Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spiritual Humanism (second nomination)

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 delete. Sandstein 09:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spiritual Humanism

Spiritual Humanism (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

I had put up Spiritual Humanism as WP:Afd but it became speedily deleted instead causing the Afd to be closed. It was already recreated and rewritten with more links and some comments on the talk page. I think it is still just as much an Afd (see also arguments for earlier Afd):
After the recreation and rewriting, I can only find links that either don't work (e.g. claim of number of members on its own site, blank page from newspaper archive) or written by the organization or its clergy (even admitting to have paid for clergy attributes so as to marry his own daughter), besides announcements published in a (same as mentioned for its blank archive) newspaper of marriages in front of such clergyman. Not a word about 'Spiritual Humanism' having been noticed, let alone described and thereby giving a source, outside its own group of adherers. It remains uniquely self-promoting what I consider might be a commercial-religious sect.
The names-dropping in the article is not corroborated by the linked articles. It does not meet Wikipedia notability criteria for societies. Main problem: a complete lack of proper sources makes verification, besides the existence of some group trying to push people into paying for their 'ordination' attributes, utterly impossible.
Note: On the forementioned talk page, someone correctly states a link in the Humanism article to the group's website exists. If indeed it is found to be mainly (commercial) self-promotion as well, it should be removed. — SomeHuman 19 Jan 2007 02:32 (UTC)

• • Comment As a comparison, consider the Universal Life Church, a pioneer in the field, which is clearly notable. It was involved in a number of court fights and other public disputes in various states over whether its credentials would be recognized, and as a result a number of media articles specifically on it and its practices were published. These articles satisfy WP:N and WP:ORG. This church, on the other hand, doesn't seem have similar evidence that the church specifically is notable. Diploma mills, which supply education credentials on-line with little or no requried preparation, have been regularly deleted unless they show evidence that they are specifically notable diploma mills. See e.g. Colby Nolan. (When Trinity Southern University granted an Executive MBA to a house cat, the cat was deemed notable and has an article in Wikipedia, but the university only got a redirect to the cat.) From the sources supplied there doesn't seem to be any evidence anyone has written about this church's history, views, or activities, which don't seem to have any independent notability. The sources show people using it to get a credential enabling them to perform a wedding. But for all the sources establish, maybe they did this for no other reason than that it charges less for the credential than the next brand down in the Google search, or has a more prominent ad, or some other non-notable reason. There doesn't seem to be anything individually notable about this organization from the sources supplied so far. Also, as an example of the need for WP:Verifiability, the Universal Life Church#New York section shows New York State court cases suggesting there is a substantial question about the validity of a marriage resulting from this type of ordination in New York; we have no sources to enable people to address such basic questions as what this church does prior which might help people address these issues with respect to this church. --Shirahadasha 15:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The article attempts to establish notability through various articles on weddings and the like in which it is mentioned that the minister belongs to the Church for Spiritual Humanism. WP:ORG requires, at its barest, independently published articles that say enough about the subject to permit verification and establish notability. A mere passing mention of the church that the minister performing a marriage happens to belong to surely does nothing to establish notability. Officiating at weddings simply isn't a notable activity for a church, it's a routine thing every church does. Delete. --Shirahadasha 04:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep, I found a few just-more-than-passing references[1][2][3], and the broken links are entirely the fault of a misplaced pipe character in the article links, which should work now (though they may be problematic for other reasons). --Dhartung | Talk 04:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Your link #1 mentions "While clergy still perform most weddings, the ceremonies are straying ever farther from tradition, reflecting a "do-it-yourself" attitude toward religious nuptials. The minister may be an old friend, a professor or Dad, ordained online for the occasion." It only mentions this particular Church/sect/commerce as 10 or 20x smaller than an apparently similar one. It describes a practice in general (of what I also see this particular 'Church of Spiritual Humanism' to be mainly doing). There could be an interesting NPOV article about this new social practice in which it can be mentioned as an example —but no article on that still unnotable example— and not present it as if it were a noteworthy 'religious and philosophical movement'.
Your link #2 indeed mentions this "Church" by demonstrating it to lure people into an innocent rather funny wedding practice and then without their knowledge or consent abusing and possibly damaging their name for its own self-publicity; exactly what I see as a good reason for not to allow further abusing Wikipedia. [I already had removed the link from the Template:Humanism that occurs in a few dozen articles.]
Your link #3, from a relatively obscure source, depicts the story of an otherwise totally unnotable man who became a Church of Spiritual Humanism clergyman to feel a bit more important himself but neither takes it very serious nor performs clergy practices: good for him but it shows the 'clergyman' not be be specifically religious or philosophical and not even as participating in Church community practices - if such would exist, no sign of that or of a 'movement' so far.
Good research, and appreciating your current edits to the article, but if some of the content is to be kept or recreated, it must carry a more general title and describe this recent evolution in wedding practices etc, including criticism on dubious practices as false suggestions of a religious-philosophical movement and unadmitted usage of people's name. (Avoid WP:OR, e.g. by your above links). Only in case 'Spiritual Humanism' would succeed in becoming sufficiently notable (one way or another not unlikely seeing its efforts), its article content might rather compare with the one on as forementioned 10 to 20x larger but possibly equally sized Universal Life, which could be an Afd as well as it has no source except one untraceable "book" (though this lecture/same (cf.Switzerland) I think to be the real source) and the topic's own website; note that neither 'Church' is mentioned in NRM. — SomeHuman 19 Jan 2007 06:28 (UTC)

• Keep. No real reason for deletion, may require some cleanup. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep. SynergeticMaggot
• Delete per nom - Does not show notability, fails WP:ORG. Maybe it will be notable later, but it's not now. -- Kesh 23:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Of course the article could use improvement, it is practically a stub. There is a bias on the part of some editors against religious humanist organizations and some of the movement to delete is motivated by their efforts to promote "propper" humanism (i.e. secular humanism). I have run into similar hostility on several occasions when editing artilces in the humanist subject area. Maintaining NPOV also means including articles on topics that represent all points of view. 2ct7 01:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Please remember to assume good faith. My vote was only on the notability of the subject. I've never heard of spiritual humanism before today, and have nothing against the organization. It's simply not notable enough for a Wikipedia article. -- Kesh 02:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
    • And precisely this kind of article and as I see it, this particular topic and its methods (which had caused an administrator to speedily delete upon my earlier proposal as normal AfD), do not do well for the reputation of proper religious humanism. Yes we've met on another talk page and I assume you kind of fell for Spiritual Humanism. So prove notability and try rewriting the article in a NPOV style providing decent sources from outside the topic's circles. And if it would really be about religious humanism, instead of for instance a society picking a wish-wash name that can attract as many people as possible without putting any demands regarding religion or humanism, hoping for the-more-the-merrier financial contributions for clergy 'attributes' and using Wikipedia for promotion, show so in that properly sourced and NPOV article; that goes for the claim of (already) being a 'movement' as well. — SomeHuman 20 Jan 2007 04:22 (UTC)
      • ...and I'm going to point out to you that your comments are bordering on uncivil. 2ct7 made their own improper comments, but yours started out fine, and turned into name-calling. We're here to work together, not put each other down. -- Kesh 04:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Not name-calling, the derogatory depicting of the topic of the article is nicely formulated in my first AfD and whatever I could find before putting it up as such, could not at all take away the possibility. WP appearing to be used for self-promotion or for such purpose by adherers, makes it WP business. With that in mind, knowing 2ct7 to have spoken favorable about the topic before and to have recreated the article, saying that he 'fell for it' is WP:AGF and my true opinion. — SomeHuman 20 Jan 2007 04:45 (UTC)
        • Sorry if my posts were uncivil. The overly aggressive nature of many of secular humanist editors has left me on the defensive, especially after the speedy delete of this article which allowed no discussion. Since the subject of financial contributions has come up, let me mention a few facts about the IHEU who's secular promotions and official opinions and positions are forever dominating the Humanism related articles. The IHEU is more of commercial business then the Church of Spiritual Humanism. "Votes" on their official positions are bought and paid for. The more money your organization pays for its membership the more votes you get. You cannot become an individual member of the IHEU without paying £33 / $60 / €50 a year. Since the Humanist individuals and organizations that cannot or refuse to pay are not allowed to vote the IHEU can never represent the opinions and positions of all and probably even most Humanist. The editors that are most aggressively promoting secular humanism over religious humanism also incorporate the IHEU's agenda when editing. The secular official positions of the IHEU are bought and paid for and should not be used as the standard by which judge what is Humanism and what is not. The general tone of the articles in the Humanism subject area unduly favors secularism over religious humanism. I have to wonder if Spiritual Humanism paid the IHEU to become a member organization if this article would be facing deletion.2ct7 16:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
          • 2ct7, I have no idea what you're on about, but it sounds like a conspiracy theory. Please assume good faith unless you have evidence other than suspicion. --Dhartung | Talk 16:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Update by original nominator

Nominator's update: The article including improvements by Dhartung (see his 'weak keep' above), and during the last few hours having been further improved by myself (follow [4] by consecutive 'Newer edit' to see what was done and why), appears to me now to have become sufficiently NPOV and reasonable to other WP guidelines, and it may be argued that one article by a Washington Post staff writer on the newspaper's web shortly mentioning the Church of Spiritual Humanism and one by a Chicago Tribune columnist on that newspaper's web log, demonstrate it to have become slightly noticed. Nevertheless, I have the clear impression that the Church has been noticed for its wedding ceremonies only, and not at all for its claimed 'religious and philosophical movement'. It appears best to maintain the article but to move it towards the title 'Church of Spiritual Humanism' at least until it could be shown that the claimed movement itself would have become WP:Notable. In fact, 'spiritual humanism' is not quite a coined term but the adjective and substantive have been associated in a much broader context, e.g. in [5].— SomeHuman 21 Jan 2007 03:43 (UTC) — Meanwhile, 'Spiritual Humanism' appears to be a trademark, see article. — SomeHuman 22 Jan 2007 03:37 (UTC)
So please vote in one section hereunder (just an asterisk followed with optional comment and with four tildes will do):

Update votes to keep the article, by the title 'Church of Spiritual Humanism' (with redirect from 'Spiritual Humanism')

• (nominator)— SomeHuman 21 Jan 2007 03:43 (UTC) — though 'weak': Shirahadasha's comments below are to be taken most seriously. — SomeHuman 21 Jan 2007 05:16 (UTC)

Update votes to keep the article, by the title 'Spiritual Humanism'

• ...

Update votes to delete the article altogether

next vote by Ohconfucius had been put in the immediately above subsection but clearly belongs here (though 'per nom' is not evident for either subsection) — nominator

• Delete per nom. Despite the rewrite, the references are still too trivial to warrant inclusion in Wikipedia. It appears that anyone can become an ordained minister to officiate weddings. Compared with Universal Life Church, which has the same business model, churns out some half a million free and instant ordinations a year on average, the Church of Spiritual Humanism which performs an estmated 20,000 ordinations per annum, doesn't even come close. Ohconfucius 03:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't feel quite happy about only a large outfit getting further attention on WP and thus putting a competing more recent and thus smaller but otherwise fully equivalent outfit in deeper and continued disadvantage. This could be a WP:N versus WP:NPOV issue, but Universal Life Church (not to be confounded with Universal Life) is not exactly as notable as Microsoft or as the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps an 'Ordination mill' article should be created (like Diploma mill) and all titles fitting that shoe should redirect to it; after all ULC appears only notable for its law-suits related to being an ordination mill, and in an anglo-saxon Law system their outcome create precedents with equal consequences for CoSH. I would change my 'weak keep' vote towards this, but am not a candidate to try moving ULC towards 'Ordination mill' (in which CoSH should be mentioned much more shortly, currently available sources easily allow this). — SomeHuman 22 Jan 2007 04:00-04:11 (UTC)

next vote by Shirahadasha had been put in the top subsection but clearly belongs here (though if reconsideraton requirement would be met, noting preference for the 'Church of S H' title) — nominator

• Delete Open to reconsideration if independent sources covering the church as a principle subject are demonstrated per WP:ORG, but this just hasn't occurred so far. I don't believe articles casually mentioning the church as the place someone got an ordination credential is inherently notable, just as articles mentioning the institution where Colby Nolan obtained an educational credential were found not to make that institution notable. Other churches in the genre that have articles, like the Universal Life Church, have gotten substantial independent press coverage, court cases, etc. to bolster their claim to notability Nothing like that has been shown here. --Shirahadasha 21:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My reservations are expressed in my comment on the earlier vote that was moved into this subsection. — SomeHuman 23 Jan 2007 00:44 (UTC)

One article on the Chicago Tribune's weblog by a proper columnist of that newspaper specifically on this particular Church, and the article in the L.A. Times in the section 'Main news' (see the url in reference) by the ex-editor of a different newpaper (The Nation), supported by a minor mentioning in an article in the Washingon Post about the practices of a few institutions as this Church, might not make this Church the biggest thing since powdered milk [paraphrasing Budgie], still it has been noted nation-wide — well enough for a short WP article, as I see it. Though of course, one or two more strongly convincing sources couldn't hurt. — SomeHuman 24 Jan 2007 22:23 (UTC)

Comments

• Comment New sources have been added from articles reporting a trend in do-it-yourself weddings in which an individual receives a no-requirements ordination from an on-line ordination mill. The difficulty here is that the articles just don't appear to say anything much about the church (and don't seem to pay much attention to it); it just seems to be listed as the place a blogger happened to pick to get his on-line ordination or casually mentioned in discussing a trend. This church/movement needs an article or two in mainstream media specifically on it as at least a major if not primary subject. If they exist it's notable and Keep. Otherwise not and Delete. The standard is objective, it makes no difference whether one agrees or disagrees with its beliefs and practices. --Shirahadasha 04:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Could supporters identify a couple of sources -- the best sources -- and explain why they demonstrate notability? There are a now a number of marginal-looking sources. Perhaps a direct approach would cut through the rough and help us see the diamond. --Shirahadasha 04:47, 21 January 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.