Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Feast of the Guardian Angels

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. (non-admin closure) Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 15:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Feast of the Guardian Angels

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Not likely to ever have much information; the Catholic Encyclopedia article is also very short and any additional information can easily fit into a section in the main Guardian angel article PaulGS (talk) 04:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep If this topic deserved a 950 word article in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia (which was printed on paper), then surely it is worthy of an article on Wikipedia. I believe that the existence of an article on a topic in another notable encyclopedia pretty much demonstrates notability here. In addition, this feast is discussed in other books such as Saints and Feast Days, 30 Ten-Minute Prayer Celebrations for Young Children, The pulpit orator: containing, for each Sunday of the year, seven elaborate skeleton sermons, Volumes 4-5, Manual of Christian Doctrine, The Oxford dictionary of saints and many other reliable sources on the history of Roman Catholic observances. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:17, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
keep—per Cullen328. anyone up for a WP:CATH? i will try to find time soon, but feel free to pitch in.— alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 04:44, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Aside from WP:CATH notability, "not likely to ever have much information" is not a valid reason for deletion. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to guardian angel as lacking independent notability. As a rule we do not have articles on saint's commemorations unless there is something we can say about holiday observances (e.g. St Piran's Day). Mangoe (talk) 12:43, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Seriously, you propose to delete this article on 2 October? Yes, it's one of the minor feasts of the Catholic Church but it is still an official feast by papal decree. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 14:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The existence of this type of article does the encyclopedia, as reference site, no harm at all. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:56, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:56, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Clearly a valid article for an encyclopaedia. The fact it's short is irrelevant. -- Necrothesp (talk) 20:03, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per everything above. St Anselm (talk) 20:33, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This was a feast of the church that was celebrated in a large number of places. It deserves an entry of its own. Oh and it had an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia. While this doesn't guarantee that it's notable - it really should mean that lack of notability should be proved. Short article is not part of that. JASpencer (talk) 20:08, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge. What is there to be said about this feast that can't be said in a section in the Guardian Angel article? The Catholic Encyclopedia article is mainly on the liturgical history of the feast, which probably isn't of that much interest to the general reader. I'm certainly not opposed to having an article on this particular feast if there's enough information about it out there, but this isn't Christmas or Easter or St. Patrick's Day we're talking about. We have an article on St. Thomas Aquinas, which is appropriate, but we don't have one on Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, because there's nothing about his feast day that can't easily be summarized and put in the article on him. I don't see this article as ever being more than a paragraph or two, and every bit of that information can be (and should be) added to a section in the Guardian angel article. Also, since there's not that much to be said about this feast, it makes the user read through two articles, instead of links going to Guardian angel and allowing them to read all about the topic, instead of getting a very short article on the feast and then having to go to the main article. PaulGS (talk) 02:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The point is that these are not one but two different topics, that a notable paper encyclopedia has already determined that this specific topic is notable, that other reliable sources discuss this topic separately from the broader topic of guardian angels, that some of those reliable sources have been identified in this debate, and that this encyclopedia is not printed on paper and therefore has no need to constrain its coverage of notable topics. What objective criteria do you use, PaulGS, to determine what is of "interest" to the "general reader", and how do you define that type of reader when editing an encyclopedia that now has nearly 4 million articles? No "general reader" can read them all, but I very much doubt if any such reader would be offended if encountering this article in a random search. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:37, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how we are required to have an article on the subject just because the CE does. The CE article is really no different from the history that could be written about any kalendar commemoration, and that's all it has; the other sources listed here are either irrelevant (the children's book) or give liturgical information of the same ilk as that of any other saints day. As a rule we have written articles on these holidays when there is material beyond this, generally in the form of descriptions of secular celebrations. Here I see no evidence that there's anything beyond the usual liturgical propers. Mangoe (talk) 10:04, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article's now much better. I'm still not quite sure it's a notable-enough feast to have its own article, since most saints' days don't, and might be better suited to be a section of the Guardian Angel article, but with the additional information and sources added, I'm much more okay with keeping it. PaulGS (talk) 16:48, 4 October 2011 (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.