Talk:Siduri

Church of Siduri
Dear Wikipedia Community, thank you so much for starting a webpage to discuss Prophet Siduri's revelations to mankind. We at the Church of Siduri strongly believe her words have the power to help humanity to accept their mortality, enjoy life and focus on the family (our primary beliefs as Sidurians). We respect that there are many translations of Siduri's original writings. However, we would be extremely grateful if the translation we have adopted at the Church of Siduri would be given consideration for publication on Wikipedia. We believe that this translation of the Prophet's words most accurately captures the poetry, spirit and power of her teachings, and we appreciate your consideration and understanding. Love, joy and family – The Church of Siduri http://www.ChurchofSiduri.webs.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.14.164.195 (talk) 20:55, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * This isn't a forum, it's a discussion page for the article - not for Siduri. To mention your church we would need reliable sources independent of the church discussing it. Please read WP:VERIFY and WP:RS to see what I mean about sources. Dougweller (talk) 14:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to include Peter Dyr's self-published book on Siduri and his claims regarding his beliefs in Siduri's teachings, on Siduri's page.
Note: The first two or three of these comments were originally posted at Articles for deletion/Church of Siduri and then copied here. Lady of  Shalott  16:36, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Over 40,000 websites mention the modern Siduri movement/book (SOURCE: I Googled "Teachings of Siduri"), plus Peter Dyr's book on Siduri "The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Teachings of Siduri and How Siduri's Ancient Advice Can Help Guide Us to a Happier Life" is currently a highly rated "Fiction Classics" Bestseller on Amazon.com (SOURCE: researchered book on Amazon's website - http://amzn.com/B00B5KFX06); seems popular enough to be mentioned on Wikipedia to me. I have re-introduced the original reference to the modern movement from a few months ago plus added Dyr's book, which is at the end of the page on Siduri (see current version). I hope you, my esteemed editorial colleagues, consider this compromise acceptable.76.174.24.136 (talk) 16:08, 18 April 2013 (UTC) George Pyle


 * Of course, "Teachings of Siduri" is not the same as "Church of Siduri". This article is about the specific named organization. Also that a self-published book which is currently free on Amazon is ranking fairly high at the moment is not terribly concincing to this Kindle owner; a lot of us will download just about anything to check it out if/when it's free. LadyofShalott 02:03, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, very good points, although, just to clarify, the book is highly ranked on Amazon's "free book" list. There are incredible numbers of free books on Amazon, so for a book to reach Bestseller status in its category means it is being downloaded significantly more than all of those other free eBooks. Of course, we have no way of knowing how many people are actually reading what they download from Amazon, probably, as you allude to, it is only a small fraction, but the same ratio probably applies to all free eBooks. That the book is self-published does not immediately disqualify it from being mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Siduri.  According to Wikipedia's policy for using self-published sources: "Self-published sources may not be used for any claims about living people, except for claims made by the author about himself (or herself)." In this case Peter Dyr is making a claim about himself, that he believes in and follows the teachings of Siduri.   I was unable to find any published book on Siduri on any of the eBook sites I use (Amazon, Kobo, Sony and iBooks), in fact, tellingly, when I typed "Siduri" into the search box of every site Dyr's book always came up first. Perhaps I am missing something important, I am relatively new to Wikipedia editing and your expertise on this matter is much appreciated. Is there a specific reason why we can not include Dyr's self-published book on the page about Siduri, when the claims he is making are about himself, no other published book covers the material at hand and by all quantifiable measurements (that are publicly available) the book is relatively popular? 76.174.24.136 (talk) 04:06, 19 April 2013 (UTC)George  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.174.24.136 (talk)
 * Have you read WP:RS and WP:VERIFY? It appears that you have. The next question is why we should mention Dyr. How often is he mentioned in works that clearly meet our criteria as reliable sources? Does he come anywhere near meeting our notability criteria at WP:PEOPLE? If you remove Amazon and Wikipedia from the search you get almost 1200 hits of which a large number are bookstores. That's 1200 in theory, when I look at the results I actually only get 27 hits. No hits at Google Books. We are very careful about using Google to prove something. Dougweller (talk) 15:41, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Doug, you raise some excellent questions that need to be addressed. Would you mind giving me some time to carefully read and analyze the sources you highlighted? As I previously mentioned, I am relatively new to Wikipedia editing and need to get up to speed on the rules and regulations. Thanks, 76.174.24.136 (talk) 16:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)George
 * Dear Sir/Madam, my apologies for the delay in posting, I have been very busy working on a new book on Siduri and other Siduri related projects. It has been brought to my attention that Siduri's advice has been completely removed from the Wikipedia page for Siduri. Could someone please explain why? I would very much appreciate your help, support and/or advice moving forwards on this issue.

Sincerely, Professor Peter Dyr (Email: redacted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prof-Pete-Dyr (talk • contribs) 18:38, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Jim-Siduri, your imaginary 'professor' friend will fool nobody. You are blocked from Wikipedia for a a very good reason - we aren't going to help you in your delusional quest to start a new religion around an obscure character from a 4000-year-old epic. Go find somewhere else to peddle your nonsense - if you can find anywhere that hasn't already banned you for being the clueless time-waster you clearly are. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:01, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

External link to Siduri's Advice Archival Initiative?
I think it would be both appropriate and useful for Wikipedia readers interested in researching Siduri to have easy access to the Siduri's Advice Archival Initiative (SAAI, http://www.SidurisAdvice.com), which is a non-profit volunteer-driven collaborative effort dedicated to archiving and making easily accessible public domain and related documentation detailing, discussing and/or incorporating Siduri, Siduri's advice, the Epic of Gilgamesh and other ancient and rare texts. Therefore, I propose that we consider adding an external link to SAAI at the bottom of the Wikipedia page on Siduri. I will include an example of what I am proposing on the current page, although I of course acknowledge that there may be better ways to structure such an external link, should we decide to move ahead. Wiki-proofer-and-tagger (talk) 22:47, 12 September 2013 (UTC) WP& T


 * Given that the website concerned appears to violate copyright regarding documents copied from elsewhere, it cannot be linked. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Epic of Gilgamesh - Sippar Tablet - Siduri's Advice.jpg
I have removed File:Epic of Gilgamesh - Sippar Tablet - Siduri's Advice.jpg from several pages, including this one, for a variety of reasons. Originally, it was due to the generally poor quality of the image, which even when viewed at maximum resolution isn't particularly good looking, both due to the graininess of the image and oddities of the text (justification, initial letters, etc.). There are also issues of WP:IMAGE RELEVANCE on pages such as Sippar. But primarily I am concerned about the text itself. It's very much unnecessary, as images should complement text, not replace it (WP:MOSIM). Overriding users' Wikipedia and browser font size and type preferences should also be avoided. If renewed, the translation could be a WP:COPYVIO. (For that matter, the left-hand image portion could be as well.) And it precludes the ability to change the text or retranslate at a later time, which goes against everything we're doing here.

Now I'm not against an image of the tablet, but we need a good one, and it should be text-free so we can caption as normal. Opinions? Woodroar (talk) 21:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
 * clearly we need to sort out any potential copyright issues before using the image, and I have to agree regarding the text too - it is poor practice to use images for textual content. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:40, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been wanting to raise the copyvio issue, thanks. Dougweller (talk) 07:26, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * archive.org has several files which appear to contain the full text of PD versions of Gilgamesh. An interested individual could use them to supply the relevant text, and if they wanted even go to wikisource and create a proofread version of the full text. John Carter (talk) 16:11, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Sockpuppets
See Sockpuppet investigations/Jim-Siduri. Dougweller (talk) 12:30, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The latest is User:I-believe-in-HER. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  02:58, 2 January 2015 (UTC)