Talk:J. C. Massee

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Removal of legitimate tags

Since Firefly322 has seen fit to remove legitimate tags from this article, I will make the points here:

1. "His ministry shows differences from the more typical fundamentalist: J. Frank Norris, John Roach Straton, or William Bell Riley." provides absolutely no information of what these "differences" were, so is uninformative name-dropping.
2. "Massee showed an independent streak among fundamentalist ranks." likewise gives no information on what form this independence' took.
3. "...Massee is not easily identified with doctrical conformity or unqualified language." is likewise completely uninformative.

It is neither a violation of WP:AGF nor WP:CIVIL to tag badly written content, nor to point out the fact on an article talk page. It is a violation of these policies to revert tags simply because you (i) don't like the editor and (ii) don't like the shortcomings of your edits highlighted. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 08:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm probably not very bright but the word "doctrical" does not appear in any of my dictionaries should it be "doctrinal" and what does the term "unqualified language" mean? Teapotgeorge^Talk 10:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

You're probably right on "doctrical"/"doctrinal". "Unqualified language" means being able to (accurately) sum something up with a single word (e.g. "fundamentalist") without having to add numerous words or phrases to qualify what sort of fundamentalist (or how he was almost-but-not-quite a fundamentalist, etc, etc) he was. Crudely, in this context it means 'you need a paragraph rather than a sentence to accurately describe him' -- which is far less informative that giving the actual description. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 11:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

["doctrical" could be the adjective form of doctrice (a very archaic word for a female teacher) -- but that seems unlikely Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 11:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC) ]

Thank you... I feel brighter! Teapotgeorge^Talk 11:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thinking about it, unqualified language" is not really common English. My original encounter with the terminology was in Formal Logic (where existential and universal qualifiers are basic building blocks), and it comes in useful at times on talkpage discussions -- where you may need to argue whether you can use an unqualified word (e.g. verb/adjective) or have to qualify it (adverb+verb/adjective+noun) -- but I don't think its appropriate language for mainspace. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 11:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Just so. We don't seem to have an unqualified language article and a WP search doesn't show up any explanations in the first few hits. Best to translate it, if a reliable source makes that assertion about J.C. . . dave souza, talk 13:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Beyond that, it's a 'metadescription' (a description of the act of describing him), and really doesn't belong in the article at all (translated or not). Readers want a description of the topic -- not to be told how hard it is to describe the topic. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 14:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

This is whole discussion is completely contrary to content generation. I believe it violates the spirit of WP:BITE as applied to an article. --Firefly322 (talk) 10:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps as the main editor of this article you could rephrase the sentence "While there is really no question that he was a fundamentalist, Massee is not easily identified with doctrical conformity or unqualified language." Because it's not very clear. Thank you. Teapotgeorge^Talk 11:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability

The article as is does not assert the notability of its subject in any way. Why is he notable?n Just being a moderate fundamentalists does not make a person notable. Please be more expicit about why this person is encyclopedic.·Maunus·ƛ· 05:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

You are most probably right. I'm holding off {{importance}}-tagging it as it was {{construction}}-tagged in the immediate past. Lacking access to the Russell citation I'm not in a position to myself offer a clearer articulation of notability. Even if it is eventually deleted as non-notable, the Chicago meeting info should be added into Northern Baptist Convention. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 06:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Tagged until more information is added, hopefully asserting notability. Verbal chat 06:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion Yet Saints Their Watch are Keeping by J. Michael Utzinger gives a strong indication of notability in relation to the fundamentalist / modernist debate and the NBC, so if another good source can be found that would do it. Now it needs someone to read these sources and put some real content into this article, and I've done what I'm going to do. . . dave souza, talk 11:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability tag on J. C. Massee

Article already has evidence of notability, main focus and mention in several reliable sources plus the man published several books several of which remain in print (J.C. Massee books). Do we have a dispute here? --Firefly322 (talk) 10:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi! I don't see any reliable sources asserting notability. Ref 1 is an obit which doesn't provide details that meet notability criteria, and ref 3 says he was one of 68 Baptist leaders who met in Chicago, which may be notable if he was one of the leaders or his actions led to something. Ref 2, as phrased, tells us that he's hard to describe (hence not really telling us anything). I know lots of people who have written many books, and many preachers, and they'd have to do more than just write books or preach to meet notability requirements. If you have an RS saying that he is notable or that his books are notable, etc, please add it to the page. This discussion would be better served on the article talk page also. Thanks, Verbal chat 10:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

J.C. Massee is one of 7 figures in Russell, C. Allyn (1976). Voices of American Fundamentalism: Seven Biographical Studies. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, ISBN 0–664–20814–2. Massee like the other 6 gets his own chapter. The other six fundamentalists in this book are:

• J. Frank Norris
• John Roach Straton
• William Bell Riley
• John Gresham Machen
• William Jennings Bryan
• Clarence E. Macartney.

All 7 figures including J.C. Massee are compared and contrasted with each other in this book. How does that not assert notability? --Firefly322 (talk) 10:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. Can you provide a brief anc clear summary of what the book says about him? . . dave souza, talk 11:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not dispiuting that he is notable - I just mention that the article as it is does not give the reader any clue as to whether and why he might be notable. All I want is for you to include in the article inforation about why this man is not just one of a million fundamentalists. What you have presented above seems fine but you have to include it in the article so the reader can see why he is even in this encyclopedia. ·Maunus·ƛ· 11:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Btw another good way to assert notability would be to explicitly state why Allyn Russel chose to include this fundamentalist in his book instead of some other guy. I am sure he states his reasons.·Maunus·ƛ· 11:17, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

THe article also doesn't mention that he was a writer or why his books are of more than a passing interest.Firefly: you really could make life easier for yourself if you included information about why a topic is notable in the article instead of having readers guess at it - if you do it I think you will see that the number of notability taggings on your creations will drastically decrease.·Maunus·ƛ· 11:50, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Have added material to establish notability & rewritten lead paragraph to assert it -- could people take a look and, if happy, remove the notability-tag? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 12:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Are there any news reports about any of this? Probably not available online, unfortunately. Verbal chat 12:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Missing Word

In the Bibliography, a word is missing in one of the book titles:

Eternal Life in Action: An Illustrated Exposition of the First Epistle of (1925)

"The First Epistle of -- what? If you think you know, just fill in the blank and mail your answer to J. C. Massee, care of Wikipedia Department of Missing Words, and your name will be entered in our weekly sweepstakes drawing for a chance to win a wonderful holiday trip for two to picturesque, historical Valdosta, Georgia!"

G'night, all.

cat yronwode Catherineyronwode (talk) 09:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Tiz done Teapotgeorge^Talk 09:20, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Orphan tag

Why is the orphan tag being removed? Only one article links to this entry, and the point of the tag is so that when people come to this page they think "ooh I could and a link from xxxx". Having the tag there is to try and remedy this problem and make all viewers and editors aware of this deficiency. I think the tag should be replaced until a few more links are added - or someone with knowledge should add a few more links (like from the National Baptist Convention, although I don't know enough about this guy). Verbal chat 08:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The article is the proper place for this tag, and it doesn't seem to be a "pointy" disruption in any way, hence I'm retagging. Please add links before removing, or justify why it should be removed here. Thanks. Verbal chat 08:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)t

The discussions regarding such tags does not support your contention. Discussions about such tags consider them to more of a blight for readers and that there should somehow default to hidden. --Firefly322 (talk) 14:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Those aren't policy or guidelines though. For making my recent edits improving this article I have been accused of trolling, being "seamy" "sordid" and "mean" and making a "pointy" attack. This isn't on, and isn't the way to edit articles in wikipedia. Please apologise and do not repeat these attacks. If you think the orphan tag should be removed then propose it is deleted at MfD, and if the community agrees it will be removed. Verbal chat 14:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

There is effectively only 1 article that links here. Others (including redirects) don't count. As such, this article is rather orphaned, and the orphan tag will help other editors to de-orphanize it. BMW(drive) 15:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)