Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Helen Schucman

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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 of the debate was no consensus/default keep. --Ezeu 04:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Helen Schucman

Reason this article should be deleted:

This article has been determined by to be noncompliant to Wikipedia content policy as discussed in it's here based on :

  • WP:NOR - Articles may not contain any previously unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas; or any new analysis or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas that serves to advance a position. This article hasn't any actual resources except circular references to a single book which doesn't describe Helen Schucman, and only arguably has any content from her writings. This violation of policy is not about the debatability of her writings. It doesn't matter if her writings are true or not, or if others had the right to publish ideas from them those writings.
It only matters:
1. that what is put in the article matches the sources.
2. that those sources are reliable.
It is therefore based solely on original research.
  • WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not a place to publish original thoughts and analyses.
  • WP:VER - Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed. There are no verifiable resources to establish any reputability about this psychologist. The only available resources are self-published references to hearsay that differ in their opinions.
  • WP:NPOV - This article is not written from the neutral point of view, and appears to hope to advertise the external links, rather than to use them as sources of information.
  • WP:BIO - The subject of this article fails to meet criteria testing whether a person has sufficient external notice to ensure that they can be covered from a neutral point of view based on verifiable information from reliable sources, without straying into original research. As a psychologist, hasn't anything notable to mention. As an author she hasn't received multiple independent reviews of or awards for her work.
It should be noted here that these ratings show copyright contention among the listings.
  • WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a vehicle for propaganda and advertising. Therefore, Wikipedia articles are not propaganda or advocacy of any kind. That includes relatively unknown psychologists which cannot be determined to have been responsible for various contending opinions about the ideas which she may or may not have written. Nor is it a platform to create an indiscriminate number of self-referenced, recursive sourcing articles that intend to establish obfuscated reputation.

and serves only to further promote non-notable topics rather than to report what is notable. Ste4k 06:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment: Ste4k, it's great when editors make thorough nominations, but it is not necessary to quote policies. You can just mention them or link to them. -- Kjkolb 06:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks and apologies since I am rather new here. :) Several other nominations I had put up earlier got the opposite sort of comment. I'll strive to find the happy medium and I appreciate your comment. Ste4k 06:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per above. The article's a great deal of verbiage saying very little more than this lady claimed to channel Jesus. RGTraynor 08:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per well-written nom. --Coredesat talk 08:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment This person appears to be absolutely central to A Course in Miracles, so I suspect a few Keeps will be coming... (Will stay Neutral at present) --DaveG12345 09:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Like DaveG said, this woman is a huge part of A Course in Miracles, which although kind of goofy IMHO is nonetheless quite popular (645,000 google hits). Just needs more criticism and citations to avoid pro-ACIM bias. --Nscheffey(T/C) 11:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - And she is cited repeatedly in that article. There's very little content in Schucman's own article that isn't in the ACIM article. RGTraynor 16:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep article is a complete mess and subject was probably a fruitcake. These are reasons for cleanup/NPOV/OR tags rather than deleting. She seems to have spawned a fairly well known thing in ACIM, has had numerous books written that cannot but have her as a central figure. Certainly is notable and sourced enough. Certainly a hard subject to write a good article about but worth keeping. Well thought out nomination though --Peripitus (Talk) 12:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Helen Schucman was actually considered by most who knew her to be a highly intelligent and intellectual woman. As is discussed on the Authorship of A Course in Miracles article (an article Ste4k wants deleted), Helen Schucman never literally meant that Jesus was the source of A Course in Mircales. She meant it was symbolic and metaphoric. -- Andrew Parodi 23:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment A Course in Miracles itself is largely unsourced and unverifiable, and appears to hope to establish notability by being listed in this encyclopedia rather than being notable in the first place. Most of its articles were written by two people who suffer from too much information looking for a topic. The creeping-artikalism of such a category in itself required at least six speedy deletes for WP:NOT and WP:NEO. The book itself hasn't yet established whom has actually written it. Please see discussions in the Articles of Deletion for much more information. It successfully evaded peer scrutiny in my humble opinion. Ste4k 16:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment Actually, there is a great deal of verifiable evidence about A Course In Miracles. You simply will not accept this. I wish you would stop wasting everyone's time and stop trying to call attention to yourself and get everyone's approval. As per the large amounts of Google hits and its Amazon.com sakes ranking, it is obvious that ACIM hardly needs Wikipedia to establish its notability. ACIM was notable BEFORE the invention of Wikipedia. And the authorship of the book is indeed established, and is in fact discussed on the pages Authorship of A Course in Miracles and Helen Schucman, pages which, if you had your way, others would not be able to read because they would be deleted.
The issue is not whether ACIM is notable or not, but that you don't want ACIM to be notable. I find this fascinating. I find you fascinating. Please share more about yourself with the rest of us. So far, we know that you are new to Wikipedia and don't like ACIM. Is there anything more you'd like to share? -- Andrew Parodi 19:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Important Comment I think that my contributions page is available for anyone to look at, and it can speak for itself. Per the acronym "ACIM", the cited sources, specifically the court case, show that the other cited sources are all one board of directors and three different names for the same group. The logo "ACIM" is also a registered trademark. As an editor concerned for the sake of the encyclopedia, I believe that using registered trademarks is a means of gaining brand acceptance. I don't feel that it is necessary to provide a brand name in an article, but most especially since the book itself is out-of-print and in the public domain. That in my opinion is providing a severe POV and can be construed as a means of attracting business to the owners of the trademark "ACIM" which are listed currently as the other cited sources. Those cited sources should also be considered as primary sources rather than secondary sources since the court case points out plainly that they are all of the same association which failed to establish copyrights for the book in the first place. Ste4k 07:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep I hope everyone is aware that Ste4k has a personal vendetta against all ACIM-related articles on Wikipedia. In addition to supporting the deletion attempt of the article Authorship of A Course in Miracles, this user has initiated deletion attempts of the following ACIM-related articles: William Thetford, Kenneth Wapnick, Foundation for Inner Peace, Foundation for A Course In Miracles, and Gary Renard. And on the main ACIM page, this editor will not accept anything, not even the official sites of Foundation for ACIM and Foundation for Inner Peace, as acceptable sources. Personal bias masked as attempt to uphold Wikipedia guidelines (all the while ignoring Wikipedia guidelines by trying to deprive Wikipedia of articles about a notable topic). -- Andrew Parodi 18:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment The conduct of an editor with respect to an article has no logical connection with whether the article should be kept (with the possible exception of an editor writing a vanity article). I have looked at some of these articles and think that while Wikipedia should have an article on ACIM and on each of the authors, the other articles should either be merged (if they contain useful information) or deleted outright as, to use a wikilogism, vanispamicruftisement. I was not aware of the existence of some of the articles on your list and will review them too. Thinking that crappy, POV articles should be deleted rather than improved is a common mistake for new editors to make, so let's not bite the newbies, assume good faith and be civil. JChap 19:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment as I have noted on the Talk:Authorship of A Course in Miracles page, I had already attempted to be civil with this person. I tried to work out our disagreements on his/her talk page, to no avail. This editor has repeatedly, and erroneously, given the false implication that the only reason I am interested in keeping these pages from being deleted is because I am making money off of ACIM. That is false, and perhaps even liable.
While it is true that "the conduct of an editor with respect to an article has no logical connection with whether the article should be kept", it is also true that this editor has apparently mistaken deletion talk pages as places to work out editorial disagreements. And I do believe that what encouraged this editor to nominate so many ACIM-related articles for deletion is the fact that this editor got upset with me and my contesting of some of his/her statements.
If it is true that "thinking that crappy, POV articles should be deleted rather than improved is a common mistake for new editors", could someone enlighten this editor to this fact? And could other editors keep this in mind when voting whether or not to delete these pages? -- Andrew Parodi 02:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


  • Delete per nom, fails WP:V by miles (and could redirect without merge to A Course in Miracles which appears to include some non-ACIM-source material). Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. Please note: I just conducted some editing of this page, removing what I believe to be unfocused comments, and interjecting what I believe to be a more encyclopedic tone. The article needs work, obviously, but not deletion. -- Andrew Parodi 00:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete or merge to ACIM or Foundation for ACIM. Notable course, but association with it not make a notable individual. Ste4k's blanket deletion-nominations of these articles is no more bad faith than ACIM members blanket creation of them. If you create lots of bad articles about your non-notable people in your favourite cult, you should expect them to get nominated at once. -- GWO
Comment. A Course In Miracles can hardly qualify as a cult when it is only a book. I am a "student" of the Course, which means that all I do is read the book. I attend no meetings, and do not interact with anyone (aside from the Internet) on a daily basis who reads the Course. I have altered no behavior in my daily lifestyle as a result of reading the Course. It isn't a cult. Just a book. And I'm not saying you said this, but just to clarify, I didn't create all of these ACIM-related articles. I agree that some of them are of dubious importance, such as the ACIM church movement one, and a few others (come to think of it, Attitudinal Healing may not be of note either). But Helen Schucman herself is very notable with regard to ACIM, which itself has been deemed notable by Wikipedia consensus. -- Andrew Parodi 02:38, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - One could, with at least as much accuracy, question your own bias, seeing as your contribution list shows that you are significantly invested in these articles. For my part, I'm failing to see why believing that the entire ACIM movement (and thus, all related articles) is non-notable constitutes prima facie bad faith, nor what is objectionable about Ste4k's proper insistence on unbiased third party websites for verification; of course we're not going to take ACIM's uncorroborated word for its claims about itself, any more than we would about any other subject's own website. RGTraynor 00:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment I am presenting no bias. What did I present above? Facts. Click on each link and see that this person is indeed behind the deletion attempts of all of these pages.
The only "investment" is an investment in fairness. This editor is claiming that ACIM is not notable and not even a verifiable phenomenon, which is tantamount to saying that ACIM doesn't even exist. When we present the official websites of ACIM in attempts to prove that ACIM does exist and is notable, this editor ignores that and says they are not suitable.
Because I do read ACIM, it goes without saying that these articles are of interest to me. But that isn't the issue at hand. The issue is that most editors agree that ACIM is a notable topic, and this person is on his/her own campaign to contradict what is the consensus of many neutral editors.
You wrote: "For my part, I'm failing to see why believing that the entire ACIM movement (and thus, all related articles) is non-notable constitutes prima facie bad faith, nor what is objectionable about Ste4k's proper insistence on unbiased third party websites for verification...." In that same vein, I am failing to see why my presentation of facts (that this editor has nominated several ACIM-related articles for deletion and continues to deny that ACIM is notable and verifiable, often rejecting every reasonable bit of verification offered) should be discounted simply because I read ACIM and am paying attention to what this editor is doing. -- Andrew Parodi 01:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
You have presented only the flimsiest of assertions as your "facts". Plainly the same editor has filed these AfDs, but I've done the same when I've filed an AfD and found several linked and equally non-notable articles. So far, the vast majority of your contributions to these AfD debates involves spamming them all to claim vendetta, and far less about what elements of WP:BIO and the notability guidelines you believe these articles meet. Myself, I'd prefer to see less smokescreen and more debate on the merits, please. RGTraynor 06:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
If you agree that what I have presented is factual (that all these deletion nominations are filed by the same person), then how can it be a smokescreen? I suppose I've offered a factual smokescreen. Interesting.
The point in noting that this person filed many deletion attempts of related articles is in noting that this person singles out the same topics, likely because he/she doesn't like them personally. Personal dislike of a particular genre does not justify deletion of articles related to the genre.
The other thing that makes me think that this person does not like this genre and is attempting to rid Wikipedia of it, is that this person will not accept ANY verification that these topics exist. If you offer this person the official sites of these organizations, he/she cries "spam". If you offer the link to the Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com listings to demonstrate notability by way of high sales rank, again, he/she cries "spam". If you offer an article that discusses the notability of the topic, he/she contests the qualifications of the person who wrote the article. And then, after all of this has failed, the person turns around and accuses you of being "too close" to the article, in my case alledging that I'm making money off of this (all without evidence, I might add; I make NO money off of ACIM). There is no winning with this person. It becomes evident that he/she just doesn't like this topic at all.
I agree that the article is not very well written at present. I didn't start this article and I only started working on it after this deletion nomination. But the issue here is notability, not the quality of writing. -- Andrew Parodi 07:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge to ACIM article. This has virtually nothing about anythign else. Just zis Guy you know? 12:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, as the author of a widely read, influential (if goofy) book, she is notable. Andrew Parodi has said he is improving the article, so let's give him a chance. JChap 19:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. A rather obvious keep to me. We have many articles on much less read authors. As we should. If the article has POV issues or other flaws then fix them, don't just delete. Shanes 08:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete or, fail that merge per jzg. Seems like a few committed sould running around filling up WP with diverse content spun from the ACIM to give the fringe movement a reputable web presence and then preying upon the good faith assumptions and consensus approach of WP editors. Bringing an article to AfD is designed to promote discussion and certainly does not entail automatic deletion. Insofar as this debate helps clarify the value of such articles, accusations of bad faith are unhelpful and come across as contrarian. Eusebeus 13:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment Talk about a lack of good faith.... I am not the one who started this article or most of the other articles that Ste4k is nominating for deletion. They were mostly started by another guy whose intentions you are not aware of. I think they were started by him because he truly believed these were notable topics. To be honest, I myself, a student of the Course, was surprised that he thought certain things about ACIM deserved pages. But on the other hand, I think it is wrong that Ste4k (or whatever) is attempting to have all these pages deleted simply because he/she doesn't like this topic. That's all any of this is really about. -- Andrew Parodi 21:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
  • This one seems obvious... keep. No idea who she is, never read her book, but it has sold millions of copies apparently. Authors of works such as this are notable. I did a little research and found her name in many publications. Need me to name them? While the content of the article may need work, ithe entire article need not be deleted. --LV (Dark Mark) 14:08, 30 June 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.