Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jehovah's Witnesses reference works (2nd nomination)

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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 redirect to Jehovah's Witnesses publications. i'm going for redirect. There's a consensus for no seperate article here, a redirect allows editors to merge and preserved the attribution if this has already happended. Scott Mac 19:23, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jehovah's Witnesses reference works[edit]

AfDs for this article:
Jehovah's Witnesses reference works (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Article was previously nominated for deletion, with a formal result of no consensus, but close to a result of merge. The results of AfDs for three other similar articles in this series (Jehovah's Witnesses publications for adherents, Jehovah's Witnesses publications for youths, and Jehovah's Witnesses publications for evangelizing) was to merge to Jehovah's Witnesses publications. All of the information that is sourced from third-party sources in this article is already at Jehovah's Witnesses publications. Jeffro77 (talk) 01:47, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. If nobody !votes delete then 7 days later I'll have to close it by saying "no arguments for deletion aside from the dominator". :) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteRedirect: Whilst I am effectively seeking to Merge the article to Jehovah's Witnesses publications, this has already been done. All third-party sourced material is already at the other article.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Changed per comments from User:Mike Rosoft below.--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: At three of the four of the previous AfDs for the articles in this series, User:AuthorityTam made an irrelevant personal attack on me, including dredging up out-of-context and entirely irrelevant Talk comments from over four years ago in an attempt to claim that merging this series of articles to Jehovah's Witnesses publications was out of bias. AuthorityTam was directed to strike out the comments, but failed to do so and simply stopped editing Wikipedia articles for a couple of weeks instead. Other than AuthorityTam's objections, the previous suggestions to Keep were from:
    • User:Heymid: Said the article looked well sourced and well written. After I pointed out that the sources were primarily not from third-party publications and that I created the article (a year ago, as a favour to AuthorityTam[1], and with warning at the time that it would be subject to deletion[2]), Heymid suggested a Speedy Delete {{Db-g7}}).
    • User:Mandsford: Was concerned that the deletion may be discriminatory. However, the information is retained at Jehovah's Witnesses publications.
    • User:George_m: George compared the alleged notability of specific JW publications (not JWs in general or JW publishing activities in general) with the Catholic Encyclopedia. He based this comparison on a misleading statement that JWs are the second-most prevalent religion in some countries, without indicating that it meant at most 1% of those countries' populations.)
    • User:GabrielVelasquez: Contended that reference works are always notable. However there is provision at Jehovah's Witnesses publications for any notable information from third-party sources.
    • User:Mike_Cline: Indicated that a list of JW reference works was appropriate. However there is provision for these at Jehovah's Witnesses publications, and List of Watch Tower Society publications also already exists.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Aside from myself, the following users previously proposed that the article be Deleted/Merged:
  • Note: The reference works involved do not meet the criteria for notable books, and are (through official channels) only made available to members of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:30, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jeffro77, do you have some diffs or something on the personal attacks and everything. I'd be interested (and I think the user that closes this AfD might be interested) in seeing what went down. Thanks, — Parent5446 ☯ (msg email) 14:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jehovah's Witnesses reference works, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jehovah's Witnesses publications for evangelizing, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jehovah's Witnesses publications for adherents. See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive620#User:AuthorityTam and User talk:AuthorityTam#Notice.--Jeffro77 (talk) 16:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I haven't read the pages in question, but how about simply redirecting the page to Jehovah's Witnesses publications? (If anything more needs to be merged, this can be decided without needing a VfD debate.) - Mike Rosoft (talk) 08:35, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Tried that already.[3][4] AuthorityTam objects.[5][6]--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Redirect - just as I voted last time per WP:NBOOK. (My actual vote last time was merge, but as is said above, that is pretty much already done. I would vote for a redirect, but as also said above, that move has proven too controversial, besides, it is not really a useful redirect; nobody is going to search Wikipedia for Jehovah's Witnesses reference works.) — Parent5446 ☯ (msg email) 14:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Though the presentation is condensed, the information is already in the other article with consideration to due weight appropriate for publications that are (officially) only given to JW members.--Jeffro77 (talk) 16:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge and delete / redirect. My comments at the previous AfD are still valid. Can we get the objecting party -- AuthorityTam -- to explain, using Wikipedia's guidelines and documented consensus, why separate articles are appropriate and called for? As a JW, I would love such expounding elucidation of our literature ad infinitum, but strictly within the parameters and guidelines of the Wikipedia project I cannot support it. As a side point, "straining out the gnat" like this invites notorious critics to whittle away at such minutae, slowly warping and morphing them into evidences for their claims about JWs. This is precisely why I left the JW Wikipedia project in the first place. And such micro-iterative degeneration of the NPOV quality of the articles, such as in this manner, is both unhelpful to the JWs' misson, and corrosive to the Wikipedia project. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 17:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Aside from vitriol, AuthorityTam claimed that the books are notable because Jehovah's Witnesses release lots of books, and millions of each book are published. However, the publications in question are only distributed to members of the religion. Number of copies published does not satisfy the relevant criteria for notability. He also claimed that because individual articles on some of the non-notable books previously existed, that this should be kept, ignoring the fact that a) they are not notable per the criteria, b) the publications are mentioned at Jehovah's Witnesses publications with sufficient coverage for their notability, and c) any additional notable information about JW literature can be added to that article. AuthorityTam claimed the books are notable based on a Google Books search of other books that mention the JW publications (about other JW books at one of the other related AfDs in the series), however those results only indicated brief citations from some of the books rather than discussion about the books to establish notability (some of the results incidentally matched words in JW book titles but did not refer to the JW publications at all).
Please note that all content at Wikipedia is irrelevant to "JWs' mission". Your references to "micro-iterative degeneration" and "notorious critics [who] whittle away" are ambiguous and it is unclear how they relate to this discussion. However, in reference to my best guess, please note that this article and the others in the series that had AfDs raised at the same time were only created as a concession to AuthorityTam, who was told at the time the articles were written (a year ago) that they did not meet the notability criteria.[7][8][9]--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:59, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I won't hash out old stuff, but suffice it to say, the two "sides" at play here are both damaging to Wikipedia. Misplaced zeal on the part of JW believers may lead them to feel that this is a place to 'defend and legally establish the good news', when the community-accepted goal here is to provide a neutral and academic perspective. Conversely, those who've proven in the past that they wish to dissect, debate and negate every point of belief evolve to edit with a smile, all the while slowly continuing their efforts in nuanced and subtle ways. This is also detrimental to Wikipedia, in that these individuals are editing with a purpose other than the accepted and neutral. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, no matter how minute and subtlely skewed the perspective being presented is from the ideal NPOV. I'd be happier if this series of articles was written by robots.
The point made below by Mike Rosoft is very valid: the material in question exists in the intended redirect target, so instead of deleting outright, the title should be simply redirected, and the redirect title remains with its history. That history can be called on to review content later, especially if the subject may gain independent notability in the future. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 17:15, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge, & Delete per nom. Likeminas (talk) 18:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: If the article has already been merged, then deletion is not an option; it should be redirected to the other article, and - if need be - protected. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 10:55, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I already tried doing a simple redirect instead of an AfD, but User:AuthorityTam objected, as previously stated above. Additionally, as stated by User:Parent5446 above, it seems unlikely that anyone would specifically search for 'Jehovah's Witnesses reference works'. There are no similar articles with the article title "Religion reference works". That said, I don't particularly mind if the redirect is put back in instead.--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's the policy; we have to preserve the history of a merged article (for copyright reasons). - Mike Rosoft (talk) 10:19, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problem.--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Probably an obvious point, but AuthorityTam is not community consensus. Unless the user has the support of other users who have spoken up before or may choose to do so now -- neither this user, nor any others, seem to be willing to speak up in support of the opposing !vote. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 16:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes. That's why we're here. AuthorityTam persistently reverted when I tried the redirect option. But now he's apparently away or (less likely) has lost interest.--Jeffro77 (talk) 16:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nomination. Any material of note is already in Jehovah's Witnesses publications. Nothing of value remains. And highly amusing that former Governing Body member Raymond Franz, demonised as an unreliable, biased "apostate" on the talk page of every JW article by members of the religion, is used as a source here to prove notability! BlackCab (talk) 11:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seeking clarification: What is the copyright policy that prevents a merged article from being deleted? What copyright is being breached by deleting an article? BlackCab (talk) 12:59, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't sure either, but from what I can gather, the concern is regarding retaining the edit history of the material that is merged into another article, so that the contributors of the information can be identified. See Wikipedia:Merge and delete. (To demonstrate the purpose, go to any article, and use the 'Download as PDF' in the 'Toolbox' on the left - the file rendered includes end-pages listing the usernames of all the contributors.) However, in this instance, I have summarised the third-party-sourced information in the target article rather than copy-and-pasting the text from the source article, therefore the concern of copyright regarding deleting a merged article does not strictly apply. That said, the article name is not especially controversial (though also not particularly useful), so I don't mind whether it's deleted or simply redirected.--Jeffro77 (talk) 13:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jeffro77 is largely correct. Both the GFDL and Creative Commons licenses require that the primary contributors to an article be listed as authors whenever anybody uses material in another location. But even summarizing the information is still a merge: standard procedure is to copy-and-paste, and then edit it so it fits smoothly in the article, so summarizing is just combining those steps into one. We could sit here and argue the minute details of copyright policy (because I cannot even claim to know what I'm talking about), or we could just play it safe and redirect. — Parent5446 ☯ (msg email) 21:01, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but make it a subarticle to Jehovah's Witnesses publications (using a "main" template). This is a particular class of the Witnesses' publications. I am not a Witness, and have little time for them, but that is no reason for voting for delete. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:26, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is a 'class' of publications that does not have sufficient notability to warrant a separate article.--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:28, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Jehovah's Witnesses publications. Jeffro77's arguments are good ones. John Carter (talk) 00:01, 27 July 2010 (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.
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