Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Babarism

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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 per WP:OR, WP:V, WP:NFT, and WP:NOT. --Coredesat 05:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Babarism

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Contested Prod. Yet another joke religion. Per the article and Talk page discussion, the entire history of the religion was 3 hours at the Burning Man festival. No sources outside Burning Man. No indication of any activity since, but author argues that it might happen again next year. I don't see how a one-time joke is remotely notable. Fan-1967 20:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Note to closing admin. Please check for numerous redirects to the page. Fan-1967 20:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Babarism. This article is notable, and you are being entirely too hasty deleting it off the bat, when it is still under construction, without given time to mature and be contributed by other more knowledgable sources, such as the grand priest, who has been notified. Please resolve talk page counterpoints before going further. Tyciol 20:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
What counterpoints? You have a religion that lasted three hours. That's not a religion, it's a party. Fan-1967 20:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Three hours is much longer than the average Sunday mass lasts. Babarism is not a well-enough established or widely-enough spread religion to hold a weekly service due to how spread out its worshippers are. Furthermore, as many people only attend church on special occasions such as christmas or easter, an annual meeting isn't that infrequent. To call it simply is demeaning to the deep morals that can be learned within Babarism's approach to the Babarism bible. Tyciol 21:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this would fall under WP:ORG, or at least better fits that category than any other notability category. Babarism doesn't seem to meet the notability criteria in WP:ORG. Given that, I say delete. Natalie 21:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I would prefer specifics. First off, this article is about a religion, that it mentions an organization (the Church of Babar) is only a side-note. The Church of Babar is not the whole of Babarism, as in many faiths such as Wicca, there are more individual practitioners, the CoB is simply the only organized practise to espouse doctrine for the faith.
Still, even ignoring that this is an article about a religion (and one that has had a gathering, unlike Frisbeetarianism), even approaching it from the role as an organization, it is still qualified. The scope of it's activities in an international festival such as Burning Man make it Criteria #1 for Organizations. The Burning Man Festival is a justified third party which published an announcement of the event. It was not published by the Church of Babar itself, so it is not an internal document. This has gone far beyond the level of a simply made up ideas due to the organization and collectiveness witnessed. Tyciol 21:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Breaking info: The article is being expanded to include other more political claims to Babarism. See here for example: [1]. Now the article can take on a greater scope. Give time to expand this new aspect. Tyciol 21:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - violates original research and reliable sources, among others. --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 22:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
    • This is not original research. The page is right from the burning man event website, and the site they link to as an official reference.
  • Delete - achieve notability first, then someone else will write your entry for you. Lumos3 22:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
    • This is not my entry, I didn't even go to the ceremony, do not assume things. Tyciol 16:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete due to lack of independent reliable sources. --Metropolitan90 23:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete per nom. Wikipediarules2221 23:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
    • This of course, is not a vote. Tyciol 16:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per WP:VERIFY, which clearly states, "If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." -- Satori Son 00:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • As mentioned above (obviously not read), Burning Man is a reputable, reliable, third-party source. Tyciol 16:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia has articles on FSM (flying spagetti monster)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spagetti_monster which to me is the same category as the Church of Babar both with it's longevity and original intent. I say Babarism is already a phenomenon noteable enough for Wiki Sarahsimons 00:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. An interesting comparison of articles. The relevant section to examine in the Flying Spaghetti Monster article is "References and notes". Then come back and look at this one. -- Satori Son 01:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Your comparison is without merit, do note that while this article has links from the beginning, Flying Spaghetti Monster did NOT have them when it was first created: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flying_Spaghetti_Monster&oldid=20304108 . Since typos of 'barbarism' pollute web searches for news articles, you're going to have to give some time for these to be located. Due to the publicity of the Burning Man event, I've no doubt they'll be found. Tyciol 16:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as WP:NFT. Non-notable joke religion; Flying spagetti monster, by contrast, is very well-known. The "Baba" article linked is entirely irrelevant. bikeable (talk) 01:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • It is very relevant to the people of Nigeria, I'm sorry if it is not relevant to you. Tyciol 16:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
      • It may be relevant to Nigeria. It is absolutely unrelated to a joke religion about Babar the elephant. Fan-1967 17:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Babarism. There are at least 17 parody religions in Wikipedia. These religions are based on widely known elements of popular culture around the world, including international soccer star Diego Maradona: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Maradona, the Frisbee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisbeetarianism, and more. Due to the religion's loose affiliation, ceremonies are not widely known about and do not garner much attention. This does not detract from their value and importance to the religions followers. At the time of this post, there were at least 40 mentions--Sethnickerson 05:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC) of the religion on the web. That tells me that Babarism is gaining acceptance and spreading by word of mouth, similar to how many religions spread before the advent of the World-Wide-Web. This religion deserves its place along side all of the other religions on Wikipedia, real or imagined. Sethnickerson 01:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Comment: your vote might matter if this were a vote, but it's not! It's a discussion to try to establish a concensus. And pointing at other articles is not going to advance your case. The question isn't "are parody religions allowed on Wikipedia", so pointing at other parody religions adds nothing to the debate. The question raised is about notability and verifiability, and you haven't offered evidence of either one. Xtifr tälk 06:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Why is the verifiability being question? It's on the Burning Man site. Verified. Tyciol 16:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Babarism. I've actually met more than one Babarist and in non-burning man environments. I can assure you they each seemed totally sincere. I agree that it's not a religion, and the Babarists I met never claimed it was, but there are people out there who follow their philosophies. The groups I met were in Phoenix and Chicago and seemed to be unrelated to each other (aside from the whole Babar thing). The only way I met the group in Chicago was because I recognized their "WWBD?" wristbands. (dwishman (at) hotmail.com)
Delete not because it is a parody religion but because it appears to be non-notable and non-verifiable. If there was a conventical, are there no newspaper or magazine articles about it? If not, then obviously non-notable so delete. --Richard 08:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • What type of newspaper would you consider notable, exactly? It's in the Burning Man newsletter that announces what events are running, that seems notable. It's also quoted in many blogs. Tyciol 16:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Yeah, I've been thinking about this because this is one of those unclear areas. I think the problem is that only the existence of the event at Burning Man is verified by the mention in the Burning Man newsletter. I'm going to make some assumptions here so, of course, correct me if I make an erroneous assumption. I'm guessing that the Burning Man newsletter provides just the name, time and location of the event and not a long description of the event and certainly not a description of the Babarism religion itself. Thus, if the event were mentioned in the Burning Man article, one could not challenge the assertion that the event had been held on the grounds of it being non-verifiable. The Burning Man newsletter provides the verifiability of the event BUT not of the details of the religion as presented in the article.
Thus, you cannot justify the whole article on Babarism based solely on the mention of the event in the Burning Man newsletter. What you would need to look for is a journalist or scholar who went to the event and reported on it in some newspaper, magazine, journal article or book. If there was an official Babarist newsletter, that might be argued as being a reliable source. Failing any of the above, the article fails for being non-verifiable.
Note that this argument falls apart if the Burning Man newsletter provided an after-the-fact account of the event with a full description of the details of the Babarism religion as presented in the article AND copies of the Burning Man newsletter are available either online or in libraries/archives accessible to the public.
--Richard 17:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Notable events have "been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works, where the source is independent of the topic itself." The Burning Man website is not independent. Blogs are not reliable sources. -- Fan-1967 17:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
In general, websites are not reliable sources unless they are connected to an organization which is considered to be a reliable source. Thus, www.cnn.com and www.nytimes.com are reliable sources. Blogs are not. I'm not sure whether ibm.com, microsoft.com and hp.com are reliable sources. I would guess that they are reliable wrt assertions made about those companies. I would thus argue that the Burning Man website IS a reliable source about the Burning Man event and thus could be used to document the fact that the event was held. As I've stated above, I'm not sure how much of the article can be verified through the Burning Man website. --Richard 17:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I understand this concern Richard. The details regarding the religion, I obtained from the website http://www.babarist.org. It certainly counts as at least one interpretation of a religion, that being the Church of Babar's. The reason I give it precidence in the article's creation is that it is linked to on the Burning Man official theme camp announcement list as being the homepage of the creator of the encampment. So due to that, it's not as if someone just wrote a page on it. Tyciol 16:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Babar While I am not a member of the Babarist religion myself, my husband (much to my chagrin), was converted at the 2005 Burning Man. This is actually the 2nd year that the Babarists have held their Babarist Bash in Black Rock City.
    And to the poster above who argues that blogs are not considered "reliable sources," I'd like to remind him of the recent release of "Snakes On A Plane;" and the blog for said movie that just became the viral marketer's wet dream. Not only were new scenes filmed for the movie because of the blog, but more hype was created due to this movie's blog than previously thought possible. The creator of the blog was even invited to the movie premiere. While it's true that many, if not most, blogs cannot be considered "reliable sources," you can no longer automatically discredit sources just because they're not mainstream.149.169.67.118 17:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)Shawnna
In that case, there was widespread reporting about the blogging, and the reaction to it, in numerous reliable news sources. The blogging was the subject of news stories, not the source. There's no indication of that occurring here. Fan-1967 17:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Shawnna, I understand your point about blogs but I'm not convinced that it applies here. Moreover, I think it's a bad idea to get into an extended discussion of the merits of a Wikipedia policy in an AFD discussion. Let us please keep the discussion closely tied to the decision whether to delete this article. If you wish to continue a wider discussion about the policy regarding the acceptability of blogs as sources, please do so at this talk page. If you decide to do this, drop me a note and I'll join you there. --Richard 18:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Shawnna, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware at all that a Burning Man event was held for this in 2005. If it was, I'd think it here be here. Perhaps in 2005 it was an unofficial gathering that mitigated the creation of the official 2006 theme camp. The owner of the main site can perhaps verify this once he gets into contact with me, which I've been waiting for, for a couple days. Tyciol 16:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Couldn't find the Babarist event in the Burning Man events page. Give us a direct link. --Richard 06:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
The direct link to the 2006 event is [2], it's the first event listed on the B page for the 2006 events. I gave the link to the 2005 events because someone was claiming it was held in 2005, but since I showed it wasn't listed, it wasn't notable if there were in fact a gathering in 2005 because it wasn't notable. Tyciol 19:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - per nom. Anomo 07:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Joke and / or original research. Dsreyn 12:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Joke articles are permitted on Wikipedia. Otherwise what's here from you both is repetition, which basically makes it VOTING. Tyciol 16:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Re: siteexplorer links - Mostly blogs, not acceptable as reliable sources
Re: authenticity - authenticity is not the criterion, notability is
RE: Guest Book - Right, 27 entries. Membership could go up by a factor of 10 and it would not necessarily be a notable organization.
--Richard 06:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Is everyone just searching American sites? The Babar books are French. Should we be searching on the French word for Babarism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:67.90.71.162 (talk • contribs)
  • Comment. While the Babar books are French, this supposed religion had one gathering at Burning Man, an American festival. There's no assertion that this religion has any French component, which is probably why people aren't searching French-language sites. And please sign your posts. Natalie 18:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong delete. Non-notable; no one will care in ten years. If anything, put an external link out from the Babar article and list of parody religions. --Masamage 07:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
    • This is listed under parody religions, but the parody religions page is not supposed to be a URL farm, it's supposed to be a link to other articles on parody religions, not commentary on them all. The parody religions category is also used to class this article, which is proper. Tyciol 19:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
      • If the article is deleted and you don't want a link out to the website, no mention will be left, which I guess is your choice. --Masamage 22:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete under WP:NOT section 1.4.3, advertising. There's not enough people to hold more than a single annual meeting that was significant enough to announce in advance? That, to me, means the article's intended purpose isn't to report on the topic, but to generate interest and awareness in it. Add that to minimal-if-any impact on the world at large, significance in academia, or coverage in commercial press, and I'm convinced the appropriate course of action is to delete it. The Literate Engineer 04:54, 28 October 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.