Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Johannite

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. Fritzpoll (talk) 11:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Johannite[edit]

I have been unable to find reliable sources for this topic after searching library resources, and thus unable to establish notability. The content is a blatant promotion of extreme fringe theories. For example, please note the DaVinci Code-esque Knights Templar claim. Vassyana (talk) 21:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The fringe theory stuff is fairly recent vandalism. I have reverted to the non-vandalized version. Edward321 (talk) 02:01, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep-- Reliable sources are available to establish notability, 1, 2. --J.Mundo (talk) 03:04, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The two sources you provided cover entirely unrelated groups, neither of which has anything to do with the topic of the article up for deletion. The first is simply about a very small group of Jews who had only received the baptism of John, but were taught and baptized in the name of Jesus at Paul's urging. The second is about a knightly order loyal to Byzantine Christianity. The sources cover other topics that have no relation to the article up for deletion. Vassyana (talk) 08:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The references cover the subject of "Johannite". It seems that the article needs expert attention not deletion. Looks like a very interesting and encyclopedic topic. --J.Mundo (talk) 22:14, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, references suggest that the topic of "Johannite" is some kind of myth or legend connected to the Knights Templar, and John The Baptist, 1, 2, 3, 4. There are enough sources to build an interesting article. --J.Mundo (talk) 22:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Just looking for sources that contain the word "Johannite" won't get us anywhere in determining notability. It is simply a word that means "follower of John", and could be applied to any number of groups or beliefs, which could include followers of any other of the millions of people who have had the name John, not only John the Baptist. Wikipedia articles are about topics, not words, so we need sources that are about the subject of this article, not about any other uses of the word Johannite, so anything about any of those other uses or a "myth or legend connected to the Knights Templar" is irrelevant to this article. Let's look at the sources presented above:

[1] refers to a group of Ephesians who venerated John the Baptist, but who accepted Jesus as the Messiah when taught about him by St. Paul, so is not about the subject of this article.

[2] needs checking in a library before we can say in what context it uses the word Johannite, because Google doesn't tell us. Vassyana may already have done this, going by the comment above.

[3] is from a publisher that, according to its web site publishes books on "Atlantic Studies, Alternative Health, Alternative Science, Ancient Science, Anti-Gravity, Conspiracy & History, Cryptozoology, Egypt & the Pyramids, Free Engery Systems, Geometry & Math, Holy Grail & Templar Studies, Lost Cities Series, Mysterious Phenomena, Mystic Travelers Series, Native American Studies, Philosophy & Religion, Strange Science, Tesla Technology, UFO's & Extraterrestrial and more" - doesn't look a reliable source to me.

[4] is written by Lynn Picknett, whose web site doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence in her academic credentials.

[5] mentions Dan Brown in the first sentence of the publisher's blurb displayed, and later says that the author "navigates between the orthodox and the speculative, the historical and the myth", so it's obviously not even intended as a serious factual study of anything.

[6] is self-published via lulu.com, and anyway you only have to glance at the linked page to see what a load of bollocks it is: "colonization and conquest of the American continent was a long term covert Johannite project". Let's get real.

Phil Bridger (talk) 20:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. A more focused Google Books search than just searching for the article name finds only one book that looks like a reliable source. It says, "most scholars are of the opinion that...neither John nor his disciples are in any way connected with the rise of the Mandaean cult" [7] (see also the footnote). One reliable source written by by Walter Wink and published by the Cambridge University Press outweighs any number of silly sub-Dan Brown (at least he presented his work as fiction) conspiracy theorists. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Phil Bridger's masterly summary. This isn't a useful article, and the term is too generic to be of value, since it can mean any follower of anybody named John, Johannes, etc. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Phil Bridger.Nrswanson (talk) 09:11, 19 March 2009 (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.