Talk:Celtic reconstructionism/Archive 1

message: Be kind. This is my first Wikipedia entry and I'm still learning the conventions. I've read the tutorial and everything but this entry is lacking "wikifying" and perhaps more extensive external sources or even more internal sources and connections. I'll try to work on it some more later but any tips or suggestions for improving the language or to make it more "Wiki" consistant would be extremely welcome. Pigman 06:43, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikification 

message: What do you think would be the best way to discuss the alternate terms for Celtic Reconstructionism or branches/variations of CR, such as Celtic Restorationism, Neo-Celtism, Senistrognata, Seandagnatha, Ildiachas/Iol-Diadhachas, Gaelic Traditionalism, and so on. Whateley23 19:30, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternate Terms 

message: Added another couple of brief paragraphs on the history of CR, and the importance of balancing the scholarly and the mystical.  Pigman and I worked together on clarifying some bits of his initial entry.  
Added a couple more names of sub-trads.  Removed GT from the CR sub-trads as, though the GT groups we're aware of initially considered themselves CR, they don't any more.  
Today's initial changes are under 63.22.0.227, as I hadn't created an account yet.
Kathryn NicDhàna 21:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additions 

message: The article would benefit from a discussion of how Celtic Reconstruction differs from Neo-druidism, if in fact it does differ from it. Also "human sacrifice, slavery, and other strongly patriarchal elements" is far from NPOV, so I'm removing the "other". --Angr/ 18:42, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  CR vs Neo-druidism 

message: since there has been no discussion beyond the two comments, i'd like to put the matter up for a vote. feel free to include a short sentence, if you like:
Include Gaelic Traditionalism
:1. they use entirely CR methods, even if separating themselves as a community and their conclusions vary slightly Whateley23 23:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 1. and 2. Pigman and Kathryn here.  "they use entirely CR methods" - agreed wholeheartedly.  The fallacious claims of a couple of GTs that they had inherited family traditions are simply not credible, and at least one of these individuals has now changed his backstory.  Sorry this is not NPOV, but we don't know how else to say it.  "even if separating themselves as a community" - agreed.  "and their conclusions vary slightly" - we would say, at least among the GTs we've encountered, their conclusions and goals vary greatly.  I know Kym and Eric agree with this, and I'm pretty sure Erynn does as well (ask them. They're just not on Wikipedia).  While we are fine with people knowing that GT is a faction that split off from CR, and that some GTs once called themselves CR, we are not comfortable with being publicly associated with them in any way that would confuse the two traditions as they now exist.  One clarification:  when we are talking about GT in this statement, we are talking about the faction that split off from the modern, polytheistic, Celtic Reconstructionist movement in the 1990's.  The term has also historically been used for a long time by Irish activists in Ireland, usually Catholics.  These are a totally different group of "GT"s.  
If you insist on mentioning GT in this, please only do so as an historical footnote.  We are adamantly opposed to simply listing GT as a "sub-trad" of CR.  Pigman and Kathryn NicDhàna
So, it would be reasonable to mention the derivation of GT commuity in the historical development of CR, indicate that they have since diverged, and give GT its own page if it does not already have one. --Nantonos 03:38, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gaelic Traditionalism? 

message: Pigman and I have been discussing this.  He should have titled this Wikipedia article, like the linked CR Essay, "Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism (CR)".  The disagreements we are starting to have in this entry seem to me to stem from some of the participants in this process seeing CR as primarily a spiritual tradition, and others as simply a methodology - a type of Celtic Studies with some sort of action coming out of that study.  The former is a much more focused, and smaller entity, which a group of us have been working to define for the past fifteen to twenty years.  The latter is something much huger than the spiritual movement we are describing in the early versions of this entry, and which seems to encompass anyone doing any sort of reconstruction work, whether or not they share any of the same religious/spiritual values.  I don't think these two visions are harmonious enough to coexist indefinitely, and maybe we should split the categories in two in some way.  If not, we must tackle these somewhat conflicting (and somewhat overlapping) views soon or I suspect this will be rather confusing for people. Kathryn NicDhàna 05:33, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Method" vs "Tradition" 

message: Well, I've gone ahead and moved the entry, renaming it "Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism". I think this solves some of the problems. If there is a desire to create a different entry attempting to encompass a much broader perspective, please do so. By specifying the Paganism component, I think it is more strongly oriented toward the religious and spiritual aspects in addition to the purely methodological approach. This was my original intent in starting this entry. Note that I used only the "Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism Essay" as an external source for this entry. This is because I was attempting to describe this particular NeoPagan tradition, not the general use of the term CR.
Because of this new title and more specific focus, I'm going to start revising the entry to more accurately reflect this shift. --Pigman 06:56, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved and Renamed the Entry 

message: This is a good article (as it stands on 11 Sept 2005) but could do with a little more structuring.
General Wikipedia practice is to have a short introduction that defines the term and sets it in a context (the first couple of paras do that well) and then headings for the other sections. The remainder of what currently looks like the introcuction moves between historical development and methodology. perhaps these could be pulled into two sections, with headings, History and Methodology? First historical mention, on the other hand, would make more sense as a subhead of history.
Other sections which should be added are References (where would CR be without references!) and Bibliography. The typical Wikipedia order is References, Bibliography, External Links.
There is already one reference , "Spring, 1992 issue of Harvest Magazine" which should be added in the references section (ideally with a page number).
Wikipedia:Manual of Style and in particular Wikipedia:Cite sources may be useful.
--Nantonos 04:02, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks great, thanks for taking care of this. The annotations are helpful. --Nantonos 15:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  General structure 

message: I added a couple of items to the Bibliography, but maybe it would be better to mention them in the context of historical development of CR as well (and thus, move them to References).
The 1994 What We Don't Know About the Ancient Celts by Rowan Fairgrove is a much cited work that I believe had an impact on the development of CR, and Alexei's Apple Branch is also much cited (although I don't consider it his best work, by a long way, it undoubtedly had an impact on developments). --Nantonos 04:02, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: typo fixed (blush) - this is Wikipedia, you can fix typos as you spot them. I'm one of the people that does not particularly rate Apple Branch - in fact it put me off Alexei until I got to know him better on some mailing lists. To me its 'Green-tinged Wicca' though he claims that wicca was not an influence. I can't deny that it is widely recommended and had a big influence, however. What other books would people suggest for refs and bib? --Nantonos 00:52, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

text: "do we really want to haggle" - my apologies for making apparently unwarranted assumptions. I was trying to get this article to be appropriately referenced; my way of prompting such a dialog was to suggest a couple in the hope that other, perhaps better ones, would be suggested also. Since the main contributors seem to be CR practitioners, I did not think that the virtues of backing up statements with references (or the differences between references and bibliography) needed to be spelled out. So, to be more direct, this article has zero references and needs to have some, to conform to a higher standard of quality. --Nantonos 22:54, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions for References 

message: After consulting with two of the other main authors of this Wikipedia article, User:Whateley23 and User:Pigman, we have decided to drop "Neopagan" from our description of CR.  While the term "Neopagan" is still technically, linguistically correct for what we are (as the Pagan/Polytheistic part of our tradition is reconstructed, not unbroken), we have come to realize that "Neopagan" has come to carry many, related meanings that are in direct conflict with our beliefs.  While many CRs do consider ourselves Pagans, and either participate in the broader Pagan community or at least see some members of that community as our allies, "Neopaganism" has, for most, come to imply Wiccan-based eclectic traditions, and modern creations that are based on fantasy and/or cultural appropriation.  As CR does not include eclecticism, or Wicca, and we are adamantly opposed to ripping off other cultures, we regrettably are coming to see that it is misleading, at least in a colloquial sense, to refer to ourselves as Neopagan.  This move is not meant to insult those in the Neopagan community who are not engaging in cultural appropriation, but rather out of our need to not carry the baggage that has come to be intertwined with that term in the popular lexicon.  --Kathryn NicDhàna 18:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neopaganism and how it does and doesn't apply to CR 

message: WaynaQhapaq, the Celts did practice slavery.  I'm not happy about it, but it's the historical record.  Could you discuss these changes you've made here on the talk page?  I think this info about Caesar is a tangent, and mostly outside the scope of this article.  Perhaps it would be better to keep the mention shorter, if included at all, and then link to some of the other places on Wikipedia where those controversies are discussed?  --Kathryn NicDhàna 00:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please read the article carefully. You should notice that my edit did not claim that the celts did not
practice slavery, only that the only source that claims that they did engage in the practices in question is that of the Romans, which may or may not be biased, and that so far, archaeologists have not found significant evidence supporting the idea that the celts practiced human sacrifice. It is necessary and proper that such information shall be included in this article, as it reflects the current understanding of both historians and archaeologists, as well as other scholars. I am as dismayed as I am sure you are, that the historical record of Celtic civilisation is so scetchy, but the known facts must be represented fairly and equally. I suggest you read Celtic Polytheism and post on the discussion page before making further reverts. Thank you. WaynaQhapaq 22:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The point of that paragraph is to say that we don't practice things that are inappropriate or illegal in contemporary society, not to go on a tangent about the history of the Celts.  This is a brief article about a modern tradition, not something on Celtic history.  It is very apprropriate to LINK to that information, but plunking in a paragraph about it as the article stands now is a tangent and disrupts the focus.  BTW, I did post on the talk page about this, look right above your response. --Kathryn NicDhàna 19:07, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While I concurr that the paragragh should not be tengental in discussion, it should however be broad and complete in scope. This would include a relevant discussion of the historical and (possibly more accurate) archeaological  records regarding the practices of various Celtic societies, including areas in which those records may come in to conflict. As scholarly research is a fundemental part of modern Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism, I believe this article should include the relevant discussion thereof. I hope we can work out a way in which this is possible. Thank you. WaynaQhapaq 20:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent additions concerning historical Celts, Caesar etc 

message: OK, this subtle renaming/caps issue is actually a rather large problem.  Since 1992 at the latest, "Celtic Reconstructionism" and "Celtic Reconstructionist" have been established as tradition names.  This is different from "Celtic reconstructionism", and brings up a lot of the "method and/or tradition" issues we juggled at the beginning of this process.  I think it is inappropriate to subltly refocus the article this way, and without any discussion on the talk page. Therefore I am returning this to the name we agreed on.  I would also note these changes have just been made to all Reconstructionist traditions over on the Polytheistic Reconstructionism (now Polytheistic reconstructionism) page.  Interested editors may want to go look at that, too. --Kathryn NicDhàna 17:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You should decap "paganism", however. —Ashley Y 19:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree.  In contemporary usage, "pagan" is often synonymous with having no religion at all.  Capital P "Pagan" is more often used to denote a variety of specific religions.  And either way, capital P "Pagan" is also an established part of this version of the tradition name   as seen here (other versions being simply "Celtic Reconstructionist" or "Celtic Reconstructionism", but as you'll see further up the Talk page, we went with the "CR Paganism" version to help distinguish the religion from the methodology). --Kathryn NicDhàna 18:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From the comments above it looks like using "CRP" rather than "CR" was a Wikipedia-specific decision. How is it named in the CR(P) community in general? —Ashley Y 04:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As you can see from the above Google link, or here, "CR" is used for all three variations: "Celtic Reconstructionist," "Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism," and "Celtic Reconstructionism".  The  variations in name are  used pretty much interchangeably, with "CR" standing for any or all of them.  A couple more specific links: The CR Essay and The CR FAQ --Kathryn NicDhàna 18:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. —Ashley Y 19:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Can you put a note about this on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Neopaganism?  There was quite a bit of discussion going on about capitalization, mostly regarding the word "P/pagan", but the issue never did get resolved.  It's actually at the very top of the project task list, and it would be nice to just settle on a convention and use it. - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 20:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where on the project would you like me to mention this?  Perhaps you could start the section and I could add to it?  Feel free to quote any of this if it helps.  I'll participate, but I am still a bit unclear about where things are located over at WP:Neopaganism.  For instance, where is the P/p discussion?  Thanks! --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 21:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move and Redirect 

message: Aurrad is not Irish, and does not even look like an Irish word. Whatever language it is, it is at the very least not modern Irish. - Panu Höglund from the Irish language wikipedia.
:Good catch!  Thanks for pointing that out.  It's supposed to be Old Irish and, iirc, the person using that for his trad has said as such.  The DIL/RIA says the word appears in some very old mss, but even they are not sure of the meaning.  Their best conjecture gives "aurrad" as 'person who is native within the bounds of a "fine", "túath" etc. as oppd. to "deorad"; native freeman, landowner, person of standing: indigena'.  Not sure who typed it in as Mod.Ir., but I've changed it to "probably OI" --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 04:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: the modern Irish equivalent is urra. the word originally referred to someone who was capable of acting as a guarantor. 71.35.126.198 23:40, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: heh, i can't spell. it's urraí, mirroring deoraí. Whateley23 06:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Aurrad" 

message: It might be useful at some point to also provide some text on the connections between CR and other Reconstructionists. The new edition (2006) of Drawing Down the Moon has this on p.299: "Today, Heathens are forging ties with many other traditions: Native American tribes and Hellenic, Celtic, and Kemetic (Ancient Egyptian) Reconstructionists." Just a thought. --Pigman (talk • contribs) 05:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Connections between Reconstructionists 

message: Though two admins dab, and Jkelly, have said there was nothing wrong with citing the FAQ (respectively, "...there is nothing wrong with Kathryn's approach." and "It is not at all unusual for us to be sourcing uncontroversial information about an organisation to that organisation's website."), it did at least visually appear that the FAQ was over-cited in this article, and that did seem to cause distress to some.  From what he has said, I think Pigman initially cited a number of the specific FAQ pages to make it easier for readers to more easily locate the relevant sections.  So in order to lessen the number of individual links to the FAQ, I have reduced the mentions to a single link (to the index page).  If other editors preferred it the other way, feel free to put specific page and bookmark links back in, however, I did more than that so a simple revert would not be ideal.  I also went through and added more of the obviously third-party sources, sometimes replacing the FAQ cite, but in other cases keeping it as a dual or triple citation. 
I would appreciate it if one of our admins or other editors would look it over now, and, if you see fit, please go through and remove the  flags that Frater Xyzzy zealously placed throughout the piece. --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 03:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Additionally,  flags were also placed on any third party sources that mentioned Kathryn NicDhàna, apparently merely because they did mention Kathryn. This is puzzling to me since I'm quite certain they are all legitimate sources. I'd appreciate those tags being taken off as well but I'm certainly not going to do it if others are going to edit war over it. --Pigman (talk • contribs) 03:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources, Controversy and/or lack thereof 

message: I found this issue, ironically enough, while reading through the Starwood arbitration, where amusingly Kathryn and Pigman are accusing another user Rosencomet of both conflict of interest and link spamming in a situation which is incredibly similar to this one (i.e. using links to his site as citations). Needless to say, I support Jefferson Anderson here. I think that:
#Both Pigman and Kathryn should voluntarily cease editing this article unless and until all inappropriate links to theur site are removed. It's suitable for inclusion under External links, but not suuitable as a reference.
#Tags identifying the problems should be left on the article. As I've been told many times, removal of tags without resolution of the issue is vandalism.
Sincerely, 999 (Talk) 00:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 999, please read the RfC above. Thanks. --Pigmantalk • contribs 00:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did. I believe that you are in the wrong, and that more (non-pagan) admin eyes will agree with Jossi. I'm signing on to the mediation. 999 (Talk) 01:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What does paganism have to do with this? You do realize that's a pretty huge field with little solidarity, right? :bloodofox: 22:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflict of interest and original research 

message: When I originally inserted the "CR FAQ" citation, I thought it would be useful to indicate the exact page and bookmark for people to be able to read more on the specific topics. The RfC (above on this talk page), while not definitive, indicated that there was nothing wrong with using the FAQ as a source. However, since some editors seem concerned about this, I've removed all use of the FAQ as a reference source. The rest of the third party references provide thorough support for every instance the FAQ was used so I don't think there should be a problem with the sourcing now. --Pigmantalk • contribs 01:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of CR FAQ Citations 

message: is anyone aware of a published interview or article (such as her article in The Druid Renaissance) with Erynn Laurie in which she discusses when she began using the term? if not, should we just remove the statement? Whateley23 05:26, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking through Erynn Laurie's contribution to The Druid Renaissance (1996), she does not used the term Celtic Reconstructionist in describing herself in her bio blurb or (just skimming here) in the body of her article. There is a mention in her "Druids on the Net" resources section in the back of the book. Writing about the Nemeton-L internet mailing list, she says "...Celtic reconstructionist Pagan and Druid discussions." Note lower case for reconstructionist. I'm not aware of any other writings by her from the period which includes "Celtic Reconstructionism" as a tradition name but admit I'm not absolutely positive I've read everything. Your call if you think it should be removed. --PigmanTalk to me 06:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: well, i don't see why it should particularly go, except that it puts the article into the category "articles with unsourced statements". i'll just let it stand, and maybe someone can find some documentation more solid than the little note (which, by the way, shouldn't be dismissed over a subtlety of style) in the resources section of that book. Whateley23 00:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

text: fair enough. i'm sure someone will find a way to source it and improve it, then it can go back in. Whateley23 10:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding the one unsourced statement 

message: as a result, i'm doing some last-minute, as it were, cleanup. Whateley23 02:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nominated for "Good Article" Status