Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Catholic Church

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=MediaWiki:Vfd-Roman_Catholic_Church&action=edit Add to this deletion debate]


 * Article is a mess of POV, is unreadable, and is redundant considering that we actually have a well-written article on Catholicism. Should be put out of its misery. Snowspinner 15:48, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. We desperately need an article separate from Catholicism about that religious institution that is headed by the Pope, whatever its name is this week. Smerdis of Tlön 17:03, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. POV isn't a reason for deletion, but for cleanup. Redundancy is not a problem - in fact it is actually prefered: The article has great potential. Pteron 17:36, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Even if it were true that everything that could be said about the RCC was said in Catholicism, this should still be a redirect. DJ Clayworth 17:48, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Retracting my claim of delete. I've NPOVed it somewhat and deleted the mess of links. Should still probably be united with Catholicism at some point.Snowspinner 19:05, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Send to cleanup. -- Cyrius|&#9998 20:22, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC)
 * OK. This article did not have much content that wasn't covered by Catholicism. The non-redundant content was all under the header "Criticism of the Catholic Church". I deleted all the redundant content, moved the non-redundant content to Criticism of the Catholic Church, and set this up to redirect to Catholicism. Snowspinner 21:45, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Strongly oppose this move. It should not be redirected. A good article needs to be written about the institution of the church, separate from the religion itself. Everyking 22:18, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * The Catholicism article is not so long as to make this breakdown necessary yet. Nor am I convinced of the need for that breakdown, considering that a fundamental tenet of Catholicism is the belief in the institution of the church and its authority. Snowspinner 23:02, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * The fundamental, perennial problems come from the POV assumption that acceptance of the claims of universal authority of the Pope is not the defining feature of a single religious sect. This makes the opening of Catholicism confusing, as there are other denominations that call themselves Catholic without accepting the claims of the Pope.  There needs to be a separate article about the Pope and the church or churches he actually leads, and Catholicism, under that word alone, should not be that article.  Smerdis of Tlön 00:11, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Catholicism should be a disambig linking out to the different groups? Snowspinner 00:43, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * There are many branches of Catholicism which differ starkly from Vatican doctrine. The Roman-Catholic church as an institution cannot be featured on the same page as Catholicism as a belief. And frankly Snowspinner, how dare you just go ahead and make the change when the issue is still being disputed? And you didn't just change it, you also deleted Roman Catholic Church and reinstated it as a redirect, so now its history is lost. Many little things the page had going for it, like the list of dioceses are now simply deleted. I vehemently protest this disregard for the established policies of Wikipedia ! If possible, revert to original state, until there is agreement. Pteron 00:33, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * I was not the one who deleted Roman Catholic Church. I set it up as a redirect, and shortly after it was deleted by an admin. I set it up as a redirect again after that, because the change broke a number of links in other articles. Being as I am not an admin, I could not delete it so as to clear out its page history even if I were inclined to. Snowspinner 00:43, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Actually that sounded a bit harsh... sorry about that. But this is a problem - we have three users who really wanted a Roman Catholic Church page and it's just been deleted. What now? Pteron 00:49, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't know, honestly. I mean, I support a Roman Catholic Church page - it's just that the RCC page as it stood wasn't doing that job, and was rehashing information that was on the Catholicism page. If Catholicism were to be completely reworked, that would be one thing. Short term, though, RCC was a mess. I was persuaded by resposes that said it needed cleanup and not deletion, and I thus cleaned. Probably someone with more knowledge of the various Catholic churches (My knowledge is almost entirely RCC-centric) needs to go to work on the Catholicism page. Until then, the best that I can say is "Shit. That sucked. I wish I'd scribbled down who deleted that page so we could yell at them." Snowspinner 00:54, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * According to the deletion log it was Isomorphic. Let's go yell at him... In a friendly way of course. ;-) Pteron 01:11, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * OK, I apologize for all the confusion. Let me explain what happened.  First, I had no idea that the article was on VfD.  I saw Snowspinner move the content to Criticism of the Catholic Church, which seemed to me a more appropriate title for the content that was there.  That left a redirect from Roman Catholic Church to the criticism article, which was obviously bad, and since the redirect had no history I didn't see any reason not to delete.  I thought that when I deleted, it was still a redirect to the criticism article.  Apparently Snowspinner changed where it redirected between when I opened the article and when I hit "delete."  I got a weird error message, which might have had something to do with that.
 * As to why I deleted the redirect instead of changing it to Catholicism myself, well, in retrospect maybe that's what I should've done, but I greatly dislike that redirect. It makes it look like a new article isn't needed, and it perpetuates the misunderstanding that Roman Catholicism = Catholicism or that Roman Catholic Church = all churches under the Pope. If I'd known that there was an active discussion taking place about it I wouldn't worried about it, but I didn't want to leave a redirect to Catholicism in place indefinitely where it would just increase confusion. Anyway, again I apologize for all the inconvenience, and I greatly encourage someone with more knowledge than I have to undertake the task of splitting out the appropriate material from Catholicism and moving it to Roman Catholic Church.  Isomorphic 01:52, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Also, see the comment I made a few days ago on Talk:Catholicism as part of my explanation for why Roman Catholic Church should not redirect to Catholicism. Isomorphic 02:06, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Good topic for an article. The Roman Catholic Church is a well-defined institution, and the title is accepted by the Pope and many others. As to exactly what it refers to, that's more difficult but I think it can be sorted out. But in any case that's a job for the various talk pages (one already archived to several subpages I see) not VfD. Andrewa 06:48, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'm baffled by the remarks that the article "is unreadable," looks fine to me. "Is redundant... [with Catholicism]" isn't clear at all, a lot of overlap certainly, plenty of work could be done. I don't personally see any gross POV problems but might not be sensitive to same; if there are, fix them. Dpbsmith 15:43, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the article is a lot more readable now that it's been heavily worked on. The old article no longer even exists as such. Really, this can be removed from VFD - I've retracted the proposal, and now a bunch of people are working on the articles. Snowspinner 16:05, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Wow, there's tons being going on there. Congrats guys - nice job. Pteron 22:00, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I have to say, listing an article for deletion sure as hell gets stuff done. =) Snowspinner 22:02, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. -Sean 20:03, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * A specified article on religion should be kept. Why Catholic Church and not Roman Catholic Church. Vote for cleanup. -- MGM 20:31, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, Keep, Keep. Whatever problems may arise in the write-up, I can't imagine seriously suggesting this article doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Cribcage 05:40, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)