Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religious perspectives on dinosaurs

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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 no consensus to delete, default to keep. This result does not change depending on whether or not we discount the comments from the people who were contacted on their talk page about this AfD (see this discussion's talk page). Sandstein 14:12, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Religious perspectives on dinosaurs[edit]

Religious perspectives on dinosaurs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I nominate the Religious perspectives on dinosaurs article for deletion for the following reasons:

  1. The first section mentions how this issue is inextricably intertwined with evolution; really, this article is simply a part of Creation-evolution controversy and is largely covered there.
  2. Dinosaurs in the Bible is not that important; it isn't very prominent, and seems to simply be a duplicate of rather unreliable stuff from the Behemoth article.
  3. Dinosaurs according to the metaphorical take on various scriptures doesen't really say anything at all and is totally unsourced.
  4. Dinosaurs in Young Earth Creationism is already covered in Young Earth Creationism and this section adds nothing not said there.
  5. Earth created with age's only source is a site criticizing the viewpoint, and again, is covered by various creationism articles.
  6. Jehovah's Witnesses section is already covered in Beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses, and again, is simply an outgrowth of rejection of evolution – they believe dinosaurs are ancient, they simply don't believe in evolution, and I'm not sure if this is independently notable.
  7. This page is essentially fundamentalist Christian perspectives on dinosaurs, and no one has added any other religious perspectives to the article even months after a call for them to do so.

If this article IS deleted, being a subarticle of the Dinosaur article, some of it would need to go into that article. I think a simple mention that the antiquity of dinosaurs is rejected by young earth creationists, and those who reject evolution don't believe in the notion that dinosaurs are the ancestors of modern species. As this is basically all the article says anyway, and we can simply link to Creationism and/or creation-evolution controversy in the section, I don't see any reason not to do this. It is not very important to the Dinosaur article, and as it is sufficiently covered by creationism and related articles I see no need for this article, as it isn't really notable in and of itself. Titanium Dragon 10:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete per nom. There's nothing in this article which isn't covered in the various others on creationism. Tevildo 12:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge any useful content to related articles, otherwise delete. Dinosaur doesn't need an extensive section on it - it's a scientific article, not a religious one. Hut 8.5 12:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge whatever is useful to Dinos and delete the rest Alf photoman 15:23, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Come on... this is purely speculative. Wikipedia is not a church, it is a place for facts and fact is that dinosaurs predate mankind by a wide margin. Dinosaurs in the old testament? Are you kidding me? The people who wrote the old testament had little if any knowledge of dinosaurs at all. MartinDK 15:51, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    It is a fact that people hold these beliefs. It is also a fact that people have posted evidence for and against these beliefs. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 01:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • DELETE How embarassing for us all that something like this that isn't based in knowledge and fact would appear in an encyclopaedia. Brian1975 15:55, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete junk. Danny Lilithborne 20:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per above reasons. Also, don't merge any of this into the Dinosaur article; that article is about actual dinosaurs and scientific information concerning them. We don't need religious speculation in that article. --The Way 21:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep So I'll comment, since I created the article originally, and since I've been one of the core editors on the Dinosaur article since January 2006. Basically, there were around two years of constant tussling over the presence and nature of a religious views paragraph in the main article on Dinosaurs (check that article's talk archives to see what I mean). Relocating the content to the Religious Perspectives article was a compromise solution, and one that has almost entirely prevented subsequent conflict in the parent article.
Would I personally prefer that "religious perspectives on dinosaurs" not be a topic covered by Wikipedia? Surely; I also personally think that being overly inclusive is not a useful exercise.
However... the presence of this article has contributed in a significant and very positive way to the quality of the parent article since I started editing it in January 2006. Christian-viewpoint editors -- who are legion on Wikipedia, and who might have been tempted to add to the Dinosaurs article, as happened constantly prior to the creation of the religious perspectives fork, have instead worked to improve the sub-article (where the content is more appropriate). And the content IS appropriate, I should emphasize -- it's reasonable to include significant minority perspectives about dinosaurs in Wikipedia even if they aren't "scientific."
If the religious perspectives article is deleted, we can look forward to many more disagreements over the addition of religious perspectives information to the parent article... Killdevil 02:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, that's not a reason to keep an article. Yeah, defacement is annoying, but really, I don't even think there are that many even looking at the article; they've probably all moved onto Evolution, Noah's Ark, Pope Benedict XVI, and similar articles by now. Bowing down to trolls is not a good policy, though, and we have to keep the standards up. And if we link to the creationism and similar articles, won't they be diverted there anyway? Or we could just remove it as irrelevant junk not supported by RSs. Titanium Dragon 04:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete OR Keep, not Merge with Dinosaur. I don't care wheter this article stays or goes, but I strongly oppose merge the content back into Dinosaur. The reason this article was created in the first place was to keep the embarrassing, barely-relevant creationist perspectives on dinosaurs out of the main dinosaur article. Any attempts to integrate this content back into that article will be reverted immediately by the editors of Dinosaur who have been content with the existance of the article as a comprimise since last June. Dinoguy2 15:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I fully understand the situation you are experiencing. However, granting these people their own article to continue this nonsense is not the way to deal with vandalism of the Dinosaur article. If your article is vandalized again they should be warned/blocked/banned. I am saying this to you in full respect and understanding of your situation but we need to be firm on this. People who vandalize by adding nonsense must be blocked, not granted their own article to keep soapboxing. MartinDK 16:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep to preserve the intergrity of the Dinosaur article. There is no question that Wikipedia should report on the scientifically nonsensical and misguided attempts of some religious groups to discredit the established fossil record. The article makes clear in a neutral manner the fact that these movements place themselves in contradiction to entire fields of geology and biology. The existence of such views among fringe groups has been reported on in many major media sources, and keeping the article does not validate their ideas. "Delete because it's all unscientific nonsense" is not a valid argument, since if that were the case we'd have to delete Flat Earth, Time Cube, and Greys. Keeping Andrew Levine 23:49, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My reason for deletion is not that it is unscientific nonsense; the reason it has been proposed fo deletion is that the article is not independently notable. That is to say, it is essentially a part of creation-evolution controversy; the entire article is duplication of what is said elsewhere in Wikipedia in the relevant articles. Being unscientific is not a reason to delete something; not being notable and being a dupe of other material is. Titanium Dragon 01:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: I feel sympathy for the editors trying to keep nonsense and cruft out of the dinosaur article, but to create a POV fork for that purpose is the wrong solution. Send editors who wish to edit about such stuff to Creation-Evolution controvery, Young Earth Creationism, etc. I'm sorry your job is hard sometimes, but this article is nonsense. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - as above Tonytypoon 01:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or Delete, DO NOT merge, per Dinoguy2 above. Article Dinosaur is a Featured Article, consisting of useful, verifiable information of an encyclopedic nature. Creationist cruft gets sent to Religious perspectives on dinosaurs, and we frequently delete attempts to add religious stuff to Dinosaur or any of the genera articles, directing them here. I am very concerned that this well-meaninged attempt to rid Wikipedia of a bad article will eventually cause the excellent Dinosaur article, which receives 1.5 million visitors a year, to suffer. The people who attempt to add material of a religious nature to Dinosaur are not vandals, and cannot be blocked (an admin who blocked a user for adding sourced material could lose his or her admin buttons). This article at the very least gives those users something to edit. Whatever happens, this material must not be merged into Dinosaur. Firsfron of Ronchester 10:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They don't have to be blocked unless they're being disruptive; as I pointed out above - a link to Creationism would divert them, and obviously it could be explained why it is inappropriate for the article. POV Forking is unacceptable. Yeah, I know, it sucks dealing with unreasonable Creationists sometimes, but it happens, and if the article is really that popular, it is probably well policed. I'm sure we could deal. Titanium Dragon 11:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Inserting unsourced obviously non-factual information in an article is vandalism by the very definition of the word. choosing not to deal with them through the usual channels for doing so and allowing a POV fork instead is unacceptable. Once again I appreciate your situation and your desire to keep the article at its high level of quality but this is not the way to do so. If an admin is taken to ArbCom and desysopped for blocking a user for claiming that dinosaurs were alive during biblical times I will be there, defending him with my teeth! MartinDK 12:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The last time this was a major issue in the dinosaur article, we had an admin involved in the debate -- he blocked people who violated 3RR by removing religious language from the article... which is just to say that many of the people who have commented here are dedicated to keeping "science" articles "scientific" but that this is NOT a universal sentiment among editors on Wikipedia, and not among admins either. This fork was a reaction to the difficulty we had in keeping religious language from creeping into the article. Killdevil 13:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looking through the last 1000 edits it seems apparent that the vandalism from anons haven't stopped although they are of a different nature now. Second, the insertion of POV non-sourced information prior to the forking came primarily, at the end anyway, from one anon with a static IP. But this is also about something bigger than the Dino article. It is about the fact that these people effectively bullied their way to an article that shouldn't be here. And that is unacceptable. As for 3RR it does not apply to fighting vandalism and as mentioned above there should be plenty of people policing this article. MartinDK 14:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please also note that during the recent December ArbCom elections, at least one editor ran for ArbCom on the platform of a "zero tolerance policy for administrative misconduct: any administrator who abuses administrative privilege (where "abuses" means uses in a manner inconsistent with policy where such use tends to create or intensify a disruption in Wikipedia") will be, at the very least, temporarily suspended as an administrator. Admins on Wikipedia have had a free hand for too long." This candidate also stated "If the advocates for the scientific point of view comport themselves rudely and disruptively, while the advocates for creation science comport themselves politely, the creation science people will be the ones left standing and allowed to write the article." and received 41 votes of support. While the people who have voted above seem to support a scientific basis for Wikipedia's dinosaur articles, it is not a foregone conclusion that an administrator who acted to protect a scientific interpretation of Dinosaur would be able to retain his/her adminship privledges, as more than 40 people supported a candidate who would desysop an admin who used Admin tools to protect an article from a non-scientific standpoint.
Keeping this article around at least means the Dinosaur article is free from Creationist cruft and pseudoscience; in this sense, Religious perspectives on dinosaurs is very much Wikipedia's chicken article. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect for your arguments that one candidate was Kelly Martin and the community showed her exactly what they think of her if you look through the vote sheet. This is exactly why we need rouge admins! This is pseudoscience and and Wikipedia is not for things made up in sunday school. I for one would rather fight for the people who care about the integrity of Wikipedia than give in to people who bully their way into Wikipedia. As for the 3RR blocks such blocks are not warranted because 3RR does not apply when fighting vandalism. The day you negotiate with vandals is the day Wikipedia truly looses its integrity and the critics of our project wins. For the good of Wikipedia please do not let this happen. In case you didn't notice I am on your side. MartinDK 07:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, I fully understood your argument, and that you fully support a scientific basis for Wikipedia's Dinosaur article. My point was simply that not everyone sees it that way, and both regular users and admins need to be careful when editing/blocking, as those priviledges (editing and blocking, respectively) can be taken away if the majority of the group decides maintaining a scientific point of view, and reverting non-science edits, is "abuse". You stated above you would fight for an admin who was taken to ArbCom over protecting an article from Creationist POV edits, but that does no good if 41 others support desysopping an "abusive" admin, right? :) Firsfron of Ronchester 07:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There were 263 people who strongly opposed. I don't think it is hopeless to fight for an admin who supports a scientific basis :) Those 41 supporters need to be put in perspective. I understand your situation but if you have succesfully kept this stuff out of the dino article by keeping this article then surely you could redirect the same people to the creationism article instead rather than keep this blatant example of unsourced pseudoscience. MartinDK 07:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep so the main dinosaur article doesn't become contaminated by religion. Starghost (talk | contribs) 03:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - mainly to avoid edit warring in the main dinosaur article. Not a great reason; but a useful compromise. rossnixon 04:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
POV Forking is not allowed by Wikipedia policy. This is not a reason to support keeping the article. Titanium Dragon 08:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP Deserves its own article --Mb1000 04:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, or Keep, but DO NOT merge, per Dinoguy2 above. Scientific articles should not have this kind of speculation in them. Geologyguy 04:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Yes, this is an encyclopedia, but it is not a solely scientific encyclopedia. We have articles on the Simpsons and King of the Hill...cartoons! Not to mention the hundreds or thousands of other "non-scientific" articles! Look at the language of those voting "delete": "those people", "not based on facts", "pseudoscience", etc., and tell me this is not a POV nom. While the ideas and beliefs discussed and described in the article may not be based on "facts", their very existence is fact. This article describes verifiable beliefs held by millions of people worldwide. Of course it's "not a scientific" treatise on the existence of dinosaurs, it isn't meant to be -- it's an article describing beliefs of various groups. Definite keep.--WilliamThweatt 04:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't independently notable; we don't have articles for every minor character in every TV show, or indeed articles for every TV show, simply -notable- ones. This isn't independently notable as the entire article is already in creation-evolution controversy and most of the article doesn't really say anything at all. Titanium Dragon 08:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, or merge to Young Earth creationism (don't merge to Dinosaur). —Quarl (talk) 2006-12-30 05:00Z
  • Keep Wikipedia has tons of non-scientific articles... articles on history, on culture, and even on religion. The information in this article is notable, and even factual, in that it factual presents opinions that exist. The only problem I have with this article is the way it's written... I think it should be improved - not deleted. Tzepish 05:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Whether I agree or not should not become a standard for the inclusion of a WP article. Looking back over the history, I see how this article came to be ... However, it would seem to make the most sense to merge this article with creationism or young earth creationism - the two places where it is a significant issue. Pastordavid 05:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Although I believe that that there are no dinosaurs in the bible, and a lot of the material is untrue, I would be loathe to lose this kind of material from Wikipedia. It is invaluable to know what some religious groups think. How can we judge the opposition if we do not know what they think? It is a very bad idea to remove all things we disagree with. I am pleading to keep this, even though I probably have less belief in its credibility than anyone else on this page.--Filll 06:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fill, the argument for this deletion has nothing to do with whether or not it is real; that is irrelevant. It is just a part of creation-evolution controversy/young Earth creationism, and is not notable independently - it shouldn't have an article for the reason that the information is already elsewhere in far more relevant articles which are actually notable in and of themselves. Titanium Dragon 08:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it is part of the overarching topics of Creationism or creation-evolution controversy/young Earth creationism. And the article clearly started as a FORK. However, those other articles are approaching excessive lengths. Should it be linked in better with other topics in creationism? Yes clearly it should. But I think that is no reason to delete it. Creationism is an immense field full of all kinds of amazing material (crazy to me, but amazing). I want to have it easily accessible. And pushing it all into a couple of mega articles is not helpful for accessibility. Look, as I said before, I cannot stand the nonscientific creationist stance, as many who have seen my comments know. However, how can I defend myself against these nuts if I do not know what they think?--Filll 15:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is probably the best argument in favor of keeping it that I have heard so far. I guess that would make a good argument... keep it and let them expand it so everyone is aware of what kind of lunacy the people at the dino article are up against. The article still violates policy but at least it is a consistent argument. MartinDK 12:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom and KillerChihuahua. This content belongs in creationism-related articles. ~CS 06:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom and merge any unique material into appropriate Creationism articles Cas Liber 07:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It is innocuous to collect items from other parts of Wikipedia here. I agree with User:Filll. It is not just a matter of creationism. It relates to what is said in tours of natural history museums by fundamentalist school groups. Carrionluggage 07:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Which makes it a part of creationism does it not? It has been stated to be a POV fork of the article Dinosaur by the people who made it; moreover, as you yourself have pointed out, it is simply creationists who are described here, and it already is in other creationist articles. Why duplicate material when we can simply redirect appropriately? Titanium Dragon 08:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    And Criticism of... articles aren't POV forks? --Damian Yerrick (☎) 13:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - POV fork. Created Jan. 06 as a compromise to end an edit war. Has never been developed to reflect its title, rather it remains fork for creationism and isn't sufficiently notable for a separate article. Vsmith 12:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete On 11/25 both Guettarda and I added fact tags to the article, to date, none of them have been resolved. Surely a month is sufficient time to improve the article. Also, while the intended purpose of what appears to me now to have been a POV fork was to keep the lunacy out of the main dinosaur article, surely there are better ways to do that. This nonsense is essentially a fringe belief, and at best merits no more than a few lines. •Jim62sch• 13:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or merge. The article can be useful as long as it contains a minority standpoint that should be known. Alternatively, it can be merged with another article that does include information about Bible-science discussions. Summer Song 16:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it keeps devotees busy here instead of monkeying (sort of a pun on Darwinism) with school curricula. I say, leave it. I have had most of my friends in gales of laughter when informing them that Wikipedia has hosted discussions of how many and what species of dinosaur were carred on Noah's Ark. And an in-law who took a (purportedly non-secular, commercial) tour to the Grand Tetons was told by the tour guide that these mountains were carved out by the Great Flood. A shame to silence or compress stuff like this - it beats the Marx Brothers and The Onion. Carrionluggage 17:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. While deletion might, in the short term, benefit Wikipedia by removing an OR/essay-like article, it would just be throwing the ball back to the editors at Dinosaur. These editors haveobviously worked very hard in writing that article. They've attempted to balance their desire for a cohesive, factual article with the desire of other users to see minority views covered. Religious perspectives on dinosaurs seems to be their compromise solution, much like, at Abortion, we have Religion and abortion. Eliminating Religious perspectives would trigger an exodus of information to the most likely alternate candidate: Dinosaur. Editors unfamiliar with the history of Dinosaur and its sub-articles would perceive a void, and fill it by shoehorning even longer, more poorly-researched, and off-topic additions into that article. In the short term, an OR piece would be removed, but, in the long term, the stability and quality of a Featured Article would be negatively effected. I think, ultimately, preserving the quality of an FA is more important than deleting OR, because OR can be developed. Religious perspectives in its current form is a stopgap solution, and, obviously, was meant to be developed further. Buddhist, Islamic, Judaic, and non-fundamentalist/Evangelical Christian persepectives shouldn't be too hard to find with proper research. -Severa (!!!) 17:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Abortion is a highly controversial topic. That article serves a purpose because it is rooted in current events. Since when have elections been influenced on Christian views on dinos? How many people do you see standing outside natural history museums protesting dinos being portrayed as predating mankind? I have every bit of respect for the people who worked on the FA article. Fantastic job. But if we follow your suggestion we might as well scrap WP:OR and WP:V and refer people to start their own soapboxes. It is not the way to go, for the better of Wikipedia as a whole. MartinDK 17:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Who says abortion is a "highly controversial" topic? Or even a political one? It is, by the simplest definition, a medical topic, and should require no more ideological forks or coverage than appendectomy. But, this does not remove the fact that many people construe it as a deeply political and ethical topic. As much as I would like to take a strictly "firm" approach to Abortion in terms of notability, verifiability, etc. (Do we really need a "Fetal pain" sub-section?), I have found all efforts toward this end to be disasterous. If you brook no concession ever, you're forgetting that Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, and is intended to be inclusive of many POVs. Thus, "firm, but fair" is my solution at Abortion; we compromise sometimes, attempt to accommodate editorial concerns/minority views sometimes, but, ultimately, only to a point. I see the situation at Dinosaur as being analogous to our own; they have accommodated minority views, but drawn a line, and said, "No more." These sorts of compromises are fair and have led to relative stability on both Dinosaur and Abortion. I appreciate your efforts to try to preserve article integrity against OR and NPOVUW violations, but, again, there needs to be compromise. And, as for giving people their own "soapboxes," POV forks off major articles are nothing novel: Homosexuality and religion, Religion and abortion, Religion and sexuality, Slavery and religion, Fascism and religion, Religion and the internet, Gender and religion, Religion and politics. Obviously, general religious forks have precedent on Wikipedia, but forking by religion or denomination do not (see a recent AfD nomination). -Severa (!!!) 18:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: This is a very cogent statement, and one of a few very good reasons to keep Religious perspectives on dinosaurs around. Killdevil 21:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: No, Severa, Abortion is clearly an ethical topic, not just for christians. And Abortion is quite another topic. Summer Song 15:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge (with redirect, keeping history visible) into main article dinosaur; not too long to fit there. If the information about a particular religion's view of dinosaurs becomes sufficiently long and sourced, it can be split back off as "Dinosaurs in Catholicism/Protestantism/Judaism/Islam/Shintoism/Gnosticism/Scientology/Discordianism/whatever." The third and fifth sections should probably be dropped unless and until sources can be provided. NeonMerlin 20:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Dinosaur is already 67 kb long. Please see Wikipedia:Article size, specifically "Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose. " and "For science or technical articles, where higher concentration levels are needed [...] extra prudence may be required. In other words, limitations to online reading may apply even more for technical articles." Firsfron of Ronchester 23:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, do not merge. Of course this is essentially part of the controversy between creation and evolution, but there is no reason for having only one article about that controversy. For instance regarding Roman Catholic sacraments there are plenty of articles, and essentially these are all about believing or not in the holiness of such. Mixing the non-scientifical approach of the world with one that is based on scientific empirism, is bound to continuously jeopardize the objectivity and quality of an article and cause truly endless discussions, for water and fire cannot be one. The current weasel wording in the style of some people does however require naming at least a few people or groups of people with a proper source. The article is not a soapbox and must maintain Wikipedia standards; its talk page may hold the soapbox function as this is far from uncommon on Wikipedia. — SomeHuman 30 Dec2006 20:35 (UTC)
  • Keep, Everyone needs to be aware of what's going on with how people are dealing with dinosaurs religious wize and fix it so it can be an NPOV wikified article the way it's supposed to be.--Crazyharp81602 06:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete My deepest sympathies with those editors dealing with vandalism of their beloved dinosaur article. Seriously. However, we Wikipedians tend to be smart... clever even. I'm sure someone can come up with a way to prevent this other than having an article which consists entirely of information available in other Wikipedia articles, and whose context is only clear when more is said about the religious views spawning it. Also, I find the argument that "this needs to be included so I know how religious people deal with dinosaurs" deeply flawed, because the vast majority of Christians, many of my family and friends included (full disclosure for COI purposes: I am not a Christian), are not biblical literalists, and "believe" in evolution, so to speak. If the subject's notability rests entirely on the fact that a sub-group of a religion holds its belief, then that subject's notability will depend partly on how notable that group is, and Creationists are not as notable as Christians generally (through they may be more outspoken). On the other hand, part of the notability of a belief is unrelated to the groups which hold it: to think otherwise is to think that every belief, held by any notable group is therefore notable, and this is obviously untrue. Charlie 12:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I think I change my mind to a clear request for keeping it. There have already been many long discussions regarding several articles about which ones should be merged or kept as an independent article. If this article was deleted, it would not make the discussion more easy. And I clearly think that the information in the article is something that should be known. I feel that many in here just want the article away because they do not like the viewpoints the article describes. Summer Song 14:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • To give some additional comments: Wikipedia shall not proclaim christian standpoints. Wikipedia shall not proclaim creationist standpoints. But it shall not proclaim anti-christian or anti-religious standpoints either. And it shall not proclaim a point of view that it is only sickness or madness that cause someone doubt the main evolution theory, or other teachings that is generally considered proven as fact. It may seem like many in this discussion just want to mock every attempt to question the evolution theory or other scientific thoughts. There are several types of creation beliefs. There are some creation beliefs that are just laughable, but there are also some with at least some more educated thoughts. And that is exactly what this article is talking about. The article presents various thoughts that are held by religions on the topic. I think that the article has a value. Summer Song 15:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Geez... calm down. No need for the personal attacks. A bit of assuming good faith would be nice here. I am not anti-christian and I never called anyone sick or mad. Yes, the article represents a point of view but nothing else. Where are the reliable sources? Where can I verify that this in fact is not something made up? Those are answers that ALL Wikipedia articles must provide answers to, not just the Christian ones. I have been called everything from a islaomphobist, anti-jew, dumb liberal to stone-age conservative here. But never anti-christian. That was a new one. MartinDK 15:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep because otherwise this material will keep finding it's way back into the main dinosaur article, and lead to endless problems there. Besides, as a viewpoint with so many supporters, it does deserve an article (however, probably a shorter one, in more of a neutral point of view). Why delete when rewriting solves problems? Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 21:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment POV forking is allowed if the minority view is culturally important (read: notable) in and of itself. Persistent vandalism of the nature described here is but one of the signs that another view should be accomodated in a separate article. This is why Bigfoot isn't part of the primates article and why flat earth isn't part of the earth article. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 00:22, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Forking isn't the main issue here. The main issue is that the article viokates WP:OR and WP:V. If we are to invoke the "exceptions can be made in special cases" argument then we need to make it clear here that we are not endorsing this way of dealing with vandalism. Otherwise this is just a way of bending the policies that ensures the integrity of Wikipedia. Also, it is worth noting that all articles must meet these requirements. There are no exceptions for special minority groups. Having ones wievs on Wikipedia is not a right, all articles must meet the same requirements. I appreciate the difficult situation for the people at the dino article but I am also concerned about Wikipedia as a whole. MartinDK 00:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Regardless of whether much of the material of the article has been discussed elswhere, the present article draws together the variety of thoughts about a topic which constitutes a major point of contention between scientists and many religious individuals and groups.

The subject of the article is not the presentation of facts from a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint. The subject of the article is that such differences of philosophy and opinion exist, and what those differences are. Any belief that is held by a significant number of people is worthy of an encyclopedic article in an encyclopedia that can afford to be as large and diverse as this one. I do think that it would be good to get paragraphs written by people who are familiar with viewpoints other than Jewish and Christian ones. As for the balance of opinion, the article states that within these faiths there is both acceptance and non-acceptance of the scientific assessment of the evidence. Note that I have done a little rewriting, because we are dealing essentialy with belief rather than fact. We now have disagreement with or support for theory or assessment rather than disagreement with "fact". This honours the "fact" that the article deals with "ideas" and has moved from the realm of science to the realm of philosophy. --Amandajm 10:32, 1 January 2007 (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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