Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Chi Delta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Revisiting of the subject generally

Hey everyone. I have started to form the underpinnings of a project that would add information about every chapter of Beta Theta Pi in Canada and the United States. As you can tell by the Project site, I've done a good deal of prep work on this and have already created a site for the ZT Chapter of Beta, which I think is a great example of what a good, NPOV chapter article can be and what each chapter article in the Beta universe will be modeled upon.

Since I was fortunately directed here by a fellow Fraternity/Sorority article enthusiast, I do however see that there have been reservations about such projects in the past. Judging from the responses, it appears most of the reservations were on content and NPOV grounds, and rest assured, I would have similar concerns. Just today I was working with the Beta Theta Pi general fraternity page trying to mediate an NPOV dispute. Yet, I think if we are going to really make this a (for all intents and purposes) omniscient encyclopedia, this sort of descendent expansion from the general fraternity topic should be expected, encouraged, and supported like other similar projects have. Individual chapters often have very different histories from that of the national body, and these histories should be noted on this website.

I offer up the example of Jesuit high schools to illustrate my point. Certainly, high schools affiliated with the Society of Jesus have a lot in common, but there is plenty of reason for why Wikipedia should (and does) allow for a differentiation between them. Here's a list I created for those high schools' pages. Scan through them, and you'll see they all (of course) have very distinct histories and warrant their own pages.

I would argue that fraternity chapters are very similar in this regard, and as such, they warrant notation as well so long as there is enough NPOV content to back them up. If it's only a founding date and a school, then that's it, but that's more information that people can access here at Wikipedia than they could before. (See the Epsilon Lambda page) Rest assured, I and the other project managers that will come will be sure to keep the quality standards high as interest in writing interesting and neutral articles for those chapters increases. I only request that we be given the opportunity to facilitate that interest.

I have brought this issue to your attention because I feel strongly about this project, and I believe that chapters should be written about in Wikipedia just like private high schools, minor league baseball teams, even minor league baseball draftees, and other sub-groupings of larger groups are. Please tell me what reservations you might have so I might address them, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Thank you for your time!