Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flower of Life (2nd nomination)

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 Consensus to delete due to a lack of notability. Chillum 20:44, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Flower of Life

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Drunvalo Melchizedek invented this neologism to describe a particular design he seems to like. It is not acknowledged to have relevance outside of his ideas. Much of the article is in violation of original research prohibitions and the subject lacks notability. In particular, there do not seem to be independent sources which describe this as being an actual encyclopedic topic. jps (talk) 14:43, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

~~Neutral~~Weak Delete - Hmmmm.... This one is a toughy. A number of books out there cover this topic (granted most are from Melchizedek, but there are a significant number of mentions in other sources). Most of the sources on this topic are "New Age" religious in scope. While they don't really strike me as "high quality" RS, it's hard to completely discount them. This article has been around for quite a while and attracts a number of views. I know that's not a rationale for or against delet\ion, but it suggests we consider this cautiously. NickCT (talk) 14:58, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I think if you look into all the books you will find that they are written by acolytes or erstwhile believers in Drunvalo Melchizedek's channeling of Thoth. This means that there is essentially no source that is independent enough on which to establish notability or neutrally write about this fringe theory. jps (talk) 17:19, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - Perhaps, but isn't the requirement for notability simply that a lot of people have written about a thing? I don't think it matters whether those people are acolytes or not. Once a fringe theory gains enough popularity, doesn't it deserve an article (e.g. Alien abduction)? NickCT (talk) 17:27, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - It's not just a lot of sources. Reliability means that we need to find independent sources otherwise we will never be able to write the neutral article. This is why the notability guideline for fringe theories includes WP:FRIND. Unlike alien abduction, there simply are no independent sources written about this subject. For alien abduction, there are actually a large number of sources written about the subject by non-believers including psychologists, UFO-debunkers and astronomers, sociologists, and even literary critics. jps (talk) 17:35, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - NickCT No, a lot of people writing about it is not sufficient. It must have received significant coverage in secondary sources. The concept of alien abduction has been well-covered in secondary sources. —Мандичка^YO 😜 17:40, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      - @Wikimandia and I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc: - Ok fair enough. Secondary sources are tough to come across admittedly. Shifting position to Weak Delete. Still a bit surprised that this article managed to survive so long, and that it gets so many visitors. NickCT (talk) 20:28, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        @NickCT: - I'm actually not that surprised it gets good traffic. It's not an outrageous amount (nowhere near top 5,000 I'm guessing) and there's a ton of people into New Age thinking/study who are trying to find the meaning of life and all that. His entire movement is based on the symbol being the center of the universe, and he writes about it being an ancient secret, along the lines of the Da Vinci Code: His book summary on Amazon: "Now we are rising up from that sleep, shaking old, stale beliefs from our minds and glimpsing the golden light of this new dawn streaming through the windows of perception. This book is one of those windows." People eat that up. —Мандичка^YO 😜 21:10, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete - notability is dubious and true subject is unclear; article is full of original research/synthesis. Author leads article with the unreferenced statement, "New Age writers associate the Flower of Life with symbols and decorative motifs from cultures throughout history," followed by all the known places somewhat similar symbols have occurred throughout history, crediting Melchizedek for most of it, and some other similar symbols that Melchizedek calls the "Egg of Life" and "Fruit of Life." Other references are very weak, including "Many New Age websites use this phrase as does the Dallas, Texas architect Stephen B. Chambers." —Мандичка^YO 😜 17:32, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - if you take a look at the previous AfD, the subject of this article's notability was never established. "Keep. These are pretty" is one person's rationale. —Мандичка^YO 😜 17:34, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Lol. Peter Damian (talk) 19:04, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - no evidence that this neologism has gained traction outside of a fringe --_nonsense ferret 17:54, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The search mentioned above returns only (1) some early 20C books on an entirely different subject (2) A Wikipedia digest containing the same article and (3) Melchizedek's own work. Peter Damian (talk) 19:02, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or Merge. Some of the information in this article seems valuable and could possibly be merged with another related article. By itself, the article doesn't seem to meet Wikipedia's criteria for WP:N. Ormr2014 | Talk — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ormr2014 (talk • contribs)
Keep any information about the geometrical figure and its history, delete any dubiously sourced material on religion and the like. Pishcal — ♣ 14:10, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and shorten, 1 to Pishcal’s statement before. This is the way the German w:de:Blume des Lebens did survive the deletion discussion. (It was kept on the base that "Blume des Lebens" is found as naming for jewellery etc. also outside of esoterics.) Shorten the introduction to a pure description of the figure, keep the "Occurrences" section", delete the "Sacted Geometry" and "Composition" sections completely. -- Karl432 (talk) 16:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I just did such a shortening, near to the "stubifying" proposed by the following statement by Shii. (If, surprisingly to me, the deletion decision would be to keep the full article in the version active when starting this discussion, my shortening easily can be reverted.) -- Karl432 (talk) 10:07, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
~~Stubify~~ The article as it stands is based on untrustworthy sources and misleading to readers. But I am confident that this subject is notable enough that trustworthy sources can be found, in religious studies publications or similar. Shii (tock) 22:08, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't it behove you to show us these sources so that we can all be confident of this? Nobody can give much weight to an argument that suggests there must be sources because of the warm glow you get in your tummy when you think about the subject. --_nonsense ferret 21:39, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm actually creeped out by the thing, but I assumed someone must have written about it. I did an extensive check today and it seems I'm wrong, so change my !vote to ~~delete~~ Shii (tock) 02:33, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I change it again, because of the rewrite that located sources. Weak keep Shii (tock) 10:26, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, misleading and innacuracies. The flower of life is not completed, and I think it'd be more relevant to put the fact that the actual symbol has been around for thousands of years and used by ancient civilizations and perhaps a clearer notion of what it actually represents to people rather than the fact that the name for it was 'coined' by Drunvalo recently who threw some claims behind it, this and geometric patterns of the like have been used in mathematics, in the creation of ancient architecture and sculptures, throughout nature, sound, etc. Also there's a flower of life design on an ossuary in the ROM from Jerusalem dating back to 100BC-100AD that I've seen, stating the 6-pointed rosettes were commonly depicted on them. From what I've seen online, like X, they date back to over 1000 BCE. KATRINA 8:37, 29 May 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.156.200.57 (talk)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:21, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, with cleanup which has been somewhat done. This article is good information from RSes, though it has been said that it needs more secondary sources. People have commented here, linking to the important core policies of Wikipedia which describe the criteria of encyclopedic content as is provided by secondary sources. Thanks for doing that, and for having already cleaned it up. This content is good and plentiful and well established, the subject is important and popular, and it needs to be preserved somewhere even if it was merged like with a biography of Drunvalo Melchizedek. WP:NORUSH and optimistic eventualism in this case. Deletionism sucks; deletion is not an answer to fixable issues, and AfD is not a valid (even if sometimes coincidental) basic method of attempting to explore or establish them. The talk page is. Thanks! — Smuckola (talk) 05:31, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The sourcing is almost decent now but it still leans dangerously towards WP:OR. How do we know Melchizedek's symbol is a notable thing? Well, we have Schneider 2009, but otherwise it's just a bunch of other random people saying it's interesting, even a TV show. Shii (tock) 10:25, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the notability, e.g. enter "Flower of Life" in a Google "shopping" search. You see several offers by different mail-order companies, not all related to esoterics. This proves the use of the term outside of Melchizedek's follower circles (and was an argument for keeping the German article). -- Karl432 (talk) 11:50, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete There is no question that this is a design that appears in multiple places throughout history -- and that shouldn't be surprising since it's something one can easily come up with using a compass or copying a set of circles. As a common design, however, it has not risen to its own notability (c.f. the Swastika, which has appeared throughout history, being a relatively easy design to come up with independently). It's really just another Pattern. Therefore the only remaining possible notability is its meaning in the New Age religious sense, but this seems to have limited adherence and no RS. LaMona (talk) 16:27, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, this is a neologism for a well understood geometric pattern that dates back to before my school was founded. That's over a thousand years. Guy (Help!) 23:16, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Neologisms can be notable in and of themselves. Shii (tock) 00:01, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thank you for noting that obvious fact, Shii. It illustrates the fact that several people have valid (to varying degrees of relevancy) observations about the general subject, but their conclusions may be drastically inappropriate. That is just one of the votes for deletion which was not even a relevant vote. This article has been subject to gratuitous deletionism, even if just by having initially (wrongly) framed it as a deletion instead of as a simple discussion and call to action, whereas there are so many actual possible valid courses of action. This is like asking the military "which country should we invade next?" — Smuckola (talk) 00:12, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - There's no deletionism going on here. We're simply following WP policy. This is WP:FRINGE and has not been covered extensively in reliable secondary sources. This is the most-used source and it's completely self-published. I'm not sure why you judge our conclusions to be "drastically inappropriate." The other is a German symbol dictionary that is offline, the other is an incomplete reference to a Sci Fi Channel presentation (What is the date it aired? Where can we see it?) and the final one is from 1904 and as such does not cover the concept of the Flower of Life. —Мандичка^YO 😜 09:00, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      - You don't understand policy. WP:FRINGE doesn't mean we don't describe pseudoscience, it means we demarcate it as such. Shii (tock) 09:03, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        I understand policy. I especially understand that part right on top where it very specifically states fringe ideas (like this) must meet the test of notability, which is apparently lost on some people who like pretty designs. I've reviewed the sources below, one of which was complete crap. Are you really serious about saying this article meets GNG? —Мандичка^YO 😜 09:37, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Ymblanter (talk) 07:20, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - this article has five sources. First, obviously, Melchizedek, who is a primary source. Second, a self-published website that I cannot see passing as WP:RS. Then there was the reference to the SciFi channel program - I found it on YouTube and it says nothing whatsoever about these symbols or even the Great Osiris Temple, but is entirely about the Sphynx. So that's a total fail. Then there is the mention in the German dictionary of symbols, that is offline, and no page is even cited. We need WP:VERIFIABILITY - is it even discussing the Flower of Life or just the symbols themselves? Additionally this reference is used one time to support the statement that the Flower of Life was not a term previously used. Finally there is the work from 1904 that obviously says nothing whatsoever about the "Flower of Life" concept. So I really would like to know how anyone could possibly claim, based on these references, that this topic meets the WP:GNG. —Мандичка^YO 😜 09:31, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree with your assessment of the other sources, but are you saying that an academic source is unverifiable if you can't find a PDF copy on the Internet? Shii (tock) 10:30, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - The point is that it is more than plausible considering the promotionalism from which this article suffers that German dictionary doesn't mention the "Flower of Life" at all since there is no page number nor a quote. Wikipedia:Resource Request might be able to help. jps (talk) 12:27, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - Shii no, I tend to WP:AGF whenever it's reasonable, but because of the other sources being essential non-existent, everything relies on this one source. And even then, it is only used to reference one relatively minor fact. (And it may not have even mentioned the term "Flower of Life" - maybe all it said was "this pattern has no name" which was synthesised into "Nobody has ever used the term 'Flower of Life' for this pattern"). I also have to wonder if these sources were taken right out of Melchizedek's book in violation of WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. The video was right there on YouTube since 2009, why wasn't it linked? It's just weird to me. But even if it were just a mislabeled episode title from honest error, that reference is only used to support the date of the ancient carvings at the temple, not anything to do with the Flower of Life theory itself. —Мандичка^YO 😜 12:50, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
delete A pattern rediscovered by every person who picks up a compass doesn't need an article under some fringey "authority"'s name. Mangoe (talk) 13:13, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- The point is that it's notable as a fringe theory and has been picked up in hundreds of New Agey sources, although I was unable to find a secondary source describing those sources. A crucifix is a simple design but it's notable. Shii (tock) 06:09, 23 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - If there are no sources written about this from the perspective of how this particular design has become the inspiration symbol of these hundreds of New Age writers, then it is not Wikipedia's place to start an article on the subject. We need those secondary sources to write a Wikipedia article. Eventually, some academics might come and write on the cultural phenomenology (just as they have for the crucifix) and then we can properly write the article. On the other hand, it may happen that the idea never grows beyond this parochial industry. The article is simply running on fumes right now before it is even possible for it to be substantively curated. jps (talk) 12:47, 23 May 2015 (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.