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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. A lot of support for keeping. While arguments were put forward for cleaning up the article, insufficient argument was put forward for the topic itself not being allowed under our inclusion criteria. SilkTork (talk) 16:22, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Anglican churches in Leicester

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Anglican churches in Leicester (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Non-notable list. We don't want a mere directory of current and former churches in a city in just any small random city, and not in Leicester in particular (modified 22:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)). If there are any notable Anglican ones in Leicester, those are covered, or could be covered at Leicester#Places of worship. Also they may be covered in List of Anglican churches#in England. wp:NOTDIRECTORY. See three recent related AFDs closed with delete or draftify decisions: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Methodist churches in Leicester, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Baptist churches in Leicester, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Congregational Churches in Leicester. See also related Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Roman Catholic churches in Leicester, to run concurrently with this one. Doncram (talk) 05:40, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 08:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 08:33, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 08:37, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 08:38, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The nomination's claim is false as we have plenty of lists of churches in cities such as Oxford, Cambridge, London, Moscow, &c. Lists are valid content on Wikipedia per WP:SAL while WP:NOTDIR is irrelevant because that just tells us to avoid operational detail. In this case, this would mean that we wouldn't detail the times of the church services or the cost of a wedding. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:55, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, i modified the nomination statement towards saying that we don't want a list like this one, in Leicester a very small city, where there in fact is nothing special about the Anglican churches. I dunno about List of churches in London, that is qualitatively different; maybe it makes sense to split the list of very notable London churches out of the London article. For the Anglican churches in Leicester, well most of them should not be mentioned anywhere because they are so non-notable and there is absolutely nothing to say about them. For the few (3 or whatever?) that are notable, we don't need a mini-list, they should just be mentioned in Leicester article. And they are mentioned or can be mentioned in List of Anglican churches in the United Kingdom, anyhow, which provides far more value for the reader because it presents them in context with other Anglican churches.
And, though I am not sure whether i like it or not, there exists Places of worship in Leicester, too, more comparable to the List of churches in London because both cover all types of notable churches, not just Anglican ones. There is no separate List of Anglican churches in London because it has not been deemed necessary by anyone to split that out from the overall List of Anglican churches in the United Kingdom. And it will never be necessary to split out just the Leicester ones. --Doncram (talk) 22:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for similar reasons as the Catholic churches AfD. I imagine most churches (not chapels) in Europe pass GNG, and grouping them into lists by city seems to be the most natural way. I've counted eleven blue-linked items here and potentially dozens more that could have future articles, certainly too much to fit into the Leicester article, even if we decide to never flesh this list out. Daß Wölf 15:56, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I know the closing admin will be smart enough to ignore the fallacious OSE arguments above. Wikipedia is not a directory of every church on the planet or in a particular city. List only those that are notable or designated historic in a consolidated article, but it is not appropriate to just tabulate the names of every establishment, be they religious or commercial. Reywas92Talk 20:19, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There are ten churches and a cathedral that are blue linked to their own articles. It meets its requirement for a navigational list article. Dream Focus 20:39, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    OKAY! So we can delete the non-articles since we aren't navigating to them, right? And then we can merge the blue links to Places of worship in Leicester, so people can navigate among all the notable churches, conveniently in one page rather than spread across several directories of generic non-notable buildings for each denomination. Reywas92Talk 20:49, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep-the Baptist article was draftified despite three scholarly sources showing the notability of the topic. It really doesn't matter how many sources we have to prove GNG when the WP policies/rules on lists are vague enough for people to interpret them how they want. The WP policies/rules on lists should be updated to end this sort of behavior.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 21:24, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Right, the Baptist one and two other too-narrow Leicester lists were deleted or draftified. Because I and others who really looked at the sources identified which superficially seemed very relevant, we determined that there in fact is nothing worthwhile in those sources towards building a proper list-article. There was/is nothing to say about the numerous non-notable churches. I usually don't like for an AFD to be about cleaning up a given article, so if it were just a matter of developing using the identified sources, I would have objected. But the sources suck (technical term) for the purpose. The list-articles could not be developed, so should be deleted. Again, here, too. And there is larger principle that we do not want local directories of churches, or McDonalds shops, etc.; we only want a local list if necessary for size reasons to split out from a larger list, not the case here. --Doncram (talk) 22:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure it wasn't the intent of the rulemakers on Wikipedia to prejudice the website against local topics. If that is the outcome we need to fix the rules, and in the meantime not follow them in a servile manner. As for your claims pertaining to the references, it is highly superficial to say that while Baptists in a certain town are notable, their churches are not. Sort of like how the Soviets said they had freedom of religion, but then demolished/converted to secular use a large number of churches that would have otherwise been used. Under ordinary circumstances, Baptists and Baptist churches go together.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 22:24, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Epiphyllumlover (E) is referring to assertions in the related AFDs by some that "Baptists in Leicester" and/or "Methodists in Leicester" would be valid topics (I did not personally agree), while the sources by author Rimmington and others did not support having lists of church addresses or the like (I did agree that these were inadequate for a church list article). E, please correct me if I am wrong. This included this exchange in the Baptist AFD between Epiphyllumlover and myself, in which I stated that one source suggested by E "appears it might support an article on Baptists in Leicester, though not about Baptist churches AFAICT", but I want to emphasize that I only agreed it "might" (and User:Djflem later in that diff points out that the source is not available online and could not be fully evaluated). In fact I never agreed that "Baptists in Leicester" or any of these was a valid topic, and somewhere else I commented that Rimmington's info about Leicester's Methodists and Methodist churches is excessive detail that oddly has been published (due to odd existence of local university journal, I guess), but is not useful encyclopedically, except perhaps as case detail in the general article about Methodism. Rimmington notably does not assert, much less establish, that there is anything at all special about Methodists or their churches in Leicester. So IMHO the Rimmington sources and the like can be mentioned as "for further reading" types of sources in a Leicester article, but a Wikipedia article should not be manufactured on the too-narrow / non-encyclopedic / nothing-special topic.
E, your views are clearly in good faith, and I see how you can be a bit puzzled why others (me at least) assert that these particular scholarly-type articles do fail to establish Wikipedia-notability of anything, especially when some seem to assert that an article about local Methodists if not their churches would be okay (which I don't agree with). I am happy to discuss elsewhere how the Rimmington sources plus wp:LISTN do not require or justify a separate Wikipedia article on Baptists or Methodists in Leicester. But this AFD is about the Anglican churches in Leicester, and discussion here should be about what specific sources here say. --Doncram (talk) 18:03, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • How about we do something about LISTN. If it can be interpreted so wildly different on such a mundane topic, maybe there is something wrong about the guideline. How could it be fixed so it is not ambiguous?--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 02:40, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Bearian, I don't see what you mean. Needs trimming? If there didn't have to be this AFD discussion, I would have trimmed it down to the few bluelink mentions in one step, then in another step removed those too after copying those into the List of Anglican churches (which I have done), and redirected it. "Delete" is what needs to be done now. What on earth do you want to save, and why? You want to keep duplicative mini-list, that should obviously be redirected/deleted? Sorry to seem maybe like I am badgering, but I really do not understand. --Doncram (talk) 04:15, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nice to have concern about giving contributors credit, but there is nothing to give credit for. I think CWW and MAD apply only for writing that is, well, writing. There is nothing which could conceivably be copywrite-worthy, be worth crediting. In this diff i did add a mere list of church articles. No more substantial than copying from Category:Church of England church buildings in Leicestershire or any other category. Appears like trying to "win" this AFD "contest" on a technicality that doesn't apply. I don't care about "winning", but it kinda irks me that editors are showing up trying to preserve nothingness as if to support real editors who wrote something, but there were no real editors who ever wrote anything here. I don't get what anyone is trying to protect; everyone should just be ashamed, and rectification = deletion is the right outcome IMHO. --Doncram (talk) 15:51, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The proposed merger would not be rectification, it would be wrong. The list of Anglican churches, which Doncram prefers, has a global scope while there are about 16,000 such churches in England alone. Trying to list every church in the world on one page seems quite impractical. Splitting the data by city or county is more natural and sensible and that's what done by authorities such as Pevsner and the Victoria County Histories. Also, moving the entries to another list does not address the complaint of WP:NOTDIRECTORY which the nomination has as its pretext. It's not logical and it's not our policy. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • NOTDIRECTORY is about deleting the 47 or so non-notable ones. The main point of requesting deletion is to put a stake into the wish to list non-notables; a simple "Delete" decision would be most clear and helpful, heading off future edit wars with some deleting and some re-adding non-notables. Sure, the world-wide list can/will be split by big geographic areas, when needed, but that doesn't justify creating thousands of mini-list articles of just 2 or 3 items each in each minor city or town or village. Nor does it justify visiting every city, town, village article which exists and splitting out each sentence or mini-paragraph into new articles. If/when legitimate Wikipedia coverage of Anglican churches in Leicester grew too big (which I think is never going to happen), then I suppose it could be copied to a new page. Like I said, there is no credit due to prior editors for that.
  • About sources, two of the three supposed sources in the article are just directories, the third is a self-published booklet which no Wikipedia editor has seen. You speak of "Pevsner" and "Victoria County Histories" as if those might be sources with information to use. But in none of the related AFDs has anyone ever used Rimmington or Moore or any other sources to develop anything at all (at least not anything substantial/legitimate), because there's nothing encyclopedic to say AFAICT. If, contrary to my expectation, P and VCH have content that some future editor could use, then that future editor should get credit for creating a new article, I suppose. Bye. --Doncram (talk) 20:44, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's no "as if" about Pevsner and the VCH. They contain huge amounts of information about English churches and Leicester is no exception. Here's a couple of links as examples of their level of detail
  1. A History of the County of Leicester: Volume 4, the City of Leicester – The ancient borough: Lost churches
  2. Leicestershire and Rutland – Outer Leicester W: Churches
If people haven't mentioned such sources before then perhaps they have taken them for granted or they have little knowledge of the field. Me, I have attended events specifically about the VCH and have written articles such as St Stephen's Church, Ealing and so am quite familiar with them. Such buildings in the UK are usually notable and so it's just a matter of writing them up. There are so many of them that we still have lots to do and, per WP:LISTPURP, lists such as this are helpful in getting this done. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for humoring me by trying and digging out those links. I can read the first one but am over the number of pageviews to see the other. On one level, if someone in the future does decide to develop about such churches, then they certainly would deserve the credit. I don't like usage of wp:TNT in AFDs in general, but I do think that would apply: it would be a completely new article, and better to blow it up and start over, for their sake. But on a different perspective, well, I don't see merit in the detail there. It's all or mostly unusable statements about how nothing is known, or speculation; I would not find it satisfying, personally, to try to craft something out of that, myself. About St. Michael's:

The church of St. Michael was situated near the west gate of the borough, probably near the corner of the present Vauxhall Street and Causeway Lane. It is probable that the advowson of St. Michael's, like that of other churches in Leicester, was given to the college of St. Mary de Castro in 1107, and subsequently, in 1143, to Leicester Abbey. (fn. 25) The abbey certainly possessed the advowson by about 1220, (fn. 26) and retained it as long as the church continued to exist. (fn. 27) Little information exists about the church; it had a priest and another cleric in 1200, (fn. 28) but about 1220 it was said to be so poor that it was scarcely able to support a priest at all. (fn. 29) It is not clear whether the church had been appropriated by 1220 or not. (fn. 30) Probably it had, for in 1221–2 a vicarage was established on the same terms as that at St. Clement's. (fn. 31) / By the end of the 15th century St. Michael's had become very poor. There was no vicar in 1487, (fn. 32) and the church was probably disused by about 1500. It is not mentioned in the records of the episcopal visitation of Leicester made in 1510. (fn. 33) The parish seems to have been united with that of St. Peter's.

That is the kind of source that might be suggested in a footnote for "additional reading", only, if there was something legitimate found elsewhere to say about that St. Michael's, to attach the footnote to. I totally relate to your implication that there's plenty else to develop in Wikipedia (many many years) before it would make sense for anyone to even consider manufacturing anything out of that. It is way too much a stretch to say "oh we must save mere mention of a church", without providing any useful info, for the indefinite if not infinite future. This is my opinion, YMMV. Again, sincerely, thank you for digging that out. --Doncram (talk) 02:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If I were to edit it myself, I would cut out a lot of cruft. It's easy to do but I was waiting for a consensus to develop. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Bearian (talk) 00:48, 6 April 2020 (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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