User talk:KerryDawkins

Kerry, I am sure I speak for all of the editors working on the emerging church article when I say we value your input. Personally I would like every emergent blogger and his or her relatives all listed in the article but Wikipedia will not tolerate such a thing. Its policies regarding web directories and spamming put us in danger of losing the whole list. Please note the entry I just put on the EC discussion page. I've pasted it here for your convenience.

Prominent Figures List

The list of names has become notoriously way too long and we are in danger of having an administrator delete the entire thing, considering it advertising and a web directory. Both lists now stand at 22 names.I propose that any names added to either list must come at the expense of one already on it. Below I've pasted a relevant satire from my userpage:

About the Spamming in the Emerging Church Movement Article

To those who are interested, I am not responsible for the spamming and advertising on the emerging church "prominent figures" list. It just became impossible to fight after awhile. I think there are still two or three emergent blogs in the world that are not promoted there. Once they get on the list I am thinking about adding my cat. He is as noteable as some of the "prominent figures" already on the list. See the entry below that I've already prepared for him:

Haddon 3935, Prominent American cat. Founder of emergentcat.com and a well-known, late-night speaker in the alley. Influential, early figure in the emerging cat conversation and author of the noteworthy works A New Kind of Feline and Meowal Living (both scratched out in his litter box). Has also made significant contributions to the Wikipedia sandbox.Will3935 19:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I do hope you continue to contribute though.Will3935 19:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Biased to USA and Emergent

Dear Will

Responding to your editing about spamming - it seems to me that there is an American bias to this - that Steve Collins, Ian Mobsby, Pete Rollins have all played a very big part in the Emerging Church which incidently existed before Emergent. Why can we not have these names - Ian Mobsby for example has been writing stuff since 1988 - Yes you give far too much focus and a very large group to the States. This is unjust, and does not reflect the real world of the emerging church.

Can we not take some of the American names off who are less key - and add some of the UK ones that are more key given a global perspective - and that not everything is dictated by an America bias

Absolutely! I think you would be very qualified for the job and I would respect your opinion. I confess I am an American and feel that what we do carries special weight. Forgive us for our arrogance.Will3935 00:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

One more thing (I'm afraid I can be something of a pest), but it seems to me that we need an articulate and informed fleshing out of the historical, global development of EC. I see the related movements section as something of a seedbed. There is material in there that can serve as a starter for someone wanting to place EC within its much broader context (Really, who can draw absolute borders for it anyway). I think people such as you and Ian could help us American egomaniacs with some data on global development of EC outside of the US. You wouldn't need to cover the subject in exhaustive detail (who could?) but you might at least get us started. You may have guessed that I don't identify with EC but I think it is an important movement that deserves better treatment in Wikipedia than it currently has. (I'm going to paste a copy of this on Ian's userpage as I beg his forgiveness for deleting him from the list -- we'll get him back on). One good/bad thing about Wikipedia is that the collaborative process makes its wheels turn a little slowly.Will3935 10:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)