Talk:Modern paganism

Thelema?

Isn't Thelema a significant neo-pagan religion? 2603:6011:A400:8873:C831:5028:5BE1:4F7A (talk) 23:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Not the way it's defined here. Thelema is a revealed religion, which often (but not always) is contrasted with paganism. Ffranc (talk) 09:34, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

There's no one authority what paganism is; the only standard (OED, MW, and maybe definitive ones in mainly-English-speaking countries and Italy) dictionary (one-word simplification) definitions are 'country-dweller', 'non-Abrahamic' so almost all philosophies/religions are pagan: if Thelema is non-Abrahamic it fits some such article (things like El & Yahwism, and Christo-paganism, Universal Sufism and similar West Asian hybrid religions are other issues in which definition fits for adherents but not others). If I recall correctly, Thelema used/inverted Abrahamic material as anti-Abrahamism, which moreso falls under 'non-Abrahamic' except (by using the material, like Satanism/Luciferianism which fall under same definition but many pagans say aren't pagan) that's about as problematic as Abrahamism to pagans who'd rather have nothing to do with it--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 10:06, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

This is about neopaganism/modern paganism though, so what matters here is what distinguishes those movements. The origin of the word pagan is a separate issue. (The common theories created by Andrea Alciato ("civilian", opposite of miles Christi) and Caesar Baronius ("country-dweller") may be applicable to some texts but have chronological problems. There is a good summary of the confused academic discourse in Elogio del politeismo by Maurizio Bettini.) The idea of paganism as non-Abrahamism is itself modern, and modern paganism has never operated on that premise. Ffranc (talk) 11:40, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

According to current first sentence of paganism, 'non-Abrahamic' meaning dates to fourth century CE--not modern at all!--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib)

Requested move 23 August 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Strong arguments have been made on both sides, but the numerical consensus in favor of moving is not outweighed by the opposing arguments. I submit that the decisive argument, most clearly articulated by Cinderella157, is that this article currently describes something too general to merit capitalization in itself, and while such grammatical norms can be trumped by a clear preponderance of capitalized instances outside Wikipedia (and not just in scholarly media), there is, at present, insufficient evidence thereof. SchreiberBike summarized the situation well: What is and is not a proper noun is hard to define around the edges, so we fall back on n-grams and modern paganism is certainly capitalized much less than recognized religions.... [Moreover,] this article does not describe paganism in the way that those who say "I am a Pagan" describe their beliefs. It describes it as a group of religions. That could change. I hope most of us will agree that this is a borderline case, so may we be especially quick to assume good faith in all those involved, including myself. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 18:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

---

Modern Paganism → Modern paganism – per MOS:ISMCAPS. This suggestion failed to achieve consensus support in an RM discussion five years ago, but the fact remains that paganism is not a single identifiable organized religion or even a single identifiable set of specific beliefs. Rather, as the article says, modern paganism is "a collective term for religious movements" of a certain variety. Collective terms are things that describe a category, and thus are common nouns, not proper names. There isn't any single authoritative definition of what modern paganism exactly is. As the article says, "Most scholars describe modern Paganism as a broad array of different religions, not a single one", and there is a "lack of core commonalities in issues such as theology, cosmology, ethics, afterlife, holy days, or ritual practices", and there is "no consensus about how contemporary Paganism can best be defined". Wikipedia's convention is to use lowercase in such situations. See also Germanic paganism, as noted in the 2017 discussion. Please also see the related ongoing RM at Talk:Neopaganism in Scandinavia#Requested move 14 August 2022. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:29, 23 August 2022 (UTC) — Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Prior close, prior to a move review which led to this RM being relisted
Moved. I guess we can build a snowman in August. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 09:58, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

• Support Per MOS:ISMCAPS. As defined by the article itself, modern paganism is a collective term or category name and by definition, not a proper name. Caps are not necessary per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. Use sentence case in an article title and no capitalisation when used in prose. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:39, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• It can be misleading to say that Modern Paganism is not a proper name. While Paganism is often applied as an over-arching term for a related group of religions (Wicca, Heathenry etc), there are also those who identify solely as Pagans, and their religion as Paganism. In those cases at least, Paganism is undeniably a proper noun. This undermines the MOS:ISMCAPS argument. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:42, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:ISMCAPS and Cinderella and source stats. Dicklyon (talk) 01:57, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

• This particular Ngram confuses the fact that the term paganism is used in two distinct ways. Historically, it was a Christian term applied to non-Christians; since at least the mid-20th century it has been adopted as a term for a modern religious phenomenon. As this article makes clear, the standard practice among scholars of the topic is to use the lower-case pagan for the former, and the upper-case Pagan for the latter. Assembling a collection of all appearances of "paganism" on the Ngram will inevitably pool both uses of the term, and thus is not suitable evidence for how we should title the article on Modern Paganism specifically. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:38, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Strongest possible support - per ISMCAPS. This is long overdue. Primergrey (talk) 02:03, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• Support per MOS:ISMCAPS and the description of the topic in the article ("Most scholars describe modern Paganism as a broad array of different religions, not a single one"). Graham (talk) 02:26, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• Support per MOS:ISMCAPS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:20, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• Support per MOS:ISMCAPS. Not really a proper name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:22, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• Support per above. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:32, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• Support finally someone proposes this. Super Ψ Dro 15:04, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

  Maybe they got tired of waiting for you to do so. Dicklyon (talk) 23:24, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

• Support, this is not about a single religious organisation but instead a general set of beliefs. JIP | Talk 21:04, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

(This doesn't seem like a particularly Southern Hemisphere topic, but it looks like it is snowing in August!) —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I do believe it is. With a little more time, it could develop into a blizzard. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:04, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

(Comments made after the initial close):

• I would have opposed the change. The decision to adopt the uppercase "Paganism" was not made haphazardly, but was chosen a few years ago when Midnightblueowl rewrote the article and significantly improved its quality. The choice followed academic usage: in the academia, "Paganism" with the uppercase initial has been consistently used to designate "modern Paganism" (regardless of whether it is conceived a single new religious movement or a group of different new religions), distinguishing it from "ancient paganism", always written with the lowercase initial.--Æo (talk) 14:12, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Æo is right. This was a bad move for Wikipedia's coverage of modern Paganism. No consideration at all seems to have been given regarding what the WP:Reliable Sources actually say; and they are fairly unequivocal that "modern Paganism" with a capital P is the most appropriate option. This decision needs to be reversed. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:47, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

    Oppose I agree withÆo and @Midnightblueowl. The only academic journal that exclusively focuses on research in this area, The Pomegranate, lists Pagan in its author guidelines as something to be capitalized: "Capitalize Pagan when referring the various polytheistic religious traditions, whether contemporary or ancient. Lowercase pagan when it is used to mean merely “irreligious"" (their author guidelines, page 2). This is how the term Pagan is used in the scholarly community. FULBERT (talk) 20:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Would this not be an instance of WP:SSF? Graham (talk) 20:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Only as much as the opposing view is an instance of WP:BIAS. Multiple examples of academic reference have been provided. A clear line has been drawn to accepted capitalization use in other cases. What hasn't been discussed is the struggle that members of the Pagan community have been undertaken to receive recognition in the various Manuals of Style (AP, Chicago, etc) and received exactly the sort of response in this discussion; it's not a proper noun because we say it's not.[1] Meanwhile, Britannica has decided to capitalize Pagan and Neo-Pagan[2][3]. Darker Dreams (talk) 03:46, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Per MOS:FAQ:

Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles.

What your comment seems to lay out is that "general-audience sources on style" such as the AP Stylebook and The Chicago Manual of Style reject the capitalization of paganism, and that most (not all, but most) sources that consistently capitalize the term are academic sources that specialize in the study of neopaganism. This seems like a textbook case of the specialized-style fallacy. Graham (talk) 05:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

That's a spectacular straw man. It ignores the fact that you can do the same thing with non-academic sources, including in both journalistic and popular style. Further, it ignores that the major difference between those who consistently capitalize and those that don't is a minimal attempt to respect the real people practicing the religion under discussion and, specifically, their strongly expressed desire to be treated with the same respect as other religions and families of religions. Darker Dreams (talk) 13:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

• Relisting comment - following a closed request at Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2022_October, I have relisted this discussion. Please present relevant information here, with evidence as to how it complies with our policies, and then those can be analysed and a consensus reached one way or the other. Pinging participants from the prior RM as well as those who later objected to the closure: @Cinderella157, BarrelProof, Dicklyon, JIP, Super Dromaeosaurus, Laurel Lodged, Necrothesp, SMcCandlish, Graham11, Primergrey, Midnightblueowl, Æo, and Darker Dreams:. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose The noun "Paganism" should be capitalized. MOS:ISMCAPS must be interpreted in view of WP:RELIABLE and WP:SCHOLARSHIP arguments. Paganism is used with capitalization in contemporary academic literature referring to a defined group of religions (just like "Hinduism," rather than a "movement" inside a larger religion- ie, offshoots of an existing religion like evangelicalism and fundamentalism or even Pentecostal and Calvinist.), and capitalization is consistent with the Voices from the Pagan Census research and even an acknowledgement in the U.S. Census statistics on religion. The Pomegranate, which is the only peer-reviewed journal devoted to the subject of Pagan studies, uses of the capital in its editorial policy, while almost all academic studies published over the last decade have also employed this upper-case usage (for instance Pizza's Paganistan, Aitamurto and Simpson's Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, Rountree's Contemporary Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe, Doyle White's Wicca). A few of the earlier studies, such as Hutton's 1999 work The Triumph of the Moon, do use the lower-case term but that no longer appears to be the case; Hutton himself has always used the upper-case "Pagan" in more recent publications. While it may not be compelling, the upper-case is heavily used among Pagans themselves and many Pagans find the lower case spelling offensive, because it does not accord them the same respect as Christians, Buddhists, etc. While this is not exactly the same as WP:BLP, some consideration should probably be afforded in an effort not to WP:BIAS the discussion. (comment heavily borrows from arguments by @FULBERT and @Midnightblueowl in previous move request) Darker Dreams (talk) 12:39, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  Nah. It is not capitalized in a strong majority of independent, reliable sources, and that's our standard.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  I spend more than 2500 characters citing references and the first response is "nah, nothing of significance." That definitely makes it feel like there's a serious partner in finding consensus. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  Paganism is used with capitalization in contemporary academic literature referring to a defined group of religions (just like "Hinduism," rather than a "movement" inside a larger religion- ie, offshoots of an existing religion like evangelicalism and fundamentalism or even Pentecostal and Calvinist.) As a "group of religions", wouldn't the appropriate comparator be Indian religions (which we don't capitalize, except for the first word because it comes from the word India) rather than Hinduism? Graham (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  By Indian religions, do you mean the ones sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions? (taken from the lead of Indian religions, all capitalized.) It's also worth noting that The word Hindu is an exonym and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as Sanātana Dharma. (Taken from the lead on Hinduism.) Moreover; "Hinduism includes a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but has no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, pandeistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist. According to Doniger, "ideas about all the major issues of faith and lifestyle – vegetarianism, nonviolence, belief in rebirth, even caste – are subjects of debate, not dogma."" (Taken from the definitions section of the Hinduism page.) If we were just talking about European native/traditional religions you might be on point (which, let's also remember, doesn't actually includd Christianity or anything Abrahamic), except that would already get capitalized for the same reasons as Indian religions. I appriciate the desire to find a logical basis for a distinction most people have internalized based on their WP:WORLDVIEW. But, I'm not sure how people are going to ground this except by simply dismissing the validity of other's religion. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  By Indian religions, do you mean the ones sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions? (taken from the lead of Indian religions, all capitalized.) Indic is a proper noun, and I don't know that we should be capitalizing dharmic either. Many sources don't, in fact, capitalize it (e.g., the Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife).

  And while no one is disputing that Hinduism takes numerous forms, it is nonetheless generally regarded as a religion (in the singular). Graham (talk) 05:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  Yet Dharmic is consistently capitalized in that article when applied as an adjective in a specific way... like we understand there's a difference between Dharmic religions and dharma. Meanwhile, please identify the unifying feature Hinduism posesses that Paganism lacks. The more I've looked into the "singularity" of Hinduism, the more it appears to be an externally imposed historical presumption. Darker Dreams (talk) 13:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  "Nah. It is not capitalized in a strong majority of independent, reliable sources, and that's our standard." I do not believe that this is in the slightest bit true, so I would caution any readers unfamiliar with the topic from believing claims such as this. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support. It's not a proper noun so it should not be capitalized per our general MoS formatting rules. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose per Midnightblueowl and others, and per the overwhelming uppercasing of the n-grams, (how can editors say that the lowercasing is relevant given the ngram, what is it, chopped liver?). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:23, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Because this is a formatting issue, not a common name issue. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:29, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Even with lowercase "modern" the uppercase holds a clear advantage in the ngram measurement. This only adds to Midnightblueowl's excellent research and assertions. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

We don’t capitalize things that have a “clear advantage”; we only capitalize if there is a substantial majority, as you well know. This is close to 50/50. Wallnot (talk) 13:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

And this, a fairer use of the Ngram, shows that the odds are by far in favour of the capitalised P. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:28, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose: It is the proper name of a specific category of new religious movements which are distinct from pre-Abrahamic "paganism", and it should be capitalised much like "Hinduism" is capitalised and may be interpreted as either a single religious view or a group of religions, some more related to each other, other less. As already written above, by myself and by others, the distinction between "paganism" (ancient) and "(Neo)Paganism" (modern) has been established within academia. Notice that since Midnightblueowl's thorough rewrite some years back, the article has been altered in many of its parts, and the definition in the lede which originally followed that of the 1999 Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions (p. 794: "Neo-Paganism: any of several spiritual movements that attempt to revive the ancient religions of Europe and the Middle East...") is now extremely generalised to "historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern peoples". Notice that the Merriam-Webster encyclopedia itself consistently capitalises "Neo-Paganism", while uses lowercase "paganism" in its entries referring to the pre-Abrahamic religions.--Æo (talk) 16:27, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment: The above phrase "the proper name of a specific category of ..." is a bit odd. If you look at the definitions of what a proper name and a common noun are, something that identifies a category is not a proper name. A proper name is something that identifies a single entity, not a class of entities. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:21, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

    In the article "proper noun/common noun" I also read: Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique. The suffix -ism is usually not pluralised (-s), but it can be intended as plural, referring to a more or less narrow category of new religious movements. It is certainly not a common noun as general as continent, planet, person, corporation, etc. Æo (talk) 19:54, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

    • If one looks at the fuller context of the article, proper noun, it also states: Proper nouns are normally invariant for number: most are singular, but a few, referring for instance to mountain ranges or groups of islands, are plural (e.g. Hebrides). Modern pagan religions are not invariant for number. It would also state that: A [true] proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not ... There is much confusion about what is actually a proper name rather than a name phrase that is being capitalised for emphasis or significance (importance) - see MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

      Hindu, Hindus, Hinduism, Sufi, Sufism, Sufis, Sunni, Sunnis, Christian, Christians... I'm going to need some more context to understand what point you're trying to make by saying Pagan should be "invariant for number." Pagan doesn't change for other reasons that other (capitalized) religious names don't. You don't use a different form for an eclectic Pagan practitioner or discussion of Druidism, Heathenry, Wicca, or other members of the family of Pagan religions. Compare: a believer in christianity/christian is typically a member one of the christian denominations, whether orthodox, catholic, or protestant, but is by definition a member of one of the abrahamic faiths. Darker Dreams (talk) 09:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

      It may be worth pointing out that "druid" is consistently lowercased in the Wikipedia article on that subject. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

      But Druidry (modern) does capitalitalize Druid throughout. Again, there are relevant differences in usage. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

    Genus capitalization[4] indicates capitalizing categories is a thing, just as one example. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

    • Capitalising genera is a thing but not because it is a proper name but because it is the scientific convention to do so. Unless you are suggesting that "modern paganism" is the genus of organisms (and I don't think you are) then this is a red herring. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

      And capitalizing religions is a convention as well. Ultimately, this whole conversation is "how much respect do we give the living practitioners of existing religions." On some level everything else is a red herring. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  Capitalizing as a marker of “respect” would be a clear violation of MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Ultimately, this whole conversation should be about whether or not modern paganism is consistently capitalized by a substantial majority of reliable sources. Wallnot (talk) 21:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: The first three paragraphs of our article do not describe the same thing as the opposers above do. If they are right that there is a modern religion called Paganism, that is different from what the Wikipedia article says. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:37, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

The opposers aren't necessarily arguing Paganism is a single religion. I, for example, view it as a family of religions. Much like Abrahamic religions and Dharmic religions. I'm coming to think Hinduism is a family of religions, but Western understanding of it is so misaligned / misinformed that we think of it as a single religion. On the other hand, there are individuals for which Paganism is the unifying, singular term for their religion, including Oberon Zell. But, either way, Hinduism is probably one of the closest reference points to how Paganism should be handled. Darker Dreams (talk) 19:52, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

"Abrahamic" and "Dharmic religions", which are rarely referred to as "Abrahamism(s)" and "Dharmism(s)" (even more rarely than the former), and "Hinduism" to a lesser extent, are the most accurate categories to which "(Neo)Paganism" can be compared as to its semantic function. We could say that the semantic value of "(Neo)Paganism" stays somewhere in-between "Hinduism" and "Abrahamic" or "Dharmic religons". Æo (talk) 20:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per evidence by Randy Kryn and Darker Dreams. We have used ngram as the golden standard for producing exactly this kind of evidence (typically, in downcasing direction) so let's apply it here. Comparison with Hinduism is particularly apt. No such user (talk) 10:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

  I agree we should use the ngram as we do elsewhere. The ngram Randy linked omitted the all lowercase form (“modern paganism” as opposed to “Modern paganism” and “Modern Paganism”) and so showed skewed results. But the correctly formed ngram shows it should be lowercase; MOS:CAPS allows for capitalization only where a word or phrase is consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of sources. The ngram shows that it is close to 50/50 cap/lowercase. That’s not consistently capitalized, nor is it a substantial majority. Wallnot (talk) 13:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  Your argument is also skewed, Wallnot, because you include "modern paganism" and "Modern paganism" together, yet then only compare them against "Modern Paganism", omitting "modern Paganism" altogether. When you actually look at all four possibilities on the Ngram together, look what you get. A very clear, unambiguous majority for the upper-case Paganism. If you maintain that we should go by the Ngram, then surely you should be backing those who oppose this change. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  The standard is not a clear, unambiguous majority; it is consistent capitalization in a substantial majority, i.e., a supermajority, which is not the case even in the ngram you supply. The analysis is not based solely on the most recent year of data, and the capitalized form did not have even a bare majority until very recently. The fact that it has a majority at all is a product of the fact that modern paganism will always be capitalized in a heading. Below, Amakuru provides an ngram superior to either of ours showing that, when you take care to omit headings, it is even more clear that modern paganism fails the CAPS substantial majority test. Wallnot (talk) 17:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

References

• Strong Oppose (as I had not formally declared this in my earlier comments). As previously pointed out, the capitalised P for Pagan when talking about the modern religious grouping is now virtually ubiquitous in the highest quality Reliable Sources. As has been noted, academic sources almost uniformly now use the capital letter; the Encyclopedia Britannica uses the capital letter; Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions uses the capital letter; the one and only peer-reviewed journal devoted to Pagan studies uses the capital letter; modern Pagans themselves typically use the capital letter and often find the use of the lower-case offensive (although there are a few exceptions to this); Google Ngrams indicate that the capital letter has been dominant for a number of years. To these already-mentioned examples I would add a long list of other Reliable Sources that use the capital letter, from specialist religion-themed outlets like the World Religions and Spirituality Project ([5]; [6]) and Religion Dispatches ([7], [8]) to mainstream media sources such as the BBC ([9]), The New York Times ([10]), and The Guardian ([11]). If we are following the WP:Reliable Sources, and especially the WP:Scholarship, then we must keep the capitalised P, for this spelling is the WP:COMMONNAME.

The claims of those promoting "Support" also need to be scrutinised, because some of them are specious. Most of the comments given by "Supporters" of a change do not indicate a good understanding of the subject matter; I suspect that some of those lending "Support" have confused paganism as a generic Christian concept for non-Christians with Paganism as a modern religious identity. As this article currently points out, the general rule among scholars of the topic (with a few exceptions) is to render the former in lower case and the latter in upper case. I also think it is wrong to say that Paganism is not a proper noun. Sometimes Pagan is used as a general term for people whose primary self-identification is as a Wiccan, Druid, Heathen etc, but in many other cases there are people who identify as Pagans, and only that (they are sometimes called "Eclectic Pagans" in the literature). In those cases, Pagan is undoubtedly a proper noun. On that front, the whole argument for invoking MOS:ISMCAPS falls apart, and with it the main case for "Support". Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:04, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support - having been previously involved with closing the MRV and relisting this discussion, I'll now flip over and express an opinion on the merits of the move itself. The principal argument against the move, being made since the relisting, seems to be that "academic" or "high quality" sources prefer the capitalised version, even if evidence shows "ordinary" sources using lowercase. But as noted above, Wikipedia does not typically defer to specialist or academic sources when choosing titles - our mission is to be a general-purpose encyclopaedia, accessible to the masses, not any sort of specialist publication. Wikipedia:Specialized-style fallacy, even it it's only an essay and not guideline/policy, does sum this point up quite nicely. That being the case, our research should consider the whole body of sourcing, and the ngram is a tool we regularly use for that purpose. Unlike the ngram linked above, which only compares "Modern Paganism" with "Modern paganism", ignoring the alternative "modern paganism", I have performed a full case-insensitive search, and I've also added the word "is" on to the end. The reason for that is that this should filter for uses where the term appears in running prose rather than as a title (which is more likely to be title case even in publications which would use sentence case elsewhere). The results are here: [12] and we can clearly see that "modern Paganism" and "modern paganism" are virtually neck and neck as of 2019, a marked difference from 20 years previously when "modern Paganism" had a large lead. This is in keeping with a larger global trend in recent years to avoid unnecessary capitalisation. So, with no clear lead for the capitalised version, MOS:CAPS - which requires a "substantial majority" of sources to be capitalised - advises that we should default to the sentence case variant. Thus "Modern paganism" as a title, with "modern paganism" the usage in running prose. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  I keep seeing Wikipedia:Specialized-style fallacy wielded as policy when it explicitly is not, as you acknowledge. I will continue to point out that WP:BIAS is an equally valid point of view and concern regarding the subject, and that the adherents of the religion have repeatedly and consistently asked to be treated with something they view as a basic point of respect (and been ignored).[13] Wild Hunt (the linked citation) is, by the way, one of those "non academic" (journalistic) sources that uses the capital P along with Patheos. Now, I can only assume these also fall under "specialized-style fallacy," which goes towards my growing concern that this quasi-policy serves little more purpose than reinforcement of systemic biases by rejecting reliable but "specialist" sources in favor of generalists that by definition have less understanding of a subject by declaring it "technical." At some point we have to be responsible for recognizing it doesn't matter how often a word is getting capitalized by AP or Routers. This decision is about how we respect living people. While it doesn't apply, there are reasons that WP:BLP exists. And organizations are slowly moving this way. I've linked Britannica capitalizing now, for example. Capitalized Paganism was fine and stable for 5 years. Now we're going to decide that Wikipedia wants to join the "screw what the pagans ask for" camp and probably be back in 5 years when this growing group that has succeeded in getting recognition by governments gets the chicago manual of style to notice there's an issue? Darker Dreams (talk) 21:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  I explicitly stated above that the specialized-style fallacy is not a policy, but that it is representative of the wider point that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a specialist publication. There is a policy that makes that very point though, at WP:NOTACADEMIA. This states that "Article titles should reflect common usage, not academic terminology, whenever possible". THe important thing is to consider all reliable sources when making the determination, not just those that you've deemed high-quality. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• Supplementary comment having Voted! support prior to relisting and considering the arguments made since relisting. Arguments made to oppose the proposition are:

• "Modern Paganism" is a proper name phrase.

• "Modern Paganism" is not inherently a proper name phase since it is descriptive of pagan religions in the modern era. This article's lead would state: ... [it] is a collective term for religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs ..., further reinforcing that it is being used as a category or common noun phrase. Consequently, there is no inherent reason to capitalise this but we should then defer to MOS:CAPS (through WP:NCCAPS) if there is (as there now is) dissent over whether the phase is a proper name.
• The specific guidance within MOS:CAPS is at MOS:ISMCAPS: not [to] capitalized unless derived from a proper name. For example, Islam, Christianity, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Calvinist are capitalized, while evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not. The guidance would therefore tell us to use lowercase.
• If one chooses to ignore this specific advice, we then revert to the general advice of MOS:CAPS in the lead: ... only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.

• To resolve this, one needs to review a randomly selected statistically significant sample of sources. Any small set of sources presented by an editor are usually going to be subject to selection bias even if this is not the intention. Sources of a particular type (eg news sources or academic sources) can also exhibit a selection bias in respect to the larger set of potential sources and general usage.
• WP:SSF would caution us against giving undue weight to academic sources. Yes, it is an essay and not a guideline but its advice is verifiable through citations and it is in good standing. It provides an objective basis to avoid giving undue weight to a particular type of source generally.
• Both sides of this of this discussion would acknowledge the utility of ngrams as evidence addressing the criteria of the general guidance at MOS:CAPS, though some skill is still required in gathering and interpreting ngram evidence.

• The first issue is that ngrams do not distinguish usage in prose (where sentence case is used) from usage in headings, captions, references and like where title case commonly used. It is common to make an allowance of 10% for title case usage when viewing raw data or to refine the search with additional terms such as Amakuru has done here to indicate usage in prose.
• The second issue is the threshold of usage that indicates capitalisation is necessary per the guidance. This is clearly not a simple majority of cases but a supermajority of cases. Past discussions would suggest >80% for raw data (noting a 10% allowance for title case usage) or >70% where there is refinement to indicate usage in prose. This is quite generous (in favour of capitalisation) since terms such as Christianity and Hinduism are capitalised essentially all of the time and a confidence limit much closer to 100% would not be unreasonable by comparison with these.
• Neither of the two ngrams presented by Randy Kryn give a true picture of usage that would address whether "modern paganism" is a proper name. One must reasonably consider all of the different permutations of case for the two word phrase as here. One can take a simple view and consider just the most recent data or apply a greater degree of smooting as here. Regardless, observation would indicate that Modern Paganism represents about 50% of usage compared with the other two common permutations modern Paganism and modern paganism, while Modern paganism is most likely modern paganism when used at the start of a sentence. It is clear from this mixed usage that Modern Paganism does not reach the threshold to be considered a proper noun phrase. This is perhaps even clearer in the ngram evidence of Amakuru, which is a refinement for usage in prose.
• A survey of several pages from JSTOR here and Google Scholar here, looking at the search summaries, would indicate a similar distribution, while Google Books is of little direct use, since the term really isn't appearing in the search summaries per here (though I believe the results from Google Books might vary between regions.

• Yes we do tend to capitalise religions eg Hinduism and Buddhism because they are derived from what are inherently proper names. To make such an argument for modern paganism is non sequitur. To argue that there are multiple practices in Hinduism and modern paganism, therefore they are similar and therefore, if Hinduism is capped, so should modern paganism ignores the reason why Hinduism or Abrahimic (of Abraham) is capped - not because they are religions but because they are derived from proper names.
• To argue from WP:BLP is too long a bow to draw.
• To argue respect would fall to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS and/or WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. It is an emotive argument. The guidance is to rely on objective source base criteria to determine capitalisation. To argue from WP:BIAS is a strawman if one adheres to objective source base criteria. To not do so would be more like WP:BIAS.

• I can see no strength in the arguments offered to opposed. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: I'm not one of those of the "respect" argument, which in my opinion does not apply here. However, names of religions are generally capitalised in English, regardless of whether they are based on proper nouns or not. MOS:ISMCAPS says: Names of organized religions (as well as officially recognized sects), whether as a noun or an adjective, and their adherents start with a capital letter. Unofficial movements, ideologies or philosophies within religions are generally not capitalized unless derived from a proper name. For example, Islam, Christianity, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Calvinist are capitalized, while evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not. Here there is a flaw in the MOS rule. "Evangelicalism" and "fundamentalism" are indeed not religions but approaches to the way of being religious; the others in the list are religions. However, neither "Islam", nor "Catholic", nor "Protestant" are based on proper nouns: the first means "surrender (to God)" in Arabic, the second means "all-whole" (katholikos) in Greek, the third is an archaic Latinate form of "protester". Æo (talk) 19:01, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Æo yes, we do generally capitalise the names of religions, when these are considered proper names of themself or based on proper nouns as when I was referring to Hinduism and Abrahimic. The question is to resolve whether this (modern paganism) is a proper name. What a proper name is, is generally not well understood. There is a general perception but false equivalence between capitalisation (orthography) and proper name (grammar) which ignores that we often use capitalisation to emphasise or distinguish a phrase in much the same way that we might use quote marks or italics. We might then justify using caps by asserting that the name labels [describes] something that is unique, specific or significant. Such assertions ignore that specificity can equally be achieved by a common noun phrase (common name). Specificity of referent is a property of proper names but not an exclusive, defining property. A true proper name is an arbitrary label which (intrinsically) tells us nothing about the referent. A proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not ... If it had once been, it may no longer be so ... Just as for the example of Newtown, in the proper noun article, proper names will often have a derivation (etymology). Catholic may mean all-embracing. While the Catholic Church may once have been, it no longer is all-embracing. Catholic refers to the religious denomination with the Pope at its head. Protestants aren't protesting in the streets and very few Anglophones would associate Islam with its Arabic meaning. Because of the mixed understandings about what a proper name is, WP reverts to empirical evidence to resolve disputes. Of the various terms you raise immediately above and below, please see this ngram evidence.[14][15][16] One can see that the religions we would capitalise per the advice at MOS:ISMCAPS are near always capitalised - quite unlike modern paganism. There is no apparent inconsistency as you would assert. The rules of grammar in conjunction with this article, the advice at MOS:ISMCAPS and the general advise at MOS:CAPS along with ngram evidence all indicate a conclusion for a move to modern paganism. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Very well put. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support—We don't cap communism; nor should we cap paganism. Tony (talk) 01:29, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• Still support, though I see I chimed in a few weeks ago above. Note that the evidence shows some trend toward capitalization in recent years, but nowhere near the "consistently capitalized" threshold in MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. So we use lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 03:29, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support We don't cap communism; nor should we cap paganism. Laurel Lodged (talk) 09:36, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Tony1 & Laurel Lodged: Regarding your argument here, do you realise that "Catholicism", "Protestantism", "Eastern Orthodoxy", "Pentecostalism", etc., are not based on proper names and yet they are always capitalised?--Æo (talk) 14:35, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

P.S. And "Christianity" isn't either, since "Christ" is not a proper name but a title.--Æo (talk) 14:38, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support per Cinderella157. Wallnot (talk) 17:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support but I'm torn. I generally believe that people should be able to call themselves what they want and if a person says their religion is Pagainsm, then perhaps we should accept that it is the name of their religion and hence capitalize it. I read online that many people state "I am a Pagan".
  However aside from the fact that they are not mainstream, very little binds the pagan movements together.
  The question for me is "Is modern [p]Paganism a proper noun according to Wikipedia's standards?" The opening paragraphs of our article before this discussion (link), do not, to me, describe a religion, but a collective term. Even the current version (link), which has been edited since this discussion started 23 August (link), does not conclusively describe a religion to me. To quote, from the latest version, modern [p]Paganism is described as "a collective term for religions" and says "contemporary Pagan movements are diverse, and do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts".
  What is and is not a proper noun is hard to define around the edges, so we fall back on n-grams and modern paganism is certainly capitalized much less than recognized religions.
  Wikipedia capitalizes less than many other sources, so I fall back on that and say "in the case of a tie", lower case. And finally, this article does not describe paganism in the way that those who say "I am a Pagan" describe their beliefs. It describes it as a group of religions. That could change. SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Since I assume this is a topic which will be revisited in the future; https://wildhunt.org/2022/11/editorial-a-capital-problem-resurfaces-on-wikipedia.html Darker Dreams (talk) 23:51, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Since I'm quoted by The Wild Hunt, I'll respond. It's a pretty fair editorial, but I disagree with their conclusion. To quote the editorial's author Manny Moreno:

The Wild Hunt consistently capitalizes “Paganism” when referring to contemporary practice. (We do use lower-case “paganism” to refer to the general historical grouping of ancient polytheistic religions, though even this is not without debate.)

I'm no expert, but I think there are potentially two articles we could have. One would have a capital "P", the other would not. Our present article is about the modern practice of what is pretty close to "the general historical grouping of ancient polytheistic religions". I don't think this article is about the modern religion called Paganism. We don't have an article about people who identify their religion primarily as Pagan. This article is about "the general historical grouping". SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Except "the general historical grouping of ancient polytheistic religions" is, by the definitions of "historical" and "ancient", the antithesis of "modern." I think what you may be trying to say is this article is about a group of faiths that are revivals of ancient religions and collected because of history. But, again quoting the article (and one of the major points of the opposition to the move), having various branches of differing faiths "is also true of the term “Christianity,” as there are numerous doctrinal differences across Christians, yet Christianity remains capitalized." Darker Dreams (talk) 13:15, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

That editorial admits that "little has changed, at least in the world of journalism and style guides." Wikipedia follows; until most sources capitalize pagan, neither do we. Dicklyon (talk) 04:54, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Edit to lead

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Regarding this edit to the lead (and similar). In its fullness, the statement that would be added is not supported by citation. The statement is not a key point that would belong in the lead (MOS:LEADREL). It is a POV. The addition fails WP:WEIGHT. There is a WP:ONUS. In the light of the recent RM, the edit wcould appear to be Wikipedia:Gaming the system and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:41, 23 November 2022 (UTC)What I intended to say Cinderella157 (talk) 02:07, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

You've made 0 edits to this page aside from these reverts. An attempt to address your initial round of concerns was met with summary reversion. You've only provided WP:LAWYERING, and frankly accusatory, edit summaries. You make accusations of wp:gaming, but your edits could be read equally that way as protecting the MR you recently 'won.' You're now claiming authority on what is (or should be) both a "key point" of the article and legitimate sources, based on... no edit history that shows knowledge of the subject. It is already a topic with its own sub-heading. Given that the decapitalization of Paganism on wikipedia was sufficient to trigger an editorial in one of the most well-known news source for the Pagan community, maybe that is, or should be, a more significant point in the article. You reverted an edit where I changed words like "most" and to "some" rather than just adding or and called it "gaming the system." You've sought to place the onus for work entirely on others while feeling free to simply revert without contributing any actual effort at finding consensus or compromise, let alone providing any addition or improvement to the article. I'm not trying to "right great wrongs," as you again accused. However, given the number of sources I've seen you dismiss/disqualify for being "too specialized," or some other wiki-technical reason, it doesn't seem like you're as unbiased and reasonable as you're trying to present with your cherry-picked quoting of policy-as-law. Darker Dreams (talk) 01:36, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Darker Dreams, apart from the obvious issues of WP:OWN in the afore, I am somewhat curious. Apart from the subject edits, I can only find that you have contributed one recent minor edit to this article? Cinderella157 (talk) 11:16, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

The changes of most and some are somewhat trivial, though acknowledging that they might have been tagged indicates that they are also problematic. Changing ... is a collective term for religions ... to ... is a term for a religion or family of religions ... directly relates to matters raised in the RM. Collective term has been used in the lead since 2017. It is difficult for me to see any other reason for changing this now unless it is a reaction to the RM. There is then the sentence you would add. The matter of P/p is not a topic with its own sub-heading. On my screen, it occupies just over three lines of prose (half of one paragraph) in the section Reappropriation of "paganism" which consists of three near equal paragraphs. There are 111 words in the subject passage out of 9460 words of readable prose in the article (just over 1%). The article does not support that this is a "key point" that should be mentioned in the lead. In its fullness, the statement that would be added is not supported by [the] citation. The cited passage does not support a causative relationship.(Rountree p8) The matter of P/p (per the article) is not a matter on which there is a scholarly consensus. There are two opposing views (POVs). To state in the lead (without fuller context) ... though specialists in the field of Pagan studies tend towards capitalisation ... fails WP:WEIGHT, since it favours one POV on the basis of a single statement. As to Rountree's actual statement, a review of JSTOR and Google Scholar (as offered in the RM) are cause for concern as to the weight that should be afforded it - though this is not so problematic when balanced as in the body of the article. If you have not already, please see WP:VNOT. The WP:ONUS has not been met and the status quo should be retained until there is a consensus for the change. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:08, 25 November 2022 (UTC) Added link to cited material Cinderella157 (talk) 03:18, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that @Darker Dreams: makes some valid points. It is very doubtful that the capitalisation of Paganism now enjoys any presumption of correctness or authority. I find the above arguments of @Cinderella157: lack credibility and sincerity. The accusation of gaming the system or WP:LAWYERING may be more applicable in his own case. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:37, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Laurel Lodged, are you "accusing" me of Wikipedia:Gaming the system or WP:LAWYERING? Cinderella157 (talk) 11:40, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

• Lowercase pagan per the RM and book usage and more book usage. No strong opinion on the rest of the question. Dicklyon (talk) 01:54, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

  I went ahead and fixed most of the over-capitalization. Let me know if I've gone too far, or not far enough. Dicklyon (talk) 04:50, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

• Lowercase pagan per move request. Paganism is a term that is used to group disparate religions based on a sociological niche. Capitalization should be reserved for the proper names of those religions under this umbrella that have them.~TPW 17:24, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
• Lowercase pagan. We already had several RMs about this. Usage in text should match usage in title.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:31, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

RfC

Should the lead of the article be amended per this edit. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:05, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Notified at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:26, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose as OP. Please see my original and second posts in the main section above. The subject edit would primarily add a sentence to the lead, the significance of which is not supported as a "key point" through material in the body of the article. There is a WP:NPOV issue with the text, since this is not a settled matter among scholars (per body of text). The passage in its fullness fails WP:VER since the cited ref does not appear support the causative relationship claimed by the passage. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:14, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose – Now that I've read this stuff more carefully, I see the key problem is the causation asserted in "Because of these different approaches there is disagreement on when or if the term 'Pagan' should be capitalized". The "Because of" is plausible, but not clearly supported by sources, at least according to Cinderella (I don't have access to the book, and no quote was provided). If the correctness can be verified in a source I wouldn't mind seeing it in the lead. Dicklyon (talk) 04:05, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  Oh, I see Cinderella linked the relevant PDF. It includes "It is common in Pagan scholarship and among Pagans to give an initial capital letter to ‘Witch’, ‘Pagan’, ‘Witchcraft’ and ‘Paganism’ when referring to these modern religions and their adherents following the common practice when referring to religions and their followers (e.g. Christian, Christianity)." I think this point is mentioned in the article, and could perhaps be clarified, in the "Reappropriation..." section, which also talks about the pushback to capitalization. So, yes, the "disagreement" is worth clarifying; not clear it's very relevant to the lead though. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  If I delete the reference from the opening, why is the text objectionable as part of the lead?[17] If the citation is appropriate as part of the reappropriation section, and the link to the PDF useful, why was the citation not added to that section and the link added to the citation rather than it just being reverted out entirely? Is the conversation that there is a tension between Oberon Zell style "Paganism as individual religion" and Wicca + Heathenry + Druidism = "Paganism as umbrella term" so controversial that the text needs deleted from the lead to maintain a neutral tone of voice in the article? Everything there sounds like there's a need to add *more* information on the subject to the article. However, rather than encouraging such a course of action there's been what appears to me as an accusatory, lawyerly attempt to prevent *any* modifications to the article that don't fit one editor's view of how "pagan" (lowercase emphasized) should be presented. Darker Dreams (talk) 04:31, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  The reference is already in the reappropriation section so much of this statement lacks any substance. To the rest, one writes the lead around the article and not the other way around. Therein lies a significant issue with the edit. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:46, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  Looking some more, it appears that another important part of the controversy is the "term for a religion" claim. But I don't find anything in the text clearly saying that some experts consider paganism to be a religion per se; it's always a group or family of religions, or a movement. What am I missing? Dicklyon (talk) 19:12, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

  A definition of Paganism: A polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion.[18] 2 : a religion based on paganism [19] There are a number of Pagan traditions that do not fit into any of the categories mentioned above. Many of these would identify with Paganism in general, [20] Darker Dreams (talk) 00:11, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support - I'm flabbergasted that this is getting lawyered to this degree. Since the RM was brought up already; the tension between Paganism as an "individual religion" and a "collection of religions and thus not a proper noun" was raised in the RfC as a point where two entire separate articles were suggested. I think so much of the material between those two articles would be overlap that it's better to have a single one that covers both, but there is apparently staunch opposition to the idea of including it in the existing article at all because... it would undermine a past RM? It is interesting that Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias is specifically called out as a point of reference on the RfC page. Darker Dreams (talk) 04:21, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Lawyered because the change to the lead made assertions that the editor would not let go of or back up sufficiently. Dicklyon (talk) 19:12, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose – This time I agree with Cinderella157. Although I favour capitalisation, (Neo)Paganism is definitely not "a (one) religion", at least not for a large majority of scholars. This clause added by Midnightblueowl, however, should stay, one way or another.--Æo (talk) 02:49, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

  How would Oberon Zell-Ravenheart or the Church of All Worlds describe their religion? CAW isn't Wicca, Heathen, Druid, some sort of reconstructionism, or some other specific form. Zell-Ravenheart describes himself as (deliberately capitalized-P) "Pagan" or "Neo-Pagan." This isn't to say there's only the one type of Pagan, any more than an individual calling themselves "Christian" (often, these days, "non-denominational Christian") makes theirs the only type of that religion. But, it does make for at least one (notable) believer in a religion referenced as Pagan. Maybe Eclectic Pagan or Modern Pagan. Darker Dreams (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

  As with Æo, I would like to see my edit here restored to the article. It is one thing for the article title to be de-capitalised (something I think was a profound mistake, but such was the decision of the majority), but to then basically refuse to let the reader know, in the introduction, that the capitalised form is actually very common (indeed, it is the norm among specialist sources) seems really rather peculiar. It would be like removing all mention of "Daoism" from the lead of the Taoism article, another example where the spelling favoured by the specialist sources has been overlooked. Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:50, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  Responding to Midnightblueowl particularly. Per the article, there is dissent (POVs) among scholars on the matter of capitalisation. To represent in a Wiki voice that the matter is resolved would contravene WP:NPOV when this is not supported by the article. The matter of capitalisation represents about 1% of the readable prose of the article (see my post in the main section). Unless either your edit or the subject edit is considered in the light of the recent RM, is difficult to see that this would be a key point that should be reflected in the lead of the article and not a POV issue and a reaction to the RM. An RM is determined by WP:CONSENSUS (by strength of argument and evidence), not by a majority vote. The arguments to retain caps just didn't stack up. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:26, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

  Officially, of course, an RM is determined by Consensus; I do believe, however, that in this particular instance the result was swayed by majority vote. On policy alone, I think there was No Consensus, because there were cogent arguments on both sides (even if I think my side had a much more compelling argument). But I'm not going to spend ages trying to argue this point. Looking at the specific issue of whether "there is dissent (POVs) among scholars on the matter of capitalisation", I don't really think this is true per se. The only scholar cited in the article who uses the lower-case "p" is Michael York, but as reviews of his work show (such as this), his approach to definition and terminology is very unusual and does not have support from any other scholars. The fact is that scholarly specialists of the topic overwhelmingly use the upper case "P". It's wrong to conceal this fact from readers of this article. Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

  From the article: Among the critics of the upper-case P are York and Andras Corban-Arthen, president of the ECER. And to state: The fact is that scholarly specialists of the topic overwhelmingly [emphasis added] use the upper case "P", is not supported by evidence from JSTOR and Google Scholar, as presented during the RM. The saliant points I would make remain. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:19, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose: The sentence added about capitalization is letting our discussion of the Wikipedia Manual of Style capitalization guideline leak into article space. The article should be about the topic, not about whether to capitalize the words in the topic's article title or not, or about reasons why a word should be capitalized. The article is not about English orthography. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:42, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose: The most significant edit to the lead is the section on capitalization, which is not necessary for this article, and certainly not in the lead. It gives undue weight to a fringe discussion that doesn't summarize the article topic. Pistongrinder (talk) 00:01, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per most of the above, though I could see putting the capitalization bit into a footnote. It's definitely not appropriate as a big sentence in the lead. If kept as a footnote, it should read "... specialists in the field of pagan studies tend ...", because WP does not capitalize academic fields.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:38, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per above rationales. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:25, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. For reasons that escape me, capitalization has adopted emotional import for some users of English; for those users, not capitalizing some words is seen as a slight. That colors the reasoning in support of capitalization for any number of words, but we still have to rely on sources. I agree that no sources provided support the assertion that most scholars prefer capitalization.~TPW 15:09, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 24 March 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. While the proposed title "Neo-Paganism" is generally rejected, some editors favored "Neopaganism" as the alternative. However, others pointed out that any form of "neo(-)paganism" is often considered pejorative by the proponents and is thus avoided by scholars, and that argument has not been addressed. I don't find a sufficient consensus in this RM to move away from the long-standing title. No such user (talk) 11:19, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

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Modern paganism → Neo-Paganism – Per WP:COMMONNAME. Based on the Google Ngrams[21][22], "Neo-Paganism" is the most common term for this topic. Britannica also titles their article on this topic as Neo-Paganism. Rreagan007 (talk) 22:34, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per MOS:HYPHENCAPS and MOS:ISMCAPS. Why capitalize the 'P'? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 04:58, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Confirmed by the material quoted below, it also appears that some practitioners would find the term Neo-Paganism insulting/pejorative, as the term seems to imply they are participating in a new fashion trend rather than following an ancient tradition. It seems like a term that might be used more by non-adherents than by adherents. I think it's generally best not to use terms for a religious phenomenon that its adherents might find insulting. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:53, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Neo-paganism is not identical with paganism in the modern era. Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:49, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

  But which of those two topics is this article primarily discussing? – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:35, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• I'm more-or-less neutral on the question, but I don't think Google Ngrams is a useful way of assessing this. For one thing, sources that use the term "modern paganism" will often add "also called neo-paganism", while those that prefer "neo-paganism" don't mention the alternative names, so that skews the results. Secondly, we should only be considering which term is used more often in scholarly contexts, whereas the raw Google results are going to include a lot of "Witchcraft for Beginners"-type books. The best way to assess the scholarly consensus is to find sources that tell us what it is.
  The article section #Reappropriation of "paganism" cites three sources that bear upon this question; since they aren't freely available, I'll provide quotes from each:

Quotes from article sources

Strmiska, Michael F. (2005). "Modern Paganism in World Cultures". Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives. Santa Barbara, Dencer, and Oxford: ABC-Clio. pp. 2, 10. ISBN 9781851096084. The revived Paganism of modern times has sometimes been referred to as Neopaganism or Neo-paganism ... In the title of this volume and several of the essays, the simpler term Paganism will be used, in keeping with the wishes of some modern followers of such religions to be known as Pagans rather than Neopagans. To distinguish contemporary Paganism from that of the distant past, the prefix modern is applied to describe contemporary Paganism in some of the chapters in this book, but in others, the reader will find the prefix neo is used ... Such variability in terminology may be annoying or confusing to the reader, but it is an accurate reflection of the unsettled, evolving nature of the public understanding, as well as the self-understanding, of these religious movements. Simpson, Scott; Filip, Mariusz (2013). "Selected Words for Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe". In Scott Simpson; Kaarina Aitamurto (eds.). Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Durham: Acumen. pp. 27–43. ISBN 978-1-84465-662-2. Throughout the 1990s, across the CEE [Central and Eastern Europe] region, the term Neopaganism (including forms like Russian "Neoyazychestvo") was the most frequently observed endonym until it was partially eclipsed by others in the 2000s. In the English-speaking world, words such as "contemporary" or "modern" have been proposed to avoid the possible offense that some have found with "neo-." CEE scholars who read and participate in these discourses have slowly started to introduce translations of these terms into CEE scholarship. In late 2011, this has not yet become either widespread or met with a receptive audience among CEE religious communities. Rountree, Kathryn (2015). "Context is Everything: Plurality and Paradox in Contemporary European Paganisms". In Kathryn Rountree (ed.). Contemporary Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe: Colonialist and Nationalist Impulses. New York and Oxford: Berghahn. pp. 1–23. ISBN 978-1-78238-646-9. Scott Simpson and Mariusz Filip (2013) provide a detailed discussion of the language used in Central and Eastern European groups and revisit the long-standing debate about whether scholars should use 'Pagan' (often preceded by 'modern' or 'contemporary') or some version of 'Neo-Pagan' (Neopagan, neo-Pagan, neopagan) to refer to the followers of contemporary traditions. I will not revisit the debate here, except to say that virtually all people who are part of this religious phenomenon do not include the prefix 'Neo'; they simply call themselves 'Pagans' or by the name of the particular tradition (for example, Wiccan, Heathen or Druid). Scholars tend to use both 'Neo-Pagan' (to make it clear they are talking about a new religious movement rather than a pre-Christian religion) and 'Pagan' (in keeping with practitioners' preferred appellation), and both terms appear in this volume.

So as of 2015, there appears to have been no general consensus. More recent sources would be helpful. The only other useful source I found with an online search was from Doyle White in 2016 ("Theoretical, Terminological, and Taxonomic Trouble in the Academic Study of Contemporary Paganism: A Case for Reform", The Pomegranate 18(1), doi:10.1558/pome.v18i1.28457): [In the academic field of Pagan studies] there has been a general preference for the terms "modern/contemporary Paganism" over "Neopaganism" ... However, certain academic authors continue to use "Neopaganism".

This work was cited in 2020 by Pavel Horak ("Who Is, and Who Is Not a Pagan? Struggles in Defining Contemporary Paganism: A Response to Ethan Doyle White", The Pomegranate 22(2), doi:10.1558/pome.39673), who doesn't indicate that the situation has changed in the intervening years: Ethan Doyle White summarized the various attempts in defining contemporary Paganism thus: to put it generally, scholars prefer the usage of the term "contemporary Paganism" over "Neo-Paganism" to emphasize and stress the similarities of contemporary and ancient Paganism.

These two sources would seem to indicate that "modern" or "contemporary pagan" is preferred, but as I say, additional sources would be helpful to confirm this. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 13:07, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

See the start of your own first cite/quote: "The revived Paganism of modern times has sometimes been referred to as Neopaganism or Neo-paganism...." [boldface added] — the significant modifier is "revived"; that doesn't cover religions which never needed to be "revived" because they never "died" but remain continuously held/practiced since their origins. This article primarily discusses the "revived" or "neo-" pagan faiths, only glancingly touching on continuous older faiths like Hinduism (either comparing their population numbers, referring to a Hindu who reached out to neo-pagans and other pagan faiths, or to a "neo-Hinduism" — ironically, that term redirects to "neo-Vedanta", despite the fact noted there that the coiner of "neo-Hinduism" made a clear distinction between it and "neo-Vedanta"!) It would have to be a much longer and broader article to actually merit the title "modern paganism". – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:56, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose as stated Support alternative Neopaganism. Per the n-gram evidence here neo[-]paganism is substantially more WP:COMMONNAME than either modern or contemporary paganism. Neopaganism and neo-paganism are minor variations of the same term and should be treated together when comparing against the other terms. Comparing the hyphenated and unhyphenated terms, there is no clear distinction to be made from the ngram evidence (see also with increased smoothing). However, looking at usage in related Wiki article titles for neo-pagan and neopagan, the unhyphenated form does appear to be more common in article titles. Per WP:CONSISTENTCY, a strong case can be made to prefer the unhyphenated term. It should be noted, that the ngram evidence does not show that neopaganism is consistently capped in sources - per MOS:CAPS. This does not affect the capitalisation for the article title that uses sentence case but it does affect capitalisation in prose ie - use lowercase). In the case of the hyphenated term, we would not capitalise pagan per MOS:HYPHENCAPS and MOS:ISMCAPS. Paganism is not normally capped per MOS:CAPS and the ngram evidence. There is no exception to be made to the guidance. I also note that the ngram evidence provided by the OP here omitted the search term neo-paganism (all lowercase). This ngram show all of the capitalisation variations. None of the capitalised varients reach the level of consistent usage (per MOS:CAPS) that we would use (prefer) any of the capitalised forms over the uncapitalised form (neo-paganism) in article prose. This also makes it quite clear (per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS) that Neo-Paganism has no place as an article title. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:47, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose as proposed, per MOS:ISMCAPS, WP:NCCAPS, etc. Alternatives neo-paganism or neopaganism are fine. I lean toward the former because n-grams show it to be more common in source material [23]. I see above a WP:CONSISTENT argument to use Neopaganism because more WP articles use that spelling, but WP is not a source for itself (WP:CIRCULAR), so really we should be moving the on-site spelling to "neo-paganism" to agree with actual sources. As for the other question, n-grams show that neo[-]paganism dwarfs both modern paganism and contemporary paganism in actual usage [24]. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:53, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

  Hi SMcCandlish, might you comment on usage in prose for neo[-]paganism please. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:00, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Not sure what you're looking for that's not clear from the n-grams. The two I linked both show that "neo-paganism" (lowercase, with hyphen) is the most common term, though "Neopaganism" (capital N, no hyphen) had its day in the early 2000s (but that probably also reflects a lot of usage capitalized in titles/headings not in running prose). PS: The second n-gram suggests that 'scholars prefer the usage of the term "contemporary Paganism" over "Neo-Paganism"' simply isn't a true assertion. So do these Google Scholar results, rather undeniably: [25][26][27][28], though they show a scholarly preference for neopaganism over neo-paganism, which contradicts the more general (journalism-influenced) n-gram results. PPS: Looking through the results of those GS searches shows clearly that the terms are not consistently capitalized (in any way) in independent-source research except in title-case titles/headings. Some capitalization does appear, but it's in the minority. I still lean toward neo-paganism as overall the most common spelling, and it is also semantically clearer (not everyone is an expert in Latinate prefixes).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  I am preempting the question of how neo[-]paganism if moved to one of these titles should be capitalised in prose, ie not at the start of a sentence. Based on the evidence and prevailing P&G, would we capitalise these terms in prose in the article? Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 07:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC) Add ping SMcCandlish. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:02, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

  Tim/Otter/Oberon [G']Zell of the Church of All Worlds has repeatedly claimed to have coined the term "Pagan" as a modern religious category. (Per Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon, he was NOT the first to do so.) Zell and his church capitalize it; many others do not, or prefer neo-pagan as distinct from paleo-, meso-, or civilo-pagan (each prefix indicating a time or setting of origin). Given that a sentence beginning with that word (e.g. "Pagans are..." or "Paganism is...") is capitalized no matter whether it would be lowercased elsewhere in a sentence, the opportunities for confusing ambiguity abound. In my opinion, [neo-]pagan[ism] as a non-proper noun should not be capitalized mid-sentence. That said, over 21 years ago the FAQ file for the moderated Usenet group soc.religion.paganism offered an exception: "5a) What is Paganism? How is it different from paganism? / Paganism (with a capital "P") is one strand of neopaganism which strives to allow each person to draw from whatever religious and cultural traditions are meaningful for the individual. The practices of Paganism derive from those of Wicca, but are not identical with those of Wicca. Some people view Paganism as a non-initiatory form of Wicca, or Wicca as an initiatory form of Paganism." (See also question 6, about types of [lowercase-p] paganism.) – _•Raven  ^.talk 05:46, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per MOS:HYPHENCAPS and MOS:ISMCAPS. However, I would support a move to either neo-paganism or neopaganism as those two titles are preferable to the article's current title, modern paganism. – Treetoes023 (talk) 21:51, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - as stated by @BarrelProof, the term "neopaganism" be it capitalised in places or not is often seen as derogatory by those it describes, with "modern paganism" (capitalised in places or not) preferred by adherents of the religions, see quote below

The previously cited distinction between the terms Pagan and Neopagan (or Neo-pagan) is still more controversial. Many modern Pagans reject the term Neopagan... The title of the current volume as well as several of the chapters here avoid the term Neopaganism at the explicit request of modern Pagans to not be classified as "Neo," which they see as derogatory and unnecessary.

Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives page 9

Modern paganism makes a clear distinction between this topic and ancient paganism and is used by scholars, making it, to me, a good title. The book goes on to explain that Neopaganism is also used by a number of scholars and that the debate is ongoing - I don't wish to pretend it is not or that it is clear cut but I think we should er on the side which isn't seen as pejorative by adherents. Ingwina (talk) 07:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

> "Many modern Pagans reject the term Neopagan..." — Well, many "modern pagans" (Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Confucians, Shintoists, current traditionalists among Native Americans / Australian Bushmen / etc.) are in fact NOT neo-pagan but rather civilo-pagan or meso-pagan or paleo-pagan. Which group(s) does this article primarily discuss? – _•Raven  ^.talk 05:07, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose any change per Ingwina, and per my comment above about ngrams not being a useful way of settling this question. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 12:14, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• Support (without capitalization) due to WP:PRECISION, since the actual topic clearly is covered by the term "neo-paganism", but not so clearly the term "modern paganism" — which seems also to cover other categories of paganism surviving in the modern era, like paleo-paganism (the indigenous faith-traditions of Australian Bushmen, etc.), meso-paganism (not formed in, but affected by, civilization; arguably including many Native American tribal religions), and civilo-paganism (e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto). Unless these all are to be discussed in this article, the title should be (as Confucius himself would say) "rectified". – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:31, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Do modern-day scholars actually apply the label "pagan" to Hindus and Australian Bushmen? The last paragraph of our "Definition" section would suggest not. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 06:00, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Then how dare we even call them "Hindus", when (1) that was not their own name for themselves, and (2) it was originally applied to them with the meaning "pagan" (of India)?

  • Elst, Koenraad (2001-11-02). "2. Hindus as 'Indian Pagans'". Who is a Hindu? Hindu Revivalist Views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Other Offshoots of Hinduism. New Delhi: Voice of India. In Hindu scriptures, the word 'Hindu' is not to be found. Yet, long before Western scholars sat down to invent definitions of 'Hindu', the term already carried a definite meaning. The normal procedure ought to be, to listen to this original version first. It was brought into India by the Islamic invaders, and meant: 'Indian Pagan'. ... / The Muslim invaders called the Pagans of India sometimes 'Kafirs', unbelievers in general, i.e. the same religious designation which was used for the polytheists of Arabia; but often they called them 'Hindus', inhabitants of Hindustan, i.e. an ethnic-geographical designation. Thereby, they gave a fixed religious content to this geographical term: a Hindu is any Indian who is not a Jew, Christian, Muslim or Zoroastrian. In other words: any Indian 'Pagan', i.e. one who is not a believer in the Abrahamic religions nor an Iranian Pagan, is a Hindu. In its definition as 'Indian Paganism', Hinduism includes the whole range from animal worship to Upanishadic monist philosophy, and from Shaktic blood sacrifice to Jain extreme non-violence. / The term Hindu was used for all Indians who were unbelievers or idol-worshippers, including Buddhists, Jains, 'animists' and later the Sikhs, but in contradistinction to Indian Christians (ahl-i Nasâra or Isâî ), Jews (ahl-î-Yahûd or banû Isrâîl ), Mazdeans (ahl-i Majûs or âtish-parast ) and of course Muslims themselves. This way, at least by the time of Albiruni (early 11th century), the word Hindu had a distinct religio-geographical meaning: a Hindu is an Indian who is not a Muslim, Jew, Christian or Zoroastrian. ... / All Indians who were not Parsis, Jews, Christians or Muslims, were automatically Hindus. So, the original definition of Hindu is: an Indian Pagan. Since the earliest use of the term Hindu in India, a clear definition has been given with it, and of every community it can easily be decided whether it fits that definition or not. It does not matter if you do not like the name-tag: if you fit the definition, you fall within the Hindu category. The Hindus have not chosen to be called Hindus: others have conceived the term and its definition, and Hindus simply found themselves carrying this label and gradually accepted it.

  You can pick up much of this from

  • Lorenzen, David N. (October 1999). "Who Invented Hinduism?". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 31 (4): 630–659. JSTOR 179424. [... though his point is chiefly to debunk the idea that the 19th-century English "invented" Hinduism!] – _•Raven  ^.talk 07:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.