Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Discordian Works

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 of the debate was Keep - Richardcavell 00:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discordian Works

Apocrypha Discordia deserves an article, and it has one. This article just seems to be an advertizement for "Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht", which in my opinon, is not notable. Excluding Wikipedia.org as a domaing from a Google search, "Ek sen trik kuh Discordia" gets 51 Google hits, all of whom are from Discordian websites or Wikiepdia clones. [1] The full title of the book, "Ek sen trik kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht" gets about 7 hits outside of Wikipedia, and only 3 of those are not from Wikipedia clones/Wikisource, one of which is the book's website, the other two are Discordian websites. [2] This part of the article reads like a typical Discordian hoax. This has the typical hallmarks of a vanity article. The vast majority of the links are to the book's website, Geocities pages, and Newsgroup/message board posts.

I've ben obsessed with Discordianism for a long time and have never heard of this book until I found this Wikipedia article. "Discordian works" doesn't list any other works, other than the Apocrypha Discordia, which has it's own article. Almost every person I know who calls him/herself a "Discordian" has written his or her own plagarism of the Principia Discordia and released it as an e-book. I don't think they all need encyclopedic coverage. If the book is "controversial", why have I never heard of it and why does it only get about 40-50 Google hits?

• Comment- A good and valid question. Check the posts below for an answer. IamthatIam 00:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

"Whereas Apocrypha Discordia is a collection of pieces from various sources, most of the material in the Ek-sen-trik-kuh was created specifically for the work. The book claims its inspiration came from a dream-vision that featured Goddess Discordia, her sister Goddess Harmonia, and their daughter, the naked Cherub Princess Shamlicht, who had hundreds of monkeys flying out of her butt. These were actually Bonobo apes, who gave their tales to Loveshade to first digest, and then to 'spread them far and wide, for digested flying monkey tales make great fertilizer.'"

Eh, I think Discordians could be finding something better to do with their time than writing Wikipedia articles for their books, and I don't think Wikipedia should be a soapbox for Discordian heresy! Sinatra Fonzarelli 18:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment- I won't comment on reasons for keeping this article as I am obviously biased. I certainly hope it's kept, but if it's deleted, at least the deletion was initated by a Discordian with a sense of humor: "I don't think Wikipedia should be a soapbox for Discordian heresy!" Nice touch. (All right, now someone can accuse me of buttering up Sinatra Fonzarelli. Go ahead. I double dare you.) Reverend Loveshade 19:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• Note: See related AfD's:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Apocrypha Discordia

- Fan1967 19:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• delete for Eris. Dominick ^(TALK) 19:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - Seems to mostly be about Ek-sen-trik-uh, which was deleted for the above reasons already. Wickethewok 19:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment- As I said above, I won't comment on keeping or deleting this article as I'm obviously biased. But in answer to the concern of Sinatra Fonzarelli and Wickethewok, I added a section on the finely-written Novus Ordo Discordia (no, I didn't write that work), so the article is no longer about just one or two Discordian Works. Reverend Loveshade 21:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment- And it now has a section on Summa Universalia as well. IamthatIam 01:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment- Warning: This might be considered a personal attack. Wickethewok seems to like voting to delete articles and has gotten some not-so-favorable reactions from several people here. And before this editor says it, I haven't written a lot here, so maybe my article should be deleted for that reason alone--as someone else said, Newcomers aren't to be trusted. But before you make a judgement, check out the discussions on Wickethewok's User Page and look for Wickethewok's contributions and people's reactions to them. IamthatIam 00:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep- The article is intended for Discordian works that do not have their own article. It originally had a section on the second Apocrypha Discordia and Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht. The section on the second version, compiled by Rev. DrJon Swabey, was removed on 24 May when hte article on that work was kept. [3] It is intended that sections on other Discordian works that don't have their own article be added here. This hasn't happened yet except for those two works, but is already being worked on.

As to the importance of Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht, some of it's material was in a work called Apocrypha Discordia years before Rev. DrJon Swabey's collection. The name was changed to Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia a few months ago, and The Tales of Shamlicht subtitle was just added about a month ago. That's why it doesn't appear in more search hits.

"Five Blind Men and an Elephant" appears in the Non-Existent Apocrypha Discordia, Swabey's collection Apocrypha Discordia (this main page lists both Reverend Loveshade/Rev. Loveshade and his version of the A.D. and has a link to parts of it posted several years ago), Apocrypha Diskordia (German version), Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht, The 23 Apples of Eris (one of the most famous Discordian sites, which is planning to add an entire subdomain for the E.D.:TTOS, and Wikisource which also mentions the Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht.

• Comment- I fixed the 23 Apples of Eris link. The site has been rebuilt in the last week, and the story has just been fixed and reposted, so this is the new link. (And yes, I am new here--that's why I'm not posting an opinion. I know that on Wikipedia newcomers aren't allowed to have opinions). Rev. Bootie 22:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment- Here's the link to where Prince Mu-Chao made his comments about hosting the E.D. [4] It's in Orbita Dicta 15 on that page, but I don't know how to link directly to that entry. But it's on the page. And remember, I'm a newcomer so you can ignore all my comments as worthless. That's why I'm not making comments on this article, only fixing links. Rev. Bootie 22:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

E.D.:TTOS is also notable for the legal problems that involved a seizure by the FBI--or as some would claim for a continuing hoax of legal problems that's been going on since shortly after the terrorist attack on the United States since 2001. Binky The WonderSkull 19:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment- I checked the discussion on keeping or deleting the article on Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia (which I fully admit I wrote with Gerina--but I did not write this article). There were 13 Deletes and 8 Keeps. But many of those Deletes were primarily because the article focused a great deal on the legal problems of the group, which some people thought was a hoax. This article only has a brief section on the legal problems, and mentions that some people think it's a hoax.

And remember, this article is not intended to be just about Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht. It's intended to be about Discordian Works. Anybody is free to add info about other Discordian works. Binky The WonderSkull 19:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment- Which has now happened. IamthatIam 01:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep or Merge with Apocrypha Discordia. Half the online hits for Apocrypha Discordia are for Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia because that was its original name until recently. And some of the stuff in the newer Apocrypha are from Ek-sen-trik-kuh anyway. Besides this article is for Discordian Works anyway, not just one. JennyGirl 20:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - If the title just got changed, of course it won't show up in links. If you search for Apocrypha Discordia you get both DrJon's and Loveshade's works. MSN had 732 hits for "reverend loveshade" and Google had 655. The ones I checked all talked about the book but under different names--Apocrypha Discordia, Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia, and a few for Tales of Shamlicht. "rev drjon swabey" on MSN got 810 and Google gave 791 but 7 or 8 of the top 10 on both also talked about Reverend Loveshade. On Google the top two hits for DrJon were written by Reverend Loveshade!
  • Comment - It's now up to 762 Google hits for "reverend loveshade" not to mention 132 for "rev loveshade." IamthatIam 01:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

There was a big discussion here a couple months ago and people agreed we needed an article. So where are those people now? But we do need stuff about other Discordian Works. Otherwise this might as well be called Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia. MRN 07:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Which was deleted already. Fan1967 15:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment- Warning: This might be considered a personal attack. Fan1967 does almost nothing on Wikipedia but put forth arguments to delete articles. Check Fan1967's user page and especially the Fan1976's contributions--virtually all to delete articles. IamthatIam 01:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The reason the article that was just about Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia was deleted were as stated above--some people felt that it didn't deserve its own article/others did--the split on that issue leaned toward keeping the article. The other issue, the one that killed the article, was that some felt that the legal problems were a hoax/a few did not. The hoaxers outvoted the non-hoaxers, and it was deleted.

This article addresses both those things. First, the legal problems have been posted online since 2001 (the dateline on the links proves that; as someone said in their addition, this is admissible as evidence in international court, so it should count here). But if a hoax, an old hoax is still a hoax. This article says the claims of the legal problems have been made since then and may be a hoax, which is fact according to Wikipedia's guidelines. While that was a major part of the original article, it's relatively minor here.

Second, this is not an article about just Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia; it's about Discordian Works. There's a whole list of them, which could each have their own section. If they get big enough for their own article, they could each have their own article. Anyone can add something about whatever Discordian Work they chose--that's the point of this article. Should we delete this before they have a chance to add them? IamthatIam 00:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

In the original version of this article, it talked about two works in detail, the two Apocrypha Discordias, one of which still has that name. A lot of the hits for Apocrypha Discordia (which were used to justify keeping that article) actually refer to an earlier version of Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia, which as somebody said was first called that just a few months ago, and The Tales of Shamlicht was added only a couple weeks ago, so of course it doesn't appear in many hits. (If you notice, the article that was deleted doesn't even include that subtitle).

Check the links listed in this article and you'll see that a lot of the hits for Apocrypha Discordia are for the early version of this work, which became Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia. In fact, Rev. DrJon Swabey, who compiled the Apocrypha Discordia that still has that name, recognized that Reverend Loveshade had his own version of Apocrypha Discordia[5] (which became Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia) [6]. Check your Google hits and you'll see many more. Note also that in DrJon's argument to keep the article on his collection, he recognized Reverend Loveshade's Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia site as a major Discordian site.Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Apocrypha Discordia

There is now a section in this article about Novus Ordo Discordia, and about Summa Universalia, so the article isn't just about two works.

• Keep - For the reasons stated above. IamthatIam 01:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - I would have said Merge with Apocrypha Discordia, but since they posted this article has been expanded to talk about three Discordian works. MRN 05:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - Despite some comments to the contrary, this article is about general Discordian works which do not have their own wiki entries. The explosion of Discordian Tracts is most certainly a notable recent development in Discordianism. The article is useful. Drjon 02:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe the reasons for suggesting a deletion have already been answered and corrected. I've taken the liberty of putting a Merge suggestion on the article A Discordian Coloring Book. It's been a stub since it was created, which is not surprising--how much can you write about a coloring book? But adding that article here would solve the stub problem with that article, and would expand this one to include an additional work. I think it's a great solution--but I know somebody will probably disagree with me. IamthatIam 05:23, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

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.