Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Church Demographics


 * 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   delete. Courcelles 21:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Church Demographics

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I had originally deleted this article after it was proposed for deletion which was uncontested for 7 days. But the article's creator requested its restoration on my talk page. I still feel that the article doesn't merit inclusion; there's already a demographics article and this article doesn't distinguish itself from it sufficiently. I find no significant coverage of the term "church demographics" by reliable sources. I suspect that this article is really an attempt to advertise the two web sites that appear in the article, as the author has previously included those sites as inappropriate inline external links at the church planting article. --  At am a  頭 21:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions.  --  At am a  頭  21:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete All the article is saying is that churches can use demographics. This is true. They have been doing this since the time of Saint Paul. However it does not seem to be a notable topic, unless sources saying something about the topic are provided. Steve Dufour (talk) 21:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete, as unsourced, spam, promo, WP:VANISPAMCRUFTISEMENT. -- Cirt (talk) 22:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete as unsourced original essay. Carrite (talk) 22:25, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete as the one who prodded it. Unsourced.  Falcon8765  (T ALK ) 22:27, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't rush to delete this - this article could go two ways. Firstly, demographics of church organizations are a noteworthy topic of discussion - e.g. different denominations have different racial breakdowns in their congregations, and also different age segmentation (and indeed number of children born to their congregants). This Time Magazine article examines one aspect of denominational demographics, changes in racial breakdown of Protestant megachurch congregations in the USA, but the issue is clearly wider. I am sure that specialist academic literature is available on at least the basic facts e.g. differences in denominational affiliations between ethnic groups in the US. A second way this article could be developed (possibly complementary) is the active use of demographic targeting - I recall reading a Time or Newsweek article on this somewhere, but a good sense of what's available can be found by searching the net for e.g. "Hispanic church outreach". I know the two links added by the original author are not necessarily done in the manner you would hope a mature and experienced editor would, but let's cut the newbies some slack - this is better than sticking the links in the external links of other articles. Calling it "spamming" isn't helpful - if this were a spammer for their own website, why also include the link for a competing service? The fact that multiple websites exist selling demographic information to churches is the kind of indication that this is worth writing about, surely? Just better than this, preferably :) Give this one some time and see if anyone wants to rescue it, rather than snowballing the deletion through; I can't be the only one who can see potential in this topic surely? TheGrappler (talk) 19:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, the site links were added to another article, though in the middle of the article rather than in an external links section. Tomorrow will be the full 7 days so it would be late for a snowball deletion anyway. If in the future you or anyone else can find evidence that this topic has had coverage, then I'm sure it can be recreated without falling afoul of G4. --  At am a  頭 05:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I should have made myself clearer - when they were added as external links to the other article it verged on spam, but I was trying to say that I suspect even there it was intended in the correct spirit (newbies often fall afoul of external links, and then get accused of spamming, which may be a harsh verdict) and on this article it's a little clearer that they're not spam (even if they wouldn't be present in the final version). This isn't my specialty area but I am quite certain that (a) the topic has received substantial media and academic coverage, and (b) (as the original editor was writing) there's a small slice of the economy that's devoted to actually analysing this stuff. TheGrappler (talk) 20:41, 20 September 2010 (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.