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 speedy keep‎. The nominator has been blocked as a confirmed sockpuppet and there are no remaining deletion proposals. (non-admin closure) Atlantic306 (talk) 18:55, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Secret combination (Latter Day Saints)[edit]

Secret combination (Latter Day Saints) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Per wp:notdict and wp:gng, this is a definition of an in universe phrase using only in universe sources. No secondary sources seem to have spent time writing anything in depth about the use of the phrase secret combination in Mormon culture Big Money Threepwood (talk) 04:25, 17 April 2024 (UTC) the nominator has been blocked as a confirmed sockpuppet, Atlantic306 (talk) 18:53, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Religion, Christianity, and Latter Day Saints. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 04:25, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: The statement that No secondary sources seem to have spent time writing anything in depth about the use of the phrase secret combination is not quite accurate. Looking through Google Scholar reveals the following:
  • Dan Vogel, "Mormonism's 'Anti-Masonick Bible'", John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 9 (1989): 17–30), with discussion of how it was a euphemism for Freemasonry.
  • Seth R. Payne, "Satan's Plan: The Book of Mormon, Glenn Beck and Modern Conspiracy", paper presented at a 2014 meeting of the American Academy of Religion held in Calgary, Canada and released on SSRN: mentions how the phrase was an anti-Masonic euphemism in the nineteenth century and became a term popular among Latter-day Saint conspiracy theorists in the twenty-first century.
  • Patrick Q. Mason, "Ezra Taft Benson and Modern (Book of) Mormon Conservatism", in Out of Obscurity: Mormonism Since 1845, eds. Patrick Q. Mason and John G. Turner (Oxford University Press, 2016), 63–80, about how LDS Church president and Dwight D. Eisenhower cabinet member Ezra Taft Benson used the phrase "secret combination" and applied it to his right-wing understanding of U. S. politics.
  • Robert A. Goldberg, "From New Deal to New Right", in Thunder from the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics, ed. Matthew L. Harris (University of Illinois Press, 2019), 68–96, also about Benson's use of the term "secret combination" in his politics.

Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 13:15, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, yes, we could reduce the entire article to "'secret combination' is an LDS-specific shibboleth that means 'alliance of evildoers'". As the sources cited above make clear, the term is not generally used or meaningful to anyone outside the LDS movement. But even within the movement it means different things at different times (e.g. the distinctive and personal interpretation by Ezra Taft Benson described in the Mason source above vs. the anti-Freemasonry version described in the Vogel source above). I can see how from an LDS perspective they could be collected based on their common origin into one article, but as a reader and contributor to a general encyclopedia I think that a standalone article probably doesn't help our readers as much as directing them to more useful, contextual information about the few disparate instances where the term's invocation (not just origin) is worth discussing.
  So, is there any interest in replacing this unbalanced article with two or three entries in the parent secret combination DAB pointing interested readers to those existing articles, something like "a term for groups of evildoers in the Book of Ether", "a term historically used to distinguish between Mormonism and Freemasonry", "a term used by politician Ezra Taft Benson to describe political conspiracies", that sort of thing? Those articles should already be talking about "secret combinations", and if they aren't, well, that's interesting too, but it could be rectified in those articles using some of the sources provided above, I would think. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 01:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Herald (Benison) (talk) 06:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep -- First, the sources already in the article are sufficient to meet GNG. Second, there are very many other sources available via GScholar. Central and Adams (talk) 16:42, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, its a borderline case but I think on review we are slightly over the GNG line here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:27, 24 April 2024 (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.