Talk:Council of Magickal Arts

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This article was nominated for deletion on January 22, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 AdSpam/Delete/Etc conversation 2 Let's Start a Real Cleanup 3 MUCH better citation 3.1 Google Books, and CoMA vs CotMA 4 Membership Numbers

[edit] AdSpam/Delete/Etc conversation

This is NOT adspam for a commercial service. Council of Magickal Arts is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) religious organization, based in Texas. PLEASE see [1]

True, it is a stub (and is so marked!) and will take some work to bring it up to encyclopedic quality, but it is a start and no more. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 03:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, I just went to the page of the user that tagged this article as spam, and I see the user has been flagged as a possible sockpuppet. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 03:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm a sockpuppet of myself. It's a joke. Try some reading comprehension. Nardman1 03:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Then in good faith I will assume you have some reading comprehension, and will remove the db-spam tag you put on this article. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 03:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I've started the afd process instead. Nardman1 04:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, FFS, why? Is it so hard for you to give me time to expand the article, attract editors, and develop the page to some degree of quality before you attack it? Or do you just object to all Neopagan articles no general principles? --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 04:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Nardman1, please see WP:CIVIL and WP:BITE.

Bill, as soon as possible add something to the first sentence of this article stating why a non-believer would consider the Council "notable." In the future, when creating an article that you think may take some time — and especially if someone is likely to go on Crusade against it — you can develop the article as a subpage of your user page (e.g., [[User:BillWSmithJr/Council of Magickal Arts]]) and then move it into article-space once it is strong enough to survive. ➥the Epopt 04:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Because this page is flagged for deletion, and I do not have time to trace down sources, I've changed the beginning to show "why CMA is notable". While it does not meet the requirements for an organization, the festivals do meet the criteria for notable events, and they don't have their own name - they are the CMA Beltain and CMA Samhain festivals. The festivals are larger and just as well known nationally as other festivals who's validity as stub entries is not under debate. I would have tried to track down sources before posting such information, but with the request for deletion hanging over the article, I thought it would be better to put the info in there and have someone add a "citation needed" note and prevent the article from being deleted. Dreamingkat 19:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

running out of time, but google books says that CMA is listed in the following books:

• Encyclopedia of wicca and witchcraft By Raven Grimassi [2]
• If You Want to Be a Witch: A Practical Introduction to the Craft By Edain McCoy [3]
• The Sabbats: A Witch's Approach to Living the Old Ways By Edain McCoy [4]
• Advanced Witchcraft: Go Deeper, Reach Further, Fly Higher By Edain McCoy [5] shows the link for CMA as being houston-pno.org - did CMA start the pagan night out stuff? that would make it a nationally worthy org.

Dreamingkat 19:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

No, unfortunately they did not start PNO... I did. Thank you VERY much for the book refs. Just got another one from a friend... "Dancing the Fire: A Guide to Neo-Pagan Festivals and Gatherings" by Marian Singer. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. (talk/contribs) 20:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Let's Start a Real Cleanup

Now that it looks like this article WILL survive, lets address some of the remaining complaints from the AfD.

• Elaragirl said that it still feels "spammy". Can we identify the "spammy" parts and rewrite them?
• We still need some more solid, reliable references.
• We have several stub sections. These need to be filled out/expanded.

--Bill W. Smith, Jr. (talk/contribs) 16:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

"spammy" tends to refer to phrases such as "the best" and other language that can be found on advertisements and brochures. Dreamingkat 06:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MUCH better citation

Thanks to some friends on several Pagan eLists, I finally found a better citation for CMA's notability and it was right under my nose. In Drawing Down the Moon, earlier in the same Resources chapter from the festival entries, Adler has a much more substantive paragraph describing CMA. I can include the paragraph in the reference if needed but I am lazy and not the fastest typist in the world :) --Bill W. Smith, Jr. (talk/contribs) 13:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Google Books, and CoMA vs CotMA

If you search Google Books for "Council of Magickal Arts" you get 5 hits, but if you search for "Council of the Magickal Arts" you get 9 hits. Both are CMA, thus CMA has 14 gHits on Google Books! Yes, gHits are, by themselves, not notable. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. (talk/contribs) 14:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Membership Numbers

I think the membership numbers cited might be a tad inflated. Although I know there was recently debate that said that over a thousand people were at one of the events held before the land was bought, CMA doesn't currently have that many members. Dreamingkat 06:19, 26 February 2007 (UTC)