Wikipedia talk:IPCC citation

Development
The method of IPCC AR citation presented on this page supplants an earlier attempt which can be considered as mostly failed, but provided valuable lessons. A key lesson is the need to minimize editorial "assembly" of the elements of a template. Another important lesson is the impracticality of the standard "author(s)+date" method of identifying specific sources (instances have been found where as many as five authors are insufficient to distinguish IPCC chapters); experience shows the AR/WG/Ch/year method to be more meaningful and easier to use.

Specific aspects of the method presented here have been developed in the context of the Global warming article during 2019; relevant discussions are archived there. &diams; J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:58, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments
Please comment here on any errors or problems encountered with the IPCC citations. &diams; J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:18, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

I see your url update ; thanks for bringing it to my attention. One of the reasons for having canonical citations and standardized formatting is to facilitate verification and updating, and I am hoping that as things get a little more developed we can be more proactive on that. (And, what a coincidence, having gotten the Special Reports more or less up to date I have been planning to check AR4 and AR5.) Another reason for this multi-level approach to citation (per the diagram) is to minimize redundancy, so that when something (like a URL, or, drat, a file name) changes only one edit is required (per article) to fix it. (Effects of global warming being a contra-example.)

I'm going to be a bit busy in the coming week so there will be a bit of delay getting on with this. &diams; J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Re URLs
[The following arises from a discussion Femke and I are having at Talk:Effects of global warming, and particularly:]

[...] And yes, the link to the normal website works equally fast as the mirror. Wouldn't you agree that the official website is more likely to be stable than the mirror? I really don't understand why you prefer the archived version of the AR4 website anyway (recent addition in 'global warming')... Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:58, 16 February 2020 (UTC)


 * There is some ambiguity here re URLs. Regarding the update for AR5 WG1 Full there are three URLs involved:
 * 1: https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_ALL_FINAL.pdf
 * 2: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_all_final.pdf
 * 3: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_ALL_FINAL.pdf


 * The first is the old URL, which previously worked, but now is, unexplainedly, not found. The second, that you grabbed, is plausible (i.e, consistent with other URLs), but, for me, consistently fails to download. (Across multiple browsers and operating systems, and from different sites.  Your experience is different?) The third works, and delivers the exact same file as originally. I don't like using a discrepant URL not at the official site, but I also know that domain is the old "official" Working Group I. None of these are fully satisfactory, but until I can get the IPCC to resolve them we're kind of stuck to doing the best we can.


 * Stability is the precise reason for using https://archive.ipcc.ch/ for the older reports, as the main website (www.ipcc.ch) keeps getting rearranged. &diams; J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:20, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Similar issue with National Climate Assessments?
Hi there! I'm attempting to reference chapters from the fourth National Climate Assessment (this page, to be specific), and I am finding challenges similar to those described here. Would a similar setup be suggested for that set of recommendations? If so, would a more experienced contributor be willing to help set this up? I'm afraid the discussion on this page is somewhat over my head. Thanks! Jlevi (talk) 17:11, 25 March 2020 (UTC)