[WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content

Mon Mar 21 03:07:03 UTC 2005

By the way there is another nuance to the Global warming example:

> "Climate models that pass the above tests while only 
> modeling the direct effects of increases in solar activity will 
> have attributed too much of the historical warming 
> to greenhouse gas forcing, and will predict larger increases 
> in temperature in the future."

Should wikipedia strive to be "actually" correct or just 
"technically" correct?  In the same vein as the above quote,
recently published research on "climate commitment" already
cited on the page, means that the predictions made by the models
that do not incorporate this "lag" effect are invalid.  Those
models will have been parameterized to attribute to greenhouse
gasses warming that was actually due to a lag effect (due to
the heat capacity of the ocean) from warming earlier in the
20th century and in the 19th century.   So, not only could
a qualifying statement such as the one above be put into
the article, the predictions of future warming should be
deleted.   However, the statements of those predictions
would be technically correct because they are attributed
to the IPCC.  

But is a straight forward application of published research
"original research" by the wikipedia definition?  How would
one defend a technically correct statement analogous to the one above?

It is newly published research so no one has said the particular
application before.   But it is pretty basic text book stuff, that if
you parameterize a model to data and the model does not contain
a critical variable, if the model can fit the data at all, it will attribute
the effect to the variables that it does contain.  This stuff is so basic and correct that one could not get a peer reviewed journal
to publish it, because sorry it is just an application of mathmatics.
But would it be "original research" on wikipedia?   Frankly,
I would put it in the article, defend it on the talk page, would NOT insist that the now incorrect facts be taken out.  But if
some were to engage in a revert war crying "original research",
I would just blow it off, because they are not showing good
faith.  I wouldn't want to bother trying to rally a poll on the
issue because that is not the way factual issues should be decided,
that is not how you "win" in science.
                  -- Silverback