Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/December 2014 West Coast storm

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 no consensus. While on the surface this would appear to qualify for a keep result, several of the keep !voters have not provided guideline- or policy-based rationales for the article's retention, stating sentiments such as "keep for now" and "wait and see", among others. Due to AfD discussion closures being based upon the merits of arguments relative to policies and guidelines, closing as no consensus. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:53, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

December 2014 West Coast storm[edit]

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The only sources I can find about this are WP:ROUTINE. This storm may turn out to be something major, worth including, but for now it's a case of WP:TOOSOON. Tchaliburton (talk) 03:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. reddogsix (talk) 04:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @Reddogsix: the storm has now happened. Care to review your comment? ansh666 03:51, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As AfD debates last for a week, it will be clear by then whether or not this particular storm is notable or routine. It would have been best, in my opinion, to have waited a few days to create this article. But now we have the article, and opinions about its notability will be much more relevant in two to three days than they are now. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with User:Cullen, somebody should slap a current event tag on this thing, and in the next few days we may know a lot more about whether this is truly an encyclopedic topic. Placing this AfD and article on my watchlist... Roberticus talk 11:37, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep ~~for now~~ By the time this AfD closes we will know for sure if the storm is notable or not. Seeing how powerful the storm is and that schools have been closed in a major city before it even hits in my opinion is a bit notable. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed my opinion to keep, over the course of time the storm has gained notability through in depth coverage and it's effects one of them being some (but still not enough) relief of the drought. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Get rid of this pointless article. Why does this warrant its own page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.58.204.13 (talk) 16:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I'd say it's notable and encyclopedic. T3h 1337 b0y 19:29, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah but we also have to keep in mind WP:NOTNEWS, how is this storm going to differ from a run of the mill storm that happens everyday on earth someplace where people live? - Knowledgekid87 (talk)

Keep This may be a bit off-topic from the reason for deletion you guys are discussing, but frankly there's no harm in having an article on wikipedia, as long as it's well-phrased and encyclopedic. I'd say any storm that has schools closed should be included on wikipedia, especially in California, where currently storms of this degree are fairly rare. Plus, some day people are going to be going through wikipedia, and find this page in the future. A typical problem with historical documents is that people ignore things that don't seem important at the time, and leave them out, and years later somebody wants to know about it but the object lacks information, because nobody bothered recording it. This is the exact reason Wikipedia is here, so we will have a gigantic archive of information for whatever one's mind can take in. Of course, if one were to take this to extremes, for instance making an article about a blade of grass growing in a crack in Central Park, New York, then we would suffer a sort of information overload. However I believe a storm of such a degree is of course useful in Wikipedia, and I vote to keep it. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 21:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"A typical problem with historical documents is that people ignore things that don't seem important at the time, and leave them out, and years later somebody wants to know about it but the object lacks information, because nobody bothered recording it. This is the exact reason Wikipedia is here, so we will have a gigantic archive of information for whatever one's mind can take in." That's actually precisely what Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia documents things that are notable. If there are sources that show this storm is notable per WP:GNG then it should stay. Otherwise, it has no place in an encyclopedia. Tchaliburton (talk) 22:34, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

" I'd say any storm that has schools closed should be included on wikipedia" Schools in most snowy climates close up to once per week during the winter. Lousy argument. 24.185.200.55 (talk) 02:46, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have renamed the article to 2014 West Coast storm. Concise or unclear, there is no other notable storm of the same year in the West Coast. --George Ho (talk) 23:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, West Coast is not clear. There are tons of West Coat's throughout the world. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 01:58, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOTNEWS. No reports of notability. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for now, and wait and see what it does. So far, I'm impressed with the storm, but too soon IMO to make a final say. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 01:58, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wait and see - It's been moved again, to December 2014 North American winter storm, which is just as ambiguous. Can someone who's in a more appropriate time zone check for any more double redirects? The wind and rain smashing against the window mere inches from my head kinda woke me up... In any case, I don't think there's been enough widespread coverage to date, but by the time this AfD is supposed to end (or be relisted) it should be slightly more clear. One aspect to consider in the coming days is the social media stuff ([1], for example, though that's not near a WP:RS), but I don't think that it meets WP:NEVENT right now. ansh666 11:43, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm going to change my !vote to keep for now. ansh666 03:51, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong Keep - This is a relatively new article; give it some time. There's a lot of information out there, and we just need some more editors and time. If we kept deleting every article that looked too disorganized or "un-notable", we would never get anywhere with the article writing. By the way, I'm sick of how people kept nominating article (and templates) after article for deletion this year? Why don't we just take a break, and actually give these articles enough time to be fully developed before spouting off some more deletion nonsense? LightandDark2000 (talk) 13:16, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This article is not on a currently notable subject. This is certainly not "deletion nonsense". I dislike those non-content creators who make it their primary goal to promote deletionism, but a longer amount of time should have been waited before trying to create this article in my honest opinion. I will not say a permanent "keep" !vote, as there is no way of certifying that the storm will eventually become notable, but I would not greatly disagree with a "keep for a few more days" to see how significant the storm ends up actually being. More consideration is necessary. Dustin (talk) 21:15, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which leads me to another thing: Define "notable". Is this an average storm? No. Is this historic? There's a chance it becomes somewhat historic (in the sense that it becomes one of more eventful storms in the W US in late 8-10 years), but IMO it's not at that level yet. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 22:36, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep It ended up making a tornado. The storm as a whole saw a ton of coverage.--Jasper Deng (talk) 18:46, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Note First, I think there was a tornado in Oklahoma at one point and a Tornado Warning in Kansas which may or may not have been related, and in any case, a few EF0 tornadoes do not necessarily establish notability. Dustin (talk) 12:34, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep notable per WP:GNG. --DarTar (talk) 07:52, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Further comment - I would like to remind everyone that simply having a lot of coverage does not necessarily confer notability, it needs to be shown that it's not simply routine coverage. It goes without saying that a major storm in a drought-afflicted area will garner significant coverage (in the general sense, not WP:SIGCOV), but it may still not meet our standards. Of course, this was bigger than your typical major California storm, but simply assuming because of all of these reasons that it is or is not notable (and/or simply stating that it is or is not notable, as with any AfD) isn't enough. ansh666 08:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think the coverage out there is marginal or merely routine. Documentation of a tornado is rather unusual in California. Also, it's a bad thing to apply to weather events. Tropical cyclones often get articles, sometimes even without affecting land, due to the same kind of coverage as with this storm. Certainly some of the impacts weren't anticipated; the debris flow and tornado generated articles that wouldn't have otherwise existed. Plus, that section mainly pertains to insignificant coverage that is not much more than passing mention or an aggregation of other insignificant coverage.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:45, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - And earlier this year, there were like five in a week. California tornadoes, while uncommon, are not nearly as unusual as you seem to think. Dustin (talk) 12:34, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - Well, tornadoes in Cali's coastal cities are quite rare, and this one was right smack in the middle of South LA. For all the years I've lived in the state (>20), I can't remember a single other one. ansh666 18:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - Agreed. California tornadoes (especially those occurring in metropolitan areas) are extremely rare, especially when compared to the average occurrence of tornadoes in the rest of the US. There was one EF-0 tornado in San Diego County in late January 2010, and I had never heard of anything like it before. Sure, California may get an average of 5 tornadoes each year (as stated by a meteorologist), but that doesn't mean that such events are common. LightandDark2000 (talk) 03:14, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for now This is a very recent event, and it may or may not have lasting impact. If it does end up having lasting impact and we delete it, then we'll have to do a bunch of pointless work to recreate what we already have. I say leave it up for a bit and then renominate it in the future. It's decently written and informative, so leaving it up until its lasting impact is more apparent will not do Wikipedia any harm. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 06:50, 18 December 2014 (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.