Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jewish summer camps and local organizations


 * 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.  

All the AfDs in this section have now been individually closed. --Ezeu 05:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Jewish summer camps and local organizations

 * Note: The manner in which this vote has now been set up requires that you click on each of the names and place your votes and comments into each one individually.

Two or three days ago User:PZFUN was nominating some Judaism-related articles for deletion during stub-cleaning. Together with mostly summer camps  he inexplicably managed to list a number of rather notable Hasidic rebbes. Predictably this led to some nasty finger pointing and name-calling on the administators' noteboard and on AfD itself.

The full helping of bile is here and here.

I am re-listing the articles (minus the rebbes of couse) here in the hope to restore civility. Intentionally no rationale is given why any article might be delete-worthy. Please read the articles and make your statement on the worth of the article itself. Rude remarks and blanket statements are discouraged, those are never helpful. Dr Zak 02:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I consider it highly impolite at best to remove with a keystroke all the efforts of many, who commented and voted on many of these AfD's. I think the vast majority of the comments were very civil and objective. To start from scratch, tossing away many hours of work by many caring people because there was suspicion of POV or GF on the part of the nominator (which I believe proved to be a false alarm) is simply wrong. Crum375 02:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. I think all the previous noms should be closed as either no consensus, or reopened where they were. -- JJay 02:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The votes at the various VfD for the articles were going along fine until the Dr. came along. There was absolutely NO acrimony on the voting pages themselves, everything was very civil. The results would have been either "no consensus" or "keep" because enough "keep" votes had already come in. Almost ALL those who voted "keep" gave far more detailed and researched reasons than those who voted "delete". It is puzzling, to say the least, why this new very unusual listing is now needed. Those who have voted on those VfD pages should be informed that this move was taking place. IZAK 03:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree about the civility, though not necessarily about the potential outcome. Personally I think there should be consistent WP policies about all clubs and organizations and their grouping, if any. But leaving that aside, I totally agree that this re-listing is most improper. The work product invested by people by researching each case and voting, and the ensuing civil discussions, cannot just be tossed aside on someone's whim. Crum375 03:16, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This is all silly, wikipedia is big enough for all of these jewish summer camps. Camps for Jews are an important part of both european and american jewish history. 24.60.163.16 05:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This is all WP:POINT and never should have happened. PZFUN deserves to be blocked. But now we're here it may be useful to review these cases, as summer camps have intrinsic notability and WP:V problems. JFW | T@lk  07:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It is time to stop the crusade against perfectly non-obtrusive and non-offensive articles about legitimate topics. What is the problem with keeping them? That Wikipedia will be more complete?? Keep them all and let people improve the articles. -- Olve 08:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Is there any reason why these shouldn't be merged into ... oooh, lets say Jewish summer camps and local organizations. A paragraph mentioning what they generally have in common (constituency, activities, staffing), and then a list with locations and any truly important distinctions noted there. -- GWO
 * GWO: It's simple, because there are too many of them, they are very diverse, and they have different histories and facts surrounding them. Basically all the information about them would not fit into a normal page. IZAK 10:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Some of them are unique, but a lot are basically the same. Camp Galil, Camp Gesher, Camp Miriam -- are these really more different than they are similar? Their differences could easily be summarised in a list / table at Habonim Dror summer camps. Much of the additional information is completely superfluous.  I mean, do we really need to know where Camp Geshers flagpole is, or how many baseball diamonds each camp has? -- GWO
 * GWO: Obviously we are not focusing on the "flagpoles", the point is not just what you and I may think of these camps, it's obvious that there are plenty of other readers who are delighted to get this information and anything else that can be added to it in the years to come. In the USA going to summer camp is almost a way of life for many Jewish kids, it's part of their fun connection to Judaism in many ways, and it cannot be minimized and should not be trivialized and certainly should not be deleted. Wikipedia's servers can handle it. IZAK 11:45, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry. I was under the impression this was an encyclopedia, not a holiday brochure. Playing softball is a way of life for lots of Americans: are we to allow every softball team a page. -- GWO
 * Oh come on GWO: Have you honsetly read all 1,200,000+ articles on Wikipedia? When all the articles about Porn stars and Nudity will go then I can start comparing things here to the Britanicca, but for now, all decent information is more than welcome as far as most people are concerned. IZAK 12:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm all for including notable pornstars, notable summer camps and notable nudity. But the criteria for inclusion is notability, not usefulness to kids planning their vacations. -- GWO
 * So what it boils down to then is what values to go by, those that value porn stars and nudists (what's notable about filth? -- it's like measuring garbage) or those that value Jewish children (who are inherently precious) and the notable institutions that serve them. IZAK 15:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Our apologies; we missed the part on the Wikipedia Main Page where Wikipedia's adherence to some interpretation of Judeo-Christian "moral values" was cited. Until it does appear, however, I'm afraid the standards for inclusion for this (or, likely, for any other) encyclopedia will revolve around verifiability and notability before it does any utterly POV-ridden concept such as "values."  RGTraynor 20:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I'm tempted to register wholesomepedia.org and filthopedia.org, and see which gets more contributors. Pornography is massive influence on world culture -- whether IZAK likes it or not.  Jewish summer camps, not so much. -- GWO
 * A really pain-in-the-arse way of going about solving the problem 'if' there was much of one. I only hope that the closing admins also look at the original discussions when considering the result. -- saberwyn 11:10, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment This is an excellent example of what is wrong with AfD right now. It appears most if not all of these were nominated with no attempt to discuss the problems with these articles on the individual talk pages.  Granted, what we have here are a number of summer camps and clubs, which in my opinion fall well short of current inclusion guidelines and the vast majority of them should likely be deleted if you look at them on their merits, independent of the issues surrounding the nominations.  Still, if a reasonable effort had been made to discuss these articles individually this whole mess could have possibly been avoided; or at least some civility could have been retained during the AfD process.--Isotope23 16:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I wonder if there is any good way to announce mass nominations of articles. One can discuss the merits of an individual article on a talk page, sure, but what would one do when one goes spring-cleaning with, say, ten summer camps, or student societies or porno starlets? Dr Zak 17:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * No there really isn't a good way... which is why mass noms are not the best idea. I understand the concept if it being easier to look at a bunch of similar articles together... but really, best practice is to individually nominate and discuss each article on its merits.  Mass nominations just always end up being acrimonious.--Isotope23 19:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment There are a lot of articles on American Jewish summer camps appearing on wikipedia, many of do not appear to be very notable: Camp Modin, for one. If these articles are to stay on wikipedia then I would suggest that new articles be made, perhaps one for each US state, in which information about the camps in those areas can be placed, rather than having this huge number pages on camps, most of them not exceeding about 250 words in size. Martinp23 18:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Camp Modin is one of the oldest Jewish camps in the US and was the inspiration for a recent feature film. We need many more articles like this, not less. -- JJay 20:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The fact is that many of these articles are onyl a few hundred words long, and should either be expanded or amalgamated. With all the camps from a state in one article, it will be easier for the reader too compare the camps, and look and Judaism in these areas.  The more notable camps shoudl have their articles extended. Camp Agawam is really a tiny article which should be combined with others into a new article. Martinp23 21:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Please expand them then if you think they need more information. However, I would be happy to see stubs on every camp in the US, even the non-Jewish ones. -- JJay 21:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Grouping by state is a poor taxonomy, as I see no reason that geographic location (certainly on a scale smaller then "regional") would significantly differentiate them. If anything, group them by ideology/mission.  Better yet, have a single article.  --Nmagedman 23:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Merge As per WP:BREAK, a Best Current Practice for page development is to start with a single page, to create sections as needed, and to fork those sections off into their own articles as the parent article matures. Here, however, we find a large number of stub articles with little indication  of their individual importance.  Repeatedly, the argument was made below that the camps are notable because they have been around for many years and have had an impact on many peoples' lives.  I accept that argument for the camps as a whole, but see no justification for articles on each individual camp.  I therefore propose that the camp articles be merged into e.g. Jewish-American camp movement discussing the significance of these camps (as a whole) on the Jewish-American experience/culture, with sub-sections for each camp indicating how it substantively contributed to or differentiated itself from the rest of the movement.  --Nmagedman 23:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I fully agree with this - just because they have affected lots of people doesn't make them notable. There are many people in the world, teachers and doctors for example, who have had a HUGE impact on many peoples' lives, but are not considered for Wikipedia.  Martinp23 16:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Jewish summer camps do not merely "impact peoples' lives" in the secular sense of "having fun" or whatever.  These camps are an integral part of the Jewish cultural experience.  They are not just about playing baseball or swimming in the lake.  Those things might happen, but the main purpose is to provide a place where Jewish  children and youth can affirm their Jewishness in an accepting, positive environment.  As such, they are more akin to feminist retreats or GLBT retreats or some other cultural minority that does not always feel accepted or able to be "out" in the greater society.  Those of you who did not grow up Jewish in America (or Canada, in the case of some camps) cannot truly understand the experience, anymore that a heterosexual can truly understand what it feels like to be gay in a homophobic society.  If these were gay or feminist camps, would we even be having this conversation?  Because the pattern of these delete nominations -- and not just camps, there have been others! -- has been to target Jews or Jewish institutions that might not be known in the general public, but are nevertheless as important in the Jewish experience as a lot of other things I've never even heard of that are still here on Wikipedia.  Rooster613 01:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)Rooster613
 * "Going Down The Pub" is an integral part of the "British cultural experience". Doesn't mean my local pub deserves an article.  One can write about the importance of Jewish Summer Camps as a social construct without detailing each individual camp.  I'd love to see such an article.  Of course, writing such an article is  hard, and requires research. Merely enumerating and describing each camp is easy, and pointless.  Guess which wikipedia got? -- GWO
 * Weak Keep [note: I voted Merge above. Since the thread has grown from there, I'm adding this rather than striking what I have above.]  There are at least a couple hundred articles on various summer camps on Wikipedia, not to mention high schools and everybody's pet organization.  Personally, I think they are all NN rubbish and have no place in an encyclopedia.  However, it is a waste of energy to repeat the "Are summer camps encyclopedic?" debate on each and every camp article on WP.  Hash out the debate in a guideline discussion.  Once a standard is agreed upon, then sweep through all the camp articles, applying the standard equally.  In the meantime, I would not be averse to flagging these (and all) camp articles with  . --Nmagedman 08:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment - Setting aside dogmatic debates between deletionists and inclusionists, I think that a) the fact that an article is still a stub does not make the topic non-notable; and b) it takes some nerve to nominate for deletion articles that the nominator clearly has no knowledge, and in some cases didn't even read. --Leifern 00:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Notability is Relative: By any rule of logic, reason, and fairness, one should not short-circuit the system by nominating articles for deletion, when what certain articles may need is improvement and sources, and one needs to step back from one's own mind-set and think of entire groups of articles that may be important in other contexts. I did NOT write the articles on this page up for VfDs but nevertheless if enough people feel that these topics (about Jewish Summer Camps) are important enough to write them up, it must mean that many young parents or campers or people out there WANT to read about them, so that in itself makes these articles worthy of being defended. A lot of the shouting about "notable" is bogus because notability is a relative concept, and as I have stated, when the day comes that Wikipedia will do away with articles about porn stars and nudity I will know that it has become a "real" encyclopedia. Why are Jewish Summer camps "not notable"? They play a major and very significant role in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jewish kids growing up in North America for two months out of every year. Jewish kids love their camp experiences more than they like school. Camp fees for two months are often the equivalent of an entire year's yeshiva or day school tuition, so summer camps are important features of Jewish education and life! In fact it's surprising that there are so few of these articles, there will surely be more by new editors unaware of this fuss who will just write new articles in the future. Sure, the articles are wishy-washy and are obviously often written by people who want to get attention, but how is that different to other areas? Sure, in the Jews and Judaism sections we have articles that need work, is that not true everywhere on Wikipedia? There are editors who have spent hundreds of hours devoted to improving the articles, but they are few in number and it will take time, maybe even years. It is not wise to ignore the broader picture and to not take the long-term view, and "delete on sight". There is now a new self-justifying rationale that one can just skip the "needs improvement" requests on article pages and just put "VfD" on them with the excuse that they just are doing it to "get the attention" of other editors -- "The New Deletionism". To expect action and solutions within days is not realistic. It will take months and years to improve things. Writing and editing takes time, not to mention all the man-hours spent on debates and discussions on talk pages on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has come a long way, and there is a long way to go yet, but we should not let deletionists to throw the baby out with the bathwater with articles in the name of making Wikipedia more "encyclopedic" when in fact, notability is relative, and more caution and care is called for. Wikipedia is not a "finished product", it is definitely a "work of art in progress" and no works of art are produced overnight. IZAK 16:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Holy living shit. You really believe that wikipedia will be improved if it discards everything that does not fit your moral code.  That's a scary, scary, scary idea. Thank God you're in a minority of one. -- GWO
 * GWO: Who the heck said anything about a "moral code"??? I was citing examples to make a point, that while some people think that porn stars are notable, others do not, and by the same token while some people think that summer camps are important and notable others do not. That's it in a nutshell. If I was truly worried about "moral codes" I would spend my time someplace else other than Wikipedia. I am not detached from reality, so please don't make it sound like that. Not everyone sees things the same way. There all kinds of "encyclopedias" out there, depending on one's interests. IZAK 17:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * while some people think that porn stars are notable, others do not -- and you're telling me that your railing against porn and nudity (nudity ?!?) isn't based on morals but ... what, exactly? Incidentally, if you think wikipedia's going to become cleanopedia, I suggest you investigate how Bomis makes its money. -- GWO
 * GWO: So you think that Bomis's X-rated history should guide the fate of Wikipedia? Anyhow, it's a poor argument to believe that because Bomis is what it is that therefore Wikipedia is the same. People are free to be moral, immoral, or amoral, but that is also not the point of my argument which you insist on twisting. My point is that "notability" does not have the same meaning or definition in all situations and is not the same for all people, something which should be very obvious but which is often ignored. One could just as clearly say that while some people may think that different species of rare insects may be "notable", for those who couldn't care less about bugs, "bug xyz" crawling in the Mojave Desert is simply not notable -- whereas something that does interest them, like the things that revolve around the education and development of children, such as Summer camps, is extremely notable. My only argument here is that the notion of notability is relative. IZAK 18:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * My point is that "notability" does not have the same meaning or definition in all situations and is not the same for all people, something which should be very obvious but which is often ignored. -- No.  Your point is further than that.  Your point is that notability is relative, but your concept of it is the one that should apply to wikipedia. i.e. remove the famous, notorious, filthy, obscene, unpleasant-but-widely-known  pornstars whom you find so distasteful, but keep the non-famous-but-thoroughly-wholesome summer camps because they're so super-important (at least to the middle-class Jewish boys from the midwest to whom they cater).  My point (if I still have one) is that that's hilarious. -- GWO
 * GWO: What may be "hilarious" to you is pathetic to someone else. No need to make fun of "middle-class Jewish boys from the midwest" which I would say could be construed as a very offensive statement or worse, don't you think? Oh my, why do you put words into my mouth. I have never proposed any of the things that you attribute to me. I was pointing to examples of differences of perspective that prove that there can never be a universal standard to guide notability. Not everyone watches or has an interest in porn stars, nor should they, but the only thing that I have maintained is that no-one on Wikipedia or anywhere can decide upon universal rules for notability, nothing more and nothing less, and please do not attribute words to me that I have not stated specifically. IZAK 19:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * GWO: No need to make fun of "middle-class Jewish boys from the midwest" -- I didn't make fun of them, or even say anything derogatory about them, except to say that an individual camp that caters exclusively to them might not be particularly notable.   So take your faux-outrage and implications of anti-semitism and go and write a good article about the cultural importance of Jewish Summer Camps, and fewer descriptions off their individual amenities. -- GWO


 * 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.