RationalWiki:Articles for demotion/Jesus myth theory

Jesus myth theory | Result: No consensus, so status quo prevails for now

Jesus myth theory (edit|talk|history|protect|delete|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

No brainstar

1. This page has an overreliance on Richard Carrier for sources, and as such is likely significantly problematic - a disqualifier for bronze. However, owing to how controversial this was, I would like to recieve community input instead of doing it myself even if this technically doesn't require a vote. Andrew5 (talk) 01:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
2. For the time being, I feel like this is the best course. The article needs a major cleanup, and I don't feel like it's appropriate to keep the brainstar while that happens. We can always reinstate it later, when we feel it deserves it. Friedman (talk) 03:00, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
3. -Flandres (talk) 14:31, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Status quo

1. A rought estimate of the page puts a little under half the sources as being from Carrier. This however does not invalidate the entire page. Status quo is just fine in my eyes. -- Techpriest (talk) 12:34, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

   From what I can tell, the article was awarded a bronze brainstar on October 17, 2011, by user @WaitingforGodot, without any discussion. Back then, the article was 78,088 bytes. Today, it's 318,902 bytes. That means that 75% of what makes up the article now was not there when WaitingForGodot gave it a brainstar more than 10 years ago. At the very least, I feel like that would support the idea of temporarily removing it. Preferably, the article would eventually get it back after cleanup efforts. Friedman (talk) 18:19, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

   Carrier is mentioned 280 times in the article (control F). Of which, 134 of them are in the references, which has 383, which is just under 35%. However, he has 86 mentions in the article itself, one in the external links, 43 in the further reading, 7 in the bibliography and 9 in the notes. This essentially means that there is a heavy reliance on Carrier, too heavy to have a brainstar. Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 18:14, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

2. I agree the article needs a clean up as the article has really exploded in material much of which I feel should be trimmed. There seems to a pattern forming here. The AFD failed so here we are with an reduce/eliminate the brainstar. I smell a gaming the system effort here.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:39, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

   There is no gaming the system. Bronze level articles need to have appropriate references, and the extreme reliance on carrier, IMO, violates that. As Friedman said, This article is built on this source so much, if it is removed, it falls like a deck of cards. As such, I disagree with that it doesn’t correlate to the whole page. If consensus supports it, I think all but like one or two mentions of Carrier should be scrubbed and the article trimmed. It shouldn’t be dominating the page like it is now, and as such IMO fails bronze. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 18:45, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

   Go through the Keep part of Wiki:Articles_for_deletion/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ and one will see 4 (perhaps 5) other editors who had issues with that AfD.BruceGrubb (talk) 14:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

   Many of them opposed it because they suspected I was a troll, due to being so new. I believe I've spent enough time here, with sufficiently detailed edits, to show that isn't true. Regardless, that is a separate AfD. Friedman (talk) 15:03, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

   Just because an article is kept at AFD doesn’t mean it deserves its brainstar. We kept Tim Eyman (see RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Tim Eyman), which is a significantly problematic article needing updating, referencing, and expansion. We also kept a stub for a Turkish politicos which we weren’t even sure was missional after another AFD (though I can’t recall the name, and that did come down to no consensus). The general motto is to keep and improve over delete unless there is a reason why delete is more appropriate. Also, the link you sent wouldn’t work so I’ll paste it here -RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Jesus myth theory. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 19:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

3. 🎄Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano🎄^{Ask about our holiday specials!} 14:36, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Goat

• I want to point out that RationalWiki:Articles for demotion/Cold War is failing despite being way less then half (going from 1/4 to 1/6) WP references, and WP is more reliable then Carrier (albeit that is for silver). Andrew5 (talk) 14:04, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  WP sucks as a source because it's not a secondary or primary source (it's tertiary; Wikipedia will always repeat what other people are reporting on). Not because of reliability. That's why Cold War is failing. -- Techpriest (talk) 15:34, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

  • I 100% agree with you on that, it’s just that Carrier promotes fringe theories. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 16:33, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• "WP is more reliable then Carrier"? Please tell me you are kidding. Wikipedia itself states "Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia. Because, as a user-generated source, it can be edited by anyone at any time, any information it contains at a particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or just plain wrong." If Wikipedia doesn't consider itself realible why in the name of sanity would we considered it reliable. Of course this goes back to what you mean by "reliable".--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:44, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would argue that Wikipedia is more reliable than Carrier. The problem with Carrier is that he tortuously misinterprets his primary sources. If you build an article on a variety of sources, then you would expect it to be more accurate than an article built overwhemingly on one bad source. Even if Wikipedia was only 50% accurate, I'd still give it to Wikipedia, percentage-wise. Friedman (talk) 13:47, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  @BruceGrubb Wikipedia admits it is not reliable, but it doesn't say it promotes fringe theories like Carrier does, it's even banned per WP:FRINGE. I'm not saying Wikipedia is reliable at all. However, Carrier is blatantly unreliable. As Friedman says, he misinterprts sources, and then it's built with excessive mentions of him. I've found in my time editing Wikipedia that on average, vandalism is reverted within 8 minutes. Unsourced info can be there for longer, but is generally removed within a day. As such, Wikipedia, in my estimation, is reliable 80% of the time. That is a pretty bad number, but anyone who promotes fringe theories IMO is at best in the 40s. Andrew5 (talk) 14:02, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  As the here piece on Wikipedia explained "reliable" has several meanings (brought out in the Carrier talk page) there is an issue now how uses the word "reliable"

  There is "reliable" as the Wikipedia:Reliable sources criteria which sets the standards for which references can even be used in an article (Carrier certainly meets this criteria as do his own comments about the process his book went through per Wikipedia:RSSELF)

  There is "reliable" Wikipedia:Verifiability) which while related to Reliable is actually slightly different (this is where the "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. (sic) policy is stated)

  There ie reliable as in accurate (Wikipedia:Inaccuracy)

  Finally what a particular profession considers reliable. (an article providing evidence promoting homeopathy appeared in The Lancet. Soon after a rebuttal article appears showing the original article's methodology was poor)--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  True, maybe Carrier isn’t as bad after all. But it shouldn’t be built mainly on one source to begin with. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 18:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Carrier is an appropriate source for certain things, such as his own ideas. It doesn't mean those ideas are true. Friedman (talk) 21:00, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Carrier should not be given any more weight then the others. If the others are given four paragraphs worth of information, so should him. Andrew5 (talk) 21:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• There are myriad other problems with this article aside from its overreliance on Carrier's views. 75% of the article was added after the brainstar was added, there's a massive section just for suppsosed refutations of Ehrman's book, and the article clearly comes down on supporting the Jesus myth theory, depaite numerous holes you could drive a truck through. Friedman (talk) 15:03, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• This is the clearest case of no consensus I've ever seen, and should probably be closed as such. Andrew5 (talk) 21:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)