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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 speedy keep. AFD isn't really the right place for a merger discussion, take it to Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion Secret account 12:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tropical Storm Erick (2007)

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Tropical Storm Erick (2007) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

I am nominating this for deletion because I don't think the article passes WP:N. There is an FAR going on right now, which might help provide some context, as yes, it is a featured article. However, in short, WP:N says that an article must have significant, reliable, independent sources, and I don't believe the article accomplishes that. It lasted for 30 hours in the middle ocean without ever affecting land, and as such, all of the content stems directly from the same source, which is the National Hurricane Center. A professional meteorologist, David M. Roth (User:thegreatdr) agrees with this position, saying
It does seem false to declare an AP story concerning a tropical cyclone as a separate independent source, unless it contains additional quotes by people at the National Hurricane Center which are not contained within a tropical cyclone discussion.

I checked, and there is only one piece of info from one of the news articles that might've been a quote from outside an advisory, which is a very obvious statement that the storm was very far away from land. As there are no sources of information independent of the organization that briefly classified it, the article fails to establish notability. BTW, the tropical cyclone Wikiproject is holding a strawpoll whether all named tropical storms are inherently notable, and the results so far indicate that not all named storms are inherently notable (although it is split with storms 2000-present). So, this will hopefully reach some conclusion that a lot of drama concerning the least important and least viewed tropical storm articles on Wikipedia. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:50, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, for those of you who think it's notable, what about the storm makes it notable, and does the article emphasize that? ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:36, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I also wish to point out WP:NOTINHERITED. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge There is not anything in the article that couldnt be merged into the seasonal article or gotten rid of completley. Jason Rees (talk) 20:05, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. -- I'mperator 20:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - If there were any major issues with notability I am sure those would have prevented editors from passing this as an FA. -Marcusmax(speak) 20:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep- Between the references in the article, and the ones in the FAR, the hurdle of notability has been easily cleared. Umbralcorax (talk) 20:59, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The sources in the article and in the FAR are enough to meet our general notability guideline. --J.Mundo (talk) 21:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Sources at FAR, especially those brought up by Ottava Rima, are multiple analyses of the storm by a variety of writers from various reputable sources, including an AP story from MSNBC and a official USA Today blog. That is certainly enough for notability in my view. NuclearWarfare (Talk) 21:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "no effects, property damage or fatalities were reported; no ships were affected, and no tropical cyclone warnings and watches were issued"... what is the point of an article then? All the news stories just quote the original source. It's not like they're getting their information from that source and adding analysis... they're just quoting it and ending the article. I don't really think that's non-trivial coverage. But back to my initial point, this is a storm that had no effect whatsoever. It does not seem to meet the dictionary definition of "notable"... and it's very debatable whether it meets the Wikipedia definition. But even if it did... it's a storm of no importance at all... doesn't common sense kick in at some point? Countless news outlets covered the 2009 White House Easter Egg Roll... but if it had no impact whatsoever on anything... would we still be compelled to include an article on it? (actually, the 2009 egg roll probably had more of an impact than this storm, as did numerous regular season sporting events, another widely-covered type of event we almost never include WP articles on). --Chiliad22 (talk) 23:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • This storm was recognized as an official entity by the United States Government; that seems more than notable enough to me. (Disclaimer: I'm the author/FAC nominator). –Juliancolton | Talk 23:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • So what the US Government recognises Erick as an official entity - I bet that the US Government recognises everyone in the world as an official entity but that doesn’t make everyone notable. So why should Cyclones be the same?Jason Rees (talk) 23:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • The difference goes to the core of Wikipedia:Notability. Whilst you or I may be recognized by governments — as is indeed the long-suffering example of the plot of grassland next to my house — as much as tropical storms are, people don't publish works about you or me, or about the plot of grassland. Notability is not fame, importance, or significance. It's not Google hit counts. And it's not size nor uniqueness. It's being noted, in depth, in multiple published works by people independent of the subject who have good reputations for fact checking and accuracy. Part of that formula is the "published works". Make the "How is the subject different from me?" argument when you have some works published about you. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 00:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • (EC) So technically, Erick is one of 841 similar official entities recognized by the US gov't, since that's how many storms are recognized by the government in the best track. Hm, 1 out of 841... doesn't sound that notable. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:50, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, I'm sure that as a government-funded event the 2009 Easter Egg role was recognized as well, probably by more gov. agencies than this storm. And as someone else has pointed out, the government recognizes hundreds of millions of people as taxpayers, census responders, etc. I don't buy that "government recognition" alone is important - so what else is important about this storm? As for the claim about 1,000 reliable sources on this storm (which I doubt), there are "at least 1,000" reliable sources on last night's Reds-Brewers game, and I can guarantee you we'd never retain an article on it. --Chiliad22 (talk) 00:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm simply following WP:N, which states that in general, a subject is notable if it has received "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject". –Juliancolton | Talk 00:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • And I don't believe it passes that, as all of the newspaper reports are regurgitating material from the NHC, which qualifies them. If anything, they're tertiary sources. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • How so? Thegreatdr said "It does seem false to declare an AP story concerning a tropical cyclone as a separate independent source, unless it contains additional quotes by people at the National Hurricane Center which are not contained within a tropical cyclone discussion", and there are several sources in the article that meet that requirement. –Juliancolton | Talk 00:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • (replying to Julian's latest reply to me directly, edit conflicted) It's a very flawed concept then. I'm rather sure if I created an article on that baseball game I mentioned, it would be deleted, regardless of what a guideline says, even if I cited 30 sources. I could do that, but I won't... it'd be a waste of everyone's time. I understand you have the letter of policy on your side if we assume these are distinct sources with non-trivial coverage, but I mean... the letter of policy leads to a rather bizarre outcome here, and one that would be applied to Tropical Storm articles, but not to baseball game articles, for entirely subjective reasons. I'm asking for a logical explanation of why this storm is important, and I don't mean this as an insult to you or anyone, but all I'm getting in response is "it's allowed for by a literal reading of this guideline", which doesn't answer my question. --Chiliad22 (talk) 00:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Alright, that's a valid argument. I feel that all named tropical cyclones are notable for several reasons. First of all, as I mentioned, most recent storms meet WP:N. Second, tropical cyclones are relatively rare, as I mentioned above, since only about 10–20 of them occur every year in a given ocean basin. Additionally, tropical cyclones are some of the most well-documented weather phenomena, thus demonstrating their collective, and individual, notability. I could be wrong, however. –Juliancolton | Talk 00:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So your argument is that, if you could take the average tropical cyclone, it has more of a measurable impact, both in real terms and within its own field of observers, than the average baseball game? I'd agree with that. That's basically the kind of argument I was asking for, and it's not easy to refute off the top of my head. I'll think about it and comment later, quite possibly. --Chiliad22 (talk) 00:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely. –Juliancolton | Talk 00:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I personally disagree with that. A baseball game is a part of a series, and each game affects the next, building a set of stats for each player and the team over the course of a season. If something happened during one game, it could affect a game two weeks later. Tropical cyclones are usually isolated. There are about 100 each year, and most do not have much of an affect on the next. Storms like Erick, which didn't affect anyone, is in a completely different ballfield (pun intended) than a landfalling hurricane. The only reason the average tropical cyclone has more of an impact than baseball games is due to the more impacting ones. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:18, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And how does that affect the notability of this particular storm? –Juliancolton | Talk 01:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying that this storm is one 100 each year worldwide and one of at least 841 in the basin, meaning that tropical cyclones aren't that rare, and the fact that tropical cyclones being notable as a whole does not mean that each individual storm is notable. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're missing the point. There were 15 storms in the Eastern Pacific basin during the period of an entire year. Therefore, tropical cyclones are notable, and therefore, Tropical Storm Erick is notable. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, because Erick is one of 15 storms in the season, that only means it should be in the season article. I don't see the logic in your argument that Erick should get an article, just because it was part of the season. Several other storms during the season don't have articles. I'll ask again, what makes Erick notability on its own? ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's notable because it passes WP:N. There's nothing else to it. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And that's what I disagree with. There's nothing else to it. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:03, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that, on its own, this storm actually was less important than the average baseball game (sorry if this line of analogy is getting obnoxious by now), as indeed, this storm had no apparent effect on anything. It's claim to fame is thus limited to being part of a group of things that are, in general, quite important. But the question is whether we include it because of that association, because I think it's clear that the sourcing available for the average baseball game is actually stronger than the sourcing for this storm. --Chiliad22 (talk) 01:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That may indeed be true, but I still feel the sourcing for this storm is strong enough to establish notability. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:50, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, but hopefully by the baseball game analogy, you can see that sourcing alone doesn't guarantee an article, as the baseball game article would be laughed out of Wikipedia, even with many sources cited. Thus, the defense for this article is that isn't that sources exist, because sources don't always mean inclusion, but the defense is that the storm is a part a small group of generally very notable things. I am not sure I buy that association as justification for inclusion, but I can't argue against it either at this point. --Chiliad22 (talk) 01:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The storm has had the attention of multiple US government institutions, along with world groups and the rest. The storm has provided valuable data in regards to Global Warming and has been discussed in various news media. The size of the page being over 10k is just further verification of this. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:45, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Data for Global Warming? That's not what it says in the article, unless you mean that every storm in the past few years is data, in which case the storm isn't notable since it's not special. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 05:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Whether the entry needs to be kept or merged is something that can be discussed at WP:MRFD. Since this article has been featured in the past, full deletion would be a bad idea. Featured article criteria weren't any different in 2007 then they are now. If the topic was not notable enough to be included, it would've shown through a lack of sources that would've stopped it from being promoted in the first place. - Mgm|(talk) 09:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (and Speedy Close please from anybody who knows the current ins and outs of AFD closure) I don't believe this article meets the FA criteria and opposed its promotion, but this is "Articles for Deletion". Nobody is suggesting that it be deleted, not even the nominator. The suggestion from Titoxd and YellowMonkey on the FAR that this discussion should be brought here was wrong. Yomanganitalk 10:01, 15 April 2009 (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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