Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hinduism in Scotland

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 . This with the nominator's rationale does not belong at AfD. Merging is an editorial decision that should be discussed on the article's talk page. - filelake shoe 22:59, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hinduism in Scotland

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Already covered by Hinduism in the United Kingdom--tHeMaNe2 Talk 01:27, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge / Redirect, and that goes for the others. Deletion is unnecessary and counterproductive. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:22, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect following the reasoning of User:Night Gyr. —Tom Morris (talk) 14:17, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:56, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hinduism-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:57, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - a non-argument like "Already covered by Fooism in the UK" would lead to the mass-deletion of thousands of Wikipedia articles.--Mais oui! (talk) 00:21, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep / Oppose proposal. The OP argument is like saying History of Europe should be deleted because it is covered at History of the world. Yeah, it's kinda covered, but it's still a distinct topic. This article is one of many articles covering different religions in Scotland, conveniently orgnanized on Template:ReligionScotland. Hinduism in Scotland is as important/more important than many of the others already there. No reason to delete. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 01:14, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep/oppose - I should like to see the article expanded to give a fuller account of the subject matter. The development of Hinduism in each of the nations of the UK is culturally significant and it seems to me that there are distinct strands developed within each nation worthy of separate treatment. cheers Geopersona (talk) 05:07, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Equivocal, tending to merge/redirect + creation of article on Edinburgh temple. Mais oui!'s fears about mass deletion is a non-argument, likewise the Deacon's argument of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. What matters is what the sources say, and giving our readers the best possible experience. In general that's best achieved by comprehensive general articles, breaking out specifics into daughter articles as and when they start to overwhelm the parent article. We shouldn't be dogmatic about the level at which that happens - Hinduism in Scotland is no different in principle to Hinduism in Malawi or Hinduism in Yorkshire or Hinduism in Glasgow or Hinduism in Stornoway, if the WP:RS exist to write a meaningful, distinctive article that serves our readers better than including bits in the parent article then you do it, at whatever level of the pyramid. However I would note that there are only 3 Gbooks hits for this subject, two of which are apparently trivial. The third is a book about the construction of the temple in Edinburgh which has some coverage of the wider subject but notes that as of 1995 "there has been no serious study made of Hinduism in Scotland" and "it is extremely difficult to pinpoint what is distinctive about 'Scottish' Hinduism (if it is at all distinct)". That last comment in particular from a WP:RS makes me think that this article is a division too far, and it should be merged into the main UK article. Yes, you could construct an acceptably Wiki article based on that kind of stuff - but its unique content would be minimal and I think our readers would be served better by a UK article alone. On the other hand, the existence of that book suggests to me that an article about the Edinburgh temple is probably worth having - and you could probably include some bits about Scottish Hinduism in the background to that article if appropriate. I think the key is to take every article on the merits of the potential sources and not to be dogmatic about how far down the geographical pyramid you take things.Le Deluge (talk) 15:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks dangerously like another one of those "Scotland isn't a real country" arguments ... "it's like Yorkshire or Stornoway". Because Scotland is perceived as a country, there is an automatic expectation for articles like this (which isn't the case for Yorkshire or Stornoway, a region of England and a town in Scotland respectively). Not everything should be about politics; this is an encyclopedia after all! :) Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No - I'm arguing exactly the opposite, I'm trying to keep away from all arguments about the status of Scotland - although if you want to play that game, I would note that while most nation states have a Hinduism in... article, that logic doesn't apply to nations/countries that aren't nation states, there's no Hinduism in Catalonia for instance. But that's not my argument. I say that as in most thigs Wiki, we let the sources guide us. That's how far we go up or down the pyramid, there's nothing magic about nations/nation states/countries per se. I'm arguing for articles on Yorkshire or Stornoway if the sources justify it - I can certainly imagine that the sources would support going down to city level in the case of Leicester, Birmingham or West London (and I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Yorkshire as "not a proper country", it's a nation by many of the criteria used by the Scots albeit with a very different history). Conversely, the likes of Hinduism in Brazil redirect to the appropriate section in Hinduism in South America without casting aspersions on Brazil's status as a nation state! There just isn't a whole heap to say about the few thousand Hindus in Brazil, so it serves the reader better to incorporate them into a more general article.Le Deluge (talk) 11:01, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Has a Hinduism in Brazil article been subject to a successful afd 'discussion'? Incidentally, your assertion that Yorkshire is "a nation by many of the criteria used by the Scots" belies your assertions about your motivation. Only raging Anglo-British nationalists ever make assertions like that; Yorkshire is no more regarded seriously as a "nation" than Ross is or Lanarkshire is, and in fact historically the latter have more claim. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 11:19, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - The article is perfectly valid existing in its own right. To delete or merge articles because the information could be included in an article about a larger geographical area will lead to the removal of thousands of articles. This is a not what Wikipedia should be about. Fishiehelper2 (talk) 16:05, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Re comments by Le Deluge, the article is not about 'Scottish' Hinduism—whatever that may be, any more than Hinduism in the United Kingdom is about 'British' Hinduism. If you want a few more (50,000+) Gbook hits try 'Hindu Scotland'. The absence of Hinduism from Category:Religion in Scotland would be an absurdity and in all candour it is hard to understand what the logic of the nomination is. The article requires significant expansion, not deletion. Ben Mac Dui 18:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that you're getting 10 Ghits per Hindu in Scotland implies it's not a very appropriate search - they mostly seem to be about Scots in India during the Raj. And who cares about "absurdity" - isn't that just a variation on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS? By the same logic it's absurd that there's no Hindu article in Category:Religion in London or Category:Religion in Leicestershire - but there's many more Hindus there. It just feels that people are trying to make a WP:POINT about the special status of Scotland, when the Brazil example shows that even nation states don't have to have their own Hinduism article if the reader is best served by an article about a bigger geographical area. We have had several Wikipedians making the unsubstantiated claim that Hinduism in Scotland was somehow distinct, when the sources appear to say the opposite. Le Deluge (talk) 11:01, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That there are numerous works referring to Church of Scotland activities during the Raj should surely be a clue. Unlike Yorkshire, Stornoway, London and Leicestershire, Scotland has a parliament and legal and educational systems and a national church that are different from elsewhere in the UK. The relationships between them and Hinduism are therefore of interest—including any affected by historical circumstance such as CoS missionaries. There could be sections in this article on the Raj, the attitude of mainstream society, the influence or otherwise of Advaita and neo-Advaita teachers such as Eckhart Tolle that visit Scotland on a regular basis etc. See here. It is very easy to brandish acronyms but the argument would appear to be little more than the idea that if an article is a short one, it should be merged. Hinduism per se does not have to be distinct in terms of its religious practices for the article to have meaning. What needs to be distinct is the combination of Hinduism and Scottish society past and present, which it surely is. I know he is a Muslim but we have just had an MSP sworn in wearing a sherwani for goodness sake. Ben Mac Dui 07:36, 18 May 2011 (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.