Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cults and new religious movements in literature and popular culture


 * 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. Rlevse 22:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Cults and new religious movements in literature and popular culture
Basically this article is mostly original research. It needs to be deleted and any useful content merged into the appropriate articles. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as nom. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - This article as initially formed out of a consensus from the Cult talk pages. There are many similar articles on Wikipedia that discuss applications to similar ideas "in literature and popular culture".  See for example List of Scientology references in popular culture, as well as Religion in The Simpsons.  Smee 16:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC).
 * Delete as an indiscriminate list and directory which is designed to capture any reference to a "cult" (which suffers from POV definitional problems) or "new religious movements" that appear in any medium, regardless of the importance or lack of same either within the fictional work or the real world. The instinct to remove garbage information from the Cult article was a good one, but the proper solution is to delete the information entirely rather than turn it into someone else's problem by dumping it off into a trash bin list article. WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not a justification for keeping this article. Otto4711 16:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per Otto4711 above. Additionally (or redundantly), the article is peppered with unsourced and historically inaccurate original research claims, as well as WP:BLP violations per the arbitrary inclusion of individuals without even a pretense of providing WP:RS's. BabyDweezil 17:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep some of it is not original research and there seems to be no good entries to merge it with. Andries 17:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak keep as there are certainly notable instances of such, however it needs to be overhauled. &mdash;siro&chi;o 02:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keepsome of the beliefs may first come to light via this medium and not academia. Interest is only received when it leaps/hits the main stream media of popular culture. Sad but true.PEACETalkAbout 04:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)I wanted to state that some of the "touchy" subjects are discussed in popular culture shows such as Bill Maher where presidential candidates were discussed and the touchy subjects aired. I learned some thing I didn't know and I am sure others did too and yes it did peek my curiosity to learn more on the subject. So, serious people are talking/discussing issues in popular culture shows and surely wikipedia can have an article reflecting this cultural reality and how the population receives information via this medium.PEACETalkAbout 17:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep such pop culture subarticles serve a useful purpose, to keep amount of trivia in the main article pared down. Though, this page can definitely use cleanup. --Aude (talk) 06:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If the information is junk in the main article, it is no less junk in a split off "...in popular culture" article. Junk is junk. The correct response to garbage information is to remove it, not to dump it off into another article because it's inconvenient to deal with. Otto4711 07:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm sorry, Otto4711, I cannot accept that the argument "Junk is junk" as an argument any stronger than the fact that 'othercrapexists' you cited above.  While the amount of truly insignificant trivia should be pared down, an article such as this does server a dual purpose.  Firstly, as a repository for significant, verifiable, pop-culture references to the subject, which would otherwise be nearly impossible for the causal reader to collect for himself.  And secondly, to keep these references from dominating the subject's main article.  The fact that we want to prevent these points from dominating the original article is of no consequence to their validity.  It is just an effort to keep that article from being too long for the casual reader.  Pop-culture or not, articles will be split off from any long article.  I have no qualms with monitoring this article closely so it doesn't become a list of "hey one time this character talked about scientology in an episode of my favorite show".  However, deletion of the entire article is not the solution to that problem.  &mdash;siro&chi;o 21:19, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per Otto.  Buck  ets  ofg  14:52, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, do you have anything else to comment? I did not think that this process was akin to a vote...  Smee 14:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC).
 * "Delete per nom" means that I agree with the nominator's formulation of the problem. It is not a vote, but a brief statement of my view, and in this case sufficient to communicate my opinion, which I have every right to express.    Buck  ets  ofg  20:06, 1 March 2007 (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.