Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of books related to Buddhism


 * 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. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:29, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

List of books related to Buddhism

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List of books that is not maintainable in a manner that would meet NPOV because of the potential for a vast number of possible entries depending upon the inclusion criteria, with no way to restrict the list in a neutral manner. Ronz (talk) 19:06, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Difficulty in maintaining an article is by itself not a good reason for deleting an article, per WP:SUSCEPTIBLE. On the more positive side, it is possible to maintain list-based articles through standards like MOS:LIST, which encourages list entries to be WP article themselves, i.e., have notability. Indeed, the nom recently cut this article down to a modest size by retaining only the books which had articles on WP. One could flesh out the article by including books mentioned in Category:Buddhism studies books or Category:Buddhist texts. There exist articles such as List of environmental books based on this criterion which seem maintainable. With no policy based reason to delete and a proposed way forward, I see no reason to delete. --Mark viking (talk) 00:23, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Note I said specifically it could not be maintained in a manner where it would meet NPOV. While yes, being unmaintainable is a problem, it only calls for deletion when it fails major content-related policies such as OR, NPOV, or NOT. --Ronz (talk) 00:45, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. Since notability is a criterion uncorrelated with particular POVs regarding Buddhism, I assert that requiring notable entries would help maintain a neutral point of view. --Mark viking (talk) 03:45, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If anyone wants to propose viable and neutral inclusion criteria, fill an article from that inclusion criteria, and get agreement that the resultant article meets NPOV, then they should do so. I expect a title change would help as well. In other words, start a brand new article from scratch. Meanwhile this one should be deleted.
 * Let's be aware articles such as these suffer unbalance due to WP:RECENTISM and WP:PROMOTION. The article was not maintained for these problems to date. Nor is this problem addressed by simply making the list only contain notable entries. --Ronz (talk) 16:08, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:25, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Buddhism-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:25, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:25, 10 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete "List of books related Buddhism" is a vast topic. To give an idea, LibraryThing which is a site where members list what books they own and has 1.7 million members, there are over 1000 books tagged Buddhism, about 1000 Zen Bhuddhism, 736 Mahayana Bhuddhism and so on (there are dozens of sub-categories of Buddhism]. The list topic is way too WP:INDISCRIMINATE. As Ronz points out these open ended indiscriminate lists are honey traps for publishers and authors who are promoting books through social media, and serve little practical purpose for end users, since there is no distinct criteria for list inclusion other than "a random list of books some anonymous Wikipedia editors think are great". I agree other indiscriminate lists like this exist but they are equally problematic. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 18:12, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 15:11, 18 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Weak delete I don't know what's going on with the recent editing which means the list currently has 2 entries, which would be grounds for deletion if that was the stable version (lists must be above a certain minimum length), but it's currently a poor duplicate of Buddhism, which is grounds for deletion. You could redirect there, but "List of books related to Buddhism" seems a slightly non-standard article title. There's an argument for breaking that bibliography out into a separate article, but no reason to have a bibliography in 2 separate places. --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:00, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * However I entirely disagree with the reasons the other editors give for deletion. WP:SUSCEPTIBLE is clear that being susceptible to damage is not reason for deletion. POV issues can normally be fixed through editing (hence they are not grounds for deletion), and many articles on controversial topics are correctly maintained. As yet nobody has provided evidence that any version was biased, so deleting for POV violation is hardly justified. Providing bibliographies on topics is a normal part of the function of an encyclopedia. Providing a list of notable books is also totally valid, providing the list has more than a couple of entries. Writing an encyclopedia involves choosing what information to present and what to omit, and working on bibliographies simply requires the same procedures that go into editing any other article. --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:16, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes you're right there a lot of lists of books similar to this one. Concur with a CFORK rationale for deletion. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 17:24, 18 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - There are big bibliographies on WP about other topics, so the vastness of the literature isn't necessarily a killer. I suggest that there needs to be some sort of focusing, a selected bibliography about a certain topic or set of topics within Buddhism. This implies an editing matter, not a notability matter. As it stands, this promises to be an unmanageably large list, i.e. "indiscriminate." Carrite (talk) 03:28, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 02:23, 27 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep and rename to books on Buddhism and including only notable entries. We can't become an endless list of buddhism books in the world, but we can list notable books on the topic. -- cyclopia speak! 09:47, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep Lists of this sort limited to notable books are easily maintained and are no different from any other list.  DGG ( talk ) 04:09, 3 November 2013 (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.