Talk:Tropical Storm Erick (2007)

Merge discussion

If Tropical Storm Erick (2007) is a GA, then why merge it? Dylan620 Life story 18:54 UTC October 8, 2008

The merge proposal was added before it became a GA. Cheers, –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 20:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Thats history.Leave Message orYellow Evan home 13:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Huh? –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 13:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

ACE

On-wiki matters shouldn't be discussed on IRC. I reverted Cyclonebiskit's edit per WP:BRD. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion was completed already. The project agreed that individual storm articles should not have the ACE statistic. There's no reason to include it. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The project never agreed to that, as far as I can tell. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It was discussed to death. Pretty much no other storm articles use ACE, anyway. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

But was there a consensus to remove sourced, valid information? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The ACE should be based on official post-season data, and the project never found a reliable source that provided that. The NCDC only used operational data. But yea, there was a consensus to avoid having such a trivial statistic in storm articles, as we found that ACE is almost never used for individual storms. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:17, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

ACE can be sourced to any official database. And "almost never used" is not a reason to remove it from this specific article. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Potential added info

• 1 - "Through its brief lifespan, Erick was a threat only to shipping lanes in the region.
• 2 - Green alert, source is University of Hawaii data, not NOAA. Data comes from this data as part of here.
• 3 NASA satalites (not NOAA) and saying "At 8:00 a.m. PDT, on Thursday, August 2, Tropical Depression Erick showed a disorganized cloud pattern, indicative that its circulation was weakening from the 12 hours before, when it was a tropical storm". The article does not mention 8 AM.
• 4 Mentions USAToday and NOAA info.
  • Cites a news source that itself is a duplicate of NHC info, and the "NOAA info" says that it is an image, which we can't cite. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• 5 The USAToday link from the above page.
  • Duplicate of NHC info, as confirmed by report. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• 6 Associated blog to the above. They expected "only modest strengthening is expected over the next several days" on August 1st.
  • Can't cite blogs. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• 7 Follow up from above. "Tropical Storm Erick continues to spin, but is no threat to land"
  • Can't cite blogs. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• 8 Earlier post from above mentioning the Baja depression.
  • Can't cite blogs. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
    • No, a blog can be cited if it was written by an expert in the field. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 18:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
      • I don't believe "Bob Swanson", a person with only a masters degree, counts as an expert. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
        • A master's degree means quite a bit. Also, it is Bob Swanson and Doyle Rice, who both serve as weather staff for USAToday, a major paper. Doyle Rice was a 5 year veteran as weather editor of the paper. Bob Swanson was assistant weather editor for 5 years. Both are experts based on their occupation on a major media outlet. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• 9 FEMA advisory declaring end to risk "Tropical Storm Erick, located about 1550 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California was downgraded to a tropical depression on Thursday. No further advisory will be issued." on August 3. Previous advisories here and here.

- Ottava Rima (talk) 18:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

According to the above, it seems that the first 4 links were unchallenged, along with the FEMA issuing of advisories are also unchallenged. The first 4 links could be added into the history, and the FEMA statements and the "Green alert" can be discussed under Impact. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm finally going to throw my $0.02 in to this. Why are we wasting so much time on such a minor storm, why can't the article just stay (especially since it is featured) and work on more important things like Cyclone Nargis or Hurricane Ike. Cyclonebiskit 18:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

THANK YOU. Someone finally said that... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 00:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Because people are wasting a lot of time writing rote tropical cyclone articles like this one. Potapych (talk) 15:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Titoxd (talk · contribs) put it best: "Telling others how to stop wasting their time is a good way to waste yours." –Juliancolton | ^Talk 15:32, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

You put this thing through several nomination procedures, so clearly you are wasting others' time too. Potapych (talk) 15:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, Ottava; I've incorporated a few of them into the article. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 18:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

FAR

An editor has moved to initiate an FAR. Given that the required talk page notification was not done, I have copied his comments below and placed the nomination on a temporary hold. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I have a bad feeling this might get dramatic, but I hope that cool heads can prevail. This article was promoted in 2008, but has since been one of the shortest featured articles on Wikipedia. It has gotten shorter since its time of promotion, due to differing standards in the tropical cyclone wikiproject over what content should be in every article. Namely, the accumulated cyclone energy bit was removed, due to the stat being only used primarily for entire years. Additionally, the information on non-retirement was removed, due to the consensus that it was trivia when it indicated that a storm name was not retired. After all, one could list an endless things that a storm did not do, such as a storm not killing a celebrity, or a storm not causing the global financial system to collapse :P

As for why this is an FARC and not an AFD, well, the article wouldn't be deleted. It would merely be merged. However, I'll mention what I've mentioned before how it is highly debatable whether it meets the notability criteria. Long story short, there is debate whether the article has sufficiently reliable independent sources. All (but one) of the sources have their information stem from the National Hurricane Center (including all of the news sources in the article, which get their info straight from the NHC). The only one that doesn't is the one from the Honolulu National Weather Service, which basically said that the storm did nothing.

In all, we have a storm here that lasted for 30 hours that didn't affect land. It's a sub-article of a season in which not that much happened. I'd like a review of this featured article, with the mindset that it can easily be merged to the season article. Since there's no proper place on Wikipedia for mergers, I thought this would suffice. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

To emphasize, my problem would be 1c, since it is impossible that a storm this non-notable would have the proper research for a featured article. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

You must be reading a different version of 1c that I do. I quote WP:WIAFA:

well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate

You admit that the literature relevant to the storm has been covered—in fact, you argue that we have all of it—and no question on the quality of the sources has been raised. (They are all canonical, academic-journal quality references.) The lack of inline citations is not an issue, so 1(c) is completely irrelevant here.

Again, whether the storm is "notable" or not is a question for WP:AFD, not WP:FAR. The only thing is that you already tried going down that route, and you were told that the storm satisfies Wikipedias' notability guidelines, and you have been unable to get consensus for a merge. Trying to fill out a FAR in an effort to bypass the [lack of] consensus for a merger seems rather disruptive, considering that you have tried to get rid of this article for as long as it has been featured. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't meaning to be disruptive. I thought it was time for another honest talk on this article, considering there are no articles of such lack of notability in the project. All of the previous discussions were years ago. As for 1c, I could also argue against the first portion, how it is not a representative survey of relevant literature. In short, it goes into far too much detail for such a storm, as Wikipedia is not meant to be a complete exposition of all possible details, "rather, an article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject". I believe this warrants an honest discussion. No need to be dramatic over one little article :) --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:31, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

There was no need for this discussion. To quote CB "To be perfectly clear here, I'm getting tired of this crap. At first I was OK with it but now it's gone overboard. You have got to stop this merging process and just leave quality articles alone, regardless of whether or not you deem them worthy of existing. Though it may seem productive to you, the overall removal of material more destructive as it removes sound material that no one previously had issues with. Many people probably could care less whether or not this article exists; however, it's (as I've said before) the removal of higher quality work that bothers me. Sure, go ahead and merge a poorly written article of a similar storm but leave the well-written ones alone." Why have a good summary in the main article when we could have an FA-storm article?

I agree with Tito that there is no need for another FAR. WPTC has basically the same editors as it did during it's first FAR and AFD and since then, there has been no change to WP:N. To quote Tito "I don't see the point in merging content that has been through the FAC already". And even if it did fail WP:N, we could Ignore all rules since this article helps WP.

This article is not even close to an exposition of all possible details. The National Hurricane Center wrote several paragraphs on the storms in the Tropical Cyclone Report and in the discussions. This article is three paragraphs (not including the lead) and IMO gives a good summary of the storm. And even if it was a list of all possible details, it would fail FA criteria 4 not 1c IMO. Can anything actionable be done with this article? And if you really want to get rid of this article I suggest you go to the WP:RFC or WP:AFD.

And last but not least, there is no reason why this should be considered a sub-article of the season. To quote JC "storms are physical entries". Frankly, they are under different task forces. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 17:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

How was there no need for this discussion? Erick is an extreme outlier in the project. It is one of only two storm featured articles that are based entirely on NHC/NOAA sources (the other being TD 10 05, which is notable due to its association with Katrina). There hadn't been a discussion in a while, and I thought it was time for one. I disagree with Tito's view that we should avoid a merger because it has been through an FAC. Attitudes can (and do) change on Wikipedia, so what represented being a featured article three years ago might not be the same as it is today. As for the article not including all possible details, you ignored the section portion of what I said, which is that an article is supposed to be an accepted summary of knowledge regarding its subject. I agree it borders on criteria 4. As with your article on Nele, I believe the prose can be condensed. Simply being long doesn't make it necessarily better. And contrary to what's been said, I don't really want to get rid of the article. I just want an honest discussion :) --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Even though there has been no discussion about this subject since 2009 (though minor comments were made in 2010_, there has been a carp load of discussion about Erick 07 via IRC. And this article is not entirely based on NHC sources as they are six non-NHC sources, though three or four of these are borderline on them being independent of the subject. While it is true that attitudes can and do changed on WP, since 2009, WP:N has not changed. This article also meets WP:V. There is a reason Erick has passed FAC and failed to go trough FAR. Given the fact that WP policy has not changed since then, I see no reason why to send it back to FAR.

Yea, my biggest concern about this article is criteria 4 and 2c (since the citations are not consistent; some NHC refs do not have first names, also news sources should be Template:Cite News not Template:Cite Web. After all Also, mind if I do some minor condensing tonight?) With that said, all of my concerns are minor, and the issues alone do not warrant a downgrade from FA class to B class, especially since it is very well-written. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 23:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Merge?

I was wondering. This storm did nothing. This article shall be demoted from FA and merged. Jeffrey Gu (Talk to Jeffrey Gu | Edits | Sandbox) 04:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed ad nauseam, and there are no new reasons why to merge the page. Tito<spanstyle="color:#008000;">xd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's the first time in 2012 it's been proposed. When we get to 2013 for the article's 5th year anniversary, we get a free T-shirt if a merge proposal comes up! --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 06:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

*facepalms* Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:56, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

See the above discussion as of a few months. Erick is an exception to the rule, more or less. This has been debated back and forth the past few years on wiki and on IRC, but no true consensus has been reached. Please do not let this debate join the ranks of WP:LAME. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 15:07, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this article should be merged. In the past, I have heard two excuses to keep it, one it is a featured article, which I would not rate it as. Second is that a news source can be found which apparently makes it notable. However, I found some news articles on Tropical Storm Dennis (1993): [1]. So I guess it would seem logical to create an article for Dennis 93.--12george1 (talk) 19:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The whole bit about news articles is that the news article must be independent of the warning agency (so not just a rehash of the advisory). Erick doesn't meet that criteria any more than Dennis 93 does, for what it's worth. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 20:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

This article is rather bare-bones. I think it is the SHORTEST featured article ever. What about news source? Just because of that doesnt mean this could stay Jeffrey Gu (Talk to Jeffrey Gu | Edits | Sandbox) 22:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't care much for the whole discussion, but one thing caught my attention: "Erick is an exception to this rule". For what reason? I think arbitrary regulations such as these violate what WP stands for. If this were any other article, would it be allowed to stay? That's how this situation should be looked upon--and not by its quality, not by its history, not by the amount of personal feeling instilled in its existence. Auree ★ 22:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

JG, that is not true, and will you please read WP:N. Auree, because it is an FA. To quote myself "Since high-quality articles help and maintain wikipedia, we could ignore all rules." YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 23:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I could write a perfect-quality article about my beautiful, prodigious cat, but I'm not sure its existence would be tolerated in Wikipedia's autocratic playground :'( Auree ★ 23:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Would that article help maintain or improve Wikipedia? YE ^{Pacific Hurricane}

Yes. My cat is a stunning creature, and the article would be of impeccable quality. Auree ★ 00:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

four years and counting... epic trolling on my part...? Juliancolton (talk) 00:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec)Meh, Erick is probably more notable than your cat. I feel a high-quality article should have an easier time being notable enough as it improves WP. Not sure if your cat would be notable enough. JC, I am tired of this debate myself. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 00:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Quality has no bearing on notability. The only reason this hasn't been merged is because it's still featured. The only reason it's still featured is because it's never gone through a successful FARC, partly because there isn't a consensus in the project due to people objecting to it being merged because it's still featured. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I find the notion that my cat isn't worthy of an encyclopedic entry rather insulting. Auree ★ 00:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec)Well, some people said in the first FAR that Erick did meet WP:N, which it depends on your interpretation of the policy. After all, this article got featured for a reason. Auree, I said I was unsure if it was WP worthy. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 00:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

There are several tropical cyclones in this basin that were far more intense, long-lived and/or were more notable and they do not have an article. For example: Trudy 1990, Kevin 1991, Javier 1998, Alma 2002, and Kenneth 2011. Yet a few months ago we talked about merging some of the Category 5 hurricane articles in this basin, while completely overlooking Erick, which was one of the most obvious merge candidates, IMO. YE, give me a valid reason this storm is notable other than that it is a feature article (which I personally disagree with and has no correlation with notability) and that it was given news coverage (see my above comment about newspaper articles for Dennis 93). The storm lasted less than 48 hours, caused no fatalities or damage, and remained "very far away from everywhere". If this merged into the 2007 PHS, it would actually benefit the season article, since it is of very low quality.--12george1 (talk) 19:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I am not saying Erick is the most notable ever, however, this is an example of were I think ignore all rules applies. Both your arguments (one about more intense storms, and the other about Dennis 93) are WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. And 12g1, how would it benefit the 2007 PHS article? It's section would be longer than Henriette, a landfalling storm, a WP:UNDUE concern. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 01:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

YE, it is going to be longer than Henriette's section? I beg to differ: User:12george1/2007 PHS. On that sandbox page, I wrote a hypothetical merge of Erick and lengthened Henriette's section. Also, Hurricanehink tells me he can condense Erick further.--12george1 (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, then, its section will still be longer than Gil's. I really don't see any valid reason why this article should be merged? This article was written fro a reason, and we agreed to keep it in 200i, and since they no change to WP:N has occurred. After all, this article was written for a reason. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 22:44, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Here is my stand on this article. The merging of this system has been debated many times over the past several years, all with a general consensus to keep this article. To be completely honest, I've only been on Wikipedia for a year and a half, and these discussions over the storm are getting very tedious. The article is well-written, well-sourced, and represents one of the top pinnacles of WikiProject Tropical Cyclone. So why would we take this away? Because it didn't make landfall? It's not notable? What about all the food/drink articles that we have on Wikipedia? What did they do to be so notable? I oppose the merging of this article, and will continue to do so as long as this debate is brought up. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 03:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I find your food/drink comparison to be exceedingly fallacious. Auree ^★★ 04:11, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Yea, no offense, but his comparison does not make sense. how is Water equally as notable as this article? I'm not saying this article is not notable, but water is one of the more important articles on WP. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 05:24, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that all but two of the news sources are superfluous. Refs 5, 6, 9 and 10 are rehashes from NHC sources and serve as highly redundant backups of the NHC source. Ref 12 is also a poor rehash of a NHC discussion. Auree ^★★ 20:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

My advice to anybody who would possibly spend such an inordinate amount of time heaving to delete any single page as folks are doing here is simply to click on another article. Go to something very notable with very many sources and that everybody on earth knows about. Juliancolton (talk) 21:07, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Someone did a copyedit of the article, so the article is even shorter now. Jeffrey Gu (Talk to Jeffrey Gu | Edits | Sandbox) 13:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I felt the original writing was rather bloated, perhaps done so to inflate its word count. The primary thing I changed was avoiding the needlessly long verb construction of "had begun", "was beginning to", etc. I also removed a redundant image (see WP:NOTIMAGE). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Either aliens or a conspiracy for sure :P Juliancolton (talk) 18:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Seeing as you were the writer, isn't undoing the recent edits by four editors a COI on your part? --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 20:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

No, because of WP:BRD. You said you removed content boldly, and I disagreed and reverted by said process. Juliancolton (talk) 20:41, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

<--- OK, what aspects of the edits by four editors did you disagree with? Was it the copyedit that simplified the rather verbose prose? Was it removing the image? Was it removing the redundant news links that got their information straight from the National Hurricane Center? --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 20:49, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

All of them. The copyedit seemed to oversimplify the prose in an attempt to justify merging the content, but more importantly, the image you removed did contribute information. Chiefly, it showed lat/long lines which the infobox image did not, allowing viewers to grasp the storm's location (and I'm sure we would rather have the prettiest image in the infobox which makes it necessary to include both shots). As for the news sources, there is no rule against liberal sourcing if its purpose is to prove that the subject has been discussed and covered by more secondary sources than the NHC. I don't care if the article is merged, as I've said in the past, I just hate to see an FA of mine torn to bits to ensure it. Juliancolton (talk) 00:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

All of them?? All I did was change the verb tense from needlessly long construction to simple active verbs. As for the image, Wikipedia is not a gallery, and by your argument, it doesn't help at all, since it doesn't include the longitude (despite what you said). As for the news source, if the sources say that their info is from the NHC, and we're also citing the NHC, then why add those extraneous sources? If anything, those sources just say that the storm was only briefly newsworthy, and might I add that Wikipedia is not a newspaper. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

BTW, an RFC has been made live at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tropical Storm Erick (2007). YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 14:39, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Protection?

Is full protection still needed here? It's been six months and things seem to me to have calmed down enough that it doesn't look like a resumption of the edit war is likely. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:08, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 00:35, 20 August 2012 (UTC)