Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CF Metadata Conventions


 * 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   Merge to NetCDF. The article and history merge is complete; I left the redirect in place. I did not want to attempt to trim the material, so it was merged in its entirety. Furthering editing of the article certainly is desireable. Xymmax So let it be written   So let it be done  13:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

CF Metadata Conventions

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This seems an overly technical description of some file format conventions. I doubt this info belong in Wikipedia at all, even in the parent article. VG &#x260E; 05:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions.   -- VG &#x260E; 05:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge content to NetCDF - the metadata conventions apply only to NetCDF files, so could be moved to the article with a "conventions" header (there are several conventions). + m t  18:33, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * While the CF conventions are currently netCDF-specific, there is already an effort underway to make them independent of the underlying format, so they can be applied to HDF5 data, for example. Mrskeptic (talk) 17:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The CF standard names, which are part of the CF metadata conventions, are already in use for other data formats. Mrskeptic (talk) 17:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This appears to be somewhat valid, according to this whitepaper on the topic. + m t  03:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - The CF Conventions are widely used for climate model output and oceanography data, and because of this are being proposed as standards for the World Meteorological Organization, NASA's Earth Science Data Systems Working Group, and the Integrated Ocean Observing System. At a recent international meeting of the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portal (GO-ESSP) in Seattle, a day was devoted to discussion and presentations on the CF Conventions as one of the technical themes of the meeting, discussing ongoing projects to extend the CF conventions to better address satellite data, unstructured mesh data, and collections of observations.  The CF Conventions have been selected for use in the upcoming Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5 (CMIP5) multi-model runs, expected to provide input to the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Mrskeptic (talk) 17:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This article will be useful, because new providers of geoscience data need a short, neutral encyclopedia article on the CF Conventions to put them in context, and to understand the background and history that led to their development.
 * The development and evolution of the CF Conventions are important as an example of growth of bottom-up standards and governance from a widespread international community dealing with interoperability issues for important geoscience data.
 * The article is still in the early stages of being built, and obviously needs more work. I intend to help with that as time permits over the next month. Mrskeptic (talk) 20:35, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The CF Conventions could be linked from NetCDF, but they should exist in their own right because they not only represent conventions for a file format, but a general data model for meteorological and oceanographic model output as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsignell (talk • contribs) 21:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,   Sandstein   20:27, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Yamamoto Ichiro (talk) 00:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete and merge to NetCDF. A web search reveals that few people care about this subject besides the ones developing it. The only other article to link to this is NetCDF. Wronkiew (talk) 05:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * keep Lots of people care about CF, even if they don't know it, because without it their tools would not interpret data correctly. Evidence that CF is in wide use includes this list of projects and institutions adopting CF as a standard.  Also a search for "climate and forecast conventions" yields hundreds of citations from many distinct institutions. Mrskeptic (talk) 21:20, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I've seen plenty of folks (myself included) follow these metadata conventions that have no part in formulating them. + m t  03:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * keep. Being "technical" should be no bar for an entry in Wikipedia. Markb (talk) 12:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * VasileGaburici made a similar argument, that technical information is excluded from Wikipedia, at Articles for deletion/BRK. I think that xe may have a misunderstanding of what that portion of What Wikipedia is not is addressing.  It is not excluding detailed information on technical subjects.  Wikipedia is both a specialized and a general-purpose encyclopaedia.  It is excluding tutorials, walkthroughs, guides, and instructional materials. The proper question to be addressing here is whether there is documentation of these conventions by someone other than their original authors.  Uncle G (talk) 16:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * For a useful standard, it's better to have a single authoritative source than multiple authors documenting the standard independently. The conventions arise out of the consensus hammered out by a growing list of independent contributors working together to reach agreement.  The process for adding to the conventions is open, and numerous participants have contributed to the evolving conventions. References to the CF conventions independent from the authors and contributors include a passage from "The Visualization Handbook", and descriptions in 5 other books found with a Google book search for "climate and forecast" conventions. Mrskeptic (talk) 21:20, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * merge to NetCDF. The information here is too specific to warrant it's own article, and although there is still debate on how spinouts notability should be measured, I still believe that every article must independently meet notability standards, and the conventions themselves in my opinion do not. Note that 1. I favour a selective merge, and 2. deletion is not an option when merging per GFDL compliance. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 01:04, 28 October 2008 (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.