Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blasphemy Day


 * 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. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:03, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Blasphemy Day

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After the initial proclamation in 2009, appears to be no significant coverage in the media. No appearance of continued or notable observation outside a few press releases and web blogs. Delete per WP:PERSISTENCE. Wkharrisjr (talk) 13:08, 7 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep While it receives little mainstream media attention, Blsaphemy Day has come a rallying point for organizations fighting to end blasphemy laws around the world. It receives frequent mention in outlets related to secularism, atheism and freethought, as a quick Google will demonstrate. I believe that this level of ongoing interest is enough to invoke Notability is not temporary. TechBear  &#124; Talk &#124; Contributions 13:54, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions.  Rcsprinter    (talk to me)  @ 17:17, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete: As per nom. All sources about the article subject are from 2009 (excluding the ones that are only used to source that certain countries have blasphemy laws) and has none other from the following years. If the event was notable enough to invoke NTEMP, I would have expected something at least from 2013 covering it in a reliable third party independent source. Since there isn't one, I think this is not notable and should be deleted. I also remind Techbear that WP:SET states that search engine tests are not reliable for that purpose.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 19:46, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: It was promoted for 2013 by the Center for Inquiry (http://www.centerforinquiry.net/oncampus/campaign_for_free_expression) and by the American Atheists (http://news.atheists.org/2013/09/30/today-is-international-blasphemy-day/). It received a write-up in The Inquisitr (http://www.inquisitr.com/973933/happy-blasphemy-day-censored/), which seems a sufficiently reliable source to appear in the references to more than 100 Wikipedia articles, and The Blaze (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/24/the-reason-atheist-activists-are-inviting-people-to-stone-them/). While blogs are not reliable sources for encyclopedic references, I would be happy to provide a score of links pointing to Blasphemy Day activities sponsored by local atheist and freethought organizations around the world.


 * If we are going to follow the standard set by Wkharrisjr and God Save the Queen, it follows that articles such as United States presidential election, 1996 must also be deleted: how much coverage has that gotten in the media recently? The declaration of Blasphemy Day received considerable attention when it was first declared in 2009. While media attention has waned, it remains a rallying point for numerous organizations and still receives coverage in sources that are used by Wikipedia as reliable sources. Rather than deleting the article, we should be working to update the references and bringing in newer references. TechBear  &#124; Talk &#124; Contributions 21:43, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If it is on an atheist or freethought webpage, that's hardly a reliable third party source is it? The inquisitr webpage uses a blog as it's primary source for the story, I don't think that's reliable because all that means is they've reported someone's opinion as if it were news. Regarding the example of the election, yes it hasn't been in the news recently but it has still received media coverage in a wide range reliable sources after 1996 whereas this hasn't.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 08:22, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User talk:The C of E wrote "If it is on an atheist or freethought webpage, that's hardly a reliable third party source is it?" So, by that reasoning, if some topic regarding the Catholic Church is predominantly written about on Catholic webpages, that makes them unreliable as third-party sources?! How 'bout if most articles about CERN show up on physics websites rather than on "Luddite" sites? -can't use physics websites as reliable third-party sources? More to the point: since you are a theist, and therefore likely biased against atheists, should we consider your opinion to be relevant? Blasphemy Day may be less likely to be touted by anti-atheists, but it's hardly ignored by them. This year, the Free Republic (a conservative and anti-atheist site) did an article that mentioned Blasphemy Day (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2989249/posts), as did the Christian site the Denison Forum on Truth & Culture (http://www.denisonforum.org/cultural-commentary/715-prisoner-requests-dragons-blood-for-wiccan-faith), and many other non-atheist sites. Bricology (talk) 07:43, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Argumentum ad hominem in motion. My opinion is not relevant here but Wikipedia guidelines are and WP:RS with WP:BIASED, WP:GNG and WP:NRV supports my points that this should be deleted because of a lack of reliable sources.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 16:31, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * C of E -- I don't think you understand what ad hominem means, any more than you understand what "bias" means. It's not ad hominem for me to point out that you're dismissing a broad range of media as "unreliable" for the fact that they're pro something, any more than it's unreliable for you to post your opinion, given that you're anti- something. You can't have it both ways; either biases are relevant or they're not. My argument is that they're not. Bricology (talk) 19:09, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm dismissing them as unreliable because WP:RS says that they are. No opinion involved here.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 19:36, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, The C of E, you clearly don't understand WP:RS, if you think it renders sites like RichardDawkins.net as "unreliable third-party sources", much less sites like The Center for Inquiry -- the very group that sponsors Blasphemy Day! If you were to actually read WP:RS, you would've noticed that, under the heading "Biased or opinionated sources", it says this: "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However,  reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." (emphases added).  It also states "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves...".  By your tortured definition of WP:RS, no website could be used to demonstrate the notability of an event, if that website could be accused of having a position of advocacy.  Therefore, no website affiliated with Catholicism or the Catholic Church could serve as a reliable source for information about something that only members of the Church would know or care about, such as Saint's Days.  Clearly, that's an absurd standard. Bricology (talk) 00:23, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep: I just did a Google advanced search using "blasphemy day" and the timeframe of the past year as the two parameters. There were 181 hits (excluding duplicates), including multiple mentions of 2013's Blasphemy Day celebration on the website of the Center for Inquiry (the group that sponsors Blasphemy Day), as well as on the official Facebook page's notice of this year's celebration (17,000 "likes"), mentions of it on the popular RichardDawkins.net, on Fark.com, on NationalDayCalendar.com, on PolicyMic.com and a variety of other sites, blogs, fora, etc.  In short, Blasphemy Day has been celebrated -- and documented -- every year for the past five years, and shows no signs of going away. Bricology (talk) 07:24, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * "richarddawkins.net", oh yes very reliable(!) Facebook page likes? Read WP:POPULARITY (and the same point applies to the !vote below.) Blogs? Read WP:BLOGS.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 16:31, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, RichardDawkins.net is a reliable source, as per the standards of WP:RS (see specifics I posted above). You may not agree with their opinions, but that's utterly irrelevant.  The only question here is notability .  When a website with RichardDawkins.net's Alexa rating, visibility and credibility writes about something, it very likely becomes notable.  When many such websites do the same, it easily passes WP:N. Bricology (talk) 00:38, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * KEEP Its a "popular" holiday in the skeptic community, I know I've seen a lot about it from CFI and it is spreading outside the community. Way more popular than Boob Quake was. And this is an ongoing event that grows each year.Sgerbic (talk) 16:05, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notability is not temporary.  Once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage.  Therefore, whether or not it has gotten significant coverage since 2009 is immaterial.  Further, I tend to reject C of E's stance that freethought and atheist websites are not reliable sources per se.  I believe that C of E has confused "reliable" with "neutral".   While Wikipedia's articles must be written from a neutral point of view, the sources used for those pages do not have to be.  Just as I would expect fashion-centric sources to cover the latest styles from Milan, I would expect freethought and atheist sources to cover this subject.  Context matters and we should judge each source on its own merits and not dismiss them out of hand simply because they have a certain POV. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 02:22, 11 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep per Shinmawa mostly. Also see this book mention and this, for example, as hints of impact and coverage still going on. -- cyclopia speak! 14:04, 18 October 2013 (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.