Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Myth of Islamic Tolerance

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page, if it exists; or after the end of this archived section. The result of the debate was keep. mikka (t) 30 June 2005 01:04 (UTC)

The Myth of Islamic Tolerance

No real content other than the list of chapters which cannot possibly be each described as a section given time. Also it arguably falls under What Wikipedia is not since it's akin to a list of facts or links. But even without the TOC list, the book does not seem especially noteworthy (~5000 Googles). Master Thief Garrett^Talk 10:46, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Delete the contents and redirect the title to the book's author Robert Spencer until someone is prepared to write a neutral, encyclopedic article about the book. But in case that counts as a keep vote under VfD rules, my vote is delete the title too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:35, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. There are 199 articles in the Book stub cat, many of them more obscure than this one; so why is this one being singled out? If the author article is worthy of retention, then it is a fairly natural progression to wikify his book titles. These red links then cry out for articles. It would be silly for these to be redirects back to the author page. That's how Wikipedia grows, or at least one of the ways. Not liking what a book says is not really a good reason for listing its article here; in fact it is a very bad reason. Filiocht | Blarneyman 11:46, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

  The reason I'm voting delete is that the author of this article has created a bunch of POV stubs, including only publishers' blurbs, chapter lists, sometimes quotes from the authors, and pictures of the book covers. They're free advertising for the publishers and hopelessly POV data dumps: violations of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. They could be made to conform to NPOV, but it would be a lot of work for someone. It therefore makes sense to redirect the title to the author's page until an editor actually wants to write a neutral article about the book. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:53, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

  How is a contents list of a book in breach of our POV policy? Granted the chapter titles reflect the POV of the book, but that is an entirely different matter. I cannot see any merit to this argument, I'm afraid. Filiocht | Blarneyman 11:58, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

  • It is POV because it is lacking a paragraph critiquing the views in the book. Radiant_>|< 12:07, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

  It's the lack of any balancing material that's the problem. If it were a neutral article that just happened to list the TOC at the end, it would be okay, but when the TOC's the only thing, and the chapter titles are things like "A Muslim by any other name blows up just the same" (this is from one of the Ann Coulter titles), there's a serious POV issue. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:12, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

  • The fact that an article is POV is not a valid reason to list here. If it is impossible for it ever to become NPOV, that would be different. This is not the case here. Filiocht | Blarneyman 12:30, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

  Hence my vote to blank the page and redirect the title to the author's page until someone wants to create an encyclopedic article about the book. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:58, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• Strong Keep Book pages are absolutely relevant to Wikipedia.--CltFn 11:56, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  CltFn is the author of these pages. I agree that good book pages are essential to Wikipedia, but you're not writing good ones. In fact, you're not writing anything. You're copying publishers' blurbs and essentially producing free commercials. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:15, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• Delete content, for starters, since copy/pasting a table of contents is copyvio, not to mention unencyclopedic. Redirect to author for the time being. Radiant_>|< 12:07, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • (by which I mean that an article about the book would be encyclopedic, but this is not that article, or indeed an article at all). Radiant_>|< 12:27, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep but also cleanup. WP needs an article, not a table of contents. Book is certainly notable, with a noteworthy author, a real publisher, and a decent Amazon rank (~15,000). The book itself might be POV, but there's no reason that an article on it must be. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 12:08, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect to the article on the author, for whom the creation of books on Muslim bogeymen seems to be a cottage industry. -- Hoary 13:36, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
• Delete the table of contents listing for starters. Sadly, I believe it's notable, but I'll see about adding some useful content. Keep the book.--Scimitar 14:05, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep the book. Kappa 14:18, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, besides the controversial content, and non-notability, the article is atrociously written. ~~~~ 14:52, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup by first losing the list of chapters then providing a more lengthy summary of the central argument. Valid encyclopaedia topic. David | Talk 14:57, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Get rid of the contents, merge anything useful that's left into Robert Spencer, and redirect. — Ливай | ☺ 15:30, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect until some decent content appears. Saswann 16:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Clearly, Keep notable book, let the process work. Jgm 16:57, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete this article as unencyclopedic. If someone wants to write an encyclopedia article about this book, that would be fine, but I see no benefit either for them or for Wikipedia in having this lying around. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:02, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup. Notable book. Capitalistroadster 17:54, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, should be cleaned up, not deleted. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:56, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
• Keep if article is cleaned up and expanded. --Alabamaboy 18:56, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep without any "if"s. There is nothing to cleanup. It is vanilla neutral in its shortness. An even in this form it is informative: the article clearly says what the book about and what opponents think about it. And of course it is notable, since it causes heated discussions, not to say about over 5,000 google hits. mikka (t) 20:27, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Look at the article history to see when it was not always so. David | Talk 10:39, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Exactly. this version was the one I nominated. Master Thief Garrett^Talk 12:36, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• However, it could be argued that an article that could be improved so quickly should never have been listed here at all. Filiocht | Talk 12:40, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

• LOL! Yes, but that would require that me to have incredible foresight which, I'm afraid to say, I do not have (as exemplified by my exam I am supposed to be sitting today). And this is probably the first "prime Vfd candidate" that's changed so quickly after my nomination, so I didn't exactly have any track record to go by to "give it a chance". But I'll be happy with whatever the Vfd brings. Indeed in many cases a Vfd is the only way to get an article improved, whereas before (and, as a rule, after) it languishes in mediocrity for all of (forseeable) eternity. Master Thief Garrett^Talk 20:55, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, certainly jamesgibbon 21:02, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect as suggested by SlimVirgin. Lists of chapter titles are not articles on books. Grace Note 23:36, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, no reason to redirect because when articles are redirected they tend to have a harder time expanding, IMHO. Falphin 00:48, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and expand. Notable book. JamesBurns 06:31, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep I think a lot of people are voting because they don't like the idea of the book. --MikeJ9919 15:38, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• keep please do not let your personal biases sway your votes that is not the wiki way Yuckfoo 18:32, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep I have seen MUCH worse things on a random jaunt through the wiki, and i recall seeing this on major news outlets a while back
• Keep Although critical comments are urgently called for. PatGallacher 2005 June 28 16:23 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be placed on a related article talk page, if one exists; in an undeletion request, if it does not; or below this section.