Talk:Philadelphia Eleven

Article is Poorly Written POV

This article is a political statement from beginning to end. It contains historical inaccuracies. For example, it implies that women in the United States did not vote prior to 1920. That is not true. Women voted in many U.S. states prior to that year. What happened in 1920 is that the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted, taking the question of women voting away from the states and making it a subject of federal law.John Paul Parks (talk) 16:00, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Clearly, the article is way too long, but I don't have have time to trim it, and Mr. Parks didn't take the time either. If articles could be created for the rest of the Philadelphia 11 and Washington 4 groups, this article could be cut by 90% or even more, but I'm not sure how many would qualify for independent article status who don't already have articles. I came across it, though, from a new article about Betty Bone Scheiss, so maybe there's hope.Jweaver28 (talk) 10:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Alla Renée Bozarth

Per WP:TALK#USE, talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects). Keep discussions focused on how to improve the article. Talk pages are typically not the appropriate place to store information for use at a later date or for test editing. Comments that are plainly irrelevant are subject to archival or removal. - Marchjuly (talk) 05:44, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

2. Alla Renée Bozarth (Bozarth-Campbell)[74] was born in Portland, Oregon in 1947. Her father, René Malcolm Bozarth, was a classical radio station program manager and announcer when Alla was born, and in 1951 became an Episcopal priest. [75] Her mother, Alvina (Alla) Heckel DeGolikov Bozarth, a Russian émigrée, was an artist who worked as a volunteer for Church World Service, resettling hundreds of refugee families. Alla prepared for ordination to the diaconate and priesthood in the Episcopal Church at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary while earning her B.S.S. (1971), M.A. (1972) and Ph.D. (1974) degrees at Northwestern University in Interpretation (School of Speech and Drama).[76] Her doctoral dissertation, The Word’s Body: An Incarnational Aesthetic of Interpretation,” was published by the University of Alabama Press in 1979 and by the University Press of America, Rowman and Littlefield in 1997. She was certified in Gestalt therapy in 1978.[77] She was the first woman to be ordained as a deacon by the Diocese of Oregon on September 8, 1971.[78][79] Four days later she married Episcopal seminarian Philip Campbell (Bozarth-Campbell) who was ordained as deacon in 1973 and as priest in 1974. In 1975, while the Bozarth-Campbells lived and ministered in Minnesota, Alla incorporated Wisdom House, an ecumenical spirituality center where she has served as priest-in-charge, offering inclusive language services, soul care, mentoring and feminist spirituality focusing on the arts and justice and peace activism. Also in 1975, Phil Bozarth-Campbell became rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, where he served until his unexpected death in 1985 at the age of 37[80][81] from undiagnosed genetic Factor V Leiden disorder. After her husband’s death, Alla returned to Sandy, Oregon, moving Wisdom House to the foot of Mt. Hood. At 27, she was the youngest of the Philadelphia Eleven.[82[83] She wrote about her experiences and Christian Feminism in "Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey," Paulist Press 1978, revised edition Luramedia 1988. [84] (See Further Reading.) She has written two books on grief, "Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello~ Grieving Well through All Kinds of Loss" and "A Journey through Grief," and meditation books, "Wisdom and Wonderment" and "Lifelines." She describes the healing power of creativity in her book, "At the Foot of the Mountain: Nature and the Art of Soul Healing," revised edition, iUniverse, 2000. She has collaborated as poet with visual artist Julia Barkley and cultural feminist historian, Terri Hawthorne in a book of paintings, poems and commentary, "Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys," North Star Press of St. Cloud, 1990. Her writings have been set to music and performed in a variety of contexts, secular and religious. Alla's 10th anniversary poem for the Philadelphia Ordinations, "Passover Remembered," commissioned by Robert DeWitt and Mary Lou Suhor for "The Witness Magazine," has become a touchstone for women and men in leadership in Roman Catholic religious communities and others. With Sister Margaret Ellen Traxler of the Roman Catholic School Sisters of Notre Dame, Alla has lectured for the Institute of Women Today in several cities, including Mankato, Minnesota at the Mother House where she also gave a keynote address with the Rev. Jean Audrey Powers, National Methodist Church executive, at the first Women and Spirituality Conference in 1981. To view "Time Magazine," "The Philadelphia Inquirer" and "The National Catholic Reporter" photos and archival color pictures of the ordinations, later anniversary celebrations and people involved, and to read her first hand account, see links below in Further Reading and External Links. Note the relationship between "Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and the Philadelphia Ordinations," (External Links) and also note that the corrected Interview page on her blog "Philadelphia Ordinations and the Philadelphia Eleven" replaces the outdated Books and Authors 2004 Interview in the Notes. Alla Bozarth (talk) 21:20, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Article is Rambling and Repetitive

The article is rambling and repetitive, and it appears written in a manner to persuade the author rather than the reader that women should be priests of the Episcopal Church.John Paul Parks (talk) 04:02, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I've begun by making a few edits to the 'Background' section to reword it in a more succinct fashion. Sionk (talk) 06:37, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Notes and references: cleanup proposal

I think it's better to discuss these things and reach a consensus per WP:CITEVAR than for a single editor to unilaterally edit them. Achieving a consensus will not only correct any existing problems with the article, it will also lay a foundation for future edits to build upon.

Proposal

I propose the following four things regarding the cleaning up of the "Notes" and "References" sections:

1. Having the "Notes" section solely for explanatory notes and the "References" section solely for inline citations per WP:CS#Separating citations from explanatory footnotes. In addition, combining multiple references to the same source whenever logical per WP:CITEBUNDLE using WP:REFNAME and templates such per WP:CITET.
2. Using a US date format (e.g., July 22, 2014) instead of an all-numeric one for the citations per WP:CITESTYLE, MOS:TIES and MOS:DATEFORMAT.
3. Removing any note or reference citing a blog or wiki site per WP:RS, WP:BLPSPS, WP:SELFPUB, and WP:UGC.
4. Adding Template:Citation by contributor and Template:Connected contributor to the article's talk page regarding Note 1 "Womanpriest" and Note 74 "Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey" per WP:COI#Citing yourself.

Reasoning

Click "Show" for details. Just collapsed to make page a little easier to follow

There seem to be a lot of notes (currently 193) and references (currently 45 if my count is right) for this article. I am not sure if that number is typical for a Wikipedia article, but it personally does seem like a lot to me. I am not familiar with at all with the subject matter, but it does seem like quite a few notes/references are redundant (citing the same page of a particular source multiple times in the same paragraph, e.g., Notes 62-65) or some which are more explanatory in nature (e.g., Notes 11 and 14) than actually citing a particular source. Some of the notes are then repeated as references which also seems unnecessary to me like stated in WP:CITEKILL. Here is an actual example of what I am referring to from the article: Diane Catherine Baldwin Tickell was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in 1918.[183] She received a B.A. from Smith College in 1939 and moved to southeast Alaska after marrying Albert Tickell in 1944. She served as a social worker in Juneau before attending seminary at the Episcopal Theological School where she graduated in 1973.[184] Tickell was ordained as a deacon in 1973 in the Diocese of Alaska. She served as an itinerant deacon at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Wrangell, Alaska, until her ordination to the priesthood in 1975. After becoming a priest she continued to serve the church in Alaska for many years. Tickell died at the age of 84 in 2002.[185] The same source is cited three times (Notes 183-185) when it seems that a single citation at the end of the paragraph would be more than sufficient. Moreover, the note given is "Former Juneau resident (2002)" which is then repeated in more detail in the "References" section as “Former Juneau resident the Rev. Diane Baldwin Tickell, 84, died April 24, 2002,”Juneau Empire, 04-28-2002, retrieved 08-30-2013". Once again, this seems unnecessary to me since the inline citation could simply be cited to the "Juneau Empire" article (perhaps by using templates). Lots of similar things in the article which, in my opinion, actually makes it harder for readers to follow since they have to unnecessarily search through the references to find detailed information about a particular citation. Explanatory notes could be formated using using embedded footnotes and {{notelist}} whereas references could be formated using various templates such as {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite news}}, etc. and {{reflist}}. Think US English should be used for citations since American English seems to be the style of English used primarily throughout the article and because all-numeric formats are typically not recommend for "dates" when citing sources. So instead of the "04-28-2002" given above, I am suggesting "April 28, 2002". The blogs/other (non-Wikipedia) wikis cited do not, in my opinion, satisfy the criteria for reliable sources; Therefore, they should not be used as "notes" and "references". Things such as Notes 41,45, 50 cite a wiki site called "St. Stephen and the Incarnation Wiki" while Reference 9 and Note 95 (Reference 18) are to the blog pages "Interview with Alla Renée Bozarth about Writing and Poetry" and "St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Harlem Blog", respectively. These are user-generated sources, not independent third-party sources with sufficient oversight and vetting so their verifiability and accuracy may be called into question; Moreover, their content (particularly the wiki site) may easily be changed either in a neutral way which simply no longer supports the assertion being made or, in the extreme case, in a negative way which may actually defame the person(s), organization(s), etc. being cited. These seem to be sources added by editor Alla Bozarth who revealed here in a Teahouse question that she is the same "Alla Bozarth" written about in the article. Although editing information about yourself is not expressly prohibited by WP:COI#Writing about yourself and your work , it is strongly discouraged and requires that special care be taken per WP:AUTO#IFEXIST and WP:PSCOI#Advice. Ms. Bozarth's contributions to Wikipedia have been almost exclusively to this article and she has added lots of worthwhile information. She has, however, also added quite a bit about herself citing and adding primary sources (such as here and here ) which could give the appearance of a conflict of interest and be seen as promoting a particular viewpoint per WP:UNDUE. Primary sources are not inherently bad, but since they are being used to cite material written about a living person can be complicated as laid out in WP:BLPPRIMARY. This is even more true when the editor adding the sources is citing their own published works to support material they have added about themselves. Now, I do not personally feel that any of Ms. Bozarth's edits were intentionally made to mislead others or promote herself; In fact, I feel she is genuinely concerned about the accuracy of the information posted. For this reason, I am not sure that adding a Template:COI to the article is warranted. I do think, however, that such edits may unintentionally lead (as seen already from other posts on this talk page) others to question the article's neutrality and raise concerns about its point of view: something that I do believe is good for the article at all. For what it's worth, I have already mentioned these concerns (in some detail) to Ms. Bozarth in my replies to her Teahouse question (see above link) and in passing in another post related to this article at User talk:Alla Bozarth.

Anyway, I am really interested in hearing about what others may have to say. Thanks in advance - Marchjuly (talk) 03:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Most of this sounds uncontroversial and follows Wikipedia style conventions. If dates are numerical they should be YYYY-MM-DD, otherwise non-Americans have little idea of which is the day and which is the month.

Blogs and primary sources can be used sparingly and with care. For example Bozarth is an excellent source for verification about herself, but personal blogs do not prove something is worthy of inclusion (i.e. notable). I'd hesitate to remove all blog sources, but I'd discourage their over-use. If the original author was centrally involved in the story I would expect her to be able to locate reliable journalistic coverage about the key events and people. Sionk (talk) 01:01, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

@Sionk:Thanks for the feedback, especially regarding blogs. I understand what you're saying and agree that information from blogs can actually add value to an article in certain cases. Actually, I am more concerned about the using of the "St. Stephan's" wiki page as a source since a wiki page can be pretty much edited by anyone at anytime (at least that's my understanding), right?. I believe that's the main reason given in WP:WPNOTRS as to why using a Wikipedia article to source another Wikipedia article is not permitted at all regardless of the situation. So, it seems natural to me this should also apply to other wiki pages. - Marchjuly (talk) 08:32, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually I'm more concerned with the extensive use of 'archival papers'. Use of unpublished archival records is WP:OR so not appropriate here. If the cited info is included in the online summary of the holdings, that's less of a problem. Otherwise the author needs to set up their own website and publish their research there rather than on Wikipedia.

I can't see much use of the St Stephen's wiki but obviously you are correct, anyone could contribute this information so it should get treated the same as any self-published website or blog source (possibly even less so). Sionk (talk) 09:55, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I noticed all of the personal papers cited as well. They seemed inappropriate to me according to WP:NOT#OR and possibly WP:NOTOPINION, but I wasn't so sure. Like blogs, there may be some value in using them in certain cases, but they are cited so many times in this article that it would hard to argue that are not pushing a particular point of view per WP:UNDUE. If they are truly the the only source for certain information in the article, then perhaps that information is not notable enough to be mentioned. Marchjuly (talk) 12:13, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

It will need a closer look. The online abstracts for the papers seem to have biographical information (sometimes lengthy), which could be used as a source. But I agree a lot of it may be UNDUE. Sionk (talk) 12:22, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

As the original creator and author of the article, I'm glad to clear up some confusion about the (original) references, citations, and sources used for the article. Unfortunately I'm on vacation right now with limited Internet access for the next few weeks. Let me try to address each issue one by one.

1. 1. I believe the use of notes and references is a correct way to do it (as one would do with endnotes in a book). However, I did not have a chance to review all of the Wikipedia style guidelines regarding this. Certainly there are multiple ways to handle notes and references, and various Wikipedia articles handle these in various ways. If it makes more sense to do it another way, I have no problem with that.
   2. I have no preference for date formats--I just attempted to be consistent in the references and citations I made.
   3. I am aware of the concerns around using blogs and wikis. The St. Stephen and the Incarnation Wiki website in question is a third-party church's history website that is run by the church and not open to just anyone to edit. The same applies to the St. Mary's in Harlem church's website, a third-party website. (I can't speak for Alla Bozarth's personal website.) Just because churches use the Wiki format or WordPress for their website does not mean that it is a blog, user-generated, or an unreliable resource. I encourage you to think more about those before you remove them--if you're unsure, take a closer look at the church websites before discounting them as unreliable.
   4. I agree with this point.
   5. Regarding the "archival papers" there seems to be some confusion here, probably arising from how I cited them. All that is being cited/referenced from these papers is the "Biographical" section that can be accessed through the links provided. Please note that these are not original research or personal papers, but abstracts carefully researched and prepared by the universities to accompany someone's donated collection of papers and works. I don't really believe there is any specific POV expressed in these biographical abstracts--they are simply a list of facts. Also to clarify, the reason these and other sources are used "so many times" was more to carefully cite sources for the facts included in the biographies than to "push any particular point of view". (Did you actually read what they were referring back to? If so, what point of view is being pushed?)

If you recommend a better way to cite facts, then I am open to ideas or changes. Since Wikipedia over the years has (for good reason) become so focused on citing information presented, this was done in a careful way to provide accurate and fully cited information for this article. Janus532 (talk) 18:53, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

@Janus532: Thanks for the response. Also, thanks for providing further information about the blogs/wiki pages cited in the article. My proposals were simply meant as basis for discussing ways to improve the article. It was not my intention to unilaterally make any major changes to the article without discussing things first and reaching a consensus. Regarding the reliability of sources, my concern about the St. Stephen's wiki page is not necessarily that it might be edited by in a negative way (e.g., by a vandal), but that it can be edited at all, even if only by a select group of individuals. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of any of the information posted there, but Wikipedia requires verifiability, not truth. Isn't it possible that the site reflects (to a degree) the viewpoints of those doing the editing? Isn't it also possible that it might be edited in a way that may impact it's value as a source for the article? Of course, even newspaper articles, etc. can be 'edited' in a way (e.g., retraction, revision, etc.) that might impact their value as a source, but the process is typically more involved and properly monitored, right? WP:UGC does, however, say that "collaboratively created websites such as wikis, and so forth" can be used if "[the material} is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users." So, if the "St. Stephan's" wiki page satisfies this, then I guess that would eliminate my concerns with regarding it's use as a source. The next question would be then whether using it is absolutely necessary or simply a case of WP:OVERCITE. St. Stephan's is cited three times throughout the article. In each case the same information is also cited by another apparently more reliable third party source. Two sources for the same information is of course not excessive and can sometimes be a good thing. Just not sure in this case. - Marchjuly (talk) 01:47, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: I understand where you're coming from for the most part. However I think you are misunderstanding and misinterpreting both WP:UGC and WP:OVERCITE. The first on reliable sources refers specifically to "open wikis", which I wouldn't classify the St. Stephen's history wiki as. It is only for former and current members of the parish and appears to require approval from the owner (the church) to join and to edit. I think just classifying it as a wiki without looking into how it is used and updated is unfair. If I had felt it was an unreliable and easily changed or biased resource, I wouldn't have used it. But the church's history website/wiki where one of the ordination services took place hardly seems like an unverifiable or unreliable resource. Regarding the overcite concern, I think this is misunderstood. The examples listed on WP:OVERCITE include misusing to prove an obvious point, which this isn't and needless repetition, which I don't believe this is either. My intent was simply to provide more than one reliable resource regarding the incidents described, which I would think would be a good practice. Not sure why you can't tell whether this might be helpful in this case, since there's certainly not lots of resources out there on these topics. Janus532 (talk) 18:40, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Janus352: I did mention in my previous post the exception given in WP:UGC made regarding "closed" wikis. I also wrote that I guess I would be OK with using St. Stephan as a source if it satisfied the conditions of the exception. The "guess" just indicated my concerns over the fact that it can still be edited and whether such editing would affect the site's value as a reliable source for inline citations.

One thing that concerns me about using St. Stephan to cite actual information in the article is stuff like this here: Ordinations At St. Stephen’s, St. Stephen and the Incarnation Wiki, retrieved 08-26-2013. The link leads to a page that says there is "currently no text on this page". Of course, dead links do not mean a source is no longer of value and needs to be removed. Moreover, if you search the St. Stephen site you will eventually find this which seems to be the same page. It probably is the same page, but since the site can be edited there's no real way to know for sure without checking through its revision history. In addition, the editors of St. Stephen edit in the interests of St. Stephen, not in the interests of this Wikipedia article; Therefore, information may be added, removed or changed if doing so is deemed to be in the best interests of St. Stephan regardless of how it unintentionally may affect this article. This seems different to me than, for example, say a newspaper article, etc. whose original link may be dead and replaced by one that has been archived. In almost all such cases, the archived link is exactly the same in content as the originally cited version so it's value as source is unaffected, assuming all other things have remained constant.

The St. Stephan inline citations were removed by Sionk for the reasons given in these edit sums: [1] [2]. It looks like Sionk left the links in as references; they just removed them as inline citations which seems appropriate to me. If, however, someday there is a consensus which says differently, I will accept it.

Regarding WP:OVERCITE, I did post that two sources for the same information is sometimes a good thing. I just said I am not sure in this particular case. I realize that OVERCITE is just a guideline, and not policy. I am just discussing concerns that I have and trying to cite what I think is relevant Wikipedia policy or guidelines. Once again, I am perfectly happy to go along with whatever consensus is reached. That is why I initiated this discussion to begin with. - Marchjuly (talk) 22:25, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Belated reactions to the References proposals.

• I agree with some of these suggestions, especially:
  • Use of named cites to cut down on the number of duplicate footnotes
  • Uniform dates, per MOS:DATEFORMAT. Most dates in the text are "August 22, 2001" format, but lack the comma after the year. Strictly speaking, we should add those commas. If that is too many commas, we could switch to " 22 August 2001" format. For numeric dates in notes, YYYY-MM-DD format. There is a long discussion about this format here.
• Items where I partially agree:
  • About "Notes" for explanatory notes only, right now we only have 2 explanatory notes, so this doesn't seem pressing. If more are added, then we maybe we could consider a new section for explanatory notes. Personally I dislike the style where numbered footnotes and bulleted references are in the same section. I'd rather keep them separate.
  • About banning blogs and wikis as sources, currently these sources are being used for factual details and for that they look acceptable enough to me. If it becomes a problem and controversial statements are being made, consider it then. If a book can be cited instead of a blog or wiki, that would be better.
• To further cut down on the number of footnotes, we could consider using {{rp}}. That gives a page number after the footnote number, like ^[1] or ^[20]. Currently we have a lot of footnotes to different pages in the same book. This would be a way to merge them into one footnote, with the page number displayed at the point where the book is cited.

But the most pressing problem I see right now is that the References are alphabetized twice, first by title and then it starts over for author names. I think the list should be reorganized in alphabetic order from top to bottom. -- Margin1522 (talk) 06:54, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Margin1522. I think your suggestion of using {{rp}} is an interesting one. I hadn't known about that until now. I think that's definitely something worth considering as it would reduce the number of notes by quite a lot. Even after all of the cleanup that has been done so far, there are still more than a hundred. Also, thanks for the additional information about all-numerical formats. Personally, I prefer not to use them, but have done so when that was the style being used. I think the most important things here are WP:RETAIN, WP:CITEVAR and WP:ARTCON. If the original primary contributor to the article (which seems to be Janus532 started with a particular style that satisfies WP:CITESTYLE, then we are obliged to stick with it unless there's a good reason for changing it. Regarding the "explanatory notes", currently there are indeed only two, but it is possible there may be more added (See Talk:Philadelphia Eleven#Washington Four below) in the future. Personally, I think it would be best to simply cite everything in the article using {{cite web}} templates, etc. If this was done, readers could go straight to the sourced material with a single click instead of first going to "Notes" and then scrolling down to find the source in "References". That, however, is just my preference and once again we should defer to Janus532's original usage unless there is a consensus to change. Regarding the blogs, I have expressed my concerns elsewhere on this Talk, but just want to restate that I am happy to follow whatever consensus is reached. Finally, I agree about the alphabetization, I noticed that as well and it does seem unnecessarily confusing. FWIW, I think this problem would be eliminated if the references were directly cited in the article. - Marchjuly (talk) 11:30, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

OK then, if there are no objections I will go ahead and {{rp}} the page number cites, starting with the Episcopal Clerical Directories, to see how it looks. About inlining the notes with {{Cite Web}}, yes, that would simplify management of the References section. Another advantage is that now the WikiMedia software displays the content of the note in a tooltip when you hover over the note number, and you can even click the link if it has one. That's really convenient. That said, the system we have now works well for a documentation heavy article like this, so maybe we want to think about it some more before changing it. About the dates, I'm fine with whatever Janus532 prefers. There does seem to be a WP-wide preference for YYYY-MM-DD in the "retrieved" date. But that might be just my impression, and I could be wrong. -- Margin1522 (talk) 13:11, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I did the rp notes for Episcopal Clerical Directory 2011 only. I think it saved about 10 lines in Notes. What do you think? Hard to read? If we did this for all page number notes, I think it would save a further 30 to 40 lines. Most of the affected cites would be in the biographies. -- Margin1522 (talk) 16:27, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I've never seen that template used before. Very interesting. My only very slight concern is that now that one particular source stands out as being cited 30+ times, but if they are all legit citations, then content wise it's no problem. It just looks a little "unusual". One thing though is that Janus532 mentioned above that they are on vacation and may not be able to access the Internet all that much. I understand Wikipedia waits for no one and that time marches on and all that, but just thought you should know in case you were wondering why Janus532 has not responded yet. - Marchjuly (talk) 03:00, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

That was my concern too. It will look a less unusual if we also do it for the other page number cites, but first let's wait to see what Janus532 thinks. (BTW while doing this I realized that these sections are very well documented. Up to Good Article standards. Good work >Janus532.) -- Margin1522 (talk) 03:44, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Washington Four

The Washington Four seems to be a different subject (and people) from the Philadelphia Eleven. The coverage of the Washington Four here seems to be unduly long, for example a 2500 byte dedicated section and, on top of that, very extensive biographies of the four women (7000 bytes).

I think the biographies should be removed completely (they wil remain available in the edit history if someone wants to create a split-off article). The Washington Four section can probably be reduced, but retained in some form as part of the "Aftermath" story. Sionk (talk) 10:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

The Washington Four are different individuals but technically the same topic (i.e., first women [irregularly] ordained in the Episcopal Church). I found their story to be perfectly appropriate to include with that of the Philadelphia Eleven but perhaps not noteworthy enough to warrant a separate article. If desired, I think you're exactly right that their information could be combined or retained in the "Aftermath" section. Their biographies were included for the same reason the Philadelphia Eleven's were, that these are early pioneers in women's ordination in the Episcopal Church, possibly not all worthy of having their own individual pages on Wikipedia, but worthy of having some information about their stories of call to ordination and how it played out afterward. That was my original reasoning in including them in the article. Janus532 (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I arrived here after seeing the discussion at the Teahouse. I agree that some of the women are notable enough for their own articles. Maybe all of them, simply by virtue of being members of these groups. But not in this article. It's already too long, and in terms of doctrine their biographies didn't matter. The only thing that mattered is that they were women. I understand the motivation for including the women, because their life stories were evidence for changing the doctrine. Or custom, if that's what we want to call it. But it's too much. One idea might be to create a special footnote class just for the mini-biographies and move the details there, with just one or two sentences each in the main article? -- Margin1522 (talk) 21:45, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

About length, this article really is too long. It reads like the chapter of a book. Sionk suggested linking to the article on Catholic Church doctrine on the ordination of women. That was rejected, but it was the right idea. Apparently the corresponding article doesn't exist for the Episcopal Church. From a quick check, the only discussion I found was the paragraph in Episcopal Church (United States)#Women ordained. So it looks to me like a new article is needed. There is plenty of material to start one in the Background, Aftermath and Further reading sections. How are people looking for this information supposed to know that it's in the article on the Philadelphia Eleven? Then there would be room for discussing the books in Further reading, etc. It could turn out to be a very valuable article. -- Margin1522 (talk) 21:45, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, adding Catholic Church doctrine on the ordination of women was an aberration on my part, clearly a very different denomination! But I agree a general article about ordination of women in the Episcopal Church would be a good idea. It would need better sourcing than Church directories and archival papers though! Sionk (talk) 23:05, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

First, by what criteria is this article considered long? There are certainly much longer articles on Wikipedia. That said, it is a fair point that there should really be a separate article on "women's ordination in the Episcopal Church." However, until that is started/completed, this is currently the best resource on Wikipedia on that topic. Also, please be aware that the current article on the Philadelphia Eleven is not at all about doctrine, although it factors quite importantly into the background and aftermath sections to purposely illustrate their struggles. This article is very much about the women and their place in history and the church, and removing their biographies altogether would completely change the topic of the article. I also don't appreciate Sionk's remark regarding church directories and archival papers, which were used for specific biographical purposes, not for providing information about women's ordination. Note the use of many other books and newspaper articles for the other sections of the article. Clearly there was a misunderstanding about how the archival papers' finding aids/abstracts (not the papers themselves) were being used; but any serious historian or even genealogist would be able to appreciate the use of such resources in providing reliable and verifiable factual information about individuals' biographical histories when said individuals haven't had dedicated biographies written about them. Janus532 (talk) 18:52, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you're missing the point here, or maybe your comments are meant for the separate discussion above. This article is clearly about the Philadelphia Eleven, not the Washington Four. Regardless of whether the information is verifiable, it seems to be both WP:UNDUE and off-topic to include extensive biographies of women who weren't part of the Philadelphia Eleven. Likewise, a separate article about the Washington Four is unlikely to be able to justify such detailed biographies of the participants. Sionk (talk) 22:58, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Margin1522's suggestion about adding these biographies as footnotes. This seems like something worthy of serious consideration. Perhaps one or two key sentences in the main article followed by an explanatory footnote using Template:Efn/doc would be appropriate and acceptable. Furthermore, it is possible to add citations to efns as needed per WP:REFNEST. The material will still be there and easily accessible, it just will not be in the main body of the article. If someday a new article is created about the "Washington Four", the information could the be easily removed or moved as needed at that time. Just a thought. - Marchjuly (talk) 01:07, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

One of the things I found a bit confusing about this article is that it seems to have three topics: 1) background and aftermath, 2) the ordination service, and 3) the biographies. Janus532 thinks that the main topic the women, which is fine. I've never seen a group biography like this, but why not? And for this, I think use of archival materials is absolutely appropriate. Future historians will be grateful. My own preference would be to focus on 2). That was behind my suggestion about the footnotes. But maybe the biographies could be factored out into a new article on "Women of the Philadelphia Eleven and Washington Four". That would have the advantage of making it as easy as possible for editors like Scholarwise to correct any errors that might creep in. About 1), I changed the section title levels to give it a bit more structure. And given that this article is currently the best resource on the topic, I'm going to add a sentence to the main article at Episcopal Church (United States) so people will know to look here. Also I'm going to add See also links in the existing articles about some of the women, as a hint that more biographical detail is available here. -- Margin1522 (talk) 05:26, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Another possible COI?

I have already expressed some concerns (See proposal #4 in Talk:Philadelphia Eleven#Notes and references: cleanup proposal I have regarding a possible conflict of interest involving one of the editors contributing to this article. Now, I have noticed something else that has me slightly concerned about another editor. When I first saw the edit sums for this and this by Scholarwise, it seemed to imply that Scholarwise is closely connected in some way to the subject matter of the article. It's not clear whether this connection is either direct or indirect, but it does seem to imply some kind of connection. Then I saw this posted by Scholarwise a few days ago at the Teahouse. Seeing the Teahouse post has only reinforced my initial concerns about possible COI. If what was written on the Teahouse is correct, it appears that one of the women mentioned in the article asked Scholarwise to make correct what she felt was erroneous information in the article on her behalf. In all honesty, I am not totally sure if this kind of thing is appropriate, but it does seem very natural. WP:BLPCOMPLAIN, WP:COS and WP:PSCOI#What to do when something goes wrong seem to say this is OK in obvious situations where such an edit would be uncontroversial, but otherwise it is best to leave the editing to others. On the other hand, WP:COS also says it's OK to edit "an article about yourself or someone you know is made if the article contains defamation or a serious error that needs to be corrected quickly."

Among the things Scholarwise said in their Teahouse post was that "Several of the sources heavily relied on by the original writer as authoritative were written by people who are not specialists in the subject, but generalists, and their data was not entirely accurate." as well as "When I began to add information another editor wanted citations and references for many things that really didn't seem to require it, but I complied and added them, using a book which was already included among the references or further reading notes by the original writer. The book happened to have been written by me but when asked for references and citations, I used it because it was the only place where much source material had been documented." I don't think any of this has been done in bad faith or for reasons of self promotion, but it does seem like COI and possibly WP:EX. Not sure what is typically done in cases like these. Is it sufficient simply to add {{connected contributor}} and {{citation by contributor}} templates for Scholarwise in addition to Alla Bozarth? Should things just be left as is? I am interested in hearing what others think about this. Thanks in advance. - Marchjuly (talk) 05:56, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to add the {{connected contributor}} template to this talk page, re Alla Bozarth. I'm not entirely convinced about making an issue of Scholarwise, unless you think they are here to promote their book. Sionk (talk) 16:01, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Sionk. As I have stated earlier both here and on your talk page, I don't think any of this is being done for reasons of self promotion, etc. I think all of the edits made to this article have all been honest, good-faith attempts to improve it. There were, however, claims of POV, etc. added to this talk page by other editors as early as December 2013 which means that somebody has noticed something "unusual". Regarding Alla Bozarth, I tried to politely explain how this could be a seen as problem by other editors in my replies to her Teahouse question after she acknowledged who she was. I waited and watched for awhile to give her time to look at the relevant Wikipolicy and guidelines and hoped that she would declare her here on talk. However, since she hasn't done that on her own, I think it is something that should be done by the community as a way of diffusing any future problems and making it easier for Alla Bozarth to continue editing this page again in the future if she so chooses to do so. Regarding Scholarwise, please see my reply to Margin1522 below. - Marchjuly (talk) 22:34, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, that Scholarwise cited a book by herself, and the book was by Alla Bozarth, so Scholarwise is Alla Bozarth. That may be so. In that case, I have no objection to posting a {{citation by contributor}} on this page. That's because basically I'm fine with contributors citing their own books. Especially since all of the contributions have been very constructive. The problem I see is more that, due to the constraints of the article, we haven't been able to make better use of them. -- Margin1522 (talk) 17:41, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Margin1522. You are connecting dots that I have been reluctantly to connect in any place other than in my head. I have made some indirect references to this concern prior to Scholarwise's Teahouse post on another user's talk page, etc. but have tried to be as discreet as possible in order to avoid running afoul of WP:OUTING, WP:BITE, and WP:ACCUSE, etc. I am not not totally convinced that Alla Bozarth and Scholarwise are the same person; I guess it's possible, but it's not clear. There are some similarities in style, and they both have primarily only made edits to this article (per their respective contribution histories), but that's no proof that they are the same person. They could just simply be two people who have a close connection to the subject matter; two people interested in getting either their story or the stories of people they know accurately told. I have no problem with them doing that or citing their own sources to do that as long as it is within the spirit of the five pillars. I think it would be best for them to self-declare in order to avoid any potential problems, but that is optional. As stated in my reply to Sionk above, I don't think any of this is meant in bad faith. If, however, it can be verified that the two users indeed are one and the same, then I think we should advise them of WP:MULTIPLE, and explain how this could be seen as problematic. I feel that whatever is going on is just an innocent mistake, but it could create problems for the article down the road if left unaddressed. I am just not sure of the best way to verify that and then make it known without sounding like I am out to get someone in particular. - Marchjuly (talk) 22:34, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that probably all good advice. Sorry, I've never been involved in this side of things. I'm happy with any advice, as long as we keep it respectful and make it clear that we welcome contributions from people who were there, and indeed are honored to have a member of this remarkable group take an interest in our humble efforts. -- Margin1522 (talk) 06:48, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Ceremony image

On a more mundane note, would it be possible to include this photo from the Philadelphia Ordinations site? Unfortunately it's copyrighted, and just because that site has permission to use it doesn't mean that we do. But I think that a case could be made that a low-resolution version (300px long side) would be fair use, since it is a photo of a historically significant event, for which no subsitute exists, that would significantly enhance the article. I would happy to prepare a such a version and write the rationale for use in this article only. -- Margin1522 (talk) 06:50, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Using the same picture was asked about in this Teahouse question. I don't know much about "fair use", but if you feel it satisfies all of the ten exceptions listed in WP:NFCI (it has to satisfy all ten), then I think it can be used. - Marchjuly (talk) 07:32, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that was better version of the photo. I uploaded a low-res version. We shall see if it survives. I think it probably will. -- Margin1522 (talk) 11:36, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Documentary!

the Philadelphia 11 is a 2023 documentary produced about this event on its 50th anniversary. Powerful and exceedingly. Well done. That story needs to be woven into this article. And at this point I'm not willing to take that on ☹️ Genemac110 (talk) 19:47, 25 March 2024 (UTC)