Talk:Baháʼí Faith by continent

Proposed merge
I'm afraid I don't see the point in this article; I suggest the details are either merged into the respective country articles or into Baha'i statistics. AndrewRT(Talk) 21:14, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree, actually the agreement on Baha'i statistics was that this material should be moved out, because it isn't mostly about statistics. It's written in summary style.  Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 00:09, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Remember, you don't WP:OWN Wikipedia, regardless of what "agreements" you make among yourselves. Articles on the Baha'i Faith should conform to the article conventions used elsewhere on Wikipedia. Most of the other "Religion by country" articles are in tabular form - one row per country, with an overall introduction. I suggest this article is done like that too, with the detailed text moved to the relevant country-articles. AndrewRT(Talk) 14:21, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This article was created from various sources mostly because it didn't fit anywhere else. Individual countries already exist but a summary for is needed from that perspective. As for other tabular forms, I don't consider Christianity by country or Hinduism by country, as examples of what I think AndrewRT is referring to, as much of a model of what we should do. I prefer the breif abstract approach. Single lines of statistics are a very different approach than what this article is trying to do. And like it or not, but engaging, presuming we can get to some kind of agreement, you are among the "yourselves" making Wikipedia better, regardless you wont own the result any more than "we" do. Smkolins (talk) 15:51, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

perhaps the Chronology could go to Bahá'í timeline
this might simplify this article alittle and add to that content nicely? Smkolins (talk) 15:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Summary Data
maybe this should go to Bahá'í statistics?
 * 1. 2001 Stats
 * 2. a table perhaps ala Major_religious_groups
 * 3. need a way to cite it but I have an email from the Research Department of the Baha'i World Center reporting the number of Women serving on NSAs from 1987 to 2007 (some of which is online here)
 * 4. first mention of "5 million Baha'is" from 1991 - here, and other mentions at various dates for total numbers of Baha'is.
 * 5. schools by continent

By-Country Data

 * 1. 2005 Data from ARDA
 * 2. The Largest Baha'i Communities (from 2000)
 * 3. Forming NSAs
 * 4. scattered references to first Baha'i visitor or pioneer/Knight, some from the next entry but lots from other places
 * 5. number of assemblies at the end of 1963 derived from this

very beta development
User:Smkolins/Sandbox3 perhaps discuss basic structures and then start filling more systematically.

Smkolins (talk) 22:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

re-catting
Wiki-uk and I have been discussing the categorizing of Bahá'í statistics and Bahá'í Faith by country - we're now suggesting they belong to Category:Bahá'í statistics, which would then be under Category:Bahá'í history. Thoughts? Smkolins (talk) 15:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I would call the category Category:Bahá'í demographics, but not place it in the Baha'i history cat. -- Jeff3000 (talk) 04:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

USA
Why no article Bahá'í Faith in the United States? Cuñado ☼ -  Talk  02:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Well from my pov it would be a colossal task. In some ways it would mean integrating many of the Baha'i articles that exist and would probably need itself to be multiple articles with a summary article. I've previously suggested that before a main article could come together it would be better to beef up all the biographical pages that relate - and we have advanced on a few of them like Juliet Thompson. I've been getting an itch for Dorothy Beecher Baker. We've also been critiqued on this page - that it doesn't follow all the format of all the other similar articles. I've been putting together a comparable table and frankly working through articles around the world help me get the details for such a table of which the US is just one page. Additionally almost any interest in the question could find one of dozens of books already written on the subject. On the other hand it would be comparatively hard for any researcher to get a reasonable amount of info about most of the countries I've written about. Even the UK article - which I think has gotten the most attention of all the articles. And people immediately wanted to write sub articles from it and all were fairly bad jobs which I helped somewhat with taking time away from writing up other whole countries. Add that to get an article about the US that takes into account lots of vested interests all together on this would be some all consuming work probably for months. O- more thoughts - I thought I would need to beef up my skills on wikipedia which I've done some of in the mean time. And also I've been thinking of Abdu'l-Baha's Travels in the West as an article which would be certainly a major part of such an article on the US. Care to help on that? Smkolins (talk) 04:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah I'll work on it sometime in the next few weeks. I don't think it would take much to set up a simple version that can be expanded. Cuñado  ☼ -  Talk  07:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've got a thread of it in an Italy article in the works. I know his trip to Germany is referenced in the Germany article. I don't recall how much it's in the Britain article but there should be some there... as it grows it can be linked up in all those. No France article yet - obviously that will be a major part. Back on the idea of the whole US article - I've also got a Baha'i Faith and Native Americans article which covers N and S America. If you'll see the talk about of `Abdu'l-Bahá there's some chatter at the bottom about some sources/refs. O and the Bahiyyih Khánum article touches on it as well. The Bahá'í House of Worship article probably touches on it or should.... you see how this is threading through lot's of articles.... Smkolins (talk) 12:28, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

another resource...
Smkolins (talk) 01:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Size split?
Split - Sections 2-8 should be split out since article is over 100 kB. Thoughts? Suggestions?--Jax 0677 (talk) 19:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've been poking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Smkolins/Sandbox3 but another could take it over - a different approach surely, but perhaps more in keeping with parallel examples. --Smkolins (talk) 19:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Another option is to split each continent into it's own page, with a summary section here. Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 23:18, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Bahá'í Faith in Africa case in point.... but it doesn't list every country... --Smkolins (talk) 01:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Bahá'í Faith in Central America - I can see some have jumped on in to it. Smkolins (talk) 14:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Splitting off Bahá'í Faith in Central America is probably the worst idea at the moment. There are ~100 countries represented. If we aimed for a target article length of say 50k then that means 500 characters/country or say 80 words @ 6 chars/word. Most of the countries already have articles anyway, so that should be possible. If it really is not possible then maybe the page should be reduced to just the links to the articles for the individual countries. The idea of splitting by large regions just seems arbitrary. Op47 (talk) 23:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Doing splits by continents seems doable. Not the same size (number of countries) but a seemingly natural split - through I could see an exception for Central/South America by calling it Latin America. And there is the relatively minor problem of some countries argued over which continent it is it in between Asia and Europe.... It's not a perfect system.... --Smkolins (talk) 00:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

If you compare Bahá'í Faith in Africa with say Bahá'í Faith in Asia (even if you moved the countries in as entries) there is a very different approach. The new articles focus very much just on population estimates where as the African one unifies a degree of history (to which can be added the particulars of the country articles.) I think this approach, though more work, should be parallelized in the other articles. --Smkolins (talk) 03:26, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm wondering if this article should be renamed something like Bahá'í Faith world community or The Bahá'í Faith around the world with continental sections and summaries and links to these split outs underway for continents and per country summaries and then main articles for each country.... --Smkolins (talk) 01:10, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Apparantly Jax0677 thinks it ought to be called "Bahá'í Faith by continent" Op47 (talk) 22:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

OK - that about finishes the major reconstructions suggested - there should be followup smoothing content and context overall since some sections repeat things and then also an eye to proportionality for prominence and population should be examined. Finally some continental sections still have little more than country listings and once those are done summaries of those summaries could be brought back here. --Smkolins (talk) 18:47, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

North America, Thornton Chase
In 1894 Thornton Chase became the first North American Bahá'í who remained in the faith.

The text in bold above has been deleted, purportedly for being "original research" and "synthesis." Please note that the reference provided, Robert H. Stockman's "Thornton Chase: The First American Bahá'í," not only had to pass vigorous Bahá'í review on account of Stockman's being a Bahá'í, but in fact was published by the official press of the Bahá'í administration in North America. - Regards A35821361 (talk) 13:28, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

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What to do with this page?
Hello, , ,

I am wondering what should become of this page. Specifically, I'm wondering how we should navigate the fact that there are currently two top-level pages: Baháʼí Faith by country and this one. Baháʼí Faith by country already includes some material on continents (though not nearly as much). Conversely, the material on the individual continents is covered at the individual by continent pages, and in any case seems to be mainly just a hodgepodge of details from individual countries. The chronology appears to be based largely on one non-independent source, but if we are going to keep it I think it would be more appropriate at History of the Baháʼí Faith anyway.

I am torn between a merger into Baháʼí Faith by country and AfD, so wanted to check with others before starting a formal proposal. Really the only material that would get merged in would be parts of the lead, so I would tend toward AfD. We would want to make sure everything in here is available at the individual by continent pages first, however, and to make sure that Baháʼí Faith by country linked to the individual continental pages (just as it links to individual by country pages). Gazelle55 (talk) 20:09, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think we're still early in the phase of gathering sources about all this and believe more energy should go into development than trimming and see how things naturally develop. Ultimately I think there will be increasing regional/continental relationship as sources are developed and that a per-country article list will serve the system less well but that's just my perspective. But we are only about half way on the country articles. Lots to be done and better. Smkolins (talk) 23:00, 28 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I respect Mr Kolins' opinion since he made most of those pages. Based on other examples, which don't always help as examples, there's a page for Christianity in Africa, Islam in Europe, and Buddhism in the West, et cetera. There are not pages for Christianity by continent or Islam by continent. I'm inclined to get rid of this page and merge into the continent pages for Baha'i Faith in Africa, N America, S America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. I would avoid any other regional pages and have everything else in 'Baha'i Faith in X' or in the Baha'i Faith by country page. Too much overlap in pages makes for a lot of repeating and POV forking. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  05:52, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree we don't want duplication of effort and regionalized articles make sense to me with suitable structures in the footer links to facilitate cross-continental navigation (after all many continental regions touch others so crossing a mental line should be easy too.) I will still underscore that more work is needed creating more pages and this discussion of whether by country or by continent is secondary and making more articles by country should be most of the focus of actual work to be done. I think by the time such is done then there would be a much broader perspective on what structures in wikipedia help elucidate the topic. Smkolins (talk) 10:34, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I also really appreciate the hard work and others have done to create a lot of by country pages and find sources. That said, I feel like we are not really in the early stages. Almost all the countries with major Baha'i populations have pages (Canada comes to mind as an exception) and they are often more developed than by country pages for the much larger religions. I have no issue with creating more pages for the other countries, but it will likely be years before we have all of them. In the meantime I think we are at a point where we can work on the organization, sourcing, balance, etc. of the existing articles. And for this article in particular, even if for sake of argument we had pages for every country, I think we still would not need the article. And as  said, we want to avoiding any WP:CFORKs, especially if they might lead to POV forks. On the other hand, the continental summaries here could be useful for expanding the lead sections of the by continent articles. Gazelle55 (talk) 14:41, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, I have no definite opinion on this. I have myself proposed many Baha'i articles for deletion, the outcome was either those articles were deleted or they were improved by our dear friends Cuñado and Smkolins. I am happy with both the results.Serv181920 (talk) 16:36, 2 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks, for your response. I think this case is a bit different since I am not concerned about lack of notability, instead I'm concerned that everything discussed in this article is already discussed in other articles. Anyway, what I'm going to do is make sure all the stuff for individual continents is in those continental articles (and hopefully expand the leads along the way). Then I will propose a merger into Baháʼí Faith by country and this can be discussed further. Gazelle55 (talk) 16:22, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Because of the Continent section on Baha'i Faith by country, that would be a good place to add links to the continent articles and provide a high level structure. That page already has 3 tables with number estimates for continents or cultural regions. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  22:48, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * "High level structure" that suites the "World Religion" that has such "high standards" and such "lofty goals" and is the "sole panacea" for the suffering humanity.Serv181920 (talk) 07:51, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I think Cuñado just meant that the individual country pages were one level, the continental pages were a second level, and Baháʼí Faith by country was a third, higher level. Nothing about it being morally elevated or anything like that. But as always, I do agree there are POV issues on Baha'i articles that should be dealt with. Gazelle55 (talk) 09:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It may be that Baháʼí Faith by country be subsummed into Baháʼí_Faith_by_country.Smkolins (talk) 11:10, 5 March 2021 (UTC)


 * , yea I knew that. It was intended to be taken lightly. :) Have a nice day.Serv181920 (talk) 14:49, 5 March 2021 (UTC)


 * , yes perhaps... though I suppose you mean Baháʼí Faith by continent can be subsumed.
 * , got it, my bad – it's hard to catch sarcasm through text! Gazelle55 (talk) 20:02, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Getting back to the point, I'm wondering if the continental collections are more worth preserving than the country list and the country list just subsumed under the other article. Smkolins (talk) 12:03, 10 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've confirmed that everything in this article for the individual continents is either in the by continent articles (I pasted it in, in a few places), or else unsourced. So nothing needs to be done with that material. I think valuable sections of the lead and chronology can be merged into History of the Baháʼí Faith.
 * , all the material in Baháʼí Faith by country looks well-sourced and notable to me. Which parts would you suggest removing? Also, the by country page has a continents section, which like said can link to the continental pages. This page has nothing that isn't on the pages for each continent. Another issue is that this page has few good sources (reliable, independent sources). Now of course these could be found eventually, but it will likely be a while and in any case they can be used to fix up the pages for individual countries and continents. Finally, this page doesn't have any cross-cutting material, i.e., anything that compares/contrasts the continents.
 * Anyway, I'm going to formally propose a merger. If needed we could have an RfC to get enough voices for a proper discussion. Gazelle55 (talk) 01:47, 18 May 2021 (UTC)