User:Kriegman/Yoism note

History
Jossi recreated the Yoism article. Subsequently  Tijuana Brass ¡Épa! deleted the Yoism article and locked it to prevent recreation. I sent Tijuana Brass a note explaining what happened with a link to this note to Jossi. Tijuana Brass then recreated the Yoism article as a redirect and placed the Yoism article in deletion review. This note was sent to Jossi shortly after he recreated the Yoism article.

Note to Jossi
Jossi,

I see that you recreated the Yoism article that was deleted last year. I certainly support your action. If your action receives some negative reaction, you should be aware of the following:

The arguments against the Yoism article took form during a period when the Yoism web site was down and no independent investigation of the phenomenon could occur. The arguments included the notion that Yoism was a self-promoting affectation of one of its founders, me. Daniel Kriegman (and maybe other Yoans). It was falsely argued that there was no evidence for Yoism other than the claims of a handful of folks and only the one independent article in The Boston Globe (though I never understood how that could be discounted). With an Alexa rankking of 700,000+, it was deemed to be tantamount to a micronation:

In the VfD, Geni wrote
 * alexa rank of 723,391. I'm not immpessed by your web site traffic." 00:46, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I was told that we could recreate the article WHEN and IF further documentation of the phenomenon were to occur. That has happened. But since I learned that it is not considered good form for an advocate of a phenomenon to create and be the main author of an article, I did not attempt to recreate it. I did notice that you have done so, though you added the caveats regarding needed references.

Here is a new summary of the evidence (that includes needed references for the Yoism article):

"Rankings"

[Note: Explanations of the rankings are probably not necessary for you and are included in case this is viewed by others.]


 * Yoism.org's Alexa ranking has steadily been between 70,000 and 85,000 since February 2006 (Alexa only considers the top 100,000 rankings to be accurate as most of the billions of WWW sites are not even ranked and only the top 100,000 get enough traffic to make the relative rankings accurate.)


 * Google "results' during the same period have ranged from 21,000 to 45,000 (it fluctuates up and down continuously in that range). During the VfD, Google results were in the 2,000 - 9,000 range.  The Yoism site's Google ranking has been 4 (out of 10), with the vast majority of websites either being unranked or receiving a 0 ranking.

IRS Recognition

Yoism, Inc. has gone through a rigorous 501(c)(3) process that documents its existence and legitimacy far better than many phenomenon in the Wikipedia. Yoism, Inc. was not just recognized as a legitimate non-profit enterprise by the IRS. It was specifically recognized as a religion, i.e., a church, which is a far more restrictive category that gets extraordinarily close scrutiny by the IRS, because of numerous attempts to use religion as a way to avoid paying taxes.

Zuzu's Place, a Project of Yo, Inc.

The Spare Change (August 22-September 4, 2002, pp. 12, 16) and M-POWER's "Voices for Change" (Issue 8) articles described this major Yoism project in detail (the project was a major focus of Yoan activity in the Boston area for three years). The project is also described on its own web page here.

SPAM

SPAM was noted in one of the NY Times top ten most emailed articles: ". . . the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster flourishes. It even has schisms. A rival faction, based on SPAM (Spaghetti & Pulsar Activating Meatballs), has formed." (New York Times, August 29, 2005)"  The parody religion known as SPAM is a Wholly Yoan creation (pun intended), that, unlike Yoism itself, exists only in Yoism webspace.

Independent, Objective, Substantial, and Direct References to Yoism


 * January 2004: The Boston Globe a New York Times company article on Yoism.
 * May 2006: A NewsForge article on New-time religion that focuses on Yoism
 * July 2006: Front page of the the Sunday LA Times mentions Yoism's "Book of Yo" and contains a major article that focuses on Yoism.

Other Issues

I would also recommend that you use the descriptive material from the deleted article to recreate the Yoism article more accurately. That article took form during and after going through a lengthy VfD in 2003 (with the decision to keep the article) and thus was carefully scrutinized by a number of Wikipedians. The only changes I would suggest are that Yoans in the Boston area number "in the hundreds" and worldwide "in the thousands" (we simply have no more accurate numbers).

In your opinion, would it be inappropriate for me to add the references? What about adding some of the material from the original article? I do think that many of the references that are carry overs from the open source religion article that you used to recreate the Yoism article should be deleted from the Yoism article. What do you think?

If you respond to this here, please send me an email or drop a note on my talk page to let me know you have done so. Thanks. Dan Kriegman 16:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

PS. I just discovered that you redirected "Open source religion" to this Yoism article. That is somewhat ironic as one of the results of the Yoism VfD was to redirect Yoism to the "Open source religion" article. I do think that the "Open Source Religion" article is about a more general and growing phenomenon and should be separate from the Yoism article that should include material specifically describing Yoism. Again, what do you think? Kriegman 16:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)