Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religious bias on Wikipedia


 * 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 delete. JBW (talk) 20:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Religious bias on Wikipedia

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

While I don't doubt that over its 22 year history there has been religious bias on Wikipedia, the majority of the claims in this artice are vague and unsourced. I think the article should be moved to Draft space until the accusations in the article can be supported with reliable sources because right now it seems like a lot of original research. I could have just moved it to Draft space but page moves can always be reverted if the page creator objects so I'm bringing it to AFD to get a more consensus-based verdict on what should happen to this article. I see potential in the topic but there are just a lot of general claims of bias and I don't think it is main space-ready. I can see this article appearing on Wikipedia in 2006 but it's 2023 and Wikipedia now requires more verification, especially on potentially controversial subjects. I ask that it be moved to Draft or User space for now. Liz Read! Talk! 20:30, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Discrimination, Religion,  and Internet. Liz Read! Talk! 20:30, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, so much work has been done on this article in the past few hours since it was nominated for deletion that it no longer resembles the article I nominated. It still might make sense to draftify it though. Liz Read! Talk! 01:36, 14 January 2023 (UTC)


 * hi @Liz, if insourced claims seemed to be issue, I omitted those for the time being until i properly source them. It&#39;s Keya (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I've removed a section of the article that was original research, citing only individual examples and making claims that they provided evidence of religious bias. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:08, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Cordless Larry, thanks. It&#39;s Keya (talk) 22:16, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Draftify because while potentially notable, the article is currently a mess. It cites some unreliable sources (e.g. associated with the Center for Science and Culture) and some opinion pieces that make claims of bias in relation to individual examples, but very little by way of secondary sources that assess whether there is religious bias on Wikipedia. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:28, 13 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep: notable, sourced, and recently improved. It would do us well not to willy-nilly delete what criticism we receive. —¿philoserf? (talk) 01:40, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge with Bias on Wikipedia. —¿philoserf? (talk) 14:54, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Nobody has said that this should be deleted willy-nilly. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:19, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * my humor deficit disorder in plainview. —¿philoserf? (talk) 14:49, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, while it might be sourced, at least some of those sources are highly questionable, as I've noted above. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:49, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Why is this separate from bias on Wikipedia? Slatersteven (talk) 11:08, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Meerge with above, I have no idea why we need a sperate article that is this short, looks very forky. Slatersteven (talk) 11:11, 14 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep!The content is very important. I observe how numerous users who are close to religions are particularly active in inserting inappropriate content into Wikipedia. Especially fundamentalist oriented users are active here. Look for example at conflicts in the articles Padre Pio and Miracle of Lanciano. I am glad that secular users have intervened here. Religious beliefs must always be very clearly separated from statements of fact. And that's exactly what a lot of religious users bypass. Mr. bobby (talk) 12:14, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok. I realize that an article for the topic is wrong. But the topic itself is very important for Wikipedia.Mr. bobby (talk) 22:13, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I think we get at least as many complaints from religious people that our articles do not contain THE TRUTH. But, anyway, it doesn't matter (for the purposes of this discussion) who complains about bias. The important thing is whether reliable sources have covered this as a distinct topic from general bias on Wikipedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:34, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * This response to my comment obviously assumes that religious POV is encyclopedically equivalent to demanding strict control of religious beliefs and disguising them as facts. That is precisely what religious POV already is. Some of the "TRUTH" followers have exactly one god. Others many hundreds. For some a certain Jesus is the son of one God, for others simply a man. So please: This is exactly the problem. The believers put their beliefs in here. Wikipedia is strictly secular.Mr. bobby (talk) 15:10, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * What does this have to do with whether Wikipedia should have an article about religious bias on Wikipedia, which is the purpose of this discussion? That depends on whether reliable sources have written about such bias. This isn't a general discussion about the topic of the article. If it was I would probably agree with you. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:19, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete or otherwise merge into bias on Wikipedia. I don't think it is encyclopedic. This should be the matter of Wikipedia policies, certainly not of a Wikipedia article. There is surely bias in some articles pertaining to religion, including a lot of unencyclopedic content (see for instance what I wrote here), but this is attributable to either sources or users who make use of them or who add unsourced interpretations, and it should be a fleeting problem internal to Wikipedia, and therefore not the subject of an article proposed to the reading audience. If neutrality policies were well enforced and biased users were kept at bay, the problem would be greatly reduced or disappear.--Æo (talk) 14:05, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * If there is significant coverage in independent, reliable sources, then there can and should be an article about the topic. The problem is that the article at present doesn't provide evidence that such coverage exists - it's mostly just a list of controversies that the author has decided amount to evidence of religious bias. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:21, 14 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete absent two WP:GNG sources about religious bias on Wikipedia. Not just bias on Wikipedia. And not stringing together a handful of specific incidents and collecting them into an article. The three "specific instances" listed now (which, I understand, is post-cleanup) are not instances of religious bias. The Scientology case is just regular plain-old COI/PROMO editing; that the organization happens to be a religion is incidental; there are tons of organizations, governments, etc., who have done this. We have an article about it, Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia. We also have List of Wikipedia controversies, either of which would be an appropriate place to cover the Scientology thing. The second example is an allegation of religious bias following the deletion of an article. This is also known as "another day at AFD": if we had a nickel for every time someone accused of bias for deleting an article (and if we had a dime for every time they were right!). Accusations of religious bias are not enough to support an article about religious bias. I'm not sure that's even worth covering in any article. The third example is a false claim that someone belongs to a religion. If we had a nickel for every fact error in Wikipedia... Put all of this together, and I don't see anywhere near enough for an article, not enough to draftify, not enough to even keep it as a redirect. I don't believe "religious bias on Wikipedia" is actually something that has received significant independent coverage in reliable sources. It probably should, but it hasn't yet, or at least I haven't seen any yet. Levivich (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete or draftify. An article on this subject could be notable, but as Levivich shows why this isn't it. Also the current lead is a perfect example of why WP:TNT exists. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:01, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge Delete The article is a mess, and the sourcing is highly questionable. There are references to blogs, to lecture notes, to other unreliable sources, and on top of that, many of the sources have nothing to do with religion. There is no basis for a separate article. Banks Irk (talk) 01:18, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. It simply is not notable. --Bduke (talk) 04:05, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete not yet notable, seems to be mainly a response to perceived bias by editors here. Doug Weller  talk 17:12, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Speedy Delete because it was created by a sockpuppet who was evading an indefinite block. The counterargument is that the article has been substantially edited by others, but from what I've seen that heavy editing has simply been the slashing of unsourced original research and other nonsense the sockpuppet threw in, probably to "stir the pot" and waste as much time of other editors as he could. If there is any germ of an article here, separate from Bias on Wikipedia, WP:TNT is called for. --Worldbruce (talk) 14:02, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete - I think self-referential content like this needs to have clear notability in order to warrant an article, and this particular subject falls short of that. WP:GNG isn't met and what little content remains after the (warranted) purging of problematic material could more than easily be covered on another article, but that's a couple of sentences worth of material at best and I'm fine with outright deletion. I have no doubt that there is religious bias on Wikipedia, but does that warrant an article? Not according to the (lack of) sources. It may be an important topic of conversation, but article space isn't the place for that conversation because it doesn't have the notability that is expected of an article's subject. - Aoidh (talk) 19:43, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Note. Yesterday I declined a WP:G5 request for this article, as – in my view – while it is indubitably a sockpuppet creation, it has been substantially edited by other editors and so is no longer eligible for speedy deletion under that (or any) criterion. I should have left this note immediately after doing that, my apologies. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:59, 17 January 2023 (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.