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

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: Thank you. JROBBO 05:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[m:Instruction creep|Instruction creep]] 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Voting booth 

message: 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)
replies: text: *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)
replies: text: 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)

text: *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)
thread_title: Proposed merger with Notability Organizations and Companies

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Rejected 

message: 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)
thread_title: NOTE on procedures

message: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text: 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)

text: Would you care to submit a shortened list of criteria for discussion? Raffles mk 05:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Is this proposed guideline way too long?

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: * 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)
thread_title: Does this guideline "effectively boil down to all churches"?

message: 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)
thread_title: Article talks about "having its own article" as a badge of honor

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

text: *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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Would this guideline come up often enough in AFDs?

message: 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)
replies: text: Raffles, how would you specifically modify WP:ORG to meet your goals, "in practice"? --Kevin Murray 16:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Are churches different enough to LOCAL and ORG to require their own guidelines?

message: 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)
replies: text: Does anyone object to renaming this as: "Notability (religious congregations and their buildings)" 99of9 11:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: US/European cultural bias

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Why treat religious organizations differently from non-religious organizations?

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: * 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)

text: *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)
replies: text: *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)

text: * 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)

text: *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)

text: *  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)
thread_title:  Name change 

message: *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)
replies: text: --Kevin Murray 01:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Break

message: *Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saint Monica's Church 2/28/07 Edison 05:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: AFDs for religious congregations/churches relevant to this proposed guideline

message: I came to this page after this page was cited in an Afd. Editors don't seem to realize that this page is rejected. I restored the rejected tag. Ikip (talk) 10:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Restored rejected page

message: Articles on individual churches appear regularly as AFD items, which I am picking up via Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Christianity, which is on my watch list.  I would like to hear other peoples views about this.  Most individual churches are without doubt non-notable and fail this guideline.  Some articles are a mere advert for the church, and probably deserve deletion as such.  Others are rather more subtantantial and cross a quality threshold (though probably still not a notability one).  Until recently I have been accepting the view that these articles have to be deleted, but an alternative is to merge them inot articles on the places (town, village, city - or better city locality) where they are.  Can we reach a consenus on this?  Do we need guidelines on what is a significant enough church to merge (usually pruned down), and what should be deleted out of hand?  Peterkingiron (talk) 10:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A mention of a church (with a reference of course) is a good idea on a local suburb or town page and should be the preferable option in all cases - after all it helps those who have looked at the Wiki page for the church previously to find the suburb it is in. JRG (talk) 10:47, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  AFD of churches 

message: I'd like to add the following as guideline 12: "The church has been officially recognized by an established historic or heritage registry such as the National Register of Historic Places in the United States,  Historic Environment Record in England, or the Canadian Register of Historic Places." Any comments?--RadioFan (talk) 12:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed addition to guidelines