- Terence M. Vinson (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
- Note: previous DRV was Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2014 August 30
In the deletion review mentioned above, the determination was made to not restore the article due to a lack of sufficient sourcing which was independent of the LDS Church. I am again requesting a deletion review for this article in view of an entirely different reason. During the April 2018 General Conference, Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency led the Sustaining of Church Officers on Saturday Afternoon. Among the changes he presented were new members of the Presidency of the Seventy, who are assigned to assist the apostles in their ministries, and who have oversight of all current seventies in the Church. One of those presented for sustaining vote, whom Oaks noted would begin serving in that Presidency on August 1 of this year was Terence M. Vinson. Given that his new assignment as such puts him in a much higher profile (as members of that Presidency are generally among top considerations when a new apostle needs to be called), and given that other members of that Presidency, who were far less notable for both religious and secular reasons, have had articles maintained about them, I propose that the article about Terence M. Vinson be restored ASAP. If the consensus decides that should not occur, I will accept that decision. But given these new reasons for restoring the article, I hope it can be reinstated. Thank you for the privilege of your time and for your consideration of this matter. Jgstokes (talk) 00:35, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi. Have any new sources, outside of the LDS church, covered this event in any detail? If so, could you provide links to the sources? Thanks, Hobit (talk) 02:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Hello. Thank you for the question, and sorry about any delay in my response to it. It depends on what you mean by "outside the LDS Church". The Deseret News is a subsidiary company of the LDS Church, but is operated independently from it. That paper published
this article covering changes in Church leadership, including the two new members that started serving immediately, and the 2 others (in addition to Vinson) that are now serving. Vinson's call is significant to the Church (and by extension to the Saints in Australia) because he also happens to be the first Austrailian leader called to the Presidency of the Seventy.
- The lack of sourcing independent of the leaders in the LDS Church brings up a difficult quandry indeed: They are notable because of their assignments to serve in such high-profile capacities, and if they were not serving in a high-ranking leadership position in a church of 16 million members and counting, the world would likely take little notice of them. Therefore, finding independent sources for LDS leaders has been a bit of an ongoing headache.
- That said, as I noted above in my initial request, members of the Presidency of the Seventy are particularly notable because of their direct mandate to assist the apostles in the day-to-day business of the Church. And it has often happened that the Presidency of the Seventy has been somewhat of a "training ground" from which apostolic candidates have been picked. Of the currently-serving members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a whopping majority of 7 were called to the apostleship while serving in the Presidency of the Seventy.
- The fact that the LDS Church is 16 million members strong makes it one of the largest Christian denominations in the US, and the Church is rising in popularity throughout the world. So asking for sources outside of the Church to be cited to prove that the leaders of the Church are notable is akin to suggesting that no Catholic leader can have articles endorsed or published by the Catholic Church used in the source material about them, and we know that an exception has been granted for Catholic officials in this regard, from the Pope, to cardinals, to bishops. If that holds true for other major Christian denominations, why is it so unacceptable to make a similar exception to policy for a Church that, at last check, was the 4th largest Christian denomination in the US, and is increasing its' international outreach? And why would the LDS Church be held to a different standard than Catholicism or Judaism, or any other denomination for which such exceptions have previously been granted?
- A while back, I had made a motion here on Wikipedia to establish a separate standard of notability for LDS leaders. But the paradox that notability could not be determined outside of sources independent of the LDS Church became problematic, and essentially killed the motion for that exception to be made. But if a standard that applies to other Christian denominations fails to also be applied to a Church whose membership may exceed that of some denominations that have been granted such exceptions here, what does that suggest about those who make such regulations?
- Either the exception applies to all Christian denominations, or else it is incumbent on all who uphold such policies to apply the same mass-deletion practice to articles of every other Christian denomination whose articles are not sufficiently independently sourced. Where should that line be drawn, and to what extent should these deletions go? How much trouble would such decisions cause? It is beginning to sound to me as though those who have voted for and upheld such deletions have a bias against the LDS Church and its' notable general leaders, which certainly does not conform to Wikipedia's neutrality principles.
- It is true that I am a member of the LDS Church that has a somewhat personal interest in seeing an exception to the rule be granted for LDS leaders such as Vinson. But if the membership of the Church and its' prominence, which is ever-expanding, is not sufficient to warrant an exception to the rule, then I have to ask why else exceptions are granted to other faiths but not this one.
- And the fact is that most sources independent of the Church tend to look on it with a suspicious eye and biased reporting, so finding balanced sources not endorsed, owned, or operated by the Church will be a headache for every other deletion discussion or review that will ever take place here. I do not suggest in any way that Catholic articles should be subject to deletion if the sources cited for them are maintained or supported by the Catholic Church. Rather, I would suggest that for any denomination that ranks in the top 5 world denominations (Christian or not), there should be an exception, and there clearly isn't. This to me seems hypocritical. But as a Wikipedia editor, I know I am bound to abide by consensus decisions. I have always gotten along with my fellow editors. But I fail to see why the LDS Church is held to a standard here on Wikipedia that so clearly doesn't apply to religions that have gotten exceptions, some of which are smaller in membership and worldwide presence than the Church. Thanks for taking time to read these additional thoughts. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:10, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- If you haven't got any new independent sources then there isn't really anything to talk about here. If you're telling us that this position is likely to lead to sources being written in the future, then great - we can write the article when those appear. A newspaper is not an independent source for the organisation which owns it. Just as The Times would not be considered an independent source in a biography of a director of News Corp, so the Deseret News is not an independent source here. The claim that "asking for sources outside of the Church to be cited to prove that the leaders of the Church are notable is akin to suggesting that no Catholic leader can have articles endorsed or published by the Catholic Church used in the source material about them, and we know that an exception has been granted for Catholic officials in this regard" is not correct. There would be nothing wrong about citing the Deseret News in an article about this person. It's just that you can't use the Deseret News to demonstrate that this person is notable, and the article should not be primarily based on non-independent sources such as the Deseret News.
Notability is supposed to be based on the existence of significant coverage in third-party reliable sources about this person. We do sometimes use positions or achievements as proxies for this if the position is one which leads to it being very likely that suitable source coverage will exist, especially if we might have trouble tracking the sources down. The Pope, for instance, is the subject of enormous press coverage and the fact that someone is Pope will therefore mean that the person is notable. If there are no sources about this person to pass WP:GNG, and you've admitted that such sources often don't exist for senior LDS officials, then that essentially means that the person is not notable. Hut 8.5 06:43, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think there's anything to talk about here full stop. None of the above wall-of-text is relevant; cry persecution and WP:OTHERSTUFF all you want, Jgstokes, there are no exceptions to WP:V or WP:N. The last AfD/DRV was four years ago, so it is entirely possible that Vinson has become notable since then, and in that case there is nothing stopping you recreating the article. If there are independent sources that show notability – otherwise, it will just end up deleted again. – Joe (talk) 07:34, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. I closed the previous DRV, so I'll remain neutral here. I just want to note that in my DRV close, I said, it would be useful to have a clearer policy statement on notability of clerics. I don't know if that happened. If it did, it would be useful to include a link to that here for reference. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- With regards to RoySmith's comment, WP:CLERGYOUTCOMES might be useful here. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 08:16, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply: A few additional comments here. First of all, I apologize if I went overboard in my initial comment. It has been frustrating to see articles about LDS leaders deleted, and knowing that any argument which is presented may not be sufficient to get around the lack of independent sources. As one who has edited Wikipedia for over a decade, I do understand the reasoning behind the policies cited here which do not support my proposal. I also know that without independent reliable sources, there is not a lot that can be done. I checked out clergy outcomes, which I believe I had done when the whole situation started. I believe I made an attempt to request such an exception for LDS leaders, but it proved to be somewhat fruitless, as I was merely told again that the relevant policies would not apply in this case, and I was basically redirected many times. Each time, I was referred elsewhere, and never got anywhere with it. If there is anyone here who knows anything different I can try, the trail of things I attempted is fairly easy to follow. My post on clergy outcomes still appears in that section of the page, and from there, anyone can see where all I was redirected. It has been, as I said, a difficult situation to make any headway on, since I never got a straight answer about what actually needed to be done. My first comment above was a reflection of the frustration I have encountered as I have failed to make any headway. Again, I apologize for that. If anyone can review what I have done and offer any additional suggestions on this issue, I would be happy to take the new ideas on board. Thank you, and sorry again for any misunderstanding for which my original comment may have been responsible. --Jgstokes (talk) 22:37, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- What needs to be done, is that you need to build consensus that WP:N should be ignored in this (and similar) cases. That's very unlikely (to say the least). So pretty much you are trying to fight a fight you can't win. Imagine someone trying to change the rules in the LSD for something like premarital sex. Sure, there are ways you could get your proposal heard, but you aren't going to win--it just goes too far against the core values of the place. You are better off having LDS push for coverage in other sources. Basically, urge their press office to try to push stories about the leadership more. A lot of that coverage might get rejected as "just a press release" but getting others interested enough to write real articles is what you'd be looking for. And if no one cares enough to write an article, it really doesn't belong here--at least not as a stand-alone biography. That's the whole point of WP:N. Hobit (talk) 15:01, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn As background, there are 8 members of the presidency. That makes 1:2 million. That's a similar proportion to other churches. The core value of the place is NOT INDISCRIMINATE, not the particualr way of measuring it by the GNG. DGG ( talk ) 00:47, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
|
