Wikipedia talk:Notability (local churches and other religious congregations)

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[edit] Instruction creep

Before we go creating yet another detailed notability guideline, I would like to seriously explore whether we could make some changes to an existing guideline to achieve the same end. Instruction creep is a serious problem for Wikipedia. Individualized pages may seem like a good thing because it gives editors the opportunity to "fine tune" the rules but it has the effect of accumulating inconsistencies across the various pages and makes it far more difficult for readers to understand and implement.

If we can consolidate the gist of this guideline into another page, if we can articulate the broad guiding principles rather than try to wikilawyer thousands of specific detail pages, the project will be better off.

So, having laid out my own broad objection, my specific suggestion is to merge this page into WP:ORG but I'm open to suggestions of a better destination page. Rossami (talk) 20:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes what the article is about is the building as well, and a building is not an organization. See Pilgrim Baptist above. It is a church, but it is also a building, which was formerly a synagogue.I object tht WP:ORG denies (with the weasel word "usually") that an organization is worthy of an article unless its scope is national or international. Seems very deletionist in its orientation. And I usually argue for deleting about ten articles for every one I want to keep. Per WP:ORG, an organization with 100 articles about it in independent reliable verifiable sources which all say it is the most important organization of its type in its town, its county, and its state would be subject to deletion because they did not say it had a strong national or international impact. WP:ORG says "The scope of this proposal covers political organizations (political parties and interest groups), professional organizations (labor unions and professional associations), service organizations, social organizations, academic clubs and honor societies " A local congregation which meets in a building in a given place is not well served being judged by a guideline set up to judge national and international organizations. WP:ORG might work for denominations, but not very well for local congregations. They would always fail, unless they had a national televangelist in the pulpit. Edison 00:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia well served by having local congregations of no special notability listed? In the US, I think there are about 100.000 of them; in the world - perhaps a few million. --Alvestrand 03:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Please read the proposed guidelines. It in no way calls for having an article for each and every church or coingregation. It has been cited as the basis for deleting many church articles as not satisfying WP:CONG. It does include criteria which can be cited to show that a particular congregation is notable. Edison 14:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
That is not a relevant question. What is relevant is whether we need a special standard of notability for congregations. I can't see why we do; WP:NOTE works just fine for them. GRBerry 04:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I've already said it's pointless having this merged into WP:ORG or whatever. The scope of a church extends much beyond the "organisation" scope or the building scope - there are so many things related to a church (clergy, community programs, etc etc etc), as I have suggested in my amendments to the existing guidelines, which were after all a first draft, and despite being good, were only a start. The consensus in a lot of places on Wikipedia seems to be "just about all churches are not notable", which quite frankly isn't acceptable. It would not be instruction creep to introduce this guideline - it is a sensible move which would clarify the existing vagueties that surround church articles on Wikipedia, and would expand to a sensible amount the number of churches that could be included. I'll ask again: can we adopt my amendments with any necessary changes and see how they go? JROBBO 08:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Up until now, decisions on church notability have had all the consistency of a blind archery contest. Perhaps WP:ORG or WP:LOCAL ought to be sufficient, but in practice this has not been the case for whatever reason. Raffles mk 20:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I've copied your proposal across. Someone had to bite the bullet, and it may as well be me. Raffles mk 21:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. JROBBO 05:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I Disagree with the proposed merge. Previous merge attempts for other proposals have amounted to a simple redirect which threw away all the collaborative editing which went into the merged proposal. A merge which bodily copied every criterion from here to a special "Congregation" section there would have to include critera specific to churches, in particular criteria 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11. Otherwise, people would then be free to delete any church which did not have a "national or international" impact, as if it were a mere corporation. Edison 06:54, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] voting booth

One aspect that I have not seen considered on WP:SCHOOL or WP:CHURCH is that these buildings are often used as polling stations. IMO this contributes to being notable as WP:LOCAL. John Vandenberg 06:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This really isn't a source of notability. Notability comes because independent people care enough to publish materials about the topic of an article, giving us the sources needed to build an encyclopedia article. Wikipedia is not a directory, it is an encyclopedia. Polling stations will get trivial mentions as a polling station, but I've never seen coverage about the location that was more than date, times, address, electoral districts voting at that spot. GRBerry 14:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger with Notability Organizations and Companies

Further information: Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Merger_of_WP:CONG_and_WP:SCHOOL_here

There is really little here that isn't already covered by Organizations. There is no reason to add another set of criteria to what we already have. With slight modification we can cut the clutter. See WP:CREEP which discusses the danger of growing regulatory codes. --Kevin Murray 03:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Why do we have to rehash this time and time again? We've already been over this - there is more to the church and congregation than just an "organisation" - this policy makes sense and will defeat the claims of "all churches are not notable" that have floated around Wikipedia while WP:ORG was the primary notability criterion for churches. Please read what has already been said on this and stop asking for a merge. This policy was proposed for a reason, and it should stay. JROBBO 05:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose the merger for reasons give on the talk page for Notability Organizations and Companies WP:CORP. Much was lost in the merger of WP:ORG into WP:CORP, and I do not want to see that mistake made with this proposal, as WP:CORP rolls across the Wikipedia landscape like The Blob absorbing every dissimilar thing that has life into itself. No consensus for such a merge. Edison 07:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I think this proposal is fine, detailed and to the point. There aren't a lot of churches on AFD, but when there are, it's good to have a resource like this. YechielMan 08:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Not now WP:CORP/WP:ORG is currently not stable following that merge. This isn't stable. Let them each stabilize, then decide if merging is appropriate. I continue to believe that this is unneeded instruction creep, but would disagree that the old WP:ORG was a useful guideline for churches; too many people treated local churches as chapters of a denomination, radically underplaying the significance of religion and contributing to a systemic bias against religion. WP:NOTE was the useful guideline. GRBerry 14:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The merger proposal tag was placed on the main page 7 days ago. Merger was rejected by consensus, as shown by the comments of JROBBO, Edison, Yechielman and GRBerry. Kevin Murray is in favor of merger, but consensus is not necessarily unanimity. So I am removing the "merger" tags from this page and from the related page to which it was to be merged. Edison 20:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Kevin Murray restored the "merge template" to allow more time, but after a week most have expressed opposition. I will remove the template because when he merged WP:ORG into "companies and organizations" last month, he said 2 days was long enough to leave the discussion open. Edited to add: He did note that the merge tag for companies and organizations had been left up longer than the last 2 days of active voting discussion. Edison 00:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
    • You would also have to take into account the comments of Doc and Radiant, although again that would be countered by the fact that previous editors have said no to a merger of this guideline and haven't read the previous comments. JROBBO 00:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rejected

Many people object to having a separate guideline on churches, and many people object to merging it to a more-accepted guideline. It follows that there is no consensus for this proposal until and unless either group can be convinced to change their mind. >Radiant< 12:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That's rubbish. The proposal hasn't been around for long enough for you to make a decision like that on your own, and even if it had, it's certainly not up to you. It does not follow as you say so. JROBBO 12:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Wherever did you see me making "a decision like that on your own"? There seems to be no consensus for this page, whether you like it or not. You can't make consensus by calling opposing arguments "rubbish". >Radiant< 12:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
You're making the decision on what you think. Consensus takes a long time to establish or disprove, and certainly not the four weeks or so since the latest proposal of this was put up. WP:CHURCH is being used on deletion debates elsewhere; and every time someone who hasn't read all the debate before it comes along and suggests a merge, it gets rejected. I don't think most readers here would call that "no consensus". Please stop being impatient and wait a bit. JROBBO 12:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Wherever did you see me making a decision? I am simply stating the facts. You are confusing the lack of a consensus to merge this page, with a consensus to accept this page. There is, in fact, no consensus. Not to merge, and not to accept. And a proposal that is not accepted is rejected. Four weeks is a long time, wiki-wise. >Radiant< 12:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Concur, unless someone can demonstrate that there is a real and imminent prospect of a consensus to accept this, it should be marked as rejected. Of course that doesn't prevent ongoing discussions if people as so minded.--Docg 13:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Radiant, you are ONE PERSON, not "many people", so please do not purport to speak for a multitude when you post something. I see a consensus for this proposal, not a rejection of it, so I will remove the "rejected" template, which was placed in a premature way and which amounts to disruptive editing. This guideline has been referred to in almost all recent afds related to religious congregations. Edison 14:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I speak for myself when I say that on this talk page, many people have objected to this page. If you read the archives, you'll see that nearly none of those objections have actually been addressed. Doc and I just listed about a dozen problems with this page, none of which you have responded to. You cite no evidence of your allegation that this page has been used in AFDs, and you make ad hominem comments rather than actual discussion. None of that is conductive to consensus building. >Radiant< 14:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Radiant and Doc, I don't know an efficient way to search AFDs for use of a proposed guideline, but I just sat and looked through the last month of them, which total thousands, for church AFDs. I found the following AFDs for churches. I don't know an efficient way to link to them, but here they are from the archived lists of AFDs: 1/28/07-Children's Church of Stannington: (probable hoax) no citing of WP:CONG, article deleted. 1/29/07-A True Church WP:CONG cited twice, article deleted. One cite noted that the proposal allowed using a church's controversial doctrines to support keeping. 2/4/07-St. Stephen's Mar Thoma Church. Nominator cited WP:CONG. Deleted. 2/8.07-"Brief history of Goshen United Methodist Church. WP:CONG not cited. Deleted. First Lutheran Church of Venice. WP:CONG cited. No Consensus. Holy Cross Lutheran Church (Atwater, California). WP:CONG cited in call for merger. Result was Keep. 2/9/07-Anglican Church of St. Theodore. WP:CONG cited in nomination. 2 other cites. Deleted. 2/15/07-Light and Truth Evangelical Assembly. WP:CHURCH cited in discussion. Appears headed for deletion. Summary of AFD Results for past 30 days: Church articles up for deletion with WP:CONG cited in nomination and/or discussion: 6 . Church AFDs where WP:CHURCH was not cited: 2. Five or so editors have cited WP:CONG in these debates as a basis for arguing to delete or to keep an article. Please consider this data in relation to the arguments that it is rejected. It appears to be used in a substantial majority of deletion debates in the last month. I would go back farther, but I get bleary eyed looking at the long lists of archived AFDs. It does seem that there were more frequent AFDs about churches last year, for which I have no explanation. Are they all good now? Have all the poor ones been deleted? Have those previously nominating them moved on to other topics like schools? Nominations for a given kind of article seem to come in batches. Edison 00:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Actually, objections raised have been dealt with, repeatedly. If you don't like the way they were dealt with, that doesn't mean they weren't dealt with. Raffles mk 19:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NOTE on procedures

The official discussion is by custom at the article to be merged to, rather than here. This is communicated by the standard tag. The discussion here is more anti merger than at the other article, though there is not enough consensus to either perform the merger or remove the tag. This process often takes months, and is certainly contingent on other issues being discussed in the general notability section. Please be patient and don't regard this as an afront to your hard work here. Thanks! --Kevin Murray 03:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What are the biggest objections to the content of this proposal?

I for one think it is a necessary and well written proposal. Whether or not it should be merged somewhere could be evaluated once we have consensus content. Does anyone have any objections/changes to the actual content? 99of9 03:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Well for starters it is way too long. Second, the eleven points of criteria effectively boil down to "all churches" which pretty much defeats the point of the guideline. Third, it talks about "having its own article" as a badge of honor, which is inappropriate. Fourth, it does not come up all that often on AFD as opposed to, say, websites. And fifth, it entirely fails to explain why churches are so different from other buildings that they need their own page rather than follow WP:LOCAL or WP:ORG instead. >Radiant< 08:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It is also unnecessary instruction creep. Guidelines should reflect what actually happens on afd, but there isn't a clear picture of what happens. There as so many factors, that it is best taking each case on its merits. Any guideline is likely to exhibit a US/European-specific cultural bias, and have the effect of treating religious organisations differently from others - which may well be an anti-religious systemic bias. I see no reason why churches should be subject to higher thresholds than, say, schools or other secular voluntary organisations.--Docg 09:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah, of course now we get the old chestnut that "there is no consensus to reject this page". Per WP:POL, a proposal that lacks consensus is, by definition, rejected. I see Edison has now removed the "proposal" tag as well, which can be taken to imply that this page is accepted by consensus. >Radiant< 14:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Radiant, the "proposal" tag was removed 09:12, 20 February 2007 by Doc glasgow, when that editor added the "Rejected" tag. You and Doc are usually are in lockstep on proposing to merge proposals or in downgrading them as rejected, so I am surprised you object to his action. I would like to see this remain as a proposed guideline, not to be redirected to WP:ORG per one template or labelled as "rejected" per another editor's suggestion. So per your request I will restore the "Proposal" tag. This guideline was created because each proposed deletion of a church article was a new forum for presenting every argument which has been placed in this talk page. I see it as far more efficient to fight the battle once and arrive at consensus here, then cite that consensus in new church article afds. As for length, exclusive of the introductory templates which appear and disappear, it presently has 1085 words, compared to 2912 for WP:RS, 2445 for WP:NOR, 2291 for WP:BOOK,1821 for WP:BIO, 1706 for WP:NOTE , 1464 for WP:LOCAL , 1296 for WP:MUSIC, 1206 for WP:FICT, 1052 for WP:V, or 792 for WP:PORNBIO. Edison 15:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Regardless of whether you'd like this to "remain as a proposed guideline", a proposal that has failed to meet consensus is, by definition, rejected. See WP:POL for details. You are quite wrong about me and Doc, and there's no such thing as "downgrading". There is only noting the fact that consensual support is lacking; whether you'd like it not to be is not relevant. >Radiant< 15:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
      • It is your opinion that it has failed to meet consensus, and if labelling a proposed guideline as "rejected" or replacing it with a redirect to a more general or off-topic guideline is not a downgrade, I'd like to know what is. Edison 15:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
        • You're not seriously suggesting we judge proposals on word count, I hope? I wonder where you got the idea that there are several "grades" of pages? If there are, I'm sure you can point out where this is explained? If not, the term "downgrading" is meaningless. A proposal is in essence a question, about whether there's a consensus. An answer to a question is not a grade.
        • At any rate, consensus is not my opinion, consensus (or indeed, lack thereof) is obvious from this talk page, in particular from the many objections that have not been addressed. >Radiant< 15:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
      • "Downgrade" is a word in the English language meaning "to lower the status." I did not state that there were "grades" for proposals, but in the common usage of the word, to state that a proposed guideline is "rejected" is to downgrade it, which would also be the case if it were renamed an "essay" or replaced by a redirect to another guideline. I looked at how long some guidelines were because of complaints that this one should be eliminated because it was too long. It sems to be a typical length for a guideline. There is always editing. Someone took about 1000 words out of WP:BOOK, for instance. It is your opinion that it has failed to meet consensus. Others feel it has. I looked through the archive and see your notion that a church could be mentioned in the article on its community, along with my quantitative analysis showing why that would overwhelm the local town article. I do not see lots of meaningful objections to this proposed guideline from lots of editors. I see support from many editors. I see some which fear that this guideline would eliminate too many churches, and some who fear it would include too many, so we may have struck a good balance. In the archive it is noted that there are over 300,000 congregations in the U.S and likely several million in the world. If one could easily find lots of sources for, say, 1% of the U.S congregations, to prove notability, that would mean 3 thousand or so U.S. congregation articles. If someone puts up an article lacking such sources, it can readily be deleted through AFD. So far the US roads project has created close to 6000 articles in the attempt to have an article for each numbered section of state highway, and probably the effort will be spread to county roads, and some want to include every city street. Other transportation fans want every bus line in the world and every trolley stop and bus station. Having well sourced articles about churches which lack national or international importance but have been a primary subject of multiple independent articles in reliable sources seems like a fine idea,and fully consistent with the general Wikipedia notability guideline and this proposed guideline is the best way to guide that effort. A church which has good sources is not inherently less notable than a minor road, a bus stop. a pokemon character, a porn actor, a rock band, or an obscure nobleman of a past century who lack such sources. Edison 16:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers Radiant and Doc. I'm going to kick off a new section to discuss some of your objections, because although we have not got consensus, I think it looks possible. Feel free to move any of your comments above into the subpoints to kick off the conversation. (Should I do that, or is it rude to move someone else's comment?) 99of9 02:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is this proposed guideline way too long?

Radiant suggests it is. Edison notes that it compares favourably with many other guidelines. I think it could be trimmed a bit, but is not far from a good length. Radiant, are you saying you'd like the wording streamlined, or that you'd like whole sections cut out? If the latter, which sections do you think are unhelpful? 99of9 02:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Length is irrelevant, there is no consensus on the principle - and substantial objections to treating religious organisations/bodies as a special case. This proposal has failed to gain a clear consensus - and is thus defacto rejected at this time.--Docg 09:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree that length is pretty unimportant, it's just that Radiant listed it as his first objection to this entire guideline. If we can knock this one off, then we're one step toward consensus. Your "religious special case" objection is listed below, I'd prefer if we kept things cleanly separated. 99of9 10:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The primary criterion (or whatever you want to call it) is a paraphrased restatement of that at WP:NOTE, and similar to at WP:ORG. I'm not seeing cases where the special criteria assist in keeping or deleting any articles. We could list special cases for inclusion ad nauseum, but how can a meaningful text be written without material from verifiable sources. We don't allow primary research at WP and we don't allow unsubstantiated information from non-independent sources. --Kevin Murray 03:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm a convert away from special cases. I tried to develop a special case criteria for military officers, until I realized the folly of the idea and the simple elegance of verifiability and independence as the cornerstones of WP. All we need to do is train the participants in AfD to understand and apply the simplest of rules. Easier said than done! --Kevin Murray 03:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
  • By 'too long' I do not mean amount of words or characters, I was referring to the number of bullet point criteria. >Radiant< 11:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Would you care to submit a shortened list of criteria for discussion? Raffles mk 05:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Does this guideline "effectively boil down to all churches"?

Radiant suggests it does, and rightly states that if it does, the guideline is unneccessary. Would anyone care to do some case studies or statistics on verifiable religious congregations that do not meet this current guideline? 99of9 02:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

  • The last month's experience suggests that WP:CONG has been often cited in arguments to delete articles about churches. But it has provisions which might equally well be presented in arguments to keep a church article. Ideally, it would be a neutral screen, to shorten the argumentation about which churches are notable. Theere is no "gimme" provision such as some proposed guidelines have, such as the "inherent notability" claimed for for all roads with numbers, all albums/songs by notable rock/rap bands, all porn actors who have a certain number of films or who have their screen name on a film, or all minor British nobility and their spouses, such that those article subjects do not need any reliable or independent sources whatsoever. Most of the 300,000 plus U.S. congregations or the several million worldwide congregations would fail to show notability by this guideline. Edison 05:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Edison is right - in all the cases of WP:CHURCH being used in a deletion debate I have voted for a merge or a delete - and I wrote the proposal too (and I am a big supporter of inclusionism and wrote the proposal out of concern that too many articles were being deleted) JROBBO 08:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Citations in arguments do not a guideline make. Guidelines are made where there is substantial consensus that this is what we ought to do, and actually do do. That's not the case - this has failed to gather consensus.--Docg 09:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the usage in AFDs was presented as the main ground for WP:PORNBIO being labelled as a guideline. Edison 23:57, 22 February 2007

(UTC)

  • Porn is probably soon to meet the chopping block as the defacto consensus against it is huge. --Kevin Murray 03:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Instead of rehashing your "it has failed to gather consensus", why not try and work with us on the criteria that you don't like. We're trying to gather your suggestions to use something that can be worked with - however you're the one being difficult, and it's to your discredit that you're not doing anything about it. Now can we have a reply to this section? JROBBO 09:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The idea that the proposal allows for separate articles for all churches is patent nonsense. Probably only 1% would make the cut, particularly once you cull the churches that are notable but without sources to show this. I am personally aware of several churches that deal with tens or hundreds of thousands of people, but no sources so no article. Raffles mk 19:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm unclear Raffles are you arguing for or against this guideline? --Kevin Murray 03:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
      • He's directly answering my question at the start of this subsection. If we all agree with Raffles, then one of Radiant's reasons for disputing this guideline is refuted. 99of9 03:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article talks about "having its own article" as a badge of honor

Let's reword it. This seems an easy problem to solve. Would you care to do the honours Radiant? 99of9 02:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

  • If having an article were not a "badge of honor" or in some way useful, then AFDs would not be as tendentious or acrimonious as they in fact all too often are. Having an article doubtless confers improved Google prominence to the subject and provides a place to put forward their own web page. It doubtless increases the visibility, in a commercial sense, of the subject. It doubtless expresses pride on the part of persons connected in some way to the subject. Edison 05:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • All it says in that regard is that churches must be notable to have articles. Tautology, perhaps, but I fail to see the problem here. Raffles mk 19:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Would this guideline come up often enough in AFDs?

Radiant suggests that it doesn't. Edison has done a count. What do other people think? 99of9 02:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Simply not true - has been used in several debates already, despite its "proposal" or "rejected" status if you are to believe Radiant. JROBBO 08:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Times used is irrelevant. To be a guideline, it has to command a general consensus. I.E. Most people (like 70%) need to agree that this is what we do, and should do, in terms of deletion/inclusion - that's clearly not the case. Nor, in the near future will it be the case. Thus although some people may refer to this (and they are welcome to) it is rejected as a guideline.--Docg 09:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's "clearly" the case - it's only you and Radiant who are continually whinging about this page. As I've said above, why not try and work with us and we can incorporate your improvements? JROBBO 09:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
If we get consensus that this is irrelevant (or wrong), I will cross it off the list. Also, the rules of rejection don't talk about the "near future", I agree it may take time. 99of9 10:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Edison has shown that it usually comes up where relevant. Raffles mk 19:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't really care what people think about it showing up in AFD; I'd be more interested in some evidence or statistics about it, or links to AFDs where it was, or was not, effective. From the last statistics I've seen AFD focuses mainly on NN people, bands and websites, not churches. >Radiant< 11:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Hasn't someone already cited some recent uses of the policy at AfDs above? There's no readily available statistics for the use of the word - you'll have to do a search yourself as other users above have done. JROBBO 11:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
No, the onus is on the supporters of the proposal that it is in fact useful. We don't make rules based on the assumption that some situation might hypothetically occur. For what it's worth, a search of the last three days' AFD pages turns up zero deletion debates about churches or congregations, and zero references to WP:CONG. >Radiant< 12:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Re-read Edison's comment above. WP:CONG cited in 6 out of 8 church-related AFDs in a 30 day period. Raffles mk 05:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • With a conservative figure of 150 AFDs per day, we have about 5000 AFDs a month. If only eight of those are church-related (~0.16%), there is no need for a specific guideline for that. >Radiant< 09:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Wondering a bit about the math. How many AFDs per day? Hoew many days per month? Anyway, when the proposed guideline was created, there were lots more AFDs for churches every week. Given that there are 300,000 plus congregations in the US alone and several million worldwide, it is reasonable to anticipate more articles and more AFDs, and there is no reason to re-argue everything that has been said here in each new AFD. So perfect this guideline and adopt it. Would it satisfy you if I nominated a dozen a day for deletion? Edison 05:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • We don't do preemptive guidelines. Whether or not there will be more AFDs on the matter is pure speculation. Iff it becomes a repetitive argument in AFD, THEN do we make guidelines, not before. Per WP:POL, WP:NOT a burocracy, and WP:CREEP. Nominating articles for deletion that you don't actually want deleted is a violation of WP:POINT. >Radiant< 10:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are churches different enough to LOCAL and ORG to require their own guidelines?

Radiant suggests they're not, and that the page does not explain why they are. Would anyone like to expand the second paragraph of the guideline? 99of9 02:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If congregation-specific guidelines from here were included in WP:ORG the same result would obtain in a given AFD, but it would take editors longer to find and read the relevant section. But it would become a very long guideline, and that sounds like WP:CREEP. Since the servers can accomodate a large number of guidelines, I do not see the benefit of cramming multiple guidelines into one. "One size fits all" means that no one obtains a good fit. It applies to notability guidelines as well as to shoes. Edison 05:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Churches are sufficiently different from organizations that WP:ORG does not cover them well. The problem with WP:ORG is the default belief that local chapters of a larger organization do not merit individual articles. That is, to put it bluntly, untrue for churches. Most churches are part of a denomination, yet if they have been around for a while, most are also notable. (But the sources will mostly be offline also.) WP:NOTE is the correct standard to use for churches, not WP:ORG. GRBerry 14:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Perhaps WP:ORG ought to be sufficient, but in practice it is not. This has been explained time and time again. Would certain editors please explain why a Russian roulette system, where churches are deleted despite obvious and well-substantiated claims to notability, would result in a more useful encyclopaedia. Raffles mk 19:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Raffles, how would you specifically modify WP:ORG to meet your goals, "in practice"? --Kevin Murray 16:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US/European cultural bias

Doc glasgow feels this is inevitable. In my opinion he is right, but that this is also true for the whole of wikipedia, and all we can do is to keep up our guard against it. For the record, I'm from neither the US or Europe (but probably have some similar biases) :-). I don't think this is a reason for rejecting a proposal, just a reason to improve it. 99of9 02:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

  • The guideline or discussion specifically referred to temples, synagogues, wicca covens, mosques and whatnot. I don't see the regional bias.Edison 05:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm happy to have some more religiously-neutral language if you wish; that was something I brought up earlier but it wasn't addressed. JROBBO 08:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone object to renaming this as: "Notability (religious congregations and their buildings)" 99of9 11:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course it has a cultural bias. A twenty year old Christian Church building in a country that has been 'closed' to Christianity may be intrinsically notable - whilst they are ten a penny in the US. A congregation with over 1,000 worshippers is unusual and remarkable in Scotland, it probably isn't in California. A 300 year old Church in Boston will almost certainly be worth an article, in Italy probably not. In UK, any Protestant church which ran a school or college (however unnotable in itself) would be very notable, as Protestant churches don't do that (other than the Church of England). How do you draw up a guideline for that? You have to take it on a case by case basis.--Docg 11:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to note - there are about 19,000 Catholic parishes in the U.S., about one for every 3500 Catholics. U.S. Protestant churches tend to be much smaller, averaging under 500 members. MisfitToys 22:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why treat religious organizations differently from non-religious organizations?

This question is also a paraphrase of Doc glasgow. Perhaps this guideline should be changed to "Clubs". I think I'd be in favour of that if it were rewritten well (basically "churches"->"clubs", and "theology"->"philosophy"). 99of9 02:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A club could be referred to WP:ORG. A church or religious congregation is something quite different. Some church articles intermingle the religious body and the building where they meet. Consider Pilgrim Baptist Church which was a synagogue designed by a notable architect, and notable for that, before it was the African-American Baptist church which gave rise to Gospel music, and notable for that. Edison 05:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Most clubs are far less significant than churches. There is a reason that religion is a field of academic study with lots of sub-disciplines, including a history sub-discipline. The same is not true of clubs. The fact that editors are confused about this is one of the strongest arguments for having a separate guideline. GRBerry 14:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd say the fact that it confuses people indicates that to many people the difference isn't all that important. Given the obvious lack of church-related deletion discussions, this proposal is not solving an actual problem, but an attempt at preemptive legislation for a hypothetical situation. In other words, instruction creep. >Radiant< 09:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • This is the killer punch. The notability guideline WP:N says that something is notable if it has been the primary focus of multiple non-trivial coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. By that measure St. Paul's Cathedral is a shoo-in, so is First Baptist Church of Hammond. St. John the Baptist, Kidmore End is a redlink for very good reason: no relibale secondary sources exist. There is one history of the church, written by a member of the congregation and not published. Wikipedia is not a directory of churches or anything else, we are an encyclopaedia, a distillation of knowledge from reliable secondary sources. There is a difference between knowledge and information, and most church articles I see are on the wrong side of that divide. Same applies to clerics, the last thing we need is a text dump from Crockford. Regardless, the Primary Notability Criterion in WP:N is sufficient for this purpose. In fact we should probably deprecate all other notability guidelines now we have a well-stated definition of what notability is and why. Because in the end if you tell people that foo makes your church notable despite lack of sources, the article will still be deleted, and that will certainly confuse people. Guy (Help!) 12:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Guidelines guide, they don't dictate - WP:N isn't policy. We still look at each case on its merits. "something is notable if it has been the primary focus of multiple non-trivial coverage" - I, for one disagree, that that's always true. And WP:V, which is policy, can be satisfied with less than that if the sources are reliable. You are entitled to be guided by WP:N, I am entitled to think through each case on its merits.--Docg 10:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name change

This guideline covers more than just "local" congregations - can we sort out a better title, and move it properly; 99of9 made a good attempt, but some of the pages weren't transferred properly in the move and I had to change it back. JROBBO 08:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain what I did wrong please? I went through the list of links and ensured that there were no double redirects. It appears you have not done the same (see for example WP:CONG). 99of9 11:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the name, I didn't get any response when I suggested a name change before, so I figured I'd try it out, but as you point out, I accidentally left the word local in. I think my preferred name would be "Notability (religious congregations)" or "Notability (religious congregations and their buildings)". 99of9 11:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry - the archives of the page and other things weren't moved over - it seemed like it hadn't worked. Those two name suggestions are better, I think. Use either one of them. JROBBO 11:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I prefer avoiding the "and their buildings" phrase. Too many editors think that a church is notable for the building, when that really is a trivial aspect of most local churches. Even most cathedrals are more important for things other than their structures. GRBerry 21:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Including buildings seems to be a slippery slope and outside the scope of what has been proposed here. Other architecture is not specifically within approved guidelines. --Kevin Murray 22:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The architectural or historical importance of the church building was in the proposal from the beginning. And the Wikipdedia "church" category refers explicitly to the building. A cathedral is in fact a building, is it not? Edison 22:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
The identifying characteristic of a cathedral is that it serves as a bishop's seat. An identical building not serving as a bishop's seat would not be a cathedral. The fact that our category for church refers to the building is a mistake in our categorization scheme. See Church - "A church is an association of people who share a particular belief system." The architectural structure is not the primary meaning of "church", that definition derives from the fact that a group of people that share a particular belief system meet in a building, and that building is called a church after the group of people meeting there. The people are the primary meaning. GRBerry 23:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I would rather see a guideline specifically dealing with architecture, but my preference would be to let the structure qualify under the WP:NOTE guidelines. I can't see where anyone would dispute the notability of a cathedral or any other significant church. If so, I'd like to be involved in that AfD reaming the nominator. --Kevin Murray 20:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • This looks very creepy to me, and pretty much all the "guidelines" are subjective (aside, of course, from the first one). So let's just stay with that one, and send people to WP:N to test notability. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 09:26, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
There is also the CREEPING deletion of long established guidelines like WP:N, which leads to anarchy and a Wikipedeia which is no better than a blog. Edison 05:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rejected tag

Radiant has evaluated the consensus and posted the rejected tag. I support this evaluation and the closing of this discussion. --Kevin Murray 22:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Sigh, better to discuss this in a section solely about this issue. I see more opposition than support, so I agree that this should be marked as rejected. (I do think Radiant is a bit faster than many others to mark things as rejected, but when s/he is right, s/he is right.) GRBerry 23:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
We are trying to work towards a consensus on this, but certain selfish people aren't helping us by clarifying exactly what is wrong with this. What exactly is the opposition to this proposal? No one can put a finger on it, and when we ask, people like Radiant won't help. Secondly, this proposal has been used in debates; I don't think it has been accepted yet, but I don't think a couple of whingers on this talk page can make a consensus at rejection. Why don't we work on this and get a proposal that CAN be accepted. I'm fed up with doing stuff on WP and having it overturned; I may as well not bother if that's how I'm going to be treated. JROBBO 23:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, you don't have a consensus - and whining about it will not help. You keep saying 'let's work for one'. Let me reiterate, 1) Guidelines don't create consensus they reflect it - there is no consensus on AfD - so we can't generate a guideline by legislating. 2) I object to churches being treated differently to other organisations - so I'm not interested in working on a guideline here - I (and I am not alone) object to the very principle. Consensus needs something like 70 of wikipedians on AfD agreeing that WP:CHURCH is the way to go, that is not going to happen. This is rejected.--Docg 23:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Answer the question please - why can we work with the detractors on creating something that is workable? People aren't completely against this - they only have a problem with some of the issues. JROBBO 23:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I've answered your question six bloody times. See above for the last one.--Docg 23:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Let me try and explain better what I mean - you obviously don't understand me. I'm not trying to create consensus - I'm trying to create something that can be viewed by editors and evaluated on its merits. There are problems with this, yes, but they can be worked through by those people who have objections to this proposal as it stands presently; why can't we work through these and get it to a stage where the rest of the WP community can evaluate it? This isn't trying to legislate a guideline, this is trying to develop something better than we already have, instead of just giving up. How about it? JROBBO 23:24, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem here is WP:CREEP. Very good guidance to notability can be found at WP:N. Send people there, we don't need to confuse the issue. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 23:25, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
But this proposal was created to allow more articles to stay, not more to go - the default consensus on WP for a lot of people in the past is that "all churches are not notable". There were a lot of AfDs on churches last year and just about all resulted in deletion; some of them should not have been deleted. This proposal came out of that mess, and it should result in some church articles being kept. It is far more than just a notability issue (and I didn't add the bit about WP:N being the most important part, that shouldn't have been in there). It's more than just about multiple non-trivial sources; there were a whole lot of categories in whicih church articles should be included on WP, and this sought to clarify all of this. If we don't have a policy along these lines, we're just going to revert back to the same old practice that no church is notable. I don't think it's hard to make something up, but obviously most people here can't seem to fathom that. Why can't we work something out? JROBBO 23:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem that JROBBO is failing to see is that people who object to churches being treated differently, or to creep, or to guidelines when there is no consesus, don't want a different version of WP:CHURCH they want no version at all. Keeping asking us why we won't work with him is missing the point - will he work with us to ensure that this doesn't exist?--Docg 23:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Most churches aren't notable, as they aren't covered in multiple non-trivial secondary sources. Apparently, the AfDs correctly recognized this and resulted in deletion. Why are you trying to make a guideline that by your own admission does not reflect genuine consensus or actual practice? Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 23:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
No, that's not correct; because the whole issue of sources and churches is quite difficult, and you obviously don't understand that. It's not correct that most churches are not notable and I and many others would heavily dispute that. JROBBO 23:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. This means we use sources. We, as editors, should not be making our own decisions on what's notable or not. This is what our sources are for. There's room for disagreement over how much coverage in sources is "enough", certainly. But the idea that notability is something we decide for ourselves using original criteria rather than sources is not something we should be encouraging. Friday (talk) 23:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - which is why WP:N is only a guideline - and it sucks even as that.--Docg 23:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Sources are used to back things up, not decide what is or isn't notable. Notability is about what should or should not be included. JROBBO 23:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
No. WP:V is policy. WP:N, thankfully isn't.--Docg 23:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
How are you disagreeing with me? JROBBO 23:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

In pre-WP:CONG days, decisions on the notability of churches were made on an ad-hoc and inconsistent basis. Church articles were often deleted despite strong cases for notability. This is why WP:CONG was proposed in the first place. Clearly consistency in notability decisions is a desirable goal. Several editors here are opposed to another guideline. How then do you propose we deal with the problem of inconsistent notability decisions in regards to churches? Raffles mk 03:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest getting some clarification at WP:ORG. --Kevin Murray 03:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Lack of consistency is exactly the problem all these myriad sub-guidelines to notability pose. For consistency, we should simply go to using WP:N. Either there's secondary source coverage, or not. I don't know how much more consistent we can get then that. It's a textbook case of why WP:CREEP can be harmful, we should keep our "instruction manual" simple and short. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 08:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Then why is WP:N not policy? Precisely because it doesn't cover each and every circumstance. I think some people here need to stop approaching this with their "too much policy" mindtrack and consider policies on their merits and approach what is and what is not helpful with this proposal. JROBBO 12:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines: "A rejected page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present, regardless of whether there's active discussion or not. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a rejected proposal from scratch and start in a different direction."

--Kevin Murray 01:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • As Kevin says, that is the definition of "rejected". JROBBO appears to treat this like the WP:FAC process; it is assumed that any article can become featured, and objections to FAC nominations must therefore be actionable or else they are ignored, and the article can keep trying to "get there". However, guideline proposals work very differently. About 90% of proposals fail, so it is certainly not assumed that every proposal can "become" a guideline. People not liking it is an argument. WP:CREEP is an argument. It being rarely used is an argument. You may disagree, but the obvious fact is that if sufficient people agree with those arguments, and you're unable to sway them, then there is not going to be any consensus for the proposal. Time to move on; circular discussion isn't helping anyone. >Radiant< 09:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I really don't call the 5 or 6 people who have made complaints on here "sufficient people". You cannot claim to represent the Wikipedia community by any means. I never claimed I could either, but I still think we should give this more of a chance - leaving this a couple of weeks to be looked at (when it was cited in a couple of church debates) really isn't enough - if it takes months to reach consensus, it should take more than a couple of weeks to reach rejection. I don't think you've helped anyone either, Radiant - you could have worked with people more to accommodate the inconsistency applied to church debates in the past, whether that be in a separate proposal like this one or elsewhere - but you haven't, and I'm disappointed with the quality of editors' work on here - I expected better. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time writing this and nothing has become of it due to a few people who can't be bothered putting some work into solving a problem on Wikipedia. I'm going to leave this now, but don't expect to see more users around helping write policy if people are going to be treated badly. That's not on and it's not fair. JROBBO 12:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • On this talk page, there are more people complaining than actually supporting the proposal. At any rate, if you wish to propose something, the burden is on you to address the concerns of dissenters. I do not personally perceive the (alleged) inconsistency of church debates to be a major problem to be fixed with some kind of guideline. If I did, I would certainly have helped; the point here is that many people do not agree with you that it is a big problem. Finally, if you're going to accuse people of treating you badly, you shouldn't make edit summaries like this one. >Radiant< 12:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Break

  • More people support it than oppose it. Looks like consensus has been achieved. Also it is a really sweet trick to protect the article with the inappropriate "rejected" tag on it. How can we get it protected without same? Seems rather heavy handed. Edison 06:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Per Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines: A rejected page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present, regardless of whether there's active discussion or not. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a rejected proposal from scratch and start in a different direction."
--Kevin Murray 01:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AFDs for religious congregations/churches relevant to this proposed guideline

  • In each case above the issue can be argued effectively with WP:ORG or WP:N. Saint Monica's is well supported in my mind, but some dispute the quality of the several sources; I don't see anything in any guidline that will simplify that issue. The rejected guidelines would not have been pertinent to GateWay Church which is not a local congregation to an established church. It is an independent denomination which is specifically covered by WP:ORG. It is also just promotional garbage bordering on spam with no viable assertion of notability -- it fails both WP:ORG and WP:N. Where's the beef? --Kevin Murray 15:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The issue wasn't the number of churches like these that could be passed with WP:ORG, it was the ones that weren't (mainly size and clergy and related organisational issue AfDs) that were the problem. JROBBO 06:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re:protection of the project page

{{Editprotected}} Please remove the "rejected" template from the project page, as its presence there is disputed. The admin who protected the page refuses to unprotect it, and apparently plans to leave it fully protected until there is no disagreement on the talk page, which is an unreasonable demandment in a Wikipedia rife with deletionists, inclusionists and those who generally oppose guidelines. Edison 00:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

    • There is no point to unprotecting something that is in essense archival at this point, since as a properly rejected guideline, editing should cease at the point it was rejected. My preference would be to delete and salt, but apparently this is not the WP custom. --Kevin Murray 00:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I disagree with your claim that it was "propoerly rejected. " Seems awfully convenient that someone slaps a "rejected" label on it, which others disagree with and remove, then an admin pops up and protects it so the disputed label cannot be removed. Seems rather dictatorial. Edison 00:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Hey, the wrong version got protected! :) In all seriousness though, it's probably correct to leave the rejected tag until there's a strong consensus. There doesn't need to be a consensus agreeing with rejection for a proposal to be rejected, there only needs to be a lack of a strong consensus in favor and very little likelihood of that changing. That seems to be the case here. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 03:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, this is not what protection is for. I would like to refer the protecting admin to: Wikipedia:Protection policy. I will be unpotecting the page based on that policy. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 06:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • No, this is what protection is for. There was an edit war, and the page was protected to avert further edit warring. >Radiant< 13:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
No, thats what temporary protection is for. It's been two weeks. This protection has been in place for two weeks. Besides, I was responding to the comment "There is no point to unprotecting something that is in essense archival at this point" ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 15:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah, ok. From the tabulation I thought you were responding to Edison or Seraphim. It shouldn't have been protected for so long, but you could use WP:RFPP to fix that. >Radiant< 07:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I got funny little buttons that let me unprotect pages so I don't gotta go though WP:RFPP. :)
I was responding to the reasoning of leaving protection on forever. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)