Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

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Carbon Accounting Software[edit]

Already earlier in 2011, people argued against simply listing carbon accounting software here: "This is really not a Wikipedia article at all, just a list of adverts. There's even a link to "Follow Us on Twitter" on one of the entries!". So, instead of putting such links here, an overview on them might be more suitable. Any opinions? Ingmar.lippert (talk) 12:22, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I created a new list article, and merged the data from this article to that one: List of carbon accounting software. The new list article is discriminate, focused, structured and specific to carbon accounting software. Northamerica1000(talk) 14:16, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions[edit]

Discussion of the main definition[edit]

It currently says "Carbon accounting is the accounting process undertaken to measure the amount of carbon dioxide equivalents that will not be released into the atmosphere as a result of Flexible Mechanisms projects under the Kyoto Protocol." This definition seems very restricted and especially does not correspond how it is used in practice for at least two significant reasons: a) carbon accounting often refers to how many emissions are actually produced/emitted. thus, carbon accounting for emission reductions is simply a specific part of carbon accounting. b) carbon accounting relating to the Kyoto Protocol is also only one of many reasons why an organisation (like a government or a corporation or even an individual) may perform carbon accounting. If nobody reacts to this, I will rewrite the current formulation accordingly.Ingmar.lippert (talk) 23:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems all right at this time, in which the wording is, "One form of Carbon accounting is...", which states the Kyoto Protocol as an example (one form). Northamerica1000(talk) 14:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merging article with "Enterprise carbon accounting"[edit]

Somebody proposed merging the page Enterprise carbon accounting with Carbon accounting. As both pages cover similar territory, this seems to make sense. Currently the two pages present quite different approaches to the topic. It would benefit the reader to have one page that reviews the technicalities and controversies around enterprise/corporate and non-corporate carbon accounting. Ingmar.lippert (talk) 19:48, 9 November 2014 (UTC)  Done Klbrain (talk) 13:00, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Merger proposal[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was to merge . Chidgk1 (talk) 14:50, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to merge Carbon emissions reporting into Carbon accounting. I think that the content in the Carbon emissions reporting article can easily be explained in the context of Carbon accounting, and the Carbon accounting article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Carbon emissions reporting will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned. Chidgk1 (talk) 16:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed Restructuring/Revision of this Article[edit]

The maintenance template at the top of this page mentions a confusing structure and lead. In reviewing the references, it also seems like many are either out of date, don’t support the text they reference, are related to company specific promotional type pages (i.e. ecometrica), have broken links (or no links at all), or don’t meet WP:RS criteria – for example, primary sources or sources without a demonstration of vetting/peer review/editorial control. As part of the Wikipedia:Meetup/SDGs/Communication of environment SDGs project, I’m proposing that this article be restructured with updated topics and more up-to-date references. The outline shown below lists the revised themes and proposed references (including some from the current version of the article).

Sections Proposed for Modification/Elimination

There is a lot of great work that went into creating this current article, and I want to preserve as much of it as I can. There are a few sections, though, that I do propose to significantly modify or delete. These include:

Use of Existing References

I tried to Incorporate as many of the references from the current article that seemed appropriate. Presently, I would suggest keeping references (as of 11/29/22) # 14, 22, 24, 32 and most of the GHG protocol and ISO related references at #s 33-53 (though similar references may also work for these). The others seemed either outdated, had non-functioning links, were promotional type articles/links from specific companies, like ecoMetrica, were an academic paper that seemed somewhat off-topic for this particular article, were a source that did not seem to support the text being referenced, or were sources in other languages (i.e. #56-Ubbesen). Some older, primary source citations may justified where the article needs to reference a standard by an organization responsible for that standard, such as some of the GHG and ISO protocol citations.

Revised Outline

Below is a revised organization (excluding the lead) and updated references. This isn’t finalized text, just a list of the main elements/ideas that would be in each section (headings shown in bold, subsections are underlined), along with the relevant sources for them. The overall framework of the outline to a large extent mimics the GHG protocol framework, with its focus on corporate accounting, project accounting, and product accounting. Notes in italics indicate how current sections are incorporated into this proposal, identify “major article” or “see also” links that would appear at the top of each proposed section, as well as other minor notes related to specific components in the outline.

- - - - - - - - -Proposed Outline and References- - - - - - - - -

Lead

Outline for the lead will be included once/if there seems to be support for this proposal.

History

Carbon accounting drivers - Note: This would incorporate some of the information in the “Greenhouse gas accounting” and “Carbon accounting in corporations”, and “Mandatory greenhouse gas reporting” sections. The existing text would be updated.

Carbon accounting/GHG Reporting frameworks and standards

Policy aspects

Effectiveness and limitations

Future directions

- - - - - - -End of Outline- - - - - - - -

Questions/request for feedback

I appreciate any feedback on this proposal, but would be specifically interested in thoughts on the following:

Dtetta (talk) 20:26, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Don’t know the answers to your questions but all your hard work here looks very timely. Because the 500 largest point sources in Climate TRACE now will be thousands next year. So you doing this should help people who are checking whether companies are greenwashing or serious about being low carbon. Suggest you go full speed ahead Chidgk1 (talk) 16:40, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Chidgk1: and @Crisantom: it looks like you have been significant contributors to this article over the last couple of years, so I would appreciate any thoughts you might have. Dtetta (talk) 20:29, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that support Chidgk1, and for the Climate TRACE link. Will start working on the revision this week. Dtetta (talk) 21:38, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. These are fantastic, well-thought out suggestions. For your second and third questions, I think you covered the most significant aspects of the article. As for the fourth question, that seems like something to consider. My knowledge of the topic is by no means as deep as yours but I will try to provide support when I can. - Crisantom (talk) 06:51, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Crisantom for that support. Look forward to working with you on the revision. Dtetta (talk) 22:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Subject Expert Comments on Outline

Last week I contacted four experts in the field to obtain their thought and suggestions for improving on the outline above. Below are their comments.

- - - -

Comments from an expert requesting to be anonymous-12/1

Corporate/Regulatory Drivers section

Reporting Frameworks section

Corporate Reporting Subsection

Project accounting subsection

Effectiveness and Limitations section

Limitations subsection

Future Directions section

- - -

Comments from Derek Broekhoff, SEI – 12/6

History and Drivers Section

Reporting Frameworks section

Effectiveness and Limitations section

Future Directions section

- - -

Comments from Lynn Lopucki, University of Florida-12/6

History and Drivers Section

Effectiveness/Limitations Section

Future Directions section

- - -

Comments from Michael Gillenwater – Greenhouse Gas Management Institute-12/9

History/Drivers Section

Reporting Frameworks section

Future Directions section

Dtetta (talk) 20:47, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Update Status

Tomorrow I plan to post a revised lead, along with text for the history, drivers and frameworks sections per the bullet points for those sections. Dtetta (talk) 05:33, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Chidgk1: and @Crisantom: - just posted revisions to the article that cover the outline up to the Project Accounting section. Revised the lead as well to reflect new article content. Some notes on this revision:
  • The organization of the drivers section is slightly different from the proposed outline. In addition, I focused the text and citations more on how they affect GHG accounting methods specifically, since that’s what this article is about.
  • I as able to used most of the text in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and ISO 14064 sections. There I made some edits and additions, updated citations, and removed some text that seemed redundant or overly detailed.
  • I was not able to figure out how to keep much of the text in the Lifecycle Analysis of ECA section - please let me know if you think there are pieces that still belong in the article.
  • The lead does not yet reflect the policy aspect, effectiveness/limitations, or future directions portion of the revised article. I left the current last two current lead paragraphs in place, though I expect to change them significantly once the effectiveness/limitations and future directions sections are completed.Dtetta (talk) 05:08, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On the topic of the Lifecycle analysis of ECA section. The problem I had in preserving text was that a lot of the information there seemed extraneous to carbon/greenhouse gas accounting specifically. In the revised section I tried to briefly note how the carbon/GHG accounting ideas covered in this article are part of the broader topic of lifecycle analysis(among other things), and how that’s recognized in issues such as Product Carbon Footprints, and ISO 14067 in particular, being part of a broader series of ISO standards for LCA. But there may be other aspects of the original text that are also relevant to this that I didn’t adequately capture.
I also still need to comb through the revised article to add wikilinks where appropriate.Dtetta (talk) 14:06, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for taking so long to finish the revision. Should have the revised text for the Project Accounting subsection, as well as the Policy Aspects and Future Directions sections, posted in the next couple of days. Dtetta (talk) 17:12, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Chidgk1: and @Crisantom: - I added the section on project accounting today. In order to keep the word count manageable, I did not include detailed discussion of the Climate Action Reserve and the American Carbon Registry, though they are mentioned by name in the intro paragraphs. Please let me know if you think either of these programs merits a more detailed mention in this section of the article. Plan to get to the remainder of the article later today and Monday, and still have to work on wikilinks. If anyone else wants to work on wikilinks, that would be great, otherwise I will work on that once the full article is posted:) Dtetta (talk) 19:13, 24 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And thanks, Chidgk1, for the work you’ve already done on removing the maintenance template, adding wikilinks, and improving sentences:) Dtetta (talk) 22:59, 24 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can the first sentence be improved?[edit]

I suspect some readers might be confused by the word “mitigates” but I don’t have a better idea for the first sentence. What do you think? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:06, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Maybe “. . . an organization emits or mitigatestakes actions to reduce? Dtetta (talk) 14:38, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
great Chidgk1 (talk) 12:19, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest scope 1 2 and 3 definitions moved higher up[edit]

I briefly defined 1 and 2 but brackets are not ideal. Perhaps moving history section to bottom would also help. Chidgk1 (talk) 12:21, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed they are in a graphic but that text is very small so I missed it first time - other readers may too Chidgk1 (talk) 12:25, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chidgk1-planning to address this with an improved graphic for the article. See my post below. Dtetta (talk) 02:17, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Notes on Current Revision (1/1/23)[edit]

@Chidgk1: and @Crisantom: - I’m nearly finished with my work on this revision. There’s probably a couple of subsections I will add to “Future trends”, a few edits for readibility and completeness, continued work on wikilinks, and some clean up work on a few citations. But those should be relatively minor. I will also be working on the last lead paragraph (will be sure to keep Chidgk1’s reference to Climate Trace).

So I have a few final questions/suggestions I’d be interested in your thoughts on.

There are also some remaining content/organization issues:

Thanks again with your support and editing efforts on this! Dtetta (talk) 06:21, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If the below move is agreed after discussion it will have to be done by an admin I think as there is already greenhouse gas accounting Chidgk1 (talk) 06:23, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree re WRI graphic Chidgk1 (talk) 06:27, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Re cites I strongly feel they should be done with Visual Editor so new and IP users can do them. I remember a year or so ago someone was working on a solution to citing the same source with different page numbers - will try and find details when I have time - feel free to ping me if I forget Chidgk1 (talk) 06:55, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At last I found the thing I was thinking of at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Book_referencing but unfortunately it has been cancelled.
As you are the person editing the article most I suppose you get to choose the cite style. But if it was me I would prefer the Visual Editor as much as possible. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:51, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Re govt requirements ‘see also’ or ‘further info ‘ I don’t have strong opinion. Do as you think best Chidgk1 (talk) 06:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with use of visual editor. I did almost all the cites with that, except where I was copying a report cite and using a different page.
Thanks for being flexible on the ‘see also’ and ‘further info’ styling.
Thanks for looking into the same source/different pages issue. Dtetta (talk) 15:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For the page numbers you have to add ((rp|6)) for page 6 at the end of the reference (in source editor). Then it works; I use it all the time like this. Compare for example how we have done it at the climate change mitigation article in several locations (e.g. in the lead).EMsmile (talk) 12:18, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Trim further reading?[edit]

I suspect some of the further reading could be deleted but not sure which Chidgk1 (talk) 06:26, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I had the same thought. In fact, I would delete all of it. I find "further readings" in general not all that useful when it comes to the fast changing topics of climate change. If they're good publications, they should rather be cited as in-line sources. Perhaps in general the "further reading" sections in Wikipedia article are a bit of a "left over" from the days when not all content was getting in-line citations? Not sure. EMsmile (talk) 12:02, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think those are good suggestions. From a cursory review, the only reference from that list that I would keep is the GHG protocol, which is already cited. The input-output issue described in some of these references is briefly mentioned in a few of the citations in the article itself. But it seemed a bit too detailed to be included in the text. Let's wait and see if there are any objections to this proposal in the next few days, and, if not, I will just go ahead and delete the list. Dtetta (talk) 17:55, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've deleted the list now as there were no further comments or objections in the last 5 days. EMsmile (talk) 12:56, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest nominate as good article[edit]

Hello @Dtetta,

Once the above rename request has been done (or rejected) I think you could nominate it per Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions. I know you want to do a bit more but a reviewer is not likely to start for months and even if they started tomorrow it is past the “quick fail” stage.

I think the main advantage of this is that the reviewer probably won’t be in the climate change project. Thus they will almost certainly pick up a lot of readability issues which we would not be able to spot because of our prior knowledge.

And you get a lovely green plus for all your hard work and 6 hours of fame on Wikipedia:Did you know Chidgk1 (talk) 07:16, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that suggestion Chidgk1 - I will try to get that started later this week:) Dtetta (talk) 17:47, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If I remember right the rename guidelines say to wait at least a week for comments so I won’t rename until next week. It will be easier for you to wait until after rename before submitting Chidgk1 (talk) 06:36, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Understand - thanks! Dtetta (talk) 06:45, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Dtetta As it was not renamed I think you should nominate it for good article now. As the article is extremely dry I doubt anyone will review it any time soon unless they are seeking a cure for insomnia! Chidgk1 (talk) 15:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's perhaps still a bit too early for that. We don't want the reviewers to tell us things that we already know. In this case, I think the article needs some images (by the way, I don't understand why you have added that one at the end now; the caption is unclear to me). About one image per visible page would be awesome. Also the article could do with readability improvements. It's currently very hard to understand due to the use or jargon, technical terms, long sentences. - It's a fascinating topic. I currently don't have time to involve myself deeply in this. Just wanted to caution to jump to a GA review process too hastily. What could be gained from approaching reviewers already now? Or are you saying you would start the process now but while waiting for a reviewer to become available (could be weeks, months?), one continues to improve the article oneself? EMsmile (talk) 18:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The latter. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:37, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks everyone for that good discussion. Looked through Wikipedia:Good article criteria, and it seems like this article is in pretty good shape, except for the Illustration criterion. Plan to go ahead and initiate the nomination process as Chidgk1 suggests, and will work on getting a better image for the top of the article that covers Scopes 1, 2 and 3 at the same time. Dtetta (talk) 16:19, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just initiated the nomination process with an edit at the top of this page. Thanks for that suggestion Chidgk1! Dtetta (talk) 19:11, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Question about the first sentence of the lead[edit]

I noticed that the German Wikipedia version has a different first sentence in the lead (translated): Carbon accounting describes the systematic recording, monetary and non-monetary evaluation and monitoring of direct and indirect emissions of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases. This is quite different to our first sentence of Greenhouse gas accounting or carbon accounting is a framework of methods to measure and track how much greenhouse gas (GHG) an organization emits. Which source do we use that limits the definition of carbon accounting to just organizations? Might be useful to add that source to the first sentence (leads don't have to use in-line citations, although I think more and more they do use inline citations - those are also useful when leads are transcribed by use of excerpts). This lead currently uses only one in-line citation. EMsmile (talk) 13:08, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done Chidgk1 (talk) 18:09, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing that Chidgk1! I think I noted in my post “ Notes on Current Revision (1/1/23)” that I still had work to do on citations and the lead. Agree that there are probably some additional citations needed for the lead - so far my focus there has been on readability. Plan to work on that over the next couple of days. And although it's nice to get a perspective from other language versions (I had proposed in my outline a link to a google translate version of the WP.de article on Greenhouse Gas protocol), that particular sentence has a Flesch-Kincaid reading level of over 20-Yikes! Dtetta (talk) 22:32, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The GHG protocol Corporate standard also uses the work "organization" repeatedly, but Chidgk1's citation works fine in this instance. Dtetta (talk) 14:50, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just a minor point: I am a little bit surprised surprised you added a new publication, User:Chidgk1 rather than be able to reuse one that had already been used in the article. Is the one that you added really a highly reliable source (secondary preferred)? If so, I am surprised it is only cited once in the article. Just wondering. Interestingly, it is the only ref in the list now that mentions "carbon accounting" whereas all the others mention "greenhouse gas accounting". EMsmile (talk) 13:07, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Secondly: does that mean that the intro sentences in the German Wikipedia (which does not limit it to organisation) is wrong? It says there (after translation to English with Google Translate; bolding added by me): Carbon accounting describes the systematic recording, monetary and non-monetary evaluation and monitoring of direct and indirect emissions of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases.  This can be done at product or project level, at company level or at state level to create a greenhouse gas balance sheet. Or is it possible that different definitions have been used in the literature? I see on Google that most of the hits limit it to organisations (or even just products) but occasionally the definition given includes also "organisations and countries". If there are different definitions in the literature then I would recommend to add a new section called "definitions" where this is explained. I find that quite useful. We did that also for the climate change mitigation article, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation#Definitions_and_scope. EMsmile (talk) 13:07, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t think it’s wrong, it just sidesteps that aspect. Dtetta (talk) 16:24, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Adding page numbers[edit]

Like I mentioned above (see the section Notes on Current Revision (1/1/23)), the page numbers should be added with the rp-template, e.g. ((rp|6)). As far as I can see, this is becoming the standard for all articles with the long citation style. The long citation style is also becoming more common than the short citation style, at least within WikiProject Climate Change (see also here). It overcomes the problem of having to list the same ref several times in the article. So I think it should be implemented now. EMsmile (talk) 12:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree strongly - I think the rp snippet approach is a poor choice. I used it for the ocean acidification article, and was very dissatisfied with the way the text looked. I don’t know how we can expect a reader to easily understand the reference page being referred to when there is an adjacent, small, unclear page number next to the citation number. I certainly wouldn’t understand what that meant if I just came upon it when reading an article, and I read a lot of wikipedia articles. I don’t see this done in any scientific literature that I have read. For the time being, I think a much better way to deal with paginated reports that are used multiple times is to use short cites, with a “reports cited” section at the bottom of the article, as is done on the main climate page article, and other GA articles (as was pointed out in the Wikipedia talk:IPCC citation/AR6 discussion you referred to). Longer term, this seems like a WP tech support (or village pump) issue. The WP techies should be able to create a citation bot (they already have several) that can look at two long form report citations that are identical except for page number, and create some type of Ibid format where the citation in the reference list just shows the title and year (with a link of course), and then the page number. Dtetta (talk) 16:08, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The rp syntax seems to be the recommended way that Wikipedia offers for the long ref style. I am surprised you dislike it so much. Readers are free to click on it or to ignore it. They can hover over it to find out what it is. Until the tech people come up with a different solution, it's the only way that avoids repeating the same ref multiple times in the ref list. The short ref style has its own disadvantages which I've written about earlier but can repeat: it's very very difficult to use for newbies. It does not work well when text blocks are moved from one article to another. I remember now that we had a discussion about it here already. There seemed to be no objections to using the rp style there. If you want, we can try to re-start the discussion there? Could be good to reach consensus so that the climate change articles follow a consistent style. EMsmile (talk) 16:19, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've now written on the talk page of WikiProject CC about this as I see it as a broader issue, not specific to this article. Would be nice to be consistent across climate change articles. Let's see if anyone else has an opinion about it. EMsmile (talk) 16:23, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, there are lots of articles that use the rp syntax, see e.g. climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation. A tool tip appears when people hover over it. And Wikipedia is not the same as a scientific publication so just because scientific publications don't do it like this is not an issue, in my opinion. EMsmile (talk) 16:26, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It’s clear you have talked about it and used it a number of times (including on those pages you mention), but I don’t see broad support for it. The Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change link you referred in saying we discussed it wasn’t really a discussion, it was just a number of posts by you, with me adding one point of reference. That was before I began using it for the OA article. I now regret that choice. It will be interesting to see if you get any responses on WikiProject Climate to support your proposal. Dtetta (talk) 16:40, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That may be so. However, my experience with trying to start discussions amongst Wikipedians is this: if they don't reply to an invitation to discuss something then they don't feel strongly about it, or at least don't object to it. Meaning in this case: they don't object to me using the standard rp syntax style. Let's see if a consensus emerges and see what others think. Until the IT team comes up with a different solution, I think the rp syntax is the only workable solution we have for the long ref style. Having multiple entries for the same ref in a ref list is not elegant in my opinion. EMsmile (talk) 17:04, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a strong opinion, but just wanted to say that the rp citation variant is not the recommended variant. In fact, it's much less used than sfn. In case of disagreement about the citation style, the old status quo is to be followed (WP:CITEVAR). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:56, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The old status quo for this article is to use the long ref style (at least going back to say 2015, or how far back does one have to check?)? So as per WP:CITEVAR, we continue to use long ref style, right? And in long ref style, the page numbers should be added with the rp citation variant, or am I mistaken? Perhaps there is another method on how to add page numbers that I am not aware of? Currently the page numbers are added in the references list which leads to the same publication being shown multiple times in the ref list. That's what I find problematic. The rp syntax would avoid this. EMsmile (talk) 18:29, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I recall, the article citations in the earlier version were almost all referencing web sites or journal articles, where a long form citation is certainly appropriate and easier. I don’t think any of them cited different pages in a paginated report to cite different parts of the text (and they certainly did not use the rp code snippet approach), so I don’t think they are a useful reference for going forward on this topic. The Citing multiple pages of the same source subsection of WP:CS lists two realistic options for taking a reader to different pages in a document where that document is used multiple times: 1)the rp code approach, which, as I have mentioned above, creates strange looking, hard to understand citations, like current citation 19 in the Ocean Acidification article (which I unfortunately created, but would not do again); and 2)short cites. As part of applying for GA status for this article, my suggestion is to convert those instances where multiple pages of a report are cited in different text locations to short cites. It would be nice if the WP tech group could create a bot that would resolve this in an Ibid type fashion when you are copying long cites and just changing the page number, but in the mean time I believe short cites would better comport with GA standards, as Femke previously noted at Wikipedia talk:IPCC citation/AR6. Dtetta (talk) 19:51, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also see that WP:CS mentions rp only twice, once in the context I mentioned above, and another in the context of linking to a google books source. There is nothing in this guidance, as far as I can tell, that would suggest it as a general practice for citations. Dtetta (talk) 06:05, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding of WP:CITEVAR is that it should be either all short refs or all long refs but not a mixture of both (just like with WP:ENGVAR); see also a comment by Femke here which I interpreted to say that (Femke said: "The long-style is already the default in the article. No need to post on talk to tidy up the single citations that's in a different style."). There is no guidance anywhere that a "good article" needs to use short ref style. Anyway, I guess Femke is telling us we should not worry too much about it. If you don't like the rp syntax then don't use it. I will continue to use it as I like it. People are different. For the carbon accounting article, we can leave things as it is. Of the repeated refs there is Fong 2021 six times, Bhatia four times, Rich and Bhatia three times etc. Doesn't matter, I don't think our readers will really care that much. So I am happy to agree to disagree on this one and move on. EMsmile (talk) 11:36, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Placement of history section[edit]

This is likely down to personal preference but I personally would prefer to either move the history section towards the end of the article (as I find it less important) or to rename it to something like "Origin", "Development" or "Rationale" (in which case it could stay there, I guess):

Like I said, it might be down to personal preference. Happy to receive further inputs and thoughts on this. EMsmile (talk) 13:20, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate your citing my reasons for keeping it at or near the top, which remains my recommendation. Another option would be to reword “History” to focus more clearly on just those events that are most clearly tied to how the current standards and frameworks come to be the way they are. Dtetta (talk) 16:11, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
With that, do you mean changing the section title from "History" to something else? That would also be my recommendation. But not sure if I understood you correctly? EMsmile (talk) 16:14, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would support some of the other wording options you’ve suggested. Again, in analogous situations “History” is used, but I’m fine with considering other word choices, such as “Origin” or “Development”. Dtetta (talk) 16:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And I see I wasn’t clear in my earlier comment - I meant that one option to resolve this issue would be to edit the contents of the history section to make the connection between events since 1995 and the current features of the present standards more apparent, and perhaps edit out some tangential information. Dtetta (talk) 06:15, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An example would be to address a concern I believe Chidgk1 mentioned, which would be to highlight the Scope 1, 2 and 3 features of the standards more prominently in the history (or at least earlier in the article). Dtetta (talk) 06:20, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for revised start of article

Chidgk1 and EMsmile - Looked at ways of modifying the history section to remove extraneous information and focus it more on the key events that led to current standards. Below is a strikeout/underline presentation of the text revision I would propose. In addition to cutting out some of the text, I included a brief description of Scopes 1, 2, and 3. This revision covers the first three paragraphs.

Nothing jumped out at me in the fourth paragraph merited taking out, but I think the last paragraph (about the growth to the present of GHG accounting and reporting)  could be moved into the “Future trends” section, with that section then retitled “Recent trends” perhaps. Let me know if you think this addresses your concerns, if you think other text could be removed to still focus it more, or if you would still rather see this section placed further down in the article. Thanks. Reference numbers are the same as what’s in the current article.

- - - -

HistoryOrigins Initial efforts to create greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting methods were done largely at the national level. In 1995 the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) required Annex 1 (generally developed) countries to report annually on their emissions for six industrial categories. That same year the FCCC piloted a program where countries could experiment with carbon offset projects. In 1997 the Kyoto protocol created a carbon offset program called the Clean Development Mechanism, and alsodefined the greenhouse gases that are the central focus of greenhouse gas accounting methods: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, nitrogen trifluoride, hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons. These actions raised awareness about the importance of accurate GHG emission estimates and the need for measuring the amount of GHG reductions from offset projects.[4][5]

In 1998 the “Safe Climate Sound Business: An Action Agenda” challenged businesses to measure, track and openly report greenhouse gas emissions from their operations. That year the World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) initiated a multi stakeholder process to develop a protocol to support this goal. The first edition of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol was published in September 2001, and included over 200 organizations in its development.[6] It establishes a comprehensive, global, standardized framework for measuring and managing emissions from private and public sector operations, value chains, products, cities, and policies.[7] The protocol divides an organization’s emissions into three different categories. Scope 1 emissions include direct emissions from facilities. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from electricity use, and Scope 3 covers other indirect emissions. [45]p25

Other initiatives since that time NGOs have also played a role in driving corporate and community participation in GHG accounting. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) was founded in the UK in 2002, and started with 35 investors signing a request for environmental information, and  245 companies responding. It is now a multinational organization with thousands of organizations companies disclosing their GHG emissions, along with other data.[8] The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) was formed in 2015 as a collaboration between CDP, WRI, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). Its with the goal is to establish science-based environmental target setting as a standard corporate practice. It has continued the trend of incorporating GHG accounting protocols into broader efforts to reduce emissions. [9]

- - - -

If you do still want it further down, IMO we would need to rethink the intro - starting with GHG accounting Drivers seems abrupt to me, but you all might see it differently. Dtetta (talk) 14:54, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your new text is better than before I think Chidgk1 (talk) 15:49, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree with Chidgk1 and would say just go ahead and implement those. What still confuses me a little bit is this sentence: "were done largely at the national level", perhaps you could clarify the wording - I guess it's supposed to mean taking all the businesses in the entire country? Later it talks about "community participation" - you could maybe give some examples for that. Are you referring to efforts by NGOs to make organisations more accountable? EMsmile (talk) 09:55, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the term “national level”, the second sentence I think pretty much explains that term. Can’t think of a better way of phrasing it, but if you have a better phrasing for that clause, feel free to make that edit once I post this text. Regarding the use of the word “communities”, I think that’s a good observation. However, both the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories, as well as the ICLEI Community protocol, use the term community. Have spent some time thinking about it, and I agree with you that it’s a somewhat vague term, but that is the language that those protocols are using, so I’m being true to that and using that word in this section as well as in the main text of the article. In the heading for this part of the article I use the term cities/communities. So I could change to that in the lead as well, I guess, but that would not be my first choice. What these protocols are referring to is sub national (in particular sub state) governments like cities and counties in the US. Once you get to the state level and above, the approach is typically more of a top down one, as is done with national inventories. As I understand it, the terms local governments, cities, and communities are used interchangeably in this context. Dtetta (talk) 15:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 January 2023[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Even though there was some support for the move, there was also opposition based on WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONSISTENT. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 17:27, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Carbon accounting → Greenhouse gas accounting – Article includes gases which do not contain carbon, such as nitrous oxide. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:19, 3 January 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 14:20, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing that Chidgk1! Dtetta (talk) 06:25, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support this proposal. Dtetta (talk) 17:59, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support the proposal to move the page. Crisantom (talk) 01:22, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have no firm view on this but am just wondering if there are any other aspects that would speak against such a name change: I wonder if the term "carbon accounting" is currently the better established name compared to "GHG accounting". (even if the GHG gas N2O has no carbon in it). Is it possible that "carbon accounting" remains the WP:Commonname even if "less accurate"? E.g. when you look for Google results, the term "carbon accounting" gets far more hits than "GHG accounting" (I know the Google search results are not "the answer" to this question but they do give an indication. Looking at the Google Ngram here, the term Carbon accounting is also more popular (although this ends at 2019). The AR 6 WG III report mentions "carbon accounting" 14 times and "GHG accounting" 8 times (so actually not very often; but carbon accounting more often than GHG accounting). EMsmile (talk) 13:08, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I like to compare different language versions and noticed that in the German Wikipedia they also use "carbon accounting", i.e. the English term, not translated. The French page redirects to "carbon footprint" (interesting; wrong?). The Spanish version (translated) starts with "Carbon accounting or greenhouse gas accounting...". EMsmile (talk) 13:08, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That’s an interesting perspective. But when I look at the guidance that you’re citing, the common name portion talks about prevalence in a majority of independent reliable English language sources. When I do a quick review of the sources for this article, the majority use the term “greenhouse gas” rather than “carbon”. It’s the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, not the carbon protocol. Similarly, ISO uses the term “greenhouse gas” and not “carbon” in describing its 14064 (and 14068) standards, and the Wikipedia article on ISO 14064 also uses the term “greenhouse gas”. Dtetta (talk) 15:28, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I just wonder if the term "carbon" remains the more "common term" as can be seen also in a lot of the other climate change carbon articles: carbon credit, carbon offset, carbon neutrality, carbon farming, carbon tax, Low-carbon economy, Carbon emission trading. I mean they could all be called GHG instead of carbon but they don't? Perhaps carbon has become recognised to be short-hand for GHG. From that perspective I think I have a mild preference for keeping "carbon accounting" in this case. But it would be good to get more inputs from more people. EMsmile (talk) 11:24, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, as far as I know, the reason why it is generally referred to as carbon footprint or accounting is because all the GHGs are expressed in terms of CO2 equivalents in estimating global warming potential. EMsmile (talk) 13:52, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Google Ngram Viewer clearly shows carbon accounting to be more widely used than greenhouse gas accounting. Global warming potential of GHGs other than carbon dioxide is measured in terms of carbon dioxide, and carbon footprint is expressed as "carbon dioxide equivalent" (CO2e). -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 14:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Carbon is a subset of GHG[edit]

Didn see the principal tag with a dedicated thread. Besides the titular point, the commonly accepted name of the thing is 'Carbon Accounting' and the proposed change looks like wiki cray cray. Lycurgus (talk) 15:07, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OTOH, the article currently treats the superset. Recommendation: Leave this the mainspace title, establish a redirect here from GHG Accounting, and reverse the order of the boldeds in the first sentence of the lede. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 15:20, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see the redirect is already in place. Nice to see there's automation on the movement of the back matter, a complaint/pet peeve of mine in the past. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 15:23, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also maybe a mention of how much of GHG is carbon, if not already present, and if so should be in suggested lede open. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 15:24, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Noting 'carbon' is a clsss, and the non carbon GHG's are I suspect negligible. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 15:35, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wanted to make a pun with ‘laughing gas’ but I am too old to understand the
current usage of ‘lol’.
Unfortunately Nitrous oxide#Greenhouse effect is significant Chidgk1 (talk) 16:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Chidgk1 Noted, presume that's the major non hydrocarbon. Lycurgus (talk) 13:42, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Lycurgus: If you or anyone else want your opinion counted please comment in the rename discussion above - I cannot count it from here otherwise anyone looking at the rename discussion in future will be confused. Please comment soon as I will close the rename discussion soon - maybe tomorrow Chidgk1 (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Lycurgus could you please explain what you mean here with "wiki cray cray" - I assume it means crazy but in which sense crazy? EMsmile (talk) 11:35, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@EMsmile Young Dolph is who google credits with the term, it has associations with American conservatives in the doubled form in my mind, I only use it for facetious effect, in this case to refer to the social process in enwiki that produces the site product. While I appreciate and have extensively and more or less successfully contributed in the past within that process, I nonetheless often find it galling, which affect is expressed humorously with the term. I certainly don't mean to imply actual mental illness, just compromised intellectual integrity. Lycurgus (talk) 13:38, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Chidgk1: I am not sure how exactly all the processes work but shouldn't it be an uninvolved editor who closes the discussion? And not so quickly either since it's just been relisted, it seems? Or perhaps the person who proposed a move is allowed to close the discussion if they cancel their own proposal. Either way, I think the discussion has not yet reached conclusion, it would be good to hear from more people still (I've posted about it on the WikiProject Climate Change talk page but no reaction from that so far, I think). I feel like there might be more arguments for or against a move which we haven't unearthed yet. EMsmile (talk) 11:35, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I closed the second discussion because if the rename discussion is in 2 sections it would be very hard for future editors to look back at it. However your method of moving it as a subsection of the first discussion may work - I have never tried that before. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:01, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to you saying that you'd close the first discussion though. This should be done by an uninvolved editor, I think. And there is no need to rush it. EMsmile (talk) 13:50, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I got mixed up with other stuff - you are right it is supposed to be uninvolved editor closing this. By the way I just checked the environment project and it was also automatically notified there the same as our project. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:30, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. should we ping some of the people who are normally active on CC topics? I don't want to come across as "intruding" though. EMsmile (talk) 11:37, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t use this renaming template often but I had to here because I am not an admin so cannot rename over a redirect. I usually manually ping the projects and a couple of recent editors but this template may do some auto pinging - will check. Meanwhile feel free to ping anyone Chidgk1 (talk) 13:09, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Another possible image for the top of the page[edit]

Have not heard back from WRI regarding their image. I also found an image for the top of the article (that does a good job of focusing on Scopes 1, 2, and 3) at:https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2020-04-22-uct-carbon-footprint-report-2018

At the bottom of the page it states:"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License." I am having trouble figuring out if this is an acceptable Creative Commons license for uploading based on the criteria at:Wikipedia:File copyright tags. Chidgk1, Crisantom or EMsmile - can either of you provide some insight here? Dtetta (talk) 17:46, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are you squatting this article? You seem to have assumed directorial powers based on your work life rather than experience as a wiki editor. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 21:43, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I find the subject extremely dry so am happy Dtetta is improving the article. I would welcome your opinion at “Requested move 3 January 2023” above and feel free to edit the article. I expect being less familiar with the article you will be able to improve readability or tag sentences which need clarifying for the general reader. If you have any disagreement with @Dtetta you can ping me or anyone else for a 3rd opinion. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:22, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@98.4.112.204: Your comment here seems completely misplaced and disruptive. Please be kinder to other editors. EMsmile (talk) 11:47, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Chidgk1 and EMsmile for that support. This has been a heater lift than I thought it would be! Dtetta (talk) 15:04, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry no idea. There is a copyright helpdesk somewhere on Wikimedia or Wikipedia. I forget where but they seem knowledgable and quick to answer Chidgk1 (talk) 06:13, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A licence with ND is unfortunately not compatible, see here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing EMsmile (talk) 11:46, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks EMsmile for that info, guess I will have to work with the folks at UCT to go through the licensing template that WP provides, if they are willing. Dtetta (talk) 15:04, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Possible example section[edit]

I am just putting this here as part of a quarry of ideas which could perhaps be addressed at some point in the future (it's certainly not urgent at this point). It might be useful to include an examples section to make this whole concept more tangible:

Other uses?[edit]

A very minor little question: We have now a section heading called "Other uses". I guess that means that the section called "Frameworks and standards" is the "main uses" of carbon accounting? Does that come across clearly for a layperson reader? Or is "other uses" perhaps not quite ideal? It's a very minor point but it's confusing me a little bit at this point. EMsmile (talk) 13:14, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Having GHG Protocol as a separate article?[edit]

I wonder why the German Wikipedia has two separate articles: one on de:carbon accounting (= parent article) and one on de:GHG_Protocol (= sub-article), whereas in the English Wikipedia we treat them both in just one article. Do you see any benefit in splitting of GHG protocol into its own article or is it better to keep it all in one? I think it seems to work to keep them together in one, and the article is not too long, but I am just wondering if there could be any benefits in splitting it off. EMsmile (talk) 13:37, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do think there should be a separate article for GHG protocol. I’ve mentioned that, and I’m planning on doing that, as part of the SDG 13/SEI project. But I don’t think this article should be adjusted based on having a separate article on GHG protocol. Just like there are separate main articles for ISO 14064, VERRA, and Gold standard, there can be a separate GHG protocol article that serves as the main article for the GHG protocol portion of this article. The references to GHG protocol here are an important way of highlighting the prominence of that protocol in GHG accounting. Dtetta (talk) 15:16, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Has the "external links" list been re-checked in the recent update?[edit]

Has the "external links" list already been re-checked in the recent update? I would be inclined to cull it a bit, as fewer external links would be better (and ensuring they are not biased to one particular region, given that this is a global topic). But not sure if someone has already looked at this section and made a very careful choice of links? EMsmile (talk) 22:48, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Have that as a to-do. Dtetta (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Any ideas for images?[edit]

Bioenergy system boundaries for carbon accounting

Feel free to remove the one I added if you have better - I was just trying to liven it up a bit Chidgk1 (talk) 19:42, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think of this image instead: Bioenergy system boundaries for carbon accounting (I've added it to the bioenergy article, too)?. Overall, I think it would be good if this article had say 8-10 images which would roughly mean one image per visible page of scrolling. Might be hard to find so many though. EMsmile (talk) 09:18, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I’ll leave @Dtetta to comment on that image. But in general I think 3 or 4 good ones would be better than a lot which are not very relevant Chidgk1 (talk) 09:50, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For comparison, I am putting here the only other image that is currently in the article:
Sentinel 5P helps detect methane leaks[1]
@Chidgk1 if you think it's better than the one that I am proposing, could you please make it clearer in the figure caption how this relates to carbon accounting? I don't find it clear. - And I agree that images that are not very relevant are not worth having. But I would have thought that collectively we should be able to find more than 3-4 images on the world wide web that are relevant to illustrate the concept of carbon accounting. EMsmile (talk) 09:58, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging Dtetta and User:Chidgk1 as I feel this discussion hasn't quite reached a conclusion yet? My proposal is to either replace the current image (Sentinel_5P_model) with the image "Bioenergy system boundaries.jpg", or to keep the current image but give it a clearer caption and then add the bioenergy image in addition. In addition to these 1-2 images, the search should continue for another 3-4 images (ideally). It would be nice if the article had at least say 4-5 images in total (I think now that my initial estimate of 8-10 images was overly ambitious and too time consuming to do). EMsmile (talk) 23:21, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would like the satellite pic to stay in but have no objection to you or anyone adding more or changing the caption Chidgk1 (talk) 11:51, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment the caption just says "Sentinel 5P helps detect methane leaks". Could you (or someone else) please add another sentence to explain (to the lay person) what this has to do with carbon accounting? I think the link could be made quite easily but it's probably clearer in your head than in mine. Thanks. EMsmile (talk) 13:59, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Expanded caption - if still unclear please let me know Chidgk1 (talk) 16:48, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK good. I have also added the bioenergy image now. Looking forward to seeing several more images being added as time goes on. EMsmile (talk) 10:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Magazine, Smithsonian; Morrison, Jim. "A New Generation of Satellites Is Helping Authorities Track Methane Emissions". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2023-01-28.

How to improve readability?[edit]

I read that when ChatGPT was asked to write a Wikipedia article half of it was untrue. Presumably it cannot do citations.

But if we already have an article which is well cited I wonder if there is an automated way to make it more readable? If not which tool do you recommend to measure readability? Chidgk1 (talk) 19:49, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've also experimented with Chapt GPT for this task (readability improvements) a little bit already. It's not there yet, but it will come! Maybe in a year or two we'll say to Chat GPT: "improve the readability of Text X" and it will do it for us. So far my experience is that is strayed too far from the original. Further conversations about Chat GPT for Wikipedia editing are here or in the Facebook group Wikipedia Weekly.
In the meantime, this is how I work on readability and the free online tools I use: I use Web-FX to tell me the Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease score. Then I try to make improvements. The free websites Quillbot and Hemmingway App are useful (links to those are in the link lust below). Then afterwards I recheck with Web-FX what the new Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease score is. I've written about it on the talk page of the project that a lot of my work falls under. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Meetup/SDGs/Communication_of_environment_SDGs#Working_on_readability_aspects .
I feel strongly about readability improvements being a necessity, and a welcome improvement, to many Wikipedia articles. The more of us keep this in mind at all times and help with that, the better. It's not easy to do for the more theoretical articles like this one or like sustainability (readability work in progress) or water security (I have that one on my to-do list as well). EMsmile (talk) 12:45, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Have spent probably 3 hours on so on readability improvements for the article so far, mainly for the lead. Plan to spend another 2-3 hours on the rest of the article. I most often use Readable, which I purchased a subscription to when I initiated this effort to improve readability for the lead section of the Climate change article back in September 2021. Hemmingway and Quilbot are also good tools. At this point all the tools, including ChatGPT, seem to still require a good bit of thought when using them. Which to me is a good thing!
I had recommended ChatGPT for the SDG13 project team back in early December, and used it to help construct the lead for this article. Asked it a few different questions to create different segments of text. IMO it was very helpful, although I did have to make some modifications to the text it created. And it does not yet provide citations:) I found I had to modify the text segments it created for readability, extraneous (not necessarily incorrect) information, and other changes to better connect the lead to the article content. But I did not find any of the text responses it gave me to be untrue. It’s a good tool, IMO, but just a tool. Dtetta (talk) 16:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

New image for the lead, question about scopes[edit]

The new image for the lead seems pretty good to me. I've just improved caption but not sure if I got it right, please check. The caption needs to be clear for lay persons. Note that the lead does not explain the Scope 1, 2, 3 but just says something about Scope 3. If the scopes are important, can they be explained better in the lead and introduced better in the main text? Since the lead image now includes mention of Scopes 1, 2, 3 I assume these are quite central for carbon accounting (?), or are they just one example of many? It would be good if this could come out clearly in the caption and in the lead. EMsmile (talk) 08:09, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

EMsmile -agree - the lead should describe scopes 1, 2 and 3 - thanks for pointing that out! Will also work on the scope description in the main text. I think you caption is also an improvement-made a couple of minor spelling edits to it. Dtetta (talk) 13:57, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions about the section "effectiveness and limitations"[edit]

Two suggestions:

I divided the Effectiveness and Limitations section in two per your suggestion. Your suggested title changes don't seem like an improvement to me, but I don't see any real problems with those choices, either. In terms of substructures for the limitations section, I would prefer to see your concern addressed by changes to the text, perhaps with transitional/introductory sentences to help make connections for the reader. It's not a long section as is, and I think sub headings would create an overwhelming hierarchical structure for this section. I can work on text changes to help make the sub concepts within limitations more clear. Dtetta (talk) 15:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing that splitting. I find "limitations" a bit of a euphemism for "problems"... But perhaps it's justified for carbon accounting but I see you've also proposed it for the carbon offset article where I think "limitations" might be too mild. But we can discuss that further there.
Regarding Level-2 sub-headings for the limitations section, I guess it all depends on whether the limitations can be grouped in a logical way and whether that section might still grow in future. For comparison purposes see here the section about Challenges in the SDG article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals#Challenges Even though each sub-section is quite small, it helps the reader to quickly orientate themselves as to which types of challenges there are. Perhaps this is not so relevant for the carbon accounting article (as there might not be so many different types of limitations) but for the carbon offset article it could be useful to provide such a grouping of the challenges/problem areas. EMsmile (talk) 21:40, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I can see a valid case for organizing it with subsections as you suggest. One concern is that the subsection titles can become somewhat cryptic. But I agree it’s worth considering when revising that section. There are clearly distinct concepts in it, and it’s not much different in length than the “Other applications” section, which does include subsections. Dtetta (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly enough, the manual of style seems to be largely silent on this issue. You might consider posting a comment there, and see if it gets any traction Dtetta (talk) 22:55, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for Remaining Tasks (as of March 2023)[edit]

At this point my future efforts will be mostly focused on responding to any comments that come up during the GA review. However, there are a few items that, IMO, could benefit from additional editing now:

Dtetta (talk) 19:11, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Carbon accounting/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 13:02, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:02, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

SkywalkerPL - We are currently using an image you uploaded as part of the Carbon accounting article. It’s unclear whether this is an image you created, or whether it’s cut out from another source and put on a white background. It looks like you released it with a CC 3.0 license. Can you help clafity this for us?
I have located the WRI image before, so will double check my notes and add the appropriate WRI URL to the image file. Dtetta (talk) 14:24, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done.Dtetta (talk) 15:22, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strange, thought I had corrected this - it’s now been edited to make the wording more specific. Dtetta (talk) 17:26, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for spotting that - that change has been made now. Dtetta (talk) 14:32, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense. Made some additional edits, including a citation for the second sentence, and a relocation of the Latham & Watkins citation to the end of the paragraph. Hope that addresses your comment. Dtetta (talk) 11:46, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's it for a first pass. I'll read through again and do spotchecks once these points are addressed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:09, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Mike Christie, thanks for doing this review, much appreciated! I am not planning to be involved in depth but just wanted to make a comment about your comment regarding having sources in the lead. I think it's better to have sources also in the lead nowadays because there is now the tool of excerpts which transcribes the lead to other articles. Therefore, it's very handy if the lead does have citations in it. See for example the lead of climate change which is transcribed to some other articles, see here. EMsmile (talk) 08:41, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Dtetta, are you planning to work on this? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:46, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mike Christie - thanks so much for that review! Apologies for not responding sooner - for some reason I don’t recall getting a notification for your review post, and was intending to give you a week for your review and then check back. I will look through these comment and provide a short response to each, and then work on incorporating them as edits where appropriate. Appreciate your time on this. Dtetta (talk) 16:19, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No hurry -- as long as I know you're planning to work on it that's fine. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:39, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Great comments Mike Christie:) Provided italicized responses to each of your bullet points. Addressed nearly all of them - either via edits, a response on the talk page, or both. The bullets that still need to be addressed are the Bioenergy and Sentinel 5P graphics, which I have asked EMsmile and Chidgk1 to help with a response on, and your last comment about Scope 3 emissions. Let me know if you think I have overlooked anything in this response. Dtetta (talk) 04:20, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strange, I didn't get the ping that you, Dtetta, added for me when you wrote "EMsmile - I believe you inserted this image - any thoughts on this particular issue? Might be best to just delete this graphic from the article.". Don't understand why not. I just saw this because I have this page on my watchlist. I will look into this image now. EMsmile (talk)

Dtetta, I'm going through your replies now and I noticed one grammatical point I want to highlight: you often use a colon to introduce a list where the words before the colon do not form a full sentence. See this page for a more detailed explanation. For example, you have "These are: use of electricity by the community; use of fuel ..."; this should be "These are use of electricity ...". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:24, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that writing tip and website (as well as the Earwig site, which I wasn’t aware of). Will look through the article and correct those instances where a colon is used inappropriately, and then post a brief notice in italics below this post when I believe I have completed that. Dtetta (talk) 13:45, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Corrected that instance - also did a page search for ":" and did not see any other instances where I wrote the text. The others all seemed to be in citations or in Main article/See also type listings. Dtetta (talk) 15:10, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed a few when I read through the article a week ago; I think you're right that they're all fixed now. Sorry, out of time for today; will return to this probably tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:22, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see that now - thanks for doing that:) Dtetta (talk) 12:34, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All points above are struck except one image question; I would suggest removing that image if you can't resolve the question there, and readding it when that's settled. I will do some spotchecks next, either later today or perhaps tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:37, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Mike Christie - really appreciate the time you took to provide such thoughtful and skilled copy editing to the article. It’s definitely more accurate and understandable as a result. Will look for a suitable replacement for the Sentinel 5P image. Dtetta (talk) 15:37, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks -- footnote numbers refer to this version.

Good point, done. Dtetta (talk) 13:32, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just the one dead link to address. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:16, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Corrected that dead link. Dtetta (talk) 02:28, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A tweak needed to the FN 50 citation. Other than that it's just the image, so if you remove the image for now I'll be able to promote this to GA, and you can re-add the image when you resolve the issue. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:29, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Added that “As of” qualifier to FN 50, and removed the Sentinel 5P image. If I don’t hear back from Chidgk1 or Skywalker PL, there are some generic images of satellites observing earth in the wikimedia catalogue, and will probably go with one of them to illustrate the text in that section. Thanks again for all your work on this! BTW, I will be having arthroscopic knee surgery tomorrow, so will probably be be out of communication on Tuesday and Wednesday. Dtetta (talk) 15:44, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hope the surgery goes well! I'm going to go ahead and pass this; congratulations. An interesting and important topic; it's nice to have this at GA level. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:04, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Mike Christie. Uploaded a replacement satellite image. And thanks to Chidgk1 for all his work in getting this article to the GA level, as well as to EMsmile for her contributions. Dtetta (talk) 11:24, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:06, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Improved to Good Article status by Dtetta (talk). Nominated by Onegreatjoke (talk) at 23:52, 4 June 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Carbon accounting; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems

Hook eligibility:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: I've struck some of the alts that are not supported by the article and rephrased ALT3 so that it seems to be supported. ALT0 and ALT1 check out, but I think we can do better. Can we modify ALT0 or ALT1 to draw a general reader in a bit more (maybe change "scope 3 emissions" to "certain greenhouse gas emissions" so that readers have enough context to want to know what the article says), or write a hook about the more specific challenges like double-counting or which industries have been found to under-report? This is an important topic that lots of readers might be curious about, and I think these hooks undersell it a little. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 21:25, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Mx. Granger: I have added ALT5 into the article in the hope you might find it amusing Chidgk1 (talk) 08:04, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but I think it is still too big of a stretch. But maybe we can come up with a different hook about soil depth causing difficulty for carbon accounting? That might be surprising enough to draw in readers. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:38, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Mx. Granger: Do I have to explain why this wording is better than ALT3? I remember America used to have lots of good comedy writers (for example on The West Wing) - what happened? Has our British humour diverged from yours or am I just out of date with my attempts? Chidgk1 (talk) 07:40, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I appreciate the effort to make the hooks fun, but we shouldn't make them inaccurate in the process. ALT6 still doesn't seem to be supported by the article, which doesn't say that everyone produces nitrous oxide emissions tracked by carbon accountants, only that nitrous oxide in general is tracked in carbon accounting. ALT7 is fine, I guess, but doesn't seem much hookier than the others to me. So ALT0, ALT1, ALT3, and ALT7 are approved, though I still think we can do better. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:34, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do like ALT7, so using that; many thanks to the writer, the comedian, and the auditor. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:40, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing that Onegreatjoke! Dtetta (talk) 00:44, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting Edit Deletion of Paragraph on voluntary-regulatory program convergence[edit]

JzG - I reverted your deletion of the paragraph on voluntary and regulatory program convergence. The reason for this as for a reversion of a similar deletion edit you made to the Carbon offsets and credit article. See this talk page discussion. Like with that situation, the statements in this paragraph are from a reliable source and are consistent with WP:RS policy. These are not statements that represent scientific assessments, but merely describe programs. So I do not believe the peer review standard is relevant in this situation Dtetta (talk) 21:44, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Except that EWG are not a reliable source. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:00, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You mean EDF, correct? That is the source that is cited for that paragraph. Dtetta (talk) 17:06, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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