Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ludwig van Beethoven's religious beliefs


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 02:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Ludwig van Beethoven's religious beliefs

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Largely unreferenced, almost completely composed (no pun intended) of WP:OR. I'm not sure it needs to be deleted outright, but a serious trimming or some actual references are going to be needed. Thoughts? ~  L'Aquatique [ talk ] 07:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment, only nominate an article for deletion when you think it should be deleted. Your concerns should be brought up on the talk page. I see three refs and they appear to cover half the text in the article. The cited material could easily be merged into Ludwig van Beethoven, although it looks like this article is a sub-article of Ludwig van Beethoven. --Pixelface (talk) 07:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I said I'm not sure if it should be deleted. This page is far enough off the beaten track that a note on the talk page would probably go unnoticed for quite a long time. I listed it here because I wanted community input into whether it should be deleted- which is exactly what AfD is for. ~  L'Aquatique [ talk ] 08:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I see what you're saying, but AFD is not for cleanup. There are cleanup tags you can use (like Original research, refimprove, etc). Ideas like that are listed at WP:BEFORE. You could put a mergefrom tag on Ludwig van Beethoven to bring attention to the page, bring it up at Talk:Ludwig van Beethoven or WikiProject Classical music, etc. If a trimming or references are needed, deleting the article won't solve that. This article was apparently spun out from the Ludwig van Beethoven article in October 2004 because that article was getting too long. --Pixelface (talk) 09:00, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * AfD is for community input, and that is what I'm looking for here. You and I both know that adding cleanup tags has never, ever solved anything- the backlogs are tremendous and there's just not enough people interested in clearing them. To be honest, when I read this my gut reaction was to click that little delete tab, but when I realized it had a fairly long history I decided it probably deserved better than a drive by nuking- so, I brought it here. Do you have input onto whether the article should be deleted or not? ~  L'Aquatique [ talk ] 09:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That's entirely wrong. Articles for deletion is, as the name says, for deletion.  As the box at the very top of the page says, it's not for things that don't involve deletion.  It has enough traffic coping with things that actually do.  It's not a general talking shop.  It's not the place for talking about cleanup.  It's not the place asking for wider attention to an article's talk page.  Nor is it a big hammer for forcing people to pay attention to cleanup tags.  Per our deletion policy of long-standing if the problem is that an article is in need of cleanup, the solution is not to bring it to AFD.  We don't get to use AFD to bully other people into performing cleanup in accordance with our personal arbitrary deadlines, and administrators certainly don't get to perform "drive-by nukings".  There is no speedy deletion criterion that applies to this article, and no criterion that says that you are allowed to delete pages just because you personally think that they are "far off the beaten track".  If you think that people not being interested in cleaning articles up is a problem, then you yourself are part of that problem.  You saw an article in need of cleanup ("serious trimming or some actual references"), and instead of cleaning it up yourself, you thought about deleting it.  You yourself weren't interested in doing the work of cleanup.  Please go back to the basics of our Editing policy and our Five pillars.  Perfection ab initio is not required, and we fix problem articles by boldly improving them ourselves.  Uncle G (talk) 11:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to sit here and argue policy with you and I'm certainly not going to respond to blatant twisting of my words. It's a waste of my time, it's a waste of your time, and it's frankly pointless. I opened this AfD to find out if the community believes this article should be deleted or kept, and that's exactly what I intend to do. Perhaps you should read our most important policy...? —Preceding unsigned comment added by L'Aquatique (talk • contribs) 20:00, 14 October 2008


 * Delete - per nom --Az Cold As Ize (talk) 07:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC) Strike comment by blocked user. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 07:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge with the main article. Content seems to be referenced, but Beethoven's religion is hardly a major factor of what he is famous for. Sjakkalle (Check!)  11:06, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions.   -- VG &#x260E; 13:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve. It is a pretty bad article, with few references and much apparent OR. But religion is an important topic in Beethoven biography, so I think we need a better article, not deletion.  Merging also not a good idea, because the main article would get too long.  If I ever become a Beethoven editor again (I've retreated to Haydn and Mozart) I will get reference sources and see what they say on this topic.  Opus33 (talk) 16:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve. The Ludwig van Beethoven's religious beliefs article is a part of Category:Religious views by individual. Religious beliefs of some people are notable. That's why we have articles like Charles Darwin's views on religion. Religious beliefs of Beethoven is an interesting topic and it justifies a separate Wikipedia article. It's a bad article, but we don't delete bad articles, we improve them. AdjustShift (talk) 19:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions.   -- the wub  "?!"  21:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve. As a sub-page of Ludwig van Beethoven, it could even be merged back into Ludwig van Beethoven if it needs to be. I don't think deleting this would solve anything. --Pixelface (talk) 21:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep whether it is needed as a subtopic, or how the article should be divided, is for discussion elsewhere. As a  composer of some of the most important religious music, it's certainly relevant enough. DGG (talk) 00:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete and smerge a concise statement in the main Beethoven article is more than enough for this topic, in response to AdjustShift we have Charles Darwin's views on religion because as the center of a gigantic religious controversy his views on the matter are important; for Beethoven his views are relevant but don't require a whole a page to explain. The only sources in this article are (1) a primary source letter (2) a compilation of quotes by Beethoven introduced by two paragraphs and I am not sure what #3 as it cites to a book but given the information its citing I don't think it is going to be very in depth. Icewedge  ( talk ) 03:55, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. We also have articles such as Religious faith of George W. Bush. What's wrong with having a separate page on Beethoven's religious beliefs? Beethoven is a composer of some of the most important religious music. AdjustShift (talk) 07:44, 15 October 2008 (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.