Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Climate Change

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The following discussion is an archived proposal of the WikiProject below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.

The proposed WikiProject was created, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Climate change . Please post any further comments/questions within the project, including on its talk page.


UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2019 (UTC) [reply]

Description[edit]

We propose to convert the inactive Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change task force to a full WikiProject. The project will focus on all aspects of climate change and provide active editors a place to share expertise in this topic, coordinate tasks, and share ideas about how to clearly and neutrally communicate.

The project's scope includes the scope of the former Climate Change Task Force and to the extent not already covered by the task force:

  • all current and future research in mainstream science of all aspects and effects ("the science");
  • the physical, social and biological causes ("the causes");
  • the effects to human society, the environment, the biosphere and the planet as a whole ("the effects");
  • future projections of the effects, as well as of mitigation or reduction ("the future");
  • the mitigation, offsets, reductions, adaptations and geo-engineering principles; their applications, methods and related research ("the mitigation");
  • literature; which includes mainstream media and scientific literature, but also includes a growing new genre in fiction of climate-related writing ("the literature");
  • artwork, visual aids, diagrams, charts, videos, uploaded images or photos and related matter ("the visuals"). This could also include interactive multimedia;
  • activism, campaigning, and public awareness, including divestment ("activism and divestment");
  • impact, coverage, trends of the mass media ("mass media");
  • political and sociological aspects of the climate situation, including the impact of governing and policy-making bodies ("politics and society");
  • financial, corporate, and economic factors relating to climate change; this includes these groups as causes, as champions for or against system change, and would also include the impact of future projections on them ("finance and corporate");
  • the fossil fuel industry and the hydrocarbon economy as unique and highly influential subsets of the previous item ("industries");
  • other miscellaneous articles or subjects which may impinge on the subject ("miscellaneous").

This project proposal page is a work in progress. Please excuse the mess while we get things organised!


Important pages for this proposed project[edit]

Important categories for this proposed project[edit]

Related WikiProjects[edit]

Please invite these and any other similar groups to join the discussion about this proposal. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory to find similar WikiProjects.

Supporters[edit]

Also, specify whether or not you would join the project.

  1. Cadar
  2. Notagainst will join.
  3. Sean Heron - will also definitely join!
  4. Femke Nijsse
  5. – SJ + 02:31, 6 July 2019 (UTC) - Yes; also we can run geonotices in likely places inviting participation.[reply]
  6. Chidgk1 - not promising to join
  7. Clayoquot - will join
  8. Remagoxer - will probably take part
  9. NewsAndEventsGuy

Maybe[edit]

# User:NewsAndEventsGuy .... (A) Why not just start using the existing inactive task force (existing under the ENVIRONMENT project umbrella)? I don't know much about projects but the skim read says projects have "administrative overhead" and Project Environment already has that covered. Please see Converting_existing_task_forces_to_projects. So why try to be a stand-alone thing? UPDATE - being discussed on the talk page (I changed to "yes", as explained at talk)

Discussion[edit]

Naming of central article[edit]

Can we change the name of the Climate Change article to Climate Crisis of Climate Emergency? See Guardian spurs media outlets to consider stronger climate language Notagainst (talk) 10:22, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm strongly against using climate crisis as this would go against Wikipedia's neutrality priciple. There are a lot of serious media around that don't use this wording (financial times, economists), many experts still use climate change. We should not e a frontrunner here.
I also believe that if we call it a climate crisis, more activists might become active. While they often come with a lot of knowledge and passion and can therefore be valuable to the project, it's good if we have a good balance of people here and that f.i. climate scientists are attracted to edit. I'm sure some of my colleagues will stop editing or never begin if they do not feel wikipedia welcomes their scientific objectivivity. Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I would be all for it; in fact I think "crisis" is too mild, because the latest research and events are showing that "catastrophe" is nearer the mark, and we're simply not going to dodge it. Unfortunately the other editors will choke on such shrill-sounding language, and it goes against policy. Cadar (talk) 12:22, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi guys - I can see where both sides are coming from, but I don't think this is the right place to debate that :P. I think questions of scope, or what we hope to achieve, or how we want to organise are more fitting (and I think urgent!) here :D! Regards Sean Heron (talk) 13:33, 27 June 2019 (UTC) (P.S. of course count me in :P ).[reply]
If, as Sean points out, this were the correct venue (Talk:Global warming) I would agree with Femkemilene that such a title would be a problem under policy WP:Neutral point of view. HOWEVER, the phrase "climate crisis" itself and the push to use that phrase, are being reported in RSs and might merit an article about the phrase and the push to use it. See WP:Neologism. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:50, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiprojects name[edit]

Hi, I realise this is coming kinda late, but I was wondering about what name is best for the wikiproject. I know its longer, but given the (still) confusing situation with the topic of our Climate Change article, I was wondering whether Anthropogenic Climate Change might be better. Hmm, it is a bit awkward... Maybe Climate Change is not that bad after all :/ . Or Man-made/human climate change ? I dunno now.. Regards Sean Heron (talk) 13:41, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sean and thanks for the support I considered adding "anthropogenic" to the name - I think the length isn't much of an issue - but I'm certain we will lose some people with throwing that into the mix. Also, the word is somewhat obscure. "Man-made" is less confusing, but just as likely to drive some potential supporters away. I've spent much of the last few years engaging directly with people on all parts of the spectrum of belief, from outright, categorical denial to almost rabid activism. A lot of people accept the fact that the planet's climate is changing but absolutely refuse to accept that man could possibly have such a drastic effect on it. Takes all kinds to make a world, I guess. And another thing, I'm reluctant to start narrowing the focus too much. While some people might debate the causes of the changes we're seeing, there's no doubt for anyone who is reasonably open-minded that things are changing. And I think it's now less about blamestorming and more about finding solutions and common ground as a basis for working together to resolve the situation. The wider our remit while still being on point for what's happening in the world, the more room for people of different persuasions to come together under a single common goal and work towards finding that common ground. And sharing the information in order to inform the people who are unsure. Does that make sense?

Cadar (talk) 13:56, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Using assessment task force[edit]

How easy is it to convert the assessments of the previous task force to the new Wikiproject? If this is quite difficult, it might be wiser to just use our current momentum for that task force instead of doing loads of admin only to promote this to a Wikiproject. Femke Nijsse (talk) 05:59, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

About that I have no idea, but I'm sure a literal copy of existing content from the task force page of all relevant content is possible.
Another thing has occurred to me. Since the talk pages of articles, task forces, projects, etc are strictly meant to be about their associated subjects, I'd assume it would be poor etiquette to break convention and "advertise" the project on the talk pages of related subjects, as being the simplest way to get the attention of the highest number of potentially interested editors. Is that the case? Because the only other way I can see to get their attention is to do what I've done and message them individually at their talk page. Which is a whole load more work, and right now I'm busy with a lot of piled up edits.
Cadar (talk) 07:54, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am not seeing task-force specific assessments separate from those applied by Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment; are those the ones to which you are referring? UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:13, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm referring to those. I have not been able to figure out how to assign specific assessments (shame on me?), so as my predesessors, I've just used the importance assessment as if it were task force specific. The quality assessment of course translates directly. Femke Nijsse (talk) 06:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I also cannot see how a task force specific assessment could be done. If someone knows how to please let us know. Otherwise this would be a benefit of upgrading the task force to a project as some articles might then be assigned a different importance in the environment and climate change projects. If someone knows a reasonably simple automation I would suggest if the new project is created that the importance assessment is initially automatically copied to the new project. After that it should be easier to check manually that assessments are reasonable, starting with "top" and working down.Chidgk1 (talk) 15:46, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, does anyone actually DO anything with importance assessments? I've been around a long time. I never ever ever use them and usually just ignore the template as wasted real estate on my screen. Editors will quickly figure out what's important. Knowledgeable readers already know. Newbie readers are really unlikely to ever see any of our tools based on assessment, so those tools don't reach them. Unless I'm missing something, import assessments appeal to editors doing the assessments but don't contribute very much. But that's just me. FYI I have asked for project space experts to share their wisdom here, as to how important "importance" is, and mechanically how we would go about converting. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:38, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I do use them in me searching for new articles to edit. I want to edit articles that have a high impact and are currently not up to standards. I hope for the WikiProject that we can empty the category of top/high importance articles in the Start and C quality classes. I want to have a table like WP:WikiProject Environment#Pages needing attention in the project page.
I agree however that quantifying importance is a time-consuming process that does not have high returns. Therefore, I really want to just copy the importance pages have under the Environment WikiProject into our new project. Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:00, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Pages needing attention is my main interest too. When I think a page is important (conceptually, while I figure out my own relationship to a topic) I look at page statistics and even google hits and frequently move on to work on something else. To find pages to work on, instead of looking at import assessments, I look at "what links here". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:10, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia:1.0 team uses importance/priority assessments in some of their calculations. If you don't choose to use them (which is okay!), they'll substitute a measure of overall popularity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What we want to achieve[edit]

I think it would be lovely if we can make sure that all high and top importance article within our scope are up to date and at least assessed C on quality scale. Especially articles about solutions (renewable energy, cool ways of doing agriculture and so forth) are often out of date but widely read. I believe this 'misinformation' might decrease support for these solutions.

We also have a legacy of very long articles that are therefore difficult to maintain: mitigation of climate change was one of them iirc. We need to condense those before we can update them.

In addition, it would be nice if we can make more of our work visible to a wider public: we can try to submit more DYKs for new articles and for newly promoted good articles. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

100% agreement from me Cadar (talk) 14:35, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I would love to see updating diagrams + visuals as part of the project. That's essential -- often the most-used item on an article, and referred to for data points within it. – SJ + 02:48, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Environment/Climate_change/Figures_and_art Femke Nijsse (talk) 05:07, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Sj: Nice idea, and that definitely falls within our remit. Thanks! I'll add that as a separate category of subject matter to our list.
Also, thanks very much for the support. If you have experience with projects in the past, may I pick your brains? I haven't done much work on it in the last few days (OK, none ) but in my defence I've had real life stuff keeping me offline a lot. I'm going to try to clear my backlogged to-do list this weekend.
Cadar (talk) 09:45, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Just had me another idea while working on the list of subjects: is it worth breaking off a separate category focussed on the media? Usually WP involvement with the media is as a source of content for articles, but is there a need to write about what is happening in the media itself, and to create a sub-project to deal with it? I think this idea might have been sparked by some of the comments on the GW vs CC current discussion, that WP is only concerned with naming conventions in line with the science. To me that's so obviously wrong that it doesn't need explanation, especially in light of the fact that the media is the public's main source of information regarding the CC situation. I've expressed some of my thoughts on that in the discussion. For instance, a large part of the media is dedicated to denying, downplaying or attacking the science and the situation, but is only part of their total influence on it, so that's just one single needful area that we should consider as a part of a mass media subject.
Cadar (talk) 10:38, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
FYI in case you didn't know, this exists Media_coverage_of_global_warming NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:28, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Great! I didn't know about that. So it's worth adding it as a subject category under our remit.
Cadar (talk) 09:14, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion[edit]

I think it really helps if the WikiProject name matches the lead article name; in this case I think the Global warming article more closely matches the main scope of this proposal, and so would suggest Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Global Warming as the project's title. The Climate change article is broader, discussing changes to the climate throughout Earth's history. Thoughts? UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:25, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, we'll take it under consideration. I must be honest, my first reaction is to not agree, if only because "global warming" is a rather outdated expression and the focus is very definitely on the current situation. But let's hear from the other editors and see what they think. I'm prepared to have my mind changed if people can raise a good argument
Which leads me onto a new question, but one of many I will have for you: does the lead article in the subject the project's about decide its nomenclature, focus, etc? That's not something I was aware of. I need to read the global warming article (note to self: add to Wiki to-do list, which is getting rather long!) and get my head around its content. Cadar (talk) 17:19, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No, there is no set-in-stone requirement, but exceptions are rare, because the value of consistency. LMK your thoughts once you have read both articles. UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:06, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, will do so. I'd like the input from some of the other editors. It seems like this has become my pet project, but I'm trying to keep everyone else involved as well.
Cadar (talk) 23:02, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I have stricken my initial naming comment for now, since there is active discussion that may lead to the main article being moved to climate change. So I would hold off on this proposal until tat discussion is completed (and everyone here is of course welcome to weigh in on the renaming). UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:34, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Seems the subject of renaming said article to "climate change" might be taboo to some editors, and results in righteous wrath I've stated my views there, and also suggested an alternative which I'm beginning to think might be the best way forward, of turning climate change into a portal page which briefly summarises all the aspects of the subject and links to all the articles. I think that may work as a reasonable compromise. That suggestion as of this writing has been ignored, so I have nothing else I care to contribute. For now the discussion has been put aside as far as I am concerned.
Cadar (talk) 23:09, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or at the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.
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