasty shit gets said in departmental politics. And, safe behind the shield of privacy, people talk big, people are full of false bravado. As long as there was no follow-up action (and no one has suggested that there was any) this is not so far outside of the norms of private behaviour that there's anything that could be called "grossly discreditable". Guettarda (talk) 19:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's the difference between saying "I want to kick his ass" in private, and actually doing it. You've got to admit that these are very different things. Guettarda (talk) 19:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

From The Real Holes in Climate Science - Quirin Schiermeier, Nature, 463, 284–287, 2010

There's a summary from as good a source as anyone could hope for. That isn't a "scandal". We are supposed to deal with the real world of verifiable facts from reliable sources. Guettarda (talk) 23:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Obviously, the contents of the emails can engender scandal without undermining any science. -- Chadhoward (talk) 23:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "[R]ude behaviour and verbal faux pas" is manifestly not the same as "grossly discreditable circumstance" or "moral feeling or sense of decency". So what amounts to a "scandal"? Guettarda (talk) 23:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We can argue whether there is a scandal at some other point. For now, I'll stick to my original point about sloppy logic: Some folks are arguing that because the emails don't necessarily undermine any science, there can be no scandal. That is false. -- Chadhoward (talk) 23:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue here is that people are claiming that there is a scandal, that it's "100% verifiable". We have unsourced opinion that "yes, this is a scandal". What is this supposed scandal? What is there that rises to the level of "grossly discreditable circumstance" or "moral feeling or sense of decency"? There's no scandal in the science, obviously. And "rude behaviour and verbal faux pas", no matter how "sobering" are not "grossly discreditable circumstance" or "moral feeling or sense of decency". I think the Schiermeier quote clearly undercuts both of these arguments. So, again - what scandal? Anyone? Guettarda (talk) 14:58, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Based on a very, very quick analysis of reliable sources, I would guessimate about 75% use the term "scandal" and about 50% use the term "controversy". If those numbers are accurate, that makes "scandal" the more neutral term.  (People seem to miss the "if"'s I put at the beginning of my sentences so I'm starting to bold face it.) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Guettarda, try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgIEQqLokL8. And, before arguing that some of the problems discussed may not have actually happened (data destruction, for example), keep in mind that mere bad behaviour (asking colleagues to delete data) can engender scandal if the person is important or carries a position of responsibility. -- Chadhoward (talk) 19:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Mere bad behaviour can engender scandal". Again, I return to the OED definition. Are you seriously saying that "Mere bad behaviour can engender grossly discreditable circumstance" or "Mere bad behaviour can engender offence to moral feeling or sense of decency"? Bear in mind that we're talking about the actions of identifiable living people here. So please, find me a BLP-worthy source that makes that connection explicitly. Guettarda (talk) 20:11, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My version of the OED says a scandal is "an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage --> outrage, rumour, or gossip arising from this." Obviously, bad behavour can be regarded as morally wrong and cause public outrage. Definition 2. a. of the online OED also fits: "Damage to reputation; rumour or general comment injurious to reputation." Note that this latter definition allows for mere allegations to make up a scandal. The definitions you have quoted are a bit stronger, but I think they fit too. Have a look at that Rex Murphy commentary and see if you still have trouble understanding why some people find the affair scandalous on its face. -- Chadhoward (talk) 20:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Look at the context - they're talking about a usage akin to slander. Guettarda (talk) 21:03, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, it's not about how "some people find it". It's about making major accusations about living people based on weak sources. When we say "scandal", we can't hedge our bets by saying "I'm sure they'll know what we're talking about". When we're using terminology that generally means "major misdeeds", and we're talking about living people, we need to make sure that it's BLP-compliant. Guettarda (talk) 21:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You may be thinking of OED's definition 2.b.: "A disgraceful imputation. In later use, a baseless imputation, a slander. Obs." Aside from that, if you cannot agree that the head of a university research department saying "If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file [of CRU station data] rather than send to anyone" (and then when it is discovered that, as Rex Murphy says, "They've lost the raw data on which all the models, all the computer generated forecasts, the graphs and projections, are based.") is the sort of thing that could do reputational damage and engender scandal, I can't really do much for you. Disengaging. -- Chadhoward (talk) 21:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Chadhoward, Rex Murphy's presmises are false, and discredited by current investigations properly reported by reliable mainstream sources. CRU does not archive data, so couldn't "lose" it. I appreciate that in your country thought crimes may be punishable, but here that's thought to be rather Orwellian. . . dave souza, talk 22:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We can discuss the truth about specific allegations some other time. Right now, we are talking about whether there is a scandal. My original point about sloppy logic was that whatever scientific consensus there is on climate change doesn't have to have been undermined for there to be a scandal. To that, I now need to add: Not all of the accusations being made must be true for there to be a scandal; CRU does not have to have "lost" the data Phil Jones discussed deleting for there to be a scandal; Bad behaviour and inappropriate statements don't have to be legally punishable for there to be a scandal; etc. -- Chadhoward (talk) 23:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

A compromise proposal
I'd like to resurrect the compromise proposal that ChrisO and GoRight were working on. I've copied and pasted their proposal below and I added my signature.

We the undersigned would like to propose the following name change for the Climatic Research Unit hacking incident article:

Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy

This proposal has come about as a result of good-faith discussions by editors who have expressed differing opinions on the subject but have nonetheless come together to find a mutually acceptable solution.

Our reasons are as follows:


 * 1) The constant renaming proposals are unproductive and ultimately a drain on people's time.
 * 2) It is clear that few if any people want the current name.
 * 3) Coming to an amicable compromise is in the best interests of the project, overall.

We believe that this proposal has the following benefits:

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) It avoids the use of "Climategate", which is strongly opposed by many editors, is deprecated by current policies and is inconsistent with Wikipedia's usual approach to such issues.
 * 2) The redirect from Climategate will still be in place for users searching for that name.
 * 3) It avoids the use of "stolen", "hack" or "data" to which editors objected on various grounds.
 * 4) It follows a well established project convention in the naming of X-gate type articles: namely the X-gate is a redirect to an article which is descriptively named after its subject matter (e.g. Rathergate ? Killian documents controversy, Attorneygate ? Dismissal of US Attorneys controversy, Whitewatergate ? Whitewater controversy etc).
 * 5) It is a middle ground proposal that requires everyone to give a little and noone walks away with everything they wanted (i.e. it really is a compromise).
 * 6) The inclusion of "email" is obviously needed as this is probably the single most noted and discussed aspect of the whole affair.
 * 7) The inclusion of "documents" is still broad enough to cover other materials (even code) which were released and it is well aligned with the FOI request aspects of the affair.
 * 8) It does not depend on the outcome of ongoing investigations, and will remain valid whatever the investigations conclude.
 * 9) And probably most importantly, "controversy" does not bias the article on one direction or another, thereby meeting NPOV requirements.
 * I am not happy with "controversy" versus "scandal" but can live with it as a significant improvement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As AQFK says, I supported this proposal originally (I co-wrote with GoRight the list of benefits above) and I am happy to continue to support it now. As point 5 indicates, however, it does require editors on both sides to be willing to compromise. That means those advocating "Climategate" need to accept that there is not going to be a consensus in favour of their preferred name, and those advocating the current title need to accept - based on the last time this proposal came up - that there is already a large majority in favour of moving to an alternative title. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That is false and illogical (these are different predicates, both embodied here). One can accept the current compromise while believing that Climategate is a legitimate possibility. Retract?--Heyitspeter (talk) 08:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I presume this is your way of saying that you have no intention of compromising. Thanks for making that clear. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That is not the case, in any way shape or form. I supported the present proposal along with you in an act of compromise. You appear confused.--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:12, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Why not make it "Global warming email and document controversy"? Most people have never heard of the Climactic Research Unit. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * For the simple reason that that name would widen the scope enormously. This controversy relates specifically to the e-mails hacked from the CRU. It does not involve "global warming emails and documents" generally. It's like the difference between "Whitewater controversy" (specifically relating to the Whitewater Development Corporation) and "Land development controversy" (which could relate to anything within that very large topic area). -- ChrisO (talk) 16:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I was just thinking that since this controversy involves global warming, then maybe it should say that. But I see your point. On "scandal vs. controversy" I'm definitely for "controversy." I just think that saying it's a "scandal" takes sides. I can't speak to the policy with any authority, and I've noted that Wiki policies tend to be contradictory and subjective anyway. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely that "scandal" takes sides and prejudges the matter to the detriment of the living individuals involved. That's why I've endorsed "controversy", which I think we can all agree does exist, but oppose "scandal", which is POV, prejudicial and hotly disputed. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Chris, look at the definitions of "scandal" from the OED (just above this section). "Scandal" doesn't begin to fit. Guettarda (talk) 19:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I voted against the last page move but I am starting to understand the position that "hacking incident" does not reflect the fact that most of the media and public attention has focused on the contents of the emails/documents rather than the hack itself. There's not going to be a solution which satisfies everyone, but there clearly needs to be an attempt to compromise. Between "controversy" and "scandal", I'm leaning very heavily towards "controversy", it feels like there may be a better fit than "email and document" for the rest of it, but if no better fit is found I would vote for the above title. StuartH (talk) 15:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * These names proposed so far seem, at least marginally, acceptable. The current name is not.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 15:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No strong feelings either way, although it would require something of a re-write, since the weight of the article would need to be changed to match the title. How do you propose we re-write the article to reflect the change in title? Guettarda (talk) 15:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need a rewrite. I think we only have to change 3 words:


 * "The Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy came to light began in November 2009 when it was discovered that thousands of e-mails and other documents had been obtained through the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England."
 * A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:03, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That seems reasonable. I think we should aim for as light a change as possible, and that would seem to meet the objective. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, this isn't any sort of compromise. The proposed name shifts the focus entirely on to the largely faux controversy, and it would require a fundamental rewrite of the article. I'd rather see the "controversy" aspect forked so that proper weight can be given to the role the skeptical echo chamber played in hyping this incident beyond all imagination, When you peel back the layers of bullshit it has generated, the core that remains is virtually nonexistent. I think Jimbo's preference for "scandal" is absolutely shocking when one considers Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think that's really the case. While there's obviously a dispute about whether this affair is a "scandal" (which I fully agree is hype that originated with anti-science activists), you can't really deny that there is a controversy. The question of whether there is anything to the controversy is secondary - it exists separately from the verifiable facts (regrettably). -- ChrisO (talk) 16:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Sjessey: If reliable sources adopt a term, that means it is neutral. In any case, the proposal above doesn't use this term.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:59, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That is complete nonsense. Reliable sources referred to Michael Jackson as "Wacko Jacko" for years, but nobody in their right mind would call that neutral. The use of a term by reliable sources does not automatically make it neutral. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Cheap tabloids and gossip rags might have used that term, but here in the US, virtually all reliable sources used the term, "Michael Jackson". Actually it does, and that's point no one seems to be getting.  WP:NPOV means we present view points roughly in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I can see absolutely nothing wrong with the proposed title and support it. The present title is inaccurate (concentrates on the part that should get the most attention but does not), non-neutral and a bit of a POV problem. ("A bit" because I am measuring it by the same standards as evolution, whose concentration on the actual scientific facts is not a POV problem.) I have explained above why "Climategate" is non-neutral to the point that it's simply not acceptable per WP:NPOV. This proposal has none of these problems. Hans Adler 16:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, you didn't. You completely missed the crux of my argument that WP:NPOV requires us to be editorially neutral.   Wikipedia articles are supposed to be biased. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, yes? Wikipedia articles are supposed to be biased? Where would we find that instruction? Probably in WP:NPOV. Let's see what it says:
 * "Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases (in other words, all editors and all sources have a point of view)—what matters is how we combine them to create a neutral article. Unbiased writing is the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate, including the mutual perspectives and the published evidence. Editorial bias toward one particular point of view should be removed or repaired."
 * I am looking forward to reading WP:NPOV after you have rewritten it according to your philosophy. Hans Adler 18:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You still don't 'get it'. Yes, Wikipedia articles are supposed to be biased.  Do you agree or disagree that our Earth should be biased against Flat Earth theory?  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Didn't we have just this discussion before? Under "Flow diagram" for checking a title? Are you trying to repeat it because you lost last time? Do you have any reason to believe that you will win this time? Hans Adler 23:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This isn't about winning or losing. I'm disapointed in your comments, Hans. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * A potential problem here though is while debate goes on here about compromising on an article title, what is IMO a clear WP:POVFORK is wending its way up through the works; Article Incubator/Climategate. I'm curious as to what the impact will be to this one once someone tries to take that thing live. Tarc (talk) 16:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It will be merged to this article and redirected. Hipocrite (talk) 16:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * A POV fork being prepared in the main space? Amazing. Have we ever had an MfD on an incubator article? Hans Adler 17:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would be interested in seeing what an uninvolved administrator would say regarding taking it live. Furthermore, if the concern is regarding content forking, we can keep the current title to this article, excise the controversy parts, and you have an effective split.  If the concern is regarding a POV fork, then pointing out specific language/parts that one finds POV would be helpful.  I purposefully took most of the controversy stuff from the article and eliminated unrelated AR4/IPCC stuff from the incubator article to get it into line with a neutral point of view.  If the issue is solely with the title, as I imagine it will be, then I would suggest a community-wide RFC regarding the name.  Our insular debate has failed to reach consensus regarding whether or not "Climategate" violates Wikipedia policies, as differing interpretations of the policy exist. Moogwrench (talk) 17:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Agree that "Climatic Research Unit email scandal" or "Climatic Research Unit email controversy" is a big improvement. -- Chadhoward (talk) 18:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I supported "Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy" before and would do so again. Wikispan (talk) 18:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This article is titled correctly. Just read it and see it deals only with the hacking incident.  It links to an article that divulges some of the contents of the emails.  We are not likely to see an article titled "Climategate" at Wikipedia because the ideology of the controlling editors makes them deflect focus from the scandal to the hacking.  For some reason Jimbo Wales has allowed them free rein to distort the noble written goals of Wikipedia and deny facts they find unpleasant or unuseful.  Of course there's a scandal!  Google turns up 3 1/2 million hits on "climategate scandal."  What's scary in this Orwellian scenario is that we don't have a totalitarian government's Minitrue dropping history down the memory hole, but goodthinkful citizens who have lapped up the PC worldview.  Yopienso (talk) 23:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't be silly. This has nothing to do with ideology (it's rather hypocritical of you to complain about ideological bias when you're the one ranting about "PC worldviews") but with basic issues of neutrality, descriptiveness and fairness. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Agree with Wikispan: I've not explicitly !voted for it before, but Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy is a workable title, avoiding the argument over the precise definition of "hacking" and the non-neutral pov of "climategate" which in my reading of policies is not acceptable. Climatic Research Unit email controversy would actually be preferable as a widely used term, the "documents" are essentially a side issue which has gained little attention: the claim about computer code has been shown to have no merit by testimony from Bob Harris and the UEA submitted to the Select Committee. The term "scandal" introduces another can of worms and is not necessary. . . dave souza, talk 23:19, 16 March 2010 (UTC) Update, it's the testimony from the UEA and "43 Professor von Storch and Dr. Allen" which is contested to some extent by "55 John Graham-Cumming". It will be interesting to see how that issue pans out. Still relatively minor. . dave souza, talk 23:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Climategate Pardon my pedanticism, but if everyone calls it "Climategate", then it's "Climategate". Seems obvious. The connotations positive and negative will follow. GB. TreacherousWays (talk) 01:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support "Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy". I disagree with calling it "scandal" because the "awful" things said in those e-mails were not as important as the question of whether the emails prove that climate change is a hoax or not, which many skeptics claim they did. Sole Soul (talk) 01:33, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The opinion of any WP editor, certainly including yours truly, is of no consequence in this issue. The mainstream media is calling it a scandal, so that's what we have to call it. We cannot dismiss 3,500,000 Google hits. They are calling the whole episode "Climategate," so if we were to write an article about the emails revealed by hackers and the subsequent worldwide (or is it mainly in the US and UK?) scandal thereby provoked, including the stepping down of Phil Jones, it would necessarily be called "Climategate."  Meanwhile, anyone who wants to know the facts can easily, indeed, almost unavoidably, find them outside Wikipedia.  The facts on the scandal, that is, not on global warming. Yopienso (talk) 02:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The "mainstream media" includes many unreliable sources, and excludes the more reliable sources on science topics. Google hits indiscriminately include any mantion that someone else has used the non-neutral neologism "climategate" to promote biased misunderstandings of the issues. The scandal is that lies and misrepresentations are being used to damage public understanding of science, in a similar way to the tobacco company campaigns to deny health risks. . . dave souza, talk 07:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As I have asked before, where is the mainstream media calling it a scandal? People keep saying this, but they refuse to provide citations. As for 3,500,000 hits - it doesn't raise a red flag when a search for x + y gets 1.5 million more hits than a search for x alone? How can "climategate" + "scandal" get 3.5 million hits when "climategate" alone get 2 million? Obviously, as WP:GOOGLE makes clear, it's because Google just makes up numbers over 1000. As we've discussed here. At length. And anyway, "google hits" ≠ "mainstream media coverage". You can't media coverage and then support that with google hits. Guettarda (talk) 07:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

"Here" is where the reliable resources of the mainstream media are calling it Climategate and calling it a scandal. (Did you notice two lists above?) The global-warming scandal is bigger than one email leak." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574576683216723794.html
 * "On the Climategate emails.....until we know whether the scandal goes deeper than this." http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2009/11/24/on-the-climategate-emails/
 * "'Climate-Gate' Scandal Should Be Wake-Up Call For Press, Politicians" http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=513542
 * "The Tip of the Climategate Iceberg

Not that quoting them will make a whit of difference to the editors who are determined to have it their way regardless of the facts. That has been amply proven on this page.

On the light side, you could follow Sen. Boxer's lead and call it "email-theft-gate": "U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer has said 'email-theft-gate' requires 'looking at a criminal activity which could well have been coordinated.' Senator Boxer has so far shown considerably less appetite for investigating the various attempts to thwart or obstruct FOIA requests that the leaked emails have brought to light." That should resonate deeply with the goodthinkful citizens on this page who are more alarmed at the dastardly hackers than at the possibility of deceit in a government agency. (No! Say no! Deceit in a government agency?!) Yet I'd guess they thought Daniel Ellsberg was a hero and the Nixon administration villainous. :) Yopienso (talk) 09:22, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, it's a tiny step in the right direction. Slightly better than simply citing Google hits. Showing that something has happened isn't the same as showing that it's the norm. You picked three examples - one is a "conservative blogger", another is IBD (the news source that said that if Stephen Hawking had been born in the UK, the NHS would not had him euthanised) and the third is the Wall Street Journal's opinion page. What do they share? Well, for one, two are from November, one is from early December. This is back when bloggers (and right-wing editorial writers) were claiming that "hide the decline" and other misinterpreted things were evidence of some great conspiracy. So they're dated, and they represent a single, partisan extreme. The first problem then is one of perspective. Back in November it looked like there was something big. Now, not so much.
 * Useful sources are non-partisan, or span the range of partisanship. They've had the opportunity to look at the situation knowing the facts. And hopefully they're from sources with editorial oversight. You can't pick fire-breathing partisans who are looking at the information without context, and try to generalise that to the "mainstream media". It's just not an honest characterisation. Guettarda (talk) 14:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Easy to find
WP:TITLE says that we should use names and terms that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article. Is it possible to access Wikipedia server logs to determine what search terms our readers are using to access this article? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As long as Climategate redirect here, it's irrelevant. It may be worth considering if it's turned into a dab. Guettarda (talk) 19:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No it isn't. WP:Article titles says that the name of an article should serve the readers, not the editor's interests.  So citing what the readers search for is relevant. Moogwrench (talk) 20:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Moogwrench, where did the title "Climategate" come from? Viriditas (talk) 20:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * According to the sources I've read, it was coined by a poster at the anti-science blog Watt's Up With That. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It is irrelevant. A long as the redirect is up, if a reader searches for "climategate", he directly arrives at this article, even if we call it Buxtehude. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)--Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

How about just answering the question instead of using this thread as another forum to argue? We have a lot of smart, knowledgeable people following this article including Jimbo Wales and many admins. Certainly, somebody already knows the answer to this question. If I had asked this on the Wikipedia Reference Desk, I would have gotten an answer immediately, not a debate. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * @ A Quest For Knowledge, You seem to be misreading the policy. The version I'm looking at states "Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name", not "Articles are normally "should be" titled using the most common English-language name". The examples it gives are neutral, unlike -gate titles which are specifically deprecated in the Descriptive titles section. . . dave souza, talk 22:11, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Climategate: 5854x in January, 5486x in February
 * Climatic Research Unit hacking incident 24214x in Jan., 24928 in Feb. Guettarda (talk) 22:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That looks like the number of page views. I asked about search terms.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:10, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "I asked for search terms". Wonderful attitude in response to people going out of their way for you, I must say. Guettarda (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It's a plain statement of fact. Giving people wrong answers is not particularly helpful. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * As I said, it's the closest thing to an answer that's available. You could, of course, do your own searching, instead of demanding answers from other people, and then responding rudely when it's not to your liking. Guettarda (talk) 07:01, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Those numbers are bogus because, when climategate is entered into goggle, "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" is the second link displayed. Try using Google trends instead. Q Science (talk) 06:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Your terms - Climatic Research Unit hacking incident - do not have enough search volume to show graphs.

Wikipedia article traffic statistics
 * And I'll throw this into the mix:
 * Climategate has been viewed 36449 times in 200912.
 * Climategate has been viewed 32016 times in 200911.
 * Climatic_Research_Unit_hacking_incident has been viewed 0 times in 200911.

Just use the drop-down menu on Guettarda's links. Funny--you can only view something that exists.

Google hits:


 * 10,500 for Climatic Research Unit hacking incident

1,680,000 for climategate controversy

2,060,000 for climategate

3,500,000 for climategate scandal

3,940,000 for climate gate controversy

7,590,000 for climate gate scandal

9,780,000 for climate gate Yopienso (talk) 07:09, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:GOOGLE - basically once you get past 1000 hits, Google just makes up the numbers. As the the page views for this article in November - it isn't surprising that it had zero page views in Nov. 2009 since it wasn't moved to this page name until Jan 5, 2010. Before that it was the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident (which got 139363 page views in December, and 62912 page views in November, despite the fact that it only existed for the last 8 days of the month), and before that various other permutations of those terms. Guettarda (talk) 07:33, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Clear confirmation that Wikipedia practice and community consensus do not prohibit "-gate"
A few editors have stated that Wikipedia prohibits "-gate". This is not true, neither community consensus, practice or policy prohibit the term.


 * 1) Pinotgate
 * 2) Tunagate
 * 3) Toallagate
 * 4) Squidgygate
 * 5) Spygate
 * 6) Shawinigate
 * 7) Bandargate scandal
 * 8) Betsygate
 * 9) Bingogate
 * 10) Coingate scandal
 * 11) Corngate
 * 12) Debategate.

Climategate stands likely second only to Watergate for public awareness, and with the enormous weight of evidence as to it's notability and widespread neutral use it seems only the hardest partisans deny its reality. There are over 1600 possible hits at Wikipedia, this is just a sample of articles I found that use the term.99.142.1.101 (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:OTHERCRAP. Hipocrite (talk) 20:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I can see I have a bit of work to do bringing those articles in line. Incidentally, Watergate is not an example of a -gate snow clone. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:36, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Chris, please don't do that. I will view it as clearly disruptive if you start pushing your agenda in unrelated and long standing articles in order to get your way here.  You are making up policy that doesn't exist.  Please don't do that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Many of these also refer to events where serious misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt. This is not the case for the CRU emails. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and in any event"Other articles use the name Whatever-gate" is not an argument that this one should. That this one should is clear from policy.  But we are much better off working on the compromise than having POV pushing in unrelated matters.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Case in point for why -gate article names are often bunk: "Pinotgate", which I've just renamed, is a nickname coined in an article published nine days ago in the San Francisco Chronicle. It appears to have no wider currency beyond a couple of fleeting mentions in non-English sources. It's exceedingly unlikely that someone would search for such an obscure term. The article was created only 6 days ago by an editor who was well aware of the "Climategate" controversy; this appears distinctly iffy to me. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec)What ChrisO said above, and what I noted in an earlier section above, is fully supported by NAME. Please stop having a proverbial chilling effect on conversations here by labeling good-faith editors as disruptive. Tarc (talk) 21:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the merit of renaming the other articles, Pinotgate was created by a participants of this talk page so POV pushing could potentially exist in both directions. Nil Einne (talk) 22:26, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. There is a distinctly odour of rodent about that one. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that Pinotgate is not ok. This is also irrelevant to the main discussion here.  ChrisO, please do not insult others in your edit summaries.  I remind you of WP:NPA.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, what insult? -- ChrisO (talk) 22:36, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The whole WP:AVOID argument is bogus anyway. There's a conflict between WP:NPOV and WP:AVOID. WP:NPOV says "Climategate" is a legitimate article title. WP:AVOID says it's not. When policies and guidelines conflict, we're supposed to follow policy. When all the dust settles, I suspect that we're probably going to have to change WP:NPOV and/or WP:AVOID so that they're in sync. 21:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)A Quest For Knowledge (talk)
 * Chris stop running around changing article names which have had those names for ages just so you can get your way here, that is being disruptive. mark nutley (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The position against a "climategate" article title is already solidly grounded, fixing these articles that have thus far escaped scrutiny is neither disruptive nor done to support/strengthen any argument made here. Please retire this already-tired line of attack. Tarc (talk) 21:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * IP 99.142.1.101, who is likely to be banned shortly, has identified a number of articles which may have titling problems. I'm simply reviewing them to see which are acceptable per WP:AVOID and which are not. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

@A Quest for Knowledge, your argument is bogus, focussing on the part ot NPOV that permits non-neutral names when used by a consensus of sources, and ignoring the requirements that "A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. The article might cover the same material but with less emotive words, or might cover broader material which helps ensure a neutral view (for example, renaming "Criticisms of drugs" to "Societal views on drugs"). Neutral titles encourage multiple viewpoints and responsible article writing." The more reliable sources use the term specifically to describe partisan use of the term in promoting an attack on mainstream science, and not to cover the wider aspects of the issue covered in this article. Use of "climategate" would frame the article and discourage multiple viewpoints, to the detriment of the requirements of NPOV policy of giving due weight to the overwhelming majority expert opinion on the subject of climatology. The scandal or controversy of the widespread misrepresentation of the emails and other documents does need improved coverage in this article, use of a slanted title would not help to give the majority view due weight. . . dave souza, talk 22:03, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Rubbish Tarc, policy says if it is historical then gate can be used, Toallagate was in 2001 so now it`s history right? So why rename it to Mexican government expenses controversy apart from a desperate try at getting his own way here? mark nutley (talk) 22:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I've also rewritten the article to improve the sourcing and make it more informative. Certainly the new title is much more informative. "Toallagate" is still there as a redirect and is mentioned in the article, but "Mexican presidential expenses controversy" is far more informative than a -gate nickname that isn't even in English. Here's another case in point, which neatly illustrates the unoriginality of snow clones. "Spygate" was being used solely to refer to a 2007 National Football League videotaping controversy which I'd certainly never heard of. On my side of the Atlantic, it's been used almost exclusively to refer to the 2007 Formula One espionage controversy. It's also been used as a synonym for the Plame affair and a 2005 South African controversy. The only rational solution, which is what I've done, is to make the snow clone a disambiguation page and retitle the former "Spygate" page as the much more informative 2007 National Football League videotaping controversy, parallel with 2007 Formula One espionage controversy. This is good housekeeping, nothing more. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (EC then I killed my message and had to rewrite.) I also have to agree that Spygate pointing to 2007 National Football League videotaping controversy was clearly inappropriate. Ask people outside the US about spygate and I suspect they're far more likely to think of the Formula 1 controversy then the US NFL one (particularly if they're F1 fans obviously). I personally had never heard of the US NFL controversy before. The fact the situation existed for so long is more of a sign of systemic bias then anything else and in fact from what I can tell Spygate originally pointed to the F1 article (which was created first & was a major scandal involving a $100 million fine amongst other things) and the NFL article was originally created as Spygate incident (American football)). For whatever reason, the creator of the article later copy & paste moved the article to spygate (later fixed by an admin) but there doesn't appear to have been any real discussion about this and as I've mentioned it's highly questionable if the US NFL thing can be considered the primary topic for spygate. This doesn't preclude it being called Spygate (NFL) or whatever obviously. Nil Einne (talk) 22:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course, the root problem is the unimaginativeness and tacky sensationalism of journalists... -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * These are certainly improvements to said articles. The WP:ABF implications being thrown around are, in my view, quite unwarranted. I don't see this issue edging any closer to a resolution (the "documents controversy" rename almost looked promising until battleground positions were resumed), but it has raised concerns and highlighted issues with both current policy (which appears to be inconsistent at the moment) and many of the above -gate articles. These issues and concerns will need to be addressed in due course. StuartH (talk) 23:03, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Another case in point: I'm currently going over Bandargate scandal, which appears to have been written by a partisan. I just deleted a lot of BLP-violating unsourced allegations and am working on rewriting the article, which I'll move to Al Bandar report. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Dave, anyone can quote a policy out of context and use it to draw an erroneous conclusion, but when you look at WP:NPOV in its entirety, you'll see that it's about editorial bias. There may be a valid argument against "Climategate" as the title, but this ain't it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * AQFK, you still seem to be misreading policy. Read in its entirety, "climategate" is unsuitable as a title for the reasons stated. . . dave souza, talk 23:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no policy against using "Climategate". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Neutrality policy and article titling policy both deprecate pov pushing titles, while allowing an exception under limited circumstances where a consensus of reliable sources use the term. Simple google hits do not demonstrate that consensus, for example they include a source mentioning "The e-mail episode, dubbed 'climategate' by critics," or "a recent controversy surrounding e-mails stolen from climate scientists that some have dubbed 'Climategate.'"  as though such mentions include the source in question as "using the term". They also exclude many more reliable sources that avoid the term or only mention it to note the partisan campaigning of others. There is no policy mandating the use of "climategate". . . dave souza, talk 07:36, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The thing that really amazes me is the fact that all the "climategate" proponents seem to simply ignore the fact that most non-partisan sources which use the name, use it within scare quotes. That in itself is a major red flag. But it seems to simply be ignored. I find myself seriously at a loss to find a good faith explanation for this. Guettarda (talk) 07:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd simply put it down to a lapse of memory. Even the Daily Mangle seems to be inconsistent in its use of scare quotes, but then it's hardly non-partisan. . . dave souza, talk 10:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As you know, quotes can serve different purposes. When the writer is sarcastic, it's easy to interpret the quotes as "scare quotes". When there is no sarcasm, the quotes may simply mean "this is what people have been calling it, just so you know you're not crazy for not being able to find it in the dictionary." I won't claim to always know which usage is which, but I don't think you can either. -- Chadhoward (talk) 20:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Btw, here's a recent example of a non-partisan source using the term Climategate without quotes (Note that The Economist is generally on board with the notion of climate change and the desirability for precautionary measures): http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15719298 -- Chadhoward (talk) 00:54, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Climategate versus Attorneygate
It seems that there is a lot of confusion over the similarity or differences between Climategate and Attorneygate. I ran the following searches...


 * "Climategate" OR "Climate-gate" -Wikipedia
 * "Attorneygate" OR "Attorney-gate" -Wikipedia

...using the following search engines:


 * Google News
 * Google News Archive
 * Google Scholar
 * Reliable Sources Search Engine
 * Wikipedia Reference Search

Having used all of these search engines before, I would say that the Reliable Sources Search Engine is the most reliable for this sort of thing. For some reason, Wikipedia's software blocks custom search engines. See above for the URLs.

These were my results:


 * Google News: Climategate: 813 hits, Attorneygate: 0 hits
 * Google News Archive: Climategate: 3,450, Attorneygate: 106 hits
 * Google Scholar: Climategate: 58 hits,  Attorneygate: 10 hits
 * Reliable Sources Search Engine: Climategate: 43 pages, Attorneygate: 2 pages
 * Wikipedia Reference Search: Climategate: 43 pages, Attorneygate: 3 pages.

To help determine what terms our readers are most likely to use, I  examined Google Trends. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * For Climategate, I get the following:
 * For Attorneygate, I get "Your terms - Attorneygate, Attorney-gate - do not have  enough search volume to show graphs."


 * You do realise that 3 years ago Google News searched a much smaller body of "news" sources, right? How have you controlled for that in your search of the Google News archives? Guettarda (talk) 23:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That's why I have 6 different lines of data. Also, I already stated that I think the Reliable Sources Search Engine is the best one for this sort of thing.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * OK - you have six different "lines of data"
 * you know is meaningless, so why cite it at all?
 * is deeply flawed, so it should be ignored as well.
 * We know that things like Townhall.com and Climateaudit have managed to get their content indexed by Google Scholar, but I haven't come across non-rightwing blogs. How did you control for that?
 * I'm supposed to know what a "Reliable Sources Search Engine" is, but I don't. And since you didn't bother to link to the results, it's uninterpretable.
 * Ditto on your "Wikipedia Reference Search" Guettarda (talk) 00:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Believe me, if I could have linked to the search results, I would have. For some reason, Wikipedia software blocks custom search engines.  Which is a shame, because it would help us greatly in this sort of thing.  Anyway, the link to the main search page is here http://www.google .com/cse/home?cx=010426977372765398405:3xxsh-e1cp8&hl=en.  I put a space in the URL between google and .com.  Just remove it and then bookmark the page.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:15, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Sorry! We found no results for your search", sayeth Google. Guettarda (talk) 00:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Anyway, misses the point - what do you mean by a "reliable sources search engine"? And yes, I know what a custom search engine is. But does it only search the 11 sites listed? Where's the full list? Guettarda (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Did you go to the search engine's main page? Try out it.  I promise that you'll like it.  It's probably the most useful tool for Wikipedia that nobody knows about.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure, honestly. At last count, I know that it's at least 400 URLs.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you list them somewhere - maybe a subpage in your userspace? Guettarda (talk) 01:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

In addition, I hate to ask, but what does this tell us about the "consensus of use" of each term? OK, so let's say your Google Scholar results are meaningful. What proportion of sources use Attorneygate, and what proportion of sources use Climategate? That's the only relevant issue here, isn't it? Guettarda (talk) 00:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Consensus is something we need to determine. My point is that Attorneygate never caught on so can stop making these apples versus oranges comparisons.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:19, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Well there's no way to determine "consensus of use" if we don't know what the use is. You can't count only one side and use it as evidence of anything. Guettarda (talk) 00:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, that leads to another question: If Climategate isn't the most common term for this topic, then what is? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:31, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (EC)Perhaps you could answer the same question for Attorneygate if it isn't the most common term? From WP:TITLE it appears that if there is no proper noun for the article that is used by a "significant majority of reliable English language sources", a consensus should be reached based on the other policies there. In the "-gate" example, that implies the use of a neutral descriptive term/phrase. I'm not even sure there is another proper name for Attorneygate, but we don't need one, the title is a descriptive phrase. StuartH (talk) 00:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Based on the data above, Attorneygate, I would say no, Attorneygate isn't the most common name as it never really caught on. Apples and oranges. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:54, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, I'll be more explicit. If Attorneygate isn't the most common term for this topic, then what is? "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy" yields ONE hit on Google News to the 119 for "Attorneygate". But policy dictates the former. StuartH (talk) 01:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know. I didn't follow that topic at all.  But it's pretty obvious by the dearth of mentions, the name "Attorneygate" never caught on.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:12, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Exactly. The policy is about the "common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources". A raw number comparison between Climategate and Attorneygate doesn't give you any information about whether either is respectively the most common English name for their respective events. I doubt that Attorneygate was the most common name, but given that the standard is "a significant majority of reliable English language sources", Climategate is not either. Or, at the very least, it needs to be demonstrated that it is and we need a method to confirm that it is if we are to change the status quo. If Climategate is not used by "a significant majority of reliable English language sources" then "editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best". Climategate is never going to reach the point of consensus, and the policy of WP:TITLE quite specifically rules out "-gate" articles. StuartH (talk) 00:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "WP:TITLE quite specifically rules out "-gate" articles."  Where? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You may say that we should follow what most sources use, but if that doesn't yield an answer we need to reach a consensus using the other policies on WP:TITLE. Whether it's Attorneygate or Climategate, the question is whether the term is used by "a significant majority of reliable English language sources". If it isn't, the same reasoning applies, and "Attorneygate" is the textbook example of a bad title. StuartH (talk) 01:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Aha! Someone give this editor a prize!  This is the only bona fide potential flaw I can find in my analysis and it's what I'm currently wrestling with.  I don't have an answer to this objection.  I'm still researching the policy which is unclear.
 * But the point we should all keep in mind is that article titles should be determined on policy, not on our personal like or dislike of the term "Climategate". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:19, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Of course, I'm not pretending for a moment that I like the term, but I do believe it goes against policy and would certainly encourage anyone else to make their decision based on policy whichever way that goes. Something still doesn't feel 100% right on this, but I think that's because there is some ambiguity in the policies (such as apparently prescriptive parts of WP:TITLE) and there appears to be a conflict between WP:NPOV and WP:AVOID (the latter unambiguously rules out Climategate). I feel it's a suitable time to take a short breather now, I'm glad I could get at least some of my point across. StuartH (talk) 02:04, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Like or dislike for a term should play no role in anyone's arguments. Policy and accuracy are the two things that motivate me here, and I assume that's true for most editors here. Guettarda (talk) 04:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

There's also the time factor, and it will be interesting to see how long this partisan label persists. Doubtless some of the more politically committed mainstream media will continue to promote it, but I was surprised to note that the notorious Daily Mail, which used it to describe the CRU on 2 March., chose on 14 March to simply say "the leak of more than 1,000 emails and documents from the University of East Anglia’s controversial Climatic Research Unit" without using the "C" word. One swallow doesn't make a summer, but with Spring in the air even the Mail is happy to say that "Most computer models suggest that Britain will have hotter, drier summers and warmer, damper winters. The past 12 months have not fitted that pattern, but climate change is about longterm averages, not freak seasons." . . . tra-la... dave souza, talk 08:20, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * According to this, "Climategate" meets WP:TITLE and is the most editorially neutral article title. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree with that claim. There's not a thing neutral about it.  I appreciate the fact that Blueboar has chosen to step forward and claim responsibility for the policy, but there are at least half a dozen editors besides himself who have made more edits and contributed to discussion on the talk page.  Why don't you invite them to comment over here?  While we're waiting, let's look at the wonderful "neutrality" of the term "climategate", and see how it is used in practice.  For example, let's look at how Brian Sussman, an American talk radio host, uses the term in the book overview blurb for his forthcoming Climategate: A Meteorologist Exposes the Global Warming Scam (2010):


 * "Those now notorious intercepted emails documenting leading scientists conspiring to squelch global-warming skeptics and falsifying data proved exactly what Brian Sussman has been saying for years. Climategate is intended for anyone who has ever expressed skepticism about the clamorous environmentalist claims that the Earth is in peril because of mankind's appetite for carbon-based fuels.By tracing the origins of the current climate scare, Sussman guides the reader from the diabolical minds of Marx and Engles in the 1800s, to the global governance machinations of the United Nations today. Climategate is a call to action, warning Americans that their future is being undermined by a phony pseudo-science aimed at altering and dominating every aspect of life in the United States and the world."


 * That's about as "neutral" as we're going to get from anyone who uses the term "climategate". Reality is a bitch, ain't it?  But hey, don't believe me.  You remember what Time magazine said, right?


 * "Skeptics of global warming, who have long considered climate change a fraud, refer to the incident as 'Climategate,' with obvious intimations of scandal and cover-up."


 * Why would we use a term invented by "skeptics of global warming" in an article title about a climate change organization? And why would we use a term that has "obvious intimations of scandal and cover-up"?  Tell me, what is "editorially neutral" about "climategate"? Viriditas (talk) 13:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia's definition of "neutral" and the layman's definition of "neutral" are two different things. WP:NPOV refers to editorial neutrality.  We are not supposed to introduce bias to counter the bias of reliable sources.  So, if the world adopts a POV term such as "Climategate", it's against WP:NPOV to not use a POV term.  This fundamental idea keeps going over everyone's heads. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What articles have you written where you had to carefully put this policy into practice? Point me to one.  As for your interpretation of NPOV, we do not choose terms invented by a small minority of climate deniers (in this case an anti-science blogger, or, "skeptics of global warming") to name encyclopedia articles.  And we certainly don't choose terms which already suffer from bias, such that the coverage of the topic would be distorted by the very name alone.  There's nothing neutral about it.  Ask yourself this question:  What is climategate?  Now answer it with good sources.  What do you find? Viriditas (talk) 13:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "What articles have you written where you had to carefully put this policy into practice? Point me to one." I'll point you to two. See the 9/11 Conspiracy theories and World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories articles.
 * Cool, I'll check them out later today. Viriditas (talk) 14:56, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "As for your interpretation of NPOV, we do not choose terms invented by a small minority of climate deniers (in this case an anti-science blogger, or, "skeptics of global warming") to name encyclopedia articles" That's not what NPOV says: "Proper names for people or events which incorporate non-neutral terms - e.g. Boston massacre, Tea Pot Dome scandal, Edward the Confessor, Jack the Ripper - are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources." A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:45, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Climategate" is an alternate name used to describe the "unauthorized release" of e-mail from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) The term is used by critics of climate change.  Those so-called "critics" do not represent a majority of scientists, nor do they represent a consensus of good sources on the topic.  When you remove the op-ed's and the op-ed's disguised as straight news, you're left with very little justifying the use of "climategate" as a name for any article on Wikipedia. Viriditas (talk) 14:56, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That's not true. "Climategate" is used by lots of reliable sources.  See List of reliable sources which_use the term "Climategate" A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Use the term, or describe others as using the term? . . dave souza, talk 15:44, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Policy analysis
The question boils down to an analogy: "reporting the news or making the news". If adding "gate" to a word in Wikipedia creates a new word, the word doesn't belong in Wikipedia. If "gate" has already been added by common usage outside of Wikipedia, and thus already exists, then "gate" is not being added in Wikipedia through the use of the word in Wikipedia and the rule does not apply.

Since "Climategate" is already in common usage, attempting to suppress the use of the word in Wikipedia is itself "making the news" as it suggests the use of a policy/bureaucracy to suppress information as has been done historically on political, economic, moral or religious grounds. This suggests the rule is being used opposite to it intended purpose. The rule is being used to “create news” rather than “report news”.

Here is how I interpret the policies with respect to the possible title "Climategate". All italics in policy quotations are mine.
 * First of all: This is not a typical case. (The typical case would be something like "Vienna", where the policy tells us that we don't use "Wien".) In a sense it is both the common name ("most common English-language name of the subject of the article") and a descriptive title (Note that the policy section about descriptive titles specifically has "Attorneygate" as an example. There is no doubt that the title describes the debate as something like Watergate, only related to climate.)
 * "Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article." – So we must find out if we are in the normal case. Does any of the exceptions apply?
 * "When there is no obvious common name for the topic, as used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best." – This is what we will have to do if an exception applies, so that we can't just use the common name.
 * If and only if and there is no WP policy as interpreted by people like me or (say) Jimmy Wales (a well known WP editor) that supplies an exception. It is already a 'QED' DeepNorth (talk) 13:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (A) "Where articles have descriptive titles, they are neutrally worded. A descriptive article title should describe the subject without passing judgment, implicitly or explicitly, on the subject." – The title "Climategate" is descriptive and does pass judgement. => An exception applies.
 * The 'Climategate' article proper has no commonly accepted descriptive title. It has a proper name ('Climategate'), hence the redirect. However, the article it redirects to is not (properly) about Climategate. The (alleged) 'hacking incident' certainly has a descriptive title and it should be left either as is or more neutrally worded since we don't know either that it was a hacking or is diminutive as an 'incident'. However, that says nothing of the controversial redirect of Climategate. DeepNorth (talk) 13:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (B) "For instance, a political controversy in the United States was nicknamed "Attorneygate" by critics of the government, but the article title is the more neutrally worded Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy." => This is almost exactly very similar to our situation, so the exception definitely applies.
 * 'Attorneygate', being neither notable on the order of Climategate, nor as near as I can tell in particularly common parlance (certainly not like 'Climategate') is an utterly inappropriate example here. You can't draw any conclusion from this since the comparison is fatally flawed. It is apples and oranges for the purpose of this debate. The only thing of substance that they have in common is 'gate'. The appropriate example is 'Watergate', which Climategate matches in many ways and which is similarly in common parlance, involves things much more wide sweeping than the hotel that gave it its name and has a mindshare similar to 'Climategate'. Until this discussion, I had never even heard of 'Attorneygate'. I sure do not see thousands of dollars in taxes coming my way from that. Google is not the definitive research tool for this, but it gives an idea. There are about a hundred times as many references to 'Climategate' as to 'Attorneygate' and 'Attorneygate' has had a lot more time to gain traction on the web. DeepNorth (talk) 14:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (C) "See Words to avoid for further advice on potentially controversial terminology."
 * "The words scandal, affair, and -gate are often used in journalism to describe a controversial episode or in politics  to discredit opponents. They typically imply wrongdoing or a point of view. The use of one of these words in an article should be qualified by attributing it to the party that uses it. They should not be used in article titles except in historical cases where the term is widely used by reputable historical sources." (From Words to avoid.) − This is clear: Titles do not use -gate unless they are historical. => An exception applies.
 * Please do see the reference on this above. Read it all, not just the part above, which is effectively ripped completely out of context and whether design or accident is completely misleading as to the actual guideline at WP.


 * From Words to avoid
 * * Where proper nouns such as names are concerned, disputes may arise over whether a particular name should be used. Wikipedia takes a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach in such cases, by using the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources; proper names for people or events which incorporate non-neutral terms - e.g. Boston massacre, Tea Pot Dome scandal, Edward the Confessor, Jack the Ripper - are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources.


 * Here, BTW, is how the examples above stack up in 'googlespace' vs Climategate when I checked the last time this was discussed:


 * Name/Hits
 * "Boston Massacre"/310K
 * "Tea Pot Dome scandal"/<2K
 * "Edward the Confessor"/536K
 * "Jack the Ripper" 2,180K
 * "Climategate" 12,100K


 * Google is hardly the arbiter, of course. However, it is pretty clear from the above that if you are to go to major newspapers, networks, any involved institution, congressional records, blogs and other current reference sources you will find this thing and it will be called 'Climategate'. There are six thousand times as many references to Climategate than there are to the least prominent of the examples given in the guideline. Climategate has more than four times the references than all the examples combined. There is no judgement call here. According to Wikipedia guidelines and its customs this article belongs under the name 'Climategate' and WP visitors deserve to see a proper treatment of the subject.DeepNorth (talk) 14:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It follows from this analysis that "Climategate" is completely ruled out as a title by policy. It does not follow that the present title is better, of course. The problem of arriving at a consensus is made more complicated by the fact that there is also a debate over the scope of this article. Hans Adler 23:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (D) "Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality." – The title "Climategate" does not do that. => An exception applies.
 * "Where proper nouns such as names are concerned, disputes may arise over whether a particular name should be used as (or in) an article title. Wikipedia takes a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach in such cases, by using the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources; proper names for people or events which incorporate non-neutral terms - e.g. Boston massacre, Tea Pot Dome scandal, Edward the Confessor, Jack the Ripper - are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources." – This suggests to use the common name, i.e. "Climategate". However, it is evident that it does not try to overrule the exceptions above, which all apply. Otherwise "Attorneygate" would be a legitimate title and most of the exceptions would make no sense at all. Moreover, the title "Climategate" is used by a majority of the sources, but not by a consensus of the sources: Some sources don't use it at all, some only use it in inverted commas, and some even say why it is problematic/wrong. At the moment some sources treat "Climategate" as a name, and others treat it as a mere description.
 * Jimmy Wales discussed the very point you do above and he (like I) arrived at exactly the opposite conclusion. It is ironic in one breath that you say this can't be called 'Climategate' and in the other say that there is a debate over the scope of the article. If there was an article called 'Climategate', that debate, at least, would disappear. Climategate is a sweeping scandal that continues to grow. As it accretes even more matter under its umbrella, the moniker 'Climategate' will continue to apply and properly so. Unlike the Watergate complex, neither the department at ground zero nor the school at ground zero gave their names to this controversy except in the minds of a tiny handful of editors at Wikipedia. For better or worse, it acquired the moniker 'Climategate' and for better or worse, Climategate it shall remain. It is called 'Climategate', even though Wikipedia's poorly named entry has stood at the top of the Google page ranks for literally months now. No matter how vigorous the attempts here to erase it, Climategate is clearly its name. That shipped has sailed everywhere but here.
 * I disagree. "Climategate" is not descriptive, it is a proper noun. WP:NPOV talks about the differences between the two.  This turns your entire argument on its head, because you depend on it being "descriptive."  What does descriptive mean? It means that it describes something, like "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" which is obviously talking about an "incident" in which there was a "hacking" at a place called the "Climatic Research Unit".  Climategate doesn't describe anything, it is a newly coined neologism, a proper noun, not a descriptive title.  It doesn't mean anything besides the meaning assigned to it by common usage. Moogwrench (talk) 23:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You are wikilawyering, i.e. trying to argue on technicalities of the policies in order to interpret them as saying the opposite of what they actually say. How can "Attorneygate" be descriptive, but not "Climategate"? Hans Adler 23:58, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am trying to follow the policy. The descriptive titles example tells us that the title "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy" has to be neutrally worded (i.e. not sometihng like Bush's U.S. attorney firing error, because no common name exists (i.e. "Attorneygate" never caught on as a common name for the controversy). Moogwrench (talk) 00:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You are assuming that a title cannot be a common name and descriptive at the same time, from the point of view of Wikipedia. However, both "Climategate" and "Jack the Ripper" have this property. What is more, nowhere in the policies does it say that it is a dichotomy. Hans Adler 00:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Jack the Ripper is a proper name, we agree? It happens to use a non-neutral term to describe the method of killing. If you followed the "highest degree of neutrality" and "neutrally worded" provisions of descriptive titles in WP:NPOV and WP:TITLE, you couldn't allow it.  Therefore, we must assume that the particular provisions of descriptive titles don't apply to Proper noun names.  However, there is not even a question when it comes to Climategate.  What does Climategate, absent references from reliable sources, mean?  Nothing.  And so it can only be thought of as a proper noun in any case, because it describes nothing. Moogwrench (talk) 00:36, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. Neutrality is measured by reliable sources, not by some absurd ideal standards. There are no reliable sources that avoid the expression "Jack the Ripper" or say that it is prejudiced. What does "Translationgate" mean? I have just checked on Google News that it hasn't been used before. It very obviously refers to a scandal that has somehow to do with something that was translated. If it will ever enter political discourse, then it will be non-neutral. Hans Adler 01:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Obviously if it wasn't considered an example of a title with non-neutral terms it wouldn't have been inlcuded in NPOV, so don't say "Neutrality is measured by reliable sources". Acceptability and common usage are measured by reliable sources, and Climategate is common used and accepted as a term appropriate enough to include in titles and bodies of news articles on a regular basis. Moogwrench (talk) 01:19, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * OK: "proper names for people or events which incorporate non-neutral terms - e.g. [...] Jack the Ripper - are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources." The distinction we need to make here is that between "non-neutral terms", i.e. terms whose appearance normally makes a description non-neutral, and "non-neutral descriptions", which is what we are to avoid according to WP:NPOV. I missed that in my earlier response to you. The sentences explains the conditions under which a description can be considered neutral even though it contains such a non-neutral term. It is perfectly normal for a policy that forbids some things to also mention some things that are allowed, in order to define its scope more clearly.
 * "-gate" is such a non-neutral term. The conditions under which it does not contaminate a description (i.e. make it POV) are not satisfied in this case. Hans Adler 01:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, they are. Again, we disagree.  I say that the vast common usage validates it.  You don't.  The policy indicates common proper nouns, when supported by majority, are optimal, even if they do contain non-neutral terms.  Essentially, it dictates that we follow, not lead our sources.  The sources lead with the word, we should follow.  It is not our choice. Moogwrench (talk) 01:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Your response has prompted me to write this section below. I think you are cherry-picking from the policies and interpreting them in such a way that a part of it which you don't want to apply would never be applicable. Please indicate whether you disagree with my "flow diagram" below or with my application of it to the present case. Hans Adler 12:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Please try to address the substance of the argument. Simply declaring things to be the case by fiat is bad form for a discussion. "Climategate...doesn't mean anything besides the meaning assigned to it by common usage". Since common usage is nebulous, as you determined in your earlier incubator draft, there's a real problem in trying to use it as an article title. Guettarda (talk) 23:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not declaring anything, this is common sense--because the word Climategate doesn't indicate a who, what, when, where, why, etc. on its face, it does depend on meaning to be assigned to it by RSs. Common usage may be nebulous among climate skeptics that would like to use it as a catchall, but RSs use it to refer to the controversy regarding the information from the CRU servers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moogwrench (talk • contribs)
 * It does less to indicate "who, what, when, where, why" than "Attorneygate"? Please do explain. Guettarda (talk) 01:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, my point is it is thoroughly indescriptive, unlike Hans's point, which is that it is descriptive. Is there a disconnect here? Moogwrench (talk) 02:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Good analysis, very thorough. Guettarda (talk) 23:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, note that under WP:NPOV the examples of descriptive titles are all multiword phrases which are not proper nouns, like "Societal views on drugs" or "Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy". The next part deals with proper names ("Where proper nouns such as names are concerned...") and lists proper name nouns, like "Edward the Confessor".
 * "Social vews on drugs" is not a noun, whereas "Edward the Confessor" is a proper noun. "Climatic Research Unit hacking incident" is not a proper noun, whereas "Climategate" is a proper noun. Proper nouns are not descriptive titles.  Descriptive titles are ones made up by Wikipedians to address the lack of a common name. Moogwrench (talk) 00:19, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Is this a deliberate lie or are you just not reading the policy passages that you are citing? "Attorneygate" is one of "the examples of descriptive titles" under WP:NPOV. If you can twist is so that it belongs into the class of "multiword phrases which are not proper nouns", you will really impress me. Extra credits if you can explain convincingly why the same does not hold for "Climategate". Hans Adler 11:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well stated. I think Attorneygate should be the final nail in the coffin. Not only do we have a clear precedent on the issue, but it is the textbook example of a term to avoid. Furthermore, the fact that it is the phrase used by "a significant majority of reliable English language sources" remains to be demonstrated. StuartH (talk) 00:11, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not. Attorneygate didn't catch on like Climategate.  The situations have nothing in common save the -gate suffix.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's the -gate suffix that is the core of the issue. Both WP:TITLE and WP:AVOID clearly oppose the use of the suffix. The only relevant difference between "Attorneygate" and "Climategate" is that the latter appears to be more widely used, but WP:TITLE also makes it clear that "most common" is not to be used indiscriminately if a more appropriate title is preferable. Most sources on the event manage to avoid the term and hence it is neither used by "a significant majority of reliable English language sources" nor is it key to describing the event. Most of the rest either enclose the term in quotation marks or qualify it with "so called", or make it clear that the term is used predominantly by "skeptics", implying an acknowledgement of the loaded nature of the term. "Climategate" fails on a number of fronts, and there is no compelling need for this to be the article's name. StuartH (talk) 01:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "The only relevant difference between "Attorneygate" and "Climategate" is that the latter appears to be more widely used" Thank you! That's exactly what I was trying to say.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:23, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Hans, thank you for input. A couple comments:


 * "The title "Climategate" is descriptive" Is it?  It's a proper noun, right?
 * "This is almost exactly our situation, so the exception definitely applies." How is it similar?  My research indicates "attorneygate" didn't catch on like Climategate.  Go do some searches with my reliable sources search engine.  "Climategate" OR "Climate-gate" returns 41 pages of hits.  "attorneygate" OR "attorney-gate" returns barely 2 pages.
 * Also, WP:AVOID is a guideline, not a policy. When in conflict such as this case, WP:NPOV trumps WP:AVOID. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * A Google News archive search returns 100 hits for "Attorneygate" OR "Attorney-gate" and a Google News search returns 75,245 958 hits for "Climategate" OR "Climate-gate" although I'm not certain this is a fair comparison. I think my reliable sources search engine is a better tool for comparison. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comparing "attorneygate" to "climate"? You're damn right that's not a fair comparison. :) StuartH (talk) 00:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think he meant "Climategate" or "Climate-gate", which returns around 958 hits. Moogwrench (talk) 00:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Those are recent news items. To compare apples to apples, archive of same terms generates3,520 hits. Moogwrench (talk) 00:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Somebody else (I don't know who) created their own Wikipedia Reference Search.   On their search engine, "Attorneygate" OR "Attorney-gate" returns  about less than 3 pages of hits.  "Climategate" OR "Climate-gate" returns 43  pages of hits.
 * I don't have direct link to this search engine.  Instead, I have a link to its search results for Marco Polo  (don't ask why).  Just replace the search terms.
 * http://www.google.com/ custom?hl=en&client=google-coop-np&cof=FORID%3A13%3BAH%3Aleft%3BCX%3AWikipedia%2520Reference%2520Search%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcoop%2Fintl%2Fen%2Fimages%2Fcustom_search_sm.gif%3BLH%3A65%3BLP%3A1%3BVLC%3A%23551a8b%3BGFNT%3A%23666666%3BDIV%3A%23cccccc%3B&adkw=AELymgVLU0ZjCq24XoO8NDojuXeZNlGkxFnhydbYx1HAczOOI-bzv2YjWjWKJMuAZPF306DiOqQlUH2nytM9J8Ljpa3MrofY_b2PDe5ttYhKhT67go7w8IuWLMEDDPLpN1rZhbxkYrJH&boostcse=0&q=%22Marco+Polo%22&btnG=Search&cx=007734830908295939403%3Agalkqgoksq0  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * So all 3 search tools reveal that Climategate is more popular than Attorneygate by orders of magnitude. Anyone want to try Bing?  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Google News? You're joking, right? Yeah, so something that happened 3 years ago has been mentioned less often in the news in the last month than something that happened a few months ago... Guettarda (talk) 02:04, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, I used the Google News archive search. In any case, all three search tools yield the same thing.  Climategate is more popular than AttorneyGate by orders of magnitude.  I suggest we try Bing or Yahoo to see if they concur.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * A descriptive title is a title that is not (just) a name ("John Butcher", "New York") but describes it in some way ("John the Butcher", "Neuschwanstein Castle"). The description part is where problems of accuracy and POV can come in: Can John the Butcher really be described as a "butcher" without breaking NPOV? Is Neuschwanstein really a castle rather than a palace? These POV and accuracy problems are what the section on descriptive titles addresses. It makes no sense to restrict them artificially: To address POV and accuracy problems in titles only if some arbitrary formal condition (e.g. "must be randomly assembled by Wikipedia editors and rather long") applies. The section that discusses descriptive titles discusses "Attorneygate" as an example. It's a proper noun, right?
 * I don't trust your search engine, but I withdraw "almost exactly" because I cannot prove that "Attorneygate" was as widely used as "Climategate" is used now. Maybe not. Let's say it is "similar to our situation" instead. Note that the policy continues: "Another example is that the term allegation should be avoided in a title unless the article concerns charges in a legal case or accusations of illegality under civil, criminal or international law which have not yet been proven in a court of law." Thus the principle described here is so broad that it clearly describes all cases of titles ending in -gate: We can't even make the title say "allegation" before there is a formal charge. Obviously we can't say "-gate" before we are close to something like a conviction.
 * WP:AVOID is a guideline that is being pointed to by the policy and thereby becomes part of the policy. And the guideline doesn't say anything surprising, does it? Its relevant part just gives examples of ways in which a title may be non-neutral. The policy itself says that's not allowed. Moreover, "it's just a guideline" is not a good argument at all. Even WP:Notability is "just a guideline". There is no conflict between the two policies and the guideline: Whichever way we look at it, the result is the same. Unless we apply serious wikilawyering tricks. (WP:Wikilawyering: 2. Abiding by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit or underlying principles; 3. Asserting that the technical interpretation of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines should override the underlying principles they express; 4. Misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions.) Hans Adler 00:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll take a closer look at your response tomorrow, but you're definitely wrong about your last point. The intent of WP:NPOV is to avoid interjecting our own editorial bias into our articles.  As Jimbo puts it, we let the world decide.  WP:AVOID is being used to override what the world decides.  This is exactly the type of thing that WP:NPOV says you can't do.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The world has not decided by consensus, as witnessed by a simple Google News search for "Climategate". A large number of hits has it in inverted commas. The inverted commas are obviously there because the source either distances itself from the term or feels that it is not neutral and must be treated with care. So long as there is no general consensus (as in the case of Watergate or Jack the Ripper), some balancing is required by WP:NPOV. In the title this balancing is impossible. Therefore it cannot be used in the title at all. It's all explained in the policy; you need only read it. Hans Adler 01:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Hans, I'm open to discussing whether the quotes makes a difference. But when I prepared yesterday's list of articles that incorporated non-neutral terms (Great Leap Forward, Alfred the Great, Corrupt Bargain, Patriot_(American_Revolution), Glorious Revolution, Saturday Night Massacre, Mugwump, Scalawag, Trail of Tears, Bataan Death March and Intolerable Acts), I consulted a history text book which used some of those terms in quotes and our articles used those terms anyway.  But I would be happy to cross-reference these titles with other history text books.
 * FWIW, for 3-4 months I routinely cited WP:AVOID as the reason for rejecting Climategate. It wasn't until Jimbo's post that I began to suspect that I was wrong. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * These are good points. I am not sure what exactly is going on here. It might be a disconnect between policy and practice (maybe the policy changed over the years and the titles stayed the same), or it might be a general feeling that NPOV doesn't override the common name for topics that are not sufficiently hot nowadays. But I need some sleep before thinking about this further. Hans Adler 02:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It was very late last night, so I didn't see the obvious: It seems that the titles you mention pass an exception to the exception, which is mentioned in only one place: "proper names for people or events which incorporate non-neutral terms [...] are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources." There are some important unspoken caveats in applying this: "Using" a word is not the same as "mentioning" it. If a source says so-called Climategate or "Climategate" rather than just Climategate, then it is mentioning the term, not using it. I don't think this happens with Alfred the Great. A tiny minority of sources may use inverted commas or refer to him as the so-called Alfred the Great when they mention him for the first time, but the vast majority just treat it as a legitimate name. That's not what we have here. If you make a Google News search, virtually on every page of results there is at least one source (usually several) that distances itself from the term, i.e. does not use it. That's not a "consensus of the sources". Hans Adler 11:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It was very late last night, so I didn't see the obvious: It seems that the titles you mention pass an exception to the exception, which is mentioned in only one place: "proper names for people or events which incorporate non-neutral terms [...] are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources." There are some important unspoken caveats in applying this: "Using" a word is not the same as "mentioning" it. If a source says so-called Climategate or "Climategate" rather than just Climategate, then it is mentioning the term, not using it. I don't think this happens with Alfred the Great. A tiny minority of sources may use inverted commas or refer to him as the so-called Alfred the Great when they mention him for the first time, but the vast majority just treat it as a legitimate name. That's not what we have here. If you make a Google News search, virtually on every page of results there is at least one source (usually several) that distances itself from the term, i.e. does not use it. That's not a "consensus of the sources". Hans Adler 11:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This is all your opinion. No where in policy does one find the "inverted commas" clause, or other some such thing.  You have no sources to tell me why they put it in quotes, so you can't assume why they do so.  What is this "some" balancing of which you speak? You have a novel interpretation of policy that doesn't even rely on citations or sources. Moogwrench (talk) 01:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The required balancing that is impossible in the lead is not my invention, but it's not as clearly explained in the policy as I thought it was. Sorry for misleading you. As to the inverted commas, we clearly have sources that explain how "Climategate" is a political fighting term, and it is not a big stretch at all to conclude that that's why many use inverted commas. Remember that what you are trying to do is argue that there is a consensus of reliable sources that "Climategate" is a neutral term. That's obviously absurd because it presupposes a specific position in this debate. If you'd win this particular argument on a technicality there would be something wrong. Hans Adler 02:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I am trying to show that because it used commonly as the name, it doesn't matter that it is non-neutral. No where am I arguing that Climategate is facially neutral. Consider, though, Saturday Night Massacre, for example.  Neutral, heck no.  Common name, yes.  Is it a Wikipedia article title, yes. Moogwrench (talk) 02:15, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The standard for using POV titles is higher than that for NPOV titles. (Use by a consensus of sources.) "Climategate" does not satisfy this higher standard. I don't know whether "Saturday Night Massacre" does. If you think that it doesn't, please go to the article's talk page and try to address the problem there. Similarly, I guess you wouldn't be happy if other people were using the present title of this article as an example for why certain things are acceptable. See WP:Other stuff exists for a more thorough discussion of the problems with this kind of argument. Hans Adler 12:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * {edit conflict - reply to AQFK}Exactly. For this reason you will see the word "follow" many times in the WP:NPOV.  It is not our place to say what is "right".  Moogwrench (talk) 01:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Hans, I am sorry, I think we will have to disagree on this. The wikilawyering accusation is just another way of saying, I don't agree with your interpretation, so why don't you just say that instead. Jimbo shares my point of view (,, & ), and while someone might argue about his grasp of policy (I don't), I don't think many doubt his vision of the spirit of Wikipedian policies, first and foremost NPOV, which he has always harped on, especially in regards to BLPs. So please don't just throw out the notion that I am violating the spirit or underlying principles of Wikipedia. Moogwrench (talk) 01:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You are new and can't know this, but the WP:Argumentum ad Jimbonem is highly problematic. Jimbo is founder of the project and some kind of constitutional king. He doesn't decide such things: because it wouldn't be healthy for the community. Sometimes he says or does things that prove that he doesn't really understand the fine points of Wikipedia that are not part of his role. I believe that this is one of them, so I have asked him on his talk page to clarify whether he meant to overrule policy.
 * This may sound pretentious; however, Jimbo has been with the project from the beginning and has made 5,000 edits over that period. Much of what he remembers about policy is from many years ago when it was less refined. I joined the project less than 3 years ago and have made 13,000 edits in this time. (Others have joined even later and have made even more. I am not trying to brag.) I have represented unpopular minority positions with some success and without ever being blocked, and I have a track record of convincing others with my policy interpretations. This makes me confident that I am usually getting things right. Hans Adler 01:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, you're not reading what I said, I said that you can think Jimbo doesn't know what he is talking about as far as nitty gritty policy details, but he has the vision and the spirit of Wikipedia down pretty well. You were saying that arguing the same point he argues is wikilawyering and against the spirit of Wikipedia, which doesn't make sense in that context. I understand and have read a lot of things, including WP:JIMBO, and it can seem condescending to have someone misinterpret what you said and then try to talk down to you ("you're new"), albeit in a friendly way, about your supposed lack of understanding of Jimbo's role. Moogwrench (talk) 02:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but you're missing the point that WP:NPOV means we don't get to interject our bias into our articles. We're supposed to be neutral. If the world has decided that the common name is Climategate, then we don't use our bias to over-rule them. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) "If the world has decided that the common name is Climategate, then we don't use our bias to over-rule them" (a) Hans has explained, quite clearly, per policy, why a simplistic interpretation of the article naming convention doesn't apply, and (b) "the world has decided"? Really? When did the New World Order meet and decide that? And why didn't I get the memo? Guettarda (talk) 02:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know. I told them to include you in the memo.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I was hoping to avoid getting involved in this debate... but think I need to comment, as I was one of the editors who was heavily involved in drafting the language of both WP:TITLE and WP:NPOV and can speak to intent as well as language.
 * As I see it, this article should be entitled "Climategate", as that title most accurately meets not only the wording of these policies, but also the intent behind the policy wording ... "Climategate" is clearly a proper name for this event (along exactly the same lines as Boston massacre and Tea Pot Dome scandal), moreover it is by far the "most common name" for the event.
 * A lot of people have commented that "Climategate" is not neutral... I think this argument this is off base. The policy makes it very clear that when something has a commonly used proper name, that is what we should use, even if that common name is viewed by some as non-neutral.  This is the entire point behind the last paragraph of WP:NPOV.  In fact, when it comes to situations like this, not using the non-neutral but common proper name (and instead inventing some other name that is unique to Wikipedia) is what would violate the NPOV policy (as doing so means an editor or group of editors has substituted his own POV over that of the sources).
 * Having said that... Consensus is important on Wikipedia, and there does seem to be a strong consensus against using "Climategate". That is very understandable.  I think the consensus might even be strong enough to justify an invocation of WP:IAR.  But barring that, I have to say that both the letter and the intent of policy indicates that "Climategate" is what should be used. Blueboar (talk) 02:48, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved as proposed for now, per discussion below. There were a number of suggestions for Climatic Research Unit document controversy, which also would work as a title. However, as there was less explicit support for this one, this is probably something that should be decided independently of this move request. If you believe that the page should be moved to that, please just start a talk page discussion to discuss the two options: Climatic Research Unit document controversy versus Climatic Research Unit email controversy. NW ( Talk ) 23:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The title "Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy" seems to have almost universal support, but is rather long. Someone proposed to remove "and document", and this makes a lot of sense. Most sources don't talk about any documents other than the emails, and we can still discuss them even when they are not in the title – just like we can still discuss the hacking once it is removed from the title.

Many would prefer "scandal", but many reject that. On "controversy" and "scandal" see WP:Words to avoid: Care must be taken when using "controversy" to make sure that the article is technically about a controversy rather than just something offending. There is no doubt that we have a controversy here. On the other hand, "scandal" is a much stronger word, tends to express a POV, and "should not be used in article titles" – except under a specific condition that obviously doesn't hold here. Under these circumstances it seems unlikely that there would be a consensus for "Climatic Research Unit email scandal". Moreover, even from the point of view of those who favour "scandal", the title I propose here should already be a significant improvement.

Climatic Research Unit hacking incident → Climatic Research Unit email controversy — More neutral title; a compromise between "CRU hacking incident" and "Climategate". Hans Adler 11:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * See also, question in next section about possibly splitting into a "controversy" article (covering reaction to the incident) and an "hacking incident" (covering the incident itself) article instead of renaming and keeping the content the same. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:43, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. This is the least bad proposal of all mentioned so far. I understand that the "email controversy" has overtaken the "hacking incident" in significance, and "scandal" goes against WP:AVOID guidelines and is far from a neutral term. Removing "and documents" makes the title more concise without sacrificing accuracy, as most reliable sources focus exclusively on the contents of the emails, and indeed that is the focus of the "The Independent Climate Change Email Review" investigation. Climategate, Argumentum ad Jimbonem aside, is extremely worrisome for multiple reasons. "-gate" suffixes explicitly go against WP:AVOID and "Attorneygate" is a textbook example of a bad article title in WP:TITLE. It is a highly loaded and partisan term, and while it has some popular support (overwhelmingly from one side of the debate), it is not used by a "a significant majority of reliable English language sources". Most manage to avoid it when discussing the issue as my analysis of the article references above illustrates, several explicitly reject it or make it clear that it is a label applied by "skeptics" and most of the balance retain quotation marks around it. Also, it is not a historical case, as WP:AVOID makes an exception for. Most reliable sources manage to avoid the loaded term, and we should follow those sources and come up with a concise, neutral and accurate description instead. "Climatic Research Unit email controversy" is a good suggestion. StuartH (talk) 12:32, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. Huge improvement over current title. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. Big improvement. -- Chadhoward (talk) 14:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. It doesn't really matter. It is, to the rest of the world, Climategate. Calling it hacking incident makes Wikipedia look like it is pushing an agenda, and isn't consistent with the NPOV pillar. As civility is also a pillar, compromising on email controversy respects all points of view and since Climategate redirects here it will still serve the reading public. Gerardw (talk) 14:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. I agree with Gerardw.  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 16:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support I have previously been none to impressed with seeing this article come up at WP:RM over and over again (This is the 4th time in the last 3-4 months). However, there appears to be a family of support for this new name and I sincerely hope that this is the end of the requested names changes for this page. I would equally support Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy, as per the discussions above.--Labattblueboy (talk) 15:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Huge improvement from the current title, but as Scjessey document may be better than email (but that can be taken in the next step ...). Nsaa (talk) 16:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. As this is more or less what GoRight and I proposed, I am of course happy to support it. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I'd rather see a reorganization, with "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy" being a parent article to this child article (which should keep the existing name). -- Scjessey (talk) 19:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support - Even if there were a split, this article name is POV, as only the hack of RealClimate has been established. I suppose RealClimate hacking incident might conceivably have an artcle, but this one would need to be Alleged CRU hacking incident (although I'd prefer CRU data breach).  Split discussion may still be appropriate, but this article name, even if kept as a redirect, should be tagged as a Wikipedia invention violating WP:OR.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support with the understanding that this is the final time we'll have to deal with anyone currently editing this section asking to have the article moved to Climategate. Hipocrite (talk) 20:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC) Oppose This far and no more. An inch was given - up here, and a mile was taken on the article. As such, I oppose such a move unless the intro to the article makes it clear that "Climategate" was coined by sceptics, as if we move it without such, we'll just be back here again in a week or two. Hipocrite (talk) 20:38, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. Minor comment: The name could potentially be even shorter. 'Climatic Research Unit controversy' is even shorter and no less accurate as there is no other controversy relating to the Climatic Research Unit, right?91.153.115.15 (talk) 20:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support move to "Climatic Research Unit email controversy" [or similar title] which covers the main issues of the subject, and avoids possible miunderstandings or widening the article to some other alleged controversy. Make minimal changes to the lead to suit the new title, and discuss any proposed additions or alterations on the talk pages before changing the text. . . dave souza, talk 20:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC) under review, dave souza, talk 22:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC) Having thought it over, restore support, coverage of the Climatic Research Unit documents issues should be increased as a more detailed summary style description of the main issues of controversy discussed in detail on that page. dave souza, talk 09:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support new title for WP:DUE reasons, but I figure both topics (hack/controversy) merit an article, especially if people felt so strongly about that "hacking incident" title for so long. I also figure this incubator article, if renamed to Climatic Research Unit email controversy or something very close, could serve as the controversy article.  Of course, some NPOV work would need to be done on it afterwards, but there is no deadline, after all. Moogwrench (talk) 21:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose We already have an article called Climatic Research Unit documents. That article does not list or reproduce the documents per its title, it discusses the controversy surrounding each of the more notable documents. So, rename that article to Climatic Research Unit document controversy and leave this one as it is, discussing the attack on the CRU security, its timeline, and notable reactions to the incident. This is much less disruptive to the existing well-sourced and long-discussed content. The alternative proposed here would imply moving all that document-specific controversy back into this article after the rename, which would make it too big and so some other stuff would have to moved out of here to somewhere else... Then what would be the purpose of the 'documents' article... etc. --Nigelj (talk) 21:58, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * An interesting prospect, it could end up pretty huge but I'll think it over. . dave souza, talk 22:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Having considered the idea, it seems best on balance to expand this main article rather than expanding the detailed sub-article, but it's a close call. . . dave souza, talk 09:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would support this proposal if we also redirect "Climategate" to point to the document article. JPatterson (talk) 00:31, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose Weak support, as proposed rename is somewhat better. But please see WP:COMMONNAME: "Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article." As Jimbo has recently reminded us, almost everyone else on the planet calls this topic Climategate. Eventually, we will too. Pete Tillman (talk) 20:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Support While this is not what I think it should be - that being, "Climategate scandal", since that's exactly what it is - I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. Macai (talk) 00:53, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support as improvement. Though qualifiedly, as the code and documentation is discussed in the literature (see Climatic_Research_Unit_documents). As E-mails are documents but documents are not emails, "Climatic Research Unit Documents Controversy" is a better title.--Heyitspeter (talk) 06:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak Support New editor, I just have to say I prefer 'document' as opposed to 'e-mail'. 72.192.46.9 (talk) 06:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Controversy is encyclopedic, accurate, and a good compromise. It also had broad support in previous discussions back in mid-February. ATren (talk) 08:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose per all the previous times William M. Connolley (talk) 08:30, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose Me agreeing with WMC on this shows how bizarre this situation has gotten. WMC (I surmise) is strongly of the opinion that the current article title reflects the best title for this article (if one is to suffer such an article at all). I, OTH, think it is practically the worst. However, changing it to a watered down version of this hardly fixes things. What it does is make the controversy about the title less clear. In its current form, it displays its POV honestly. I think the title is sufficiently ridiculous now that it will inevitably collapse and be replaced with an article on Climategate, which I suspect even WMC would bet is the search term most likely bringing people here. If it gets watered down it will neither reflect any version of WMC's reality or mine. Not all compromises are a good thing. Either 'Climategate' has traction or it does not. If it does, it will eventually replace the redirect. If it does not, then it is not a controversy of any particular note, so who cares what the article is called for a while? For the record, I think that everyone (me too and now even Jimbo) should recuse in favor of people chosen from a pool of 'science/logic/math/english/' literate editors who have yet to edit any of these pages. This is no guarantee that the new crop will lack bias, but it is probably better than the current situation. No matter which side of the camp you are on, this is wasting valuable time that could be going into improving the various 'Climategate' articles, none of which is very good. DeepNorth (talk) 16:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose: Small disimprovement. Cardamon (talk) 08:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose: as per Nigelj. Ignignot (talk) 13:35, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support: sure, it's not the real name, but it's far less blatant than hiding 'Climategate' behind this story about a possibly nonexistent hacking incident. Alex Harvey (talk) 11:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Good enough for the time being, dropping 'documents' altogether would be even better. It of course should be Climategate in the end. I'd take Jimbo's interpretation of NPOV over any experienced editor camping out on these pages claiming they are neutral writers on the topic. MickMacNee (talk) 19:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose anything, but climategate, the most widespread term describing the incident.-- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 20:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support as a second choice, my first choice is to rename Climatic Research Unit documents to Climatic Research Unit document controversy and redirect "Climategate" to point to it. Sole Soul (talk) 20:26, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Sounds reasonable. I would only ever endorse "Climategate" if – once a sensible amount of time has passed and various investigations brought to a conclusion – a majority of reliable sources inform us there is a real scandal here and the name sticks. Not before. Wikispan (talk) 20:37, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support I agree with MickMacNee. The controversy isnt about hacking its about what the hacking uncovered.Thelmadatter (talk) 22:21, 19 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - "Documents" can be used to describe both emails and generic documents (as can "data"), but "email" cannot be used to describe anything other than email. Should I assume that the choice of "email" implies that supporters of this name change agree that only the emails themselves form part of the "controversy", and that the other documents/data do not? Also, Wikipedia uses "e-mail" (with the hyphen). -- Scjessey (talk) 14:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think Scjessey is right. If the choice is between "email controversy" and "documents controversy", I think documents controversy is more appropriate. Moogwrench (talk) 15:56, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * What are the other documents? Programming code and... anything else? -- Chadhoward (talk) 16:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not too terribly keen on the editors deciding what best constitutes the controversy (meaning incidentally, not accusing anyone of an active attempt to control the narrative). Take "trick".  A term that can mean 'a clever solution' as in "that's the trick", can also mean deception.  So the 'trick' to 'hide the decline' may well be innocent, but if we were to agree they aren't part of the controversy (I am using this as an example, mind you) rather than have the title reflect the existence of the other documents would seem as editorializing at first glance.  I understand the body will still reflect the non-email documents, however.  72.192.46.9 (talk) 06:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment There needs to be an article on the controversy. What I don't understand is how this is somehow a compromise between "Climategate" and "hacking incident".  Is the hacking incident not notable enough to merit its own article now?  Was it ever?  If not, then why such a huge defense of "hacking incident" heretofore by some people?  If we rename this article, will a new article on the hack be created?  This article suffers from schizophrenia, because it tries to be both an article on both the hack and the controversy. Moogwrench (talk) 16:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, separate articles are not needed. Hell, even the granddaddy of them all, the Watergate scandal, is self-contained, with sub-articles to flesh out greater details as need be to keep the article size.  Not to split it up into "the incident" and "the response", as you seem to feel is necessary here. Tarc (talk) 16:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, so I ask again, using the example you provided, are we going to have a separate article on the hack, just as Watergate burglaries exists as a sub-article to Watergate scandal? Is there enough info/notability to do so? Moogwrench (talk) 17:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * In case you are wondering where I am going with this, practically speaking, is whether or not there should be a split instead of a rename. Moogwrench (talk) 17:12, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Here comes the request for mile! Hipocrite (talk) 17:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Look Hipocrite, I am actually trying to make make sure that "hacking" gets its due treatment, instead of being whittled down due to WP:UNDUE concerns once the subject of this article changes. Why else would I essentially advocating for the existence of an article treating on the hack by suggesting a split instead of a rename?  Assume a little good faith, there, and actually think about what I am proposing. Moogwrench (talk) 17:28, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The more pertinent question is, is there enough info/notability on the so-called "controversy" angle to warrant an article separate from the initial incident. "No" being the answer to that, IMO. Tarc (talk) 17:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Some people don't believe that the hack has sufficient notability for a separate article, while others don't believe that the controversy has sufficient notability (even though that is what the media has been talking about for the past 4 months). Fine.  Why not have a split? Thus we have an article on each topic.  Note, this wouldn't be a POV/content fork, because we actually are talking about 2 discrete topics. Moogwrench (talk) 17:28, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Because the split is even less notable than the combined topic? Guettarda (talk) 17:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, because a compelling case might be able to be made for both topics being sufficiently notable for separate articles. I was just trying to be helpful...but it is pretty obvious that some people can't abide the idea of the controversy, as full of crap as its proponents may be, being a notable subject. Anyways, whatever. Moogwrench (talk) 17:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec)Think for a minute about what we're talking about here. This so-called scandal hit its high water mark in December. It's pretty clear that there's nothing in this that's going to undercut the science in any real sense. It's pretty clear that it didn't have any impact on Copenhagen - that was dominated by real politics. It may spawn more nonsense like the South Dakota law, but that's just opportunism. It may have lasting impacts on the CRU or on Jones' career. But that belongs in the CRU article, or Jones' bio, or the global warming controversy article. In a year or two, someone will come along, merge a sentence or two from the the documents article back in, and trim the "reaction" section back to a couple paragraphs. Keep the hundred-year-rule in mind. Guettarda (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Why don't we wait to have the split/separate article discussion after we renamed the page? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I am sorry. I thought to kill two birds with one stone, because I know that not having an article on the hack is odious to some and I thought that this might placate them. Moogwrench (talk) 17:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) I think it makes sense, actually, to discuss it now. A split would preclude a rename - the hacking incident, if separated from the reaction, would certainly stay here. I disagree with the split, but I don't think there's anything terribly wrong with sorting it out beforehand. Guettarda (talk) 17:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That was essentially my point. Moogwrench (talk) 17:55, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support - Sorry I'm so late chiming in here. It's a big improvement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment to Arthur Rubin: This fiction that you keep repeating is really quite tiresome. "Hack" is well supported by reliable sources, and is not "POV" at all. Peruse the archive of this talk page and you will find that the "hack" terminology has been shown to be appropriate many times. "Data breach" has some mileage, but "hack" would be a perfectly legitimate alternative. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Once again, I must agree with Scjessey. Many sources mention "hack", and I think drifts a little into pedantic territory when we start asking things like, "How many sources says its alleged hacking, how many assume it took place, how many state it took place, etc. etc.".  Where he and differ in regards to having an article titled with hack isn't the word "hack", but my contention that between the "hack" and the "controversy", the "controversy" is more notable.  I know what Scjessey would probably say about having an article for the "controversy", and chances are it would involve the use of the word "faux", but I honestly think that we could have one "hack" article and one "controversy" article.  It is fine to use "hack" in the title for the "hack" article, and any additional qualification of the use of the word "hack" (i.e. alleged) could be done in the text.  If people don't want a separate article, I think the title is fine for a redirect.  I think it is safe to say that among the reliable sources, the idea that the incident wasn't a hack is a minority one. Moogwrench (talk) 20:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * While "hack" is in some RS, it is not in others, and challenged in yet others, so treating it as settled is problematic. Yet, that isn't even the major problem. The major problem is the implication that it is a central issue. To made the obvious comparison, we might never have learned about the Watergate incident had it not been for a piece of adhesive tape, so the adhesive tape was important in one sense, but no one seriously thinks a reasonable title would be the Watergate adhesive tape incident.-- SPhilbrick  T  13:58, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Depends if the name stuck :-/ Given the inconsistent use of the "c" term these days, even by partisan sources, that's questionable in this case. . . dave souza, talk 14:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment to Scjessey: Interesting. You really think this is notable enough to support several articles in the long run? Fitzmas, anyone? (And yes, I was clearly wrong on that one). Guettarda (talk) 20:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree with Guettarda. We need only one article at this time.  I've looked at the incubator and document forks, and when you remove the fluff, you are left with only one article.  I'm concerned about the forking and it needs to stop. Viriditas (talk) 20:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment to Moogwrench: I am concerned abut the work being done on Article_Incubator/Climategate and the timing of a proposed move. If this current article is moved per the above discussion, what will happen to the incubator article? Viriditas (talk) 20:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As stated above, err below, I was imagining that instead of moving, the incubator article could act as an effective split of this article. We could excise the controversy stuff from this article, leaving the incident and the university and police responses as a daughter article to the controversy article.  The name of the controversy article would not be Climategate, even though the incubator article currently has that name.  Any takers? Moogwrench (talk) 20:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (comment originally directed at Scjessey, moved down to comments section) Would you support moving the content at Article Incubator/Climategate to Climatic Research Unit documents controversy, keeping this article as a daughter to it, and of course understanding that the parent would continue to be the subject of as much work as it needs to be to bring it into line with NPOV? I only mention this because I eliminated a lot of the extraneous stuff there and took a lot of the controversy stuff from this article, with the plan of excising it from the daughter article once the article was brought live. Moogwrench (talk) 20:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that you are working with an older, problematic version of the article. For example, the lead section you are working with equates political punditry and climate denialism with the scientific consensus for climate change; That is neither accurate nor a correct application of NPOV.  I think the version you are working with can be condensed into half its current size, with a lot of the fluff removed.  I don't see the need for more than one article at this time, and I expect the documents fork to be merged back. The constant article forking needs to be brought under control. Viriditas (talk) 20:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I've done quite a bit of work on it, actually, so it is a substantially different article than it was a week ago. Also, please, do not confuse the controversy of CRU's actions with the controversy over AGW.  Two different things. For example, the political leaders have no training to criticize climate science. However, they do have bearing as to whether or not they are calling for investigations of denial of FOI requests. One should try to separate in their mind "the consensus regarding climate change" and "the stuff the CRU did". Two different things. Moogwrench (talk) 20:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "The stuff the CRU did" is best criticized by scientists who understand their work. Which ones are you using to do that? Viriditas (talk) 20:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter if its "best" or not for non-scientists to criticize scientists. People have criticized them.  A lot.  And defended them. A lot. Newpapers, etc. have reported these facts.  We document those criticisms and defenses.  We don't pass judgment on the criticisms or the defenses themselves. Moogwrench (talk) 20:53, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for precisely illustrating the problem. You don't discriminate between political punditry and climate science.  You attempt to portray all opinions as equal, when they are not.  I don't think any political pundit is in a position to criticize the scientific process. Viriditas (talk) 21:01, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 *  We give due weight to expert opinion in the subject, and when newspapers etc. raise criticism of the science or scientific methods, we show these criticisms in the context of how these opinions have been received by mainstream experts in the subject, with sufficient detail to clarify differences between mainstream and minority views. . . dave souza, talk 21:04, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Both of you continue to confuse the subject of this article, and continue to support dealing with coverage of this controversy as though it were a judgment on climate science in general. We are essentially documenting the fact that people have criticized or defended the CRU scientists over certain allegations.  It is a fact that they have been criticized and defended.  One does not need a Ph.D. in climatology to understand that some have criticized or defended the scientists.  This is not an article on climate science.  We are not evaluating the truth of climate science, nor are we documenting defenses or criticisms thereof.  It is an article documenting the criticisms and defenses of the behavior of scientists who study climate science.  See the difference?  Moogwrench (talk) 21:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the issues here are the science itself, the methods behind the science, and the ethics of science in particular, and of academia more broadly. Guettarda (talk) 21:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Moogwrench, how can you say that when the very sources you are using criticize the climate science? Viriditas (talk) 21:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Viriditas, there are loads of sources that criticize the scientists without criticizing the science. Reliable news articles have described the criticism of the scientists that is separate from criticism of the science; scientists who agree fully that there is AGW have indicated they are scandalized by the behavior suggested by the emails. Admit it. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * John, please don't take such a battleground approach. There's controversy about the inflated criticism of the scientists being used as part of a continuing disinformation campaign about the science, as well as criticism from all sides that the scientists concerned did not deal in the ideal was with the pressures put on them by the disinformation campaign. There's an interesting question of whether the science is now to be conducted in the traditional methods of peer reviewed publication in journals, or more in an open-source sort of way with input from blogs and the mass media. A change in peer reviewed processes is likely under the political pressure, but not necessarily a Good Thing. Our article should represent the various views of this. . . dave souza, talk 18:22, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Dave, please don't be so quick to make an accusation of a violation of policy about a statement that is addressed entirely to the discussion points. If I did the same, I'd be bringing up WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT about some comments elsewhere on this page. One of the problems with focusing on the supposed "hack" is that it distracts from covering the wrong charges that the science behind AGW is itself corrupt -- a very important topic that the article should emphasize even more. (For instance, too much emphasis on the hacking also distracts from the article giving a more prominent explanation of how "hide the decline" and "trick" don't actually mean anything nefarious.) The focus of the reliable sources (and most of the reliable sources are news media sources) has been the conduct of the scientists (and secondarily, what that means about the authority of climate science), therefore, to turn the central focus the article toward the purported "hacking" or anything else is WP:UNDUE. This is why we need to remove that over-emphasis, including removing it from the article name. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:56, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment to Hipocrite: I'd be inclined to tentatively agree to that as long as if any truly new, non-meat, non-sock editor does come by and ask about it, you dont cite some variant of "we already talked about it, so you can't bring up Climategate as an article title." Moogwrench (talk) 20:33, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The proposal in the incubator has severe problems of undue weight and is muddled in some areas, but also includes useful information and ideas. When (and if) the article is moved to the new title, each point should be discussed on the article talk page as a proposal for improvement, and problems addressed to get consensus before altering the article. . . dave souza, talk 20:57, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment(s) - I'd like to make two points. Firstly, all this comment-moving malarkey is really annoying. This is supposed to be a discussion, not a vote. Secondly, I've been asked to clarify the meaning of my "oppose" !vote above, although I confess I do not see what could possibly be ambiguous about it. My contention is that this article should remain with this name, and that a separate article documenting the broader controversy be created with the proposed title (although I prefer "Climatic Research Unit documents controversy"). Others have asked why I would be in favor of what is essentially a POV fork, and my answer to that is that I am not. It is my belief that the "controversy" article, if created now, will eventually be merged into Global warming controversy once it becomes clear how insignificant and unimportant this faux controversy is. In the meantime, this article will largely cease to be the battleground it currently is because most of the skeptics will have moved on to play in their new sandpit (which will not be on my watchlist). -- Scjessey (talk) 21:20, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Amen to your first point and most of your second point. It can't believe how much I am agreeing with you today, Scjessey... Moogwrench (talk) 21:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I suppose I agree with Scjessey's assessment, since it's pretty much the same as my argument for not splitting this article. And since Moogwrench agrees with Simon, that would mean that, per my disagreement with Moogwrench, I agree with Moogwrench. And that just as I was beginning to acquiesce to the inevitable. Need to think some more about this... Guettarda (talk) 21:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * What we have here is verifiable evidence that spacetime has been torn asunder. Up is now down, white is now black, and the invisible pink unicorn is clearly visible and demonstrably pink. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:03, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Nigelj's proposal is also very interesting. But if the unicorn is visible, wouldn't it also be demonstrably not pink? Guettarda (talk) 22:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well you could certainly make that claim, but I fear the rules of conditional logic have also been rendered unreliable by this cataclysm. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:22, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Prefer climate-gate, but this is an definite improvement. Weaponbb7 (talk) 22:22, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose because it downplays the central event--the hacking. The controversy is a somewhat tangential matter, and largely a media event. --TS 00:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose This article should focus on an incident. The article about current controversy about climate science should be written from scratch, perhaps depicting IPCC as central and CRU as subordinate. I would strongly support if the move is just "hacking" to "e-mail". --Masudako (talk) 17:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. More neutral title.  My vote appears to bring the total for support to 25 versus 7 opposing. Cla68 (talk) 09:35, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose 'hacking incident' describes what happened, and thus is NPOV; 'email controversy' is not neutral but is based on feelings that the emails seen were controversial and thus supportive of climate scepticism, which is a point of view. - Jane
 * Support I've noticed this very late. Climategate would be the common sense option but this is still an improvement. Jprw (talk) 13:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support The hacking is not the story. The hacking has never been the story, outside the world of Wikipedia. This proposed title more accurately reflects the impact and importance of the incident. Thparkth (talk) 14:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support This article has had an issue with it's name forever, now. This is the article title which makes the most intuative sense. It requires a very partisan viewpoint to seriously think otherwise. — V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 16:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support I've believed for a long while that the name has been a problem and unfortunately it looks like it's going to be a continually point of division. However some degree of compromise is needed by both sides and this seems like a decent proposal. As so many people have pointed out, acknowledging there was a controversy does not imply that the scientific consensus is changing nor even necessarily that the controversy was legitimate. In fact there have been plenty of controversies which I regard as far more nonsense then this (the idea that this is some sort of 'final nail in the coffin is nonsense but plenty of people have pointed out there was some silly behaviour from both sides on this so it's not a completely nonsense controversy in my book, although as I've said ultimately that does not matter). Nil Einne (talk) 16:26, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with this, but still feel, as I said way above, that it would be less disruptive to the current content to rename the other article, Climatic Research Unit documents, to the proposed title and keep this one as it is. --Nigelj (talk) 18:10, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * While not opposed to the suggestion, IMHO it would still be necessary for the controversy to be the primary article and it would clearly be covering a lot of what is currently in this article, in other words, it may ultimately achieve the same thing and even if less disruptive it's likely to entail more work so like Dave souza, I'm not sure if it's necessarily the better proposal. Nil Einne (talk) 23:06, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Support The hacking element was never the central focus of the incident in the sourcing and we shouldn't have undue emphasis on it. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Title is better, and isn't prejudicial as "climategate" would be. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:55, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * We have consensus. I count 32 in support, 10 opposed, and the seven-day period for the discussion has passed. I suggest that an uninvolved admin confirm the consensus, close the discussion and change the name. I left a note on this at at the GSCC enforcement talk page. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:23, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * While not opposing the close since the 7 days is up, I wonder if it might be better to just wait and see if a regular at the RM page shows up. Nil Einne (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Per ChrisO and ATren. --GoRight (talk) 21:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.