Impending
Welcome to Wikipedia!
I noticed you were new, or at least that nobody has officially welcomed you yet, so let me be the first to say hello, give you some tips, and share a few useful links.
One thing we like to tell newcomers is to be bold. By this we mean don't be afraid to join the rest of us in improving the articles you see here. Most Wikipedians are friendly and patient, willing to give you the same respect you give them, no matter who they are or how long they've been here.
It looks like you're the type who isn't afraid to dive right in, which can be great as long as you understand the ground rules. Since being bold does not include being reckless, many new editors feel that it's good to be somewhat cautious at first. It certainly helps to avoid conflicts with other users if you learn the ins and outs before making major changes. If it's a big edit or a controversial issue, you may want to look at the article's talk page to see if the issue has been discussed in the past, or to post a message to see what other editors think about your proposed change before you make it. It's important to cite references and set personal points of view aside.
Here are some links you might find helpful:
- User tutorial
- Help desk
- Policy on maintaining a neutral point of view
- Policy for content when editing articles and creating new ones
- Tips for settling disputes
Now that you have your own user name, you can sign your discussions by typing four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically stamp your user name, the time, and the date. That will help other users reply to your posts.
I hope this information is useful to you, and I'm looking forward to seeing your contributions. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me for help. Kafziel Talk 12:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Merge tags
editYou seem to be going a bit overboard on the mege tags on LDS articles.
Judging from your comment here, it looks like you may just be confused about what does and does not have its own article on Wikipedia. Most religions have separate articles for different aspects of the church. For the article about the Catholic priesthood, see Holy Orders. There are even articles for minor spiritual leaders, like the neo-pagan Gothi. The word "cathedral" refers only to Christian churches, but if you want an example specific to Catholicism you could see duomo. In fact, there are articles on every type of place of worship, from synagogues to mosques. There are even articles about certain parts of churches, like the Eastern Orthodox iconostasis, and articles on individual buildings, like the ones you can find at List of Buddhist temples. Some articles deal solely with controversy within a religion, like the article on the Catholic sex abuse scandals. Every religion has tons of spin-off articles, and Mormonism is no exception.
The preferred maximum size for articles is 30kb. There are plenty of exceptions, but if an aspect of an article can sustain an article of its own, it's generally a good idea to split it. I assume you signed up to do more than just try to get rid of as many LDS articles as possible, so I hope this was just a misunderstanding and maybe this explanation helped clear things up for you. Kafziel Talk 16:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
- Yes please stop proposing these mergers. TIA --Trödel 16:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. Space is not an issue on an online encyclopedia. -Visorstuff 18:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
- I also agree. Merging all articles related to "Mormonism" is completely unacceptable. uriah923(talk) 21:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Misinformation and unusual focus
editYou seem to be very active; unfortunately you also do not yet possess an understanding of WIKI and the plethora of religious articles. As I followed many of your recent edits, I thought it appropriate to copy one of the responses to your discussion page.
- It's not really a matter of making sure every religion has an equal (or even similar) number of articles. Some need more than others, and some are better represented simply because there are more Wikipedians of that particular faith who are motivated to write new articles. If you look at Category:Roman Catholic Church and its 17 sub-categories, you'll find hundreds of articles. Category:Judaism has just as many, divided into 34 sub-categories. Since Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, there's no limit to the number of articles that can spin off from a central topic (as long as they meet the notability guidelines). If a subject has more articles than another that doesn't imply that it's more important, just that more people are interested in writing about it. I think Star Wars might have more articles than Mormonism; that's just the way it goes.
Kafziel did an excellent job of responding to your misinformed allegations. I noticed that you continued to write to other editors making the same allegations. No big, but it is unfortunate. It will not talk long to demonstrate that your POV is baseless. I may be beating a dead horse because you seem to accept that the merger tags were not appropriate. In the future, you might consider making proposals on discussion pages. It will save you time and ensure that you have the facts. There still are articles that I would favor merging, but merging articles is not an easy task and is the fruit of a long, persistent discussion with numerous editors before proceeding. Good luck and I hope to see more of you. Storm Rider (talk) 06:03, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Vote canvassing
editCanvassing is generally considered in poor taste, is usually more trouble than it's worth, and in some cases can actually get you blocked for disruption or spam. A lot of new users don't realize that, so I just wanted to let you know. It's no big deal at this point, since you're new and it was only a few users' talk pages, but (as you can see above) people don't like it. I know you posted them before you read my reply, so hopefully now things are cleared up and you can see that every religion has hundreds and hundreds of articles. If this is no longer an issue, that's great. Kafziel Talk 11:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)