Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richmond Royal Arch Chapter No. 3


 * 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. Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 14:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Richmond Royal Arch Chapter No. 3
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

Nominated per WP:ORG. Local chapters of State or National organizations are not considered notable unless there are reliable secondary sources to show otherwise. This article is completely unsourced, and a look for reliable secondary sources comes up with nothing that is independent of the subject (there is a self-published history)... There is no indication of what makes this particular Chapter different from any other, so notability is not established. Blueboar (talk) 17:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete curious collection of disorganized factoids. Wile E. Heresiarch (talk) 07:39, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep and develop. It is obviously not unsourced.  It is based upon a record book described in the text, which would be a good/reliable source for some information in such an article.  Is this the lodge that built, or one that used, the Masonic Temple (Richmond, Virginia), which was "the finest example of Richardsonian Romanesque style architecture in the state, and others have asserted that at its time of construction it was "one of the 'most magnificent examples of modern architecture in the South.'"
 * The NRHP nomination document lists additional sources in footnotes and bibliography which might be consulted. Do you have access / have you run lit. searches covering historical Virginia newspapers? --doncram (talk) 14:36, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Doncram conflates topics... the building he points us to certainly sounds notable... but that does not mean the chapter (the subject of the article) is notable. Notability is not inherited. The notability of a building does not impart notability upon those that may (or may not) have met in the building (I say "may not" because at the moment we don't even have an indication that the chapter in question ever met in this building).  Blueboar (talk) 15:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I did not conflate anything! I pointed to a related article, which the AFD'd topic article should probably link to, if the Lodge met there.  In many other state capital or other cities, multiple Masonic lodges have shared use of a big building like this one, so it's an educated guess (not yet confirmed) that this lodge met there.  I pointed out it has sources which have not been consulted.  I suggest now that the AFD nominator has not done research he coulda done.  Better to tag the article about forming inline citations and to leave for development. --doncram (talk) 18:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * yields some hits. What about History and by Laws of Richmond Royal Arch Chapter, by Moore (complete text available on-line i think)?


 * Here is another source stating that the Richmond Royal Arch Chapter met on occasion at a different building, which i think is the Mason's Hall (Richmond, Virginia), also NRHP-listed. Its article has another NRHP nom with its own bibliography of additional sources that could include some relevant for this article (pls. note the online version of the NRHP nom for Mason's Hall is missing a page or two as what shows for bibliography section is an incomplete continuation page.  A full copy can be obtained by request to National Register, at no charge). --doncram (talk) 18:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The AFD nominator is Confused about what Conflation is, and Fails to Follow that the historic buildings articles and their sources should be Consulted First, before Considering any Historic topic to be Hopeless for wikipedia Coverage. :) Happy Christmas! --doncram (talk) 18:32, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Delete, I really can't see how meeting in a range of historic buildings makes this chapter notable. When the history of an organisation and the history of a notable historic building are shared (e.g. a church and the church building that it worships in), it's appropriate to give a substantial amount of coverage to the organisation even if the building is the prime topic, but it's not really appropriate to devote separate articles to the two subjects.  It's not in line with our notability standards to say that the existence of groups of sources that certainly cover specific buildings is sufficient for the notability of one of the organisations that uses that building.  Nyttend (talk) 14:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Forget about the sources that primarily regard the historic buildings. What about:
 * History and by Laws of Richmond Royal Arch Chapter, by Moore, 1911
 * A History of Royal Arch Masonry, Part 3, by Turnbull and Denslow
 * "A History of Richmond Royal Arch Chapter", by Snydor and Gearheardt, 1942, cited within Turnbull and Denslow, and
 * Other sources which u might find by further browsing in the Google results?
 * I don't care much for articles about chapters of organizations, but these seem to be reliable sources establishing the existence and some of the history of this organization. --Doncram (talk) 15:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete: per nom. The sources Doncram is providing are, of course, not independent, as WP:RS requires; indeed, the Moore and Snydor cites are written by members of the chapter.  Blueboar's use of the word "conflate" to describe Doncram's actions is not in the least degree confused - any sources or arguments based around the notability of the building in which an organization meets cannot, of course, pertain to the notability of the organization.  That this chapter exists no one disputes; that it is notable is another matter.   Ravenswing  15:09, 29 December 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.