Talk:Richard Lindzen/Archive 11

1472 words of Wikipedia balance
I will return January 12th, to bring more and more and more attention to Wikipedia's proposition that 625 words for Lindzen's career against 1472 words to discrediting his stance on global warming is "balanced". To the various editors who have contacted me privately expressing support, I suggest that you make that support public, and move forwards from the days where the whole of Wikipedia bends to the will of a small group of advocates. To anyone else who finds this article offensive, please see that all focus needs to begin and end with this fundamental lack of balance, and that Wikipedia is not, to quote Lawrence Solomon the other day, "the missionary wing of the global warming movement", but instead, a free encyclopaedia, which is what I thought it was, years ago, when it first appeared, and has served me so usefully as a resource throughout my career. Alex Harvey (talk) 10:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Alex, this article is a disgrace. And removing another editor's civil talk page contribution is harassment.Momento (talk) 00:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I too agree with Alex. This article has Kim's crusading fingerprints all over it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.118.18.1 (talk) 07:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Second the motion.Bigdatut (talk) 01:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I support that as well. I am all for a balanced article, citing both pro's and con's.  However, there seem to be a number of editors who are working to trash global warming sceptic biographies by inserting negative comments and fighting against the insertion of balancing positive insights.  I'm running into a similar situation over at Jim Inhofe, where two editors keep deleting a sentence from another sceptic praising Jim. For shame!  Madman (talk) 02:49, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Has any of you actually read the article? As pointed out above, by far most of the "1472 words" (give or take a few by now) present Lindzen's point of view, they don't discredit it. If you want more balance, add material to the other sections - User:Alexh19740110/Lindzenearlydraft is a bit hagiograhic, but contains a lot of good material. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Every sentence counted in the 1472 words (assuming the article hasn't changed since I did the word count) is followed by a second that discredits the view given in the sentence before it. My point stands, as far as I can see. As for my draft, it is not only hagiographic in part, it is not factually correct in other parts, and is hopelessly incomplete. Adding any of that material in (e.g. the tides section which I think is probably good) would simply create a new problem of balance (and not to mention accuracy): why an article about Lindzen's contributions to tidal theory that says nothing about all his other work from 1970-1990? Do we have here a professional meteorologist who understands Lindzen's wave-CISK theory or his work on cumulus parameterisation or his other theory of atmospheric dynamics who can actually help me finish this? Otherwise, there is still no other way of balancing the article other than to remove the gratuitous criticisms sections. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Not only have I read it, I've got it open before me. And the headings "contrarianism" and "Expert witness fees and expenses" clearly violate WP:COAT (Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation is broadly neutral; in particular, section headings should reflect areas important to the subject's notability.). Lindzen has been a notable scientist for over 40 years but you wouldn't know it from this article. The fact that a few people have described him as a "contrarian" in the last five years is a very minor footnote to a long and distinguished career. It certainly doesn't warrant its own section. And a separate section called "Expert witness fees and expenses" based on an article by ONE journalist is absolutely pathetic. I could make a dozen overdue edits to this article in 10 minutes but I might be indefinitely banned for going against the status quo.Momento (talk) 06:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Article probation
Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the warning but who decides what's "disruptive"? My experience is that "majority rules" not "truth". Fortunately "the majority" of editors who replied above think this article is negatively biased and not "truthful" Can I fix it?Momento (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * If you have complaints about specific editorial conduct, please raise them at General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement‎. If you have any queries about how the probation will be managed, please post them at Wikipedia talk:General sanctions/Climate change probation‎. Thanks. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't have complaints about editorial conduct. I do have a concern that a discussion about changes needed to remedy obvious breaches of Wiki policy (BLP, Coatrack, Undue weight etc) is met with "Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked"! Shouldn't our concern be to encourage appropriate edits, not suggest that the edits may be "disruptive"?Momento (talk) 05:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Analogous weight discussion at Rajendra Pachauri
I believe we should resolve the discussion at Rajendra Pachauri's BLP before proceeding with this one, given some obvious parallels, see Talk:Rajendra_K._Pachauri. Those who agree with me there should, to some extent, agree with me on a number of points here, too. Let's see. Alex Harvey (talk) 03:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree Alex. I've been saying this for a while: I believe it is very important for different articles on the same topic to adhere to the same standards. Ideally, the entire encyclopedia should have consistent standards, but lacking that, we should at least try to ensure that we have some consistency across articles on the same contentious topic. Now, as to what that standard is, I don't know.


 * I initially supported including well-sourced claims against Pachauri, because that's what always happened on skeptic articles - if it was sourced it was in. But the resistance to negative well-sourced material on Pachauri (and others as well - there was a long debate on RealClimate about including sourced negative opinion, and eventually that too was kept out) has forced me to re-evaluate how we address the skeptic BLPs. Sourcing alone is not enough. It has to be a reliably sourced, notable claim that has been in the news for a while and has been somewhat widely reported (i.e. even if they're well sourced, if it's a transient news item with few sources, it fails weight and/or NOTNEWS).


 * So I don't care about the standard we use, only that it be consistent, and from what I can tell the standard is much higher on pro-GW BLPs than on GW-skeptic BLPs. Attempts to bring pro-GW BLPs in line with skeptic BLPs (by including well sourced negative material) have been met with strong resistance. Therefore, I've begun the task of applying that higher standard to GW skeptics. I think we should do that here. I've already done it on a few others, but there is, once again, resistance -- and ironically, some of the same editors who have fought for higher standards on pro-GW BLPs are fighting to keep dubious claims in skeptic BLPs. So it may have to come to an RFC on the whole lot, where independent editors can examine the whole set of disputed articles and apply standards equally.


 * Bringing it back to Lindzen, I will try to take a look tonight. At a glance, Lindzen seems to be a clear case where the higher standard of inclusion needs to be applied. ATren (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There is already a common standard for all topics: weight. But as long as you can't tell the difference between little coverage and widespread coverage, as well as tell the difference between short news-flashes and long term coverage. Then you are going to bump into what you perceive as difference in consistency. The Lindzen issues have very little to do with the issues that surround the Pachauri issue, just as the Plimer issue is widely different from both Lindzen and Pachauri. Sorry. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Kim, on Pachauri, you rejected inclusion of critical material sourced to 3 respected newspapers -- and I'm referring to full news articles documenting the claim, not mere passing mentions. On skeptic articles, you have argued for inclusion of claims sourced to a single opinion writer (multiple times) and I found one example where you cited Exxonsecrets. On Plimer, the Monbiot debate section is sourced almost completely to Monbiot himself writing in the Guardian, and I've seen no independent coverage (you claim there is, but refuse to provide links). Now, I can dig up more if you like, but it is my assertion that your weight evaluation (and others') has been inconsistent across articles, and that needs to be fixed. I am prepared to back up this assertion if I must. Actually, I already did on the Pachauri talk page, but you reacted strongly, so I've tried to keep it impersonal. But if you demand evidence, I will provide it. (Side note: I am not accusing you of bad faith. You obviously are acting in what you believe to be the interests of the encyclopedia, but I believe you have erred in your judgement of weight, and I'm prepared to demonstrate that. My main concern is that the inconsistency be addressed, not in laying blame -- it just so happens that you've been one of the most vocal opponents to addressing the issue) ATren (talk) 17:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, because on the Pachauri issue things are (strangely enough) different from the issues that have come up here. None of the Lindzen issues are breaking news, nor is it limited in timeperiod (all issues on Lindzen are spread over years, where the one on Pachauri is limited to within (largely) a month), and there is also not the problem that such sourcing is extremely limited in coverage (1 story out of thousands within a short timeperiod). All of these are weight issues, and none of them match or have anything to do with each other. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:42, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

KDP, please stop flogging this poor horse. Your WP:WEIGHT argument has utterly failed to gain any purchase with multiple editors. It has been rejected. That argument is not an argument that no double standard exists , that argument is precisely what enables the double standard to exist at all . Please stop being an enabler for double standards across BLPs and help to make WP:NPOV consistent across all such pages. The project will be a better place for it over-all. --GoRight (talk) 18:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry GoRight, it has failed to gain any purchase with ... the sceptics. Nothing strange there. Weight is a general issue GoRight, it cannot be determined generally, but has to be decided depending on the relative prevalence of the issue within the literature. Spread of coverage on issues concerning Lindzen is different from that of Pachauri, Plimer, Obama, or any other person. It is unique to an issue. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:38, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you calling me a GW skeptic? Shall I call you a proponent? Please see the top of my user page. ATren (talk) 20:15, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * While this is a technically true statement where it fails to gain purchase is in the balancing of WP:NPOV with WP:WEIGHT. It lacks purchase because the differences you speak of in WP:WEIGHT are far outweighed by other WP:NPOV concerns across the articles.  --GoRight (talk) 19:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm running into the same argument at Jim Inhofe, where my suggestions to structure the article similar to a biography of a (or any!!) liberal Democratic senator was nixed because Inhofe is known for this political stands and not his accomplishments. It's absurd. Madman (talk) 20:09, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It is the same with anyone who is perceived to be a skeptic of AGW. KDP is a master at using WP:WEIGHT but in this case it is falling short and I believe that this is the case because the actual discrepancy in treatment across certain pages has become so blaring.  Compare Jim Inhofe's treatment to that of James E. Hansen as one such example. The same applies in all the GW related BLPs.  --GoRight (talk) 02:17, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Anyone interested in how Kim D. Petersen has historically applied WP:WEIGHT against skeptic biographies should review our thread Talk:Richard_Lindzen/Archive_5. On the basis of a single passing, out of context reference, in a single reliable source from a decade or so ago, an entire section was made to stand, and stand for about six years or so, connecting falsely and by insinuation Richard Lindzen with Big Tobacco. This thread began when I found that Kim had added an incendiary new source as supposedly new, supporting evidence for weight -- a hopelessly biased & flawed opinion piece. After many weeks, no more reliable sources could be found, but Kim can be seen to argue here for inclusion based on, wait for it, typing "lindzen passive smoking" into google, and then counting the number of hits obtained. 2,000 hits was then described as the "elephant in the room", and this elephant of google hits was Kim's definition of weight. Let's not pretend otherwise: weight has been bent in Wikipedia to be whatever the including editor wanted it to be. Please don't lecture to us that weight is applied consistently in Wikipedia, thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * But we digress and there be climate change probationary sanctions to worry about along with talk page guidelines. Let us move the conversation to my talk page.  I have started a section here. --GoRight (talk) 05:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It is no digression. Most of the material from the Ref 29 discussion has been readded here a few weeks ago, with a new set of bogus reasons and arguments that pay spite equally to our WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOT guidelines, but I will begin a new thread below, to make this clearer. Alex Harvey (talk) 06:17, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, I'll wait till ATren responds again, as he said he was going to review the whole thing this evening. But the point remains: we cannot make any progress unless editors see that an argument made at one BLP either applies equally on all BLPs, or it doesn't apply at all. To remind readers, this is what NOT#NEWS actually says, and NOT#NEWS tells us how we should interpret NPOV, WEIGHT: Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. It is by now fact that much of the material in the Lindzen article has failed the test of time. Gelbspan's allegations of the mid 90s are seen as irrelevant; Lindzen is not a fossil fuel industry shill, and that is accepted by all. NOT#NEWS says that Gelbspan's allegations, regardless of whether they appeared once in a PBC documentary, are not worthy of inclusion. A simple statement, followed by Lindzen's denial, is completely unacceptable. Alex Harvey (talk) 08:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * (I've removed my comment, not because I believe I said anything wrong, but because there is no point in discussing an editor's tendentious editing here) ATren (talk) 14:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be the correct thing to do, since this conversation goes against several wikipedia policies and guidelines. So move it to some talk-page where it actually is allowed. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 09:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

One simple change

 * As per - The headings "contrarianism" and "Expert witness fees and expenses" clearly violate WP:COAT (Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation is broadly neutral; in particular, section headings should reflect areas important to the subject's notability.). Lindzen has been a notable scientist for over 40 years but you wouldn't know it from this article. The fact that a few people have described him as a "contrarian" in the last five years is a very minor footnote to a long and distinguished career. It certainly doesn't warrant its own section. And a separate section called "Expert witness fees and expenses" based on an article by ONE journalist is absolutely pathetic - I propose removing the section heading "Contrarianism" and placing this sentence (Lindzen has been characterized as a contrarian.  ) at the end of the previous paragraph.Momento (talk) 00:54, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I would have to agree, their are a few other things wrong with this article and i`ll be looking into them over the next few days. mark nutley (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Publications
The publications section lists only three papers, all from 1965. Lindzen's list of publications  has 235 entries, starting in 1965 and continuing through 2009. That makes our article very misleading. It looks like this problem resulted from someone trying to be helpful. On December 18, a new user, User: Oski Jr, apparently started to enter Lindzen's list of publications into the article and gave up after the first three items. Listing all 235 papers may not be practical. Probably the best thing is to take the three papers out and just mention the number of his publications with a link to the full list. --agr (talk) 19:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd offer the alternative of mentioning the number. and listing the 5 or 10 most-cited ones -- conveniently, Google Scholar ranks them (ims) by number of citations. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:59, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree, that would be better. 10 sounds like a good number to me. It should include an "as of 2010" or the like. Are you up for doing it? --agr (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but. Blind citation counts tend to bias for older papers. If there are outstanding newer papers, consider them as well. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * A good idea. What do you think of my simple edit proposal.Momento (talk) 23:02, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I replaced the misleading list with a summary sentence. I couldn't figure out how get a "most cited" list from Google Scholar. Can someone else take that on?--agr (talk) 14:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Why should Lindzen's actual research, for which one day he'll be remembered properly in Encyclopaedia Britannica, be associated with this disgraceful article? I don't think anything should be added to it. And if anything was to be added, 10 wouldn't be nearly enough. Alex Harvey (talk) 05:33, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The goal is to improve the article. Several editors have complained about a lack of balance. There are too many papers in his list to include them all. A selection of papers based on some objective criteria would help.--agr (talk) 13:26, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite of last para
I haven't added any words or deleted much but look at the difference changing the order of the "Expert witness fees and expenses" makes. If this version doesn't suit please feel to write your own.Momento (talk) 09:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your help, and I think it's a small improvement, but you agreed yourself that the article as a whole is a disgrace. So, do you think that this small improvement makes any difference to the overall problem? Does it change the fact that the section you've adjusted shouldn't be there in the first place? At the end of the day, even after your adjustment, the section still makes Lindzen look bad. The fact that the article has him responding defensively and calling Gelbspan's allegations "slanderous", which they probably are, makes Lindzen look like a guilty party. Yet, it is likely that Gelbspan is the guilty party here. Put it this way: Gelbspan wouldn't respond to my emails when I asked him if I could see his source material on these allegations. If you read the paper that Gelbspan claims was underwritten by OPEC, and if you compare it with Lindzen's other output, it is blatantly obvious, to me, that the paper is original Lindzen. So why does our article repeat this likely false claim that OPEC "underwrote" it? It is a BLP violation, and it should have been removed years ago. Alex Harvey (talk) 02:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, I would like to do more but I am currently topic banned for a year for applying BLP to the Prem Rawat articles and there are admins who would jump at the chance to ban me from Wikipedia altogether. In my experience Wiki policies mean nothing to the status quo and following policy and intelligent editing was no defense in the PR ArbCom case and I've already been warned on this page about "disruptive editing". So I'm just going to take it easy.Momento (talk) 04:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry to hear that and thanks for clarifying. Alex Harvey (talk) 11:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

625:1472 argument continued, comparing with Einstein
Okay, but you haven't even tried to address any of the fundamental objections made above. Sure, we can tweak the article this way or that way, and that will certainly keep the status quo happy, but adding some publications is never going to actually restore any balance here. We have touched on a philosophical question, I suppose, what does "balance" even mean anyway? One answer might be, "If you don't already know, you shouldn't be writing an historical article about a living person, end of story." Certainly, WP:NPOV is not very useful on what "balance" actually means.

Let me illustrate the, frankly pretty obvious, problem with balance here in yet a new way.

Those who are using this page and forum to discredit Prof. Lindzen have argued that anything appearing in reliable sources (e.g. contrarianism, alleged views on health risks from smoking, the Exxon myth) is fair game for inclusion. So an obvious question arises, if anyone truly believes that "weight" must be interpreted in terms of "volume of coverage in mainstream media": how would you write Albert Einstein's article then?

Now, because Einstein is not controversial, and there's no Wikipedia climate change gang out to get him, his biography is pretty good, and they've got the balance about right: we see 9037 words for his work and career against a section of 1050 words devoted to his mistakes. As I said earlier, I think that's about the right balance for Lindzen's career & work against a "mistakes" section, or a "discredit his stance on GW" section.

Now let us think about Einstein's rejection of quantum mechanics. Einstein stubbornly rejected the quantum theory till the end of his life, just as Lindzen apparently stubbornly rejects the anthropogenic global warming "theory". Okay, so I see a small section there on the EPR paradox, and one line in the mistakes section.

Now what about mainstream media coverage of Einstein? Well, I'll bet there were a few stories on Prof. Einstein run by the Nazis during the second world war! But, unsurprisingly, I don't find any of these covered here. Why is that? According to the WP climate change department, we should skew our coverage to whatever happens to appear in the mainstream media, and we can't do anything about it; obviously that is a bogus argument, and there is plenty that we can, and should, and outside of greenwashing climate change skeptics, that's exactly what we always do do in biographies, here in Wikipedia.

So again, I return to the fundamental lack of balance: 625 words for Lindzen's career against 1472 words to discrediting his stance on GW is wrong. It is wrong on a number of levels, e.g. ethically; professionally, but at the end of the day, it is wrong on that in your face, obvious way. Indeed, if you watch the above conversation carefully, even Kim D. Petersen admitted at one point that it was wrong. Alex Harvey (talk) 07:27, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * An interesting comparison. The 1472 includes a clear statement of Lindzen's views, followed by (normally shorter) statements from supporters of the mainstream poistion. By contrast, not only does Albert Einstein contain a large section explicitly devoted to "Einstein's mistakes", but the exposition section on his work and career is studded with criticism, for example, "he Entwurf ("draft") theory was the result of these investigations. As its name suggests, it was a sketch of a theory, with the equations of motion supplemented by additional gauge fixing conditions. Simultaneously less elegant and more difficult than general relativity, Einstein abandoned the theory after realizing that the hole argument was mistaken." "The use of non-covariant objects like pseudotensors was heavily criticized in 1917 by Erwin Schrödinger and others." "Mainstream physics, in turn, largely ignored Einstein’s approaches to unification" and quite a few more.


 * Bearing in mind that the vast majority of climate scientists think that Lindzen is wrong on the most important questions relating to climate change while the opposite, obviously, is true of Einstein, I'd say Lindzen gets treated very favorably here. But we could reasonably summarize the facts, and get the ratios right on your account if we replaced the whole 1472 words with 25 words, something like "Lindzen has expressed views critical of the scientific consensus on climate change. The majority of climate scientists regard Lindzen's criticism as baseless and misconceived."JQ (talk) 10:37, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * John, I would be very happy that replacing the 1472 with the 25 words you suggest would be a positive step in the right direction, and is more or less exactly what I proposed myself several weeks ago. That said, I'm not sure that you've fully understood that the 1472 words includes the contrarianism section you recently added, as well as the "speaker fees" section. Could you clarify this? Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 01:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And while we're at it, a section titled "Expert witness fees and expenses" is undue weight and COATRACK. The material (shortened) can be included in "Media Appearances".Momento (talk) 03:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, that won't help. The material is simply irrelevant, and can be deleted. That's the whole point. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Alex, to use another analogy, wouldn't this be rather like a version of Ronald Reagan which gave a detailed filmography, discussion of his acting career and so on, then ended with "After leaving Hollywood, Reagan played a controversial role in California and US politics". Lindzen is certainly a respected climatologist and expansion of this part of the article would be good, but his primary fame is as a critic of the scientific consensus on climate change, one of a handful with genuine climate science qualifications. Unsurprisingly, his adherence to such a minority viewpoint has led to criticism, including scrutiny of his motives, and this also can't be ignored. FWIW, I think the witness fee stuff has undue weight in the current version. JQ (talk) 11:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems it needs to be refuted yet again, as it has been repeated yet again - there are not 1472 words in this article criticizing Lindzen - the number include statements of Lindzen's own beliefs and praise of his effect on the climate debate. Brian A Schmidt (talk) 14:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * JQ, I'll have to just ignore the Reagan comparison. Responding to your second point, what someone happens to be "famous" for to the uneducated masses is not what encyclopaedias are written for. Lindzen is notable per WP:PROF so we follow the guidelines there. Then, WP:NOT states clearly that most events that are newsworthy are not encyclopaedia-worthy.
 * Brian, I have responded several times to the very weak argument that because some of these 1472 words happen to expose Lindzen's view, the section as a whole is therefore not devoted to discrediting his views on global warming. Alex Harvey (talk) 00:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOT: News reports. ''Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews.''

So the idea that "scrutiny of Lindzen's motives ... can't be ignored" is precisely wrong; there is, on the contrary, no policy in Wikipedia that says we can investigate a living person's motives. Gelbspan's investigation of Lindzen's motives in the 1990s failed the test of time. He wanted us to believe that Lindzen was in the pay of fossil fuel, but he got it wrong. The fact that he was wrong should mean that it now has zero weight. No one believes Lindzen has any connection with fossil fuel, here in 2010, or even that he had any in 1995, so the guideline is crystal clear: this stuff stays out. Yet here we are... Alex Harvey (talk) 06:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Alex were in the article does it say he is in the pay of fossil fuel companys? i can`t see that anywere. --mark nutley (talk) 12:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Nowhere does it say that he is, presently, in the pay of fossil fuel. What the article says (after Momento's recent change) is, Gelbspan claimed Lindzen "... charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels and a speech he wrote, entitled Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,[34] was underwritten by OPEC."[35][31] According to Juliet Eilperin the fact that Lindzen was paid expenses, "doesn't mean he's on anybody's payroll. He charges for his speeches, but so do prominent scientists who disagree with him about climate change."[25] According to Alex Beam of the The Boston Globe, Lindzen said that he charged expenses and expert witness fees in the 1990s but had not done so since.[36] The point is, the Gelbspan piece is flawed, and it is therefore unreliable, and it should not be used. I suppose, worse than this true, but irrelevant story, of accepting some speaking fees, is the probably-false story that his paper was underwritten by OPEC. That is, I believe, nonsense. Alex Harvey (talk) 14:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Alex, how do you know that the "Gelbspan piece is flawed, and it is therefore unreliable"? As we've discussed many times, the information that Lindzen has been payed by "fossil-types" is repeated in so many places, that it has significant weight. Personally (as i've also said many times) i think that this is rather irrelevant (and trivial amounts), but unfortunately the weight is against us redacting it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Well [31] can`t be used, it is an op-ed which gets its info from dieoff.orgwhich got it`s info from exxon secrets.org. Who the hell used that as a reliable source? I`ll check the others later tonight --mark nutley (talk) 14:51, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * If you are talking about the PBS Frontline page, then it most certainly isn't an Op-Ed. As for where they got the information, that is rather irrelevant, since it is the PBS editorial oversight that is the definition on whether it is a reliable source on the information or not. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Are you serious? Profiles of five prominent global warming skepticsby Oriana Zill de Granados, it is certainly an op-ed and if they get their info from exxonsecrets.org and dieoff.org the nthey are not an acceptable source. How you can argue otherwise is beyond me --mark nutley (talk) 16:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * How on earth are you defining Op-ed then? de Granados is an investigative journalist. If the PBS's editorial oversight has OK'd the information, then it is rather irrelevant where it stems from (even accepting your assertion), information is not 'bad' because it once touched a non-RS site. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Bull, Lindzen is a also been a contributor to the Cato Institute, which has taken $90,000 from Exxon since 1998, according to the website Exxonsecrets.org your telling me that is reliable? --mark nutley (talk) 17:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Kim, so you are saying that "weight" is "volume of news coverage"; is that correct? As for why I said the Gelbspan piece is flawed, please read it again. AFAIK, Gelbspan is the only source claiming that Lindzen had a paper underwritten by OPEC. I do not believe this story is true. Alex Harvey (talk) 23:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Just a moment, 35 links to the same source were de grandos got his material from which is 31, and that is a copy and paste from ross gelbspan harpers magazine That die off site again this looks like a blatant copyright violation to me, what do you think guys? --mark nutley (talk) 00:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Alex, No, Gelbspan is not the only source for this, you once made the claim once that all references could be traced back to Gelbspan, but that is WP:OR. As for weight, yes, but not only "news coverage" - coverage in general, and as you well know this has been referenced in both PR papers and in books. What you believe or not, has no relevance, unless you can build a case for it with reliable sources.
 * Mark, i think you should attempt to take that "Bull" to WP:RS/N, since it would be a great surprise to me if you are correct. Editorial oversight in the reference given is the basis for WP:RS. Information does not get "tainted" by having been quoted from, or duplicated at, a non-WP:RS site. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I may have to, however the link to harpers magazine is not a link to harpers magazine, (ref 31) it is to a copy and paste job on the dieoff site linked above, is this not a copyright violation? --mark nutley (talk) 00:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Kim, if weight means "volume of news coverage", then explain to me what WP:NOT means. Explain to me how we are to interpret the guideline that most news worthy events are not encyclopaedia worthy if you take "volume of news coverage" as your definition of weight. Forget about whether news happens to appear in a book or a PR paper, because that's irrelevant, and doesn't change the fact that it was news. Go a step further, and explain why I shouldn't include Nazi propaganda in Einstein's article, if I apply your interpretation of our coverage. I'm sure there were a few good book references to Einstein by some diligent German authors during the war. I remind you, you have just admitted that Gelbspan story itself, in your opinion, doesn't intrinsically carry any weight, but that your hands are supposedly tied, you claim, by Wikipedia's strict guidelines. Alex Harvey (talk) 02:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * So why the silence here? Alex Harvey (talk) 07:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Lets see.... Because you failed to read and understand what i wrote? ... or could it be... because you failed to understand that my personal views is not the same as WP:WEIGHT? Let me repeat: WP:WEIGHT is proportial weight of coverage in reliable sources (i'm not speaking about newspapers at all). NOTNEWS means that we shouldn't include an item just because it is a headline in current news, we go for the long-term view, and with this in mind, you may want to notice that the coverage here is over a long period of time. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I have not only read what you wrote, I have fully understood what you said, and demonstrated the same understanding in my response. I asked you, yes or no, does weight mean "volume of news coverage" or doesn't it? You said, and I quote, "Y-E-S". You then qualified your answer by extending it to all "reliable sources," but the fact that you said, "Y-E-S", suggests that you mean to consider news coverage to be somehow the most important of reliable sources. You then go on to completely get WP:NOT wrong. That is not what NOTNEWS says at all. Please read it again, as I have quoted the guideline verbatim for you above. It mentions breaking news, which you say it is completely about, only in passing. NOTNEWS is about NEWS IN GENERAL. Wikipedia is not meant to be skewed towards news coverage, period. That's what the guideline says. Will you agree to this? Alex Harvey (talk) 14:05, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, Alex. I do not consider news the "most important of reliable sources", that is why i used a "comma" instead of a "period". News is one type of reliable source, and one which isn't terribly reliable on science. Peer-reviewed journals are another type of reliable source. Books are a third type of reliable source. All have their strong and weak sides. Is it clear now?
 * Not news is not about news in general, but about short news-bursts. It is about not including the latest news-cycle, but waiting for the news to settle, so that we can determine the how enduring and notable a particular event or information is. That is not the case here. It isn't just a short news-burst, but something that has been turned and turned several times, in various different reliable sources, be it newspapers, social science papers, books and tv. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The policy doesn't say anything at all about short news bursts. That is entirely your personal interpretation. Can you agree that there is nothing in the policy that mentions short news bursts? Can you also agree to the proposition that most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. You do understand what is meant by "most" right? Most means most. So, you have here an entire section (Expert witness fees) based exclusively on a 15 year old news report. The story itself is dead, and you admitted that it is probably, in itself, irrelevant. You agree, therefore, by implication, that this section is inevitably going to mislead any newcomer to the life of Richard Lindzen. Now, of these sources you claim to be reliable, the first one is Oriana Zill de Granados, PBS. You have puffed this up above as "investigative journalism", but ignored Mark Nutley's valid point that it is entirely devoid of any original content. It steals in its entirety from earlier sources, namely, ExxonSecrets, which is really Greenpeace, and Ross Gelbspan. Clearly, what you are calling "investigative journalism" is in fact rehashed news. Your second source is Ross Gelbspan, which I have argued is flawed journalism, and given good reasons. I.e. Gelbspan is not willing to share his sources, he doesn't give his sources in the article, but merely asserts this (=bad scholarship) such that there is no reason, as a good scholar, to believe this part of the story (that OPEC underwrote a paper). You can play dumb if you like, but anyone who reads the paper in question can see that it is Lindzen's original views. It is obvious. Thus, the OPEC wrote it story is completely implausible. It all likelihood, Gelbspan got this wrong. So, anyway, true or false, we so far have one single news story holding up an entire section. This pays spite to our guideline NOTNEWS. The remainder of the sources given in the section only provide counterpoint but not content and thus cannot in any way be used to justify the existence of the section in the first place. So I ask you, how do you stretch all this to conclude that this has been, I quote, "something that has been turned and turned several times, in various different reliable sources, be it newspapers, social science papers, books and tv." Show me evidence of this please. The story is agreed by all, now, to have no relevance. You have agreed yourself that is has no relevance. Here, in 2010, we have old news that no one takes seriously any more. Please explain this, because it doesn't square with your professed for including it. Alex Harvey (talk) 15:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've said it before and i will say it again: The whole "based exclusively on a 15 year old news report" is WP:OR. It is your guess, which may or may not be correct. The story is not "dead", since it is repeated again and again. I'm sorry, but i'm not "puffing" anything up. It is a WP:RS and it is written by an investigative reporter, thus carries weight (especially combined with other sources). You can argue as much as you want that Gelbspan is "flawed journalism", that won't make it so. Please differentiate between your personal opinion (which is not based on WP:RS), and what we can find in reliable sources. WP:NOTNEWS is about "enduring notability of persons and events", this item is enduring (btw. the enduring part is the one about short-news bursts). It is not about "a single story", its about whether a story has enduring properties... ie. gets repeated, has long "life-time". (lots of notable events are "single stories" - think abit about that). And finally: No i have not agreed that it has no relevance, i'll repeat it again: What i personally think, has no bearing on what is and isn't relevant. Weight is weight. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Kim, in order to respond to all the incorrect and self contradictory statements above I'd have to write several paragraphs. Let's keep it simple: you say the Gelbspan allegations carry weight based on volume of reliable sources. You say, "it gets repeated"; it has a "long 'life-time'." Let's ignore the back-pedalling on whether or not you yourself believe the story has intrinsic weight. The main point I made is the same point you ignored: The entire section, presently, is propped up by two sources, one of which is, actually, just a copy & paste job of the first one, and that's what you're calling investigative journalism. Fine, let's call it that. Since the section has so much weight -- by your own, incorrect definition of what weight is -- it is incumbent on you, now, as the editor vying for inclusion of this contentious material, to show us this weighty slab of reliable sources that gives the story its weight. Can you please do that before we continue, because I don't know what they are. I am aware of only these two that are in the article. Thanks. Alex Harvey (talk) 00:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * only "Gelbspan" == WP:OR. Only one source == WP:OR. Cut'n'paste == WP:OR. You are repeating your personal opinion, you have no idea if any of these sources have verified the information themselves - None. You are simply assuming things. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC) [and just another correction: I have never said that i don't believe the information. Read my comments again. Stop assuming.] --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:24, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Answer the question. Please. Alex Harvey (talk) 00:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Mu (negative). Question malformed, based on incorrect assumptions, too many fingers on keyboard error. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Kim, please either produce sources as evidence for weight or admit that you only know of the two that are presently in the article. Or, agree to leave this article alone if you feel you are above having to produce evidence for the contentious material you have restored to this BLP. Thank you. Alex Harvey (talk) 00:41, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe i have, in one of the many many threads you've started on this so far. (and strangely enough i know that you know that this information is repeated in many reliable sources) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:51, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What is "I believe I have" supposed to mean? I have gone through the archives, and you haven't. Alex Harvey (talk) 04:38, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

This thread continues below... Alex Harvey (talk) 00:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)