Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jaap Verduijn's Odu Ifa Collection

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 Has been speedied. Peridon (talk) 13:18, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jaap Verduijn's Odu Ifa Collection[edit]

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I can't see any evidence that this self-published [1] collection is notable. Dougweller (talk) 16:02, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Dougweller,

I (Brenda Beek) am one of the publishers, so far we have only published the first volume. The website Ejiogbe where you refer to is to be deleted, I am building a new webpage around that book and more on www.ifalution.com, but it's not finished yet. So far my teacher Jaap Verduijn has his official page on www.iledafa.com. The ISBN number of the first book is 978-1-304-61741-5, and it can be purchased on Lulu.com, check the link via ww.iledafa.com, I can't seem to paste the lulu.com links here, the ISBN number (for free) however comes from Lulu.com, they provide selfpublisher services.

I have created my account under Ifalution. Ifa Divination is considered to be part of a religious system like Ifa, Lukumi, Santeria, Vodoun. However there is a hell of a lot abuse going on in that community in established religious houses. This goes from sexual abuse to people who get financially ripped. Like with many spiritual organizations, also Ifa can be an ideal formula to build your sect upon and around. Which in some parts of the world, especially the American Disaspora happens more than you would belief; 80% of the people we meet somehow have been dealing with it.

Jaap and myself are not part of any religious organization, however we do use the Ifa Oracle and Ifa teachings to enrich our lives. We call ourselves Independent Ifa Practitioners; we're mainly active on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/independent.ifa.orisha.practitioners/ and https://www.facebook.com/ifalution). Although we are hated by many people in the worldwide Ifa community, especially by abusing priests, because we share secrets, that originally never were secrets at all, otherwise we ourselves could never have known them. Most of the secrets are available in a decent (university) library. Thus we make people wiser than they are. We know there is a hell of a lot abuse because in the end many people seek refuge for our help, mainly because we are not part of the religious Ifa crowd. To be frankly, I love to work with Ifa, it is very helpful and it really does something, but what happens around it, pains my heart.

One of the strong tools, abusers use is isolation, forbidding people to read books, listen to others. We, on request of Ifa, started Ile Dafa, Ifalution and are publishing Jaap's Odu Ifa Collection. This way people can have access to those divination verses. The verses are all illustrated to make interpretation much easier, in the end those verses are the most important of the practice and will give people self-empowerment, because they can start divining for themselves.

My teacher, Jaap, has been in a 15 year long discussion with the religious crowd who claim you can't divine without initiation, however we are the living proof that is not true, nevertheless I'm afraid this will be a never ending discussion. So I'm not planning to partake in that discussion myself, however one cannot avoid it always either. For us it is important that people have the chance to think for themselves, so we provide the tools for that. I can understand that you may have the idea this is all advertising for ourselves, or whatever. However this is not the reason why I put this stuff on wikipedia, my interest is to help stopping the abuse; I'm mainly motivated to do this due to my own life experience.

It is very very important that people will have low-profile access to some level of knowledge, so they can protect themselves from being abused. I, for that reason, put all those odu signal combinations up there, because I know from experience that people will be looking for that and thus will easier come in touch with a way to enrich themselves without anybody needing to know they did, if you know what I mean.

I promise I will make this article more complete than it is now, there is much more input that I can put up there. I just need to put some things together with my teacher Jaap, he, however is almost 70 and pretty autistic, so some things take a little more time. I have also planned to provide some more articles to support all this. I will complete them before putting them online and be a little less spontaneous ;-).

I sincerely hope for all the before mentioned, that you will NOT delete the article. I know it seems unimportant to a lay-man, but actually it is much more important than it looks like.

Kind regards and looking forward to your replies,

Brenda Beek (Ifalution) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ifalution (talk • contribs) 21:39, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Brenda, the problem is that you have to show that the series is ultimately notable by showing coverage in reliable sources. I can't see where this series has received that coverage and we can't keep things that fail notability guidelines, regardless of how beneficial you think the series is or how noble your intents might otherwise be. While Wikipedia's intent is to spread information, the information must already be notable before it should be added to Wikipedia- not the other way around. As nice as it would be to keep articles based upon the idea that it would do not harm, that it would be a kindness to keep it, or so on... that's not what Wikipedia is for. There's also the problem that the page slightly comes across as you trying to promote the collection. This might not have been your intent, but that's how it comes across. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:16, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That said, you can edit on things that you can source the notability for. The only thing is that the sources must absolutely pass our guidelines for sources. I would recommend that you not use any of the sources that you or your partner have self-published, as we have no way of guaranteeing the fact checking or otherwise verifying any of the data. Sources such as this one would be usable as a reliable source because since it was published by a trusted university publisher, they have a pretty high editorial guideline. Given that you are such a new user, I would highly recommend that you look into getting someone to take you under their wing and show you the guidelines here on Wikipedia. Asking around on applicable WikiProjects such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Yoruba or Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion is a good place to start. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:20, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 05:53, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 05:54, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I wish you both well, Brenda, but this collection just isn't notable enough for inclusion. Don't take this badly- most self-published books do not pass notability guidelines, nor do a vast majority of even the books published through the mainstream publishers. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:21, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete At £13.42 for a 120 page paperback, I can't see great sales - especially as the whole set will come to £214.72 if the pricing for Vol 2 onward is the same, and not allowing for inflation. I can't see any notability in a quick Google search. I can see a considerable amount of posting by 'Jaap Verduijn' on forums, social media etc. As Tg79 says, self-published in most cases equals non-notable. Not that publication be a main-stream house necessarily means notable, but it does usually mean that the publication has been edited professionally, and that there will be far more chance of outside sources because of the publicity generated by the publisher. Self-publishing means that at lulu and some others, you get a page on their site. Getting on Amazon is easy, and doesn't count for notability. After that, you're on your own. And Wikipedia is one of the first places people come to to get their book known. But that's not what we are here for. If it becomes notable, we'll happily list it. Until then, it's the author's job to get it notable. Peridon (talk) 17:31, 7 December 2013 (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.