Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spiritual Agnosticism

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 delete as confused WP:OR; I have also blocked all the sockpuppet accounts. Sandstein 21:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spiritual Agnosticism

Spiritual Agnosticism (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Note to the closing admin: Please see Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Kpkambo. It appears that the author of this article has assembled three sock puppets to argue in favor of keeping this article. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 16:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Make that eight. Dethme0w 02:26, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem with lack of outside sources has been corrected. In addition to adding an "See Also" section earlier, I have just now added an "External Links" section. This effectively answers complaints of OR that led to nomination for deletion.Kpkambo 02:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No it hasn't, none of the cites actually pertain to the subject. And, you've been cheating on the vote. STOP DELETING THE NOTE TO ADMINS. That is vandalism. Dethme0w 03:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Article seems non-notable, could be merged into main agnosticism article. şœśэїŝәқι 05:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep The article is fairly orignal to keep it on its own. If kept it should be cleaned up slightly.
• Comment The article appears to violate WP:OR and reads like a high school or junior college essay. I have placed an Unreferenced tag on the page, let's see what happens. --   dethme0w   05:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• KeepIf you're placing an unref tag, why nom for deletion yet?JJJ999 05:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the unref tag was placed after the AfD nom. I'm waiting for some refs (refs regarding the article's claims and assertions, not cites for Gandhi's quotes, by the way) before I vote either way. --   dethme0w   07:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep The article certainly does not violate WP:OR. Also, I have added a "reference/see also" section, and I have cited some of Ghandi's quotes (at least the ones that I could find). Why should the article be deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kpkambo (talk • contribs) 05:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

You're addressing the Wikification tag pretty well, as far as Wikilinks go anyway. But you still have no references whatsoever. I am not talking about specious ones like citing Gandhi's quotes. I mean you need to refer to secondary sources directly on the subject of Spiritual Agnosticism. Where did the statements/facts in this article come from? That's what needs to be referenced (using <ref> tags - look them up, they're useful!). If the answer to this last question is "the statements came from Kpkambo's brain" then what we have is Original Research, and the article thus fails WP:OR. --   dethme0w   07:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

• Delete One could create quite a slew of similar articles, monistic monotheism, materialistic pantheism, non-hierarchical polytheism, unspiritual fundamentalism, intellectual shamanism...--Victor falk 12:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep- until opportunity is given to add references and cleanup...JJJ999 13:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - Article is unreferenced and full of O.R. (e.g., unsourced statements like "Some spiritual agnostics say..."). The issues with this article suggest to me that even if the term itself was notable independently of Agnosticism, of which the burden of proof has yet to be met, it would require a ground-up rewrite per some of the criticisms already mentioned. ◄Zahakiel► 17:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per JJJ999 et al., as it appears to have junk in it, but asserts notability and is sufficiently new in content and synthesis to merit its own article. I'll clean up the obvious messes, but as it is not my area of interest ( I'm an Episcopalian), I can not do any major clean-up. Bearian 19:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment - It it appears to look "new in content" because someone made it up. Can you find references showing that this is different from agnosticism, even if it's noted in reliable sources? I don't see anything that significantly distinguishes these two topics; it's still completely unreferenced. ◄Zahakiel► 13:16, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

• • OF COURSE it is differenciated from agnosticism. Did you even read the article?Kpkambo 10:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
    • I have, and being quite familiar with agnosticism I do not see any significant distinction. I am waiting to see any verifiable information that would justify using that term as even a starting point for an acceptable article. Can you provide any references that point out the notability of this term? ◄Zahakiel► 16:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Mostly OR with a little superficial lip service to Gahndi. I don't see how this is any different than vanilla Agnosticism anyway. humblefool® 04:57, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The article is not biased in any way and remains completely neutral. It provides factual information in an clear, unbiased format. The information in the article will benefit the Wikipedia community as a whole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kpkambo (talk • contribs) 17:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You only get one vote. Neutrality is not the issue - WP:OR is. -- Dethme0w 18:04, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Delete. No effort whatsoever has been made to provide references or to show in any other way that this is anything other than a pile of OR. Lots of dancing around the issue by adding superficial wikilinks and formatting, but no indication of any kind that anyone else anywhere has ever written on this subject. And its creator is trying to cheat on the AfD vote. -- Dethme0w 18:04, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep What is wrong with you people? This is a good article that provides quality information. If absolutely necessary, perhaps someone can add an OR tag to the article. Sure, the author may eventually want to go back and look for his sources, but some of you are being really harsh. Keep the article, and if your too religious to be tolerant of it, then just don't read it. Gtdude 21:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It's ALL OR, that is the problem. There is not a single cite. It needs to go. Why do you suggest that those who are voting to delete are doing so for relgious reasons? -- Dethme0w 04:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Some of you need to really put things in perspective and stop being such deletionists. WIKI IS NOT PAPER. You can leave the Unreferenced tag in, but why would you delete it?Tao300 21:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Because 100% of it fails WP:OR. Wiki!=Paper may be so, but Wikipedia has standards and this article fails at least one of them clearly. -- Dethme0w 04:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I agree with Gtdude. The article is of a good quality, and it will have a positive educational impact on those who read it. I think that some of those who are voting 'delete' may only be doing so because they think that their own religion is threatened. There is no room for prejudice on Wikipedia. Let's keep the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lordoftheflies123 (talk • contribs) 03:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Again, prejudice has nothing to do with why this article should be deleted. It's original research. We call it original research because the article has no references. This fact was pointed out, and no one added any references. Were no references added because those who vote to delete have some bible-based agenda? Or because the references do not exist? Occam's razor insists on the latter. This article fails WP:OR and that is why it should be deleted. -- Dethme0w 04:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Occam's razor? Lordoftheflies123 10:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Keep what does that even mean? whatever, i think that spiritual agnosticism brings up some great points. we can leave an unreferenced tag like jordan said instead of deleting it. plenty of articles (including the agnostic main page) have such tags, but they are not deleted. i don't know y this dethmeow wants to delete the article so badly.Velvetluvr 22:14, 9 October 2007

Who is Jordan?

• Keep*

this article rocks —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:68.209.121.58 (talk • contribs)

• Delete agnostic believing there is a spirit in this article After reading Agnosticism more closely and much and harrowing soul-searching, I think one could say there is such a thing as "spiritual agnosticism". Though I still think this article is in very dire need of a complete rewrite (which is probably what elicited this afd)--Victor falk 20:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment - One could say it, probably... but until there are some reliable sources saying it, describing it as a legitimate spiritual designation, using it in a sentence of key importance, do you really think it merits a Wikipedia article? ◄Zahakiel► 23:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Seek, and One Shall Find: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]--Victor falk 00:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean the various blogs and forums to which your external links point? I'm sorry, there is no part of reliable sources that is satisfied by those, not even the casual, passing mention in a Washington Post article and the appearance of the words in a few books for which (in none of them) is it the subject, or is it differentiated from basic agnosticism, or does it validate or describe anything in the entry (or any potential entry) because they don't describe the term in any detail. Notability requires significant coverage, and I have yet to see that. For example, the last link you provide, from "Google Scholar" does not return that term in any of the articles that come up. You'll find - reading results of the search - that it appears in phrases like, "Seventy-five percent reported that they accepted religious beliefs and 21% categorized themselves as spiritual/agnostic," (which validates the position that they are not notably different concepts) or happenstance combinations of words such as, "(whether someone identified him- or herself as religious, spiritual, agnostic, or atheist...)" If you would like to see the article kept, I think somebody's going to have to come up with some verifiable sourcing. Knowing how to use Google myself, I did look before commenting here. ◄Zahakiel► 06:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you're cherrypicking ("blogs and forums" and like I've found only one scholar paper) irrelevant hits, it seems to me they are sources among that respectable amount. Nevertheless I change my beliefs to agnostic believing there is a spirit in this article to I've lost my faith, because it would need a comprehensive rewrite if kept--Victor falk 08:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I did read over every hit on your list, so I wasn't just choosing the irrelevant ones. None of them I saw would truly satisfy the criteria for sourcing the entry, because although a few of them may use the phrase "spiritual agnostic," they don't go into detail about what it is, they don't give it any real (much less "significant") coverage; and although your search of the scholarly articles did return several results, none of them were actually about spiritual agnosticism... they just used those words in ways that had them randomly combining to show up in your search string.

I think you do see that there are major problems with this topic - and not just with the current incarnation of the entry. I don't know that there will never be an encyclopedic article about this subject, because a few people have "used" the term to mean something... but that "something" seems to change with the intent of the author, and doesn't result in any kind of cohesive material. For now I can't think of anything more reasonable to do than delete the current content and redirect to Agnosticism on the off chance that someone, some time, will decide to search on something they might have heard or read somewhere. ◄Zahakiel► 14:36, 11 October 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.