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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
I've looked over the article and I'd like to suggest that a few minor changes be made before it is elevated to GA status. First, you'll have noticed that I've added "Notable Wikipedian" templates for Kathryn NicDhàna and Pigman. As for the text of the article itself, I have a few quibbles, mostly stylistic:
I hope this review has been helpful. - AdelaMae ( t - c - wpn) 03:04, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and tweaked a few final things so that the article could be listed as a GA. I removed the sentence "Some people see the term as describing a methodology rather than a system of belief" because it was tagged as unsourced, and I believe one of the GA criteria is that GAs can't include unsourced statements; make a note of this and put it back when you can find a reference for it. Also, I changed the line about ADF to read, "...their pan-Indo-European focus, which may result in unusual combinations such as..." "Unusual" might not be the best word, but I think the previous wording was slipping between the perspective of the NPOV article and the perspective of the critics of ADF - the critics would see the combinations as "dissonant and jarring", to say the list, but the article has to withhold judgment. Good work everyone. Ready to shoot for an A? - AdelaMae ( t - c - wpn) 00:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
This is an excellant article but what it lacks is any information about the location of its adherants. Is this largely an American movement or is it found in the Celtic countries themselves? Some info on that would complete the article Neelmack 11:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
in editions from England of The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, we find his name spelled without the hyphen. in the facsimile of the original printing, he signs the introduction without the hyphen. it is, as far as i can tell, only hyphenated starting with the drug-culture edition sporting an introduction by Terrence McKenna. Whateley23 02:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The CR FAQ is now available in a printed, bound, dead tree book form. Because of this, I'd like to tentatively suggest that this information might deserve to be included in this article. I'm extremely sensitive to accusations of self-promotion or attempting to insert an improper or unsuitable source so I'm going to defer to other's judgment on this matter. I'm not not going to detail the publishing facts (ISBN, etc.) here unless I'm asked to do so. Well, I guess I can give the full title without impropriety: The CR FAQ - An Introduction to Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism. So, is including it as a source a good idea or no? Pig man 01:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
To clarify what I mean: There's nothing in the article now that needs sourcing, so I wouldn't suggest adding the book to the footnotes. But perhaps it would be appropriate to add it to the books in the "Further reading" section. -- Pig man 02:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm really not sure about this addition at all. The way the article has been structured previously is to put all external links to such groups at the end of the article. Plus of the six groups included, at least four would never call themselves CR and I doubt sources could be found to say otherwise. This is really seeming like original research on Dbachmann's part. I've removed the four groups I'm certain of not wanting association with CR, leaving a paltry list of two, one of which (IMBAS) is in the external links section and the other also doesn't consider themselves CR either. I'm thinking of removing even those two because their placement is counter to discussion on this matter in the archives of this talk page. Pig man 04:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the reference to Gaelic Traditionalism and the external link to Clannada. This is a copyrighted definitional phraseology and term of art which we did not, and do not, authorize any of the authors of this CR article, nor Wikipedia to use, and, Clannada are not, and have never been CR, and do not want to be associated with CR, nor to participate in this article, nor to be party to willful misinformation that would tend to mislead the readers of Wikipedia and/or the general public. Please respect this removal. Please Cease and Desist. - Kathleen O'Brien Blair, Taoiseach, Clannada na Gadelica Ktho64152 ( talk) 05:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
the notability of the entire article depends on this. The question is: who advocates this "CRP". The article talks a lot about "some people", "not all people", "people involved in CR-style religion", etc., with not a tiny bit of evidence as to who and where these people actually are. As in Kemetism#History_and_demographics, this article needs to address, in the article body, the size and distribution of the movement. How notable is it, where are these groups, what is their literature. If you remove the listing of such groups as there are to the external links as irrelevant, you are essentially saying this entire article lacks notability. I would like to know, is there, or is there not, an actual CRP movement. Either these groups are notable, and can be discussed in the article body, or they aren't, in which this entire topics should probably be merged into polytheistic reconstructionism. -- dab (𒁳) 14:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
wow... if this article is under attack by sockpuppeteers, you should request semiprotection. Once source is better than none. The Kemetism thing was cobbled together by myself because the article as it stood was useless. The "CR FAQ" should certainly be referred to, although it needs to be made clear that this isn't a neutral source, and by the nature of these things prone to exaggeration of the movement's impact or importance. Is there anything on adherents.com? They tend to report on absolutely anything resembling religion, and if a religion isn't listed there, I would argue it is at least suspect notability-wise. dab (𒁳) 17:20, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I've substantially rewritten this section and renamed it "Sub-traditions, groups and alternate names" Per Dbachmann's critique and example, I've included a number of different groups and attempted to show some of the interrelationships between terms. These are all sourced. I think this shows that this isn't just a few people using the name CR but a broad range of groups in disparate geographical locations. If there's some interest in re-adding the estimates of how many people call themselves CR, I'm willing to do so. However, it should be known that such figures will, of necessity, be oblique rather than a direct census. The number of people belonging to the two largest online CR forums has gone up significantly since the last time that info was in the article (last January, I think.)
Disclosure 1: I did a little of the setup and HTML code on one of the sites referenced in the revamped section: http://www.paganachd.com/tara. However I didn't write the ritual/article itself.
Disclosure 2: I worked on the online version of The CR FAQ in various capacities. I believe The CR FAQ is a salient secondary source document. I am also co-editor and co-publisher of the the print version of the document, titled The CR FAQ - An Introduction to Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism. If there are objections to my including these sources because of my involvement, please comment here about it. Pig man 02:44, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Just a note about current figures on membership of the two main online forums: Imbas has 674 members and cr_r (a livejournal community) has 445 members. Probably a fair amount of overlap and some deadwood in there but these are both active forums and certainly don't contain all CRs by a long shot. Pig man 03:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts, the article looks much better. I realize that neopaganism is notoriously difficult to gauge demographically, and that a significant amount of communication takes place via the internet, but still, forum accounts do not equal adherents. As a pure internet phenomenon, a forum with 700 members probably wouldn't pass WP:NOTE. For this reason, it is important to establish that this religion is actually practiced by people in the flesh, and not just a neopagan internet forum discussion topic. thanks, dab (𒁳) 17:26, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I have edited the intro and terminology section to the effect that PRC is essentially an online phenomenon with one known group (Imbas). It would be nice to be able to cite some source stating that there are an estimated several hundred adherents scattered over the USA or something along these lines. dab (𒁳) 12:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
dab, I'm beginning to get annoyed at the changes you've been introducing into this article. I don't think I'm being WP:OWN about it because my reasons seem (to me) to be in accord with WP policies and guidelines. Among other things:
I'd like to note that before your current round of "improving" the article, it had achieved "Good Article" status. Generally, sourcing for the information in the article was excellent and well distributed.
I'm particularly annoyed that you've taken to discounting the information in actual hardcopy sources because you haven't read them or don't have access to them to verify the info. On one hand you'll say CR is "essentially an online phenomenon" despite references to the contrary because the only sources you seem able to check are the online ones. I'd suggest your opinion on this is shaped by you only being able to check the online references and not the hardcopy sources. And on the other hand, you'll say online presence and communication indicates that there are no "real world" offline groups.
Perhaps the word "annoy" is provocative and uncivil but I think it's an apt description of my feelings. Your changes are introducing elements that I'm having to clean up and breaking things that weren't broken before. WP is all about collaboration and improving articles. For the most part, your recent work is neither. It is degrading the structure and the supporting framework of references for the article. I have been able to incorporate some of your changes but, because you lack familiarity with the subject, some of your additions seem absolutely nonsensical.
I'm getting the feeling that you are manipulating and deliberately imposing your will on the article with little regard for the consequences of your actions. I'm actually perceiving it as bullying and without any semblance of collegial attitude. I'm sorry if this seems unduly harsh but this is what I'm seeing and feeling about your actions here. Pigman what?/ trail 21:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm removing the tag on the Sources used by Celtic Reconstructionists section. The splitting of the Literature section into sources about CR and sources CRs use seems to solve some issues. The splitting off of the latter section seems contraindicated at the moment. The articles dab suggested shifting them to above don't really exist, they are just redirects. Plus I have problems understanding how having a relatively short set of mostly scholarly or source literature, which provide a direct basis for CR beliefs and practices, is not pertinent and an asset to the article. Pigman what?/ trail 23:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
You are right. I was completely wrong about the Bonewits footnotes, sorry. I'll say again that my concern is phrasings like "Many CRs view each act of daily life as a form of ritual" or "The founders and elders of CR believe", when the article isn't (wasn't) able to point out a single known group of CRP adherents. The article's standard is of course classes above the average "neopaganism" writeup I mentioned. I am not impressed by this article being of "GA standard". That's just another confirmation that the GA people these days simply look at proper footnote formatting and don't even bother to read the prose. The article as it stood had severe tone and npov issues, and immediately betrayed its origin with CRP proponents. Sorry if my editing was erratic. We are making progress though. The article now at least names eight grouplets with their actual location, so that it is reasonable to assume that CRP has at least a dozen or so adherents. Kathryn, it is perfectly fine for you to be building this article, but seeing that you are personally named in it as the very "originator" of the term and a key proponent, you'll have to accept that questions of WP:COI arise, especially in light of accusations of bias on your part to the effect that you deleted every "Celtic" group but your own. Now, let me list the remaining phrasings that I find problematic:
Regarding sources, while I am happy to recognize Bonewits as a valid source, a good deal of content is sourced to
My concern is, then, that this article is essentially K. NicDhàna replicating material published by K. NicDhàna elsewhere. This rises WP:NOTE's "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including: self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc. Again, I have no problem with people writing Wikipedia articles about themselves. After all, we can assume they have the expertise. But in such cases, we have to be extra careful to establish some framework for the topic based on independent sources. The closest to that we have to show so far appears to be Isaac Bonewits, founder of ADF, apparently coined the term "Pagan Reconstructionism", perhaps not himself a hardboiled Reconstructionist, but hardly an outside observer. Another concern was that Celtic neopaganism used to redirect here. I have turned it into a disambiguation page for now. dab (𒁳) 09:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
dab, I think your most recent critique of this article is an excellent and detailed list of some of the problems and I agree with many of them. I'm more comfortable with correcting or addressing specific items than completely re-visioning the article from top to bottom, particular after it had achieved good article status. (This despite your apparent low opinion of that particular standard.) I'm going to spend some time working on a number of items from this list but there are a few points I'd like to respond to where I think you're off a little.
Please note that all sources that are directly about or co-written by Kathryn NicDhàna (the Green Triangle interview and the "CR Essay") were not added to this article by her. If you look through the talk pages, I think you'll find that she has always been conscious and sensitive to COI concerns on this article. Note also that she edits WP under this name and has never attempted to disguise her identity in this matter. (I'm certainly not suggesting or saying her honesty should allow her leeway or extra lenient consideration regarding COI issues, only that the COI issues are in the open and not covert in the least.) If you look at her contribs, I also think you'll find this article is nowhere near the sole focus of her Wikipedia work.
I've already addressed Telesco as a source above. The Green Triangle interview was an interview with Kathryn by a non-CR interviewer and published in a webzine unconnected to her so I believe it's an independent source even though much of it is in Kathryn's words. If you look at, say, the home page of the webzine, it's obviously not just a standalone article thrown up on some website but a part of an ongoing online publication that covers a variety of social and religious issues.
Argh! Stuff keeps happening! I've got to go so I'll return to this in a while. Pigman what?/ trail 00:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
it's ok:
Kathryn's material is published, and I wouldn't dream of trying to hustle it out of the article. It is perfectly valid as a proponent's self-description. This automatically raises the questions of (a) are there conflicting positions taken by other proponents (are there disputes within the movement), and (b) what is the take of outside (if possible, academic) descriptions. My involvement is due to the fact that this article, while admiringly referenced to proponents, is grievously short of outside views. Not even to adherents.com or the cog.org census (which is 'insider', but published academically). Bonewits and Adler can be taken as "outside" CR proper, but they are still "insiders" in terms of neopaganism. using google books, I find mention in three arguably "outsider" publications:
this is what I gathered, and this brief "outsider" description is worth hundreds of pages of self-description in terms of encyclopedicity!
Based on the "New Encyclopedia of the Occult" above, I believe we should come clear of attempting to make CR look like more of a "movement" than it is, and do it justice for its role as a comparatively influential intellectual discourse within neopaganism instead. I propose we base the introduction on the "Encyclopedia of the Occult" summary, as it were to establish notability outside a small ring of websites, and then embark on a summary of self-depiction as contained in the present article. dab (𒁳) 15:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
First, MoS does NOT say that footnotes shouldn't be in the lead/opening section, only that because of the general nature of restating info from the body, it probably won't need footnotes. However, older discussion indicated that even the lead needed to be sourced on this article. You may not think so but this was specifically decided earlier.
Another point was removing the wikilinks to the Celtic festivals in the "see also" section which seems remarkably limiting of arguably some of the more pertinent and related articles.
Yet another was the renaming of "Sources used by Celtic Reconstructionists" to "Pre-Christian Celtic traditions" which is entirely inaccurate. Many of these sources are folkloric and gathered within the last 200 years. By no stretch could they be termed Pre-Christian.
There were other problems but in general the removal of sourced material disturbs me quite a bit. I'm still finding many of these changes to be degrading the quality of the article and not improving it. I know I threw out at least a couple of good changes with the bathwater and I'll try to put them back in. However, I am still finding that your changes are generally not as sourced and verifiable as the current text. Pigman what?/ trail 02:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
"Though some CRs do have cultural survivals in their families of origin" ("cultural survivals"? such as what? polytheism? or just eating with knife and fork?)
"CRs believe there is much to be found in the living Celtic cultures" (CRs believe "much" can be found? As opposed to your average man in the street who believes living Celtic cultures are actually non-cultures with nothing to be found in them?)
"all that is needed in some areas, such as community celebrations, is a bit of dusting off and 'back-engineering'" (the intended meaning is apparently "in order to arrive at the historical pre-Christian custom", but the phrasing is needlessly disparaging of living culture as merely a degraded version of an earlier "pure" culture).
"The founders and elders of CR believe" -- who are these people? 3rd person opinion-piece by User:Kathryn_NicDhàna?
"Many CRs view each act of daily life as a form of ritual", ditto, as much of the remainder of "Practices".
My concern is, then, that this article is essentially K. NicDhàna replicating material published by K. NicDhàna elsewhere. This rises WP:NOTE's "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including: self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc.
This seems an extraordinarily poor idea to me. To not include a basic selection of the texts which are the foundation for the modern beliefs of CR would make the article incomplete in important ways. It supports the idea that CR involves scholarship and using as accurate a picture of the ancient Celtic beliefs as possible. Merely referring people to the folklore articles puts central concepts and historical sources (which are well within the scope of the article) beyond easy reference for readers.
I also note that I'm uncomfortable with such general articles on folklore because the sources cited in them will vary in quality and pertinence to CR. Some include fiction, some don't include central texts. Yes, I could help bring the quality of the refs on those folklore articles up but they still would not be CR-focused. The books currently on the list in this article were agreed on by a range of CRs to be central to CR. My opinion. Pigman what?/ trail 20:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
ok, let's see if I can clarify my point. Most of this is copied off a reading list [2]. Your concern that we should illustrate the connection of CR to scholarship is perfectly valid, but this needs to be done in the article body, not by suggestive listing of titles in the literature section. I do encourage you to create a dedicated "CR and scholarship" paragraph, where you can discuss points of who recommended which books etc. But the point of the bibliography section is not to list arbitrary title. It should list literature directly pertinent to the topic (CR), or literature that happens to be referred to in the article body for some reason (the point being that there needs to be a reason evident from the article prose). There are entire libraries worth of literature on the general topic of "Celtic mythology". Which titles do we list here, which do we list at Celtic mythology and why? I should be able to ask you, why do we specifically list The Vanishing People: Fairy Lore and Legends (1978)? What is its relevance to CR beyond being about a vaguely Celtic topic? And you should be able to provide a convincing explanation showing that this book in particular has influenced the movement. Otherwise, we are just listing random "Celtic" literature.
Your point about the general shape of our folklore articles is taken only too well. I wish we had more neopagan editors who would put some effort into building quality articles on the actual folklore and mythologies involved instead of paying loving and often excessive attention to the various "neopaganism" articles. dab (𒁳) 13:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
The reason why I reverted the changes by User:Breandan u c is because I have three sources here that contradict the "custom(s) of the ancestors" definition of Sinnsreachd. In particular, it is contradicted by the source being currently used as a citation for this information in the article. I found a source he might be using but it's a secondary definition from a 1912 dictionary online. IOW, it is not current usage. As I say, I have three separate Gaelic dictionaries which do not show this definition and I'd be happy to source the definition to all of them.
Actually, the information in this paragraph lacks WP:V third party sourcing for the info. The only source is to the group's own website. If better WP:RS sources can't be found, it may be better to cut the paragraph. Cheers, Pigman ☿ 22:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I've now added two additional sources to the text showing the actual translation of the word sinnsreachd. Cheers, Pigman ☿ 06:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
There is a recently published article which could be used as a source here. "Reconstructing Ireland at Home" by Andrew Nusca appeared in the Irish Voice, possibly the largest circulation Irish newspaper in the USA. Since I am rather over-prominently featured in the story however, I'm not eager to add it or integrate it as a source myself. I humbly offer it up in case others think there is information that could be used here. There is a pdf of it here showing how it appeared in print. It is also on the site for "Covering Religion" here but that's difficult to reference because you then have to click through story "2" in the main window to get to it. Flash coding means there's no direct URL to the story that I can find. Cheers, Pigman ☿ 03:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Does the organisation 'Ord na Darach Gile' rightly belong under the list of CR organizations? Though they describe themselves as a Celtic Reconstructionist organisation, they also describe themselves as a Druidic order that promotes 'Celtic Druidism'; the title of 'druid' is used among CRs in a community or tribal context and it is bestowed upon those who demonstrate great knowledge of history, lore, ritual, and language, and who actively fulfill a 'priestly' role in their communities--it's an honorable and sacred office, and CRs do not describe their practices as 'druidism.' After reviewing the organisation's website, I get the impression that they are a Neodruid group who have a high regard for scholarship and cultural authenticity, but that is not the same thing as reconstructionism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.243.181.177 ( talk) 18:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
It appears that the entire article is based on the writings of proponents of the movement, showing no secondary or tertiary sources. The lack of serious criticism or viewpoints from outside the celtic-reconstructionist ghetto make the article very poor by encyclopedic standards. I'm saddened to see it passed a GA. Also, from a brief glance at the talk page, it would appear that there might be conflict of interest issues with a number of editors. Come on guys, get this article cited properly! Davémon ( talk) 21:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Kathy, Pigman. The sources used are clearly all primary sources, Bonewits, is a neopagan, Harvest magazine, a 'small press' neopagan magazine etc. etc. There isn't a single serious reliable source (i.e. a serious academic, journalistic source) in there. Please don't remove notifications until the concerns have actually been addressed. Accusing editors of 'retaliatory' editing is unconstructive - please attempt to stay on topic, which on this talk page is this article. I have worked on several neopaganism related articles and my actions here are no different to the others - that is an attempt to improve the standards of sourcing and their encyclopedic nature. I also note that Pigman was encouraging editors to use himself as a source on this talk-page, and that Kathy is not only one of the sources, but also credited with coining the term. There are some serious CoI issues surrounding this article. Please, if either of you can add some reliable sources that talk about Celtic Reconstructionism from someone other than Celtic Reconstructionists and neopagan authors, we can remove the notice. I'm sure at least Ronald Hutton will have mentioned the movement in his histories of the modern pagan movement. Thanks. Davémon ( talk) 08:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) These would be the 10% defining things that aren't central to the topic. The following do not provide any evidence of the notablity of the subject as the do not discuss it:
My point is not that the article isn't sourced, it is that the sources provided do not establish notability of the subject of the article. This is not a 'personal opinion' but a statement of fact based on the complete lack of textual evidence provided by the sources. The only sources that actually do mention CR are those produced by it's proponents. If there are any reliable secondary sources that actually discuss CR, then please do add them to the article. Davémon ( talk) 13:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
I would suggest "Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred By Dawn Llewellyn, Deborah F. Sawyer" page 191 as a secondary source for stating that Celtic Reconstructionism (with a capital "R") as a separate tradtion that considers itself pagan as well as "Her hidden children: the rise of Wicca and paganism in America By Chas Clifton" which also mentions it as a modern reconstructionist movement.
"The invention of sacred tradition By James R. Lewis, Olav Hammer", "Religion and Canadian society: traditions, transitions, and innovations By Lori G. Beaman" and others also mention Celtic Reconstructionism as a separate pagan religion/movement and could be used to signify this within the article. However, I don't know how to do this so perhaps the individuals who are critical of this article and believe that it does not have secondary sources could enter these to improve the article as I am sure that is what Davémon wants - to make the article better especially since there do seem to be additional secondary sources out there - rather than just criticizing it and placing tags that are unwarranted. Michael Meehan ( talk) 21:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
This 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. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
I've looked over the article and I'd like to suggest that a few minor changes be made before it is elevated to GA status. First, you'll have noticed that I've added "Notable Wikipedian" templates for Kathryn NicDhàna and Pigman. As for the text of the article itself, I have a few quibbles, mostly stylistic:
I hope this review has been helpful. - AdelaMae ( t - c - wpn) 03:04, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and tweaked a few final things so that the article could be listed as a GA. I removed the sentence "Some people see the term as describing a methodology rather than a system of belief" because it was tagged as unsourced, and I believe one of the GA criteria is that GAs can't include unsourced statements; make a note of this and put it back when you can find a reference for it. Also, I changed the line about ADF to read, "...their pan-Indo-European focus, which may result in unusual combinations such as..." "Unusual" might not be the best word, but I think the previous wording was slipping between the perspective of the NPOV article and the perspective of the critics of ADF - the critics would see the combinations as "dissonant and jarring", to say the list, but the article has to withhold judgment. Good work everyone. Ready to shoot for an A? - AdelaMae ( t - c - wpn) 00:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
This is an excellant article but what it lacks is any information about the location of its adherants. Is this largely an American movement or is it found in the Celtic countries themselves? Some info on that would complete the article Neelmack 11:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
in editions from England of The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, we find his name spelled without the hyphen. in the facsimile of the original printing, he signs the introduction without the hyphen. it is, as far as i can tell, only hyphenated starting with the drug-culture edition sporting an introduction by Terrence McKenna. Whateley23 02:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The CR FAQ is now available in a printed, bound, dead tree book form. Because of this, I'd like to tentatively suggest that this information might deserve to be included in this article. I'm extremely sensitive to accusations of self-promotion or attempting to insert an improper or unsuitable source so I'm going to defer to other's judgment on this matter. I'm not not going to detail the publishing facts (ISBN, etc.) here unless I'm asked to do so. Well, I guess I can give the full title without impropriety: The CR FAQ - An Introduction to Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism. So, is including it as a source a good idea or no? Pig man 01:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
To clarify what I mean: There's nothing in the article now that needs sourcing, so I wouldn't suggest adding the book to the footnotes. But perhaps it would be appropriate to add it to the books in the "Further reading" section. -- Pig man 02:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm really not sure about this addition at all. The way the article has been structured previously is to put all external links to such groups at the end of the article. Plus of the six groups included, at least four would never call themselves CR and I doubt sources could be found to say otherwise. This is really seeming like original research on Dbachmann's part. I've removed the four groups I'm certain of not wanting association with CR, leaving a paltry list of two, one of which (IMBAS) is in the external links section and the other also doesn't consider themselves CR either. I'm thinking of removing even those two because their placement is counter to discussion on this matter in the archives of this talk page. Pig man 04:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the reference to Gaelic Traditionalism and the external link to Clannada. This is a copyrighted definitional phraseology and term of art which we did not, and do not, authorize any of the authors of this CR article, nor Wikipedia to use, and, Clannada are not, and have never been CR, and do not want to be associated with CR, nor to participate in this article, nor to be party to willful misinformation that would tend to mislead the readers of Wikipedia and/or the general public. Please respect this removal. Please Cease and Desist. - Kathleen O'Brien Blair, Taoiseach, Clannada na Gadelica Ktho64152 ( talk) 05:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
the notability of the entire article depends on this. The question is: who advocates this "CRP". The article talks a lot about "some people", "not all people", "people involved in CR-style religion", etc., with not a tiny bit of evidence as to who and where these people actually are. As in Kemetism#History_and_demographics, this article needs to address, in the article body, the size and distribution of the movement. How notable is it, where are these groups, what is their literature. If you remove the listing of such groups as there are to the external links as irrelevant, you are essentially saying this entire article lacks notability. I would like to know, is there, or is there not, an actual CRP movement. Either these groups are notable, and can be discussed in the article body, or they aren't, in which this entire topics should probably be merged into polytheistic reconstructionism. -- dab (𒁳) 14:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
wow... if this article is under attack by sockpuppeteers, you should request semiprotection. Once source is better than none. The Kemetism thing was cobbled together by myself because the article as it stood was useless. The "CR FAQ" should certainly be referred to, although it needs to be made clear that this isn't a neutral source, and by the nature of these things prone to exaggeration of the movement's impact or importance. Is there anything on adherents.com? They tend to report on absolutely anything resembling religion, and if a religion isn't listed there, I would argue it is at least suspect notability-wise. dab (𒁳) 17:20, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I've substantially rewritten this section and renamed it "Sub-traditions, groups and alternate names" Per Dbachmann's critique and example, I've included a number of different groups and attempted to show some of the interrelationships between terms. These are all sourced. I think this shows that this isn't just a few people using the name CR but a broad range of groups in disparate geographical locations. If there's some interest in re-adding the estimates of how many people call themselves CR, I'm willing to do so. However, it should be known that such figures will, of necessity, be oblique rather than a direct census. The number of people belonging to the two largest online CR forums has gone up significantly since the last time that info was in the article (last January, I think.)
Disclosure 1: I did a little of the setup and HTML code on one of the sites referenced in the revamped section: http://www.paganachd.com/tara. However I didn't write the ritual/article itself.
Disclosure 2: I worked on the online version of The CR FAQ in various capacities. I believe The CR FAQ is a salient secondary source document. I am also co-editor and co-publisher of the the print version of the document, titled The CR FAQ - An Introduction to Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism. If there are objections to my including these sources because of my involvement, please comment here about it. Pig man 02:44, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Just a note about current figures on membership of the two main online forums: Imbas has 674 members and cr_r (a livejournal community) has 445 members. Probably a fair amount of overlap and some deadwood in there but these are both active forums and certainly don't contain all CRs by a long shot. Pig man 03:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts, the article looks much better. I realize that neopaganism is notoriously difficult to gauge demographically, and that a significant amount of communication takes place via the internet, but still, forum accounts do not equal adherents. As a pure internet phenomenon, a forum with 700 members probably wouldn't pass WP:NOTE. For this reason, it is important to establish that this religion is actually practiced by people in the flesh, and not just a neopagan internet forum discussion topic. thanks, dab (𒁳) 17:26, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I have edited the intro and terminology section to the effect that PRC is essentially an online phenomenon with one known group (Imbas). It would be nice to be able to cite some source stating that there are an estimated several hundred adherents scattered over the USA or something along these lines. dab (𒁳) 12:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
dab, I'm beginning to get annoyed at the changes you've been introducing into this article. I don't think I'm being WP:OWN about it because my reasons seem (to me) to be in accord with WP policies and guidelines. Among other things:
I'd like to note that before your current round of "improving" the article, it had achieved "Good Article" status. Generally, sourcing for the information in the article was excellent and well distributed.
I'm particularly annoyed that you've taken to discounting the information in actual hardcopy sources because you haven't read them or don't have access to them to verify the info. On one hand you'll say CR is "essentially an online phenomenon" despite references to the contrary because the only sources you seem able to check are the online ones. I'd suggest your opinion on this is shaped by you only being able to check the online references and not the hardcopy sources. And on the other hand, you'll say online presence and communication indicates that there are no "real world" offline groups.
Perhaps the word "annoy" is provocative and uncivil but I think it's an apt description of my feelings. Your changes are introducing elements that I'm having to clean up and breaking things that weren't broken before. WP is all about collaboration and improving articles. For the most part, your recent work is neither. It is degrading the structure and the supporting framework of references for the article. I have been able to incorporate some of your changes but, because you lack familiarity with the subject, some of your additions seem absolutely nonsensical.
I'm getting the feeling that you are manipulating and deliberately imposing your will on the article with little regard for the consequences of your actions. I'm actually perceiving it as bullying and without any semblance of collegial attitude. I'm sorry if this seems unduly harsh but this is what I'm seeing and feeling about your actions here. Pigman what?/ trail 21:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm removing the tag on the Sources used by Celtic Reconstructionists section. The splitting of the Literature section into sources about CR and sources CRs use seems to solve some issues. The splitting off of the latter section seems contraindicated at the moment. The articles dab suggested shifting them to above don't really exist, they are just redirects. Plus I have problems understanding how having a relatively short set of mostly scholarly or source literature, which provide a direct basis for CR beliefs and practices, is not pertinent and an asset to the article. Pigman what?/ trail 23:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
You are right. I was completely wrong about the Bonewits footnotes, sorry. I'll say again that my concern is phrasings like "Many CRs view each act of daily life as a form of ritual" or "The founders and elders of CR believe", when the article isn't (wasn't) able to point out a single known group of CRP adherents. The article's standard is of course classes above the average "neopaganism" writeup I mentioned. I am not impressed by this article being of "GA standard". That's just another confirmation that the GA people these days simply look at proper footnote formatting and don't even bother to read the prose. The article as it stood had severe tone and npov issues, and immediately betrayed its origin with CRP proponents. Sorry if my editing was erratic. We are making progress though. The article now at least names eight grouplets with their actual location, so that it is reasonable to assume that CRP has at least a dozen or so adherents. Kathryn, it is perfectly fine for you to be building this article, but seeing that you are personally named in it as the very "originator" of the term and a key proponent, you'll have to accept that questions of WP:COI arise, especially in light of accusations of bias on your part to the effect that you deleted every "Celtic" group but your own. Now, let me list the remaining phrasings that I find problematic:
Regarding sources, while I am happy to recognize Bonewits as a valid source, a good deal of content is sourced to
My concern is, then, that this article is essentially K. NicDhàna replicating material published by K. NicDhàna elsewhere. This rises WP:NOTE's "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including: self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc. Again, I have no problem with people writing Wikipedia articles about themselves. After all, we can assume they have the expertise. But in such cases, we have to be extra careful to establish some framework for the topic based on independent sources. The closest to that we have to show so far appears to be Isaac Bonewits, founder of ADF, apparently coined the term "Pagan Reconstructionism", perhaps not himself a hardboiled Reconstructionist, but hardly an outside observer. Another concern was that Celtic neopaganism used to redirect here. I have turned it into a disambiguation page for now. dab (𒁳) 09:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
dab, I think your most recent critique of this article is an excellent and detailed list of some of the problems and I agree with many of them. I'm more comfortable with correcting or addressing specific items than completely re-visioning the article from top to bottom, particular after it had achieved good article status. (This despite your apparent low opinion of that particular standard.) I'm going to spend some time working on a number of items from this list but there are a few points I'd like to respond to where I think you're off a little.
Please note that all sources that are directly about or co-written by Kathryn NicDhàna (the Green Triangle interview and the "CR Essay") were not added to this article by her. If you look through the talk pages, I think you'll find that she has always been conscious and sensitive to COI concerns on this article. Note also that she edits WP under this name and has never attempted to disguise her identity in this matter. (I'm certainly not suggesting or saying her honesty should allow her leeway or extra lenient consideration regarding COI issues, only that the COI issues are in the open and not covert in the least.) If you look at her contribs, I also think you'll find this article is nowhere near the sole focus of her Wikipedia work.
I've already addressed Telesco as a source above. The Green Triangle interview was an interview with Kathryn by a non-CR interviewer and published in a webzine unconnected to her so I believe it's an independent source even though much of it is in Kathryn's words. If you look at, say, the home page of the webzine, it's obviously not just a standalone article thrown up on some website but a part of an ongoing online publication that covers a variety of social and religious issues.
Argh! Stuff keeps happening! I've got to go so I'll return to this in a while. Pigman what?/ trail 00:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
it's ok:
Kathryn's material is published, and I wouldn't dream of trying to hustle it out of the article. It is perfectly valid as a proponent's self-description. This automatically raises the questions of (a) are there conflicting positions taken by other proponents (are there disputes within the movement), and (b) what is the take of outside (if possible, academic) descriptions. My involvement is due to the fact that this article, while admiringly referenced to proponents, is grievously short of outside views. Not even to adherents.com or the cog.org census (which is 'insider', but published academically). Bonewits and Adler can be taken as "outside" CR proper, but they are still "insiders" in terms of neopaganism. using google books, I find mention in three arguably "outsider" publications:
this is what I gathered, and this brief "outsider" description is worth hundreds of pages of self-description in terms of encyclopedicity!
Based on the "New Encyclopedia of the Occult" above, I believe we should come clear of attempting to make CR look like more of a "movement" than it is, and do it justice for its role as a comparatively influential intellectual discourse within neopaganism instead. I propose we base the introduction on the "Encyclopedia of the Occult" summary, as it were to establish notability outside a small ring of websites, and then embark on a summary of self-depiction as contained in the present article. dab (𒁳) 15:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
First, MoS does NOT say that footnotes shouldn't be in the lead/opening section, only that because of the general nature of restating info from the body, it probably won't need footnotes. However, older discussion indicated that even the lead needed to be sourced on this article. You may not think so but this was specifically decided earlier.
Another point was removing the wikilinks to the Celtic festivals in the "see also" section which seems remarkably limiting of arguably some of the more pertinent and related articles.
Yet another was the renaming of "Sources used by Celtic Reconstructionists" to "Pre-Christian Celtic traditions" which is entirely inaccurate. Many of these sources are folkloric and gathered within the last 200 years. By no stretch could they be termed Pre-Christian.
There were other problems but in general the removal of sourced material disturbs me quite a bit. I'm still finding many of these changes to be degrading the quality of the article and not improving it. I know I threw out at least a couple of good changes with the bathwater and I'll try to put them back in. However, I am still finding that your changes are generally not as sourced and verifiable as the current text. Pigman what?/ trail 02:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
"Though some CRs do have cultural survivals in their families of origin" ("cultural survivals"? such as what? polytheism? or just eating with knife and fork?)
"CRs believe there is much to be found in the living Celtic cultures" (CRs believe "much" can be found? As opposed to your average man in the street who believes living Celtic cultures are actually non-cultures with nothing to be found in them?)
"all that is needed in some areas, such as community celebrations, is a bit of dusting off and 'back-engineering'" (the intended meaning is apparently "in order to arrive at the historical pre-Christian custom", but the phrasing is needlessly disparaging of living culture as merely a degraded version of an earlier "pure" culture).
"The founders and elders of CR believe" -- who are these people? 3rd person opinion-piece by User:Kathryn_NicDhàna?
"Many CRs view each act of daily life as a form of ritual", ditto, as much of the remainder of "Practices".
My concern is, then, that this article is essentially K. NicDhàna replicating material published by K. NicDhàna elsewhere. This rises WP:NOTE's "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including: self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc.
This seems an extraordinarily poor idea to me. To not include a basic selection of the texts which are the foundation for the modern beliefs of CR would make the article incomplete in important ways. It supports the idea that CR involves scholarship and using as accurate a picture of the ancient Celtic beliefs as possible. Merely referring people to the folklore articles puts central concepts and historical sources (which are well within the scope of the article) beyond easy reference for readers.
I also note that I'm uncomfortable with such general articles on folklore because the sources cited in them will vary in quality and pertinence to CR. Some include fiction, some don't include central texts. Yes, I could help bring the quality of the refs on those folklore articles up but they still would not be CR-focused. The books currently on the list in this article were agreed on by a range of CRs to be central to CR. My opinion. Pigman what?/ trail 20:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
ok, let's see if I can clarify my point. Most of this is copied off a reading list [2]. Your concern that we should illustrate the connection of CR to scholarship is perfectly valid, but this needs to be done in the article body, not by suggestive listing of titles in the literature section. I do encourage you to create a dedicated "CR and scholarship" paragraph, where you can discuss points of who recommended which books etc. But the point of the bibliography section is not to list arbitrary title. It should list literature directly pertinent to the topic (CR), or literature that happens to be referred to in the article body for some reason (the point being that there needs to be a reason evident from the article prose). There are entire libraries worth of literature on the general topic of "Celtic mythology". Which titles do we list here, which do we list at Celtic mythology and why? I should be able to ask you, why do we specifically list The Vanishing People: Fairy Lore and Legends (1978)? What is its relevance to CR beyond being about a vaguely Celtic topic? And you should be able to provide a convincing explanation showing that this book in particular has influenced the movement. Otherwise, we are just listing random "Celtic" literature.
Your point about the general shape of our folklore articles is taken only too well. I wish we had more neopagan editors who would put some effort into building quality articles on the actual folklore and mythologies involved instead of paying loving and often excessive attention to the various "neopaganism" articles. dab (𒁳) 13:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
The reason why I reverted the changes by User:Breandan u c is because I have three sources here that contradict the "custom(s) of the ancestors" definition of Sinnsreachd. In particular, it is contradicted by the source being currently used as a citation for this information in the article. I found a source he might be using but it's a secondary definition from a 1912 dictionary online. IOW, it is not current usage. As I say, I have three separate Gaelic dictionaries which do not show this definition and I'd be happy to source the definition to all of them.
Actually, the information in this paragraph lacks WP:V third party sourcing for the info. The only source is to the group's own website. If better WP:RS sources can't be found, it may be better to cut the paragraph. Cheers, Pigman ☿ 22:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I've now added two additional sources to the text showing the actual translation of the word sinnsreachd. Cheers, Pigman ☿ 06:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
There is a recently published article which could be used as a source here. "Reconstructing Ireland at Home" by Andrew Nusca appeared in the Irish Voice, possibly the largest circulation Irish newspaper in the USA. Since I am rather over-prominently featured in the story however, I'm not eager to add it or integrate it as a source myself. I humbly offer it up in case others think there is information that could be used here. There is a pdf of it here showing how it appeared in print. It is also on the site for "Covering Religion" here but that's difficult to reference because you then have to click through story "2" in the main window to get to it. Flash coding means there's no direct URL to the story that I can find. Cheers, Pigman ☿ 03:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Does the organisation 'Ord na Darach Gile' rightly belong under the list of CR organizations? Though they describe themselves as a Celtic Reconstructionist organisation, they also describe themselves as a Druidic order that promotes 'Celtic Druidism'; the title of 'druid' is used among CRs in a community or tribal context and it is bestowed upon those who demonstrate great knowledge of history, lore, ritual, and language, and who actively fulfill a 'priestly' role in their communities--it's an honorable and sacred office, and CRs do not describe their practices as 'druidism.' After reviewing the organisation's website, I get the impression that they are a Neodruid group who have a high regard for scholarship and cultural authenticity, but that is not the same thing as reconstructionism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.243.181.177 ( talk) 18:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
It appears that the entire article is based on the writings of proponents of the movement, showing no secondary or tertiary sources. The lack of serious criticism or viewpoints from outside the celtic-reconstructionist ghetto make the article very poor by encyclopedic standards. I'm saddened to see it passed a GA. Also, from a brief glance at the talk page, it would appear that there might be conflict of interest issues with a number of editors. Come on guys, get this article cited properly! Davémon ( talk) 21:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Kathy, Pigman. The sources used are clearly all primary sources, Bonewits, is a neopagan, Harvest magazine, a 'small press' neopagan magazine etc. etc. There isn't a single serious reliable source (i.e. a serious academic, journalistic source) in there. Please don't remove notifications until the concerns have actually been addressed. Accusing editors of 'retaliatory' editing is unconstructive - please attempt to stay on topic, which on this talk page is this article. I have worked on several neopaganism related articles and my actions here are no different to the others - that is an attempt to improve the standards of sourcing and their encyclopedic nature. I also note that Pigman was encouraging editors to use himself as a source on this talk-page, and that Kathy is not only one of the sources, but also credited with coining the term. There are some serious CoI issues surrounding this article. Please, if either of you can add some reliable sources that talk about Celtic Reconstructionism from someone other than Celtic Reconstructionists and neopagan authors, we can remove the notice. I'm sure at least Ronald Hutton will have mentioned the movement in his histories of the modern pagan movement. Thanks. Davémon ( talk) 08:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) These would be the 10% defining things that aren't central to the topic. The following do not provide any evidence of the notablity of the subject as the do not discuss it:
My point is not that the article isn't sourced, it is that the sources provided do not establish notability of the subject of the article. This is not a 'personal opinion' but a statement of fact based on the complete lack of textual evidence provided by the sources. The only sources that actually do mention CR are those produced by it's proponents. If there are any reliable secondary sources that actually discuss CR, then please do add them to the article. Davémon ( talk) 13:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
I would suggest "Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred By Dawn Llewellyn, Deborah F. Sawyer" page 191 as a secondary source for stating that Celtic Reconstructionism (with a capital "R") as a separate tradtion that considers itself pagan as well as "Her hidden children: the rise of Wicca and paganism in America By Chas Clifton" which also mentions it as a modern reconstructionist movement.
"The invention of sacred tradition By James R. Lewis, Olav Hammer", "Religion and Canadian society: traditions, transitions, and innovations By Lori G. Beaman" and others also mention Celtic Reconstructionism as a separate pagan religion/movement and could be used to signify this within the article. However, I don't know how to do this so perhaps the individuals who are critical of this article and believe that it does not have secondary sources could enter these to improve the article as I am sure that is what Davémon wants - to make the article better especially since there do seem to be additional secondary sources out there - rather than just criticizing it and placing tags that are unwarranted. Michael Meehan ( talk) 21:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)