IPCC Wiki Launched

[Jim Hunt]

Skeptical economist and "veteran Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) author" Richard Tol, with the no doubt able assistance of skeptical blogger and " feminist, journalist, writer, and photographer" Donna Laframboise, has just started the "IPCC Wiki".

According to the home page of the new site:

The aim is to create an interactive, up-to-date, balanced version of the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This could be done in the following steps:

    upload the Fifth Assessment Report (one section per page)
    create links within the report
    create links to the underlying literature

This resource can then be used to

    update the report with new research
    audit the quality of report
    audit the quality of its authors

This is a wiki, though, so it will do what its users think it should.

I wonder whether one time "Senior Scientific Officer in the Physical Sciences Division in the Antarctic Climate and the Earth System project at the British Antarctic Survey"  William M. Connolley will be allowed to edit any of the entries?

[Pmt111500]

umm, 'science'-section? well maybe this is their self-education project.

they might want a link to http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/index/   

[Jim Hunt]

I thought I might try and help out the project by providing some 3rd party input:

http://ipcc.wikia.com/wiki/151.3.4.3_Ice#WikiaArticleComments

I even got a thank you note from Richard Tol himself 

[Shared Humanity]

This is kind of cool. I am not sure how they intend to control content. They probably will restrict who can provide content fairly rigorously.

I find it interesting because I am part of a group that is working to accelerate the roll out of "local wiki Chicago".

http://localwiki.net/

Local wiki is an effort that started in California and is being adopted across the world by various communities. The idea is to create learning communities through the sharing of local knowledge. Content contribution is wide open and the intent is to allow the communities to decide how local wiki is used, as in what content categories are developed. This will be driven by the interests of those in the community. Our group has met for the past three months to form ideas around general roll out and specific knowledge areas we would like to see grow.

We did not talk about this in our potluck meeting Sunday but a category that would track local climate impacts of AGW would be real cool.

The non profit has just released a new beta version of software which facilitates links within  the various local wiki sites.

[icefest]

I get a bit of a foreboding of ill just reading the talk page of the title page. This will either be a edit-war or a mod-ban task of epic proportions.

There's a reason conservapedia cannot be edited by just anyone... http://www.conservapedia.com/Climate_change

[Jim Hunt]

I get a bit of a foreboding of ill just reading the talk page of the title page.

What do you suppose Richard & Donna's definition of a "properly skeptical reference" might be? I've certainly linked to my primary sources!

P.S. I've now successfully made my first edit! A link to Kwok et al. 2009

[Shared Humanity]

I get a bit of a foreboding of ill just reading the talk page of the title page. This will either be a edit-war or a mod-ban task of epic proportions.

There's a reason conservapedia cannot be edited by just anyone... http://www.conservapedia.com/Climate_change

The difference is it is all local knowledge. So, for example, it would be gardeners sharing their knowledge about the appropriate vegetables to plant to be successful. These sites are not designed to address any issues like global climate change and those kinds of categories will not exist. It could have a category about places to go locally to learn about water use and preservation  techniques and supplies.

[Shared Humanity]

To expand on how these local wiki sites work, they are about community knowledge only and will thus avoid the kinds of problems you have with sites like wikipedia.

It is very difficult to argue about...

1. Where you will find farmers markets.
2. What community colleges offer workshops on weatherization and home gardening.
3. Where you can find community gardens.
4. What are the best biking routes and which intersections are dangerous and to be avoided.

These sites will develop organically and address the issues that are of interest to people in the community. In some of the earliest communities, they have studied site traffic. One community has determined that 90% of households have visited the site and 1 out of 7 have contributed to the site. The basic intent of local wiki is to develop learning communities.

[icefest]

SH, my post was directed at the IPCC wiki, not the local wiki, which I think sounds like a great idea.

[Shared Humanity]

SH, my post was directed at the IPCC wiki, not the local wiki, which I think sounds like a great idea.

Ooooops.