Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Institution of the Counsellors


 * 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. Add in a significant article improvement in the 14 days this was open and we will be unlikely to reach a consensus with a further relist. Daniel (talk) 03:44, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Institution of the Counsellors

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Fails WP:ORG, WP:SIGCOV, No significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Serv181920 (talk) 09:55, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. Serv181920 (talk) 09:55, 26 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete per above. -Cupper52Discuss! 10:00, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete A lot of mentions in books, including this book on the Equality of Men and Women in a discussion on different religions. This journal discusses it as well. Most of the other books and journals look to be tied to the religion itself, so I don't know how much those help to establish the notability. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:49, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Current sources fails WP:GNG. Hulatam (talk) 16:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article is poorly written and needs a name change, but it clearly has notability as the highest appointed position in the Baha'i Faith, with less than 100 people worldwide. Each person has jurisdiction over several states or countries. As individuals they probably don't deserve notability for their own articles, but the role is covered in any overview of the religion's administrative structure. For example, Peter Smith's Concise Encyclopedia of the Baha'i Faith (2000) page 112; Paula Hartz's World Religions series Baha'i Faith (2009) page 110-111; William Garlington (ex-Baha'i writing critically) Baha'i Faith in America (2008) pages 52, 66-68, 159; Scarecrow Press covered the Baha'i Faith as part of two series Historical Dictionaries of religions, Philosophies, and Movements (2007) and The A to Z guide series (2009), both have entries for Continental Boards of Counsellors on pages 110-111 and 107-108, respectively; Britannica's very brief article Baha'i Faith mentions continental counselors as a two-paragraph overview of "Organization". I challenge someone to find a source covering Baha'i administration that doesn't mention the continental counselors. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  17:17, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep There are several references in the bibliography on the page and this discussion has brought up several more. We have non-Bahai sources, but I don't think sources totally independent from the whole religion are necessary to establish notability - there are thousands of wiki articles that rely wholly or in large part on the Catholic Encyclopedia. This institution is linked to from the main page on the religion - see Baháʼí_Faith Furius (talk) 11:17, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep There are many academic sources that cover the topic, several were added to the article yesterday. Here are a few more: (72, 175, 176, 179, 183), the main article about the Baha'i faith on Iranica Encyclopedia:, and these two from the same Encyclopedia: , . Tarikhejtemai (talk) 04:49, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * All of those are either Baha'i sources or WP:TRIVIALMENTIONS.Serv181920 (talk) 06:48, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * None of Tarikhejtemai's sources are Baha'i. I don't think "trivial mentions." Nor are they trivial mentions: the Iranica Encyclopedia gives them a full paragraph; Introduction to Bahai Faith (not a Baha'i source) deals with them on multiple pages. Furius (talk) 15:15, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * As Furius said none of the sources are Baha'i sources. The main article about the Baha'i faith in Iranica Encyclopedia, which is a very credible tertiary source on topics related to Iran, defines what the institution of the counsellors is and so does the Cambridge book. The institution is such an important and integral part of the Baha'i faith that most academic works that deal with the Baha'i faith in detail cover it. Tarikhejtemai (talk) 02:24, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment. I'm not going to vote in this one, because this article doesn't use enough inline citations and instead uses a long list of books, which is very hard to verify. But in response to a comment above, I will say that one paragraph is not usually considered significant coverage. – Novem Linguae (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   13:55, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. I just finished re-writing the page. I count 8 reliable sources (there are variations from the same authors, so really 6) that independently cover the Baha'i administration and all give coverage to the Boards of Counsellors with different depth. There may be more that could be added but I think it's notability is clear anyway. Cuñado ☼ - Talk  05:42, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your work. This looks much better. A minor point: I think it is a bit weird for the lead to start by defining "Continental Counsellors" rather than the "Institution of the Counsellors" - I don't know whether the best solution to that is re-writing the lead or moving the article to Continental Counsellors, but you're surely best-placed to make a decision on that. Furius (talk) 14:20, 9 March 2021 (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.