Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Historical persecution by Christians

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 Keep. I agree with User:Xezbeth, this is a fairly clear consensus so I don't see why this was relisted in the first place. Non-admin closure. Ten Pound Hammer • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps•Review?) 13:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Historical persecution by Christians

Historical persecution by Christians (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)
Note: I have relisted this debate because the AFDs cited by the nominator had "delete" outcomes. It may be worth revisiting this particular article. --Coredesat 04:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Historical persecution by Jews (2nd nomination) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Historical persecution by Muslims (2nd nomination) PEAR (talk) 06:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The editors present specific acts of violence/intolerance that are unified by nothing except the fact that the perpetrators were Christian; however, the reader is invited to infer a string of history through these unconnected events. This is perhaps most apparent in the section Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Colonialism which is a laundry list, nothing more. This is a terrible synthesis and, while the topic is no doubt valuable, the article is not. Bigdaddy1981 00:38, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete - WP:OR forbids "novel narratives." The Behnam 18:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment I don't see how this amounts to a "novel narrative". Sure, it combines information from several sources, but it doesn't make any implications that aren't present in any of them. The basic facts are verifiable, and the article as a whole presents no thesis that isn't presented in at least one of its sources. JulesH 18:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, passes WP:V, WP:RS, seems to avoid any WP:OR. Nom's reasons are fairly weak. Ten Pound Hammer • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps•Review?) 18:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - no reason for deletion given. // Liftarn
  • Keep. Perhaps a better name for it can be drummed up (I can't think of one) but I see no obvious reasons to delete this. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 19:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Defintitely needs clean-up and a little more sourcing, but it's not OR. Cap'n Walker 19:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Valid topic, needs work. --Hemlock Martinis 22:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. The issues are best explained in their main article; not in an article about Christianity. Regarding this article, it assumes a modern definition of "persecution"(measured using the modern ideas of human rights etc etc) and applies it to the time where common understanding on the issue were different. This does not mean that those who were "persecuted" didn't feel any pain. In order to explain my point better, I'll give an example. We kill animals today, don't we? Let's assume that the science progresses and we can make artificial meat. After awhile people will become more sensitive with respect to animal rights and may look back at us and call us all "persecutors". Is that fair? No. Do animals suffer now by us? Yes... Today, Governments draw strict boundaries separating their countries from their neighbors. They discriminate between people living inside the border and those living outside but very close to the border in the sense of providing welfare and granting certain rights to their own citizens. But all these borders are artificial. Is this really "discrimination"? At least not today but later generation might add that to the wikipedia...I am not saying that such an article can not exist. Persecution has always been a reality and it has been naturally practiced at times by those who were in power. If Christians happened to be in the charge of an empire, wouldn't we expect persecutions? Of course we do. This should be addressed but should be addressed carefully. So, all in all I agree with The Behnam's comment above.--Aminz 23:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Of course it uses a modern definition of persecution. Because that's what a modern reader will understand by the word. The point is, though, that this word is used by the relevant historical textbooks, etc., so why should the fact that these acts may not have been considered persecution at the time they were performed have any bearing at all on the issue? All we should be aiming to do here is to faithfully report what the best available modern sources say about the events, and if they call them persecution (which they do), that's fine by me. And by WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. JulesH 08:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
      • There are other problems as well. Who is a Christian? Many Christians may believe that those who did many of the persecutions were not in fact Christians. They thought they were Christians. How can the definition of Christian be made really "NPOV"? --Aminz 11:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
        • By accurately and fairly summing up the opinions that have been published in reliable sources. Generally, such sources do not question that such people were Christians. JulesH 11:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment editors who can find no instances of OR, please read the section Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Colonialism carefully - it is quite stuffed with OR. Bigdaddy1981 00:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Is it? My understanding is that the ideas that Catholics persucted early Protestants, and that Christian colonials persecuted non-Christian natives are both well established theories well discussed in relevant literature. Certainly, a google book search finds large numbers of books that could be used to support such theories. JulesH 08:46, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
All of it is unsourced save the subsection "Massacres of Catholics in Ireland". It may not be incorrect OR, but its OR just the same. I don't deny that (as with the persecution by Muslims and persecution by Jews articles) the subject is one of encyclopedic value; I just think that all three of these articles are not valuable approximations of encyclopedia articles about the topics. Bigdaddy1981 18:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
There's a difference between "unsourced" and "original research". Please read WP:ATT, which makes the distinction quite clearly. Being unsourced is a problem that can be fixed. Being original research cannot generally be fixed without deleting the content. JulesH 20:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Oh, so Jews and Moslems didn't persecute people, just Christians, huh? Well... that's different, then. Generally, I don't like group nominations, although in this case, it probably would have been better if we had had a "persecution package". I don't blame the nominator at all, since so many of us (myself included) grouse about mass nominations being unfair. Maybe the delete on all three of these should be revisited, since they're debated on different days. Mandsford 00:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Per TenPoundHammer. Well, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition! Edison 02:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete This article is not more than a sum of its parts. Also delete all other "persecution by" articles. Beit Or 18:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep — It's a fundamental part of history, even if it makes people squirm a little. Better to learn from the dark side of history than to ignore it. — RJH (talk) 18:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete It is intrinsically OR to discuss persecution by Christians, because various people define persecution and Christian differently. Most of the events that entail "persecution by Christians" are mention in the appropriate articles elsewhere. Logophile 07:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Article is a worthless POV laundry list which is essentially OR. Individual articles about specific incidents serve the purpose that this article supposedly does, without the OR and POV connection of the incidents as some sort of releated thread throughout history. Further, to underscore the POV nature of the article, much of the persecution was done by people who were nominally Christian for reasons unrelated, or largely unrelated, to their religion. The article creates the sometimes false impression that the persecution was done because they were Christian. Historical Persecution by Muslims and Historical Persecution by Jews should likewise be deleted for the same reasons. Mamalujo 22:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Look at the footnotes on this article. It is sourced very largely with primary sources. The section on the United States is almost entirely OR. Its all citations to the Texas Legislature, and the North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennesee and Massachusetts constitutions. Oh yes, and there is an opinion piece on Beliefnet by a Wiccan. Mamalujo 22:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep This article is a very notable and encyclopedic topic. Seems odd to me that the nominator gives no reason why this should be deleted and simply listed it. Saying religious persecution is an original research topic that cannot be treated with any neutrality may be the most asinine idea I've ever heard, considering it wasn't too long ago that a couple thousand New Yorkers died as the direct result of people with expressly religious reasons. And that was certainly covered in reliable sources. Not to mention say, the Spanish Inquistion and The Crusades. Acknowledging that acts of violence have been committed in the name of almost every religion is not inherently POV, it's the plain truth as verified by hundreds of reliable, published sources. No doubt all articles of this nature need to be closely watched to prevent POV and OR, but an article on the self-declared persecution for religious reasons by Christians throughout history is not OR in itself. Once again, an article that direly needs cleanup is not the same as a being unencyclopedic. VanTucky (talk) 22:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Worthless POV article. Who says who is Christian and who's not? --Raphael1 03:11, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. The material is well sourced and encyclopedic. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Conditional Delete - Articles that allege horrific things about a race or religious people are not encyclopaedic, and they all should be deleted. This one is no more worthy of deletion than any others alleging racial or religious bias. They all should be deleted. If the others remain, then this one should be kept too. Otherwise its demonstrating an unreasonable bias. - PS this one wasn't linked from the other 2 so I think some people missed it. 123.2.168.215 20:44, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Coredesat 04:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
That's a good idea. It doesn't make any sense to have this article while the two other articles are deleted. But maybe we can start over voting again (?) --Aminz 04:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete again per WP:SYNTH - This is taking a bunch of facts (or allegations) and grouping them under a big umbrella of "persecution by Christians". None of these are directly related to each other. Corpx 06:42, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Very weak keep - The article might have some hope of making a good historical article if all the pov is cleaned since Christians as well as the mayority of religions have indeed been known to practice discrimination aganist members of other religions, or did everybody forgot about the crusades and the genocide by Christian Spaniards while invading (mostly Latin) America? - Caribbean~H.Q. 07:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete: As per the similar articles "Historical persecution by X". It seems pretty clear from precedent that this should be deleted, not to mention OR and SYNTH issues. .V. [Talk|Email] 07:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per vantucky. Mathmo Talk 07:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, perfectly valid topic. I'm not understanding the relist, its a pretty clear consensus. —Xezbeth 11:26, 12 August 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.