User:Colin MacLaurin/CSDA

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(Copied from my post on the talk page of Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church. See the section with follow-up comments by others.)

[edit] Former mentions in other articles

The CSDA group has been mentioned in several other articles in the past. I believe most cases have been undue weight, although many of these times it appears to have been an innocent mistake. The history I have discovered of its appearance in other Wikipedia articles is interesting:

[edit] History

On 4 November 2002, an editor created a detailed article "Millerite". The last section, "Denominations in the Millerite tradition" contained the text, "(Permission is being sought to link or copy an index of Millerite churches)". On the 6th the editor replaced this with a list of dozens of churches: presumably permission was granted from this existing source outside of Wikipedia. [He later told me by email the material came from here.] The material was removed and branched off to form the new article "Millerites". (A redirect was left behind, and the next edit was in 2004 to make into a disambiguation page, and in 2005 was made into an article on the mineral of the same name.)

On 18 July 2003, the same editor cut the list and pasted it into List of Christian denominations. (I would later remove it on 20 December 2007. I then realised that the page does not mention any notability criteria for the list, so I'm not sure if it should have a place there or not.)

The Adventist page started as a tiny stub in early 2002, and later became a disambiguation page. CSDA was added by an anonymous editor on 4 June 2006. There was a "surprising" reordering on 5 October 2006. On 31 January 2007 an editor converted it to a full article, expanding each entry, including CSDA, into its own section. This was no doubt done in good faith, but resulted in very "undue weight" being given to this group. I moved it to the bottom of the "Seventh-day Adventist" list on 8 March 2007, and removed it on 28 August. An anonymous editor replaced it on 14 November, before I removed it again on 9 December 2007, explaining on the talk page it was undue weight.

Template:Adventism was created on 8 January 2007 by a non-Adventist editor, who added this and other groups on the same day. This perfectly paralleled the "Adventist" page at that time: the same 8 groups were listed in identical order. I removed it from the template on 15 February, explaining on the talk page. An anonymous editor reinstated it on 5 March, before I reverted it the next day.

Nontrinitarianism was added to on by a church member on 15 September 2006. I removed it on 20 December 2007.

Seventh-day Adventist Church experienced an addition on 3 May 2006, removed on 27 May by an editor accused of sockpuppetry, reinstated by the CSDA article creator on the 29th, and removed on the same day by another editor. This page has been edited a lot, and there may be many occurrences. One is a removal on 13 October 2006.

Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church was created on 1 May 2006 by an editor who later claimed independence from the group. It was nominated for deletion on 17 December 2006, and again on 20 December 2007.

Conclusion: References to Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church have existed in a number of Wikipedia articles, often staying for months or years. While List of Christian denominations seems very inclusive of content, mentioning it on the other articles is dubious due to "undue weight" or a small minority view. Many of these incidences appear to have been made in good faith, although some others are questionable to say the least, for example the reversion on the template. We must assume it is possible these were made in good faith. Colin MacLaurin (talk) 22:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[Can't believe I spent so long on that! Curious I guess] —Col 22:58, 27 December 2007 (UTC)