Talk:John Frum

message: The 2nd paragraph states: "The name John Frum is sometimes considered a corruption of "John from (America)""
the 5th paragraph ends: "The name "John Frum" is possibly derived from World War II GIs introducing themselves to the locals as "John from America""
this seems a bit double.
:'Frum' is an actual surname.  At least one Frum family appears in the 1940 US census.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tms (talk • contribs) 19:54, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: John Frum seems to be derived

message: There's a lot of unexplained details here. For example, who exactly is "Rushfeld"? - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 23:55, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Need more detail

message: I've just reverted this article because the previous version seemed to be a Copyright violation.  Much of the article seems to have been taken wholesale from this website.  Please feel free to update the formatting and content with material from later revisions, but please make sure material is not taken directly from this website.  The Jade Knight 21:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have deleted the copyvio material which was still present in the article.  Baileypalblue (talk) 07:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyright violation

message: Most articles I've seen on the subject give the name as "John Frum".  Why is the article using "Jon"?  See for example the recent and definitive Smithsonian article. Jeffr 17:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the anthropology textbook I used to create the original version of the article used "Jon", having been published in the 1960s. silsor 20:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've moved it to John, which seems more prominent.--Cúchullain t/c 08:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jon versus John

message: It seems implausible to me that a small archapelago like Vanuatu could be the base of 300,000 US troops during WWII. Could this be more like 30,000?
:yeah, i mean, how could 300,000 people fit on 100km2 of island, when a mere 8.2 million fit on 830km2 of island elsewhere. ~Ash Ponders 149.169.15.181 17:20, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military population 

message: All the references I have read say that John Frum is white, and quote people from Vanuatu saying this. Need a reference to say that the majority of US servicemen IN VANUATU were black or white, if relevant to the article at all.
:I'll look for references, but most of the ones I've read say John Frum is usually black, as in African American, but is sometimes white, and is always American, though not always a GI. The one ref off the top of my head is John Frum He Come: A Polemical Work about a Black Tragedy by Edward Rice. I don't understand what you mean requesting a reference for whether the majority of US servicemen in Vanuatu were black or white. Why would that be relavent to this article?--Cúchullain t/c 03:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Usually black?

message: The last sentence in the second paragraph appears to be a completely spurious reference to the UK census.  Does anyone know why it's there?  Leftover from a previously removed section, perhaps?
Bagheera 00:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I (or someone) forgot to close the <ref> in a reference. It's fixed now.--Cúchullain t/c 23:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Dangling sentence

message: I added the external link to their site, as well as the alternative spelling "John From". I do not know if the site is what it purports to be, but it certainly is pertinent!Lee 15:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not what it purports to be, it's the homepage of some Australian huckster claiming to be the savior of Tanna. But it is pertinent, so it should probably be left in.--Cúchullain t/c 20:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: If we're not going to remove it, we should perhaps make it clear that it's not what it claims to be. The guy says "John Frum has returned", and his page is full of repeated requests for donations. It also says: "In Fiji the Fijians [meaning the indigenous population] own less than fifty per cent of their three hundred Island Nation [sic] and now represent under 49% of the population. They are the poor tenants of another man's golden greed." That is blatantly false. Indigenous Fijians own over 80% of the land in Fiji, and represent over 57% of the population (and rising). The reference to them being "poor tenants of another man's golden greed", when read in the context of long-standing tensions in Fiji, seems to be thinly veiled racism directed against Indo-Fijians - particularly ironic given that indigenous Fijians are landowners and that their tenants are, for the most part, Indo-Fijian. Anyway, I would suggest removing the link entirely. Aridd (talk) 12:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If we can make it clear from a NPOV, then keep it. Otherwise, treat it as  link to be avoided? I'm just throwing this out for consideration -- I don't have strong feelings either way. Pawyilee (talk) 08:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: On review, let's remove it. Just because it claims some relevance to the John Frum cultus does not mean it is actually relevant.--Cúchullain t/c 08:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: John From Movement,Inc.

message: Frum (or "Frumm" or "Frumme" or "Fromme") is a pretty common German or Jewish surname. I find it hard to believe that there were virtually no American Frums in the past, as this article claims. It seems pretty reasonable that an American soldier of German or Jewish origin could really have landed on the island.
: The source cited for that piece of information leads to Yahoo people search, so it's WP:OR. I'll delete it. Phonemonkey 10:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Frum name 

message: Both BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3729715.stm
and Damn Interesting http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=788
say John Frum was a native of the island, and his movement, essentially an anti-Christian one, predated the WWII invasion of American GIs , which drastically altered it. It is still undergoing change. Pawyilee 06:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pre-WWII Movement

message: Northerntoe (talk) 16:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  To John From? 

message: It occurs to me that on a base full of GIs from different parts of the states that there would have been a lot of introductions along the lines of "I'm X from Y," with "Y" being the name of "X"'s home town. Since John is a common name among Americans, and the name of John's hometown would have been giberish to the natives, a native with a less than perfect command of English might naturally mistake "John from" as a name.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.40.160.25 (talk) 16:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin of the Name

message: For what it's worth, I was in the then-named New Hebrides in the 1960s, spending some time on Tanna, and recall the name being pronounced to rhyme with "mom" rather than "mum". It would not be surprising, I suppose, to find that it is and has been variously pronounced. Perhaps this has some significance to those hypothesizing about the name's origin. Tim Ross (talk) 11:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation of Frum/From 

message: I believe there are inconsistencies concerning the date the religion was started.
"He is depicted as an American World War II serviceman, who will bring wealth and prosperity to the people if they follow him."
America did not enter WWII until 1941.
"The religion arose in the 1930s, when Vanuatu was known as the New Hebrides."
The religion could not have been started in the 1930's if it is based around an American WWII vet.
"On John Frum Day in February 2007, the John Frum Movement celebrated its 50th anniversary."
This indicates that the religion was started in 1957.
I agree. The dates are very suspicious. 131.130.16.17 (talk) 10:56, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dating Inconsistencies 

message: First, the article says this:
On John Frum Day in February 2007, the John Frum Movement celebrated its 50th anniversary. Chief Isaak Wan Nikiau, its leader, was quoted by the BBC from years past as saying that John Frum was "our God, our Jesus," and would eventually return.
In the next paragraph, it says this:
Chief Isaak Wan Nikiau, its leader, became a Christian in the 1990's and gave up his belief in the John Frum Movement.
Both are given references, but it doesn't seem likely that both are correct. Note that despite the wording in the wiki, the referenced BBC article does not say "from years past"; as written it implies the Chief said it during the 50 year anniversary.
— Prothonotar (talk) 08:06, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chief Isaak Wan Nikiau Contradictions 

message: I recently added back in some information about the origins of John Frum that had been previously reverted some months back. Another editor reverted my change today, on the basis that the references were not reliable. I have added some additional reliable sources. 
It is important to note that based on WP standards, "Other reliable sources include university-level textbooks, books published by respected publishing houses, magazines, journals, and mainstream newspapers. Electronic media may also be used, subject to the same criteria."
The reference in question, The God Delusion, is published by Houghton Mifflin and was written by Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most respected scientists, and the author of numerous well-regarded books on biology and human culture. I have kept it in as a reference, because it clearly meets the WP standard as a reliable source.
In any case, none of the information that I added back in (about the uncertainty of the origin of the alleged personage John Frum) is controversial, and it is consistent with virtually every available written account of the John Frum cult.
Please do not revert this info without talking about it here first and discussing your reasons for objection. If there are portions that you believe require more references, please add a note to that effect, but please do not remove the text. Thanks. PeaceLoveHarmony (talk) 02:33, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The preferred proceedure is WP:BRD: if you get a reverted, it's best to go to the talk page and discuss it as the next step, don't just revert back to your preferred version. At any rate, I don't see why Dawkins should be cited here. He's certainly not an expert in the field of Melanesian religious practice, he's a biologist. This is especially so since he's just being used to cite something else already cited, and which really should not be in the lede to begin with. Other parts of your edit are inappropriate as well. It restored references to a travel guide website, which is clearly not reliable, and to census data which was being used for some original research. It also removed at least three reliable sources (Peter Worsley, Lamont Lindstrom and Geoffrey Hurd) and material attributed to them.--Cúchullain t/c 12:27, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I didn't recognize that your two edits did contain different material. Apologies. However, there is still the problem of adding inappropriate sources and removing good ones.--Cúchullain t/c 12:32, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding more information about origins 

message: This article from the Smithsonian Magazine suggests that Frum is a corruption of the word "broom," meaning to sweep away the white colonists.  The article also says the American soldiers dumped all their unused supplies and their heavy machinery. including transport, into the water after the war ended thus, sadly, depriving the native people of all that "cargo."  I think this should be added to the article but I don't know enough about the people or about anthropology to evaluate it for addition to the entry: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/john.html. Also I edited the article for coherency and word usage plus I added a lot of links. I did not touch the references nor did I change the basic structure except once -- to combine two very short paragraphs into one (at the end of the History section).  Risssa (talk) 05:01, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you added too many links. Have you read WP:OVERLINK? – CorinneSD (talk) 22:32, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Frum = broom 

message: There is a website here calling itself "John From Movement Inc." which seems to be a thing. Whether to include it under External links? Dunno (not familiar with the subject), but asking. The existing External link labeled "John Frum Movement" which goes here appears dead. Herostratus (talk) 15:52, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Does it show any worthwhile material? I could not see anything beyond a graphic which was interesting, but not sufficient for a link here. Searching for the dead external link in Google shows a cache that is less than a month old, and shows hits in archive.is which I'm reluctant to visit. Johnuniq (talk) 23:36, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, when I click on it I get this page which is a whole bunch of text. To be honest it seems kind of odd though. So I dunno. Herostratus (talk) 02:16, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  http://www.johnfrom.org.au/solar.html 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on John Frum. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20031016150752/http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/westoc/jonfrum.html to http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/westoc/jonfrum.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20031016150752/http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/westoc/jonfrum.html to http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/westoc/jonfrum.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:05, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified