Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bishop Hill (blog)


 * 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. No consensus to delete or merge based on this discussion. Merge discussions can continue of the appropriate talk pages.  Sandstein  06:09, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Bishop Hill (blog)

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

It appears this article might not be notable enough. However a merge is being discussed, one with a book article The Hockey Stick Illusion I believe however merging an article about a book and a blog would detract from the book. The other option is merging to Andrew Montford A lot of the stuff from this article is already within the montford article, i propose this article be deleted if consensus says it is not notable enough. And the other two articles are not be merged as both are highly notable and should have their own articles mark nutley (talk) 17:01, 22 April 2010 (UTC) mark nutley (talk) 17:01, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


 * If it is merged we will get accusations about Coatracking, violation of WP:BLP and what sources that's ok to use is different for a bio than for a blog (only slightly, but it's present, see Notability (web) vs. Notability_(people)). This will minimize the information about this blog, and is a highly controversial move that has no consensus per discussion below. Nsaa (talk) 16:03, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep I`m a keep btw :-) mark nutley (talk) 13:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep as an article about the blog and no merging. No merging to the article about the man, and merging it into the book article is not an opinion as far as I can see. What is the similarities between a book about the Hockey stick controversy and a long running blog? The Andrew Montford work as a main article and the book and the blog is both explained in more details in each of the articles Bishop Hill (blog) and The Hockey Stick Illusion Nsaa (talk) 17:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As I outlined here, the blog fails WP:GNG and WP:WEB, and where there is coverage (for example, Delingpole's blog posts) the person (Montford) and the blog (Bishop Hill) are conflated. The blog has no notability that is independent of Montford. Guettarda (talk) 17:36, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No way that this wery well sourced article fails WP:GNG and WP:WEB. Yes theres a smal fraction of the text requiring more sources but it's covered by many WP:RS sources. Nsaa (talk) 20:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. I took the time to review this on the Factiva news database. It found only one mention this blog, in the context of an article that cited Andrew Montford's role. As Guettarda says, the person and the blog are inextricably linked in terms of notability, and neither has any notability independent of the other. I should add that I'm also uncertain of whether Montford himself is particularly notable, as Factiva found only three mentions of him - one of them in an op-ed column that Montford himself wrote. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete / Merge as MN is aware, there is an active discussion of a merge at Talk:Bishop Hill (blog). This AFD is probably pointless William M. Connolley (talk) 20:11, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You're advocating another article be merged into this, while simultaneously calling for this one to be deleted? Fell Gleaming ( talk ) 02:07, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I'm suggesting that any valuable content here be merged elsewhere William M. Connolley (talk) 20:23, 26 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep and merge Andrew Montford to here and The Hockey Stick Illusion. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:42, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

See: Talk:The Hockey_Stick Illusion William M. Connolley (talk) 21:17, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep: the subject of this article has attracted considerable attention. Fell Gleaming ( talk ) 02:06, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete or Merge. Marginally notable, and content could easily be handled in the articles Andrew Montford or The Hockey Stick Illusion. Yilloslime T C  04:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:48, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:48, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge to The Hockey Stick Illusion. The blog is barely notable, as is Andrew Montford - what sparse reliable sources there is, are all intermixed with each other, so that at least one of the 3 articles may have enough to be notable. The book seems to be the one that has the most chances of being such. The blog's content is intermixed with the book's so it doesn't seem strange to describe both the blog and the author there. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:07, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge all to Andrew Montford (though most of the good stuff is there already). No reason to split this into LPUs. Thepisky (talk) 18:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep- Well cited and informative, article stands well alone without merging with a book. Off2riorob (talk) 19:30, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Have you looked at the references? All are exceptionally weak. They mention the existence of the blog, but they are the ultimate in "trivial". Guettarda (talk) 14:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, mark the text that's not properly sourced then. As far as I see the article is well documented and your suggestion about trivial coverage should results in an article with two sentences. Nsaa (talk) 16:36, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Erm? Yes. Following our content rules and policies - that would result in an article with around 2 sentences. This is because of weak sourcing (most mentions are a glancing sentence or two in articles that are otherwise about something totally different), there are no notable 2ndry sources that address the blog by itself. Normally that would mean that such an article isn't notable enough - but it seems that most people !voted with a "it should be here" rather than from an encyclopedic viewpoint, or simply haven't bothered checking the references. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:11, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. As an exercise, I've gone through the article and removed all the blog-sourced content (not reliably sourced), trivial passing mentions (undue weight), unsourced assertions and so on. There is almost no content left after this exercise, showing clearly how thin the article really is. Specific issues include the following (with reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bishop_Hill_(blog)&oldid=357992969 this version):
 * Para 2, "Andrew Orlowski, writing ..." - passing mention only; not about the blog itself;
 * Para 3, "A post on the blog ..." - probably the only substantive fact in the entire article;
 * Para 4, "Paul Dennis, a scientist ..." - passing mention only; not about the blog itself;
 * Para 5, "Dr Judith Curry in an interview ..." - entirely comprised of blog comments (non-RS); focuses on things written by Andrew Montford, not about the blog itself;
 * Para 6, "Anthony Watts wrote ..." - solely blog-sourced (non-RS); about Andrew Montford, not about the blog itself;
 * Para 7, "Steve McIntyre on his blog ..." - solely blog-sourced (non-RS); about an article written by Andrew Montford, not about the blog itself.
 * In short, the article lacks any substantive commentary about the blog itself, as opposed to its proprietor or specific things that he has written; 9 of 17 sources are other blogs; of the remaining sources, only one (the Spectator article) has anything other than a passing mention of the blog. The article as originally written is basically one big coatrack, puffing Andrew Montford or his writings but saying very little about its ostensible subject, the Bishop Hill blog. WP:WEB sets out the criteria: "The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself". Such multiple non-published works simply don't appear to exist. This article fails notability by a very wide margin. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete; as I said earlier, it fails WP:GNG and WP:WEB. The remaining content, once the coatracking and blog-sourced content was removed, there really nothing left. There's really nothing to merge - the relevant information is already in the Andrew Montford article and doesn't appear to have been copied from this one, so deletion shouldn't be a problem. Guettarda (talk) 23:50, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge in Andrew Montford. No reason for a separate article, we can keep information in a more structured manner. -- Cycl o pia talk  10:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * All the article content has been blanked so there is nothing left to merge. Off2riorob (talk) 22:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * All the unrelated content has removed. But I agree, there never was anything real to merge. Guettarda (talk) 20:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge to Andrew Montford. Reliably sourced and meets guidelines for inclusion. I don't know that it needs a separate article though. Electroshoxcure (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Revising to keep. The numerous citations of this blog in reliable sources establishes that it's notable and worth including as a stand-alone article. The removal of this cited content by ChrisO while the AfD is underway is very troubling. Electroshoxcure (talk) 17:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Then it seems that you haven't checked the actual sources. It is quite common under an AfD that an article is a moving target. In most cases though, it consists of improving the article with content that actually is about the topic... And not a puffing up of a rather unnotable subject (it seems) with a number of sources that aren't really about the topic, and just mention it in passing. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. The blog barely, but does, qualify as notable, based on the mentions in the BBC, The Times, The Guardian, and The Register, all major sources, which shows that this blog is starting to have a signficant influence on the global warming debate.  I'm disappointed that a couple of editors were removing   reliably sourced material during the AfD. Cla68 (talk) 04:00, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not every tangentially related factoid that can be reliably sourced necessarily belongs in an article. Only those that are relevant belong.Yilloslime T C  04:08, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I just readded several more reliable sources, including The Spectator, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Telegraph that had been removed from the article during this AfD discussion. Not good. Cla68 (talk) 04:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep The blog is sourced regarding the climate debates on many reliable sources.  Traxs 7   (Talk) 04:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Coverage of the blog has been in enough reliable sources to warrant its own article. If the chief editor of Nauture resigned over something said on the blog then they sure have influence. Obvious keep. Weakopedia (talk) 07:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment on removal of text and reliable sourcing. Someone just blanked most of the article, including removing most of the reliable sourcing from the article.  The same person voted above to "redirect" the article. Cla68 (talk) 07:56, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This is discussed under my lengthy comment above. The bottom line is that the article is/was stuffed full of trivial passing mentions and other bloggers' comments which either don't actually tell us anything about the blog itself or aren't reliably sourced. The fact that there's almost nothing left when the fluff is removed shows that the article shouldn't have been created in the first place. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:01, 29 April 2010 (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.