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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Course in Miracles (book)

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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The result of the debate was nomination withdrawn. --Coredesat talk. o.o;; 08:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A Course in Miracles (book)

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From Talk:A Course in Miracles, this looks to be an intentional split in progress. —Quarl (talk) 2006-07-02 10:40Z
Comment This is the results of the merging of all of the other articles that have already come before AfD. Hopefully, this will be the one that remains since it is based on actual reliable secondary sources, written in NPOV, etc. Please see Helen Schucman, William Thetford, Kenneth Wapnick, Authorship of A Course in Miracles, etc. Ste4k 11:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for now. What we need here is an article on the book, an article on the movement, and then we'll see if there are any sections so big they should be broken out. The current article at A Course In Miracles is ghastly, a veritable cornucopia of unverified, uncited, uncritical commentary, and is severley bogged down with arguing how massively significant this movement is, withotu actually providing any verifiable statistics from any reputable sources external to the movement itself. Just zis Guy you know? 12:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per JzG. Ste4k 23:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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.


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 of the nomination was delete. Mangojuicetalk 13:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A Course in Miracles (book)

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Original Debate — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottperry (talk • contribs) Resubmitted Afd nomination — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottperry (talk • contribs)

  • Delete or Merge. I resubmit this nomination. I don't see how sidestepping the problems mentioned above would resolve them. Rather it seems to me that it would merely compound them. If editors wish to improve the main article, or to divide the article down into a 'book article' and also a 'movement article' then it seems to me that this first needs to be discussed and agreed to on the article discussion page. This 'book' article seems to me to be quite POV, calling the students of this book a 'cult', and attempting to place what seems to me to be undue attention on a single contributor to the early publication of ACIM who was a transexual. Please do not delete this discussion until after it has had due time to be fully discussed here.

Thanks , -Scott P. 01:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Procedural Keep based on the fact that nominator The editor that has reopened this AfD is personally involved with the topic matter. The word "cult" is a direct quote from a valid reputible resource "Publisher's Weekly". The gender of the original contributor and his philanthropic contributions are also matters which are quotes from both the New York District Court as well as the philantrhopist's legacy foundation. No original research. Ste4k 03:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Clarification: For what it's worth, the article calls the book a "cult favorite". It does not say that the devotees are a cult. -Will Beback 04:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The term "cult favorite" does not mean cult per se. Movies, such as Rocky Horror Picture Show have been referred to as "cult favorites". The term simply means that a particular item holds a great deal of appeal, is perhaps even a centerpiece of the lifestyle of, a comparatively small portion of the overall population. The Deletrix 05:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • The term cult, when applied to a religious movement in any direct or indirect way, may also imply certain additional connotations beyond simply a group of unusually devoted movie goers. It seems to me that there might be other more effective and less potentially misleading terms or phrases to use here than the term used by the Publisher's Weekly author, such as perhaps the phrase "which has managed to gain a significant group of devoted students." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottperry (talk • contribs)
          • I agree.The Deletrix 00:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Regardless of what editors think the word "cult" means, per policy: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader must be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, because Wikipedia does not publish original thought or original research." Therefore any individual opinion about the word "cult" is up to the reader, and our jobs are to provide the reader with reputibly verifiable previously published information. Ste4k 01:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Unless this is Wikisource, some interpretation and synthesis of source material is required to write the most objective and neutral and verifiable of articles. Refering to ACIM followers as a cult can't be defended by refering to the word "cult" found in a secondary source and saying "look, it's verifiable!" because it is clearly taken out of context. Have you not seen enough people distort the meaning of Biblical text by pulling it out of context to support some non-neutral agenda? There is no difference here. Neutrality of articles requires thinking and interpretation on the editors part and this is a component that cannot be removed from article writing, again, unless this is Wikisource or Wikiquote. Nor should you say Wikisource is built on verifiability-not-truth, for it is surely through verifiability that you are hoping to retain the truth, for it is what you value. —Antireconciler 19:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • I can see your point, but the statement in the article does not refer to "ACIM followers", whatever or whomever those might be. Here is the statement: "It became a spiritual curriculum for many individuals and study groups, well over a million copies have been printed, multiple foreign-language editions exist, and it remains a cult favorite." I read four different things there, none of which necessarily have to with one another unless one injects a personal bias. The word "cult" itself, only has negative connotations to people whom have only experienced the word from a negative perspective. From an objective NPOV perspective, and from the perspective of PublishersWeekly, this is the term used to distinguish a small religious group from a large religion. The entire first section also gives accolades for the number of books sold. Do you believe it impossible that there is a significant portion of 1.5 millison readers that like cults? The nominator says, "calling the students of this book a 'cult'". Do you think that this statement is true? The nominator also says, "undue attention on a single contributor to the early publication of ACIM who was a transexual." The contributor in question put forth $440,000 as the initial catalyst and was very open and proud about gendre issues during a time (70's) when "out of the closet" hadn't even yet come out of the closet. The contributor is now deceased, but has left an educational foundation as a legacy. To pull out from the entire article only these two terms and express fears of bad connotations seems to be done from a biased point of view rather than neutral. The term "ACIM" by the way is considered to represent only a faction of the full population that reads books of this title. To present a neutral perspective, factionism should be avoided. Ste4k 00:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Why hang on to "cult" and quibble over its meaning. I'm a fairly new editor and normally a bit timid, but tonight was my night to live dangerously and experiment with "being bold". A lot of electrons were being killed to flog this horse so I went ahead and just reworded the sentence to avoid using "cult". Those masochistically keen on minutiae can read my legalistic reasoning on the article talk page and the truly masochistic can resurrect the word and keep debating it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A. B. (talk • contribs)
  • Keep since it was involved in what seems a very important copyright case and has had a notable influence on people. And shouldn't this be on a different AfD page rather than right below the first? I suggest making a new AfD page and moving the dicussion there, otherwise someone might think the discussion has been closed if they just glance at the top half of the page. Xuanwu 08:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • As the discussion was set up for archiving after only two days of discussion while some disagreement still seemed to remain unanswered, I have removed the boxing of the upper portion of this discussion. Thanks for pointing this out. -Scott P. 12:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The discussion ended because I withdrew my nomination. The Deletrix 00:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I apologize, my mistake. -Scott P. 13:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • I think it would be helpful on the nominator's part to contact each of the people that voted on this matter earlier, since the nominator believes the reason is different enough to re-open a closed discussion that the other parties believe has been closed and dispensed with. Or if the nominator believes that the question put forth is wholly the same as put forth by the former nominator, then the seperation between Original and Resubmitted sections should be removed. If the latter is the case, then my procedural vote will be striken. Ste4k 01:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • A good deal of work has been done into digging around the copyright case. It is not important, and certainly not very important. It is not widely cited as precedent, and is discussed only in a couple of tangential references. Penguin are a highly litigious firm, this was very run-of-the-mill stuff. Just zis Guy you know? 11:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, delete duplicate content from A Course in Miracles, move any remainder that relates to the book and is not found in A Course in Miracles (book) to this article, and leave a section header devoted to an introduction of the book that links to A Course in Miracles (book) as a main article corresponding with that section. Leave the main article for the Course's theological and philosophical interest. If I type in "A Course in Mircles" in the searchbox, I will expect to find a detailed description of what A Course in Miracles is, which will be what the book says, not where it came from. —Antireconciler 19:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A unified article structure or a fractured one? Should this article (and the logic of its creation) remain, then the previous main article on ACIM would essentially have to be deleted and a new article only about the movement would have to be started. This article seems to me to be an attempt by its creator to sidestep the traditional Wiki process of dialogue with the editors of the main article, and to ultimately thereby delete it. I do not agree with the logic of the creation of this article, and I believe that this discussion should be clarified. It chould be clarified here that either there will be two articles: one about the movement and one about the book, or there will be only one article about both. It seems to me that this is what this discussion should ultimately determine. No?

If this is an accurate assesment of what we are discussing here, then the question essentially becomes: Is the movement better fully described apart from the book article or within it? It appears that the creator of this article has not actually read much of the book itself, but instead has mainly focused on the external circumstances of its authorship and early publication, which admittedly are unusual. The actual contents of this book repeatedly stress the need to steer clear of formal organization. Thus no formal officially sanctioned movement has yet formed around this book, but instead the majority of its students focus primarily on independent study of the book. By this I mean that the original editors and publishers of this book have never sanctioned the formation of such an organization, and the majority of its students do not belong to any such formal organization. I do not see why this movement deserves a separate article in Wiki.

I believe that the creator of this article would do best to follow the traditional Wiki course of dialogue with other editors rather than attempting to delete the main article via what seems to me to be a rather circuitous procedure here.

-Scott P. 11:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete; seems to be a POV fork. — goethean ॐ 21:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and merge any useful material to ACIM. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and merge into main article. There is useful content in this article that would benefit the other article. Once merged, address the various issues identified with each article and build the merged article into something better, using consensus editing. Delete as POV forks any new ACIM-related articles that crop up unless agreed to on the talk page of the main article. The merged article may get big enough to justify subdividing, but don't do this until the merged article is otherwise in very good shape and a consensus evolves for how to subdivide it. NPOV, consensus, verifiability, encyclopedic -- all are much more important than article length. They're also much more important than whether Wikipedia has two smaller articles or one bigger article. Wikipedia's readers expect reliability; they'll put up with longish articles and less than sparkling prose--A. B. 04:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A Course in Miracles (book) is a substantially different article just 12 hours after I wrote the above. There's not much left to merge unless you go back to one of the earlier versions. Ste4k has edited her formerly meticulously footnoted article into some sort of parody.--A. B. 17:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Too many facts, based on incredulous sources like U.S. District Court rulings. OBVIOUS POV Ste4k 06:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I voted keep in the original debate, but the article has become a major POV fork. Again. Merge anything useful to ACIM and get rid of this. --Coredesat talk. o.o;; 09:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Should these be Keep and Merge, as deletion entails removal of the content, not merging it? JChap 17:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Revert and Keep: Revert A Course in Miracles (book) to "Revision as of 05:47, 7 July", which contains useful NPOV and verifiable information. Delete duplicate content from A Course in Miracles, and move any remainder that relates to the book and is not found in ACIM (book) to ACIM (book). Leave a section header in ACIM devoted to an introduction of the book that links to ACIM (book) as a subarticle. (This will allow A Course in Miracles to be shortened to a more reasonable length.) Leave ACIM article for the Course's theological and philosophical interest with {{OR}} tag until references can be utilized. (If I type in "A Course in Mircles" in the searchbox, I will expect to find a detailed description of what A Course in Miracles is, which will be what the book says, not where it came from.) —Antireconciler 15:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I purposely left the material that was incorrectly merged into this article alone. The rest of the work was my own, and as previously stated, obviously a POV fork, whatever that is. I do not want any of my contributions to be associated with this topic at all. It has already been pointed out sufficiently that nobody wants to know the truth underlying this topic, and researching the matter has only generated accusations of bad faith, etc. Ste4k 15:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Surely, and I can appriciate your desire to not be involved with this topic. It has generated quite a few misunderstandings. It is because I understand the value of your contribution and your desire to bring facts and objectivity to this topic that it can't be fair either to you or the WP community to allow it to be simply deleted. The information you have collected at the above revision is neither a POV fork, not-notable, nor unverifiable, so it can't be fair to the community to simply revoke the information in virtue of your being the lead contributor. Again, I can understand not wanting to be a part of this project anymore, and not wanting your name associated with it. Can we agree, then, to allow the work to be viewed and understood as if were community-authored, and on its own merit? I think it is very important that we reach a decision that is fair to you and the community. —Antireconciler 19:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • The past has already occurred. The future cannot be predicted. There are possibilities that neither of us can even consider at this juncture, which looking back upon, a year from now perhaps, we might both say to eachother, "Oh my, had we only had the wisdom not to print that." Hindsight has been granted us to realize how irrevocable the future might be. A truly neutral position is seen as despicable from all perspectives, being contrary to any of them. It is only your opinion that there is value to my contribution at this time. What I propose is as equally fair to me as it is to the community. Ste4k 20:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • I agree that no one could write an article and have no motive and no conception about which viewpoint was the more truthful. Still, I think there is a difference between having a point of view while understanding and respecting the dissenting perspectives, and having a point of view antagonistic to dissenting perspectives. I can understand and respect your viewpoint and yet disagree, but for respect of it, want to talk about it. Discussion would surely be pointless otherwise. Similarly, there are a lot of things I've commited to print that I've later disagreed with, but for respect of it (and really myself), continue forward, willing to continue making mistakes for the sake of learning from them. Surely your viewpoint is not so antagonistic or despicable, else what would leave me here talking with you, totally unconvinced? —Antireconciler 21:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Merging two topics which are contentious to each other, which discuss different topics under the same name, only serves to provide more ambiguity rather than disambiguate the title. It would be better to provide the information in an article that is complete, and which has a better topic name, etc. The information that this article contained is not lost and will be re-introduced at such a time when it is more of a complete topic with better research. The article's existence under this name is misleading at best. Ste4k 13:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and merge into main article. JChap 17:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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