Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Middlebush Reformed Church


 * 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. Non-admin closure.  Jujutacular  T · C 06:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Middlebush Reformed Church

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Non-notable church: "Middlebush Reformed Church at 1 South Middlebush Road at the corner of Amwell Road is the fourth oldest church in Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey." The article makes no other claim of notability, and features a unencyclopedic description of the real estate deals in the church's history and an equally unencyclopedic list of pastors. Sourcing is largely primary. Abductive (reasoning) 23:47, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Really? The church just celebrated it's 175th anniversary? The lede could be a bit more zingy but I had little problems finding more sources including a few books that might help. -- Banj e  b oi   00:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Tagging for rescue will not obscure the fact that, in spite of being 175 years old, there is nothing to distinguish this church from many others. There are three others in its township that are older. Abductive  (reasoning) 00:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Unless you're including those churches in this AfD, which I don't think is helpful, it doesn't matter. The point is that notability and sourcing exists for this church. -- Banj e  b oi   00:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The sourcing is trivial, and there is no notability whatsoever. Abductive  (reasoning) 00:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We may have to agree to disagree on this one. -- Banj e  b oi   22:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The "sourcing" talks about the most mundane, non-encyclopedic stuff. This church, its congregation and its buildings have never been analyzed by any secondary sources. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You may not realize this but defending your position by confronting every other comment here feels a bit like badgering. I feel there is enough to meet our notability and sourcing guidelines. The church has served as a community hub for decades in a historical district and numerous sources support the content we have which is pretty dry stuff to begin with. Is this of general interest to many folks? Perhaps not but we don't write to please everyone, we stick to policies and cover our subjects dispassionately. Like I said above you and I may have to agree to disagree on this one. -- Banj e  b oi   22:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You may not realize this but some members of the Article Rescue Squadron notvote to keep articles that deserve to be deleted. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * What other editors do or don't do is generally their business, inferring anything by non-participation remains a really bad idea. -- Banj e  b oi   22:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep I would like to see more diverse references, but seems like enough for a standalone article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We need more than the word of the article creator. Church is run-of-the-mill. Abductive  (reasoning) 06:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The proof is in the sources ... anyone can look at them just as I did, all seem reliable to me ... Wikipedia demands notability not remarkability, you just need to noticed by the media, not be the oldest or biggest. We have Guinness World Records for that.  Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk)
 * I urge interested parties to read the article on this unremarkable church, and consider just how trivial the mentions are. Abductive  (reasoning) 07:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete In all fairness, this local church falls far short of the notability standards. Its age does not qualify notabilty. There are tens of thousands of such old churches in the eastern USA similar to this church. I agree that more such articles are needed, but this one falls short. รัก-ไทย (talk) 16:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * All Wikipedia cares about is if the topic is noticed by reliable sources, and that each fact has a source. It meets that standard. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * From Wikipedia's secondary source article: "In scholarship, a secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed. Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information." This church has nothing like that. Abductive  (reasoning) 18:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Last I checked the Courier News was not part of the church, are you suggesting they are? Listed is a 332 word article independent of the church. You have to click through an read the actual references, not just look at the quote that was used in the reference. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * What does the article say? Nothing approaching "generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information". Abductive  (reasoning) 19:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 10 facts from 10 sources are mathematically identical to 10 facts from a single source. Since you love quotes, I will say that it does provide "generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, [and] evaluation of the original information" Others can judge for themselves. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. I almost never agree with Benjiboi on AfD related things but this time I do.   JBsupreme  ( talk ) 21:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Why? Abductive  (reasoning) 22:19, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Notable church. Apart from the good points made by others, there are obvious alternatives to deletion such as merger into articles about the town or the denomination.  But I am content with the current version which seems a good addition to our encyclopedia.  Many thanks to RAN and others for creating it. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I don't see notability as a real issue here. I'm more concerned about the article's orphan status.  There really is only one good link to the page.HornColumbia (talk) 13:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I'm not sure which one, but i think the church is included in either Kingston Mill Historic District or Middlebush Village Historic District, which are NRHP-listed HDs on National Register of Historic Places listings in Somerset County, New Jersey. So there exists NRHP nomination documents for the historic district which will have more material about the church, as a contributing property, and it will be natural to link to this church article from the NRHP HD one, when it is created.  Is it linked from the town article already?  (To whoever might develop the church article further, please request a free copy of the NRHP nom doc from the National Register -- contact me separately for more info.) --doncram (talk) 13:32, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep - a quick look at the map shows that it is part of the Middlebush Village Historic District on the NRHP - this should be better documented (see Doncram above). The Historic District is pretty small - about 4 square blocks - so I suspect this building is the star of the HD (or at least the tallest building in it  :-) ).  For buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, I think the rule is "National" + "Historic" = notable, with reliability presumed because both the state historic agency and the Federal NRHP (part of the Park Service) have to sign off on it.  Smallbones (talk) 14:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep per WP:SNOW as at least one account who seems to usually say to delete is even saying to keep in this one, but also per "non-notable" not being a valid reason for deletion per common sense. Something that is nearly 200 years old that is verifiable through reliable sources is about as encyclopedic as you get.  Given the results in Google Books and Google Scholar, surely some article on the subject is writable.  Best, --A NobodyMy talk 14:36, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep User:Smallbones beat me to most of this by a few seconds: I note that the NRHP listing for the Middlebush Village Historic District calls out a religious structure as part of the district and a date of 1834 for year of significance. Since the subject was founded in 1834, that is strongly suggestive that the subject is the primary structure in the Historic District, which is only one block wide and two long. Also: (From the Somerset County Cultural& Heritage Commission report for 2008.
 * Middlebush Village Historic District
 * The Middlebush Village Historic District is a small residential hamlet located along South Middlebush Road. There are 34 historic buildings in the district dating from 1791 to the 1920s. The architecture of the district illustrates the full range of architectural styles that dominated America from the 18th century to the early 20th century These styles include Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Queen Ann, Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles. The most significant structure in the Village is the Middlebush Reformed Church, which was constructed in 1919 in the Gothic Revival and Craftsman styles. Other significant structures include the Voorhees House (now O’Connor’s Restaurant) constructed in 1793 in the vernacular Georgian Style, as well as a 19th century Dutch barn. (emphasis added)

So, we have the most significant structure in a Historic District. According to our rules, that's prima facie evidence of notability.. . . . Jim. . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 14:41, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: I stumbled upon the prods that the nominator and others have apparently moved onto, and then found this AfD.  Whatever it looked like before, its worth keeping now.--Milowent (talk) 15:23, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: it's a historic church. I find 50,000 Google hits and 40 GoogleBooks hits. The article has many good references. -- Radagast3 (talk) 23:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Being in a national historic district is not sufficient, and we have rather consistently held that the building needs to be individually entered. For example, every house on my block is within an historic district, and there is unquestionably reliable documentation for every one of them in the documents for that district. But none of them are individually entered, because none of them are sufficiently individually notable.  Perhaps this church does merit individual listing, but it doesn;t seem to have it yet.    DGG ( talk ) 00:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Once again you are citing your own personal and subjective standard of remarkability beyond Wikipedia's own concept for inclusion. Wikipedia only asks for notability. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )
 * I agree with DGG that not every property, not even every "contributing property", mentioned in an NRHP historic district needs a separate wikipedia article. But, some individual properties in historic districts, such as this one, do seem to meet wikipedia notability.  Note, once a building is covered in a historic district, it probably won't get a separate NRHP listing even if it would be eligible on its own, because the HD already provides whatever tax benefits and zoning protection that might apply in a given jurisdiction.  It can be a judgment call when to split out a separate article for a contributing property.  If it is a separate article, there is a NRHP infobox version available to describe it. --doncram (talk) 16:59, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Seeing as how this article is probably going to be kept, I am heartened by the discovery that the church is a contributing property to a NRHP district. This at least prevents the creation of a precedent of keeping the article based on the overreaching arguments made prior to the NRHP discovery. Abductive  (reasoning) 19:16, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Mild Keep: Article needs to establish notability, maybe by expanding architecture or history.  But these issues are more appropriate to handle through a flag on the article rather than deletion.RevelationDirect (talk) 03:25, 13 March 2010 (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.