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Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather: Difference between revisions

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I would like to announce that a new task force has been created to re-examine the status of every GA in the project. Many good articles have not been reviewed in quite a while (15+ years for some) and notability requirements have changed quite a bit over the years. The goal of this task force is to save as many articles as possible. Anyone not reviewing an article may jump in to help get it up to par if it does not meet the GA requirements. The process will start officially on February 1 and will continue until every article has been checked and either kept or delisted. The task force may be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather/2024–25 Good Article Reassessment. Noah, AA^Talk 15:22, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Articles under review

• 1949 Texas hurricane (review)
• Windsor Locks, Connecticut, tornado (GAR)
• Wind shear (GAR)

The service webcitation.org is used frequently in weather articles particularly tropical typhoons and cyclones.

We believe it will go completely dark at some point in the future: All webcitation.org URLs should be assumed to no longer work in the future.

WebCite went completely offline for a year and half. Then it was restored, but in shaky condition.

Bots can not help for technical reasons. It will require manual intervention. After WebCite disappears, the citations will no longer be accessible, and there is a possibility the entire citation and the material that cites it could be deleted per WP:V. This situation could be devastating for all of these articles due to the scale of WebCite usage.

There is no immediate need to panic because we have no information of an imminent WebCite failure. However, preparations for failure should begin now before it is too late.

Please note that attempting to save WebCite links at Archive.org might give the appearance of working, but actually does not work, there is in insidious technical snare built into WebCite to prevent the Wayback Machine from saving their links (correctly). It is recommended to use archive.today if you choose. Even better is find the original link and find an archive for it at Wayback or Today. -- GreenC 17:01, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GreenC: Thanks for the heads up and this has been something I have been worried about for a few years, and I am disappointed that the internet archive, despite appearing to work, will not save the links properly. Is there any way of getting a list together of all articles that have links to Webcite in them?Jason Rees (talk) 20:04, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:Jason Rees thank you for your interest. I will generate a list of pages and URLs and post where to retrieve it. The impression count on enwiki is 37,148 as of April 24 (column H). This is non-unique count. As can be seen, there are still over 1.2 million elsewhere. It's unfortunate about Wayback, but creating copies on Archive.today should be possible. If they are saved on Archive.today, once there, my bot can do the work of replacing on wiki. The bot will find the webcite link in the article, look it up at archive.today, retrieve a new URL, and replace. Are you programmer or script writer? There might be some tools for mass saving a list of links at archive.today -- GreenC 21:26, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a programmer or a scriptwriter, but we have a few lurking in the project. @Chlod: for instance. Anyway, Webcite is something that I and other project members have been worried about as a lot of our articles are impacted, as some of the links contain decent information about how a system formed, dissipated, its intensity etc. Some of these links can be found again or superseded by others or dropped as the sections are reworked, but first things first we need to get a list of articles impacted together on wiki so that we can work out how badly we are impacted and maybe even clean the sections up.Jason Rees (talk) 22:28, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Before I generate a final list, I want to cleanup the links. Edits like this Special:Diff/1210676215/1221876846 which prior to yesterday was impossible due to the WebCite API being broken. Or giving that appearance. I got it to work, they have bogus SSL so it required a hack. I am doing this as fast as possible while the hack is working. After this I'll try to convert these to archive.org links. -- GreenC 14:46, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:Jason Rees Update: I'm converting the links, in about 20,000 pages. The rate might be as high as 50%, mostly to archive.today - it will take a week or two because it's slow for the bot to process, and I manually verify every link, due to the high rate of soft-404s at archive.today -- GreenC 02:41, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WebCite is now down, probably for [days/weeks/years/ever] - but that's OK I got the data I needed. I can continue with the conversions to archive.today - and WebCite being down makes that easier because no one can complain about converting from a dead/unreliable site. -- GreenC 16:12, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jason Rees, I completed the WebCite conversion project for now. I converted about 11,000 links to archive.today (the archive.org conversion was already done years ago). Whatever remains I can't convert (safely) by bot. There is work to be done manually, which I would be happy to discuss what could be done. There could be a project page describing the issue and what users might do to try and convert WebCite links. -- GreenC 15:32, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here: Help:Using_WebCite#Moving_to_a_different_provider -- GreenC 18:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GreenC: Thanks for rescuing the sources and please forgive me for not responding more quickly, but it's been a busy few weeks. Anyway, some of the sources that the Wikiproject Weather have used over the years will have been superseded by various reports, which is why I want to get a list together and see what we can do to improve the articles and remove the webcite links where needed.Jason Rees (talk) 20:14, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jason Rees, the list is too big to post in a wikipage, the 26,000 URLs are here. Any WebCite URL without a "?url=" has not gone through my bot for whatever reason (parsing problems, templates, etc..), there are more issues to work on. It used to be over 500,000 links, it's now down to 26,000, the last 5%, the hardest cases remain. For weather article purposes, there are about 400 ".txt" URLs which I programmed to skip converting because of content drift problems. With WebCite back online, it should be possible to save them at archive.today. I just saved thistohere you can see it worked correctly. If you provide me with a list of WebCite URLs that have been saved at Archive.today, I can add the archive.today URL into Wikipedia via bot. I don't need the new archive.today URL only the WebCite URL and knowledge it was saved at Archive.today -- GreenC 17:05, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GreenC: That is an interesting list that I have whittled down to just weather articles and put it here for ease. It confirms my suspicions that the Pacific Typhoon seasons are going to be the hardest to sort out, but I was surprised to see how long we had been using Webcite for. The list also shows that there are several easy wins to be had with the list with several links to NOAA documents, which will either be archived in the internet archive or still alive and thus can be re-archived with archive today or the internet archive depending on what whims we have.Jason Rees (talk) 13:00, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is surprising even as late as 2020. Maybe we need an edit filter to alert editors. There are many links to gwydir.demon.co.uk which are themselves archives of noaa [1]. Is this site reliable, or content drift? -- GreenC 16:36, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes the gwydir.demon website is reliable as it was set up by an old editor in order to store TC warnings from the various warning centers, some of which are overwriten with every issuance and not stored anywhere else.Jason Rees (talk) 18:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Making progress. Need a few days. -- GreenC 19:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:Jason Rees sent you an email. -- GreenC 15:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GreenC: I have picked up the email and will probably respond later today, once i have had chance to sleep and phrase it properly. :) Jason Rees (talk) 23:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, from the two discussions (one a few sections above this one and the other on Talk:Tornadoes of 2024), I have a proposal for the new layout, taking in feedback from those involved in those two discussions.

1. Change (revert) the layout from the currently used By Continent (example: Tornadoes of 2023), to the original By Month (Example: Tornadoes of 2008).
2. "(United States)" will be added to U.S.-based events, which was not done in original By Month layouts.
3. U.S.-only things will be left out of the infobox at the top of the yearly page (Infobox example Tornadoes of 2023). However, monthly U.S. totals can (and should) be mentioned at the beginning of each months section. Information regarding other countries or regions (example: number of European tornadoes or number of China tornadoes) during the month should also receive a sentence at the beginning of each months section.

In short, a small "monthly global summary" opens the section.

The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 11:29, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

(Moved from above for RFC tag. Ignore.) — Since there is two discussions (on two separate talk pages) regarding this topic at the same time, I wanted to make this discussion and ping all users involved: (courtesy pings: @ChessEric:, United States Man, HamiltonthesixXmusic, TornadoInformation12, DJ Cane, Hurricanehink). The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 11:29, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Moved from above for RFC tag.) — Based on the feedback, two things were clear: The old layout (By Month) is definitely the preferred layout to most editors. However, the reasoning for the layout change to begin with involved fighting U.S.-centeredness in articles, that is where point 2 and 3 come in. In pre-2023 layouts (before any changes), U.S. monthly totals were mentioned as the opening to each month, however, no other countries were mentioned. Also, "(United States)} was never used in pre-2023 layouts as well. To me, this proposal for a layout seems to solve issues brought up in past discussions, while also being the layout the majority of the community wants. Thoughts? Supports? Opposes? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 06:19, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support – As proposer. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 06:19, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Support — Glad to see a reasonable solution to our grievances with this current layout. Thanks for your good work! HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support – I like that better. ChessEric 06:29, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support – In my opinion, the old layout was more visually appealing to me. However, I respect individuals who think otherwise.

  Poodle23 (talk) 21:41, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support – In agreement with proposal. United States Man (talk) 12:23, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - I like this idea. I can't stand the new layout, and we pretty much got pushed into it by one single user. If a majority of editors want to get rid of this current, clunky format, then lets get rid of it. Majority opinion matters here.

TornadoInformation12 (talk) 12:24, 7 May 2024 (UTC)TornadoInformation12[reply]

• Support Dont see any issues with this. Noah, BSBA^Talk 13:44, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I can see I’m going to be shouted down here but appreciate @WeatherWriter trying to find a common ground. I am a weak support for 1 and 2 but am an oppose for 3. On global articles, US data should be presented the same as global data. Thus, if other totals aren’t included in the box, having a US totals box is something I can’t support. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 15:50, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment: Posting my reply in another thread here because I think most of the content is relevant for this discussion. Note that it is a direct reply to someone and references comments from that discussion.

  Please review previous discussions here and here for a primer on why I originally recommended we change to this model and what steps and compromises occurred to get here.

  I fail to see how splitting by region first then date makes it clunky. I would argue that not doing so is worse from a readability standpoint. The target audience of Wikipedia is not weather nerds or experts in the field, but everyone. Jumping around from continent to continent mixes vastly different events and climatological regimes unnecessarily and waters down the differences between different events/outbreaks.

  What exactly about splitting by region makes it more clunky and decreases navigation quality? What specifically are you looking for that isn’t presented? You mention a nice summary of events. That’s here, and not only is it here but it is presented in a more intelligent form by grouping by region. The original system wasn’t working well for international coverage, and nothing in this or other discussions points toward the page having been made worse.

  Finally, not only are US tornadoes given appropriate coverage here relative to global frequency (the amount of coverage hasn’t changed), they are at the top of the page and are not mixed in with foreign events. It’s surprising to me that editors find this to be undesirable. This is, notably, against Wikipedia precedent for other global lists which are typically sorted alphabetically. I don’t think it’s wrong to put North America and the United States at the top (due to climatology and data availability), but it is worth noting. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 15:55, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) — @DJ Cane: US total’s box? I think you misread what the third point was suppose to be. If you look at Tornadoes of 2008 (perfect example of the old format), you can see how the very top infobox has “Tornadoes in U.S.: 1,692”, “Damage (U.S.)”, and “Fatalities (U.S.)”, while if you look at Tornadoes of 2023’s top infobox, it only has “Fatalities (worldwide): 116”. That is part one of the third point: i.e. no U.S. stuff in the top infobox. (Matching the Tornadoes of 2023 infobox).

The second part is to have global monthly summaries. Going back to Tornadoes of 2008 example, take a look at Tornadoes of 2008#April. The entire section starts out There were 189 tornadoes reported in the United States in the month of April, all of which were confirmed. Basically, the second part of the third point is to keep those, but expand them to include other countries. Hopefully that makes a little more sense as to what the third point is. Since you were one of the main editors on board for less-U.S. centerness, I am thinking you just misread it, since the third point is an actual “less-U.S. centric” point. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 15:59, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You’re right, I did misinterpret it and as such switch to weak support. Not because I think this method is better, but because I think this is a reasonable compromise. Thanks for the reword. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 17:16, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Tentative support – these three points seem like a reasonable compromise, and top-level ordering by month remains a decent manner of organization. However, I'm a little confused by the degree of consternation caused by the current format. It's not all that drastically different from the previous format, all considered; the events occurring in the U.S., for instance, are essentially still all together, presented in chronological order, and labeled by their date of occurrence, as was the case previously. I'm not seeing the clunky and difficult-to-navigate nature of the current format that have been brought up over the past few months – can someone enlighten me as to what the particular issues here are? —TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 16:12, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After mulling over the proposed changes, I have changed my stance to oppose (#2 and #3 are contingent on #1, so oppose all by default). I echo what I wrote when the changes were originally proposed, and what I wrote below. In particular, regionalizing tornadoes and outbreak information by continent enables better contextualization of events, as broader summary-level descriptions of weather patterns and tornadic activity are more applicable by region than globally by month. —TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 00:36, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. I figure that I'm in the minority, but I want to echo what DJ Cane (talk · contribs) said. My main issue is that most yearly tornado articles are overwhelmingly biased towards the US, which makes sense considering the number of editors from English-speaking countries (including the US). Using Tornadoes of 2008 as an example, the amount of information dominated by the US is obvious. The synopsis has three paragraphs covering the US, as if that was a proper synopsis of worldwide tornadoes in 2008. Under events, it only lists US tornadoes in the first section. I compared the amount of information about the US vs the rest of the world. There is more than ten times the amount of information about the US than the rest of the world - 7,761 words versus 642. That means the US is more than 93% of the yearly worldwide coverage. And that's already with having US monthly articles. Now, one might say, "but the US has more tornadoes than anywhere else." OK, but does it really have 10 times more tornadoes than the rest of the world? And even if it did, in the interest of balanced coverage, is that fair to have 93% of the content? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:50, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If I may propose a counter point: Articles overwhelmingly biased towards the U.S. is not from the number of English speaking countries. In fact, it shouldn’t even be from the fact the U.S. gets 10x more tornadoes than any other country (also that is from WMO). Based on the strong community consensus which decided WP:TornadoCriteria, if there is more U.S. info on an article, that is because more notable events occurred in the U.S. than other countries. The only way to reduce that is to restrict the U.S. inclusion criteria even more. However, I do not think that would happen, given the discussions to create the criteria in the first place. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:02, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What are the number of tornadoes for non-US countries though? Is there even anyone going out of the way researching tornadoes outside of the US? Yes, the US has 1,200 a year, but Europe has 300, Canada has 230, China has 100, Australia has 30, Japan has 20, South America and Asia get some. Even though the US gets more, there are already tons more articles focusing on US tornadoes. What I think we need to is to provide a better global perspective in the yearly articles, but just listing the summaries by month isn't going to make things better from a global perspective. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:27, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think we will have to respectfully agree to disagree on that, which is perfectly fine. Currently, there is eight editors in support of going back to the "By Month" layout over the "By Continent" layout and you (so far) are the only editor in opposition to that. If I may ask though, why would a "By Month" layout be U.S.-centric over a "By Continent" layout, since the same number of U.S. sections vs Non-U.S. sections would be present in both layouts as dictated by WP:TornadoCriteria? To me, the "By Continent" layout would seem actually more U.S. centric than the "By Month" layout, as it specifically lists all U.S. tornadoes first (as North America is listed first) rather than all the other countries or in chronological order. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:34, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Because if we just go by month, no one will notice if there's nothing included for any non-US areas. Organizing by continent will at least have a section, even if it's blank, identifying a major part of the article that is missing. Right now, we could have a fairly full yearly article that is almost all US. That's unacceptable to me, and I'm American XD ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:39, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support – I agree with the ideas proposed, the monthly layout of the page was easier to navigate and much more convenient to easily access the more detailed monthly tornado lists for the US, and by adding a sentence for how many tornadoes were confirmed in other continents/major countries, if there were any, as well as adding "(United States)" to the end of the different US tornado events, it sufficiently makes it less US-centered, giving some attention to the other parts of the world that have experienced tornado activity, while not entirely changing the layout to an unstable one that editors have been having problems with (e.g., formatting errors for the North America events). ChrisWx 🌀 (talk - contribs) 21:23, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose #2 Maybe it's just me, but it feels like every tornado section having (United States) added is a lot of extra clutter to fight US-centeredness in an article that will always naturally have a lot more US content than anywhere else in the world. I'd rather have the specific states or the region of the US listed if something needs to be listed in parenthesis, because just "United States" doesn't give any additional info on where the storms are located compared to the previous format (where no country in parenthesis indicated USA). It doesn't quite feel like slapping a bandaid over the problem, but I'm not sure how better to describe it. Support #1 and #3, because those are good changes in my opinion (#3 does a good job of tackling US-centeredness, imo). Skarmory (talk • contribs) 03:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The arguments all seem to be WP:IDONTLIKEIT without concrete arguments. I mostly agree with Hurricanehink here.--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:58, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Why are you dismissing the fact that the current format leaves gaps in the structure and information of this page? If you are concerned with combating US-centeredness we have Clause #3 aiming to create nonUS information sections as well, but shorter to fit the dearth of available information. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 12:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I've seen it mentioned, but what exactly are the gaps in the structure and information in the current format? Consider Tornadoes of 2023 compared to Tornadoes of 2010, for instance; I'm not seeing much of a substantive difference in structural or informational gaps. In fact I would think the current format is better for leaving open the possibility of discussing environmental factors, trends, patterns, and other statistical information, since those are more likely to be geographically rather than temporally organized. —TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 13:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Gaps are useful for readability. WP:WALLOFTEXT exists for a reason.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @TheAustinMan Most editors and visitors for this page want to change the layout to the previous layout with some new modifications regarding recording tornado events outside the US. That way, we can preserve readability and the statistics already included from European and Asian events.

  @Jasper Deng Not sure what your position is exactly, aside from you providing an WP:ILIKEIT argument for HurricaneHink. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 22:21, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @HamiltonthesixXmusic: Your response does not answer @TheAustinMan:'s question of what information is missing from the new format.Jason Rees (talk) 22:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Calm down, Jason Rees. Simple mistake on my part.

  I was referring to the lack of updated information on the European and Asian tornado counts for this year, due to the lack of editors willing to work with the new format. So far, the European/Asian section lacks detailed sections such as the ones about US tornadic events, such in rating classifications, injuries, relevance/news sourcing, and images. We still haven't even finished finalizing the March/April tornado count in Europe, so this is obviously a large problem we never should have gotten into in the first place. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 23:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  The "structural" issues I see are mostly article-composition related. The flow of this layout as compared to the old layout (pre-2023) is less orderly and more complicated, with the lack of a linked table of contents for chronological purposes, as well as having overly long written sections and short ones in close proximity to each other. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 23:22, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  How is organizing by continent more complicated? If the info isn’t there, then that becomes more obvious with the continental listing. It’s like organizing by tropical cyclone basins. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 23:24, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Hurricanehink You aren't wrong in your idealistic argument. Organizing by continent does not make the tornado page more complicated, and it could be more useful. The problem is that no one is willing to work with it, and our page views have dropped compared to last year. In fact, the continental-layout failed to really take the US-centered bias from this article, so these proposed reversions could perhaps adjust this goal for a more realistic result. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 02:43, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Also, you can't really compare global tropical cyclones to global tornadoes due to the differences in available data & information. Tropical cyclones are tracked year-round across the world via satellites and by multiple weather agencies (NOAA, NWS, JMA, JTWC, etc). Hence, widespread information and updates on tropical cyclones throughout the world. But regarding tornadoes, only the US and Europe have actual tornado databases. Asia has a very limited database to work with (mostly China - no other countries with consistent tornado information) and Africa and South America have none at all. So when you want to organize tornado layout by continent, you are making it harder to source information here and thus lowering the quality of the content we produce. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 02:51, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @HamiltonthesixXmusic: A very quick Google tells me that there are tornado databases in South Africa, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and Fiji, while im sure if I dug deeper we could get a lot more sources for tornadoes around the world together. I also came across this blog post which backs my thinking about tornado databases existing up. As a result, I personally reject the argument that we are making it harder source information and are lowering the quality of the content we produce just because we are organizing by continent.Jason Rees (talk) 12:10, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  See how detailed those databases are and if they are suitable for all the tornado articles created (going all the way to 1980).

  Anyways, I am done arguing with you. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 18:08, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @HamiltonthesixXmusic: I am trying to work out my position and responded to your position with a calm and reasonable question, in order to try and figure out my thinking on this proposal since we go by consensus and not necessarily what the majority wants.Jason Rees (talk) 23:49, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Is the consensus not majority-driven? What in the world are you talking about? HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 02:40, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pertinent to this discussion is the Wikipedia policy for Consensus neither requires unanimity (which is ideal but rarely achievable), nor is it the result of a vote. Further, just to add a bit to this discussion, I already said tornadoes should be organized by continent, but I want to go further, that tornadoes should be organized at the local level, such as country, or even more local in the case of U.S. states, and likely Mexican/Indian/Australian states, Chinese provinces, etc. I believe if all of the articles were created, then users would get used to such a format. Major outbreaks usually get their own articles anyway. This would prevent having to list every single outbreak by month, or even every tornado, in the parent Tornadoes of YYYY list. They would all be mentioned in their regional articles. It would take a long time, but I think that is where the project is heading inevitably. I believe that provides a solution for how to organize the information, which seems to be the main concern. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 05:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is too idealistic. We have seen editors unwilling to frequently update tornado information for continental lists and sections, it will never work with all regions across the world.

Also, you and Jasper Deng seem to be the only editors against the reversion to the previous layout. There are eight editors in support of reversion, it’s by no means a close decision. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@HamiltonthesixXmusic: Read the link that @Hurricanehink: provided to you as you will find that the consensus is based on the quality of an argument rather than whether it represents a minority or a majority view.Jason Rees (talk) 12:43, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - The main argument presented to revert to the old format is the quality of the article suffering due to a lack of editors willing to update sections outside of the United States, however, these quality issues would still be present if we reverted to the old format. As a result of this and seeing other articles that people are supposedly not willing to work on, I lean towards opposing reverting the format to what it was.Jason Rees (talk) 12:43, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to oppose your opposition; the whole point of reverting is to get rid of the extra section that no one wants to edit and update. If no one wants to update the European section since April, why don't we just delete the whole thing??? HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 18:10, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The solution isn't to delete the information. It's to make it easier to navigate and contribute. As for me being too idealistic, yea, I've seen how Wikipedia has evolved over the last 19 years. More articles, more structure, and more discussion generally leads to more productive outcomes. The issue earlier was organizing the information. Having a blank section is allowed, and it makes it easier to see what information could be added to give the article a more global point of view. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I took a quick look at the linked discussion you provided - your own argument was that ALL tornado articles (including tornadoes of the 20th century!) should have their layouts changed to this global layout. Now, you have your ideals set. Try and find anyone willing to edit that many articles.

It is much easier to go with the previous format, because it worked well without conflict for so many years. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 18:34, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, I agree with your idea that global events should be recorded and given a section. But I do not think it can accomplish that ideal AND maintain quality with the prevalent unwillingness of us editors to actually work on this massive undertaking. It is not realistic at all. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 18:37, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's that unrealistic, and I'm not telling anyone that they have to edit. It seems that the impetus of this discussion was the discussion before this "Tornadoes of XXXX - Article format of 2022 and earlier", in which an editor already changed over the format going back to 2011. Wikipedia doesn't have to be perfect now, but it's already good thanks to so many editors, who are going to keep on doing their thing regardless of the outcome of this discussion, since most of the action happens in the individual outbreak articles (whether in the US or elsewhere honestly). Going back to old ways might seem easier, but if it had its flaws, shouldn't we find a different way forward? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:36, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I was also partially thinking, we have lost several good editors throughout the years and with the recent influx of inexperienced editors, changing to a new, completely different layout too soon was a mistake. You make good points, it just doesn't address my personal convictions and that's alright.

Perhaps we should take a more middle approach with this layout issue. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 21:36, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So you are describing an inherently undemocratic process? I am at a plain loss with your words. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 21:31, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, Wikipedia is not a democracy. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Slight support 1 and 2, support 3. - The older layout was much more easy to navigate (as many editors have pointed out). #3 is different, as while U.S. stats are definitely higher, majority of the [Tornadoes of ####] articles are heavily biased toward a US-centric view and need to be changed to at least a slight extent. They all help tackle the US-centered problem, though. MemeGod ._. (My talk page, my contributions and my creations!) 00:31, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Doing a quick clerical note: After a week, I will put a request in at Wikipedia:Closure requests for a non-weather and/or non-involved editor to do the formal closure. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:39, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Something this contentious ought to stay open for discussion for much longer than just a couple of weeks.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:03, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  You are right, I just modified the beginning part slightly in order to start a formal RFC. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 11:29, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @MemeGod27, you realize that about 75% (or more) of the world’s tornadoes happen in the United States and Canada, right? 2601:5C5:4201:68B0:D114:AF19:31D6:322B (talk) 02:01, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  This conversation happened 20 days ago. Why am I being pinged? Trinity :3 (My talk page, my contributions and my creations!) 02:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate proposal

As I am one of the dissenters to the proposal, I want to find a solution to the valid concerns from various editors, seeing as the above discussion seems to have died down without a consensus. Some of the main points of discussion seem to be wanting United States monthly totals. I still don't see anything wrong with that personally, just that I'd rather see that a yearly level listed as a table, and maybe even a breakdown by each category. In the interest of fairness around the world, we have the same tables for each country, where we have the total. It seems that the information organization is the main concern, and I want to acknowledge that without doing a complete reversal to listing all events by month. By keeping it in the format where it is organized by continent, we still have the geographic consistency, while still making sure the article isn't clunky. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 20:52, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Two things: One, had you not started this, I was going to put a formal request for the discussion to be closed today, as today was the 1-week mark since the discussion started, so I guess we have to put that on hold now. Two, a yearly table by country would not work due to there being three (four in reality) scales used to measure tornadoes: F, EF, IF, and TORRO and the F/EF, IF, and TORRO have three different steps (6, 9, and 12 respectively). Too much of a pain.

In the original proposal, the process to list monthly/yearly totals per country (not just the US) was to add a sentence at the beginning of each month's section, meaning the yearly totals per country are listed in the article lead and the month totals per country are a small "lead" paragraph at the beginning of each month.

As for this proposal, if I am interpreting it correctly, you want to (1) keep the By continent format and (2) have a massive bulky chart either before the by-continent sections or at the very bottom, rather than a short few sentence paragraph explaining it? So, I am going to have to be a strong oppose to this, as bulky charts just create way too much space in articles (example being on List of European tornadoes in 2022#European yearly total, which is outdated as is and needs a lot of work/redone to begin with). A four sentence paragraph in a by-month section is way better than a large chart that would either (1) single the US/Canada out to begin with due to those countries using the EF scale/CEF scale vs other countries using the F or IF scale or (2) just be miserable to maintain and/or create. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Small comment – Respectfully, I think there was a clear consensus on the first proposal, with 10 editors in support of all three proposals, 1 in support of point 1 and 3, and 3 editors in complete opposition.

In summary:

Point 1 – 11 editors in support of By Month layout vs 3 editors in opposition of By Month layout

Point 2 – 10 editors in support of adding "(United States)" vs 4 editors in opposition of it.

Point 3 – 11 editors in support of adding US & international totals at the beginning of each months sections vs 3 editors in opposition to that.

Even though Wikipedia is not a vote/democracy, that seems like a clear consensus even after a week discussion. So I would also disagree with your statement that the discussion "died down without a consensus." The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:15, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, each country would have its own table listing tornadoes by month. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:17, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that is a very big oppose to that then. You do realize that more than 40 countries (on average) see tornadoes every year? 40! We do not need to fill that article with 40 tables. And no, I am not exagerating that point. Look at List of European tornadoes in 2022. 22 European countries had tornadoes. That is right there 22 tables, not even counting anyone outside of just Europe. Like I said, way too much work when literally a few sentence paragraph can do just the same. Your proposal is basically this: Instead of a 3-5,000 byte-size thing to summarize monthly totals, we need 50+k bytes-sized tables. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:21, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose this alternate proposal as unnecessary. United States Man (talk) 02:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Replacing the current nonsensical layout with this alternate proposal is like putting lipstick on a pig. Makes the whole navigation scheme so much worse with so many additional tables and sections. HamiltonthesixXmusic (talk) 19:47, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'm striking the proposal. I don't want to hold this up and push my views any further on this matter. There's more important fish to fry. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:43, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I might not be too familiar with the format; but after looking at the 2008 example verses 2023; I like the monthly format better. 12.74.221.43 (talk) 04:22, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is an ongoing disagreement between editors on whether six different tornadic events warrant inclusion on Tornadoes of 2020 under the rare oddity clause of WP:TornadoCriteria. You can participate in the discussion here: Talk:Tornadoes of 2020#WP:TornadoCriteria Rare Oddity Cases. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:31, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:December 2021 Midwest derecho and tornado outbreak#Requested move 23 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 11:46, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an article on tradition and folk methods of weather prediction? Folk methods of rheumatoid pain, groundhogs, pyromancy, geomancy, astrology, etc. covered in general. -- 64.229.90.32 (talk) 21:45, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is one at the moment but I would love to get one together at some point, but we would have to tread carefully and only include those traditions that are covered in reliable sources such as Groundhog DayorSaint Swithin's Day .Jason Rees (talk) 00:04, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This shows the template that links all of the lists of tornadoes in North America, including Hawaii for convenience (even though it's technically Oceania). There's a lot of states (and one territory) with articles, 14 in total, so at some point I imagine the rest will be created. It's just a matter of when. This is where YOU come into the picture.

I will gladly help set up the articles, if anyone asks me for help, but I know that it takes a lot of time to set it up, having worked on California and New Jersey lists. Are there any of you out there possibly interested in writing one of the state lists that don't exist yet? Since we already have Connecticut and Rhode Island, I imagine Massachusetts would be easy to split off from Tornadoes in New England.

And if you're an editor from outside of the US, don't think I'm ignoring your efforts. Feel free to create List of Mexico tornadoes or wherever. I just imagine that there are a lot of US editors around here. We're at about the quarter-way mark for even having lists for every state. Think we can get it to the half-way mark by the end of the summer? Anyone interested in working on some lists? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:17, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I shall help out! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:36, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome! Is there any state you had in mind? I can help set up a draft if you'd like. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:22, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And now I understand why @Hurricanehink left a me talk page message after I added one entry onto @WeatherWriter‘s deadly tornado list. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 19:14, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can certainly help out on that. But I am also working on other projects on here (such as a list of PDS watches); I do see that Kentucky is not on there (it was a KY tornado that I added to WeatherWriter’s list); if someone can start a draft on that. I might be able to fill in some details on that. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 19:19, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also think someone should draft a list of tornadoes in Puerto Rico, because tornadoes there are relatively rare. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 19:21, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thought I’d pick an easy one since this state doesn’t get that many twisters: see Draft:List of West Virginia tornadoes. If someone can get the general format started. I can start editing this. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 19:30, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WestVirginiaWX: - I added a few elements to your draft. It looks like this year is already West Virginia's most active year ever! And yea, Kentucky and Puerto Rico should also eventually be added. The lengthy aspect is adding all of the events. And not even every tornado needs to be added for it to be a useful list. Even if it was just the significant and deadly events, plus climatology, that would be very useful. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:51, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How extensive is this going to be? Ugh, this would have been so much easier back when we had the Tornado History Project. TornadoLGS (talk) 21:10, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No ugh needed :) It'll still be doable with NCDC, and Google. Each state is going to have their own resources, local NWS's, local researchers. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:51, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey just letting folks know I left comment with a tentative proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather/Tornadoes of YYYY criteria but it hasn't gotten any response yet. TornadoLGS (talk) 01:26, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Editors_removing_formatted_citations_for_bare_URL_citations, 30 comments, 8 people in discussion atm, has mentioned issues with WP:EL and MOS:CURRENT in the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season article. For the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Following the abovementioned ANI discussion, Template:Infobox weather event/Current, Template:Infobox weather event/live, Template:HurricaneWarningsTable, Template:IMDWarningsTable, and Template:TyphoonWarningsTable have been nominated for deletion, citing concerns with MOS:CURRENT and WP:NOTNEWS. Editors are invited to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 June 19#Tropical cyclone current storm templates. ~ KN2731 {talk · contribs} 05:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There have apparently been quite a few flood articles kinda falling through the cracks (such as the 2022 Eastern Kentucky flood only being included in a blanket “United States Flood” article, in part because of the century-scale lists of United States flood articles; and the supposedly ”complete” notable flood lists. And I think a very plausible solution to this problem of incompleteness would be to start doing lists of floods by year (eg. “Floods of 2024”), similar to what is currently done with tornado and tropical cyclone lists, we could (as Hurricanehink suggested) also do regional scale lists (like “List of floods in the United States in 2024”). Any input on this would be appreciated. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 02:40, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think floods and heat waves could have yearly articles, much like tropical cyclones in 2024ortornadoes of 2024. Draft:Floods of 2024 should be created, and in my opinion, it should be organized regionally, perhaps by continent. Some continents have a monsoon season, so that should be noted wherever possible. Much like TC's or tornadoes, there should also be regional lists, like List of Bermuda tornadoesorTyphoons in the Korean Peninsula, so we could have Floods in Kentucky, and in theory every location around the world. The challenge will be getting people to write it, and making sure it is decently cited, so it doesn't become out of date without any referencing, which is the worst type of article. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 05:05, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have always wondered about an article talking about the impacts of the monsoon on India etc each year, since it serves an important part of the world's meteorology.Jason Rees (talk) 17:44, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The monsoon is a great example of how we might need to adjust our approach. So thankfully we have an article for Floods in India, which serves as a national overview, and should mention climatology and particularly devastating events. There could also be yearly flood articles for there too - we have ones like 2019 Indian floods that already practically serve this purpose. Ditto 2024 India-Bangladesh floods, but, as that article title points out, the monsoon isn't only going to affect India. That lends credence to the need for yearly flood articles like Floods of 2024, which should hopefully be organized by continent to mention events that go across national borders. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:24, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Regional articles, @Shortiefourten has been creating a very excellent and well referenced Flood history in Chehalis, Washington. Chehalis is prone to frequent flooding so their work provides local context for events that have articles that are regional summaries (like the 1996 Pacific Northwest floods). DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 03:06, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think for now, we should stick to yearly articles on a global and/or continental scale; but I’m open to more regional or even local scale articles (such as by state or locality) in the future, once the global articles are finished. And I think the whole Chehalis, Washington bit is great (even though I have absolutely no idea about the flood history of that town, didn’t even know the town existed until you replied here.) If I had to make suggestions in that regard, we can start thinking of other cities that are majorly prone to flooding. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 03:31, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think we need to have an organized push for local/regional flood summary articles, I just shared that here to show there is precedent for high quality articles of that type in case anyone is interested in doing one themselves. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 03:35, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, I think the problem is that broader articles are more difficult to write from scratch, especially after the fact. Floods are also very common, and not every single event is noteworthy, and nor would a collection of events automatically make for a good article/list. So there should be a Floods of 2022, which would mention the Eastern Kentucky floods, but because there would be a broader article for the info to go to, the original Kentucky information could be more focused on the most significant floods. I don't think anyone wants information to be deleted, so it's more a matter of where it should go. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:29, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 17:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, there has been several discussions regarding the list of possible F5/EF5/IF5 tornadoes over on the list of F5 and EF5 tornadoes article. I have now started/begin a large sub-page of the WikiProject specifically designed to solve all the problems and concerns with the list. It involves community consensus and discussions.

Discussions Page: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather/Possible F5/EF5/IF5 tornadoes. I recommend bookmarking the page in some fashion. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:11, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• NOTE: This type of discussion method was attempted two years ago, but failed to gain much attention. To help mitigate debates on the article and as a WikiProject, I hope several editors feel willing to participate in the several dozen discussions that will occur on this discussion page. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:11, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Tornado outbreak sequence of May 19–27, 2024, an article pretaining to this WikiProject has been nominated for deletion. You can participate in the deletion discussion here. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 03:29, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]