This page is being created as a location at which editors interested in religion, mythology and philosophy related content in wikipedia can gather together and possibly pool ideas on how to develop the relevant content. This first page is more or less intended as a discussion forum; with luck there will be a second page used upon the end of the discussion (which I figure might be for roughly one month) on what if anything to do to act upon ideas reached here. Please feel free to add additional proposals as well as comments on those already included.
So, a few ideas to get the ball rolling BTW, please sign all your comments. All those which aren't currently signed were added by me at the beginning of the page.:
Do any of you think that there is comparatively new information which has received, to your thinking, inadequate inclusion? FWIW, I found the following new encyclopediac sources for 2010. They might include some information which might help support such changes.
Are there any particularly contentious or problematic topics out there which you believe would welcome the input of other editors who would perhaps more clearly not have extant biases? I imagine, in several such discussions, many parties have questioned the neutrality of the other currently involved parties already, and that the involvement of additional editors might be welcome.
I think the entire area of images of Muhammad needs some attention. I believe it's a long time since there were organised attempts to make us remove such images from the encyclopedia, so it's really time to make sure we are not alienating roughly 20% of the world population because of reactance. Of course they should not be removed altogether. For some articles it makes sense to have an image of Muhammad or two, and for Depictions of Muhammad it makes sense to have a lot. But while it makes sense for the Jesus article to have lots of images of Jesus that demonstrate how he was depicted by his followers over the centuries, all of the Muhammad images in the Muhammad article are either from non-Muslimic sources or represent a very minor aspect of Islamic culture ("[D]epictions of Muhammad were never numerous in any community or era throughout Islamic history, appearing almost entirely in the private medium of the Persian miniature book illustration, and those of other Islamic cultures." [1] The Jesus article looks like the inside of a Catholic church. That's fine. The Muhammad article also looks like the inside of a Catholic church. That's not OK. If anything, it should look like the inside of a mosque. In both cases the images do not contribute to understanding the historical person. In the first case they contribute to understanding the iconography of Jesus; in the second case they mislead about the iconography of Muhammad. I hope that among editors specifically interested in religion there is some basic understanding that we need to show a minimal level of respect to Muslims if we expect them to contribute to this project. Otherwise we are not just alienating those who object to the images, but also those who see, as is obvious to me and must be obvious to them, that most of the images are there out of spite rather than for legitimate reasons. Any ideas what can be done? Do similar problems exist with other religions? Hans Adler 17:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
I think one of our more contentious and problematic topics is probably this one. I have noted that there are several editors who consider the various Lists of converts problematic. If we were to be able to find some good sources on what has, at least recently, spurred people to convert from one religion or denomination to another, we might be able to create, for instance, an article on Roman Catholicism and conversion, which might discuss the number of people who have in recent years converted to or from Roman Catholicism and what reasons they gave for their conversion. I acknowledge that there may not be a great deal of independent reliable information on the subject, but if there is, developing the non-list content would probably be very helpful. John Carter ( talk) 19:27, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
User:John Carter invited me at my talk page to note any problems in my view. I've been looking on and off at various religion pages since joining Wikipedia, most seem pretty balanced. I've only come across a couple, imho, of problem areas:
I don't think this is a big issue now. There was a genuine confusion in a lot of 19th C sources about the views of Origen and Gregory and the views of the 19th Century American Universalist Church, such that even mainstream encyclopedias picked it up. I think I've been through most of those pages and weeded out attributions of universal reconciliation type beliefs to pre-1700 individuals and groups which aren't sourced, or where modern scholarship now knows otherwise.
As above, use of Bibliobazaar reprints, out of copyright (= out of date) sources seems a problem in some of the more ethusiastic areas - e.g. Yahweh is full of fizz and Yahweh (Canaanite deity) is an obvious Fork/AfD based on wishful 1920s thinking.
This seems mainly okay, just that "Messianic" content of one sort or another seems to outweigh SBL type contributions/sources on some pages. Authentic Gospel of Matthew (survived several AfD by sockpuppetry) seems to be a resilient source of fantasy/spam sending out content into more mainstream topics since 2006. I can't think of anything else offhand. It's mainly okay (that's only one person's view). In ictu oculi ( talk) 21:59, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Some of you may be aware of the seemingly constant discussion of the amount of weight to give the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church article. Personally, I think that, unless specific actions to change it are taken, it is only likely to continue. That may or may not be a good thing, though. Do the rest of you think that having such seemingly endless discussions which only result in, basically, continued ongoing discussion are a net gain to the project, or perhaps detrimental to the project, or are you neutral about it?
I as an individual think that some of the most reliable sources for content in general are some of the most highly regarded reference works on the subject, and the specific sources they discuss or include in their bibliographies. Some may disagree, but even many of them would say that such encyclopedic sources are useful. If we were to create some sort of list of such very good reference works relevant to the subject of religion, mythology and philosophy, which would you include and why?
This is the beginnings of a list of the various relevant reference sources which have been counted among the best by various outside sources, such as Booklist and the American Libraries Association. These sources all met a variety of criteria, including accessibility and breadth of subject area, and were deemed very good sources for small and medium sized libraries to use. John Carter ( talk) 15:39, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Please feel free to add other particularly valuable reference resources not included above below.
Are there any particular developments in the field of religion, mythology or philosophy recently which you think have received inadequate coverage here, and, if so, what are they? This would include any newer books or articles which include information which is directly relevant and important across several articles, as well as any particular dramatic changes in existing beliefs or creation of new churches, denominations, or belief systems.
Are there any of you out there who might qualify as "experts" on some of our topics, who might be able to address some of the problems currently needing expert attention? If yes, would it be useful to perhaps have a centralized list of such experts, which might make it easier to perhaps acquire "expert" attention to articles requesting same? If yes, are there any ways you would like to see us be able to verify that those individuals we would want to perhaps consider experts actually are experts. I remind everyone of the Essjay controversy, where one editor's statements about himself and his credentials were later found to be, sadly, almost completely false. I very much think it would be in all of our interests to ensure such does not repeat itself.
There are at least a few religion, mythology, and philosophy topics which, apparently, few of us have been readily able to find relevant information. This includes in particular some of the newer and smaller religious groups. I have seen multiple reference works which deal with the general subject of reference works in general which have sections indicating what material is not currently covered by such works. I think we are at this point significant enough to perhaps do the same. So, in theory, if we were to send out letters to some of the academic journals indicating what topics we would most like to see specific content about, either in journals or books, what would they be? Also, if you know of independent reliable sources about these subjects which might be useful about which others might not be aware, please feel free to indicate as much.
In general most of the Jain topics are poorly covered because editors having a background and interest in Jainism are very few...infact none. Hardly any new articles have come up on Jainism and there is only one Featured Article on Jainism. Specifically the following topics require more work in Jainism:
-- Indian Chronicles ( talk) 04:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
As I indicated above, I'm basically thinking that we would send out letters to journals indicating that we would welcome seeing content regarding the matters mentioned above. Which journals do you all think would be the best journals to send such letters to? I'm guessing, for instance, Nova Religio might be one of the best choices for subjects which relate to NRMs, like, for instance, the Two-by-Twos and the neo-Ebionites. Which other journals do the rest of you think would be the best places to send articles on the other topics? John Carter ( talk) 17:16, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
Are there any particular subjects within the general field of religion, mythology and/or philosophy, including suites of articles on specific religious traditions, texts, etc., which seem to you to be comparatively underdeveloped or weak? If so, would there be any editors who would be willing to help develop that content, even if it is not one that is of particular interest to them personally?
Would there be any interest in perhaps beginning some sort of collaboration effort to help improve specific articles or subjects? Personally, it seems to me that the articles which might most benefit from such collaboration would be the main articles on specific topics, as such articles would help make it clearer what material should be included in direct "descendant" articles and what articles should be counted as such.
Is there a possibility of putting together some sort of guidelines to help settle long-running edit warring? Some projects seem to quickly and effectively deal with such situations (topics impacted by nationalism, for instance). I know that I have given up in frustration on improving a few articles where edit warriors challenge anything that doesn't fit their world-view. Demanding references only produces citations from their religious group's website(s), or they just plow ahead with inserting unreferenced or misreferenced statements. Others only pop up on talk and review pages to push an agenda. These editors are clever enough to avoid 3RR and similar violations, but still drag down the process and prevent progress. Adhering to policy and editing according to the references can be valuable, but when others continue to promote their personal beliefs, it would be good to have some guideline in place to reference, rather than rehashing and restating policy to such editors (who tend towards dismissiveness to statements of policy on talk pages) in every article in which this situation occurs. • Astynax talk 09:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
As some of you might know from membership in other projects, they sometimes have member drives to improve articles, reduce the number of articles with quality tags of one sort or another, assessment, etc. I myself think that several of the projects in the fields of this discussion may not have the number of experienced editors required for some of these drives to be successful. What would the rest of you think of, perhaps, persuing such efforts in an accross-the-board topical manner, perhaps in addition to any active or temporarily suspended such collaborative efforts of individual projects in the field? John Carter ( talk) 17:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Some of the more important articles we have which are right now are often of comparatively poor quality are articles about some of the major religious and philosophical treatises. Taking the Bible as an example, there are several types of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bahai, and maybe others as well, which might in many cases have their own specific views on, for instance, the interpretation of texts. I tend to doubt that the relevant articles are likely to ever be particularly good without such material from the more major interpretative groups. However, I am far less than an expert on any of the non-Christian faith traditions, and not that much of one of all the larger Christian traditions. But, it might be worth knowing what particular types of interpretation, or, maybe better yet, specific Biblical or other commentaries might be among the most frequently used by the various relevant groups, so as to know which to try to include. Any ideas? John Carter ( talk) 15:17, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
I am getting ready to suggest to WMF a outreach program (like the Public Policy Initiative) at American Academy of Religion's 2011 meeting. (three blocks from WMF headquarters in San Francisco) I am planning to attend the meeting to present a paper, is any one here from San Francisco Bay Area or already going to AAR already who might be interested in helping that? Or have any comment in General?
Magnificent idea. I wish I were in the SF area, instead of basically half a continent away, but I would definitely be more than willing to provide any assistance to such school groups as I could. John Carter ( talk) 16:29, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
One possible weakness we might have is determining which article is, effectively, the "central" article for some material. This may not be as insignificant as it might sound to some. As an example, I could put forward as an option the comparatively uncertainty about where the majority of the historic content relating to Abraham of the Bible should be put. Should it be in an article related to Judaism, Abrahamic Faith, or maybe the article on early Middle Eastern religions. This could be addressed if we maybe followed the model of the Biography, Christianity, and Novels projects, which have created a separate "core" importance grade. Having an additional grade for religious content might be useful in general anyway. The one possible objection is that some religions might find that their specific main article isn't included and feel neglected on that basis. Maybe a starting point would be the articles included in the first version of WP:1.0]. Anyway, any opinions? John Carter ( talk) 16:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
The above is as long as it is because I am not particularly aware of a shorter way to phrase it. Basically, the question is about such topics as Albertus Magnus. He is primarily notable for being a scientist/philosopher and a Christian religious figure, maybe. He is also however noted for being involved in such legends as having created an early robot which Thomas Aquinas destroyed when he saw it and considered it heretical, and other related topics in the field of alchemy and the occult. The question is, as it were, how to deal with articles which are notable for different subjects or topics which may, in some cases, be seen as mutually contradictory or significantly disagree with each other. Particularly in regards to topics of some age, which might be prominent in multiple different traditions, this might be a bit of a question. I think I've seen about 1,000 encyclopedic like sources on religion and philosophy being discussed in journals and such. John Carter ( talk) 16:07, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I've been noticing the "Rate this page" poll now appearing at the bottom of many pages (e.g., see Followers of Christ). I'm sure this makes the site more "interactive" for visitors, but I wonder if it this opens another avenue for edit warriors to deface otherwise well-researched articles on religious and other controversial topics? I find this type of polling useless on sites like Google, and wonder whether there is some positive that I'm missing. • Astynax talk 01:56, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
This page is being created as a location at which editors interested in religion, mythology and philosophy related content in wikipedia can gather together and possibly pool ideas on how to develop the relevant content. This first page is more or less intended as a discussion forum; with luck there will be a second page used upon the end of the discussion (which I figure might be for roughly one month) on what if anything to do to act upon ideas reached here. Please feel free to add additional proposals as well as comments on those already included.
So, a few ideas to get the ball rolling BTW, please sign all your comments. All those which aren't currently signed were added by me at the beginning of the page.:
Do any of you think that there is comparatively new information which has received, to your thinking, inadequate inclusion? FWIW, I found the following new encyclopediac sources for 2010. They might include some information which might help support such changes.
Are there any particularly contentious or problematic topics out there which you believe would welcome the input of other editors who would perhaps more clearly not have extant biases? I imagine, in several such discussions, many parties have questioned the neutrality of the other currently involved parties already, and that the involvement of additional editors might be welcome.
I think the entire area of images of Muhammad needs some attention. I believe it's a long time since there were organised attempts to make us remove such images from the encyclopedia, so it's really time to make sure we are not alienating roughly 20% of the world population because of reactance. Of course they should not be removed altogether. For some articles it makes sense to have an image of Muhammad or two, and for Depictions of Muhammad it makes sense to have a lot. But while it makes sense for the Jesus article to have lots of images of Jesus that demonstrate how he was depicted by his followers over the centuries, all of the Muhammad images in the Muhammad article are either from non-Muslimic sources or represent a very minor aspect of Islamic culture ("[D]epictions of Muhammad were never numerous in any community or era throughout Islamic history, appearing almost entirely in the private medium of the Persian miniature book illustration, and those of other Islamic cultures." [1] The Jesus article looks like the inside of a Catholic church. That's fine. The Muhammad article also looks like the inside of a Catholic church. That's not OK. If anything, it should look like the inside of a mosque. In both cases the images do not contribute to understanding the historical person. In the first case they contribute to understanding the iconography of Jesus; in the second case they mislead about the iconography of Muhammad. I hope that among editors specifically interested in religion there is some basic understanding that we need to show a minimal level of respect to Muslims if we expect them to contribute to this project. Otherwise we are not just alienating those who object to the images, but also those who see, as is obvious to me and must be obvious to them, that most of the images are there out of spite rather than for legitimate reasons. Any ideas what can be done? Do similar problems exist with other religions? Hans Adler 17:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
I think one of our more contentious and problematic topics is probably this one. I have noted that there are several editors who consider the various Lists of converts problematic. If we were to be able to find some good sources on what has, at least recently, spurred people to convert from one religion or denomination to another, we might be able to create, for instance, an article on Roman Catholicism and conversion, which might discuss the number of people who have in recent years converted to or from Roman Catholicism and what reasons they gave for their conversion. I acknowledge that there may not be a great deal of independent reliable information on the subject, but if there is, developing the non-list content would probably be very helpful. John Carter ( talk) 19:27, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
User:John Carter invited me at my talk page to note any problems in my view. I've been looking on and off at various religion pages since joining Wikipedia, most seem pretty balanced. I've only come across a couple, imho, of problem areas:
I don't think this is a big issue now. There was a genuine confusion in a lot of 19th C sources about the views of Origen and Gregory and the views of the 19th Century American Universalist Church, such that even mainstream encyclopedias picked it up. I think I've been through most of those pages and weeded out attributions of universal reconciliation type beliefs to pre-1700 individuals and groups which aren't sourced, or where modern scholarship now knows otherwise.
As above, use of Bibliobazaar reprints, out of copyright (= out of date) sources seems a problem in some of the more ethusiastic areas - e.g. Yahweh is full of fizz and Yahweh (Canaanite deity) is an obvious Fork/AfD based on wishful 1920s thinking.
This seems mainly okay, just that "Messianic" content of one sort or another seems to outweigh SBL type contributions/sources on some pages. Authentic Gospel of Matthew (survived several AfD by sockpuppetry) seems to be a resilient source of fantasy/spam sending out content into more mainstream topics since 2006. I can't think of anything else offhand. It's mainly okay (that's only one person's view). In ictu oculi ( talk) 21:59, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Some of you may be aware of the seemingly constant discussion of the amount of weight to give the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church article. Personally, I think that, unless specific actions to change it are taken, it is only likely to continue. That may or may not be a good thing, though. Do the rest of you think that having such seemingly endless discussions which only result in, basically, continued ongoing discussion are a net gain to the project, or perhaps detrimental to the project, or are you neutral about it?
I as an individual think that some of the most reliable sources for content in general are some of the most highly regarded reference works on the subject, and the specific sources they discuss or include in their bibliographies. Some may disagree, but even many of them would say that such encyclopedic sources are useful. If we were to create some sort of list of such very good reference works relevant to the subject of religion, mythology and philosophy, which would you include and why?
This is the beginnings of a list of the various relevant reference sources which have been counted among the best by various outside sources, such as Booklist and the American Libraries Association. These sources all met a variety of criteria, including accessibility and breadth of subject area, and were deemed very good sources for small and medium sized libraries to use. John Carter ( talk) 15:39, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Please feel free to add other particularly valuable reference resources not included above below.
Are there any particular developments in the field of religion, mythology or philosophy recently which you think have received inadequate coverage here, and, if so, what are they? This would include any newer books or articles which include information which is directly relevant and important across several articles, as well as any particular dramatic changes in existing beliefs or creation of new churches, denominations, or belief systems.
Are there any of you out there who might qualify as "experts" on some of our topics, who might be able to address some of the problems currently needing expert attention? If yes, would it be useful to perhaps have a centralized list of such experts, which might make it easier to perhaps acquire "expert" attention to articles requesting same? If yes, are there any ways you would like to see us be able to verify that those individuals we would want to perhaps consider experts actually are experts. I remind everyone of the Essjay controversy, where one editor's statements about himself and his credentials were later found to be, sadly, almost completely false. I very much think it would be in all of our interests to ensure such does not repeat itself.
There are at least a few religion, mythology, and philosophy topics which, apparently, few of us have been readily able to find relevant information. This includes in particular some of the newer and smaller religious groups. I have seen multiple reference works which deal with the general subject of reference works in general which have sections indicating what material is not currently covered by such works. I think we are at this point significant enough to perhaps do the same. So, in theory, if we were to send out letters to some of the academic journals indicating what topics we would most like to see specific content about, either in journals or books, what would they be? Also, if you know of independent reliable sources about these subjects which might be useful about which others might not be aware, please feel free to indicate as much.
In general most of the Jain topics are poorly covered because editors having a background and interest in Jainism are very few...infact none. Hardly any new articles have come up on Jainism and there is only one Featured Article on Jainism. Specifically the following topics require more work in Jainism:
-- Indian Chronicles ( talk) 04:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
As I indicated above, I'm basically thinking that we would send out letters to journals indicating that we would welcome seeing content regarding the matters mentioned above. Which journals do you all think would be the best journals to send such letters to? I'm guessing, for instance, Nova Religio might be one of the best choices for subjects which relate to NRMs, like, for instance, the Two-by-Twos and the neo-Ebionites. Which other journals do the rest of you think would be the best places to send articles on the other topics? John Carter ( talk) 17:16, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
Are there any particular subjects within the general field of religion, mythology and/or philosophy, including suites of articles on specific religious traditions, texts, etc., which seem to you to be comparatively underdeveloped or weak? If so, would there be any editors who would be willing to help develop that content, even if it is not one that is of particular interest to them personally?
Would there be any interest in perhaps beginning some sort of collaboration effort to help improve specific articles or subjects? Personally, it seems to me that the articles which might most benefit from such collaboration would be the main articles on specific topics, as such articles would help make it clearer what material should be included in direct "descendant" articles and what articles should be counted as such.
Is there a possibility of putting together some sort of guidelines to help settle long-running edit warring? Some projects seem to quickly and effectively deal with such situations (topics impacted by nationalism, for instance). I know that I have given up in frustration on improving a few articles where edit warriors challenge anything that doesn't fit their world-view. Demanding references only produces citations from their religious group's website(s), or they just plow ahead with inserting unreferenced or misreferenced statements. Others only pop up on talk and review pages to push an agenda. These editors are clever enough to avoid 3RR and similar violations, but still drag down the process and prevent progress. Adhering to policy and editing according to the references can be valuable, but when others continue to promote their personal beliefs, it would be good to have some guideline in place to reference, rather than rehashing and restating policy to such editors (who tend towards dismissiveness to statements of policy on talk pages) in every article in which this situation occurs. • Astynax talk 09:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
As some of you might know from membership in other projects, they sometimes have member drives to improve articles, reduce the number of articles with quality tags of one sort or another, assessment, etc. I myself think that several of the projects in the fields of this discussion may not have the number of experienced editors required for some of these drives to be successful. What would the rest of you think of, perhaps, persuing such efforts in an accross-the-board topical manner, perhaps in addition to any active or temporarily suspended such collaborative efforts of individual projects in the field? John Carter ( talk) 17:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Some of the more important articles we have which are right now are often of comparatively poor quality are articles about some of the major religious and philosophical treatises. Taking the Bible as an example, there are several types of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bahai, and maybe others as well, which might in many cases have their own specific views on, for instance, the interpretation of texts. I tend to doubt that the relevant articles are likely to ever be particularly good without such material from the more major interpretative groups. However, I am far less than an expert on any of the non-Christian faith traditions, and not that much of one of all the larger Christian traditions. But, it might be worth knowing what particular types of interpretation, or, maybe better yet, specific Biblical or other commentaries might be among the most frequently used by the various relevant groups, so as to know which to try to include. Any ideas? John Carter ( talk) 15:17, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
I am getting ready to suggest to WMF a outreach program (like the Public Policy Initiative) at American Academy of Religion's 2011 meeting. (three blocks from WMF headquarters in San Francisco) I am planning to attend the meeting to present a paper, is any one here from San Francisco Bay Area or already going to AAR already who might be interested in helping that? Or have any comment in General?
Magnificent idea. I wish I were in the SF area, instead of basically half a continent away, but I would definitely be more than willing to provide any assistance to such school groups as I could. John Carter ( talk) 16:29, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
One possible weakness we might have is determining which article is, effectively, the "central" article for some material. This may not be as insignificant as it might sound to some. As an example, I could put forward as an option the comparatively uncertainty about where the majority of the historic content relating to Abraham of the Bible should be put. Should it be in an article related to Judaism, Abrahamic Faith, or maybe the article on early Middle Eastern religions. This could be addressed if we maybe followed the model of the Biography, Christianity, and Novels projects, which have created a separate "core" importance grade. Having an additional grade for religious content might be useful in general anyway. The one possible objection is that some religions might find that their specific main article isn't included and feel neglected on that basis. Maybe a starting point would be the articles included in the first version of WP:1.0]. Anyway, any opinions? John Carter ( talk) 16:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
The above is as long as it is because I am not particularly aware of a shorter way to phrase it. Basically, the question is about such topics as Albertus Magnus. He is primarily notable for being a scientist/philosopher and a Christian religious figure, maybe. He is also however noted for being involved in such legends as having created an early robot which Thomas Aquinas destroyed when he saw it and considered it heretical, and other related topics in the field of alchemy and the occult. The question is, as it were, how to deal with articles which are notable for different subjects or topics which may, in some cases, be seen as mutually contradictory or significantly disagree with each other. Particularly in regards to topics of some age, which might be prominent in multiple different traditions, this might be a bit of a question. I think I've seen about 1,000 encyclopedic like sources on religion and philosophy being discussed in journals and such. John Carter ( talk) 16:07, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I've been noticing the "Rate this page" poll now appearing at the bottom of many pages (e.g., see Followers of Christ). I'm sure this makes the site more "interactive" for visitors, but I wonder if it this opens another avenue for edit warriors to deface otherwise well-researched articles on religious and other controversial topics? I find this type of polling useless on sites like Google, and wonder whether there is some positive that I'm missing. • Astynax talk 01:56, 29 May 2011 (UTC)