Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aid to Bible Understanding

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep in its current form. Deathphoenix 03:10, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aid to Bible Understanding

A Jehovah's Witness publication which no longer exists. The article itself consists of three short introductory paragraphs and five long quoted paragraphs which are more in the nature of a religious sermon than an encyclopedia article. RickK 23:18, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Note: I received a message on my Talk page that this is part of the Jehovah's Witness project and it is their right to decide which of their project articles get put on VfD. My comment: No, it's not. RickK 23:50, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

A "Note" about your Note: Rick, you're taking me all wrong. I am asking for help and yes a little disturbed by the method. This does not mean I think you have no right to request deletion. I think this may be an issue for ammending the deletion policy. Please, ......r e l a x. george 00:28, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are other places better to work from if you want to amend policy at Wikipedia. VfD is for voting and simple debate on the votes themselves. To actually make or change policy, you'll need to build a consensus of editors interested in the given subject. A good place to start would be Guide to Votes for deletion, Wikipedia policies and guidelines or perhaps the Village Pump. Good luck! Fire Star

• Delete. This is the same as making a "guide on how to use a butter knife". Being religion related doesn't change anything. --Sn0wflake 23:53, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I didn't think it did. george 00:28, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Delete, not encyclopaedic. Megan1967 01:01, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup. Bible encyclopedia by major religious movement. Kappa 04:04, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Concur with Kappa, keep. Radiant! 10:13, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
• keep, but get rid of the quotes. Dunc|☺ 17:03, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. It does need serious re-work to become more neutral in tone, but it seems worth keeping. — RJH 17:13, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• As mentioned above, it needs serious work to get rid of the POV proselytising, and a new title (perhaps Aid to Bible Understanding (Jehovah's Witnesses) but there is no reason not to have an article on the defunct publication, as long as it is a proper encyclopaedia article. Abstain for now. Fire Star 17:26, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I think we all agree that it needs NPOV, but this publication seems to be not only important to the JWs, but is also cited by those who disagree with them a source text documenting their alleged errors. HyperZonk^talk 18:07, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

• If retitled and NPOV, it could be kept. However, the retitling is extremely important, as we get a fair number of new users who look for and write articles with titles like this, and the title could be confused as a Wikipedia how-to. Both are dangerous. Under this title, there is absolutely no way it should be kept. NPOV is hard. Cleanup probably won't do the trick, and the original author has a dog in the hunt. I have to say delete, in its present form, but I would be in favor of keeping a retitled and neutral version. Geogre 05:05, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  Comment. Should Hitler Has Only Got One Ball be retitled lest people think Wikipedia expresses that Hitler had only one ball? Should How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb be postfixed "(album)"? Literal titles are not POV. If it's named Aid to Bible Understanding or 1001 Reasons Why Wikipedia Sucks or for all I care Why I'm Right and You're All Wrong, and it's the only major thing having that title, then that's the title the article should have. Of course, the article must establish in the first sentence what it's about, but pre-emptive title fiddling to "remove the POV" is silly, especially if the intent is, in essence, to prevent people from finding it too easily. And we're talking NPOV? :-)

  Put up glaring notices on the talk page, educate newbies, etc., but don't go issuing decrees like "no way it should be kept under this title", especially if that is the title. If you disagree, get support for changing the naming policies—this is the sort of thing that applies to many articles, I'd wager. 82.92.119.11 10:04, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  Yes, those titles should be changed, user 82.92.119.11. If we take care of ambiguity up front, we don't have to cure it later. Since we already have things like Revolver (album), I think we absolutely should use "(album)" after music albums. The same goes for films, etc. Create redirects at the naive form, but keep the names clear in meaning and coverage. Geogre 20:09, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  Please, call me Sam. And I owe you an apology, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) for the most part agrees with you. My reaction was a knee-jerk response to your heavy-handed throwing around of phrases like "NPOV" and "absolutely no way". Re-reading, I see your concern was that the title encouraged POV edits, not that it was itself POV, so most of my reply was beside the mark. I shall have a slice of humble pie in your honor. 82.92.119.11 17:17, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The current title would still be a redirect (or a disambiguation in case there are more than one publications with this name) to the more accurately titled page. We do it all the time. That way, it would be just as easy to find, and the titling when the page opened would let the person know which sect they were dealing with. Win-win. Fire Star 14:07, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, and under present title. May be trivia in the wider world, but it's useful reference material when reading up on the JWs - David Gerard 01:25, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep in present form. Title is not important and can be fixed at any time. I like Aid to Bible Understanding being a redirect to a categorized name, but I can't see that it matters much. My personal preference would have been to have this be a section in a single article about Jehovah's Witness literature, but there's enough here for a separate article. Dpbsmith (talk) 03:15, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep; notable bible encylopedia by a religious movement. Antandrus 03:25, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• commentI want to condense this article with two others: Reasoning From the Scriptures and Insight on the Scriptures. Therefore with a request for some time to get it done I change my vote to delete. george 14:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep; notable and of potential interest to religious scholars. Psychonaut 03:50, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.