Talk:William M. Gray

message: May be a fair comment. I only know about Gray for his GW position, and thats all he is known for in, say, Europe. But indeed his carerr has been on hurricane forecasting. A partial solution would be to expand that rather thin section. Cutting out some of the GW is possible, too, if done in a balanced way William M. Connolley (talk) 21:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's what we agreed on here. It's been half a year, and no progress: The story of Wikipedia. ~ UBeR (talk) 22:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Then we are not so much talking about a content dispute/NPOV - but a "lack of editors" or a lazy editors problem? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the article still remains unbalanced. Whatever the cause is irrelevant. ~ UBeR (talk) 23:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually, I thought I had.  And its not even like I deleted anything truly of substance, is it?  --GoRight (talk) 00:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  undue weight 

message: While the discussion continues on RC as an EL, WMC has added his own criticism to the body of the article itself. I thought this was settled many months ago, so I've reverted it. ATren (talk) 18:09, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: WMC reverted back, I've reported it here. ATren (talk) 18:29, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't recall it being settled. You could provide a link, if you like William M. Connolley (talk) 18:36, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've removed it because the suitability of RC as a source for a BLP is being discussed at BLP/N.  As far as I can tell WP:BLP is clear on the matter, but as Kim has described there may be exceptional circumstances.  Prudence with a BLP requires that we remove questionable text while being discussed. Mishlai (talk) 18:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds fair and correct. And i suggest that the BLP/N page is the correct venue for further discussion. (where i've just commented) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WMC adding RC climate back into the text 

message: Two sentences:
: His views on global warming are controversial, as he does not attribute global warming to anthropogenic causes, and is harshly critical of those who do.
:  He does not attribute global warming to anthropogenic causes, and is critical of those who do.
There's been a slow-motion edit war on the choice between these or similar forms of words for a few days now, so I asked an admin to protect the article while we worked out which form we're going to use.
The biographies of living persons policy requires that we impeccably source potentially damaging material about a living person.  So what sources do we cite for this?  Well the following sentence shows Gray referring to the hacked Climatic Research Unit documents as "but the tip of a giant iceberg of a well-organized international climate-warming conspiracy."  Well that's a very controversial view.  The source for this is a Washington Times article that quotes Gray.  I'd prefer to see that sourced more reliably--it is possible that they got the quote wrong or quoted Professor Gray out of context.
The statement in question is also sourced firstly from a science article in The San Francisco Examiner in which climatologist Kevin Trenberth (who is also based in Colorado) presents a view of Gray as a maverick, a "seat-of-the-pants meteorologist", and highlights what he sees as Gray's "mind block against global warming."  The second source is a Fox News story apparently based on an article in the Houston Chronicle in which Gray supposedly forecasts that he may lose funding due to his views.  This was, the Fox News source says, after his university stopped promoting his annual hurricane forecasts.  The Fox News also refers to Gray's views that global warming is (Fox News' words) " a hoax contrived by scientists hungry for research funding, media professionals thirsting for Pulitzer Prizes and foreign powers seeking to create a single world government." Fox News cites a Washington Post article.
I think the sourcing here could be better.  The Fox News source, for instance, is at one remove from the original Houston Chronicle article, and the San Francisco Examiner piece only cites the view of one climatologist, albeit one who works in the same geographic area and can be expected to know him professionally.
And the focus is a little off.  It's not that Gray's scientific views are unorthodox (and sure, he's in the minority on the science of global warming), it's his view of global warming as a conspiracy that reliable sources seem to find extraordinary.  The Washington Post piece  referred to by Fox News (it's here) paints a fairly unequivocal picture here.
So I think we can reword this better by saying that it isn't Gray's views on the science of global warming that makes him controversial--his view of global warming as a hoax, and a conspiracy, is what makes him controversial. --TS 00:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Tony, we can't make the judgement that he or his views are "controversial". We need a source which says that explicitly, otherwise it's OR. That's why I've reverted it until now, and why I continue to oppose it. I would, however, be open to alternative wording that more directly ties to what's said in the source. I also question its presence in the lede; even if it is sourced reliably enough for inclusion, I don't think it carries enough weight to be in the lede, and perhaps it should be moved to the body. ATren (talk) 01:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

text: Actually, upon re-reading the sources, they do call him controversial, I apparently missed that before. But given the sourcing, I still think having controversy in the lede is too weighty; a short statement in the lede calling him a skeptic would be better, followed by an explanation of the controversy of his views in the body where his GW views are discussed. ATren (talk) 01:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well these views are very unusual.  A working scientist who pushes a conspiracy theory about his colleagues is enough of a rarity that this topic comes up in at least two of the references above (SF Examiner and Washington Post).  I would like to see this expanded in the main article before it appears in the lead, however.  Whether we put in the lead at all would depend, I think, on editorial judgement as to the main focus of the biography.  In my opinion, even if Gray didn't have these conspiracy-minded views, his work in hurricane prediction would probably make him famous.  I think the main thrust of the article should probably be about the latter.  If the conspiracy stuff turns up all the time in reliable sources then we might put it in the lead, but this being a living person's biography we should always err on the safe side. --TS 01:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  As I've recently said elsewhere, all scientists are supposed to be skeptics. A scientist that is anything other than a skeptic, is no scientist at all. We would all do well were more of the scientists in the spotlight rightly called skeptics. Adam Thompson 75.137.146.31 (talk) 03:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

text:  Also I would like to add, just because the CRU/UN/IPCC are pro-anthropogenic global warming, does not mean Gray and others are in the minority. Can anyone provide the numbers on this? How many climate-related scientists are pro-AGW, and how many are anti-AGW? The CRU data, which is what a large chunk of the supposed majority are leaning on, was not peer-reviewed, their data and models were kept private. The burden of proof are on the scientists making the claim, and that burden includes peer-reviewed journals and peer-reproducible results. Does anyone here deny that the CRU kept data from the scientific community, and that one e-mailer even writes he'd rather delete data than hand it over to a FOIA request? -Adam Thompson 75.137.146.31 (talk) 03:26, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion of the "controversial" bit.

message: Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Article probation

message: To forestall further WP:edit warring, any editor who adds or removes contested material from this article without first attaining consensus here may be blocked from editing. To be clear: any edit which another editor has reverted in whole or in part is contested. - 2/0 (cont.) 20:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit warring 

message: Section = 109 BLP articles labelled "Climate Change Deniers" all at once. This article was placed in a "climate change deniers" category. After discussion on WP:BLPN and WP:CFD the category was deleted. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: BLP noticeboard

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