Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blastus

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 keep. (non-admin close) Secret ^account 01:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Blastus[edit]

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Though this individual is a biblical character, without provide additional scholarship which verifies the individual's importance (i.e. Reliable secondary sources which deal with the individual), this individual is not notable. The New Testament isn't so important in a scholarly/encyclopedic sense as to warrant articles on each named minor individual. A list perhaps, which contains individuals in said book, but not individual articles Sadads (talk) 20:00, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The Bible and Qu'ran are significant enough, and covered by so many sources, that any person mentioned in either will be the subject of significant coverage (17,400 hits on Google Books alone, and while some are false-positives most aren't), and even a cursory look shows that there's clearly enough material about him for a substantive biography. There's even a book about the man. – iridescent 20:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So talk about his relevance in the article! Don't just state it with a inconsequential citation to a primary source (the Bible).Sadads (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The book isn't about him, No Comment Secret ^account 00:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Iridescent. There's enough sources as a standalone and he appears in dead tree encyclopedias. Them From Space 20:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

2 lines without context or real world importance. There simply isn't enough scholarship, Sadads (talk) 22:36, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the above. The New Testament isn't so important in a scholarly/encyclopedic sense : is this serious? --Cyclopia ^talk 21:21, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are missing the "every minor named character" part. It is as if I were to suggest that every character in the The Odyssey which has a name and a couple lines in the epic should have an article for himself. Instead the information about the character only makes sense in context of a list of other characters or in the context of the plot/events of the Odyssey. Though I agree he should be talked about somewhere, he does not deserve a whole article, Sadads (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is as if I were to suggest that every character in the The Odyssey which has a name and a couple lines in the epic should have an article for himself. : No reason why such a character shouldn't have an article. --Cyclopia ^talk 22:09, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There has sometimes been reasonable argument over whether each Biblical individual in a long list of names about whom nothing whatever individual is stated is appropriate for a separate article, but this is very far from one of those instances. Another case to show why WP:BEFORE should be required. For those who think common sense is an adequate substitute, here's a counter-example. (And, yes, we'd use the same argument for the Odyssey as well ) DGG ( talk ) 21:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Again, not common sense: nothing links to Blastus anywhere in Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Blastus) and a search of Wikipedia shows nothing about him (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=blastus&fulltext=1). The Google books search returns singular mentions in most of the books, with little contextual discussion except that he provides the example of a person drawn into "falling". Their is certainly not enough to write a bio. Again, you can't prove notability by simply checking how many returns you get from Google. Write me three 4-6 sentence paragraphs on him and put him in scholarly context and I would bow, but this is absolutely ridiculous, he simply isn't important, I am pretty sure their is no good way to do that.Sadads (talk) 22:36, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep - invalid reasons for deletion, completely lacking sense. Bearian (talk) 02:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
keep - a key figure in a minor, but important, Biblical narrative, and the subject of considerable scholarship over the centuries. Thparkth (talk) 02:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Merge and redirect to section which is relevant - He should be integrated into the article of the narrative of the story, like any other individual that is notable for only one event, not a whole article by himself, merge, move it, do something, it is just not notable enough for his own article. It's like the various national guard members involved in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal, they would be otherwise non-notable if they had not been involved in the activity (and most of their articles have been merged into the main one). similarly Blastus is non-notable unless you group him with Herod and the episode he participated in, the story is notable the characters not so much. We treat individual characters in novels and fiction the same way, unless of course they are the focus of a considerable body of work, like Spiderman (which, I point out again, Blastus is not). Note how the article is talking more about Herod's death and less about Blastus, —Sadads (talk) 02:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. —Sadads (talk) 02:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. —Sadads (talk) 02:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. —Sadads (talk) 02:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Iridescent. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep One, there's proof that reliable secondary sources exist. Two, AFD is not a tool to demand improvements. That's what request the talk page and WP:CHRISTIAN are for. Write me three 4-6 sentence paragraphs and I'll bow doesn't make a collaborative volunteer atmosphere. Actually I'm more than happy to edit the article but given the context of your demands, it's like I'm bowing to your will instead so I won't. See this afd where the nom was nice enough not to demand stuff and actually volunteered to close the afd on his own.--Lenticel ^(talk) 03:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Plenty of GB and GS hits. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 07:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. A handy rule of thumb is this: people who lived before the Gutenberg era are notable if their names were written down in a text that's been preserved. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Bearian (talk) 15:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep -- Willthacheerleader18 (talk) 00:00, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Per Iridescent and Lenticel. Joaquin008 ^(talk) 06:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Given that all !votes are "keep", this looks like WP:SNOW. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 07:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- This is a very minor Biblical character, but if I understand correctly the incident in which he is recorded is also mentioned by Josephus. Remove expand tag. There are no more primary sources, so that expansion is impossible save by WP:OR. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:14, 29 August 2010 (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.