Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mototaka Nakamura

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 delete. Bishonen | tålk 02:01, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Mototaka Nakamura

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Mototaka Nakamura (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This is a WP:FRINGEBLP of a climate change denier who is so obscure as to really not be identified by the appropriate number of third-party sources. The primary author of this article claims that WP:PROF is satisfied because some of his papers have lots of citations, but there are citogenesis issues for some of these papers within the closed-shop climate change denial community, and, frankly, hundreds of citations over the course of decades is not a particularly high. I just do not see enough evidence that this person is notable and the other WP:BIO indicators seem to be lacking as well. jps (talk) 10:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 10:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 10:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 10:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

• Delete Not enough reliable secondary sources mention him. I have dug around on JSTOR and Google Books. The only sources that mention him are his own works. Most of the sources on the article are his own publications. WP:RS are seriously lacking. Psychologist Guy (talk) 12:35, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment So far, the only standard of notability this page might reach is WP:NACADEMIC criteria number one, based on two papers that may demonstrate a "significant impact" of this academic's research. Based on Google Scholar hits (which is not the preferred method, but is what I have available), this academic has one solo-authored paper with ~250 citations and first authorship on a paper with ~150 citations. As a non-expert in his field, I do not know whether this is sufficient for significance. All his other papers are fairly poorly cited. Jlevi (talk) 13:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Based on some discussion and by looking at comparable individuals, I now do not think this passes this criteria. Unless some reliable Japanese-language sources wind up rising (as noted in the comments below) to allow satisfaction of WP:GNG, I would say Delete. Jlevi (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

One last thought. It seems like Asahi article and the Science article might be just barely enough for WP:GNG. Do these two articles fail on some of the criteria? Is there a reason why these articles would be insufficient if they were to pass?

Here is my analysis on the Science article. This clearly passes reliability and independence. However, it may be too specifically in reference to the article subject's research to be considered an article about the subject himself. So, though it is a long article, the subject perhaps does not receive the necessary coverage. I'm not sure how the research/researcher disentanglement is usually done for this sort of article.

Here is my analysis on the Asahi article. The coverage appears significant, crossing the WP:One hundred words threshold. The source is reliable. The author is not included, and it's unclear what particular section of the newspaper the article was in, so there may be some influence on our understanding of reliability that isn't captured here. The publisher certainly appears independent. However, the content is certainly not, with almost everything coming directly from Nakamura (I'm not sure independence of content is required for BLPs, however, as it is with organizations).

Thoughts? There are certainly significant NPOV and weight problems here, but those shouldn't necessarily impact notability, and I'd like to give this article the strongest possible counter-argument to deletion. I think what I've presented here is that strongest counterargument. Jlevi (talk) 16:40, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you that the Science article is merely a glancing mention of the subject. The Asahi article makes a better case, though it is pretty marginal. I do note that WP:One hundred words is an essay, not a guideline, and the coverage there is brief (and tends towards "man bites dog"). WP:FRINGE holds the article to a high standard of notability, and I don't think the Asahi article meets that. I've !voted keep on climate-change deniers before, and if the WP:NPROF case was anywhere close, the Asahi article might change my mind. But it's not, and it doesn't. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 07:40, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Russ_Woodroofe, Thanks for the WP:FRINGE reminder. I disagree with characterizing this (or any) reputable scientist, in the area they are expert, as "fringe" to dismiss them. That said, WP:FRINGEBLP says,

There are people who are notable enough to have articles included in Wikipedia solely on the basis of their advocacy of fringe beliefs. Notability can be determined by considering whether there are enough reliable and independent sources that discuss the person in a serious and extensive manner, taking care also to avoid the pitfalls that can appear when determining the notability of fringe theories themselves. Caution should be exercised when evaluating whether there are enough sources available to write a neutral biography that neither unduly promotes nor denigrates the subject.

This does not increase the standard. If anything it lowers the standard and adds support to KEEP (article creator). -- Yae4 (talk) 09:45, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Russ_Woodroofe Sounds fair. Jlevi (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• Delete - A few days ago I tried looking for more sources indicating notability and to find better independent coverage (including expert criticism and mentions in wide mainstream papers). I mostly fell on advocacy org sites and blogs, including Friends of Science's (that has a misleading name BTW) and self-published pamphlets like the one I removed here (despite it being a Google books link, it's not a book). I'm also not convinced that WP:NACADEMIC is met. When good expert sources evaluating fringe claims are rare (and we need them to cover the topic) it's usually a sign of WP:TOOSOON and Wikipedia is not the place to popularize things. —PaleoNeonate – 01:22, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

• Keep (article creator). Too bad this isn't an April Fools prank...or is it? First, a comment and question on editor behavior: Is this - which appears to be organizing and recruiting a suppression effort - considered appropriate?[1] Note the creator of the article was not notified.

In addition to having significant impact in his esoteric technical field, his "confessions" book brought a lot of general public attention. This person has been covered in Science[2], and Asahi Shimbun[3], plus some other publications. Japanese language searches may find more coverage.

There is no specific numerical criterion available to apply, but I feel having dozens of citations for some works, totalling hundreds over the years, should be sufficient when considering the very specialized nature of the works.

General Comments: A technocracy source[4] was deleted, rather than talk about it more, but it added a few comments to the quadrant source, so it also demonstrates additional coverage of this person and his work, from an arguably reliable source. This article was written without using any source I thought was of questionable quality/reliability; however, there is a lot of additional coverage of the person, his work, his "breaking ranks" and becoming notorious in the blogosphere, and in articles that will take more time to go through and form opinions on reliability and weight.

Detailed Comments: He has 14 technical publications listed at American Meteorological Society, which no one should claim is "fringe." [5]

Google Scholar search results and citations.[6]

Collapse Detailed list of publications with year and numbers of citations noted

This article in Science, shows the person and his work, had impact, early in career. Climate modeling's fudge factor comes under fire, RA Kerr - Science, 1994 - go.gale.com, … In a study now in press at the Journal of Climate, Mototaka Nakamura, Peter Stone, and Jochem Marotzke of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report that they deliberately introduced an error into a climate model, then seemingly adjusted the error away, only to … Cited: 41 It is not insignificant that M. Nakamura is second author of "The role of high-and low-frequency dynamics in blocking formation" (cited 268 times) and two M. Nakamura works are cited as references therein:[7] (1) 1994: Characteristics of potential vorticity mixing by breaking Rossby waves in the vicinity of a jet. Ph.D. dissertation, Cited 18 times (2) 1994: The effects of flow asymmetry on the direction of Rossby wave breaking. J. Atmos. Sci.,51, 2031–2045. Cited 72 times Other citations, as primary author, reverse order by year, bolded because of a comment about "the 1990s": Impacts of the Oyashio temperature front on the regional climate, M Nakamura, T Miyama - Journal of Climate, 2014 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 13 Greenland Sea surface temperature change and accompanying changes in the Northern Hemispheric climate, M Nakamura - Journal of climate, 2013 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 4 Impacts of SST anomalies in the Agulhas Current system on the regional climate variability, M Nakamura - Journal of climate, 2012 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 14 Quasigeostrophic transient wave activity flux: Updated climatology and its role in polar vortex anomalies, M Nakamura, M Kadota… - Journal of the atmospheric …, 2010 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 5 Dominant anomaly patterns in the near-surface baroclinicity and accompanying anomalies in the atmosphere and oceans. Part II: North Pacific basin; M Nakamura, S Yamane - Journal of climate,2010 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 26 Potential vorticity and eddy potential enstrophy in the North Atlantic Ocean simulated by a global eddy-resolving model, M Nakamura, T Kagimoto - Dynamics of atmospheres and oceans, 2006 - Zitiert von: 15 Dominant anomaly patterns in the near-surface baroclinicity and accompanying anomalies in the atmosphere and oceans. Part I: North Atlantic basin, M Nakamura, S Yamane - Journal of climate, 2009 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 32 Transient wave activity and its fluxes in the North Atlantic Ocean simulated by a global eddy-resolving model, M Nakamura, T Kagimoto - Dynamics of atmospheres and oceans, 2006 - Elsevier, Zitiert von: 5 A simulation study of the 2003 heatwave in Europe, M Nakamura, T Enomoto, S Yamane - J Earth Sim, 2005 - jamstec.go.jp, Zitiert von: 24 Diagnoses of an eddy-resolving Atlantic Ocean model simulation in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream. Part II: Eddy potential enstrophy and eddy potential vorticity fluxes, M Nakamura, Y Chao - Journal of physical oceanography, 2002 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 3 Diagnoses of an eddy-resolving Atlantic Ocean model simulation in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream. Part I: Potential vorticity, M Nakamura, Y Chao - Journal of physical oceanography, 2001 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 11 Characteristics of three‐dimensional quasi‐geostrophic transient eddy propagation in the vicinity of a simulated Gulf Stream, M Nakamura, Y Chao - Journal of Geophysical Research …, 2000 - Wiley Online Library, Zitiert von: 10 On the eddy isopycnal thickness diffusivity of the Gent–McWilliams subgrid mixing parameterization, M Nakamura, Y Chao - Journal of climate, 2000 - journals.ametsoc.org, Cited 38 times On modified rotational and divergent eddy fluxes and their application to blocking diagnoses, M Nakamura - Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological …, 1998 - Wiley Online Library, Zitiert von: 6 Effects of ice albedo and runoff feedbacks on the thermohaline circulation, M Nakamura - Journal of climate, 1996 - journals.ametsoc.org, Zitiert von: 17 Destabilization of the thermohaline circulation by atmospheric eddy transports, M Nakamura, PH Stone, J Marotzke - Journal of Climate, 1994 - journals.ametsoc.org, Cited 152 times

-- Yae4 (talk) 02:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

• Delete. Citations are only moderate in a high citation field, and I don't see other signs of notability. I'm concerned at how the article uses his past affiliations to give him a veneer of respectability (if he has a current academic post, I can't find it). A single book (self-publisher even?) isn't likely to give WP:NAUTHOR, and the coverage mostly consists of the review by Tony Thomas and various rehashes. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:52, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Russ_Woodroofe, His lengthy dissertation published by MIT should count as a second book, FWIW. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:39, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Comment (by article creator). For what it's worth, comparison with other Meteorologist articles... In terms of sourcing and accomplishments, Mototaka Nakamura seems at least as notable and well-sourced as some other meteorologist BLP articles such as Nana Klutse, Reto Knutti, Peter_Cox_(climatologist), Robert H. Johns, Rely Zlatarovic.

Most of the more "highly cited" articles are the "study of studies" type Wikipedia relies on so heavily, or less specialized/focused or more policy type works. As for employment, "coming out" as a non-alarmist or honestly publicizing the high uncertainties of climate model predictions are usually career ending moves. A few other examples have even made it into Wikipedia... Nakamura wrote what sounds like a goodbye to the field, "I have more-or-less lost interest in the climate science and am not thrilled to spend so much of my time and energy in this kind of writing beyond the point that satisfies my own sense of obligation to the US and Japanese tax payers who financially supported my higher education and spontaneous and free research activity." -- Yae4 (talk) 13:37, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure the meteorologists brought up for comparison support this argument. Just looking at Reto Knutti's publications, this individual has five publications with 1000+ citations, and >20 with 200+. If these people are used for the purpose of comparison, it seems the argument would be for delete based on the comparison. Jlevi (talk) 16:29, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure either, but my point was Nakamura Wikipedia article is better, and better sourced. It looks to me like Knutti is 2nd or 3rd author on most of the highly cited publications. Maybe Klutse[8] is a closer comparison (by primary author counts). Zlatarovic is too old to use Google scholar. I don't claim Nakamura is the most prolific or most cited, but he is in the ballpark of some others in Wikipedia, at least. Plus his work got arguably more notoriety (or infamy) for the general public. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:48, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Article status/quality/completeness is unrelated to notability, which is the primary purpose of this discussion. For more information, consider looking at WP:ARTN. Jlevi (talk) 02:52, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

• Procedure question: @ජපස: aka jps, Is there a Japan-related AfD list this could be added to? -- Yae4 (talk) 07:32, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. TJMSmith (talk) 11:06, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, there is. I see a volunteer already added it, but in general you can ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting for someone who has the tools enabled to list discussions efficiently. I use WP:Twinkle which does all the sorting at set-up, but there are other volunteers who add these discussions to other lists after the fact. jps (talk) 11:14, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

• Eh, delete I think - the sources cited are almost all primary (e.g. mentioned on climate change denialist blog, source, link to climate change denialist blog) and there really isn't much else out there, in part because the sources that do discuss him are almost always unreliable (e.g. they promote climate change denial). Guy (help!) 16:38, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Delete Citation profile too underwhelming to pass WP:PROF#C1 (an h-index of only 13, in a field where citation counts are actually informative). No other evidence of notability per WP:PROF, WP:AUTHOR or any other applicable guideline. XOR'easter (talk) 00:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

XOR%27easter, I should be more appreciative of someone using a numerical criterion as you did. So thanks for that. Could you point me to a (open/free) source to get those ratings (for authors who don't have profiles/accounts on GScholar)? Also, would you state a minimum value you think should be used, or give the values for the lowest rated similar BLP already in WP, for context, if you know? -- Yae4 (talk) 17:39, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• NOTE: Per WP:BASIC: People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject.

In addition to Nakamura's significant coverage published in Asahi Shimbun, Science, Manila Times, The Telegram, and a few "lesser" news publications, I recently found and added his significant coverage within newsletters published by IPRC, including one with a detailed biography. Also added significant coverage from a few notable blogs (having Wikipedia articles). These publishers are all independent of each other and independent of the subject. -- Yae4 (talk) 07:08, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

References

There is no "lie" in the climate change "scare", and any publication declaring that someone has "exposed" one is ipso facto unreliable. The item from The Telegram is a reader letter in a local newspaper, carrying zero reliability or noteworthiness, and it has only a passing mention of the article subject at that. The IPRC newsletter is published by Nakamura's employer and is therefore not independent; it would only be suitable for uncontroversial claims like the date at which he joined the organization and, for these purposes, contributes nothing to notability. XOR'easter (talk) 16:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Even Wikipedia doesn't yet say we need to be scared to go along with "the consensus." Newspaper editors give submitted letters editorial oversight; they don't just publish them willy nilly. An employee may be financially dependent on an employer, but the requirement is intellectual independence, which is satisfied. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:43, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

First, we're not "scared" into agreeing with the scientific consensus. As an encyclopedia, we're part of the reality-based community. Second, local newspapers are not scientific journals, and their editors are not qualified to make scientific judgments. Third, we have established standards for academic biographies, including how sources that are affiliated with a subject can be used. A blurb in a newsletter does not contribute to substantial coverage in a reliable, independent source. XOR'easter (talk) 18:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Well said, —PaleoNeonate – 03:18, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:I get the feeling you're intentionally misinterpreting what I wrote about "scare," so I'll give up on that. But, Dana Nuccitelli and John Cook are considered experts...because they published in Environmental Research Letters (zero sources)? -- Yae4 (talk) 10:53, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Delete per NACAdemic. -Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 09:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Collapse Process Objection Re: When Not to use deletion process - personal beliefs

Process Objection (by Article creator) (Restated after unexplained reversion): When to Not Use Deletion Process says a reason is: "Articles on topics you wish didn't exist for personal belief reasons". I feel this may be the primary reason this AfD was started. Thus, this AfD is improper, and should be ended. I ask impartial admins (if possible to find) to please evaluate. Suggested data for evaluation: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Mototaka_Nakamura started 19:04, 30 March 2020 (Rallying cry?) User_talk:Yae4#Warning 16:41, 31 March 2020: "Warning" followed 18 hours later by this AfD. 10:49, 1 April 2020 This interaction comparison to identify timing and articles/talks. Talk:Judith_Curry Examine language used by participants also involved here now. AfD Edit summaries [9][10] -- Yae4 (talk) 13:27, 8 April 2020 (UTC) FWIW, I had no involvement with this page before the AfD, and I second the nomination. The objection is anyway off-topic for the AfD (better suited for WP:DRV). I also strongly suggest that you read WP:BLUDGEON, and consider whether some of the points therein apply to your behavior at this AfD. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 15:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC) Thanks for the suggestion. I've also added it above for the long list of articles and citations, and updated the title. I find most WP discussions are too light on actual evidence, specific measurable criteria, and too heavy on unsubstantiated opinions, so I try to bring details. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:35, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

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.