Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mendel Shapiro

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. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 19:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mendel Shapiro

Mendel Shapiro (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This person is totally not notable either as a rabbi or as a noted scholar. The sole purpose of this article is to use him in order to promote an agenda of {{Jewish feminism}} by User:Shirahadasha the creator of this article who is singularly devoted to promoting one agenda: Getting Orthodox Judaism to change its views and rules regarding the roles of men and women. This article violates WP:NN, WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, and fails WP:BIO because it's only here to promote the extreme Modern Orthodox views of an editor in violation of WP:COI. IZAK 09:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• NOTE: See related votes at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Sperber and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tova Hartman
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions. IZAK 09:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete for above reasons. IZAK 09:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The relevant guideline is WP:BIO, whose central notability criteria is publication in multiple reliable sources. Rabbi Shapiro easily meets this criterion. As to scholarly coverage within his field, the Rabbinical Council of America, North America's largest Orthodox Rabbinical association, devoted a considerable part of an issue of its scholarly journal Tradition to comments on Rabbi Shapiro, see e.g. [1], which specifically identifies R. Shapiro's contribution as notable, and [2], who calls it "important". See also [3], by Yehudah Herzl Henkin, a major Posek, whose scholarly commentary also asserts that Shapiro's contribution is notable. In addition to scholarly coverage, there is also extensive media coverage by e.g. [4], [5],[6], [7], [8] --Shirahadasha 09:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Shira we all know how to use Google, but let's try using our brains as well. While Mendel Shapiro may be a fine man, he is just one of tens of millions of lawyers and hundreds of thousands of minor rabbis over the ages in the world with nice articles about them and with books they may have had published here and there, BUT that would in no way qualify them to become icons or guides for new ways of re-inventing Judaism. What you are saying Shira, is that this pesron, because he is a lawyer with a "semichah" yet and has had his words printed can now come forth and change Judaism and as you argue in the article that that is his "claim to fame" -- nowhere in Jewish history have lawyers had ANY standing in the world of Torah study and they have zero significance as innovators of Jewish customs and certainly their opinions mean nothing in Jewish law. So in that regard he is totally not notable. By way of example: The Jews for Jesus can also claim to have WP:RS but that still gives them less than ZERO credibility in the world of Judaism. Wikipedia cannot teach lies it has a responsibilty to facts as well. IZAK 09:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - while not agreeing with much of the above, the article does not assert notability. The only reference is a paper by the subject and all of the references listed above either mention shapiro in passing or refer only to the paper that is the sole reference for the article. No evidence that Shapiro has been the subject of multiple, independant, non-trivial published works - Peripitus (Talk) 11:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Delete - my first instinct was to say "See my comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Sperber", but I think, on reading the article, that I agree with Peripitus. The external links show only two independent sources, both fairly obscure outside the world of Jewish study, and this person doesn't have the same claim to notability as Sperber. However, I would like to reprimand the nominator again for clearly promoting a POV, and would like to clarify that whether or not something has "credibility in the world of Judaism" is not a criterion for deletion on Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not judge articles relating to religious figures based purely on what their co-religionists think of them; we apply the same neutral notability standards to all biographies. Walton monarchist89 12:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment' WP:BIO requires only notability due to major contribution within ones field, notabilitiy outside it is not required. There are multiple articles asserting Shapiro made a major contribution --Shirahadasha 18:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC) Modified article to make notability assertion clearer. --Shirahadasha 04:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Keep - fair enough, the sources now appearing in the article are sufficient to establish notability. Walton monarchist89 10:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep if we would have gone just by WP:N in the nomination I probably would have had less of a problem with voting delete, but it is very hard to do that if the basis of the nomination is the fact that somebody does not like the content of it. On the other hand, all the pains certain people go through to get the Jewish Feminism out of Wikipedia in itself shows that the theme is noted and therefore notable Alf photoman 13:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Changed to keep in light of the references found by David Eppstein Alf photoman 23:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Merge into Partnership Minyan. He is not notable- he just wrote one article, used by others. --Jayrav 14:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Thoroughly NN posek, not even important enough to merge - Tragic Baboon (banana receptacle) 15:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. If this AfD was presented on its own merits, my view might change, but I don't believe in rewarding obvious bad faith nominations. It says much about the nom that his rebuttal comments are nearly a complete cut-and-paste from the Daniel Sperber AfD. RGTraynor 20:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Not notable Avi 15:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Four relevant articles in Google News Archive, one in current Google news seem clearly enough for WP:BIO. The theological validity of his views is irrelevant for determining notability. Bad faith nomination. —David Eppstein 16:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep for similar reasons as for Tova Hartman. If it werent clear that this was not a good faith nomination for lack of notability, the AfDs on the three of them together would make it very clear.DGG 01:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep he's notable Kolindigo 07:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Shira. JoshuaZ 06:15, 25 February 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.