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Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 October 24#Category:Prophets in Protestantism

I could use some responses on this CFD. Mangoe (talk) 01:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Still no responses..... Mangoe (talk) 13:02, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I just do not know the topic, else would have commented. History2007 (talk) 13:15, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Just spotted the resulting deletion - I agree with what was said there. It may be worth/encyclopedic including(somewhere) a note that protestants have not universally recognised any prophets since the OT and NT. I can't however find where this section originally was, else I might try to write it myself. TM-86 (talk) 14:23, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

For people interested in either Protestant theology or Ethiopian Orthodox history

I was copyediting Abba Estifanos of Gwendagwende and it looks like his life and heresies could be really interesting to somebody interested in Protestant theology or Ethiopian church history. Cloveapple (talk) 05:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Bishops of Worcester since 1908

Why is {{Bishops of Worcester since 1908}} only "…since 1908"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Missionary Saints Category

There are literally hundreds of articles on Irish, English, Welsh, etc. missionary saints that should be put under a missionary category distinct from non-sainted missionaries (of which there are also hundreds). I was initially thinking of a new category called Category:Missionary saints. Then I saw there is an already existing category of Category:Roman Catholic missionaries. However, that category already has over 300 articles, most of whom are not saints, but are priests from the 1500-1900's. So I was thinking that instead of a new category called Category:Missionary saints -- a sub-category could be made under Category:Roman Catholic missionaries called Category:Roman Catholic saints who were missionaries. That sub-category would include your St. Patrick's, your St. Augustine of Canterbury's, your St. Willibrord's, their companions, the Seven Founder Saints of Brittany, the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, as well as the hundreds of Irish/English/Welsh/Scottish missionary saint stubs. They all belong under a common missionary saint [sub-]category, rather than clogging up the parent Category:Roman Catholic missionaries. Can a sub-category be created? --ChristianHistory (talk) 22:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I object to any creation of a new category named "Roman Catholic *" that is not specifically about the Latin Church. There are 23 sui iuris Catholic Churches, 22 of them are Eastern Catholic and do not consider themselves "Roman". Please use neutral category names to include all Catholic rites and churches unless there are equal categories for other Eastern Catholic churches. Elizium23 (talk) 22:51, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I would tend to agree. I would think maybe a Category:Catholic missionary saints, which might include, if required, separate subcats for Maronite, Melkite, and other Eastern Catholics, might be a more neutral and perhaps disputed way to go. John Carter (talk) 22:54, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree too. We are going to get into a heated agreement here soon just before Christmas. History2007 (talk) 23:14, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure the intersection between saints and missionaries is significant - how about something along the lines of Category:Missionaries who were martyred for missionaries who were killed in action (and thus became saints)? I don't think those missionaries who died peacefully and afterwards were canonized have all that much in common.
For comparison, we don't have Category:Military saints (or any other category of saints by occupation) even though we do have an article on military saints, who are a less diverse group than the missionary saints. Huon (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Several are floating around, sans anchor, e.g. Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, Peter Chanel, Marcellin Champagnat, etc. History2007 (talk) 00:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

To rewind to the Roman Catholic/Eastern Catholic thing; the Wikipedia article on Eastern Catholic Churches says that the Eastern Catholic Churches are: "...autonomous, self-governing (in Latin, sui iuris) particular churches in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. Together with the Latin Church, they compose the worldwide Catholic Church". And the article on the Catholic Church begins by saying: "The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church...". Furthermore, there are several categories for "Roman Catholic" saints in Eastern countries. For example:

The saints in those categories were not "Roman Catholic" in the sense that they belonged to the Latin Rite, but Roman Catholic in the sense that they belonged to the world-wide Catholic Church, which is also called the Roman Catholic Church. So adding a category called "Roman Catholic saints who were missionaries" or "Roman Catholic missionary saints" would be perfectly consistent with all the already existing "Roman Catholic" categories and articles. But if it's such an issue (and it shouldn't be, since it's consistent with all the other categories and articles) then the word 'Roman' could be dropped.

There is an article List of Roman Catholic missionaries -- a grossly insufficient list, I might add. It doesn't even contain the 300+ names listed in the Category:Roman Catholic missionaries. The list only contains three or four saints. The rest are mostly random Catholic priests, not saints. If the category doesn't get created, then we could always add all the names to the list List of Roman Catholic missionaries and maybe add a box signifying their sainthood, like they did in the Gregorian Mission article. But if we go that route, the list might get out of hand with over 500 names. I really think a saint sub-category should be created for sainted missionaries, with an additional sub-category for Irish saints who were missionaries, so that all those Irish saint missionary stubs (my guess is at least 100 in number) can be linked together. --ChristianHistory (talk) 01:10, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

So what's the status on this? Will a new category be created? Or are we working with the already existing categories and articles? --ChristianHistory (talk) 00:38, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
The status seems to be that there are different opinions, hence no progress, with Elizium23, John and myself with one answer, you with another and I am not sure what Huon would like to do. History2007 (talk) 02:19, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
To clarify my stance: I don't have a strong opinion on the Catholic/Roman Catholic issue. I'd expect that most of the saints were Roman Catholics themselves - even all the early missionary saints predating the Great Schism I checked were members of the Western Church. On the other hand, omitting "Roman" won't hurt in any way I can see, and I doubt the lists of saints differ all that much between the Latin and the Eastern Catholic churches. But I'm still not convinced we need anything along the lines of Category:Saints by occupation in the first place. Unless someone can show why this category is not just a trivial intersection of Category:Catholic saints and Category:Christian missionaries, I'd say we need not create it at all and should instead focus on populating the missionaries categories we already have. Huon (talk) 19:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
What if we separated the missionaries by century, rather than sainthood?--ChristianHistory (talk) 02:21, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
While I'm no expert on Church history, I'd expect the various missionary efforts conducted at the same time - say, early 20th century missions in Africa and in China - have much more in common with each other than with missionary efforts at different times, and Category:9th century Christian missionaries and the like (or Category:Christian Missionaries of the 9th century? Is there a preferred nomenclature?) would be much more likely to capture defining features of its members than Category:Missionary saints. Huon (talk) 14:52, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I would go with "9th century missionaries" rather than "Missionaries of the 9th century". And since we're dealing specifically with Catholic missionaries here, I would suggest Category:9th-century Roman Catholic missionaries. --ChristianHistory (talk) 06:33, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Christian devotional literature

Christian devotional literature appeared and is a noteworthy topic. But the article is pretty narrow, as I said on the talk there, and the various denominations who read this should really add their respective components to make it balanced. History2007 (talk) 02:38, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I will leave my comments on the talk page. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 08:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I think that is an interesting topic, but will probably take a while to develop into a full-fledged article. History2007 (talk) 11:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I responded on the page there. Have a look. --ChristianHistory (talk) 00:34, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Jesus' walk on water

Comments on Jesus' walk on water talk page will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 09:57, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Richard "Preacher Dick" Evans

Is this person notable? Gsingh (talk) 22:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Very borderline. I guess not notable. History2007 (talk) 22:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Historicity of Jesus topic related concerns

Please see Talk:Jesus Seminar#POV concerns. I get the impression that content related to matters such as this might get more attention from the New Age/atheist/agnostic side than the Christian scholarship side, and that this might very clearly cause the content to be unbalanced. I would very much welcome this content getting attention from a broader scope and number of editors. And, of course, there is the problem that almost the entire article Jesus Seminar seems to be based on the Jesus Seminar's own statements and publications. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 22:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

You are right. But we are so shorthanded I am not sure when all of those historicity issues in several of those articles can be handled. The article is a pro-Crossan article, as you said, and finding rebuttals will take work. There are many unsourced statements in that article as well. Deleting those will be a start. History2007 (talk) 22:56, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Arbuthnott, Bervie & Kinneff Parish Church

Could this article be included within the scope of this project?

I've added the relevant WikiProject banners to the talk page; other Scottish parish churches were part of this WikiProject. Huon (talk) 18:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Dominic of Evesham and post-nominals

Dominic of Evesham currently has the post-nominal initials O.S.B. in the first sentence. There are discussions here and here about it which are worth reading. An editor feels that the use of post-nominals like this is unhelpful and anachronistic. What do others think? --John (talk) 21:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't just object to the usage with the name of the subject - I also object to the usage of the post-nominal's for David Knowles in the body of the article - like "monastic historian David Knowles, O.S.B. " - this strikes me as equivalent to using "Ph.D." which is handled under WP:CREDENTIAL - which basically says not to use them. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:16, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
I'd say using the initials for 12th century monks is indeed an anachronism. The relevant guideline part seems to be WP:INITIAL, which says post-nominal initials (except academic degrees) "should be included when they are issued by a country or widely recognizable organization with which the subject has been closely associated." That would arguably include Benedictine monks - if the Benedictines at that time had actually issued these initials, which they probably did not. Besides, for Evensham it would actually sound better to get rid of the initials and add a full "Benedictine" somewhere in that first sentence.
WP:CREDENTIAL does allow occasional use of post-nominal initials in articles in other subjects to clarify qualifications. On the other hand, I doubt there are many topics for which a membership in the Benedictines is a qualification, including Benedictine history itself: Knowles is relevant because he's a monastic historian, not because he's a Benedictine. Huon (talk) 21:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Firstly on a related note, we don't follow "Benedictine practice" by adding the prefix "Dom" as stated in the summary, MOS:HONORIFIC makes this clear. Regarding Knowles I'd say the inclusion of "monastic historian" already covers things, and OSB doesn't clarify his qualifications at all. 2 lines of K303 10:05, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I would tend to say no OSBs etc till 1550-1600 - I think S.J. is ok for Elizabethan Jesuits for example. Johnbod (talk) 10:28, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
The confusion in this, from my perspective, is that the use of O.S.B. is being considered as a form of honorific. It is not that. Its use is indicative of belonging to one particular institute, indicating lineage rather than qualification. Thus, as a suffix, it is connected to the use of "Jr." or "IV", rather than to an academic degree.
K303, while "Dom" is an honorific title, you are mistaken in that we don't use it. Here is what the MOS states: "The honorific titles Sir, Dame, Lord and Lady are included in the initial reference and infobox heading for the person, but are optional after that." (emphases added) Johnbod, from where do you get that dating of its usage? Can you point to any specific document or source?
I would also point out that, with the plethora of religious congregations since the 19th century, there are a number with names that could be too cumbersome for a simple descriptive. Consider, e.g, the "Congregation of the Catechetical Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus" founded by Giulia Salzano. How would you describe the group in one word? Using the initials with a link seems simpler, especially if it is the practice of the individual or the institute to which he/she belongs. Daniel the Monk (talk) 14:39, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
(EC) Hi, I'm not a project member but do comment here occasionally, usually to ask for an assist with some Christianity-related article. In this case, it seems worth mentioning that the subsection honorific prefixes, bullet point 4, makes a specific exception for the use of post-nomial letters, at least as relates to aristocracy. It would still require some interpretation in this case, but it seemed useful to mention the exception. Happy editing, Doc Tropics 14:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I would respectfully point out that in discussions like this we should avoid arguments that merely say "we can" or "we are not forbidden". Other than copyvios and BLPs there are very few hard-and-fast rules which state what we "cannot" do on Wikipedia. MoS pages in particular are guidelines and cannot proscribe, they can merely describe consensus usage. I would prefer it if those wishing to retain the post-nominals could explain why they are necessary in the article. At the moment I see the arguments against as more compelling, these being anachronism and overemphasis. I see another problem as the possibility that readers may confuse them with an honorific, as highlighted by Daniel above. I suggest a solution; where there is a consensus that it is merited, we include the membership in the body of the article, instead of the problematic usage which is being discussed. Would that work? --John (talk) 12:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
I believe we should differentiate two cases: The article's subject, and other people mentioned in an article. For the subject, membership in the Benedictines should of course be mentioned, and for more modern monks, post-nominals in the introduction may be appropriate. But I cannot imagine many instances where adding post-nominals (or the Dom title) to anyone but an article's subject is appropriate - maybe if someone is mentioned in connection with Church hierarchies, but surely not for someone like Knowles who is mentioned for his scholarly opinion. Huon (talk) 13:29, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Huon, what is your basis for that distinction? If the subject of an article is a "Jr." and someone else mentioned in the article is a "Sr.", would use of one cancel out use of the other? Daniel the Monk (talk) 14:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
The basis is precedent. Take for example Stephen Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA. His own article duly mentions his post-nominal initials. But when I checked the first dozen or so articles linking to Hawking, none of them used any post-nominals. I don't see how "Jr." and "Sr." are equivalent; they're a kind of disambiguation between different people with otherwise identical names. I somehow doubt there's a risk of confusion if we do not add post-nominals to Dominic of Evensham or David Knowles. Huon (talk) 14:41, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
(ec) That is a flawed analogy in this case though - you would use Jr or Sr to help differentiate two people with the same name. In this case, there is no need to differentiate persons with the same name. For what it's worth, I agree with Huon. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I think there is a difference between people like Knowles who "operated" as a historian and clergy working as clergy, where "Fr", "Dom" etc should generally be used as appropriate. Though in fact Knowles was often given "Dom" or "OSB" in reviews and other press references, and FWIW googlebooks sometimes uses Dom in its author field. Johnbod (talk) 17:19, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I think I largely agree now with Ealdgyth and Huon. Is there a compromise we could all live with? --John (talk) 20:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Ealdgyth and Huon, you are assuming that the reference is to two people with the same name. My point is how to handle when an article mentions John Smith Jr. and Henry Hugo Sr. Are they not valid formats for both names in one article? By your argument, one postnominal suffix should not be included when referring to two different Benedictines. What would you do if the other Benedictine were a woman? This what my point is. That is how congregational initials are understood by members of religious institutes. I am not touching upon the use of "Dom" since that is not the question here. Daniel the Monk (talk) 16:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't understand your point at all. Why should the number of mentioned Benedictines or their sex matter? For the subject of an article, the post-nominals are appropriate when he is first introduced, and in the infobox (if any). With very few exceptions, I don't think post-nominals should be used anywhere else: Not for the article's subject in other places, and not for people other than the article's subject. For an example, look at the David Knowles (scholar) article: He's introduced with all his post-nominals, and afterwards they are not mentioned again. The exceptions might include lists of clergy or the like, where membership in certain religious orders might be significant and a shorthand notation useful. See List of popes or List of current members of the British Privy Council for examples of this use (although the use of "O.S.B." for the earlier popes is almost certainly an anachronism).
The Jr./Sr. case is not analogous both because of the disambiguation aspect and because these terms tend to actually be part of the common name, unlike "earned" post-nominals like "OSB" or "VC". If the person is not commonly known with the "Jr." post-nominal, references in other articles tend to omit it. Huon (talk) 17:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it is clear that you are not understanding the point I have been making. I am fine with not repeating the initials for an individual in an entry, it would be excessive, but what does that have to do with other people who are then mentioned in an entry who are also members of religious institutes?
Additionally, I don't understand the equating of the initials of a religious institute with those a civil honor. I keep making the Jr./Sr. case because it is the closest in modern social terms to what the initials mean to religious order members, since they are part of the name as much as those suffixes. I also find your approach to post-nominals rather narrow. Is there any common guideline for this or is this your own style of editing? Daniel the Monk (talk) 04:48, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Why should the initials of a religious institute be handled differently from those of an academic institution such as the Royal Society? Why should the postnominals of members of religious orders be considered more part of the name than, say, the post-nominals of members of British orders? I don't think Wikipedia has a guideline (except WP:POSTNOM, which only covers article subjects). But according to our article on post-nominals, the British Ministry of Justice recommends treating religious institute post-nominals just like any others, somewhere between academic degrees and fellowships in learned societies. Neither are used to refer to people on Wikipedia, see the Stephen Hawking example. Huon (talk) 05:28, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


Yes, there is: forget the whole thing. To people like myself, it makes no difference. If the article content is error free (and usually it is not) I do not even pay attention to those things. Now, does anyone feel like cleaning up Threefold office? History2007 (talk) 21:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
It's a valid meta-suggestion, but we came here to resolve a dispute. I think that is just about done. I always forgive but I seldom forget. I will answer your question in its own section. --John (talk) 22:17, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Threefold office

The Threefold office page is not hopeless, but is not great either. Whoever knows the topic should probably touch it up, add references, etc. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 01:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't especially know the topic, but I am familiar with it. If there is anything specific you'd like me to do, please say in more detail at the article talk. --John (talk) 22:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Fine I mentioned it here. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 22:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Conservative Christianity

Please comment on what to do with the article at Talk:Conservative Christianity. Thanks, D O N D E groovily Talk to me 13:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Application of MOS guidelines on capitalization in articles on Christianity

WP:DOCTCAPS says:

"Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Wikipedia, such as virgin birth (as a common noun), original sin, transubstantiation."

. How does this apply in articles in this project? Here are some example terms of Christian doctrine that are traditionally capitalized:

How does the MOS apply to these and other similar terms? Jojalozzo 19:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

  • I have not read WP:MOS in any detail (and hope I never will) but may be this will shed light on what the books in the real world use. This will be my only comment since I am not into this type of discussion. History2007 (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
It may be that History2007's examples are not the best, because many of the mentions of "Last Supper" in them are names of books or paintings, but the suggestion that Wikipedia should write of the last supper when it means what practically everybody knows as the Last Supper is perhaps, of the terms listed here, the most obvious case of how a campaign to apply to all particular cases a personal interpretation of a general rule leads to, frankly, ridiculous results. There are lots of last suppers and any of them can be referred to in certain contexts as the last supper, but when people read of one as the Last Supper, they know unhesitatingly what is in question. Less clearly perhaps, but just as validly, a distinction can and should be made between the Stations of the Cross and stations of the cross. There is no more reason to ban mention of Christ's Parable of the Tares than to ban mention of Aesop's Boy Who Cried Wolf. And there is no more reason to apply to all religious topics a lower-case rule than there is to apply it to, for instance, all sports topics. Surely Jojalozzo wouldn't dream of carrying on a campaign to get Wikipedia to write only of the world series, the American league and the national league, the commissioner's trophy, the world's championship series, ... Jojalozzo's campaign suggests instead that, if the rule can justifiably be interpreted in that way, it should be corrected. Esoglou (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I think following academic usage when in doubt is the best solution. With 'Christ', that's obviously a name, so I'm not sure how Resurrection of Christ and Passion of Christ are an issue here. 'Christ' usually has the same function as a proper name, as has 'God'. (Incidentally, I'm always rather disappointed by my fellow atheists who refuse to use a capital 'g' when referring to the God character in Christianity and Judaism. I don't refer to Harry Potter as "harry potter" and I don't believe in him either.) If the manual of style is requiring something which would look silly by the current academic standards in theology and religious studies, the answer is to tell the manual of style (oh, wait, sorry, "Manual of Style") to go to hellCroydon. —Tom Morris (talk) 20:37, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
  • The guideline, which I was previously unaware of, could be clearer, but even as written I think all the examples at the top are ok capitalized as the proper names of events or other specific things, as in "Congress of Vienna", "1968 General Election" etc. Note the language of the MOS "Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas" - ie abstractions - and that they seem to distinguish between "virgin births" generally "as a common noun" and the "Virgin Birth", without making this wholly clear. Of course when they are subjects and titles in art etc, there should be no issue with capitalizing. As Tom says, we should follow modern academic sources. There may also be a US/UK engvar issue, as British English always tends to capitalize more. Johnbod (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I understand that to those used to traditional Christian literature this style guideline may be unsettling since it is explicitly contrary to the style of traditional sources. However, it is the house style. For example, we refer to the Jesus' birth as the virgin birth of Jesus not the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Jojalozzo 02:40, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
That is not what the guideline says - it says "Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Wikipedia, such as virgin birth (as a common noun), original sin, transubstantiation." See above, the single Virgin Birth of Jesus is a proper noun. Johnbod (talk) 05:10, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, my intuition would be for "the Virgin Birth" (proper noun, understood as referring to that of Jesus), but "the virgin birth of Jesus" (a generic noun, related to Jesus through explicit wording). It seems a bit tautologous to capitalize VB and add Jesus.--Kotniski (talk) 10:55, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I think I'd agree with that; I don't think Jojalozzo would. In an article title caps might still be best. He moved one to Last supper in Christian art, which is clearly wrong. Johnbod (talk) 11:03, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, yes, that looks wrong to me too. If DOCTCAPS is leading to this sort of thing, then it clearly needs some revision.--Kotniski (talk) 11:39, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I've moved it back to Last Supper in Christian art, as it is here the title of a subject in art anyway. Johnbod (talk) 14:52, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I have to agree with Kotniski on this; it is very tautologous and just bad writing to use "the Virgin Birth of Jesus". — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 07:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm still undecided about the doctrinal cases, but I would point out that the names of the parables are essentially titles of works (if assigned after the fact) and thus should be capitalized. Mangoe (talk) 11:41, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

The names of the parables are not official titles but informal referents (common noun phrases in lower case) that vary from source to source. If we interpreted our article titles as formal names that identify Christian doctrine we would use lower case per WP:DOCTCAPS. Jojalozzo 16:58, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I think it's the correctness of DOCTCAPS that is being called into question here. It seems to be an oversimplification, leading to strange-looking and possibly misleading results if we treat it as, er, gospel.--Kotniski (talk) 20:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I think it's probably ok, if not really clear enough - I don't have a problem with "transubstantiation" or "original sin". The problem here is just Jojalozzo's eccentric understanding of what proper nouns & names are. But it would be useful if could get together a sentence or two here to expand & clarify it, with more examples. Johnbod (talk) 20:48, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I think one reason for the policy to minimize capitalization, especially for terms of religious doctrine and other systems of thought, is to provide latitude for the project to encompass the widest array of topics with a consistent style. Identifying any one system as the one that may capitalize their terminology removes that wide-based support and instead employs style to narrow the project's scope. I am hearing in this discussion that certain terms should be capitalized because they refer to Christian concepts or to events in Christ's life. As I understand it this capitalization helps distinguish these uses of the terminology from that of other domains, secular and religious. If so, it implies an unjustified right to particular stylistic forms for Christian terminology. Jojalozzo 21:04, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
No what you're hearing is that you have misunderstood the guideline, and are not applying the normal capitalization rules that apply to anything, especially proper names, which the guideline does not attempt to override. Johnbod (talk) 03:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
That is not my understanding. I agree that the guideline does not override capitalization of proper names, so let's start there. This request concerns doctrinal terminology. If you think some of the examples are proper names then please identify them and we can ignore them for now. If you consider all of the given examples to be proper names, please offer some examples of capitalized Christian doctrinal terminology that we can agree are not proper names. Jojalozzo 04:35, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
I've given two examples above, those used in the guideline. They are doctrines; none of the things you list above are doctrines at all. Most are specific events; that they did or will take place may be doctrines, but not the things themselves. The Stations of the Cross and the parable are more like works with titles. Kingdom of Heaven I'm not so bothered about personally, but others may feel differently. Johnbod (talk) 06:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
For me these issues are not simple or reducible to a misunderstanding of policy or grammar. Here are some issues that I'd like help figuring out:
Jojalozzo 04:50, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Generally, there is clearly no need to capitalize words that are accompanied explicitly or implicitly by "of Jesus" or "of Christ", and so we would quite normally write of the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus, Jesus' virgin birth, his second coming ... But we should follow the established practice of capitalizing bare terms used not in a generic sense but with reference to a particular case associated with Jesus, as in "people were expecting the Second Coming" (not just any second coming), "the Virgin Birth" (not just any virgin birth), "the Last Supper" (not just any last supper). Unlike "original sin" and "transubstantiation", which do not need capitalization and are not normally capitalized, these examples are in fact normally capitalized. Wikipedia editors should use normal English, not try to establish within its confines some kind of Nuspik. Esoglou (talk) 07:47, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I think Esoglou puts it well - and the wording of DOCTCAPS should probably be updated, at least with the addition of some examples that show what should be capitalized (the twin example of Virgin Birth vs. virgin birth being a good one to use, I'd have thought).--Kotniski (talk) 10:32, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
(ec) I would agree with Esoglou in most cases, but that doesn't always work in art history, which is my main angle here. There are a number of standard subjects for Christian art (and some other kinds) which have special, rather odd and old-fashioned names which are always capitalized, whether a specific work or the general set of works are being described. For example the obscure medieval subject of Isaac carrying the wood up the mountain to his sacrifice is known as "Isaac Bearing the Faggots"; more common are Entombment of Christ, Last Judgement and so on. Capitalizing these helps the reader by making clear it is a standard phrase, and so explains what is in many cases rather strange language; it also often avoids having to explain the scene at greater length. Very few of these are doctrines at all (perhaps "Virgin of the Immaculate Conception"), and so caught by the MOS text on a straight reading, though they may be by Joyalozzo's extension of it to mean "anything to do with Christianity". Actually Immaculate Conception is perhaps a good example to discuss (and no, it is totally different from the virgin birth). There is only one Immaculate conception, and really only could be (unlike a virgin birth the concept is meaningless outside a Christian framework). Is it ever seen in RS uncapitalized? I very much doubt it. I agree with Kotniski, and we should clarify the pretty vague language about just what is covered. Johnbod (talk) 10:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think art history has much to do with the topic here. In that field, almost any word may require capitals. Take "The Scream" or, more apposite to Johnbod's examples, themes like "Bringing Home the Harvest", "Morning Sunshine", etc. "Immaculate Conception", referring to the immaculate conception of Mary by her mother but without mentioning her either explicitly or implicitly, is capitalized in normal usage; but in the frequent though inaccurate use of the term to mean instead a virginal conception it is written "immaculate conception" in normal usage. Esoglou (talk) 11:34, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
All titles of artistic works take capitals, but also some standard subjects, mostly religious. "Bringing Home the Harvest" and "Morning Sunshine" are not standard subjects in art in this sense. Johnbod (talk) 13:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
DOCTCAPS guidelines are to use lower case for terms of religious doctrine even though the terms are traditionally capitalized. I think it's hyperbolic to equate that with the establishment of Nuspik or abnormal English. Capitalizing Biblical events (Virgin Birth, Last Supper) signals they are elements of Christian doctrine. Capitalizing terms indicates that the referents have religious meaning and the capitalized term invokes that meaning. DOCTCAPS tells us to use techniques other than capitalization to confer such meaning. Jojalozzo 23:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
It has a lot to do with the articles I write, which are mostly on art history, & many of which I presume Joyalozzo would like to change! Johnbod (talk) 09:50, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
No one is saying that titles of artworks should be in lower case. This section of the MOS relates to religious doctrine and systems of thought not art. Jojalozzo 03:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Jojalozzo is mistaken in thinking that it is for some religious reason that the Last Supper (not just any last supper), the Old Testament (not just any old testament) and the like are capitalized. They are capitalized for exactly the same reason that people use upper-case letters when writing of the White House (not just any white house), the Enlightenment (not just any enlightenment), the Great War (not just any great war), the Grand Tour (not just any grand tour), and so on and so on. So if, as Jojalozzo claims, DOCTCAPS says that terms of religious doctrine must always use lower case, it is DOCTCAPS that must be corrected. If it even suggests that they must always use lower case, it must be corrected. Esoglou (talk) 07:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Given that Jojalozzo's view is not getting any major support here (and I agree with Esoglou) I think unless there are serious other points to be made, this discussion should just wrap up sooner rather than later, so we can move on. History2007 (talk) 16:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
On the contrary, I have read several responses here that expressed uncertainty regarding the capitalization of certain terms and I have asked a number of questions which have not been addressed. No one needs to participate here if they don't think it's useful but I think we have yet to resolve the application of DOCTCAPS much beyond "I don't like it." It may be that the issues are too broad and we need to address each of these questions on a case by case basis but I don't think that is a good reason to dismiss the effort entirely. Jojalozzo 03:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Esoglou: There are many reasons that words are capitalized or not capitalized though I agree with you that generally it boils down to indicating that something is unordinary. Because nouns often are capitalized to indicate respect and to elevate their referents, I think DOCTCAPS recommends we not use capitalization for doctrinal terms (even though they are traditionally capitalized) to help maintain neutrality and avoid selective elevation of any particular doctrine. Jojalozzo 03:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Since you agree that capitalization generally boils down to indicating that something is "unordinary" (better would be "unique"), you must be failing to realize that your demand that in Wikipedia the Last Supper - I mean what is normally understood by the "Last Supper" as opposed to the "last supper" - should be written with lower-case letters, far from maintaining neutrality, amounts to selective depreciation of a particular set of terms. And if you still maintain also that this is the meaning of DOCTCAPS, then you are in effect saying that DOCTCAPS violates one of the pillars of Wikipedia and should be revised. I would suggest that you withdraw your proposal as now formulated, and present something less evidently POV.
I don't think there is any disagreement whatever about writing "the second coming of Christ", and I dispute your statement that phrases like this are (always) traditionally capitalized: liturgical books such as those of the Roman Catholic Church, where you would expect greater use of capitalization "to indicate respect", do use lower-case letters for such phrases. But your demand that capitalization be banned in Wikipedia for terms like "the Second Coming" is excluded by the basic principles of Wikipedia. Esoglou (talk) 07:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I have not made any demands nor any proposal here except to propose questions and argue a position relative to those questions that I thought deserved exploring. I think some of my questions and concerns have distracted from the discussion rather than illuminated it and I apologize for that. Thank you for putting "always" in parentheses since I do not recall using that word nor intended that meaning when I used "traditionally". I am surprised by your hyperbolic interpretations of my position and if my language has been too strong here please help me out. I thought I was being careful to acknowledge that the MOS is a guideline, so I'm not sure what I have written that suggests I "demand that capitalization be banned in Wikipedia for terms like 'the Second Coming'" or where I have "demanded" anything.
Despite the preceding discussion, I remain unsure how to interpret the language of the MOS. My primary question concerns the identification of "doctrinal terms" that should be capitalized and those that should not. I can see that DOCTCAPS may not apply to the names of Biblical events such as Last Supper since they may be considered proper names but we cannot rely on the capitalization style of sources since capitalization does not confer proper name status per se (and I think that may be the main point of DOCTCAPS). I think Johnbod's explanation that capitalizing helps the reader understand that certain terms are standard phrases is not only correct but also just what DOCTCAPS recommends we avoid. The MOS would have us capitalize proper names but not capitalize common nouns that are traditionally emphasized using caps (as Johnbod explains). There are other ways, e.g. italics, that Wikipedia uses styles to signal the use of such phrases and italics are recommended for terms "being defined, introduced or distinguished in meaning".
  • I still do not understand the basis for capitalizing terms like "kingdom of heaven" or "kingdom of God" which are generally not capitalized in the Bible but traditionally capitalized in Christian literature (as "standard phrases"?).
  • I can see how "Second Coming of Christ" might be a proper noun but it also could be another example of Johnbod's "standard phrases". I think we agree that the stand-alone phrase, "second coming", would be styled the same as the names of other doctrinal concepts like "virgin birth", true?
  • Why do we capitalize "Stations of the Cross"?
  • Should we use title caps for informal titles such as all the various names of the parables or can they be styled another way perhaps using italics?
Jojalozzo 18:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I apologize for using the word "demand", which is too strong. Perhaps "proposal" will do. I know you didn't put forward a formal proposal, but you have been arguing, it seemed to me, for using lower-case in all of the terms or phrases you listed. Would "view" be better than "proposal"? Would it not be better if you were to start a separate section on each of them or each smaller group of them? If you were to withdraw your advocacy for some, that too would be a help. As it is, you are instead adding to them by saying, as if it were an established fact, that the concept of the Virgin Birth should be lower-case. The MOS says that "virgin birth" as a common noun (like "white house") should be lower-case. It does not say that "Virgin Birth" in reference to a unique virgin birth should be lower-case, any more than that "White House" in reference to a unique white house should be lower-case. (To avoid letting this remark of mine widen the discussion even more, I declare that I do not intend to argue that "Virgin Birth" in reference to that unique case must necessarily be capitalized.) I don't think that, in the phrase "second coming of Christ", "second coming" need be considered a proper noun, and your raising that question is a further complication. Clearly there is no consensus in support of your view/proposal/whatever when it is considered en bloc, nor does it seem that there ever will be. But on a smaller number agreement should be possible. An example would be phrases ending in "of Christ", such as "virgin birth of Christ". Esoglou (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Joyalozzo seriously distorts what I have said, just as he distorts WP:DOCTCAPS. Really there is nothing peculiar to Christian topics about Wikipedia capitalization, it should use the same policy as all other subjects, and all other religions - if anything writings about Hinduism and Buddhism are even more prone to over capitalization than those on Christianity. It might be better to remove DOCTCAPS if it is going to be abused in this way. He could perfectly well be arguing his over-application of the MOS in any other subject area. His suggestion that italics are a suitable alternative introduces a complete misunderstanding of yet another part of MOS, and indeed general English usage, and are potentially highly confusing to the reader, as it will suggest they are the titles of works when they are not. I haven't seen anyone here arguing for capitalizing "kingdom of heaven" or "kingdom of God". If he accepts that "Second Coming of Christ" might be a proper noun, then why not the alternative name for the same thing, "Second Coming"? There is only one. "Stations of the Cross" is the same as Synoptic Gospels - there is only one set. Also they are nothing at all to do with doctrine. Johnbod (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I am not singling out Christianity. DOCTCAPS applies to any religion or system of thought. I started a similar discussion at WikiProject Bhuddism and recieved general agreement to use DOCTCAPS guideline.
I am glad you agree about "kingdom of God/heaven". The reason I question capitalization of that term is that it is generally capitalized in articles throughout the project (search for the term in Wikipedia).
The reason I ask about "Stations of the Cross" is that I am not clear whether it has doctrinal elements and it illustrates issues with the application of DOCTCAPS. I'll take your word that it is not doctrinal in any way. Jojalozzo 01:38, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
The MOS is fairly clear. "Philosophies, theories, doctrines, and systems of thought do not begin with a capital letter, unless the name derives from a proper noun". If something is used as a title, such as the artwork, The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci), it should be capitalised. However, if discussing the event/doctrine generically, per the MOS, it should not be capitalised.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
The MOS should perhaps be made clearer, since in this discussion editors have claimed that it forbids capitalization of events such as the Last Supper. Capitalization is used to refer not generically but instead to a particular event in a way that distinguishes it from the generic meaning of the same term, distinguishing the Great War from great wars in general, the Enlightenment from enlightenment in general, the French Revolution from French revolutions in general (there have been several), etc. - and the Last Supper from last suppers in general. Esoglou (talk) 09:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
It is not so much that the MOS needs to be clarified, but that various terms need to be assessed for whether they are capitalised because they are proper nouns (acceptable per Wikipedia MOS), or just because they are religious terms with honorific capitalisation (not acceptable per Wikipedia MOS). Perhaps Last Supper was a bad example, as it may be used as a proper noun as indicated by Esoglou; though if the supper purportedly attended by Jesus and the apostles were referred to generically, it would still not be capitalised. Each term would need to be considered on its own merits, and on context, particularly with regard to potential ambiguity. It seems unlikely that kingdom of God, for example, in a Christianity-related article would be confused with some other 'kingdom of God'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
If you catch up with the main policy talk page, Noetica has effectively demolished the over-simplistic use of "proper noun" here, so I think this term should be avoided. How do you refer to a specific event "generically"? But I agree that each term needs to be considered individually, and some may require capitalization in some contexts and not others. Johnbod (talk) 10:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
There is certainly no need to capitalize "kingdom" in the phrase "the kingdom of God". I don't suppose there is any English translation of the Bible that capitalizes the word within that phrase. In exactly the same way, there is no need to capitalize "last supper" in the equally unambiguous phrase "Jesus' last supper". But, where there is no mention of Jesus, "the Last Supper" has a meaning clearly distinct from "the last supper". In contexts that you are unlikely to find in Wikipedia, "the Kingdom" is in fact used, where there is no mention of God, to mean "the kingdom of God", not just any kingdom. An example would be a reference to "renunciation for the sake of the Kingdom". It is really the same as the capitalization of "the White House" to indicate a particular one, not just any white house.Esoglou (talk) 11:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
You've identified the distinction yourself. When a term is used as an episodic name or identifying label of a parable or purported event, it is functioning as a title—a proper noun—and can therefore be capitalised. However, capitals should not be employed generically or merely honorifically.--Jeffro77 (talk) 14:29, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree fully with what you have just said. Unfortunately, to judge by the discussion here, the distinction is not made clearly in the MOS. Unfortunately too, in spite of my best efforts, I failed to get the distinction across to others until you recognized it. And unfortunately, there seems to be reluctance on the part of at least one editor here to accept the description "proper noun", which is why I avoided using it. You are doubtless better than I am at explaining things. Would you please see to it that the distinction is made clear in the MOS? Esoglou (talk) 15:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
It's not at all clear to me why someone would avoid using the correct name for the specific part of speech being discussed. Proper nouns aren't some kind of novelty. The relevant section of the MOS already makes reference to capitalising proper nouns, but it could be made clearer in the MOS that titles of episodic events may function as proper nouns. I will await further comments from others before attempting any change of the MOS.--Jeffro77 (talk) 15:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Additionally, to be clear, certain phrases might sometimes be employed as a title, but other times are in fact employed in a generic sense (that is, as common nouns) even where they may refer to a specific event. For example, Second Coming of Christ would be capitalised if referring to an artwork or as an episodic title for a section of scripture (see also use-mention distinction), but would not need to be capitalised in a discussion of the doctrine, such as in speculation about when that hypothetical event might take place.--Jeffro77 (talk) 15:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Except when referring to an artwork or as an episodic title for a section of scripture, it would doubtless never be necessary to capitalize "second coming" in the phrase "second coming of Christ"; but we should sometimes capitalize a stand-alone "Second Coming", in the same way as we capitalize a stand-alone "Last Supper", but not "last supper" in "Jesus' last supper". Esoglou (talk) 16:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
If there is ambiguity in the use of a partial phrase, the first instance in an article should be given in full (e.g. second coming of Christ; such a term would also generally be Wiki-linked in the first instance), and successive usage of the shortened form does not require capitalisation. This is similar to the MOS' rules for abbreviations, where the full form is given in the first instance.--Jeffro77 (talk) 16:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
For a typical example of unnecessary capitalisation, see the lead of Second Coming of Christ. Second, Coming (in the paragraph and title), Heaven, Right, Hand, Earth (per WP:MOS#Celestial bodies) and the adjectives Biblical and Messianic should not be capitalised. Advent and Parousia are arguable but probably also unnecessary.--Jeffro77 (talk) 16:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
No disagreement, in the context of such Wikipedia articles, though it is not true of some other contexts. Thus the article once titled "Virgin Birth" is now titled "Virgin birth of Jesus". But do we have to do that in every instance? Do we have to change the article title "Last Supper" to "Last supper of Jesus", when "the Last Supper" is such a familiar concept that to speak even later in the article of "the last supper", meaning what people usually think of as "the Last Supper", will look odd to them?
I think "Advent" (the liturgical season) certainly requires capitalization to distinguish it from "advent" (a coming) even more than "Easter" and "Pentecost" require capitalization. On the other hand "parousia" is not usually capitalized. Esoglou (talk) 17:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I was referring to usage within articles, not article titles. However, in the case of the 'Last Supper', that would seem to be an episodic title. Generically, supper is not a common term worldwide, and meal would be a better choice.

Virgin birth is rightly a disambiguation page. Aside from non-religious usage, Christians are far from being the originators of the concept.--Jeffro77 (talk) 17:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

"The Virgin Birth" is "capitalized only when referring to a a specific incident", as Jojalozzo has now rightly indicated in WP:MOSCAPS. I will not go into the question whether births caused by mythological gods having physical sex with women can be called virgin births. Esoglou (talk) 19:47, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
That's a fairly ignorant statement. The Christian 'virgin birth' is just as outlandish to an impartial observer as is any other instance of mythological gods causing 'virgin births'. Additionally, virgin births in Hinduism, Buddhism and Huitzilopochtli (as well as various Jewish virgin births co-opted by Christianity) do not involve "births caused by mythological gods having physical sex with women".--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
As I said, I will not go into that marginal question. Esoglou (talk) 07:44, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Can the capitalized term, "Virgin Birth", be assumed to refer to a specific event in the Bible when it is used in the context of a Christian article? There are other instances of such an event in other narratives, so to ensure specificity we would use a term such as "Virgin Birth of Jesus". However, in an inversion of the MOS guideline, can capitalization alone, in context, render the usage specific? Certainly in a general article about virgin birth, it would be presumptuous to use the capitalized term to refer to any specific instance, but in a particular context, especially once the referent is clearly determined, perhaps the capitalized term can be a useful shortcut. Jojalozzo 17:18, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes it can. The mythology article mentions various other births in the Bible thought to be divinely assisted in some way - rather too many - but none are actually regarded as virgin births in either Jewish or Christian tradition - for example it would be outrageous to both traditions to say that Abraham was not the father of Isaac. In practice I don't think the term is used much for the likes of Isis and Osiris and "Virgin Birth" would be unambiguous as referring to Mary and Jesus in most general contexts, and often even when discussing religions generally. Johnbod (talk) 17:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Can we please drop the question whether "Virgin Birth" can, like "Last Supper", be capitalized when referring to a specific incident - unless someone can show that on a practical level it is relevant to some article in Wikipedia. "Virgin birth of Jesus" is used in Wikipedia and is accepted by all. I don't think capitalized "Virgin Birth of Jesus" is used. Comparisons with other miraculous or virgin births is a matter for discussion in connection with that article, not here. It is surely time to close this discussion. Esoglou (talk) 21:01, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Enough. Thanks! Jojalozzo 23:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
No, it is not necessary to capitalise 'virgin birth' as a 'shortcut'. As stated before, the correct method would be to use the full term the first time it is mentioned, with a wikilink (viz. virgin birth of Jesus); subsequent references to the virgin birth are then clear from the context, although good prose probably wouldn't keep reusing the phrase 'virgin birth'. Some people are used to capitalising religious terms honorifically, and when there is doubt, they err on the side of throwing in a capital. But it's just not necessary.--Jeffro77 (talk) 23:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Let us leave Jeffro77's opinion stand, and close the discussion. Esoglou (talk) 09:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I recently copied a piece of the MOS from the main page to the MOSCAPS page that specifically calls for capitalizing the names of specific events from scripture:

"Spiritual or religious events are capitalized only when referring to specific incidents or periods (the Great Flood and the Exodus; but annual flooding and an exodus of refugees)."

This has been present on the main MOS page for some time but never made it to MOSCAPS. I am content that such terms (Last Supper, Cleansing of the Temple, Crucifixion of Jesus) are proper names, though I am not sure how we determine what is a name and what is just a term that refers to the event (e.g. the Last Supper or the Final Meal Jesus Shared with the Apostles). Jojalozzo 18:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for that, Jojalozzo. Can we consider the matter settled insofar as any general rules can be made on this matter? "No surer sign of insanity exists than an attempt to formulate inviolable rules of capitalization", as The Christian Writer's Manual of Style says.
The Last Supper is distinguished by capitalization from other last suppers to specify which event it is. There are no final meals Jesus shared with the apostles apart from the one, which for that reason does not need to be distinguished by capitalization or in any other way. Esoglou (talk) 19:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I am sorry Esoglou, I do not usually disagree with you, but I must do so on this fundamental issue. A "surer sign of insanity" does exist: long term, unpaid editing of an online encyclopedia for several hours a day. I hear that several papers will prove that in respected academic journals very soon. History2007 (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Excellent move! That goes a long way to solve the issue, though again the principle is a general one that should not really be couched as special to religious matters. Whether a term for a particular event is a standard name that deserves capitalization, or a general descriptive phrase, is a matter of RS, & COMMONNAME. Some events will of course have alternative standard names. Johnbod (talk) 11:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Subissue: "Christ"

I don't agree that Christ is a proper name. I understand it as a title, and in fact I thought we had guidance about its use, ie something about using 'Jesus' rather than 'Christ' in order to adhere to NPOV. Dougweller (talk) 13:31, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

In practice, in concrete reality, "Christ" is used as a proper name, although "the Christ" (the Messiah) is also used. Whether it should or should not be used as a proper name seems marginal to the question of the capitalization of terms such as "Last Supper", and should be discussed separately. Esoglou (talk) 13:47, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree it is used as a proper name, just like Buddha, which doesn't seem to have attracted NPOV attacks. Avoiding Christ again causes problems for art history, where it is completely standard in titles. Johnbod (talk) 13:50, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Doesn't "Christ" mean "oiled"? Anyway, it's no more "POV" than things like (Alfred the) Great, (Ivan the) Terrible and so on - they may originally have expressed an opinion about the person, but are now fossilized as a part of the names we use for them. (Though I agree that as a general rule it's better to use Jesus than Christ, unless there are special considerations as there might be in art history etc.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, sort of. "Christ" tends to be used by, let's say, churches with an episcopal system, and not by Baptists etc. I think that was the concern - not much of an issue in traditional art history, which Baptist churches don't really contribute to. Johnbod (talk) 14:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of the upper/lower case discussion above, I should probably mention some issues regarding the usage of Jesus and Christ. Long before Jesus was born, the Septuagint used the term when it translated the Hebrew mashiach (referring to the Messiah) into Greek and Khristós came to refer to a person who is anointed. The equation "Jesus = Christ" was proposed by Christianity, but is not accepted by Judaism, Islam or the Bahá'í. Yet, Islam and the Bahá'í accept Jesus as a prophet/messenger but not as the long awaited Messiah. As Panennberg explains in Jesus God and Man (ISBN 0664244688 pages 30-31) although Christ was initially a title, in time it became a proper name and also part of the name "Jesus Christ". However its usage in "Christ Jesus" is still considered a title. In the general scholarly literature, the choice of the term Jesus or Christ is dependent on the context, e.g. in an article or a book on Jesus in Islam, Jesus is the proper term to use. However, in many specific contexts the majority of the literature use the term Christ. A key example is, of course, any book or scholarly article on Christology, where the term Christ is used throughout. And there are specific terms such as "perfection of Christ" which have had a specific meaning since the 13th century and their usage is about three times more frequent than perfection of Jesus" which may refer to slightly different concept. Thus per WP:COMMOMNAME in these cases Christ should be used. However, in an article on the historicity of Jesus, the term Jesus should be used. Thus per WP:COMMONNAME etc. the usage is dictated by the context and the topic. History2007 (talk) 16:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with History 2007. Esoglou (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
The term proper name is ill-defined. Christ isn't a personal name, but it is a proper noun.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Because there is no evidence that Jesus is actually 'Christ', articles purporting to present history (rather than doctrine or tradition) should refer to Jesus rather than Christ or Jesus Christ.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Partly so, but not the exact criterion. An article on Islamic doctrine must still use Jesus. History2007 (talk) 04:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I didn't exhaustively list where 'Christ' should be used, I only indicated that it shouldn't be used in a historical context. I certainly didn't suggest using Christ in articles about Islam.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:59, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I know. But still articles on art history may need to refer to Christ because the paintings do (e.g. The Entombment of Christ (Caravaggio)), etc. E.g. this vs this, etc. So it will be hard to come up with "exact rules" and context should determine it per WP:COMMOMNAME, as above. History2007 (talk) 05:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Titles, includes specific names of works of art, are not affected by rules about generic terms.--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:22, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
@History007: I agree. Usage in a discussion of a work of art that the artist or reviewers denote (by title or otherwise) as involving Christ could use both terms depending on the referent and the level of interpretation (literal, symbolic, historical, psychological, etcetera). Jojalozzo 18:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Subissue: WP:SINGULAR

I just noticed in this that in the course of all this moving, Synoptic Gospels was moved to Synoptic gospel; that is, not only was the capitalization changed, but the pluralization was removed. This was a mistake: the synoptics are synoptic only as a set, not as individual books. I'm taking a look at WP:SINGULAR to see whether it needs clarification. Mangoe (talk) 11:48, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:SINGULAR, and the WP:Naming conventions (plural) it refers to, are rather vague about when the exceptions apply. I certainly think you can reverse this move if you disagree with it (it's about a "class of objects", like some of the other examples listed).--Kotniski (talk) 12:02, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately I cannot reverse it, because both the possible destinations are camped by redirects. I've started a discussion on the move. Mangoe (talk) 12:32, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Turns out it was possible to reverse the move (you can move over a redirect if the redirect doesn't have any other edits in its history). So I've done so, pending result of the discussion (the question of capitalization, at least, is still open).--Kotniski (talk) 14:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I can see that singularizing gospel may create the impression that the article is about a single gospel that summarizes the synoptic gospels, so I have no objection to keeping the plural. However, I still support down-casing the noun since, as members of a set, "gospels" is a common noun. Jojalozzo 16:36, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
But Synoptic Gospels is a proper noun - a name for those specific three gospels. It just happens to have a common noun in it. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:01, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Jojalozzo, it's clear your understanding of proper nouns and proper names is, er, incomplete. The word "house" is a common noun, but "White House" is a proper name. Johnbod (talk) 19:56, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
It's a common name for that set of gospels - not an official title but a common noun phrase. Because it is traditionally capitalized doesn't mean it's a proper name. Jojalozzo 20:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Oh yes it does. "Official" is not required. It is enough that it has always been used. Proper nouns/names cover individual things, common ones common things. Johnbod (talk) 20:45, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I think this discussion should be taking place at the article's talk page. Jojalozzo 20:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

= Christian Film Group?

I know we have a Christmas music and Christian metal portal, but has anyone made a Christian movies or films portal? Seems like it would be worthy of inclusion as a sub-project. Gaming4JC (talk) 15:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

There is the extant Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Christian films task force. However, I, too, would be interested in knowing if there were any interest in, perhaps, making subprojects for the "Christian culture" fields, like, Christian art, Christian media (TV, radio, televangelists, etc.), Christian literature (fiction), Christian nonfiction, Christian history, with, maybe, separate groups for early Christianity and the Reformation-Counter-reformation, and maybe other areas. If they were created, I think it would best be done if they were to be created in conjunction with the other groups which deal with those topics in a broader way. John Carter (talk) 20:28, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

AfD

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/K. P. Yohannan. Thanks. BigJim707 (talk) 01:32, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Consolation of Philosophy GAR

Hi, as a related WikiProject, you might be interested to know that the article Consolation of Philosophy is now up for a Good Article Review. Best, It Is Me Here t / c 11:39, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed subcategories for clerical and/or academic converts

I have begun a discussion of this topic at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Proposed subcategories for clerical and/or academic converts, and would certainly welcome input from editors dealing with Christianity on the topic as well. John Carter (talk) 20:25, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Sobor

An article that you have been involved in editing, [[ Sobor ]], has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Spshu (talk) 21:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Move to disambiguate Icon

At Talk:Icon#Requested_move. I'm notifying all projects. Johnbod (talk) 17:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Help required

I would like help improving the Pope John Paul II article, if anyone can spare the time.
Thank you. :-) -- Marek.69 talk 00:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

overweight "Hebrew Gospel" additions

Please see Talk:Gospel. Fine to link to peripheral material articles and deal with theories at length there, but basic "Gospel" article needs to be kept mainstream. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:38, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Oral tradition and the historical Jesus

This relates in some ways to the request above. I stumbled upon this article and found references to self-published books, original research, matters expressed as certain when they aren't, etc. I'm not even convinced this article shouldn't be a redirect. I think there are more OR problems but would really appreciate other eyes. Note that the article's creator is accusing another editor incorrectly of hounding him which doesn't help much. He's also been promoting it at the top of other articles as a 'see also', inappropriately in my opinion. Dougweller (talk) 11:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the heart of the debate is at Talk:Gospel. I commented there that mainstream ideas probably point the other way. I think the existence of the oral tradition needs to be mentioned somewhere, but presenting it as a key issue, or mainstream idea would be, let us say "novel". Retired Prof. is generally a good editor, but in this case there is a "novelty issue" in my opinion. I think he would do well to abandon this avenue for it will consume time and not get very far. History2007 (talk) 14:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
He has abandoned editing claiming he's been hounded. Another editor (not the one he claims is hounding him) says he will turn this article into a stub. Dougweller (talk) 16:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I vaguely remember an ongoing joke about "the next good bye for ever Sinatra concert" but don't recall the details.... So you never know... History2007 (talk) 19:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I have turned the article into a stub, but it could do with some expert attention. Huon (talk) 19:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Good move. I touched up some parts that were not supported by sources, but we are somewhat out of stock on expert all around, need to call WMF and ask them to order some. History2007 (talk) 19:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Deposition of the Robe

hello,

I wonder why the article Deposition of the Robe does not exist.--♫GoP♫TCN 12:43, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Because no one has written it - it is pretty obscure. Off you go, it will keep you out of trouble on talk pages - here's a starting point. Actually, I'm confused, are there 2 robes? The material could just be added to the church(es), with redirects there. Johnbod (talk) 01:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
It was hypothetical. My intention was not to see this answered, but just requesting the article for the hope someone will write it.--♫GoP♫TCN 11:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Usually a waste of time these days; if you want it do it yourself. The ability to read Russian would be pretty essential too. Johnbod (talk) 11:23, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Do scholarly opinions matter in Wikipedia?

We have been having a somewhat long discussion on this talk page (part of this project) about the use of scholarly opinions, and if they actually matter in Wikipedia. Comments that will clarify the situation will be appreciated since I am getting somewhat tired of stating the obvious. Any help in clarifying the issues will be appreciated. Thank you. History2007 (talk) 00:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

International Churches of Christ

The article International Churches of Christ could use the attention of some experts in this area. Our article on this controversial church has a history of critics/former members trying to frame it as a cult, and members/supporters of the church trying to remove criticism and fill the article with glowing praise of the church. Lately the latter group, through the work for several SPAs, has shifted the tone of the article considerably to one point of view. A few uninvolved editors from this WikiProject could probably help bring some needed balance to the article. Thanks. Deli nk (talk) 22:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, the related articles International Christian Churches and Kip McKean could also use an independent review for the same reasons. Deli nk (talk) 22:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Article needing attention

I have just tagged Ad Sanctam Beati Petri Sedem as requiring some immediate attention, as it is currently a redirect to Jansenism. Papal bulls are, pretty much, almost inherently notable, given the huge amount of material relating to Catholocism out there (not to mention Jansenism) and it seems to me reasonable that the bull probably deserves a separate article. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 01:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Right. Will do. History2007 (talk) 01:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Does the Bible say homosexuality is sinful?

Editors at Christianity and homosexuality are considering this question. You can be a part of this exciting and invigorating discussion here. – Lionel (talk) 04:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Christianity will have interest in putting on events related to women's roles in Christianity. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Christian Concern

There is a discussion at Christian Concern about the inclusion/exclusion of a Controversy section that has become deadlocked. Your input is welcome here: Talk:Christian_Concern#Channel_4_documentary. – Lionel (talk) 22:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The use of the Jesus template

A user has asked for help here about the use the "Jesus template" on a page because the template keeps getting removed by a single editor. The user has asked for comments and consensus, so suggestions will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 09:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible limitng of relevant project/subproject talk pages

It seems to me a good idea that we maybe limit the number of relevant wikipedia-space project/subproject talk pages, particularly to perhaps increase the amount of attention comments might receive. Given its numerical size and lengthy history, maybe the Catholicism WikiProject talk page might well remain, as well as, potentially, other such talk pages which receive substantial attention and response. Would this seem like a good idea to the rest of you, and, if it does, which specific pages would you believe should be turned into redirects? John Carter (talk) 19:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely. Is the "interfaith task force" (?) still, er, inactive? Anything that averages less than one post per month should be redirected imo. Johnbod (talk) 19:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I may have an alternative. The new template {{Christianity-related talkpages}} has the potential to increase awareness of the other subprojects. The new Dashboard will enable editors to see what's new at a glance on all subproject talkpages. See the scrollbox here for a preview: user:Lionelt/Work page#Project. The Dashboard is here: WP:WikiProject Christianity/Dashboard. – Lionel (talk) 13:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I have nothing against the dashboard idea, and personally would really like to see something like it for all the religion/philosophy/mythology projects. It is not, however, immediately obvious what the dashboard does, and it also obviously requires a separate action to see it, and both of those are at least perhaps partially problematic. Also, I think that there still is, probably, a bit of a problem with some subprojects that, by having the comment placed on that talk page, which may be inactive, some individuals might assume that "they're taking care of it there", when, in fact, there may be few if any active editors watching the page in the first place. To me, it would probably still make sense to turn at least some of the talk pages of the more seriously inactive projects to redirects, because I think by doing so it would increase the number of people who would see, and perhaps respond. John Carter (talk) 00:29, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Those are excellent points. It is challenge to maintain the identity of the subprojects while at the same time serving the needs of talk page visitors. Redirecting is definitely an option.

IMO the implementation of the WP:noticeboards is a good model to follow. The new {{Christianity-related talkpages}} is based on {{Noticeboard links}} and {{Centralized discussion}}. The new Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Dashboard is based on WP:DBOARD. The DBOARD is generated by a custom bot, so until we get it modified, I've added a scrollbox of RecentChanges to talk pages. – Lionel (talk) 04:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

An alternative to redirecting would be to place notices on the less active talkpages suggesting that posters also duplicate their post on WP:X for the wider audience. We could put a template on the top of the talk page and/or an editnotice could appear when they click "Edit this page."

What about merging WT:X and Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/General Forum and renaming it WP:Christian Wikipedians Noticeboard along the lines of the regional boards?– Lionel (talk) 04:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I would support the idea. This seems to work well for WP:India and WP:Pakistan. I think renaming it "Wikipedia talk:Notice board for Christianity-related topics" might be a better choice, however. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 05:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
I was bold and tagged several dormant projects and redirected talk pages. WPHoliness is a good candidate for same. I also synchronized Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/sidebar, Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Christianity Wikiprojects, Template:Christianity-related talkpages and Portal:Christianity/Projects. – Lionel (talk) 05:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Project page

The project page is huge. Perhaps it could benefit from tabs. Also it would be a good marketing strategy to make the page fun and inviting. If it had some dynamic content (as opposed to static) it would encourage repeat visits. – Lionel (talk) 04:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Good suggestions all. We do have the section indicating current MfDs, RfCs, and such, but that isn't actually a lot. Also it would help a lot if we had one or more people who would maybe post links to active FA and GA candidates and reviews, relevant RfCs, and the like on the talk page. I wish my schedule allowed me to do all that myself, but it probably doesn't. If there were any individuals who wanted to step forward to do any of those actions, I think we would all be very grateful of such. John Carter (talk) 21:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Those brainiacs at WPConservatism are doing interesting stuff with <inputbox> in using it to post announcements to their talk page. I'll look into it. – Lionel (talk) 23:53, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Developing this line of thought a little bit... I think the main project page should (1) entice non-members to join (value proposition) and (2) give established members a quick glance at everything that's going on in Christianity without boring them with terabytes of static content. – Lionel (talk) 00:04, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Wondering what the project logo is: or ? It appears that the former is the portal logo. – Lionel (talk) 11:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

There isn't an official logo, but the blue background logo is more or less the one at this point most frequently used for broader Christianity, I think.
For the sake of consistency, perhaps we should use the blue one for the portal, and the plain cross for WP:X and greater Christianity. My thinking generally is the blue logo is for article space, the plain cross for talk & project space. Thoughts? – Lionel (talk) 23:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

RecentChanges Listing

After over 2 years without an accurate RecentChanges listing due to the demise of SQLBot, I took the liberty of asking Rich Farmbrough to add our project to his Fembot (the little bot that could). He was kind enough to make it so. It took him all of 5 hours. If you want to personally express your thanks you can drop off some wikilove here: User talk:Rich Farmbrough. He has been under extreme unwarranted wiki-pressure lately, I think he'll appreciate the gesture. Thanks. – Lionel (talk) 23:45, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Recognized content listing

For quite a while now, about 5 years actually, the Recognized content listing has been maintained manually, primarily by John Carter. Well so much for that. From now on JL-Bot will update the listing automatically. He works tirelessly 24/7, doesn't eat, doesn't sleep. Don't ya love bots. – Lionel (talk) 09:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Creation of this noticeboard

I don't necessarily dispute creation of this noticeboard, but taking the WikiProject talk page over here is not the way to do it. Mangoe (talk) 11:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree - no way to do it. And the 21 second notice given before doing it was probably 20 seconds too short. But I do think that there is no point in this notice board because if X people read the project talk page and Y people read this most probably Y is less than X. So it is a digression that will just distract attention, and it will not be clear where to post. So I would suggest not doing it anyway. History2007 (talk) 11:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
With all the subprojects and workgroups for WikiProject Christianity, a noticeboard is the best way to go. With all its subprojects and workgroups, WikiProject India is formatted in a similar fashion. Its noticeboard gets a plethora of traffic. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 13:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Move of this page

I noticed that this talk page was moved to a noticeboard with as much as 21 seconds notice and no discussion. I agree with Manogoe's reversal of that and as I said on that talk page, I see that as a distraction, given that fewer people would read it than this page, and it would either require double postings, or an increase in the effort to watch two pages. There are so few posts here anyway (and some of the above entries look like a personal blog) that there is no overload and no need for a separate noticeboard unless this gets crowded. History2007 (talk) 12:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey History, I actually gave 5 days notice. See the thread "Possible limitng of relevant project/subproject talk pages" above. Another editor, Anupam, voiced support. The move didn't seem controversial... That said it's a big step to move the main talkpage. The more discussion the better.

The idea is not to have a "seperate" noticeboard, but a single discussion board for the entire Christianity community. This talkpage is already the de facto page for the entire community, calling it "Christianity noticeboard" merely solidifies that status. The original WP:X talkpage would be redirected to the new noticeboard. Most of the mega-projects refer to their community-wide boards as noticeboards. Anupam mentioned India and Pakistan. The United States NB also comes to mind. Thoughts? – Lionel (talk) 12:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I did not notice that item about limiting items etc. Long post it was. But let us see what other people say anyway. History2007 (talk) 12:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, with all the subprojects and workgroups for WikiProject Christianity, a noticeboard is the best way to go. With all its subprojects and workgroups, WikiProject India is formatted in a similar fashion. Its noticeboard gets a plethora of traffic. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 13:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
So are people from project Calvinism and Catholicism going to "only" post there, and not elsewhere? History2007 (talk) 14:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
No, individuals from the subprojects of Calvinism and Catholicism may post on their respective talk pages. If you look at the noticeboard, with the new technology used there, all of the subprojects and workgroups' talk pages are monitored there. Posting at the noticeboard will alert the whole project, rather than just a particular subprject or workgroup. Are you okay with moving the talk page now? I look forward to your response. With regards, AnupamTalk 14:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
So it is more than a talk page and has alert software. In that case, I think it is a good idea. History2007 (talk) 14:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Exactly! It seems like we have consensus to make the move. Hopefully when User:Lionelt sees this, he can make the move again. With regards, AnupamTalk 14:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Wait 45 seconds (or maybe 2 more days) for more comments, then ok. History2007 (talk) 14:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
History asked for 2 days. It's been 3. I'm going to move the page. Let's try it out for a week and see what happens. We can always undo it... – Lionel (talk) 04:54, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I think there has been enough discussion back and forth now that most people can not say they did not hear about it. SO should be ok. History2007 (talk) 05:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Editors wanted to help me bring some balance to the articles

I have noticed that on various articles, like the exodus, a small group of editors consistently enforces a minority hyper-skeptical POV. The problem routinely seems to be that the same small group of 2 or 3 editors work together somehow, while the editors trying to bring back the majority scholarly viewpoint come one at a time, and so are usually outnumbered. If anyone wants to work with me to bring some balance back to these articles, let me know.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 15:59, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If you are going to post in various forums asking for help to bring balance, you owe it to others to explain what this would mean in practice, following our policies on sources and WP:NPOV. To help you, the section on balance in our NPOV policy says "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both approaches and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint." Dougweller (talk) 19:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with neutrality or Wikipedia policy. Minority scholarly views are represented as though they are majority POVs on the articles. The claims are wrong, not simply lacking in balance.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 05:46, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
On that note, what does one do when:
  • It is clearly agreed on talk what the "majority scholarly view" is per WP:RS/AC, that having been discussed by several editors, settled and not subject to debate any more.
  • Some editor still thinks that majority scholarly view is "skewed" and suggests that the "facts" should be stated, as here along with it as determined by some editors?
On that page, a larger number of small references are beginning to bury the majority view. So that issue is far more commonplace that may seem. History2007 (talk) 19:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Quarkgluonsoup is asking other individual editors like you to help, but another way is to have an RfC on the issue, which should bring in editors who haven't been involved in the talk page. Such RfCs get wide attention and among other things are posted randomly to editors who have agreed to receive them. This gives a better chance of getting a balanced view. Dougweller (talk) 20:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I know. I wish I had 79 hours in each day.... We are so short of knowledgeable editors in this project (and elsewhere) that I am not sure when things will improve. Quarkgluonsoup's observation about the "small possy phenomenon" is both valid and troubling. John Carter was alluding to that above on this page elsewhere. The general Rfcs usually eat 30 days out of one's life pretty easily and one has to tutor 50% the participants on the subject. I wish there could be more "focused Rfcs" but that is a policy issue and not the subject here. The reality is that there is so much to fix, and so few active editors, that as John Carter commented some articles are degrading to lower quality items. And I see that as an issue in this project as well as elsewhere... History2007 (talk) 20:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, I don't know what to think. On the one hand the view that Exodus is a total fabrication has the weight of 2 centuries of Wellhausen etc. scholarship behind it. On the other hand, I'm not sure why the article needs paragraphs such as "According to biblical scholar Carol A. Redmount" (who? - yes I know who) while Kenneth Kitchen is footnoted as if he was was some fringe muppet. I would have thought that overall the consensus of all disciplines today was that there was an "exodus" of sorts from Egypt and a Canaan conquest and to have "The archaeological evidence of the largely indigenous origins of Israel is "overwhelming," and leaves "no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness." without having in front of it William G. Dever. It's a view, and more fool anyone who says "no room for" for anything as non-tangible as a journey through a desert. Anyway, those are just first impressions. I would think the article needs majority views stated as majority views, but not as uncontested proven fact. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:59, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

What you must know to think is that I have not read The Exodus article, so do not know the details - nor do I know the topic that well. I made a general comment that we are shorthanded, and the "small possy phenomenon" is a long term issue in Wikipedia. And forget the small possy, it can be a "possy of one" as you saw on Gospel. And it can go to funny extremes. Examples are:

  • A few weeks ago, on a separate page, I was cautioned, yes cautioned! "against approaching this overly much as an academic exercise" when I wanted to add a few of the basic papers on that topic to an article which is a real embarrassment.

So there are serious problems out there, and scholarly views are a Wiki-endangered species these days. History2007 (talk) 00:09, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Even if you aren't an expert on the exodus, the skewing of it is similar to the skewing of other religion articles. The small group of editors enforces a hyper-skeptical POV, while claiming that other viewpoints are "minority" even when they aren't. Since these editors act together, they can ensure that the articles stay biased.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 05:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Amen Quark. The same thing is happening at Thanksgiving where the religious origin of the holiday is being suppressed. And at Christianity and homosexuality an editor is fighting an uphill battle to correct the article to say that the Bible condemns homosexuality. – Lionel (talk) 04:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
The bible- is not a single book - with a coherent world view -it is a load of very different books isn't it - did Jesus ever say anything about homosexuality? I doubt it. And Paul when he made some of his statements at least had the honesty to say 'thats just my opinion, thats not 'the Christ within me ' kind of thing. theres loads of weird stuff in the Old TEstament , so what - its a collection of books and right wing people like you pick what you like and go deaf on ' give your money away to the poor' ' judge not' ' turn the other cheek' 'it is wrong to kill, yeah, and i say, its wrong to even think ill of your brother..' right wing Xtians - makes you puke really. Sayerslle (talk) 23:58, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
The only way we are going to do anything is by organizing. Only then will we be able to overcome these small groups of editors enforcing their minority POV.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 05:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
It is not just in this project. It is everywhere, really everywhere. On WikiProject Computing, there is mostly just one grad student in Europe who is helping out, but there are "really determined" users who plug their own work. There was/is a wannabe researcher who has published a couple of less than stellar papers on an obscure algorithm that no one pays attention to. And said researcher was modifying a number of pages stating that his algorithm is the most respected item in the field etc. And the only defense mechanism in Wikipedia is one grad student in Europe who noticed it! The encyclopedia is getting corrupted all over the place, and there are not enough defenses in place... The determined, agenda driven users eventually wear out the moderate editors. Perhaps your "noticeboard idea" is a solution here, if at least for this project these issues can be noticed and addressed. I see little hope for some other projects (e.g. computing) where there are very few active editors, and many editors have left. But perhaps as John carter also said, some notice mechanism can be used to help achieve some stability in this project, if not others. History2007 (talk) 04:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
The "small posse phenomena", in my experience, is mainly a problem on the religion articles (though I am sure it exists elsewhere too, I just haven't seen it). The problem on the religion articles is worse than a small posse of editors pushing a minority viewpoint. They outright revert masses of work by other editors (note my recent changes on the exodus, reverted twice by two such editors). No where else on Wikipedia do you see this (in my extensive experience at least). Also, when reading through the experiences of other editors dealing with these posses on the religion articles (there is at least one such recent discussion on the exodus talk page), I noticed that the editors don't even seem to take these other views seriously. They seem to just be inventing rationales to justify their reversions. They will claim some legitimate reason, though these reasons always seem to lead to reversions of one type of viewpoint.
There are a lot of biased religion articles, and they seem to be biased in the same direction by the same small posse of editors. I am not going to waste my time, doing research and improving these articles, just to have these editors revert them whole sale and give bogus explanations. Their views rarely represent "mainstream scholarly opinion" and they always seem able to come up with whatever justification necessary , no matter how much "mainstream scholarly opinion" they are presented with. Some people simply can't be convinced, no matter what the evidence. Ironically, the editors in these posses enforcing their POV are in the minority, only they act together whereas everyone else comes and goes, acting alone.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 05:39, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Several months ago there was a full blown war at Southern Adventist University. The article was plagued with POV edit warriors. Lots of blocks were handed out. Once we got rid of the riff raff the article improved tremendously. But it did take participation by Wikiproject SDA, and patient use of WP policies. The achive for this small school is trillions of bytes! And boy was it worth it: I got my first GA on that article. I'll take a look at Exodus and see what can be done. – Lionel (talk) 05:52, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
I think that if there is any imbalance on our religious articles, it is usually a pro-whatever the religion is for the majority of the articles without much attention to NPOV, while a few major ones get the attention of editors with different points of view and have a chance of being NPOV. Dougweller (talk) 15:54, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

And it all swings back and forth anyway, as editors change. Take a look at this: A semi-coordinated semi-possy. There have been so many puppets of Lloyd Baltazar, I can no longer remember how many. And they "directly admit" that there are a few people sharing that account. And many (in fact most) of their (mostly invented) edits survive to date. I clean up what I can, but there are probably 6 or 7 of them, and can not be tracked that easily. So they are leaving a "trail of fabrications" which they have called "pious inventions" across many pages.... There is no way to clean these up, except with a bot that would detect it beforehand.... I have often wondered what happens if as in the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest episode where the mental patients break out, get on a boat and introduce themselves as professors (and are believed, for they look like crazy professors), some modern day patients get hold of smart phones, coordinate things across the country and form editing teams that change content via consensus, say in WikiProject psychology... In fact, come to think of it, how do we know it is not happening already? History2007 (talk) 16:07, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

General Forum

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/General Forum is a page for discussion of general Christianity issues. It appears to be inactive, and with the new Noticeboard perhaps redundant. I propose that we rename it "Planning Department" and use it for strategic planning initiatives. Thoughts? – Lionel (talk) 05:41, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion: Homosexuality and Seventh-day Adventism

This article has been nominated for deletion: Homosexuality and Seventh-day Adventism. If you want to weigh in on this discussion go here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Homosexuality and Seventh-day Adventism. – Lionel (talk) 06:08, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments needed on the majority scholarly view: Josephus on Jesus

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Editor blocked. Stable version restored. – Lionel (talk) 12:04, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

There is again a discussion of whether the majority scholarly view should be given prominence over small minority viewpoints on Josephus on Jesus. The issue of "what constitutes the majority viewpoint" is clear and is not subject to debate among editors. The issue is whether the majority scholarly view is "acceptable" to a single editor, or whether it should be subject to what the editor considers "facts" which do not mesh with the majority view. The editor has argued against 3 others supporting the acknowledged majority view, but further opinions from those watching this page will be appreciated, given that John Carter suggested that need on that talk page. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 04:48, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The majority view is given in the article. In fact you need to read the article in order to count the amount of times it is repeated over and over. No-one is arguing that the majority view be omitted. No-one has removed the majority view from the article, except removing excessive references to to it. There is not a single "so-called" fact in the entire article, because each passage contains a supporting verifiable citation conforming with Wikipedia Guidelines. The passages in Josephus about Jesus have been disputed since the 16th century. Either in whole or in part. Books by Louis Feldman and Alice Whealey have been devoted to chronicling the history of this debate. And even those scholars who believe the passages are authentic devote space in their books to the views that are opposite to their own (as do the scholars who argue the passages are spurious). There is no Wikipedia prohibition on the history of a subject matter. Should all references to the passages in Josephus about Jesus being disputed be omitted from the article? Because this is really what is under issue. I have included content and citations to contemporary Biblical scholars from between 1982 and 2011 that outline the reasons why the passages in Josephus about Jesus are disputed and there is a concerted effort to have that material omitted from the article, trying to give the biased one-sided view nearly all scholars consider the passages authentic without referencing those scholars who consider the passages are disputed - in fact to remove all details about that side of the argument. Both sides of the argument are presented in scholarly books on the subject matter from both sides concerned. This presentation should also be presented on Wikipedia. Lung salad (talk) 08:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
@History: you don't need comments. You need an admin. – Lionel (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Someone posted on ANI/3RR about it. But if you know another way to ask an admin to take action, please do so. It will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
3RRNB is the best venue. It took a long time to get my speedy of WT:XNB handled, and I have an {{editrequest}} that is days old. I keep hearing there's a shortage of admins... But when someone does get over to 3RRNB a certain editor is getting a 24 hour vacation for sure. – Lionel (talk) 10:56, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
All my edits conform to Wikipedia Guidelines supported by verifiable citations. Lung salad (talk) 10:29, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lottie Moon - confederate spy or missionary or both?

Copied from the "talk" section of the Wiki article on Lottie Moon:

A book says that Lottie Moon is a Confederate spy and her sister was Virginia "Ginnie" Moon. Is this the same person and if so is it true? 99.178.102.54 (talk) 06:38, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

The Wiki Lottie Moon missionary page here links to the Lottie Moon House spy page. Please clarify above question. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.165.93.94 (talk) 19:47, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Resolved: The Lottie Moon House was not named for Lottie Moon. Detailed explanation at Talk:Lottie Moon. Incorrect link removed. Huon (talk) 21:11, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Editing hatnote

This talk page carries an editing hatnote which states that its purpose is to discuss Wikipedia:Christianity noticeboard. Since WT:WikiProject Christianity was moved here, I would have expected it to continue in its function as a general discussion area for the WikiProject or for Christianity-related issues - most importantly, as the place where one can ask the WikiProject members and other interested editors for help with Christianity-related articles. The hatnote explicitly says otherwise and instructs editors with specific problems to go to the help desk instead. Is the hatnote wrong, or has that function of WT:WikiProject Christianity been abolished without a substitute? Huon (talk) 21:21, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning that. This discussion page is for everything related to Christianity, including WPChristianity issues. I'll get rid of the edit notice.

Please delete the default edit notice as it doesn't apply.– Lionel (talk) 22:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Done The only way to suppress the default notice is to create a specific notice for this page at Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:Christianity noticeboard. Anomie⚔ 15:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Anomie!!!! – Lionel (talk) 11:24, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Queer theory speculation and history

Two articles which acknowledge queer theory speculation, both of which largely discount it, have been added to Category:LGBT history prior to the 19th century: Aelred of Rievaulx and Ethiopian eunuch. I reverted the latter because, whatever the weight of the speculation (and I personally think it is extremely dubious) the story of the eunuch isn't about homosexuality, and it is questionable to characterize it as history. Bet that as it may, I'm also pretty dubious about Aelred. These notions, as a rule, qualify as fringe theories; I'm grudgingly willing to have the articles in Category:Homosexuality and Christianity due to the role these ideas play in modern church disputes, but characterizing them as "history" seems to me to give them a blessing which they do not merit. Mangoe (talk) 11:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

While the article seems rather weaselly, the talk page cites the American Council of Learned Societies' Dictionary of the Middle Ages, volume 4. Unless I miss something, that looks like a reliable source supporting Aelred's homosexuality. It should be incorporated in the article. Huon (talk) 12:53, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm a bit concerned about that citation, given the lack of page references. In the next day or so I hope to get to the library to check it out. What concerns me more isn't so much that the articles mention these speculations as it that the categorization endorses them as widely accepted facts of history. A look at the category shows some survey articles, a bunch of Greeks and Romans and many early modern court cases (many of which I find a bit dubious in the notability department, be that is may), but sprinkled among these are quasihistorical figures and questionably referenced or justified implications about historical figures. Saints Sergius and Bacchus, David and Jonathan and Sexuality of Jesus all belong to queer theology, not history; Shah Hussain and Abu Nuwas are very poorly referenced and smell of a lack of social context; Sandro Botticelli and Benvenuto Cellini appear to be included on the basis of insults or slanders of their enemies. I'm inclined to remove all of these from the category as fringe theories or as lacking historicity. Mangoe (talk) 14:11, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Agree. History: no. Queer theology: yes. Let's remove the history cats. – Lionel (talk) 09:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting

I don't know if anyone is interested in this subject, but this article seems to have been rewritten by someone from the organisation itself, without looking at any of our policies and guidelines, and is a mess and full of copyvio. But someone might want to rescue it! Have we got some Quaker editors that might be interested? Dougweller (talk) 17:27, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I am not interested in the subject, but it was "so bad" just had to touch it up a little. I think most of it has to be deleted. May do it a day or so... I do have a theory that this type of junk will eventually cut back on donations, as some people say "we are donating all this money for this type of rummage sale material?"... So these type of pages need to get cleaned up to maintain the credibility of the encyclopedia. History2007 (talk) 17:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
It was removed, perhaps by the original editor. Now the article has to be rebuilt as it is a worthy topic. Dougweller (talk) 07:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I now saw that. I added a couple of RS refs anyway, so it does not look lost and will not get Afded, but building it up will take work. If we explain RS sources to those guys, they will probably do it right. History2007 (talk) 10:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I added a few more RS sources. I think the page should be related to Indiana Yearly Meeting and discussed in the larger context. History2007 (talk) 04:56, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
And thank you for your work there. Dougweller (talk) 07:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Contest

Initiative to relaunch the contest here. – Lionel (talk) 10:41, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Notability guideline for pastors and other religious

There is a discussion about writing a notability guideline at WPCatholic here: [1]. I think it would be beneficial to widen the discussion to include the protestants. – Lionel (talk) 11:21, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Project improvement and critical needs

Lionel suggested a contest and my guess is that the intention is to improve "project content". That is good. But the type of contests that have taken place in the past have aimed to create new articles. So that made me ask "What will help improve WikiProject Christianity?":

  • 1. Is there a need for a large number of new articles?
  • 2. Is there a larger need for cleaning up what there is?
  • 3. Is there a need for defending existing high quality content against "fabrication"? - and here I mean fabrications that are harder to notice than vandalism, e.g. by the many puppets of Baltazar mentioned above, etc.
  • 4. Is there a need to maintain "good editors" who leave due to totally unreasonable edit disputes that drag out too long, with no hope in sight?

My feeling is that items 2 and 3 are serious issues and item 4 is critical. This user said it in one sentence: The days of "more is better" are well over. It is no longer article count that matters, but article quality. The key problems I see is item 4:

  • Good new users give up and leave due to talk page contentions.

I have seen good and knowledgeable users just stop. Consider User:Jpacobb. He was knowledgeable and nice. When he first started, I tried to encourage him to edit, alas a short time later, disaster struck on Origin of the Eucharist (where some user may have a WP:COI) and Jpacobb has not edited since February 6th. That is called a "loss". He could have been a good editor, but was probably too nice to deal with that situation. Had there been more support for him, he may have stayed. The editor he (and myself) argued against was blocked for a day, but then continued on and on again. My guess is that that was too much for Jpacobb who wanted to do "cooperative development" but realized that is not how Wikipedia works, despite the smiles shown on banner ads at fundraising.

And as I stated on this page before, there was/is mayhem on Talk:Josephus on Jesus and may yet continue. Personally I never even wanted to clean up that page, but an IP kept asking for a cleanup. As the clean up progressed we had nothing but mayhem, with a user crossing the 11RR line (yes 11 reverts in 1 day) before getting blocked at last, just for over a day - and he is back now! And pure illogic persists on that type of talk page, e.g. someone stating that the "ministry of Jesus started after the death of John the Baptist". I did not know what to say, so I said his Bible must have been the "wrong version" - given that the baptist dies in chapter 14 of Matthew, long after the Sermon on the Mount, etc. So while illogic reigns with freedom, how can I even try to think of a contest. So what did I do today, I wrote a new article on operating systems, where there is less contention.

So the problem I see for this project is that contention and illogic act as barriers to progress. There needs to be more coordinated action to make logic prevail on seemingly simple issues, coupled with better admin-help. Else quality will not improve and progress will halt, with energy directed to less contentious projects. History2007 (talk) 23:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I would myself maybe disagree with only a few points above. Last I checked, which was admittedly some time ago, the third largest Lutheran denomination in the world, an African one, still did not have a separate article. I think we probably have at least a few other rather obvious lacks of coverage as well. Having said that, however, I do tend to agree that we could very easily concentrate more of our attention on the existing content, particularly the more significant articles. Regarding JoJ mentioned above, should the problems continue, I think it would be more than reasonable to request short term page protection to reduce that problem. John Carter (talk) 02:27, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Is there a "list of key missing articles" somewhere? If so, please let me know. If not, we should start one. An example of the quality problems, take a look at John the Baptist. He is a key biblical figure, but the page is a mess. I have been trying to get to it since October, as I said on talk. The problem is that the energy eaten up in controlling illogic and dealing with confused users could go into cleaning up articles. The Gospel of John page has so many built-in errors, I could not even bring myself to tag it. It has gems such as "A distinctive feature of the Gospel of John, is that it provides a very different chronology of Jesus' ministry from that in the synoptics" If that is the distinctive feature of the gospel of John then I do not know what to say.... That page has a section called "Comparison Chart of the Major Gospels" which has been casually tagged as "original research?" with a small marker, but is in fact "total WP:OR" and 90% incorrect, given that they used multiple sources to glue the table together. Many of these pages about the New Testament have been written by people who do not seem to have read the New Testament, but just pick up summaries here and there and throw some text onto a page. There used to be a "fabricated page" based on WP:OR called discourse on holiness (a Wikipedia invented term!) as part of the Sermon on the mount which I have since cleaned up, but there are just too many problems like that all over.
Unfortunately, no. We would have to review the various reference sources to come up with such a list. I've started on that, but expect it will take awhile to bring about. John Carter (talk) 21:57, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
The problem I see is that a user such as Jpacobb could have cleaned up the John the Baptist or Gospel of John pages, but talk page contention pushed him away. And short term page protection is no help in dealing with illogic, for a determined, confused person will just come back after said protection has expired. The problem is the lack of coordination among the members of this project to deal with illogic, so that the effort spent on dealing with that can be channeled to productive use on articles that need help. History2007 (talk) 05:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
My vision for the contest first and foremost is to have fun and build camaraderie. After that if we churn out FAs, GAs and DYKs, so much the better.

You raise excellent points about editor retention and problems related to disruption. An article that has seen far more disruption than many of ours is Barack Obama. Have you see the Obama faq? In essence, the editors there discuss an issue, arrive at consensus, and "publish" it in the FAQ. In A13 they refer to "swift closure" of topics that come up repeatedly. We could employ FAQs to great effect in problem articles. Regarding admin help, perhaps we should update the member roster and identify which members are admins, and then setup a 9-1-1 system. What about recruiting more admins? Are there any members with 50,000 edits and clean block log? (yuk, yuk) – Lionel (talk) 07:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I have not looked at the Obama page and will not bother with politics in general. I have hardly ever edited a political page. I see those pages as extensions of social media, not encyclopedic items.
But your idea of a "hotline" or "9-1-1 system" is pretty good. Even if not a 9-1-1 for admins, but a specific 9-1-1 type call on this page for help from a few editors to help establish logic via consensus. The fact remains that unless "project support" is provided to editrs who start out with the best of intentions, they can be driven away very quickly by the erratic behavior of just one user, and as in the case of Jpacobb, that type of loss may be a major loss for the project. History2007 (talk) 08:07, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm. 9-1-1 system. I'll see what I can do..... – Lionel (talk) 08:19, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. By the way what does 50,000 and clean log have to do with it? History2007 (talk) 08:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I thought I was subtly encouraging you to stand for RFA. – Lionel (talk) 08:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Does one need 50,000 edits and a clean log to be an admin? I had not thought about that, but how hard is that? History2007 (talk) 08:40, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Any 9-1-1 system needs to include editors with different perspectives, both from within and without Christianity, although hopefully that goes without saying. Does anyone disagree? History2007, you might want to read WP:RFA. You definitely do not need that many edits, although a clean log is pretty important. You can ask me more on my talk page as this isn't really relevant here. Dougweller (talk) 14:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I hadn't known what was meant by a 911 system, the button looks an interesting idea. By the way, they don't call us janitors for no reason, it's boring and tedious at times. Dougweller (talk) 15:28, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the current admin salary seems low and I would call up WMF and ask for a 15% increase if I were you. But that is another story, as you said. The main issue I see is the need for comment from peiple with basic knowledge of the topic, as in WP:COMPETENCE. There are people outside the project who come in with the best of intentions and comment on Afds and say things that need correction. And given that "fabrication" is an issue, I should again go back to this semi-comic Afd which illustrates the problem:

  • The page was a clear fabrication, and the puppet had even said so on talk.
  • I have for long seen the comments by Peterkingiron and he is a very reasonable and well intentioned user.
  • But he ended up arguing based on the "Immaculate conception of Jesus"!

I tried not to get upset there, but that just showed that he had "no idea about the topic", but could vote anyway. So we do have a shortage of people who know the topic. As it happened Elizium23, Huon, John Carter and StAnselm commented there and saved the day, but without those project members, it would have taken forever to convince Peterkingiron, Cullen, etc. that the page was a fabrication. So we do need to keep and maintain a core group of project members who can provide comments. And I can go on and on, but I have recently had to tell people that there is no scholarly agreement for a "10 year ministry" for Jesus, that chapter 14 of Matthew is about half way through that book, etc. etc.

The underlying issue is that editing Wikipedia "does not require knowledge of the topic", yet the encyclopedia is positioned as "a source of knowledge". So, as in the Cuckoo's Nest scenario mentioned above, anyone with a heartbeat and a modem can fabricate a page they "consider to be true". So a core group of project members to comment on issues is needed to maintain content integrity. And a mechanism to initiate a project-based comment request would be a good idea. History2007 (talk) 15:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I tend to believe that History has a point above. Given the huge amount of disparity of beliefs among the various Christian groups that I know of, and there are a lot I am not particularly informed of, it is a very real possibility that biased editors could easily create an article that violates POV in a big way, but about which most other editors would be ill-informed, often through no fault of their own, and not be able to directly address. Having knowledgable editors, or at least editors with ready access to current sources and highly regarded overviews, like reference works, would definitely be in our best interests.

One other thing we might be able to do is highlight on the individual project pages those articles which have had significant quality tags for the longest time, and, maybe, try to include some of them in the newsletter, as appropriate. John Carter (talk) 02:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible solution to POV pusher problems - separate notice location for long-standing or intractable disputes?

Lord knows this may seem to some like more than a bit of overkill, but this is a fairly huge project and there are a lot of opinions, some confirmed, on a variety of subjects. There has been some slight discussion about maybe bringing back a project newsletter, maybe like the Bugle of MILHIST. To me that sounds like a rather reasonable idea. In addition to a possible section on a new article contest, which might be a good idea, there is also a reasonable point that maybe we could highlight a given long-term, serious or intractable conflict per month, and ask for as many competent inputs from as many sides, and as many reliable sources, as possible. Particularly for content which relates to things seen differently by different groups within Christianity, that might be one of the more effective ways to deal with such matters. John Carter (talk) 21:51, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Dear User:John Carter, this sounds like a good idea to me. Some users are working on the newsletter here. Perhaps you could comment there and work on writing the section you wish to see in the newsletter. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 21:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you would appreciate me spamming this site with an LBGT newsletter...

So please do not spam my talkpage with your newsletter. I only accept such things from projects I am involved with, and not from outside entities using the membership lists from other projects.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Ouch, the delivery bot was spamming the newsletter all over the place. It has been blocked. I don't think this was deliberate. Huon (talk) 01:01, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Origin of the Eucharist

History2007 has referred above to a past problem with the article Origin of the Eucharist. The problem is again as acute as ever. Only two editors are active in opposing the lone editor about whose apparent aims I say nothing. I would be grateful if editors with greater knowledge than I have about Wikipedia rules would give advice. One solution with which I am toying is to let the lone editor have free rein, so that nobody then reading the article would take it seriously. Esoglou (talk) 08:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

One thing I am not sure about is this. Does Eschoir have a possible WP:COI issue there? That may be one way to resolve it. As I said before, I have 1,500 pages on my watchlist, so I can not get involved in details there right now, and that is why we need a general 9-1-1 call system or a Mayday button (perhaps built into the WikiProject Christianity banner) as Lionel suggested so editors can be called for help. History2007 (talk) 11:06, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
What an interesting idea: add it to the banner. Well, if you like the "Click here in case of emergency" button I just added to the top of this talk page, it should be relatively easy to add the button to the banner. It would take a consensus, of course, and we'd want to coordinate with John's redesign of the banner. – Lionel (talk) 12:23, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Lionelt has helped very much, and I express my appreciation. As for Eschoir, I think he just enjoys stirring others up. In the past, another favourite target of his was Free Republic (see the archived talk pages). Esoglou (talk) 12:42, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
The button looks good, I hadn't realised that's what you meant. Dougweller (talk) 15:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
In response to History2007, we could, maybe, have some sort of dedicated section to this page, or some other page, in which we could list subjects which would seem to require immediate concern. There is material in the banner which allows us to indicate that an article needs immediate attention, but all it does is add the article to a category of such articles, and I'm not sure how many people watch that category. Personally, I would have no objections to seeing such a section added to this page, maybe at the top? John Carter (talk) 20:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
The 9-1-1 button adds a section on the talk page with a standard section title and a big red warning sign. It also adds a standard edit sum to the history which is easily seen if you watchlist the page. A seperate section on this talk page for time-sensitive items is a good idea, but it won't generate a pre-formatted edit sum. That means you'll actually have to read this page to check for critical items.

WPConservatism is setup to use the banner paramenter for "Needs attention", and our To-do list displays a little message that there are articles that need attention. It is largely ignored. I think a better solution would be to put the 9-1-1button we use here on the banner: it would be availab e at articles and when clicked it would create a preformatted section on this talk page.

A 9-1-1 button only works if people are watching for it, and know what to do when they go to the page. I'd like to propose that we create the position of Seargeant-at-arms. They would have to study WP:DR and how to close discussions. Their duties would entail watching for 9-1-1s on the noticeboard and responding as appropriate.– Lionel (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I do not really like the Seargeant-at-arms approach, for Wikipedia is somewhat more freewheeling than that and should remain that way. The basic idea of the button is to facilitate what a user would have already done by typing on the prjectpage anyway, just make it easier, like a macro expansion. That is all. That was why I suggested a more readable text format for it below. History2007 (talk) 10:01, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I saw this at ANI. I agree, it's a terrible idea. Anyone with that title is the last person who should be closing such a discussion. Dougweller (talk) 19:02, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm confident that Lionel accepts that this kite did not fly. Esoglou (talk) 19:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Corporal-at-arms, anyone? – Lionel (talk) 22:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I would agree to think it over at any Carpenters Arms if you agree to buy at list two pints. History2007 (talk) 23:02, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Big Bang

Hello, please see the discussion on the religious interpretations of the Big Bang. A couple users wish to remove the section in its entirety. Your comments on the section would be appreciated. Thank you, AnupamTalk 01:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry Anupam but I think the religious implications of that type of physical theory are way out and will be pushing the limit of scientific credibility. History2007 (talk) 02:22, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments User:History2007. Being a theory which discusses the origins of the universe, philosophical and religious implications are present, as indicated by the content, as well as the references in that section of the article. Such implications are also discussed by philosophers such as William Lane Craig (click here). At any rate, one user is planning to put together an RfC which will address the issue at hand. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 05:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
My feeling is that people like William Lane Craig who are mid-level theologists do not really understand the physics anyway. They are not even amateur physicists, so they just write things that appeal to the masses, but make many physicists laugh. So I think if Craig stopped, he would help both sides of the debate. He just makes theology look silly by virtue of not understanding the physics. History2007 (talk) 06:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible changes in subprojects

I am considering doing some overhauling of the Christianity banner soon, and wanted to know what, if any, related projects you all might think could be perhaps changed. A few ideas:

  • The Iglesia ni Cristo workgroup deals with a very small number of articles, but that group is, seemingly, all but unique in its beliefs. I think it might help if it were reactivated, and, maybe, had its scope changed to include Christian new religious movements which do not at present clearly fall within the set scope of any other subprojects.
  • The Jewish Christianity project deals with a subject, Jewish Christianity, which has a rather intermittent history, and is, perhaps, poorly defined. Maybe changing its scope to include "Jewish-Christian relations" in a broader sense might be useful.
  • The Salem Witch Trials Task Force has a limited scope and has never gotten a great deal of activity Maybe its scope could be broadened a bit to include the slightly broader topic of "Christianity and Witchcraft" in a general sense. I do think having the same people working on the Salem witch trials as maybe the Malleus Maleficarum and other related articles might help in the development of eac.
  • Lastly, the Jesus work group has always been rather poorly defined. Questions about, for instance, whether Mary his mother, Saint Joseph, and others of the early era should be included has always been a bit of a question. Also, particularly in recent years, there has been a spurt of new scholarship and information, often speculative, about that era, much of which has received comparatively little scholarly support. The DaVinci Code and related works are some examples. Perhaps changing the focus of that group to "early Christianity" might be of use to editors dealing with that often contentious topic.
  • Also, FWIW, I have started to collect lists of the various reference works which relate to religion in a clear sense, and hope to start adding that material to the relevant project pages soon. Be aware, however, that there are hundreds of such works, and it may take me a rather substantial amount of time to do so. John Carter (talk) 19:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Re: refs you could create a central page and section it by demonination. The geniuses over at WPConservatism recently did a refs page, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Conservatism/References. Also see Category:WikiProject reference libraries. – Lionel (talk) 04:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I seem to remember having created a subpage listing the various significant religion collections in the English world, but can't find it right now. Anyway, the idea of "streamlining" the subproject pages seems to me to have been rather effective for WP:MILHIST, and that is one of the reasons I proposed it here. WP:SDA seems to me to have gotten not a lot of recent activity, and I was thinking maybe it could be used as a "test case" to see how we could reorganize some of these subproject pages. Any objections? John Carter (talk) 20:24, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
P.S. There is, as most of you probably know, a huge number of reference works which relate to religion in some form or another. I've been going through the listings at EBSCOHost recently, and am starting a page at User:John Carter/Religion reference where I hope to list most if not all of them. I do think that it might be useful, in time, to maybe add the relevant books in a "references" section of the individual subproject pages, but it will probably be rather a long time before we get anywhere near a reasonably full listing of such sources. John Carter (talk) 20:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Re: SDA, what changes did you envision? – Lionel (talk) 07:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, WP:FMH is an example of how we could streamline the pages of some of the subprojects while at the same time preserving all the directly relevant information, so, maybe, adopting a similar format to that page might work. John Carter (talk) 20:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
I think "Jewish Christianity" is somewhat distinct from "Jewish Christian relations". I'm not quite sure what changes you would envision in practice. Jayjg (talk) 18:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Archiving

This page really needs to be archived. Maybe if we set the archiving manually for every 60 days or so? John Carter (talk) 20:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The auto archive was already set to 60 days. I've reset it to 30 days, and for an active forum I would think that it should be fine to archive threads that have lain inactive for more than 30 days. If there was a good reason to have those inactive threads to stick around for more than a month, then it can be set to a higher number of days. • Astynax talk 22:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
If it's okay, I went ahead and archived some of the above discussions into archive number seven for now. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 22:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I personally think that looks much better. Thanks. • Astynax talk 23:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Missing articles

If we did want to get together a list of missing articles, I think it would probably work best if they were included on the pages of the directly relevant subprojects for each article. Having said that, at least a few of the possible articles which could be created would include the following.

  • Individual articles, or redirects, for every notable denomination, movement, or group, including the defunct ones. In many cases, there might not be particularly much information available on them, so they might be redirects, but that would only be determinable after researching them individually.
  • Articles on Catholic, Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, and Anglican dioceses, archdioceses, bishops, archbishops, and counterparts. These churches in particular emphasize the apostolic succession, so they have more reason to record them contemporarily and subsequently. Again, however, on the less well known, redirects would be an option.
  • Saints and other figures and subjects included in liturgical calendars. Particularly for the churches named above, they are the subject of frequent discussion. Redirects are definitely an option for the "companion" type names, however.
  • Catholic and Orthodox male religious orders. Probably some of the female as well, but I know less about them. These male orders tend to be global, and at least with the Catholics have to be approved by the Vatican, so they would be noted in the official Vatican record. At least with the Catholics, female orders can at times be a single convent, and they might be harder to verify as notable.

Obviously, the majority of these possible articles relate to the major denominations/groups mentioned above, but, honestly, I think that makes sense anyway. John Carter (talk) 20:38, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, I tend to think that any movement of more than minimal notability, which would probably include, in today's environment, any movement or denomination of 100,000 or more, and under several circumstances not even that many, would probably also merit individual articles on their individual leaders, if the group or movement is led by a single individual at a time. Any other ideas as to what might be deserved? John Carter (talk) 21:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments from this project are requested on John 18:38

Hello, we have a discussion on Talk:John 18:38 regarding interpretations of "What is truth?" that relates to this project and requires informed comments from those familiar with the topic of this discussion. Your help at your earliest convenience will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 00:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

RM: Genesis creation narrative → Genesis creation myth

I will not bother to read through that long debate, but I can not see how it is canvassing, as suggested when it was deleted, given that people post this type of message all over Wikipedia, e.g. the Big Bang notice above here was on this page as well as WikiProject Physics. And I would note that the two people (myself and John Carter) who responded to the Big Bang item from here supported the deletion of the religious text, so these types of notices do not necessarily just recruit "yes men" and are a useful way to get input from projects. E.g. in the above post about John 18:38 and "What is truth?" I wanted an opinion from people familiar with the topic, and the best way was to ask on this project, not WikiProject Geology. History2007 (talk) 02:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Urgent assistance requested: Christianity TEST

Page: Christianity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Requester: Lionelt


Assistance requested:
<BEEP> THIS IS A TEST OF THE EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM <BEEP>

How about making it less like an ambulance or something, and calling it: "comments are really needed" or something like that. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 01:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not understanding you. Edit this section so I can see what you mean. – Lionel (talk) 01:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I meant something like:

Comments from this project are requested on Page ABC

Hello, we have a discussion on Page ABC that relates to this project and requires informed comments from those familiar with the topic of this project. Your help at your earliest convenience will be appreciated.

Something like that? History2007 (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Got it... Tone down the claxton. Well, the sentiment at the thread where the feature was discussed seemed to suggest the message should convey urgency. Interested to see what others think...– Lionel (talk) 07:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, you could say:

Immediate comments from this project are requested on Page ABC

Hello, we have a discussion on Page ABC that relates to this project and requires informed comments from those familiar with the topic of this discussion. Your help at your earliest convenience will be appreciated.

But I do think we should only ask for comments from those people who know the topic, because the basic idea was to get input based on knowledge of the topic, rather than just general ideas. History2007 (talk) 10:11, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Other options

We might be able to create a separate subpage, like for instance Wikipedia talk:Christianity noticeboard/Immediate attention requests, and transclude that into the top of this page. Doing so would allow material there to not be archived when the rest of the page is archived, which might be useful, and still allow the material to appear on the page at full length. John Carter (talk) 20:30, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

That is an interesting expansion on the idea. An "Urgent Attention" box at the top of this page might be the place to gather all of the alert notifications. The MILHIST and Featured Article project talk pages feature boxes listing articles needing attention. Keeping together all the pages requesting input would be useful. As in the previous two examples, it would be good to have the box/boxes with sections for different types of alerts, too (Peer Review, Third opinion, GA candidacy, FA candidacy, etc.). I am clueless as to how much of this sort of thing can be automated, however. • Astynax talk 22:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Sometimes does not need immediate attention, so there may be an option/checkbox etc. Also see below about John 18:38 and the other rename of Genesis comment. I think we should see if Lionel can try this as a test now, so we can see it in action. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 02:30, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Added the subpage and changed the default "Urgent" boilerplate. Re: the MILHIST & FA boxes. those appear to be manually maintained--and look like they require a fair amount of upkeep. Now we do have a list that is bot-generated: it is the Alerts report seen here Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Article alerts. Note that you can see this on the flip side of this page here. – Lionel (talk) 09:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
@John: did you get a chance to look at the transcluded seperate talkpage at the top before Wwoods reverted it for some unknown reason? – Lionel (talk) 03:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Centralized discussion

Adding the Urgent subpage and transcluding it gave me another idea... Currently we have a section in the "Christianity-related talkpages" template at the top of this page called "Centralized discussion." There may be an improvement... We could create a subpage "Centralized." It would be transcluded on top of every Christianity subproject talkpage.--similar to the way "Urgent discussion" appears on this page currently. It would be exclusively restricted to topics affecting all subprojects and monitored. Thoughts? – Lionel (talk) 09:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC) This could make the redirection of sub-wikiproject talk pages unnecessary.– Lionel (talk) 10:44, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Intelligent Design task force

The ID task force seems like a good candidate to include under our umbrella. It is a TF of WikiProject Creationism. We could share it with WPCreationism in much the same way we share Christian Films with WPFilm. – Lionel (talk) 11:16, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I beg to differ on that one. I see it as making this project less serious. The Intelligent Design topic in itself is highly controversial, not supported by all mainstream Christian groups, and generally laughed at by 95% of scientists worldwide. Christian Films is not inherently a controversial and semi-fringe topic, this one is. Given the highly emotional nature of the Intelligent Design advocates, we will just get distracted into ongoing debates, while many of the very basic theological, or even gospel related topics in this project, are still in need of help, or there are missing articles as discussed above. History2007 (talk) 11:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
OK. But it sure would've made things interesting... – Lionel (talk) 12:17, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I think it would have made things lively, but would have taken effort that could have gone into improving content. The problem we have (in this and other projects) is the fact that studies which show how the nature of Wikipedia has changed go unnoticed. One study as part of a thesis concluded that as the number of new editors increases, and as "less than constructive edits" go up, it will be hard to manage them. We are short-handed, and as you saw, edits by a single user such as Eschoir can consume so much time before he was indef blocked. If 3 or 4 Eschoir-type edit-disputes start at once, there is no way this project can maintain the integrity of the content. And again, as I said, many of the fabricated edits by the group of users who edited under the account of User talk:LoveforMary and several other puppets persist to date. There were at least 5 or 6 of them editing, and there were/are just not enough editors to go and check the edits. The fabrications persist to date across several pages, despite the indef block. So we are short-handed and need to keep our focus on quality, and getting side-tracked into lively debates does not help that goal. History2007 (talk) 14:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Agree with History - leave it out. Johnbod (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Also tend to agree, at least in part because Intelligent design isn't necessarily specifically Christian. Jewish and Moslem and other individuals seem to be involved as well. John Carter (talk) 23:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Ananias and Sapphira

Ran into this article today from another one and saw the OR, sources and tone tags. I've deleted some stuff as have others, but it keeps creeping back in. Needs a lot of work. I gave it the wikiproject tag today. Dougweller (talk) 09:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it was in bad shape and is still not good. What needs to happen is that the dead discussion on flagged revisions needs to start again. I really do not see how we can maintain content integrity as these types of edits take place by so many IPs. And some of them are even trying to fix things but change text that corresponds to the source, e.g. see this. Over time, these types of edits will create a new article that has little resemblance to what the sources say. That is why one may hesitate to fix some of these because the burden of watching them is just too high, given the lack of flagged revisions. History2007 (talk) 09:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Ditto,
For another example of content integrity... see Second Coming of Christ section on Hare Krishna based on these websites...
1.^ "Krishna and Jesus Christ". Harekrishnatemple.com. http://www.harekrishnatemple.com/bhakta/chapter27.html. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
2.^ Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You. Self-Realization Fellowship, 2004. ISBN 978-0876125557
3.^ http://krishna.org/christ-and-krishna-the-name-is-the-same/
Delete? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
You can delete it now, but it will go back in within 2 weeks. As I said on the talk there a while ago, WP:Fringe was written for that article. I do not even look at that page - it has little hope of ever getting fixed unless policy changes to provide more protection, or the page gets semi-protected. In fact the entire series on eschatology is in serious need of salvation... History2007 (talk) 10:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
That was fast! Thanks. I don't think we can semi the Second Coming page I'm afraid, it just needs eyes on it. Ask at WP:FTN for help? Dougweller (talk) 11:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization per WP:CAPS

If you look in the archive, you will see a really long discussion of that about a month or two ago. History2007 (talk) 09:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
That's what I was following a link to here... but didn't see it had vanished into the archives. Oh. HERE. All the same. WP:RS should be used on a case by case basis just like any other WP:Title issue. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Possible top-priority articles

OK, I may definitely be going into the overkill area here. But I recently went through the Lindsay Jones Encyclopedia of Religion and wrote down the names of all the articles in that book which seemed to me to directly relate to Christianity. While I myself have questions regarding at least some of them, particularly in the possibility that we might have already included a similar article, I thought they might be useful to note. It also probably should be noted that I did not include material relating to the Old Testament and/or early Judaism. Anyway, here we go:

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

S

T

U

W

X

Some of these are to me at least questionable - Florence Nightingale, Leo Tolstoy, and others. Some are to me, apparently, somewhat "judgement calls", where other virtually similar entities could be chosen. And, yes, some were new articles selected for the second edition, replacing articles which were included in the first edition but not kept for the second. At this point, I honestly don't know how many such articles there are, or what they are. But, at the very least, when this is done, if any of these articles are missing, we would have some idea of some necessary articles yet to be written. More after a review Eliade's first edition. John Carter (talk) 02:34, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I have corrected a few typos/different name choices etc, but I'm sure there are plenty more. Doesn't one of User:Skysmith's lists cover this ground? Now, who's going to write some articles? Johnbod (talk) 02:57, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Useful list. Corrected a couple more typos. Some of the redlinks above need to be made as REDIRECTs. Or perhaps indicate a RM needed. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:32, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
This and John's are both useful lists. Yet hard to see through without groupings. How about merging them and then moving the people out to groups by century? Then we may actually be able to see what else remains. There are some that have article, e.g. Nag Hammadi library vs codices, etc. But will be easier to see with groups. Perhaps "documents" is another group? Thanks. History2007 (talk) 08:53, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Had a further typo-sift and REDIRECT session. Re "It also probably should be noted that I did not include material relating to the Old Testament and/or early Judaism" - that's a shame, that's an area WP is pretty useless on, there's not even a WikiProject for Hebrew Bible/Second Temple. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I took the liberty of redirecting Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity to Charismatic Christianity. Ltwin (talk) 16:17, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Some of them were typos, while others were actually the spelling in the original book, which appears to deviate from our own. And I acknowledge that there are any number of articles relating to Judaism, and the Old Testament in particular, which were included in the encyclopedia, like Aaron, Abraham, and Adam, for instance, which I didn't include in the first draft above at least in part because I am less sure those articles are of particularly high importance to Christianity. And some articles above seem to me to at least implicitly acknowledge others, like the two articles on the Inquisition, even though no main article on the Inquisition was there. Also, there were a number of articles included in the encyclopedia which contain significant, but far from exclusive, significance to Christianity, like the performance and visual arts, and I wasn't sure whether we would necessarily want to count the relevant directly related articles as being of such significance. Some of the articles in the list, like Ebionites, appear as "see (alternate title)" listings in some shorter works. Ebionites in particulat several times appears as "see Christology," so presumably Christology might be important as well. I think Christian new religious movements might qualify as well, given the number of Christian NRMs included. And, in this particular work, the articles are written and possibly selected where possible by adherents of the faith, and that might account for the absence of Henry VIII, who would seem to me to be as important to Anglicanism as Augustine of Canterbury and Thomas Cranmer. Anyway, like I said, I'm going to check the first edition as well, I think over the weekend, and hope to have a bit more information then. John Carter (talk) 19:21, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Looks good. Wondering if this is something better handled at the Assessment dept.? – Lionel (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Contraception and Sandra Fluke

How do I list new articles, either proposed or newly created, that need help?

I recently WP:SPLIT off the Rush Limbaugh–Sandra Fluke controversy article from Sandra Fluke (which is at AfD).

I also created Contraceptive mandates, which was instantly marked for speedy deletion but survived somehow.

Would anyone like to work on these with me, or create a Conscience protection article? --Uncle Ed (talk) 19:20, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello Uncle Ed, and welcome back! I hope you like our new noticeboard and put this on your watchlist. Nice job with the Fluke article. May I suggest you also solicit input from editors here? – Lionel (talk) 23:20, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Are any of the problems above being fixed?

Am I wrong or does it seem that attempts to coordinate editors to address the (many) problems mentioned above never go very far?19:22, 5 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quarkgluonsoup (talk • contribs)

Hello Quark & welcome to WP:XNB!!! Well, it does appear that issues are being addressed. E.g. Josephus on Jesus was handled, so were Lottie Moon, some work was done on Queer theory, and Ohio Valley. Origin of the Eucharist was also handled when the POV pusher got indeffed. Since this noticeboard was created out of the WP:X talkpage a few weeks ago, it has attracted newfound interest. Before the NB the WP:X talkpage was averaging 0 pageviews per day, and now we're up to 50 per day. I think the members have done a bang up job in keeping up with concerns posted here. Now: what can I do for you Quark? You name it... – Lionel (talk) 23:16, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

--- Continued at Wikipedia talk:Christianity noticeboard#Urgent: comments requested at The Exodus --- – Lionel (talk) 05:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Assessment questons

First, I was wondering whether the rest of you would like to add the more formal "B-Class" parameters t the Christianity banner, similar to those of the Military History project. Personally, I think they would be a good idea. Second, I would like to know what you think of perhaps removing the word "importance" from the banner, and maybe substituting in "priority". My own personal belief is that the latter term might be slightly less off-putting to individuals who create or work on articles tagged as "low" importance. Any responses are more than welcome. John Carter (talk) 20:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I would support the use of "priority". History2007 (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I thought "B" was already implemented. Are you referring to "A"? If yes, are you also going to setup the review structure? MILHIST evaluates "A"s in a similar manner to FA. Regarding "priority", I have no preference, but will it be compatible with subprojects who all/most use "importance"? – Lionel (talk) 23:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
WP:MILHIST and othet projects have a rather more detailed process for earning a B class, and it was to that more detailed process I was referring. Also, I suppose it is reasonable to ask whether you all think the banner should be collapsed, with subprojects appearning only by clicking the appropriate link, like MILHIST. Given the diversity of content, my own opinion is more or less against that, but that is just one opinion. And I think the default banner template can be adjusted to at least give the statistics sheet the term "priority" rather than "importance". John Carter (talk) 21:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Oh! Those parameters. I'm indifferent--but IMO I wonder if a B assessment deserves such a detailed review. Regarding collapsing, I lean toward un-collapsed. – Lionel (talk) 19:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
John, you've come up with a lot of great ideas for the update of the banner. What do you think about setting everything up in Template:WikiProject Christianity/sandbox so we can see what it looks like? – Lionel (talk) 10:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

2012 WikiGrail

Greetings! Ii gives me great pleasure to announce the inaugural 2012 WikiGrail. It is a friendly competition for Christianity-related project members that awards points for good articles, featured content, and other markers of editing skill. You simply just have to list your name here. Hope to see you there! Warm regards,– Lionel (talk) 10:37, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Prizes

Here are the proposed prizes:

  1. Barnstars for participants and special grand prize barnstar for winner
  2. Acknowledgment in the WP:Signpost
  3. Exclusive interview in Ichthus
  4. Acknowledgment on the {{WPChristianity}} banner

Thoughts? – Lionel (talk) 08:42, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Bullinger's crossbeam

Various proposed improvements at Talk:Dispute about Jesus' execution method, generally to de-JW/de-antiJW what is a notable article, and looking for a seconder for StAnselm's better title. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Review of First Baptist Church of Hammond

What do you guys think about erasing the controversy and putting it on another page? The controversy (most of it) is all hear-say, and is based on no or weak evidence. Any thoughts? (99.146.113.3 (talk) 04:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC))

The controversy is all based on relevant third party news sources regarding rape and abuse. It will not be removed.108.12.188.101 (talk) 00:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Relegating controversial material reported in reliable sources would probably be seen as a PoV fork. A fork might be OK, so long as the main article adequately summarizes the controversy and links to the more in-depth article without either exaggerating or downplaying its importance (again, according to the sources, not according to the views of editors). • Astynax talk 08:17, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

AWB or other tools affecting references

I do not use AWB or any other tools but I have seen people who use them much of the day. The problem is that in many cases these tools seem to add "npsb" where they see blank spaces and so when they get to "1 Corinthians" the change the blank space within it even if it is a Bibleref template, making the link fail. I do not know who runs these and what needs to be done, but many carefully arranged Bibleref template items no longer work, because of the use of these tools. Anyone here who uses these should suggest something somewhere. These would even make Wikisource links fail when the space in "1 Corinthians" is no longer a space. History2007 (talk) 02:19, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like it may be a problem with the template, as inserting &nbsp; doesn't affect normal wikilinks: e.g., Pope Sixtus IV (with the &nbsp;) should work the same as Pope Sixtus IV (sans the &nbsp;). MOS doesn't want the number to be left hanging awkwardly at the end of a line. Just an observation, as I'm not too familiar with either the template or AWB. • Astynax talk 08:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
It works in Wikilinks, but not in the template. But it does stop the links to Biblegateway, for sure. History2007 (talk) 09:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Christianity noticeboard/Urgent

The only real post so far at Wikipedia talk:Christianity noticeboard/Urgent is one that I don't think is appropriate, especially since the editor posting there is trying to keep a discussion about an article not at the article's talk page but at the subpage of this board. I'm sure that wasn't what the subpage was set up for. Can someone else please have a word? Dougweller (talk) 19:20, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really convinced about the subpage's purpose in the first place. I hadn't realised we had a separate page for "urgent" matters, therefore hadn't watchlisted it and was prone to miss exactly the matters requiring urgent attention. Maybe that's just my own lack of attention to detail, but it seems unnecessarily intricate. Huon (talk) 19:32, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
My attention span must be more limited than yours. I did not even know the subpage existed... I think it is pretty well hidden. But looking at the post on there it has turned into a discussion forum, not a request posting. I suggest:
  • Instructions that no discussion should accompany any "request for informed comment", and it should be just a neutral "Informed comments will be appreciated" sentence. Any other discussion should be removed.
  • If it is going to be that brief, it may as well be here on this page so people see it.
If we agree on the no debate part, then it may work here. History2007 (talk) 20:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
The subpage was John's idea. The reasoning was:
  1. Urgent issues should appear at the top of the page; segregated
  2. Urgent issues should stay on the noticeboard until they are resolved; i.e. not subject to the auto-archive schedule of the main page.
Note that if an editor uses the button it works better. – Lionel (talk) 08:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
I like the idea, but think maybe the existing "filler" might be removed. Two topics of longstanding questions are Ebionites and Messianic Judaism, however, and it might be appropriate to put one or the other in the box, depending on the opinions of the rest of you. John Carter (talk) 21:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Article may need some attention

Mariology of the popes has had a good deal of content merged over the last few years from AFD discussions and may need to have an eye look it over to see if there are any issues needing to be addressed. In order not to lose information much may be either out of place or in an incorrect order etc..--Amadscientist (talk) 03:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Amad--suggest also posting at WT:CATHOLIC. – Lionel (talk) 03:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
I saw the merge - it is on my watchlist. I think Amadscientist did a good job merging the content. The original content of the Pius XII item was pretty accurate, and had been written a few years ago. Overall there are no factual problems with the new article, except general clean up. I touched it up a little and will look through it more as time allows. History2007 (talk) 13:58, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Barnstars and Ribbon

As our Christianity Barnstar didn't have a ribbon, I whipped a simple one up in about 30 seconds... it's on the ribbons page along with the Christianity barnstar now, under "awards by wikiproject" - if this should be moved to another area, move it, but posting it here so everyone interested will see it and know it exists. It can be scaled from 700px.

St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 18:39, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

This is great work! Thanks for contributing this. I have 2 tiny comments... I believe the color of the project is light blue. "ICXC NIKA", which is a great abbrev., is more common in the Eastern Church, while "IHS" is common in the West. With both we would cover the entire planet. Speaking of color you might have noticed the black/gold scheme of the newsletter Ichthus. I deviated from the standard light blue because I wanted the nameplate to look like the cover of a Bible. – Lionel (talk) 23:34, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
I based it on the Christianity Barnstar I was awarded, a yellow cross with halo superimposed over a brown star. I didn't know the project had colors, but that ribbon, yellow on black, would remind me of stormtroopers(?: I don't know; maybe their lightning bolt logo was yellow on black?) or a bee. I chose ICXC NIKA because 1) I prefer it (although, being a traditional Catholic, you'd think it'd be INRI - contrary to my name and the Greek appended after it, too, which I now realize gives a rather strong impression, but "Aurelius Augustinus" didn't have the same ring when I registered, nor did "Origen of the Castratii"), and 2) although I contemplated "INRI" (which is more comparable than IHS, a simple monogram), for aesthetic purposes, it couldn't be fit in to a balanced image (I tried; the only way that would work is a more complex graphic with "INRI" hanging over the cross on a sign, as described in the NT, which is invisible at thumbnail resolution); ICXC NIKA can be split, as I did (four letters each side: the slight imbalance is meant to be there to allude to Saint Dismas [the good thief], hanged on the right side of Jesus - imagine looking out from the painting, the "conquering" is moved towards where Dismas would have been - too subtle symbolism?).
I kept the cross neutral (no corpus), and, for the Hell of it, as an afterthought, I can say that I was attempting to counter WP:Systemic Bias by going Byzantine :-D. To conclude, I know absolutely nothing about graphical design - that's the first I've ever done of any sort. Biblical studies, theology, philosophy, church history... I'm more in my depth there. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 04:50, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
After that series of edits (it usually takes half a dozen for me to get something right, hence my inflated edit count), time for a new comment: I tried mixing "INRI" and "ICXC NIKA", but it severely de-balanced the image in all configurations, except for, conceivably, the one done hanging over the instrument of redemption in micro-style, which would require photoshop or gimp, I think - and skill (fake parchment with wavy edges and all). St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 05:00, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I suppose it could be done in some fancier design where "ICXC" in large font rotated 90º could be the trunk of the cross, and "INRI" and "NIKA" in smaller fonts as the arms, but it would lose simplicity, immediate comprehension, some visual appeal, bastardize the two Christograms, and also lose the look of a military ribbon which I attempted to keep at least a bit of (as the rest of the ribbons are distinctly militaristic). St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 05:09, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I think it's fine. The project sidebar nav template is blue. That's why I thought that was the project color. Is the blue arbitrary? – Lionel (talk) 10:09, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't know, I don't recall ever having seen the sidebox, and, even if I have, don't remember it, so I believe it is arbitrary... we have a brown and yellow barnstar and ribbon, a black and yellow newspaper, and a blue navbox... we can say that we're not green (Islamic color), that's about it. Wouldn't something with some tone of dark red be more appropriate, because of the "blood of the lamb" for Christianity boxes? The yellow, I'm sure, is used to provide the impression of light, and for easy-reading contrast (light, as in, look in any picture of an Orthodox Church or shrine - they are so filled with polished gems, gold, marble, icons, paintings, stained glass, etc. that they seem to glow with a preternatural golden light: that's one thing I really miss about pre-conciliar Catholic Churches, is they've moved towards "multipurpose worship room" Protestant-like congregation meeting place architecture, a long white room with windows and a cross and altar of plain wood at one end). St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 04:35, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Images

I generated list of articles about priests, without image in infobox on this wikipedia, but with image on plwiki - maybe somebody will be interested. This list will be regenerated so it may be a good idea to add this page to watchlist. Similar list on different topics are available here Bulwersator (talk) 22:34, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

A couple of years go I wrote a short program that extracted images from a list of Wikipages - it is probably somewhere on one of my computers I think. In fact most of this page was auto-generated that way. If there is a serious need to do that type of thing, I may be talked into finding it and running it on the pages so it can be done without much effort. History2007 (talk) 23:19, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Saint John Bosco--Request For YOUR Comment

A long disputed section in Father Bosco's article has an open RFC. You can help resolve this once and for all. Your input is requested here: RFC re: "Bosco's concerns over his influence". Thanks! – Lionel (talk) 02:25, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm definitely interested - I have no idea what the dispute is, and although he is not my patron nor do I know much about him, a great many Catholics absolutely adore venerate him. On the Confirmation cards I've seen, it's usually St John Bosco for boys and St Maria Goretti for girls. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 04:37, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Possible expansions of core topics?

I've looked over the articles included in Encyclopedia Britannica's Macropedia, on the basis that a subject being included there might reasonably be of roughly equivalent weight to us here. There were some entries which are more or less effectively already included, like "Calvin and Calvinism" and our choice of Calvinism, and Luther, where we include Lutheranism. The comparatively few articles they have included in Macropedia that have no effective equivalents here are Dante, Erasmus, Thomas Aquinas/Thomism, and Joan of Arc. I myself have some rather serious questions regarding the last of these, who is also perhaps better known as the leader of the French revolt against the Plantaganets, but I was wondering what the rest of you thought of perhaps adding some variation of the first three to the Core topics list. John Carter (talk) 23:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I do not see any of those as central except Aquinas, given his large volume of writings and long term theological influence. History2007 (talk) 07:05, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree that Thomism is of the utmost central importance (and I come closer to be an expert on Thomism and Neo-Thomism than on anything else, learning from Edward Feser and David Oderberg, many books, and being a seminarian). I think Dante might be (the average Christian view of Hell comes from Dante), along with Erasmus, the founder of modern biblical criticism and compiler of the texts used exclusively for three centuries. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 13:00, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Jesus and St. George were Palestinian?

As of March 1, apparently they both were: File:Palestinian infobox v2.jpg. Many sources (perhaps mistakenly) assert that Jesus was a Jew who practiced Judaism. Those with informed opinions on the issue are welcome weigh in at Talk:Palestinian people#Jesus Christ in the info box list of Palestinians. Jayjg (talk) 21:27, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this. A fascinating discussion. – Lionel (talk) 23:21, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Palestine (Syria Palaestina) didn't even exist until 135 AD when Hadrian cleaned out the Jews after Bar Kochba's revolt. It was Roman Judaea in Apostolic times. Christ almighty. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 13:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Possible greater cooperation across religion and philosophy projects

Please feel free to make any comments you might wish at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Activity regarding possible more closely coordinated activity between the various religion, philosophy, and mythology WikiProjects. John Carter (talk) 21:25, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Book of Habakkuk discussion

Participation would be welcome in Talk:Book_of_Habakkuk#BC/BCE. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

George Went Hensley at FAC

The article on George Went Hensley is again a Featured Article Candidate. The previous nomination was archived due to lack of supports (or opposes, for that matter). The criteria for Featured Articles may be found here. Anyone wishing to do so is encouraged to leave comments. I have added this to the article alerts. • Astynax talk 16:41, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Copyright concerns related to your project

This notice is to advise interested editors that a Contributor copyright investigation has been opened which may impact this project. Such investigations are launched when contributors have been found to have placed copyrighted content on Wikipedia on multiple occasions. It may result in the deletion of images or text and possibly articles in accordance with Wikipedia:Copyright violations. The specific investigation which may impact this project is located here.

All contributors with no history of copyright problems are welcome to contribute to CCI clean up. There are instructions for participating on that page. Additional information may be requested from the user who placed this notice, at the process board talkpage, or from an active CCI clerk. Thank you. Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:31, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I just wanted to add to the template notice that several major articles concerning Christianity in Asia have already had to be blanked due to copying from books. Beyond assistance finding copyright, assistance repairing these problems would be very welcome! These articles will be listed for a week or more at WP:CP. They are identified at the CCI list as "blanked". They will need to be rewritten, I'm afraid, if they are to be retained.
Thanks for any assistance you can provide, and I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. :( --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:31, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I had never even heard of Phillip J. Is that the only user in question? By the way, there used to be a bot that checked copyvio, I forget the bot name now. Can that be invoked across a project? It does not work on Google books I guess. History2007 (talk) 13:48, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't see exactly which section is being discussed. But, if anyone wants to generate a list of the relevant articles, I could try to find what I can to repair the content. John Carter (talk) 14:32, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I think the link is Wikipedia:Contributor_copyright_investigations/Phillip_J. Several articles, mostly new pages. History2007 (talk) 14:49, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's the link. He's been editing for quite some time, but not heavily, fortunately, as it seems that the bulk of his contributions have been copied from books. :/ While there are some other open CCIs that relate to your project (or related projects, like Catholicism), this is an editor-specific investigation, launched by a complaint mailed in by a copyright holder. The copyvio checking bot only works on new articles, I'm afraid. While there are some tools that can be used to check old articles, unfortunately they can't access Google books. :/

So far, the articles that need rewriting in part or in total are:

I think there's a pretty good chance that most of the articles to which he's added a lot of content were copied. The ones that have counterparts on the Norwegian Wikipedia were probably translated from that project and can be retained.

So far, I've identified four different books from which he's taken content; all of them clearly predate his contributions here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:14, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Those article are not central to this project, so freezing them as you did was the right move. Once the issues have settled down, we can just stub those with a new paragraph. A few of them have French versions, etc. So those can be translated back (Google trans if need be) to English and referenced as a paragraph or two as a start even if one does not know the topic. Then in time they can get fixed. History2007 (talk) 16:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I may need some help

Over at Talk:English Standard Version. See last section; I've undertaken a rewrite and massive addition of sources, which seems to have attracted some attention, and, frankly, I'm burned out on heated Wikipedia arguments; it looks like this could progress in to one, depending on what the user does, or what he uses his filter to determine as a "reliable source" (see the discussion on WP:RELIGION noticeboard, the 7PP1 and following: this editor appears to be disputing the Westminster Theological Journal as an unreliable source or insinuating that one could, because he doesn't agree with it, and a multiply-sourced interpretation of "almah", with no reference to the statements of the ESV itself). I would appreciate it if an uninvolved editor could mosey over and look at the article, and judge how bad it really is, or if it's being tagged/disputed for nothing. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 22:50, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for looking over the article, guys. I've posted a question asking which sources the objector (who has not been back) would like clarified with quotations; if he's not back within a few (3-5) days I believe it's proper to remove the template, yes? St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 10:26, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes. – Lionel (talk) 04:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments are requested on the use of philosophers vs denominations

Comments will be appreciated in this discussion regarding the equivalence of a specific philosopher vs a denomination. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 13:48, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I would be interested in joining this WikiProject group - what do I have to do? You can leave a message here or on my userpage. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:18, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

QRpedia

I'd like to draw your attention to QRpedia, a Wikimedia-UK project (applicable globally) which I help to run, to make mobile-friendly versions of Wikipedia articles available, in the user's referred language, via QR codes. I recently made its first deployment in a church, St Paul's Church, Birmingham; you can see pictures on commons The cost of deployment was £0.40 (GBP) - about half a US dollar. It could easily be applied in other historic churches (i.e subjects of Wikipedia article), or those with historical connections (i.e. articles about notable people, events, etc), and similar sites. I don't watch this page, so please drop a note on my talk page if you - or the institutions you liaise with - have any questions, or need assistance, or of you deploy QRpedia yourselves.

Also, do you have a project newsletter in which the St Paul's case study could feature? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:58, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Shall we talk them into doing it the other way around too? I recently added a photo request here. So if someone has a mobile phone with a camera, and could just take a photo and pop it into commons automatically, that would have been nice. Once the photo has been visually checked by an editor on commons, a bot could then add the image to the article. Click, press and article has a picture. History2007 (talk) 13:29, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
He responded to me that there's already an Android app for uploading pictures directly to Commons, and perhaps one for iphone. History2007 (talk) 13:53, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Removal of Religious Affiliation at Syracuse University

One editor, Manning954 (talk · contribs), is repeatedly removing the Church affiliation from the article on Syracuse University, despite the fact that a consensus was previosuly reached on the talk page of that article. He also is removing several universities from the article on the International Association of Methodist-related Schools, Colleges, and Universities, despite the fact that they are listed on the website of the IAMSCU. The individual has already been reverted by two users (Exhibit A, Exhbit B). Any comments and intervention would be appreciated because the user continues to revert. Thanks, AnupamTalk 20:04, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Extended content
Hi, I looked at it. The IAMSCU is not exactly final for it does not represent the university. If you find a statement on the University website that says that, then it will be settled very quickly. Do you have a link for that? Thanks. History2007 (talk) 23:55, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. "A Brief Report of Church Relatedness: Syracuse University – INCORPORATION AND THE METHODIST CHURCH" states:

The current bylaws authorize the Board to elect three Organization Trustees: one Trustee each to represent the North Central New York, Western New York, and Wyoming conferences of the United Methodist Church. Both the conferences and the Board may recommend persons for election as Organization Trustees. Today Syracuse University is considered a Methodist-related institution. Syracuse University's affiliation is expressed in the tradition, though not regulation, of having a United Methodist minister serve as dean of Hendricks Chapel and in the University's participation in the annual University Teacher/Scholar Award sponsored by the Methodist Church. In addition, the University administers a number of Methodist-funded scholarships and houses the Bishop Ledden Endowed Professorship in the Department of Religion.

If you enable your email, I can send you the document which I received from the university itself when this was discussed previously. In addition, the Syracuse University Bylaws states: "Three Trustees shall be elected by the Board to represent the North Central New York, Western New York and Wyoming Conferences of the United Methodist Church. The Syracuse University Board of Trustees and the named conferences may recommend persons for election as Trustees in this capacity." The United Methodist Church also mentions the university on their official website as being a United Methodist-related school. Furthermore, the 2011 Directory of United Methodist-Related Schools, Colleges, Universities, and Theological Schools buttresses this assertion as well. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 00:07, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Actually emailed statements are not WP:RS. If you find that statement on the university website or a book, etc. that will establish it as "tradition". But officially they are not according to that statement, unlike Notre Dame which is clear cut. History2007 (talk) 00:15, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean. The university keeps a "A Brief Report of Church Relatedness: Syracuse University" which discusses their relationship with The United Methodist Church. This is regularly updated. I have bolded the relevant statement for you and have access to the document if you would like to see it. Moreover, the Syracuse University Bylaws state that the trustees of the university are from various Annual Conferences of The United Methodist Church, as I indicated above. The United Methodist Church itself acknowledges this affiliation, as indicated in their website:

Emory University in Atlanta is ranked 20th. Other United Methodist schools on the top national list are Syracuse (N.Y.) University (tied for 52nd); Boston University (tied for 56th); Southern Methodist University, Dallas (tied for 71st); and American University, Washington (tied for 86th).

The affiliation is also acknowledged by The General Board of Higher Education & Ministry, to which the Office of the Provost at Boston University referred to above:

Syracuse University

900 South Crouse Avenue
Crouse-Hinds Hall, Suite 600
Syracuse NY 13244-2130

Phone: (315) 443-1870

In addition, the International Association of Methodist-related Schools, Colleges, and Universities also lists Syracuse University as a "United Methodist" school:


SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Nancy Cantor, Chancellor and President
Location:
900 South Crouse Avenue
Suite 600 Crouse Hinds Hall
Syracuse, NY 13244
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Main Phone: (315) 443-1870
Fax: (315) 443-3503
Primary Email: chancellor@syr.edu
Web: http://www.syr.edu
Denomination: United Methodist
Year established: 1870
Student enrollment: 18,734
Associate Degree
Baccalaureate

Post-baccalaureate

Several other secondary sources also acknowledge the affiliation of Syracuse University to The United Methodist Church. For example, the Youth Impact Program states:

Since 1920, the university has identified itself as nonsectarian, although it still maintains an affiliation with the United Methodist Church. Syracuse was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1966.

Also, Hendricks Chapel: seventy-five years of service to Syracuse University speaks of the relationship as well:

SU, as a private, independent university, has continued to pay homage to its original church relationship without any financial support from the church.

In addition, the reference Separated brethren: a review of Protestant, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox & other religions in the United States offers the following text:

Among Protestant denominations, Methodists take first place in hospitals and colleges. Some of their one hundred colleges and universities have all but severed ties with the denominations, but others remain definitely Methodist: Syracuse, Boston, Emory, Duke, Drew, Denver, and Southern Methodist. The church operates three hundred sixty schools and institutions overseas. Methodists established Goodwill Industries in 1907 to help handicapped persons help themselves by repairing and selling old furniture and clothes. The United Methodist Church runs seventy-two hospitals in the United States.

Also, I understand the situation is not like Notre Dame; it is more similar to Duke University or Emory University. I hope this helps and that other editors will offer their comments. With regards, AnupamTalk 00:25, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

By the way, you can access the document titled A Brief Report of Church Relatedness: Syracuse University here. Thanks, AnupamTalk 00:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
In any case, my reading of this is that it is "traditionally" associated with the Methodists and called "Methodist related" but officially is non-secterian. That can be supported in the body of the article. And I think this discussion needs to be copied to the talk page of the article and only the initial notice left on this page. History2007 (talk) 07:36, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
No need to copy the discussion; the references are already present there and the problem has been more or less solved. And yes, I agree with you; Syracuse University is nonsectarian but continues to maintain a relationship with The United Methodist Church. Cheers, AnupamTalk 07:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Ok, then please collapse this thread, for it is not relevant to this noticeboard. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 07:44, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Ebionites and related articles

There has been a long-standing dispute on the above article relating to some proposals, particularly by Robert Eisenman in his book James the Brother of Jesus (book), and James Tabor, and his book The Jesus Dynasty, regarding whether the sources named above qualify as fringe theories as per WP:FT. I had some time ago recused myself from editing the content because of some accusations of falsifying sources which were never substantiated. However, I believe that an independent review of all the relevant articles by knowledgeable, uninvolved, editors, would be very useful. John Carter (talk) 23:25, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

A-Class review and possible

I very much believe that this project would benefit from having some sort of A-Class review, similar to that of the Military History WikiProject. Some articles, like Catholic Church, seem to almost be regularly used as sandboxes. The A-Class status, in general, indicates that an article is "complete", although it might have some slight problems regarding perhaps weight, over- or under-use of images, etc. Would anyone here be interested in developing such a process, and, perhaps, assisting in reviews? John Carter (talk) 23:55, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Personally I would prefer if energies were used to get all the "disastrous articles" into shape. Many articles remain unsourced, incorrect and just disaster stricken, e.g. Salvation (Christianity). Even Annunciation has an unsourced tag on a section. John the Baptist is no gem either. Son of man has almost no correct Christian entry, etc. So while these serious quality problems remain, I would encourage quality improvements before making books or reviewing them. There is a long way to go towards quality here. History2007 (talk) 00:49, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
It would be great to have A class reviews. But do we have the manpower girlpower peoplepower? You know MILHIST shutdown their internal Peer Review in favor of the community-wide PR. If we decide to move forward I'd suggest we re-task our internal PR as a A Review. – Lionel (talk) 01:51, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
We are seriously short of people. Alas, there will probably be religious objections to cloning existing members, not to mention the errors... kidding. But we could seriously use 10 more active editors in this project. History2007 (talk) 07:03, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps more Wikipedia:Books?

Particularly in relation to my comments above regarding some articles which are seemingly in continuous "sandbox" state, I was wondering what the rest of you might think of perhaps creating more such books, and giving more prominent mention of them. Personally, I can see at least one such book existing for every major denomination or denominational family, and think perhaps doing a better job of indicating direct child articles might be useful in some cases of regular heavy editing. John Carter (talk) 00:31, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

This is another great idea. They're easy to create. But definitely the challenge is how to promote. The links are practicably invisible. It's even harder to promote books than portals. And would be be sacrificing improvement of portals, which unarguably have more pageviews than books? – Lionel (talk) 01:55, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
This could be a task for new members. I think we're missing out on a tremendous opportunity by not following up with new members, finding out what their interests are, and then putting them to work at the Project. – Lionel (talk) 01:59, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the last part, not necessarily the first (books should only be done when content is high quality). New members do get frusterated. There is WP:Teahouse now which does that at a larger level, but if you want to set up a teahouse of coffee shop for this project that would certainly help. The clarification of WP:Primary etc. for new members will help them. After 3 months, things usually get easier. If a member is helped to stay for 6 months, they are likely to stay much longer theereafter. History2007 (talk) 06:59, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
One thing I could do, I suppose, is add some sort of parameter to the banner indicating an article is a "chapter" in a larger book, and maybe putting together a list of the extant books and the indicated relevant articles. John Carter (talk) 00:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

3000 Bible Illustrations available in Commons

Greetings. I've just uploaded about three thousand Bible Illustrations on Commons. Please use them in the articles. Bennylin (talk) 12:05, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Let me offer my apologies first, then be upfront with you. I only speak for myself, of course, but there are many images by the likes of Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Raphael about similar items on commons. And again, speaking for myself only, I would hesitate to use these types of images because they look somewhat amateur and makes Wikipedia look like an amateur item. In fact the very large James Tissot watercolor collection donated by the Brooklyn Museum recently has most biblical scenes, and Tissot spent many years in the middle east researching issues before painting that collection. And of course artistic images are also available for immediate download from www.wga.hu as well. As an example see Tissot or de Boulogne or guercino vs this item for a comparison. Which will make Wikipedia look more "professional"? There is no doubt that the works by the masters will make Wikipedia look more professional. So again, please do accept my apologies, but at least this user will keep to the more established artistic masters for images for they will make Wikipedia look better.
And I do have a personal theory that the look of Wikipedia will affect donations in the long term. If the encyclopedia "looks professional", it makes a better impression, and that prompts people to fund its continued existence. History2007 (talk) 13:39, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Bennylin, unfortunately I'm afraid History is probably right, however, good of you to make those available and I'm sure some people will be happy to use those images for other purposes, and some of them may fill gaps where more "encyclopaedic-looking" artwork isn't available. In the meantime... anyone have an appropriate image for court of the women (needs expanding), passover sacrifice, Burnt offering (Judaism)? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:42, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Christian painting of an Old Testament sacrifice, 1483, with various forms of Jewish hat
Regarding the Temple, there is a category and one of those may just have to do, with some text explaining it. There is also Passover in art as a category. History2007 (talk) 16:41, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. Bennylin (talk) 15:44, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
For passover sacrifice, the Samaritans do still sacrifice a lamb/s on top of Mount Gerizim, & we have images of the ceremony at Commons, though none show it very clearly. Rather typically, there is no mention of this in the article! Careful how you go on this one. Or you might add the Xtian image here, which should do for burnt offering. Note the lamb being carried up. There may be other images around. Johnbod (talk) 21:44, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

New bot which will help our project

I've built a bot to help out with odd jobs around the project. Check it out here: LioneltBot. (When you see its capabilities you'll see why it's probably best that we don't tell the anti-Christianity editors about this.) – Lionel (talk) 23:55, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Article outside scope of the project

Secular religion is in this wikiproject but it appears to be outside the scope of the project. Does anyone disagree with my removal of it? IRWolfie- (talk) 09:07, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you are right, given that sports and "free markets" are considered examples of that. I think these days the "love of iPad" is about to become a secular religion too. Apple has always had that type of appeal.... History2007 (talk) 12:27, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Edits that need attention

These series of edits may need attention. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 17:34, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

May newsletter

I think it might be a good idea to have a basic draft of the next month's newsletter early, in the event anyone thinks of things to add early this month. I in particular like History2007's proposal above about maybe putting in something about WikiSource. So, on that basis, I have copied the current newsletter (hoping to see it changed) at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach/May 2012. Everyone should feel free to maybe add some draft material, with the understanding that it might be edited prior to release. John Carter (talk) 00:32, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The key item about any newsletter is: "will people come back to read it again, after the fact?" If it is worth reading again, it has been done right. In fact if you follow the Wikipedia main page philosophy it is easy to do. The DYK is an obvious example, but it needs to tie into other items. I suggest:
  • Church of the month: Feature a nice church every month. In May try File:Salt Lake Temple, Utah - Sept 2004-2.jpg and that will relate to the LDS project. You can rotate and show a church different denomination every month.
  • Art for the month: Feature a different image/art every month, and let is be different from the church denomination.
  • DYK: As usual. But this time, it can tie into the art piece. E.g. for the feast of the Transfiguration I would suggest: "Did you know that in earlier times, every Eastern Orthodox monk who took up iconogrophy had to start his craft by painting the icon of the Transfiguration..." Then as the art you can use File:Preobrazhenie.jpeg to relate it. After 6 months you can use File:Mtchoirandorchestra ConferenceCenter (cropped).jpg and say "Did you know that they won a Grammy and an Emmy..." etc. You can even leave messages at Wikiproject Calvinism, Lutheranism, etc. asking them for suggestions for a DYK. Another example would be "Did you know that Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the initials "SDG" ( Soli Deo gloria) at the beginning and end of all his church compositions..." and relate that to the Five solas. That may also help get the Five solas article get references, for now it has none - surprisingly. So you could get the Lutheran guys to add references there so it can be a DYK here, etc.
  • This month N years ago: As in the Wiki-frontpage you can say: in May 1421 (or whenever) some specific even took place - and use a different denomination again.
Given that the feasts span the year, you will have a good 12 month cycle that way anyway. For April I do suggest a Saint George reference for sure. May is a Marian month so you can try that as a theme, and it is a Fatima month etc. And if you feature a LDS church in May it will balance it out. Then June another feast and another denomination, etc. But Saint George and April should certainly be tried now given that he is recognized by multiple denominations. History2007 (talk) 15:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Good ideas all. And maybe some sort of short piece about a specific denomination or belief per month as well, maybe along the lines of "Why I Believe." I note that there are a lot of notable Christian groups which have rather remarkably divergent beliefs, as well as non-Christian beliefs, and often articles that don't get a lot of attention, and such a section might help increase the awareness and tolerance of such beliefs, and, maybe, help bring more attention to the related content. John Carter (talk) 01:23, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I've added some of the proposals above into the "draft" of the May newsletter at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach/May 2012. If anyone would like to add specific material to any of those sections a bit early, I think we could possibly live with it. And if there is a known adherent to a little known, or very controversial, notable Christian group, either in terms of denominations or controversial beliefs, who would want to add material to "I believe," I can't see any objections to asking them to add a little. We could always have the editorial team edit it down if required. Maybe Mormons, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or some other group frequently subject to contentious discussion might be a good choice for the first month. John Carter (talk) 22:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

List of pages that need watching

Should we have a list of pages that need watching. I have done 3 reverts today on Jesus in Christianity and can do no more. Can we have a list of pages that people think need watching, just to remove the "This is not true" type vandalisms? History2007 (talk) 16:27, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

We certainly could, if the material seems to be from multiple people, maybe in a short section at the top of the page about "Current problem articles"? Requesting short term page locks is another option, if such vandalism seems to be ongoing. John Carter (talk) 21:23, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
No, short term page blocks will not work - there are too many pages, and the changes are "all over the place". The pending changes RFC may help, however. As I said above people keep adding mass schedules (hello!) and directions from specific train stations to church pages, etc. We are just short handed, and need help, or stronger pending changes measures. History2007 (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Passing of User:Slrubenstein

I just noticed that the above editor who was a member of the Christianity project and an invaluable editor in social anthropology and religion has recently been indicated to have passed on. It is my sincerest hope that perhaps those of us who remain might maybe work to get an article he found important up to some sort of level of recognized quality in his memory. Those who have worked with him in the past are leaving notes of their feelings on his talk page, and I would encourage anyone so inclined to do so as well. I hope to post any word I might receive about any efforts for a memorial article here as I get them. John Carter (talk) 01:16, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

An article has been started at Steven Rubenstein. I think any assistance with it, or perhaps some possible related articles as per the article talk page, would be very much appreciated. John Carter (talk) 00:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Edits that need attention

These series of edits may also need attention, in case they spread to other pages. History2007 (talk) 22:20, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

John 20:13

Looks like pure OR. Dougweller (talk) 16:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

go ahead, zap it :) In ictu oculi (talk) 17:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
It doesn't seem notable as a distinct topic. I've prodded it. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Third opinion (or more) at Criswell College

Hello,

I recently ran across an edit war at Criswell College. I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to the subject matter of the underlying dispute. Could a neutral editor or two take a look and comment on Talk:Criswell College? I think they could use an outside opinion. It evidently concerns whether or not the college is dispensationalist. Thanks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:36, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I am one of the Editors of the Criswell College page and just to clarify a bit: the point of dispute is not if the school is solely dispensational, as it is not (both parties would agree in this issue). The issue is weither it should be listed as Premillenial and Dispensational or just Premillenial. Just Premillennial, I believe adds to the confusion, since there is Historic Premillennialism and Dispensationalism Premillennialism both. The School requires that faculty adhere to either position, but does not accept Amillennial or Postmillennial positions. It is thus my position that it is of historic and practical note to express this on the schools page. I welcome any assistance in this issue as well as cleanup for the article (of which I have been the primary contributor for about 5 years.) More information is available upon request. Hungus (talk) 19:24, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed manual of style for religion articles

Please make any comments you deem appropriate at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Manual of style. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 00:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

As I said there, those seemed like policy-exemptions dressed up as MOS, but that is another story. Yet, I think it would make sense to have a MOS for Wikiproject Christianity that actually talks about style rather than other issues. I will discuss that below. History2007 (talk) 02:01, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Article request

Is anyone interested in writing an article on the Paradox of the Cross, an important theological concept in Christianity? I am surprised to find that no such article exists as of now. With regards, AnupamTalk 06:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

At some future point, yes. That would be a good topic. But right now, an article such as Messiah is in need of an ambulance really and Salvation (Christianity) has tags all over it. So I see a greater need for cleaning up all the existing problems first. We are seriously shorthanded. History2007 (talk) 07:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

April newsletter?

Anyone have any specific ideas as to what they might like to see included in the April newsletter, if there is one? It might be a good idea to have it ready for Monday, maybe. John Carter (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, here's a first draft of a newsletter, anyway.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach/April 2012

Opinions? John Carter (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you have done really well with it - and overall the whole idea of the newsletter it is progressing pretty well.
  • I think the issue of putting the noticeboard on their watch list was good to point out, and I would probably make it a little more obvious.
  • The mascot part was funny and well written, and that type of humor makes the newsletter more readable than a discussion of eschatology.
  • Regarding Christianity in other wikis, I should say that Wikisource has turned out to be a great system now. It has many ancient texts that can be directly linked to and that makes Wikipedia more reliable, in that users can just check things. And Wikisource can be linked to for New Testament passages and should Biblegateway go off line tomorrow, there will be no WP:Linkrot. I suggest that in the next newsletter we recommend the use of Wikisource for Bible links because it is a Wiki-managed item and will be long lasting. Who knows what Biblegateway will do next.
  • On that note, take a look at user Jbribeiro1's edits. He must have translated over 30 articles to Portuguese. So this project is making an impact on what people read in Brazil, etc. And the articles he translated are the "building block" articles such as the biblical pericopes (parables/miracles/etc.) That may make a good item for the next newsletter. Those articles are generally in good shape, and other Wikis such as Italian/French/etc. are now in worse shape than Portuguese. In many cases, the French Wikipedia is surprisingly sparse, while the German is doing well.
Anyway, overall I think you did great. History2007 (talk) 00:19, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Before my specific comments on John's great work, I'd like to make a point. Do you know how many pageviews the Jan issue received? A jaw-dropping 645. There is no full version: 645 editors actually clicked on the small footprint posted to their talk. How do we keep those 645 readers coming back for more Ichthus? We need to have at least 1 irresistable story per issue. Think DYK hook. Once the reader goes to the issue, they can read the regular WP:X stuff about FAs and contests and mascots. What kinds of stories might lure readers?
  • "Is WP biased? A Christian and an Atheist Square Off"
  • "Prolific Sockpuppet Master attacking Jesus articles"
  • "Confessions of a Banned User"
  • "Edit Warrior or Christian Soldier--when Faith Becomes Disruptive"
  • something with "free" or "sex" in it
Re: April 2012, great work, John. My thoughts... perhaps trim From the Editor. Also, the black background around the egg is a little stark. Re: Other Wikis, maybe we should create a reference page at WP:X listing all of the resources on the other wikis so we have someplace to direct people for more info. Re: Spotlight, over half of the 10 or so spam complaints from the Jan issue were from WP:LDS members. (Only 10 complaints is not bad considering the list has over 1K usernames.) I strongly recommend we spotlight WP:LDS so they feel included.– Lionel (talk) 08:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
I am more than happy to square off with some brand of non-theist or anti-theist for the "Is Wikipedia biased?" issue. Debate! St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 15:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
But the debates will take energy that could go into removing all the glaring errors that persist. And you are not ging to convince them by debate, you need to use sources. The amazing thing about Wikipedia is that in most cases those with better sources will win in the end - and the debates will be forgotten. And look at what we have to do everyday: remove mass schedules for specific churches! Or this one again today. No one watches these pages. We are seriously short of people who will maintain the integrity of the content we already have, let alone spend time elsewhere. History2007 (talk) 16:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
In response to St John C, I seem to remember that in the Wikipedia Signpost we occasionally had debates between someone taking the scientism/naturalism position and someone taking a perspective allowing for the "supernatural" to exist, and arguing in favor of supernatural interpretations of some events. Maybe, at some point in the future, we might be able to talk an agnostic or atheist (or two) into a civilized discussion/debate on the issue - I do think that might be useful to both projects. Maybe, just maybe, we might be able to hold some sort of debate between atheists and believers, or maybe between believers of different faiths, in the future, maybe in accord with an attempt to develop the most directly relevant articles. It might help develop that content to the point that some such disputes are resolved. Maybe. I might myself hold of on that for at least a few months, though. John Carter (talk) 21:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Please do count me out on the debate front. With all these articles that have so many errors, I would not want to spend time in debate that will be forgotten in 6 months. History2007 (talk) 22:02, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Understood. Personally, I tend to agree that the debates might not be particularly useful in themselves, unless they were clearly tied to improvement of articles directly relating to the debate, either articles on the debate itself or new developments which would impact the debate. John Carter (talk) 22:08, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Hey User:John Carter! When are you planning on sending the newsletter out? I haven't received it yet! I look forward to your response. With regards, AnupamTalk 01:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
FWIW, I have made three requests so far to have the April newsletter delivered, including one at the bot requests noticeboard and two at the user talk pages of individual operators of bots that do such things. So far, no response. Maybe soon? John Carter (talk) 22:08, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
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