Talk:Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf

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Is the title of this article correct in Wikipedia terms? Would Parish of Clontarf (Church of Ireland) or Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf be more appropriate? And should a single parish normally have a separate article, especially as there is much crossover with Clontarf? For now, just linking to the area's category.


I think it is fine that this C of I parish has it's own page entry given it's long and interesting history and that it is a separate entity from it's RC counterpart and it also has different boundaries to that of the area itself. This page is in it's early incarnation and there are plans to significantly expand it. - JPatten


I see no problem with a page but the title has to be fixed, it makes no sense in English, in Church terms or in accord with naming policies. One of the above would do. Area boundaries do not seem to arise. 194.126.203.82 16:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree new title needed. I'm not aware of a convention - most similar articles are titled after the Church (building), but this article has a wider focus. The 2nd above, or Clontarf Church of Ireland Parish seem best. Johnbod 16:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Surprised to see title changed again but at least the current one makes sense, albeit I thought the one with brackets worked best in terms of order - Parish of Clontarf (Methodist), Parish of Clontarf (RC), Parish of Clontarf (CoI), etc. Matter closed. Twilson r 01:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Questionable redirects

Something is very wrong with the redirects to this page, e.g.:

Clontarf protestant church (redirect page) (← links) 
Clontarf protestant (redirect page) (← links) 
Clontarf protestants (redirect page) (← links) 
C of i (redirect page) (← links) 
Clontarf parish (redirect page) (← links) 
Clontarf church (redirect page) (← links) 

and there are a lot more which while not wrong are questionable as to whether they should exist in Wikipedia as titles at all. Is this in order? 217.118.66.62 20:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

With e.g. six or more churches, 3 or more Protestant groups, etc, in Clontarf, this is not right! 217.118.66.62 20:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

It does seem OTT! Johnbod 21:11, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Also concerned, and now looking into this further. There appears to have been aggressive linking / promotion, odd for such a topic. SeoR 23:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
It is late now but I had already come across some strange redirects to here, and the above looks well out of order. One of the ones I had come across was the "C of i", which is a generic term for the Church of Ireland, but should not be a page title as it is probably also valid for many other things around the world. I thought I had fixed that one at least. Tomorrow. Twilson r 01:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, for the most part, these are proper redirects. "C of i" was one of the exceptions, and I've pointed it to the proper place, Church of Ireland. Please understand that redirects are, generally, a good thing, and assist the search engine in getting people to the right article. Thus, many editors - including myself - create a number of redirects using various combinations of likely search terms. As for the comment "With e.g. six or more churches, 3 or more Protestant groups, etc, in Clontarf, this is not right!", if there were articles on the other groups, then it would be appropriate to replace the redirect with a dab page listing the various articles that apply. Until such a time as those articles are written, nowever, it's fine to leave the redirect page as it is. Lastly, please note that redirects are not candidates for AfD. They, instead, get sent to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. I've thus close the AfD early. AKRadecki 17:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that update. I had not gotten to deletions, and actually prefer the approach of making other relevant articles; I have finished one not too long ago, a follow-up to my two Coolock Parish articles last night. That said, I agree with the original commenter about titles such as "Clontarf protestants". However, as I learned early on, this is a consensus place, so going with the flow. And I have to say, from originally every couple of weeks, getting "hooked". Twilson r 18:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Reading some of the comments above I am concerned that we are going to end up with pages now on the Clontarf Methodist and Presbyterian parishes which are written without input from members of those parishes and as such will miss context. I would ask that such contributions giving 'dry' facts such as when their church was built etc should not be added. Quite a bit of research went into the C of I page and I think the other Protestant faith communities should be directly involved in the process if pages relating to them appear. For instance I have read a pages on another parish in North Dublin and I felt it was obvious from the style that the writer(s)had no more than a basic knowledge of the topic in hand and a link pointed erroneously to a different faith community in a nearby area. This is not a mistake somebody with a better understanding of the parish would have made. On the subject of redirects – we added in as many as we could in order to facilitate search engine optimisation (SEO). On the wider internet and even in Wikipedia I think this is fair practice. JPatten

Well done on the research, as long as it respects No Original Research, of course :-) But there is a slight tone of ownership there, and no one, not even the subject, owns an article here.
Re other parishes of the area, what is wrong with "dry facts" - that is the ideal, not the debateable, or hot, disputable assertions, or whatever else. I'd suggest people go for it! T213.212.1.52 19:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
In general, I would agree with the above, but would caution JPatten on a couple of things: first, it's not always best that people in the church/parish write about it...that could run afoul of WP:COI. Second, while a well-written, detailed, well-sourced history is always great, a dry bare-bones article is better than nothing. Keep in mind we prefer encyclopedic tone here, which often is dry. I am very impressed by the level of academic research that went into this article, as shown by the Refs section, but it might have been better to use the footnoting method of citing references, which is generally accepted practice on Wikipedia. Lastly, and of very small note, on Wikipedia, we prefer dates to be wikilinked, which then enables user preferences to work. AKRadeckiSpeaketh 19:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello Alan, I take your point on the COI issues. However parishioners, particularly from minority groups, are often better placed to be aware of material that is relevant. If this information is wrong it will be quickly challenged. As far as I can see this page has attracted plenty of attention so I think anything out of place here would be spotted quickly. If there is a slight tone of ownership it is not intended. --JPatten 19:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Let me also add my compliments, this is a most interesting article, and it is wonderful to see consultation of e.g. Minute Books back to 1815! There is reference to an unpublished school essay, which might be a bit challenging as a source. I would suggest moving 2-3 paragraphs, which are wholly about the district of Clontarf, to the main Clontarf article, but I leave that to the person who wrote them. On the question of only those involved in something writing about it, I have to agree with Akradecki re the risks, and with the previous commenter re the desirability of a nice factual article (certainly as opposed to nothing). Perhaps if someone made an article on the other Christian organisations, they would then be inspired to come to WP and develop said article(s) fully. Thanks, 217.213.133.23 20:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mount Temple

Good to know that the comprehensive has the CoI Archbishop as Patron, and that the VEC only nominate one to the board. Learning with Wikipedia... SeoR 01:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] More to come

I haven't gone through everything that has happened on this page with a fine toothcomb to see who has made changes etc. Clearly however there has been a huge amount of activity and this in itself is fascinating. Perhaps I was too successful with the Google ranking! From an encyclopaedic perspective I am sure the editing is correct, from a reader experience perspective perhaps the jury is out.... I would just like to remind people editing here that Clontarf Parish is a living and breathing entity and we are proposing that there will be shortly content on the parish as it is today i.e. organisations, people etc. and this will be by its very nature less academic. If you have any views on how this should be handled please discuss. For all it's history this is very much a living parish and we need to tell the contemporary story also in an appropriate way. We are not a museum and long may this continue DV. --JPatten 00:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That sense of ownership is suggested by the first line above again. Unsure re relevance of Google comment, mind you. You are very welcome in WP, and this is a nice article, but this is an encyclopedia, not a Parish Website or promotional tool (I see you have a background in PR).
You comment that the changes are correct for an encyclopedia - that is what matters! Remember, article size has to be proportionate, and this cannot be extended to take in things which would be better on a linked clontarf.anglican.org, which as a Vestry member, you could take on.
Well done again, and also on inspiring others, notably twilsn_r, to create other parish articles.

217.213.143.154 18:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)