Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scientology and sex (2nd nomination)


 * 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. The consensus that emerged seems to support the idea that the added sources are enough to justify this article. Xymmax So let it be written   So let it be done  06:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Scientology and sex
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Original research based almost exclusively on primary sources and without so much as a secondary source establishing notability for this (supposed) sub-topic of Scientology. Justallofthem (talk) 19:17, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: Perhaps I was trying to be too succinct in my nom as I have in the past gone very much the other way. As I mention below: ''If you examine the article you will see that my premise is not specious; the only on-topic bit of the article that is sourced from reliable secondary material is the little bit where Hubbard said he recommends no sex during pregnancy. Perhaps deserving of mention in another article, but not having its own.'' Cirt's analysis notwithstanding, this article is not well-sourced in RS secondary materials. Other than the bit I mention above the other non-CofS sources are either non-notable and non-reliable POV pieces or are related to tangential material. It is simple to provide the appearance of RS secondary sourcing by referencing material not central to the theme of the article. For example, I could characterize Scientology as "controversial" and Hubbard as a "science fiction writer" and source both of those well. That would add two more reliable sources to the article but in actual fact I would have simply padded the reference list. I am not saying that the tangential references were included to pad the list, I am simply asking reviewers to look a little deeper. --Justallofthem (talk) 14:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. There are actually WP:RS/WP:V secondary sources given in the article itself already, including:
 * Cooper, Paulette, The Scandal of Scientology, Chapter 3, "Life and sex in the Womb"
 * Malko, George, Scientology: The Now Religion, Chapter 5
 * Robert Kaufman, Inside Scientology/Dianetics, pt.1
 * See also news, books, scholar
 * This is certainly a subject that has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, and should be kept and expanded upon with additional info from other secondary sources, and the info reliant solely upon primary sources should be pruned - but AfD is not the correct venue to discuss that. Cirt (talk) 19:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Cirt, as an exercise, how do "Malko, George, Scientology: The Now Religion, Chapter 5" and "Robert Kaufman, Inside Scientology/Dianetics, pt.1" relate to the subject of the article? --Justallofthem (talk) 20:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Simply pointing out that there are some secondary sources present in the article from whence to research additional information, but at any rate the subject matter is discussed in many other secondary sources, enough so that the article can be improved upon further with additional secondary sources. Cirt (talk) 20:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Mkay. My point being that the so-called "secondary sourcing" for this article relates mostly to tangential material and that the article itself is almost entirely original research based on primary materials. Something I would expect you to stand strongly against, given your prior edit history on just those grounds. --Justallofthem (talk) 20:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. Cirt (talk) 20:30, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Article is well-sourced. Edward321 (talk) 23:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions.   -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:21, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions.   -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:21, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep This AfD seems like deja vu all over again. Secondary sources sufficient to meet N and V exist in the article. Jclemens (talk) 02:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, the other one is the deja vu. I did this one first and then noticed that the other article had basically identical issues. A common occurrence in posting AFDs, I would imagine. Please judge them each on their individual merits, they are separate AFDs. --Justallofthem (talk) 15:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep This diff shows the difference in the article since the last AfD, which had a clear consensus for keep. Nominators rationale is false, as secondary sources are currently used in the article, contrary to the statement "without so much as a secondary source establishing notability for this (supposed) sub-topic of Scientology". DigitalC (talk) 05:13, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I assume that you are demonstrating that the article has not substantially changed since is survived AFD last time? All due respect but that is not cause for a speedy keep, see Speedy keep. If you examine the article you will see that my premise is not specious; the only on-topic bit of the article that is sourced from reliable secondary material is the little bit where Hubbard said he recommends no sex during pregnancy. Perhaps deserving of mention in another article, but not having its own. --Justallofthem (talk) 12:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep per Cirt. As with the Homosexuality and Scientology article, this one clearly meets WP:N and WP:V. Themfromspace (talk) 06:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Nothing to indicate why the previous AFD from 10 months ago should be overturned. If there's a content issue that has developed since then, then discussions at the article level can be undertaken with respect to this, with one option being rolling back the article to its state in February 2008 when the AFD passed. I also have basically the same viewpoint on this article as I have expressed on the above AFD regarding "Homosexuality and Scientology", but I won't spam this AFD by cut-and-pasting it, since it's a bit lengthy. Scroll up. ;-) 23skidoo (talk) 16:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Team Scientology's Just-whatever (honestly, I can't keep track of the endless numbers of name changes) hasn't provided anything to indicate that Scientology's views on sex are non-notable. AndroidCat (talk) 07:29, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per all previous keeps. Stifle (talk) 10:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete An OR effort, and no evidence as yet that any scholarly or otherwise reliable sources directly address this topic in detail, as required by WP:Notability. The one solid source I see, added during the last few hours, is the one that relates to Homosexuality and Scientology (Siker), and we already have a dedicated article for that (which is also full of OR and should be rewritten, making prominent use of this source). Most of the other non-primary sources are tangential mentions in press reports; this, however, is a WP:SPS and completely unsuitable. Jayen 466 10:47, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - The issue of sources used was raised at AfD1. AfD1 was closed as keep with promises of fixing the article's references. This AfD2 was listed ten months later and same issue of sources used was raised again. The keep thrust again was promises to fix the article. As the AfD numbers increase, the promises to fix arguments carry less weight. Not independent: The main trouble I am having with this article is that the content goes straight from Hubbard into Wikipedia, a problem that has been carried from the close of the first AfD into this second AfD. Few of the sources are independent of scientology. When published sources write about topics, they make business decisions as to what is important and what is not. Wikipedia is at its best when it reflects those hard business decisions by using source material at least one step removed from an event that are independent of that event. However, the use of dependent sources avoids dealing with the issue of whether anyone cares about the topic or sufficiently cares about the topic relative to the overall main topic of scientology. Instead, for the most part, the article now presents material for which the Wikipedia editors who entered the dependent material in the article can be said to care about. Is that the purpose of Wikipedia? I don't think it is. Content forking: I'm also trouble that this article may be a content fork. This article does not represent all significant views of scientology that have been published by reliable sources. Instead, it carves out a some of Hubbard's writings on sex and elevates them as the core doctrine of the Church. The article presumes that everything written by the now dead Hubbard was, is, and always will be the Official view of Scientology. There is nothing in the article that establishes that the listed sex views are the core doctrine of the Church. By not limiting content entrance into the article to independent third-party, published sources and posting the sex topic outside the context of Scientology as a whole, the article appears to be making a big deal out of a minor issue. Conclusion - The keep positions above appear to agree that the topic meets WP:N but neglect to sufficiently carry the discussion beyond that. While there may be room for scientology and sex in one of Wikipedia's other articles, I don't see any justification in the present write up to maintain an article on the topic-- Suntag  ☼ 
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.   —Cirt (talk) 16:12, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions.   —Cirt (talk) 16:12, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Per Cirt and Jclemens's commentary. Ecoleetage (talk) 16:42, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment For the record, this discussion was already the subject of a non-admin closure by yours truly. The admin who reversed that decision has stated in the edit summary that "Scientology articles are subject to offsite canvassing and a solid rational for deletion has been provided." The first statement is presented without any evidence (at least in relation to this discussion) and the second statement is strictly an opinion that ignored the original consensus that led to the NAC. If the current consensus continues on track, I suspect this discussion will be closed as Keep, which would confirm the merit of the original NAC decision. Thank you. Ecoleetage (talk) 16:59, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment: More material has been added from additional WP:RS/WP:V secondary sources, still in process of researching and adding more from other secondary sources as well. Cirt (talk) 17:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep This article was re-listed for AfD after added 9 reliable sources to the article. I do not understand the argument that this is an "original resesarch effort". If you want to see a real "original research effort", check out Scientology beliefs and practices. Both pages are clearly notable, and the former contains enough reliable secondary sources sufficient to warrant a Keep.  ←  Spidern  →  22:08, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. I still do not see a source that directly addresses this topic in detail. You will get tangential mentions of sex in secondary sources, e.g reports of references to sex in auditing questions, or references to sex as (part of) the second dynamic. But the literature on Scientology usually addresses this as part of its discussion of auditing or the eight dynamics, respectively. Jayen 466 01:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment There are currently 33 sources for this article, citing both the mainstream media as well as Scientology literature to explore the subject in an objective and encyclopedic manner. Dismissing this as "crap" is somewhat unusual. Ecoleetage (talk) 02:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I did not mean to cause offence. WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is a vernacular, but long-established wikilink illustrating one of the arguments that editors should avoid using in deletion discussions. This is the argument, employed by Spidern above, I thought, that another article, Scientology beliefs and practices, has similarly poor sourcing to this article. That's quite correct. However, it is not a valid argument to keep this article. The difference is that sources can easily be found that address Scientology beliefs and practices in detail. The shortcoming of Scientology beliefs and practices is that the article has not yet made use of these sources. It is not that such sources – i.e. reliable secondary sources addressing the topic in detail – do not exist. Jayen 466 04:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The key to the argument for inclusion here is notability. My argument was not of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. My comment was that condemnation of this article for its lack of sources is laughable when the latter page contains even fewer. The notability of the subject is illustrated with a quick google books or google scholar search. Furthermore, the article does cite reliable sources. Do you dispute the reliability of the news media sources used? Also, your admission that literature exists on the subject contradicts your vote to delete; if you are aware of academic literature exists which is citable, why not add some such citations yourself? ←  Spidern  →  03:09, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Trust me, I ran the same google book search, but I could not readily find a source that actually topicalised "Scientology and sex" in the way this article does. Of course you do get hundreds of books that contain both the word "Scientology" and the word "sex", but that trick works with any word – try cabbage + sex. Notability of a topic is established, as Suntag and I tried to explain above, by the fact that reliable sources out there, in the real world, produce sources that make this topic the subject of detailed discussion and investigation. The relevant guideline is N. The question in this case is not whether the cited sources are reliable or not. The question is whether they are directly about this topic and establish its notability. As far as I can see, the media sources used here are all about something else, but do contain a tangential reference to sex and some Scientologist or other. This here is a good example. It is about Cruise's wedding, and what marriage means within the Scientologist belief system. It includes a brief mention of sex. We shouldn't compile articles and topics from such tangential mentions.
 * As for my admitting that sources existed, I identified a source (Siker) that I thought helps establish the notability of the topic Homosexuality and Scientology and posted it on the talk page of that article. I suggested it should be put to use there. Cirt then incorporated it here. I think, given sufficient sources, it might make sense to have this as a main article, with Homosexuality and Scientology as a more detailed subarticle, the way it is presently structured. But there is no need to have a main article if the only good source for it is one that covers a narrowly defined and contentious subtopic (homosexuality). Hope this makes sense. The very liberal use of primary sources is the main concern with this present article. Without the primary sources, what would there be? Jayen 466 04:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Cabbage and sex - I like that. Twice as many hits as Scientology + sex on Google Books and 9x as many on Google Scholar. --Justallofthem (talk) 04:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * keep Many reliable sources about this topic. I don't see an issue here. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - Sourcing issue resolved. لenna  vecia  05:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep: I don't see sourcing here as an issue. And the primary sources only help to avoid misconceptions -- it is coming directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Lawshoot! 05:27, 30 November 2008 (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.