Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adath Jeshurun Congregation

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep. Fram (talk) 11:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adath Jeshurun Congregation

Adath Jeshurun Congregation (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Delete Non-notable congregation without any references to establish notability. Bstone (talk) 21:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Keep. Until such time as WP:CONSENSUS is reached about what to do about such articles and stubs. Nominator has recently nominated a number of synagogue articles and stubs for deletion causing concern. Please see the discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Deletion of synagogue articles. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 09:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
• Delete: I'm sorry, but I did a few searches and did not find anything that would assert any notability of this synagogue. The article itself provides very little context. Unless independant, third party sources can be found to indicate some sort of notability, I don't believe this article meets our guidelines for inclusion. - Rjd0060 (talk) 17:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi Rjd: I got all my information only via Googling by first doing the search without inverted commas and hence found hundreds of hits and results for Adath Jeshurun Congregation Minnetonka it's just that sorting it manually is harder, but it can be done and it yields good information. Also, to repeat, AFDs and prods should NOT be used as "scare tactics" to get people to improve articles "or else" -- that is a kind of a "law of the jungle" trap that as responsible and honest academic and intellectual editors we should not just avoid but also shun. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 08:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
• Comment (1) What is the basis for claiming this congregation is notable? (2) What are the sources to support it? Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 18:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Shira, I researched the topic for a couple of hours using Google, as anyone can, and I also found some excellent sources now cited in the article. IZAK (talk) 08:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

*Oppose Per IZAK. Nsaum75 (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - I really don't get IZAK's argument. Consensus on deletions is made here. If there's a consensus it will be deleted, it there's not it won't. Jewish articles don't get special treatment. What is "causing concern" supposed to mean? On the merits here, the article doesn't contain even an assertion of notability and had this been a church, mosque, tennis club, or company, it would have been speedied by now. If someone can show some significance, then fair enough.--Doc^g 23:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Doc: The article is now significantly expanded with more information and sources. IZAK (talk) 08:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

*Oppose per IZAK. Culturalrevival (talk) 00:24, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Per IZAK. Bhaktivinode (talk) 01:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Rather than just piling on, can you please explain why IZAK's opinion makes sense, since it seems to me to be in conflict with policy. And then can you explain why this article meets our inclusion criteria, since IZAK has offered no rationale. If we are trying to discuss this article here to reach a consensus, "votes" that effectively say there should not be a discussion here but only on some individual wikiproject, may well be ignored by the closing admin. Wikiprojects do not own articles. I'm willing to change my delete opinion, in response to good arguments, if people will have the courtesy to enter into the discussion.--Doc^g 11:15, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Doc: Had you been following the discussions about this over-all subject of deleting synagogue articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Deletion of synagogue articles you would have an inkling of my serious concerns. Allow me to repost my most recent explantion of why we are having problems here: "...you have not grasped where I am coming from in the present situation it seems, because my concern and focus is on BUILDING Wikipedia especially its Jewish content. In the process of building one needs "bricks" and "cement" at least. Some of the recent nominations to delete articles about synagogues run counter to the spirit and aim of building good articles. Many of these synagogue articles have been accumulated over years and they need to be looked at NOT as "nuisances" that need to be removed but as POSSIBLE building blocks, either on their own if at all possible, or as the parts of articles about the cities and communities they are in. Thus an article about a small synagogue in an isolated community may not seem that significant on its own, but it can and should be part of a larger article about [[History of the Jews in _ _ _ _]] see Category:Jewish American history by place as an example, or it could even be MERGED into an general non-Judaic article about the city or community it finds itself in under a sub-heading of "==Religion in _ _ _ _=="! These are all healthy possible options to have in mind and but not to be "trigger happy" by reaching for the "delete" options at every turn without considering the larger picture and the difficulty of gathering information for Judaic articles in the first place! These are some of my concerns as a Wikipedia writer/editor/contributor (who by the way also knows that at times some articles must indeed go, but it must be built on perspective and not just "fulfiling rules" that are a dime a dozen and don't help writing/editing/contributing in any real way.) As for what large company's and organizations are doing it mostly does not impact Wikipedia's Judaic content, except I would say with articles relating to Chabad that are flooding-in in greater numbers and need to be controlled and channelled. But this needs to be a careful busines and not a "shoot at sight" situation where an editor can look for all the rules around and shoot down stubs especially, something that is very unfair to all stubs. The mere fact that Wikipedia allows for stub articles to exist without any timeframe imposed on them, disproves the desire of the blanket deletionists. Not every article can reach full bloom with the slapping down of a template for "more information" and the like. Growth takes time. We are writers and editors first and being "deletionists and butchers" needs to be seen in context of growth and not just a process to fulfil rules that have nothing to do with writing and creating larger and better articles." IZAK (talk) 05:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• Delete: Non-notable synagogues do not meet the criteria for inclusion. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:56, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
  • How do you know that it is truly and absolutely a "non-notable" synagogue? What about WP:BITE? IZAK (talk) 05:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

*Delete. Article fails to establish notability. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 07:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• • Brew, take another look, now it does!IZAK (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Izak: You did an admirable job on the article. "Oldest Conservative Synagouge west of Chicago" removes my !Delete, but I'm unsure if that by itself makes it notable (besides the fact that it doesn't come from a reliabe source). The rest of the article, although informative, doesn't really make a notability claim.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 02:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Brew thank you for the compliments. What exactly would you like to write about any synagogue, or are synagogues not notable in your eyes? You seem to be in a hurry to push out the mention of synagogues. They are at least as important to modern Jews today as are video games are to the world's kids and there are thousands of stubs at Category:Video game stubs and no-one is running around screaming that they should be slashed like heck or be pushed into larger games or video articles such as Electronic games of children or Playing machines for entertainment. Similarly, Muslims have lots of articles and stubs in Category:Mosques and Christians have lots of articles and stubs in Category:Churches and there are lots more in similar ones like Category:Religious places, Category:Religious buildings, Category:Religious sanctuaries and more (all with lots of stubs in them) -- thousands of articles and stubs in all -- unless you are planning on blitzing all of those and sanitizing Wikipedia from religion entirely. Let us know what your plans are, it should make for some good discussion with the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee and the world will be most happy to learn in the media that Wikipedia has decided to destroy all articles that deal with religious places of worship and religious bodies! IZAK (talk) 08:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
        • Please stop yelling at me. Notability is notability is notability. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 16:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
          • Brew, I am not yelling at you I merely highlighted the question and you have not answered me beyond saying "Notability is notability is notability" which is like saying "It makes sense because it makes sense" without giving a reason. Kindly explain what you would consider a "notable synagogue"? I am very curious to find out. Thank you. IZAK (talk) 10:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: The article, now renamed Adath Jeshurun Congregation (Minnetonka) to differentiate it from other similar sounding congregations elsewhere, is now a full article. It meets all criteria for such an article. It is requested that the nomination be withdrawn! Thank you. IZAK (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - Article seems updated with claim of Notability of being the oldest conservative synagogue in its region and also professionally sourced. heartfelt thanks for whoever labored to save this article--YY (talk) 13:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per YY. Culturalrevival (talk) 16:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep The article has been expanded significantly and now establishes the notability of the synagogue. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 21:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Article has been expanded to establish notability. Nsaum75 (talk) 21:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep I think this does it fact show specific notability as a particularly active major congregation. I cleaned up the sources to indicate that not all of them were self-published. IZAK asked me to look, and I think this is sufficient. Just sufficient, for there are some basic details missing: when was it founded, where exactly is it located, wheat buildings was it in before 1995? There should be at least an infobox for this sort of material. DGG (talk) 01:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per Malik. Bhaktivinode (talk) 01:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep notable as the oldest Conservative synagogue west of Chicago. --MPerel 03:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
• Follow-up with creator of Minnesota synagogues stubs: I have contacted User Grika (talk · contribs) who was the editor who originally created all the stub articles about synagogues in Minnesota that have now become the focal point of much debate, and he, as creator of the stubs has neither responded, participated nor defended himself in any discussions AFAIK. Please see User talk:Grika#Requesting your attention. Feel free to add your comments. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 09:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. The sources used in this article are primarily self-published or otherwise not reliable. So it's the oldest Jewish place of worship west of Chicago? What makes that particularly significant? This fails notability guidelines (and a similar article on a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc place of worship would also). Karanacs (talk) 15:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi Karanacs: On what basis do you assert that "the sources used in this article are primarily self-published or otherwise not reliable" when six out of the eight sources have no connection to the synagogue? Your question that "So it's the oldest Jewish place of worship west of Chicago? What makes that particularly significant?" evokes some serious counter-questions that you must then face: What would make a synagogue "notable" to you? (and hopefully you are not opposed to all places of worship in principle.) Let's say a football team wins or loses some games and then that becomes the basis of an article, then one could easily state, well so what makes losing or winning a game so notable? And the answer would be that in the world of football and football players it's a notable event even though to the rest of the world they couldn't give a darn if they won or lost and it may as well be deleted with articles about all sports and players. I hope you get that your line of questioning is both unreasonable and not fair because each subject is judged for notability in its own field because there is no universal way to make all subjects equal because they all have different criteria and definitions of what makes them tick. Basically, notability is very relative. So your objections do not add up. Remember WP:NOT#PAPER -- until such time as the Wikimedia Foundation feels things need to be split up, like when they created Wiktionary for words crowding things up or pics, see Category:Wikimedia projects. But until such time we just keep adding and adding, welcome aboard the Wikipedia article creation and improvement express! Please try to remember that while some things do get deleted, it does not mean that everything gets deleted. IZAK (talk) 10:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Websites of random organizations are self-published. Though they are independent of the subject of the article (and thus not published by the subject), that makes them no less self-published (no fact-checkers, no editorial control), etc, which makes it not meet reliability criteria. Anyone can get a website and put anything they want on it if they choose. Per the notability guidelines, an article is notable if it has multiple reliable independent sources. Picking an arbitrary point in a country and saying that something is the oldest <fill in the blank> west of that arbitrary point is not a reliable gauge of notability, especially when that same fact can't be sourced to an independent source.

I looked at some of the articles in the Churches category that you complained about above, and many of those stubs were for buildings that were National Historic Landmarks, which is a pretty good sign of notability. Those that don't have adequate claims of notability and for which reliable sources can't be found should be deleted. If the problem is that these places are not covered in reliable sources (which appears to be an issue here), then you would be better served trying to get news organizations or book publishers to write about those places - thus creating the independent, reliable sources necessary to meet the Wikipedia guidelines. Karanacs (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Karanacs: Thanks for responding. You make it sound that you are the only one who cares most about Wikipedia rules and standards when we all agree so please stop flogging a dead horse! You know, you also miss the point of WP:AGF in the sense that as intelligent editors we presumably all have brains in our heads and are endowed with good judgment especially the longer and more experienced the editor is, the more we can assume that an editor knows what they are doing, so that before we take out the knives to cut out articles, as smart editors and fair people we try to understand the topic not just from one view but from other/s points of view as well and see what's up and what they mean. Sure, here and there there are synagogues or churches or what-have-you that are not really notable, but that does not justify blanket antipathy and hostility to synagogue and church articles. Time and patience are just as important as Wikipedia rules, and in fact hopefully we are all good at being patient and having enough time to let articles develop. Personally I avoid creating stubs, but in my five years on Wikipedia I have seen lots of stubs sit around for years until an editor who cares enough will improve the topic. That is just life on Wikipedia. We must be very patient and mature with all of this because as the saying goes "haste makes waste" and no-one wants to guilty some day of having "thrown out the baby with the dirty bathwater"! IZAK (talk) 09:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Comment Are you suggesting that, for example, the Jewish Theological Seminary is not a reliable source for Conservative Judaism matters? Are you suggesting it should be regarded as a "random organization" with respect to that subject? It's not an editor's personal belief about reliability that matters here, it's what the peer community says. My problem with the JTS article is that an article by the congregation's rabbi is evidence of the rabbi's notability within Conservative Judaism, not the congregation's, and I would note that some of the other sources cited really seem to be on other topics and seem to give the subject passing rather than substantial coverage. But this is quite different from a blanket claim that JTS is not a reliable source on Conservative Judaism matters or that religious sources are never reliable for establishing notability on religious matters. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 18:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Comment It might be worth taking a look at the discussion taking place on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Mailing lists as sources where some senior core policy editors seem willing to take a very case-by-case approach in determining what sources are reliable in a field. Such discussions are common. Flexibility in application, such as field-specific considerations in determining source reliability, are part of Wikipedia's fabric. Such flexibility should not be confused with abandoning core policy requirements, like giving articles passes from having to establish notability. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 18:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC).

• Keep. I've added some detail from non-"self-published sources", which also attest to its notability. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep A thorough, well-researched article that provides ample reliable and verifiable sources to establish notability. Alansohn (talk) 16:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.