Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oriental Orthodoxy

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[edit] Saint of the day

A proposal has been made on the talk page of the Portal:Saints for a possible daily update to at least some of the content of the portal. I think that this is a fine idea, but also think that I would want input from others as to which content to feature on which date. I have therefore set up a page for such discussion at Portal:Saints/Saint of the day for interested parties to nominate content related to individual saints they would like to see featured on the portal, and one which particular day, if one is preferred. I am here thinking particularly about possibly including individuals on the days of their feasts, if they have one. Any member of this project is more than welcome to make any nominations they see fit. Please feel free to make any specific suggestions there. John Carter 20:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New project proposal

There is a new WikiProject task force proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Inter-religious content that is being proposed to deal specifically with articles whose content relates to several religious traditions. Any editors interested in joining such a group would be more than welcome to indicate their interest there. John Carter 15:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sign of the Cross

The article Sign of the cross (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) underwent a complete rewrite over the last few weeks that left it quite heavily biased. I have tried to merge older material back into it, but it now needs to be put back together. If anyone on this project has the time, could they, please, take a look at the article and improve it. — Gareth Hughes 15:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming of Patriarch pages

I note that there is no uniformity in the titles of the pages dealing with the various people who have held the post of Patriarch of Alexandria. I would personally favor use of the word Patriarch over the word Pope, as it seems to me to be the least confusing and most easily understood by the widest possible audience. Opinions? John Carter 18:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What "stories" of the Bible merit separate articles?

There has recently been some discussion regarding which "stories" or portions of the Bible merit having their own articles. For the purposes of centralized discussion, please make any comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible#What should have separate articles?. Thank you. John Carter 13:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV question on Athanasius of Alexandria

I have some serious concerns regarding the neutrality of the article above. Please see my comments justifying that statement at Talk:Athanasius of Alexandria#POV, and contribute any comments you think appropriate. Thank you. John Carter 19:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment

There is currently a discussion at Talk:Saint Maurice#Request for Comment:Image in Infobox about which image of the subject should be used in the infobox. Any comments are welcome. John Carter 22:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Oriental Orthodoxy

I've been working on a template based on Template:Orthodoxy for the Oriental Orthodox Churches (the link for it hasn't been made yet). This is what it would supposedly look like:

Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches of Oriental Orthodoxy
Autocephalous Churches
Alexandria | Antioch | Armenia | Ethiopia | India | Eritrea
Autonomous Churches
Alexandria: British Orthodox Church|French Orthodox Church | Antioch: Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church

Armenia: Jerusalem|Cilicia|Constantinople

...thoughts, opinions??? Is it good the way it is (in order of precedence/honor), or are there any mistakes at all? I will be looking for an answer, so if I get a positive response (I'm thinking I will), I will go ahead with creating this template and putting it in the respective links (the articles for all of the Oriental Orthodox —miaphysite— communion). Make sure to tell me what you think.

Yours faithfully,

  • ~ Troy 01:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it is very good the way it stands , very good idea--Ghaly 18:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd try to make the "Antioch" section of the "Autonomous churches" section a line of itself, but otherwise I see no problems. John Carter 19:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
By that you mean this?
Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches of Oriental Orthodoxy
Autocephalous Churches
Alexandria | Antioch | Armenia | Ethiopia | India | Eritrea
Autonomous Churches
Alexandria: British Orthodox Church|French Orthodox Church

Antioch: Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church

Armenia: Jerusalem|Cilicia|Constantinople


...I'm not so sure. ~ Troy 19:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

That was what I was thinking, yes. Good work! John Carter 19:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay, then. I'm going ahead with creating it and putting it in the respective links. Thanks for the tip. ~ Troy 19:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks for allowing me to participate. (Mike Morgan 23:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC))

No problem, Mike Morgan. As Wikipedia is based on consensus', it's my duty to bring anything major or new to the attention of others. ~ Troy 18:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
nofri Troy! Sorry I've been away for a while. I like the template a lot, but I suggest you arrange the names of the churches alphabetically to avoid getting into sensitive issues. Great work! --Lanternix 23:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Hello, Lanternix. I'm just letting everyone here know that I have re-arranged it to alphabetical order. You can always see the current version here. Later, ~ Troy 16:29, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
At the moment the template adds all articles using it to Category:Oriental Orthodoxy, which is not needed - all are already in the category, mostly via the churches sub-cat etc. Can this be changed? Johnbod 20:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it can. I think it works now. John Carter 20:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Great, it does - and super-quick! Thanks. Johnbod 20:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Kind of Late for me to comment but nice template. Good work --Lijujacobk (talk) 09:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Za'afiel

Hi, the article Za'afiel is currently tagged as non-notable. As an angel mentioned in 3 Enoch I would think there should be an article about "it" (should that be it, him, her or what?). I'm here because I'm looking at articles tagged non-notable, not because I know anything about Angels. TIA, Garrie 03:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV pushing on canonical texts

I urgently need help with another editor, User:Leadwind, who has been pushing a Roman Catholic POV, particularly with regard to what texts are to be considered canonical. I have pointed out many times that Wikipedia cannot assume the role of the Council of Nicea and simply declare a certain text to be uncanonical or "pseudepigrapha" (false writing) that is accepted by another church as canonical. But he remains impervious to the NPOV policy requiring him to attribute disputed POVs, and insists on writing that the Book of Jubilees (canonical in the EOTC) simply "is Pseudepigrapha written from a Pharisee perspective" - instead of telling the truth and writing that it is only considered so by non-Oriental Churches. The most bizarre thing is, he has chosen as his platform to edit war this point, the article Tower of Babel, which merely contains a quote from Jubilees - making a discussion about its canonicity rather off-topic anyway. I have pointed out that this is equivalent to writing a note in the section that quotes the Book of Mormon, that it is "a forgery written by Joseph Smith" - no matter who might consider it so, it would not be neutral to take sides, and hardly germane to the article anyway. Please come to Talk:Tower of Babel and help me restore NPOV. Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 22:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Oriental Orthodox saint collaboration

For the purposes of centralized discussion, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Saints#Multiple saints collaborations?. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 15:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding project banner

I have noted how several articles relevant to Christianity have only the banner of more focused projects, several Christianity banners, or no banners at all on the talk pages. This makes it rather difficult for the Christianity WikiProject to keep track of all articles, as well as potentially reducing the number of editors who might be willing to work on the article, if only the more focused banner is in place. If I were to adjust the existing {{ChristianityWikiProject}} to include separate individual assessment information for each relevant Christianity project, and display the projects which deal with it, like perhaps the {{WikiProject Australia}} does, would the members of this project object to having that banner ulimately used in place of this project's one? It might help reduce the banner clutter, as well. John Carter (talk) 18:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Advice needed: should st-takla.org be blacklisted?

One editor, Wise mike (talk • contribs • count), has added dozens of these links to the English-language Wikipedia over the last several years. A few links have also been added by others, but Wise mike has added the preponderance. We now have 89 of these links:


Apparently someone has also spammed dozens of them to the Arabic Wikipedia as well and there has now been a request on Meta-wiki to blacklist that domain across all Wikimedia projects:


I need to make a decision as to what to do with this request and I need your help. Are these useful links here? How badly do we want them on the English language Wikipedia?

Thanks, --A. B. (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

My own impression is that it might stay. This page says it's been described as the best Coptic Orthodox site on the net, and it does have some very useful links. I'm not saying that it might not be overused, but I think it probably is useful to at least some degree. John Carter (talk) 17:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


As you have noted, that I am not the only one adding this link, as it is not spam or anything, they are really useful links to many of that website's visitors, and were added by the time, and not suddenly spam. Also you can check the pages yourself to see if they have a rich and original content or not.. Another thing is that you can easily compare that website to any related Coptic sites (using Alexa.com or any Site statistics service) and see its top ranking and how is it growing through the years more than any related site or not.. It is even rated No. 6 in the Top visited sites in Egypt in Alexa's Egypt Category.
I mainly haven't added except a couple of links to Wikipedia in the last couple of years, one of them when the Patriarch of Ethiopia visited the St. Takla's Church. Many of the related Coptic & general websites add that site to favorite links, and even add comments about it as a very nice and useful site (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).. And many Coptic sites also copy full pages of its contents as those articles are useful, original and show the true Coptic Orthodox faith.
One last thing, you can ask some of those who edit these sections or are related to Coptic articles about whether it is not useful or not. If you noticed some of the links inappropriate in any way, for sure it should be removed, but just because there are many useful articles on the website, doesn't mean it is spam or should be removed. I have mainly added related links to English and Arabic Wikipedias, and haven't touched anything else! Those added in other languages were added by their publishers and translators, because they might have found them useful, and not added by me in any way. And some of those articles, especially in Arabic, are built around and are original articles from that website, and not added by me. Even publishers at Arabic Wikisource took the Arabic Bible from that website!
And Again, as I have said in my Talk page, I am ready not to add any more links if it is making an issue, later I can just suggest a link to any of the moderators or users, and they determine if it is beneficial or not. Tell me what you think.. Thanks. Wise_mike (talk) 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Fine by me. If you would want to maybe make those requests here, it would be as good a place as any. John Carter (talk) 14:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bishoy Kamel up for deletion.

This fellow, Bishoy Kamel, who appears to be a contemporary Coptic Orthodox saint, has been listen on afd Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bishoy Kamel. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 22:08, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the nominator just withdrew the afd. Still, the article needs a lot of cleanup work; perhaps someone here can take it under their wing.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 23:08, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. -- SECisek (talk) 07:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Glad to help. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 03:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coordinators for the Christianity projects

I have recently started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity#Coordinators? regarding the possibility of the various Christianity projects somewhat integrating, in the style of the Military history project, for the purposes of providing better coordination of project activities. Any parties interested in the idea, or perhaps willing to offer their services as one of the potential coordinators, is more than welcome to make any comments there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:59, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coordinator?

It has probably been noticed by most of the editors who frequent this page that there is often a pronounced degree of overlap between the various projects relating to Christianity. Given that overlap, and the rather large amount of content we have related to the subject of Christianity, it has been proposed that the various Christianity projects select a group of coordinators who would help ensure the cooperation of the various projects as well as help manage some project related activities, such as review, assessment, portal management, and the like. Preferably, we would like to consider the possibility of having one party from each of the major Christianity projects included, given the degree of specialization which some of the articles contain. We now are accepting nominations for the coordinators positions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Coordinators/Election 1. Any parties interested in helping performing some of the management duties of the various Christianity projects is encouraged to nominate themselves there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Er, the whole idea of having "central coordinators" to "coordinate" everything, is utterly antithetical to some religions; while it seems to be openly embraced by others. Are you sure this is a good idea, and what is the ultimate goal? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:06, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The goal is basically to ensure that assessment, maintenance of portals, peer review, etc., for the various groups get accomplished. That's basically about it. In effect, these people will help to maintain the projects by volunteering to perform the various directly project-related activities. No particular additional powers beyond that are anticipated, nor do they exist in any of the other projects which have such coordinators. Generally, though, people who win election tend to be fairly respectable editors, so there word might in some cases be held to be somewhat reliable, but that's about it. John Carter (talk) 18:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
In this case, the Oriental Orthodox churches are more like a League of churches that agree with each other; ie. they don't have a sole coordinator on the ground, but each has its own head. To avoid people voting in blocs here, maybe we should have a team of representative coordinators in this case or something? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
True. But this project is a single project. Personally, I would like to see several candidates, if possible one specializing in as many churches as possible. I have personally left the total number of coordinators blank, figuring we might start off like the Films Project did with three, although I would be more than willing to see more if there are enough candidates to make that a reasonable option. And, again, this really doesn't have anything to do with anything other than the directly project related activities. Granted, many of the Christianity projects are all named "WikiProject", but in essence they are, for good or ill, like the Australia project and all covering the same basic content, if from different perspectives. The coordinators' job would have nothing to do with determining content, just ensuring that the activities of the projects are maintained. John Carter (talk) 21:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Much to my surprise, the period for the factual elections of the new coordinators has started a bit earlier than I expected. For what it's worth, as the "instigator" of the proposed coordinators, the purpose of having them is not to try to impose any sort of "discipline" on the various projects relating to Christianity, but just to ensure that things like assessment, peer review, portal maintainance, and other similar directly project-related functions get peformed for all the various projects relating to Christianity. If there are any individuals with this project who are already doing such activities for the project, and who want to take on the role more formally, I think nominations are being held open until the end of the elections themselves. And, for the purposes of this election, any member in good standing of any of the Christianity projects can either be nominated or express their votes at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Coordinators/Election 1. Thank you for your attention. John Carter (talk) 00:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)