> "The inherent complexity and controversy of carbon footprints".
> What do you mean by that?
Even those who fight for inclusion of the facts about climate change
on Wikipedia aren't very likely to follow the peer reviewed secondary
literature when it comes to reporting the extent of changes in extreme
weather.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Extreme_weather&action=history
has some good examples, with more going back years.
There's really no way to get Wikipedia to correctly reflect
controversial topics unless you are willing to invest the time it
takes to counter conflicted interest editing.
Good luck!
Tim Starling says:
<quote>
I don't really understand where you are coming from with this. Your
own website <http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/> cites
plenty of official, reliable sources which you could presumably cite
when you write about these topics. On your blog, you complain about
Wikipedians getting annoyed when you cite yourself as a secondary
source, which seems fair enough -- why not just cite the primary
sources directly?
</quote>
My main points is that the increasing dependance of Wikipedia on peer review puts the power over knowledge in the hands of people, academics and governments, that have motives related to their careers and may include commercial and political interests. Take [the carbon footprint of beef] as an example.
Beef has a very large carbon footprint between 14 and 37 times it's own weight of carbon dioxide equivalent. (hunt through my <http://nobeef.org.uk> as well as <http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/> for details).
But one of the best sources (not the only one) was the Work of Adrian Williams from Cranfield University. I ran his model for getting the carbon footprint of beef using a Global Warming Potential (GWP) for methane using a 20 year rather than a 100 year timescale. Some scientists are now pointing out that the 100 year timescale is now unrealistic but it is the "conventional wisdom". The effect of choosing 20 years rather than 100 years is to increase the carbon footprint of beef. Additionally work by Shindell et. al. suggests methane's effect should by uprated for other reasons.
The work of Adrian Mitchell that I used was in a report to the UK Department of Food and Rural Affairs. I find it now hard to find. I think that is because it is politically inconvenient. The point about this work, as far as this discussion is concerned, is that it was not peer reviewed but a report to a government department. In my view it is clearly an important piece of work but I fear it would be rejected because it was not peer reviewed. See the moderator's comment mentioned in my BrusselsBlog piece "I can see only one reason for citing a non-peer reviewed article: ego-spam." (That wasn't actually directed at me.)
I have just noticed that almost a year ago a prospective entry was put in the talk section of Wilipedia's [beef] article. It suggests a new section [Environmental impacts of beef] and has important information in it. This has not made its way into the main article. It should have despite any reservations. To only include absolutely polished information just gives and advantage to those with the resources to polish and possibly dubious motives.
There is important information that should be on Wikipedia that is missing. I'm pleased to say that my shortened section on the Beddington Zero Energy Development [BedZED] hasn't yet been removed. It says "Embodied Carbon: Large. 67.5 tonnes CO2e for a 100 square metre flat." (OK. Perhaps I should have dug out the non-peer reviewed reference that gives this figure which was done by one of the project sponsors.)
If it stays perhaps I will add a section to [Beef], following the note in the talk section. "The carbon footprint of beef: Very large. Between 12 and 35kg of CO2e are produced for every 1 kg of beef consumed"
What do you think?
Geoff Beacon
P.S. But articles [The carbon footprint of ...] would be wonderful.
P.S.S. I'm a bit disappointed by use of the term "Wikipedians". Does that exclude me?
----- Extracts from Original message -----
From: wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 115, Issue 18
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 06:14:01 +0000
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 20:49:50 +0100
From: Geoff Beacon <geoffbeacon(a)sent.com>
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Carbon footprints on Wikipedia.
Message-ID:
<1381261790.28748.31588489.3191054F(a)webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
An authoritative and easy to used resource giving of the effect or our everyday activities is essential if voters are to know enough to influence politics.
I cant find any entries on Wikipedia to match this. To some extent I blame Wikipedia's over emphasis on peer review and official sources. The [Carbon footprint] entry is probably counter-productive as it implies that the quoted sources are more reliable than they are. I fear some of these sources are incorrect, hide their proprietary information or are influenced by politics (i.e. government departments).
What I would like to see are lots of entries on Wikipedia like:
[the carbon footprint of beef]
[the carbon footprint of air travel]
[the carbon footprint of a new house]
& etc.
Wikipedia is the right place for such information to be presented.
See more of my criticism here: http://www.brusselsblog.co.uk/is-wikipedia-too-credentialist/
Geoff Beacon
P.S. I do make a modest monthly contribution to the Wikimedia foundation.
--
Geoff Beacon
geoffbeacon(a)sent.com
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 13:04:57 +1100
From: Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Carbon footprints on Wikipedia.
Message-ID: <l32dk1$2hh$1(a)ger.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On 09/10/13 06:49, Geoff Beacon wrote:
> An authoritative and easy to used resource giving of the effect or
> our everyday activities is essential if voters are to know enough
> to influence politics.
>
> I cant find any entries on Wikipedia to match this. To some extent
> I blame Wikipedia's over emphasis on peer review and official
> sources. The [Carbon footprint] entry is probably
> counter-productive as it implies that the quoted sources are more
> reliable than they are. I fear some of these sources are incorrect,
> hide their proprietary information or are influenced by politics
> (i.e. government departments).
>
> What I would like to see are lots of entries on Wikipedia like:
>
> [the carbon footprint of beef] [the carbon footprint of air
> travel] [the carbon footprint of a new house]
>
> & etc.
I don't really understand where you are coming from with this. Your
own website <http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/> cites
plenty of official, reliable sources which you could presumably cite
when you write about these topics. On your blog, you complain about
Wikipedians getting annoyed when you cite yourself as a secondary
source, which seems fair enough -- why not just cite the primary
sources directly?
-- Tim Starling
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End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 115, Issue 18
********************************************
--
Geoff Beacon
geoffbeacon(a)sent.com
Hi folks,
As you know, in July 2012 the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees asked
me to set up the Funds Dissemination Committee, a volunteer-driven advisory
committee created to make recommendations to the Board allocating funds for
chapters and other Wikimedia movement entities. I did that, and the FDC has
now been fully operational for a little more than a year.
As part of the FDC framework, I committed that after the FDC’s first year
of operation I would create a report for the Board that documented the
state of the FDC at that moment in time, and told the Board about any
revisions we had made to the process as a result of stakeholder input
during its first year.
The purpose of this note is to tell you that report is now posted. It’s
here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Annual_report_on_the_Funds_Disse…
If you’ve got comments on the report I’d suggest that rather than replying
to this list, you leave them on the talk page. And, my thanks to everyone
who contributed to the FDC's first year of operations, and also to the
report :-)
Thanks,
Sue
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_______________________________________________
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
Hello everyone,
Please see below Wikimedia UK's report for August 2013. The report can be
seen on wiki at https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Reports/2013/August
Many thanks,
Stevie
Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly
report<https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Reports> for
the period 1st to 31st August 2013. If you want to keep up with the
chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our
blog<http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/>
, join a UK mailing
list<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l>,
and/or follow us on Twitter <http://twitter.com/wikimediauk>. If you have
any questions or comments, please drop us a line on this report's talk
page<https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/w/index.php?title=Talk:Reports/2013/August&ac…>
.
Programme activities
Community
Discussions / training of the following: the Welsh Society at Monmouth,
presentation at Cardiff University (discussed wiki with Ken Skates), the
Coleg Cymraeg (met Ioan Matthews Chief Exec, Dr Dafydd Trystan and Dr Dylan
Phillips), Swansea University (met Proff. Iwan Davies, Deputy Vice
Chancellor, Dr Rhys Jones etc), HWB (met Catrin Hughes), Bridgend County
Council (Mike Evans), SAW (met Katie Fisher). Welsh Book Council places
3,249 professionally written book reviews on CC-BY-SA.
*Microgrant outcome*
Andy Mabbett <https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/User:Pigsonthewing>
successfully
applied for a microgrant for sound recording equipment to support his
project to record the voices of notable people to include in the
appropriate Wikipedia articles. More detail can be seen
here<https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Microgrants/Recorder_for_voice_intro_pro…>.
Updates on Andy's project will be made available at a later date.
GLAM activities
On the 8th August we ran our first evening GLAM editathon in
London<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiProject_Atheism/Conway_hall_editathon>.
It was our first event at Conway hall, and it established that we could get
people to an evening event, even in August, though few of the participants
were actually commuters.
Technology
Work continued in preparation for the September migration of this wiki to
Wikimedia UK hosting.
Other activities
*Wiki Loves Monuments*
August was the busiest month for the WLM volunteers and helpers, getting
everything ready for the start of the contest on 1st September. During the
month significant staff assistance was made available to take up some of
the strains without which the volunteers would not have coped. Tasks for
the month (volunteers with staff assistance) included finalising the lists
on the English Wikipedia, dealing with template issues, setting up and
working on the WLM website <http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org.uk/>, writing
blog entries, answering user queries, liaising with the press, notifying
the competition to 250+ local history, civic, and photographic societies
around the country, setting up the UK jury, liaising with the international
competition organisers, proving technical feedback and testing of the
proposed jury tool, and providing Welsh language support.
*Grants*
Information about grants that are currently running, and how to submit a
grant application of your own, are at
Microgrants/Applications<https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Microgrants/Applications>
.
UK press coverage (and coverage of UK projects & activities)
Storming Wikipedia - Project tackles the site's 'women problem' -
Huffington Post<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/26/wikipedia-women-storming-female-ed…>
Blog posts this month
5 August - EduWiki Conference 2013 - call for
proposals<https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/08/eduwiki-conference-2013-call-for-prop…>
7 August - Revitalising Wikipedia coverage of women
scientists<https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/08/revitalising-wikipedia-coverage-of-wo…>
9 August - Wikimedia Chapters to deliver Wikimedia Diversity
Conference<https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/08/1787/>
12 August - Wiki Loves Monuments recruits distinguished
judge<https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/08/wiki-loves-monuments-recruits-disting…>
13 August - Congratulations and thank you to the Wikimania 2013
team!<https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/08/congratulations-and-thank-you-to-the-…>
16 August - A month as Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of
Scotland<https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/08/a-month-as-wikimedian-in-residence-at…>
21 August - Notes from the editathon at Conway Hall,
London<https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/08/notes-from-the-editathon-at-conway-ha…>
Events in August
Take a look here <https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Events#August> for a
full list of events which took place in August.
For upcoming events please see Events<https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Events>
.
Administrative activities
Board activities
Three Board members (Chris, Saad and Alastair) attended Wikimania in Hong
Kong. We had a number of very productive meetings and sessions with the
Foundation, FDC and other Chapters. Chris was interviewed as part of
Wikimedia Deutschland's Chapters
Dialogue<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_Dialogue>
project.
News from the Chief Exec *For information on Jon's activities this month,
see **News from the
Office*<https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/News_from_the_Office/Posts>
*.*
For the 'holiday month' a lot happened. See our reports on Wikimania Hong
Kong for instance. The office did more than chug along. A huge amount of
preparation want on towards the autumn and winter programme, Wiki loves
monuments in particular. In parallel the trustees were working towards the
expansion of the board. The number of volunteers has been growing steadily
as well and we hit the 100 mark eventually.
Communications
Please see the above links to relevant press coverage received in August
and blog posts published during the same period. Key communications
projects worked on during August included writing proposals to present at
the Open Government Partnership and MozFest, reviewing our suite of printed
publications, supporting Wiki Loves Monuments (including working on its
website). A Wikimedia UK supporter was kind enough to host a workshop for
staff, volunteers and a trustee helping us to structure and analyse our key
messages.
If you're interested in getting more involved with our communications or
have any questions or comments, please email Stevie Benton –
stevie.benton(a)wikimedia.org.uk
Fundraising and Membership *Fundraising*
This month, we received £115 in one-off donations, with 5 individual
donations. The average donation amount was £23.00 - 20% of these donors
have had Gift Aid Declarations made and matched with their records. If
anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information,
please get in touch with katherine.bavage[image: at]wikimedia.org.uk and
let her know your requirements.
There were 4,786 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total
of £18,834.77
*
Membership*
Up to 31st August 2013:
-
185 new (membership commenced in preceding three months) and current
members - with 11 new join-ups in August.
-
35 'grace' members (membership within six months after date membership
should be renewed)
This adds up to 220 members who were eligible to vote
-
The new volunteer brochure text was translated into Welsh.
--
Stevie Benton
Communications Organiser
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
@StevieBenton
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a
global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the
Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal
control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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Peter Southwood said...
Hi Geoff,
You want it, go ahead and do it. That is how it works.
[GB: I thought my piece explained that was not how it worked for me and I won't be trying to contribute more without further thought.]
Cheers,
Peter Southwood
PS. What is the point you wish to make by saying you make a monthly
contribution to WMF?
[GB: Just to point out I'm on the same side; I'm not sulking and I recognise the excellent service I get from Wikipedia. But I don't give very much!]
--
Geoff Beacon
geoffbeacon(a)sent.com
It is not. My apologies. Geoff
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 08:09:46 +0100
From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] It's time to reclaim the community logo
Message-ID:
<CAJ0tu1EWLb7L3OKFQRX0hg1PQjbKYg9Mj7QY8O+DRS_yDCWw=w(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Referring to John and Federico as "these two individuals" comes across
as attempting to depersonalise and deprecate your opposition. Are you
quite sure this is the effect you're after?
I meant to send this to the list.
Geoff Beacon
----- Original message -----
From: Geoff Beacon <geoffbeacon(a)sent.com>
To: James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Carbon footprints on Wikipedia.
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 12:09:05 +0100
James,
Thanks for your elucidation of primary and secondary sources but I am uneasy about your scoring system. e.g. the New Scientist is good because it "has a reputation for fact checking".
I think most people who look into the topic will agree that, for example, the carbon footprint of beef is between 10 and 40 times its own weight in Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CO2e) so how would an entry in Wikipedia that said the following fit:
[The carbon footprint of beef] Provisional answer. Very large. Somewhere between 10 and 40 times its own weight in Carbon Dioxide Equivalent.
At present Wikipedia's silence does it a disservice giving a false overall impression of the state of knowledge - yes I mean knowledge. You can see my various websites thinks that should be broached even if not completely resolved.
I don't really have the time to become a serious Wikipedia contributor. I don't have the time to keep up most of my websites. I would much rather Wikipedia was the source but I have been rather goaded into this response.
"The inherent complexity and controversy of carbon footprints". What do you mean by that?
The complexity argument is how the government sources get away with ignoring important issues like the missing feedbacks in climate models or the radiative forcing index in air travel - we don't properly understand them so we will ignore them.
Best wishes
Geoff
----- Original message -----
From: James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Carbon footprints on Wikipedia.
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 16:38:30 +0800
Geoff,
The inherent complexity and controversy of carbon footprints suggests
that you should seek assistance at the Teahouse before proceeding with
further editing on the topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse
Tim Starling wrote:
>... http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/
> cites plenty of official, reliable sources which you could
> presumably cite when you write about these topics. On
> your blog, you complain about Wikipedians getting
> annoyed when you cite yourself as a secondary source,
> which seems fair enough -- why not just cite the primary
> sources directly?
There may be some confusion between the meaning of primary and
secondary sources here.
http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/defra-study/
is a summary of several government document and peer reviewed primary sources.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500-meat-is-murder-on-the-en…
is a secondary source summarizing those primary sources, but it is not
peer reviewed. However, it is considered reliable because it appears
in a publication with editorial oversight of reporting and a
reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-0929.2007.00457.x/abstract
is a peer-reviewed primary source which includes an introductory
literature review qualifying as a peer-reviewed secondary source, but
the new findings will not be considered as reliable as the literature
review summary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint
has some problems; for example the introduction is far too long and
includes a header suggesting the intro has a body section in it.
--
Geoff Beacon
geoffbeacon(a)sent.com
--
Geoff Beacon
geoffbeacon(a)sent.com
Geoff,
The inherent complexity and controversy of carbon footprints suggests
that you should seek assistance at the Teahouse before proceeding with
further editing on the topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse
Tim Starling wrote:
>... http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/
> cites plenty of official, reliable sources which you could
> presumably cite when you write about these topics. On
> your blog, you complain about Wikipedians getting
> annoyed when you cite yourself as a secondary source,
> which seems fair enough -- why not just cite the primary
> sources directly?
There may be some confusion between the meaning of primary and
secondary sources here.
http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/defra-study/
is a summary of several government document and peer reviewed primary sources.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500-meat-is-murder-on-the-en…
is a secondary source summarizing those primary sources, but it is not
peer reviewed. However, it is considered reliable because it appears
in a publication with editorial oversight of reporting and a
reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-0929.2007.00457.x/abstract
is a peer-reviewed primary source which includes an introductory
literature review qualifying as a peer-reviewed secondary source, but
the new findings will not be considered as reliable as the literature
review summary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint
has some problems; for example the introduction is far too long and
includes a header suggesting the intro has a body section in it.
Hello all!
In a part of an article I wrote about Wiki Loves Monuments I have said that Wikimedia should focus on the Global South, also with projects like Wiki Loves Monuments. Wiki Loves Monuments is one of the most simple projects in what people can participate as user, just by making pictures, it is a pity that so less countries from the Global South participate. I think the Wikimedia movement should especially support those countries and helping them to reach out to their local cultural heritage.
So I would say, half the job done. Up to the other half.
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/September_2013/Contents…
Romaine