Talk:Paganism (contemporary)

Outdated Adler, redundant title and other doubts about recent edits

The previous title "Paganism (contemporary religion)" (without "movements") was better, the current one is redundant. Besides this, I think the article is now expanding too much and I find unnecessary the latest modifications made by user Midnightblueowl. In my opinion, the construction of the entire article on the works and the categories elaborated by Adler is wrong, both since it should use a wider array of authors and since Adler's work is somewhat outdated (it dates back to 1979!!!), and influenced by a New Age view of Paganism. I strongly suggest to use Michael Strmiska's Modern Paganism in World Cultures (2005). --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 21:27, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

If you can improve the article with some citations from Strmiska, by all means go ahead! I don't myself think that Adler is so outdated as to be useless (though we could perhaps cite the more recent, updated edition she issued.) But it would be good to have as wide a reference list as possible. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 21:40, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Another problem with Adler is that she is virtually focused only on 70s American Paganism. Currently I prefer not to help in fields other than Germanic Heathenry. However I can suggest Victor Shnirelman, Adrian Ivakhiv and Kaarina Aitamurto for Slavic and other Eastern European Paganisms, particularly Shnirelman's “Christians! Go home”: A Revival of Neo-Paganism between the Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia and Ivakhiv's In Search of Deeper Identities. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 22:14, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I've just had another look at the references here and I agree that there are too many to Adler. Not that she is a bad source or that her information is wrong, but there are more divers sources to confirm the same material. There's Leo Ruickbie's work for a start which is newer and UK-based, plus the book based on the anthropology PhD where the author was initiated into a London coven, plus of course Ronald Hutton's many works. Then all those references you've just provided are very helpful too.

I tend to agree about the page name but it was changed to this not long ago after a lengthy discussion and I'm loth for it to move again - of course just moving a page is easy, it's the renaming all the templates and wikilinks that is such a pain! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:20, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with Bhlegkorbh that we need more references from those academics working on Germanic and other ethnic forms of Paganism, but we must be careful not to swamp this page with them. This article has to reflect the huge variety of Pagan religions that exist, including Wicca, Thelema, Heathenry, the Radical Faeries etc. etc and as such must draw equally from those academics working within the mainstream U.S. Pagan community, such as Sabina Magliocco and Margot Adler, as much as it draws from the work of those scholars studying fringe elements of contemporary Paganism, such as Matthias Gardell. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:18, 25 November 2011 (UTC))

A bold move

Well, I wasn't expecting this! It's certainly bold but it miught have been better to have at least some discussion first? Dab, could you perhaps at least say how far back this reversion takes us and make a case for it? I don't see any discussion, let alone any consensus, for this? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, now this is getting silly. Dab's reversion and page move have been reverted, again without discussion here. I have fully protected this page for 24 hours so that we can have some discussion here. This is without prejudice to the content and title of the page: I'm not protecting the "good" version, I just want the back and forth nonsense to stop. Now please let's discuss here with the maximum amount of good faith and minimum of putting out fires with gasoline, please (thank you David Bowie for the quote...) Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 14:27, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, you've simply beat me to it. Unfortunately, the explanation I gave in the move itself was truncated and if it was not, in fact, necessary for a non-admin to pick a different name, I was not aware of that. Consensus was clearly against the name Neopaganism, so for the time being, I've changed it back (as best I could?) to something closer to the name that appears in WP:RS that's been discussed (not that I'm opposed to the long name). Additionally, Dab didn't move the talk page to Neopaganism so I cleared that tick box.

If by “putting out fires with gasoline” you're referring to me, take your own advice… Let the children lose it. Let the children use it. Let all the children boogie.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 15:19, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, so no-one's in any doubt, the "gasoline" I was thinking of was Dab's edit summary about 'agenda driven editorializing'. I respect Dab and normally agree with much of the content and process that I see from that account. But those words were very unfortunate and also rather non-specific! I don't myself see an agenda having been recently been pursued, but I'm always willing to have my eyes opened. I think perhaps what I should have said was "please can we have some examples of 'editorialising' so I can better understand what the complaint is." (Can't think of a further Bowie quote to continue the sequence, sorry...) Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 15:44, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I think there's a problem here. Dbachmann acts without any kind of consensus literally destroying articles as he recently did to Germanic Heathenry. As I exposed in the discussion above, I myself think this article has some problems related to Adler and a "New Age" view of Paganism, but most of the problems I exposed are related to the last ten-days edits by Midnightblueowl; it's not the case to return the article to a months-old revision. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 15:55, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Very simple, the revert takes us back to the revision before the blatant agenda-driven attack on this article by User:Midnightblueowl. We aren't a neopagan (or "pagan") blog or community site. Such editing is clearly unwelcome here. If you want to publish a pagan zine or something, don't abuse wikipedia as your webspace provider. There isn't really much to discuss as long as this blatant disregard of project fundamentals continues. As soon as some kind of reasonable attitude resurfaces, I would be happy to have a discussion among grown-up editors. Before that happens, I suppose all we can do is tag the article as broken.

The accusation by "Bhlegkorbh" that I am "destroying" articles is beyond the pale. These articles are the product of years of careful balance and research. I did not see "Bhlegkorbh" participate in the building up of the coverage on these topics in 2005, or 2006, or 2007, or 2008, or 2009, or indeed 2010 or most of 2011. This account appears out of nowhere in July 2011 and seems dedicated to making agenda-driven edits to neopagan topics, but for some reason it is now "their" article to do with as they please, never mind previous considerations or debate by editors who have spent literally years in building and discussing these topics within our encyclopedicity guidelines. Read WP:BRD. The default revision is the one before this neopagan revisionist campaign came out of the woodwork. It you have a complaint, kindly seek consensus before making substantial changes. It is unacceptable to sneak in what are clearly biased changes and then ask people to seek consensus before reverting to the long-standing consensus revision.

What on earth do you mean by "consensus was against the name Neopaganism"? You mean that four or five neopagan editors came to the talkpage of an article which has been stable under the current name since 2003 and quickly built "consensus" among them to move it? This is just ridiculous. There is no case whatsoever to be made for the move. Any clean review of WP:UCN will dictate the long-standing title as the obvious choice. This kind of moving major articles around by quick "consensus" when people are not looking is not how it works at all, it is in volation of all principles of encyclopedicity and wikiquette, and I refuse to even waste time addressing this as if it was a bona fide issue.

--dab (𒁳) 09:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Dab, what on earth are you attacking me for ? There is absolutely no reason for accusing me of trying to turn this article into a Pagan blog or community site! Not a single shred! Nor, do I believe, is anyone else doing that either, and lord knows where you are getting this idea from. If you look at my additions, you will see that what I have been doing is adding academically referenced information from the field of Pagan studies (yes, "Pagan studies", not "Neopagan studies"); hardly the actions of someone trying to create a Pagan zine... If you want to be constructive then I welcome your input but so far your behaviour over the last week or so has been counterproductive in the extreme, dragging this page back to former and clearly inferior stages and complaining that there is no consensus or reason to term this new religious movement "Paganism" when in fact both have been supplied to you. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC))

Alas, almost two months on and still no response I see... (Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC))

caps and hyphens

I took the liberty of moving the case and punctuation toward what is more common in sources, and more in line with our WP:MOS. As some have noted, there may be cases where Pagan, Paganism, Neopaganism, etc., should be capitalized, if they refer to specific religions or the religious affiliations of individuals, but I didn't see many uses of that sort. They are almost all generic, describing types of religions and beliefs. If I got some wrong, we should fix those. I didn't get all the through, just about half way, so there are still lots of excess caps to fix. The hyphens are also much less common than "neopagan", "neopaganism", etc. Dicklyon (talk) 02:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

This issue has already been discussed many times in past, and all the times the consensus was for the capitalisation of the terms since they're terms for religions. "Protestantism" is also a generic term, used for a variety of denominations and churches, but it's always capitalised. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 09:13, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid Blegkorbh remembers incorrectly; there was no such consensus. The most recent discussion ended with a view that a capital letter was right when a proper noun or noun phrase was being used, eg the Pagan Federation, or (fictitious example) "I follow the religious path of Paganism". However a lower case letter was right when a for example a simple adjective was involved - eg "I follow a pagan lifestyle". That's my memory of the discussion and of course it's likely to be biased; I freely admit that this is the construction I prefer so I'm remembering what I want!

Unfortunately this article has been moved at least once recently and the associated talk pages and archives have not been renamed to keep up with it. I will try and find these and link or rename now! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 09:32, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Well I've had a quick look. In the last year the article has had the names Neopaganism, Paganism (contemporary religious movements) and Paganism (contemporary). The associated talk pages obviously should have been renamed and the history maintained across these moves but clearly this has not happened. I can't now find the archives for this talk page, which are quite extensive and helpful - this is a real shame and another reason for page moves not to be done unilaterally, boldly, frequently or carelessly. I will carry on looking (I may be able to find the pages by trawling my contribs) but if anyone else has clever ideas and knows the intricacies of the Wiki interface better than I, please help! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 09:47, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I've found them. They are just three. However I still can't find the discussions on capitalisation, but I'm sure they took place. Perhaps they are in the Project Neopaganism talkpages. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 10:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I found them at the same time you did! The discussion we need wasn't there actually, but here: Talk:Paganism#Pagan or pagan? and that discussion is referred to higher up this page in this section. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 10:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

The discussions seem to support what I did, which is to make the generic terms lower case. The two reasons for reverting my changes don't seem to hold up: (1) that there's a consensus to capitalize; (2) that "they're terms for religions", which is contradicted in the lead of the article itself, which is about "an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe". There's no support for that approach in sources, and it conflicts with our MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 16:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Endorsing Dicklyon's view, which is not surprising since it seems to be identical to mine! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 16:57, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Academically, there is little argument to be had here. If this article is to follow academic convention (which is indeed Wikipedia policy), we must use the capital "P" for "Paganism" when referring to the contemporary religious movements. This isn't an issue of consensus among Wikipedia editors, it's a matter of following academic convention. Now I don't mean to demean your points of view Kim and Dicklyon, but there's a reason why The Pomegranate, the only peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to Pagan studies insists on all its articles containing a capital "P".... (Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC))

I've changed it back to lower case for now, as that follows both MOS:CAPS and the dominant style in books (and it was only going to get harder to fix if I didn't act soon). I have no objection to capitalizing those uses that refer to specific named religions, but do object for the generic uses, which seem to be most. What is the evidence for your assertion that "academic convention" is to always capitalize pagan? Or that WP policy is to follow "academic convention"? Dicklyon (talk) 17:12, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey Dickylon, thanks for your swift reply. Regarding your latte point, i'd point to Wikipedia:Verifiability, where it states that "Where available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science." There is a wealth of academic sources for Pagan studies (which I have listen in the article's references section), and whilst some indeed use the lower case "pagan" or "Neo-pagan", the majority - including the more recent texts, The Pomegranate and AltaMira's Pagan studies series, instead use "Pagan". It is not the job of Wikipedia editors to decide whether or not the contemporary Pagan movement warrants capitalization (that would contradict Wikipedia:No original research). Instead, it is our job to relate the facts, as they have been put forward by academic and, to a lesser extent, other reliable sources. Sorry if i'm coming across a bit too harsh in this, it's not my intention, but it's just the way that it's gotta be because that's the way the Pagan studies community operates, and Wikipedia must follow their lead. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:29, 25 November 2011 (UTC))

With respect MBO, you can't unilaterally decide that "there is little argument to be had here". I disagree with your contention, ergo we are having an argument. You of course believe you are right and can't believe I can realistically think otherwise - hence your view that the argument is a non-starter. And yet here we are, arguing....

A style decision by one academic journal is not a fact. The Pomegranate is not reporting anywhere in its peer review pages a finding that pagans everywhere agree they should be described as Pagans. Rather you assert that it has made an editorial decision that the words Pagan and Paganism should be capitalised and it asks its authors to follow this style. (I assume this is what their MOS prescribes - I haven't checked.) I can understand the reasons why The Pomegranate might decide to insist on this style, but their decision is not binding on us; we are writing for Wikipedia, not them.

We are discussing one article on this encyclopaedia and we have to see the wider context. There are other articles that use the word pagan and where a lower case 'p' is clearly appropriate; why not here? Conversely, if you are asserting that whenever Wikipedians use the words pagan or paganism, they should capitalise them, then this needs to be discussed and agreed at the WP:MOS and not in an isolated article talk page. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 19:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Just checked The Pomegranate's style guide here. It says: "Capitalize Pagan when referring the various polytheistic religious traditions, whether contemporary or ancient. Lowercase pagan when it is used to mean merely “irreligious.” In quoted material, however, follow the original author’s usage." It isn't clear what one should do when one is neither meaning "irreligious" nor referring to a specific religious tradition, so I'm not sure whether this helps either of us decisively....Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 19:08, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, my view on this issue (which I have adopted because it is the dominant academic term in this area; on a personal level I prefer the term "Neopagan"), is that when discussing these contemporary religious movements, i.e. Wicca, Heathenry, Goddess Spirituality, we should use the upper-case "Pagan"; whereas when discussing historical religion or irreligious things we should use "pagan". I think that this is a good distinction to make, and it is used for instance by Ronald Hutton (in Witches, Druids and King Arthur (2003) onwards, his earlier works use the lower case "pagan" for all three terms). (Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC))

I agree with MBO. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 20:59, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I think Dick Lyon may have the most-correct approach to analyzing the problem (what is more common in sources), the only issue is in identifying what is truly the most common practice of the RSs; which is to say, establish the facts as to what is truly the predominant practice of reliable and most-reliable secondary sources.

Midnightblueowl properly quotes Wikipedia policy regarding identifying what are most-reliable sources when he wrote "Where available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science." However, Kim Dent-Brown cited The Pomegranate's style guide (PDF, here) as an RS as if that is an example of a scholarly paper; it isn’t. The Pomegranate website is subtitled The International Journal of Pagan Studies; it is an open-membership organization or club that is in the business of discussing itself and is far from a truly scholarly paper by a true academic studying pagan/Pagan rituals. It is not a secondary source. *I* could sign up to be a member of The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Nowhere else in this world could I sign up and create a password to instantly become established as an academic who authors peer-reviewed papers (though I am a published author of a medical paper on how Dicyclomine (an anticholergic) affects gastric motility in a canine model).

Think about it: Whether “Pastafarianism” is properly capitalized depends not so much on whether The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (a mostly tongue-in-cheek, to-make-a-point atheist group) spells the word, but whether the true, classic RSs like National Geographic and The New York Times and truly scientific, peer-reviewed, scholarly papers write that it is “Pastafarianism”. It is RSs and most-reliable RSs (peer-reviewed scientific journals) Wikipedia looks towards. So, let’s examine the classic RSs regarding “Pastafarianism”…

The New York Times (here), spells it Pastafarian (with a capital C) but puts the first instance in quotes before sanctifying it as a (proper) proper noun.

Speaking to the matter at hand (Paganism/paganism), I note that National Geographic in “Pagan Burial Altar Found in Israel” reads …served Ashqelon's general pagan population… and this: At the time Pagans revered… So I am a bit confused as to what the rule is based on this one article; seemingly if one can put “the” before “Pagan” to form a construct that reads At the time the Pagans revered… it is capitalized.

My position can thus be summed as follows:

1. An open-membership club in search of adherents is not an academic and peer-reviewed publication (a most-reliable, secondary source).
2. The test as to whether one capitalizes “Pagans/pagans” and other purported proper nouns must be satisfied by looking (as per Wikipedia policy) towards the classic RSs such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, National Geographic, etc as well as most-reliable RSs such as academic and peer-reviewed scholarly publications.
3. Arguing about what seems to be the most proper practice by trying to achieve “fairness” or “consistency” across the project is a prescription for disaster because there are all sorts of inconsistencies in English-language practices (the unit of measure “micron” would not be used in many scientific contexts but it is common in infrared astronomy and this drives some wikipedians bat-shit crazy who would have Wikipedia run off and do its own thing in the endeavor to make the English-speaking world have complete harmony and consistency and *fairness* in all-things-English, but that’s the reality). It is not within the purview of mere wikipedians—where 16-year-old kids have as much say as a Ph.D. researcher on a given subject—to debate with pouted lower lip and furrowed brow whether capitalization of this or that is *proper and fair*; that’s why we look to the RSs. Ergo…
4. This issue can only properly be resolved in accordance with the totality of Wikipedia’s policies by looking towards the predominant practices of reliable and most-reliable secondary sources.

Greg L (talk) 22:55, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

A very minor point Greg - I wasn't suggesting that The Pomegranate's author guide should be treated as a RS. On the contrary, my point to Midnightblueowl above was exactly that; it's a style guide, not a scholarly article. On the other hand, TP clearly is peer-reviewed and articles published in it would make excellent RSs The journal main page is here; it's indexed by some serious abstracting and citation indexing authorities and is in no way An open-membership club in search of adherents. Are we even talking about the same publication? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:03, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

We will just have to agree to disagree about whether “following reliable secondary sources” (the thrust of my argument) is a “very minor point.” Yes, we are talking about the same organization (The International Journal of Pagan Studies). You can sign up and become a member of this pagan/Pagan group here. As I wrote above, nowhere else in this world could one sign up and create a password to instantly become established as an academic who authors peer-reviewed papers. The International Journal of Pagan Studies appears to be a primary source, not a secondary one, to which Wikipedia must look in matters such as this.

The open organization reminds me of an open-membership “The International Order of Witches”: whether “witches” is capitalized depends upon most-reliable secondary sources and reliable secondary sources, not an organization discussing and promoting itself and is one that *I too* can sign up and become a member of something that is self-referentially sanctifying itself as a proper noun worthy of the exalted *Uppercase letter of substance & importance.*

If the The International Journal of Pagan Studies has links to genuine peer-reviewed scientific papers, then it is those we look towards (the peer-reviwed scientific papers), not a style guide by the club itself. “Bring on the peer-reviewed scientific papers” and establish with facts what is their predominant practice. Failing to find many peer-reviewed scientific papers, then Wikipedia just needs to follow the predominant practices of reliable secondary sources.

In short, I think Dick Lyon may have the most-correct approach to analyzing the problem (what is more common in sources), the only issue is in identifying what is truly the most common practice of the RSs; which is to say, establish the facts as to what is truly the predominant practice of reliable and most-reliable secondary sources. Greg L (talk) 23:18, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course following reliable secondary sources is not a minor point. I never said that it is. My minor point was that I was not putting forward The Pomegranate's author guide as a scholarly article. It isn't, it's a style guide! I was objecting to MBO citing a style guide as a reliable source - something I think we can agree on.

Where we cannot agree is on the status of The Pomegranate. I'm going to be extremely blunt here because you are describing yourself as a published academic author and you therefore should know how this works; clearly however, you do not. Learned societies very frequently have journals which they publish, and one of the membership benefits of joining the society is a copy of the journal. I'm a member of the Society for Psychotherapy Research and as such I get a copy of their journal, Psychotherapy Research. In the same way, I could subscribe to the International Association of Pagan Studies and receive their journal, The Pomegranate. In neither case does subscription or membership "make me an academic"! Members and non-members alike can submit papers to the editors who go through a peer-review process which is good enough to satisfy the citation indices at Web of Science - both of the journals I'm referring to are indexed there and believe me, WoS does not index self-referential blogs! Have a look at the editorial board listed here and if you know anything about the topic, tell me if this doesn't sound like a roll-call of internationally known academic authorities on the topic at hand? Where I agree with you of course is that The Pomegranate is not a scientific journal. Oddly enough, academic departments of comparative religion tend to be in their university's arts and humanities faculties, not those of science or engineering. Nevertheless the former areas can and do produce peer-reviewed secondary sources which are perfectly citable - unless you are going to allow only journals in the hard sciences to be WP:RS? Is your objection because you can't conceive that paganism is somehow a topic that's amenable to academic study? What would a reliable, peer-reviewed journal in the field look like, if not like this?

Greg, I've written articles in peer-reviewed journals as well so I do know what I'm talking about here. I'm also pretty knowledgable about paganism which I suspect from looking at your contributions you are not. Please have a good look at the whole of the pages at The Pomegranate and compare it to the pages for Psychotherapy Research or any other peer-reviewed journal to see how it stacks up. If you're still not convinced, then rather than take up more space here we'll take it straight to WP:RSN. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 00:07, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I think Greg misinterprets my approach, though I appreciate the support, and I think the approach he describes leads to the same conclusion. Relative to MOS:CAPS, it's not what's "most common" in reliable sources that determines our style; but sources are still important in interpreting the guideline "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. Most capitalization is for proper names..." Even a minority of lowercase usage in reliable sources is enough to establish that a term is not a proper noun, and that capitalization is not necessary; so in some cases we do what a minority does. That doesn't apply here, though, as there's a clear majority usage of "pagan" and "neopagan" in lower case, in books, which are reliable secondary sources. See these n-gram frequencies, for example. The usage in topic-specific academic journals does not trump other reliable sources (because interest groups tend to promote their own stuff via capitalization), so the argument over the status of the journal is irrelevant, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 02:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Further, of sources that do capitalize Pagan, many do so for stylistic reasons incompatible with the statement of MOS:CAPS. For example, read the bottom of p.76 of this book, which explains that the caps are for "attention and respect", not because Pagan is a proper noun. Other books discuss why and when they capitalize such terms; they are explaining their "MOS" so we'll understand the intent of the capitalization; that's what we do in WP, too. Dicklyon (talk) 03:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Despite Greg L's and my long-standing wikifriendship, I have to disagree with some of his points. First, the decision of whether to cap (as with many other stylistic matters) relies on balancing our in-house practice of trying to maximise consistency across the project with what we find in external sources, and what external style guides recommend. In considering this balance, a healthy grain of salt is required where specialists in a field, through their own daily exposure to items specific to their field, tend to drop the typographical aids that are common practice in professional writing in the language as a whole. Capitalisation has also become rampant in specialist corners and is widely as used in organisational and corporate environments in a kind of eye-poking oneupmanship. As a reading psychologist, I quail. Look at any Job Ad on the Net or in a Newspaper and you'd think English had become German, with every Noun capitalised. Wikipedia is right not to join this bandwagon in presenting text for a much wider audience of non-specialists. This should play strongly in our decisions. I'm with Dick Lyon. Tony (talk) 06:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree with this bit from Tony: Capitalisation has also become rampant in specialist corners and is widely as used in organisational and corporate environments in a kind of eye-poking oneupmanship. I completely disagree with this bit: maximise consistency across the project. The people who care most about consistency across the project are wikipedians. The job of any good encyclopedia is to educate its readership and prepare them for their continuing studies on that subject. We have had our share of wikipedians who considered themselves SI purists. They had noble and wonderful motivations regarding “project-wide consistency” who went to articles like Gravimetry and changed instances of 3.1 µGal per centimeter of height to 3.1×10⁻⁶ s^–2. Why? Because the latter is SI-pure and achieves project-wide consistency. But what good is *project-wide consistency* if all experts in gravimetry and all books on the subject use mGal and µGal? We would do our readership a major disservice. Now…

The same principle applies to capitalization of pagan/Pagen. If someone comes to our article on paganism/Paganism to find out whether to capitalize it when they are writing about the subject in an email to someone who is expert in the subject, they don’t want to be *corrected* by the expert because we gave them a bum steer. That’s why the best procedure is to identify what is the predominant practice of most-reliable RSs on that subject; that’s how we best educate our readership and prepare them for their continuing studies on this subject.

Though it might annoy wikipedians who have a keen eye for consistency, our readership doesn’t give a rip if the atomic level details underlying why “Chevron Techron fuel additive” is capitalized the way it is varies from the rules applied to “Pagen/pagen.” This principle of “follow the practices of the most-reliable RSs” underlies why it is “Golden Retriever”; the AKC and dog breeders do it that way. That example, by the way, shouldn’t be interpreted as my supporting capitalization of “pagen/Pagen”, just that secondary RSs should be looked to for guidance on this. Greg L (talk) 01:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Could anyone explain me why Paganism and Heathenism should be kept lowercase while Protestantism and similar movements, which are also collections of different denominations and not single churches, should be capitalised? --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 10:59, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Basically because a look at reliable sources supports Protestantism as being a proper noun, and supports paganism and heathenism as generics. Far be it from me to reduce it to a matter of counting, but counts do provide a simple and compelling picture: [1] and [2], [3]. Dicklyon (talk) 20:29, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. English is as it is. As tempting as it is, it is not within the purview of mere wikipedians to put forth arguments that we ought to buck the predominant practices of the RSs based on well-meaning notions like “But, all religions should be treated *equally*, maaan. We’re not here to Change The World®™©. Greg L (talk) 21:44, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

As I said at the outset, there may be cases where some of these terms should be capitalized. If anyone wants to go ahead and look for such cases and make specific changes where the term is not used generically, that might be progress. Dicklyon (talk) 15:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Another change of title

I have just reverted this rename of this page, made without any preliminary discussion. I don't myself have a strong view over the right title for this page - I'm much more concerned about content - but these frequent, unannounced moves of title are not good. The problem is not the title of the page or the redirects to it, but rather the knock on effect on the talk page (which already has a different name from its parent article) and also on the dozens of wikilinks elsewhere in the encyclopaedia. For the sake of the other articles in this related family, can we once and for all reach a consensus on the name for this page?

May I suggest that those who feel strongly for one name or another make their arguments below? If a consensus emerges then let's move, if we arrive at two candidates which we can't decide on thenj let's take it to WP:RM. Then at least we will have stable name that we can rely on for another year or two.

Apologies if the tone of this sounds finger-wagging. I'm just trying to referee another disputed page move at Germanic Neopaganism and we have spent a lot of energy there with little net benefit to the article; I don't want to see the same ping-pong game played here. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 21:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Finger wagging is better than title wagging. Given the number of times this one has been back and forth, an RM would seem to be in order. Are there live options besides the current title and Neopaganism? We should also ask an admin to repair the talk page naming mess. Dicklyon (talk) 22:14, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I've renamed the talk page so hopefully they are aligned again. Not certain about the archives - will wait to see what the outcome is of any move discussions... Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Proper names

I see pagan, paganism, neopaganism sometimes capitalized and sometimes not. Are there times when they are proper names and sometimes when they are not? If so, how is the distinction being made? Jojalozzo 19:36, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, among those Wikipedia editors with an interest in the contemporary Pagan movement, there is currently much debate and confusion as to which terms we should actually use on this site. In earlier discussions on this issue (all of which can be found on this talk page), it has been made clear that aome favour "Neopagan" and/or "neopagan", while others have argued for the capitalized "Paganism", and yet others have made the case for the lower case "paganism". Over the past year or so of debating this issue (which can largely be seen on this talk page), the only thing that we have developed something close to a consensus on is that we should not be using the term "Neopaganism", unless directly quoting a particular source. The reasons for this are threefold:

• The term "Neopagan" is no longer widely used among the contemporary Pagan community, with the consensus among practitioners being overwhelmingly towards "Paganism". After all, the term employed by the Pagan Federation is not "Neopagan Federation" !
• The term "Neopagan" is also very rarely used by the many anthropologists, sociologists, historians, archaeologists and religious studies scholars engaged in the discipline of Pagan studies – perhaps the only notable exception being the Italian-American folklorist Sabina Magliocco, author of Witching Culture.
• Furthermore, the term "Neopaganism" is actually rejected as offensive by many contemporary Pagans (see Michael Strmiska, Modern Paganism in World Cultures, page 9), who argue that the addition of "Neo" invalidates their spiritual connection with other animistic and/or polytheistic worldviews (in this manner subscribing to the ideas about world paganism as "root religion" purported by Professor Michael York in his book Pagan Theology). This alone would make it unsuitable as the primary term that Wikipedia should use.

The only Wikipedia editor vocally supporting the use of "Neopagan" has been Dbachmann (or Dab), whose recent edits and actions on this page have been somewhat bizarre and un-courteous to other editors, myself included, labelling us all Pagan apologists who wish to turn this article into a "Neopagan zine". His reasons for holding such a view have never been revealed, but he has previously changed the page name to "Neopaganism" despite the majority of editors agreeing that other terms would be more appropriate.

Regarding the usage of "paganism" or "Paganism" here on Wikipedia, there is still a great debate that can be waged. Within the academic discipline of Pagan studies, there is definitely a trend toward the latter (and for this reason I believe Wikipedia must adopt it, because being an encyclopedia it is Wikipedia policy to follow academic terminology), but several editors have argued that the former is more grammatically appropriate because contemporary Paganism is a broad movement and not a singular faith. It is a debate that we really need to have, once and for all. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The question of capitalisation is discussed a couple of sections above under "caps and hyphens". There's a very thorough rehearsal of the arguments there. In summary, some folks take the view that 'pagan' is purely an adjective and 'paganism' an abstract noun and that neither deserve capitals. Others take the view that Pagan and Paganism have the same linguistic status as Christian and Christianity and do merit capitals. To be honest the matter has never been definiticvely resolved and will probably continue to raise its head every few months! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 09:56, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I noticed that previous discussion after I started this section. I don't have anything definitive to add and can see this is not going to be easily resolved. I suppose the current inconsistent usage may be the best temporary solution for avoiding acrimony and disruptive editing. Would outside input (e.g. RfC or arbitration) be useful? Jojalozzo 17:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

RfC or arbitration might come in useful at some point, but at the moment I certainly don't think that the discussion has become heated or problematic enough to warrant it. Thankfully, with one singular exception, those editors working on this page have been courteous and helpful to one another, even in the midst of disputes. On a personal level I believe that it is far more important for now to ensure that this article is properly academically-referenced, using texts written by the various scholars involved in Pagan studies and also to get rid of the ridiculous neutrality tag that has been slapped on it with no explanation whatsoever. Once these tasks are done, then out attention can be better focused on the usage of terminology, and from then on the article can (hopefully) go on to attain GA and then FA status. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC))

I've been bold and removed the two tags. I can't see any ongoing dispute here that warrants the neutrality tag, and no suggestions have been made to justify the rewrite tag. If someone wants to restore them and argue the case, be my guest. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Good move, Kim, you have my support on that one. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC))

"Queer" not PC

I don't think the title "Queer Paganism" is PC. I think it should be changed. Steve (talk) 22:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Although true that the term was originally a derogatory term for homosexual or effeminate men, the word "queer" has been re-appropriated by members of the LGBT community in recent decades; hence you get queercore music, queer theology, queer cinema, even queer nationalism. Indeed, members of the Radical Faeries typically refer to their particular Pagan variant as "Queer Spirituality". In this context the term is perfectly appropriate, and certainly more applicable than "Gay Paganism" would be, excluding as it does bisexuals, transgendered persons, intersex individuals etc... (Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC))