Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion

Removal of polemical categories from two book articles

Several "Books critical of ..." categories were recently removed from Another Gospel (see here) and Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion (see here). The reason given is that these polemical categories are not the main focus or notability of each book. I'm not at all convinced by this reasoning; indeed, it seems to me that criticism of such groups as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Scientology, and the Unification Church is central to the purpose of each of these books. But rather than just take unilateral action and revert, I'd like to bring this question to the attention of more people and see what (if any) consensus might exist — especially since these two articles don't seem to have very many people watching them. What do people think? — Richwales 02:29, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I think the question here might be some form of overcategorization. They do seem to be categorized as "anti-cult" or something similar, which would make it more or less repetitive to further categorize them for individual groups, unless the books very clearly have significant discussion about particular groups. I would think, in general, that maybe if a book gave lengthy attention to only a few groups called cults, then individual categories for those specific groups might be relevant. But if the individual groups only receive rather short attention, like maybe a comparatively small chapter, specifically about them, then I would question whether the amount of attention in the book itself would be sufficient for the inclusion of specific categories. Now, as an example, the book Wild Grass by Ian Johnson contains only three stories, one of them about Falun Gong. If we had an article about that book, which we don't right now, I think having about a third of the book being about the subject would be sufficient for a category for Falun Gong. But if the group is only one of many groups included in a book, I can't see a reason to overburden the article with what might be considered excessive categorization. John Carter (talk) 20:25, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Another Gospel (with which I'm fairly familiar from past work) contains a dozen chapters devoted to various individual "cults". For example, there's a 44-page chapter on Mormonism, a 32-page chapter on Jehovah's Witnesses, a 22-page chapter on the Unification Church, and a 20-page chapter on Scientology (page counts based on the book's table of contents). And the polemical bent of the book is, IMO, amply illustrated by many of the chapter titles — e.g., "Historical Heresy: Unorthodox Movements of Past Centuries"; "The Way International: Denying the Deity of Christ"; "Scientology: Mind-Altering Pseudo-Psychology"; and "The New Age Movement: The Occult Made Respectable". So we're definitely talking here about far more than just passing references. On the other hand, there are also chapters about movements other than the ones in dispute here — though I'll admit I haven't checked yet to see if we have established categories for books critical of Seventh-Day Adventism, Christian Science, the Bahá'í Faith, or the others dealt with in this particular book. — Richwales 06:28, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't doubt that you are right, as you know more about the book than I do. But I think WP:OVERCATEGORIZATION might be relevant. As is, the article on Another Gospel seems to contain only a passing reference to many or most of the groups involved in the categories under discussion. As such, they might be considered to not meet the overcategorization subsection WP:DEFINE. Granted, it is hard to know, as per that article, what "defines" the notability of a book, but it is also somewhat hard to say that an article should be included in a category for simplying mentioning a given topic in passing, as seems to be the case here. I suppose the same thing would apply to including given authors of individual articles in an encyclopedia for inclusion in categories related to that encyclopedia. If the content of the article more clearly indicated the nature of the specific criticism of the groups in question according to sources other than the book itself, that might help more clearly establish the relevance of the given categories. John Carter (talk) 16:03, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Having read the article Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion I sense that the book is descriptive rather than critical and what criticism there is may be implied rather than explicit. In the absence of further information about the book, I would find it hard to reverse the elimination of the template in this case. As far as Another Gospel is concerned, my fundamental worry is the problem of deciding where overcategorization begins. I don't find the reasons given in the explanation of the removal of the templates very convincing: arguing for the "superiority" of one religion implies criticism (direct or indirect) of any other mentioned. Theoretically the solution might be to have a generic category "Books critical of christian cults" or something similar. I know there is a possible POV there, but I am going to try and produce an essay on the wider problem of "Main-line Christianity" which, if it could be objectively defined (and I think it can), might facilitate the structuring of many articles on Christianity and would also serve as a reference point for a category of the type suggested. Jpacobb (talk) 16:58, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

It does seem to me that these books might be discussing groups which might all fall in the broad field of "new religious movements". Certainly, all those Richwales named seem to be to have been described as NRMs at some point. If that is the case, a category about books critical of NRMs might also be reasonable. John Carter (talk) 17:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

If the category decision w/r/t Another Gospel can be made only based on the content of the article (without direct reference to the book itself, and the attendant primary-vs.-secondary-source concerns), then there may not be much that can be done. As might be evident from the Another Gospel talk page, a major problem related to this article was that there were very, very few good secondary sources available (possibly because the book was written for a niche audience, and not many outside reviewers considered it sufficiently noteworthy to merit any attention at all). I still think it would be helpful to include the categories in question (since I believe they are more than adequately justified via a direct appeal to the contents of the book); however, if others aren't prepared to agree, I can live with that and move on to other, more important issues. — Richwales 18:31, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Are Bishops Notable?

I am looking for some policy that states that Bishops have default notability without establishing Significant coverage, like congressman or NBA players. I see the title being treated as such on several biography pages and was wondering if any editor here could provide me with some insight. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 16:19, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think any of the specialized subpages of WP:BIO (such as WP:PROF, WP:MUSIC and so on) apply to bishops, but I don't think any of them should be taken to say that a congressman or an NBA player who has miraculously avoided significant coverage is still notable - these pages just outline criteria that make it extremely likely that such coverage exists. I similarly expect that most bishops should have received significant coverage (and I'd say if a subject is a bishop that's a sufficient assertion of notability to prevent speedy deletion via A7). Should there, however, be a bishop without significant coverage, in my opinion his job alone does not make him notable. On the other hand, I'm rather skeptical of "inherent notability" in all contexts, and others might disagree with me. Huon (talk) 16:51, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, this is a hard one. First, there are individual ministers in some denominations who have, so far as I can tell pretty much on their own, called themselves "Bishops". I can't see that their doing so would automatically qualify those individuals as being notable on the basis of their own self-designation. Having said that, it is the case in pretty much all the major older Christian denominations, like the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, that the information about the appointment of a new bishop and some biographical information, pretty much sufficient to establish notability, is published and released at the time of his ordination. But, in some cases, particularly if, for whatever reason, the bishop in question is from the early era of the church and the relevant local records of his church have not survived, even there it may be really hard to find anything beyond his name. In such cases, they probably wouldn't qualify as notable either. But, in general, for recent history, particularly the past few hundred years, yeah, it is a safe bet that any bishop from a major denomination will have had his biography published at the time of his ordination by the local newspaper and the denomination's relevant publications. That being the case, it is probably true that in those cases the individuals are suffiently notable. For some "self-proclaimed" bishops, or others of really small churches, it would probably be less clear regarding their notability. Hope that helps a little. John Carter (talk) 20:11, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting responses. Huon, default was a poor choice of words. WP:Notability (people) lists several accomplishments that are considered notable and can stand in for Significant coverage, but clearly states "meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included". Given that, actual practice is that these biographies survive A7 with poor citations like a baseball stat site.

However, following on John Carter's insights about Church publishing behavior around Bishop promotion, I would think that the Church's own publications would violate Independent of the subject. However, if being a Bishop in a major Church like Anglican was alone notable (like a Academy Award), then the independence of the source might not matter as much if it was from a Church document. I'm not really sure how important Bishops are in every denomination like Anglicans, but it seems to me that there are some pretty low tier bishop positions, not everyone put in charge of a diocese. And a Bishop born somewhere like Chicago and given a small post, isn't likely to get mention in the local media; and thus may only get mentioned by the Churches own media, which would violate independence.--Dkriegls (talk to me!) 06:04, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps an example is in order. John Franklin Spalding was the article that inspired me to ask this question. The only citation is an obituary, which isn't considered a reliable source. My Google search found only sources that were A) not a reliable source B) Anglican church related publication, or C) list of Bishops in the area which would call for a list page, and not an individual biography page. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 06:04, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I should probably clarify what I said above. I was thinking, particularly in recent days, of sources like L'Osservatore Romano and/or Our Sunday Visitor. Both of those sources, while fairly clearly tied to the Catholic Church, are are also in general counted as reliable sources, and sources which could be used to establish notability. I think at least the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Anglicans have a few sources of a similar nature as well. In general, though, personally, for bishops since at least the beginning of the 20th century, and probably the 18th in the West, it is almost certainly a safe bet that they are notable. Western churches have struck me as having a real tendency toward navel-gazing in the past few centuries, and have an almost endless stream of history books produced about themselves, often published by schools with ties to the denomination in question. I've even seen an encyclopedia covering just the Franciscan missionaries to California for the first hundred years of that effort. Not bishops, not Catholics, not even Franciscan missionaries, but Franciscan missionaries to California for that one span of 100 years. Based on that book alone, I tend to think at this point it is a very safe bet that someone out there has written about pretty much all bishops in recent history and the like are probably significantly mentioned in some academic or independent history book or two somewhere. John Carter (talk) 15:49, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I guess that makes sense. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 19:33, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

As an Anglican I have read the above with a certain amount of amused interest. Perhaps the following comments may help.

1. It may be an inevitable consequence of the dynamics of Wikipedia and not wanting to upset people, but a lot of not-truly-notable stuff slips through the filters, e.g. [1]. Do we need "sub-encyclopaedia"s such as en.basketball.wikipedia.org into which much of the not really notable stuff could be moved?
2. We need to distinguish clearly between "reliable sources as such" and "sources which establish notability". I can think of a number of Anglican "in-house sources" which are certainly reliable ones once notability is established, but might not in themselves establish it.
3. The difficulty with John Carter's last suggestion may well be getting hold of the independent book and this may do little more than reproduce selections of the more accessible "in house" material.
4. John Carter is perfectly right to point out the fact that there are many pastors of small groups who call themselves or are styled "bishops" by the group and have no claim to notability. (There must be hundreds in Chile alone.)
5. There are probably a thousand active bishops (diocesan + assistant) in the Anglican Communion. While the occupants of major sees are probably notable, though Roger Wilson (bishop) of Chichester seems questionable (I lived in the diocese for much of his tenure) and can think of others; there are many small Anglican dioceses, specially newer ones, where the mere fact of having been the bishop does in itself not attract notability.Jpacobb (talk) 18:56, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you Jpacobb. Religious articles are not really my thing though, but I do find that notability requirements for religious factoids about the major faiths tend to be supported by the church's own publishing efforts. I personally think that waters down the articles of truly notable bishops, but I don't really want to take up that cause personally. Perhaps the WikiProject Religion could as a group put something together to add to the Notability (People) guidelines. Or, perhaps better yet, put an essay together like Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Notability guide. I find that one incredibly useful for determining the notability of military subjects. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 05:42, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

At least one major religious grouping, the Latter Day Saints, have bishops which would not be automatically notable and any guidance would have to point this out. See Bishop (Latter Day Saints) which says "The Latter Day Saint concept of the office differs significantly from the role of bishops in other Christian denominations, being in some respects more analogous to a pastor or parish priest.". Dougweller (talk) 08:58, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Notability guide

So, following the above discussion on Bishops, I think an essay guide on notability of religious topics is in order. I took the liberty of creating a very rough draft; following the script laid down by reasonable consensus at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Notability guide. This project seems to have more than a few interested editors so I encourage you all to take a look, debate, and WP:BEBOLD. I do not want to take further lead on this subject because I am not very versed in the discussions of religious articles on Wikipedia. I'm just good at getting the ball rolling. If other editors find this all very interesting, they might want to invite editors from other Religious affiliated projects --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 18:39, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Mass deletion of links

The important template {{Religion topics}} has suffered a mass deletion of links. The editor responsible for this has avoided the talk page and they appear to be edit warring. I have started a discussion here Template_talk:Religion topics#Deletion of links. – Lionel ^(talk) 21:46, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Recent move of Existence of God to Existence of God(s)

The above article was recently, so far as I can tell unilaterally, moved from the first title to the second. There has been a request for a move back to the old title at Talk:Existence of God(s)#Article title question, and I would welcome the input of any editors regarding the name and content of the article in question. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:46, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Related RfC

Please comment at Template talk:Religion topics#RfC on what articles to be included in this template. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 21:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Bias by Adjwilley

Although he is generally an okay editor, User:Adjwilley has been acting very strange on the God article. From his edits you get the impression that he believes there are only 3 religions in the world (Chistianity, Judaism, islam). For example on the talk page he has on numerous occasions argued against the mentioning of religions other than the above 3. He has in fact argued that only those 3 should be emphasised in the God lede. When you add details which are uncharacteristic of those 3 religions such as pantheism or deism he swiftly removes the information. When you add religions other than the above 3 he also reverts you.

When pushed on his tendentious editing Adjwilley replies with ignorance, for example stating that Baha'i faith is the same as Islam or understating the religious size of of other religions (i.e. he said that Zoroastrianism has 20,000 adherents). When corected he prefers a low-quality source (a daily newspaper) over a higher-quality source from research reports.

WP:LEAD states that a lede should include any prominent controversies. Adjwilley however has decided that the God lede should not include any controvrsies, but should instead state "what most people generally do agree on"[2]. I would appreciate some more eyes on this article since we seem to be going nowhere. Pass a Method talk 05:28, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to be first to comment here (since I did at AN/I also), but I think you are misinterpreting Adjwilley's statements. It almost goes without saying that an article on God will be fraught with complex discussions on what to include or leave out. Not only do you have each person within a religion having slightly different understandings of God, you also have various denominations within those religions, different sects, cults, and so on. God can be defined by whatever a person decides they want God to be. So naturally you need to begin to pare down the article to what the READER is expecting to see when they come and look for an essay on God. Who, what, where, why, how, when, etc. Does God have a gender? Do you include God(s) like Greeks or Romans had, or just God, as in a singular all-powerful entity? I'm honestly not sure what to expect from your comments above. I've seen some of your other edits and you strike me as an editor who doesn't mind pushing for an unusual and somewhat biased view. I would suggest, focus on the mainstream first, cover the unusual second, mention the fringe if you must. -- Avanu (talk) 05:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the edits of the editor mentioned; I said my piece at the discussion as invited to do, and left it at that. However, it seems to me this is a textbook example of an article where we must put a high priority on avoiding entrenched bias. A reader has a right to expect a general encyclopedia to make an effort to do so on big/general questions. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:20, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

somewhat off topic commentary

It's ridiculous and extremely ironic that Pass a Method would report any editor for disruptive behavior and for one of the worst, if not the worst, biases he has ever seen. And that is because, as touched on by Avanu, Pass a Method is one of the more dispruptive editors, with one of the worst biases, this site has ever seen. He has various warnings on his talk page, including recent ones, showing just that. He is always edit warring, and has been twiced blocked for it. He hardly ever takes matters to the talk page first and is reluctant to do so even when twice or thrice reverted. He issues vandalism-warning templates to editors just because they have reverted him, meaning during content disputes and not for real vandalism. He adds in unsourced or otherwise biased or contentious POV, often using vague edit summaries to sneak those POVs into articles, as is touched on in this section (the "A suggestion" part), and he is always removing religious information from articles (leads or otherwise) and is often trying to promote deism, agnosticism, atheism and LGBT matters in biased or otherwise inappropriate ways. If anyone needs reporting, it's Pass a Method. Oh, and his claim that he is female is also very questionable due to some of his past editing behavior -- meaning that besides his behavior often being as testosterone-driven as every other male at this site, he didn't know certain simple things about female anatomy. Like I stated before, he is either a very clueless female or he isn't a female at all. 161.139.147.98 (talk) 20:26, 21 July 2012 (UTC) He's also been permanently blocked before, but came back under his current account. Evidence was presented tying some of his behavior to that other account; anyone with common sense who compares the two accounts can see that they are the same person, and a WP:CheckUser confirmed the likelihood of that. But Pass a Method denied that he operated the other account, and was allowed to continue editing here because administrators apparently weren't sure if the issues that led to his original block still persist. So the fact that he was blocked before and got around that by creating a new account, in addition to his continued disruptive behavior, means that he shouldn't be editing this site. 161.139.147.98 (talk) 21:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC) Regarding the comments about Pass a Method, those complaints should be filed at the Sockpuppet investigations board. Regarding the article, I think the most reasonable thing to do is to consult the best extant relevant reference sources and see how they construct the article. For our purposes, of the two best religion reference encyclopedias, the Encyclopedia of Religion and Religion Past and Present, the latter is rather closely tied to a particular "school" of study, so the former is probably the best for us. I will check that source's article on "God" on Monday and see what it says. John Carter (talk) 22:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC) Only the latter part of my above commentary on Pass a Method is about sockpuppeting. And if the administrators didn't do anything about his return then, I don't see much of a chance of them doing anything about it now...unless they consider that he's engaging in the same type of behavior that got his previous account indefinitely blocked -- WP:Original research/synth, dishonest and/or misleading edit summaries, and edit warring. But all of what I stated was to show just what a problematic/hypocritical editor he is and therefore what others are dealing with here, and that obviously includes his edits regarding religion, even though all of this information is better suited for the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. 161.139.147.98 (talk) 00:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I have responded to the above accusations here on the article talk page. I'd like to keep the discussion focused on article content, and not perceived bias in other editors. Interested parties, of course, are welcome to participate in the discussion. ~Adjwilley (talk) 20:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

No religion

FYI, the usage of the term "No religion" is up for discussion, see Talk:No religion -- 76.65.131.160 (talk) 05:36, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

RfC on God

There is a request for comment regarding the scope of the article God at Talk:God#Scope of this article. Any and all input is welcome. John Carter (talk) 15:31, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

List of founders of religious traditions

There is some current activity at the above page, which indicates that there is some difficulty defining exactly the term "religious traditions" in the article title. Any input on this matter would be more than welcome. John Carter (talk) 20:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Weekly Torah portions

There is currently discussion taking place at Talk:Chayei Sarah (parsha) regarding material to be included in wikipedia regarding this reading, as well as the others. Input is more than welcome, particularly as I believe the outcome of the eventual discussions regarding these articles may very well significantly influence any future articles relating to other articles relating to regular scripture readings by adherents of a given faith. So far as I know, we have no particular guidelines in place for such readings during services, and it is likely these discussions will at least establish a precedent of some sort. And, yes, I think the input of non-Jewish editors who would not be likely to encounter the same sort of WP:POV problems regarding this content as some Jewish editors might be excepted to would also be very much welcome. John Carter (talk) 15:43, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Religion

The page Wikipedia:Religion has been marked as failed... however there is an ongoing tlak about the tag I added today. I added the tag to indicate the page is being surpassed by the new proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Manual of style. Can we get a few more people to comment on the old page pls ... see Wikipedia talk:Religion#Failed proposal from 2009.Moxy (talk) 17:30, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Religion in Norway and by extension other Religion in articles.

There is a discussion in the talk:Religion in Norway pages on the status of the Norwegian Humanist Association and how it should be dealt with in that article. The first issue is whether a line should show for it in a bar chart and a second issue is whether the article should be renamed to reflect that legally Humanism is a "life stance" and not a religion though as far as I can see for many practical purposes it is treated like a religious denomination. I would welcome some thoughts from people actively involved in the Religion project. I note the proposed manual of style does not seem to cover Religion in articles and that might be something to address. --Erp (talk) 15:14, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Diety

A bit silly, but I'm having an argument with an editor over this article. He wanted to define all deities as supreme beings in the initial sentence (and called me adultist for suggesting a children's book wasn't a good source). Hist latest edit took my attempt at compromise, "Some religions have one supreme deity, others have multiple deities of various ranks" and added "that may be considered universally supreme by their adherents simply because they are deities, regardless of their rank." This makes no sense to me.

I've got a bigger problem with the article. Shouldn't it explain what the difference is between a 'god' and a 'deity'? If we can agree (ie find the sources) that there is one. Pagan theologian Michael York thinks there is - see Michael York: Not All Gods Are Deities and he's a reliable source, see [3]. Dougweller (talk) 13:28, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

That article is needs a lot of cleaning up. In my experience, haphazard and poorly citied articles encourage this sort of dispute.
For future reference, try finding relevant (and reputable) sources to support a definition under attack. One, "Sources are required for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged". Two, it requires the other party to produce counter sources of equal/better quality or stop.
—Sowlos (talk) 15:43, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:Religion templates

I have proposed that Category:Religion templates be merged into its parent Category:Religion and belief templates. Please express any views you may have on the matter at the merge discussion. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 11:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Newsletter for religion/philosophy/mythology?

I was wondering what the rest of you might think of maybe trying to put out a newsletter for the religion/philosophy/mythology area, maybe something similar to MILHIST's Bugle or the Christianity Ichthus or something similar. There is a lot of overlap between the various topics, and honestly it seems to me from what I've seen a lot of material is more or less languishing in WikiProjects or groups which have little if any current activity. I don't myself know exactly what it would look like, or how to make it most effective, but I think some sort of way to draw editors who know something about the topic in general to content needing input or improvement, whether directly in their field of interest or not, might be useful for a lot of content. I am leaving notices on the talk pages of the Mythology and Philosophy WikiProjects regarding this thread as well. Anyway, I would welcome any and all responses. Thank you for your attention. John Carter (talk) 20:58, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

It's a nice idea and good luck. I do have to wonder if this is the most productive location for your RfC, though. Either way, this is a persistent issue Wikipedia has been grappling with. See WP:Expert retention.
-Sowlos (talk) 20:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't think of a better place, unfortunately, except maybe the talkpages of the Mythology and Philosophy projects, which don't seem to get much more activity or attention than this one. John Carter (talk) 20:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Criteria

You are invited to give an opinion on this proposal [4] Pass a Method talk 08:30, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

The MoS

It looks like there hasn't been activity on this in over a month. Is this still current?
Sowlos (talk) 19:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It's still "in the process" of being considered, I guess. There is a reasonable chance that the activity might pick up a little with school starting again, I think. John Carter (talk) 20:53, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The project members still have not implemented alot of the recommendations from the talk page. Like the "Criticism sections" - as no project can dictate the types of section or where content can or cant be placed (WP:Advice pages - WP:OWN). So we have a problem - no progress - thus no talking - outsiders (non project members) are waiting to see some progress in the recommendations already there before bring up other problems. No need to keep talking if no-one is fixing anything.Moxy (talk) 22:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

First, we're not even sure if the proposals have consensus. And there is a fear on the part of some of wikilawyering and walls of text, which some think we may already have seen. I think similar things happened in the earlier proposal as well. Also, there was no intention of "dictation", I don't think, but maybe just indicators of "best practices" or maybe most likely or useful sections. And there might be a problem, unfortunately, of people actively resisting "fixing anything", if doing so wouldn't agree with their own opinions or beliefs. That's always been one of the biggest problems with content related to belief systems of any sort. John Carter (talk) 22:41, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

"First, we're not even sure if the proposals have consensus" - your in the proposal process now and need to move forward on the recommendations or the proposal will just die like that last on. Your in the process of trying to gain consensus and should try to implement the ideas of those that have commented because you guys asked them to comment. If the project is not willing to adhere to the advice from those it asked the advice from, then there is not much we can do is there. Moxy (talk) 22:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

True. Personally, though, I don't think that any actions taken by me as an individual would be accepted by certain parties, shall we say. In fact, I am virtually certain that some individuals would argue that any action I might take is itself clearly biased. And I don't know of any time when the project asked for input from anyone, although I think a few individual editors, like me, may have done so on their own. There is another question regarding how representative, neutral and potentially biased any of the input to date has been, including my own. Lastly, there is one matter which was, I think, one of the reasons that drew some of the other early editors in, specifically how to deal with "secular faiths" or whatever one wants to call them. Pseudoscience is a field with many of the same difficulties religion has. I would myself be very happy to see someone, almost anyone really, show an interest in taking the lead on this topic, but, like I said, I think I have already seen evidence that any input of mine, however neutral and objective I might see myself as trying to be, would be challenged by at least a few parties and, on that basis, probably not as productive as any similar contributions from others. John Carter (talk) 15:01, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Genesis creation narrative to Genesis creation myth

Should the title of the Genesis creation myth article be called the "Genesis creation narrative" or the "Genesis creation myth". Input welcomed here: Talk:Genesis_creation_narrative#Requested_move IRWolfie- (talk) 13:18, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Hunger strike RfC

Could you please join the discussion at Talk:Hunger_strike#RfC_on_inclusion_criteria. Mohamed CJ (talk) 18:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Editor biased against religion and specifically Christianity at religion-related articles

Will someone keep an eye on User:Pass a Method's edits to religion or religion-related articles? Or at least propose a topic ban with regard to his edits at these articles? There have been various complaints about this user's editing, not just to religion or religion-related articles, by the way. See this and this for some of the editor's other problematic editing.

With regard to religion or religion-related articles as of late, here are some problematic edits the user has made:

• Messed with the Soul article to add "mythological" to it, while removing "traditional spiritual"; this was tweaked by another editor, but "mythological" still currently remains the first descriptor.

• Removed "Christian church" and "Christianity" from the Universalism article.[5]

• Removed the part about "church" refering to a "Christian religious institution or building."[6]

• Added "mythological" as first description of Hell.[7]

• At the Genesis creation narrative, stated, "I find it quite astonishing that some editors are arguing that possibly giving a negative connotation to widely-held unscientific misconceptions is somehow a bad thing. Its a GOOD thing.[8] This show his bias.

• Biased, religion-related edits at the Golden Rule article, such as this.

• Removed Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible from God article.[9] As User:Avanu stated when reverting him, "Editor shows a pattern of bias in overall edits." 94.76.201.77 (talk) 18:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not that bothered by many of the examples you present (for example, an image actually depicting the Golden Rule seems an improvement over an image depicting the Good Samaritan for the Golden Rule article; I'm a little surprised WikiProject Bible considers the God article relevant; and I believe given the Church of Scientology his edit to Church was appropriate because it's not just a name for Christian institutions), but John Carter seems to already keep an eye on him. Was there an attempt to discuss these issues with him? I couldn't find anything on his talk page (except a notification of this thread), at least not in the last two weeks. Huon (talk) 19:09, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

It is not just bias, it is the lack of rationality in the edits. I had told him that, John Carter did and IRWolfie did. Pass a Method makes all kinds of edits that defy rationality.... They are mostly minor edits that reduce quality, not just biased but random, useless edits, all over the place. If I drink 14 beers, then start editing, I would do the same... But I never drink 14 beers. History2007 (talk) 22:54, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

History2007, sorry for any inconvenience. Its difficult to edit rationally when the most persistent IP stalks and wp:hounds you over several months. This IP has been on my back since January and even managed to get me blocked once. I have managed to range-block this IP several times but my stalker always seems to come back 2 days later with a new proxy IP viciously harrassing me again. I have largely given up trying to battle my stalker because my stalker has more energy than me. Pass a Method talk 10:31, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Pass a Method, it is ridiculous to blame me for your atrocious edits or for your first block. I made sure that your edit warring was known, but it is your edit warring that led to your block. You've been blocked twice for it. And not every IP, or Proxy IP, who criticizes you is me. Regarding your edits in general, various people have complained about them. That's shown in the first paragraph of this section, and in your talk page archive. What History2007 stated, for example, is not because I caused you to edit badly. Take responsibility for your own bad editing. The fact that you call my reporting you to the appropriate people/venues victious harassment (my IP changes are not just two days later either), just shows how out of touch you are with the harm the majority of your edits cause. It's not like I didn't try to talk to you about your edits. You ignore sound advice any time it's given to you. You sometimes pretend to consider that advice, but your editing goes right back to doing what you did before. I started investigating your edits in December 2011 after you made a bad edit to the Human article and did so after the first one, although (especially since the article is semi-protected) luckily others were there to side with me about it,[10] including Herostratus. Even if Huron doesn't see the apparent bias in the religous-based edits I listed above, along with that very anti-religious comment (although it seems he was more so measuring each individual edit in comparison to each individual article), others (such as Avanu) do. 65.117.207.142 (talk) 16:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)