Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shaarei Tefillah


 * 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. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:36, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Shaarei Tefillah

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Non-notable organization. Notability is WP:NOTINHERITED. Despite the many notable attendees of the congregation the synagogue itself does not appear to be notable. Basket of Puppies 13:22, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * keep Article has sources explicitly noting that the shul in question is unusual in the large amount of female participation and the large number of scholars involved. (Sources are not online so I'm working here on presumption that the descriptions are accurate). JoshuaZ (talk) 14:23, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 18:01, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
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 * Keep per WP:GNG. The synagogue's claim to fame is its membership, a fact which is adequately sourced in the lead. I formatted all the references to give you an idea of where these claims are being published: Yale University Press, Brandeis University Press, Henry Holt and Company. This page should not have been nominated for deletion; all it needs is a note to the page creator to include page numbers on some of the sources. There should also be a citation for the list of notable members. (As an aside, I think the page should be renamed Congregation Shaarei Tefillah, Newton, Massachusetts, as there are plenty of other Congregation Shaarei Tefillahs out there.) Yoninah (talk) 20:03, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Subject has not received enough significant coverage to be worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. --Hirolovesswords (talk) 21:10, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. There are a reasonable number of reliable sources that explicitly state what makes this synagogue notable (in particular, the unusual involvement of women, and the unusually large numbers of notable/scholarly members). Jayjg (talk) 02:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, per above arguments, and because this is simply a notable and important synagogue. IZAK (talk) 09:24, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * NOTE the discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. IZAK (talk) 09:24, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Strong keep per the Fishman and Goldstein sources. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  Tellers' wands  ─╢ 12:02, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you please point to where these sources mention this synagogue at all? Because I searched for it using Google books' preview and couldn't find it anywhere in these sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment What makes this particular synagogue "important" as Jayjg asserts and why is is the answer to that question not explicated in the entry?  WP:NOTINHERITED makes it clear that the fact that many of the members are notable does not cut it.  There is mention of reliable sources above, and indeed they are cited in the entry, but despite several such sources there is next to no information in the entry.  It is hard to believe that any of these sources have more than trivial or passing mention of the congregation.Griswaldo (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Until these questions can get answered I'd have to vote Delete myself. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 12:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Gris. I'm not sure if you based your !vote on a review of the sources you could find for yourself, or only depended on those that were already reflected in the article.  But IMHO, if you look at the sources now reflected in the article, you will see sufficient RS coverage, which is far above what was initially in the article, and includes entire articles in RSs, as well as pages-long detailed treatment in a 2003 book.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Eppefleche, I've struck my delete vote based on your editing. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:09, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions.  —Griswaldo (talk) 12:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
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 * Keep, - adequately sourced and clearly passes WP:N based on the sources provided. Nsk92 (talk) 13:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:N requires "significant independent coverage or recognition," and per my comment above I fail to understand how any of these sources satisfy that. Could you please help explain.  I'm happy to change my vote if this can be established.Griswaldo (talk) 13:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - Google Book Search isn't bringing up "Shaarei Tefillah" in either the Fishman or Goldstein sources, and those are the only sources for the unusual level of female participation. As for the notable members, notability is WP:NOTINHERITED. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In performing your gbooks search, did you perhaps come across the heavily detailed, pages-long description of the synagogue, its history, and its membership in The Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship, which is # 2 in the results of this search?  Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:13, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. The article currently appears to have adequate sources, but that appearance is misleading. The Tye book (source [1]) is a reliable source and has a paragraph about this synagogue. Source [2], for the rabbi, is a page on the synagogue's own web site and while it is adequate for verifying the fact it sources it is not useful for notability. Sources [3] and [4], the books by Barack Fishman and Goldstein, appear not to mention the synagogue at all and should not be used in this article. Source [5], the faculty profile for a purported member of the congregation, also does not mention the synagogue. There are many mentions of Shaarei Tefillah in Google news archive but I didn't find any that provided a nontrivial description of it rather than merely mentioning that some person or event was associated with it. With only one nontrivial reliable source, it does not seem to pass WP:GNG. And the argument that it's notable because it has notable members is even more unconvincing than usual because of the lack of sources for those memberships. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi David. Have you looked for sources on your own?  For example, the second gbooks source that pops up in a search of the synagogue is The Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship, which has quite significant coverage of the synagogue.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You didn't read my comment very carefully, did you? I did look for sources in Google news and didn't find much. But the article now has two nontrivial reliable sources (the Tye and Summit books) and a lot of sources that don't seem to cover it in much depth (directory entries) or that don't rise to the level of conferring notability to me (local newspaper stories about a zoning dispute). So I'll change my !vote to neutral for now. If you can find a third nontrivial reliable source and cut some of the fluff sources, I'll probably be willing to change again to keep. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:59, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I didn't, but I re-read it carefully just now. I could not discern whether you did a gbooks search.  When I performed one, the book in question was # 2 in the results.  And that book has impressively robust coverage of the synagogue, its history, its membership, its breakaway, how it differs from Beth El, etc.  With the coverage of its dispute regarding the purchase of its first property (some RS articles devoted to that), as well as the other coverage, I'm thinking at this point that there is sufficient coverage to pass GNG.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:09, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

As to your assessment of The Boston Globe as just a "local newspaper", I wonder whether that is perhaps a just a bit of an exaggeration, in describing a newspaper that has won 21 Pulitzers, and has the 25th-largest circulation in the United States. (and 20th-highest on Sundays ... which the 1 article I checked appeared on).--Epeefleche (talk) 05:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The Globe is certainly not just a local newspaper. If they were writing stories about a Chicago-area synagogue I'd take it as much stronger evidence of notability. But it is a local newspaper when it prints stories about zoning disputes in its area of local coverage. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:32, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not at all. It is a major national paper, writing about a local event.  That is far, far different from, say, the Newton Weekly Gazette, circulation 333, writing about the event.  The focus of the guideline is on whether the paper is local, not whether the event is local.  (BTW -- I double-checked, and in any event you did above refer to it as a "local paper"; perhaps you are saying that you mis-spoke).


 * And of course coverage of a synagogue is almost always going to be a local event. But to be notable a synagogue has to be covered in RSs -- it does not have to be famous ... if we were to only include religious institutions covered for non-local doings, we would strip nearly all out of wp.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:42, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I "voted" to Keep. However the article is of no interest except to "insiders." It also reflects poorly on the congregation of the Temple, since it has an air of self-importance which many people find (if not exactly offensive) at least a little silly.  Please write articles on the great things members of the congregation have done for society, as I'm sure they have.  Or for that matter write articles on the great features of the Jewish faith itself.  Almost no one cares about the details of one synagogue. Borock (talk) 15:34, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Per RS coverage, reflecting notability under GNG.  This synagogue has (as indicated above) an extremely detailed, pages-long treatment in the above-indicated Oxford University Press RS book, as well as (for example) entire articles in The Boston Globe devoted to issues such as its zoning tussle over its first (hoped for) permanent site.  The GNG test instructs us that an article is notable if the subject "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."  IMHO, that is the case here.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The scope and breadth of the source added to the article demonstrating the notability of the congregation itself, its members and the interaction of its members with the congregation all go well beyond the minimum to establish notabilty. Alansohn (talk) 07:41, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Not a topic of wide interest, but enough well-sourced material to keep the article. Borock (talk) 13:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. While there are indeed many references, the context of most is not in a way that supports notability. Several, like this one are just travel guides providing incidental information, a large fraction are simply web flotsam, again incidental to the institution, for example one of the Rabbis' personal web page, and some are newspaper arts that again make mention in just a very trivial way, e.g. this one. I agree with the above that the coverage for zoning is in an entirely local context. Even the Summit book mentioned above is really about music and only seems to mention this congregation in passing: "Then I enjoy going to Shaarei Tefillah, where a friend recently..." – quite a stretch, I would say. While the numerical count appears to give strong source support, the overall result is actually very weak. Incidentally, I don't intend to respond to the inevitable nitpicking I expect will follow. Thx, Agricola44 (talk) 16:02, 29 June 2011 (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.