User talk:Nageh/Theodicy and the Bible (draft rewrite)

Draft rewrite
Nageh, let’s start using Discussion/talk on User:Nageh/Theodicy and the Bible (draft rewrite) because that’s the document we’re working on and the empty page allows a fresh start. OK?

I’m working on your suggestions re the Lead. To execute them requires time to do more studying, and I (including my brain) have slowed down with age. Even things I think I know I have to find citations. I am feeling a bit like what you wrote: “Fourth, if every editor must watch out for backing up a statement by a ref before stating it, this is a rather demotivating situation, as you spend more time providing the refs than writing the article.”

Let’s get the Lead done satisfactorally before tackling other things that you have laid out for me to do. Do you want me to do my work on the Lead at User:Nageh/Theodicy and the Bible (draft rewrite) or where?

Perhaps, you would like to take a break from this task until I catch up.

I have looked at some of your other comments formatted in bold and worked on a couple. Can you tell when I have done an edit by the “History,” or do I need to list them for you? Vejlefjord (talk) 02:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Take your time. I appreciate the effort you are putting into this. The stringent requirement for sourcing is the primary reason I could never convince myself to write an entire article myself.


 * I think for the moment it is more convenient if you do the editing in this article version. We may copy back into your user space eventually when done.


 * I hope Vesal is jumping in for the lead section as well. Good outline of the lead section is particularly important as readers make up their mind about an article early on. We may also draw in some copy editor or appropriate wikiproject member to help us improve the lead. Other than that I will also attempt to work on some of the issues I have pointed out.


 * No need for manually listing your changes. I can easily track them down using the History function. Nageh (talk) 09:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Theological approach?
I'll see if I can catch up at some point, but right now I'd just like to make one suggestion. Please do not state that the article takes a theological approach. As the article discusses the theodic issues of the Bible, some of the material will be distinctly theological; however, I do not think that needs to be emphasized in the lead. (By the way, the question of theological versus philosophical approaches to theodicy is discussed quite nicely in [ here], but it is a complicated topic in its own right.) The lead is extremely self-conscious currently, and Wikipedia articles very rarely reference or describe the current article, so I suggest we simplify and eliminate all talk about different approaches. Instead, let's just explain as quickly as possible that there are interesting theodic issues related to the Bible:
 * Theodicy is “a vindication of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil.” The Bible has not only been a significant influence on Western thinking about God and evil, but directly raises the issue of theodicy by its portrayals of God as inflicting evil and by its accounts of people who question God’s goodness by angry indictments.

Something like that. (And note that we should not boldface the terms, but just wikilink them, see MOS:BOLDTITLE.) Anyway, if we put too much emphasis on the the different approaches, I worry that people at deletion review, who are sometimes quite superficial, will simply dismiss this as a WP:POVFORK. Regards, Vesal (talk) 14:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Vesal, thanks for your input. I'm also worried about the stated focus on a theological perspective, so I'll remove it. I'm also fine with avoiding the Bible definition sentence, which was actually somewhat out of place. Your suggested second sentence avoids that "Relating the Bible to theodicy is crucial to understanding theodicy..." phrase, which didn't really fit, and I wasn't happy with anyway. So I largely adopted your two lines. However, I think we still should put the topic into context, i.e., say where this is an issue/discussed.


 * I'm not sure I understand you saying that Wikipedia lead sections should not describe the current article. In fact, lead sections quite often provide a quick overview and/or introduction of the topic (an abstract). In which detail we should go I'm unsure but on the other hand it shouldn't be something minimalistic either. Of course we need to cite appropriate references drawn from the article body, if that was the issue pointed out. Nageh (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC) (updated: 20:39, 10 September 2010 (UTC))


 * Yes, indeed, we don't need to be minimalistic, but I wanted the first two sentences to immediately get to the point. And to clarify, I was referring to phrases like "this article discusses" or "these debates are also covered in this article", which do occur in research paper abstracts, but very rarely in Wikipedia articles. It is my impression that here it is preferred to show rather than tell, i.e., to give a one-sentence summary of a debate (if that is at all possible).
 * Oh, we agree on that then! You'll note that I have removed other instances of such phrases before.
 * Concretely, I suggest replacing "whose positions are included in this article" with something that attempts to summarize the distinction and how it may have a bearing on the debate. This is an attempt: "which present different perspectives on the immutability of God; in particular, open theism rejects the the notion that the future can be known or determined by any person, including God." I'm not completely happy with this summary, so I will just make it a TODO item in the article. :) Vesal (talk) 09:39, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I see. – When it comes to extending the lead, and whether positions in the lead are presented neutrally, I'll have to leave this task to you and Veljefjord. Nageh (talk) 10:29, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Vejlefjord re Lead: I codified 5 rules for my rewriting a Lead from Nageh’s 5.1 Lead section (Sept 8 on Usertalk:Vejlefjord) and 10 rules from WP:LEAD. All the rules made sense, so I tried to follow them: your admonition to relate the article to philosophy and theology picked up on what Vesal had said earlier and correlated with WP:LEAD’s rule to “establish context.” BUT now that I am ready to offer my work for your and Vesal’s viewing, it seems from the “2 Theological approach?” posts that the rules are being changed. So I don’t know whether to offer my Lead rewrite. I am willing to continue work on the project if we can clarify who does what and in what order to prevent wasted effort. And should not conformity with WP:LEAD be the basis for how the Lead is written? I’ll check back in a few days to find out what you want from me. Vejlefjord (talk) 16:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't be offended. The only thing that "changed" is whether to point out that the article follows a theological approach or not. On one hand it would appear honest to include this information, on the other hand I somewhat share Vesal's fear that it could be unwise to stress the distinction. But should we really worry about incapable reviewers if the article otherwise is in good form and conclusive??? The question appears rather how we can argue to the reader why the article takes only a certain perspective rather than both (either in a direct or an indirect way). This is something we can discuss. (PS: I have the feeling that we need to point this out, but I am lacking the knowledge to decide this.)
 * What was criticized otherwise was merely phrases like "this article discusses", "debates [...] whose positions are included in this article" - if they are mentioned in the lead section, there is an implicit assumption that they are covered by the article body. Some people object to these phrases for reasons like that, and because they have a taste of "essay".
 * Having said that, WP:LEAD is still the primary guideline. Nageh (talk) 18:54, 11 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Regarding WP:LEAD, it is worth keeping in mind that "the lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article." And Veljefjord, I did indeed myself say that the article takes a theological approach, but I have started to doubt whether it is true. Can I simply ask: where does the article actually take a theological approach? Given that the subject-matter is the Bible, theologians and Biblical scholars are the main sources, but does that make it a theological approach? I think I previously used the phrase very carelessly, because to be honest, I'm really not even sure what it means for an article, especially a Wikipedia article, to take a theological approach. Vesal (talk) 11:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Vejlefjord re Lead again: As said in my 9/10 post, I have written another draft Lead. Do you want me to post it for you both to critque? If so where? If in the draft rewrite, do I replace Vesal’s draft or what? I am thinking that it’s better to explain my rationales or pose my questions about Vesal’s 9/10 post or answer his questions to me (if you want them) after you see the thing.

Nageh, in your 9/9 post, you mentioned drawing in “some copy editor or appropriate wikiproject member.” There is an editor I planned to suggest later on in the process. Weeks ago at Moonriddengirl’s suggestion, I took a look at Projects Christianity and Bible. Most of the task group members seemed inactive or talk as if they joined for propaganda purposes. But one fairly new member of Project Christianity, Cindamuse, seems to be active with the purpose of fair scholarship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cindamuse. But before calling her in, I suggest that the three of us come up with the best we can do: too many cooks, etc. Vejlefjord (talk) 02:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)