Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/KJV/Proposed decision

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I urge the Arbitration Committee to reject or to modify the remedy that states "In accordance with community consensus...quotations drawn exclusively from the Kings James Version shall [not] be included in articles." First, there is no community consensus supporting this. In the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Whole bible chapter text, not a single user, not even User:-Ril-, advocated forbidding the exclusive use of the King James Bible. Second, the acceptability of the King James translation is solely a question of content, and thus is beyond the power of the Arbitration Committee to adjudicate. NatusRoma 01:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I think NPOV does require quoting at least occasionally from the Bible used by the Catholic Church, and, if possible, from modern translations. Fred Bauder 01:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
That's true, but it can be NPOV for a single article to have only a quotation from the King James Version. 128.36.55.162 05:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
What about 200+? --Victim of signature fascism | There is no cabal 01:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
To understand that Wikipedia is NPOV if and only if each one of its articles is (where "articles" also includes categories, templates, and portals), consider the following:
  • First, suppose that Wikipedia is not NPOV. Because Wikipedia, considered as an encyclopedia, consists entirely of its articles, in order for content to exist that is not NPOV, such content must exist within at least one article; any article in Wikipedia that contains POV content is by definition POV.
  • Second, suppose that Wikipedia is NPOV. By the definition of NPOV, "All articles [are] written from a neutral point of view". Then there is no content in Wikipedia that is POV. Therefore, each member of the set of articles is NPOV.
Q.E.D.
Therefore, for the fact that 200+ articles exclusively contain translations from the King James Version to mean that Wikipedia is not NPOV, it immediately follows that each one of these articles must not be NPOV for the reason that it exclusively contains translations from the King James Version. This is not true in the case of all articles on Bible verses. NatusRoma 04:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The ban on creating individual verse articles makes sense within the context of this decision, as does the ban on adding the source text of the chapters. It's not clear why he shouldn't be able to edit whatever verse articles survive, however. None of the findings of fact proposed so far suggest a reason why this is the case. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It is a conclusion drawn from the finding that he has ignored community consensus. I do not expect the other arbitrators to accept my proposals, however. SimonP is a very popular editor and an arbitrator; I have viewed his activities without reference to that; it is doubtful anyone else will. Fred Bauder 13:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
That's a little arrogant. What you are saying is 'if my fellows don't accept my conclusion, it will obviously be because they are not able to dispassionately look at the facts'. They could just plain disagree with you. --Doc ask? 14:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
The particular consensus you address in the finding of fact is twofold: no individual verse articles, and no inclusion of the source text. If you believe there is a genuine consensus on those issues it make sense to enforce it. What doesn't make sense is to go beyond enforcing that to what amounts to punishment rather than a resolution of the conflict. More importantly, the loss of Simon's contribution will severely damage what articles survive your proposed merge. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
SimonP is not being prevented by that proposal from making contributions to biblical articles, merely articles organised by verse, which community consensus believes should in most cases not exist anyway. So if community consensus is obeyed, there are hardly any biblical articles at all that the proposal would prohibit SimonP from contributing to.
The proposal itself is important because SimonP has demonstrated clear unwillingness to obey consensus - if he won't obey consensus voluntarily then it becomes necessary to order him to do so. --Victim of signature fascism | There is no cabal 01:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Again, there's still no reason why he shouldn't be able to edit whatever articles remain, if this proposal is accepted. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Fred proposes: In accordance with community consensus, articles to the verse level, other than notable passages, shall be merged into more comprehensive articles dealing either with the subject matter of the scripture or its sections.. I point out 1) Notability is not defined - And is Arbcom now (for the first time) accepting notabilty as a criteria for organising content? That sets a whole load of precident. 2) 'Shall be merged'? Always, for ever - regardless of what those working on an individual verse article think? Regardless of the content, length or detail of the article? Regardless of whether that improves or dimminishes the quality of the article/target concerned? Remember that those invlolved in the poll were looking at the abstract question, or the question across hundreds of verses, not what actualy benefited the content in an individual case. If this is passed, pragmatism goes out the window for ideologically-moivated principle - decisions to merge are normally content-driven and reversable as content grows. (BTW I am in favour of merging most/many verses on the individual merits of the articles.) --Doc ask? 14:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

As always, the wiki process will continue. Fred Bauder 14:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, no it wont. This finding will authorise the forcable merge all Bible verse articles regardless of content considerations. Anyone resisting it for pragmmatic reasons will be 'in breach of consensus' and probably in contempt of arbcom. There are highly motivated users, with a dislike of Bible 'cruft' who would use this finding as a binding rule for the future. Some of the dozens of articles may well have had significant material added since the 'poll' - is that to be taken into consideration? Fact is that this is an ideological 'vote' generated without consideration of actual content, that's not how a wiki works. --Doc ask? 19:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
No, the consensus in question primarily concerns those 200+ articles that SimonP wrote, and verse-by-verse articles, not one-offs like John 3:16, but instead condemns concerted attempts to have seperate articles for every single verse in existance for a section of the bible. In my own opinion, this isn't any ideological vote, but merely a reflection on the fact that wikipedia is not a detailed verse-by-verse commentary on scripture. --Victim of signature fascism | There is no cabal 01:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

John 3:16 is a good example of a notable verse. I suppose there is no reason for SimonP not to edit such an article, other than a track record of creating articles for markedly non-notable verses. Fred Bauder 11:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to mix in to this discussion rather late. Just stumbled in. But as this RfAr seems to be going nowhere (I doubt whether a quorum of 6 voting arbitrators will be reached) – despite being a very interesting case on many levels – I thought I might as well offer some thoughts.
  • In the above, the most interesting passage I found was Fred's "As always, the wiki process will continue." – indeed that seems the crux of this case: if anything is decided, it should be in view of promoting the normal course of wikipedia proceedings. As well, e.g., a strict prohibition of individual bible verse articles (or even a strict prohibition of using only one translation in a casual mentioning of a bible passage) might be hampering the normal wiki-proceedings; Also being too lenient towards neglect of wiki consensus-building proceedings probably would not be a good idea.
  • Just as I stumbled in here today I stumbled in the Saint Procula article a few days ago. I moved it to Pontius Pilate's wife. As a result of reading about this KJV case, I now create Matthew 27:19 as a redirect to that article. Didn't check yet which translation of that verse (which is in a way the sole object of that article) was used. But for a verse with such straightforward content I doubt whether alternate translations (or inclusion of the Greek or Latin originals) would add anything to the understanding of that wikipedia article. If something in these proceedings is not usual wiki process, please comment!
  • Res publica is an article to which I collaborated a long time ago. Well, one of my major contributions to that article was adding extensive quotes of various Latin authors. Specifically I'd like to draw your attention to the "Cicero" section of that article: Latin, plus two alternate public domain translations, ranged in three columns. A good idea?
  • In another case when quoting Tacitus, I made the translation myself :Republic (Plato)#Critique (that article is still problematic as a whole, even its name, so I don't want to use it as an "example" – just wanting to draw attention to the way of quoting in that "critique" section); Likewise, here I offered my own translation, no translation being available in public domain/GFDL-compatible license: Gymnopédie#Contamine de Latour poetry. Now, translating Tacitus or Contamine may be less "electrified" than translating Bible passages: my contention is that wiki proceedings should not be intimidated, just go ahead and translate: there are enough wikipedians that understand Greek or Latin to check whether the translation is any good. See this nice chat I had with a wikipedian who reads and understands Latin: user talk:Bill Thayer#Tyranni XXX (+II). Very ambitiously I once started a Dutch translation of Oedipus the King at Wikisource (Wikisource:nl:Koning Oedipus - note the included original Greek text with annotations), yeah didn't get very far yet, but it's still not out of my mind. Please comment if you saw any "unusual" proceedings here.
  • I had a look at Matthew 1:5 - what bothered me was:
    1. I was bothered by the fact that christ's genealogy as pictured in the new testament is here stripped in individual portions of just a few names. There appears to be no wikipedia article with an umbrella approach describing the different versions of this genealogic description (comparable to several other bible passages, not only in the new testament). So I'd encourage to have a look at wikipedia:Summary style (and comparable guidelines/policies/recommendations...): I think SimonP (and those who want to join him in such projects), should be encouraged to write such umbrella articles first, before starting to split in sub-articles. What I mean is that neither "wikipedia article by bible verse" nor "wikipedia article by bible chapter" is anything near to a workable *general* principle. Wikipedia article by topic (as a usual wiki proceeding) seems the only valid approach to me. So one gets articles like Pontius Pilate's wife, or Christ's genealogy in the New Testament or whatever, which later can have subsidiary articles like Luke 3:23-38 (while in Luke's case the genealogy is only part of a chapter. Note that for most of these ancient texts the subdivision in chapters & verses is a much later addition, not known to the original author. Making wikipedia articles according to these subdivisions, that sometimes really look artificial, should in many cases simply be avoided IMHO (however, without it being possible to make this in a *precise* general rule either, I suppose).
    2. I was bothered by the fact that the image showing in the Matthew 1:5 article (which sort of *may* have been its reason for existing as a separate article yet), is not mentioned as being part of the Sistine chapel frescoes (Michelangelo is mentioned, Sistine chapel only if clicking *external* links). Even the description page of the jpg media doesn't mention "Sistine chapel" once. As far as I'm concerned, the article could be renamed Salmon-Boaz-Obed, and then, give as much attention to Luke's passage (Luke 3:32, which could be a redirect to the same Salmon-Boaz-Obed article), as also give attention that the article should connect to descriptions/articles about the Sistine chapel (which might be part of a series on the individual scenes of this fresco too).
  • A final thought: yes this case suffers from overlap with content discussions. I can only encourage Arbitrators to separate the two (I mean content discussions from ruling by guidelines/policies). Maybe the initial separation of the two wasn't done so well at the outset (leading to only three Arbitrators accepting the case; and the mentioned likelihood of only these same three voting up till now, in very divergent ways). Maybe some of the issues proposed for voting by arbitrators should be rewritten in a clearer separation of content vs. process fashion, making the voting less dodgy. E.g. reprocess Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/KJV/Proposed decision#Wikipedia is not a commentary on scripture in this fashion (trying to get rid of the content part), might make it easier for other arbitrators to vote.
Did you see any non-wiki-like proceedings in these suggested proceedings? Then, just tell about it! --Francis Schonken 11:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Scriptural quotations' - massive problems with this remedy

2) In accordance with community consensus, neither the entire text of chapters of books of the Bible nor quotations drawn exclusively from the Kings James Version shall be included in articles.

Whilst, as a general principle, I would support this; creating a hard and fast rule without exceptions, across potentially hundreds of articles, is unprecedented and ill-advised. It would override any local editorial decisions that the contrary better served a particular article. This is likely to have the following effects:

  1. Even although some Bible chapters are ‘’very’’ short. This would mean that an article on a Psalm, for instance (and some have only 2-3 verses), could not quote the text at all. Whilst longer quotations of sizable passages would be allowed in other articles. This, even if various important understandings of the text were being discussed.
  2. It would mean that a presently settled article, which includes even a short KJV quotation in the discussion, would have to have the quotation removed, or other translations inserted. This, even if the other translations add nothing to the article, or don't substantially differ from the KJV.
  3. However, other articles which include short quotations solely from any other version of the Bible would be unaffected. Thus the most popular English language version, will be the sole version to be so treated. That's simply crazy.
  4. If a Bible quotation is given where the translation is not contentious, so that only one version was really necessary, under this ruling it would be permissible to quote from any solo version other than the KJV.

I realise that there have been edit wars on various articles (many instigated by a user since banned), and that edit warring is bad. But arbcom-endorsed rules are likely to stifle debate and consensus developing on what is best for an individual article, and encourage people pushing an anti-'biblecruft' pov to interfere with articles they have not previously edited, and have no interest in, and forbid certain options in the name of arbcom. This is bad ‘law’, created in response to a now dead crisis. Wikipedia doesn’t normally have hard and fast rules, but now we have one for the Bible. I urge a rethink, or at least, the insertion of some mitigating qualifier – ‘normally’ or ‘unless there is a local consensus to do otherwise’ etc. Or, a principle that where there is a short quotation, only if the language of that quotation substantially differs between translations, need more than one translations should be used. --Doc ask? 19:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)