Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Neopaganism/Archive 3

message: I came across over 700 links to this organization, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. The site has a ton of ads but on the other hand, it has content (and a Wikipedia article). 
Normally, such an ad-intensive site with so many links gets attention at WikiProject Spam for further investigation. Even if it's not spam, many links may often get deleted as not meeting the external links guideline. I've left a note at WikiProject Spam asking others to look at some of these and see what they think. 
Even some non-profit organizations will add dozens of links to Wikipedia since links in Wikipedia are heavily weighted in Google's page ranking systems. (If interested, see the article on Spamdexing for more on this).
You can see all the links by going to this this "Search web links" page. I encourage you to look at Wikipedia's external links guideline then look at the links in the articles you normally watch. Also, if you don't mind, please also weigh in at WikiProject Spam with your opinions. If you see links to pages that you don't think add additional value beyond the content already in an article, feel free to delete them, but please don't go mindlessly deleting dozens of links. (Per WP:EL, links that don't add additional value should be deleted but that doesn't necessarily mean they're "spam").
Thanks for your help and for providing some second opinions. --A. B. 16:59, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  religioustolerance dot org 

message: Many pages on neo-pagans have links to Starwood festival and we are trying to workout if they should be included, or if these are really a case of WP:SPAM. It would be good to get some input on the subject at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-11-03 Starwood Festival. --Salix alba (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Starwood festival 

message: I have been working quite the bit on the Covenant of the Goddess article for two days now, and ive spiffed it up a lot, compared to the sad-sorry state it was in. Do you think that it should still be considered a stub? I know theres still much more about CoG to be added to the article, but i do think that it has now surpassed stub status. --Brenton.eccles 01:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Covenant of the Goddess article 

message: I've been poking around lately on the Spanish, Italian, and Greek Wikipedias.  Today I found an article on Kemetic heterodoxy, as opposed to Kemetic Orthodoxy, on Italian Wikipeda.  It's interesting to see how differently the same material is organized on other Wikipedias.  Then I went to look at the Italian Neopaganism WikiProject, and it's huge!  The differences between the Greek-language Ελληνική Εθνική Θρησκεία and its English counterpart are giving me some ideas, too.  Has anyone else found cool/useful neopagan stuff on foreign-language Wikipedias? - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 21:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting finds from other-language Wikis 

message: For the past few months Rosencomet, 999, and possibly others, have apparently been running a Google Bombing campaign for the Starwood Festival, the Association for Consciousness Exploration, the WinterStar Symposium and a website called www.rosencomet.com. The latter has over 120 links from wikipedia articles to this website and there is an unbelievable amount of in-linking just to the Starwood Festival. Recently I've noticed a lot of tit for tat wiki-stalking and malicious ad hominem attacks and retaliatory editing going on directed at anyone who is critical of this copious linking, which makes it difficult to assume good faith. There is currently an attempt to mediate this behaviour at the  Mediation Cabal, but it seems to have collapsed from lack of admin attention. Regardless, any editors who happen to notice this spamming or are concerned with the possibility of commercial interests or people with ulterior motives using wikipedia for free advertising and search engine placement, please take note. We can nip this sort of behaviour in the bud if we act now. - WeniWidiWiki 23:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wiki-Spam in Neopagan related entries 

message: I have added another project goal to the list, now number 8. I am sure that I am not alone when I state that I have found many articles where there is no line drawn between Wicca and paganism in general, the term being used somewhat like a synonym. In my opinion, this is terribly misleading and we should all be vigilant about this. :bloodofox: 16:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you cite some of the specific articles so I can put them on my watch list? - WeniWidiWiki 16:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made a point to tackle any of the ones I've seen. Most of the pagan holiday articles have been really bad about this until recently, when a few of us went through them and restructured the "neopaganism" sections on them. The Wiccan "Sabbat" page that was recently merged into the Wheel of the Year article was also really bad about this until I went through and edited it. I've placed the proposal there as a general rule for future reference, assuming others agree, that is. :bloodofox: 17:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wicca & Reconstructionist Neopaganism

message: I think this message kind of got lost the first time around:
:Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions.  Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to the Neopaganism WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one (new) for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist like this one automatically for you, please contact us.  Please feel free to post your suggestions right here.  Thanks! Walkerma 04:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0 

message: The current organization there is abit muddled, and needs some discussing how to deal with. A general proposal for cleaning it up is posted at Category talk:Religious leaders#Organization proposal, and more input would be great. It doesn't address the issue of Religious leaders/religious workers/religious figures, but that is another issue that exists. Badbilltucker 22:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Religious leaders]] 

message: I saw a task list like this on another WikiProject and thought it might be useful in make the project page more streamlined.  Here is what it looks like when I add in all of the to-dos (other than the deletions and merges) from our front page:
The only problem is that you lose a little information in cases like my request for the Pickingill Papers, where I wrote down some potential sources. What do you think? There are a lot of ways I could think of to tweak with the formatting... - AdelaMae (t - c - wpn) 01:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Streamlined task list 

message: Hello everyone. I would like to propose a restructure, although I am not particularly sure how to go about it. Here's my reasoning.
First of all, this page seems to be largely dominated by the massive spectrum of Wicca and Wiccan-related authors, subjects and books with very little basis in other forms of neopaganism. 
Secondly, historically-based forms of neopaganism - such as reconstructive paganism - not only often actively avoid association with Wicca but really have nothing to do with it outside of the fact that Wicca very loosely derives imagery from Celtic art. In fact, it seems to me that Wicca really has more in common with semi-polytheistic monotheism, such as Christianity, than it does any native polytheistic culture.
Plus, I can hardly be alone here in finding having to sift through the multitudes of Wiccan pages, generally just to correct misinformation for their source material, to not be a whole lot of fun. I understand the two are loosely connected as "neopaganism" but I, personally, have a hard time picturing Wicca anything alike the various reconstructive movements we see here.
Suggestions? Surely there's already a WikiProject for Wicca? If so, shouldn't all of this Wiccan stuff be over there? If so, should we change the name of this project? Otherwise, we should we simply categorize this Wikiproject into "Wicca," "Reconstructive" and "Other?" :bloodofox: 14:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My personal preference would be to continue to call this project Neopaganism, yet to continue to educate editors and readers that Neopaganism and Wicca are not synonymous.  I think continued efforts to work together would be more effective than splitting the project.  However, it might be useful to do more categorization of the articles covered by the project.  ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To answer your question, there is no WikiProject Wicca. Some of the goals of this project are specifically focused on improving Wikipedia's coverage of polytheistic reconstructionism and making sure that Wikipedia articles don't assume that all pagans are Wiccan. A rough categorization might be useful, but I'm concerned about ghettoizing Wicca-related articles because I fear that this would limit input from editors who have knowledge of other forms of paganism, but don't realize that this knowledge is needed in Wicca-related articles. Nobody has to edit articles they don't want to, but since so many neopaganism-related articles make general statements about neopaganism, it is important for all sorts of neopagans to work together to keep these statements accurate and verified. - AdelaMae (t - c - wpn) 20:45, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Understood on both of your responses. I will attempt a restructure - it's surprising to hear there's no such Wikiproject! :bloodofox: 16:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: AdelaMae, I want to thank you for this commitment to diversity and clarity in the Wikiproject.  I have been relieved to find that this project has this sort of clarification as one of its goals. I think some of most valuable work we've done has been cleaning up articles that used "Neopagan" and "Wicca" as interchangeable synonyms.  If the articles were all split up into separate Wikiprojects, I most likely would have never looked at the very articles we have now worked together to improve.  When I first encountered WikiProject Neopaganism, I really was hesitant to sign on until I saw other Reconstructionists were participating.  I have been very pleasantly surprised by how things have gone, and I thank both of you for that, as well as the other folks who have worked together to improve the articles :-) Slàinte Mhath and happy calendar New Year / Hogmanay!  ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 19:00, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Restructure proposal

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: OK, time to pull the books off the shelf and get out your red pens.  The Neopaganism article needs sourcing, and some sections need serious help. I took a stab at rewriting the confusing and mind-numbing Pagan/pagan/Neopagan/Theist/etc... section a while back, but it's *so* not there yet.  I may take another run at it sometime soon if no one else fixes it first.  If I do it I think I will just start over and do a complete rewrite.  I've added a couple cites to other sections, but the article needs a lot more.  I'd like to see us work together to get this up to good article status, at least.   ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you think it would help to put a call for help and a short to-do list towards the top of the main wikiproject page? - AdelaMae (t - c - wpn) 20:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can't see that it would hurt.  ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 01:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Neopaganism]] needs serious help 

message: I've just finished a new article, Bideford witch trial, if anybody want to go over and improve it, please do.
While on the subject, shouldn't the project have a section for listing new articles? Another project I'm in does so and it's quite useful. Totnesmartin 14:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article 

message: The group indicated above was recently revitalized for, among other things, the purpose of working on those articles whose content is such that the article does not fall within the scope of any particular denomination. To most effectively do this, however, we would benefit greatly if there were at least one member from this Project working on those articles. On that basis, I would encourage and welcome any member of this Project willing to work on those articles to join the Religion WikiProject. Thank you. Badbilltucker 22:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion]] 

message: I have started a new article, currently in my Sandbox, User:BillWSmithJr/Sandbox/Pagan's_Night_Out, which I feel strongly is both notable and worthy of this project's help. There is just one STRONG problem... I AM Donal of The Brewers' Witch BBS. I am the guy that started the PNO idea. This makes NPOV very difficult for me, and invites accusations of self-promotion. It is hard to assert noteworthiness without attracting these claims. I need someone else to take the article from me and run with it. I will be more than happy to provide any and all requested information, up to and including logbook entries to demonstrate dates and attendance at some of these events. I leave the rest up to you. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 19:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you know of any newspaper articles, magazine articles, books, etc that discuss PNO? - AdelaMae (t - c - wpn) 02:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am sure there must be one somewhere, Goddess knows I have been interviewed often enough. There is also a PNO article/essay somewhere on Witchvox. Still, we are left with the problem that brought me here. I CANNOT be the primary on this article! Someone needs to adopt it. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 06:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's see... I've got http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usny&c=festivals&id=8779 (article about Ontario County PNO) and http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usmd&c=festivals&id=8732 (mention of DC PNO). I figure the first step is to collect references to PNO from independent sources to establish a firm basis for notability; if we've done that, nobody can claim that it's a vanity article on your part. I am certainly willing to work on it, but I edit in little spurts, so it will take me a while. - AdelaMae (t - c - wpn) 00:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate it, AdelaMae. I am still a little green at Wikipedia, but I am a geek. :) I recognize the danger of being perceived as tooting my own horn here, but feel strongly that this "little idea I had" grew all by itself into something notable and worthy of inclusion. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 08:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another new article, and an ethical dilemna 

message: Goddess movement and Sabbath (witchcraft) have been tagged as requiring expert attention. Any such assistance in improving these articles would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Badbilltucker 01:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles tagged as needing expert attention 

message: I am currently in the process of compiling the list above. It is my intention that all the articles listed be candidates for, among other things, appearances on the Portal:Religion. However, I am having a rather difficult time determining which specific articles qualify as "pagan denominations", how to categorize them within the subgroup, etc. Also, I hope to list other notable "denominations", even if they don't yet have separate articles. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Badbilltucker 00:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[List of religions and religious denominations]] 

message: Has anyone noticed the battle going on over at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Council_of_Magickal_Arts? I put this under the AfD section o the project page. I need some serious help over there, as every time I think I have a firm handle on a solid footing for notability, the deletionistas move the target. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. (talk/contribs) 17:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD for Council of Magickal Arts 

message: Would someone please fix the spelling of "February" in the Wheel of the Year graphic?  It is missing an R.  Thank you. KayDM 02:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please fix typo 

message: I don't generally have interest in Neopagan related entries but after happening onto Freya Aswynn and noticing that as it existed this entry was basically an advertisement for the the author--filled with unverifiable information taken directly from her own website--I tried to get the creator interested in fixing it to no avail.  Then, since the entry adds no verifiable information about who this author is nor, perhaps more importantly, why this author is even notable enough to have an entry I proposed deletion.  This proposal was contested by an IP editor who also doesn't seem interested in explaining why the entry should exist.  Instead of putting up an AFD I decided to post this message here in order to appeal to people with more knowledge on this matter.  My concern is simply that Wikipedia isn't a forum to advertise book sales of any kind.  Maybe people here can make the entry a worthwhile one.  Thanks and best.PelleSmith 00:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freya Aswynn entry - help please