Talk:Anthony Watts (blogger)

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What bothers Watts most

Before recent edits by DHeyward, the text read

He further avers that what most bothers him about people who say there's lots of global warming is that "They want to change policy. They want to apply taxes and these kinds of things may not be the actual solution for making a change to our society." (bold added)

Although the bolded phrase was not formatted as a quote, it does use the language used by the interviewer, and this is critical because it defines the pronoun "they" in Watts' quote. DHeyward altered the meaning away from the RS by changing the bold text so that it instead reads climate change activists. Watts was not asked about "climate change activists", he was asked about "people who say there is a lot of global warming". Many many many people say that, and while they might want the things Watts describes they are totally inactive trying to make it happen.

To cure this problem, I then imported a direct quote for the journalist's question. What's more WP:VERIFIABLE and objective than that? The result read

" Asked "What’s the thing that bothers you the most about people who say there’s lots of global warming?" he replied "They want to change policy. They want to apply taxes and these kinds of things may not be the actual solution for making a change to our society." (Bold added)

OOPS! While "climate change activists" was somehow dandy, apparently the verbatim question-and-answer is somehow toxic waste, which D removed entirely, with the edit summary

rm. don't agree with interprtation of soundbite quotepull that spans multiple questions/answers. It's clear he means activists drawn to a cause and not everyone that believes in global warming (underline added)

Say what? "spans multiple questions/answers"?? No it doesn't. There is this question, followed by this answer. Read the transcript in the ref. Plain as my nose.

Side-bar, Watts' answer to the verbatim question "What’s the thing that bothers you the most about people who say there’s lots of global warming?" became the focus of commentary. There are 1500 Google hits on the verbatim question combined with "Watts". For example, Skeptical Science's Dana 1981 wrote,

Watts on His Motives and Double Standards

At Skeptical Science it is against our site policy to speculate about a person's motives, but in this case, Watts volunteered the information.

"SPENCER MICHELS: What's the thing that bothers you the most about people who say there's lots of global warming?

ANTHONY WATTS: They want to change policy. They want to apply taxes and these kinds of things may not be the actual solution for making a change to our society.

"It is interesting that Watts responds to a question about a science-based opinion with a criticism about policy. For example, Watts is not most bothered that people are ignoring or unaware of the biases that he incorrectly believes exist in the temperature record. No, Watts is most bothered that we might implement an economically-beneficial carbon tax.

CONCLUSION The text should be restored to show both the question and the answer because

What bothers him most about those people is highly relevant to a biography about the man
The question is followed by the answer without interruption, contrary to D's edit summary
Using both the question and the answer is objective and NPOV, whereas DHeyward's edit puts words in Watts' mouth, based on DHeyward's interpretation of the word "they". He says his interpretation is "clear". Well, it certainly isn't clear to me, because I prefer to read the RS text without committing WP:Original research.

@DHeyward: please self-revert.

refs for what bothers Watts most

References

^ Michels, Spencer. "Climate Change Skeptic Says Global Warming Crowd Oversells Its Message". PBS NewsHour.
Dana1981. "PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?"". Skeptical Science.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

RFC - Should discussion of Watts' blog be moved to the article about Watts' blog "Watts Up With That?"

This RfC was closed after being open for 29 days because a consensus has emerged. The RFC question is reasonably read as asking, "Should discussion of Watts' blog be moved to the article about Watts' blog, i.e., Watts Up With That?" Many of the commenters have essentially read it that way, and so that is how I will read it, since it seems silly to entirely remove all mention of the blog from this BLP.

The consensus is not determined merely from !votes. However, note that the !votes were roughly as follows: 7 "yes", 3 "no", 2 "merge", 1 should be "handled by WP:Summary style", 1 "support" for "moderate trimming and moving of WUWT material", 2 "yes" but use summary style or merge, and 1 no but merge. Some concern was expressed that the RFC question is confusing or malformed or proposes a WP:POVFORK.

I take notice of the fact that Section 2.1 of this BLP is titled "Climate change blogging", that Section 2.1 contains two paragraphs, that Section 2.1 already has a hatnote to the main article Watts Up With That?, that Section 2.1 has been substantially edited during the course of this RFC, and that such editing included removal of a paragraph about awards..

Merging the entire article into the article about the blog would require further discussion, because it was not suggested by the RFC question. The RFC question addressed only the blog, and not climate stuff more generally.

There is solid support here for reducing the size of section 2.1 about the blog. For example, it could be reduced to a couple sentences about his role as founder and supervisor, and then another couple sentences about his blog posts. Such would conform with WP:Summary Style. As for awards for blogging, that could be briefly mentioned in the aforementioned four sentences. All material removed from this article should go to the article about the blog, if it's not already there, per WP:Summary style. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

.... The entire RfC discussion follows.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

RFC question

Should discussion of Watts' blog be moved to the article about Watts' blog, i.e., Watts Up With That?NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:59, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Yes, as proposer Extensive debate and characterization of Watts' blog on this page about the individual person named "Anthony Watts" overlooks fact that many other people write posts at this guy's blog. True, Watts has control over which guest columns appear and which don't. Nonetheless, I feel we would be best served by stripping extensive discussion and characterization of the blog from this article about the man, and moving all of that to the article about the blog.

NUTSHELL - I do NOT suggest deleting anything, just consolidating the blog issues at the blog article. I will finish formatting this with appropriate templates w/in 24 hrs but not right now.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

YES, per proposer. I've already suggested this, somewhere upthread in the Wall of Text. Summarize WUWT briefly here, move the rest to the blog. But don't think you can avoid WP:BLP over there.... --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:20, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Why do you feel compelled to add a vague threat ("don't think you can avoid WP:BLP over there")? After all, no one should expect to violate any of our policies anywhere, so going out of your way to make such a remark seems somehwat battle-ish. You've my permission to delete this comment if you choose to redact the relevant part of your own. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:25, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Please see

Yes move the blog and climate views to the other articles. Then we only have to remove "denier" from the blog page as we can avoid it here. --DHeyward (talk) 10:23, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

The word "denier" appears in neither lead, both quite properly refer to the climate change denial which Watts supports in his blog and also in other publications. We can improve the coverage of this issue, whether the coverage in this article is WP:SUMMARY style or alternatively the articles are merged as proposed below. . . dave souza, talk 16:33, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

No The blog and the climate denialism promoted thereon are the basis of Watts'notability; accordingly, the section belongs in the BLP.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 03:01, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Question NAEG, could you clarify how much content you would expect to be left on this page if this were to be agreed upon? --JBL (talk) 20:59, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

That would be the next thing we argue about, assuming we have consensus there is an unfortunate redundancy between the two. There are several places we could draw the line. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:32, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

To clarify the intent of my question: I tend to agree with Ubikwit that Anthony Watts is mostly notable because WUWT is notable. This cuts against removing too much WUWT-related material from the biography. On the other hand, there's some obvious trimming that would probably improve this article (e.g., the paragraph about blog awards). So I suppose my point is that my support for this proposal depends rather much on where the line is drawn. Perhaps we can put me down as supporting a moderate trimming and moving of WUWT material. --JBL (talk) 21:55, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, fair enough. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:26, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

No Any mention of Watts in reliable sources is almost always paired with mention of his blog. The rare exceptions are now defunct websites briefly touching on his old meteorology career. Without his blog, Watts isn't notable, and we of course should expect that most of his article will discuss his primary claim to notability. Since Watts Up With That has been fully protected while this article was undergoing extensive revisions, our coverage of the blog may be better here than at its own article. That can be rectified once the protection expires by copying and expanding this coverage (no deletions from here necessary). I may be in favor of merging the articles, but if they aren't merged, our standard practice is to summarize the more extensive coverage of Watts Up With That in a section here, and it seems that's what we're doing now. Also note, all content on WUWT (in this article) is related to Watts due to his direct involvement, and each of our sources references him, so it's all relevant even aside from it being his blog. — Jess· Δ ♥ 01:42, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Mann Jess, what about the paragraph on blog awards, for example? --JBL (talk) 18:06, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

The awards might not belong in this article, but that's a content decision that doesn't require an RfC (or perhaps even a discussion). Keep in mind what we're removing: they, along with the criticism, discuss the broad reception of his blog (a project started by and closely tied to Watts). I think we could do a better job of summarizing that reception than detailing every criticism and every internet-voting award from 8 years ago. Yes, we should be summarizing the parent article, not going into excruciating detail, but we should still detail more here than we typically would due to the close relationship between Watts and his blog. So, I might support trimming some things individually, but the overarching theme of removing WUWT content from this bio is not one I support in general. — Jess· Δ ♥ 19:06, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. --JBL (talk) 21:00, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes Watts is mentioned often outside the website, and he is certainly more notable that 95% of all climate scientists. Arzel (talk) 17:48, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Observation: your rationale does not appear to be related to your vote. --JBL (talk) 18:05, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

If he was not notable then surely you and your friends would not be here worrying about him on a continual basis. The actions of the AGW crowd on WP is pretty good empirical evidence of his notability. Arzel (talk) 14:30, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Shorter: What does this have to do with the question under discussion in the RfC?

Longer: I have been pleasantly surprised to see the RfC discussion splitting opinions up in ways that do not correlate perfectly with views about Watts. It is certainly more enlightening than most of the rest of the discussions happening on this page. It would be nice if you, too, could engage in the RfC. So far, I can see no connection whatsoever between what you've written here and the question under discussion. (In particular, there is exactly no one disputing whether Watts is notable.)

--JBL (talk) 14:41, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

The website is certainly notable today by itself. Watts is notable by himself as well. There may have been a time when the two were not necessarily independently notable, but that is no longer the case today. Arzel (talk) 01:11, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

This RFC is not about the notability of Watts nor WUWT. All of your comments appear to be pure non sequiturs. --JBL (talk) 01:29, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

In another thread, some of us were kicking around maybe doing a full merge. I don't know what Arzel had in mind, but in any case, what he said is an argument against full merge. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for helping to make the connection. --JBL (talk) 20:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Comment: It might be worth considering merging the articles about Watts and WUWT -- which, ims, is what we used to have. --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:32, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

"ims"? --JBL (talk) 21:00, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Edit to add: "if memory serves"? --JBL (talk) 21:02, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd support merging the articles if we can keep all the significant content. My concern is that some content may no longer fit. If we merge WUWT to here, we'd have to cut out significant coverage of WUWT's activities not involving Watts (i.e. posts from Monckton). If we merge into WUWT, we'd need to demonstrate a connection between the Surface Stations Project and WUWT (only 1 source I know of connects the two, others mention both as independent projects), or else create Surface Stations Project and be left with two articles again. Rather than figure all that out now, I think our best bet is to flesh out both articles, then see where there's overlap and combine if necessary. Just my opinion. — Jess· Δ ♥ 21:17, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Also see this discussion with Boris, upthread. Hmmm, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:45, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes I think two parallel discussions is a waste of effort. News and Events' proposal has merit. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:59, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
No; see merge proposal(s) below. JonRichfield (talk) 05:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Note: the RfC is confusing, because it doesn't indicate how much of the material should be moved to the other article. It's hard to imagine that our article here should contain nothing at all on the blog -- as others have noted, this is a significant part of Watts's own notability. So if that's what is intended, then of course the answer to the question as posed has to be no. But I think this will be a hard RfC to close -- because there are likely different assumptions by different editors about exactly what is being proposed. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:37, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Right, this gets to the same thing I was saying in my first comment above. But I thought NaEG's response was helpful: first we can agree that some amount of trim/move should happen, then we can discuss exactly where to draw the line. Only one person has supported the (self-evidently ridiculous) idea that Watts' blog should be totally expunged from this page, and most people who have expressed a view supporting a more moderate trimming. --JBL (talk) 14:44, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

The question is malformed. Obviously the discussion about XX should go into the article about XX, whatever the XX, including the aforementioned blog. So, yes, discussion about the blog should be on the blog's article (assuming there is one). Watts' article should have a brief, wp:Summary style reference to it. Alternatively, I have not looked much into it, yet it looks like this is close to a one-event BLP, and the articles are not that big, so merging would also be a possible move. - Nabla (talk) 01:50, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
- Agree 100%. I was summoned here by the RFC bot, and this is the right answer. --Slashme (talk) 16:04, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Merge to a single article. What should that article be? Watts has some minor notability beyond WUWT, but WUWT clearly is Watts's blog, so the remaining article should be the one on Watts with WUWT as a section therein. I know that wasn't the question but that's the answer. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:40, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Merge Storm in teacup. Change the blog article to a redir; its text is quite small enough to fit into the personal article as part of the perspective and the personal part is quite small enough to prevent frustration to readers seeking information on the blog. JonRichfield (talk) 05:51, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

No, this RfC looks like a proposal for a WP:POVFORK. That guideline says, among other things, that "The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article." If this RfC is interpreted as "How much should we trim?" then it doesn't have any practical value because it's unclear what the outcome would entail. Manul ~ talk 09:50, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

So, is this a vote for Merger? --Pete Tillman (talk) 17:29, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

This RfC seemed to be proposing that WUWT should be gutted or severely trimmed from the article, making the WUWT article an effective WP:POVFORK. The article should substantially cover WUWT regardless of whether or not there is a separate WUWT article. A merger proposal would be a different RfC, stating the arguments for and against so that everyone can see them upfront. We can't retroactively change what an RfC is addressing; that's unfair to the early commentators. Manul ~ talk 19:10, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Merger? -- I'm in favor (as said upthread somewhere). NAEG, if your proposal has run its course, are you wiling to recast it as a MERGE.RFC? Thx, Pete Tillman (talk) 17:29, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes per NewsAndEventsGuy. The Watts blog article is quite well-developed as is this one; I would suggest summarizing the blog here rather than repeating content or merging the two articles. petrarchan47 คุ ก 05:53, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes If there were something notable about Watts himself beyond what's in his blog I would vote differently. Too many people are aggressively tendentious for that to be a criterion for notability. Vaughan Pratt (talk) 08:20, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
'Neither Yes nor No. Cases like this are handled according to WP:Summary style. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:24, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

BLP noticeboard

~~Section = 109 BLP articles labelled "Climate Change Deniers" all at once.~~ This article was placed in a "climate change deniers" category. After discussion on WP:BLPN and WP:CFD the category was deleted. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:46, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello. I have reworded the biased language. "Denies" is loaded and biased and is OK in an editorial but not an encyclopadea. Thank you. 2600:1012:B00E:AA8F:15A4:FD3E:51FE:E2B0 (talk) 18:07, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

No sockpuppets, please. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:31, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

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