Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 December 11



Template:Quebec student strikes

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 05:06, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Quebec student strikes


 * Delete. All links in the template except for two are redlinks, and have been since 2005. Function of this template would be better served by an article on the general topic. bd2412  T 19:51, 11 December 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Editnotices/Page/John Diefenbaker

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete
 * Editnotices/Page/John Diefenbaker

No need for this, as:
 * 1) We already have a dynamic editnotice for FAs.
 * 2) Its not a FA currently anyway. There is already the topicon for the FA on the article anyway. LikeLakers2 (talk &#124; Sign my guestbook!)  18:36, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. bd2412  T 19:52, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It is a FA currently, by the way, but as you don't like it, I will simply get rid of it.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:20, 11 December 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Criticism of religion

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was keep Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 05:06, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Criticism of religion

This sidebar needs to be rewritten or deleted as its content is clearly very heavily weighted towards an atheist anti-religious viewpoint and seems to serve no other purpose. Because of this it violates the policy regarding Neutral Point of View and its presence encourages editors to attack religion in articles that should be phrased neutrally (i.e., all of them). This sidebar appears mainly on poorly-written articles that are very biased against religion and which favour citing polemists who attack religion using rhetoric instead of creating a neutral and unbiased discussion that relies on evidence. At the moment, it features ten people who are highly critical of religion, some (arguably) to the point of outright bigotry, and absolutely no contemporary defenders of religion. I propose that (if it is not deleted) the sidebar be renamed 'Critical Discussion of Religion' and be reweighted to include people who argue for religion as well as those who argue against it. I also think that popular non-experts on the subject that are listed there (I.e. most at the current time) should simply be replaced with actual experts. However, I think that this sidebar is already very well covered by the more general religion ones, none of which push a POV and all of which link to factual information instead of articles on people who just really don’t like the subject, including a few who are arguably bigots. Ion Zone (talk) 19:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep; no need to rename. The existence of this navbox is not, in itself, PoV. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:26, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup, keep. NPOV certainly doesn't mean we aren't allowed to cover criticism of religion.  If those really are "poorly-written articles that are very biased against religion", then the answer is to rewrite the articles, not to delete the template.— S Marshall  T/C 19:40, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The existence of the template does not say that Wikipedia or its editors criticize religion. Instead, it says to readers that if you are interested in the subject matter of the page that you are reading, here is a convenient way for you to get to other pages that may, perhaps, also be of interest to you. It's a navigational guide, not an editorial. And the simple fact is that "criticism of religion" is a notable topic, one covered by numerous secondary sources. We very often get deletion nominations for content that deals with religious controversies, but the fact that some people do not like to see religion criticized is not a valid reason to purge it from Wikipedia. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * As discussion has continued, I note that there are various suggestions about renaming the template, or renaming sections within the template. These suggestions, of course, do not require deletion, and are being discussed (and to some extent edit warred over) at the template page itself. But I want to make it clear that I oppose those proposals; Chris's comment below does a good job of explaining why. In addition, I'll point something out that I also said at the template talk: I did a Google search. On Google Books, "criticism of religion" gets 191,000 results; "criticism of religions" (plural) gets 2,360; "criticism of religious philosophies" gets ZERO; "criticism of religious worldviews" gets ONE. On Google Scholar, "criticism of religion" gets 2,350 results; "criticism of religions" gets 67; "criticism of religious philosophies" gets ZERO; "criticism of religious worldviews" gets ZERO. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Useful for someone seeking to compare and contrast the various criticisms raised in the field. We might add Criticism of atheism to the section on movements, to make it complete for that purpose. bd2412  T 19:53, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Atheism is not a religion. It no more belongs in this template than a "criticism of stamp-collecting" link. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Then we should remove the atheists from the sidebar posthaste as they have no business being there! Tiger (talk) 11:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * There are no atheists listed for being atheists; they're critics of religion. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:33, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The template is a display for information about important aspects concerning criticism of religion. The template does not criticize religion per se. If someone wants to know about people, movements, aspects, or general information concerning the criticism of religion, then this template can help them out with that sort of inquiry. The template does not perform and religious offense by linking to pages that concern the criticism of religion, so it is not POV. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 22:47, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Rename. Its sounds impresisveley stupid to call this section "religion" since clearly it is "religions". To anyone who uses the term in the singular is displaying anthropological ignorance of the diversity of the phenomenon especially the secular nature of people who are dubbed as "religious". In it Criticism of atheism should be included since atheism is clearly are a part of the reliigous dialogue and since they perpetually speak on these issues. Many are quite obsessed with it more than those who are supernaturalist atheists or theists also. So this should also be on the list. Another option would be to make this section called "Criticism of the religious and the secular" since clearly the war and violence page include sections on secular violence and secular war. Ion Zone is correct for feeling that this template is very much biased. It needs to include the secular since much of it already included on the template. The notable critics sections is pretty much absurd and saturated by non-experts on these issues since all of them were not empirical researchers on any of these issues they critiqued since none have they published peer reviewed materials showing their mastery on the issues they speak on. Most of these were simply philosophers and are not reliable sources on these issues since they display mere opinions, not rigorous academic research or analysis. If people are going to use such sloppy sources, where are the Muslim critics on this or critics of Hinduism, Buddhism, and the rest of the lot? Why not include Robert Spencer and Ibn Warraq too to make this more universal and less anti-Christian at least? Ramos1990 (talk) 05:37, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Rename Per Ramos1990. Should be Religions or maybe Criticism of religious philosophies or some other name that allows criticism of the anti-religious that eludes me and one of you resourceful people will think of.  Atheism is the anti-religion but it is still a religious topic and has it's criticism.
 * Delete section notable critics because that particular list is missing so many notable critics over the broad centuries and numbers of religions that it will be problematic for it's sheer potential to grow to hundreds of notable critics and cause endless debates over who to put into the list. Alatari (talk) 09:56, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete -or- Rename and delete the section notable critics: This section in particular encourages POV based attacks in articles and gives the impression that Wiki encourages an anti-religious POV. Wikipedia is a neutral encyclopedia. Or, at least, it is supposed to be. As a navigational template it is entirely biased towards an atheist viewpoint. Where are the the critics of atheism I ask you? Where are the defenders of religion?Tiger (talk) 11:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * NPOV does not mean "one scoop of chocolate and one scoop of vanilla". We do not "balance" criticism of a subject by criticising its opposite. As for the rename proposal, the template deal with more than just organised religions: the current title is about the best we can do, as criticism of religion as a whole is distinct from criticism of given belief systems or movements. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:07, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep the template, also strong keep the name per Tryptofish,BD2412,Backtable et al. Also, I'm generally OK with the structure and contents of the template as it stands.  We should keep the current sections and, without having inspected every entry, I'm inclined to agree with those who want to keep the atheists but not include any "counter-balancing".  The articles should be NPOV; the template doesn't need to provide defenses of religion.  It's just an index. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 16:45, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep - Very convenient way to see these related articles' links at a glance; I don't see any NPOV difficulty; The current name is fine, but I am OK w/ renaming it; I agree with Ramos that even though Atheism may not be a religion, it is a part of the general discussion of religion, and thus it would be appropriate for a template with links to articles on criticisms of specific religions to also have a link to an article about criticisms of atheism. KConWiki (talk) 04:10, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, useful navigation template. I see no more POV in this than in Template:Monarchs_of_France. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:43, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, as above. Should really be Speedy keep, as Christopher Hitchens is on the WP:Main page and his article includes this template. Alarbus (talk) 05:47, 17 December 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 template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.