Climate Lab Wiki Policies

Climate Lab wiki policies have been developed to provide guidance to visitors and editors on how to use the wiki and how it is moderated. The policies and guidelines are meant to keep the wiki focused and functioning effectively for the benefit of the community as a whole.

Statement of purpose

All Climate Lab guidelines and policies should, in the end, ultimately support the purpose of the wiki, which is to be a platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration that drives action to address climate change. (For more information on the mission of Climate Lab, see About Climate Lab.) Climate Lab hopes to provide an open forum and clearing house for information, tools and perspectives to be used by experts, policymakers, practitioners and activists interested in finding solutions to the current climate crisis.

Participation guidelines

Contributions to the Climate Lab wiki are asked to be:

Relevant to climate change or directly related issues.
Neutral and objective in point of view, including no advertising, advocacy or self-promotion.
Attributed with verifiable sources. While relevant independent research is welcome, it should ideally be published through at least a working paper or journal or similar publication.
Free of copyright restrictions and free to be edited, modified or reproduced.
Polite and non-disruptive.
Consistent with formatting and style norms.

Relevant to climate change

Climate Lab is for the sharing and collaborating on information and activities related either directly or indirectly to climate change and global warming. Topics that do not relate in some way may be modified or removed.

In its 2004 Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that global warming is "unequivocal" and that all indications point toward human causes as the main driver.¹ The rising average temperature on Earth brings with it changes to regional climate characteristics, such as rainfall, humidity, wind and severe weather events. Rising temperatures are also causing the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, and the subsequent rising of sea levels. These changes are observable and predicted to accelerate. How we address and adapt to them will have many implications for us and the world.

Neutral point of view

Articles on Climate Lab should be written with a neutral point of view. Climate Lab articles should not be used for advertising, advocacy or self-promotion. Articles about people, organizations, companies, services or products must be written in an objective and unbiased way, and must be third-party verifiable.

Wiki articles should not advocate for one view over another. Instead, they should try to be inclusive, making room for other credible points of view. Including these different points of view in an article can make it much more dynamic. The wiki articles are not the place for discussing purely how you feel or think about a particular topic. Rather, articles should describe events, concepts, organizations, people, things, etc.

Discussion over particularly articles should be done on their respective associated Talk pages -- accessible though the Talk tab in the top yellow navigational banner.

Attributed and verifiable

Statements, figures, and other information presented as fact, or as the views of identified individuals or organizations, should be footnoted or otherwise cited so that the information is verifiable through reliable sources. Information that may be damaging to living individuals and organizations must be referenced through reliable sources or it should be removed immediately (and not simply moved to the article's Talk section). Images and others types of media that are included in wiki pages should also be attributed and permissible to be posted on the wiki.

Free

Content added to the wiki should be free of copyright restrictions. Contributions to the wiki are free to be edited, modified or reproduced by registered users. Individual users or organizations cannot assert editorial control over any particular article or collection of articles. Unless otherwise noted, text contributions to the Climate Lab wiki are released under the terms of the "Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike" license of the Creative Commons (some rights reserved).

Polite and non-disruptive

Contributing to and editing the wiki should be done in a polite, appropriate and non-disruptive way.

Consistent with formatting and style norms

Content contributed or edited should be consistent with Climate Lab formatting and style norms. Many featured wiki articles provide good models for how articles should be formatted. For information on how to create a wiki article, how to layout a wiki article, or how to edit or review an article, please see the appropriate How To pages.

Using the wiki

Beyond the participation guidelines, there are particular ways the wiki is intended to be used and not used.

What the wiki is for

learning about climate change related topics
contributing and improving information related to climate change
sharing personal expertise on specific topics
collaborating with others with different perspectives and experiences
contributing on-the-ground information

What the wiki is not for

contributing articles that are not related or relevant to climate change
discussing opinions, conjectures, what you think about a given topic -- some of which may be discussed appropriately in an article's Talk section; articles should describe events, concepts, organizations, people, things, etc.
being used as a personal blog
being used as a vehicle for advertising
creating pages that are made up simply of links, images and/or media

Accuracy and oversight

Climate Lab gives no warranty to the accuracy of any information on Climate Lab wiki. However, efforts are made to try to maintain the highest level of accuracy possible. These efforts include requiring documentation and citations so that articles can be verified with credible outside sources. Failure to provide documentation, particularly in the case of controversial information

Actual oversight and review of articles on the wiki is performed by three groups:

Wiki editors: The first and broadest level of oversight and quality control are wiki editors themselves. Wiki editors--users who contribute or edit content on the wiki, to any degree--are encouraged to help improve the quality by not only contributing new articles and improving those they themselves contributed, but by also improving the quality of other articles on the wiki. This could include expanding an article with a new section, inserting citations where they're missing, verifying sources, correcting factual inaccuracies, updating information, adding pictures or media, or modifying, moving or deleting inappropriate or unsupported content.
Climate Lab: Climate Lab reviews content as the administrator of the site to correct formatting and errors, and improve content quality.
Partner organizations:
Partner organizations and advisers provide additional expertise in reviewing high-interest pages and helping resolve content disputes over the scientific accuracy of information.

Dispute resolution

When you find information that is inaccurate, outdated or biased, try to correct, improve or balance the information as much as possible. Whatever the kind of dispute between editors on the wiki, staying calm, being reasonable, and trying to find consensus are always good strategies to follow. Focus on the article rather than the wiki editor.

Discussion section

If you find your changes reverted or you otherwise still disagree with the information in the article, propose your changes in the Talk section of the article with detailed comments supporting your opinion. Ideally, each wiki editor should clearly and concisely lay out the reasons for his or her opinion, including references to any relevant supporting material. If you need extra help, ask for the opinion of a third wiki editor.

Note that any information that could be damaging to a living person or organization that is not cited properly with verifiable, credible sources should be deleted from an article.

Request for clarification (policies and guidelines)

Comments and discussion of wiki policies and guidelines themselves should be held in the discussion sections of those pages outlining the particular policies and guidelines--such as the discussion section of this page itself.

In the case that editors are unclear about the meaning or application of a wiki policy or guideline in a case of a particular article, they can contact Climate Lab for clarification. These requests should be posted on the page Request for Comment or Adjudication. By having requests and the responses posted on a wiki page, the whole community can build a response and learn and benefit from the requests and clarifications made to other editors. Some things to keep in mind about making requests for comment:

Before requesting a comment, editors are encouraged to first request help from other editors in the discussion section of the article in question.
Before requesting a comment, editors should first search through previous requests and responses to see if their question or a similar question has already received a response.
In a request for comment, editors should (1.) reference any prior attempts for clarification in the Discussion section of an article, (2.) clearly and concisely explain their dilemma, and (3.) pose their question as specifically as possible.
Responses for comment may take several days to receive a response.

Request for adjudication (content scientific accuracy)

If a dispute over the scientific accuracy of an article cannot be resolved in to the satisfaction editors in the discussion section of the article, editors have the option to request an opinion from the Dispute Adjudication Committee. The Adjudication Committee is made up of a group of experts from a variety of organizations with expertise in climate change, energy, regulation, policy and other areas. Requests for adjudication are made filling out a request at the Request for Comment or Adjudication page. Some important things to keep in mind in requesting for adjudication:

For a dispute to be adjudicated, editors requesting adjudication must show that they have already made a serious effort to address the issue through the Discussion section of the articles.
Requests should be made sparingly. Overuse or inappropriate use of requests may cause the editor's request to be denied.
Responses to requests may take a week.
Responses to a request for adjudication are binding.

Footnotes

¹: Summary for Policy Makers, IPCC 4th Assessment Report (WG1 contribution), 2008. 5, 16. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."

Retrieved from "http://climatelab.org/Climate_Lab/Climate_Lab_Wiki_Policies"

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