Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Archaeology and the Book of Mormon


 * 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. Discussions regarding clean up and article name can occur on regular talk page using the regular procedure. (non-admin closure) Atmoz (talk) 15:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Archaeology and the Book of Mormon

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tl;dr overloaded with synthesis. Almost none of this has anything to do with archaeology (the first several sections deal with animals!), so there's also blatant coatracking. Many sections tagged with OR. If kept, chainsaw it. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 01:18, 20 January 2011 (UTC) Weak keep - So far as I can see, there isn't excessive bloating in the "independent science and the Book of Mormon" field, just this article and the linguistics article. Having said that, I wonder whether an article of that type might not be a better place for both topics, as having a single article might help prevent the bloating described by others. John Carter (talk) 19:11, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. This article reeks of original research. It doesn't seem easily salvageable or notable for Wikipedia. Logan Talk Contributions 01:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Move. It's a mess, granted, but it I think it is quite notable. Article speaks both for and against findings. A quick look at the references show it is quite well covered. Will need careful examination though to see if refs match the text. I believe this needs a rename rather than a delete. It's supplementary to Criticism of Mormonism.-- Obsidi ♠ n Soul  01:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. A good amount of references are Mormon apologists and Book of Mormon references - which are not facts. Too much OR and not enough archeology. --Manway (talk) 02:15, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Move and cleanup. The article is indeed full of synthesis, original research and WP:FRINGE material, and needs an extensive workover. However, I'm not convinced that deletion is the proper remedy. It probably just needs a name change and a lot of the material cut out. I don't think it is objectionable simply because it covers a fringe topic, as we have articles on other fringy archaeology topics like Ancient Astronauts and Searches for Noah's Ark. This is supposed to be sort of a sub-article of Historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Maybe a proper new name for it is something like "Searches for external evidence of Book of Mormon authenticity", which I know is a mouthful. CO GDEN  02:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Latin America-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 03:06, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 03:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 03:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. All these articles (Linguistics and the Book of Mormon, etc.) walk a thin line between evangelism and anti-evangelism with no real middle ground possible.  The typical section for them consists of "The BOM says X, but critics note that the facts are Y, but apologists say Z".  Considering the fact that this whole thing boils down to interpreting facts based on religious persuasion, it's mighty thin material for an encyclopedia.  --Taivo (talk) 04:02, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. And "Archaeology and the Book of Mormon" is a fairly good topic name for this, although the animal sections might be movable to "Paleontology and the Book of Mormon", but they are rather closely related.  The problem is fairly simple.  The Book of Mormon proposes that people in pre-Columbian America were building walled cities of stone, smelting iron and steel, using wheeled vehicles, having alphabetic writing, and owning horses and cattle.  These things allegedly were built from sea to sea.  The location of all of this stuff is disputed, but somehow has to end up in upstate New York where the Book of Mormon was allegedly discovered. If any of this is true, it gives rise to obvious predictions that don't pan out.  There is an extensive literature from Mormon opponents and apologists trying to deal with the cognitive dissonance here.  The title is about as good as it could get, and the subject sees fairly obviously capable of supporting an article. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 16:54, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep -- This is a notable subject, though an uncomfortable one for the LDS, since it shows they are probably basing their faith on a work of fiction, whatever their apologists claim. I have tried to tidy up the headings, but suspect that what is now section 5 (with its long series of tags) ought to be removed.  Inevitably this is a subject on which there are a lot of POVs.  The only way of dealing with this is to set them all out, leaving the reader to judge for himself.  Deleting this article (however bad it is) would be tantamount to allowing WP to suggest that the claims of the book of Mormon are to be taken at face value, not rejected as (according to my POV) they should be.  Peterkingiron (talk) 18:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - this is a notable subject, directly analogous to Biblical archaeology. Lady  of  Shalott  00:21, 21 January 2011 (UTC) Comment - I wonder if 10lbhammer has ever heard of zooarchaeology, an important subdiscipline of archaeology.  Lady  of  Shalott  03:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. I find it difficult to believe that the article is not salvageable, and much of what is already there is fine. There are entire books written on this topic and entire books written about people and their frustration at their failure to find archaeological evidence of the Book of Mormon after years of searching, so there's nothing inherently "unencyclopedic" or non-notable about the topic. I don't think deletion is the answer here to an article that has problems. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The article offers important insight regarding some of the more controversial issues within the Book of Mormon. It can easily be cleaned up. There is no reason to delete it. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 02:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 *  Strong Keep  Abstain - I am not without bias though as I have contributed quite a bit to this article - there were several very idealistic Mormon editors that bloated this thing to epic proportions and I have been trying to work on it slowly over time to cut out the OR and synthesis. And as noted above, this is a huge topic/debate within Mormon apologetic circles and mormon critics.--Descartes1979 (talk) 04:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Changing my vote to abstain - thinking critically a bit about this topic and I am starting to agree that it should be moved and at the very least chopped up and rebuilt.--Descartes1979 (talk) 04:51, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That is not a bad idea - if I understand you correctly - to merge Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Linguistics and the Book of Mormon, and Genetics and the Book of Mormon (any others?) into a single Independent Science and the Book of Mormon. Right? --Descartes1979 (talk) 04:52, 23 January 2011 (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.