Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Global warming controversy

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 is the the place for deciding on merges. Awyong J. M. Salleh 08:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Global warming controversy

Global warming controversy (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

In the heated climate of global warming, rational editing is impossible. The article is untidy, occupied by highly partisan groups on both sides, impossible to edit sensibly and is bad for the reputation of Wikipedia and so unfortunately should be deleted. I can see why it is separate from global warming but it really belongs with thart article and should be merged but in the present climate that would be impossible. Mike 09:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Merge to Global Warming. POV fork. Kyaa the Catlord 09:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep. The other article is already far too long. I also don't really recognise the comment about "heated debate", Global Warming is way calmer than the hot spots in WP. Also I don't particularly recognise "two sides" in respect of the article. There are a few frustrated editors, that much is true. --BozMo talk 09:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

One side is clearly the group of editors that revert or remove text they simply disagree with. It is a pattern for nearly 2 years and it destroys the credibility of Wikipedia in the meantime. In fact, one of them has had an arbitration ruling against them for that very abuse. 4 of the 'speedy keep' votes are of members of the one side abusing the system to protect their POV. -- Tony of Race to the Right 14:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Info For an example of the problems of editing seeHockey stick controversy continued as Hockey stick controversy II if one sentence takes this time - what will an article take - I can't afford to waste it on such a trivial matter! Mike 09:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • So your argument is "it's to hard for me, so let's give it up"?--Stephan Schulz
  • Comment Your efforts in this area are appreciated. Don't give up, no one said consensus would be easy to achieve. Mishlai

• Speedy keep under WP:SNOW. The article could be better, of course, but most articles could. The topic is notable. Global warming is overly long anyways (and a featured article). Moving this into global warming would violate WP:SUMMARY and decrease the quality of both articles. --Stephan Schulz 09:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• SK too - this is an abuse of process - Mike seems to have got frustrated with the article, but thats no excuse for trying to remove it, the arguments will remain. If Mike has no time for this, let him go elsewhere William M. Connolley 10:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy keep There is no way this should be deleted - is this a bad faith nomination? -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 10:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete I think the reputation of Wikipedia is more important than the existence of any page. There has been an ongoing dispute and all I can see is people at each other's throats. I have tried to help out as a neutral person on the Global warming controversy page, but it is beyond me. I have suggested a different split in the articles in a hopefully win-win scenario which would allow both sides to have their say with less conflict an ill fealing: Time to accept change this has gone off topic. There is clearly bullying going on: Fight this insidious Censorship. I can't think of any other way to cool the climate by a few degrees! Mike 10:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy keep -- I agree with Mike the article is currently of poor quality, and editing is as frustrating for the rest of us as it is for him. I suspect deleting or merging will likely just move those problems elsewhere. Moreover, the article does discuss an unavoidable and notable issue. I think the article needs some organized, focused housecleaning instead of deletion. --Nethgirb 10:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I care about process. The nomination is an abuse of the AfD process, IMO. DavidCBryant 11:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy keep per all of the above. Vsmith 11:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy keep editors working on the article are conscious of the risk of a POV fork and striving to avoid that. Agree with above. Mishlai 13:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. Controversy is not a valid reason for deletion; deleting this article - even as bad as it is now - or any other controversial article would lessen Wikipedia's value as an information resource. Krimpet 14:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The page is a constant edit war and it chases people away. The version that the administrators 'overseeing' the article continuously revert and delete for implies there is actually very little controversy. Read the talk page and you will see that there is clearly little "weight" due to one side of the controversy relegating the entire article to an encyclopedic equivalent of Flat-Earth Controversy. Much of the content is duplicating other articles. The function for the entire article is singulary: perpetuate edit wars for admins to exercise the influence. -- Tony of Race to the Right 14:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Info Beginning of evidence collection of these abuses on the article can be found here. The way the article is being used (by 5 of the people voting on this page) clearly makes the case that the article was created as a POV fork. Reading the history of the page also shows that the admins will agree to a consensus and then revert the edits weeks later. Wikipedia's process may seem to be disrespected with the RfD, but Wikipedia's credibility is diminishing the longer the article exists. -- Tony of Race to the Right 14:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Delete If Wikipedia had any value as an information resource, this article would not be aloud to get as bad as it is, but the majority of people don't want Controversy to be listed in the page about Global Warming Controversy. Much of the information in this article is listed with "yea but's" and even the opening paragraph has been constantly changed back to a version that states how little "controversy" there is. If that is the way it will be (as from what I can tell, there is a group of several users who have made this, among other "Environmental" pages a cause they are standing behind) then there is no reason for this page to exist. A "Global warming controversy" page should include as much "Controversy" as can be put into it, or should be deleted.--Zeeboid 14:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Info I fully support both comments above mine (Tony and Zeeboid) and make them mine also. I would although wait for the neutrality issue to be settled before deleting the article. But this cannot be stressed enough : A "Global warming controversy" page should include as much "Controversy" as can be put into it, or should be deleted. Right now, a group of editors, some of whom are admins with strong opinions about GW, is using this controversy article to promote GW theories that are already presented in many other articles about GW. An article about a controversy is neutral by focusing on the controversy, not on the majority opinion. There is much to say about the controversy surrounding GW and I would be sad to see this article disappear, as it (could) also contains valuable information. --Childhood's End 15:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I would have like for the RfD to have waited until the neutrality issue was closed, but I do think the logical step shortly afterwards would have been to delete the article as unnecessary and irrelevant since it portrays the topic as resolved, implies any controversy is overhyped and undersourced and thus equivalent to flat-earth types and the article functionally serves one purpose: to justify preventing the topic from being mentioned on any other global warming page. Kind of a reverse POV fork, to be quite honest. -- Tony of Race to the Right 16:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I'm new to this article and debate (to avoid any of the seeming straw man arguments above) but I've now read through the entire article and the majority of the links to talk page debates. As far as I can see this article is well-written, evidently notable, and extremely well cited (although the article needs to be edited to arrive at a uniform footnoting format, currently there are two overlapping numbering systems representing either true footnotes or external sources). As such, this article clearly passes wikipedia's standards to be kept, particularly since POV issues are generally not considered sufficient reason for an AfD nomination (please see here for that policy). I believe the only real AfD issue here is whether editor disagreement is sufficient reason to delete an article. As such, this is clearly a keep. There is no such thing as an article that is impossible to improve or maintain. -Markeer 15:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you volunteering to come and help ensure that happens? But seriously, Markeer, I would be very interested to know how we can tackle this problem. To be honest it almost needs a full time editor to ensure the more resourced side doesn't just squash the other - this just isn't practical. I don't think it is possible to reprimand people for enthusiasm, nor is it easy to convince the scientists that evidence from a non-science article (of an opinion) is evidence. My recommendation would be to totally reorganise the pages to better demark the science articles from those that are a record of opinion so that it is better understood what constitutes "appropriate sources" .... then have an experienced editor to monitor the situation to ensure that science articles were based on scientific sources, and opinion articles didn't e.g. reject opinions simply because they aren't in scientific papers by climatoligists. Mike 16:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I could say that better. In order to document a controversy which is now essentially between a mainstream science/climatologists on one side and various people including geologists/economists/politicians/"opinionists" and others, if the only evidence that is permitted is science evidence from respected climatologists, then obviously the article will not accurately capture the nature of the controversy. Mike 17:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The last time such a one sided argument between the experts and various people happened was with the Y2K bug. Unfortunately the experts won that one and made over $300,000,000,000 ($300 Billion) in doing so. -- Rameses 17:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd even add the accountant-driven Enron scandal and the legal emergency that followed. Of course, from all the corporate governance laws that have been enacted in order to answer to the crisis, the accountants are now getting richer from it. --Childhood's End 18:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you both arguing that when a plurality of scientists believe something, it is therefore suspect? Because it strikes me that you're on shaky ground with that argument. :-) However, regardless of your point, it has nothing to do with whether or not this article should be deleted, only how or if it should be improved...which is of course the point I was making. This is not an AfD candidate article, this is a "Cleanup" or "has NPOV issues" article. Even Mike's reply to my "vote" was to suggest expert oversight or reorganization of the article instead of deletion, which of course highlights the inappropriate nature of this AfD nomination. Not liking the way an editors' debate or disagreeing with an article's thesis are NOT, emphatically NOT valid reasons for deletion according to wikipedia's guidelines. I voted Keep above having absolutely no opinion on the issues addressed in the article. MY issue is with this nomination, which in my opinion should never have been brought to AfD. Take it back to the talk page. -Markeer 22:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I only suspect scientists' beliefs when politics are involved. --Childhood's End 22:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey, wait, I'm a computer expert, and I always thought the Y2K thing was bogus nonsense that would have no impact. I was correct. And for those of us who bothered to make their thoughts known, in the circles I was in, it was the prevailing opinion. But in general, that's not what was reported and not the experts quoted. (Kinda reminds me of Lindzen or most "man on the street" interviews.) Regardless, it was just my opinion, and there was no way to prove it -- but with time. Kinda like GW. Only time will tell. As such, since we'll all be very long dead before it gets proven, that provides the controversy on GW. With that in mind, how else would anyone think this page would be? I do agree mainly all the GW pages are in general controlled by those with an obvious POV that the evidence is clear. When others of a more um neutral stance on it make points that are against that view, they are looked at as being "on the other side" so it becomes very difficult to get anywhere. All that said, this article needs to stay, simply because it illustrates the lengths some will go to to keep their own ideas of what the truth is as being portrayed what the truth is. Sln3412 19:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Mike, you failed to mention that one side allows sources such as Mother Jones and ExxonSecrets while disallowing sources not in peer-reviewed journals regardless of the information being cited (opinion, summaries, etc). The discussion is obviously not encyclopedic in that there is really no debate at all on the topic. -- Tony of Race to the Right 18:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Tony, when a few lines on the Hockey stick controversy are so heavily censored that one side will not permit it to say what the hockey stick controversy is, then it is obvious the page will never be worth having in Wikipedia. Most people are not employed to edit Wikipedia - it can't have permanent editors, without someone to enforce the normal give and take which builds good articles the page will never tell the reader what they need to read to understand the issue. There has got to be a point when Wikipedia admits it can't cover every article with a NPOV because too many people (including me) are here because they have an opinion - like Iraq, it is time to retreat! Mike 14:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Speedy keep per WP:SNOW. This seems to me to be a "Oh, there's lots of controversy, so let's give up" AfD, which is NOT what AfD is for. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 19:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not "lots of controversy so delete", it is "controversy is not valid so article is irrelevant/unnecessary". -- Tony of Race to the Right 19:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Mike, its not about a oversourced side Vs. another, its about people pushing their POV to keep the Controversy about the topic out of the Controversy page. Users in the same breath have removed links to sites they don't agree with saying the sites are biast, while defending sites like ExxonSecrets.org and Mother Jones. the whole point of a Global warming controversy page is for the Controversy however this controversy is being hidded with opening paragraphs citing "concesus" and pointing out how wrong the Controversy is.--Zeeboid 19:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed for the whole. The main issue with this article is neutrality. It will be solved by focusing on the controversy rather than on the validity of GW theories, which are quite adequately detailed in many other articles. --Childhood's End 14:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I dont see how it can possibly be considered WP:SNOW since there is significant evident opposition. There are other topics, such as some involving evolution, where a specific controversy page is used this way, to provide a place for all the opinions in a balanced way, and making it easier to have a NPOV main article. If it's not being edited in a balanced way, that should be addressed elsewhere. We can't say an important topic should not be covered because NPOV is hopeless--that's admitting the failure of the principle.DGG 01:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

  With regard to WP:SNOW: Do you see a snowball's chance in hell that this will achive a consensus for deletion? If not, the clause applies....--Stephan Schulz 07:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep: This is the most important scientific debate of our time. And Wikipedia should avoid it? why?? if it is heated, then calm it down. We shouldn´t avoid debate - specially such an important one. There are more heated debates abour sports or celebrities, and these are far less important and far less encyclopedic than this one. David 12:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep: If only we could have the page edited by somebody with a neutral point of view. Oh, wait, nobody like that exists, since whatever they'd come up with would always be seen as biased, since some never like their conclusions or line of reasoning. What is it, 17" or 20'? Or -5"? Make the big bad USA pay for all the cleanup, while letting polution-laden countries like China and India off the hook. See? Controversy. For those of you that might be upset about what I'm saying, that proves my point. Sln3412 19:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but Tony of race to the right needs to make a Request for Comment, if he feels one "side" of the controversy is trying to "win". When people feel strongly that they have the truth (rather than an opinion), it's hard for them to even acknowledge that other can disagree. Let's stop calling each other out on "violations" and just try to figure out how to describe each point in the controversy neutrally. So that each side will say, "Yep, that's what my side says."
  • I would even suggest a "deal" where each side agrees not to write anything about their viewpoint but only to Wikipedia:Write for the enemy. I wish I could mediate here, but, darn it, I'm on one of the sides! ;-) --Uncle Ed 00:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. A well written article on a notable subject with abundant references. Mostlyharmless 01:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep: I love the idea of a Wikipedia:Write for the enemy truce. I just re-read the whole page, and it has several good sections already. The NPOV comes through pretty well in these. The list of statements sampling claims by each side have similar numbers of entries, and the skeptics' claims cover a lot of what I've seen put forward for this side. I would like to see more history of the earlier stages. I'd have to go review some diffs to see what kind of edits have been facing reverts leading to so much frustration from Mike, ChildhoodsEnd, and Zeeboid. Birdbrainscan 03:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep i think Krimpet nailed it best. --Kim D. Petersen 06:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep If we can work out the POV problems in Criticism of the Qur'an, it can certianly be worked out here.--Sefringle 06:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

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.