Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Secular-progressives

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 Merge into Bill O'Reilly (commentator). For now, I'm going to make it a redirect to there; the current contents will still be visible in the history, so anybody who wants to merge material can find it there. If, at some future time, the term gains more widespread use, especially in the mainstream press, it may be worthy of its own article. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Secular_progressives

Secular_progressives (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

The page refers to an invective neologism created and used by only one author. While people can consider themselves secular and progressive, there are no political or social organizations or commentators that use the term "secular progressive" to refer to themselves. As such, this term is similar to femi-nazi, in that the only current use and discussion of it is from a biased source.

Until such time as a political or social origination or commentator takes up this label or, like the term femi-nazi, it becomes widespread enough that commentators other than Bill O'Riley can use it, I suggest this term cannot meet Wikipedia's standards. Maria Caliban 06:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• delete not to mention that it's horribly POV without any real response included from the other side, the use of direct quotations tells me that this probably wasn't meant as an attack at all by the author, but including only one side of a definition tends to carry a strong negative connotation. That, and it's a neologism used by one author (apparently), until it's reported on in it's own right, it's just not notable. Wintermut3 08:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Unlike the current spirited debate about Santorum (sexual slang), this one doesn't really have much to talk about - no uses at all beyond O'Reilly.--Dmz5 10:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. The current article is completely one-sided, yet any attempt to bring the article in line with WP:NPOV would be original research, because the term is not widespread enough to have attracted attention from those representing other POVs. -- Cat Whisperer 12:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete This article represents one person's(Bill O'Riley) point of view --- Safemariner 13:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Keep, but cite cultural/political effect Quick google search of the exact phrase has ~82,000 hit, most of them from political blogs, but some from verifiable news agencies. The problem with the argument of "neoligism" in this case is that a) it passes notability and b) the two words are both weighted ones in politics so will be put together at least occasionally, whether by Bill O'Reilly or not. In this case, as much as it personally pains me, O'Reilly's use of the term has been a part of the political discourse of the last several years. I'd like this article cleaned up, given minimal POV, and focus on the effect of the term on the political culture than on strict "definition", but it IS a term currently in play and I don't feel we can hide our heads in the sand about it. Regarding the two previous delete arguments that refer to POV: Remember that NPOV is NOT an argument for deletion in AfD debates, since POV issues should be taken care of by editing an article, not deleting it. -Markeer 13:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I still vote for delete, but in the meantime I will be editing the article using these 82,000 hits to provide the opposing POV. -- Cat Whisperer 16:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added some opposing POV to the article, but seeing how most of the 82,00 hits were blogs, that's where the opposing POV came from. I've also taken a look at the main Bill O'Reilly (commentator) article, which already mentions Secular Progressives, and which already details O'Reilly's political views, and I don't see what this new article adds to the subject. -- Cat Whisperer 15:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep As the primary author of this article, I am disappointed with the arguments in favor of its deletion. I support the existence of this article NOT because I wrote it, but for two, very sound reasons:

1. As stated above, the perceived POV of the article does not add to its "deletability." The term "secular-progressive" highlights a viewpoint of a particular political group: of course the article will be one-sided.

In fact, if we were to extend the arguments presented on this page, ANY article on Wikipedia could be deleted just for having a point of view! What kind of intellectual climate does this create?

2. The Wikipedia guidelines on neologisms state that such articles "should be edited to ensure they conform with the core Wikipedia policies: no original research and verifiability." This article uses no original research, and has been verified to an extensive degree. Having a CBS news article talk specifically about the term surely indicates that this is not a "school-child" phrase.

Remember, also, that the guidelines on neologisms are, by definition, guidelines. Official Wikipedia POLICY states that subjects must only be verifiable to have a page on Wikipedia. As previously demonstrated, this article is verifiable.

As such, I support the keeping of this article on two grounds: one, that perceived "point-of-view" discrepancies are not grounds for deletion, and two, that this particular neologism is verifiable and notable.

• Delete. O'Reilly-cruft. No different than phrases made up by schoolchildren. --- RockMFR 19:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Bill O'Reilly said it, so it was obviously made up at the spur of the moment and forgotten by everybody else a minute later. Maddy626 09:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete it's already listed as a neologism on his article, no need for the cruft here. SkierRMH 23:31, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Fails the test required by the guideline Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms. We need reliable sources about the term before we have an article, not just sources that use the term. GRBerry 03:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Merge I would find a place to merge this information and leave this as a redirect, possibly to an article on O'Reilly. Like him or not he is a notable figure who is affecting our culture. To ignore him would be an oversight.
• Unless it can be shown that someone significant other than Bill O'Reilly has adopted this term, and that this also is a subject with encyclopedic content and not merely a dictionary definition, this material belongs in the article on Bill O'Reilly.--OinkOink 10:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Merge to Bill O'ReillyBMan1113VR 03:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep O'Reilly is making this a popular discription of a political affiliation. It will probably end up in the ditionary and the use of it will go up. May as well keep the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.101.96.245 (talk) 09:50, 28 December 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.