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Thinking a little bit about this vote, I think there might be a problem. I will not remove my vote, because it will probably not make a differences, there is no concensus to delete the article. It is understandble that some old books can have their articles, regardless of if it was popular or not when it was published. On the other hand, here we have a man, that has published a couple of books, enough maybe to justify having an article about him, but maybe not for the book. I know many books that I will never write an article on, because I think they are neither not important enough or not popular enough. Maybe there should be a sort of guideline written here, for people to know if a book can have its article. I do have myself some ideas..., sometimes when a book is not read enough but is referred by other books, it can justify it. I am not saying anyone to reconsider their votes, just that, I think this is an important issue addressed, how really determining if a book can get an article, sometimes notability is not enough. Fadix 20:18, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
- You are totally right in all what you said, Fadix. I just have something more to add. The person who started the article (as well as other similar articles) is the same person who said He's currently trying to fill out Category:Books critical of Islam, with all contemporary related books. It's, than, sufficient that a book is critical of Islam, to merit an article. The result that we are getting now is that notability comes last. Cheers. -- Svest 20:34, September 6, 2005 (UTC) Wiki me up™
I think writing an article about something notable or not is not an issue (except that the community can be fooled about some topics that nobody have ever heard of). Any knowledge is knowledge. I think many Wikipedians would have a better use of their time if they spent it verifying the accuracy of some article instead of judging what is worth to be deleted Ericd 20:42, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
BTW as it seems to focus about Islam. I vote with both hands for deleting the category "Books critical of Islam". It fails NPOV IMO. Ericd 20:49, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
- Part of making knowledged acessable is categorising and sorting it. If someone is interested in books that are critical of islam, there exists a category. Then can then look at the articles and draw their own conclusions. Alot here of people seem to be missing the point of WP:NPOV, which is to treat contrversial subjects in a neutral manner. Klonimus 23:05, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
- I am not against the Category:Books critical of Islam. People should have access to that knowledge. Indeed, the best thing in WP is categorizing and we know it's a tough job. However, it's the art of doing that job which is harder. The easiest way to do that job is to just categorize. Cheers -- Svest 23:17, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
- Something neutral would be Books about Islam. If not we will have Book against XXXX and Book for XXXX about anything. And the worst of it that you have to be "against or for" or to read something that is classified as "against or for" I simply don't want to read any of those books, I want to have my own opinion, I want to read book that are intelligent enough to help me to have a better understanding of something. Ericd 23:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
- To be against something or with is a personal opinion. When you enter a bookshop w/ your kid you may find porn magazines there as well as educative books. Same here. Category:Books critical of Islam should exist and as you notice many books are categorized there, maybe because they deserve. The case here in this vfd, for me, is not and I voted accordingly. The book doesn't deserve that place. Svest 23:27, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
- Something neutral would be Books about Islam. If not we will have Book against XXXX and Book for XXXX about anything. And the worst of it that you have to be "against or for" or to read something that is classified as "against or for" I simply don't want to read any of those books, I want to have my own opinion, I want to read book that are intelligent enough to help me to have a better understanding of something. Ericd 23:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Here is an interresting result :
I think there's a lot of books critical of something.
And what about the confusion between Islam and Islamism ?
Ericd 23:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
- Ericd, What's your point?!!! Please refer to Islamism for details. Svest 23:37, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
- Comment. The problem with the "not notable" reasoning is that it is too subjective. There aren't guidelines stating what is considered notable and what is not notable. For example, wouldn't it be great if we could say, "This is notable based on Section 1.2 of the Guidelines on Notable Books"? Until then, everyone in the world can claim almost anything as either not notable or notable. Note how some people believe things are notable based on their own interests. How notable would the book be if it was entitled "The Christian Connection to Nazi Germany"? There's already an article on Wikipedia entitled "Criticism of Islam." And, there's a category entitled "Books critical of Islam." Here are also other books you may find interesting for possible addition to Wikipedia of similar stature. --JuanMuslim 05:56, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
"The Holy Reich : Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945" by Richard Steigmann-Gall
"Unholy Alliance: A History of the Nazi Involvement With the Occult" by Norman Mailer
"A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair" by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
"Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich" by Doris L. Bergen
- Well I will try to express POV in an understandable way :
- Notable or not (and notable is POV) this book exists and this is enough to be worth an article. If the article isn't good we have to improve it. Thus I oppose the deletion of the article.
- The Category "Books critical of Islam" seems to me highly POV and I have several arguments to support the deletion of this category :
-- A search on "Book critical of" return only "Books critical of Islam". The NPOV guideline should lead us to have categories like "Books critical of Protestatism", "Books critical of Catholicism", "Books critical of Hinduism", "Books critical of Buddhism", "Books critical of Atheism", "Books critical of Communism", "Books critical of Liberalism", "Books critical of Rock'n Roll", "Books critical of Walt Disney".....
-- IMO qualifying a book as critical of Islam is a POV in itself. I may be a convinced catholic and write a book about the crimes of the Spanish Inquisition. Is my book "critical of Christianity", "critical of Catholicism", "critical of the Catholic Church", "critical of the misunderstanding of the true Catholic faith" ?.... POV in any case...
-- The use of the category "Books critical of Islam" assimilate Islam, Islamism and Islamic Terrorism. These are different subjects. May I notice that the book "The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism", it seems in no way to be a general critics of Islam.
-- A book like Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington is categorized in "Books critical of Islam" why ? I haven't read the book but if Muslim spies penetrated Washington I may consider that there is some failure from the US governement ? Why not in a category like "Books critical of US governement" ?. I may even consider that this book shows that Muslim spies are smarter than the US government and thus it should be categorized as "Books positive about Islam". Ericd 14:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
- I had recategorized Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington into Category:Conspiracy theories. Of course that book got nothing to do with criticizing Islam as the creator of the article wanted it to be! I am not supporting the deletion of Category:Books critical of Islam but I am fed up with the same person creating tens of articles about non notable books and makes us waste our time here arguing against that! Cheers -- Svest 19:40, September 7, 2005 (UTC) Wiki me up™
- Comment. You raised some interesting points. I wasn't necessarily suggesting the deletion of the category although it would be better to do so. Or at least better categorization is needed. I mean have you noticed how everyone likes to lump all of Islam into one category. Even Muslims differentiate between Islam and Muslims. That is, Muslims can be very imperfect whereas Islam is viewed by Muslims as perfect. It wouldn't be fair to lump together Christians into one category called Christianity. Wikipedia seems to be getting better with the NPOV on religions. --JuanMuslim 07:11, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
Vote to Delete??
The tally that Tony Sidaway reported was 31 to 18. That seems to fit the definition of a "rough consensus" to delete. How many votes constitutes a "rough consensus"?--csloat 09:00, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
- I was wondering the same thing. BrandonYusufToropov 09:03, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
- "Rough consensus" is defined as two-thirds. 31 to 18 is well short of two-thirds. Babajobu 10:14, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
- Yeps, the rough consensus really is not so rough, and this falls short of the two thirds, leaving it to stay by default.
Actually there is no agreed numerical value on "rough consensus". As a matter of my AfD closing history I normally declare a consensus on this kind of discussion at somewhere over 70%, with confidence increasing more or less linearly between 70% and 80%. Good arguments to delete tend to influence me (and they did in this case; I think I myself would have veered between abstain and delete if I had taken part) but at the end of the day I could not find a consensus to delete here. I do take into account the fact that many people call 67% (two-thirds) a consensus, so I can be swayed if I've called no consensus on a higher figure and there are later objections. In this instance, as noted above, 31 to 18 is far short of two-thirds. Please do check my tallies, though. I did catch one counting error after the close and there could be more. I try to be fair to everyone and to take account of all opinions. Please let me know if you think I fell short of that standard on this occasion. --Tony SidawayTalk 21:17, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
- I am most dissatisfied with the outcome of this AfD, and I think it's a discredit to Wikipedia; I am more than satisfied with Tony's work as the closing admin, as well as with his interpertation and explanation of consensus (and I trust that he didn't count anon/sockpuppet! :p). El_C 21:27, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for the good explanation, Tony. BrandonYusufToropov