Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ecology of California


 * 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. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Ecology of California

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Article is an unnecessary content fork and contains major overlap with other better, more well-developed articles such as California, Geography of California, Climate of California, and Deserts of California among others. This article also seems to have little to do with the concept of ecology, and mostly consists of a annotated list with a lot of links to other articles. Darkest tree (talk) 17:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete (as nominator). Adding to the above, here is my more detailed comment from the article's talk page:
 * On 2012-10-23 I added the PROD tag to this article to propose its deletion. I feel that it qualifies for deletion for a number of reasons. First, it is an unnecessary article whose content is better covered, and covered more specifically, in articles such as California, Geography of California, Climate of California, and Deserts of California. This article seems to be little more than an expanded list. It also doesn't discuss "ecology" hardly at all, which is a dated, nebulous, and vague subject area to begin with. I don't feel that "Ecology of California" is a good subject for an article or a good title for an article that attempts to cover the subjects in this article.


 * Also—California is such a large state with such a massive diversity of biological communities, climates, terrains, and eco-regions, that it would be nearly impossible to bring all those subjects together adequately, under the heading of "ecology," without creating a huge amount of overlap on other articles that are already well-developed.


 * The concept of geography much more adequately covers the subject matter that this article seems to be trying to back itself into. The Geography of California article (to which this article links in its see also list) seems to be off to a much better start of covering these topics, and doing so in a reliable and verifiable fashion. While the Geography of California article lacks much info on biota, that is also a legitimate domain of geography. The discussion of bioregions (which seems to be the focus of this "Ecology of California" article) would be better discussed as a subject of geography.


 * Tellingly, the first paragraph of this article invokes "bioregionalists" and a poet as authorities for this article, to define...what exactly? Geographic areas? Now we're talking about geography again. It seems this content wants to be part of a geography article to me.


 * Also, the article only has two citations and a relatively short (though chronologically long) edit history. Rather than engaging in a drawn-out attempt to draw editors to make more citations and references for this undeveloped article, I think it would be best to just delete it. I myself am not going to spend time developing and finding citations for an unorganized, undirected article like this that clearly has little importance on Wikipedia. –Darkest tree (talk) 17:48, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * merge to Geography of California as the nominator says, it seems to be principally a fork of this. Mangoe (talk) 18:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep in some form. Well, this is a mess.  Geography, climate, and ecology are not equivalent concepts.  It is totally reasonable for us to have an article about the Geography of California, which discusses deserts, mountains, rivers, and lakes; to have an article about the Climate of California, which discusses temperature ranges and precipitation; and to have an article that discusses the ecological communities and, broadly, living stuff in the state.  The problem is determining where content about ecoregions and biomes should reside.  Well, that's one problem -- another is the state of this article, which is poorly cited, and fails to describe ecoregions in terms of their WWF-assigned descriptors, for example.  In any case, currently the "biology stuff" is here, at Ecology of California, and Natural history of California redirects to it.  Environment of California is a parallel article in even more decrepit condition, that purports to be about human alterations of the environment, but really does include a lot of pure geography fluff.  Making matters worse, to the extent that these by-state articles exist (by and large, they don't), they're at Environment of State (and that's what the navbox template expects).  I think my preferred plan would be to merge to Environment of California what can be salvaged here, destroying the weird distinction that article currently holds (and absolutely not merging it to Geography of California), then fixing the problems there.  In fact, the information in the applicable category tree (Category:Environment of the United States by state or territory and subcats) strongly implies that's what should have been going on all along.  Whew! Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 18:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * merge to Geography of California. The article's content would fit comfortably in Geography of California. Miguel.v (talk) 03:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep. I've gone through the criteria for article deletion and cannot find an applicable criterion. This article is not a WP:Content fork: it dates back to 2004, pre-dating Environment of California. This article does not strongly overlap Geography of California, because that article divides the state into geomorphic provinces, while this one attempts to divide it into ecoregions (albeit poorly). Thus, I oppose merging into Geography of California.
 * I propose Move to Ecoregions of California, placing it in the existing category Category:Ecoregions of the United States by state. We can then clean the article up by using and referencing the CEC and WWF ecoregions. I'm happy to help do that: this topic is encyclopedic, and the article is salvagable. I'll start the research now. —hike395 (talk) 03:27, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Later: went through and cleaned up the article, added 18 references, removed fluff. This is just a start: the work on the article is by no means finished. After researching and working on this for a couple of hours, I really do think that this is an encyclopedic topic that deserves its own article (however its named). Any overlap with other articles is covered by WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. Keep (again). —hike395 (talk) 06:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree, I like the idea of moving to Ecoregions of California, since that seems like title that more aptly covers what this article is trying to be. But I still think an article on the "Ecology of X State" is far too vague of a concept. Darkest tree (talk) 23:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. Ecology is not the same thing as geography. Tdslk (talk) 18:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed, ecology is not geography. And this article, as written, is not about ecology. I don't know what an article about the ecology of California would even look like. If you read the parent article Ecology, it's not just about ecoregions, either. It's a very broad concept that I find to be awfully vague, and I have trouble with the concept of articles on "Ecology of X State." The main ecology article itself calls out links to no fewer than 42 other main articles on or related to the concept of ecology. How can we then possibly attempt to cover these 42 (give or take) sub-subjects adequately at the state level? Are these things not better off in other, more specific articles? Wouldn't a developed article on "Ecology of California" be little more than an annotated list of other main articles? If this isn't a WP:CFORK, what is the (bad) opposite of a content fork? This article would be it. Darkest tree (talk) 23:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 20:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 20:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 20:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep and many thanks to Hike395 for the improvements to the article. The article in its current state is encyclopedic, well sourced, and not duplicative of any other article (or of the sources - I checked a couple to make sure there's no copyvio). I would be OK with a rename to Ecoregions since that appears to be the preferred existing term. --MelanieN (talk) 21:19, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. hike395's improvements (and the multiple California entries in List of ecoregions in the United States (WWF)) make clear that this is distinct from both geology and climate. Whether it should be titled ecology or ecoregions or whatever does not need to be decided within the AfD. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. The subject is notable and encyclopedic, and the article has been expanded and cleaned up.-- xanchester  (t)  23:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep, while this article may be fragmentary and not well focused, the subject of the ecology of california, like the environment of California, is extensively discussed, though the boundaries of such discussions are not as precise as the state boundary itself. Still, its a recognized topic in academia, so keeping an article with this name and focus is fine. its definitely NOT geography of cali, or climate. I wish there was a natural history of California as well (its now a redirect to this article), with ecology a sub article from that.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:HEY. The article has been significantly improved by User:Hike395 compared to its state at the time of nomination for removal from the encyclopedia. It currently has 21 sources. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:14, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:HEY and Northamerica. This is easily notable, and has been improved greatly. Bearian (talk) 18:47, 29 October 2012 (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.