Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Climate Audit (2nd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Further discussion over whether to redirect or keep as an article may be continued on the article's talk page. Regards, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 00:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Climate Audit[edit]

AfDs for this article:
Climate Audit (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

We need to take this through an afd, since some people insist the content should be deleted. I don't see any agreement on that. Nsaa (talk) 19:38, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NB: After the AFD-request the page has been altered again. The AFD is about this version, not the current one as of 2010-04-10T22:30. Nsaa (talk) 22:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
NB: Well, the above is a trifle disingenuous. In fact the article was restored to the version that has been stable for a year now William M. Connolley (talk) 23:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are disruptive with your removal of the content over and over again. Are you afraid that people may find more and better sources for the article? It's bad [1] and again [2]. (hint you see the small print above: Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL?) Nsaa (talk) 22:03, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Inconveniently for the experts, global warming IS a con The Sun "In order to keep the reality hidden from sceptics, especially Climate Audit, he allegedly asked for emails to be deleted, data altered and on one occasion convinced the university not to release information to Climate Audit because of "the types of people" they were."
  • Professor Phil Jones’s leaked e-mails reveal climate of secrecy and distrust The Times "Many requests for data came from climate sceptics connected with the Climate Audit (CA) blog, which questions the IPCC’s conclusions. Climate Audit is edited by Steve McIntyre, a former mineral industry executive. In one e-mail sent in 2008, Professor Jones tells a colleague how he managed to persuade the university to refuse information requests from Climate Audit. “When the FoI requests began here, the FoI person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half-hour sessions — one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school — the head of school and a few others) became very supportive.” In possibly the most damning e-mail, Professor Jones asks a colleague at another university to delete e-mails discussing contributions to the IPCC’s fourth Assessment Report. “Mike, Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4?” "

Just checking the two first sources given by the search (ok, The Sun is a tabloid, but people read it, and they need more info about the Climate Audit blog like presented in the next article from the highly regarded The Times. Nsaa (talk) 22:18, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep no deletion, no redirect. Both are notable enough for their own articles mark nutley (talk) 19:45, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • redirect as is now William M. Connolley (talk) 20:10, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • redirect, weakly favor: I generally prefer to lump rather than split. Pete Tillman (talk) 21:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • redirect as before. Climate Audit gains its notability because Stephen McIntyre writes it, and McI is notable because of his involvement in the Hockey stick controversy... it has no notability by itself. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:17, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Article's "full state" that is being deliberated can be found here, as opposed to the current redirect. --Darkwind (talk) 21:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. -- --Darkwind (talk) 21:26, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect. It seems apparent that Climate Audit has no notability independent of its sole proprietor. It might be different if it was a group blog, but it's not. Compare the much more widely read The Daily Dish, which redirects to its author, Andrew Sullivan. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - since the article was merged into Stephen McIntyre a year ago, we can't delete this article alone without deleting both articles. So either the parent article needs to be added here, or this needs to be closed on procedural grounds. This appears to be a "Request for de-merging" (see here) and not a real deletion nom, and is, IMO, outside the scope of AFD. Guettarda (talk) 23:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you have a point. I thought there was something not quite right about this AfD - I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was considering suggesting that it should go to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion instead. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as redirect and slap nominator with a trout. Hipocrite (talk) 01:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as redirect. Climate Audit is an extremely WikiNotable blog and Wikipedia definitely should cover it. But the best place to cover it is in our Stephen McIntyre article, IMO: it is better, both for our readers and for editors, to have one not-particularly-long article than two shortish articles. CWC 03:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The topic is notable, being covered in detail by good sources such as Assessing climate change. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:29, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't give a flying fuck The article wasn't "deleted by redirect" as Nsaa claims on the CA talk page, it was merged. The redirect cannot be simply deleted since content was actually merged from the Climate Audit article to the Stephen McIntyre article and it wasn't simply redirected. To delete the redirect, the McIntrye article would also have to be deleted. This AfD is Nsaa disrupting Wikipedia by proving a point, and this nomination should be speedy closed. Also, many thanks to the nominator who clearly doesn't understand why AfD is for, and for wasting everyone's time with pointless bureaucracy. You should also brush up on your English and learn the difference between a redirect and a merge. -Atmoz (talk) 17:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Nice one. Going after the person when you are short of arguments ("You should also brush up on your English and learn the difference between a redirect and a merge"). For the first. You may be aware that I nominated the article for deletion (and it's disputed content), not the prior redirect. It was no merge discussion at the talk page, It was just done without any discussion (this is the only mentioning of it after it happend Talk:Climate_Audit#Redirecting). I didn't in fact see it before now (yes I have not followed every article in this area, and I think that's the case for most people with day work, contributing here. Nsaa (talk) 21:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The fact that your English sucks and you think you can contribute to the English Wikipedia is your problem, not mine. You don't see me trying to contribute to the Greek Wikipedia. As mentioned on the talk page, there is no requirement needed before a merge takes place. If you don't understand that, please read up on the English Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. As I mentioned, the article cannot be deleted unless the Stephen McIntyre article is also deleted. The content was NOT DELETED. It was simply moved to a different article. IT WAS NOT DELETED. This AfD serves no purpose, because the article cannot be deleted. Also, your edit summary of "AGF" is pointless. I'm not assuming anything. Simply mentioning that your English needs work. Also, if you actually read my comment you'd notice that my comment was not Ad hom. It is that the nominator doesn't understand the English Wikipedia's policy on deletion and how that differs from merging. An Ad hom would be, "Nsaa is stupid, therefore delete." My argument is, "Nsaa doesn't understand the difference between merging and deleting, therefore this AfD should be closed." If you want to de-merge it, use the talk page. -Atmoz (talk) 22:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, then. Iff you find bad and not proper English from my contributions here you are welcome to point it out (in a friendly tone so I can learn from it). Again this is an attack on my ability to read, understand and write English. Yes it's not native, but I've never run into trouble before because of this. Just done some 25.000 edits to en-wp in my five years here. Yes, and I do understand the difference between a merge and a deletion. As far as I see most of the content is removed (deleted), with some of it merged into the bio. Nsaa (talk) 22:27, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    What information in the Climate Audit page (diff provided above) was not added to the McIntyre page (diff provided above)? If you can't tell that the entire page was merged, then your English isn't good enough. -Atmoz (talk) 00:07, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as article. I was planing on creating this article sooner or later. I found enough information in Infotrac and in a couple of books I have that definitely confirm it's notability. This blog is currently used as a reference in at least one article. Above, KimDabelsteinPetersen recommends a redirect or deletion for this article. I find this odd since the same editor advocates using it as a source. Cla68 (talk) 22:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What's that straw man good for? We don't need articles on any source - there is none on Journal of Automated Reasoning, for example. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:16, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There should be. By the way, Climate Audit's Alexa ranking (54,309) is much higher than RealClimate's (73,509) and DeSmogBlog (75,807), both of which have their own articles. I started the DeSmogBlog article, in fact. Cla68 (talk) 23:25, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes? Is that an argument to AfD or merge RC or DeSmogBlog? Btw. as you well know Alexa (by Alexa's own recogning) is not reliable for information when the sites have this ranking - so why are you presenting it here? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:36, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Remember, Alexa rankings become more accurate the higher the traffic is for a site. So the traffic gap between RealClimate and Climate Audit may be even greater than the rankings indicate. Anyway, Climate Audit is a notable player in the AGW debate, along with RealClimate, Watts Up With That (15,539 Alexa rank), and DeSmogBlog, and merits its own article. Cla68 (talk) 00:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, the uncertainty becomes lower the higher the traffic. If uncertainty is higher than the delta between the sites, then it shows nothing - and Alexa is saying that the uncertainty at that level makes the figures unreliable. Unreliable == unreliable .... Not: 2Ah but the rankings are still good.". --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Alexa's self-declared caveats inre the relative reliability of "rankings" (emphasis mine)...
Generally, traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should be regarded as not reliable.[3]
...and...
Sites with relatively low measured traffic will not be accurately ranked by Alexa. Our data comes from many various sources, including our Alexa users; however, we do not receive enough data from these sources to make rankings beyond 100,000 statistically meaningful.[4]
Web traffic reported by Alexa from all of the above mentioned sources fall well within Alexa's parameters for "statistically meaningful rankings". According to Alexa, while the "reliability" of relative rankings improve proportionally with increased traffic, websites with reported traffic placing them within the 50,000 to 100,000 range can be legitimately characterized as "somewhat reliable" or "somewhat unreliable", not "unreliable". JakeInJoisey (talk) 12:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please link to articles in Infotrac. I have access and can't find any. -Atmoz (talk) 00:21, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Really? Which Infotrac database do you have access to? I just checked Academic OneFile and found this: THE GREAT CLIMATE SCIENCE SCANDAL; Leaked emails have revealed the unwillingness of climate change scientists to engage in a proper debate with the sceptics who doubt global warming, writes Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor." Sunday Times [London, England] 29 Nov. 2009: 16. I haven't checked General OneFile yet. Which of the two do you have access to? Cla68 (talk) 00:31, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I also found what looks like nine references to Climate Audit in ProQuest NewsStand. Actually 17 hits came up, but some of them are duplicates and a few appear to be letters to the editor. Do you want me to list them so that you can add them to the article? Cla68 (talk) 00:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which part of The great climate change science scandal exactly would you add to the Climate Audit page? Talking about hits is all well and good, but if the hits produce crappy results they don't add anything. -Atmoz (talk) 01:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That article confirms who the founder of the blog was, at a minimum. You didn't answer my question, which of the two main Infotrac databases do you have access to and why didn't you find the Times article when I was able to? Also, are you interested in using the NewsStand articles to expand and source the Climate Audit article? Cla68 (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my god! It confirms who the author of the blog is! I change my vote to KEEP! Was anyone disputing that? Is that the best source you could find? List the other sources here and I'll evaluate whether they deserve to be mentioned in the article. -Atmoz (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't answered my second question. Actually, you didn't answer my first question either. Cla68 (talk) 01:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Re infotrac: appears I only get access to "Health Reference Center Academic" (whatever the heck that is) and some other minor things. I previously had access to the one you mentioned, but I haven't used it in a while. Perhaps it twas the other library that had the good stuff. But, if you provide me with sources, I'll evaluate whether they should be used in an encyclopedia article about Climate Audit. I can't guarantee that I'll use them because if they're anything like the "source" you provided above they shouldn't be used as sources. Were there any other questions? If not, would you please answer mine? Is that the best source for an article on Climate Audit that you can find? And if not, please provide better ones. -Atmoz (talk) 02:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I can do that. It really doesn't matter anyway. Even if the article gets changed back to redirect now I'll expand it later in my userspace then repost it. As DeSmogBlog shows, it is possible to take bits and pieces from different newspaper articles, including opinion columns, and fashion a complete article on a topic. Cla68 (talk) 02:10, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here is a list of Newspaper articles from NewsStand that discuss Climate Audit. I concealed the article texts in footnotes to protect the copyrights:
You have got to be kidding? None of these articles are about Climate Audit, and only one of these mention it in more than 1 paragraph, 5 of the references mention it in a brief one sentence:Here are the links to the actual articles/Op-Ed's - and i've written how much CA is mentioned - as well as put a paranthesis around what focus it has (Climate Audit or McIntyre).
  1. One sentence mention. (McIntyre)
  2. One paragraph mention (McIntyre)
  3. One paragraph mention (Climate Audit)
  4. Two paragraph mention (Climate Audit)
  5. One sentence mention (McIntyre)
  6. One sentence mention (McIntyre)
  7. One sentence mention (McIntyre)
  8. One sentence mention (Climate Audit)
--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for finding the links. These mentions establish notability. Also, as I pointed out earlier, I will be expanding this article later using these and other references. As DeSmogBlog shows, it's not that hard to put together a fairly complete article using bits and pieces from various sources. Cla68 (talk) 22:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry - but this is abysmally bad sourcing. Most of these are mentions in passing of CA on par with "Steven McIntyre who writes the blog Climate Audit...". If you create articles based on material such as this - then there is something wrong with the articles. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:18, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I guess we'll have to disagree. DeSmogBlog contains a lot of references like this, and it passed GA review. Cla68 (talk) 06:19, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That says alot more about the GA review, and the article on DeSmogBlog, than it does about whether there is appropriate sourcing. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:29, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I also think it goes to notability. If newspaper reporters and columnists are starting to mention the blog in their articles/editorials, then it's starting to get noticed in the media. I understand if you don't agree that it rises to sufficient notability for Wikipedia. Cla68 (talk) 06:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as article - per Cla68. ATren (talk) 02:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a full article. From the Guardian "McConchie Law Corporation, acting for Weaver, said that the National Post articles had "gone viral on the internet" and were reproduced on dozens of other websites, including prominent climate-sceptic sites Climate Audit and Watts Up With That.". Obviously notable as it gets noted. Weakopedia (talk) 05:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep merged/redirected and speedy close. This is the wrong forum and a WP:POINTy nomination. And deleting would violate GDFL. The article was merged by consensus like a year ago, so the proper path splitting it back out would be to initiate a discussion at Talk:Stephen McIntyre. It doesn't appear this basic first step has been taken yet. Yilloslime TC 21:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article was merged by consensus like a year ago Really? Have you got a diff to that then? Cos i have asked the others for a diff to this consensus but it does not seem to ever appear mark nutley (talk) 22:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, as i thought there was no consensus to do the merge, nor one to have it kept merged mark nutley (talk) 15:54, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as redirect The links given by Atmoz above show a complete merge except a little of the introductory paragraph (the McIntyre article had material serving a similar function at that time). Much of the material is still there, over a year later. If the articles are unmerged, the Hockey stick controversy material will need to be rectified to be attributed to the man or the blog; or, better yet, leave them merged and present the story as a unified whole. Thepisky (talk) 02:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as article. Atmoz's claim simply to have simply merged the articles would be more credible if there had not been subsequent efforts to reduce the mentions of Climate Audit in the Stephen McIntyre article, such as [5][6] NPOV requires rather more on Climate Audit than the couple of lines currently in the biography.--Rumping (talk) 00:16, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as Article - On traffic stats alone, it surpasses those of other, comparable stand-alone articles. JakeInJoisey (talk) 00:50, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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