Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evangelical Free Baptist Church

Evangelical Free Baptist Church

Evangelical Free Baptist Church (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Minor religious denomination/sect with no claim to notability attributed to a reliable source. I could not find any evidence online that it actually exists as an actual denomination, and not just an individual church. No substantial coverage could be found about the group from the subject itself, let alone from any reliable sources independent of the subject. Tdl1060 (talk) 21:50, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. Standard practice is to keep denominations, which invariably satisfy WP:NONPROFIT. Clicking the "news" link above finds several references to churches within this denomination, and to its world conference. Google searching finds many more churches within this denomination. Cleanup and sourcing is clearly required, but the EFBC are a notable worldwide fundamentalist group. -- 101.119.14.26 (talk) 15:42, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment. Most of the articles found by clicking the news link are not referencing churches affiliated with the denomination. In fact many of these articles are from before the denomination was founded. I could not find any article that indicated that there are any actual churches affiliated with this denomination. --Tdl1060 (talk) 17:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep -- This is a denomination, not a local church. It is not a satisfactory article, and certainly needs improvement. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:58, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment. But is there any reference that can be found to support the claim that it is actually a denomination, or for that matter even an actual church with members, services, etc?--Tdl1060 (talk) 17:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
    • That was the implication that I drew from the text of the article, such as "The group was formed by churches ..." (plural). It may be a small denomination, but a denomination none the less. I have no evidence other than the WP text before me. One ought to believe that the content is true, until the reverse is proved. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:51, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
      • If there is no source for the claim, one shouldn't assume that the content is true, and an unverified claim should not form the basis for an article subject's claim to notability. One does not need to prove that unsourced content is untrue for it to be removed from wikipedia. The burden of proof lies with the one adding the content.--Tdl1060 (talk) 15:23, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
      • What you are essentially saying is that one should assume that anything that someone writes on Wikipedia is true until the reverse is proven. The only evidence that has been found to exist, to show that this is an actual denomination, is that at one point in time someone wrote on Wikipedia that it was. I have yet to see any evidence that there is even a single church affiliated with this group.--Tdl1060 (talk) 15:38, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
• Soft delete or userfy until such time that its status as a denomination of more than a few churches can be shown to be reflected in reliable sources OR it otherwise meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:56, 4 October 2013 (UTC) Can't decide: Recently added reference put me on the edge between "keep" and "delete." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:17, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment on sourcing there is a source listed at the end, so it is unfair to say that anything in the article is not sourced without going to the considerable effort of obtaining a copy of that source and reading through it or making a reasonable guess that a source with that title would not have the information that is in the article. Having said that, the source is NOT a WP:RS so it's useless for determining notability. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:35, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
  • For the claims in question, that source clearly violates WP:SELFPUB in that it is used as the only source in the article and it is used to support important claims that are not covered by any other source. Furthermore, there is virtually no way for anyone to verify whether the claims in the article are supported by that source, and since there were significant changes to the article since the initial edit where that was given as the source, it is highly questionable that the source (if it indeed actually exists) reflects the current content of the article.--Tdl1060 (talk) 23:56, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Additionally WP:SOURCES state that "source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is "made available to the public in some form". Unpublished materials are not considered reliable.". There is no indication that the source in question has ever been made available to the public in any form. As there is no way of verifying whether any of the content in the article is supported by the document presented as a source, it cannot be used to support any of the article's content. Per WP:BURDEN "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a reliable source that directly supports the material." One should not merely assume that something is true simply because someone has stated on Wikipedia that it is, without presenting any verifiable sources to support their claim.--Tdl1060 (talk) 02:14, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. The denomination certainly exists. It is listed in the U.S.Religious Landscape Survey -- Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic by the Pew Forum, February 2008 [1]; and in Religion in America: A Directory (James V. Geisendorfer, ed., Brill Archive, 1983, p. 62); and in US Government lists of tax-exempt organisations ([2]). I am surprised that the nom did not find these sources. There are also Evangelical Free Baptist groups in India and the UK, although it is not clear whether they are affiliated with the US denomination. -- 101.119.15.179 (talk) 12:29, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Reply. I am not disputing that the organization exists. I know that there is an organization based out of a small house in North Aurora, Illinois by this name. What I am disputing is the notion that it is a denomination by any traditional sense of the word, since there does not appear to be a single church formally affiliated with this organization.--Tdl1060 (talk) 15:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Evangelical Free Baptist Churches certainly exist around the world. The organisation based in North Aurora, Illinois also exists. It seems that the relationship between the two is unclear. I have rewritten the article to focus on the denomination. A merge to Free Will Baptist might be a good solution. -- 101.119.14.213 (talk) 05:21, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. It would help editors to evaluate the sources in the article if they were not deleted. -- 101.119.15.204 (talk) 02:07, 8 October 2013 (UTC)