User talk:16912 Rhiannon/The Climate Reality Project

Initial reactions

Nothing major negative has hit me yet, here are some initial reactions:

Nits:

• I'm not a big fan of redlinking in references. I don't think it is prohibited by policy, so this is simply a personal preference. Examples include Dalje, TakePart.com, Psfk.com, and SustainableBrands.com.
• The Alliance for Climate Protection was founded in 2006 by Al Gore to encourage civic action against climate change. The phrase against climate change struck me as sloppy. Not a big deal, but people fighting for improved building codes are against earthquakes but in favor of mitigation against the consequences. (I immediately agree my example is an imperfect analogy; I thought briefly to see if I could find a better one, but failed.)
• Notable campaigns from the Alliance include the bipartisan "We" campaign,..." In the pantheon of peacock terms, "notable" isn't that extreme (it doesn't even make the list), but I'd prefer to avoid this term unless used by a source.

Somewhat more substantive:

• The groups is described as "bipartisan". I realize that board member Boehlert is a Republican, but that doesn't necessarily make it bipartisan. Two issues, we generally prefer to have such descriptor come from a neutral source, not the subject. Second, are they really trying to be bipartisan or nonpartisn? Both of the references at the end of the sentence use terminology such as "Not a Political Issue" and "The climate crisis knows no political boundaries" which sound more like an attempt at a nonpartisan organization. (Of course, two squibs are not controlling, but I don't see anything supporting the "bipartisan" claim). However, I want to be cautious here; I don't want to come across as naively accepting that it is non-partisan. Many of the names involved comes form political backgrounds (Steve Hildebrand, Steve Bouchard, Maggie Fox, Brian Rogers) so it seems like a lot of political expertise, which doesn't exactly square with nonpartisan.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:10, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
• I see that Daily Kos is used as a reference. While I haven't read all the entries in the RS Noticeboard, the few I perused confirmed my expectations that it isn't acceptable (other than the usual exceptions which don't apply here). Frankly, I wish there were a way to use more material from blogs, but I understand why they are prohibited.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:29, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Reply

Hi Sphilbrick, thanks for taking the time to review this draft and share some feedback. Also, thanks for the suggestion of editors who might want to help. I see that NewsAndEventsGuy has already left some comments on the article Talk page and I'll reach out to William M. Connolley in a moment.

My responses to your above feedback:

• Redlinks: I'm ok with unlinking the the redlinks in the References section. I don't think any of those sources are likely to have articles created about them in the immediate future. Let me know if you really would like this change made and I can go through my draft take out the Wikilinks.
• "Action against climate change": I understand your thoughts here and agree that "against climate change" is a little clunky. What would you think about changing this to "encourage civic action to prevent climate change."?
• Notable campaigns: I used "notable" here because there were, and are, other campaigns led by the organization that have not been covered in independent media, which I have left out of this draft. Though the sources don't use the word "notable" these are the campaigns that received attention from outside media making them, in my opinion, notable. If you would prefer to not use notable, perhaps it would be simplest to change that sentence to begin "Former campaigns from the Alliance include…" How does that sound to you?
• Bipartisan: I'm afraid that aside from the quote from Al Gore in the Dalje.com source I don't have any other sources that specifically use the word "bipartisan" and I am also hesitant to interpret the group as being nonpartisan without a source stating such. Here is what I suggest:
  • We can remove the word "bipartisan" from the first sentence of the introduction and the first sentence of the Organization overview section.
  • Using the existing sources at the end of the first paragraph of the Organization overview section we could add a statement about the group's political affiliation that attributes the statements to Al Gore. Perhaps:

Gore has described the group as bipartisan.

What do you think?

• Daily Kos: The Daily Kos source can be removed from the draft.
  • For the first place where the source is used (at the end of the Recent history section) I see two options. We could either end the final sentence of this section where reference 22 is, since the groups grassroots efforts are addressed in the Activities section, or we could use this SustainableBrands.com source, which also discusses the group's grassroots efforts, in it's place. If we choose to use this alternate source, I think we should trim "to encourage global leaders and government officials" from this sentence, as that was specifically supported by the Daily Kos source, and simply state that the group's grassroots network is designed to address climate change. Which of these would you prefer? Let me know and I can make the change.
  • In the second place where it is used (in the Reality Drop subsection) there are two sources on the sentence. The other source, from TakePart.com, verifies that the organization launched the Reality Drop tool in 2013 and explains what the tool is saying "the tool curates hundreds of daily online news articles about global warming". I had included the Daily Kos source because it specifically used the phrase "news aggregator", which I have Wikilinked. If you are comfortable that the description in the TakePart.com source is clear enough to call the tool a news aggregator, then removing the source won't require any changes to the sentence in the draft. Again, let me know what you think and I can update my draft.

Thanks for taking the time to review this draft closely, your feedback has been very helpful. I'll look for your replies before I make any changes to my draft or please feel free to make these, or other changes you'd like, yourself. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 19:59, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Redlinks. As I mentioned, it is a personal pet peeve. I'm not a big fan of redlinks in general, but accept that they are a "red flag" so to speak, to let editors know there is a need to create an article. That said, when there is little chance that will happen, and I think it is extremely unlikely someone is going to see a redlink in a reference and feel inspired to start an article, I think they detract from the look at the article. However, some editors like them, and it is definitively not required by policy to remove them. I've let you know my thoughts, you can make the change or not as you see fit. I mean that seriously.

"Action against climate change": My point was a bit more subtle, which is why it was in the nit section. People don't take action against climate change, even though some may say that. One takes action to, for example, reduce emissions (as I did last month when I installed solar panels) or takes action to support those who support such policies (by voting, contributing to candidates, writing letters etc). However, writing that out is a bit difficult, so I wanted to share my concern; I didn't have a nice way to rewrite it, or I would have suggested it.

Notable campaigns. I like your suggestion. Wikipedia, in general, tries to cover things that are notable, so it is almost redundant to say so (that's imperfect, but part of the sense of my concern.)

Bipartisan. I like your suggestion. I still think its status is a bit of a puzzle to me (wrt its position in the political/nonpolitical spectrum), perhaps it will become clearer.

Daily Kos. I confess I was happy to see you willing to remove it (even as I am unhappy that we have to have such a policy) and didn't fully follow your proposal. I'll comment generally. Daily Kos and Huffington and others often occupy interesting niches in the information economy. Sometimes they produce original content, which at this time is not acceptable as a RS. However, they often act as an aggregator, reposting material that is originally published by an RS. I believe it is the position of Wikipedia that in the later case, we should track down the original RS, and use that as a source (which creates a minor problem, as that violates one of the conventions in the blogosphere, but I don't think that can be helped.)--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:37, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, Sphilbrick! I've made the following updates to my draft:

• I went ahead and removed the redlinks from the sources. I've been in the habit of wikilinking references following the suggestion from another editor, but I agree that the redlinks are a little ugly and there's not really any expectation that someone will create these articles any time soon.
• I didn't make any changes to "action against climate change", as my understanding of your reply is that you were hoping for a more nuanced alternative and I'm not sure there is one per the sources we have. I'm ok leaving this as is for now, unless you have a suggestion?
• I changed "Notable campaigns ..." to "Former campaigns..." as discussed.
• I updated the bipartisan info as I suggested above.
• I looked into the Daily Kos source and it does not appear to be republished from another location, so I've removed the source and made one slight reduction in text in one location where the replacement source didn't fully support the existing text.

You can see all my changes in this diff here. Let me know if you have any comments on these changes, or further feedback on the draft. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 21:26, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

NAEG's comments

Clearly much work, RSs generally fine (I haven't combed each one); content expanded and none obviously dropped; So from a technical point of view, good job.

However....I have a vague nagging of doubt.... there is a lot of emphasis on the inner workings and the sexy names... the sort of thing major donors would want to hear.

If I were a dweeb in the grass wondering if I wanted to get involved as a volunteer this rewrite would not inspire me. So is this targeted for consumption by everyone or more as an investment prospectus?

I identify with that dweeb in the grass. How about more emphasis on the end product (from the consumer's point of view) and condensing the VIP/corporate horn-tooting in a short humility section at the end? Could your goal still be achieved, or would that completely addle what you set out to do?

Apologies if I offend you did ask for honest opinions. and its worth repeating that I'm impressed with the technical care you took on the draft and your approach in vetting it.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

PS I'm not opposed to your going ahead, BTW. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:12, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi NAEG. Sorry it's taken me a little while to respond, I've been thinking over your message and I'm a little confused. I see that you're ok with moving forward with this draft as-is, though of course I won't make any edits myself, but I still wanted to follow up on a few points you raised.

I think you might have misinterpreted my objective in writing this article. I didn't write this draft for a particular target audience, but for all Wikipedia readers in general. I focused on keeping my draft a terse, factual piece about the organization based on what I could find in third party sources. It was my goal to explain what the organization is, how it is run, how it came to be, and what it has done. You mention that if you were "wondering if I wanted to get involved as a volunteer this rewrite would not inspire me". That's a fair enough comment, but I'm not sure that a version that's really inspiring to potential volunteers would be neutral and non-promotional; I know from researching this that to put in more about Climate Reality's events and volunteer work would have meant relying a lot on primary sources and it's tricky to know what details from those are most important to include.

So, where I'm confused is your comment that this article should focus more on the "end product (from the consumer's point of view)". Can you explain what you mean by "end product" here? What is it that you would feel there should be more emphasis on? The draft as is does talk about the organizations initiatives, particularly the 24 Hours of Reality events, which I think are as near to an "end product" as it gets.

I'm happy to discuss any changes you'd like to see made. Let me know if there are specific areas that give you the nagging sense of doubt you mentioned. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 19:55, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't have anything to say that I didn't say before. Have fun. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:58, 16 October 2013 (UTC)