Talk:Religion and the Internet

message: A bad faith revert is defined as "reverting most or all of a legitimate edit to an older version without explanation in the edit summary or anywhere else". All editors are expected to explain reverts and reverts with no edit summary are suspicious. This applies to everyone, except Jimbo of course, including admins for example, mentioning no names. Unless the last revert is justified, then I suggest that in the context of no counterargument being produced, I should reinsert the proposed change. Addhoc 13:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You know exactly why it was reverted. Stopping vandalism and hoax perpetuation do not need to be explained. You have been (rightfully) blocked once for this, so you should know better by now. — Philwelch t 18:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I've explained myself multiple times already. I don't like to repeat myself, so until you learn that certain behaviors are acceptable on Wikipedia and certain behaviors aren't, I suggest you err on the side of caution. — Philwelch t 19:11, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It would appear that Philwelch is personally engaged in some sort of witch hunt and has been using unauthorized tactics in order to pursue it. 69.225.9.234 04:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Note, that verifiability isn't the only reason for inclusion in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information. -- Jeff3000 01:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Jeff I am assuming that you are against reinserting the proposed change. If so this curt and cryptic comment about Wikipedia policy isn't much of an explanation as to why the proposed change should not be reinserted. 69.225.9.234 04:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Jeff, your link gives the following indiscriminate collections of information: lists of frequently asked questions, lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as quotations, travel guides, memorials, news reports, genealogical entries, directories, instruction manuals, internet guides, textbooks and plot summaries. Was this intended to be cryptic or did you have another link in mind? Adam Possamai is an expert in the study of new religions. Also, his quotes at  indicate he considers Matrixism a religion. Matrixism is the probably the only internet based religion and consequently should be mentioned in the same way as Partenia, the only cyber-diocese. If the situation is that you disagree with an expert about whether Matrixism is a religion, then ok, you are entitled to your opinion. However, in this case, I would be justified in reinserting the proposed change, provided this was supported by the references. Addhoc 10:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: does the source note that Matrixism is the only internet religion? -- Jeff3000 22:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I would have to say one of the first internet based religions or something. Addhoc 10:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad Faith Reverts 

message: I prodded this article earlier, and if the prod tag is removed without discussion I'm more than willing to take this article to AfD. Why? Simply put, the overall quality of this article is so low that if this article were deleted, the project wouldn't lose any usable content and we might be able to start over again on a better footing. An interesting point was made on the mailing list a few months ago that Wikipedia has proven to be an incredibly powerful engine for generating content—powerful enough that instead of holding onto crappy content and hoping to make something good out of it, perhaps it would be better to delete it, since keeping around poor content encourages more of the same.
What makes this article a poor article?
*Arbitrariness: This article goes into deep detail about a couple of small, arbitrary issues, with little concern for proportion. Maybe 1/5th of the article, for instance, covers the scholarship of Adam Possamai, who by all appearances is a promising young researcher, but his work seems to be given undue weight. Are there really no other researchers of this topic who are important enough to name? Are their findings so insignificant as to not merit inclusion at all, while Possamai's take up a fifth of the article?
*Citations: This article is not properly cited, and at best gives inline external links to a couple of random web pages.
*No summary or organization, just an arbitrary collection of facts.
If this article can be cleaned up I welcome any attempts to do so, or any suggestions as to how I can help. (Personally I think doing so would be a magnificent distraction from the pettier issues we've faced with regards to this article.) — Philwelch t 00:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:PROD says that "Articles that have been previously undeleted or discussed on AfD are clearly contested and are not candidates for ."  As there is a VFD discussion linked at the top of the page, I have to remove the prod tag.  Give me a few minutes and I'll get the AFD nomination done.  GRBerry 13:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Philwelch, you ask how you can help. Try and flesh out the places I've started. I-church should be susceptible to a google search. Is there an Islamic equivalent? Here are some references:  . Try googling for "internet evangelism day". DJ Clayworth 04:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prod and overall quality issues 

message: In order to avoid this being a very boring article, I think we need to agree that there are things we don't need to say here. One is that "there are a lot of websites that talk about religion on the web". Or maybe we should say that, but then stop. There is no point, having said that, in saying "There are many websites about Hinduism, some talking about Hinduism in general and some about one part of it". I think it's a given these days that any subject worth discussing has hundreds of websites. 
The place we should be focussing is unusual web initiatives, such as virtual communities, or very different ways of using the internet. DJ Clayworth 14:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are also neo-pagan virtual temples, i'll see if i can find any good links and stuff.Hypnosadist 23:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Here's one from an OLD religious movement, the catholic church no less http://www.virtualrosary.org/ does what it says on the tin.Hypnosadist 23:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Here's the Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth's online temple THEE SIGIL GARDEN http://www.sigilgarden.com/sigils.html Hypnosadist 23:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Its so popular even Atheists have virtual temples!?! http://www.geocities.com/ipu_temple/ Temple to the Invisible Pink Unicorn. OK its more of a links site but it has "Holy Books" for you to read.Hypnosadist 23:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Philwelch could you please put up for us a list of books that you feel are good academic sources on this topic, as i see a lot of debate above about that?Thanks!Hypnosadist 14:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could I suggest Religion and Cyberspace? Addhoc 15:30, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks Addhoc, any more anyone?
Could have a look at . Addhoc 14:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Content

message: Robert 14:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AFD result - keep 

message: What about religious concerns about the high amount of pornography usage on the internet. Potamus hotamus (talk) 17:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Pornography

message: The article should probably mention the Pastafarianism, the church of the flying spaghetti monster, grew largely with the aid of the internet. Similarly for it's sects such as Reformed Pastafarian Church.
86.42.180.213 (talk) 11:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Pastafarianism

message: Most of the incoming links to this article seem to be from articles about The Matrix, a subject apparently contentious among its editors in the past, which may explain its current blandness.  But I came across this article from one about The Matrix, so I was expecting to be reading about how the Internet has influenced religious practice and thought, with an emphasis on stuff like virtual church services and possibly even significant discussion relating to posthumanism; rather than a sort of generic essay about the web presence of various religious groups, which could just as easily be about the television or print presence of said groups, and could be deleted based on WP:WHIM, as suggested earlier in an AfD discussion for this article.  I guess I'd like to nominate this a second time for deletion as unencyclopedic, but in good faith, I'd rather invite discussion on changing the focus of this article as I suggested above. B7T (talk) 04:55, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  New AfD, or change article focus? 

message: I've seen a number of articles that attribute -in part- the decline in religious affiliation to internet usage.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/526111/how-the-internet-is-taking-away-americas-religion/
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15328415JMR0203_01 (Paid)
86.153.54.114 (talk) 16:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nothing about the internet's impact on religion?