Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religion and the internet

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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 keep, after DJ Clayworth's and Addhoc's excellent salvaging efforts. It's a well-referenced article; however, much of it does sound like an essay (one can tell just from reading the first sentence). Please try to remedy that. – Robert 14:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religion and the internet

Technical nomination, as a prod was applied to an article with a prior VFD discussion. No opinion from me at this time. Prod concern was "This article is an indiscriminate collection of information." GRBerry 13:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

For a June 2005 deletion debate over this page see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Church websites.
The following is the longer explanation from the talk page, by the prodder.
"the overall quality of this article is so low that if this article were deleted, the project wouldn't lose any usable content and we might be able to start over again on a better footing. An interesting point was made on the mailing list a few months ago that Wikipedia has proven to be an incredibly powerful engine for generating content—powerful enough that instead of holding onto crappy content and hoping to make something good out of it, perhaps it would be better to delete it, since keeping around poor content encourages more of the same.
What makes this article a poor article?
  • Arbitrariness: This article goes into deep detail about a couple of small, arbitrary issues, with little concern for proportion. Maybe 1/5th of the article, for instance, covers the scholarship of Adam Possamai, who by all appearances is a promising young researcher, but his work seems to be given undue weight. Are there really no other researchers of this topic who are important enough to name? Are their findings so insignificant as to not merit inclusion at all, while Possamai's take up a fifth of the article?
  • Citations: This article is not properly cited, and at best gives inline external links to a couple of random web pages.
  • No summary or organization, just an arbitrary collection of facts.
GRBerry 13:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete: as per PhilWelch (the comments by the prodder above). -- Jeff3000 13:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep This is indeed a horrible article with barely any useful content. However the subject is definitely one worth writing about. I will try to replace it with a stub over the next day or two. DJ Clayworth 13:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Article needs a cleanup, but author(s) have made good faith attempts to verifiably source their information. Subject seems notable. I'm hopeful this article can be tagged for cleanup and salvaged. If deleted, I'd be very open to this being reincarnated in a superior form later. Scorpiondollprincess 15:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as per DJ Clayworth and Scorpiondollprincess. Addhoc 15:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep the article seems viable, but needs a big clean up. It seems like it could be of some encyclopic worth though. Thε Halo Θ 16:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, this article doesn't know whether it wants to be a web directory or an essay, but neither is appropriate. Gazpacho 17:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
    • My comment applies as well to DJ's rewrite. There still does not appear to be any focus. With Battle of Normandy there was no question what the article needed to be about. Gazpacho 05:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm neutral on the article as it now stands. Gazpacho 07:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete unless rewritten per DJ Clayworth above. The article's sources are direct, making this original research. If the same article were made up of the detailed claims that this article currently has, but cited the arguments from a reliable source, the article would be entirely appropriate to include, because it is a notable phenomenon. However, since it does not, original research has no place in the project. --Kuzaar-T-C- 18:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep wow I'm voting keep. Anyway this is a huge topic the article as it stands is horrible and could do with a massive rewrite and perhaps a name change. Whispering(talk/c) 18:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Willing to change my vote to keep if and only if the article is improved to meet quality standards. — Philwelch t 19:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. After reading the article and even trying to rewrite it, I found very quickly that it was just complete nonsense. Dwayne Kirkwood 21:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as per above. — Deckiller 17:44, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep pending massive rewrite. DrL 19:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Good re-write by DJ Clayworth but still needs expansion. Large topic worthy of at least this stub. 69.225.15.5 17:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and Expand D166ER 18:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment although I'm not exactly an expert, D166ER could possibly be a sock puppet or something and has not discussed or edited articles. [1] Addhoc 18:41, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewritten version by DJ Clayworth

  • I have rewritten this article. It's very, very stubby, but I've tried to indicate that there is plenty of material out there which would make for an interesting article if only we let it grow. DJ Clayworth 04:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: DJ Clayworth has attempted to rewrite the article, but all we have (in my judgment) is the old article with some neat section breaks, and the same undue weight and arbitrary thrown-togetherness of information. My vote remains unchanged.— Philwelch t 04:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Phil, that's how all articles start. If you go back and look you will find that once even Battle of Normandy was a stubby little article with terrible writing, back three or four years ago. DJ Clayworth 04:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
      • Yes, but that's not the problem here. It's easy to see how a poorly written Battle of Normandy article could be expanded into something that gave a full, balanced, neutral, and comprehensive accounting of the matter at hand. It's not so easy to see how the current revision of Religion and the internet can be so expanded. We would be best off starting totally from scratch, and I was hoping you would do so, blanking and re-stubbing the article while providing at least an outline for future expansion. Instead, we're stuck with the same shit, neatly organized under little section headings. If we delete the article, someone will come back later and write a completely different article, unencumbered by the cruft that's accumulated there now. That would be the optimal outcome. — Philwelch t 04:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Mmm I see your point. I don't write most of what's there now, and it's pretty vague. I did cut out a lot of stuff. However if we are agreed that an article on this subject is deserved, then the logical thing is to vote keep and start the long process of arguing about what goes there. If we delete and re-start, the chances are that the same stuff will keep coming back. The best cure to bad content is good content. DJ Clayworth 14:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
KeepHi i just found this article and in this form it looks a good start to an interesting topic.Hypnosadist 21:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep This article is definitely improving, and I'm now ready to opine. My nomination was a technical nomination, so don't treat this opinion as a withdrawal by nominator. GRBerry 16:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as per DJ Clayworth. Bondegezou 16:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 AFD relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, Ezeu 22:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Unencyclopedic essay. --Ezeu 22:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per rewrite. Good job and amazingly NPOV. 205.157.110.11 23:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep I can certainly see a direction for an article under this topic, and what's there so far takes a good stab at one. Homestarmy 21:41, 13 August 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.