Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2010–2011 midwinter animal mass death events


 * 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. -- Cirt (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

2010–2011 midwinter animal mass death events

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Violates WP:OR (by being an example of original synthesis), WP:RS (by relying substantially on blogs and other unreliable sources, though there are a few better sources present) and especially WP:NOTNEWS (by focusing on may passing mentions in news reports on an event that nobody will remember in a year's time. These animal deaths are not related, not exceptional or surprising, and not, in fact, generally mysterious - the incident in Beebe, Arkansas that started the media's brief obsession with reporting every such mass death has been well explained, though you wouldn't know it from the article. The existing articles Fish kill and Bird kill are more than enough coverage for Wikipedia's purposes. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:21, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * delete - seems to be sensationalizing the events, which haven't been shown to be more than on the high side of normal events. the article attempts to string unrelated events into something "bigger" than what it is.  Dennis Brown (talk) 11:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep References to blogs should be removed to comply with WP:RS, but there do seem to be a more-than-sufficient number of reliable sources that refer to the die-offs as instances of a single, larger event. The separate events have been synthesized in primary sources; I don't think the article violates WP:OR, but even if it does in its current form, it could be rewritten not to. I can see that it might run afoul of WP:NOTNEWS, although I do not think most of the sources cited count as "routine news reporting". YardsGreen (talk) 13:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "These animal deaths are not related, not exceptional or surprising, and not, in fact, generally mysterious - the incident in Beebe, Arkansas that started the media's brief obsession with reporting every such mass death has been well explained, though you wouldn't know it from the article." This sounds like a good reason to keep the article and improve it.  If no one is talking about this in a year, then it can be deleted, but when the WWF Italy president is saying that something like this has never happened before, and the reality is that these deaths are "not exceptional or surprising", it's quite important for someone to lay out the facts.  I'm somewhat skeptical as to whether or not Wikipedia is capable of producing a good article on a controversial subject like this one (especially one where environmentalists are involved), but for the sake of AfD I think we have to assume it is. Anthony (talk) 16:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Redirect - Further research of the topic via the National Wildlife Health Centre website on the article page "Bird Kill" shows that these occurences have been happening for a long time, with many of the cases solved. A more appropiate choice for this article would be to redirect and update appropiately in the "Bird Kill" page. It is curious that this event has occured, but I am inclined to believe this has been caused by a news phenomenon stemmed from the events in Arkansas. Similarly the map link supplied on the article page is misleading. Such maps could be made for any number of odd instances in biodiversity or natural events. Redirect the page to bird kill and update appropiately. So Much For Subtlety (talk) 17:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It might ultimately be best to redirect to a more general animal mass death events article (which does not exist to my knowledge), but the 2010-2011 events include both birds and fish, as well as other non-fish marine animals. Redirecting to either bird kill or fish kill would necessarily leave out the other. YardsGreen (talk) 12:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. These mass deaths are not unexceptional as previously mentioned the event (which research is still ongoing to discover the cause) has by no means been solved at all. Pierricbross (talk) 13:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:35, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article has cited many reliable sources, and I don't think it is an original research. --Quest for Truth (talk) 17:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, per the above. A clearly notable series of events, the background of which is expected to be very interesting, if we ever find out why it happens. — Nightstallion 17:26, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, sources seem reliable enough, and the thing has (unfortunately) prospects to grow in scale. - ☣Tourbillon A ? 22:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep-this is apparently what got the attention and hence continuous coverage from a number of reliable sources. If the coverage wasn't so great, then I'd oppose, but as there are articles nearly everyday on this now...I'd have to say keep.Smallman12q (talk) 16:44, 17 January 2011 (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.