Talk:Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping

Name Change
I believe the name of the church is the Church of Stop Shopping. Can someone involved make that change to the title. On Rev Billy's page that is the name of the church. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Insertculture (talk • contribs) 22:11, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems like you are right. :) Of course, there's a redirect, but even so I note that as of this writing "Stop Shopping" is far more commonly used than "Life after Shopping" in regards the org. Currently 618,000 hits to 141,000. Moved. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:46, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The official name of the group is Reverend Billy Talen and the Stop Shopping Choir. How can I change the title of the page?Marnieglickman (talk) 19:49, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Provide a reliable source to support the name. Someone will be able to help at that point. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Rock on
Rock On, Rev. Billy!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.248.51.198 (talk) 03:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Religious imitation?
It seems that this "Reverend Billy" and his "church" are sort of mocking religion. In a yahoo article it mentions that he is intending to compare corporations in America to the Roman Catholic church. I however feel that the manner he chooses to do so in "mocks" actual organized religion. Even if it is just the Catholic church, it is still sort of "makes fun" of religion. Perhaps this should be noted?  Zchris87v  04:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Not without a source. Btw, aren't all religions a mocking?--BMF81 09:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see him targeting the Catholic church as much as media churches or big box churches and television preachers. Benjiboi 03:56, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Criminal?
He has commited a criminal offense and was arrested. Does this constitute him being a criminal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.23.218.146 (talk) 02:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Peaceful activists get arrested for civil disobedience all the time. Most of the freedoms or standards of justice we enjoy have required someone, at some point, to spend time in a jail cell or worse. "Criminal" carries a different connotation than usually applied to practitioners of civil disobedience.--Theclimactic 18:25, 8 May 2008

???
you're mistaken read the link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.142.247.24 (talk) 04:06, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Christian or not
Bill Talen may be a christian, however the reverend in the movie is not. Midways in the movie he prays to "the great unknown", when praying for a child outside the mall (about 1h:15m in to the movie) he prays to "the He/she". And in the last few minutes of the movie, in the very end, he says "You don't have to be a christian to believe". He does not speak about God as the heavenly father. He is just a parody of a preacher. I.e. both the preacher and the movie is mickey mouse, fake, it's not factual. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.164.77.121 (talk) 00:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Such an inclusive doctrine actually lies well within the realms of existing Christian theology. Take Rev. Carlton Pearson's "Gospel of Inclusion" as an example. Yes, it is true that he is a parody preacher. But I have heard him (both in and out of character) and others speak of a definite spiritual dimension to his work. Though the preacher shtick may have started out as an absurdest spectacle, it seems to have taken on a life of it's own. He is preaching a gospel that is very close to his heart. Even though the form was originally taken on in jest, it has achieved a certain level of seriousness in light of the substance which it serves. in this light, I would say that he is more of a 'real' preacher than your average charismatic televangelist.24.47.154.230 (talk) 01:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Two Articles?
Now that Talen is a NYC mayoral candidate and getting substantial media attention in that role, shouldn't there be separate articles for him as an individual and The Church of Life After Shopping (the new name for his organization)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.231.6.65 (talk) 15:38, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Invalid NPOV tag?
There's no mention of an NPOV dispute on this talk page, so is the NPOV tag invalid? If it is, should it be removed? Energybeing (talk) 10:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Anyone can remove it. Ideally the person who removes it would post a message here saying "I do not see any NPOV concern here."  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Michael Shade added the NPOV tag in February with the edit summary "The first paragraph currently is written in the first person, presumably by someone with a personal connection to the group. It should be re-written." If he means the lead, it appears to have been edited down to one sentence. The next section, on his origins, is unsourced and I would argue is not written in a neutral voice. Probably this whole article needs an overhaul and better sourcing.  freshacconci  talk to me  13:30, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * As the original NPOV concern has been resolved, I think the NPOV tag should be removed. I agree that citations are needed in the "Origins" section, but I think this is already covered by the Refimprove tag. Energybeing (talk) 09:19, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Be bold! If you think it should be removed then remove it. If there is a reason to put it back, someone can put it back and start a section saying "The tag is necessary for these reasons..."  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:25, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Removed NPOV tag as relevant issue has been resolved Energybeing (talk) 09:51, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.starbucksunion.org/node/712
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070627125935/http://news.yahoo.com:80/s/nm/20070619/film_nm/movies_jesus_dc_2 to http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070619/film_nm/movies_jesus_dc_2
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070705223909/http://news.yahoo.com:80/s/ap/20070703/ap_on_re_us/first_amendment_arrest to http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070703/ap_on_re_us/first_amendment_arrest

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 02:19, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Violations of WP:OVERLINK
In this article, some of my recently-added other-article links were subsequently reverted by a more experienced WP editor, due to violations of WP:OVERLINK. Point taken, and I will try to be more judicious in the future. I am not actually familiar with the subject of this particular article, but find it interesting. I have no intention of getting into an "edit war", and instead prefer consensus with other interested editors.

I would like to reach consensus about the following: Some of the material in this article might be hard to follow for someone who is unfamiliar with certain aspects of American popular culture (e.g., a non-native reader of English, or a younger South Asian), or unfamiliar with certain locations in NYC that are named in the article (like myself, who lives in Chicago). Therefore, I propose to nonetheless activate links for a few words and phrases, such as "Elvis-like". Also, it does appear to me that, for clarity, any English-language WP article about a USA topic ought to always "ground" the text geographically in the USA in at least one location within that article. (Even though any given en:WP article might written by a USA resident, anyone in the world might read it.) Acwilson9 (talk) 04:23, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I checked what you did. I think that most of your links are useful. When the article talks about highly specific places or concepts, then there should be wikilinks. I recommend skipping some of the bigger places and concepts, like United States, Christian, and some major city names, but I say keep at least 80% of the links you have. I could help with this if you like. - do you have any comment on which links might be appropriate, and which you would not want to see here?   Blue Rasberry   (talk)  17:38, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131029213838/http://www.revbilly.com/press/2013/03/reverend-billy-and-the-shopocalypse-comes-to-long-beach to http://www.revbilly.com/press/2013/03/reverend-billy-and-the-shopocalypse-comes-to-long-beach
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100311012247/http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/11/reverend_billy.php to http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/11/reverend_billy.php
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160113021926/http://gothamist.com/2015/01/07/grand_central_mta_die_in.php to http://gothamist.com/2015/01/07/grand_central_mta_die_in.php
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111029095904/http://www.revbilly.com/events/church-of-earthalujah to http://www.revbilly.com/events/church-of-earthalujah

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 05:32, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Lots of updates to the article, citations, etc -- Please Review!
Hi all, I've updated the first few sections of the article, as I figured that would be the best way to get the attention of the editors who are watching this entry. My editing of the Reverend Billy article started out with looking for a few citations, then I got into it and wrote a new draft. Please see my full sandbox article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Almonroth/sandbox

I'm doing it this way for a couple reasons. First, I know Reverend Billy and worked on the Morgan Spurlock movie What Would Jesus Buy?, so I want to flag that from the start. While I've tried to take care with WP:BLP and WP:NPOV, please review my work and make sure I'm being objective.

If no one objects in a few days, I'll probably migrate the remaining portions of my sandbox article to this article. Or please interject and let me know what the right process is. I've mostly wiki-gnomed and uploaded to the Commons, so I'm not too sure how to go about a substantial re-write of an existing article. The only real article I have worked on was a new start with the The Bay Lights.

I'm hoping that the work I've done can be incorporated into the Reverend Billy article and look forward to any discussions that might follow. Thanks Almonroth 05:41, 30 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I just updated the rest of the article from my sandbox and removed the ref template Almonroth 15:25, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, I checked it out.
 * Before version
 * After version (including copyediting after Almonroth's edits)
 * Comparison of before and after
 * I give a pass to everything as an overall improvement. You added a lot and I did not review everything, but it seems like for every major idea you brought in, you added citations from third parties.
 * Here are some things which I see that could be improved:
 * The sourcing in the "Savitri D" section is weaker than the sourcing for other parts.
 * This person goes by the name "Savitri Durkee" in the cited sources. Wikipedia mirrors the name that people use when they present themselves to the media. This person has years of history using this name when interviewed for this organization.
 * The Alpert and Edwin awards here name Billy and the group but not this person. Wikipedia follows the lead of the published sources. These awards need to be moved to the organization and out of this person's personal section.
 * Check the self-published sources
 * In the Starbucks section there is a claim that Billy harassed cash registers, but the source is Billy's own. There are quotations here. Is this Billy's voice, or is this a line from the court ruling? If it is the court ruling then cite the court ruling as the source for the quote. If not then reword to clarify the voice.
 * In the Monstanto section there is a claim about a map matched to a self-published source. Is there a third party source? If not, this claim needs to go as self-promotion.
 * Filmography, discography
 * To give credit in the filmography, etc sections we can have full citations. Right now the citations are inconsistent mostly naming only the titles.
 * If any of these works have been reviewed the reviews can tag onto them as citations. If you know of any reviews posting them here is a great way to show professional and academic discourse, which is really valuable for other editors.
 * Great job! Respond if you like, otherwise I think the article is good enough for anyone to address these things in the future.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  12:06, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * great, thank you for this feedback! I’ll get to these points as time permits and find more citations to match the specific points you mention. I honestly didn’t get the chance to dig into the Starbucks section, just copied the markup from the previous version of the article, so will search for more references and edit out the parts that don’t meet the required criteria. Cheers and take care! Almonroth 22:04, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Extinction Rebellion New York performance needs adding
Extinction Rebellion New York clip (03:15) published on YouTube on 20 January 2019, search "Extinction Rebellion in New York City: Rev Billy & Choir".

With best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 17:32, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia isn't a news source. If there are multiple reliable sources that discussed it, we should mention it as well. If they're just primary sources that say it was about to happen or that it happened, we don't need to mention it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:52, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Mayoral Campaign
I included a very short (single sentence) paragraph about Reverend Billy's 2009 Mayoral Campaign under "Direct Actions." I clearly did not quite get the referencing format right, but am not sure how to do so. I also wanted to included an additional reference to a NYT article on the same topic (https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/nyregion/02billy.html) but as I already botched creating the first reference, I decided to quit while I was ahead. I would appreciate if the editors could adjust the reference so it is correctly formatted and/or offer me guidance -- beyond the help page -- on how to do so. Thank you. Berniethecat (talk) 20:00, 5 June 2024 (UTC)