Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Masonic ritual and symbolism

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. Whether the article should remain stand-alone or be merged or redirected to the section of freemasonry is a matter for talk pages. Stifle (talk) 09:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Masonic ritual and symbolism

Masonic ritual and symbolism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

When this was created at the end of August, I was concerned that the article was going to be a POV fork, and it seems I was right. After almost a month has passed, the only difference to this article as compared to the section in Freemasonry it was taken from (Freemasonry#Ritual, symbolism, and morality) is the addition of a "Controversy" section detailing the objection to Freemasonry by certain Christian denominations (which was put in on the same day it was forked). The question of Freemasonry and Christianity has two entire articles devoted to it already; it does not need a third directing people to nothing but more controversy to SOAPBOX or make a POINT. MSJapan (talk) 04:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Redirect to the original section it was derived from. My inclination is that taking this away from the main freemasonry page creates a need for substantial context, essentially duplicating the parent article in a way which is disproportionate in comparison to the unique content. There is some potential value in future, but the volume of unique content does not support the separation at this time. My assessment of the creation, and subsequent activities, is that it does serve as a vehicle to imply much, but substantiate little. It essentially exploits the gaps between policies and guidelines to create a POV fork, and provide a vehicle to support the migration of material from unreliable (and frequently inaccurate) sources. In addition the various criticisms are already discussed in a multitude of other articles created as part of the growth of that aspect of the topic.ALR (talk) 11:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Merge back into the main article from whence it came. There is some value in the content of the article, but not worth a separate article. And the controversy section could be added/merged into main article, and this section seems to be the only reason for the separation from main article (To keep it out of the limelight so to speak). Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 13:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Redirect back to Freemasonry#Ritual, symbolism, and morality. I wish we could have an article on this topic (it is a fascinating topic that many people will want to read about), unfortunately there is a problem with any article on Masonic ritual that must be considered... it isn't uniform. There is no single "Masonic Ritual"... instead there are many different Masonic rituals. This means that we can not really expand the article beyond the very broad generalizations that were copied over from the main Freemasonry article. We can not expand the article to discuss the details of "Masonic Ritual and Symbolism", since any statement based upon one ritual will not accuratly reflect the facts of another ritual. We can not even do compare and contrast type statements, as there is simply too many variations to consider. As for the controversy, this is already discussed in the Freemasonry article, as well as in multiple other articles (it is discussed at Anti-Masonry, Christianity and Freemasonry, and Catholicism and Freemasonry, all of which are pointed to in the main Freemasonry article). In fact, I am beining to think that we give Anti-masonic claims undue weight here on Wikipedia... not in any given article, but project wide... by the sheer number of articles devoted to such claims. I am thinking that some consolidation may be called for. But that is an issue for another day. Blueboar (talk) 15:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• Redirect back to its parent, merging as necessary. This is a tragic example of an article title for which a competent, quality article could be imagined, but for which we have nothing of the sort. As related commentary -- an evaluation of the Freemasonry articles as a collective whole is probably a good idea. Blueboar's concerns about subtle POV creep across multiple titles in articlespace seems, on its face, warranted. Serpent's Choice (talk) 18:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• Redirect As per ALR and Blueboar. Ecoleetage (talk) 00:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The discussion is still under way. There are a variety of Masonic sources, dictionnaries, encyclopediae, reference works, that do find a way of adressing the variety of masonic ritual and symbolism. They might be considered usefull source material for Wikipedia. The subject is now taken hostage by the absurd sofistry of some self styled guardians. There are a variety of symbols in common that have not yet found their place in the article. Of course if one such a guardian has it that "Freemasons do not actually have "symbols"..." (sic -see article discussion) then there is little left to say.

Lunarian (talk) 09:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Lunarian takes my comment about Freemasonry not having symbols out of context... what I was commenting on was that Freemasonry talks about emblems, not symbols. There is a subtle difference between the two terms (see the article on Emblem if you are interested). The fact that we are having a discussion about the terminology has no impact on this AfD. Blueboar (talk) 13:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment: A further review odf the discussion will also show that Lunarian is being very disruptive as regards this article. He quotes from sources, but in quite a number of weeks has not stated what point these sources support, despite being asked directly to do so, and does not apply RS to said sources. He has also not stated what the point of the rambling discussion on the artice talk page is; it's certainly got nothing to do with article improvement, because no one has made a single edit to it in weeks, not even Lunarian. MSJapan (talk) 14:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

MSJ, I take it with the territory when you make wild accusations against me but please stop trying to poison the well on this subject. I could point out how four of the nominees are FreemasonsJASpencer (talk) 23:15, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I edited just now.

Please compare with discussion (Blueboar's POV)

Lunarian (talk) 11:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The subject is clearly notable as Masonic rituals have been practiced at some time by millions of men (and quite a few women), that some Masonic symbols have arguably seeped out into popular culture and Masonic ritual is mentioned in detail in various sources such as Pierre's initiation in War and Peace. I'd prefer if this was in two seperate articles, but that's not a reason to delete. JASpencer (talk) 23:15, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Yes, Masonic ritual has been practiced by many people. However, it's not all the same ritual, so there's no way to generalize - anything that can be found about a ritual is only pertinent to that ritual. Now, because there is no standard ritual, there is also no standard set of symbols (or emblems or what-have-you). All of those points have been stated in discussion. We may have a fascinating topic, but there is absolutely nothing encyclopedic that we can say about it that hasn't already been addressed in the main article. An article on ritual needs to address ritual content directly, and it can't because the content is different. If we want to talk about what ritual teaches, that's principles, not ritual, and is more covered elsewhere in the main Freemasonry article. Similarly, the material in War and Peace will be representative of an English translation of the Russian used by Tolstoy, which may or may not be an accurate representation of what went on; there is such a thing as artistic license. There are simply too many variables involved to write an article on rituals, not the least of which is that they do change over time. Furthermore, to sidestep the issue by writing articles on particular rituals requires that those rituals be notable, and there's no objective way to ascertain that - most people know there's a ritual for every jurisdiction and obedience, and that's as far as it goes. MSJapan (talk) 04:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

But that's a reason for putting a tag or two on the article not for deleting it. Christian heresies are many and varied but they are a recognisable sub group with their own artilc. Besides individual sections on rituals (or an expanded listing of those rituals) would sort that particular problem out. JASpencer (talk) 08:04, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The comparison is apples and oranges, because to be a heretic you need to diverge from a standard, and that standard simply does not exist in Masonic ritual. So there's no basis to even do what you say can be done. What it does show is a total lack of knowledge of the subject. What is not in doubt is that you broke the article out and did nothing but POV fork it into something you could put Christian criticism into, because apparently two whole articles wasn't enough. All these claims of things that could be done are moot because you didn't do them and didn't even try to do them in a month. The very concern I addressed with LHvU when you started this is exactly what has come to pass.

However, in the interests of fairness, let's address some of your particulars: "individual sections on rituals" - How? Many of them are in mnemonic codes, and some aren't even written down. If you don't know it already or know someone to ask, it's very likely whatever one thinks it is is wrong. Between the US and UK, there are over 100 rituals in use in mainstream Freemasonry alone, and that's not counting any of these other little groups that we would have to incorporate to meet NPOV. So as I see it, you would like a repository with a plain-test list of the content of hundreds of pages of ritual books here on WP that I or another WP:FM editor is going to need to ask hundreds of people to do, because that's the only way the topic is going to get addressed within the context of the article. That is an absurd and impossible task, and not appropriate to WP. The assumptions made about the topic are fundamentally flawed. MSJapan (talk) 14:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. It's an odd feeling to look at an AfD and find a well-reasoned, apparently-balanced, fully sourced, illustrated and cogent article like this one. The legitimate points above, about the local differences in ritual, that can easily be accommodated in the article, I think. --Lockley (talk) 06:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment. I received this message on my talk page, and wanted to reproduce it here as part of this debate:

Just as an indicator of the "local differences" you claims are easy to be overcome, every jurisdiction has its own version of the ritual. That means there are 50 in the US alone. In England, there has never been a standard set. As a result, there are at least 47 different Masonic rituals in use at last count. That, also, is simply the rituals in use by lodges in the UGLE branch. There's also the Grand Orient de France branch, the Prince Hall branch, the Co-Masonry branch, and each group's individual version of the Scottish Rite and York Rite components. There's also the Swedish Rite, Rectified Rite, and probably a few others I can't call to mind, not all of which are even in English. So I would ask that you perhaps reconsider the ease of which the problem can be surmounted. MSJapan (talk) 14:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

To me, this is fair comment about the differences in Masonic ritual worldwide, apparently factual, and btw interesting. So this should be included in wikipedia somewhere. I agree it would be "absurd and impossible" to fully explain each individual ritual. But I still believe it would be quite easy, and valuable, to modify this article to mention these variations, in a paragraph similar to this quoted paragraph. --Lockley (talk) 15:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Lockley, a statement about the differences in Masonic ritual wourld wide is included in Wikpipedia... in the main Freemasonry aricle. This is yet another reason why the ritual and symbolism article should be deleted and redirected to Freemasonry. It is redundant. There is nothing that this article can say that is not better said at the main Freemasonry article. Blueboar (talk) 16:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• Keep: Valid and well-sourced article. I am puzzled about the SOAPBOX accusation, I haver no idea how this article has anything to do with SOAPBOX. The article describes an important aspect of a particular group and it is a valid topic. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's to do with the fact that there is a two sentence controversy section. JASpencer (talk) 14:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• Merge to the Freemasonry article. There is a reason why we use categories. Ottre 14:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Question. Sorry I can't understand the connection between categories and this article. JASpencer (talk) 14:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• Redirect per User:Blueboar, and especially User:Serpent's Choice.--Vidkun (talk) 22:28, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

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.