Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of minor biblical places


 * 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 keep. No disagreement that content should be kept and consensus that merging would not be the best solution TigerShark (talk) 18:10, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

List of minor biblical places

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

We have List of biblical places, obviously encyclopedic. But any "list of minor things" first begs the question "who decides what is minor"? There are no inclusion criteria present in this list, hence WP:OR concerns arise. Second, WP:LISTN is an issue (again, List of biblical places is fine, but List of minor biblical places, much less so). Lastly, quite a lot of content here has no reference or is referenced to primary source (The Bible) itself. Do we want to keep it nonetheless, given the cultural significance of The Bible, or (my preferred solution) consider a merge to List of biblical places (of content referenced to non-primary sources), given the ORish and unclear attempt to divide biblical places into minor or not, or is there some other solution we can consider? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:51, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Bible,  and Lists. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  09:51, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I suppose every place not "major" is "minor", but the list seems rather arbitrary and useless as it stands now. Oaktree b (talk) 14:43, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge to List of biblical places. I have added the inclusion criterium, which was already defined at List of biblical places: This is purely a distinction based on content within Wikipedia; what has it's own article appears in List of biblical places, all others are defined as "minor" based on that and included here. Therefore, this is not original research, just a technical WP:SPLIT within the topic "places mentioned in the Bible", and so I don't see a problem with WP:LISTN either. This split satisfies Wikipedia's common selection criterea for lists. I am personally rather passionless if this should be split (due to size?) or not. However, if there was a decision not to have separate "minor" places list, we should be very clear that WP:CSC is not later used to remove entries because they don't have a stand-alone article!
 * Now as for the removal of unsourced material: My preference is to keep everything, even unsourced or primary sourced content, due to the cultural significance of the Bible and the fact, that there is a large but managably finite number of places mentioned in the Bible. Also, it is very likely that there is some secondary source talking about each and every location. Aside from hundereds of years of Bible studies, just consider this Dictionnaire géographique de la Bible, which looks very comprehensive. In such a case, where material likely is verifiable, I want to emphasize that the WP:BURDEN to look for secondary sources before removing anything is on the editor considering the removal! Daranios (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * the WP:BURDEN to look for secondary sources before removing anything is on the editor considering the removal! Nonsense. WP:BURDEN says quite the opposite: Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. TompaDompa (talk) 15:27, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:BURDEN says If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it. What you have quoted applies only, to quote WP:BURDEN again, if you have a considered reason to believe the material in question cannot be verified. Daranios (talk) 19:00, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, no. That's not what "Any material lacking an inline citation" or "encouraged" means. WP:BURDEN also says All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material (emphasis in original). It may not always be popular to remove uncited material that may be verifiable (hence why editors are encouraged to add a citation, which is a far cry from being required to look for sources), but the burden—which was your assertion—is always, always on people adding material, never on people removing it. This is the case in other contexts as well—WP:ONUS states that The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. Wikipedia has a bias against including material, which is by design. TompaDompa (talk) 19:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure, WP:ONUS is a an altogether different matter. Has nothing to do with verifiability. I just can't be right to remove material on the grounds of verifiability even if one thinks its verifiable. That would be gaming the system. So, with regard to WP:V, do you have a considered reason to believe the material here cannot be verified despite the suggested secondary source? With regard to WP:ONUS: On which grounds would you dispute the inclusion of our material here even though it can be verified? Daranios (talk) 19:41, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I have made no comment on this article or its contents one way or the other. I have only rebutted your incorrect assertion that editors who consider removing uncited material that may yet be verifiable are obligated to look for sources before doing so. WP:ONUS is indeed a different matter altogether and was used to illustrate my point that Wikipedia places the burden on those who add/restore material rather than those who remove it in general because there is by design a bias against including material. TompaDompa (talk) 19:50, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input. I remain convinced my assertion is correct for a case like ours here, because it is demonstrably likely that the material here is verifiable. Also, WP:ONUS is balanced by WP:PRESERVE. But the discussion about that beyond our case here can be continued elsewhere if necessary. Daranios (talk) 10:52, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Merge The list of biblical places article would be a perfect place for this info as that article seems to be for as many biblical places as possible. Merging seems like the best option. I also wanna reiterate how the word minor is unclear Greenhighwayconstruction (talk) 23:52, 6 July 2022 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:53, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep The word "minor" can be removed, just state it list places that do not have their own Wikipedia article. Just have to come up with another name for it.  We are an encyclopedia of knowledge people can use for their studies, not just a popular cultural site people can learn about entertainment media, Batman, sex articles, and whatnot.  WP:IAR applies here.   D r e a m Focus  17:06, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge to List of biblical places. Establishing the inclusion criteria eliminated the WP:OR concerns. Merging could solve the other concerns, but that would make for a LONG list that would probably need to be divided again anyway... TNstingray (talk) 20:12, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep as is. Minor is preferable to using 'notable' in a title, but that's what this essentially is, and that's itself a WP:CSC entry. However, I would challenge the notion that ANYTHING mentioned in the canonical Hebrew and New Testament scriptures is actually non-notable: so many dead tree books have been published over the centuries, almost nothing mentioned therein is non-notable... there are just things we haven't bothered to identify multiple sources for yet. Jclemens (talk) 04:02, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. There is no sense in merging 90K of material into another list, and there is no sense in deleting a large quantity of disambiguating content that can obviously be cited. It is in the Bible, and there are glossaries of the Bible that attempt to define just about everything in it. BD2412  T 04:26, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd rather have one list split by letters (A-P, R-Z, whatever) than a split based on unclear division into what is minor and what is not. This can be merged then split if needed without ORish divisions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:40, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The introduction of the page defines it. "This is a list of places mentioned in the Bible, which do not have their own Wikipedia articles ." That is not OR, as established in earlier conversations. TNstingray (talk) 13:48, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It does, however, clearly fails WP:NLIST, since no other place outside Wikipedia would care about such a list. One general list is defendable, Wikipedia-only, much less so. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 16:31, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's an intelligible distinction. If there are sources that list all of these, and we divide the list into reasonable portions, there surely does not need to be an external source for a list focused on our internal subdivision. If, for example, there is a list of all biblical places, and we have such a list divided into A through J, K through R, and T through Z, would we need to show that there is an external source discussing only biblical places from T through Z? BD2412  T 01:17, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. The information in this list is dense enough not to be merged with List of biblical places and historically notable enough not to be deleted. --CaeserKaiser (talk) 12:11, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Merge - It doesn't really make much sense for there to be two lists, and "minor" is a rather weird descriptor in this case. If the main list was giant, then simply renaming/reframing this list would make sense, but it's tiny and can easily fit all of the relevant context. Reorganizing it into a table-based list would probably be best. TTN (talk) 13:03, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * These lists, however, are incomplete and constantly growing. BD2412  T 01:17, 22 July 2022 (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.