Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yoshihiko Kikuchi (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 no consensus.  Sandstein  18:03, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Yoshihiko Kikuchi
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Non-notable subject that does not meet WP:BASIC. Coverage found in searches for independent, reliable sources is limited to name checks and very short passing mentions, none of which qualify notability.

Sources were presented in the previous AfD discussion, but only one, which I can't access, appears to be possibly usable to qualify notability. However, multiple independent sources that provide significant coverage are required, not just one. Below is a synopsis of the sources. – North America1000 10:20, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree with North America on the two books by notable authors that he dismisses as "brief" because, read in context, these are about Kikuchi's role in the Church during the long, slow period when it moved away from its tradition of sorting humans into a hierarchy of races. One of the dismissed "snippets" is also meaningful in this context.  Primarily, however, I find this table to be a false and inappropriate attempt to mislead editors about the available sources because of its dismissal of a long scholarly article about Kikuchi on the grounds that Nom cannot access it, and dismissal of a scholarly book that contains SIGCOV of Kikuchi.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:49, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America1000 10:21, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. North America1000 10:21, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. North America1000 10:21, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Hawaii-related deletion discussions. North America1000 10:21, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep The attempt to classify scholarly, univerisity press sources as "primary sources" is just unacceptable. BYU Studies approaches issues from a clearly scholarly perspective and the attempt to disqualify it is outrageous. There are either two or three sources, depending on the view of the Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint history, that provide indepth coverage. That is clearly enough to pass the general notability guidelines and justify an article. Ownership cannot be used as ground to cast out university press publications.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:13, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, So said The Great Wiki Lord. (talk) 12:27, 31 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak delete If this topic were notable, some reliable sources could be found that cover the the unsourced biographical information we currently include. An entire long section of our article includes a single citation that is being used to support the claim that he was born in "Horoizumi District", except that it doesn't say that: it just says "Horoizumi", and at the time of Kikuchi's birth Erimo, Hokkaido was apparently known as Horoizumi Town. I doubt the author of our dubious source knew the difference. The rest of the section is dubious hagiography that, if this discussion does not end in the page being deleted or redirected, should be immediately blanked pending an independent reliable source. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 12:23, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The article currently claims his father was killed by a submarine and he attended university in Tokyo, but the earliest version said it was a bombing raid and the university was in Hokkaido. Is this another Bill Schnoebelen situation where a religious leader's autobiography he tells his followers has changed over the years? Neither version cited a written source, so I can't imagine why it would have been changed... Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 12:37, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Murky, incorrect family and childhood backgrounds are not all that rare. In such cases, it is best to phrase it carefully, "according to Kikuchi, his father was..."  This makes it clear that we are reporting Kikuchi's memory or understand ing of the past.  It would be different if a major newspaper had checked the war record.  Most of us believe what we are told, even though many family stories are exaggerated, fabricated, mis-remembered, or deliberately edited to conceal certain details.  Ignorant geographical details added by an American writing up a story about Japan, or an unvalidated family story about how Dad died don't really matter for notability.  And notability is the question at issue here.  The sources about his role in the Church are reliable.  If the childhood background is not accurate, it can and should be fixed.  But this does not  affect the question of notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:21, 8 April 2019 (UTC)


 * User:Northamerica1000, please tell me you're not calling a book by BYU Press "primary" because it's a Mormon press and the subject is Mormon. If so, you completely misunderstand what a primary source is. Drmies (talk) 02:01, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Upon further research and consideration, it is an acceptable source. Struck this in the box above. North America1000 03:04, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * It's basically irrelevant to the question of this subject's notability, though: the source was introduced in the previous AFD as "discussing or quoting" this subject in three places; quotes from the subject himself are near-useless for GNG, and the layout of the page numbers implies EMG just went to the index and looked for Kikuchi's name, without checking whether it was a quotation or a discussion that was on each of the pages in question, and I seriously doubt that each of pages 352, 353, 354 and 358 included a separate short "discussinon" of Kikuchi. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 04:52, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Nb. I still feel that the subject does not meet notability guidelines. North America1000 06:18, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vanamonde (Talk) 17:54, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per reasons and sources I provided in November 2018 when Nom last brought this individual to AfD.  Note that the book published the Brigham University Press that was one of the sources I brought was disparaged by Nom on the grounds that the Press is not INDEPENDENT of the church.  The quesiton was brought to the RS noticeboard, where editors judged that a reputable university press is independent of the government or church that sponsors the university, eliminating one of Nom's arguments for deletion.  imho, it was tendentious to drag this one back to AfD.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:09, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Note that the scholarly article in JSTOR that Nom cannot access is about Kikuchi's administration of LDS in Japan, I added it to the page last November, and I think my edit was a fair summary of the contents, except that with regard to notability I want to emphasize that the article is a scholarly analysis of Kikuchi's approach to recruiting converts and the problems that his approach caused.  This is the very definition of WP:SIGCOV.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:35, 8 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Taking the Gospel to the Japanese, 1901–2001, by Reid Larkin Nielsen, Brigham Young University Press, 2006.  Chapter 14,     The Church in Japan Comes of Age, 1968–1980, by Terry G. Nelson discusses Kikuchi.  It is less than 20 pages.  I suggest that editors should feel an obligation to actually read such a source before undertaking to disparage it.  The index - which is available online - shows that he is cited 7 times in that chapter.  As far as I can tell, the chapters are not available online.  Perhaps one of you gentlemen would be willing to walk to a library and give us your description/assessment of the source.  In general, however, a chapter in a university press book is an indication of notability.  And he  was, after all, a major figure in LDS in Japan in 1968-1980, according to the JSTOR article and other sources.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * So how do you feel about the unsourced biographical content? Can we blank it pending some reliable sources? Your !vote is for "keep", but the content of your comment doesn't actually appear to disagree with my "weak delete" on the substance of the matter and the question of whether the content of the present article is worth keeping. Also, please note that not everyone lives within walking distance of a library that stocks a lot of English-language literature about Mormons that isn't itself published by the Mormon Church or affiliated groups. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 07:24, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This is irrelevant to the quesiton at AfD, but I agree that we can.  Sourced to a dead link of an interview he gave, and not a particularly likely story (the U.S. Navy was not targeting fisherman in Japanese waters 2 weeks before V-J Day.)E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:35, 10 April 2019 (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.