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The article seems to be bouncing back and forth between capitalizing and not capitalizing the pronouns (or should I say Pronouns :-) ). It appears that the advocates for capitalization are mainly Bahá'ís who feel that capitalization denotes a proper level of respect for the central figures of the Bahá'í Faith and that, in some but not all cases, the non-capitalization position seems to be taken by others within the Wikipedia audience who feel that capitalization is either unnecessary, inappropriate, or not in line with the general preferences of the Wikipedia audience. In the hopes of coming to some final consensus on this, I would like to address this comment mainly to the former group. This concerns how, in my personal reading experience, pronoun capitalization is used in other Bahá'í publications.
In the authorized English translations of the writings of the Bahá'í Faith, and in the English letters of Shoghi Effendi if memory serves, the pronouns are generally capitalized. (This should be checked in the documents Shoghi Effendi addressed to the League of Nations and in connection with the official recognition of the Faith at the United Nations, since these may not be capitalized. One of these passages can be found on the inside back cover of any issue of the Journal of Bahá'í Studies, but I don't have one handy.)
However, in the contemporary letters of the Universal House of Justice both approaches are used. For example, in the Peace Message of 1985, one of the first documents to be addressed to the Peoples of the World, the pronoun (he) referring to Bahá'u'lláh is NOT capitalized. In letters to the Bahá'í community, it usually is. In the more recent letter to the world's religious leaders (April 2002), any use of the pronouns referring to Bahá'u'lláh appears to have been avoided, as it seems to have been in the Prosperity of Humankind statement (1994). However, in the April 2002 letter God, the Divine, etc., are capitalized, although I cannot find the use of the pronoun in this sense.
It seems to me that this difference of usage depends on the context of the communication, or the different audience that is being addressed. When a communication is addressed primarily to Bahá'ís or within the context of a religious dialogue with a recognized religious audience, the pronouns tend to be capitalized. This is also the case when referring to any of the founders of the major religions, such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. When a more general or non-religious audience is addressed, capitalization is often avoided.
Such variances in how capitalization is used, even within writings of the same author or institution, should not come as a surprise to Bahá'ís since, in several important works, Bahá'u'lláh emphasizes the importance of paying careful attention to the outlook and perceptions of the particular audience with whom one is communicating at any particular time. For example:
Referring directly to the above comment by Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá emphasizes the point as follows:
In another place, Bahá'u'lláh writes
From a Bahá'í perspective, then, a few important points emerge.
Given all of the above, I would like to propose that the use of uncapitalized pronouns in this article is appropriate. If everyone feels that what I have written here is enough to reach an agreement on this point, then in future I suggest we gently refer new readers and contributors who raise this issue to the foregoing discussion and revert the article changes accordingly.
I look forward to your responses.
-- Jonathan
Jmenon 08:39, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Many thanks for that thoughtful and thought-provoking insight, Jmenon. It'll be interesting to see how the other (please forgive my lack of apostrophes) Bahais here respond to this. To be honest with you, although I made the change, I'm not really beating the drum for anything other than consistency, both internal and with established policy. At some point, I'm gonna bounce over to Bab and sort out that article; a complete mess, incapable of any internal consistency, never mind consistency with WikiPolicy.
The main problem, as I see it, isn't about what the policy actually says--that's pretty clear. It's not even really if some people don't like the policy--take it up elsewhere. It's the fact that there are so darn many of these articles to make consistent! I think that keeping this disucssion here would be useful--it would seem that Christianity and Islam don't have the same level of concern being expressed about policy (despite a couple of glaring lapses in Xianity I'm about to fix). Wooster 18:26, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Brett9 removed the following:
This is simply historically true. The various Remeyite organizations were the first schismatic group of Baha'is to persist past the death of their founder. No followers of Mirza Yahya continued past his death, etc. Unless Brent can come up with an example, I'm going to keep reverting this one. Rick Boatright 21:31, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Reverted to the earlier edition, as links were removed and to restore a more NPOV as user Saed removed links against Wiki rules, and removed any reference to any other point of view.
This entire article reeks of a Baha'i pamphlet or a press release. There is almost none of the controversial issues about the Baha'i faith, and when these have been added Baha'i apologists remove them. Scientology, anyone?
Cypress is violating the norms of wikipedia by removing content. I am a former member of the Baha'i faith and am posting anonymously to avoid reprisals against my family who are still members of the Baha'i faith and could face consequences. I was driven out of the Baha'i faith by members of the local spiritual assembly who threatened to remove my administrative rights. I have a right to add factual information of relevance to the readers of this article, even if such information is not appreciated by the Baha'i religious authorities.
Cypress, please quit removing factual content. You are welcome to edit factual content, not revert or remove it in toto. Continued reversions or mass deletions will result in me escalating this dispute to Wikipedia mediation and arbitration processes if necessary. Thanks!
65.184.35.245 22:48, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
65.184.35.245, I came here because of your note on Talk:Main Page.
dab (ᛏ) 16:17, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Dbachmann, maybe I'll go out and revert some of your edits I disagree with then, since you don't disapprove of blanket reverts from critics.
Cyprus, if you think there are no religious authorities in the Baha'i faith, you are mistaken. Who do you think the UHJ, 4 North American Continental Councillors, 50+ Auxiliary Board members and 4000+ assistants do? Not sure how many where you live, but I suspect it is comparable. Mostly those "assistants" spy on the believers and report back anything "questionable" they hear.
Thanks for making much more reasonable edits this time. 63.106.106.2 20:18, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The beginning section of this article says more than once that Baha'i is an "independent" religion. What does that mean? Also it says "according to some" it is the newest such religion. Who are those "some"? IbnRushd 04:44, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Is the Esperanto article's practice of direct incorporation of the remote images O.K. w.r.t. the copyrights and the Wikipedia policies? BACbKA 21:31, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article does indeed look like an advertisement pamphlet in some places. I think that giving factual evidence for all that praise would surely help. One example: "Bahá'ís have also become increasingly involved in projects of social and economic development around the world." is absolutely not factual. It's just a statement that is quite biased. Is this a claim of some Bahai guy or is it a fact? And if it's a fact, you need to qualify it by saying "Bahais spent 10 zillions of dollars building hydroelectric plants in poor countries" or "Bahais printed 10 trillions of copies of multiplication tables and gave them to poor children", stuff like that. :) Any evidence that Bahais are in fact involved, preferably with some references.
I would not dive in editing this article, because my knowledge of Bahai religion is limited, so I could only go through the text and delete all such unstubstantiated claims. It would be better if someone more familiar with the subject would try to locate some facts and references first. Paranoid 14:18, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think something needs to be done before it can be a featured article. I am not saying there are factual errors in this article, but I think lack of external perspective prevents it from being of a featured article. There is an inherent bias in writing an article from the position of an insider. What do people outside of this religion think about Bahai Faith? Paranoid 17:51, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
204.50.168.164 says he eliminated some unnecessary and very marginal information. Most of the information he removed regards the very small (tiny) division in the Faith and other negative attitudes towards the Baha'i Faith. Even though I'm a Baha'i and don't believe those negative viewpoints, I see them as necessary in the article to keep a NPOV. Thus in the spirit of being impartial I am reverting them. -- Navidazizi 15:18, 06 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to put this article on the main page, but I'd prefer someone add a copyleft (Creative common or GFDL licensed) picture first. →Raul654 22:47, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
Akká was the penal colony of the Ottoman Empire. -- Jmenon 19:26, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I can't figure out how to say "Bahá'í". Can we get some guidance in this article? -- Twinxor 19:39, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
removed: "Bahá'u'lláh (meaning splendour or light of Allah) is the title that Mirza Husay Ali Nuri from Iran chose for himself as the new leader of the Bábí movement in Baghdad. His half brother, Mirza Yahya Nuri already had the title of Subh-i Azal (meaning Dawn of Eternity). These titles were not accidental. They both had to do with the Bábí symbolic concept and claim of "new light""
because this is already mentioned later.
removed: "Essentially, both Bábísm and Bahá'ísm are heavily based on an offshoot of the Shia branch of Islam."
it is POV.
"Baháism was one of the two sects of the Bábís when a split among the Bábís started, after Bahá'u'lláh challenged the leadership of the Bábí leader, his own half-brother, Subh-i Azal. The followers of Subh-i Azal became known as the Azali Bábís while the followers of Bahá'u'lláh became known as the Bahá'í Bábís or later just Bahá'ís."
this shouldnt be in the first paragraph but in "origins" or "history" or something. but still, its already mentioned in other related articles "Baháism" is a wrong term.
-- Cyprus2k1 09:33, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I want to take the opportunity to remind everyone of the Three-revert rule. If you revert more than three times in 24 hours, you will get blocked. Do not edit until you've sorted out your differences on the talk page. JRM 10:34, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
The article seems to be bouncing back and forth between capitalizing and not capitalizing the pronouns (or should I say Pronouns :-) ). It appears that the advocates for capitalization are mainly Bahá'ís who feel that capitalization denotes a proper level of respect for the central figures of the Bahá'í Faith and that, in some but not all cases, the non-capitalization position seems to be taken by others within the Wikipedia audience who feel that capitalization is either unnecessary, inappropriate, or not in line with the general preferences of the Wikipedia audience. In the hopes of coming to some final consensus on this, I would like to address this comment mainly to the former group. This concerns how, in my personal reading experience, pronoun capitalization is used in other Bahá'í publications.
In the authorized English translations of the writings of the Bahá'í Faith, and in the English letters of Shoghi Effendi if memory serves, the pronouns are generally capitalized. (This should be checked in the documents Shoghi Effendi addressed to the League of Nations and in connection with the official recognition of the Faith at the United Nations, since these may not be capitalized. One of these passages can be found on the inside back cover of any issue of the Journal of Bahá'í Studies, but I don't have one handy.)
However, in the contemporary letters of the Universal House of Justice both approaches are used. For example, in the Peace Message of 1985, one of the first documents to be addressed to the Peoples of the World, the pronoun (he) referring to Bahá'u'lláh is NOT capitalized. In letters to the Bahá'í community, it usually is. In the more recent letter to the world's religious leaders (April 2002), any use of the pronouns referring to Bahá'u'lláh appears to have been avoided, as it seems to have been in the Prosperity of Humankind statement (1994). However, in the April 2002 letter God, the Divine, etc., are capitalized, although I cannot find the use of the pronoun in this sense.
It seems to me that this difference of usage depends on the context of the communication, or the different audience that is being addressed. When a communication is addressed primarily to Bahá'ís or within the context of a religious dialogue with a recognized religious audience, the pronouns tend to be capitalized. This is also the case when referring to any of the founders of the major religions, such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. When a more general or non-religious audience is addressed, capitalization is often avoided.
Such variances in how capitalization is used, even within writings of the same author or institution, should not come as a surprise to Bahá'ís since, in several important works, Bahá'u'lláh emphasizes the importance of paying careful attention to the outlook and perceptions of the particular audience with whom one is communicating at any particular time. For example:
Referring directly to the above comment by Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá emphasizes the point as follows:
In another place, Bahá'u'lláh writes
From a Bahá'í perspective, then, a few important points emerge.
Given all of the above, I would like to propose that the use of uncapitalized pronouns in this article is appropriate. If everyone feels that what I have written here is enough to reach an agreement on this point, then in future I suggest we gently refer new readers and contributors who raise this issue to the foregoing discussion and revert the article changes accordingly.
I look forward to your responses.
-- Jonathan
Jmenon 08:39, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Many thanks for that thoughtful and thought-provoking insight, Jmenon. It'll be interesting to see how the other (please forgive my lack of apostrophes) Bahais here respond to this. To be honest with you, although I made the change, I'm not really beating the drum for anything other than consistency, both internal and with established policy. At some point, I'm gonna bounce over to Bab and sort out that article; a complete mess, incapable of any internal consistency, never mind consistency with WikiPolicy.
The main problem, as I see it, isn't about what the policy actually says--that's pretty clear. It's not even really if some people don't like the policy--take it up elsewhere. It's the fact that there are so darn many of these articles to make consistent! I think that keeping this disucssion here would be useful--it would seem that Christianity and Islam don't have the same level of concern being expressed about policy (despite a couple of glaring lapses in Xianity I'm about to fix). Wooster 18:26, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Brett9 removed the following:
This is simply historically true. The various Remeyite organizations were the first schismatic group of Baha'is to persist past the death of their founder. No followers of Mirza Yahya continued past his death, etc. Unless Brent can come up with an example, I'm going to keep reverting this one. Rick Boatright 21:31, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Reverted to the earlier edition, as links were removed and to restore a more NPOV as user Saed removed links against Wiki rules, and removed any reference to any other point of view.
This entire article reeks of a Baha'i pamphlet or a press release. There is almost none of the controversial issues about the Baha'i faith, and when these have been added Baha'i apologists remove them. Scientology, anyone?
Cypress is violating the norms of wikipedia by removing content. I am a former member of the Baha'i faith and am posting anonymously to avoid reprisals against my family who are still members of the Baha'i faith and could face consequences. I was driven out of the Baha'i faith by members of the local spiritual assembly who threatened to remove my administrative rights. I have a right to add factual information of relevance to the readers of this article, even if such information is not appreciated by the Baha'i religious authorities.
Cypress, please quit removing factual content. You are welcome to edit factual content, not revert or remove it in toto. Continued reversions or mass deletions will result in me escalating this dispute to Wikipedia mediation and arbitration processes if necessary. Thanks!
65.184.35.245 22:48, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
65.184.35.245, I came here because of your note on Talk:Main Page.
dab (ᛏ) 16:17, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Dbachmann, maybe I'll go out and revert some of your edits I disagree with then, since you don't disapprove of blanket reverts from critics.
Cyprus, if you think there are no religious authorities in the Baha'i faith, you are mistaken. Who do you think the UHJ, 4 North American Continental Councillors, 50+ Auxiliary Board members and 4000+ assistants do? Not sure how many where you live, but I suspect it is comparable. Mostly those "assistants" spy on the believers and report back anything "questionable" they hear.
Thanks for making much more reasonable edits this time. 63.106.106.2 20:18, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The beginning section of this article says more than once that Baha'i is an "independent" religion. What does that mean? Also it says "according to some" it is the newest such religion. Who are those "some"? IbnRushd 04:44, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Is the Esperanto article's practice of direct incorporation of the remote images O.K. w.r.t. the copyrights and the Wikipedia policies? BACbKA 21:31, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article does indeed look like an advertisement pamphlet in some places. I think that giving factual evidence for all that praise would surely help. One example: "Bahá'ís have also become increasingly involved in projects of social and economic development around the world." is absolutely not factual. It's just a statement that is quite biased. Is this a claim of some Bahai guy or is it a fact? And if it's a fact, you need to qualify it by saying "Bahais spent 10 zillions of dollars building hydroelectric plants in poor countries" or "Bahais printed 10 trillions of copies of multiplication tables and gave them to poor children", stuff like that. :) Any evidence that Bahais are in fact involved, preferably with some references.
I would not dive in editing this article, because my knowledge of Bahai religion is limited, so I could only go through the text and delete all such unstubstantiated claims. It would be better if someone more familiar with the subject would try to locate some facts and references first. Paranoid 14:18, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think something needs to be done before it can be a featured article. I am not saying there are factual errors in this article, but I think lack of external perspective prevents it from being of a featured article. There is an inherent bias in writing an article from the position of an insider. What do people outside of this religion think about Bahai Faith? Paranoid 17:51, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
204.50.168.164 says he eliminated some unnecessary and very marginal information. Most of the information he removed regards the very small (tiny) division in the Faith and other negative attitudes towards the Baha'i Faith. Even though I'm a Baha'i and don't believe those negative viewpoints, I see them as necessary in the article to keep a NPOV. Thus in the spirit of being impartial I am reverting them. -- Navidazizi 15:18, 06 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to put this article on the main page, but I'd prefer someone add a copyleft (Creative common or GFDL licensed) picture first. →Raul654 22:47, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
Akká was the penal colony of the Ottoman Empire. -- Jmenon 19:26, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I can't figure out how to say "Bahá'í". Can we get some guidance in this article? -- Twinxor 19:39, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
removed: "Bahá'u'lláh (meaning splendour or light of Allah) is the title that Mirza Husay Ali Nuri from Iran chose for himself as the new leader of the Bábí movement in Baghdad. His half brother, Mirza Yahya Nuri already had the title of Subh-i Azal (meaning Dawn of Eternity). These titles were not accidental. They both had to do with the Bábí symbolic concept and claim of "new light""
because this is already mentioned later.
removed: "Essentially, both Bábísm and Bahá'ísm are heavily based on an offshoot of the Shia branch of Islam."
it is POV.
"Baháism was one of the two sects of the Bábís when a split among the Bábís started, after Bahá'u'lláh challenged the leadership of the Bábí leader, his own half-brother, Subh-i Azal. The followers of Subh-i Azal became known as the Azali Bábís while the followers of Bahá'u'lláh became known as the Bahá'í Bábís or later just Bahá'ís."
this shouldnt be in the first paragraph but in "origins" or "history" or something. but still, its already mentioned in other related articles "Baháism" is a wrong term.
-- Cyprus2k1 09:33, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I want to take the opportunity to remind everyone of the Three-revert rule. If you revert more than three times in 24 hours, you will get blocked. Do not edit until you've sorted out your differences on the talk page. JRM 10:34, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)