Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Apostolic Catholic Church (3rd nomination)

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 no consensus. MBisanz ^talk 18:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apostolic Catholic Church[edit]

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The previous AfD for this article was closed as no consensus, since although no reliable and independent sources were found that gave substantial coverage of the church itself many felt that as a religious denomination the subject receives inherent notability. This is not the case, however, and without passing the GNG source wise this is not notable. Yaksar (let's chat) 00:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. It appears notable only for the feud. dci | TALK 01:50, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It appears that there is not really a deletion argument, but some nostalgia to recall the previous AfD, and roll the dice on the statistical variation of the participants and another closing admin. Since there is nothing new to discuss, my recollection is that I !voted already in the previous AfD. Unscintillating (talk) 05:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and this is a new AfD. The existence of a previous AfD (and a no consensus one at that) from a while ago is not a reason alone, please state your reasoning so that the closing administrator can take it into account. Thanks.--Yaksar (let's chat) 06:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you assuming the closing admin won't know how to read the previous AfD? It will also save you the trouble of replying, because you've already replied in the previous AfD. Unscintillating (talk) 06:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well in case they do, it should probably be noted that in your last post you provided two links, one to a simple directory of churches and another to this church's own website, claiming they were proof of notability.--Yaksar (let's chat) 10:15, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete There is simply nothing out there that I could find that is significant or extensive coverage on this. Simply having a webpage, or even being a member of an organization of other affiliated churches is not enough to grant notability. It should also be noted that there are over 41,000 Christian denominations worldwide and the vast majority of them are like this, a single or small group, self-governing church that may play an important role in its community, but on a wikipedia level simply isn't notable. Additionally, the name 'Apostolic Catholic Church' is potentially misleaing (and if kept should be moved to Apostolic Catholic Church of Our Beloved Ingkong) to differentiate it from other Apostolic Catholic Churches, such as The Apostolic Catholic Church of Florida, the American Apostolic Catholic Church, Catholic Apolistic Church in North America, Apostolic Catholic Church of Canada, Milanese Apostolic Catholic Church, Catholic Apostolic National Church, (to name but a few) which are all different, and mostly non-notable, denominations. Ravendrop 07:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The nomination statement is a misleading strawman - many of the arguments in the previous AfD were based on sources found, and weren't just attempts to have the church declared inherently notable. Plenty of sources popped up in the last AfD, including [1], [2] and [3], which are all still relevant 9 months later. Whether a denomination is inherently notable or not doesn't matter - this one passes the GNG. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 07:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I mean, I find it weird that, for a church that is supposedly "very well known" with "millions of adherents", the most substantive articles on it are about a crime that involved people who were members of the church, an article where it says that they support a specific law, and a decree from the catholic church saying it is not part of the catholic church.--Yaksar (let's chat) 19:57, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's not really relevant, is it? There's no requirement within the GNG that a subject's coverage be proportional to its alleged local or global significance (i.e. no requirement that notability should be proportional to importance). The only requirement is the absolute, non-relative requirement that there is at least some significant coverage, which appears to be the case here. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 21:16, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think most would disagree on that, though. On the crime article there is not really substantial information given about this church, and the article itself is about a particular crime. The letter is more debatable, although JohnChrysostom gives a pretty lengthy rationale in the last AfD on why a routine pastoral letter, which can cover fairly trivial issues, is hardly a proof of greater significant or notability for something. As for the last one discussing the Church's support for a bill, it's certainly a good source to use in the article but it's not the kind of coverage we'd consider substantial for an organization (and even if it is we'd want more than this bare minimum of sourcing).--Yaksar (let's chat) 13:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. As I said before, a church which seriously claims one million members, even if it really doesn't have that many, is clearly notable. I can see no good reason for a further nomination. The nominator's statements smack of "I know best" syndrome ("This is not the case, however..."), which are best avoided in AfDs. Mind you, he made the same sweeping statements in the previous AfD, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not sure if you're being serious or not. " A church which seriously claims one million members, even if it really doesn't have that many, is clearly notable"? Is a band that claims they've sold a million albums even if they haven't automatically notable? Is a politician who claims they received a million votes when they didn't notable? It's a weird standard, and certainly not one we decide notability by.--Yaksar (let's chat) 10:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, we decide notability by opinion, not by rules. This has already been explained to you in the previous AfD when you tried to claim that the guidelines were rules set in stone instead of guidelines open to interpretation and mutability. Your examples are ridiculous, as people know how many albums have been sold or votes received: there are official figures to prove it. Nobody knows how many members this church has. If it was a tiny congregation that claimed a million members then clearly this would be ridiculous, but it's not. It's clearly large and well-known. It probably doesn't have a million members, but that doesn't mean it's non-notable, as it appears to make the claim seriously. Which means it's large enough to have a fair expectation of many believing its claims, even if the church itself knows they're overexaggerated. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:29, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Can you point me to where it is claimed that they have a million followers? I've checked their webpage, the sources in the article and the other sources brought up in the other AfDs and see nothing that gives any estimate of follower, let alone a million followers. Looking at this page it seems that the church has only one temple and at least one home temple (not a devoted building, but run out of a private home), maybe more, but it is unclear. To me that makes the one million number seriously, seriously, seriously in doubt, with even a couple thousand being questionable. Are you sure you're not confusing it with other similarly named churches? Such as the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, which does, legitimately, claim one million plus adherents, or maybe as the movement as whole? Obviously, if there was any evidence what so ever (and I'm not counting an internal 'estimate' here, simply because those kinds of numbers are always questionable) that they had anywhere near one million adherents, it would influence me to reconsider my !vote (and at the same time expect more sources to be somewhere). Ravendrop 12:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - It was in the original article before it was chopped. Actually says they claim 5-8 million members. Unless that's a complete joke, they're hardly a small, insignificant church. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Yeah, unfortunately we can't go around using wikipedia articles as sources for the same article. We need a reliable source before we can even say that in the article, let alone use it as proof of notability. Also, the original article was apparently a self written piece by a member of the church with only unreliable primary sources.--Yaksar (let's chat) 19:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        
        The claim that this church has a million, or 5 to 8 million, members was removed because it had only been sourced to a dead link. In any event, I haven't seen any evidence that this church has as many as 10 parishes, much less the hundreds or thousands of parishes one would expect if it had 1 million to 8 million members. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:16, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a fairly well known denomination of Christianity, and I am surprised that it was considered to be an article for deletion here. My surprise does indicate that I am strongly in favour of keeping this article. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Are you sure you're thinking of the Filipino one? If so, that's fine, but you need a source that it is fairly well known, we don't go by hearsay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaksar (talk • contribs)
Keep as per above. I add other language links to the article. MaNeMeBasat (talk) 13:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Unfortunately I had to delete all those. They seemed be be articles on other churches with the same name, but not this one. This one is specifically about the one in the Philippines.--Yaksar (let's chat) 19:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Rather than deletion it could be merged to Religion_in_the_Philippines#Apostolic_Catholic_Church which already discusses it briefly. But I'm not arguing against keeping it. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:09, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I certainly would not be opposed to that.--Yaksar (let's chat) 19:58, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but Rename -- This appears to be a denomination, in which case it is certainly notable. However, in view of ther potential confusion with simialrly named churches, it should be renamed, and I would suggest Apostolic Catholic Church (Phillippines), possibly Apostolic Catholic Church of Our Beloved Ingkong in in the heading of the infobox. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

May I ask where you're getting the idea that all denominations are inherently notable?--Yaksar (let's chat) 16:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I disagree with the suggestion to move this article to Apostolic Catholic Church of Our Beloved Ingkong because I can't find any evidence that the church's official name includes the phrase "Our Beloved Ingkong". --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:32, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Religion in the Philippines. I have searched through all of the reliable secondary sources that have been proposed as supporting notability, including those in previous AfDs. Unfortunately, I think none of them rises to the level of significant coverage under WP:GNG. The article about a crime committed against a family member of the denomination's founder is not significant coverage of the church itself. The article about a group of churches supporting legislation is also not about the church itself; the ACC is merely one of many described as supporting the law. The third source -- a letter from a Roman Catholic priest warning of ACC members posing as RCs -- is in the form of a public notice or a warning, and is not in essence coverage, in my view. I have made my own search for sources and have so far been unable to find anything that approaches significant coverage in reliable secondary sources, as is required under the guidelines. I have also attempted to search for sources in Tagalog, to no avail so far. I will happily change my mind if someone can provide examples of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. At the moment, however, I think the best course would be a redirect to Religion in the Philippines and a merging of content to that page, to the extent that it does not carry undue weight in the context of the article as it exists. I think this would be the best way to address the concerns of those who assert that the church has a significant presence while acknowledging that not enough secondary-source coverage exists for it to have its own article. --Batard0 (talk) 12:32, 18 October 2012 (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.