Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Tropical cyclone discussion archives

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

The result of the debate was No consensus for the discussion archives, as it is at least arguable (and supported by a large segment of commenters below) that they contain valuable history relevant to article composition. I'm deleting the last three, separately-listed pages under the purview of the previous MfDs. Xoloz 16:17, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tropical cyclone discussion archives

Nomination includes:

Also included, but listed seperately:

  • Talk:2005 Atlantic hurricane season/Records
  • Talk:2005 Atlantic hurricane season/Speculation
  • Talk:2005 Atlantic hurricane season/records not broken

There have been three prior MFDs on off-topic discussion associated with tropical cyclone articles before: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:2006 Atlantic hurricane season/May Tropical Discussion and related pages, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:2006 Pacific hurricane season/May Tropical Discussion and related pages and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Talk:2006 Atlantic hurricane season/betting pools and related pages. The last three items in this list are separated out as they should have been nominated in the betting pool nomination last year but were neglected then.

The overarching reason for this nomination is Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a discussion forum, and there is also some inappropriate wish-casting: for example people seeming to want a major hurricane to develop [1]. Practically all of the discussion in these pages is of the subject and not the Wikipedia articles. In the few cases there was discussion related to Wikipedia, I have moved it to the main archives. When the discussions were active they disrupted the maintenance of the article, by making the signal/noise ratio on the talk pages very low. The sheer amount of off-topic chat has effectively driven away some editors from the topic. On occassion when actual relevant discussion occured, it disrupted the off-topic banter, suggesting the primary usage of the talk page at that time was for off-topic purposes.

Deleting the archives is only partially useful to keeping the talk pages on topic. However a deletion of these pages would indicate this discussion is not appropriate for Wikipedia, which may help improve things this year. The edit history is on the main talk pages, that is unaffected should the need arise to cite old diffs, like I have in this nomination; meaning there is no real reason to retain these archives. In short: The discussion in these archives should never have occured. However it did and it was archived. As the discussion is inappropriate, these archives of it are not useful and should all be deleted.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Some background info: INVESTs are an area with potential to develop into a tropical cyclone; but they are not tropical cyclones themselves. Consensus is these do not belong in the articles. A notification of a new INVEST and what its up to is useful to forewarn editors to watch it for development, and I'd like to applaud the approach taken here, which provides the bare bones information on the systems; which is ideal for addition to the article if development occurs. In any case, there is no real need to archive the INVEST notification: if it develops it will be superseded by the text in the article and if it doesn't then its not relevant to the long-term maintenance.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete all per well-written nom and the reasoning in the betting pool MFDs cited above. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum or chat room, and these archives are not worth keeping around. Any useful information has been moved to the regular archives, or is in the history of the talk pages themselves. Discussion of this nature belongs on the recently relaunched Hurricane Wikia, not here. --Coredesat 23:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. You said that there was some relevant discussion. Has that discussion been kept, or will that be deleted as well? Hurricanehink (talk) 03:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • That has been done as best as I can manage [2]. Its possible I missed some, after all is it possible to look through 4MB to find the odd KB of useful stuff? As the actual edits were to the talk page not the archive, nothing valuable should be lost even if I missed it. better yet is more eyes: go through them yourself and save stuff you think is useful ;)--Nilfanion (talk) 21:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete all as per above comments. Bearian 15:42, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep only the records not broken page perhaps as an Atlantic huricane season records page. It is not fully complete but it is relevant and useful as a summary of records. Having such a page may help in assessing whether a record is notable. Is of relevance to more seasons than just the 2005 season (so current location is not appropriate but it is worth keeping). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by C-randles (talk • contribs) 18:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC).
  • Delete all per the very well-written nom. ^demon[omg plz] 20:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep all --Ajm81 21:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete all. Well stated in the nomination: this material is not related to the editing of the page it is archived for. This is obviously ready for deletion. └Jared┘┌t┐  22:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - can we transwiki these discussions to hurricane wikia? Is it possible? – Chacor 03:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Should be possible. Remember these are all discussions from the talk pages, not these archives. As such if the archives were copy/pasted to the Wikia and attributed to the history of the talk page, they would be as much in compliance with the GFDL as the archives here. If the Hurricane Wikia wants these pages is a different question entirely, but should be discussed there and certainly not this MFD.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep all. To quote Nilfanion: However a deletion of these pages would indicate this discussion is not appropriate for Wikipedia, which may help improve things this year. Essentially, what you want is a symbolic deletion of the archives; I'm sorry, but that is simply a blind assertion, unbacked by any evidence, and I simply do not see how that would be useful at all. Whether there is a very low signal to noise ratio, there is at least some useful info in these pages, and it unnecessary to delete these. What the Hurricane Wikia does is of no relevance here, as Wikia != Wikimedia. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Any useful information should be / has already been moved to the main archives; the talk page when these discussions were active had a low signal/noise. These are the archives of the noise, not the signal - which is in the main archives where it belongs. I hope that it has the effect I mentioned on the current seasons, yes. However, that is not my reason for this nomination; which is to "remove inappropriate (and sometimes potentially offensive) discussion from Wikipedia". Note also the last three pages should be considered separately, please consider them independently. --Nilfanion (talk) 09:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep all but the last three. I just read through Talk:2005 Atlantic hurricane season/Katrina to get myself familiar with what is in these archives, having not seen them for a while. There is a huge amount of discussion about the articles present, none of which should be deleted. Discussions about articles are as important to preserving Wikipedia's GFDL history as the histories of the articles themselves. (The last three, however, clearly emrit deletion.) —Cuiviénen 16:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Obviously your interpretation of those archives is totally different from my own. To focus on the Katrina archive: I only see two things about the article in that entire page; asking if the article should be at Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Katrina (2005), which is not a useful discussion now and someone saying "I linked to this website". The rest is discussion about the storm, with no connection to the Wikipedia article - the thread is "mere general discussion about the subject of the article". There is no GFDL obligation to keep these archives and in any case they are archives - the history is on the main talk page (of the 2005 season in that case.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:49, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Yet the factual discussion portions do relate directly to the history of the article; the article was updated based on those self-same facts posted. Sure, the wild speculation is useless cruft, but that cannot be divorced from the factual discussion. —Cuiviénen 17:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep some, delete or merge the rest. Even before I joined wikipedia, I've beem reading both articles and disscussions to see what they were about. Some of these may have some historical interest. Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on Earth, and people interested in people's reactions to some of these hurricanes, etc, may want to read these disscussions. I'm not sure what the main archive is, but please keep them. Delete the unusefull ones, those that have almost no historical interest value. Thanks. -- AstroHurricane001(T+C+U) 12:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete all as stormcruft. I, too, have been turned away from the hurricane articles because of the signal/noise ratio aptly described by nominator. It is much easier to monitor during offseason times, but even then there is a lot of side conversation. As for anything meaningful in the talk archives that does not get recovered: the amount of extraneous discussion currently buries any relevant topic, so a weedy archive has choked off any seeds. Whatever on-toipic discussion that might be accidentally deleted will either be discussed again or lost into the ether. The possibility of a little collateral damage is necessary to preserve the integrity of the article discussion page — past, present and future. And also special thanks to the nominator for a thoroughly expressed nomination and for taking the time to weed the garden. —Twigboy 14:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep all; I don't think it helps to cover up history by deleting archives. Jamie|C 18:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Extremley strong keep: I don't see why anyone would want to delete this. But, if you feel the need to, I know I can't stop you. I'm just devastated at how much this project has changed since I joined in late 2005. Why has the standard been changed to "you must keep all discussion strictly related to the article itself" discussion? And more importantly, why is it so imperative that we delete everything we ever enjoyed talking about before that standard was made? I know my voice isn't that loud, because I'm not a major contributer to the project. All I'm saying is, is this necessary? Will all of Wikipedia come to a hault if we keep harmless tropical discussion? I'm not whining, I'm not losing my temper. I just miss it. I miss the community we used to have... Cyclone1(02:28-20-05-2007)
    • Also, Nilfanion. It was prediction. A simple prediction. I never wanted Chris to become a major hurricane. I said it possibly could. I never said, "I hope Chris becomes a major hurricane!!!!!!", I said that Chris looked like it was strengthening, and I thought if it entered the warm Gulf it could've strengthened to cat 3 status. Cyclone1(02:48-20-05-2007)
    • Sorry, I was upset when I wrote that. I know it's not relevant. Cyclone1(13:26-20-05-2007)
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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.