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 of the debate was no consensus/default keep. --Ezeu 04:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Helen Schucman[edit]

Reason this article should be deleted:

This article has been determined by to be noncompliant to Wikipedia content policy as discussed in it's here based on :

It only matters:
1. that what is put in the article matches the sources.
2. that those sources are reliable.
It is therefore based solely on original research.
It should be noted here that these ratings show copyright contention among the listings.

and serves only to further promote non-notable topics rather than to report what is notable. Ste4k 06:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks and apologies since I am rather new here. :) Several other nominations I had put up earlier got the opposite sort of comment. I'll strive to find the happy medium and I appreciate your comment. Ste4k 06:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - And she is cited repeatedly in that article. There's very little content in Schucman's own article that isn't in the ACIM article. RGTraynor 16:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Helen Schucman was actually considered by most who knew her to be a highly intelligent and intellectual woman. As is discussed on the Authorship of A Course in Miracles article (an article Ste4k wants deleted), Helen Schucman never literally meant that Jesus was the source of A Course in Mircales. She meant it was symbolic and metaphoric. -- Andrew Parodi 23:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment A Course in Miracles itself is largely unsourced and unverifiable, and appears to hope to establish notability by being listed in this encyclopedia rather than being notable in the first place. Most of its articles were written by two people who suffer from too much information looking for a topic. The creeping-artikalism of such a category in itself required at least six speedy deletes for WP:NOT and WP:NEO. The book itself hasn't yet established whom has actually written it. Please see discussions in the Articles of Deletion for much more information. It successfully evaded peer scrutiny in my humble opinion. Ste4k 16:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Actually, there is a great deal of verifiable evidence about A Course In Miracles. You simply will not accept this. I wish you would stop wasting everyone's time and stop trying to call attention to yourself and get everyone's approval. As per the large amounts of Google hits and its Amazon.com sakes ranking, it is obvious that ACIM hardly needs Wikipedia to establish its notability. ACIM was notable BEFORE the invention of Wikipedia. And the authorship of the book is indeed established, and is in fact discussed on the pages Authorship of A Course in Miracles and Helen Schucman, pages which, if you had your way, others would not be able to read because they would be deleted.
The issue is not whether ACIM is notable or not, but that you don't want ACIM to be notable. I find this fascinating. I find you fascinating. Please share more about yourself with the rest of us. So far, we know that you are new to Wikipedia and don't like ACIM. Is there anything more you'd like to share? -- Andrew Parodi 19:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The conduct of an editor with respect to an article has no logical connection with whether the article should be kept (with the possible exception of an editor writing a vanity article). I have looked at some of these articles and think that while Wikipedia should have an article on ACIM and on each of the authors, the other articles should either be merged (if they contain useful information) or deleted outright as, to use a wikilogism, vanispamicruftisement. I was not aware of the existence of some of the articles on your list and will review them too. Thinking that crappy, POV articles should be deleted rather than improved is a common mistake for new editors to make, so let's not bite the newbies, assume good faith and be civil. JChap 19:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment as I have noted on the Talk:Authorship of A Course in Miracles page, I had already attempted to be civil with this person. I tried to work out our disagreements on his/her talk page, to no avail. This editor has repeatedly, and erroneously, given the false implication that the only reason I am interested in keeping these pages from being deleted is because I am making money off of ACIM. That is false, and perhaps even liable.
While it is true that "the conduct of an editor with respect to an article has no logical connection with whether the article should be kept", it is also true that this editor has apparently mistaken deletion talk pages as places to work out editorial disagreements. And I do believe that what encouraged this editor to nominate so many ACIM-related articles for deletion is the fact that this editor got upset with me and my contesting of some of his/her statements.
If it is true that "thinking that crappy, POV articles should be deleted rather than improved is a common mistake for new editors", could someone enlighten this editor to this fact? And could other editors keep this in mind when voting whether or not to delete these pages? -- Andrew Parodi 02:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Comment. A Course In Miracles can hardly qualify as a cult when it is only a book. I am a "student" of the Course, which means that all I do is read the book. I attend no meetings, and do not interact with anyone (aside from the Internet) on a daily basis who reads the Course. I have altered no behavior in my daily lifestyle as a result of reading the Course. It isn't a cult. Just a book. And I'm not saying you said this, but just to clarify, I didn't create all of these ACIM-related articles. I agree that some of them are of dubious importance, such as the ACIM church movement one, and a few others (come to think of it, Attitudinal Healing may not be of note either). But Helen Schucman herself is very notable with regard to ACIM, which itself has been deemed notable by Wikipedia consensus. -- Andrew Parodi 02:38, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - One could, with at least as much accuracy, question your own bias, seeing as your contribution list shows that you are significantly invested in these articles. For my part, I'm failing to see why believing that the entire ACIM movement (and thus, all related articles) is non-notable constitutes prima facie bad faith, nor what is objectionable about Ste4k's proper insistence on unbiased third party websites for verification; of course we're not going to take ACIM's uncorroborated word for its claims about itself, any more than we would about any other subject's own website. RGTraynor 00:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I am presenting no bias. What did I present above? Facts. Click on each link and see that this person is indeed behind the deletion attempts of all of these pages.
The only "investment" is an investment in fairness. This editor is claiming that ACIM is not notable and not even a verifiable phenomenon, which is tantamount to saying that ACIM doesn't even exist. When we present the official websites of ACIM in attempts to prove that ACIM does exist and is notable, this editor ignores that and says they are not suitable.
Because I do read ACIM, it goes without saying that these articles are of interest to me. But that isn't the issue at hand. The issue is that most editors agree that ACIM is a notable topic, and this person is on his/her own campaign to contradict what is the consensus of many neutral editors.
You wrote: "For my part, I'm failing to see why believing that the entire ACIM movement (and thus, all related articles) is non-notable constitutes prima facie bad faith, nor what is objectionable about Ste4k's proper insistence on unbiased third party websites for verification...." In that same vein, I am failing to see why my presentation of facts (that this editor has nominated several ACIM-related articles for deletion and continues to deny that ACIM is notable and verifiable, often rejecting every reasonable bit of verification offered) should be discounted simply because I read ACIM and am paying attention to what this editor is doing. -- Andrew Parodi 01:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You have presented only the flimsiest of assertions as your "facts". Plainly the same editor has filed these AfDs, but I've done the same when I've filed an AfD and found several linked and equally non-notable articles. So far, the vast majority of your contributions to these AfD debates involves spamming them all to claim vendetta, and far less about what elements of WP:BIO and the notability guidelines you believe these articles meet. Myself, I'd prefer to see less smokescreen and more debate on the merits, please. RGTraynor 06:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you agree that what I have presented is factual (that all these deletion nominations are filed by the same person), then how can it be a smokescreen? I suppose I've offered a factual smokescreen. Interesting.
The point in noting that this person filed many deletion attempts of related articles is in noting that this person singles out the same topics, likely because he/she doesn't like them personally. Personal dislike of a particular genre does not justify deletion of articles related to the genre.
The other thing that makes me think that this person does not like this genre and is attempting to rid Wikipedia of it, is that this person will not accept ANY verification that these topics exist. If you offer this person the official sites of these organizations, he/she cries "spam". If you offer the link to the Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com listings to demonstrate notability by way of high sales rank, again, he/she cries "spam". If you offer an article that discusses the notability of the topic, he/she contests the qualifications of the person who wrote the article. And then, after all of this has failed, the person turns around and accuses you of being "too close" to the article, in my case alledging that I'm making money off of this (all without evidence, I might add; I make NO money off of ACIM). There is no winning with this person. It becomes evident that he/she just doesn't like this topic at all.
I agree that the article is not very well written at present. I didn't start this article and I only started working on it after this deletion nomination. But the issue here is notability, not the quality of writing. -- Andrew Parodi 07:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Talk about a lack of good faith.... I am not the one who started this article or most of the other articles that Ste4k is nominating for deletion. They were mostly started by another guy whose intentions you are not aware of. I think they were started by him because he truly believed these were notable topics. To be honest, I myself, a student of the Course, was surprised that he thought certain things about ACIM deserved pages. But on the other hand, I think it is wrong that Ste4k (or whatever) is attempting to have all these pages deleted simply because he/she doesn't like this topic. That's all any of this is really about. -- Andrew Parodi 21:25, 30 June 2006 (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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