Template talk:WikiProject Reformed Christianity

Tagging: Inclusive or Exclusive?

While tagging people articles, I have omitted modern PCUSA ministers that I come across because I don't think they qualify as Calvinists. Is this a reasonable approach? More generally, should we err on the side of being too inclusive, or too exclusive?—Emote _{Talk Page} 06:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm being pretty conservative too. I'm happy to make the project as inclusive as makes sense, but for the initial tagging drive, I'm just tagging the ones that I recognise as being Calvinist, either because that's what the pages say, or because I already know.

I started going through one of the Congregationalist categories, but realised that I had no idea about any of them; if I'm looking through eg. Presbyterians, and I see OPC, I can be pretty sure they're Calvinist, but I'm not familiar enough with the Congregationalist milieu to be able to make any useful contributions there; I guess I'm hoping we attract someone who is :).

If someone wants to tag eg. a non-Calvinist PCUSA minister because he wrote a lot against Calvinism, then that's fine, but indiscriminately adding non-Calvinist ministers of churches like the PCUSA is, I think, counter-productive.

Does this answer your question?  :)

-- TimNelson 10:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that answers my question. Thanks. With regard to critics of Calvinism, are you saying that you want them to be added to the project, or simply that it's permissible to add them? I'm thinking of guys like Dave Hunt and David Cloud. (It doesn't matter to me if they get added or not. I'm just trying to determine whether critics fall within the scope of this project.)—Emote _{Talk Page} 16:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Now we're talking tricky. I was only thinking of "Arminianism" when I said this. I guess we should have them. Maybe we should make an Anti-Calvinists category :).

-- TimNelson 23:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll tell you what—I'll neglect these guys for now since they don't seem to have been part of the original plan. Also, there must be a great deal of anti-Calvinists that I don't know about. We would probably need to do all or nothing in this respect, and I frankly have no motivation to search for and gather together hundreds of anti-Calvinists (unless we're putting them in front of a firing squad, ha ha … just kidding). We can always add them later.—Emote _{Talk Page} 16:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Talk page claims

Is it just me or is this project doing nothing but chucking thousands of boxes on talk pages. I keep encountering 'this article is part of wp Calvinism' on articles that no participant is assisting with - and in many cases have obly tendentious links with calvinism. Technically every reformed clergyman is a 'calvinist', do you intend to claim the lot? Is the project big enough to justify that? Do you have enough participants to contribute to such a huge field? Or do you just have people who like marking out a large territory? How about concentrating on key concepts and theologians and improving some of the terrible articles rather then empire building.--Doc^g 08:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess I don't regard them as part of an "empire" (which is why I changed the template to read "falls within the scope of" instead of "is part of"). If I tag something, it usually means "One of us needs to expand on this topic someday". So, I have some questions:

1. Is this against some Wikipedia standard?
2. Is it creating problems of some other kind?
3. Ah! Is the problem that if everyone pursues this policy, we'll end up with thousands of Wikiprojects claiming each page?

-- TimNelson 10:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Probably mainly #3. But my main questions are - 'what purpose is it for?' - what good does it do? Can't you do something more useful? And if a fairly small wikiproject categorises thousands of articles as 'in its scope' there is a danger that it will not focus its attention usefully on the critical articles in the field.--Doc^g 12:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Purpose: to remind us to go back there (admittedly not a wonderful purpose, but there was an intent)? But I've stopped for now, and lowered its importance in "list of things to do" from top of the list to bottom of the list.

As for focus, that's what assessment is for :).

Thanks for pulling me up before I got too carried away, though.

-- TimNelson 13:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Stage change: Tagging to Assessment

Hi all. As specified in the "Talk Page claims" above, I figure we should move on to the next stage of the project. I'm not going to stop anyone from tagging, but I figure the assessment phase is probably what we want to do now. So my plan is to do that for a week or so, and then move on.

The basic plan is, everyone look through Calvinism articles by importance, and if you see anything miscategorised, argue about it here. I think a lot of the stuff in "unassessed" belongs in "low", but I'm more interested, at the moment, in everyone skimming over the articles that are there, and especially seeing if there's anything in Category:Unknown-importance Calvinism articles that belong at mid-level or higher. I've tried to pick out the stuff I recognise, but I've missed a few.

Also, there were a number of articles already assessed by other members of WPCalvinism, most of which, I thought, were on the low side. I don't think I changed any of these except Westminster Standards (although I may have just forgotten).

To help you in assessment, you'll all enjoy Wikipedia:WikiProject Calvinism/Assessment if you haven't seen it already, especially the assessment log which is filling up at the bottom.

So, for now, the todo list is (simultaneously):

• Assess, and argue about assessment
• Vote for our stub category
• Argue about what happens next (see next post)

-- TimNelson 13:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

James I of England FAR

James I of England has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:54, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Tim (or whoever else wants to respond), just out of curiosity, why does James I of England fall within the scope of the Calvinism project? (I don't know who actually tagged him, so don't interpret this as personal criticism.) My best guess is that he was tagged because of his association with the 1611 translation of the Bible. I, however, would be in favor of omitting his article. He was far from Christianity, let alone Calvinism. It should be noted that the LGBT project (rightfully) claims King James. Their template appears on his talk page next to our template. Perhaps it would be prudent to remove homosexuals from the scope of our project.—Emote _{Talk Page} 05:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess I put it in because I figured it needed attention from Calvinists, as James I was, IIRC, the one who was the main opponent of Calvinists at the time, both in England and Scotland (especially with his formulation of the "divine right of kings").

Maybe this is the time to continue revising the scope. Here are a few things that I've tagged as part of WikiProject Calvinism which could be disagreed with:

• A few of the major opponents (but not all opponents) of Calvinism
• Theological topics that, while general to eg. Christianity, are seen as a core part of our faith, and need a specific Calvinist section (eg. Salvation/Soteriology).

Thoughts?

--TimNelson 07:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that makes sense in principle. If an article requires a section which relates to Calvinism (pro or con), it falls within the scope of the project. With James I, for example, you're saying that we need to review the article and make sure that "our side" of the story is told (e.g., Five Articles of Perth); otherwise facts relevant to Calvinism and its development might be left out by editors who are unaware of such issues. That seems like a good approach. I rescind my objection.  :)

—Emote _{Talk Page} 18:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Kingdom of God

Not sure why this article has been linked into the Calvinism project? You could end up with every single Christian related article being part of the project I guess. Could someone explain the rationale for what is and isn't included. Good project to have going though. All the best (Be Dave 22:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC))

I answered a similar question further up; this article needs attention from Calvinists sometime. Oh, and I gave a better answer to this particular ont on Be Dave's talk page.

-- TimNelson 05:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)