Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lifeway

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 defaulting to keep and w/o prejudice to a speedy renomination. No real consensus to keep but also no strong consensus for deletion. Ad Orientem (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lifeway

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I haven't been able to find any sources that would allow this to be expanded to any more than a dictionary definition. The term seems to be relatively frequently used in anthropological and archaeological scholarship, but I haven't been able to find any significant coverage that discusses the concept rather than simply using the term. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:05, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. If we could find evidence in reliable sources that this is genuinely used to any real degree to mean 'way of life' as the article claims, then the most appropriate redirect may be to Lifestyle (sociology) – I didn't find such evidence but it may be out there. Otherwise we're left with an unsourced dictionary definition for a word that other dictionaries don't yet include. --Michig (talk) 21:49, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ - Basically makes its own case for deletion, but yeah, absent sources there's nothing to keep here. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:17, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Update: temporarily struck !vote. The article is completely different now and demands closer examination (which I cannot do now). Certainly merits a relist at least. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:39, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - per WP:NEO. While this is definitely a term that is seeing some minimal use, I wasn't able to find anyone talking about the term itself, rather than merely using it. If it gains traction, then it might be suitable for an article at some point in the future, but for now it's pretty much impossible for it to be more than a dictionary definition. Lowercaserho (talk) 22:27, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Changing to neutral based on RebeccaGreen's findings. Not enough yet to make me switch to keep, but enough that I no longer feel confident supporting delete. Lowercaserho (talk) 02:24, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It's not that new, actually. The earliest use I have found so far is in the book An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians by Morris Edward Opler, first published in 1941. I can't see anything in this book to indicate whether the author used an existing term, or coined it. I have found an explanation in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics (in the Gale Reference Library), which, in an entry on ' Native American Religions, Bioethics in', says "In contrast [to religion], the term lifeway emphasizes the road of life as indigenous people see it. Such a perspective can be associated with the concept "worldview," a distinct way of thinking about the cosmos and of evaluating life's actions in terms of those views. The Dakota/Sioux lawyer and professor of history Vine Deloria, Jr., speaks thus of an Indian ethical view of the universe: "In the moral universe all activities, events, and entities are related, and consequently it does not matter what kind of existence an entity enjoys, for the responsibility is always there for it to participate in the continuing creation of reality" (Deloria, p. 63). This view understands all life forms as having purpose, as being related, and as being cocreators of the world they occupy." Later, it says "Thus, the terms lifeway, synthetic ethics, and bioethics are used in this entry to suggest the wholeness or totality of a good life that is lived in thoughtful relationship to the seasons and the living bioregion." [1] There's also an explanation in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, pages 286-289 especially.[2] I will keep looking. RebeccaGreen (talk) 00:31, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Userify. Still requires more work and proper citations. Nevertheless, it appears interesting and wiki-worthyMgbo120 (talk) 19:11, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Well, I have had a go at revising the article based on the sources I mentioned above, and some others. I will leave it to others to assess it now. Pinging Arms & Hearts, Michig, Rhododendrites, Lowercaserho, Mgbo120. I will not be offended if you still consider that it should be deleted or userfied. It could still use input from specialists in the fields of anthropology, sociology, archaeology, etc - not my areas of expertise. RebeccaGreen (talk) 14:35, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks, RebeccaGreen, for your work on the article. I think it's a more marginal case than I'd realised, but ultimately I'm still not convinced it's notable. The sources you've added show that the term is used somewhat frequently in reliable sources, but using a term does not amount to the reliable coverage we require. The two most promising sources, the Encyclopedia of Bioethics and Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, do contain some discussion of the concept and its valences, but do so mostly as a precursor to discussions of specific forms of lifeways and don't really discuss the concept on its own terms beyond a couple of sentences in each. They're also both by the same author (John Grim) and per WP:GNG "Multiple publications from the same author [...] are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability," so we're left with a single source that contains something approaching significant coverage – which in my view is just not enough. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- It still seems to be synonymous with Way of life to me, and an article about a term for a concept that we already have covered rather than about a distinct concept. --Michig (talk) 07:11, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:17, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 21:58, 26 January 2019 (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.