Talk:Episcopal Church

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[edit] Incoming links

[edit] thread copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anglicanism

It seems your page count may be increasing, which is good... If you look at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links you'll see that Episcopal Church (462 links) (+352 in the last month or so!) is a fairly hefty (and rapidly-expanding) repeat offender in the Disambiguation link repair queue. Recently there has been talk of Wikipedia:Adopting disambiguation pages.

There are many possible options for linking to "Episcopal Church," and a non-Anglican (such as myself) might be a little lost. This sort of topic really requires people with specific knowledge of the content's domain... It would probably only take a few vigilant editors to keep this particular aspect of Wikipedia neat & tidy, if you think it's a good idea... Thanks for your time --Ling.Nut 19:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

We don't have lots of new Anglicanism articles, but we do have several hundred new incoming links. These appeared because Episcopal now redirects to Episcopal Church. (My doing, I'm afraid.)
80% of the articles are bios linking to Episcopal to try to identify the denomination of the subject. Only someone with detailed knowledge of the bio would know for sure, but it would be reasonable to guess that a U.S. person should be Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and a Scottish person would be Scottish Episcopal Church.
The rest of the Episcopal links should probably be changed to Bishop, and very rarely to Episcopal polity or Anglicanism
Episcopal Church should always go to the nationality of the article in question. If there is a very rare link like Reformed [[Episcopal Church]] then it will go to the wrong place, but that is tough luck.
Are there any tools that Wikignomes use to make this work faster?
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
These problems built up over several years, because, quite understandably, many Wikipedia editors think that there is a denomination called Episcopal. Episcopal Church is intended to explain that there isn't. (So was the old article at Episcopal.)
So, read Episcopal Church carefully and then bypass the disambiguation if you can.
Try to clean up Episcopal Church. Ideally it should be understood instantly by someone that knows the subject of their own article, but knows nothing about Christianity.
I will paste this piece into Talk:Episcopal and Talk:Episcopal Church
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Either the page deals with the churches called "Episcopal" in common usage -- which is the Anglicans -- or it deals with every church with bishops. Even if it is narrowed to those using the word Episcopal in their names, some Methodist churches would have to be added and the Charismatic Episcopal Church (rightly identified earlier as not Anglican) as well. Right now the page is oriented towards the Anglican perspective on this. To be consistent and impartial then, ECUSA should be listed with the other Anglican Provinces and not given a sub-headline which I can't figure but which is there now...and the Independents confined to Anglican independents.

It only needs to deal with times when a user might stumble on Episcopal Church, and deal with all of those. There is no need to be impartial; according to WP:MOSDAB it should list the most-common meaning(s) at the top.
Those Methodist churches you listed are useful - thank you!
I will try to simplify the whole page.
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 07:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed move

On September 6, Episcopal Church is near the top of this list: Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links with over 400 links. However a herculean effort (by User:Ling.Nut I think) has got it down to around 100. Nearly all of the incoming links really wanted ECUSA. What do you think about moving this page to Episcopal Church (disambiguation)? Then we would move Episcopal Church of the United States of America to Episcopal Church and put the disambiguation link at the top:

For other uses, see Episcopal Church (disambiguation).

The move would reflect common usage, and ECUSA has already officially adopted it as its new short name. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 07:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll do this in the next couple days if someone doesn't take care of it first. -Oatmeal batman 14:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
It's done, as if you haven't noticed already. -Oatmeal batman 20:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Cool. But what did you do, Oatmeal batman? Copy and paste? There is a move button at the top of the page you should use to move the pages. No harm done here, I think, but in general, the history that is needed for the GFDL copyleft license gets lost if you copy and paste instead of move. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 23:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
This feels rather like systematic bias to me. Yes, in the US, "Episcopal church" means "Episcopal Church of the United States of America"; and because of Wikipedia's (and the internet's) large US user base, US topics tend to get more coverage than non-US ones. My impression, though, was that this was generally considered something to be countered, not reinforced. As a British Anglican, I've never heard "Episcopal Church" used alone to refer to ECUSA, and I doubt it commonly is used so outside North America; whereas, of course, in other areas (e.g. Scotland) "Episcopal Church" alone will refer to their local Episcopal Church. If people are linking to "Episcopal Church" meaning "Episcopal Church of the United States of America", then to me that's a problem with the links, not a sign that we should assume the US usage as the norm, or spread throughout Wikipedia an assumption that undisambiguated terms are used to refer to US institutions, with clarifying terms used only when non-US institutions are meant. This is primarily an opposition to a move - the redirect isn't quite so bad (though I'd prefer it to come to this page) but things shouldn't link to Episcopal Church. TSP 11:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think everyone gave up on my idea to move Episcopal Church of the United States of America to Episcopal Church. It seemed like it was opening an unnecessary debate. I am comfortable with the status quo, and would no longer support such a move. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Episcopal church

On the offical name of the church: http://ecusa.anglican.org/

You will not find the "Protestant" name on the official site, that is because it was done away with years ago:.

The 1967 General Convention voted to add a preamble to the Constitution, which states, '...The Episcopal Church (which name is hereby recognized as also designating the Church.)' The title page of the 1979 BCP states that the Book of Common Prayer is 'According to the use of The Episcopal Church.'

[1]

SECisek 22:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

But the official name of the church didn't change. From the Constitution of the General Convention
"PREAMBLE
"The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, otherwise known as The Episcopal Church (which name is hereby recognized as also designating the Church)..."
GC seems to be undecided about what they want to call the church, but the real name of the church is still PECUSA.
BPMullins | Talk 14:26, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
One look at the website I cited above demonstrates the GC is NOT at all undecided about what they want to call the church. Almost every instance on their website - save the historic preamble - drops the word "Protestant".
This was done decades ago in recognition of the fact that many members of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America are not Protestant - and it was felt that it was important to be inclusive and polite to all church memebers: Catholic and evangelical Protestant alike.
Sadly, those old Anglican values of good manners and mutual respect seem to be quickly vanishing from the communion. I for one hope they do not die.

SECisek 14:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

One thing, I think, is clear - from Wikipedia:Disambiguation: "Do not pipe disambiguation links. Showing the entire linked article title avoids confusion, which is the reason for the link in the first place." So this debate really needs to be had over at Talk:Episcopal Church in the United States of America. If anyone thinks that page should be moved, they should propose it there. If not, the link here should point to the current page name there. TSP 14:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)