Articles that are in bad shape – these can be tagged for cleanup or attention, or improved through editing.
Articles we are not interested in – some topics are of interest only to some people, but since Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, articles that interest some people should be kept.
Articles on topics you wish didn't exist for personal belief reasons – Wikipedia contains information on all topics, not just those which any person or group agrees with.
The "Delete" votes in this debate seem to reflect primarily the very reasoning that is NOT to be used in the decision process -- including disparaging the beliefs of those voting "'Keep", and asserting a demand for an unobtainable level of notoriety.
2. This AFD framed the deletion debate with misleading and inaccurate information
By using derogatory language to describe the article's sources. "Hardly any coverage in sources outside Meher-baba-universe (i.e. website of his trustee, publications by in-house presses of his follower associations, biography-cum-hagiography written by one of his closest cult-associates et al)"
In case you don't want to read all 80,000+ words : Kalchuri, Glow, etc. were sources found to be acceptable for matters of observable fact (dates, places, times) etc. Not OK for asserting statements better qualified as elements of faith (i.e, ok as a ref for "That evening Baba said there is no hell", not as ref for "There is no such thing as hell.")
But this language is highly troublesome, because it states with no evidence that the content is cult-related, and casts doubt on the integrity of the sources, and effectively on the integrity of those defending the sources. Do Keepers want to be identified with this 'cult'?
In fact some editors felt that it was necessary to say explicitly that they are not in 'the cult.'
How many potential Keep commenters walked away or changed their votes for fear of being identified with a 'cult'?
Framing the AFD with these inaccurate presumptions negated unbiased consideration of the article, and votes to KEEPor delete should be looked at critically before closing.
Additionally, by saying that article "Fails WP:NEVENT by a few miles or so."
As the content and references show, the article's subject is not an "Event." It is a spiritual observance.
It has been categorized as a 'Religious Holiday', a sub-sub-category of Events (Events:Religious Events:Religious Holidays). However, none of the articles in this Sub-Sub category would pass WP:NEVENT, a guideline that is specifically geared to addressing events in the news, like a hurricane or mass shooting. Articles in the religious holiday Sub-Sub category are about recurring religious observances, not typically do not reference news items.
Finally by blanking references known to be relevant
Within in 2 minutes of creating this AFD, the nominator removed the references that had been added as part of the "'Keep" decision previous AFD discussion, and one specifically noted by the closer in support of his decision to Keep. (see item 4, below)
The editing reason for deleting that source was "LOL; op-eds and commentary-sections ain't RS" FYI, no discussion was included in the article talk page or the AFD to support this doubtful assertion. There is no specific guideline stating that references to a religious observance are irrelevant if they appear in an op-ed.
Because relevant references were missing debating editors were seeing a version that lacked determinant sourcing, and based opinions on an article specifically modified by the nominator to reflect his 'inadequate sourcing' assertions.
3. The specific concerns about Keep-ing originally enumerated by the nominator were addressed and remedied
Asked to for specifics, nominator asserted that "No source covers in details about his' followers maintaining a parallel silence on that very day in his remembrance (which this article is 'about) and like stuff"
But that is not the case: there are numerous sources for this. This objection was remedied in my article revisions (see refs 4, 5, 6, and article's final quote).
This is an example of how this AFD is improperly being used to deal with an improvable article.
4. This AFD is simply an attempt to re-litigate the earlier "'Keep" finding
While no significant changes had occurred following the original Keep AFD of this article, it was renominated. No consquential additional reasons were included in the re-nom.
It may be relevant that the initial AFD was part of a purge of 12 Meher Baba related pages. Most ended with delete or merge decisions -- and Silence Day escaped with a rare "'Keep."
Note the language and rationale for those en mass deletions::
"Part of a walled garden around Meher Baba.Nukable mess. This t/p thread may provide some backgound aspects on the issue." In that discusssion, the nominator says "what kind of whacko does write a biography of every person whose sole claim to fame is limited to being mentioned...as someone close to Meher Baba?!" [You can see that discussion here,]
However, that AFD was closed thus:
"Keep - the latter of those sources doesn't specifically aid the article's independent notability, but the original [i.e, the newspaper reference blanked by the nominator], as well as the other sources available do. I feel there is sufficient coverage (and probably much more in other languages) for this to be an independent article. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:45, 18 May 2018 (UTC)"
Again, none of the article sources had been changed, challenged, or removed when this second AFD was listed. No new reasons for the current AFD were given, except for the irrelevant assertion that it fail WP:NEVENT, a guideline that does not logically apply, and has not been applied, to articles of this Religous Holiday category.
It might be concluded that the sole reason for this AFD is the nominator's hope to get a more personally favorable outcome. I see no evidence to support any other reason for this AFD.
Venue shopping is not a behavior to be encouraged.
[Note: because of the mass deletion of relevant articles, links to Silence Day have been lost, creating a sense that is a sort of 'walled garden' article that needs addtional links. It used to have some. Editors of newly merged Baba articles should have time to relink to Silence Day.]
Concerning the relevance of "On this day..." I think this question is a reasonable matter for editors to discuss on a talk page. Its relevance has been raised in both this and the previous AFD, with different opinions. However, the matter is not essential to establishing that this article has met all relevant criteria as a "'Keep."
COI Disclosure: I have been a follower of the teachings of Meher Baba for 40 years. I was a leading participant in the debates concerning Reliability of Sources of Meher Baba material. I have come to believe that some sources deemed reliable via the outcome of those debates should be re-evaluated based on new information, but unless and until they are, I believe those sources may continue to be used as reliable sources.
