Template talk:Wicca
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Wicca
[edit] Use in articles
I just made a couple of corrections to this template. I strongly suggest that before it is placed into articles that it be discussed amongst a number of those editors who work on Wicca, and that it spend more time in the development stage. Jkelly 23:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
- I have done some additional fixing up. The problem with this template would be keeping it from expanding beyond all reason; we've had trouble with people making spurious articles for very small Wiccan groups already. I'm not necessarily averse to the idea of having a Wicca template, I just think there are some pretty serious gaps in our coverage of Wicca that ought to be filled in before we worry about making a template; see Wikipedia:WikiProject Neopaganism for some ideas of what these are. And I think a template for neopaganism as a whole would make more sense than one just for Wicca, at least at this point. - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 07:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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- And here I was baout to add Blue Star Wicca to the branches list. Truth be told, I don't think we need a template, while it may be a growing religion, it is not something that needs a template.--Vidkun 20:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
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- I disagree to the extent that I am being bold and adding the template. However, it does need a bit of fixing up. I recommend adding links to categories to prevent it from growing out of control. Alba 03:41, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
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- Can we please get it stable first? And get rid of the idiosyncratic editorial decisions and prioritizing of minority viewpoints? Thanks. Jkelly 19:25, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Adding the all
I think The All should be added to some degree... am I wrong? User:Dante Asgard
- I think you are wrong. This is a subtle matter coming down to individual (or tradition-specific) interpretations of Wiccan theology. Essentially you are suggesting that Wicca is at its heart either monotheistic or pantheistic, while many adherents are either duotheistic or polytheistic. Even amongst the monotheists and pantheists there are many who would find this mention of "The All" distasteful, seeing as it makes the concept seem like a dogma (and it really shouldn't be), and it rather brutally analyses the God and Goddess away into just "aspects" of existence. Regardless of what the ultimate reality is, most Wiccans I know prefer to treat gods as gods rather than over-intellectualising them. I know a few authors have written on the subject of a universal being within Wicca, but their writings are generally quite personal, reflecting personal beliefs rather than Wiccan tradition, and the explanations they give (and the names they use) differ quite a lot (and some are rather unconvincing). Finally, there isn't a decent article to link to for "The All", that describes the concept from the point of view of Wiccan Theology. That's not surprising, for the reasons given above.
- Also, if any one link should come first on a Wicca template, it should be the Goddess (not a redirect to a page where people can read about big-bang theory).
- Come to think of it, why do we have the Triple Goddess, but not the Goddess? Is there a suitable article for the Wiccan Goddess, leaving aspects aside? Fuzzypeg 12:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Further to my last comment, I've just visited the Triple Goddess article and found it gives a highly specific interpretation that many Wiccans might not subscribe to. I was just about to type out my disagreements here, but in fact they'll be more useful at Talk:Triple Goddess. I do wonder, however, whether some articles need to be cleaned up before we deploy the template? Fuzzypeg 13:02, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually I'm trying to put in the fact that it is Athiestic, Monotheistic, Bitheistic, and Pantheistic... uhm... most Wiccans are at least. I think since the all is infact a core element in many practices that it should be added. Granted Wicca is more like a personal spiritual journey, but that doesn't mean we can't host big examples from those personal spiriutal journeys. Dante Asgard 11:01, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- The very first link on this template is to the article Universe. That strongly suggests to me that this template is not doing a good job of representing key Wiccan concepts. Jkelly 19:25, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Woops... I accidentally switched things around... erm sorry... maybe we should keep out the all but lets at least keep the list of Deities Dante Asgard 13:26, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- I disagree that the All is a core element of many (Wiccan) practices. Also, while I agree we could do with more information about Deities as viewed by Wicca, I don't think adding List of deities serves this purpose. Sure it tells you about some deities, but it tells you nothing about Wicca or the Wiccan approach to these deities. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that we don't have a sufficient number of well-written articles yet to put into this template. It might be worth focussing on some article cleanup for a while first.
- Probably a good rule of thumb to use when adding articles to the template is: if the article is exclusively related to Wicca (or possibly also neopaganism), then it may be a good contender for inclusion (as long as it's clean and well written). Failing this, it might still be worth including if it contains a significant quantity of information that is specifically about Wicca. If the answer to both of these is "no", then the article is probably not suitable for the template. Certainly if the words "Wicca" or "Wiccan" don't even appear in the article, it's not suitable. Fuzzypeg 10:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Thats true, you make a good point. I think maybe I'll create a few sandboxes to make specific articles for these, of course Fuzzypeg I'm not sure if I could use help but if any more updates come on I'll add... and other then that what are some other problems with the article?... I mean Template Dante Asgard 12:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Template still not ready to use
We simply don't have enough good articles relating to Wicca yet, which is partly because of the low number of contributors, and partly because Wicca doesn't have many clearly defined schools of thought, and when it does, they tend to be secret. Whatever the reason, many of the links given in the template were poor or misleading, and I've removed some of them.
My pruning is not intended destructively, but to make it clear to anyone wanting to use it just where and how it is deficient. It has no link to the Goddess, for instance, because no such article exists. The link that was there previously (misleading) took the reader to Triple Goddess, which is only one conception of the Goddess within Wicca. "The All" led to Universe (shaking my head dumbfoundedly, wondering what we're expecting people to learn about Wicca by reading that article), and "List of deities" led to a list of deities without any explanation of whether, why or how they relate to Wicca.
I note that of the remaining articles linked to in the template, several (Great Rite, Coven, Esbat, Rule of Three (Wiccan), Eclectic Wicca, Celtic Wicca) are in a fairly poor state and need a lot of work. Most of the articles are very short. Every section in the template is misleadingly incomplete: There are many more major figures than the three named here (and Margot Adler comes well down on the list under some of these); there are more branches of Wicca (including some famous branches that should be included over others!); and our beliefs and practices are mostly dealt with in the Wicca article, not in articles you can find under the "Beliefs and practices" heading!
The Wicca article itself provides a much more serviceable means of navigation, and this template adds nothing and detracts much. Fuzzypeg☻ 05:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
