User talk:Femke/CC renaming discussion

Section called Voting

Suggest changing the voting section to something like

=== Survey (Not-Votes) === ''In this section, please say "Support", "Opposed" etc, but remember [[WP:NOTVOTE|this is a guide, not a binding vote]]''

See WP:NOTVOTE NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:12, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

How we got here

Several months (years?) ago I started assembling a chronology that sought to interweave changes to Global warming paragraph 1 with threads discussing climate change vs global warming. It is incomplete but for what its worth the work can be found here User:NewsAndEventsGuy/000_Partial_Evolution_of_articles_Global_Warming_and_Climate_Change Of course none of us own work in our userspace, so no one needs my permission to copy it or anything, but for what it's worth if anyone manages to copy or use this in any way, and we end up with better articles, then I will be happy it helped. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

That is quite rough indeed. I'd like to provide a link to all previous discussion with a topic/conclusion of half a sentence. Biggest risk we have here is that people will be spooked by a wall of text. Hence my format in FAQs. Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:28, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

That's a good idea. My work wasn't intended for consumption by anyone but me. I meant to assemble the whole chronology, and then with the overall picture in hand digest it for distillation into the important short points. But of course the assembly job turned out to be enormous, and its my guess as big as the assembly job is, cracking the status quo is an even bigger job. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:53, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Question... why do we care about prior discussion? I mean, the team that advocates for a name change will want to study prior discussion but what would be the purpose in including it in a new proposal? Why not just assert the team's interpretation of the major viewpoints and leave out the diffs etc? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:03, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Good point. Given there's soo many previous discussion, destilling the arguments might be better indeed, with an occasional diff only to threats that are actually of good quality/useful. Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:34, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

BTW... please check your email NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:58, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

See WP:OLDEST; Some of the early talk history is lost to time. There are two versions of archive 1, and the messages in Archives 1a 1b 2 and 3 are somewhat jumbled in time and often have no time stamp. As I go through them, and the article histories, and the combatants talk pages a theme begins to emerge. I have no silver bullet to prove this.

FACTS

Global warming existed first (before Oct 30 2001). Climate change was started April 2002. There is partial jumbled spotty edit and discussion records from the time

SKYISBLUE OPINION

There was a great battle between climate science editors and skeptic/denierss

MY INTERPRETATION

Climate change was spun off to park non-controversial material, especially that which applied to longer or different periods of time than AGW, leaving the global warming article the controversial battleground article. I added a section of chronology analysis (titled "In the Beginning"), to my own subpage linked in this thread. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:45, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

end goal..... "climate crisis" or something else?

Since I wrote up my thoughts on a rename procedure, the Guardian (and others) adopted "climate crisis" for global warming. Should we try to do that also? What's your idea of the best way to repackage the two articles? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't foresee climate crisis to be the the dominant term any time soon in conservative media worldwide (not even in non-Murdoch countries). I think it goes against our neutrality principles. There are still a few prominent climate scientist (Nordhaus f.i.) that believe CC is bad, but not that much really. Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:32, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Kinda my take too, but Wikipedia must deal with editors who do want to go there. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:55, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Maybe now, maybe in the future there are enough RS to have a good article about naming and framing of climate change. I personally think the article climate crisis you recently started should have a slightly different name. You're discussing the term, not the thing itself. Dunno what better title though, hence no proposals from my side (plus, I've got plenty of other things to do on and off wiki). Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:20, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

When you're back, if the subject should still hold interest, it isn't exactly on point but its close.... see WP:NEOLOGISM, which discusses articles about words and phrases themselves. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:12, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Well who knew?

Count me astonished. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:23, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

archives

Talk about being SICK of wikignome work... I spent much of the day trying to reconstruct the first three talk archives at GW, seeing as how you are chomping at the bit to launch a rename drive. I don't know if it will pay any rewards other than checking off a box on the todo list. But FWIW, see Talk:Global_warming/Archive_1 and 2 and 3. Now that the threads are more or less threaded I have to let my brain reset then I'll read through things to see if there is insight on why there are two articles. Even though CC was created in April 2002, they kept talking about what to do with it well into 2003 (and of course we never really stopped but that's another matter) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:31, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Q2.1

Strongly recommend you snip this and put in your private notes for possible rebuttal if it comes up later. Our purpose is best served by formulating a neutral proposal in the most zinging concise manner possible. By including this section and at least one reference to it elsewhere, you are already arguing with opponents who haven't yet uttered a word (this time). So let's just propose first and rebut later.

Besides, you've only cited a few sources. There are others which support the contention that word choice is a bigger deal that you've said. It might be fun sometime to switch gears to the social sciences and work together to do a good or featured article about all that. But for this purpose, the whole argument is a great big quagmire. When we start trying to argue whether the language has been politicized we will have truly lost our way. Instead, let us make a disciplined response that the whole debate should migrate to the Politics of global warming or the Public opinion on global warming where it could help improve articles, but for the rename proposals its irrelevant. If one side likes (or opposes) any particular name because they believe its politicizing the language, that's just a fancy way of saying they are ignoring the neutral arguments for/against the proposal and instead are prioritizing their beliefs about the implications... a fancy way of saying ILIKE or IDONTLIKE, both arguments of zero value for a proper closing by an uninvolved editor.

So... suggest you remove your own emotion/sources/text about your views on the politicization of language. We don't need it, and its a giant pool of quicksand for the renaming effort. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:43, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Good point, let me mill on it a bit. Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:03, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

How

Recommend removing this to your own notes. I don't want to help people argue and kick things around for fun. If anyone else cares enough to come up with ideas on their own, OK, but if we know the direction we would like to go, why help people think up ways to spin us in circles talking about other options? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:59, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Again good point. I'm afraid of the scenario in this discussion: Talk:Climate_change/Archive_6#Requested_move_25_February_2019, where people didn't like the specific proposal but weren't willing to discuss other options. By making the multiple options an integral part of the discussion, we can avoid that. In the light of your comment, I'd like to remove the explicit option for people to come up with more options than that we presented. Four titles (I'll add one) for GW, two options for what happens to the general article of climate change. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:31, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Poll format

Whatever layout is used, discussion is always last. If you leave discussion first, people will add their notvotes in that section and may not notice the survey section.

The form I usually see, and one I use myself is

-- Proposal 1 -- We should equate blah with blah blah blah

-- Support/Oppose/Other Survey --

(include note about what to do and not-voting)

-- Discussion --

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:06, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Done. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:10, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Why bifurcate?

You asked once what I though of doing two poll questions. I guess I don't like it, and would be more inclined to complete an entire proposal, and put it out there as an action plan and proposal. But that's me. Your idea is to present your proposal by way of asking two questions. What do you think are the pros/cons of the two-question approach? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:12, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Pro: first let people realize/state that the current situation is untenable without people disagreeing over the article names of the two articles. Then let people decide over articles names in a way that promotes people voting for as many options as they are comfortable with (so that there can be consensus for multiple options). If we do it at the same time, we might lose people that believe climate change shouldn't be about the general concept of climate change, but don't like our proposed title.

Con: process takes longer. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:23, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Forgive me if I misinterpret. What I think I hear is this... If we can get a consensus that there is a problem that will create an imperative for reform and that makes a lot of sense to me. The way I would ask Q1 is this

If we were starting fresh, and had no climate articles at all, would you want "climate change" and "global warming" to point to the same article?

Yes, as one of the proposers

If we can invoke a "blank slate" when asking the question hopefully that will reduce the tendency for the discussion to wander off into arguments based on the existing content or status quo or history, and instead just focus on the appropriate article scope we attach to those two open compound words

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:39, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Current climate change

I changed my mind. Both Human-caused global warming and climate change and Human-caused climate change put an unfortunate emphasis on the Attribution of climate change when our priority is to distinguish the time of the climate change being discussed (i.e, the climate change that is now, today, current, modern, etc). We should not use a word of attribution to describe a concept of time. So instead

Global warming should morph to Current global warming and climate change or Current climate change or Climate change (Current).

That was in the back on my mind as well when I said I prefer climate change as the title for the article. Maybe better even better than current climate change is global climate change. This term is, as far as I know, ONLY used for recent climate change. In contrast to current climate change, it's not only a description, but an actually used term. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:48, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Trying to read the guidelines a bit more for this process. One thing they mention is in Wikipedia:Article_titles#Considering_changes: Although titles for articles are subject to consensus, do not invent names or use extremely uncommon names as a means of compromising between opposing points of view. I don't think current climate change is extremely uncommon, but it is quite uncommon. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:16, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Comments on procedure

Yes! Really glad you are tackling this with a very thorough and well thought out methodology. I look forward to the discussion and hopefully some important and bold changes after that. The current distinction we have on wikipedia between "climate change" and "global warming" seems really out of date by now. Once you have polished it in your sandbox where will you move it to? To the talk page of "climate change" or to the WikiProject Climate Change? I really hope that everyone will go into this with an open mind and not stubbornly hold on to the status quo. EMsmile (talk) 09:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I think it's fair to do the discussion on either the climate change page, or the global warming page. I was thinking putting it on the GW page, as it's this page has a wider following. I'm quite confused what types of template(s) are most suitable for the merge. We're trying to change the SCOPE of the climate change article, not the content, so I'm confused as to whether merge is the right template. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:37, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Diagram of the proposed plans here and NEAG plan

Different plans to improve naming and scoping GW articles

@NewsAndEventsGuy: is that an accurate portrayal of your idea. Or are you still stuck on what to do with climate oscillation and climate pattern? Do you think we should come to an idea together or should we pose both ideas in one proposal? (First: do you agree the current situation is horrible, then which of these two plans will improve that best) Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:45, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I'll think about this and answer Mon or Tue NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC) I've added some comments about the rest of your sandbox in another section. I'm out of time for awhile. There are some details in my comments and some big picture issues. Hope to get clarity on the biggies while I'm away. If you don't hear more in 48 hours please ping me NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:13, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

NAEG's misc notes

• A1.1 See my addition and edit as needed
• Q1.2 See my addition and edit as needed
• A1.4 After that question there is some cleanup to do with respect to references
• Section The plan(s) itself >>> Suggest moving this to your own notes, for later use in the NotVote and Discussion of the questions in the next section. This text consists of how you will answer those questions. At first I wrote the strike out text below but then realized you've put your survey answers before the survey. I just struck out my prior text but saved it in case it helps.

• Q3.1 and Q3.2 are not questions, and if they were tweaked to be stated as questions they would be leading questions. I think you need to decide whether you want to start off by asking (and voice your views later, in the discussion) or propose (and advocate for your views at the start).
• A3.1 The structure of Q3.1 and A3.1 appears to depart from what I thought you wanted to do. Apologies for adding some dramatic bluntness to illustrate.... I thought your goal was to Ask should "global warming" and "climate change" end up at the article? Then shut up and listen to the answers And then in Q2 explore how we could best execute the consensus of the first question? If you want do package it differently, OK... what's the new plan?

• Timing... you have named the questions as "Phases". Are you thinking of getting a closure on Phase 1 before posting the questions and survey for Phase 2?
• Phase 2a In my view it is ill-advised to offer people a Femke-approved list of only five choices and then a table that quite literally boxes their opinions in. The table might be a great tool to summarize and restate everyone's ideas for a second round of discussion after a protracted outpouring of ideas. In the beginning, let's build community and teamwork by keeping the door wide open to other suggestions.
• Discussion 2a There's no way to keep "climate crisis" out of this discussion. Suggest deleting your wish that it were otherwise

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:19, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Will come back to these comments later. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:12, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

In terms of phasing. Yes, I think it is quite important to keep the discussions separate, but starting to doubt the order. What if we switch the order around and FIRST talk about how we can free the 'climate change' name and make it a redirect and THEN talk about the proper article name for global warming? But that would only work if we want climate change to morph into natural climate change (and immediately clean up climate oscillation and climate pattern). There will definitely not be a consensus for deleting that page in its entirety without the rest of the plan...

I now think it's wise to put the procedure up for discussion, to for instance, get more options for the naming of the article. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:40, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

proces

If I understand the Straw poll guidelines correctly (especially 6), it might to publish my sandbox as a subpage of Talk:global warming and ask for input from the broader community before launching the ideas. This is particularly important for phase 2, where more good options for the name of the article might pop up. Your comments and the guidelines are good food for thought (Further advantage of this process slowing down is that we'll be further along the process of peer review and citation cleaning). Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:12, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

More reading of guidelines

According to Wikipedia:Requested_moves#Commenting_on_a_requested_move, we're not allowed to 'vote' ourselves, because it's obvious from the nominations that we're in favour. Nomination already implies that the nominator supports the name change, and nominators should refrain from repeating this recommendation on a separate bulleted line. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:42, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY

Just in case you miss it before you publish, WP:PRIMARY links to "primary sources", so this is probably meant to be WP:PRIMARYTOPIC :) – Thjarkur (talk) 19:48, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:49, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Oct 7 comments by NAEG

• Under "Resolving the naming issue of climate change and global warming", where you cite WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.... this should be minor but if anyone wants to derail progress they might point this out.... PRIMARYTOPIC is a "mere" guideline. The by-god policy is WP:COMMONNAME. There is a list of goals and the policy explicitly calls them goals, not rules. You might want to reframe this section based on the policy text
• I'm planning on starting a discussion on the most accurate title "Most accurate" is too limiting. COMMONNAME has a list of goals to shoot for. Accuracy, yes, but there other goals on the list too.

I used accurate here as a synonym for best, and will change to avoid confusion.

• Considering the current practice is probably in violation of Wikipedia policy, In my view, this sounds like an effort to burnish our halo and wield Moses stone tablets still smoking. Or as they say in law school, "If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. Otherwise argue the law". Basing the effort on claims that status quo violates policy invites troublemakers to say "no it doesn't" and then we have to debate that side issue. It's enough that multiple editors say the status quo isn't working, and we have ample evidence in the form of all the posts from confused people.
• there are two courses of action for the current text at climate change There are five. In addition to what's listed "3, replace it with a redir to Climate system (or subsection of that article); 4. Replace it with disambig page; 5. Other eds' ideas here

Okay, I'll specify with saying that "in my opinion based on the guidelines", there are two option. I think it's important we don't muddle the water with putting too many proposals up. In terms of disambiguation page -> We both don't want it, the guidelines argue against it, why give people ideas?

I think I'm done for now...running into tl;dr problems. Am thinking a lot about KISS principle. If you want additional input before launch, consider repackaging a draft of exactly what you'd post. It also works to just post it and be bold. But FYI, I'm toying with an approach that might make all of this a lot simpler. If I can't have it ready to share by end of today its not a KISS principle idea so... well, I'll get busy and we'll find out, I guess. Stand by...NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

In terms of drafting exactly what I want to post: I've done that for step 1 above streamlined plan. So I want to post introduction, the five selected Q&A (maybe I'll drop one) and the survey + discussion. As fear we might moving towards a WP:NOGOODOPTIONS with agreement on not the current title, and that is a chaotic outcome. I'm requesting some extra input about how to structure the discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves. (Note, if we have consensus on a move, but not to which title, the policy is to move to the title the closer deems best based on argumentation). Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:14, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Comment by Efbrazil

Moved here, because it would be a bit weird to launch a discussion with the discussion already started. Feel free to immediately add after I've launched the discussion

I think you make a good case for a "climate variability" article, but I don't understand the advantage of tacking "and change" onto that title. It only seems to muddy the focus for the article and to undermine the justification for it existing at all. I would rather we keep things crisp and fully separate "climate change" from "climate variability". As for your two stage renaming process ("Streamline plan" in the next section), I don't see why both renamings shouldn't happen at the same time.Efbrazil (talk) 22:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Hearing you on climate variability and change and will maybe come up with a different proposal. The reason not to rename the article simply into climate variability is that this term is mostly used, at least by scientists, to refer to shorter-term changes in the climate. With your comments in mind, I'm slowly changing my preferred option to climatic changes.

There are two major disadvantages to holding the discussions at the same time. First one is editor availability. These discussions are difficult and people will need their time and attention to one matter at the same time. The second one is that it's a bit weird to argue that global warming should be named climate change if there is another article under that name already. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Efbrazil. To distill my view into just two bullets

• Search string "climate change" and "global warming" should land on the same page
• Preserving any form of the word "change" when climate change is renamed will preserve, instead of resolve, lay reader confusion

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

How to hit Dec 2 (maybe)

Instead of dropping a massive discussion thread into the mix, I think we can easily just edit our way into a "duh, of course" consensus.

/////////// Phase 1 /////////

• Change climate system article by adding section #Changes within the climate system as shown in this demo edit where the change is most noticeable by the addition of line 3 in the Table of Contents

1 Components of the climate system

2 Flows of energy, water and elements

3 Changes within the climate system

3.1 Internal variability

3.2 External climate forcing

3.2.1 Incoming sunlight

3.2.2 Greenhouse gases

3.2.3 Aerosols and volcanism

3.2.4 Land use change

3.3 Responses and feedbacks

4 Notes and Sources

4.1 Notes

4.2 Sources

• Propose ruthless MERGEFROM Climate change#External forcing mechanisms to Climate system#External climate forcing, leaving at most two sentences.

• Propose ruthless MERGEFROM Climate change#Change in different elements climate system to Climate system#Responses and feedbacks, leaving at most two sentences.

• ... (note new stub Climate variability) Propose ruthless MERGEFROM Climate_change#Internal_variability to either Climate_system#Internal_variability or new stub Climate variability, leaving at most two sentences.

We can discuss changing the stub title, I'm just trying to edit the way forward instead of talk talk talk

And stop

Assuming no one complains (and who would?)..... execute the merge. This will reduce Climate change to little more than a navigation page.

• Wait.... for stability....Wait....

Advantage of that approach..... it's just no brainer editing without a prolonged every-direction at once discussion

/////////// Phase 2 /////////

• Propose

(A) Climate change be redirected to either Climate system#Changes within the climate system or Climate variability

(B) Get consensus to manually alter each link under WhatLinksHere/Climate_change so it either points at Global warming or if generic change was meant to Climate system#Changes within the climate system (or if you prefer Climate variability)

• Execute

• Wait.... for stability....Wait....

Advantage of that approach..... Since this approach involves the reducction of Climate change to a mere navigation article under Phase 1, this will again be a no brainer bit of editing without a prolonged every-direction at once discussion

/////////// Phase 3 /////////

• Propose Global warming be renamed Something else and that both "global warming" and "climate change" become redirects pointing at it

Advantage of that approach..... After Phases 1 and 2, "climate change" will be an un-used redirect (i.e., there will be no incoming links). It will be a nobrainder for both "global warming" and "climate change" to point at the same article and there won't be any technical obstacles.

Bottom line, Using this KISS principle approach, we have the best chance of avoiding crazy discussions until we argue over the "right" name in Phase 3. If the way we handle generic change or variability isn't working after we accomplish the main objective, we can always go back and revise section headings/article titles. But I think we should just bite the bullet and jump forward boldly, in a way that minimizes the potential quagmire of inviting prolonged convoluted discussions if that can be avoided. Otherwise, we'll talk talk talk when we could be doing work work work NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:43, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

worth repeating... If the way we handle generic change or variability isn't working after we accomplish the main objective, we can always go back and revise section headings/article titles. The "climate change" article is in the way of the main objective. Let's do something to reduce it to an unused redirect, accomplish the main goal, and then when the dust settles you can get back to climate variability and change and tune them up with further revisions. At that point in the process, most onlookers won't care and won't comment. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:13, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Only three minutes to read & reply (sorry for directness). I like the stub title. (Climate oscillation should be ruthlessly merged into it, with a list of climate oscillations as well)

These three phases won't have any article about generic climate change left, right? I'd be against that for reasons previously discussed. I think we might want to aim for a nogoodoptions no-consensus move of climate change to whatever, have a redict of climate change to global warming and then discuss the name of global warming.Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

These three phases won't have any article about generic climate change left, right? Wrong... if we're talking about CONTENT. The content will be under heading 3 in the table of contents in Phase 1. Note that under heading 3 there is

• "climate variability" (which now has a main article Climate variability though in stub form).
• "External forcing" (which does not have a main article, but there are related articles Earth's energy budget and Radiative forcing and the articles for each external forcing mechanism could have related sections
• "Responses and feedbacks" (which now has a main article Climate change feedback and individual main articles for major things like Sea level rise and Desertification and Climate security

You are correct in that there would be no TITLE with any version of "climate whatever change", but the CONTENT would be organized and easily findable. But more to the point if you don't really like this, but could swallow it for a few months, then using the approach I have presented avoids a protacted unwieldly discussion that invites quicksand. The main goal of reforming "climate change" vs "global warming" would be achieved, the dust would settle, and you could return to make further revisions to the treatment of generic climate change at that point in time. By then, the stampede will be over and you'll have a much easier time over all. As a bonus, we'll spend two weeks talking and six months working instead of six months talking.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:34, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Phase 1: I like hollowing out the article. I wouldn't wait long after doing that though- an empty Climate Change article will encourage people to come in and fill it out. You're creating a vacuum in a very high profile article.

Phase 2: I think your proposal here could cause more problems than it will solve. People will say that "Climate Change" means global warming, not a subsection of the climate system page. Why have a fight over a change that moves us further from our goal?

What I think we should try instead for Phase 2 is our goal: a simple article merge proposal, putting together Climate Change and Global Warming into one article. It will be the obvious thing to do one Climate Change is emptied out. We can have a preface that includes links to Climate System, Climate Variability, and Paleoclimatology. I think a good combined title is "Climate Change (Global Warming)".Efbrazil (talk) 18:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

My guess is you don't appreciate the technical obstacle we have to overcome in Phase 2. We can't just "merge" Climate change which is now about X into Global warming which is now about Y, and we can't do that because X <> Y. In addition, there are a lot of links (see what links here) pointing at Climate change and the meaning of those links assumes Climate change still = X. We are not allowed to make changes to other people's comments that alter the meaning. So we can't just switch Climate change from X to Y. The only solution to this problem is to go through all those links and manually adjust them so they point at the correct new X. When nothing links to "Climate change" then "Climate change" will no longer be = X. Instead "Climate change" will be unassigned, which is a good thing and makes Phase 3 possible. That's the technical problem we must overcome and is the purpose of doing Phase 2.

But you're right, people will say that and such comments are expected in Phase 2. But they are also really easy to answer with "WE AGREE! This is a technical thing because before we can fix "climate change" and "global warming" so they point at the same article we have to fix the fact that "climate change has been used for something else. If you stand in the way of this Phase 2 baby step, then you prevent us from moving to Phase 3, where we plan to do the very thing you want us to do. So if you work with us here, we'll get to our common destination in the end." Doing it this way holds everyone's hand so they can see the gradual steps, as opposed to talking abstractly about the whole kit and kaboodle up front, and in the abstract.

I know Femke has done a lot to try to constrain the herd of cats, but I'm less optimistic how that will work in the end.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:52, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Why can't we point all those links to more appropriate articles once the Climate Change article is hollowed out (after phase 1)? I mean, links pointing to an empty article are already broken, right? Also, did you mean to include a link for your text "see what links here"? Efbrazil (talk) 19:23, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

No they're not broken. They will arrive at climate change as they did originally, and once there the reader will be presented with links to where they can continue reading the content that used to be there. And if its hollowed out to the point where its simply a redirect pointing to the content that used to be there, this is still true. So they're not broken at all. See WP:Redirect. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:33, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Could you provide a link for your text "see what links here"? And also, links can be fixed after phase 1 without needing to do phase 2, right?Efbrazil (talk) 19:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Re Could you provide a link for your text "see what links here"? see Phase 2, paragraph (B). Please look at 20 of those. You'll find that some of them mean generic climate change. Whatever we do, we are not allowed to break those links. They must continuie to point at article text talking about generic climate change. We can change the location, and we can tweak the content, but we can't change the SCOPE of the content because that would change the meaning. For articles, we'd need RSs and we're just prohibited from changin the meaning of others talk comments. Once we are on the same page about what links we're talking about... and the fact that there are hundreds if not thousands of them... I'll be glad to answer whatever the next question is, if I am able. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:05, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

There are thousands (I clicked "next 500" a few times and got intimidated). However, I also randomly audited 10 of them and all 10 of them were talking about man made climate change, not some generic fairy tale topic that we have written up now. That means that I don't think many links (if any at all) will actually need to be repaired if we have the article merge with Global Warming. On the other hand, if we have those links all redirect to "Climate System" or "Climate Variability" we will in fact be breaking them from a user's perspective. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 20:40, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't matter if the ratio is 10% or 50%, the point is the same and the idea of a generic climate change article isn't a "fairy tale". If you approach this dicusscion with combative attitude towards people who also want the same reform that would be pretty foolishly self-defeating, no? If we point a link that means AGW&CC anywhere other than text about AGW&CC that will break that link. If we point a link that means generic CC anywhere other than text about generic CC that will break that link. Did you read WP:Redirect as I suggested? There is nothing wrong with changing a link meaning generic CC from the current climate change to Climate stystem#Changes in the climate system, if that's how we decide to handle that content. See the part about "targeted" redirects. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:54, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

The number of links is about 10,600 (you can view 5000 at a time if you edit the header). I'm definitely not meaning to be personally combative- I was annoyed after checking out 10 of the links and seeing that they all thought they were linking to modern climate change. Say we do the WP:Redirect link like you suggest. Go ahead and pick 10 random links and consider how they'll be impacted. My view is that almost all the current links are trying to access the concept of modern climate change, not to link to the current scope of the article. At least in the current state of things the links go to the correct topic name and that topic has prominent links to the global warming article, where they can access the correct content. If we do WP:Redirect then there will be 10,000+ links that point to what is now very clearly not what the link author intended. Are you going to edit those 10,000+ links? It seems to me that like the best thing to do on behalf of our users and the existing links is to have all the current "climate change" links point to what the phrase "climate change" means, which is best reflected by the content of the "global warming" article. We can have italicized text at the top of the article that people can use to access "climate system", "climate variability", and so forth. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 21:42, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

FYI, we've been re-debating this for a long time. The links issue we're talking about defeated an earlier reform effort. Nothing's changed. So if we mean business, we gotta just roll up sleeves and do the shit work to overcome this problem. I've already volunteered to serve as clerk to keep track of progess. But it will take an army of volunteers. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:17, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

@ Efbrazil: there are fortunately some automated tools we can use to accelerate the process. I think about half of the 10.000 are from navigational boxes, and only require one or two templates to change to fix half of the links :). @ NEAG: I think one of the major dangers of not having an article about 'climate change in general' is that people WILL make that page and people will expect that page to exist as it is a major topic in science. Furthermore, it is discussed in situations where the term climate system/Earth system is absent. By coming up with a proper title, we can avoid future pain. We can decide to first rename, clean up, start renaming discussing GW and evaluate whether the renaming worked after 6 months. If it didn't we can always go for another direction of ruthlessly merging. If we start that route without proper discussion, it feel sneaky. Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:44, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

It sounds like you two have made up your mind on doing phase 2. I won't oppose as I think the key goal of merging GW and CC is correct, although I also think phase 2 is a negative detour in getting there. We'll see how it goes. If you aren't able to complete the mission I'll go in and propose a straight merge without phase 2. Hopefully if I don't get in your way, you won't get in my way. We all have the same goal. Efbrazil (talk) 15:45, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Nutshell summarization?

Hi, Femke. I haven't yet studied all the discussions (been a bit busy the last several days), but I wonder if the whole rename business could summarized like this: the general term "climate change" is widely used to refer to the more specific current instance of climate change — i.e., global warming — and the hat note at Climate change is deemed inadequate to resolve that. Is that the essence of the matter? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:48, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

That is a fair summary yes. Q1.1 gives evidence for the continuation of confusion. There are two widely used definitions of climate change, one referring to climate change in general, the other to the current instance of climate change. The latter is the more frequent definition is normal speech. Tonight I'll post a summary of the discussion so far, so if you want to save time: wait for that. Femke Nijsse (talk) 06:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I expect that will be a great help. I suspect that the crux of the issue lies in what to call the current article on climate change generally if the term "climate change" is redirected to global warming – right? That does seem like at least a two-pipe problem. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that is the crux indeed. Consensus is close to being reached now on what an acceptable alternative is, with support "climate change (general concept)" being highest. Note that even in the case we (A) all agree that climate change is not a good title for an article about climate change in general, and (B) we don't quite reach consensus what the ideal NEW name is, the closer of the discussion will make a choice between the new names based on argumentation. There won't be a "no-consensus status quo" if we agree we have to move away from climate change. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Btw, the summary is found on the climate change talk page: Talk:Climate_change#Summary_and_points_that_need_resolving_still. Discussion seems to have come to an end for now. I'll wait a few days before closing and posting a 'formal' proposal for renaming. Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:03, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

List of incoming links

​Here is a list of some 4,600 incoming links to climate change, and here is an Excel file with the same. – Thjarkur (talk) 23:57, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

That is great! The problem is worse than I thought :(, but there is hope climate change is going to be renamed soon. Femke Nijsse (talk) 00:01, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Þjarkur! In cotrast to Femke, the problem is BETTER than I thought. Thus is equilibrium restored! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@NEAG: we've had 15 years of people fixing internal links and it's still such a mess? You are quite the pessimist :P. Femke Nijsse (talk) 00:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Mabye one day I will have an outlook that does not depend on despair and futility. I mean, we can always hope, right? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:23, 19 October 2019 (UTC)