Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses/Archive 23

message: Moved to Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses and governments#Jehovah's Witnesses and Governments Cont. joshbuddy 03:14, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jehovah's Witnesses and Governments Cont.

message: This talk page has become quite large and with some slower connections takes a long time to load. Is it time to archive it? Who does that around here? Dtbrown 03:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Me? I created templates to simplify this task in the future. :) joshbuddy 04:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, thanks alot, I was planning on doing this at the conclusion of Tommstien's arbitration (for evidence link purposes), but the ArbCom pretty much done anyways so.., thanks again.  Duffer 08:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks joshbuddy. I had been doing the archiving, but while I was on wikiholiday, no one seems to have done anything. joshbuddy to the rescue! --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 22:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This talk page is long!! Who archives this stuff? 

message: I think the new images in the article make it look much better. Thanks, joshbuddy! Dtbrown 03:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New images in the article 

message: Has this article ever became "Featured article"? Or at least marked as a "good article"?
I think that it deserves it - it is a great example of citing sources, NPOV and good formatting ad illustration.--Amir E. Aharoni 12:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My ambition is to get this under peer review and a feature article. There are a number of things that still need to be done, but believe me, I'm keeping it in mind. joshbuddy 17:37, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article? 

message: I've finished my merger of these two sections. According to Konrad, this is according the wikiproject plan for jws. Please verify what I've done. I hope its to everyones satisfactions. I think many of the redundancies present before have been cleared up. I look forward to your critiques and help with what I've written. joshbuddy 03:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger of Doctrines & Practices... 

message: I don't really agree with this edit. This book has a very neutral tone. Perhaps we need to eliminate these arbitrary categories altogether? joshbuddytalk 05:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apocalypse Delayed is critical? 

message: Taking some cues from other religion articles, I have an idea I'd like to share. I think it would be great to seperate out the critical views of witness beliefs and make that into a new section. So now where we have Beliefs and Practices, which mixes official beliefs and critical views, we would have two seperate sections. Official Beliefs and Practices (or just Beliefs and Practices) and Critical View of Beliefs and Practices. Within the critical section very brief versions of arguments and counter-arguments could be included.
How does this idea strike everyone? joshbuddytalk 18:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New section proposal 

message: There appears a clear grossly biased pro-JW agenda going on here in the same way the JW Fundamentalist sock puppet Retcon|Missionary was doing. I imagine he is quite possibly involved posting under a new log on name[s]. The JW aim unmistakably emerging to be is: (1) Mess up all non-pro Watchtower material mixing it with opposite material, (2) Then remove all such material to new pages, (3) Then remove the new pages at a later date, and bingo! An entirely grossly pro-JW set of propaganda articles are left. If anything remotely balanced is still in existence, it is so hard to find the public coming here will give up. It does not take a brain surgeon to see this corrupt biased and manipulative goal unfolding here, and it's certainly not hidden with all the less than covert smaller steps towards that Pro-Watchtower propaganda end. Central 11:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm. Can you please comment on the issue at hand? Is the sectioning proposal good or bad? Incidently, the discussion to merge lists can be found above. It has to do with what "critical" means. Does it mean analytical or merely disparaging? joshbuddytalk 16:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Giving balance is not "disparaging". Would you be in favour of changing the words "positive resources" to religious propaganda/brainwashing? I doubt it. I believe this arguing over the word 'critical' is a subterfuge and red herring. There are far more articles out there on Jehovah's Witnesses that are giving critiques than are positive. To hide information and debate, or worse, deny it even exists is not only unethical, it's blatantly fraudulent and manipulatively deceitful, and that is not supposed to be the purpose of any kind of reputable encyclopaedia. Mixing them all up into one long list does nothing but destroy the availability of the information in the first place. The purpose of any category is for ease of access to information, not to jumble it all up, so no one knows where to find direction, clarification or subject matter. How reasonable would it be to merge all the sub headings on the main page, i.e., "blood", "governments", "eschatology" and "beliefs" etc., into one massive mixed up long paragraph? It would make no sense at all! So why do that to the additional resources section? I find it interesting how neutral or pro-JWs material seems to be mushrooming into an infinite amount of new specialised pages, but the very opposite is happing with anything that is remotely non-flattering, like the controversial page, books, and web-resources trying to be broken up and then presumably censored out of existence. This blatant bias must be attended to and stopped immediately, because it's clear that non-flattering material is undoubtedly trying to be dissolved into oblivion or obscurity, and definitely moved off the main page where the public might dare to read it. While all else seems to be mushrooming out of control with its own new promo page, mimicking more and more each day the Watchtower's own website. Central 20:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Central, those are quite some charges to make. Do you have any evidence? Dtbrown 17:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want evidence go thorough the past history for the last 18 months on the main page and Talk pages. There was even a resources section page which kept changing name linked to the main page entitled last year "Critical information on Jehovah's Witnesses", previously to that any critiques or even remotely non-flattering information was immediately removed from the main page by zealous JWs who seem to think they own this site, or believe it's a subsidiary of the Watch Tower Society. This separate critical resources links page rapidly got deleted also (by a fanatical JW campaign), and here we are back at the same situation. JWs trying to squeeze out any balance, remove it to a distant location, and then put the bullet in the head out of public sight by removing it altogether, and hoping no one will notice while they surreptitiously try and turn the whole of Wikipedia into a new clone of the Watchtower's site Central 20:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have an examples of what you're talking about, or will you continue to shotgun spray everyone with accusations? joshbuddytalk 22:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Central's accusations of bias

message: It was on December 4, 1974 that the Governing Body was reorganized.  The Six committes were formed and then on Janurary 1, 1976 they went into operation.   "power of the presidency passed on to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses." ??? more on that later. Johanneum 06:02, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  1976-Present - changed year. actual re-organization took effect on jan 1 1976 

message: Just a note, that colloquial expressions unique to JW's should be avoided. joshbuddytalk 06:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avoiding JW-ism 

message: Hey summersong. I notice you changed the heading level on various sections. The intent was to make these items part of doctrines and practices, to finally unite those two sections per jwproject. joshbuddytalk 16:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Practices, Humanatarian Efforts part of Doctrines/Practices 

message: I think its about time we got our own navigational template for JW pages. I've created one and put it on the front page. I will propogate it to all the JW articles listed there.
This is a first attempt, I'm sure lots of useful articles are missing, the design of the template is evil, and I've done several other things wrong. Not to despair! Let's just fix it and make it very functional for navigating around the morass of JW articles that have been built. joshbuddytalk 21:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks great.  Duffer 23:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  JW Template 

message: There is a fair bit of overlap between books and weblinks (seeing as some of the books are available online) It appears that the prefered style on wikipedia is to amalagamate these two sections, and to have only one section for further reading. Further Reading is the preferred term as its more inclusive and broad. I've merged them together, hopefully we can have a useful conversation about what should go where, how they should be sorted, and how many links and books we really need. joshbuddytalk 23:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This change bothers me. Why should we not give information about Marley Cole's Jehovah's Witnesses: The New World Society or A People For His Name? I think the quality of the article has taken a major hit by removing these and the other links we had. It may be a Wikipedia policy but I think it's a bad one. Dtbrown 00:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I think following that guideline alone will go a long way in cleaning up the external resources section.  Duffer 23:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Central has reverted some titles and I've reverted the rest. I think this is something we can discuss further. I would think the editors here can decide to follow that particular policy or not. Dtbrown 14:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge of links and books 

message: I've merged the history articles together trying to keep most of the points while cutting down the size somewhat since there was some overlap. Hope this meets everyone's approval. Dtbrown 05:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks fabulous to me. Very dense and meaty paragraphs. I like em. joshbuddytalk 05:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History Articles Merged 

message: I would like to remove these "weasel words". I will make an attempt at it later, but if anyone gets a moment, it would be great if they could look at improving this. joshbuddytalk 08:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discipline criticism section is "weasel words" 

message: The subject not mentioned in the article.
Xx236 17:22, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to add some content. joshbuddytalk 18:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  JW in the Soviet Union 

message: Currently, the blood section under beliefs has this:
Though blood can save lives, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been know to highlight the potential dangers of blood transfusions. For example, according to "The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service" [3] in the United States alone, around 500 deaths a year are caused by what is estimated “to be the third most common cause of death related to blood transfusion.”[4] Because of the potential dangers doctors can not guarantee that blood transfusions will save a child’s life or any life. [5] The Serious Hazards of Transfusion(SHOT)
Even though this paragraph has the lead in "though blood can save lives," it needs further clarification, IMO. I've checked out the SHOT page and I don't see any statement that supports the last sentence. At the very least, this paragraph needs to clearly state that there are some situations where blood, despite its risks, is the only treatment that will work. Dtbrown 08:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't a very good addition in my opinion. Please feel free to clean it up. (I will later if no one else gets to it) joshbuddytalk 09:03, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

text: People should be informed that a medical procedure can go awry? I believe the only context that this should be brought up should be with regards to witnesses being taught that blood transfusions are risky. Just looking at Dtbrown's edits, I think he has been respectful to bot sides of the debate. Good work Dtbrown! joshbuddytalk 17:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification needed on blood section 

message: Does anyone know what happened to the article Jehovah's Witnesses and child sex abuse. I can't seem to find where it has disappeared to... There is nothing in it's edit history or on the talk page to explain it. Have I completely lost the plot or has it really gone AWOL... Lucille S 23:29, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you click on "Start the Jehovah's Witnesses and child sex abuse article" you'll see the text and everything for the article in an edit box, no idea why it doesn't show as a normal article though.. the same thing happens to me when I try to access the discussion page of the Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses article.  I dunno what's going on.  Duffer 00:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There it is! Thank you!!! Guess Wikipedia had a little hiccup... hopefully the content will stay put this time. At least I am not going insane… had me worried for a little while there. Lucille S 02:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing Article?!!??! 

message: First, thanks for your recent edits DTbrown.
Next, Houston it appears we have a problem.  The "proclaimers book" mentions that on August 8th they left the Bethel Family. P. 68.  No time now to look further though.  Johanneum 20:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  1916-1942 - the "eviction" happened before July 17th according to Macmillan and Penton 

message: Hello all. Sorry I've been on a been bit of a break from these articles working on other wikipedia matters.
I've taken the content from Beliefs and Practices and put it in its own article clearing the way for a further expansion of that content, and a reduction of content on the main article. I will take a stab at the reduction later, hopefully it will be to everyone's satisfaction, and when we're happy with the Beliefs and Practices article, we can do away with the seperate articles.
What do you all think? joshbuddytalk 20:02, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beliefs and Practices 

message: There was a recent addition of a web link, . I would like draw everyone's attention to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Using_online_sources. How do you think we're doing with this article and our web sources? joshbuddytalk 21:07, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Web links.. 

message: Someone just tried to register user:DufferI to my e-mail address, this person IS an imposter.  I havn't been around very much lately so be weary.  Duffer 16:55, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's "wary", but it'll make you weary nonetheless. ;-) - CobaltBlueTony 17:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for blanking it Tony, I wasn't really sure what to do.  I left a message on WikiAdmin David Gerard's talk page.  I'm glad the imposter made the critical mistake of trying to register the account with MY personal e-mail address (which automatically sent me an e-mail) I wouldn't have known of it's existance otherwise.  I requested a checkuser to see if the IP can be identified, I want to know who's behind this.  Just to be clear, I am "Duffer" (Matt McGhee) registered as user:Duffer1 (DufferONE) the imposter is registered as user:DufferI (DufferEYE).  Duffer 19:25, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sockpuppet 

message: Is there a simple way to revert vandalism? I see people refer to pop-ups when they do that. Thanks! Dtbrown 05:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure Dt.  I'm concerned about the level of vandalism that we've received this past week.  Duffer 05:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting Vandalism