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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 no consensus. Black Kite (talk) 12:38, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Baháʼí Faith in Chad

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Baháʼí Faith in Chad (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Entire article is based on Baha'i sources. There are only a very few secondary sources that mentions the subject in a trivial fashion. Fails WP:SIGCOV Serv181920 (talk) 10:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. Serv181920 (talk) 10:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. Serv181920 (talk) 10:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Graham Hassall, Moojan Momen, and Peter Smith are professional scholars who have published a number of materials in various professional journals as have others such as those cited. Statistics from demographic encyclopedias (Religious Intelligence, ARDA, Adherents.com) as well as the US State Department show notable population.Smkolins (talk) 11:01, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Compare with Christianity in Chad which is almost completely from a single source from the US State department and two demographic encyclopedias and Islam in Chad which depends on two US Federal sources, one academic and one semi-demographic encyclopedia.Smkolins (talk) 12:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Fine, but this article is almost totally dependent on Baha'i sources only. Adherants.com and Religiousintelligence are both dead websites since years. Not sure how reliable they are? Google search, Google books, Google scholar have nothing on this subject.Serv181920 (talk) 15:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Fine" it is. The *notability* of an article is from such as the above. The *development* of the article is developed with such reliable sources as are available.Smkolins (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This article is absolutely a Baha'i article, supported with Baha'i sources that could be "reliable" for the Baha'is. No secondary sources, in any language have anything on this subject. WP:SIGCOV states : "Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability.... "Sources" should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability." And none of your sources are "Independent of the subject".Serv181920 (talk) 07:10, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Not true:
* Religious Intelligence
* The Association of Religion Data Archives
* U.S. State Department (3 different times)
* Religion professional journal
* The Edmonton Journal newspaper
* Adherents.com
are independent sources. Period. Smkolins (talk) 12:42, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this subject can be evaluated based on a Google search in English. One of the main criticisms of Wikipedia is its consistent bias coming from young white anglophone male, technically-inclined editors. Chad is one of the least developed countries in the world, not an anglophone country, and lacks a system of universities and publishing that give notability to obscure topics like Mary Ellis grave and Bristol stool scale. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 16:32, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: I'm not sure why this was nominated. I have a copy of World Christian Encyclopedia (2001) and for Baha'is in Chad it estimates 80,000 in 2000 and says: "Rapid expansion to 50 local spiritual assemblies by 1973, with 3,500 active members and a school at Gassi. Thereafter, however, growth became explosive, rising by 1996 to 437 organized LSAs." Coverage from Baha'i scholars with academic credentials and independent publishers seems significant. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 16:14, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Any country with a reasonably large representation of a worldwide religion should be susceptible to supporting an article on that religion in that country. This example does not seem at all out of bounds. If there are concerns about the quality or independence of sources, tag them for better sources being needed. BD2412 T 16:29, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SIGCOV says : "Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability.... "Sources" should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability." And none of the sources used in the article are "Independent of the subject".Serv181920 (talk) 07:15, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Not true:
* Religious Intelligence
* The Association of Religion Data Archives
* U.S. State Department (3 different times)
* Religion professional journal
* The Edmonton Journal newspaper
* Adherents.com
are independent sources. Period. Smkolins (talk) 12:44, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – All the independent sources have mentioned Baha'is in a trivial manner only. Smith and Momen do not mention Chad, and Hassall gives one sentence in a non-scholarly online source. World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) says the number of Baha'is in Chad is 80,300 (2000) and 96,845 (2005). However, as noted at Baháʼí Faith by country, Margit Warburg, perhaps the foremost expert on Baha'is, writes that WCE's Baha'i numbers are unreliable and exaggerated. Religious Intelligence (2007) mentions that there are 80,335 Baha'is, though it doesn't appear to be a scholarly source. Given that WCE and Religious Intelligence are not reliable sources and they tend to be vastly higher than census figures of Baha'is reported by the UN Statistics Division (see Baháʼí Faith by country#Adherents by country), we should not assume there is a major Baha'i population in Chad without a better source. The US State Department says nothing except that there is a "small" Baha'i community. Then another non-academic source includes this: "Baha’i weekly prayer meetings in French are held on Saturday afternoons at the Baha’i Center, as are regular meetings." Adherents.com is dead and not peer-reviewed.

With all that said, perhaps the page should be kept but trimmed down, on the basis that it is a world religion represented in Chad. No opinion on the final decision. Gazelle55 (talk) 00:57, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - on the point of "Smith and Momen do not mention Chad" - the uses of the article are two:
  • "The community of Chad avoided being banned as part of a sweep across several Sub-Saharan countries."
Note that Niger *is* listed and is immediately to the west of Chad.
  • "The religion entered a new phase of activity when a message of the Universal House of Justice dated 20 October 1983 was released."
This is a scholarly source for a point which is then expanded upon in the following section about activities of the type.
As for "Hassall gives one sentence in a non-scholarly online source" I'm confused - he's used twice. There are two mentions of Chad in the same source. It's not just one sentence. See under
and
As for if this is a "non-scholarly" I think that's debatable. Looks scholarly to me - has sources for the summary he published.
Smkolins (talk) 13:22, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I agree with pretty much everyone. Yes, only bahaï sources are cited and yes, in and of itself, the subject is notable. However, this looks to me like a case of WP:TNT. It is very unlikely at this stage that anyone will put in the effort to thoroughly clean the article and remove all the non-notable, non-NPOV, non-RS content. We better start over. JBchrch (talk) 20:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment New sources are always to be considered to improve the article. There is no objection to Baha'i or non-Baha'i sources. Certainly none were ignored attempting to write the article using non-Baha'i and Baha'i sources that were properly published. I hope new sources are included. Please note some sources refer to the generality of Africa or sub-Saharan or Arab-African countries and were limited to brief mentions in those regards. Obviously "only baha'i sources" is incorrect. Everyone has agreed non-Baha'i sources are used. Let's find ways to improve the article and there's nothing wrong with using sources in responsible ways. As for WCE please note the scholarly review of their information from other sources which actually counter Wargit's pov in that they over-estimate Christians and thus under-report other groups as a general rule in the section immediately above the commentary about the Baha'is - by all means look up the papers. World_Christian_Encyclopedia#Reception Smkolins (talk) 22:59, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment and to be explicit, "only bahaï sources are cited" is incorrect. A list of independent sources used in the article are listed above and expanded on below available for further work.Smkolins (talk) 12:55, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - further to independent sources:
  • "Graber, Geraldine Louise". The Province. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 24 Mar 2011. p. 86.
  • "Chadian Faith Leaders welcome Chargé Davis Ba". Africanews.com. Sep 12, 2019.
  • Gala M. Pierce (13 Jan 2002). "Aurora college student to talk about his adventure in Africa". Daily Herald (DuPage ed.). Arlington Heights, IL. p. 3. When Ian Blood of Aurora took a 10-month Baha'i youth service trip to the African nation of Chad last year, he missed luxuries such as electricity, air conditioning and running water. Blood contacted other Baha'is in Chad to see if he could be of use. He said there are thousands who practice the Baha'i faith in Chad. "It was the second private radio station (in Chad) to receive a license," Blood said. "Freedom of the press is really a new thing in Chad." Smkolins (talk) 12:52, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I disagree. Some are brief, more or less, but they are not trivial. Service of people in Chad and some projects of what they did and also of the indigenous Baha'is and what they did. Smkolins (talk) 17:51, 12 April 2021 (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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