Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christianese (2nd nomination)

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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. Liz Read! Talk! 04:06, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Christianese[edit]

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Christianese (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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I think this article should be deleted, and a respective entry in Wiktionary created instead.

  • It gives almost nothing of substance. It could be replaced by a dictionary definition.
  • Most of the issues raised in 2006 still hold: the article has not been significantly improved to address the issues in the last 15 years.
  • Where the article does make definite assertions, they are not backed by citations and so constitute OR. And they are dubious: for example, "This form of jargon is not fundamentally based in Bible texts but in tradition" is just an assertion: why must it be exclusive: couldn't it be both based on Biblical texts and tradition, mutually re-inforcing within a culture?


If it is too much to delete the article, remove all but the first paragraph and the External LinksRick Jelliffe (talk) 15:20, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  1. Lack of Substance: Jelliffe believes the article lacks substance and suggests it could be replaced by a dictionary definition.
  2. Long-standing Issues: The article's unresolved issues from 2006 are mentioned, but it's important to consider improving the article rather than immediate deletion.
  3. Original Research: Jelliffe points out concerns about original research within the article.
  4. Dubious Assertions: The validity of certain assertions in the article, such as the exclusive basis of Christianese in tradition or biblical texts, is questioned.

In response, while there may be valid concerns about the Wikipedia article on "Christianese," outright deletion should be considered carefully. It may be more constructive to work on improving the article by addressing the issues raised, providing proper citations, and ensuring that it adheres to Wikipedia's guidelines for verifiability and neutrality. Deleting the article should be a last resort if these efforts prove unsuccessful.❯❯❯ Chunky aka Al Kashmiri (✍️) 04:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language and Christianity. Skynxnex (talk) 04:41, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is a very old article but it had no inline citations until it got nominated for deletion. It did, however, have references - the paragraph on The Simpsons is referenced to The Gospel According to the Simpsons, a reliable source. It's just that the formatting that seems quaint to us today. Anyway, there is indeed substance here, and "the article has not been significantly improved to address the issues in the last 15 years" is not a valid deletion argument. Note also that GBooks suggest several books on the very subject: Christianese 101: A Lexicon for New Believers (published by Wipf and Stock) and Elements of Christian Thought: A Basic Course in Christianese (Fortress Press). Clearly notable. StAnselm (talk) 05:08, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - WP:NOTDICTIONARY "Wikipedia articles are not: ... Definitions, Dictionary entries., or Usage, slang, or idiom guides." — Maile (talk) 23:20, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Soft redirect to Wiktionary per nom. Once the unsourced content is removed, what remains is a dictionary definition. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 08:21, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Soft redirect per nom. Seemingly no uptake in academic articles (excepting some theses), so I doubt we can support a broad concept article about this topic. I am wondering if there's a good redirect target on-wiki that discusses a similar concept, where a sentence with the definition can be inserted. Maybe some sub-page of Christian culture or Glossary of Christianity, although I poked around and couldn't find any good targets. Suriname0 (talk) 04:35, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting, I think an article that has been around this long needs more discussion. I also don't think User:TheChunky's concerns have been addressed. Is deletion or a cross-wiki redirect the best solution to what might be a content problem? Even the nominator makes the suggestion that part of this article might be preserved. But the important thing is that I don't currently see a consensus for any specific outcome.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 02:48, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm struggling to find the point in Chunky's comment, to be honest. Neither he nor Anselm have explained how the article could be expanded beyond a dictionary definition, which is a separate question from notability (per WP:N, a subject is presumed to merit an article if (a) it meets GNG, and (b) is not excluded under WP:NOT). Those arguing to keep should cite sources which provide secondary analysis of the concept, such as could be used to write an encyclopedia article (see Academese for an example of the kind of sources I think would be required). Sojourner in the earth (talk) 06:45, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Atlantic306, hope you are doing well. My point was simply to work on improving the article by addressing the issues raised, providing proper citations, and ensuring that it adheres to Wikipedia's guidelines for verifiability and neutrality. As this article survived an AfD earlier here, however, there was no consensus in the result, but we can observe the comments there too, which makes this subject important for having a Wikipedia article as there is criticism on this term, which obviously is not a dicdef. Thank you. ❯❯❯ Chunky aka Al Kashmiri (✍️) 02:36, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I believe this meets WP:GNG and, more importantly to this discussion, as a concept, can readily be covered beyond a dicdef:
  • The most obvious way in which this article could be expanded beyond a dicdef is in discussion of the problems of "Christianese" I've found in multiple sources. Multiple authors believe this phenomenon makes it harder for Christian individuals to communicate to individuals who don't use the same terminology. Other authors discuss religious/sectarian issues that arise with the phenomenon. Yet others discuss psychological issues related to faith that arise from it.
  • Another way in which it could be expanded is in explanations of "Christianese" conveys various ideas of Christianity, which I've also seen in sources. I think there also is some of this in the article that would need to be verified. I think this is adjacent to some of the discussion in the article (only a bit of which is verified as of now), but we certainly could expand on it.
I'm not well-equipped to evaluate reliability of some of these religion-oriented sources for such a concept, so I'm not going to add them in myself, but I'm finding a plethora of sources beyond what's in the article. Here's a few:
  1. A semi-humorous piece by a military hospital chaplain that describes the subject, describes examples, describes problems therein. [1]
  2. An in depth discussion from Canadian Mennonite [2]
  3. This book [3] published by Crown Publishing Group has a solid "primer" of some of the problems caused by the phenomenon.
  4. This book [4] published by 1517 Media has some discussion of the idea.
  5. This book [5] published by MennoMedia discusses a variety of problems with the phenomenon.
—siroχo 08:50, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per the book sources listed above that enable the article to be more than a dictionary type definition and show a pass of WP:GNG so that deletion is unnecessary in my view, Atlantic306 (talk) 19:43, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Even without the superb sources that Siroxo provides and the expansion options they offer, the article as it stands passes GNG and already extends beyond dictdef. Deletion does not improve the encyclopaedia. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 16:59, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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