Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anthony Watts (blogger)


 * 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. Stifle (talk) 13:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Anthony Watts (blogger)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This article was prodded in good faith (not by me), but as it did not appear to be a straightforward, uncontroversial deletion to me, I brought it here instead. The major issue appears to be reliable sourcing demonstrating the subject's notability. I offer no opinion per se but hope that more eyes will allow more sourcing to be found, or not. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:58, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete No non-trivial third-party coverage to establish WP:BIO notability. OhNo itsJamie Talk 17:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions.  -- – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 19:41, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as non-notable. Many of of the refs are self refs. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:35, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions.  —-- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment The real problem biographies like this one, is that people on both sides of the global warming controversy are using WP:BLPs such as this one to argue their case, by putting their slant on his BLP, rather than discuss the science. The arguments about global warming should take place outside of wikipedia, and the current opinions reflected on pages about global warming. Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 07:11, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Sources cited in the article show that his activities have been covered by newsmedia across the country. Article could be improved and made more friendly to the non-expert, but no reason to delete. Steve Dufour (talk) 15:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per Steve Dufour. Additional evidence supporting Watts' WP:notability (and more discussion of same) is available on the article talk page, here and here. --Pete Tillman (talk) 18:20, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * delete. The only notable thing about Watts is SurfaceStations.org; we'd be better off having an article on that. There are no (non-self) sources for the "career" section and the " View of climate change" is just stuff he has posted on his blog with no evidence that anyone cares William M. Connolley (talk) 21:33, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete because Wikipedia should not have entries on marginally notable living people until flagged revisions are implemented. Cla68 (talk) 11:12, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - no reliable, independent sources can be found about this person - the New York Times citation does not even mention his name. Bearian (talk) 17:18, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete contrary to the comments by User:Steve Dufour and User:Tillman, there have been no reliable third-party sources provided that show that this individual is notable. All the supposed evidence on the talk page is either self-published, not reliabe (blogs) or not about the subject of the article&mdash;it is simply mentioned in passing. I disagree with WMC that surfacestations.org is notable. As with the subject of this AfD, there are no reliable third-party sources establishing its notability. A move of the information to Surfacestations.org would be inappropriate. -Atmoz (talk) 20:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: Counter-arguments to Atmoz's assertions may be found at the Watts talk page, here and here. --Pete Tillman (talk) 03:19, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Tillman is confused and thinks opinion pieces are reliable sources. He also thinks self-published sources can be used in a BLP. Both of which are specifically contradicted by policy. -Atmoz (talk) 04:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Atmoz appears confused about what we're doing here -- which is attempting to determine Watts notability, NOT determining admissibility of material to his page. WP:Notability governs in this situation. Also see Notability (people). --Pete Tillman (talk) 01:19, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep having looked at the matter these arguments claiming there are "no reliable sources" are hard to understand. I have just managed to find around 300 reliable sources since 1980 establishing Watts notability. Sources from all over the place, Washington Times, News Review, even New Scientist . See here. Alex Harvey (talk) 06:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The Washington Times article is an opinion piece. The New Scientist piece doesn't even mention him, it's in a comment. There are a few small local articles that deal with his run for a supervisor position on the county board, but he fails POLITICIAN. It's best to look at your "sources" before you say you have over 300 of them. -Atmoz (talk) 08:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Also note that this editor is attempting to game the system. He PRODed this article on 24 September 2009 with the reason "Subject is not independently notable but merely famous online for his climate change blog. There are few reliable sources mentioning him. Further his article draws much attention from people who disagree with him who regularly try to vandalise his article, causing editors to spend a lot of time arguing about him". -Atmoz (talk) 08:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * insert I think Atmoz knows very well that I'm a relatively new editor and that I "prodded" the article by mistake (whatever that means). He also knows the reason I nominated the article for deletion, i.e. this was the recommended action to take from the BLP/N noticeboard discussion in which he participated. I then changed my mind about whether the subject was notable after discovering hundreds of sources currently not mentioned, this being the reason I've changed my vote from delete to keep. Alex Harvey (talk) 07:06, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete no WP:RS that establish WP:NOTE. I've been waiting to give time to those that want to keep this article time to find reliable, independent sources (even though they started the deletion process themselves...), but all that have been presented are google results which have trivial mentions, are written by Anthony Watts, or someone called that, or are self-published, or are unreliable blogs, forums and websites. That there are 300 of them doesn't mean anything. For example, the "counterarguments" presented by Tillman above do nothing to convince me of notability per WP:GNG or WP:BIO. Verbal chat  08:20, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Here are the first 15 or so reliable sources discussing Watts. I note that he's been in politics (I didn't know that), was in the news for a while after being targetted by an extortionist, and then of course his views on global warming & surfacestations.org.
 * Chico Enterprise Record, Roger Aylworth, 2006, "Anthony Watts target of accused extortionist", Watts featured (Watts targetted by extortionist), here.
 * Chico Enterprise Record, Roger Aylworth, 2005, "Anthony Watts enters race for Butte County supervisor", Watts featured (2006 run for politics), here.
 * Fox News, Steven Milloy, 2007, "U.N. Climate Distractions", Watts mentioned (SurfaceStations.org), here.
 * Chico Enterprise-Record, E-R Staff, 2006, "Chico Unified School District candidates answer questions on issues", Watts mentioned (politics), here.
 * Paradise Post, Dick Little, 2007, "Watts' research trumps junk science", Watts featured (SurfaceStations.org), here.
 * San Antonio Express-News, Forrest M. Mims, 2008, "The Country Scientist; US weather data often flawed", Watts featured, here.
 * Chico Enterprise-Record, Terry Vau Dell, 2006, "Admitted extortionist fails to appear for sentencing", Watts featured (Watts targetted by extortionist), here.
 * News Review, Josh Indar, 2006, "One out, one in, one on", Watts featured (2006 run for politics), here.
 * News Review, Unknown, 2004, "Honoring Dr. King", Watts featured (op-ed) (Watts political views), here.
 * Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, 2008, "The killer frost for global warming", Watts mentioned (op-ed) (views on global warming), here.
 * The Arizona Republic, Shaun McKinnon, 2007, "Skeptics raise doubts on global warming", Watts featured (views on global warming), here.
 * Chico Enterprise-Record, E-R staff, 2006, "Chico Unified School District board", Watts featured (Watts in Chico local politics), here.
 * Chico Enterprise-Record, Danny Bernardini, 2004, "Board votes to reassign principal", Watts featured (Watts in Chico local politics), here.
 * UK Telegraph, Christopher Brooker, 2008, "The world has never seen such freezing heat", Watts featured (views on global warming), here.
 * Some earlier ones:
 * BBC News, Unknown, 2001, "Solar storms spark light show", Watts mentioned (expert opinion on meteorology), here.
 * Associated Press, Unknown, 2001, "Aurora-producing solar storms continuing, Watts mentioned (expert opinion on meteorology), here.
 * News Review, Devanie Angel, 2002, "Chico council shifts left", Watts mentioned, here, quote: "... Overlooked by many, the race for Chico Unified School District Board of Trustees proved tight, as voters resoundingly ousted the two incumbents running for re-election. Scott Huber, Rick Rees and Anthony Watts—the latter a popular former TV weatherman who did virtually no campaigning—took the three seats."
 * News Review, Laura Smith, 2002, "No more Watts for KHSL", here.
 * insert In Wikipedia:
 * KHSL-TV "...Other notable personalities that have worked at KHSL-TV over the years include ... meteorologist Anthony Watts and legendary sports directors ..."
 * In Google Books:
 * Red Hot Lies, Christopher Horner, |+chico+|+meteorologist+|+climate&ei=Rz6_St3DI4aelQSRn4CFDw#v=onepage&q=%22anthony%20watts%22%20itworks%20|%20chico%20|%20meteorologist%20|%20climate&f=false here.
 * Unstoppable global warming: every 1,500 years, Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, |+chico+|+meteorologist+|+climate&dq=%22anthony+watts%22+itworks+|+chico+|+meteorologist+|+climate&ei=Rz6_St3DI4aelQSRn4CFDw here.
 * I don't have time to go through all 300 of them, I hope this ends this discussion and that those claiming Watts non-notable status will please adjust their comments to reflect the reality of the situation in good faith. I am not trying to "game" the system (I honestly didn't know about Watts' political career until I started researching the matter just now); I nominated the article so that we speed things up rather than spending weeks arguing about this. Alex Harvey (talk) 09:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Please go through those and strike all the opinions. Your adding them here as sources makes your others claims of BLP violations very disingenuous. The rest of these are local articles about a failed politician. Than does NOT mean he is notable. Being the victim of extortion doesn't make someone notable either. This guy was a weather presenter for a local TV station. It's local news, not something that is notable for a global encyclopedia. By the way, did you pay for all those newsbank articles or just assume the contents? The BBC one is especially hilarious. "Meteorologist Anthony Watts, based in Chico, California, said the glow from the solar eruptions was interesting, but did not pose any danger." Just another example of Watts talking about something (solar flares) he knows nothing about (same article as the USAToday one). Being a school board member doesn't make someone notable. This is all local news. And WP is WP:NOT. -Atmoz (talk) 09:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I already labelled opinion pieces as such. And how can you say "failed politician"? You just saw that he managed to win a seat on this council without having to bother even campaigning because he was already so popular from his 25 year TV career. Don't you think this is getting just a bit too silly now? Alex Harvey (talk) 10:07, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * delete most of the sources above are local news and various items about Watts being elected to a local school board (come on?). He has some independent mentions in more prominent news-sources, but those are sporadic and on single issues. The rest is simply opinion article from various pundits..... If anything this review of his notabilty has convinced me that he is less notable than i thought before (which was that he was marginally notable). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete: no evidence of any reliable independent coverage of any significance. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 16:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Watts is a well recognized figure in the Climate Change debate and is clearly notable. His blog is at least as well recognized as RealClimate or ClimateAudit, and his work for SurfaceStations.org is similarly well known.  --GoRight (talk) 20:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge any useful content as appropriate. It is not Watts personally who is notable so we should delete as a non-notable BLP. The surfacestations.org project is borderline notable and perhaps should have an article (it has been commented upon in some venues, though to my knowledge its results have not been published in any peer-reviewed journal). Moving to a non-biographical article will reduce the opportunity for BLP-oriented mischief. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - there wouldn't be all this controversy if he wasn't well known in the climatology community. As for another direct reference to him, he is recognized in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Volume 90, Issue 7 (July 2009), specifically in the article The U.S. Historical Climatology Network Monthly Temperature Data, Version 2. SunSw0rd (talk) 01:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Again, the BAMS article refers to results from the surfacestations.org project so that's what we should have an article about -- not Watts himself. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * To state the obvious, individuals are notable for what they do and need not be mentioned by name in any particular article to be notable for having done such. Surfacestations.org is notable (e.g., by a peer reviewed article of the American Meteorological Society) precisely because Watts was the driving force behind it. --John G. Miles (talk) 20:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Read the article. Watts is barely mentioned. It certainly doesn't mean he's notable. -Atmoz (talk) 21:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I wasn't addressing Watts' notability in general (others have done that), just that notability comes from what one does, not from having one's name attached (which the article does do, but that wasn't SBHB's point--I was merely pointing out that the point made wasn't a valid one). Watts' work was notable to a peer reviewed AMS article on the USHCN temperature network, which Watts surfacestations.org has addressed comprehensively and directly. Other articles by climate experts (including the National Climatic Data Center) also address his work. I'll address general notability when I "vote." --John G. Miles (talk) 02:06, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: In addition, "notability" for Wikipedia purposes has a specific meaning and for people, it's expanded upon here. – ukexpat (talk) 21:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep - I think notability is established. I don't agree with the argument that opinion pieces don't count towards notability. If your name appears on the opinion pages of multiple reliable sources, that contributes towards notability. ATren (talk) 13:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of Anthony Watts with regard to Notability (people)
The most pertinent WP article to read regarding determining a person's notability is Notability (people). In particular, under "Basic criteria", that article states:
 * A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.


 * If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be needed to prove notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability. ...

The bar for personal notability at Wikipedia isn't set high. Multiple reliable independent published secondary sources, with non-trivial coverage of Anthony Watts, allow us to presume his Wikipedia notability. Many of these sources could also be used to demonstrate notability for Watts' "Watts Up with That" and SurfaceStations.org blogs.

Following is a list of what seem to me to be the best sources yet presented to demonstrate Watts' notability:


 * The U.S. Historical Climatology Network Monthly Temperature Data, Version 2, published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Volume 90, Issue 7 (July 2009), discusses Watts' work at SurfaceStations.org, and specifically acknowledges "Anthony Watts for his considerable efforts in documenting the current site characteristics of US HCN stations." This article also constitutes a substantial documentation of the notability of Watts' SurfaceStations.org blog.


 * The National Climatic Data Center responded to Watt's surface stations work with Talking Points related to: Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?. Note that Watts is referenced by name in the NCDC report -- see the references list at the end of the report.


 * "Scientists warm up to Watts' work" is a moderately-detailed 2007 article on Watts and his surface-station work, in the Chico Enterprise-Record, his home-town newspaper.


 * "Skeptics raise doubts on global warming", The Arizona Republic, 2007, news article with 5 paragraphs on Watts and his surface-station work. Could also demonstrate notability for Surfacestations.org


 * Climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. comments on Watts' report, "Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?". More Watts-related posts are online at Pielke's Climate Science site, which is a weblog by a well-known university climatologist, writing in his area of expertise.


 * 2008 Weblog Awards, Best Science Blog: Watts Up with That, Watts' personal blog. See Blog award: "Among the major blog awards are The Weblog Award..." This source might be better-used to demonstrate notability for that blog.


 * Additionally, there are dozens of other published reports on Watts and his work -- see Alex Harvey's list above, posted at 09:08, 27 September 2009; and see the Watts article talk page, here and here. Many of these reports are not substantial, perhaps even trivial, but they do add weight to the argument that Watts is a WP:notable person.

Note that editor Atmoz has objected to the use of opinion columns and blogs to demonstrate notability, citing WP:BLP rules. However, we aren't attempting to add this material to a BLP, but simply to demonstrate that the subject is notable. Hence WP:Notability and WP:Notability (people) have the applicable rules to determine Watts' notability.

It seems to me that the best solution to the Anthony Watts notability question would be to have one article about Anthony Watts, his "Watts Up with That" blog, and his Surfacestations.org blog, with appropriate redirects -- published sources on Watts and his blogs generally mention more than one of these. I have no strong opinion on what the article's main title should be. --Pete Tillman (talk) 22:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like SurfaceStations.org might be notable, but the coverage of the man himself is trivial. Verbal chat  05:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment - In case anyone is interested, Alex Harvey has made other arguments that may be relevant to this discussion, here. He originally posted them here but another editor removed it. I make no judgement regarding the specifics of Alex's argument, just linking to it because it seems relevant to the discussion. ATren (talk) 19:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It's entirely irrelevant to this discussion. It would be relevant to Articles for deletion/James Annan, but A hasn't nominated that article for deletion. -Atmoz (talk) 01:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I happen to believe both Watts and Annan belong, so it's not entirely irrelevant to me. When dealing with a contentious debate such as GW, and trying to assess notability, I think it's appropriate to examine similarly notable figures, especially those on the other side of the issue. Yes, I know about WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS - that's an essay, and I don't think it applies to all arguments of this sort. ATren (talk) 02:25, 30 September 2009 (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.