Talk:Joni Eareckson Tada

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Untitled[edit]

I think Joni Eareckson Tada adopted a daughter. That what my teacher told me.

Copyright Issue[edit]

The information found in the article on Joni is substantially a copy of information found on a PDF biography of her found at her own website and available at http://www.joniandfriends.org/Joni_Bio.pdf. I think whoever drafted the article may have rearranged the paragraphs to avoid this automatically being discovered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.145.205.39 (talk) 21:44, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Removed from Main Page[edit]

I wrote a speech as Joni for my state report in sixth grade. She is my fourth counsin or something, and I've always wanted to meet her. No offense, but my speech is far more detailed and gives a much better idea of her life and personal feelings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.109.47.249 (talk) 01:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Sorry i didn't mean to critisize but shouldn't this page say about her struggle and how she felt? about how she thought god had forgotten her and then getting better. Also shouldn't it have what the opperation was like!?!"

Someone posted this on the main page, but it belongs here on the discussion page.Dbwphillips (talk) 19:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I wrote her young relatives because I am one of her young relatives. If anyone would like to add 'young and old' or erase it altogether, go ahead, by all means. Do you understand now?

Young Relatives?[edit]

The article contains the sentence "Joni's young relatives are proud of her accomplishments." This sentence comes absolutely out of nowhere. There is nothing in the article about her relatives (other than her husband). Who are the relatives? Why is necessary to distinguish between her "young relatives" and her "old relatives"? Is the latter group not proud of her? John Paul Parks (talk) 06:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Joni has 2, or 3, sisters that married and had children. It may be these that are the "young relatives" or perhaps children of her nieces/nephews. I know of at least one niece - her picture appears, with Joni and some other children, in Joni's book Choices/Changes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CayceM (talk • contribs) 16:39, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Details?[edit]

There is only one small paragraph which deals with eleven years of Joni's life from 1967 to 1978. Here's a source that can be used to expand the areas explaining how she felt when she went through the part of her life that she wrote her autobiography on: [1] Invmog (talk) 00:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality[edit]

Note that I've added an NPOV tag to the article as the article has many POV issues in addition to being poorly sourced. The entire tone of the article is rife with peacock statements and puffery and is essentially a propaganda piece. There is some good info here, but it is so inflated with words like "visionary" and "highly sought" that it's virtually unreadable. Example: The sentence "a biblical perspective on right-to-life issues which affect our nation’s disabled population" is POV in that the USA is not every Wikipedian's nation. I'm not disputing the notability of the subject, I'm just pointing out that it's an essentially unsourced piece of idolatry. I'll run it by the folks at WP:BLP/N to see if there are some suggestions as to how the article could be rewritten in a more neutral tone. ponyo (talk) 16:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While, as a long time professional author and writer, I don't agree with Ponyo's perspective that this biography is a "propoganda piece" (perhaps he/she is an aethist and opposes any biographies of avoided Christians, thus they become "propoganda" by default), I do agree it is poorly constructed. POV is always subjective to some degree in writing. Criticizing it in that it simply states a typical Christian perspective doesn't automatically make the criticism valid. That is deduction by default. The argument isn't strong enough, but in fact, quite weak and merely a biased opinion in itself.

If anything needs to be accomplished in this article, it most certainly would be the need for an effort to make it a clean, complete (many facts are not understandable and incomplete) well-written, and professional presentation which compliments Ms. Tada's life story and her efforts as an advocate for the handicapped. I am sure the original author meant well and wanted to do that, but unfortunately lacked skills/resources in accomplishing it. I know Ms. Tada personally, and her husband Ken. They are fantastic people, and Joni's story, their story, is one well worth documenting correctly and professionaly. Anyone wishing to honor her approporiately (and according to the Wikipedia article guidelines), should contact her through her website at Joni and Friends. I am sure she, and her staff, will supply all the support, correct information, and/or any other resources needed to do it properly. {User: hishelper, May 2011] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hishelper (talk • contribs) 07:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Remove neutrality tag[edit]

Seems to be neutral now. But I don't know how to remove a tag. 87.246.103.137 (talk) 16:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Done --Musdan77 (talk) 18:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dive/dived/dived vs. Dive/dove/dove [or diven?][edit]

Walter Görlitz: Your reasoning I fully understand in your reversion of dived back to dove. Either is acceptable nowadays in American English, depending on regional variation. But significant numbers of educated native speakers of American English, especially among English teachers etc., stick with the traditional view that "dive" is a strong verb. Additionally, although the norm for this article is American English, you may want to consider the desirability of stylistic choices in American English which seem least problematic in the international arena. If either dived or dove works in American English, why use the one which comes across as questionable in much of the rest of the English-speaking world? Rammer (talk) 04:31, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

wiktionary:dive contradicts you and states that dove is becoming more common rather than less common. I would argue that dived is simply wrong in American English now. I am Canadian and am not playing favourites and simply recognize the language. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:46, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A Google search shows that "dove into/from" is the overwhelming favorite. It's irrelevant to discuss "the international arena", "American English" or "English-speaking world". Arenas and worlds don't read, individual people do. JohndanR (talk) 00:39, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Evangelical[edit]

A user removed one of my edits claiming I was adding unreferenced controversial information about a living person, and templated my page with a warning. Everyone knows a non-catholic, especially in the protestant stream of America where this person is from, are most often classified as evangelicals. A most basic internet search reveals this. If there are other sources that claim otherwise, they should be referenced instead of issuing sourceless warnings and threats. Basileias (talk) 05:32, 4 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The source provided is sufficient, but not all non-Catholics are Evangelicals. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:15, 6 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Are you claiming I threw Orthodox under the bus? <joke> Point taken. Basileias (talk) 00:23, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Clean-up[edit]

I started a clean-up of the article today. To any other Christians, I say I felt led to. I am starting with the references first. The citation style was inconsistent, some were incomplete, and some were bare references and some links were old and had become broken links. I addressed all of those issues. I made the citations all follow the style which was most prevalent in the article. Now I am working on finding citations for all of the content that is unsourced. In the process, I found that the second citation, which had a German title, led to an ISBN search page that returned no results, so broken in a sense. I replaced it with a new source. I was asked why that "primary source" "wasn't sufficient for biographic information." I replied about it not displaying any results and also asked why we would want a German source in an English Wikipedia. I have since then determined that the German title translates to "The God I Love: A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus." It's a book that Joni wrote. See [2] To this I say, we do not use primary sources to write our articles. See WP:PRIMARY for policy and exceptions. This is book by the subject; thus a primary source. The article already has a hidden tag that says there are not enough secondary sources.

Lastly, I just want to say that I see some editors who have been contributing here on a long-term basis, and it is not my intent to step on any one's toes, especially those who are stewarding WP:STEWARDSHIP the article. I am just trying to contribute myself to things I see here that have been that way for awhile and need addressed. There are not loads of editors out there willing to do the kind of clean up I do. Please speak up with any issues; I am a Christian and reasonable. dawnleelynn(talk) 04:29, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Would it make sense to have the long books section wrapped in a responsive width column format? On mobile devices and tablets, you wouldn't see much difference; still a long, single list. On most modern desktop computers you could see two or three columns. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:00, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have been thinking about columns for books and awards for a couple of days, so I read your mind or you read mine... Are you thinking of something that looks like what we did in Scamper (horse)? Do you know of an article that demonstrates what you are thinking? I don't know if the columns in Scamper look good on mobile or not, a mentor of mine added that column code in there over a year ago when I was less experienced. dawnleelynn(talk) 22:15, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes {{div col}} is the template I was thinking of using. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:34, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I am glad you brought it up because I wasn't sure about it. I haven't used columns much. Since you think it's a good idea, then I feel better about it. Definitely for books, and if you think the awards section is long enough to warrant it. I'm not sure because some of those awards are really long. I'll leave it up to you. Would you like to take care of these addition(s) or shall I? I'm actually working on something else right now, but I can do it, no problem. Thanks, it is good to hear others' ideas. dawnleelynn(talk) 22:43, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Walter Görlitz Hi, I know it's been almost two days since you put the columns in the Bibliography. I am only now getting to writing you. On my desktop, I don't see any difference; it is still just one column. I think maybe if I remove those long subtitles, it would be better. I read in the policy that you can include the subtitles but not if they are too long. In light of how long the bibliography is now anyway, I think it's better to remove them. Also, I'm running Windows 10 and using Chrome. And also the desktop resolution sometimes is the reason. Anyway, I will look at modifying the book titles tomorrow morning. dawnleelynn(talk) 04:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
With the long titles, I made the columns 40 ems wide. I'll make it a bit narrower. Let me know if it helped. Walter Görlitz (talk) 09:19, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that did the trick, thanks! dawnleelynn(talk) 16:24, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting sources[edit]

Hi Smuckola. Yes, I know the policies already, which talk about when the subject and official website are the same. Anyway, I am curious what is the difference between when an organization is the subject and has an official website versus this article where the subject is a living person biography whose ministry is an official website. The two are not the same. And that's why I didn't think the ministry was a completely a primary source for Joni. Perhaps the content needs removed if it can't be sourced. I am highly skeptical that secondary sources that specific about her ministry could be found. I've been doing extensive searches for sources these last few days and haven't seen any. Just trying to understand, in good faith. dawnleelynn(talk) 20:20, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Smuckola I didn't hear back you on this, so I asked one of my mentors, someone who is a FAC reviewer who well qualified to know about these things. You had the right idea, just needed a slightly different source type and policy. The ministry isn't a primary source, but it isn't an independent source either, per my mentor see independent. so I still shouldn't be using it. Funnily enough, though, after you reverted those two, I noticed there were others in the article some of which had been there for a long time. I am working on replacing them with secondary sources. I have replaced two so far since then. I'll try to get them all replaced, except for the one main one which is allowed. I haven't heard from you in awhile; I didn't intend to offend you as I was just asking for a clarification. dawnleelynn(talk) 00:46, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is no blanket prohibition on using WP:PRIMARY sources. In fact, "primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care". and later, "a primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." However, this is more of a WP:SELFPUBLISH situation, and that policy states "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities" and offers five caveats. None of those are problematic here. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:00, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the policy information. I appreciate your input. It's good information. I thought about it for awhile, but wanted to check in particular with policy on biographies of living people because it tends to be more restrictive. I discovered the following: It urges more caution than other types of articles about the use of high-quality sources and primary sources: "Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources" and "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources" via WP:BLPPRIMARY. It does have a similar section on self-published sources, but that only mentions press releases and personal websites via WP:BLPSELFPUB. Between the Independent policy and BLP, I suggest it does warrant more caution on this article, but does not disallow use. Perhaps now I am overthinking this. dawnleelynn(talk) 04:15, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To me, an outside observer who first encountered this article today due to a poorly sourced addition to a notable people section on a settlement article, this appears extremely promotional to me. The long long lists of publications, etc, notably. I put an advert template on it, and I'm frankly not interested in hearing from people here who want to tell me how wonderful or inspiring she is. There's no reason for a CV here, ever. Pick the most notable few works in each section and back them up with solid sources. Wikipeda is not part of anyone's publicity machine, no matter whether their works are good, bad or indifferent. John from Idegon (talk) 04:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
John from Idegon We are all entitled to our opinion, but how wonderful Joni is or not is not the issue. She is a professional Christian author, same as C.S. Lewis and Debbie Macomber, for example. Why does C.S. Lewis get his own separate article listing all his works C. S. Lewis bibliography, but she can't have hers in her article? Debbie Macomber's list in her article is quite long. What is the difference? Also, is Encyclopedia.com making a mistake when they list a large number of her works in their article for her? [3] dawnleelynn(talk) 04:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
CS Lewis's works have been the subject of multiple discussions in reliable sources, including entire books. There are no sources whatsoever on any of the aforementioned lists at all. Encyclopedia articles are constructed primarily of what others have said about the subject. As far as both CS Lewis and another website, WP:OSE applies. Unsourced content can be removed at any time. Most should be. John from Idegon (talk) 06:10, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Publisher vs Work parameters help[edit]

Walter Görlitz Hi, I think I messed up some of the parameters in the References. I forgot about the work parameter again. I don't have access to it when I'm using the Edit Source - Templates - Cite Web (or Cite others) to add citations. And I don't like to add citations with the Visual Source Editor because it lays down six (or seven) empty parameters I don't want. So I added a bunch of publisher parameters for the names of web sites. You just ran your script awhile ago, and it replaced some of them. I'd like to get it right, and also consistent. Would you like me to do a search and replace (I can use AWB) and replace the rest of them? From then I will try to be consistent with that work parameter. I also used the website parameter to hold some other data about three times that wasn't a URL; I should probably try to find somewhere else to keep it; it was the category for winning the book awards for the ECPA awards. Your advice much appreciated! dawnleelynn(talk) 04:13, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I do it frequently as well, which is why that script comes in handy, and it's very easy to run, so I don't mind doing it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I understand that. But there are currently a bunch of publisher parameters in there that have not been changed to the work parameter. That's what I was asking about. They are being skipped by the script. That's what I meant when I said do you want the rest of them changed. Thanks. dawnleelynn(talk) 06:14, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see. I re-ran the script and it didn't recognize them. Not sure how to address that. It might have to be done manually. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:23, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Tomorrow I will run a search and replace on them with AutoWikiBrowser (AWB), as I mentioned earlier. Appreciate the answer. Getting too late for me now. Thanks a bunch. dawnleelynn(talk) 06:53, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
After I made the global replace with AWB, all of the ones I changed threw up an error: "More than one of |website= and |work= specified (Help)." Unfortunately, you can't see the error until after you save in AWB. I reverted it. I tried to make the change manually, but it still threw up an error. I even tried to copy the parameter from one that worked and then add the variable data in, but no luck. I think this is the reason your script won't change them. I might try to figure it out again later. Perhaps you might know what the cause is from the error. dawnleelynn(talk) 17:45, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I saw it in the history. The problem is that you can't have both a website and a work. If you want, I can fix that manually, but I'm not sure whether to keep the work or website in individual cases. The script maintainer makes that call for the ones it fixes. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:18, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that makes sense now, although it did not occur to me because more of the sites I work on are able to have a name for the website and a URL. The work parameter is not used as often on the sites I generally see, but on the other hand I also know some high level editors who insist on it in some cases. The name is definitely way more important than a website URL. I can use AWB to do this too. And actually, I have been advised by some very experienced editors not to use a URL with magazine and newspaper type sources anyway. Thanks a bunch, I figured you would know! Also, no need for you to do it manually although I very much appreciate the offer. dawnleelynn(talk) 18:26, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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