Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of 2008 presidential candidates' religious associations


 * 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 no consensus to delete, default to keep.  It may be useful to re-evaluate this article once it has been allowed to develop for a month or so.  Sandstein  06:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Comparison of 2008 presidential candidates' religious associations

 * Renamed to: Religion and politics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign

AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This is a fundamentally flawed concept for an article, as it gives undue weight to issues that received little or no attention, and doesn't even include anything on Obama, whose controversies have received much more attention. Moreover, the article contains an extended hagiographic defense of Senator Obama, and could easily be campaign literature. Trilemma (talk) 12:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom and the fact that the article's title is "Religion and politics in the U.S. 2008 presidential campaign", but the first sentence makes it clear that it won't be mentioning Obama's pastor, which has gotten the greatest amount of media attention. Happyme22 (talk) 04:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a wiki for a reason. Ewenss (talk) 04:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Obvious keep - Religion and politics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign has been a major theme of coverage in the campaigns, from Romney's Mormonism and his speech, to Huckabee the former pastor, to Obama and the Muslim charges and Wright, to McCain and Hagee, etc. Plus sources debating the validity/non-validity of all that.  Like I said on the talk page of the article, Immediatism is going to have to give way to some fair Eventualism as various people chip in as their lives permit.  All the article is now is an intro written in 10 seconds and a copy-paste of material deemed too long (by chiefly Happyme22, and a few others) from the Wright controversy article. Ewenss (talk) 04:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 13:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep: The article needs work, and of course it needs at least a precis of the Wright-Obama affair, but those are content issues not relevant to AfD. Plainly this is a highly notable, and eminently sourceable, business.    Ravenswing  13:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete. Comparison of people's religious views is by definition an analytic exercise that requires OR and POV. Thoroughly unsuitable for an encyclopedia article. Nsk92 (talk) 14:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you missed: Renamed to: Religion and politics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign Ewenss (talk) 16:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You are right, I have not seen that it was moved. But it does not change my opinion about the article. Its substance has not really changed and the topic itself is a clear magnet for POV pushing, OR and various fights that inevitably follow. Nsk92 (talk) 17:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, you're saying that if a topic is controversial, Wikipedia shouldn't cover it? As long as there's anybody in the country willing to pay two kids to delete sourced material about something twice a day, we defer all coverage to copyrighted encyclopedias that are paid to deal with inappropriate editing?  (Or as a compromise maybe we can let the kids write it and then permanently-protect their version...) Wnt (talk) 16:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete Straight from the "why aren't you wearing a flag on your lapel" school of writing. The change of title is even worse, since it implies that this is something more than a dirty laundry inventory of politicians and religious leaders.  If you're basing your vote on Jeremiah Wright, John Hagee or the Fellowship Foundation, here's the latest gossip. Mandsford (talk) 00:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep It might be messy, but religion has been brought up quite a bit, as well as in previous elections. It's something that's discussed, so it seems like a notable topic. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 07:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Gosh, regarding the nominator's rationale that the topic "gives undue weight to issues that received little or no attention", see the The Pew Forum. They have been holding conferences and aggregating published research and news articles about religion and politics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign (scroll down to see). Also see this link]. This is a major topic of notability and a terribly misguided nomination! CyberAnth (talk) 08:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note - although I agree with him, this user was just blocked for using sock puppets including Ewenns who voted above. Wnt (talk) 18:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The topic is notable, there is no question about it. But that is not the point. The point is that the topic is analytic and synthetic in nature and unavoidably requires OR. Also, it is a clear magnet for POV pushing and a veritable disaster in terms of balance and undue weight (just look at the current state of the article). Making polemic and analytic articles like this is the right way of turning WP into an ideological battleground. Nsk92 (talk) 14:23, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment If the argument is that the problem of the article is that it doesn't include Barack Obama, then add Obama, don't ditch the article. That's kind of the idea of a wiki. There is no question that religion has been a factor in this race, with Huckabee's fundamentalism, Romney's Mormonism, and Obama's being portrayed both as a Muslim and a member of an anti-American black church (and of the post 9/11 anti-Muslim sentiment that exists in many). While our American 1st Amendment allows for Freedom of Religion, the fact has been that it has been difficult for anyone outside the religious mainstream to get into a top level position in American politics. Eauhomme (talk) 17:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep per the comments of Eweness, RG Traynor, JeremyMcCracken, and Eauhomme. With a stipulation, however: that the article is cleaned up and made more NPOV in the near future (thirty days seems like a reasonable time frame).--JayJasper (talk) 19:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, Wikipedia is not a news website and nobody will care about this after November. If kept, move to Comparison of 2008 US presidential candidates' religious associations, as the USA is not the world. Stifle (talk) 20:23, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Never mind, moved already. Stifle (talk) 20:23, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, this is a fundamentally flawed concept, the article is clearly pro-Obama and its intention is to give excuses for the actions of Obama's pastor by describing "the criticism of Wright [as being] fueled by racism or double standards". The article goes on to list religious criticism of other candidates, which is all mentioned elsewhere on the respective articles for the candidates. The article's purpose is to promote Obama and to criticize the other candidates, and is an effort to minimalize the Wright controversy. This is not something that should be on wikipedia and I see no way it in which it can be cleaned up.--Southern Texas (talk) 23:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note - this user was also (surprisingly, to me at least) indef blocked for being a sockpuppet. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. Agree with STX, this is fundamentally flawed.  Religion per se has not been a major factor in the 2008 presidential election, with the modest exception of Romney and LDS.  The other controversies mentioned in this article have not been about religion, but about the usual political game of "Let's find somebody candidate X has been associated with that has said or done some outrageous things, and see if we can tie that somebody real tight around X."  The same game is played around non-religious figures too, such as Obama and Ayers, Giuliani and Kerik, and so forth.  Each of these games that is notable enough can be covered in the individual campaign articles; there is no reason to subset the "religious" ones and make an article out of them.  Wasted Time R (talk) 00:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Wait. Someone started this article with text spun out of the Jeremiah Wright controversy, but the article may be improved with a little editing.  I may try my hand at the text in a bit to see how it can be fixed - please check the revision before acting on the previous comments. Wnt (talk) 14:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed. I've now made a first pass editing the text to demonstrate that it can stand on its own as a useful article.  The article still carries some more subtle defects from its origin - all the references were originally chosen because they talk about Obama, because they came from the Wright article - but I think by now it should be clear that this article is worth keeping. Wnt (talk) 16:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Much of the concern about this article stems from the issues of WP:POV and WP:OR, and those are certainly valid. However, I believe that they can also be avoided if the tone of the article is focused on the role that religion played in the campaign and/or the voters' perceptions of the candidates, stated as objectively as possible and very well sourced. For example, mentioning that there were concerns with Jeremiah Wright's statements and Barack Obama's relationship with him, and stating what they were, or the false accusations of his Muslim religion and how that was an issue post 9/11--very easy to fall into WP:OR/WP:POV, but well-sourced could also get past that. Also same with issues on Mitt Romney's and Mike Huckabee's religious beliefs, etc. Eauhomme (talk) 02:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is with the entire concept of the article. I admit that Wnt's version is much better than the previous one. But the subject of the article is still too abstract and ill-defined to stand on its own. The very concept of the article is analytic and synthetic in nature and is thus fundamentally flawed. With such an amorphous subject matter there is no way to effectively deal with undue weight and balance issues that are going to inevitably arise here, especially when the article attracts more attention. How much space and in what kind of detail is there supposed to be devoted to a particular candidate? What is and what is not appropriate to discuss in the article? And so on. The article is an obvious magnet for OR and POV pushing and a recipe for all sorts of battleground problems. The factual material covered here is already covered in other articles with more well-defined subject matter, where all of these problems are easier to contain. Nsk92 (talk) 03:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You could say that Islam or evolution are "potential battlegrounds". If you think the article is bad for some valid reason, fine, but so far as I know Wikipedia has not yet formally surrendered to vandalism and disruption.  If people decide to make a policy against articles on politics, articles on religion, articles on anything controversial etc. then I won't be able to prevent this deletion, but as for now - you have no grounds for this deletion. Wnt (talk) 23:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep - I'm not sure what planet people have been living on if they think this topic is not eminently notable and source-able. 74.233.86.244 (talk) 07:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.   -- Fabrictramp (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Obvious keep - POV isn't a rationale for deletion, it's a rationale for improving the article. This is obviously an important topic in presidential elections - evangelicals are a critical voting bloc for Republicans, Catholics and Jews are courted by both parties, though lean Democratic; in this election cycle, there's been controversy over Romney's religion, Huckabee's being a minister, Obama's relationship with his minister, and the list goes on and on and on.  The article could probably use a complete rewrite, but those are problems that are solved by editing, not deleting.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 14:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Move to Religio-political controversies in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. The way it is now, the title doesn't match with the content of the article. --Pwnage8 (talk) 20:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that "U.S." should be added to the name, but is "religio-political" a word? The precise name isn't really relevant to the AfD anyway.Wnt (talk) 18:03, 14 May 2008 (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.