Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reform Judaism (North America)


 * 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. Article is not a POV fork but a split off per WP:SUMMARY. --Polaron | Talk 22:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Reform Judaism (North America)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This spin-off/fork article is part of an effort to redo Reform Judaism, a core Judaism article from which most current content was copied. Another one is German Reform movement (Judaism). The creators, Egfrank (and Jheald), have been involved in discussing a POV dispute: should Wikipedia use "Progressive" or "Reform" Judaism terminology? Ongoing discussions are at WP:JUDAISM and Progressive Judaism, where concerns with POV forks and spin-offs are being discussed. This page appears to be an attempt to resolve this POV dispute without reaching consensus. Besides wanting to avoid a possible POV fork, the pro-"Progressive" creators seem to be implementing a switch from Reform Judaism as the main article to Progressive Judaism. Since the switch isn't being implemented explicitly, these spin-offs (or POV forks?) may be seen as an end-run around consensus-building over a major branch of Judaism. Meanwhile, these moves are creating articles with overlapping topics and content. HG | Talk 23:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep. This article is not a POV fork.  It is a spin-out, to allow "summary style" at Reform Judaism.  This is desirable, because:
 * Reform Judaism is long. Even after the material moved, it is still 26k.  And there's material that should be added.
 * Reform Judaism is diverse. At the moment it aims to cover Reform Judaism in North America; Reform Judaism in the United Kingdom; Reform Judaism as a wider movement - eg including Progressive Judaism in Israel, Current Progressive/Liberal Judaism in France, Holland, Germany, ... etc; and the historical roots of Reform in 19th Century Germany.   Given such a diversity, that is not the article to try to include everything there is to include about Reform in North America.
 * Reform Judaism is congested. Summary style should allow the Reform Judaism article a much more flexible structure, much closer to the ideal "triangle" shape of an article; and a more integrated one, allowing broad similarities and differences to be treated together; rather than the previous structure of basically writing three of four independent articles one after the next, with basically no overview and communication between the different sections at all.
 * There's enough to say about Reform Judaism (North America) to justify an article -- and there's a lot more that could and probably should go in. Also, there's a lot of material specific to Reform in N. America -- eg specifics about its history, about its policy platforms, about its arrangements for kids' summer camps, that are much better treated by letting it have its own article.  Jheald 00:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep, like Reform Judaism (Germany); Reform Judaism (United Kingdom); and Liberal Judaism (United Kingdom) and keep on adding informative material. These are all good moves, valid historically, and should be the basis for a long-overdue upgrade of articles and information relating to these modern movements that broke with Orthodox Judaism. IZAK 02:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions.   IZAK 02:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment As with other articles in this series, those who disagree with splitting up the Reform Judaism article into subarticles by region as distinct from using other criteria have valid arguments and may well be right, but nonetheless a regional approach meets WP:N and WP:V, there's no well-established consensus, and hence I see no policy issue that would justify the intervention of deletion per WP:AfD as the means of resolving the underlying edit dispute. I would encourage using other dispute resolution means to resolve it. Best, --Shirahadasha 03:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per IZAK and we should all seek family counseling per Shirahadasha. [[Image:Face-smile.svg|20px]] — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 05:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per Jheald; it's a valid article split. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 06:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Pretty obvious keep. The article set could use a decent navigational template, as well.  Tomertalk  08:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I made a mistake. I agree that the article, title and content meet WP criteria. My concern is with (1) parallel articles for Reform Judaism and Progressive Judaism covering the same ground for a single article, and (2) how I perceived the spin-offs as created to tilt the table toward a specific choice between the two parallel articles. However, an AfD was the wrong way for addressing either the two parent articles or my concerns over how/why the spin-offs were implemented. I'm sorry. Instead of focusing on the spin-offs, a decision is needed about merging the parallel parent articles (Progressive and Reform) into a single article. Given that I erred here and do not want to create further ill will, perhaps somebody else would be willing to move us toward resolution about a merge? Thanks. HG | Talk 23:46, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi HG: Your latter concerns "about merging the parallel parent articles (Progressive and Reform) into a single article" is part of what has been under discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism so let's continue it over there, but there is no way that that issue can get resolved in this vote here. Thanks for your efforts, IZAK 03:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Keep- Comment I think that Reform, Progressive, Liberal clearly need divisions and it is not POV fork, but I wish there were a greater number of knowledgeable people working on the Progressive Judaisms to talk through the merits of divisions based on geography, ideology, chronology, or even Rabbinical seminaries. There is not enough clarity about names of entries or even links to important progressive rabbis and schools.--Jayrav 20:46, 7 November 2007 (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.