User:Σ/Testing facility/TP/TpProt/136

Assigning religious affiliation to editors
I didn't expect my comment to In ictu oculi to have such "legs". It was really just a corrective statement directed to him, to be more careful with language, and not a condemnation of him or any other party. Every single person has their own biases but at least in the Wikipedia universe, we try to set aside biases in the interest of obtaining accurate representations, regardless of our personal allegiances. I apologize to Iio if my words came across as reproving or harsh. NewJerseyLiz Let's Talk 21:12, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No they came off as ill-informed and justifying sectioning another editor's Talk posts (no matter how silly) "JW views." The comment about imagine "Jew" was particularly silly if you're not intending to follow it up on those actually JW-hounding and instead support the behaviour. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:48, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I just expected you to either accept or reject my apology for coming across as harsh but I still maintain that your language revealed a bias. I should have left out the part of adding the "e" to J and W but it was to illustrate a point that no one could get away with an antiSemitic comment but JWs seem fair game to some. This is not news on Wikipedia, I see the same kind of statements when people are talking about other sectarian religious movements. NewJerseyLiz Let's Talk 01:55, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Exactly, so don't support editors hounding JWs. Practise what you preach, rather than criticising others who do do what you preach. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:07, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought you said you object to talking behind the back of other editors? And then, you say practise what you preach? Anyway...
 * Indicating a particular view as that of JWs or Jews or any other group doesn't express a personal judgement of any editor. But the old thread explicitly stated that 607 is a JW teaching anyway. Refactoring the page was in fact uncontroversial, and hardly tantamount to saying 'none of us like JWs'.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 04:21, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Your edit history shows otherwise per WP:SPA. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:23, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not need explain or justify my involvement on the JW WikiProject to you.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 04:27, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * And you are misusing WP:SPA. It states: "Whom not to tag (SPA tagging guidelines) ... Editing only within a single broad topic: When identifying single-purpose accounts, it is important to consider what counts as a diverse group of edits. For example, subjects like spiders, nutrition, baseball, and geometry are diversified topics within themselves. If a user only edits within a broad topic, this does not mean the user is an SPA."-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 04:41, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Practise what you preach ...I try to. And I will criticize discriminatory language when I see it. If one lets comments like "we don't like JWs" go unaddressed, then people assume that everyone agrees with that statement. And I think it's important to point out bias when we see it. I don't think one needs complete knowledge of and participation in a dispute to recognize words of prejudice. I don't see my role as being a watchdog for JW editors or those who dislike them.
 * What I was apologizing was not what I said but how I said it. But, for some reason, you take my admission of error as an invitation to provoke me, which is a puzzling reaction. Most people would say, "No problem, I understood what you meant" or "Thanks, but that was hurtful." My intention was to ease any tensions between us, In ictu oculi, not continue the debate between you and Jeffro77 on to this Talk Page. NewJerseyLiz Let's Talk 13:33, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Regarding Jeffro, he more or less is an SPA, although I think in large part the reason behind it is not a particular obsession with the topic, but a realization over the years that the content regarding the JWs needs a lot of independent oversight. Unfortunately, for a lot of groups, including just about any that have ever been called "cults", we more or less need to have people like that on those topics. On the comparatively few occasions when I have interacted with him on topics not related to the JWs, like on a template on Christian heresies, he has been as reasonable and objective as anyone else, and even in that particular case AFAIK indicated he didn't want to see any modern groups included, including the JWs, although in a lot of regards they resemble groups which were tagged as "heretical" in early Christianity, so I don't think he has anything against them particularly. But, yeah, particularly today, with the frikkin 4 million articles of various standards of notability, and more being created, on pretty much anything, I regret that we probably need more informed, comparatively neutral SPAs like Jeffro watching over some topics than we have. And, as someone who has gotten a bit of a bashing over the years at least in part because of his efforts to keep the JW content NPOV, so far as I can remember primarily from those within the group rather than without, I can imagine that he might well once in a while get a little tetchy. I wish no one were ever in that situation around here, but things being what they are, in some cases it is bound to happen. John Carter (talk) 15:03, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with much of what you say, John. I'm more sympathetic than you to NRMs and sects because I spent a fair amount of time studying them and working as a research assistant to a NRM scholar. On topics like religion, it is almost impossible to be completely free of bias, even when you are writing about a religious tradition that is not your own.
 * I think the important thing is be aware of your own bias and keep it in check. I was in a graduate program where the concepts of Epoché, Weltanschauung and Verstehen was drilled into us which and they mean that you accept but try to set aside your bias (positive or negative) when researching religion and you respect the religious traditions of others even if they are not meaningful or valid for you, personally. As far as writing about religion on Wikipedia, it seems like one advantage of open source knowledge is that articles benefit from the contributions of both insiders and outsiders. They both have viewpoints that can offer others some understanding. NewJerseyLiz Let's Talk 16:32, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * For the most part, I agree. Unfortunately, around here, we sometimes get into trouble with some topics when either the number of editors with one POV outnumber, are more dedicated, or are sometimes, simply, so difficult to deal with that they manage to take over the content one way or another. Scientology is probably the best example of that here, although Falun Gong comes close. Personally, from some comments I've seen recently, early Christianity seems to be at this point pretty much at the same level of difficulty in various ways. We really can't tell editors from one side or another en masse to "go away," and I don't think many of us (except those dedicated to the "other" side in those discussions) would really even want to ask them to do it, but I think, looking over the various topics which have discretionary sanctions on them, there is a very large percentage of them which deal with "beliefs" of some kind among them, religious or secular. I hope we can get some guidelines about such content together soon, and, actually, because requests from ArbCom tend to get more attention and response than others, that's one of the reasons I'm going to file a case on this. Some people might say, not unreasonably, that me and some others should have written them already, but a look at some previous attempts can indicate how quickly some previous discussions derailed. Also, honestly, I ain't the best person for writing such anyway, having never really taken part in many guidelines or policies discussions before. But, with luck, maybe we can make things a bit easier to work with soon. John Carter (talk) 18:00, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Masters in Religious Studies - Thank you for being here
Honestly, if you ever want to consider becoming the coordinator of WikiProject Christianity (which I am to date the only elected lead coordinator of, us never having had enough candidates to do it again), or WikiProject Religion, you would have my vote, and, maybe, as many other fraudulent votes as I could get through the system. Thank you for returning. John Carter (talk) 16:26, 18 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Wow, I'm terribly flattered, John. I have an MA in Religious Studies and a MPhil in Religion and Society (Sociology of Religion) so I approach religion from a secular perspective, not a theological one. The focus of my work was studying divisions and conflict within contemporary American denominations, and, secondarily, Religions in North American and NRMs (most of which couldn't be called "Christian"). But I'm not sure I'm equipped to handle editors (either veteran or IP visitors) who want to rewrite church history or who hate Catholics or who forget that Eastern Orthodoxy exists or who are atheists and want to put everything "religious" in quotation marks because they see it as questionable.
 * Can you tell me about your participation in WikiProject Christianity and how it stands today? I'm happy to handle organizing or negotiate disputes but if things are very divisive, it might be a bad time for a newbie to take on larger responsibilities because the situation is in flux.
 * I'm also not sure if this dispute between you, Ignocrates and Ret.Prof is about differences of opinion (regarding COI and RS) and past misconduct, or if it reflects a broader rift between editors who work on articles in this area. If it is the former, I think an ARBCOM decision can decide things but if there are fundamental divides based on theological differences, I think someone with more experience should probably take this on.
 * If you could give me your candid opinions on any of these questions, I'll consider it. Thanks again for asking. NewJerseyLiz Let's Talk 18:42, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Dispute resolution is more or less what you're talking, not so much coordination. Although I'm not that familiar with WP:MILHIST, which is much better run than any of the religion groups, and has made us from what I've seen the best military website out there, the coordinators try to more or less get people to work together, getting assessments done, article development, contests, that sort of thing. As an individual, I really am more the lone wolf-type, and I know I come across as a smug, self-satisfied dictator a lot more than I probably like to as a result. Regarding the recent problems you mention above, that's more I think about content and the rules here than conduct. I've tried to find independent sources which support or give much attention to the Butz theory of James, which was one of Ret. Prof.'s first topics of major concern, but haven't. I also tried to find sources for Ovadyah/Ignocrates' Ebionite Jewish Community/Ebionite Community, but even it's local paper hasn't had anything on it from what I can see in the databanks. While there is a theological dispute involved, in some sense, so far as I can tell, it is about a theological position which, to the best of my knowledge and understanding here, doesn't meet notability in and of itself, and which we can't put forward without violating, to some degree, OR/SYNTH. If I knew of any independent reliable sources which gave sufficient content in them linking Tabor, and Butz, and Robert Eisenman, and god knows all the others so that we could have one article or even section of an article on the "Jewish James hypothesis," about how James led a much more Jewish version of Christianity which has died out and might at some point resurface, a lot of the problems would be solved. But I don't know of any, and neither of them has ever come forward with any that I can remember either. There might be some sort of church out there, like the EJC and maybe others, which actually themselves put forward some version of the hypothesis, but I couldn't find any in the Melton Encyclopedia of American Religions or any other similar sources I looked in, so I can't say that there is even a notable theory there. I wish, but, to the best of my ability to determine it, what they seem to want is something I wouldn't myself mind seeing here, and as indicated above I even, assuming good faith and some sort of independent coverage on the neo-Ebionite groups, created an article on the neo-Ebionites, which was deleted as non-notable. There are a lot of web churches out there, unfortunately, many of which haven't been referenced in any independent RS's, and so far as I can tell the groups and theories they want to promote are among them. The fact that, unfortunately, both seem to believe that their material should be included anyway is a problem, and I think per policy and guidelines not acceptable, even if I myself wish that there were enough material for inclusion of them as per policies and guidelines. John Carter (talk) 19:26, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Two things: Gordon Melton is the researcher I worked for, years ago, he is a walking encyclopedia, he knows so much. He's an independent scholar but he donated this enormous library to UCSB and I worked with him on archiving the collection. Second, we had an awesome professor of Early Christianity at UCSB but he always got mixed teaching evaluations because the students who enrolled in his courses were taught scripture studies from a theological perspective, not a historical perspective. It was troubling to them when he showed them how much doubt existed about the primary sources that exist in this field of scholarship. I think it's actually a more controversial area to work in than Scientology...with Scientology, you can clearly see pro- and con- bias but with Early Christianity, you really need to have a familiarity with ancient languages to assess the arguments of scholars. NewJerseyLiz Let's Talk 19:39, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Do not repeat that I more or less regard Melton as almost some sort of prophet for us here, given the amazing amount of extremely highly regarded reference works he has put out. With any luck, if the Arb is accepted, one of the things that might happen is that we will have some editors from outside religion and "beliefs" maybe working on guidelines for that area, which we don't have yet. I certainly plan to ask for such, and we might be able to get together, maybe, some sort of idea of how to deal with web churches. I hope so. Previous attempts at guideline drafting got sidetracked rather quickly, unfortunately, by some individual editors with very strong opinions. That's why I'm hoping the more, well, serious nature of a request from ArbCom to draft guidelines, we might be able to get something together which people might at least accept. And, personally, I do hope for some way to get included some web faiths, like the modern form of Deism, which is extensively mentioned at Examiner.com, which is neither independent or reliable by our standards, but so far as I can see not yet discussed in any independent sources such that we would have much reason to have content on it. John Carter (talk) 19:52, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it's no secret that Gordon is "the man"! The man basically started collecting material on NRMs starting in the early 1970s and never threw anything away! Then, he started going back to gather older historical documents and not only that, he remembers every conversation he's had and everything he's read. The only people who don't care for him are the most strident anti-cult folks because he had an open door policy...he'd organize a conference and ask people from NRMs to come and talk about their beliefs and societies and some people who hate cults (not specific ones, just cults in general) thought he was giving them a platform to evangelize. But the NRM reps. still had to write up a standard academic presentation so it's not like they were trying to convert anyone in the audience. But for some people, choosing not to judge others is seen as evidence that you agree with them which is just not the case. 20:06, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Talkback
—Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:45, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Talkback
—Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:52, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Natalie Tran
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Thanks
Thank you so much for your comments on the ANI board at Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents. I was in abject despair about the way so many ganged up on me without cause. To have a little common sense applied was (to me) like giving water to a man in the desert. I really do hope it's caused others to stop and have pause for thought. SonofSetanta (talk) 09:25, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, you're welcome, SonofSetanta. That got really ugly. I've been reading a lot of noticeboards and dispute resolution cases lately and it seems like half of the time, the conversation boomerangs back on to the OP and he or she ends up facing sanctions for bringing a case to a noticeboard. The OP becomes the topic of discussion instead of the original complaint that is filed.
 * It seems unfair that 3 or 4 vocal opponents in an ANI can generate a topic ban when the original question was on something else entirely. I'm so glad that the people reading the page could see the transparent attack upon you. Liz Let's Talk 18:30, 19 August 2013 (UTC)


 * P.S. Sorry I missed seeing this when you first posted it. It's time to move some discussion on my Talk Page. Liz Let's Talk 18:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: 2013 New Haven Open at Yale – Doubles
Hello Newjerseyliz. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of 2013 New Haven Open at Yale – Doubles, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: '''That notable people are playing in it is a good indication of notability. Needs to be PRODded or taken to AfD.''' Thank you. Ged UK  11:45, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That's fair, Ged  UK . Feel free to object and move it to somewhere more appropriate. It seemed to me to be a local sporting event and I didn't see it's significance for Wikipedia. Lots of communities have golf tournaments or marathons or tennis tournaments and don't have a Wikipedia page about it. But I could be wrong. Good luck! Liz Let's Talk 18:34, 19 August 2013 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newjerseyliz (talk • contribs)

LGBT guidelines
Hey, just checking if you saw my response to your post about LGBT categorization guidelines. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 18:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, my, Roscelese, thanks for letting me know. I did some work with CfD in late July and there didn't seem to be a lot of movement so I hadn't checked back. Now I will! Is this in WP:EGRS? Liz Let's Talk 18:36, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't see any response to my question at WP:EGRS so maybe you can point me to the right page. Thanks! Liz Let's Talk 18:42, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry, here. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 18:55, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Roscelese, I also posted this question at WP:EGRS and I believe BLP (maybe the WikiProject on Actors, too). I posted a reply to you at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies.
 * I thought this really was an issue for WP LGBT to decide but since you're giving me the only feedback I've received, I might take it to the RSN and see what they say. They are pretty responsive but I think I already know how they will answer (documentation is required). Liz Let's Talk 21:42, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons
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Speedy deletion nomination of Liz/Whiteboard
Hello Liz,

I wanted to let you know that I just tagged Liz/Whiteboard for deletion, because it seems to be a test. Did you know that the Wikipedia Sandbox is available for testing out edits?

If you feel that the article shouldn't be deleted and want more time to work on it, you can contest this deletion, but please don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.

You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. TheLongTone (talk) 11:52, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * TheLongTone, I just decided to call my Sandbox page "Whiteboard" instead. I've seen some users with dozens of sub-pages with different kinds of names (one user calls their Sandbox "Litterbox" instead) so I'm surprised that this page has even gotten the attention of any other users besides myself. Liz Let's Talk 11:59, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Liz. All fixed up. See
 * User:Liz/Whiteboard
 * User talk:Liz/Whiteboard
 * Any problems, please let me know. Peter aka --Shirt58 (talk) 11:22, 21 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your help, Shirt58! Have a great day. Full moon tonight! ;-) Liz Let's Talk 13:41, 21 August 2013 (UTC)