Tim Ball: turned out NN again

Those with long memories for trivia will remember the unlamented second deletion of Tim Ball, judged non-notable by wikipedia – ah, the shame of it. Now he’s been awarded the ultimate accolade of being deleted a third time – you don’t get much less notable than that.

[Update: sigh. Will the fuckwits never learn? He was recreated and survived yet another deletion discussion though why it is #2 I’m not sure.]

I’ve taken an archive of the discussion page of the “deleted” page (technically its not deleted but moved page Timothy Ball to User:Jinkinson/Timothy Ball over a redirect without leaving a redirect ‎(Userfying per result of previous DRV), so its now at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jinkinson/Timothy Ball. But as far as mainspace is concerned the result is the same: he’s not there) here, because its likely that the userified page will be deleted in time. Here you’ll find the admin who deleted the page explaining why: in essence, nothing has changed since he was deleted last time.

For those who don’t know the minutiae of wiki but are desperate to learn: its fairly common for pages to be “deleted”, but moved into the userspace of anyone who wants them, so that they can be worked on in decent obscurity. The user gets a reasonable period of time to work the page up, but if the admins think you’re just taking this piss and are leaving the page as a sort-of poor substitute of a mainspace page (as Lucy Skywalker did for the equally unlamented Leroux) your userspace copy gets rubbed out too.

Possibly interestingly, the major reason given for re-creating the Ball article was:

while Ball is not notable as an academic, he is notable for other stuff, such as claiming to be the first Canadian to get a PhD in climatology and to have been a professor of climatology (neither of which are true)

That wasn’t terribly convincing. Other arguments also failed: The raison d’être for this BLP is that Ball is a notable climate skeptic was met by Well, no. This article was twice deleted (here and here) precisely because Ball is not a notable climate skeptic.

[Update: (Protection log); 23:29:11 . . NuclearWarfare (talk | contribs) protected Timothy Ball‎ ‎[create=sysop] (indefinite) ‎(Any admin can override once they are satisfied this meets the conditions laid out at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 January 3)]

10 thoughts on “Tim Ball: turned out NN again”

  1. Does being regularly written about on Stoat make someone more notable for Wikipedia?

    [Debatable. Wiki is fairly fierce about BLP: indeed, many of the concerns for delete were not anti-Ball, they were “but we don’t have reputable sources to describe this guy” [e.g. this]. Blogs, in general, aren’t reputable sources. Blogs by subject experts are, but only on their subject. So were I to talk about Ball’s climate work, that might possibly be usable; but even that is doubtful. Were a historian of science to blog about him, that probably would be usable -W]

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  2. I seem to recall that YOU were instrumental in attacking Ball, and you were mentioned extensively in the (Canadian) National Post for rabidly editing Sceptical journalists so much you were dropped from Wikipedia.
    You are truly a vision of “Warmist” Extremism

    [You’re very vague. By contrast, I’ve provided detailed refs.Let me help you:

    * I didn’t contribute at all to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tim_Ball
    * I proposed Timothy Ball for deletion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Timothy_Ball But you’re wrong to label it an “attack”: I merely suggested that he wasn’t notable. The result of that was summarised by the closing admin as

    No one was able to refute well enough Guettarda’s argument about Ball not being notable as a professor. The vast majority of the keep arguments were extremely weak, mentioning sources that provide little information that could be used to write a sufficient biography. The fact that he is a professor who has won several teaching awards is not sufficient to make someone notable. Mentions of him in US Senate Committee reports are not by any means an indicator of notability. Detailed posts about him in the blogosphere, while they indicate that he is a person of an interest, cannot be used as a marker of notability. Neither can the fact that Ball has presented denialist lectures in the past; we simply don’t count that as a measure of notability.

    Obviously, you don’t agree with that – because Ball is a “skeptic” and so are you, so you “know” he must be notable, and anyone who disagrees with you must be attacking him – but you’ll need some kind of coherent argument, rather than mere assertion, if you want to convince people you’re right -W]

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  4. Old and busted: “famous for being famous”. New hotness: “notable for repeatedly being non-notable”.

    I guess it’s the logical next step!

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  5. Although not the Wikipedia maven of Stoat level, I’d certainly agree that he is not notable. But I solicit an opinion:
    TIm Ball has been sued for defamation, separately by Andrew Weaver (here) and Michael Mann, here, including Slayer chief John O’Sullivan...

    These things take years, and the last I noticed was this comment. in March 2013.

    Now, the question: could Ball become notable depending on the outcomes of these two cases? At one extreme, he could win both, i.e., get cases dismissed, which would certainly be trumpeted in some quarters. At the other extreme, he could lose both hard, with court rulings that provide good quotes. That would likely get much press in other quarters, as well as some in the earlier group bemoaning judicial travesties, conspiracies, etc.

    Anyway, in WIki-land, do such things rise to notability?

    [The sueing would be notable to add to an otherwise viable biography. They would also “raise” the notability level of a person – they are, after all, well-sourced events. Sometimes though a person can remain non-notable even though an event in their lives gets its own article (sadly I don’t have a good example to hand) -W]

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  6. Forgive my ignorance, but what does the abbreviation BLP mean?

    [WP:BLP is the “Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons” policy. It can get a bit silly -W]

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  9. I was deleted for being too obscure as well. I didn’t even know I had a page. I was one of the inventors of a sub-genra of juggling.
    If Ball gets a page, I am going to insist that mine be re-instated

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  10. Looks like it’s back in article space, William.

    [Yeeees. With, as far as I can see, no discussion. You just moved it. There’s absolutely nothing on the article talk page explaining what went on -W]

    But it’s been nominated for deletion, again, so perhaps you will have your way and it will be deleted again. I doubt it, though, since I have provided so many reliable sources that weren’t there before.

    [You thought the previous version had adequate sources; you were wrong. You have the company and support of Yopienso. With friends like that, who needs…? -W]

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