Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jan Chozen Bays


 * 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. W.marsh 20:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Jan Chozen Bays

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Biography for person with no noteworthy or substantial achievements. &mdash;Brim 13:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete no notability asserted whatsoever, unsure how this could ever meet WP:BIO. The Rambling Man 13:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep I did find this article about her and her husband and a Google News Archives search comes up with a few more articles .  --Oakshade 06:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep per Oakshade. Quadzilla99 18:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * delete The article itself does not claim much, and there is not much to claim: she is only a student, and it lists the people she has trained under. This is not notability, and if a few local papers write about it it may still not be notability. Look at what is said about the subject DGG 01:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached  Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks,

Second, this is fundamentally historical information on at least two points: (1) nationally and anthropologically - it is directly concerned with the early spread of Buddhism to the west, in particular throughout North America and (2) locally - it is of considerable local import that Dr. Bays is the founder of one of the first Zen centers in Portland, Oregon (the ZCO) and founder of a Zen Monestary in Clatskanie, Oregon. Certainly, researchers just 20-40 years from now who are interested in Buddhism's early fits and starts in Oregon will find this information useful and there will, no doubt, be researchers in Oregon seeking exactly this information. I would add that as a student of early Christianity I can only wish that information like this existed about the earliest churches, what they were about, who started them, when and where. We have the opportunity to preserve this kind of information for future researchers who are studying, among other things, the manner of religious spread and growth (or, as we do not yet know whether Zen or Buddhism will find fertile soil in North America, assimilation or extinction). With a mind to the above points, to anyone recommending deletion, please review these criteria in the Wikipedia policy on "notability" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_%28people%29):
 * Delete per DGG - no evidence of substantial notability outside the local area. Walton monarchist89 19:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete No particular notability established. No publications of her own, no remarkable achievements. User:Dimadick
 * Weak Keep per Oakshade and two books I found on OCLC (see talk). John Vandenberg 15:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - I'm not sure what the contention is for opposing this article. First, Dr. Bays was already listed in the article on Taizan Maezumi, a controversial Zen Roshi who established six Zen temples in the US, including the Zen Center of LA (ZCLA).  In that article she is listed as one of his twelve successors, to whom he passed dharma transmission.  There are others in that list, in that article, who have articles in Wikipedia, which to my reading are scarcely more detailed at this point than this one on Dr. Bays, yet none of these has been suggested for deletion.

(1) Expandability -- Will the article ever be more than a stub? Could the perfect article be written on this subject?

(2) 100 year test (future speculation) -- In 100 years time will anyone without a direct connection to the individual find the article useful?

(3) 100 year test (past speculation) -- If we had comparable verifiable information on a person from 100 years ago, would anyone without a direct connection to the individual find the article useful today?

(4) Biography -- Has this been written by the subject or someone closely involved with the subject?

(5) Search Engine Test -- Does a search for the subject produce a large number of distinguishable hits on Google ([1]), Alexa ([2])?

I believe the article passes all five of these tests. The historical importance of the connection to Maezumi Roshi and the founding of two considerable and historic institutions in Portland is certainly as important as Champlain Bridge, another article perfectly charactistic of thousands found in Wikipedia.

These institutions are equivalent in historic value to "the first church" or "the first synagogue" in any city, which are common entries all throughout Wikipedia for obvious reasons, even when the churches or synagogues are now defunct. ˜˜˜˜dcwood


 * Keep per this search giving enough for WP:BIO... Addhoc 20:30, 1 February 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.