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. -- Aervanath (talk) 20:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Zarahemla (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This article is hollow on detail in the extreme. Based on the quotations provided on this page, all the Book of Mormon seems to say about this theoretical "city" is that it was set on fire at some point, so the place name is a passing mention at best even within the primary scriptural resource from which this article derives. The "narrative" section of this article largely consists of material unrelated to an actual "city of Zarahemla", and instead contains mentions of the "people of Zarahemla", "land of Zarahemla", "king of Zarahemla", etc., with the final bit about the city supposedly burning being the only direct reference to an actual settlement. The source text does not actually appear to even discuss a theoretical location of said city. I propose that the article be deleted and/or the page redirected to Archaeology and the Book of Mormon. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:28, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:28, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:28, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 11:41, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The above is valid criticism of the current state of the article. However, that's exactly what is not decisive for a deletion decision. Rather "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." The relevant question is, could the article be improved? Has a proper WP:BEFORE search, as required in Wikipedia's deletion process, been done to answer that question one way or another? A search in Google Scholar alone leads to quite a number of secondary sources, and I would be surprised if they didn't provide enough information for a decent article. Daranios (talk) 11:49, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment The Google Scholar are hits are interesting again in appearing to refer to the "Land of Zarahemla" as much as they do any city. The same problem seems to plague "Nephi", which is at once a land and city. Perhaps we're talking hypothetical city-states? It appears that there is some inherent ambiguity about the concept in the primary source texts in the first place, making examination tricky. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:25, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I only know about this topic from glimpses I have now taken into search hits. Based on that I would come to the same conclusion. This seems to be a not-so-unusual situation where we have a land and city/its capital of the same name, like Mexico/Mexico City, New York/New York (state) or Akkad/Akkad (region). I see two ways of dealing this, neither involving deletion: Either split the information into Zarahemla (city) and Land of Zarahemla or some such, with this page remaining as a disambiguation page linking to both. Or keeping everything together here and explaining the two entities/the ambiguity between both. This is the easier, and to me preferred version: The article now already treats it like that, even though it might be made clearer; as you said there's ambiguity, so if information cannot be clearly assigned to one entity or the other, it may be better to keep it together; and if enough information accumulates over time to make the dual-entity-articly unwieldy, the topic can still be split later - while not the deletion nomination raises the question if there is enough information to support one article, so splitting the topic further seems less than helpful. Daranios (talk) 13:43, 11 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd rather not split the entities. The topic is probably notable, in need of a rewrite but probably not TNT. I maen, the topic (land of Zarahemia, which includes its city) has been subject to, among others, a book on the geography of this fictional land, and said book got academic reviews ([1]). Weak keep from me. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:32, 12 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - Is there not a single independent scholarly source that properly describes it as Mormon mythology, from a book forged by Smith? If only primary (Book of Mormon) or confessional (current sources) exist, it is impossible to achieve an WP:NPOV article. I did a quick search without immediately finding what I was looking for, but listing such sources would be a good argument for "keep". Adding: "See Archaeology and the Book of Mormon for more detail about the archaeological debate between Mormons and archaeologists" even that is WP:GEVAL, there's no legitimate scientific debate in relation to that pseudoarchaeology... —PaleoNeonate – 21:15, 12 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @PaleoNeonate: For what it's worth, here is short treatment in that regard: This and this paper point to lacking/contradictory evidence of Mormon archaeological sources and "the futility of such endeavors"; this book points out the lack of success in establishing a modern-day city of Zarahemla. Daranios (talk) 16:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks. I'll let others !vote and add the article to my notes so that if it survives I can eventually review it and perhaps improve it using such sources... —PaleoNeonate – 03:27, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep I see a ton of hits on google books, and I'm willing to believe that at least some of those would be considered reliable. If someone investigates and finds that those sources are mostly biased and/or self published, I would not object to deleting this. Merging may be a suitable compromise. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:08, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - non-notable religious fancruft. Is there a theological equivalent of {{inuniverse}}? --Orange Mike | Talk 03:19, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• @Orangemike: There is quite a number of sources about the topic (the question of WP:POV notwithstanding), so why is it non-notable? The template you are looking for presumably is Template:Religious text primary, already in the article. Daranios (talk) 11:51, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 16:12, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep When I wanted to know about this, I came to Wikipedia. Others do the same. I can find at least some secular references to the current archeological dig in search of this site. There are good sources. I cannot think of a reason to delete this. PaulinSaudi (talk) 23:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 03:57, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Less Unless (talk) 13:04, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete (or alternatively redirect if there is a suitable target) - This is the equivalent of an article about a fictional city that has only been written about only from an in-universe perspective. None of the keep !voters has identified actual sourcing showing notability, instead simply asserting that "of course there are sources". FOARP (talk) 20:47, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• @FOARP: Three independant articles have been cited in the discussion above. I did not think it necessary to spell out the many other individual sources (most of which, as far as I understand, are published by persons somehow affiliated with Mormonism), beyond linking the Google Scholar search. But if you like, here are three among the first hits: The temple in the Book of Mormon: The temples at the cities of Nephi, Zarahemla, and Bountiful, This Land: Zarahemla and the Nephite Nation, "The History of Zarahemla (Blanchardville): Headquarters of the Reorganization, 1852-60" (about one modern day version), and here two more with evocative titles: "Search for Zarahemla, 1900: Expeditioneer Parley Pratt Nelson", The Lands of Zarahemla. I hope that allays the misgivings that keep !votes were only based on "of course there are sources". If you would like to see even more, please let me know or check out the other sources yourself. Daranios (talk) 21:30, 5 January 2022 (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.