Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germanic Mysticism

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Contents 1 Germanic neopaganism? 2 Project directory 3 Comment 4 Category:Religious leaders 5 Wikipedia Day Awards 6 About this project

[edit] Germanic neopaganism?

why is Germanic neopaganism mentioned as falling within the scope of this project? It is entitled Germanic mysticism, a topic which certainly exerted some influence on neopaganism, but neopaganism is far from being a subtopic of Germanic mysticism (Germanic mysticism redirects to Nazi mysticism. Nazi mysticism is properly a subtopic, so that the article maybe should be moved. Early Germanic mysticists were not "Nazis", but they may be characterized as "proto-Nazis", since Nazism was born directly from their milieu). There are some German esoteric neopagan groups like the Heidnische Gemeinschaft, but the Germanic neopagan revival of the 1970s-1990s was largely divorced from the esoteric/mysticist approach of List and friends, and qualifies as reconstructivism based on medieval sources. dab (ᛏ) 09:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 17:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

While I think your intentions with this project are laudable, I think you should seriously consider renaming the project to something like Germanic Mysticism & Revivalism and It's Perceived Connection to Nazism - a mouthful, but something along those lines would be more concise and may attract more assistance from other editors. Also, Odin Brotherhood has been deleted like three times, as has Mark L. Mirabello - I highly suggest you bolster the entry with empirical sources before some do-gooder nominates it for deletion again. It currently reads like an advert. Read the history of the deletion debates here. Also, you may want to attempt to get some sort of consensus with other editors before slapping a template on a page like Asatru Folk Assembly. I pulled the template until you better explain yourself and why it is relevant on the talk page.

Thanks for putting forth so much effort on this subject. I think you'll get the hang of wikipedia soon enough. Just keep in mind that there is nothing new under the sun and much of this has been gone over before. WeniWidiWiki 04:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, your comments ABOVE, PLEASe CAN YOU HELP ME AS i DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DO THIS - YOUR INPUT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. FK0071a 07:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC) -sorry for the caps. FK0071a 07:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

(what's with the caps?) -- Germanic mysticism at present redirects to Nazi mysticism. I think there is no problem with just calling this project "Germanic mysticism", and recognize that Nazi mysticism is a subtopic to that. Nazi mysticism grew directly out of earlier Romanticist Germanic mysticism, but obviously we can only strictly talk of "Nazi mysticism" for times after the establishment of the Nazi party. And the influence of mysticism on Nazism is debatable too, just like Nazi mysticism is just a subtopic to Germanic mysticism, it is also just an episodic subtopic to Nazism. It will not do to include most current Germanic Neopagan movements in the term, since not all of them are "mysticist", and they should not be so labelled unless they self-describe in such terms. dab (𒁳) 11:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, like I say, I don't want it called Germanic Mystisism, not my intention when I set it up, a mistake. I want the projec tot be called something like "Germanic Mysticism & Revivalism and It's Perceived Connection to Nazism" - my project it to focus on the reality of Nazi mystisism rather than the fanciful. FK0071a 11:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

FK0071a, that sounds like an overly complicated Wikiproject name. You should ask yourself why you bother with setting up a Wikiproject instead of just doing it. You should appreciate the purpose of Wikipedia:Wikiprojects, which is to systematically cover some topic, and not rallying to push some selected point of view. You seem to want to argue that current Germanic neopaganism is not connected to Nazi mysticism. This is true enough for some current movements, and not for others. It is a matter of research and citing sources to sort out the different shades of grey. Since you seem to want to create this Wikiproject to "educate" people about Odinism, I wonder why you don't just create a Wikiproject Germanic neopaganism. This will be a daughter of Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion, and just like, for example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam, it will have to state its scope neutrally. The discussion of current neopaganism wrt romanticist Germanic mysticist groups will be one among several "task" that can be addressed by such a project. dab (𒁳) 11:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

also, can you explain this? you added an interwiki link to he-wiki's version of Template:Jew. Is this some sort of twisted joke? Are you a prankster, or trying to make some point by overstating the opposite? dab (𒁳) 11:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

To answer the second part about Jew, NO, that was not on purpose and didn't even know it was their. Because I am not an expert on Wikipedia I took the template of Animal Rights (rather than start from scratch) and changed it create this project. So, that coding for 'jew' is something within the Animal rights project template. Hope this makes sense. If you look at that coding you can see that it refers to Animal Rights. FK0071a 11:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

for some strange reason, that interwiki was indeed in Template:Alib. That exonerates you of course. I imagine that the animal rights template was itself scavanged off the Jewish template without anyone noticing the stray interwiki link :) dab (𒁳) 11:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Religious leaders

The current organization there is abit muddled, and needs some discussing how to deal with. A general proposal for cleaning it up is posted at Category talk:Religious leaders#Organization proposal, and more input would be great. It doesn't address the issue of Religious leaders/religious workers/religious figures, but that is another issue that exists. Badbilltucker 22:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About this project

I have grave doubts as to whether this project belongs in Wikipedia. The reference to National Socialism as having a "future" strongly suggests that this effort is largely, even primarily, a front for neo-Nazism rather than a sincere collaborative effort to write neutral encyclopedia articles.

Assuming that the project organizers do not agree with being characterized as Nazi/neo-Nazi, I strongly advise greater clarity in the project description. Tell your fellow Wikipedians, in plain English, why we should not see this project as a weaselly attempt to justify the sociopathic ideology of the Hitler movement (namely by detaching the discredited Third Reich from its ideological moorings). Don't write about the future or what an exciting time this is. Tell us what this project is really about.

I would like to be convinced that my concerns are unfounded. In the meantime I intend to watch this project like a hawk. -- Rob C (Alarob) 19:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey Rob. I'm not a part of this project, but your concerns have been raised in the past and I've encouraged a renaming of the project as well. This is not a very active project, but most of the edits under the auspices of this project have been in an effort to distinguish Germanic neopaganism and Neopaganism from Nazi mysticism. Being that I primarily edit articles about new religious movements, I have seen *a lot* of the edits by those involved, and from my perspective they are not advocating or promoting NS ideology in any way. However, their writing style is confusing and their intent threw me off initially as well, and still does. If you have diffs or specific concerns which indicate that the project is a "weasly attempt to justify the sociopathic ideology of the Hitler movement" I'd be interested in reviewing them. - WeniWidiWiki 20:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

PS: Read the rest of this page - Germanic Mysticism isn't even the name they want to use. - WeniWidiWiki 20:31, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I had read the entire page, but it did not dispel my concerns. I can see the value in making the distinction between Germanic mysticism and Nazi ideology, but the project page as it stands seems to veer into advocacy of Germanic mysticism or neopaganism as a way of life. But I appreciate and accept what you say about the edits of participants. I will assume good faith without feeling I am being too naive.

FWIW I think you have one of the wittiest usernames in the wiki. Made me smile. -- Rob C (Alarob) 20:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I still consider the section to be confused. I don't feel qualified to clarify it myself, but may come back and correct some of the grammar. -- Rob C (Alarob) 20:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

P.P.S. After saying I wouldn't, I just went and rewrote the "About this project" section. It is much shorter, hopefully clearer, and straight to the point, without obscure references. Maybe future visitors will be less likely to panic as I did. ;-) -- Rob C (Alarob) 21:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)