Template talk:Adventism

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[edit] Dominance of Seventh-day Adventist church

It appears that this info box has become dominated by a Seventh-day Adventist church perspective, and does not reflect the smaller movements so much. I am therefore modifying it to reflect this. Tonicthebrown 03:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed material

I have removed Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church, which appears to be a single congregation only, and United Seventh-Day Brethren, which the article says had four congregations in 1980; from the template.

Even the remaining groups are not very notable when compared to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Here are the claimed sizes from their Wikipedia articles:

I do think that the order listed in the template is well chosen and needs no modification. However I am also tempted to remove the last entry from the list also. Cheers, Colin MacLaurin 15:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I have removed it after all. It is a whole order of magnitude smaller (that is, ten times smaller) than the Church of God General Conference, which is perhaps the next most notable church group. There were 427 people, but that was 17 years ago, and the article does not state how many there are now. This is a small number, the equivalent of just one large congregation in a more mainstream denomination. Colin MacLaurin 15:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Critical link

I added a critical link due to a discussion at the village pump that concluded it was best and NPOV to include critical links in infoboxes. Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Criticism link on religion navigational boxes. Feel free to move it around or change it, but read the discussion before removing it.-Andrew c 03:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I disagree with the critical link. Here are my reasons:

  • The article which is linked to is currently of very poor quality
  • The article is only a critique of the SDA Church specifically, not the Advent movement in general (to which the template applies).
  • I think that the infobox should be a portal to the main informative articles, and I don't think criticism fits there. There is very little of informative value in the criticism article as it stands. Also, on last check, there was roughly as much apologetic there are criticism!
  • It's easy enough for an interested person to find the critical page, following the link from the main SDA article.

It's fine if others disagree, but this is my opinion. And in case you are concerned about my POV, please note that I've worked hard to maintain the Criticism section of the SDA article against "pious" SDAs who have tried to damage or soften it! Tonicthebrown 10:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

If the problem is with the article, fix the article or AfD it. The village pump discussion suggested this, and also concluded that if criticism articles exist, per NPOV, they should be included. I don't see how a criticism article isn't informative. In fact, you can learn a lot about a topic by listening to critics and the response to criticism. That said, I believe your 2nd point is the strongest. The criticism is to a specific church, while this template is for the whole movement. However, isn't the SDA the largest adventist group? I suggest you read the village pump discussion (if you haven't). You bring up some decent points and I wouldn't be too upset if the link was removed from this template. However, for consistence across the religion navboxes, and to respect the VP discussion, I would support including it and focusing on improving the article itself (or AfD the article and removing the links that way.)-Andrew c 03:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Davidian SDA

Which name is more well known, "Davidian Seventh-day Adventist" or "Shepherd's Rod"? I suspect it is the latter but I don't know for sure. Let's put the most well-known name on the template. Colin MacLaurin 17:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The Branch Davidians have/had no affiliation with the Seventh-day Adventist church. Their claims are silly; perhaps -former- members, though nobody brings up the sects started by former baptists or former Catholics. I move to remove the Davidians from the template altogether, as it is a cult/sect that does not adhere to the ideals of the Advent movement.--24.107.9.33 (talk) 03:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] T. M. Preble

I'm not an expert in Seventh-day Adventist history, but is T. M. Preble really one of the top five most notable Adventists? I am content with Smith, White, White and Bates; but am not convinced about Preble. Colin MacLaurin 05:16, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I think Ellen White is the most notable, followed by Joseph Bates and James White to form a trio (as George Knight says, for example), and perhaps Uriah Smith would be 4th. But 5th, I am not sure about. Colin MacLaurin 07:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Since no one has commented, I'm changing it to J. N. Andrews. Colin MacLaurin 16:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People section

The five listed are all pioneers of the church. The template has a definite bias towards the early beginnings of the movement. Who are the major people over its recent history? Colin MacLaurin (talk) 03:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

A user has added Andreasen twice. Perhaps he is one of the most notable figures. Who would it be? Perhaps him, Froom, Heppenstall, and Ford? Input from a history expert would be good. The leading ex-Adventist critic would be Canright, I guess. Colin MacLaurin (talk) 03:40, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

(I "changed picture to more appropriate one: James and EGW" here -Colin MacLaurin 23:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC))

Why? I thought the other was more appropriate? I'm curious as to why you think this one is more appropriate? Since the church came out of the millerite movement, would it not be more suited to use William Miller image? I personally would like to see another face for the project. This new image may create wrong impressions to the reader of the article(s) since EGW is the most single controversial person. What are your thoughts? --Maniwar (talk) 23:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Maniwar, I changed the image because James and Ellen White are perhaps the two main founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (the other main founder being Joseph Bates). However many other groups descend from William Miller. He is not unique to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. There were perhaps more than 100,000 Millerites according to one article here. As I understand it, only a small percentage became Seventh-day Adventists. Colin MacLaurin 23:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Founder Shmounder. Most if not all other religious templates use a symbol for their template, not a person(s). Change it (with permission) to their logo. --24.107.9.33 (talk) 03:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Must use a free image on templates, per policies/guidelines. The church logo is copyrighted. However if an artist wants to make their own symbol, we can discuss using it. Colin MacLaurin 00:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I too find the use of the Whites objectionable. We need the church logo. Many articles about organizations and companies use their logos without any problems. Just look at Microsoft and Yahoo!. That's an application of fair use, and we can do it here as well. -- Fyslee / talk 05:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Those two articles have the church logo in an infobox, which appears on that single page only. This is a template. Copyrighted images (like the church logo) may not appear on templates. Colin MacLaurin (talk) 07:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure that is true. This use is covered by fair use. Whatever the case, if we want to make Adventism look like a cult, then keep using the image. Fine with me, since it is. If you want to make it look respectable and not like a sect, then find a respectable logo or something not connected to any persons. That would be fine with me too, since Adventism also has a few aspects that aren't cultish. -- Fyslee / talk 06:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
The policy Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria states that non-free content is allowed only in articles and article namespace. Hence that excludes template namespace (see Wikipedia:Namespace for general information). The exemptions make it even more clear (although this may not be a policy or guideline). I didn't realise it appears cultish - we need to see what other church templates have done. Colin MacLaurin (talk) 07:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History and Background

I recently added "evangelicalism" and "fundamentalism", as these movement have had a large impact on Seventh-day Adventism. Andrew c removed them, commenting "neither of these articles mention Adventism". Actually other articles in the section don't mention Adventism either. I understood this section to be about the movements which have been formative on Adventism, so I think they have a place. Colin MacLaurin (talk) 08:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I would support removing any article that doesn't mention Adventism. If evangelicalism and fundamentalism are so important to Adventism, then it should be mentioned in those article (or alternatively, if doing so would give undue weight to a minority view for those articles, then there should be a spinout article covering those topics in relation to Adventism). However, as it stands, if I am researching Adventism and use the navbox and happen to click on the evangelicalism link, I would have no idea what in the world evangelicalism has to do with Adventism from reading the Evangelicalism article. Navboxes are to help users in researching the topic, and these two specific articles simply do not deal with the topic the way they are currently written. I am also appalled to see you edit warring. It's ok to make bold edits. But if someone in good faith reverts them, it's best to get talk page consensus BEFORE re-inserting them. Editing warring is never productive. I am glad you came to talk, but it wouldn't have hurt to wait to see what others felt before reverting again.-Andrew c [talk] 16:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Reverting one of your edits once, with a description on the talk page as to why is not edit warring by me, and saying it is is not assuming good faith. The idea of the section was to list earlier, not-necessarily-directly-related- movements which impacted Adventism. I didn't create the userbox, but if this is not policy, then I appreciate you letting us know. Certainly these movements are mentioned in Adventist articles (I've added statements on e'ism and f'ism numerous times). I think a sentence on Adventism would be warranted in the e'ism article, but it would only be a brief reference. Colin MacLaurin (talk) 03:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)