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 to delete. PeaceNT 18:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exposed: The Climate of Fear[edit]

Exposed: The Climate of Fear (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

No evidence of notability William M. Connolley 15:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Changing my recommendation to Keep. The article still needs a bit of work before it can be left alone, as there appear to be a few POV assertions contested, and a few more citations needed for some statements, but there are now attributed, non-trivial sources discussing the episode (some even before it was aired, which might be seen as a notion of notability in itself). -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 22:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Change to weak keep. The work of Oren0 and Kim D. Petersen in particular has addressed concerns of copyright. Its notability still appears marginal (hence the 'weak'), but there are several sources now. Hal peridol 02:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It appears to be an article on a specific episode of a TV show only containing excerpts from the transcript. Without any commentary on the episode itself from reliable sources, it currently meets G12 for speedy delete as a copyright violation, and probably should be tagged as such. -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 17:33, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ahh, you should read it, because it does include commentary on the episode by reliable sources. right there under Critism. Also the article is yet incomplete. I would encorage you all to help add to it. There are 4 sources listed, 3 of which are objectional views by notable "reliable" sources, and the other is from CNN.--Zeeboid 17:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those would be from blogs, not reliable sources. The article is still very heavy on quotes, and the page still contains a great deal of verbatim lines from the transcript, which is copyright. -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 18:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The blogs are notable, they are used all over the palce and have even wistood other attempts to remove them as non-reliable sources. Sources are not the issue. the lines are quotes from the movie. How would you sugguest they be altered to allow this article to stay?--Zeeboid 19:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Blogs, notable or not, are not published works (no peer review etc), and are not proper sources WP:SPS. As for what to do to keep, see my comment below. -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 20:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are missing a keep fact. The TV episode itself was subject to review prior to broadcast. There is no reasonable question the show is notable.RonCram 20:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didnt debate its notability. I'm trying to point out that this article's overuse of the transcript and other quotes currently qualify it for ((db-copyvio|http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0705/02/gb.01.html)). There is clearly some notability about the subject, but the article itself violates the rules. -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 21:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I did not address your remarks regarding possible copyright violations because others here have done so. I agree with them that there is no violation. The article does not violate the "fair use" standard. My comment was to point out that the broadcast did have to pass journalistic review.RonCram 21:20, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a citation to prove that? If not, then its just hearsay. "All television broadcasts first have to pass journalistic review" is not a truism, unfortunately. -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 21:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not saying all journalistic review is thorough, but I will say it had to go through a process. There is no question about that. If Beck was able to avoid the process somehow, that itself would be newsworthy. All of the other cable channels would jump on it, MSNBC most readily.RonCram 21:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

you guys still don't get it, do you. According to policy[1]:

The purpose of the discussion is to achieve consensus upon a course of action. Individuals will express strong opinions and may even "vote". To the extent that voting occurs (see meta:Polls are evil), the votes are merely a means to gauge the degree of consensus reached so far.

I HAVE SEEN NO attempts to reach a consensus, just attempts to remove information some don't agree with. those of you with an objection atleast try to appear as if you are following some type of policy and explain how you would fix the article so we can try to reach a "consensus" which as you all know is quite diffrent then majority. according to wikipedia, majority voting is not the determining factor in wether a nomination succeeds or not, so I won't stand for this article's straight up deletion without work to make it better.--Zeeboid 18:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have no issue with the content, but if you read WP:EPISODE it says "Avoid excessive trivia and quotations." If the copyright violations are removed, down to a reasonable amount of quotes necessary to sustain any topical sections about the episode (not about the topic!), I dont see anything wrong with keeping it. The form the article is in now, however would require a major rewrite, as most of the content there is unacceptable. -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 20:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What copyright violations are you refering to? I see names of people, their title, and a quote from the documentry...--Zeeboid 20:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, but it was nominated here as being non-notable. It's clearly notable. Give it more than two days of existence before you delete it for lack of content. It will build. An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle both demonstrate that you can write about GW-related documentaries without only relying on quotes or delving too deeply into the issue at hand. Oren0 20:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is a funny standard for "notable" that has never been used before. In ten years time, global warming may well be consigned to the junkyard as an embarrassment to science. RonCram 20:34, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't bet on it. But even if, it will still be notable. Even a non-event like global cooling is still notable after 30 years. This TV show is not, and it's unlikely that it ever will be. And I don't know where you Google, but I get less than 40000 hits.--Stephan Schulz
I get more than 72,000. Try this. [2] And, as you know, the PDO turned to the cooler phase last year (a 30 year cycle). The El Nino effect ended in NA in March. April was the coolest April in 46 years. We can expect cooler temps globally for the next 15-30 years.RonCram 20:51, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Where on earth did you get this "coolest April in 46 years" idea? According to the CRU data, this was the third-warmest April in the instrumental record.[3] Do you just make stuff up??? Raymond Arritt 21:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Raymond, my mistake. See my apology below. RonCram 21:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. The number of hits went from 72,100 to 72,400 in just a few minutes!
Wow. Google is not Yahoo (and I get 69900 on Yahoo, so it's down again?) --Stephan Schulz 21:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are right. I was searching on Yahoo. My mistake. I still get 72,400. RonCram 21:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Stephan, you are right again regarding April. My apologies. The stat I was referring to relates to North American temperature anomalies and I thought it was referring to global temp. It has been much cooler than normal here in southern California for about seven out of the last eight weeks. RonCram 21:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Media Matters is not the sole source. The show is discussed on CNN's website, Yahoo News, NewsMax.com, and multiple other online news organizations. In addition, Sean Hannity talks about it on his blog which means he has probably covered it on his show on FOX as well. RonCram 21:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let it be noted that most of these supposed POV points have been fixed. Working together, we can make this into a high quality article. The fact that an article could be used to push POV is not itself a reason to delete anything; nearly any article could push POV. If you think the article pushes POV, be bold and fix or flag it. That's no reason to delete the page. As for the "stringing together" of statements, every article on a documentary will necessarily involve some discretion of the editors in summarizing the points; it is our job as editors to make sure that the summaries and claims are accurate. Again, no reason to delete the page. Oren0 04:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alot of my specific claims have been resolved, by having OrenO come in as another editor. But there are still issues, of which most are based in only having a primary source to a show that is (at its own admission) extremely one-sided. It still suffers from cherry-picking and interpretation of issues, primarily because no secondary sources have been pulled in, to guide in a focus on what issues and what interpretations should prevail. As an example the Oregon petition, which is mentioned in passing once by an interviewee in the movie, suddenly becomes one of the shows major points. --Kim D. Petersen 16:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Well, apart from the fact that your history is wrong, what does this have to do with this article? We don't have specific articles on the Times and Newsweek articles, although they indeed do have some notability (enough that Newsweek still comments on it after 30 years). Instead, we have articles on climate change and global cooling. This article is about a 1-hour episode in a tv news magazine, which will maybe rerun once at night for a filler, and then be quitely (and justifiably) forgotten.--Stephan Schulz 07:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I've pretty much rewritten this whole article to try to address the POV, copyright, quality, and apparent notability issues raised here. Gone are the quote sections, I've tried to replace them with summaries where appropriate. I've also added 2 reliable sources about the subject. If 2 isn't sufficient to demonstrate notability, there are plenty among the 55,000 google results [4], but it gets to a point where additional sources aren't really adding any new information. Hopefully this alleviates most of the concerns that the 'delete' crowd has raised. Oren0 21:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting that since the article is now clearer, it has become more obvious that it's a POV fork written expressly to promote a specific POV. Notability still is not established beyond a few mentions in the blogosphere. (And how utterly bizarre that two sources the skeptical editors have long fought tooth-and-nail against are now being used to argue for notability!) The article remains a disaster of POV and disorganization: half the "experts interviewed" aren't experts, the writing is atrocious, and so on. Among the factual points needing clarification: what's the evidence that the show is a "documentary" as opposed to just another episode of Beck's show? Raymond Arritt 22:12, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No secondary sources? What about Glenn Beck Torpedoes 'An Inconvenient Truth' - NewsMax.com and TorontoSun.com - Gore's hypocrisy exposed, both in the article? Or this one [5], not in the article. I can give you more without even entering the blogosphere. As for "is it a documentary," Beck calls it a documentary on his website [6]. Who in the article isn't an "expert" in the field they discuss? If you don't like the writing, rewrite it. If you think parts are POV, flag them as such. All the article currently does is summarize the claims made in the documentary, how can that be a POV fork any more than the pages for An Inconvenient Truth or The Great Global Warming Swindle? Oren0 23:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Raymond, its amazing, isn't it, how much we all can get done when we learn to accept (in part) what others consider to be accaptable sources. Consider this a lession I have learned. If they are indeed acceptable, then they help to make this article better too, right? The arguement against this article's Notability is a loosing one. Notability has been well established.--Zeeboid 02:36, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, your standard for notability is loose. I am glad to see you admit it. Raymond Arritt 03:23, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are the side without the needed concensus to delete here, what with wikipedia's policy won't allow the deletion simply on a majority.[7]--Zeeboid 04:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, can you explain a little more clearly? Raymond Arritt 21:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I stand corrected; for "POV fork", read "vehicle to promote a specific POV." See Kim D. Peterson's comments above for a small sample of the article's POV-pushing. Raymond Arritt 03:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, If we're going to cite policy here, Raymond, then does "vehicle to promote a specific POV" not also apply to Al Gore's peace? while we're pulling policies, then wp:iar should work too. Kim's opinion above is easially correctable. Look. You guys don't want this informaiton displayed, so you claim there needs to be notable independant sources. those sources are listed on the page, and once agin, the Global Warming possie here keeps trying to change the requirements or the reasons to delete the article. William and MastCell's want for deletion because of notability, even though the same sources (which they have defended tooth and nail as being valid, notable, etc etc) are being used here. The deletion per non-notability is a loosing arguement, so you switch to POV pushing, which is not exactly easy to show, what with the critism section and all.--Zeeboid 04:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A "POV fork" can also be a fork of a portion of an article to push the controversy to another page, leaving only one POV in the original article. A fork is acceptable if there is enough information for another article, and the controversy is sufficiently summarized on the original page. I was going to fix the section of the original article that this came from, but I'll wait until this deletion request has been resolved. Val42 04:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, but I didn't come to this deletion discussion via another article from which it was split. I still don't know what the article is that this is supposed to be a POV fork of. --Athol Mullen 05:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that it was a POV fork. Some may think that it was a POV fork from the Glenn Beck article. But it isn't because there is a summary, with the controversy, in that article. The article under discussion is not a POV fork. Val42 06:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and a short summary in the Glenn Beck article is exactly the right amount of coverage for this 1-hour TV special, which has zero scientific and nearly zero cultural notability. Forking its own article smacks of creating a platform to expound anti-global-warming views. MastCell Talk 17:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • From that page, "First, create an article on the television show." That exists. "Once there's enough verifiable information independent of the show itself, create articles on each season, or some other logical division, of the show." Missing that step. "Once there's enough verifiable information from secondary sources about individual episodes, create separate articles for them." That would be the step this article would fall into. (Selections from:Wikipedia:Television episodes) -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 07:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not entirely, but it certainly is a factor. Just as an article written in the New York times would be taken notice of more than say the Turkish Daily News. As for living up to the existing standards of wikipedia, compare the 63,000 entries in Google for "Exposed: The Climate of Fear" to the 1,000 entries in Google for "The Greenhouse Conspiracy", yet The Greenhouse Conspiracy is somehow more notable on wikipedia? The machine512 11:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You forgot to mention WP:GOOGLEHITS. I won't nominate it as I feel it is WP:NOHARM. I am however curious to see if someone opposing this article will nominate it, as many here have seen it before and no one has opposed it in the past. The machine512 15:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe the editors involved have worked hard at removing the copyrighted transcript text, which at the beginning of this discussion was nearly the entire article. The criticism section still contains entire quotes from other sources, and would probably be better served if they were summarized and cited. There still exists a major issue of reliable secondary sources that establish the notability of this particular episode. This discussion seems to have derailed a bunch of times, and even appears to bring up the subject of global cooling in part of the discussion! How this pertains to an articles for deletion debate on an article about a tv show, I'm not quite sure. Remember, we're not trying to determine if the subject of the TV show is notable, but whether or not the episode itself is noteworthy. Also, whatever article X or Y has is irrelevant here. This article was nominated, so we're trying to determine if it, and it alone, should be deleted. -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 01:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I am not sure if this comment was meant as an answer to mine or as an independent comment, but I also agree that this discussion has derailed quite a few times with POVed accusations of POV and such (that's why I suggest that we close this AfD since lack of notability does not seem to be accepted - I count 13 keeps and 10 deletes, where among the 10 deletes only 5 supported the lack of notability claim - I also think that notability is further established by the fact that this is one of the very few TV shows in the American major media that covered the skeptical position regarding global warming, making this specific episode noteworthy, as you were inquiring). Finally, given very little time, a few editors have been able to resolve some other side issues that were raised in this AfD, such as the copyright point that you raised. --Childhood's End 14:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was trying to answer with a statement to the effect that I believe the copyright issue has been solved. I rewrote the criticism section in the article so its a little clearer what the references are, and it does appear to have them. Now, I think some people need to weigh in on the quality and notability of those references, but seeing as how two of the three do have articles here in Wikipedia, there's reason to believe they're notable enough to establish notability for this article. Just remember, Wikipedia is not a democracy, so vote counts mean zilch. I think all we need left in this discussion is some sort of proof that the references cited in the article do assert the episode's notability (ie, why is it in particular important enough to have an article here on Wikipedia, and what separates it from lesser coverage on the same topic). I dont think anyone can rightfully argue the topic is not notable. I dont think anyone can argue the show itself is not notable enough to warrant an article. Notability, however, is not inherited, so it must be established for everything through sources. -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 16:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree w/ Childhoodsend, lets close this [incivility deleted]--Zeeboid 14:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment i have to say that i find this comment out of line. Besides you've already voted Z. --Kim D. Petersen 21:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
On which part of wizzard2k's comments do you support this? --Childhood's End 19:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious too! (I just struck my earlier recommendation for clarity's sake). -wizzard2k (C•T•D) 20:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This answer will be fun to see.--Zeeboid 20:58, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, thats been over 5 days now (policy states discuss for UP TO 5 days), and if wikipedia was a majority, the Keeps would have it, so that clearly means there is no concensus to delte. Can we close this [incivility deleted] now?--Zeeboid 20:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Relax. It will happen. You've already stated your opinion multiple times, so there's no need to reiterate it here. By the way, AfD's happen all the time. Taking it personally and labelling it a "witch-hunt" (particularly for an article as borderline-notable as this one) is not a good way to go forward. MastCell Talk 23:28, 30 May 2007 (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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