Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saint Monica's Church, Barre

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 keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 18:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Saint Monica's Church, Barre

Saint Monica's Church, Barre (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Non-notable church; only possible claim is the 'largest parish', which doesn't have a source. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 03:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Changing vote to Keep now that we have sources. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 04:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Weak keep. If source can be added by end of deletion debate to substantiate it is the largest parish in the state, as would then appear to satisfy (Edit) I added the ref to a magazine article calling it the largest Catholic church in the state, which satisfies proposed guideline WP:CONG.Needs Would benefit from additional sources independent of the subject. Edison 05:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per lack of sources, without prejudice against recreation or undeletion if sources are found. The WP:CONG has already failed to meet consensus, is therefore {{rejected}}, and should not be used as an argument. >Radiant< 09:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment1 or 2 editors wanting to tag it and a number of other guidelines as rejected does not overrule the others who do not. Edison 15:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
    • As has been pointed out several times, the lack of consensus for your proposal makes it rejected. "Wanting to tag" has nothing to do with it. >Radiant< 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep unsourced stuff gets sources, not deleted. I've sourced it from a variety of places, and referenced all assertions. It proves to be a church that is significantly old and has played a significant part in the local religious history. Pretty critical to any understanding of Barre, Vermont. Why on earth delete this?--Doc^g 10:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Because it's not different ( in any substantive way ) from its peers. We're an encyclopedia, not an exhaustive list of buildings, however important they may be locally. WMMartin 16:42, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep as per Edison and Doc - it satisfies the criteria used at WP:CONG; and it doesn't matter if that proposal has been rejected - it can still provide some help for us. JROBBO 12:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as sources provided are either primary or trivial, but willing to change my mind if nontrivial secondary sources are provided. I can't find any, though. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 12:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

What's the problem here? Information is on organisation website and denominational website and corroborated with information from local govmt and elsewhere. That's clearly verification. There is zero chance of a hoax. WP:V is satisfied - to demand more is to introduce a systemic bias against information that is static rather than spectacular. The internet and media pic up on new phenomena not 19th century local institutions. We are by defauly an inclusive encyclopedia, and this is clearly more than directory information, on what basis are you calling for deletion?--Doc^g 13:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

As I've said in discussions before, I can write an article on my car that would clearly be more then a directory, and source it to publicly-available records. (Accident reports are publicly available, I was rear-ended once, detailing the accident and sourcing it to the accident report would go beyond a directory.) At a very technical level, that would satisfy WP:ATT (not my original research as it was done by a police officer, sourced to publicly available material), WP:NPOV (a neutral description of an event from a neutral, reliable source cannot be POV), and WP:NOT (not a directory entry, not soapboxing, etc., etc.). What my car is not, however, is notable, because unrelated sources have not covered it in any non-trivial manner. The same applies here, from what I can tell, so I argue to delete. It should not be to us to determine what is notable, it should be to those who write secondary sources. As to your argument above, Notre Dame Cathedral may noy be in the newspaper today, but there are certainly plenty of books and other secondary sources available on it. If that were shown to be the case for this church as well, I would happily argue to keep. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 13:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You are confusing notability with sources. Source it all you like, no-one is interested in your car. Whilst, a nineteenth century church connected with the history of a locality, operating a school (heavens, if I removed the rest and only mentioned a school it would be kept!) is obviously more than personal information. The problem with your criteria is it leaves us keeping passing internet fads which get mentioned in the media and then forgotten, but excludes perfectly verifiable information that will be of stable interest in 100 years time. It is a systemic bias, and it weakens the encyclopedia. And further, you still have given no reason why the encyclopedia benefits from removing this factual verifiable information, other than that it is the logical conclusion of legalistic pursuing of a supposed objective definition of notability. Objective standards of notability are a dangerous mirage - leading to foolish decisions. WP:NOT paper. No reason in policy or logic to remove this.--Doc^g 13:41, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

If the subject is genuinely of as much interest and historical value as you state, someone will have taken note and written a book on it (or have devoted significant mention in a book to it at least), or studied it in a scholarly paper about old churches or the region, or the like. The news media may be a reliable source, but they're certainly not the only reliable source. If sources such as those were cited, again, I would happily argue to keep, and I looked, but I just can't find any such thing. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 13:54, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I heard bit. But tell me again what the gain is by removing this particular piece of verifiable information?--Doc^g 14:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep: The building is 120 years old! Also, this is church has really been important to Barre. I've got a source on it being the largest, but it's a book, so how am I suppose to use that? Should I scan it or something? It being the largest parish is also mentioned here [1]. I'll try to look up some more. I think I can do that, and have it in a day or two. Bmrbarre 14:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment If you can give me the name/title/author of the book, I can likely find some excerpts, but a citation can certainly be written. There's no need that sources be readily available or online, just that they exist and be reliable and non-trivial. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 14:41, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Delete as NN local church. Foundation in the 1880s is not exceptional even here in California, and is less back east. Mention of the church would probably be fine in the article on its community, but I don't think St. Monica's merits a separate article. -- BPMullins | Talk 15:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into Barre, Vermont. As others have noted, it is not a question of verifiability, but of notability. Unfortunately, we have not come to a good, consensus decision as a community about how to judge the notability of churches (or schools), but this does not pass as the guidelines currently stand. Within the community it is notable -- so merge the info into there -- because beyond Barre, VT, it is not particularly. Further, if something comes along to assert notability of the congregation alone, you can always spin the article back out. -- Pastordavid 16:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

1) "does not pass as the guidelines currently stand" - what guidelines? We have none.

2) A decision to merge should merge should be done on the basis of organising content, not notability. If merging is a better way of organising material without losing anything, fine. But we don't merge for notability reasons.--Doc^g 16:44, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

CommentBy current guidelines, I meant WP:N. And actually, I do think a decision to merge could have something to do with notability -- you have two related topic, one notable, and one not. Well, the notable one gets an article, the other does not ... but the information could be included on the notable page. Seems reasonable to me, at least. -- Pastordavid 16:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Seriously flawed. If merging makes for better organisation of material, then merge. If it doesn't don't. I mean we might merge 6 articles on battles into an article on one war simply because we don't currently have much info on any other them - equally we split pokemon characters into separate articles because we do. Merging has nothing to do with notability. If the information is verifiable and encyclopedic, we keep it. We then decide how to organise it. If merging improves this information's delivery, and that of Barre, fine. But we don't bugger up articles just to allow us to keep information without 'rewarding it' with its own article.--Doc^g 17:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - this is a sourced article that meets WP:V. What good does deleting it do for Wikipedia? None! Unlike vanity articles and corporate spam this is an encyclopaedic article on a place with an extensive history. TerriersFan 18:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Needs to be disambiguated due to number of churches of same name (St. Monica's in Santa Monica, California - Arnold Schwarzenegger's parish - being a prime example), but clearly has a very extensive history and likely a strong impact in the area. MisfitToys 23:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per the Revealer source and the other source that establishes it as "the biggest Catholic church in the state". If anyone still thinks this is a borderline case, please keep this in mind: it is much easier to delete an article in the future, than to recreate it. -- Black Falcon 04:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Edison. The nomination is way out of line. This has great independent sources. Spank the nominator for wasting our time! --Kevin Murray 07:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

writers note typo at official cometary website (accessed 28 02 07) -- sorry too tired to fix in text notes tonight. --Kevin Murray 07:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. No more notable than any other parish church. WMMartin 16:40, 1 March 2007 (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.