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 The point about this work, as far as this discussion is concerned, is that it was not peer reviewed but a report to a government department. In my view it is clearly an important piece of work but I fear it would be rejected because it was not peer reviewed.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@lists.wikimedia.org To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 115, Issue 18 Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 06:14:01 +0000
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Message: 1 Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 20:49:50 +0100 From: Geoff Beacon geoffbeacon@sent.com To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Carbon footprints on Wikipedia. Message-ID: 1381261790.28748.31588489.3191054F@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.
Please either turn off digests and reply to the individual list mails, or use the NNTP interface at gmane.org, so that your Subject and References headers will be correct and threading will work.
On 09/10/13 20:48, Geoff Beacon wrote:
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.)
Wikipedia doesn't have moderators. It does have POV pushers, which are a different thing. [[WP:V]] recommends, but does not require, peer review for sources.
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.
It's definitely a good idea to polish your text, especially if you are writing about a controversial topic. Note that text doesn't just "make its way" from the talk page to the article, an ordinary editor (like you) has to put it there.
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?
I think "very large" is too vague, it needs to be compared to something. Also, if you are concerned that 100 year GWP underestimates the impact of beef production, and want to use the 20 year GWP, then the obvious solution is to quote both. NPOV policy favours expansion over replacement.
-- Tim Starling
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