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 delete. KrakatoaKatie 17:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of groups referred to as cults (all)[edit]

List of groups referred to as cults (all) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This is a POV fork of List of groups referred to as cults. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nominator, one is quite tricky enough, 2 sounds like a way for somebody to get round not being able to include an alleged cult in the original article, SqueakBox 23:25, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom, the phrase "This list has no extrinsic or special criteria for inclusion or exclusion" is extremely problematic as it opens up any allegations as long as a legit source can be cited as making the allegation. SkierRMH 23:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. Ridernyc 23:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The list makes no allegations as to whether a group any group is a cult, it is simply a list of references as per the title. Neither is it a 'POV fork' as alleged, as it seeks to push no POV. In this it is in stark contrast to List of groups referred to as cults, which through artificial inclusion criteria seeks to push the POV that only groups appearing after 1920 are 'cults', a concept which is not supported by any known definition of the term. -- Really Spooky 04:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment How do you propose to manage this article with a potential to list thousands of fan cults? (Google { "fan cult" }). Maybe the mentioned POV of this fork is covert — that thousands of entertainment and fashion cults listable will eventually make the NRMs referred to as cults very difficult to find, even if it is possible to manage an article of the eventual size. The older public cares relatively little about fan cults, but worry about new religion groups living next door and want to research them. Note emphasis on the latter in the Cult article. (For those interested, the 1920+ criterion at LOGRTAC is not artificial. It's based on 1920's-onward appearance of new definitions or words also spelled c-u-l-t (homonyms), as discovered through historical research by world-class cult authority Dr. J. Gordon Melton, UCSB. See the detailed references here.) Milo 06:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete or merge - it is a duplicate list. The Transhumanist    06:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep it makes much more sense to have an article which doesn't try and force a point of view by having inclusion criteria, this was presumably created to get around the censorship on List of groups referred to as cults. Conrad.Irwin 12:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • A list must have inclusion criteria, per WP:SAL. shoy 14:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • This list DOES have clear inclusion criteria - that the listing should identify a reliable source that refers to the group as a cult. Which is a perfectly objective inclusion criteria, unlike that at List of groups referred to as cults, which does not comply with WP:SAL because it is not sourced - it is arbitrary user-created criteria. The fact that there is another article with a more narrow list of groups (and moreover that does not comply with Wikipolicy) is no reason for deleting this one. -- Really Spooky 17:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • You'll note that I didn't !vote anything. The main article has content issues? That's not a reason to fork the article. Go discuss it at the talk page of the original list. shoy 18:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I understand you didn't vote, I was just responding to your point. The fact that another article has content issues is not a reason to delete this article, which deals with a wider subject. It is a different list with different criteria and unlike the other article, it seeks to push no POV. An objective article should not be held hostage to a flawed article. If you look at the talk pages on other article, you will see the problem. -- Really Spooky 18:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Even if you are correct about POV, you can't keep an unmanageably large list on Wikipedia. So now what? Choose to leave some cults out? Oops, back to POV inclusion criteria. Even if you don't like the current inclusion choices, you do have to make such choices, called editing. Correct size "windowing" of data chunks to fit available retrieval systems (including billboards) is a natural law requirement of information systems. Milo 05:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • There is no evidence to suggest it would be unmanageably large. That is just your bald assertion. There are plenty of lists much larger. -- Really Spooky 20:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • For evidence to suggest it might be unmanageably large, I provided a Google search showing upward of 17,000 hits. I did say you can't keep an unmanageably large list, but I made no assertion, bald or otherwise, that it would be unmanageably large — you inferred that by not reading carefully. I previously asked you for a management plan. You didn't provide one, so it is reasonable to delete what otherwise might be reasonable to keep, had you made better plans for the article. But, ok, please name those much larger lists? Milo 07:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                • When did you supposedly “provide a Google search showing upward of 17,000 hits”? I've never seen it. And did your Google search exclude all references that didn’t refer to groups as cults, that aren’t from sources meeting WP:RS, and multiplicities of references to single groups? If so, please tell me where you obtained this phenomenal new version of Google.
                  When did you supposedly ask me for a ‘management plan’? Although it doesn't really matter; if you had, I wouldn’t have given you one because (a) no-one is required to submit a management plan to start a Wikipedia article, (b) no-one is required to obtain prior clearance from you to start a Wikipedia article and (c) no 'management plan' is necessary for this or any other article. Had you sincerely doubted that there were larger lists on Wikipedia, you could have easily found them yourself here. Some examples are List of painters, List of garden plants, List of books by title and List of asteroids, the last of which has over 164,000 entries.
                  I’m glad to read, however, that you didn’t say this list would be unmanageably large. If you had some other article in mind, I suggest you take your comments to the talk page of that article, rather than discussing those matters here. This page concerns List of groups referred to as cults (all). -- Really Spooky 10:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                  

• "When did you supposedly "provide a Google search showing upward of 17,000 hits"?" It's here, my second "Comment" sentence under your original "Keep" vote (Spooky 04:15).

• "I've never seen it." I provided the search for you to do, not the results (which for some reason vary by thousands on different days: 17K+ to 19K+). However, here is a link to a Google { "fan cult" } search result with 18,400 hits, but it may stop working or give different results later.

• "And did your Google search exclude all references that didn't refer to ...[exceptions]?" Nope, that's to be part of your management plan, and I'm not going to do your work for you.

• "When did you supposedly ask me for a 'management plan'?" It's here, my first "Comment" sentence under your original "Keep" vote (Spooky 04:15) – "How do you propose to manage this article...".

• "Although it doesn't really matter; if you had, I wouldn't have given you one because ...[reasons presuming entitlement to keep a created article]." Suit yourself. That being your response to my request, then you don't get my keep vote, or the keep votes of other editors who think you have created an article that may become a problem for the community.

• "Had you sincerely doubted" You're saying that I insincerely doubted? Tsk, tsk, that sounds a lot like a personal attack in violation of WP:AGF#Accusing others of bad faith. Perhaps you should re-edit that and apologize to me, or at least provide an alibi.

• "larger lists on Wikipedia, you could have easily found them yourself here" It's you who want help to keep the article with my vote – why should I do your reference work for you?

• "Some examples are ... and List of asteroids, the last of which has over 164,000 entries." You obviously didn't vet all of these for an applicable management example. I vetted the last one first and discovered that its organization method is no longer permitted due to deprecated use of subpages (Talk:List of asteroids#Subpages no longer enabled in article namespace). I didn't check any more because, again, I'm not going to do your work. It's your task to supply me with a valid list of examples if you want my keep vote, and those of other editors who agree that my request for a management plan is reasonable under the awkward circumstances.

• Generally regarding your comment replies: for an AfD supplicant, you are displaying a remarkable amount of attitude. It's possible you are merely inept at vote politics, but it also seems possible that you don't care whether this article is deleted. That possibility underscores the comments of those editors darkly suspecting that your article creation is a WP:Point, with which you may be disruptively wasting time that otherwise could be used to progress the project. Milo 06:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as an unnecessary fork. Content decisions should be dealt with at the original location. Dekimasuよ! 14:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem has been that the decisions that have been made at the original source have been unsuccessful, so unsuccessful that it has been nominated for deletion at least five times - and they are still argued over. Conrad.Irwin 19:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • No – you're confusing success with popularity. LOGRTAC is an official controversial article, so it will always be substantially unpopular and have AfD attempts made by listed group members, and others with unsatisfiable POVs who will never stop arguing. OTOH, as the inclusion criteria evolved the article became more successful. With increasing success, non-NRM visitors to the talk page generally stopped saying things like, "Quakers?? They're not a cult!" This success made listed NRM members redouble their efforts to delete or at least jam the page. Why? Because frequently, though not always, NRM members in denial don't want the public to find out that their leader or group members have become entangled with the law. Yet that is exactly why global citizens, fearing that the NRM next door is destructive or exploitative, want to research them – usually finding nothing, since thousands of local NRMs (see Cult) are statistically harmless. Milo 05:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to List of groups referred to as cults and sort out the problems there. POV forking is not an approved solution to a disagreement. Stifle (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete -- Isn't this a violation of WP:POINT ? Curt Wilhelm VonSavage 07:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC).[reply]
• Delete -- Just a POV fork John Campbell 11:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment -- because this will probably get deleted in the name of making a point, could people please think about the point it is sacrificing itself to make. Namely that the article List of groups referred to as cults is not a list of groups referred to as cults. Conrad.Irwin 19:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • To the contrary, what I and many other editors see at LOGRTAC does appear to be a list of groups referred to as cults. Milo 07:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete' - even though there is a question on which article is the real POV fork. Perhaps a similar article could be created with a different name. Why should arbitrary selection be alright for one article and not another? This stinks of hypocrisy. Sfacets 23:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge - And remove arbitrary inclusion criteria - Why should arbitrary selection be alright for one article and not another? This stinks of hypocrisy. Sfacets 23:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can we continue the discussions on the article's discussion page? They aren't directly relevant to the deletion of this article... Sfacets 08:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Sfacets, changed votes helpfully influence others, so it's customary to strike-add your old-new vote rather than delete-edit them. (However delete-edits are the appropriate way to make incivility and personal attacks invisible.) If you choose to delete-edit a post later, after others have posted, the community requests that you leave some sign of change in posted context. I recommend:

"Re-edited [optional reason here] ~~~~~" The five tildes print only the date.

Milo 06:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: Seemingly a POV-fork and an instance of disrupting WP to make a point. Guaranteed to become a wholly worthless mishmash. -- Lonewolf BC 23:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge There is no sense in having two lists having essentially the same purpose, and it does seem o be a POV fork. However, I think this article (List of groups referred to as cults (all)) is a better article than List of groups referred to as cults which has some bizarre inclusion criteria. It's the latter list that ought to be deleted. AndrewRT(Talk) 20:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to sort out with RFC on inclusion criteria which is more basic dispute.--Dseer 22:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been referenced on the talk page for WikiProject Organizations.-- User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete a classic example of a POV-forking and pointmaking. Fix whatever issues exist at the real article instead of this mischief. --arkalochori ^|talk| 00:51, 22 October 2007 (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.