User:SEWilco/Workspace/IPCC TAR summary conflict/Talk

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Removed pending confirmation[edit]

(William M. Connolley 19:58, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)) This page, as it stands, is too obviously biased. It also contains too much that is hard to attribute. What, for example, is "editorial comment"? Are you the editor? Is this your comment? Is it Lindzens comment? (I'd guess not: it appears far too crude for Lindzen). Stuff such as " Ignorance caused crude models, but new models are no better" is nothing other than your own biased attempt at paraphrase and comes nowhere near neutral POV.

& until it does, links to said page removed.


Make it interesting[edit]

This isn't just biased, it's rubbish. This is an encyclopedia, not a repository for source text. SEWilco: please write something interesting about Lindzen's statement, don't just quote excerpts, with a few little comments here and there. -- Tim Starling 06:15, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The source text is the IPCC documents, which are linked to. They are significantly different than these little pieces.
Lindzen's statement is about differences within a document. Obviously it is necessary to show excerpts and compare them. WMC, unbiased global warming activist, already rejected simple writings about this. -- SEWilco 07:23, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
"Obviously it is necessary to show excerpts and compare them". Not like this it isn't. I repeat my request: please write something interesting. Say, a summary of the report (as comprehensible free-flowing text), reactions of critics to it, and briefly Lindzen's replies to criticisms would be a good start. It would be nice (am I asking too much?) if the new material was larger than the quoted material. Your "little sections" are too numerous by at least an order of magnitude. As much as I enjoy reading about this sort of thing (e.g. [1]), I'm not enjoying this. In its current form, I support deletion. -- Tim Starling 11:54, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
A summary of the Summary for Policymakers of the Executive Summary of the Chapter... Well, short summaries get deleted by WMC as being untrue. The supporting material apparently has to be arranged so WMC can see it and understand it. Well, I'll make it more enjoyable. (Oh, yeah, and I can't make it "too original"...) -- SEWilco 14:25, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're talking about with WMC deleting summaries... do you mean this? That diff seems fair enough to me: original prose is what I'm looking for, not an attempt to pass off your own text as someone else's. -- Tim Starling 08:00, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

SEW, please listen to Tim. He has made several valid points. By the way, being "right" about the facts of a encyclopedia topic is no excuse for not writing "neutrally" about it (if the shoe fits wear it; if not, see if it'll fit me!!). --Uncle Ed 18:44, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)


Original research?[edit]

Original research/writing, this should be deleted because it's Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Daniel Quinlan 06:58, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

How does one "write comprehensively about all human knowledge" without original writing? This isn't original research, as Lindzen and others have already pointed out this issue -- and opponents say his statements are false, so they apparently researched it also. The comparison is straightforward. -- SEWilco 07:23, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I think the quote you were looking for was "many writers of antiquity (such as Aristotle) attempted to write comprehensively about all human knowledge" -- it's not the definition of an encyclopedia or anything. However, you should read our policy documents rather than just making up quotes. The current aim for Wikipedia is not to collect all human knowledge. There are several things which we have decided are not appropriate for Wikipedia, and these include original research and source text. However, I'm not sure I understand Daniel's statement: a discussion of a report is not, in general, original research. -- Tim Starling 08:00, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think a summary of these disputes, assuming they do exist in more than fringe publications, is certainly encyclopedic. However, an in-depth point-by-point discussion of them seems more suited to a specialist publication than to a general encyclopedia, even given the fact that Wikipedia isn't paper -- this level of detail on such a specific subject is simply not verifiable. --Delirium 10:25, Aug 31, 2003 (UTC)

Note that I drastically reduced the length of the article after I wrote the comments above. -- Tim Starling 11:02, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)