Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/St. Mark Church (Stratford, Connecticut)

About article naming only including Parish vs. Church
Can we separately discuss here what should be standard for (City, State) or other disambiguation in naming, and about "Church" or "Parish"?
 * The below comments are related to WlaKom posts:


 * For me, all the sacred objects should be notable. Each is a distinctive object in a given location, because of the age and architecture, popularity, etc. Of course, in the initial phase, the lack of information may arise as a stub, but having a base, at least in the diocese. Do not be confused the parish with the church. The parish is the area, and the church is a building.

I am opposed to removing them, but if they are underdeveloped, should be transferred to author-sandox, for better development.

As far as this author, the churches, they need to clarify and correct errors. Also, the names of articles should be written according to established rules for objects of worship. Patron Church, City. For example, "St. Mary Church, Middletown". But not "Church of St Mary. " Location in its name is compulsory in order to properly distinguish between when we have many similar names.

Sorting - Sorting is wrong now. If you sort by location: Country, State, City, it can not interfere with mixture of random names. There should be no separate "Church of St. Ann" and "St. Ann Church. " This is the same patron. You can always create a category by the patron, and sorting as "Ann, Hartford, "Holy Cross, Hartford", etc., more in the Help: Category. --WlaKom (talk) 8:22 pm, 23 January 2011, last Sunday (4 days ago) (UTC+1)
 * I have noticed a tendency to change the name of the article without a place or put the city in brackets. Also I would like to point out that we should add the name of the state to the city's name, only if there are similar cities. I believe that such changes should be discussed in advance, because it concerns not only one state, but hundreds of articles, and change for all of the articles should be reported to Wikipedia:Bot requests. --WlaKom (talk) 11:42 pm, 23 January 2011, last Sunday (4 days ago) (UTC+1)


 * Comment In terms of the title alone (I'd like to weigh in on the church v parish later), I stated the basics: []. I think who to write about the building should also be up for debate because most writers make the information very confusing.--James R (talk) 24 January 2011
 * Comment For all these Connecticut ones where disambiguation in naming is needed, I prefer names of format "St. Name Church (City, Connecticut)" or "Saint Name Church (City, Connecticut)" or otherwise in name before (City, State), according to how the church is commonly known. The first part of name is usually consistent with NRHP name for a church, if it is NRHP-listed, but sometimes the first part will differ if it is documented that the common name is different than an older name that became the NRHP listing name.  This is consistent with names for NRHP-listed churches in Connecticut, most of which have articles, some of which exist only as redlinks within NRHP list-articles such as National Register of Historic Places listings in Stamford, Connecticut.  This is consistent with WikiProject NRHP naming style, given in wp:NRHPmos.  This is consistent with most names (bluelinks and redlinks) in most church disambiguation pages' United States sections, such as in St. Mary's Church (disambiguation) or in dab pages of all-U.S. churches such as St. Joseph Church (disambiguation).  Note this differs from the naming usually shown in European countries' sections of disambiguation pages such as St. Mary's Church (disambiguation).  In England and other countries, building names usually seem to be of format "Building, City" (vs. in the U.S. it is usually "Building (City, State)").  The usage of (City, State) in building names is almost universal in U.S. articles, is common in Canada articles, and the difference vs. European names is broadly consistent with the city article naming convention for United States cities.  As clarified in recent RFC about city names, it seems there are real differences in usage between U.S. vs. England and other countries.  Without making an RFC about the general naming issue of buildings in the U.S. vs. elsewhere, could we agree for this set of Connecticut churches and a few New York City ones, that the usual practice for building names in U.S. is to be followed? -- do  ncr  am  23:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


 * IMHO This subject should be moved to Village pump (policy). --WlaKom (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * About a general change to the practice of disambiguation for U.S. buildings, I agree that a proposal and RFC and notice at Village Pump (policy) could be appropriate. For this AFD, could we please agree to use the U.S. practice that is in place?  Please accept my assertion from my long experience in disambiguation of NRHP places, yielding over 3,000 disambiguation pages including NRHP-listed places, that the U.S. practice is what it is.  If the U.S. practice were to change, it would change these church article names.  I would rather not have an RFC or other big discussion right now about it;  i would rather keep that separate from this big AFD. -- do  ncr  am  23:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I suggest WP:TITLE and WP:D already provide enough guidance in principle to indicate how to name these articles, as they do for most articles in Wikipedia. Is there any particular article for which you feel this guidance is insufficient?   --Born2cycle (talk) 03:05, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment by Wlakom
 * First of all, we have to decide what is the article about. Parish or church? We can't merge article about parish and church, area and buildings. Of course, text about the church can be section of the article about the parish. Also text about the parish can be section of the diocese. Then make the proper name of the article.


 * The first sentence should be:  St. Raphael's Church in New York City - Roman Catholic church in New York City of SS. Cyril, Methodius, and Raphael's Parish (New York City), Archdiocese of New York .
 * If article is about the parish, should be:  SS. Cyril, Methodius, and Raphael's Parish in New York City - Roman Catholic parish in New York City of the Archdiocese of New York . --Wlakom


 * Isn't there one church for each parish? I think there should be just one article, at the Church name, in most cases, for any articles that are kept.  An article can show it is about both a church building and a parish, by showing alternate names in bold in the lede, and a Parish name can redirect to the Church article.  In general there are NOT parish articles in Wikipedia, I believe, as those are merely jurisdictional and are not automatically notable.  Individual church buildings or historic church congregations are more likely to be notable.  I think Catholic church parishes are usually NOT NOTABLE (except in Louisiana where parishes are the county-equivalents). -- do  ncr  am  12:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Once more. The parish is not just a group of people. It is: the parishioners + the church buildings (very often more then one) + parish school + cemetery + sometimes more than 100 year history of our ancestors (almost half the time the existence of the USA). Churches do not create the story. Church, temple of other religious groups, it is just an empty building and as such should never be considered as a notable. It parishes founded by immigrants formed the history of the United States, what is obvious for US citizens. It is the average immigrants, grouped in parishes, developed the city and created history. So, the church is part of the parish not opposite.
 * Wikipedia articles are created to broaden our knowledge about the past, discover it, rather than eliminate because it is not widely known at the time. Of course, "parish" will never win with this "exciting" slogans like: sports, entertainment, people, porn stars and local politics. The name "parish" is obviously boring and not interesting for many. But thousands of people browsing the Internet in search of their roots, information on how their ancestors lived. Then travel long distances to these places to see, touch.--WlaKom (talk) 12:25, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * For Protestant and other denominations, the name "church" is synonymous to the congregation/organization and to the building. One article is what is done, generally, with varying emphasis on the congregation/organization and its current and/or historic buildings.  Catholicism does not get to have a separate article on parish vs. the church building, just because "parish" is a different word.  There's never any need for two separate articles, as far as i can tell, and certainly not in any case here where all articles are very short, mostly rated "stub". -- do  ncr  am  12:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * To doncram. I understand your objections to the words/names that are not too much on Wikipedia. Many descriptions of objects, for the last few years evolved only slightly or not at all, but that doesn't mean that they should not be. Wikipedia has the advantage that it still is someone who will find new source of the article and expend it. Still there are articles written on topics and categories previously unknown. Discussion should be focused on how to help develop the article and not delete, because some people do not like it.
 * Therefore, few people can not decide on a group deleting articles rather than individually, that are not vandalism. I, personally, I only have reservations as to format of articles.--WlaKom (talk) 14:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * WlaKom, what makes you think that these articles only pertain to the buildings? Best, Markvs88 (talk) 12:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This discussion is about the Roman Catholic churches where the parish and the church has different meaning. --WlaKom (talk) 12:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * WlaKom, let me "rephrase" that: what makes you think that these articles only pertain to the buildings? Best, Markvs88 (talk) 12:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * From the author who wants to share an interest in religious architecture, but as a novice, has a problem with proper identification of the article title and the creation according to the Wikipedia. Therefore, I advised him to write articles in his sandbox and I also suggest to all of you to not remove but to move his unfinished articles to his sandbox. --WlaKom (talk) 14:20, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * WlaKom, let me "rephrase" that: is there any reason why these articles should only pertain to the buildings? Best, Markvs88 (talk) 15:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If we think about Roman Catholic churches, basically YES as a object. Should only describe its history, architecture, sacred relics/icons, etc, inside, location and organization is belongs to. --WlaKom (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Please then explain why we should have one article on the building and one on the parish, when the church building (as you say) is a part of the parish? IMO, this would just lead to more articles of lesser quality. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 18:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The best comparison is a city (area) <-> City Hall (the building). Nobody remove the article about the City because it is short and City Hall has a longer article. If we don't have enough information about the City Hall, we create a section in the article about the city, but when City Hall is well known, so even though we have little information on it, we create an article about it. In our case, when there is no information about the parish but we have information about the church, which has its own characteristics, then we create an article about the church.
 * On plWiki all parishes are notable and include also a list of parish groups, a lists of priests since its formation, a list of streets or places, even those parishes that are more recent, and the church is just under construction. Personally, I wrote articles about the parishes in New England built by the Polish community. More articles on the parishes in the U.S. I have written on plWiki. Most of the information about them is in the parish archives or private property of the faithful.
 * Strange for me is linking the sexual abuse scandal to the church as a building (unless you understand the Church as a faith). Whether it happened in the church (building)? That did the priest. If the information on this priest is associated with the construction/renovation of the church, this may be added to the article about the church where the information about this priest is part of article, but if he was a staff member of the parish or diocese, the information about him should be in the article about the parish / diocese. Hope it will clarify the issue parish-church.--WlaKom (talk) 21:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

arbitration needed?
(this is a subdiscussion related to the AFD, perhaps better moved to the Talk page of the AFD?) moved to talk page by Lady  of  Shalott  19:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep all at AfD and send to Arbitration - In making the multi-article AfD, Doncram failed to make one showing for each listed article that each has a common issue that predominates over all other issues. After Editors participated in the AfD, Doncram disruptively listed more articles, and again failed to provide prose for each listed article as to why that article was nominated. Moving an article during AfD is allowed -- see You may edit the article during the discussion --, but Doncram then made a bad faith assertion of move warring. Then, Doncram proudly noted how he failed to look for reliable source material and asserted a non-policy based reason for this disruptive AfD: "because the articles ... mostly do not include secondary sources establishing notability." Doncram then continued to modify the nomination even as other had already addressed it, falsely giving the impression that those who previously posted their views utilized this later in time information to make their decision. Then he added even more to the nomination! and thought it a good idea to create a sub discussion in this AfD about article naming. Then it was noticed that Doncram failed to tag articles with proper AfD notice. Then Doncram decides it a good idea to inappropriately refocus the improper sub discussion of this disruptive AfD.. This confusing set up lead others to take actions they should not have: unilaterally removing nominated articles from an active AfD, moving chunks of the AfD around to give a false impression of discussion order, and amending the nomination well after it was first nominated. As Markvs88 notes: the mass nominate makes it impossible to improve so many articles during the AfD. James Russiello made a heroic attempt to address each nominated article, Doncram impossibly expected every participant to do this. Smallbones then posted a sharp rebut towards this mass nomination, but it fell on deaf ears. James Russiello then asked "how these articles can be developed past stubs. Mass deletion will eliminate the chance for these articles to grow naturally." Doncram response was to issue more threats, even though he was the one who created this disruption. WlaKom, Smallbones, and Nyttend then tried to talk some sense into Doncram. Instead, Doncram reveled in the disruption he created. There's more, but that is a summary of the events from the AfD opening at 03:48, 23 January 2011 through revisions as of 16:45, 26 January 2011. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 16:01, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry if my rebuttal was too sharp. I do think arbitration would be an over the top solution to the few problems that have been discussed extensively here. As far as the above message, I agree that Doncram made a bit of a mess here - based on Lukas making a bit of a newby mess before.  The way to solve this however is to help both Lukas and Doncram realize why some folks think these are messes, and perhaps help them directly.  Every once in a while I do something and just have to say "Whoops!"  A couple of whoopses would be much better than arbitration.  Smallbones (talk) 16:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that Smallbones is saying, here, that Smallbones' rebuttal statement further above, which has been mentioned by other editors, was too strongly stated, and that Smallbones regrets at least some part of that. In that statement, Smallbones asked for editors to be "polite" and not to bite the newbies, which is fine of course, but i think it was unhelpful for suggesting that I and perhaps others had been impolite to any new editors.  I have been sharp in my comments regarding one very experienced editor who should know better, but that is not biting any newbies.  Smallbones comments, by using some strong terms like labelling the discussion as "toxic", had the effect of encouraging some editors to misinterpret polite discussion as being toxic, and had the effect of ratcheting up toxic-type contention, I believe.  Certainly that was not Smallbones' intention.  Smallbones, could you possibly further clarify what you mean here by saying your rebuttal was too sharp?  Towards toning down any toxicity here.  Thanks. -- do  ncr  am  16:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Indeed. This AfD has been rather chaotic. Chaos created in good faith (and I do believe everyone here has been acting in good faith) is not a reason for arbitration. Lady  of  Shalott  17:04, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I am the one who moved your discussion about article naming ("church" vs. "parish") to the Talk page for the simple reason that the discussion was not relevant to the question of whether the articles should be kept or retained. Discussion of that question (whether the article should be kept or deleted) is the purpose of this page. I did not intend to criticize or stop your discussion; rather, I simply wanted to separate it from the discussion of "delete" or "keep." I was trying to reduce the level of confusion on this page. As for the topic of the discussion, I suggest that the talk page for WP:WikiProject Catholicism would be a much better place (better than this page and better than the Village Pump) to conduct a general discussion about the topic of whether articles about local churches/parishes are focused primarily on the church or the parish. --Orlady (talk) 18:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * We really need arbitration. I noticed that some of my articles on the parish are on the list, though, that they are the same as hundreds of others have written. The AFD rules require to notify the author. I was not notified and did not receive the notification because of the removal. My comments on the clarification of the distinction between the parish and the church were removed to Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/St. Mark Church (Stratford, Connecticut). Why this list does not add articles about cities? What do they differ from the articles about the church or parish? I still think that this discussion should be closed and to begin on the Village Pump.--WlaKom (talk) 08:46, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Specifically about calls for arbitration, the Arbitration/Requests page describes arbitration as the last step of dispute resolution in Wikipedia. There are many lesser steps which should be tried, before making an actual request for arbitration.  A request for arbitration on anything here would be quickly denied, as unnecessary.
 * Since arbitration really seems not appropriate, I think WlaKom must mean something else by calling for arbitration several times. I think WlaKom may mean to convey that he/she is serious about wanting to keep all the articles covered in this AFD, that he/she will promise to continue to contend and fight if any articles are deleted, as if this is a battleground to be fought over indefinitely, with disregard to what are Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and practices.  If so, that would not be helpful.  If an administrator closes this discussion with decision to delete some or all of the nominated articles, based on consensus of editors here, then that would be the decision here.  WlaKom could clarify here if I am misunderstanding, but I don't think further discussion now of arbitration would be helpful.  This AFD has not even closed.  There is no basis for any request to be made to the arbitration committee.  Anyhow, if someone really wishes to try to open an Arbitration proceeding, they are free to do so, at the Requests for arbitration page.  I suggest following instructions there, if you really must.  There is no need for further discussion here in this AFD. -- do  ncr  am  16:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Further to WlaKom: It is regrettable that you were not informed when articles that you created were added to this AfD. However, no harm resulted from that error of omission, since you discovered the AfD and commented here very soon (i.e., less than two hours) after the articles were added.

Parishes in Poland vs. in English-speaking countries
Some disagreement about notability of parishes, between editor WlaKom who has written about Polish parishes and has started multiple articles on parishes in Connecticut and Massachusetts, vs. other editors, may have to do with the fact that parishes in Poland are truly different than in the United States.

The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia's article on "Parish" is availablehere on Wikisource (and elsewhere). In subsection on "IN ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES", it describes how parishes in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere are not "canonical parishes" as in Europe, but rather are different, because the parochial system developed slowly and differently outside of Europe. I wonder if perhaps parishes in Poland might in fact usually be notable on their own, while American parishes are not, in part because the parishes are truly different across countries in substantial ways. -- do ncr  am  01:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I was browsing in the Catholic Encylopedia to see if it chose to include articles about individual parishes. I have not found a good way to search the Catholic Encyclopedia, but i so far have not found any mention of the Bridgeport, Connecticut diocese or any of its parishes, and in fact I do not see any parish articles at all, in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia. -- do ncr  am  01:27, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It would be astonishing if the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia mentioned the Bridgeport Diocese, since the diocese wasn't formed until 1953!
 * However, I did find mention of one parish/church in Bridgeport in the Catholic Encyclopedia. The church/parish that I found mentioned was St. Stephen's, which was mentioned as being the second Hungarian Catholic church formed in the United States. The St. Stephen's church/parish was disbanded in 1971 and merged into St. Emery Church, so I cited the Catholic Encyclopedia in the St. Emery's article. --Orlady (talk) 01:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Some people don't recognize the difference between the ecclesiastical parish and the civil administration in other counties then Europe.

I chose the parishes in New England because they were more than 100 years old. They were created by Polish immigrants often bringing the sacred things from the former church in Poland and its priests (some cases where the whole village migrated to the U.S., such as parishes near Worcester, MA). Those parishes, often formed a large neighborhood that affect the expansion of the city. Polish ethnic parishes in the U.S. even had a representative at the Vatican. That is why I wrote only about those parishes. Sources of them, and of many, small, ethnic parishes, are not too much. Most are occasional bulletins, mentions in the press, parish chronicles, parishioners, or personal archives. Although my personal contact with the priests of some churches, I could not get more material, but I believe that there are many people who can develop these articles. Such discussions as this, many people are deterred from engaging. I have heard many times "I will not waste my time. because they will remove what I wrote anyway". I was going to write more articles about some of the ethnic parishes and churches in the United States in New England, but watching the trends in those discussions, I came to the conclusion that it would be a waste of my time.

Summing it all. After all what I wrote in the discussions on the ethnic parishes, if you want to delete all my articles about ethnic parishes, it is my permission for this and I will not be any more involved in discussions about them. On plWiki I wrote over 300 articles about the parishes in the U.S. and I'll be there, continued to write to help young people develop their knowledge of their ancestors. --WlaKom (talk) 10:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

New discussion about the parish and the church
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism--WlaKom (talk) 12:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)