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 a train wreck. This AfD is only two days old, but it is evident that there is no way that consensus can be determined from it. The nominator's first contribution was to start this discussion, and virtually all of the participants have few or no edits outside this topic. Accordingly, I am closing this discussion and relisting it. Blueboy96 17:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Peucinian Society

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Peucinian Society (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log) The article on the Peucinian Society does not meet Wikipedia standards: In that the "Subject fails to meet the relevant notability guideline." Were the peucinian society among the "nation's foremost literary societies" then perhaps it would warrant a page, but in actuality it is a newly revitalized and obscure student club at a very small liberal arts college. The Society is unfortunaely not one of the among the "nation's foremost literary societies" and thus does not warrant inclusion in Wikipedia.Furthermore the article violates a number of wikipedia guidlines:

  1. Lack of Neutrality
  2. Questionable Clarity
  3. Factual Errors

Thus I recommend that the article be deleted. (Cowan50 (talk) 18:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC))— Cowan50 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

I think Wikipedia would be doing its readers a great disservice in deleting this page. This is my life’s work. Readers ought to be aware of the illustrious history of this association and other similar bodies. 129.81.64.172 (talk) 05:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)David Klingman— 129.81.64.172 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
(1) "In the late nineteenth century, the Peucinian Society went through a relative period of dormancy [sic], erroneously considered, even by the college itself, to be completely defunct. It continued to persist throughout the 20th Century..."
The sources that purport to support this claim are: (a) "College Literary Societies: Their Contribution to Higher Education in the United States, 1815-1876" and (b) "Joshua Chamberlain: The Soldier and the Man." But Chamberlain only attended Bowdoin from 1848 and 1852, and was its president from 1871 - 1883. He died in 1914. It is thus doubtful that his biography gives evidence that the Peucinian Society existed throughout the 20th Century. It is even more unlikely that "College Literary Societies: Their Contribution to Higher Education in the United States, 1815-1876" confirms (1). There are, moreover, very good reasons to think that the Society went "completely defunct" in the early 1880s, viz. the Bowdoin College archive's assertion that this is the case and the fact that there exist no Peucinian Society records from after 1877. (1) is simply false.
(2) "The Peucinian Society is one of the nation's foremost literary societies and the oldest student organization at Bowdoin College."
But given, as the foregoing discussion makes clear, that the Society ceased to exist c. 1880 and was only recently reestablished, (2) is misleading. If a group of my American buddies and I started emulating the practices of a bronze age Druid Cult, you would rightly deny my claims to being the oldest religion in the United States. Similarly, if we met to discuss the drafting of the United States Constitution and called ourselves the "Second Continental Congress" it would not follow that we were the nation's premier legislative body. What both of these actions would entail is that my buddies and I were attemping to self-promote. (2) is false and biased.
(3) "In 1880 the libraries of the Peucinian Society and its former rival, the Athenean Society [sic], were merged, after which the two societies officially became one and has [sic] endured under the name 'The Peucinian Society.'"
It is true that the Athenaean and Peucinian Societies merged their libraries in 1880. Unfortunately, it is also true, as evidenced by my analysis of (1), that the two societies went defunct in 1880. And this supports a radically different interpretation of the merger; the Peucinian Society and the Athenean Society didn't merge in order to unite their two traditions. Rather, the merger marked the end of both Societies. Thus the suggestion, made in (3) and elsewhere in the entry, that the two Societies were oncetime rivals who became allies is wrong. Instead, the Bowdoin archives get it right: "After a period of relative dormancy, the surviving libraries of the Peucinian and Athenaean societies were merged in 1880. Following this, the Peucinian Society was considered officially defunct." What happened to the Peucinian and Athenaean Societies is something analogous to if the libraries of two distinct political parties in the Confederate States of America were merged after the civil war. Surely, we wouldn't want to say of the two parties that they "officially became one" - they were rivals to the end! (3) is thus misleading, and it seems clear that the reason it is included in the entry is in order to promote the prestige of (a.k.a. advertise) the organization. Here is how the Peucinian Society's Wikipedia entry uses this deception to misleadingly enhance the reputation of Peucinian:
(4) "Famous alumni of the Peucinian and Athenean [sic] tradition include...Nathaniel Hawthorne, 19th century American novelist and short story writer."
Hawthorne attended Bowdoin from 1821 - 1825, during which time he was a member of the Athenaean Society. Also, during that time, the Athenaeans and the Peucinians supported different candidates in the incredibly contentious Presidential election of 1824. As Peter Balakian, a Hawthorne historian, puts it: "Of the college's two literary societies, the Athenian [sic] Society to which Hawthorne belonged was the more liberal and democratic; its members were Jacksonians who rejected the conservative traditions of their New England forefathers. Its rival, the Peucinian Society, was composed of a more scholarly constituency (of which Longfellow was a member)..." It should also be noted that Hawthorne died sixteen years before the Peucinian and Athenaean libraries merged, rendering the Peucinian Society's claim on his membership all the more farcical. The most important point, however, is that (3) and (4) indicate that the Wikipedia entry for the Peucinian Society is an elaborate set-up; misrecognitions are inserted one place only to support falsities introduced elsewhere. I repeat: an advertisement, not a piece of scholarly research.
(5) "The Peucinian Society is comprised of the most intellectually enthusiastic minds within the Bowdoin community."
Even were this true, it is quasi-normative wishy-washiness that has no business in an encyclopedia. Insofar as they can, however, signs point to its being false. Specifically, the article cites, as evidence of (5)'s truth, the Catalogue of the members of the Peucinian Society (read: the CURRENT catalogue of members of the Peucinian Society). Unfortunately, the only remotely objective way to test whether the current Peucinian Society roster comprises the "most intellectually enthusiastic minds within the Bowdoin community" is to cross-check it with the Deans List...
To round out this line of criticism, I should be clear that (1) - (5) serve merely to give a FLAVOR of the article's polemical quality. Deleting these passages will not fix the entry, and any impartial reviewer will recognize that the article's tone and style are inappropriate throughout.
I also noted that the article lacks substance. However (and this is further support of my point re: bias and inaccuracy), the article attempts to conceal its vapidity through the liberal use of fluff (e.g. "Meetings of the Peucinian were held in alphabetical rotation in our private rooms. Contributions were levied on neighboring rooms for tables and chairs, and members gathered around the tables"). Cutting through all of this we are left with an entry that is half about a literary society, at a small liberal arts college, that has been defunct since the 1880s, and half about a newly established society that has usurped the older society's name and, with considerable distortions, its history. If there is a worthy Wikipedia entry here, it can only be got at by starting afresh. 22:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC) WilliamPitts— Preceding unsigned comment added by WilliamPitts (talk • contribs) 14:02, 27 March 2008— WilliamPitts (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Arbitrary section break

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Reasons to preserve: I would like to refute two claims against the author of this page, although I admit my surprise at and failure to comprehend the vehemence with which these people are opposing this article’s preservation. One can only hope that they are equally passionate in their assault upon other literary societies. Indeed, I cannot help but question their motives, as they continue to make blatant personal attacks on the society’s members, addressing them with disturbing and unspeakable phrases, surely injuring their own credibility and character. Nevertheless, while I regard the first two points of their most recent entry as completely absurd, I am obliged to offer a response for the sake of history and dignity. Let me state, first, that the citations posted on the article are absolutely accurate. The offensive allegations are no more than personal attacks. For, having argued that there are insufficient citations, when they are presented with proper citations, they proceeed to question the accuracy of these. Yet, in respect of the first book, Joshua Chamberlain: The Soldier and the Man, while it is true that Chamberlain passed away in 1914, the author discusses Peucinian in great detail, in fact stating that the Society continued to thrive into the 20th century. By the same token, another publication, College Literary Societies: Their Contribution to Higher Education in the United States, 1815-1876, in the passages which discusses the association in a number of passages, once again clearly stating that the society persisted beyond the 19th century. I can only, therefore, attribute the careless and uncritical assertions to the fact that these ignorant attacks were based solely on the title that presupposes a of 1876. Nevertheless, are they so ignorant as to suppose that the author cannot include statements beyond this date in his book? It has been repeatedly emphasized, time and again, by faculty and students alike, that there is ample evidence of the society persisting independently of the college and thriving for many decades without collegiate affiliation. This claim has also been supported by several local historians in Maine. As for the comparisons to the Druid Cult and the Continental Congress,” I would contend that, since the society’s dormancy in the 20th century was so brief and each of its original traditions has been carefully preserved, these analogies are completely false. Indeed, if one belonged to an institution that emerged from the Druid Cult, restoring it after only a couple decades of dormancy and meticulously preserving its original constitution and substantive traditions, then one does in fact have the right to claim succession to that historical association. Therefore, the comparison is specious insofar as the Druid Cult is much older and has had no period of “dormancy.” Regardless, the article cannot be deleted, if only because the Peucinian Society was founded just eleven years after the establishment of Bowdoin College itself, and thus remains historically synonymous with the very inception of Bowdoin. Finally, once again, I am deeply offended by the claim that this article is merely a ploy for “self promotion.” The author has made every effort conform to Wikipedia policies in crafting an article that is both informative to readers about an historical organization that has engaged some of the most potent literary and political minds in American history. This cannot be dismissed as bias; it is fact.Emily444 (talk) 14:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Emily444 — Emily444 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [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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