Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timothy Ball

Timothy Ball

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Timothy Ball
• Articles for deletion/Timothy Ball (2nd nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Timothy Ballard

Timothy Ball (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Global warming skeptic NN except for a few GW-related disputes William M. Connolley (talk) 14:25, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - fails WP:PROF. No evidence of high impact scholarly work (criterion #1); no evidence of highly prestigious awards (criterion #2); not an elected member of the National Academy, Royal Society or similar body (criterion #3); no evidence that his work as made "significant impact in the area of higher education" (criterion #4); not a "distinguished professor" or holder of a named chair (criterion #5); not been a university president, chancellor or held a similar position (criterion #6); has arguably made a small, but not a "substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity" (criterion #7); does not appear to have been editor in chief of a major journal (criterion #8); isn't in literature or fine arts (criterion #9).

  He objectively fails 8 of the 9 criteria and, in my opinion, fails criterion #7. Even if he squeaks past on that criterion, WP:PROF sets a minimum standard for inclusion. There's very little coverage of his actual academic achievements which would be, of course, be the underlying basis for any notability under criterion #7. Guettarda (talk) 15:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete According to the ISI Web of Science he has five six peer reviewed publications and his h-index is 3. I've known grad students with more significant scientific track records than that. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:00, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Weak keep. Folk don't have to meet all of those notability criteria; just one of them :-) and I think that Ball does just scrape by on criterion 7 - there's several links to lay media that take his arguments seriously and I'm sure a few more could be unearthed if necessary. I think he easily meets WP:BASIC. bobrayner (talk) 18:45, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
  • But he's not the subject of these sources - he's mentioned in passing, as a source. We've got his opinion on one subject. What information is there to write a bio - other than his own self-promotional material? I don't see how he passes WP:BASIC based on passing mention in a couple news articles. Guettarda (talk) 18:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: Should we require enough notability to write a decent, rounded biography, or at least a decent stub? Ball is known for nothing but his climate change contrariness. Hence any article is bound to be unbalanced and a target for WP:COATRACKs. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:15, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
• Keep. He's a well-known player in the climate wars, and we should provide as much info as possible to readers who are trying to assess the issue. The University of London confirms his PhD (Sci) and that his thesis was on climate change. (Most universities include climatology in their geography dept.) Here's an older version of our bio; why not restore it? Also, note that in his biography, he only claims 8 yrs. as prof. I think the longer claim was an honest generalization of his teaching. --Yopienso (talk) 23:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Can you explain why you think he meets our notability guidelines? Having a PhD does not make you notable enough to have a Wikipedia biography. Guettarda (talk) 03:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes, I can, gladly. I think Ball meets our notability guidelines because he has received significant coverage in RSs. He appeared on a documentary on UK public TV. The fact that the documentary wasn't particularly factual is beside the point: it was a publicly aired broadcast. Our article on Ball cites to The Telegraph, the Toronto Star, which notes, "One of them is climatologist Ball, a popular, indefatigable public speaker. Last year, he made about 100 presentations to the likes of farm groups, Rotary and Probus meetings and insurance industry people," The Guardian, Business Week, CBC News, as well as the Canada Free Press, several blogs, and other fringe media. My "Keep" doesn't endorse the man's opinions, but reflects the fact that he is, as I said, "a well-known player in the climate wars." We owe it to the public to tell as much as is appropriate about him so they can judge the players and the issues. Time Magazine, you'll recall, sometimes names blackguards as Man of the Year, not because they were so great, but because they were so greatly influential. I'm not calling Ball a blackguard or nominating him for Man of the Year, just saying he's notable, whether or not correct. --Yopienso (talk) 04:15, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
      • WP:N clearly says that we need sources with "significant coverage". Which source give "significant coverage" to Ball? None of the ones cited in the article - their mention is, at best, passing. Yes, we can gather he's a former professor. And that he has an opinion on climate change. But where is he from? How old is he - in his 30s? His 80s? Is he Canadian, or did he immigrate to Canada? What has he achieved in his professional career? He used to work for the University of Winnipeg. That's all we really know about the man from these sources. If we can't even build a barebones outline of who he is from a source, I don't see how anyone can call it "significant coverage". Guettarda (talk) 04:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
        • The very first source--the Telegraph--dedicates paragraphs 3-7 to him. The Great Global Warming Swindle alone is enough to call "significant coverage." (I'm equating publicity, not in-depth detail, with "significant coverage.") Amazingly, it won an Italian award. Unamazingly, it generated a good deal of controversy and rebuttal. IMDB lists Ball as the first cast member. The entire, albeit brief, CBC article is about Ball. ("CBC News is the largest news broadcaster in Canada with local, regional, and national broadcasts and stations.") This screed against him won a citation from the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanograpic Society, and reveals that in 2006 Dr. Ball was 67 years old. And this more recent blog devotes an entire page to bashing him and casting him as a has-been. Excerpt:

By his activism, his constant and so-often ill-informed criticism of scientists who were actually working in the field of climate change, Ball had, by 2006, established himself as Canada's pre-eminent global warming denier. The Globe and Mail called him "Mr. Cool," although the accompanying feature was anything but complimentary.

Still, at least he was getting attention.

Again, I don't say our article should be laudatory; it should be informative. --Yopienso (talk) 05:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

But the problem is that the source you're choosing to quote from in HUGE LETTERS isn't usable, as you know full well. And you also know that if anyone wrote "Ball is Canada's pre-eminent global warming denier" in his article, the usual BSLP zealots would run screaming to arbcomm saying "lookit the bad man!". So your point, correctly interpreted, would appear to be that there really isn't much notable coverage of him William M. Connolley (talk) 09:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

What's BSLP? Au contraire, my point is that there is significant coverage. --Yopienso (talk) 16:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

William makes an important point - we can't use blogs (or IMDB, iirc) as sources about living people. So what's the point of even bringing them up? Simply to mislead people who don't bother to click the links? Guettarda (talk) 13:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Please don't allege bad faith on my part; I wish everyone would click on the links. Here's the one to Charles Montgomery's award-winning article on Ball and Co. that was published in the Globe and Mail in 2006. --Yopienso (talk) 16:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The very first source...dedicates paragraphs 3-7 to him - while it dedicates several (1-sentence) paragraphs to his opinion, all it actually says about him is "a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada" and "Ball appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle". I'm equating publicity, not in-depth detail, with "significant coverage." - that, I believe, would be a mistake. We can't use "publicity" to write an article. A series of quotes without actual information about a person is pretty much useless from the perspective of trying to write an encyclopaedic biography. "In-depth coverage" is coverage of the subject - in this case, the person. The only source that even starts to look at Ball as a person is Monbiot's article. And that certainly isn't "in depth coverage", it's merely questioning his veracity. Guettarda (talk) 13:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

This is your and WMC's opinion against mine. I welcome any response you may have, but I think I've enunciated my view as clearly as I can and further comment from me would just be stubborn argument. WP certainly doesn't have to provide this information; readers can always go to all those other sites. --Yopienso (talk) 16:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete. Inadequate scientific record. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC).
• Keep Meets Notability guidelines - and was featured in a show on climate sceptics. The question is - would a reasonable person expect to find an article on this person on WP? It appears to be viewed somewhere around ahundred times per month on average (stats.grok.se) which places the article in the top half of page views overall (yep - WP has many with well under a hundred views per month). So as long as people want to look someone up, it is reasonable for WP to fill that purpose. It might also be a problem in the current arbcom material if sceptic BLPs were being deleted as "non-notable" I fear. 184.88.137.247 Collect (talk) 17:31, 29 September 2010 (UTC) signing
  • Can you explain why you think he meets the notability guideline? And why should it matter to the arbcomm deliberation? Guettarda (talk) 03:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
    • I think it quite possible that the person's BLP falls under the CC proposals. "Deletion" is certainly "editing" it would appear. Collect (talk) 17:31, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
• Keep Clear pass of WP:PROF criterion 7 and WP:BIO. Gnews link (I inserted an additional climate term to sort out from all the other Tim Balls out there) puts him at the forefront of the political discussion over climate science. Ray^Talk 14:48, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Can you clarify how he passes WP:PROF item 7? That criterion states "The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity." (emphasis added) Since Ball retired from academia more than a decade ago, how can he make an impact "in his academic capacity"? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Problem is that there's another "Timothy Ball" involved in climate research. This link points to another person all together, which is, I suspect, the same person as the second author in this paper. Guettarda (talk) 15:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Keep he passes the general notability guideline because there is detailled coverage of him in independant reliable sources. E.g. here and on more local level here Polargeo (talk) 15:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)