Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Youth ministry

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 moving and/or rewriting don't require AfD Eluchil404 02:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Youth Ministry (Evangelical)

Content is highly biased. This page is more of an advertisement than an encyclopedia article. Deletionmonitor 21:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

• The above user tried to list this article for July 30th, but appears to have failed when it came to adding the discussion page to the main AfD page for that day. I finished the process for him, but listed it for today to give it the full discussion period.--Musaabdulrashid 03:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• WeakSpeedy Keep the majority of the article is encyclopedic, though the Youth ministry and society section makes me want to hurl. Youth ministry does interact with society in many ways, but this section is POV garbage. This section should focus on the conflicting views of youth ministry and critisisms of it being a point of brainwashing for youth into their parents evangelical backgrounds (or whatever we have sources for). It should also be noted on the top of this article that the youth ministry described here is entirely Protestant. Most Catholic youth I know hold complete distain for Protestant youth ministy.--Musaabdulrashid 02:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

*Strong keep. Article has references, it just needs to be cleaned up and cited. Please consider withdrawing your nomination. SynergeticMaggot 03:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy keep. The nomination is this users first contribution. See here. SynergeticMaggot 03:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Not an advertisement. Also per SynergeticMaggot --Ageo020 04:04, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or Rewrite. Ehh.. I hate to go against the crowd but I believe the entire "Youth ministry and society" is POV crap, and either the whole article should go or someone needs to rewrite this part. --Popcorn2008 04:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - Not an advertisement, but the article does need some rewriting. Youth ministries, whether you agree with them or not, have socially impacted society at various times, and is a historical fact. Akradecki 05:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable aspect of Christianity. --Metropolitan90 05:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep This article is crappy, but it still belongs on Wikipedia mboverload@ 05:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Please note the possibility of moving this article to a namespace more specific to protestant youth ministry and creating an entirly new article incorperating youth ministries from a variety of faiths as discussed on Talk:Youth ministry. This article is inherently POV because it describes "Youth ministry" in the sense of a promotional phrase used by Evangelical churches to expand their young membership, and not "Youth ministry" in the literal meaning of the term: the active practice and education of a particular religion or faith toward young people. We can easily move the article and write a new one withouth going through AfD. Also per SynergeticMaggot.--Musaabdulrashid 05:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep & Move:Keep the current article, but move it to Youth ministry (Evangelical) or Youth ministry (Christian). Make Youth ministry a neutral, inclusive article, which does not focus on any one faith's form of ministry for their youth. HellaNorCal 06:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been meaning to do this for some time, in fact. See the talk page.HellaNorCal 06:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Deletion and cleanup are two entirely different things. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy delete as empty: the article restates the title and offers no other information. Youth ministry is ministry for...youth. There is no application to any particular practice, any particular religion (although Christianity is assumed). There is no information offered. This is not a stub: it is a dictionary definition with headings. Geogre 13:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Nota bene: An important note, here. My "vote," above applies to the mess that is currently residing at the title this AfD refers to. Apparently, someone redirected the article that everyone above me was voting on, and then someone else overwrote the redirect. Because of this, I cannot speedy delete the vandalized new mess. Apparently, the votes above refer to Youth Ministry (Evangelical). This is why you should not do the redirect while an article is under AfD consideration because someone else is likely to screw it up. Also note that the new title violates the naming conventions. Ugh. Geogre 14:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Explanation: I'm sure it was done in good faith this time, but redirecting and then overwriting is a very, very bad move and can be read as an attempt to evade process. Geogre 17:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Yea, that was me. Before I saw the AfD thing, because it's something I've been meaning to do for so long. Shoulda just done it a week ago. Sorry for the confusion, didn't mean to cause trouble with it. HellaNorCal 06:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
    • No harm, no foul. It's just that bad people could do the same thing to really mess stuff up. Geogre 14:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
• Major rewrite would be necessary at the new title, including a change of name. The article is highly POV, and I don't mean the point of view of "evangelicals." First, that particular term has been hijacked in the last 30 years or so, so what this article is about is a single tradition of Congregationalism, which is not all of the evangelical churches. There is not nearly enough objectivity in the present article. That said, it is not a deletion policy violation at a proper title. Note that "proper title" means "Youth ministry (Evangelical)" (miniscule second term). Geogre 14:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with Geogre that the text of the article should not have been moved while under AfD, particularly to Youth Ministry (Evangelical) which is not even capitalized correctly ("ministry" should be in lower case). I would prefer that the content be restored to what it was before, then if the AfD ends with a keep result, add information about non-evangelical youth ministry to the main article, breaking out the evangelical content to a separate article only when the article gets too big. --Metropolitan90 14:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
    • This is a major headache, but the move should probably stay as it is, other than the naming conventions. I specifically noted to HellaNorCal that it shouldn't be moved during AfD, anyway. I would be in favor of renaming the article to match naming conventions for now. In the long run, the two articles should probably be merged and the POV content of the current one deleted. I have changed the title of this AfD to (hopefully) prevent more confusion. If there is any better way to handle this mess please fix it.--Musaabdulrashid 19:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Article needs expansion, improvement and citations, but it addresses a notable topic. Rohirok 16:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep & clean, as per several noms above. Themindset 17:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Move back to youth ministry and keep. The move was ill-advised, as the article can hardly be globalized/neutralized when the term is inherently Christian. -- nae'blis 19:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm a Unitarian Universalist, and I'm not a Christian. UUs are not inherently christian, yet we still Minister both to and with our Youth. We refer to that whole group of things as Youth ministry. Youth ministry is not inherently christian. HellaNorCal 06:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Hello UU! I probably did generalize a bit too much there with "inherently", but the term is overwhelmingly Christian in application. UU congregations/non-Evangelicals do sometimes use the term, but I'm not yet convinced that the differences are so great that it requires two separate articles. I'd be happy to discuss this further if/when the article is kept, or on my talk page if it is not. -- nae'blis 17:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
      • As would I. I've seen the term used most recently, by the UUA, in the Consultation on Ministry to and with youth. I think you hinted at this not being the place for discussion, so it's for another time. HellaNorCal 21:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
• Rename to Youth Ministry and keep - This article definitely needs a rewrite (which I hope to get to work on within a few more days), but youth ministry is an hugely important concept across Christian denominations — never mind that it's my field of work. The move (and title itself) were ill advised, as pointed out above; in any case, I disagree that there's enough uniqueness about "Evangelical" youth ministry (which is often a subjective term anyway) to distinguish it from other denominations to the point that it requires a separate article. I don't mean to claim ownership, but I've got a personal interest in this one and intend to do some serious work on it. Tijuana Brass^¡Épa! 20:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment - For those interested in contributing to this article after the AfD, I'm working on a userfied copy at User:Tijuana Brass/Youth ministry. Input would be greatly appreciated, especially to keep my personal experiences and POV from seeping into the article. Thanks. Tijuana Brass^¡Épa! 01:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep and move back to youth ministry. AFD is not a cleanup tag, and the POV can be removed. --Coredesat talk. ^_^ 00:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 01:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment:The reason for the move of the current article to Youth ministry (Evangelical) is because that's what the article is about (That's how the article still introduced itself, last time I checked). However, Youth ministry is a much broader concept than just an aspect of christianity. Muslims, Jews, Unitarians, many other faiths all have different ways of ministering to/with their Youth, and Youth ministry should be an overview article, non-specific to any one faith. HellaNorCal 06:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and tag for cleanup and expansion. --Ezratrumpet 05:31, 5 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.