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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Baptist Churches in Alabama

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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. Following rewrite and improvement.  Sandstein  09:00, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of Baptist Churches in Alabama

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List of Baptist Churches in Alabama (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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No indication that any of these are notable for any reason. Altairisfar 17:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC) *Nomination withdrawn due to complete rewrite of article and change of heart. I'll try to convert to a table and clean it up instead. Altairisfar 17:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC) [reply]

  • Keep Has now been completely rewritten with all new content, now in a table, the scope is narrowly defined as Baptist churches that "are National Historic Landmarks, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage , or are otherwise significant for their history, association with significant events or people, or their architecture and design (meaning they must be notable enough for a stand-alone article)." Altairisfar 02:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC) Let it continue since there are still obviously issues. Altairisfar 06:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alabama-related deletion discussions. Altairisfar 17:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment There are many Baptist churches in Alabama which are notable, including at least the following ones that are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (list below). I don't happen to really like having vague lists, but there is room in Wikipedia for a list of all the notable baptist churches in Alabama, i think. IF the creator of the article actually wants to develop it. The list should be moved to "List of Baptist churches in Alabama" though. And the intro text should clarify that it is only about notable churches, not every church. --doncram 19:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

draft list of NRHP-listed Baptist churches in state, since put into article

(begin list of NRHP-listed places in Alabama with "Baptist" in name)

Ackerville Baptist Church of Christ, pic by Altairisfar

(end list)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Changing !vote -- see below. First off, it should be noted that the list Doncram created above is not the list in the article. As for the topic in general, this is an intersection that is appropriate for a category, but not a list. The universe of Baptist churches in Alabama is so nearly unlimited in scope as to make a list of them unmaintainable (although the number of Baptist churches in Alabama is admittedly not infinite, it is unbelievably large, more so if the list includes defunct churches). Additionally, almost all of those churches are nonnotable per WP criteria, and all of the ostensible purposes of a list of them would be something that Wikipedia is not: a worship guide, travel guide, or directory. As for the list that that Doncram created above, there might be an encyclopedic purpose in something like a List of Baptist churches in Alabama on the National Register of Historic Places, but that would be a different article (and some of the blue links in the above list don't actually point to Alabama churches). The article that has been nominated here should be deleted. --Orlady (talk) 21:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Replies to substance of Orlady's comment are given in replies below, including specifically link to wp:CLN which explains relationships of lists and categories. --doncram 11:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom and Orlady. The list in the article is extremely disorganized, using neither alphabetical nor any other obvious order. For example, at one point, an Antioch Baptist Church is listed, and ten lines later, another Antioch Baptist Church is listed. Is this the same church listed twice by mistake, or two different churches? No wikilinks are provided (if, indeed, any of these churches are notable enough to have articles of their own), nor is any data provided about the churches other than their names (for example, the towns where they are located are not mentioned). Furthermore, some of the churches have changed their names, but they are listed under their former rather than current names. If an article by this name were considered useful, and I am skeptical of that, I don't see how the current list could be considered helpful as a starting point. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 21:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment does not speak to notability of the list as a topic. The list is complementary to a category (which also can be created). It serves practical purpose of allowing editors to discuss, within the list, the notability of individual churches, and to include pictures, and to keep track of ones with and without articles. Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists)#Lists and categories:

"Redundancy of lists and categories is beneficial because the two categories work together; the principle is covered in the guideline Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. Like categories, lists can be used for keeping track of changes in the listed pages, using the Related Changes feature. Unlike a category, a list also allows detection of deletion of its entries, and, more generally, a history of its contents is available; lists also permit a large number of entries to appear on a single page."

See Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. --doncram 11:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Changing my recommendation to neutral in recognition of the complete overhauling of the list in the article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:50, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note Above list of NRHP-listed Baptist churches in Alabama amended to point to the actual Alabama churches rather than disambiguation pages or churches in other states, as pointed out by Orlady above. But still, the above list is rather tangential to the article what I nominated for deletion. Altairisfar 22:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Article amended to be the above list of NRHP places, plus more, such as the First Baptist Church (Huntsville, Alabama), established in 1809, the oldest Southern Baptist church in the state. I think any links that first pointed to dab pages have now been fixed to point to the correct redlink. As most editors here know, articles for all the NRHP-listed ones could be created at any time. --doncram 11:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since you feel strongly about saving this article, I'm willing to withdraw my Afd nomination on these conditions: that the article is moved to List of Baptist churches in Alabama on the National Register of Historic Places, as suggested by Orlady, or even the horribly worded List of Baptist churches in Alabama on the National Register of Historic Places or Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage; and maybe someone could try to balance the lede?
I checked what churches were on it before and none were on the NRHP or Alabama Register, so my issue was with notability. But, as Dennis said, it was horrible before and at the present title would still be nothing more than a laundry list of crap. I can deal with a very narrow scope. My point in nominating it was that in a state with 67 counties, with the majority being rural, there is roughly one Baptist church for every 100-300 people (not literally, but very close). In my small Alabama county of barely 22,000 people there are 178 Baptist churches, none of which are on the National Register, and only one is on the Alabama Register. BTW, the editor that started this article is not new, as you suggested on his talk page, he's been churning out the same type of articles on Wikipedia since June 9, 2005, evidently without taking the time to learn any of our policies and procedures. Altairisfar 15:22, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I myself don't happen to really like open-ended lists, in part because it can be unpleasant to police them in terms of keeping them from becoming indiscriminate/directory-like, but I think they are valid. List of Anglo-Catholic churches is one which i was involved with for a while, trying to help for some reason i can't recall. It was difficult there to deal with multiple additions of non-significant places. I sought there to make a positive difference there by building out a table clearly calling for both evidence of Anglican-ness (which was an issue in fact) and calling for evidence of notability, and paring away items that were not supported by evidence. I no longer watch that. In Alabama, I do think that a list of Baptist churches actually makes sense; there indeed must be thousands of them and a good number are significant and are worth mentioning in a list. My sense of the consensus on list-articles in wikipedia is basically that lists of items that are all individually notable are okay, and further that the lists can include items which are not individually notable enough to have a separate list-article. (Some will disagree, but that is my sense of the consensus.) There are broad lists of synagogues and of many types of churches. So, I just happen to think a list on this topic is pretty obviously useful, in fact, and it is apparently of interest to its creator, and it is not proper to delete it as a topic.
I did suppose, apparently incorrectly, that the creator was relatively new to Wikipedia. But it doesn't really matter; we should try to be accommodating and to provide support and education and socialization. If the creator in fact doesn't want to develop this list, it is not horrible for the list to linger on, not much developed, not much read, not much linked.
I don't care if mention of the temporary prominence of 2011 tornado relief efforts is kept in the article or not, but it is salient in the webpages of numerous churches found by google search of "Baptist Alabama". I also don't care particularly about the other statement now tagged. But it is an obviously TRUE statement, not "original research". It reads: "Others are significant for other reasons, or have chosen not to accept NRHP listing with its potential restrictions." There is one church in the list that I added which is not NRHP-listed. There are other significant churches, I am sure, and I am sure everyone commenting here would have to agree there are modern, non-historic Baptist churches in the state that are not NRHP-listed. I know also that many obviously historically important churches, elsewhere, choose not to accept NRHP-listing; it is okay to suggest that some churches in Alabama may have declined NRHP listing because in fact they may have. The statement is deliberately a compound, true statement. However, Altairisfar, if you want to edit or remove those statements, please feel free to do that; editing or removing them would be better than having those tags there forever.
I don't feel strongly about the need for the list; i do think it is okay and it should not be deleted for wrong reasons. If you care to withdraw your AFD nom that is good and would probably pretty much resolve this, but since there are a couple delete votes i think the procedure is that the AFD needs to run the 7 days and then be closed by an uninvolved administrator. --doncram 16:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Saying in an article that some Baptist churches have chosen not to accept National Register listing because a contributor "knows" that to be true is a form of original research. That unsupported assertion -- which I surmised was based on inference from a general pattern -- is what I was tagging when I added that inline template to the article. The above comment indicates that the template (which Doncram has removed) was spot-on accurate. --Orlady (talk) 17:19, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This appears to be one more instance in a series of negative digs, in a long pattern of wp:wikihounding, in which Orlady is following me and personally criticizing me. That is a misstatement. In context of the long pattern, in which I have correctly charged Orlady of lying about me, it amounts to another deliberate lie. I did not state in the article that the any Baptist church in Alabama or anywhere has chosen not to accept accept NRHP listing. The compound statement is obviously true. In the compound statement, I did suggest the possibility that there are historic churches in Alabama. It is possible. Some might say that should not be suggested, that that is slipping something in which should not be suggested unless there is specific evidence of it actually having happened. Specific evidence could conceivably be provided by pointing to a specific instance where a historic church in Alabama was NRHP-nominated and was accepted by the National Register and where the church finally opposed its being listed, which would show in the NRHP's database as an "Owner objection" case. I don't have such an example. It is nonetheless absolutely possible that churches, like other owners of likely-to-be-NRHP-eligible properties, have chosen not to accept NRHP listings. In fact, in most cases a church's opposition to NRHP listing would prevent any NRHP nom from getting started at all. My point in mentioning it was to explain that there are historic churches which are not NRHP-listed, to get away from the potential idea that all historic churches are NRHP-listed.
I am aware of churches not wanting National Register listing, in part because of the restrictions it could impose; churches I am familiar with are clearly forward-oriented and have primary mission of religious service, and do not care one whit about history of their building, and would not want any potential restriction on how they renovate their property to serve their church's mission (while other churches do care about their architecture and historic associations). I stated that here as an assertion here which I do not need to prove; it is not original research in mainspace. For Orlady to dismiss that, she has to implicitly accuse me of lying. I accuse her of slipping in yet another insinuation of lying or other evil-doing on my part. I am not beating around the bush: I do accuse her directly of lying here. I doubt any good can come of further discussion here, so will hope not to reply further, unless to defend myself from new accusations. --doncram 21:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Further, at Talk:List of Baptist churches in Alabama#Unbalanced template, Orlady made other negative assertions about me, including some [wp:personal attack]]-type, personal comment that I am racially motivated and/or racially ignorant, to which I replied there. I am completely offended by Orlady's continuing behavior, spread across many articles and Talk pages to which she has followed me. --doncram 21:16, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
About the title, no I don't agree it should be moved to include "on the National Register of Historic Places". I deliberately put one obviously significant other one into the list, and I could add more. Long ago i created some lists defined to be NRHP-only like that, but I believe broader lists are more appropriate. There are many broad lists like List of Elks buildings and List of octagon houses which now include mostly NRHP-listed places, but it is better they not be defined narrowly, better that they can include other obviously notable ones. By the way, it is kinda poor, IMO, that there exists a list-article on NRHP-listed bridges in each U.S. state, poorly connected and overlapping with the corresponding state lists of bridges (sections or split out from List of bridges in the United States); IMO the NRHP ones should be integrated into the state lists. However, it was the interest of one or more editors to create those NRHP ones, and they serve a purpose, so live and let live, until someone actually wants to do the work to make the state lists better. Here, no reason to start with the overly narrowly defined topic. --doncram 16:32, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'll just let the AfD run its course then, If it survives I'm sure it will be come up for AfD again at the present title after it s full of of crap again. Altairisfar 16:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. There may well be unjustified future additions, but that shouldn't be cause for it to come up for AFD again. Hopefully what will happen is that the list will be developed and maintained as a good contribution to Wikipedia. --doncram 16:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Horrible unwikified list. Even if you wikified and deleted all the redlinks, you really aren't adding anything that a category can't do better. Dennis Brown (talk) 23:04, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Enough work has been done to justify a keep. The original was everything a list should not be, this 100% rewrite is literally the equivalent of deleting and starting over, and doing it right. Dennis Brown (talk) 12:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now it is wikified. It was not horrible before; it reflected the interest of an editor (not me) in creating a list on this valid topic. Redlinks are needed and helpful, are not to be deleted. Per wp:CLN, the list is complementary to any category. And it obviously is different in that it includes descriptions, photos, and redlinks or non-linked mentions of churches that do not have separate wikipedia articles. --doncram 11:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reply - There are thousands of Baptist churches in Alabama. What makes the list so notable? Is simply "being" a church enough to pass the bar for inclusion? Why not a List of Burger King restaurants in Alabama? Being a church is not inherently notable. That doesn't mean you can't have articles on NOTABLE churches, or a category for them. But a list of redlinks for churches that are very not likely to be notable (most churches aren't, via wp:gng) is not what lists are for. Dennis Brown (talk) 22:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I hope that you will take a new look, the notability criteria is narrowly defined now, see my keep vote above. Redlinks have no bearing on the Afd process that I know of, but please correct me if I'm wrong? Altairisfar 02:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reply I have changed my !vote due to the current article being the equivalent of a delete and 100% rewrite. Adding the section that explained what was notable about them helped, and can be addressed on the talk page if someone thinks a particular church fails the WP:N test. Limiting the redlinks also helps, although I still have concerns anytime a list is over 50% redlinks. It may be a matter of just needing new articles, or it may be a case that notability doesn't exist, or verification can't be found. In this case, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt. Dennis Brown (talk) 12:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Further to my !vote above, I find that this survey indicates that as of about 11 years ago there were 3,148 Southern Baptist churches in Alabama, plus 20 churches of the Southwide Baptist Fellowship, 147 churches of the Primitive Baptist Fellowship - Old Line, 6 of the Progressive Primitive Baptists, 29 of the Old Missionary Baptists, 165 of the Free Will Baptists, 3 each of the Independent Free Will Baptists Associations and the Reformed Baptists, 37 of the American Baptist Association, 3 of the American Baptist Churches in the USA, 17 of the Baptist Missionary Association of America, 7 of the Interstate & Foreign Landmark Missionary Baptists Association, 26 of the Duck River and Kindred Baptists Associations, plus a few churches of couple of other brands of Baptist that I got too bored to copy the names of. The webpage says that it does not include the "historically African American denominations" (this would include, for example, the National Baptist Conventions) and I notice that it also does not list any Independent Baptist churches.
    My point is that the universe of "Alabama Baptist churches" is very large (I wouldn't be surprised if the state has more Baptist churches than it has elementary schools) and actually rather diverse in scope. If contributors are committed to converting the nominated article into a list of churches with some sort of historical significance, I think it would be in the interest of both users and future contributors to create a title and lead section that clearly (and narrowly) define that scope, so that the list-article doesn't quickly become an unmanageable hodgepodge of disparate items. --Orlady (talk) 21:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All of the rest aside, I do agree on the danger of it becoming a huge laundry list. However, I think the current version that I'm working on may help. The lead statement may need further revision, but it attempts to explain in simple terms what makes one of these notable. I will not finish the full revision in the next few hours however (I'm taking my mother out to dinner for the holiday), but will refine further upon my return. Altairisfar 22:04, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment To be clear, while Altairisfar's development on the historical churches today is clearly very good, Altairisfar's choice to try to limit the list to just historic churches that are listed on the National Register or otherwise, is not binding. This AFD is about whether the list topic is notable, and is not about list inclusion criteria. List inclusion criteria can be left open, can be discussed at the article's Talk page. I think it is obvious that a huge modern Baptist church with a big public presence in Alabama would also be a significant notable church to be included in the list. Say if there is one akin to the Reformed Church in America's Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, California. Any modern, non-historic Baptist church in Alabama that has significant coverage in reliable sources, as could be demonstrated by it having an individual wikipedia article, can be added to this list, IMO. It's good that the list is better quality now; it's good the AFD will be closed as Keep. Just this AFD is not going to be binding on the inclusion criteria for the list at its current name "List of Baptist churches in Alabama". --doncram 03:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is what I meant above by "they must be notable enough for a stand-alone article" unless they are listed on a state or national register. Altairisfar 04:12, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, okay, glad you would accept modern notable ones. That's not what the current lede suggests, i think. It states "This is a list of Baptist churches in the U.S. state of Alabama that are notable because they are National Historic Landmarks (NHL), listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage (ARLH), or are otherwise significant for their history, association with significant events or people, or their architecture and design." That seems very history-focused and seems not to allow for Baptist churches in Alabama that are notable for other reasons, such as merely their huge size or their current-day (not historic) activity. Perhaps you didn't mean it to be as limiting as I read it to be. Again, inclusion criteria can be discussed at the Talk page of the article. --doncram 04:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm done, one way or the other. Altairisfar 06:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Withdrawing my earlier "Delete" and changing to Keep, based on the good job that Doncram and Altairisfar did in repurposing this list-article into . --Orlady (talk) 14:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chronological List of Alabama Baptist Churches and Circuit Preachers in and around Clay County, Alabama 1838-1946

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Help again this time trying to do it right Thanks for the discussion on the article I had put up laballed wrongly. I am going to put up the correct historical list article on my talk page and would like constructive suggestion as to its inclusion. There are some on the list that are actually found on the existing List of Baptist Churches in Alabama or similar title (sorry) and these could be incorporated but as historical researchable information it should all be up. The deleted article is at the bottom of the page so advise on that as well as a proper title. Thanks WayneRay (talk) 20:02, 3 June 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.
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