User talk:Rev. Ian Cook

Please worship elsewhere

May the good lord bless you

As a fellow Christian that was has lived his whole life in the information age, your attempts at evangelism are really only going to annoy people. Trolls are people that go around on the internet annoying people. I have seen it before, people in this day and age do not respond well to hit-and-run blessings, they see it as pompous. Generally, I recommend following whatever tactics someone from another religion would have to use to convert you (someone posting "Shiva bless you" all over a site you regularly check probably wouldn't work, would it?). Ian.thomson (talk) 20:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't want to annoy i want to be a good samaritan on wikipedia by editing articles as of now May the good lord bless you (talk) 20:44, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * i Will change and my first step is to change my signature May the good lord bless you (talk) 20:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I understand you had good intentions, but your signature wasn't the issue, it was posting random blessings in the Administrator's noticeboard and on random people's talk pages. At this point, I think you'd going to need a clean start (see here for more info).  Note that it's easy enough to figure out that a new account is connected to this one. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I seem to have my talk page access restored and yes I am willing to edit articles instead of hit-and-run attack everybody. Ian/cook (talk) 21:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, what sort of work would you like to see done around here? Ian.thomson (talk) 01:43, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The improvement of articles on the encyclopedia whether it be religion or anything I am intrested in Ian/cook (talk) 09:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry about Pastor John-Terry/Pastor Terry-John (I removed his message), he's a poor example of Christ's light that's been going around judging people. His first account was blocked for telling people they were possessed by Satan because they weren't taking too kindly to his calling everyone a sinner for no reason, and he created another account to continue harassing anyone that's had any dealing with Excirial (the admin that banned him).  (Creating multiple accounts usually is frowned upon).
 * Could you point to something specific you would do right now? Just find an article, put the article title in brackets like this on this page, and let me know what you'd do.  I'm not an administrator, so I can't unblock you, but I can gather evidence that you would be a useful contributor around here.  This will also give you an opportunity to learn about our policies and guidlines, such as mauntaining a neutral point of view, finding and citing reliable sources, and avoiding original research.  (You don't have to memorize those or anything, they're not strict rules, but knowing the intentions behind those guidelines makes it easier to get along here).


 * God, Jesus, Bible and anything around those areas as well as some other interests I may decide to pursue. I would just like to do some work to improve those kinds of articles. Ian/cook (talk) 19:45, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I really don't get what it is with that guy (I've taken the liberty to remove this message, another sockpuppet of Pastor Terry-John), I mean, this is the talk page for a reverend!
 * Anyway, what would you change in those articles? Perhaps quote a line you might change and explain what you would do with it.
 * Also, there's a bit of heat over in the Jesus article, and a lot of people not showing much Wikilove over there. You're not disqualified, but any edit you made there would be held under a lot of scrutiny. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I would like to generally patrol these articles and improve them. There are no lines in particular which I would like to change but I would like to patrol new content and add to what is already there in order to improve the articles. And thank you for getting rid of that Terry guy, I wonder what church he came from. Ian/cook (talk) 17:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'd recommend that you reading the guidelines defining vandalism and the assumption of good faith. There's a lot of stuff, like content disputes, that may appear to be vandalism to new users, that actually aren't considered vandalism.  Basically, any attempt to help the site (no matter how poorly carried out) is not vandalism, and we're supposed to assume that other editors are trying to help unless it is blatantly obvious that they are trying to cause trouble.  This is why I mentioned the heat over in the Jesus article.  There are users currently arguing whether or not sources by Christian authors should be noted as being Christian sources, or whether they can be considered secular.  Some of the users involved in the discussion are attempting bold editing, and some of their edits could be mistaken for vandalism.
 * Regarding Terry-John/John-Terry's church attendence, a line from a Tom Waits song comes to mind, "God builds a church, the devil builds a chapel." I only removed his comments, I don't have the authority to enact (nor remove) blocks.  Because of this, I'm trying to gather evidence, and specific examples would be the strongest form of evidence.
 * I guess I'll try a quiz instead. What would you do (or not do) if you saw the following edits to an article?
 * 1) Someone puts a paragraph in the Bible article explaining why the Bible should be taken as truth, with no sources presented.
 * 2) Someone puts a paragraph in the Bible article explaining why the Bible should not be taken as truth, with multiple sources presented.
 * 3) Someone puts a paragraph in the Jesus article explaining that according to an author (who they name), cross referencing the Bible with recently discovered ancient texts yields the interpretation that Jesus had a male lover.
 * 4) Someone puts in the only sentence "Jesus was never married" into the Jesus article, making no further changes.
 * I'll have a few more questions based on your answers, and then I'll explain what would be likely to happen based on your answers. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

1) I will revert the edit as unsourced information and I will then ask the editor on their talk page if they have any reference.

2)If it has a valid source and it is in the Bible Critisism section then I won't revert

3)Revert as there is no external internet reference

4)Revert - unsourced information as well as a self-belief.

Ian/cook (talk) 19:20, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok.
 * 1) (Comment, not a question), OK, that's the typical and most accepted approach. We actually have a template, template:Uw-delete1, to leave them a message explaining that we like have sources.
 * 2) (Another question) Later, another editor removes that information as pushing a POV. What do you do, if anything?
 * 3a) (Another question) The editor replaces the information, and points out that the author presented his view in a book published by Oxford, and that the paragraph was written with a neutral point of view that simply reports what that scholar believes.
 * 3b) (Another question) Instead of a book published by Oxford, the editor presents you with multiple websites by a publishing company whose only book appears to be the book advocating the idea that Jesus had a male lover.
 * 3c) (Another question) The editor restores the information, and leaves a warning message (template:Uw-delete1) on your page. How do you react?
 * 4) (Comment, not a question), pretty much the same case as the first question. Wikipedia does not present personal beliefs as facts, but does explain notable views that are held, or report that some notable individuals may hold certain beliefs.  For example, if some famous person spent enough time going on and on about how he believes Jesus was not married that the news media talked about it, we might mention in the article on that person "this person is also known to advocate for his belief that Jesus was not married" (followed by a citation for a source that basically says that).
 * So far, you're not doing bad. There are some things that I may need to explain for you depending on how you answer this round of questions, but I've done far worse when I was figuring out this place.  Ian.thomson (talk) 20:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

2) Revert the edit if there is a valid source.

3a) I would ask for some sort of internet reference to the book in question and observe it from there

3b) If the websites are valid sources then I would allow the editor to place it in the appropriate place in the Jesus article. By valid sources, I don't mean internet chat rooms full of others POV.

3c) I would tell the editor that the information given has no external source and therefore cannot be added to the encyclopedia

Ian/cook (talk) 09:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Alright, there are a few things you should learn:
 * 2) I recommend you closely read the neutral point of view guidelines. Wikipedia does not argue any purely religious claim is true nor false.  It might report (with sources) potential contradictions between a religious text and historical evidence, but it allows the reader to make up their own mind.  Exceptions to this are when a religious claim flatly contradicts what is well established in the scientific community (i.e. we don't present the idea of a flat earth as equal to a round one, even though there are some people that believe it for religious reasons).
 * 3a, b, c) I recommend you closely read the guidelines for identifying reliable sources. Books by university presses are considered more reliable than websites, because the university will put it through a bit of scrutiny, and usually won't publish something by someone writing outside of their field. Although it is nice to try to provide a link to the book on Google Books, it's not required.  Self-published books and websites are usually not accepted either.
 * When you've read up on those, discuss a few things you've learned, and I'll check with some of the admins to see what they think. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:36, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

meta
*coughs*
 * lulwut?
 * Rev. Ian Cook
 * any comments? Jack Merridew 07:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)