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 keep. Stifle (talk) 00:21, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of climate scientists[edit]

This recreated article was previously speedily deleted. It is a list of scientists loosely falling under the rubric of ~~"climatologists,"~~ "climate scientists," a discipline which covers so many disparate research areas as to be close to meaningless. It also appears to violate WP:NOTDIRECTORY. It is vastly incomplete, which leads me to question its utility in any case. This material is already available in far more readable form on the website it was copied from. (The article's author previously claimed to have permission to reproduce this explicitly copyrighted material.) — RandomHumanoid^(⇒) 17:59, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Page creator response: This a list of notable climate scientists (CS) - not "climatologists"; there is a distinction. It's not a directory. Nor is it disparate. As the intro states, many (most) of worked together on the seminal interdisciplinary scientific efforts of our age, the IPCC Assessment Report series. However, limiting the list to eg. just IPCC AR authors would lose the notable CS context by omitting non-IPCC notables. Excess red links are an issue, but are useful to indicate WP gaps. For example, it's extraordinary that there is no WP James Zachos page, while we have endless pages on completely obscure popular culture figures. Anti-listers might like to consider whether these other similar lists should be tagged for deletion: geneticists, ecologists, biologists, psychologists, chemists, astronomers, economists, geographers, linguists, zoologists, more? Earlier discussion is here. --Gergyl (talk) 00:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Fair enough with the distinction between climatologists and climate scientists. Nonetheless, there is no clear set of criteria for inclusion in this list, which makes it seem quite arbitrary. In other words, its members have no common well-defined shared characteristic. If you can fix this, significantly shortening it in the process, I'll withdraw the AfD nom.--RandomHumanoid^(⇒) 07:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete. Bit too much on the listcruft side. There may, however, be a case for including the link to the paper in the Climatology article. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 18:13, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but: a) limit to people with Wikipedia articles and b) reduce to name and a few words. Plenty of precedent at this level with the lists of: physicists, physicians, civil engineers, etc. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 21:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, cleanup, and trim to the most well-known. -Atmoz (talk) 03:35, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per page creator response Power.corrupts (talk) 20:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but with conditions. Notability of people in lists such as this can really only be demonstrated easily if the name links to an article on the person, which in itself shows the person must be notable but explains in the article why they are notable. All red links should be removed. This would bring it more into line with similar lists, although I suspect some of these need similar removal of red links. List of chemists is a good example. There are only 17 red links out of over 210. The current version could be copied to user space, to guide people who might want to write articles on the current red links. --Bduke (Discussion) 02:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:09, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:09, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, a list dealing with a topic that in theory could be notable, but the current article fails to demonstrate notability for each person listed. I'd suggest a table along the lines of List of biochemists with a short summary and reference for each entry explaining their notable contribution to the field. Otherwise this becomes an indiscriminate collection of information. If no improvement is made over a reasonable time, I have no prejudice against re-nomination and deletion of the current article. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Not encyclopedic or notable, this is similar to having a list of my graduating high school class. --Theblog (talk) 06:30, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Week keep These list articles are mostly a bit rubbish; but a list with this title has as much right to exist as comparable scientist lists. That said, it needs massive correction. User:Bduke's point that the list in its current form (filled with red links) would be more useful out of mainspace is right. It seems to have been created as part of an argument over AGW, but a list like this shouldn't be there to make a point. The criteria of inclusion don't guarantee that the scholars are notable climate scientists (they may have achievements in other parts of physics and only unimportant climate science publications). Better to work out who has made important contributions to theory (like Svante Arrhenius, not on the list), preferably not limiting the question to AGW research. (Of course, I'm not planning to do the work myself, but that's how keep votes seem to go on AFD). N p holmes (talk) 08:13, 10 January 2009 (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.