Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of United States tornadoes in May 2008

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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 no consensus. Although the "delete" !votes have some strong arguments, there obviously is at this moment no consensus to delete this article. Perhaps that some judicious editing can take care of the signaled content duplications. Randykitty (talk) 18:03, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of United States tornadoes in May 2008

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List of United States tornadoes in May 2008 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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This list duplicates three other pages,

Fram (talk) 17:32, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

This guy possibly got angry because he got an edit reverted. XD
Seriously though, there are probably at least some people out there who want/need a combined list. Also, there are tornadoes that happened in between those time periods, and if someone wanted to find out about them, this article would need to exist. Poodle23 (talk) 18:41, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So my personal opinion is Keep. Poodle23 (talk) 18:46, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: This isn’t violating any guidelines or policy, and has been used for basically every…single…month for tornadoes. To the nominator’s comment about it being a duplicate to five other sources…I don’t see any of those other articles mentioning anything about May 5 or May 6, which means it adds new information that should not be combined with any other event as combining it into a tornado outbreak article would effectively be adding inaccurate information to Wikipedia.
    talk) 18:45, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Comment struck as I think it was canvassed, since the AN/I determined the editor who alerted me via my talk page canvassed the vote. Just ignore my comment and my participation here.
talk) 20:46, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Comment How is this notification not a violation of
WP:CANVASS?-- Ponyobons mots 19:02, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
@
talk) 19:07, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
He was giving me valuable information and besides, the nominator is not even part of this project and is trying to impose his will on it. I'm tired of s*** like this. Leave him alone. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 19:09, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The entire conversation at Elijahandskip's talk page has a "poison the well" quality to it, including Elijahandskip pinging one of the participants here to their talk page to disparage the nominator. Pinging like-minded editors to an AfD with the expectation of them supporting you is canvassing. Going to a talk page of an editor and titling the section "Link to this stupid article deletion attempt" is canvassing. -- Ponyobons mots 19:13, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So now I can't have an opinion on the matter? That's bogus. If that's the case, every editor on Wikipedia is guilty of this. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 19:18, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep – Definitely one of the sillier AfDs I've seen here in a long time. Nominator obviously has no understanding of the Wikiproject or standard practices within. Once the list is done it will be on par with the many other years that we've done. United States Man (talk) 18:54, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak Keep - It seems like the other articles could be merged into this one better than this one being deleted.
DarmaniLink (talk) 11:22, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh look, every single editor who voted keep has been canvassed here, what a coincidence. Perhaps time to get a wider RfC to stop the practices if this insular Wikiproject and its foulmouthed members.

Fram (talk) 19:07, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

You have to understand some of our frustration, and I wouldn't call this Wikiproject "insular". The fact that ChessEric pinged these editors (including myself) and we all responded with an agreeance to keep these articles should give you further reason to NOT call for a canvassing steamroll. There are many more editors that make part of this Wikiproject who would be in agreeance to the stipulations that have been in place for years. It is not an opinion only the ones that were pinged agree on. Its great that you are a veteran editor with many times more edits that all of us combined, but you can't just come here and decide that the way we are doing is wrong or unnecessary after it has been accepted for many years now, and will hopefully continue. Mjeims (talk) 19:14, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OH. MY. GOD. You're just pissed off that the ENTIRE project is against you because you have no idea what the hell you're talking about. We have been making tornado lists for OVER A DECADE with no trouble and now you come along and have a problem with it? How did you even come across this? Hitting the random articles link? I called you out on your B.S. claim and now you're throwing a hissy fit. Move on and go mess with some other project; we are improving the articles we have made and don't have time to be dealing with s*** like this. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 19:16, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Principle 6 in this recent Arbitration case with connection to this Wikiprojact appears relevant to your replies here. It states ''WikiProjects have no special status in developing consensus on matters of content, policy or procedures. Any Wikipedia editor may participate in developing a consensus on any matter that interests them."-- Ponyobons mots 19:53, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, the current consensus known to pretty much all participants to the Wikiproject is that of maintaining monthly tornado articles with all reported tornadoes for the month. That consensus in kwown to most or all of us that edit these articles daily. As such, we, the editors, have created such consensus and followed it, without the need to be a rule set in stone within the project itself. So, no
    WP:CANVASS here, just people sticking to what we all have agreed upon already. Mjeims (talk) 20:02, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    Mjeims - did you read the link that Ponyo just provided? Here is the relevant text: WikiProjects have no special status in developing consensus on matters of content, policy or procedures. Any Wikipedia editor may participate in developing a consensus on any matter that interests them. Take a moment to take that on board - the Wikiproject has no special authority to determine notability standards, or to decide which articles are retained or get deleted.
    This is one of the most blatant cases of improper canvassing I have seen recently. Notifications to Wikiprojects should be made by adding a relevant template to the discussion itself; I will add a template so that this discussion appears at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Weather#Article alerts; no further notification, including pinging hand-picked editors, or posting on their talk pages, is appropriate. Girth Summit (blether) 20:16, 8 February 2023 (UTC) Hmm - doesn't look like there is a delsort category for 'Weather'. It's currently listed at 'Events', 'History' and 'United States of America'; it's not like this discussion wasn't advertised. Girth Summit (blether) 20:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC) [reply]
    Got it. But then again, we are not using the Wikiproject "status" to create arbitrary consensus on a subject, and many other editors do come sometimes to question it in our discussions within articles, so we are permitting free will of intervention. We are not exerting authority of any kind, we are simply all on board with how articles are created and structure. Or if we are and we had not noticed, that is different. Mjeims (talk) 20:23, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You are permitted to engage in discussions wherever you like; you are not permitted to ping one another to those discussions, so that a band of like-minded editors all show up to enforce a
    consensus that has been established within the Wikiproject. That kind of selective notification is the very essence of canvassing, and it has to stop. Girth Summit (blether) 20:35, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
(edit conflict)While that is true, it would seem that editors that are outside of their usual topic area would themselves refrain from imposing unpopular ideas on the majority of users who maintain a said area. That seems to be common decency. But then again, we don't always have that here, do we? United States Man (talk) 20:03, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying that it's common decency for people disagreeing with members of a wikiproject to keep it to themselves and not 'tainting' your consensus? GabberFlasted (talk) 20:37, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@

Fram: What is your vendetta against this topic? You obviously aren't acting in good faith or to improve Wikipedia. Seems like you have ulterior motives. United States Man (talk) 19:29, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

@
Fram (talk) 08:22, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Perhaps I didn't give enough weight to my second point in the comment above – I simply think it's preferable to have one article instead of three or four. Why delete this one, when we can delete the other three? Number 57 11:49, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - In the interest of transparency given the ongoing canvassing discussion, I was pinged above to contribute in this discussion. That being said, as one of the principal editors of these lists, I would have engaged on this page regardless of any ping. These monthly tornado lists satisfy the criteria of
    WP:NOTESAL, since they are an aggregation of yearly tornado activity in the United States, which of course satisfies notability standards based on the death and destruction tornadoes cause annually in this country. As we work to expand these lists backward in time (as myself and others have been engaged in for years now), it is our expectation that these lists will have detailed leads detailing how monthly tornado activity stacked up against average. So, even outside of WP:NOTESAL, doing so would clear up the concerns raised by the nominator about WP:NOTADATABASE, since those leads would provide context to the tornadic activity listed. wxtrackercody (talk · contributions) 21:17, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Delete per wp:notdatabase Very Average Editor (talk) 03:31, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Kind of to echo what others have said. I have reviewed the outbreak articles and think it would be best to delete the May 7-15 and 22-31 outbreak sequence articles. It doesn't make sense to have sequence articles when the list functions almost the same. Exceptions are notable outbreaks. The non-list contents of these sequence articles could be paraphrased in the lead of the list article. The May 1-2 outbreak article probably has enough content and notability to stand by itself. Supportstorm (talk) 05:21, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd personally keep the 22-31 outbreak sequence, as it contained an EF5. We should also keep the 7-15 article, as it contained an EF4 that killed 21 people. The 1-2 article is kinda notable, since it had 62 tornadoes that killed 6 people, as well as 3 EF3s. Not sure why you would want to get rid of an article that contained an EF5 section (may I remind you this is 2008, we have less articles the farther past we go, and this is pretty recent). Plus, the list doesn't really function the same. If someone wanted a detailed section about a tornado/outbreak, it would need to exist. I'm pretty sure almost nobody would want an entire one tornado on the list clogging up their screen with details, even if it was an EF5, and the sections we have in the articles right now look better anyway.
    About the canvassing... I have nothing to do with that. Poodle23 (talk) 14:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Gotta remember the 22-31 articles contains additional information from the deadly Windsor, Colorado EF3, and the Parkersburg, Iowa EF5. That article links to the tornado list (which I will soon get to reformatting and getting into good shape). Normally the "paraphrasing" of the non-list contents is done in individual sections, and not in the lead of the actual list articles, as these are very notable tornadoes with more substancial individual sections. Mjeims (talk) 14:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Seems like I didn't read the title of the articles posted in this AfD. They are list articles, so this only reinforces the idea of merging the contents of those pages into the monthly article as they are clearly redundant. The individual outbreak sequence articles are indeed fine as is. Supportstorm (talk) 15:33, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To sum things up, the list presented here is a classic case of
WP:HALFLIFE of a niche subject. The materials are readily available to improve/expand upon but the amount of effort required has been a deterrent. Limited traffic and WP:Recentism bias contribute to this. The potential is there, it's just a matter of it happening. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 05:37, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
"Hundreds and hundreds of tornadoes every year technically meet
Fram (talk) 09:05, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
The
not news policy However, there are people that will like to have a database available for them with all the content there is, despite being trivial in most cases. Those people will not find it "exhausting" to go through it all, as individual links to more prominent outbreak lists are easy to find within their articles, and the monthly/multi-month lists. The people who want specific or significant outbreak information can find it easily, and those who want extensive information, will have it available. Once again, I remain on keeping these complete lists. Mjeims (talk) 13:16, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
"most tornadoes not being featured prominently in news, hence not applying for the
Fram (talk) 13:26, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Yes, I messed up writing that one. My bad. However, the way "non-significant or trivial" tornadoes are formatted in the databse pages can be a little confusing at first. I know because it took me a second to understand them when I opened one for the first time a few years ago. The way they are set in wikipedia in a linear, coherent way showcasing what each value represents and the little blurb of 'summary' is pretty handy to get all the information at once, so that would make it so that we are not "duplicating what is on the database". Mjeims (talk) 13:45, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Presenting the same info in a slightly different format is duplicating the database. It doesn't explain why we would need to have all of these, which hardly made a blip when they happened in the first place but still need to be documented in this encyclopedia anyway. We are not the place where a group of hobbyists, be it train spotters, stamp collectors, storm aficionados, sport fans, ... can come together to post all minutiae of their interest. This is generally accepted for most topics. I could understand it if people wanted to include the occasional non-notable entry to complete the 80% or 90% notable ones, but here it is the reverse, with the non notable ones overwhelming the more severe and generally more impactful ones. What does adding these details about EF0s add to the lists? What essential info is added to the lists by adding these individually, instead of just a generic "there were 100 tornadoes, including 70 EF0s and 15 EF1s. Below is a list of the 15 EF2-5s"?
Fram (talk) 14:22, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
  • Comment - What Fram either doesn’t realize or isn’t willing to understand is that a proposal to just include certain tornadoes would be impossible to implement because of the complex nature of the EF scale. Say only EF2+ tornadoes were included, for example. Well, many EF2 tornadoes affect rural areas and may only significantly damage a couple structures. Then what if an EF1 goes through a town and damages dozens of structures on the same day. We’d have to include the EF2 and not the EF1. That wouldn’t work. There’s too much gray area to pick and choose which ones are included and/or left off. It’s ultimately an all or nothing situation. I think time could better be spent be all involved here actually working on something of consequence rather than trying to argue for a round-about mass deletion of 15 years of work. United States Man (talk) 20:54, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My compromise,solution isn´t perfect, so let´s stick with the much worse situation we have now? Feel free to add all tornadoes which caused at least ond death to my above proposal, will be a minimal change.
Fram (talk) 07:01, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Would this mean that a tornado like the Dayton, Ohio EF4 of 2019 would not be included because it did not kill anyone, even though it caused millions in damage and 166 injuries? Or that outside EF2+ tornadoes, those weak tornadoes that caused loss of life, like the 1978 Whippoorwill tornado, shall be included as well? It may sound like a dumb question, but a I feel it should be made just to be sure. Mjeims (talk) 21:20, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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