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Merger? (continued)

I was just thinking we may want to focus on merging this article into one of the others out there. How about it people? I favor merger myself. This article reads like a spinoff of a secondary article, which itself seems to have been spun off. Putting aside the sourcing question, I just think that the article is thin, as it is based on passing references in the media, and contains too much on this Campbell gent. I say merge to the article on the author of the blog, Mr. Montford I believe it is. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• I support this. Earlier, I proposed adding the paragraph about the blog's involvement Campbell's resignation to Andrew_Montford#Bishop_Hill, and then turning this article into a redirect. Such a merger still presents a WP:COATRACK issue by focusing too much on Campbell, but it was I compromise that I could live with. I still can. And before that discussion was derailed, we almost had consensus that merged or unmerged, the Campbell paragraph should be removed. I also still support that. I guess my point is: Merging--with or without the Campbell bit--or keeping unmerged but removing the Campbell bit--either of these options are improvements over that status quo, and I support either of them. Yilloslime _C 21:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

  Remember WP:VOTE … Nsaa (talk) 23:45, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Straw poll

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

• Should Bishop Hill (blog) (a blog about climate-change scepticism) be merged into Andrew Montford, the bio of the person who runs the blog, or should it be the other way round? Or neither? SlimVirgin 22:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Merge Bishop Hill (blog) into Andrew Montford:

1. William M. Connolley (talk) 21:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
2. Guettarda (talk) 21:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
3. Yilloslime _C 21:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC) Update, per Slim Virgin, I could support merging the other way, too. I mainly want to see the two merged, and could support doing it either way. Yilloslime _C 06:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
4. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
5. ChrisO (talk) 02:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
6. Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:50, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
7. Polargeo (talk) 06:33, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
8. Jminthorne (talk) 00:42, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
9. I read some climate change blogs and while I've seen Montford's name, I haven't registered the name of his blog. While I'm in principle in favour of having articles about everything under the sun, my view is not widely enough held here, and the common view is that blogs must be of genuine importance to be included. So no. Grace Note (talk) 03:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
10. Merge. We have more reliable sources on the recent NAS member open letter than on this blog. Does anybody think we should have an article on the letter? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:29, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
11. Ratel ► RATEL ◄ 23:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC) (currently blocked for abusing multiple accounts) Collect (talk) 10:38, 25 May 2010 (UTC) (Yes Collect but that has no relevence here apart from as a smear, this is a legitimate !vote of an editor with over 10000 edits and 4 years on wikipedia) Polargeo (talk) 11:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC) #:Um -- never saw threaded discussion about a matter of fact. As to it being a "smear" that he abused multiple accounts, I do not know. I suggest you complain to the blocking admin. Practice, moreover, on WP is that indef blocked users are discounted, no matter how much another calls the use of multiple accounts a "smear." Collect (talk) 12:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

    Both of you stop. Ratel abusively used User:Unit 5 a number of times. The closing admin can choose to weight Ratel's comment however he wants, but there is no evidence that any of the other account here are Ratel. Hipocrite (talk) 12:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

12. -Kudpung (talk) 05:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
13. His bio already contains most of this info, it's unnecessary to have an article on a marginally notable blog as well as its marginally notable author. Fences&Windows 20:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
14. Second choice. There is only one subject and one source of (debatable) notability. Guy (Help!) 17:20, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
15. First choice. There is enough notability for one article. So they should be merged. A bio seems better suited to hold different kinds of information than an article about a blog. So the better direction for the merger is from the article on the blog into the article on Andrew Montford. Cardamon (talk) 03:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Merge Andrew Montford into Bishop Hill (blog):

1. I think the opposite, merge Montford into this article. Cla68 (talk) 22:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

   Question: I get that you think merging the other way would be preferable and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, but could you live with merging BH in AM? Is that a compromise you could make? Or, in your opinion, does it move things way too far in the wrong direction to be an acceptable compromise? Yilloslime _C 22:38, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

   My reasons are primarily out of BLP considerations. Misplaced Pages still does not have an effective system, such as flagged revisions, for protecting BLPs. BLPs in this subject area (AGW) have been especially targetted in the past by editors looking to add unnecessesarily negative information for political reasons. If Misplaced Pages did have adequate safeguards, I would be willing to accept that as a compromise proposal. Cla68 (talk) 23:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

2. Since Montford is mainly notable for the blog there should be just one article, and that should be on the blog. That seems to me to be most in line with normal practice, but I don't have very strong opinions. I do think a merge would be helpful. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
3. I could go either way on this, but having spent a few days looking around I think the BLP should be merged into the blog, as the blog is mentioned marginally more often than Montford himself; see below for some examples. Very few biographical details are known about him, and when that's the case best practice is to create a page about the thing that has made the person notable, and have some details about him on that page summary-style. SlimVirgin 21:30, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It is not a case of which name has the most links in a particular newspaper. It is a case of how can wikipeida best cover this without content forking. If you think that is a merge to the blog then fine but the blog represents the ongoing views of Montford, it is his blog and he does appear to be notable, therefore my view is that it is by far the best thing to have his own blog as part of his own BLP, this is not a deletion issue just an avoidance of content forking and trying to make wikipedia as strong as it can be. Polargeo (talk) 10:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

1. First choice. There is only one subject and one source of (debatable) notability. Guy (Help!) 17:20, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
2. Second choice. Cardamon (talk) 03:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Don't merge:

Comment To give an idea of this blogs notability outside of the climategate scandal here are a few links. Roger A. Pielke, Jr. has said And if you don't know what this is about, good luck catching up to speed (but if you want to try, there will be no better place than Bishop Hill's recounting). Such is the complexity of the issue and its history about the Yamal Implosion write up on bishop hill. This write up also got into the MSM read this fascinating narrative by blogger BishopHill mark nutley (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

1. No Merger Some people seem to think this blog is notable only because of climatgate, this is not the case. The blog became notable when "Caspar and the Jesus Paper" and "The Yamal Implosion" were fist published on there. mark nutley (talk) 07:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
2. Why merge? The Author has done two highly notable independent works. One is the book (with enough good sources, see The_Hockey_Stick_Illusion), and secondly is running blog in question (with enough good sources, see ). As far as I see in the main article about the person he have appeared in many different public situations that's not directly related to his book or the blog, see for example Andrew_Montford#Media_appearances. Nsaa (talk) 23:45, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
3. No need to merge - unless to gain from a merge that which was not attainable at AfD. Collect (talk) 21:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
4. No clear case for merger. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 06:40, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
5. No reason to merge at all that I can see. Both are independently notable. Even if not, "Bishop Hill" is far more notable than "Andrew Montford" IMHO. I'm puzzled why so many people seem to want to make this article "go away" by one means or another. Thparkth (talk) 12:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
6. No need to merge. ATren (talk) 13:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
7. Hi. I am new to Misplaced Pages but I was surfing around and found this via a page requesting comments. After reading the discussion above I think that I agree with the people in this section the most. --AlfredGeorgeWoolsie (talk) 23:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC) I don't know who put something here that said I hadn't edited outside this "area" but it's not true. Most of my edits have been on pages about US representatives that looked like they needed grammar fixes. --AlfredGeorgeWoolsie (talk) 00:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

   Note to closing admin: account is new and has very few edits. SlimVirgin 09:01, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

   Further note to closing admin: account has been confirmed to be "almost certain... using open proxies." Likley a sock of a banned editor. Hipocrite (talk) 12:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

   One more: now indef'd as sock William M. Connolley (talk) 22:03, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

8. No keep them separate. They are two separate topics so they should be separated into two distinct articles, even if one ends up being a stub.Chhe (talk) 01:26, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Neutral:

#From looking around for sources, I'm not getting the impression that Montford and the blog are notable enough for two articles, so I support a merge on the understanding that no material will be removed. Normally I'd prefer merging into the BLP, but I'm unsure of that here because there are so few sources offering biographical material about Montford. SlimVirgin 22:53, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The sources on the blog are often more about Montford than about the blog. Polargeo (talk) 06:37, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you should accept that he's not really important enough for anyone to talk about. Grace Note (talk) 03:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

1. I see a lot of names that need to be topic banned in the voting sections above. Thus, I choose not to participate in this farce. I reccomend that whichever uninvolved user closes this carefully determine who is generally involved in climate change wars and who is generally uninvolved in climate change wars and ignorant inclusionism/deletionsim and ignore all of the former and do what the later instructs. Hipocrite (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

So far, everyone except Nsaa supports a merge, only Cla wants it the other way. Fine; we can do the merge, and reverse the direction sometime in the future if there is ever consensus for that. @SV: fine (at least for present; obviously you get no promises for the indefinite future) William M. Connolley (talk) 21:14, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like a bit more time to look around, William. I found Bishop Hill mentioned by The New York Times, including in several readers' letters, but not Montford. I'd like to check a few other overseas newspaper archives to see whether Bishop Hill is more widely known than him. SlimVirgin 21:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

While I think it makes more sense to merge this article in Andrew Montford, I could live with Cla's suggestion to merge it the other way. Yilloslime _C 00:04, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a new discussion, it's a continuation of a wider discussion involving all three articles. We shouldn't be starting this all over from scratch. Guettarda (talk) 23:05, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

It's a new discussion for SlimVirgin. Perhaps you might direct her toward the previous ones, with links, etc.? Maybe you might wish to revisit the points, just to ensure that they remain valid? Possibly, you may wish to review what an editor of extensive experience in article writing and application of policy might bring to the discussion? You could, at least, be courteous. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:59, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but shouldn't SlimVirgin be reading the previous discussions herself? They're all here on the talk page - nothing has been archived. I'm also slightly flabbergasted by your suggestion above that an editor seeking to make drastic changes to a contentious article shouldn't feel obliged to make any effort to discover the current state of consensus. As I've said before, I would have thought that was basic good practice and courtesy to one's fellow editors. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:06, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

"Drastic changes to a contentious article"? Chris, this is an under-developed article about a blog. What I did was add some sources that had mentioned the blog. And now I've posted an RfC about whether we should merge it (and if so in which direction), and I'm looking around to see which reliable sources have referenced it. There's no need for any of this to be seen as contentious. SlimVirgin 00:12, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The point which you're missing is that the same sources had been discussed at length on this talk page and had been removed because they were felt to be tangential, trivial or had BLP problems. A cursory review of the talk page would have shown this. You acknowledged earlier that you were unaware that the content in question was contentious, which unfortunately demonstrates that you were unaware of the previous discussions on the subject. The article was not "under-developed"; it had previously been developed in a way which the majority of editors on the talk page disagreed with. When you came upon it, the article had been reduced to a stub with the contentious material taken out. A consensus of editors agreed with this. Prior to your intervention, a fresh consensus was emerging for the stub to be merged into the Andrew Montford article - this was happening at #Merge Proposal above. It looks like the article will duly be merged now in its current state, but when this happens we're going to have to (yet again) discuss the same content that was previously taken out, and that you restored, to discuss the appropriateness for its inclusion in its new location and context. As Guettarda says below: "This isn't a new discussion, it's a continuation of a wider discussion involving all three articles. We shouldn't be starting this all over from scratch." -- ChrisO (talk) 00:20, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Why would SV be aware of this? How was this apparent on the article page? I should note that the premise of Misplaced Pages is that it is "The 💕 that anyone can edit", with no requirement noted to read the history of the subject they choose to exercise that privilege. The established editors, familiar with the subject and the issues surrounding it, are perhaps more bound to provide the assistance to a new contributor to help them understand the situation. As I have pointed out previously, the template on the article at the point SV began editing requested help in addressing the issues in the article first, and contributing to the discussion second. There was nothing in that page that might have given SV reason to believe they were not to make a good faith effort to resolve the apparent issues, without - and I am using this word deliberately to drive home the point I am trying to make - "permission" from the existing contributors. Please try and grasp the concept that the majority of WP editing is how SV approached this instance, and that it is the CC related article editing culture that is at variance with WP norms - and my evidence for that is that there is no community wide article Probation. I do implore you to attempt to consider that SV approached this article as she would any other, and that the response then and now is disproportionate to that which is considered the norm throughout the project. Simply, help the new editor understand why things are so rather than just stating that they are. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Why? Let's see - perhaps because this section is titled "Merger? (continued)"? There's nothing "at variance with WP norms" to expect editors to read the talk page. There's certainly nothing at variance with Misplaced Pages norms to expect experienced editors to read a section they've decided to participate in. We aren't talking about a newbie. We aren't talking about an editor who showed up at this page knowing nothing about controversial article editing. As for "permission" - editing this article is a crap shoot. Maybe you'll get blocked. Maybe you won't. Who the hell can tell? Guettarda (talk) 05:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

A two or three sentence stub of a blog, with a template saying "this page has issues - please contribute or discuss" does not indicate that it is a controversial topic. The templates now existing do give some indication, but not that existing when SV came to it. Even noting that there is a section on the talkpage entitled "Merger" is not evidence that adding to the existing article would be controversial. Ultimately, even knowing the subject or article is controversial is no reason to not try and improve it by good faith application of ones understanding of policy; there is WP:BRD after all. I would be surprised if I were blocked, but so much as I would be amused. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:01, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

By "you" I was talking about everyone but you, LHvU. Obviously, since you're the one who's making up rules - protecting the article for "edit warring" when none was going on, and blocking editors without warning.

As for the rest of it... Even noting that there is a section on the talkpage entitled "Merger" is not evidence that adding to the existing article would be controversial. Er...ok. Why are you injecting irrelevant stuff that's unrelated to the issue here? That's not the issue here. Are you injecting irrelevant stuff to side-track the discussion, or have you just not bothered to figure out what's going on before injecting yourself into the discussion? Do tell. Guettarda (talk) 19:41, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I am noting it since there has been statements to the effect that SlimVirgin should have made herself aware of the potential for controversy in editing the article, which I am attempting to show would not have been apparent in reviewing the article page as was or even if looking over the talkpage - I am trying to evidence that AGF needs to be shown toward her. Once that issue is settled, then the participants can continue resolving whether and where this article may be merged to. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:04, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

In other words, you're picking a tangential point and running with it. All you're doing is muddying the water and making it that much harder for other editors to resolve matters. Guettarda (talk) 04:44, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

AGF is a "tangential point"? I don't think so. Some progress is now being make in expanding this into a more complete article. I had hoped that the tendency on some AGW article talk pages to attack new editors who showed up and suggested changes and/or additions was a thing of the past. Cla68 (talk) 05:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

LessHeard vanU, I think Slim is smart enough to know that this article would be controversial enough to need to read the talkpage and your suggestion that experienced editors should just blunder in and start injecting their POV without gauging consensus is really quite misplaced and you should be discouraged. Not that you will be, obviously, but it's worth noting all the same. Grace Note (talk) 04:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

So it is no longer the 💕 that anyone can edit, but the 💕 that you shouldn't edit because doing so might be controversial and upset a few editors who seem obsessed with everything that even mentions climate change in passing? Misplaced Pages is about verifiability - if someone has verifiable information they do not need to study the talk page or bow down to regular contributors - they just need to edit the encyclopedia to reflect the verifiability. You can dispute their sources but you can't prevent them adding sourced material just because you feel a bit left out from editing your favourite article. Weakopedia (talk) 06:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

The blog is only notable because of the Climatic Research Unit email controversy. The portions of this article relating to Montford should be merged there, and the portions relating to the controversy can be included on that page if helpful. Jminthorne (talk) 00:42, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

That is true. There is a proposal to merge this into the Montford article, whose notability is questioned, and which is proposed to merge into the article on his book, whose notability is questioned, and which is proposed to merge into another article, which is not being suggested for merger, so I guess we're safe there. The final article is called The Hockey Stick Illusion. But actually, when you really think about it, there is no reason to mention the blog in the Hockey Stick Illusion article. Perhaps another merger scenario needs to be contemplated. ScottyBerg (talk) 14:30, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment To give an idea of this blogs notability outside of the climategate scandal here are a few links. Roger A. Pielke, Jr. has said And if you don't know what this is about, good luck catching up to speed (but if you want to try, there will be no better place than Bishop Hill's recounting). Such is the complexity of the issue and its history about the Yamal Implosion write up on bishop hill. This write up also got into the MSM read this fascinating narrative by blogger BishopHill mark nutley (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Some stats

A quick search of archives to see who has mentioned Bishop Hill and Montford in the last 12 months:

• The New York Times: several mentions of Bishop Hill (mostly in readers' comments); one of Montford.
• The Daily Telegraph: several mentions of Bishop Hill; two of Montford
• The Guardian: three mentions of Bishop Hill; two of Montford
• BBC News: one mention of Bishop Hill; one of Montford
• The Times of London: one mention of each in the same article
• Channel 4 (UK): one mention of Bishop Hill; three of Montford
• The Daily Mail: one mention of Montford, none of Bishop Hill, though the reference to Montford is a reference to his blog

SlimVirgin 03:24, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

• The NYT links include one mention of the blog by Revkin in his blog. The remainder are comments. Which may as well not exist. No registration required to post a comment in blogs hosted by NYT. So it's one mention of the blog, in a blog. Meaningful data point, or Revkin's personal preference?
• The Telegraph search showed the last 4 years, not 12 months, and included mention of "the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Rev Christopher Hill". All of the recent mentions come from Delingpole's blog, and since Delingpole refers to both the blog and the person as "Bishop Hill", he's not a very useful source. (Again, this fits with other failures to fact check.)
• The Guardian makes two mentions of the blog, in the context of the blogger ("the blog Bishop Hill, run by climate sceptic Andrew Montford", "Montford's blog, called Bishop Hill", which follows "a British website run by sceptic accountant Andrew Montford") and one mention of a committee hearing that was live-blogged by Bishop Hill (among others). All in all, the balance is towards identifying the blog with Montford, making him more notable.
• BBC - one mention of the people posting comments on the blog. (The mention of Montford is in a reader comment, which is meaningless.) Neither tells us anything about usage or notability.
• Times: "Andrew Montford...who writes the...Bishop Hill blog" - Montford is the subject here, BH is where he does what he does.
• Channel 4: #1, an article by Montford, identified as the author of his hockey stick book; #2 "posted on the Bishop Hill blog, run by climate sceptic Andrew Montford", #3 a link to #1.
• Daily Mail - "a British website run by climate change sceptic Andrew Montford"

Outside of the narrow world of the climate change blogosphere (where both Revkin, Delingpole and Montford can be positioned), there are two stories here: the Paul Dennis story and the Campbell story. In both cases Montford posted a scoop on his blog. Whatever his blog is called. The simple fact that it went from politics to climate overnight says something about how plastic it is. Bishop Hill isn't a real entity, it's the name of Montford's blog. It's not a group effort, even if it may have the occasional guest post. If Montford decided tomorrow that he wanted to switch "sides", Bishop Hill would do the same. It's not like Daily Kos where, where Markos has taken time off to write his books, and the front pagers and the community have kept going without him. The point is even more strongly made by the fact that Montford is able to post columns in other media. Now prior to the sale of Wonkette I would probably have said the same thing about that site (or would have, if I had been a reader). But the fact is that Montford made a name for himself as a blogger and then turned that into a book. That's why we have an article on Julie Powell, we have one on the movie that was made (in part) from her book, but we have no article on her blog. Despite the fact that it was the blog that brought her to the attention of the world, at least initially. Guettarda (talk) 07:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikistats: Bishop Hill (blog) viewed 1,192 times in April (721 hits in May so far); Andrew Montford 824 times (324 in May). SlimVirgin 03:31, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

That's all? I'd have expected more than that from editors after 3 established editors were blocked for "edit warring" (at one edit a piece). Guettarda (talk) 05:59, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

It's about the same as articles about similar blogs, e.g. DeSmogBlog 1,202 hits in April, RealClimate, 1,055. SlimVirgin 06:24, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

What's the point? We don't use google hits to gauge notability, so we shouldn't use page views. Also, I'd imagine this all this recent controversy and the AfD and RfCs have significantly increased page views over what they'd normally be. Yilloslime _C 06:31, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The point of looking in newspaper articles and at WP stats is to decide whether to merge the blog into the bio, or the other way round, YS. SlimVirgin 06:38, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

OK I see. It was the comparison to hits for DeSmogBlog and RealClimate that threw me off. Yilloslime _C 06:48, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd strongly suggest that much of the BH traffic is spurious, i.e. it's traffic by editors currently engaged in editing the article and if checking it because of AfD and RfC processes. Therefore the numbers are highly inflated. There are about 160 edits to the article - that's 320 hits (one before, one after) for just the actual edits alone, without anybody checking his watchlist... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I was just looking at the links supplied above, and they appear to all fit the definition of "trivial mentions" described in WP:WEB: "a brief summary of the nature of the content." I don't know what to make of the viewer statistics, which I suggest may be influenced by Misplaced Pages editors eyeballing the content. ScottyBerg (talk) 14:19, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Done

Consensus looks pretty clear above: everyone except Nsaa supports merge. So I've done it William M. Connolley (talk) 11:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

There's an open RfC about this, William, and you're involved so you can't close it. SlimVirgin 21:13, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with SV - you do not qualify as uninvolved on this article. Collect (talk) 21:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

No one's commented on the RfC for quite a while now, and the consensus is quite clear--in fact it's only gotten stronger since the RfC was "officially" opened. What's the point of stalling? Yilloslime _C 21:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I only opened the RfC two days ago, and haven't even commented on it yet myself or let people know about it elsewhere. And the point is that no one who's involved in it should be closing it. SlimVirgin 21:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry - you don't get to delay things just by starting an RFC. The consensus is obvious. If the RFC somehow throws up a whole slew of contrary views, then of course we can reconsider. The merged articles are now fairly small - it would be better to dump the book in too - but a lot better than two tiddlers William M. Connolley (talk) 21:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The other climate change RfCs listed there don't seem to have drawn much comment either. Merger has been discussed since April 21, so I really don't see the harm in merging now. However, if there is a strong disagreement with merging, perhaps we can de-merge for a couple of days and see if anyone drops by with a convincing argument for non-merging. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:06, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

RfCs run for 30 days. What's the hurry? Cla68 (talk) 22:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

If 30 days is standard I certainly have no problem with that. However, this has been discussed for some time. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems like we had pretty much reached consensus before the discussion was officially turned into an RfC. So turning it into an RfC and then insisting it run for 30 days come across like a stalling tactic, especially when (some of) those arguing for delay are in the "don't merge" camp. (Not saying anything about people's actually intentions, just how it comes across). Yilloslime _C 22:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

You're engaged in the language of BATTLE. "Stalling tactics," and "you don't get to delay." There is a minor disagreement so I posted an RfC. It doesn't need to stay up for the full 30 days, but it does need to stay for longer than two, and it can't be closed by someone who's involved unless we all agree. WMC was an active admin for a long time and he knows that. SlimVirgin 22:57, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, you are engaged in the actions of BATTLE. Which is worse? Yilloslime _C 23:35, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what the panic is about here. It's just an article about a blog. It's unclear whether the blog is more notable or the author (I'm leaning toward the blog at the moment), but either way there's no rush to decide. SlimVirgin 22:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The earliest discussion of merger was 4/21, so there really hasn't been any haste. I don't know enough about RfCs to opine as to whether opening one "stops the clock," but if so it somehow doesn't seem quite right in this kind of situation. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

If/when someone starts an AN/I thread on this, please let me know. I don't usually have that page watchlisted. Similarly, please let me know if/when the WP:GS/CC/RE thread is started. Thanks. Yilloslime _C 23:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what the panic is about here - nor is it clear what your spoiling tactics are for. This thing has obviously run it's course William M. Connolley (talk) 07:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

• The RfC has no bearing on the merge. The RfC can continue running quite happily and if it comes to the conclusion that a merge should not take place then fine things can always be reversed but it should have NO POWER to stop consensus being acted upon now. Polargeo (talk) 13:14, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Just to recapitulate: we were involved in a repetitive and unproductive discussion on extraneous issues, and I suggested that we focus on the merger discussion that had commenced on Apr. 21. I then recommenced a merger section ("Merger? (continued)"), and someone began a "straw poll" section. Subsequently an RfC was started, and the RfC tag was placed on the "straw poll" section which by then had shown a clear consensus for merger. The article was merged shortly after the RfC began. While that may seem precipitous I don't think it was, as the merger discussion had already been underway for weeks.ScottyBerg (talk) 14:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Just let the RfC run its course. At least four editors, of whom three appear to have been previously uninvolved in this article, have voted since WMC tried to prematurely close the RfC. An RfC helps to bring in uninvolved editors with independent opinions. Because its a volunteer project, editors may not be checking the list of open RfCs frequently or every day. Cla68 (talk) 23:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Motion to Close

This RfC has been inactive for a while now, and seems unlikely that new opinions are forthcoming. I motion that it be closed. (Not sure how best to recruit a truly uninvolved closer) Yilloslime _C 17:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

One of us should ask on AN/I for an admin to close it who has no prior involvement with CC articles or with any of the editors involved here. SlimVirgin 17:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I can ask at ANI, as someone who has not commented as regards the substance of the RfC. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:10, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

That's fine by me. SlimVirgin 19:21, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Will do. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

• I have closed the debate above, in response to the request on ANI. As I think this is the first time I've closed a RfC please check that I've formatted it correctly etc. I assume that editors here will carry out the actual merge? Peter 23:03, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks. As promised; cakes and ale. LessHeard vanU (talk) 08:46, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Puffery

We shouldn't be using AM's self-promotion. If no-one else says this, just leave it out William M. Connolley (talk) 08:08, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Your saying montford is not good for his own opinion? mark nutley (talk) 08:16, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

He says his self-serving opinion about his own blog is something we should not use per WP:SPS. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:24, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

He did not publish it, Parliament did check the URL mark nutley (talk) 08:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Please read for understanding. It's written by him, with no external editorial oversight. Hence it is self-published. Parliament publishes such submissions indiscriminately. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I`m well aware of what parliament publish`s. Do you actually think they publish every submission the receive then? mark nutley (talk) 09:01, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, unless its malformed, misaddressed, or obvious rubbish. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok so they don`t publish every submission then, now were getting somewere. Right as it is not self published and as montford is obviously good for his own opinions what is the problem? mark nutley (talk) 09:18, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

MN, please stop wasting everyones time with this. It is his own self-puffery William M. Connolley (talk) 10:18, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I included similar sources in DeSmogBlog and recently in The Deniers and no one complained about those even though the same editors were active there as here. What's the difference between those articles and this one? I support the inclusion of the parliament source.　Cla68 (talk) 11:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how is at all comparable. The relevant sentence in WP:SELFPUB is "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as: 1. the material is not unduly self-serving;". Montford's description of his own blog is self-promontory. Weiss, Shaviv, and Solanki on the other hand refute false claims made about them and their opinion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:31, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Describing this as "the parliament source" looks deliberately deceptive. This isn't something written by parliament; this is self-puffing William M. Connolley (talk) 11:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely about removal of Montford's description of his own blog. Is this article so weak that it requires such puffery? Apparently the answer is yes. ScottyBerg (talk) 12:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Additional puffery

This edit adds still more puffery to the article. Casual references to this blog don't add anything of encyclopedic value to this article, and that is especially so since a blog is quoted, and blogs are not reliable sources. ScottyBerg (talk) 14:29, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I just took this out: " Caroline McCracken-Fleshe has also cited the blog in her book, "Culture, nation, and the new Scottish parliament" " as it seemed totally pointless. Are we going to list every time someone cites the blog? I hope not, that would violate a number policies including WP:NOT. If Caroline McCracken-Fleshe citing the book is somehow significant, then the article needs to explain that significance. Otherwise mentioning it is pointless. Yilloslime _C 15:02, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I would like to do the same with the passages I cited, but I don't want an administrator swooping down on me. The problem with Misplaced Pages is that the rules seem to be made up as we go along. I just don't see how such trivia can remain in articles. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:23, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Blogs on MSM newspapers are reliable for the authors opinon, Pielke passes wp:prof as a source, there is no problem with those. McCrackens book deal with the corruption and cost overruns on the scottish parliment, this is some thing which a lot of blogs picked up on before the MSM and this fact is mentioned in the book mark nutley (talk) 16:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

The blog to which I objected was housed and cited at blogspot.com, not a newspaper. Self-published sources are not favored. In this context this and the other additions serve only to pad out the article. We can't have every single casual mention of this blog, especially not in other blogs. The article is trivial enough as it is. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Those mentions show the blog was already notable before climategate, it does not matter were pielkes blog is hosted, he still passes wp:prof mark nutley (talk) 18:05, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

No, WP:PROF relates to the eligibility of academics to warrant articles. It does not cover use of blogs by professors or other academics. Blogs use is generally discouraged under WP:V. Even if they had been permitted, I can't see these casual references adding materially to the article. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Your desire to have the article deleted is obviously blinding you to the fact that these refs prove the blogs notability, it is pointless to debate with you as you are set on one course and i doubt anything will change your mind mark nutley (talk) 18:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

merged and redirected

Per the outcome of this above RfC, I've merged this page into Andrew Montford. Save for one reference, there didn't appear to be any content on this page that wasn't already discussed on the target page, so there wasn't much to actually merge. If I've missed any content, please accept my apology ahead of time, and add it to the AM page. Yilloslime _C 01:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Restored

I've restored the article and expanded it. WMC again Vandalize communicates poorly twice (he probably want more people going down with him on the arb.com. case ... please stop him now.). When should someone stop him? This is new:

Fred Pearce in The Guardian describe the revelations the blog has done as "landed some good blows" talking about "CRU scientists did back-door deals to include unpublished research in the last IPCC report" among others. ...

References

1. Pearce, Fred (2010-09-14). "'Climategate' inquiries were 'highly defective', report for sceptic thinktank rules". guardian.co.uk. The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2010-09-14. Retrieved 2010-09-14. I have no problem with Montford. His Bishop Hill website is not to everyone's taste, but he has landed some good blows here. Mainstream climate scientists need acerbic critics to keep them honest. And there are real signs of progress. {{cite web}}: External link in |quote= (help)

Nsaa (talk) 21:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The article was merged with Andrew Montford after consensus was found for it after a RfC (on these pages). Therefore there needs to be a consensus for the article to be demerged, which discussion needs to take place at Talk:Andrew Montford - thus WMC was correct in reverting your nonconsensus action. You may find that the new information may be pertinent to the Andrew Montford article, in any case, and may be discussed there. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) I've restored the redirect. Referring to that as "WMC again Vandalize" is both a PA and an offence against grammar; please redact both. This article was redirected after discussion (I see LHVU has said the same; maybe you'll be able to hear it when he says it); you need to re-open that discussion and get agreement before de-merging this article William M. Connolley (talk) 21:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Protected again

To ensure that discussion not buttons is the vehicle used to resolve this, I have protected again. This is the third time for this title; do I get a fluffy toy? LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I've added a new source from the extremely pro AGW source The Guardian even further establish this as an area wort an article. As far as I see above there were no consensus on the merge. But I don't want to fight wind mills like this it's pointless and It's just creating and even worse climate on the Misplaced Pages. Hopefully the arb.come will make proper adjustment to the area. Nsaa (talk) 21:26, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you try and see if you can place the content in the merged article, which notes the subject's blog? The RfC was closed by an uninvolved admin, I would also note, and this is the first comment I have seen which questioned the result. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:30, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Just think a lot of people are tired of doing this fighting over inclusion of material. When I arrived at Misplaced Pages the goal was to build the biggest encyclopedia in the world. We have articles about small animated characters from kids television, but an article about one of the most important blogs in the climate area is not welcome. This is a political fight by greens like WMC that will suppress and remove what ever they can of critical voices to the political "consensus" movement. But I've not the time, will or interest in going into this, so let it be. If I find some interesting stuff I tries to add it to the relevant article, but most of the time it get removed by the pundits like WMC, ChrisO and KDP especially. So I will keep of. Nsaa (talk) 21:39, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I will try , but I have low expectations. Nsaa (talk) 21:50, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Me too. But lets talk over there instead William M. Connolley (talk) 21:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

LessHeard vanU: Instead of protecting the article - which hurts everyone, you should sanction the editors causing the problem - which benefits the entire community. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't really see how protecting a redirect, per a consensus arrived at RfC, hurts anyone. Demerges outside of consensus is harmful. I see no reason to sanction Nsaa, as they seemed to have acted in good faith being unfamiliar with the consensus on this page. In pursuit of AGF, I shall unprotect - but I do not expect to see any edit to the article without there being a sold consensus first. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right - the passion has died down, so an unprotect is harmless, but also pointless. But if it keeps people happy, then its good William M. Connolley (talk) 14:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

1. McCracken-Fleshe, Caroline (2007). Culture, nation, and the new Scottish parliament. Bucknell University Press. p. 279. ISBN 083875547X, 9780838755471. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

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