Talk:Sera

vfd discussion

 * Delete. This article only covers one of many monasteries which are part of the Bylakupee settlement. I believe the information about the monastery can adequetly be covered under the 'see' section of that article. (WT-en) WindHorse 28 Feb 06
 * Question: This is talking about a village of 5000 that has temples and monasteries as well as places to sleep. Is this just an area in Bylakupee or a separate village? -- (WT-en) Tom Holland (xltel) 10:15, 28 February 2006 (EST)
 * Sera is the name of a monastery with 5,000 monks. It is not a village. There are many other monasteries in the area. This is the largest, but there are also others with thousands of monks. The larger ones all have guest houses to accommodate visitors. If this monastery is given a separate page, then I believe that we are opening a can of worms, as there are large monasteries throughout the world - just my humble opinion (WT-en) WindHorse 3 March 06
 * Keep. Several sources seem to talk about "XXX monastery of/at Sera."  This suggests that Sera itself has some independent identity.  Since it also passes the you-can-sleep-there test, it looks like destination enough.  We have articles on far smaller places than this one. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 09:31, 3 March 2006 (EST)
 * The temple is an attraction of the community of Bylakupee. Maybe Bill didn't realize, but the original and far more famous Sera Monastery is near Lhasa in Tibet, and I imagine that most of the sources that Bill mentioned will be referring to that monastery. However, Bill is correct in stating that it does have a guest house, but then so do most reasonably large Tibetan style monasteries, as do Buddhist monasteries in Taiwan, China, Bhutan and Japan. Again, just my humble opinion and final comment on this. (WT-en) WindHorse 3 March 06
 * In that case, I think Sera should point to the original city, or to a disambiguator, the second of which should point to Bylakupee. --(WT-en) Ravikiran 09:54, 3 March 2006 (EST)
 * A disambiguator or redirect would be fine with me. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 13:01, 4 March 2006 (EST)
 * Actually, the Tibetan Sera is only mentioned in the Lhasa article. It does not have a separate page. I think I may have realized where the confusion lies. Traditional Tibetan monasteries often consist of a central prayer/meditation hall around which individual monastic houses are built. The larger communities will even have a guest house, shop and sometimes even a simple restaurant. So in this way, they resemble a village and are often referred to as such. However, the whole community belongs to the monastery. They are not villages in which a monastery is located. Anyway, that's the info. I'll leave it up to those wiser than I to decide whether to delete the Sera article or not. However, I will add that if it is kept, it will be the first of many other such articles. (WT-en) WindHorse 3 March 06.
 * I understand now. I vote delete (or redirect) unless the attraction qualifies under the "large attraction" exception. If the most you can write about it is one paragraph, then it should be folded, or Wikivoyage will suffer from the same fragmentation that Project:What is an article? was designed to prevent. Just as we will not have an article about a hotel that happens to be an architectural marvel because "you can sleep there", just as will not have an article about the IIM Lucknow campus (21 km from Lucknow) because someone can sleep there (i.e. students, parents and maybe I, as an alum) we should not have an article about Tibetan monasteries, just because someone sleeps there. --(WT-en) Chair of the committee to prevent Wikivoyage fragmentation
 * Yeah, I think a university campus is a very good comparison. (WT-en) WindHorse 4 March 06