Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Urantia Book related articles

The Urantia Book related articles

This is a group of walled off POV-forks of various articles inappropriately split from the main article The Urantia Book which itself is in desperate need of a cleanup. In the future, it may be conceivable that we would content fork the main article, but this is done in the wrong way. It isn't clear from the main article that these are the articles we should have for content forks, but what is abundantly clear is that the text in these articles is not based on secondary sources but is mainly serving as a a Spamicruftizement. My opinion is that we should either redirect all these articles to The Urantia Book or we should simply delete the lot of them and start editing the main article until the point it seems necessary that we need to content fork. The current situation, though, with single-purpose accounts guarding these articles is unacceptable. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This AfD was started at the instigation of both a WP:ANI#Repeated article blanking at Thought Adjuster and other articles and WP:FTN#Universe reality and other The Urantia Book related articles: notice. The general consensus of those discussing the actual merits of these cases is that these articles do not belong as separate from the main article.

There clearly was not consensus that the nominator claims above. Wazronk (talk) 19:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inasmuch as the people who wrote the content (such as yourself) were unhappy with the consensus of outsiders, this claim is correct. However, I have yet to see someone who has not written the content who actually looked at the substance of these group of articles say anything more than "get rid of them". Let's let this discussion play out, in any case. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete (or redirect -- I don't really care). Work on The Urantia Book before making content forks. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete and create protected redirects - obvious content forks of material which belongs, if at all, with the main article. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest a merge discussion. Universe reality went through an AFD and was not deleted (two people argued that article was acceptable per summary style) and then it was moved to Cosmology (The Urantia Book) and it looks like you've redirected that article already (as well as Revelation (The Urantia Book)). It looks like History and future of the world (The Urantia Book) is a sub-article of The Urantia Book. Do each of these articles advocate a different stance on the subject? If you don't care if these are redirected or deleted, I don't think AFD is the proper venue. And I'm not in favor of AFD nominations in response to revert wars. --Pixelface (talk) 19:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the consensus on WP:FTN was to redirect these articles. However, certain angry administrators at WP:ANI disagreed. Part of the reason we're back here is because AfD is taken by the community to be a strong consensus from the outside and two different AfDs have happened on these articles. Certain editors (including myself) disagree with the AfD decisions on these articles and other editors (including the true-believers advocating for their perferred content) are using the AfD discussions inappropriately to block the redirects. AfD, for better or worse, is taken to be a good place to get consensus on how to deal with this kind of stuff. Merge discussions tend to not be as well-organized. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There was not consensus and it's a violation of WP:DELETE to blank out articles the way you have continually attempted. I have repeatedly said I am entirely open to discussing these topics, declaring people as "true believers" just because they oppose your blanking of articles is petty ad hominem. Wazronk (talk) 19:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you denying that you are not a believer in the ideas presented in The Urantia Book? You are not a paricipant in Urantia Foundation sponsored study groups/sharing of your profound revelations you have gained from studying this work? I'm just pointing out your biases. We all have them. I simply don't think that Urantia-followers should be creating walled gardens of content and treating Wikipedia like a platform ripe for them to proselytize, tis all. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all but Thought Adjuster, which should be redirected to The Urantia Book. Looking at these articles, I don't think they merit a Summary Style exemption at this time. Get the main article in line with policies, and then fork off as needed. --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (or merge or redirect). The Urantia Book is clearly a fringe topic, be it fringe religion, fringe science, or something in between. These satellite articles give undue prominence to the topic and therefore break our neutrality POV policy by their very existence. I don't quite understand why SA says they are POV-forks, but I agree that they form a walled garden. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think an article entitled Cosmology (The Urantia Book) clearly qualifies as a POV-fork of cosmology. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then I agree. I didn't think about it that way, I was thinking about whether it was a POV-fork of the Urantia Book article. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wording was indeed ambiguous. I changed it. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that citing a wikipedia essay about "walled gardens" factors into deletion. Policy is what should factor into deletion. On top of that, what keeps being missed, is there has been no "wall" at all to prevent or in any way discourage edits. The people who claim there is a "walled garden" consistently haven't even tried to work on the articles they are discussing or tried to work with the editors who have a history at the articles. As for the suggestion that it is a POV fork of cosmology, that is no more true than it is for any other of the many non-science cosmology articles like Hindu cosmology, Mormon cosmology, etc. Wazronk (talk) 20:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but this is how Wikipedia works. My opinion was based on a policy (NPOV) and a guideline (FRINGE), the latter being based on an ArbCom ruling. Wikipedia is consensus based, and the purpose of policies, guidelines and essays is to make it more efficient to come to the result that will prevail. I see no chance that these articles will survive in the long run. They only survived until now because of lack of attention from mainstream editors. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't consider Cosmology (The Urantia Book) a POV fork of cosmology any more than I would Hindu cosmology, Buddhist cosmology, Jain cosmology or Norse cosmology. I suppose Cosmology (The Urantia Book) is a poor name and could be renamed something like Urantia cosmology. Cosmology (The Urantia Book) began as a description of "universe reality" contained in The Urantia Book — not as a POV fork of cosmology. The cosmology article links to all kinds of different cosmological models. --Pixelface (talk) 20:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Those are content forks of cosmology. If they were as difficult to source as the cosmology of this peculiar sect of New Age Urantia Book believers, those articles would be POV-forks. As it is, there are plenty of external, independent, secondary sources that describe those cosmologies in great detail making them strictly content forks and not POV-forks. POV-forks are defined as places where a POV can be expounded upon in isolation from the other related issues as a way of circumventing WP:WEIGHT, for example. Not too long ago, The Urantia Book content was removed from our article on cosmology. That a new article entitled Cosmology (The Urantia Book) is being argued for looks very much like a POV-fork to me. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's because you're only seeing it from your limited view of having only entered into the topic just in recent days. The "cosmology" of the Urantia book has been discussed many times in the past as being possibly spun off. Read the AfD on the talk page. I renamed the "universe reality" article to "cosmology" only the other day to have it become this WP:SS spinout that had been discussed in the past, not at all as anything to do with the science cosmology article or a POV fork. As to whether that is fitting or not as a stand alone article, that's why it's a mess here to discuss, these are four separate articles and the merits of each one has different weights and should be independently assessed. Cosmology as described by the Urantia book could be defensible but I would also understand if it would tilt to not being supported. On the other hand, Thought Adjuster has many secondary sources backing up its relevance as a stand alone topic, and should be a speedy keep. I'd go through the articles one by one but, again, what a mess to have it all done like this. You won't even be able to tease out what is the consensus for each article with some people voting for some and others deciding they see reason to keep others. Wazronk (talk) 20:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the "science" cosmology article used to have a section on the Urantia book included in the cosmology#Esoteric cosmology section. It was removed for WP:WEIGHT concerns. Now I see an entire article was written on the subject. You might want to read about what a WP:POVFORK is before declaring that I don't know what I'm talking about. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure the Cosmology (The Urantia Book) article is a POV fork of the cosmology article, because the creator of that article, Richiar, has never edited the cosmology article (under that username at least). I can't say why that editor created the article Cosmology (The Urantia Book), but it did list several references I'm sure could be used to write a neutral article on the topic. It may be easier to evaluate the content if all four of those articles were merged into the article The Urantia Book though. --Pixelface (talk) 20:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As they say, YMMV. In any case, I have looked at two of the secondary sources listed there. Not only was the cosmology of the Urantia Book not really dealt with in earnest, the small amounts that were mentioned were not included in the article. It is clear to me that the author included these references as a fail-safe to confuse commentators on AfD into thinking that there was good sourcing when there actually isn't. What's more, I see now reason why we shouldn't work on fixing the main article first and maybe seeing if the cosmology of the Urantia Book is really so unweildy as to justify a separate article. As it is, I see no justification for forking other than to present more of the ideas from The Urantia Book on Wikipedia: something Wikipedia is clearly not! ScienceApologist (talk) 20:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or break up into separate AfDs at a minimum. This strangely formed AfD is from an editor who refuses to talk on the article talk pages to have his concerns addressed, and instead has been edit warring to blank out these pages for several days. The reasons listed for AfD are "walled garden", which is from an essay he or she found, not any policy, and "POV fork", which is not at all what any of these articles are. Meanwhile there hasn't been the slightest word from the nominator on what his or her POV concerns actually are, only page blanking. He or she is saying that people have been " advocating for their perferred content". Not true, people have been advocating for discussing his or her concerns on the talk pages and not blanking articles. I totally disagree with how these four different pages are all lumped together and rushed into AfD in this situation where the nominator has been so antagonistic on a topic and hasn't made more than the briefest effort to engage with the editors who know the topics sources. The nominator hasn't evidently read the talk archives, read the sources, hasn't read the book that is the topic of the main article, or even apparently read the main article itself, The Urantia Book, which shows clearly two of the above articles branching from subtopics according to WP:SS despite his claim that somehow they didn't. Wazronk (talk) 19:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Um, I have been on Talk:The Urantia Book. I don't know why you say I refuse to talk on the talkpages. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Um, still no specifics of what your POV concerns are. Um, that was a post from you only just today after the behavior of yours of blanking out pages had to be reported to admins via the incidents board. Wazronk (talk) 19:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Listen, if you can't figure out what might specific POV issues might happen with committed believers in The Urantia Book dictating content about The Urantia Book, then it is unclear to me as to where we can even begin to have a conversation. You are welcome to be a part of the discussion. You are not welcome to own content on the encyclopedia and you are certainly encouraged to avoid single-purpose advocacy. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't communicate your specific concerns, people won't know them. I happen to know a broad spectrum of sources related to the topic, and since it's an esoteric topic, I've found I might as well assist on it. My "advocacy", as you would see if you ever go through the archives, is for strict adherence to wikipedia policy, to me this should be especially true for POV-sensitive issues like religious ones. You don't even realize that the reason I have even come to watch the article is because of the repeated attempts to strip out criticisms by those with believer POVs. I wrote nearly all the criticism material into the article about science flaws and plagiarism and fought repeatedly against multiple believer-editors to keep it present. But that does not mean that I begrudge them their POV or that neutral, plain explanations about the material not be presented. Wazronk (talk) 20:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have been exceedingly clear about my specific concerns in multiple venues. It may be that your association with the subject has clouded your judgment. Maybe you are just attached to content you wrote. I'm going to assume good faith and assume that you simply disagree for reasons I cannot ascertain. In any case, the fact is that there does not need to be this group of articles: we should fix the main article first. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, you have not been exceedingly clear. You've cited "walled garden" as an argument, which is a meaningless essay for WP:DELETE purposes, and isn't true anyhow in this situation because there is no "wall" and all along you've had full liberty to modify and improve on the articles in question. You haven't been interested in editing the pages though or in discussing their content with editors, only on blanking them. You've cited that there's "POV fork", while refusing the repeated requests to actually give what the POV short-comings are in the articles. You should "assume good faith" and assume that I "simply disagree" for precisely the reasons I've been repeatedly telling you. Wazronk (talk) 20:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy close and renominate separately on the following grounds: 1. One of the articles blanket-nominated already survived an AFD challenge less than a month ago and articles must not be renominated after such a short interval, and 2. as noted above the topics are separate enough that they should be nominated separately. This is a procedural "vote" as I have no opinion one way or the other on the viability of the individual articles although I will vote Speedy keep on the Thought Adjuster article as that is the one that already went through AFD 3 weeks ago. 23skidoo (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am finding it very hard to assume good faith about this comment. The survival of the one article was on grounds totally unrelated to the points being brought up here. Are you really going to make me take this through a needlessly procedural WP:DRV for their input? For godsakes, the damn thing was closed "no consensus". Hardly a resounding reason to prevent future AfDs and there are plenty of other instances where "no consensus" AfDs were relisted rather than closed. And now we have a slew of other issues to address. So please stop Wikilawyering and deal with the substance of the issue. Why is it that you can't so much as get a discussion going on Wikipedia without people making ridiculous protestations about procedure like the one above? ScienceApologist (talk) 20:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is because people have misconceptions about how Wikipedia works, and when they find out it takes some time to adjust to reality. (Sorry, sometimes I can't resist answering rhetorical questions.) --Hans Adler (talk) 20:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

23skidoo, did you even look at these AfDs? Minimal participation. One closed as "no consensus" and one as "defaults to keep", whatever that means. The total number of "keep" votes in these two AfDs by people who are not Urantia SPAs was 1 "weak keep". Taking this as precedent just because the closing admins weren't more careful is counter to Wikipedia's consensus principle. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all and merge all sourced content with The Urantia Book. Reasons:

These topics have no independent notability outside the Urantia universe, and " Cosmology", "Revelation" etc (except possibly "Thought Adjuster") are unlikely to be search terms for users searching for the book; hence they are not reasonable redirect candidates.
The main article The Urantia Book, despite its apparent length has too little independent and reliably sourced content for spin-offs to be justified under summary style. A large part of the article is simply sourced to the The Urantia Foundation and is an in-universe description, rather than a critical/encyclopedic appraisal based on secondary sources.

Abecedare (talk) 20:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Secondary sources establishing notability for Thought Adjuster are especially easy to come by, for example:

Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery by Martin Gardner

New Religions: A Guide: New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities by J. Gordon Melton and Christopher Partridge

Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality by Bob Larson

Charts of Cults, Sects, and Religious Movements by Dr. H. Wayne House

And the Gardner book was entirely written as an evaluation and critical response to the "revelation" claim. The cosmology topic has been seen as a notable aspect of the book by Gardner and others but to my knowledge on the other hand there aren't as many secondary sources directly concerned with it in-depth. Wazronk (talk) 21:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These are all excellent sources to be used for writing The Urantia Book article. However, none of these sources were really used to write the Thought Adjuster article, and they've been of limited use in the main article as well. One thing at a time. Get The Urantia Book article up to snuff, then we can think about forking. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]