Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

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Contents 1 Stub 2 Views of Women 3 Talk page 4 development image 5 Liberal Quakers 6 Suggestion 7 Some questions about the main Quakerism page 8 Edits Needed in the Main Article 9 Categories 10 Fiery Furnace 11 Project Page format 12 Notes from work on Monthly Meeting article (Summer 2005) 13 Notes from work on Inner Light article (summer 2005) 14 Calling all mystics! 15 Weddings 16 Outrageous AFSC smear 17 Edit "war" 18 Length of Main Article 19 Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0 20 Improving project setup 20.1 Article listings 21 New Categories 22 Participant box template 23 Creed 24 Quakers in Europe 25 Quaker Userbox 26 0.5 Nomination Accepted 27 Image Question 28 Split Main page 29 Category:Religious leaders 30 Wikipedia Day Awards 31 Woodbrooke 32 WikiProject Religion 33 Jesus nominated for Article Improvement Drive 34 Collaboration 35 Category:Quakerism in the United Kingdom 36 Succession table for Friends World Committee for Consultation Triennial Conferences 37 Quaker Council for European Affairs 38 Restructuring Categories 39 Possibly create "Preparative Meeting"? 40 Spirit of Christ article?

[edit] Stub

Is there some way we can automatically see all pages with the stub tag on them? (I believe the original question was asked by Zach --Ahc 15:27, 19 August 2005 (UTC))

Stubs place articles into a catagory for that stub. Click on the catagory at the bottom of the page, and you see everything in that catagory. --Ahc 02:39, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Comment: the recommended procedure for new stub tags is to first enter them at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria. Since you guys already have a Wikiproject, it shouldn't be too hard to get it through. (That way it is listed for stub sorters, and will gain more attention). Just a comment from a Stub Sorter, Wikiacc (talk) 19:55, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I just did that. --Ahc 9 July 2005 06:29 (UTC)

• creating templates to go down the right-hand side of pages with similar content, e.g.

[edit] Views of Women

• Question: this is the Quaker entry under Christian views of women: "Quakers are often cited as being completely gender-equal from their beginnings, but this only lasted a few years, and was never an official position. In the 1660s Quaker women's roles became slightly more limited and remained so for many decades, though they were still progressive for their time. However, Quakers have always believed in the legitimacy of women's ministry, with a only a few exceptions in the early years." We have like a massive amount on Quakers and sexuality, but this is all we have on women. Anyone want to jump in? Sdedeo 09:12, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Also probably a good idea. There is some on women in the sections on testimonies, but it looks like that part should be cleaned up as well. Thanks for drawing attention to it. --Ahc 19:45, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

• • I tossed together some stuff here: Quaker views of women, in imitation of the Quaker article on homosexuality. Feel free to add, or to merge this into something else. Sdedeo 15:56, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I have created the page Women as theological figures - the best title I could think of for an overview page (and there is no obvious better one yet). Would someone care to add a comment or two on Quaker attitudes/women's position in the Society of Friends. (Please contribute other viewpoints if known/pass on).

Jackiespeel 21:45, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page

I've been realizing more and more that we're starting to build up conversation on the main page, and we've hardly used this page at all. While I think it's fine (at least for the time being) to have "chatty" descriptions of sections and work done. I've been looking over other projects a little, and most of the make heavy use of the talk page. So, I think we should start to move questions about new projects to the talk page. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, so please don't take this as a critism of anyone else on the project. --Ahc 15:18, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I've just done a big load of moving around, neatening up and trimming of the project page, not limited to moving stuff here. Paul Carpenter 16:30, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] development image

Found a great "picture" of the development of the various Quaker movements from 17th C to present day, showing how Hickite turned into "liberal" quakerism, and how the PYM was on the "conservative" branch but separated later. It's copyrighted, however, so we can't just scan. Does anybody have the skillz to make a nice computer version of it? It sort of looks like a tree with branches. I really can only do a hand-drawing. Contact me and I'll send you a scan to work from. Sdedeo 22:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds do-able, I send you an e-mail. Paul Carpenter 20:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I have created an image but I am not certain that I interpreted your source correctly so I wont post it. It can be found [here]. Paul Carpenter 22:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Paul -- I believe the Phila. group separated before the Wilbur/Gurney divide; otherwise I think it's fine? It would be nice if you could include the percentages today (and also make clear that the far right of the diagram indicates present day.) Also, you mis-spelled "independent". Otherwise, great draft! Sdedeo 23:37, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

It looks really good, but please capitalize Arch Street. Thanks for the hard work. I was tempted to do it myself, but you have done better than I could have. I would be wary of putting in percentages, as they are bound to change. I think the fact that it is a timeline makes it clear that the categories on the right side are contemporary, but add that to the diagram if you want. Logophile 02:29, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

One thing that surprised me about the &s is that prog. vs. unprog., if you do the %s by number of meetings, are about equal (my prior guess was that prog. far outnumbered unprog.) But of course that could go into the article as text (and we should include the statement that the data are from 2000 in the image.) Sdedeo (tips) 04:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Spelling errors corrected and contemporary groups bolded, thanks for the help :) Paul Carpenter 08:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Liberal Quakers

I put a reference to Liberal Quakers in the Atheism article, and it became a hotlink. For now, I'll make it redirect to Religious society of friends, but do we want an article there in the future? --goethean ॐ

• Seems potentially controversial. Informally, people use the term "liberal" to refer to themselves, and there is certaintly a sense in which some quakers are liberal and others aren't. But... but... hard to define. Liberal == sociall liberally? Even Friends one might consider conservative (e.g., don't support homosexual relationship) are pretty hardcore about the peace testimony. Liberal == theologically liberal? I might be considered theologically conservative by many, but think I deserve the "liberal" moniker. Sdedeo 06:34, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

OK. I thought the term was more standard. --goethean ॐ

[edit] Suggestion

It would be nice to start building up articles on the Yearly meetings, but it sort of feels like a lot of work. One thing that I think would be great is if we could get people to write short histories of their own meetings that could be put on the relevant Yearly meeting page; it also might be a motivator to get people to write. I've been pretty busy, but I will try to get around to it sooner or later.

A lot of the meetings have pretty fascinating histories. However, I don't think we should make individual articles for each meeting. Essentially, Wiki consensus is that individual churches are not notable.

Sdedeo 06:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some questions about the main Quakerism page

I'm troubled by the main page under Quakerism. I'm uncomfortable with how historical it seems; the tone of it differs from several other religions page, in making Quakerism seem less like a modern faith, and more like one that's interesting for where it was. I'd prefer that there were more about Quakerism in the world; one might not realize that Quakers had been active in the women's rights, civil rights, or gay rights movements, nor that nowadays they're active in peace concerns. And, finally, I have a concern about how the page doesn't really make much references to Quakers outside the UK/US, particularly the hundreds of thousands in Africa, except to note that they're there. I'd prefer more content about why Quakerism matters nowadays, and how it works nowadays.

I'm happy to do some edits, and the like, but I'm new to Wikipedia writing. So I don't want to step on toes, at all, especially since it seems many of the people contributing to this page appear to think it's in a stable state. Snowdan 15:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Hey Snowdan -- go for it. I also feel that there is a lot lacking about modern (20th Century +) Quakerism in wikipedia. It's a complicated subject.

A few things, however:

• Quakers in the Third World. I haven't found much information on this except from very POV sources (i.e., webpages set up by missionary groups.) So it's tricky to get a sense of what is going on there. I think offline sources are the best bet. AFAIK, there are more Quakers in the Third World than the First, mostly following programmed worship.

• Quakers and women's rights, and Quakers and gay rights. We've actually got quite a bit of info (at least for the First World) about that at Quaker views of women and Quaker views of homosexuality. Contemporary Quaker work on gay rights especially is marked by the "liberal-conservative" dichotomy.

• ...which brings me to my next point, that we really don't have an adaquate discussion of the origin of the "liberal-conservative" split and how it plays out today in the 21st century. The problem is that the two sides don't really interact that much on a day to day level since they're separated geographically.

Anyway, that all said, of course go ahead and be bold. My guess would be that the best place to start is the liberal-conservative split, or, on the other hand, with those groups that both liberal and conservative meetings endorse and support (AFSC, for example?)

Good luck. Sdedeo 19:26, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Edits Needed in the Main Article

I have shuffled some things around in the main article. There was too much repetition and too much explaining of certain concepts, e. g., programmed vs. unprogrammed, Hicksite, Orthodox, Wilburite, etc. The article could still be cleaned up to be less redundant.

I'm thinking that the Testimonies should be explained with only a sentence or two in the main article and treated all together in another article or in their own separate articles. What say the rest of you? Logophile 00:03, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, as long as people on the RSoF talk page are game too. I think we should leave more like a short/medium paragraph though rather than just a sentence or two.Zach 17:30, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I say one paragraph for all, with a link to a separate article. As is, they interrupt the flow of the article's main thrust. Doovinator 17:34, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Two points of clarity. First: I meant to say that the various Quaker controversies and splits were explained too many times--not that they shouldn't be explained at all. Second: My idea is that each Testimony be explained in a sentence or two with a link to a separate article, in other words a paragraph, as Doovinator and Zach suggest. They are worthy of treatment in a whole article--how they developed, the actions they have prompted, their impact on the world, etc.Logophile 22:30, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My only reseveration about moving the testimonies to their own article (which I noted quickly on the talk page of the main article as well) is to make sure there is enough content for each to be worthy of its own article. I'd rather not see us create articles that remain stubs forever because no one gets around to extending them. Personally I think we should extend each to have enough content and move them one at a time. When they are all moved, then rewrite to paragraph in the main article as you all suggest above. So not so much a concern about the goal, just the process of getting there. --Ahc 19:18, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Ahc. Logophile 20:19, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A thought just occurred to me and maybe I'm wrong here (I started the trend, so obviously I could be convinced to change my mind again) but it seems like maybe we should add "(Quaker)" to the testimony article names. So we would name those articles like this: Peace Testimony (Quaker). That said: Logophile you've been busy lately...nice work! --Ahc 20:50, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have considered this a lot. I think that it is superfluous to put in "(Quaker)". I don't think there is any other "Peace Testimony" other than the Quaker one. Most people who search for the article probably already know it relates to Quakerism. People who link to it from another article know that it does. Once a person begins reading the article it will be clear that it is about an aspect of Quakerism. Having stated those points, I do not have objections to putting "(Quaker)" there or not putting it there. Logophile 20:17, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Since the articles are all created now, I guess we can just worry about it if a conflict occurs. You're probably right that a conflict is unlikely. --Ahc 15:44, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

I still don't have a good understanding of categories, here, but it seems that two of the Quaker-related categories are a mess, viz. Quakerism and Quakers. I think we should make it a goal to clean those up, and add appropriate articles to them. Logophile 23:39, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Ditto on both counts -- I'm still confused by categories. What if we keep both, but "Quakers" is only used for Quaker individuals, rather than for "anything relating to Quakers"? "Quakerism" could be the category for the latter. Zach (t) 14:57, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me. I think in general categorizing articles has been one of the big stuggles on Wikipedia. We should definetly try to keep the group of articles we're working on organized, adn set standards for this project. --Ahc 20:06, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I have already been working on the categories. I have tried to include all Quakers on the list of Quakers and in the category Quakers. I have also been de-categorizing the articles that don't fit. I will put our working definitions at the top of each category page. Logophile 20:36, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fiery Furnace

I'd like to try to clean up and improve the pages about the story of the fiery furnace. The story of the fiery furnance has a lot of importance in the Jewish and Christian traditions, and had has a lot of cultural impact; Wikipedia ought to have better information about it. I've started by poking at the pages and suggesting some merges; I'm not sure what if any particular signifance the story has to Friends, but I'd appreciate any help from project members on whatever relating to this subject, but specifically to help avoid sectarian bias in the articles and include a lot of solid information about many perspectives. Please leave any comments on the talk page of fiery furnace. Thanks! -- Tetraminoe 14:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Project Page format

There are a couple of details I'd like to clean up on the project page, unless anyone minds. First off, I think we should fix the headings on the page to match the Wikipedia standard of starting with == instead of =. Second I'd like to consider formating our list of articles in a manner similar to the Anti-war project's list of pages. Thoughts? --Ahc 05:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I like it. I'll try to help if I can see ways of doing it without being counterproductive. Logophile 06:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I've started the process of improving the layout. Please note, I've been somewhat aggressive about how I've rated the articles. It's not intended as an insult, if you think I've under-rated an article please improve it's ranking. --Ahc 18:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, I've made several significant changes to the project page's layout. Hopefully it will help us keep priorties clear. If other don't like the new format, I can put it back the way I found it (either by hand, or through revert depending on what's called for). --Ahc 21:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes from work on Monthly Meeting article (Summer 2005)

• Improve Monthly meeting (needs sources, for one thing)
  • Note: I think this is the best place to put a lot of information: meetinghouse archetecture, local organization (clerks, etc.). Just IMO. Sdedeo 09:04, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • That's probably wise. Although we do have a clerk article started, so watch out for duplicate information. --Ahc 19:45, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Free images of contemporary meetinghouses. We have a couple "historical woodcuts" or engravings of meetinghouses, but it would be really nice if we could get some contemporary photographs of meetinghouses, both inside and outside; since copyright is a big problem, the simplest thing is if we take the photos ourselves. This arose because of peer review on the RSoF main article; it seems much more appropriate to have a photograph of the interior of a meetinghouse instead of a woodcut of Fox or someone else as one of the "lead" images. I think any meetinghouse would do, but it would be nice to have the interior of one that has seating "fixed" so that the layout could be seen. Also probably best if there were no human figures in the photo of J. Random Quaker. Something to think about for your next trip to meeting! Sdedeo 04:55, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I can take some photos of the interior of Pardshaw FMH in north-west England (built 1729) which has benches, a raised ministers' platform, that kind of layout. I'll next be there for a Young Friends gathering the week before Christmas, so unless the cold makes my camera grumpy, I'll get some pictures. AJR | Talk 03:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Well, it's taken rather longer than I'd intended, but I have some photos of the meeting room at Pardshaw, which are on Flickr.[1][2][3] Does anyone have any preference for one or another, or shall I pick one? (Alternatively, I'll upload all three and we can play around with them.) -- AJR | Talk 00:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally I say the first one, but if you wanted to load all three so people could play around that's fine with me. --Ahc 03:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes from work on Inner Light article (summer 2005)

• Improve Inner light
  • The work of Logophile and others is fantastic on this article. Congrats! Sdedeo 02:33, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
• A disambiguation page is needed for Thomas Kelly. An article exists on a cricket player named Thomas Kelly. There is also an article on Quaker mystic Thomas R. Kelly. I would do it, but I'm not sure how. Logophile 15:28, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Done. Paul Carpenter 18:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Calling all mystics!

Please come help out @ mysticism / Talk:Mysticism. Another editor and I have been butting heads over some minor issues, and the article could really use some outside input. Please come lend a hand! Sam Spade 19:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weddings

In the Quaker Weddings page (the talk section of which sent me here), the ceremony is described as having the marrying couple "exchange vows" at one point. I was raised in the Greek Orthodox faith, under which the marriage service does not involve vows. With this background, I expected the Friends (who historically refused to swear oaths) to likewise avoid "vows" during a wedding ceremony. Does the article overstate the action, or am I reading too much into the term?

Interesting point. I looked up the PYM [4] marriage, and they don't use the word "vow", rather "promise". Some websites use the word "vow", but I agree that this is probably the wrong word, and it's significant that PYM avoids this common word. I'll tweak the wedding page. Sdedeo (tips) 21:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outrageous AFSC smear

I find the "criticism" section in the AFSC article to be nothing more then an attempt to slander the Quakers, especially considering the dubious nature of the source. The section reads, in part:

... supports violent communist and terrorist regimes such as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia ...

I don't think I've ever read anything so ignorant as that. The Quakers and AFSC most certainly DO NOT SUPPORT one of the world's most egregious human rights violators. It goes against practically everything they believe in and stand for. Also, since when has support for the suffering of the Palestinian people equated to support for the PLO? Why no mention about their concern for the suffering of the Israeli people? As committed non-violence advocates, the AFSC most certainly DO NOT SUPPORT the PLO's violent activities as they similarly DO NOT SUPPORT the violent activities carried out by Israel. I request that someone more NPOV then me please evaluate this and get rid of this section if possible. I need not remind people that it isn't Wikipedia's job to be Fair and Balanced by balancing truths with untruths. Much of Wikipedia's critisms come from the fact that we often allow such absurd nonsense to creep into our articles. --Dragon695 16:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Dragon695 -- hi. The mantra of the wiki is "sofixit" -- just go in and edit what you think is wrong! Good luck, I haven't looked at the AFSC but will as well. Sdedeo (tips) 18:38, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. The crit is from the "Discover the Networks" site, which is sort of a one-man operation. I don't think it's significant enough to include. I mean, the site says Barbara Streisand is a terrorist. Sdedeo (tips) 18:40, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit "war"

User:Simetrical asks whether "more than one or two Wikipedians feel that" the term "edit war" is a concern. Ptcru 21:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I find concern over the term "edit war" to be oversensitivity to terminology and to be irrelevant to the issue of writing about Friends. The best analog I can think of for it is finding the term "spam" as pernicious due to its reference to a pork product or argument with calling connectors "male" and "female" or talking about "daemons." Artsygeek 18:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, "spam" doesn't trivialize the concept of canned ham, does it? This is the paragraph which was deleted from Wikipedia:Edit war:

Both definitions suffer from the use of the term "war" to describe making updates to controversial material against a similarly determined "opponent" who may also be primarily interested in creating an accurate encyclopedia, but holds a different point of view. This use is highly offensive to some members of peace tradition faiths, who complain that the usage trivializes the concept of war, and in doing so allows people to rationalize their failure to confront the causes of shooting wars; and that the penalties imposed for such victimless and non-malicious "war" may be harsher (e.g., preventing people from being able to edit, often for several hours) than they would otherwise be if the problem were described with a more accurate term. "Rapid reverts" has been suggested as an alternative.

Ptcru 05:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

For me, "rapid reverts" is terribly flawed. What we are talking about is a conflict, whether you like to call it a war or not. "Rapid reverts" is what I do if I look for vandalism -- not a conflict. In my mind, many conflicts that don't involve shooting can rise to the level of war. I guess I am less worried about calling conflict like this a war than calling wars something else (police action, security operation, freedom giving, etc). Ted^Talk/_{Contributions} 02:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to aggree with Artsygeek. I think it's possible to become too concerned about issues like this. I don't think that Wikipedia is on the brink of trivializing the word "war". The example I would choose was an attempt in California a couple years ago to ban the use of the term "slave" from government purchacing specifications. The IT folks went bolistic, since that meant you couldn't have a hard drive that was capable of running is slave mode...a rather impossible task. While I think we have to be careful with language, I think we often take this concern too far. --Ahc 17:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Length of Main Article

The main article is much too long now. I think it is time to create a new article called "Quaker beliefs and practices". I would urge anyone interested to look at the Baptists article, as they have many of the same problems that we have faced here--many exceptions and qualifications to handle. I think that breaking out the whole programmed/unprogrammed section into the new article with just a well-worded summary in the main article would be helpful. Logophile 06:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to seperating more material out, but I would like us to clean up some of the existing material (particullary the new content). Not all of the new edits are correct (but I don't have time to updated it carefully at the moment), and some are overly verbose. I think we would be wise to clean it up in the existing article before migrating it elsewhere. --Ahc 15:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I recently added several things to article, further account on the discussion page there. I am increasingly concerned that we not head down the oft-tread path of presenting Friends as quaint, archival-quality group which has as its discriminating factor a weird but mostly harmless collection of strange practices that are interesting but entirely irrelevant. I have so often said "they just don't get it" when reading typical encyclopedic or sociology of religion entries on Friends. George Fox, Mott, Dyer, and now, tragically, Tom Fox did not take their stands and make their sacrifices "for good times sake." There are reasons: reasons that run deep and rich, for the sacrifices that so many have made, and that some are continuing to make.

I am not entirely sure how this all should unfold, but I have tried to tie some of our distinctive practices to principles and understandings that are historically Quaker.

We definitely need much, much more on what is now the largest group of Friends anywhere: In Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, Rwanda, Burundi, and Kenya, among other places (the man on the 5,000 yen note in Japan was a Quaker!). Some of these are full Yearly Meetings, independent of any North American or European group. I eagerly await the first missionaries from Bolivia Yearly Meeting to my neighborhood. I want to hear what these dear Friends consider to be the cultural practices that are interfering with my full experience of God's presence. Will I be among those who have to "die out" before needed reforms, reawakenings and restructurings can occur in my yearly meeting?

We probably also should say a bit more on Quaker post-secondary education. Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Earlham, Woodbrook, Pendle Hill, Guilford, Wilmington, Johns Hopkins, Malone, George Fox and Claremont in Whittier are all institutions with Quaker foundations. Some make it clear they see Quaker influence as only historical, others see themselves as integral to the ongoing development of associated yearly meetings.

My wife, Kathleen (she is PhD in Psychology) and I are collaborating on a couple of projects, one is an examination of Quakers on a pre-modern/modern/postmodern scaffolding. Another is work on how Quaker principles and ideals shaped the innovations (or, as with "solitary confinement" in prisons, disasters)in Mental Health, Prisons, and education, particularly among groups left out by the mainstream.

Roy 07:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC) (comment here moved from front page by Ahc 03:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions. Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to the Quakers WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one (new) for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist like this one automatically for you, please contact us. Please feel free to post your suggestions right here. Thanks! Walkerma 04:30, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Seems like this is an important process to be a part of. I'm going to start by adding a column to tables or articles on the other page for marking key articles. We should probably work out how to follow some of the other suggestions above. --Ahc 03:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

All these activities look great! Let us know if you need help with getting the bot started or anything else. I also recommend taking a look at these instructions. Thanks! Walkerma 20:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I've updated the quaker template and created the needed categories. Now we need a few people to update the articles that have the template to rate them, and set their importance (which is optional). See the Quaker article's talk page to see who to do it. --Ahc 02:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improving project setup

I've been looking over the links in the comment above from the 1.0 editorial team, and I've found several suggestions about helping the project move forward more effectively. I'd like to make a couple of changes to the main page to help clean things up a bit, and bring out project inline with some of the emerging standards around Wikipedia. There are several examples of good practices at the WP:Chem project. If others don't object I'd like to make the following changes:

1. Clean up the project members list, reduce the background messages a bit, and reformat similar to WP:Chem's. Done...well sort of. We should probably create a template to make it easier to add new people to the list, and I'm not over joyed with the formating at the moment. --Ahc 04:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC) Template now created, see comment below. --Ahc 05:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
2. Move articles lists to a sub-page. Done. --Ahc 03:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
3. Update articles lists to use the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment scheme.
4. Work on creating the lists or articles requested by the 1.0 team as noted in their message above.
5. Nominate Religious Society of Friends for 0.5 (not sure it if can pass, but should get helpful feedback if not). Done. --Ahc 04:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
6. Setup a bot generated a worklist as suggested above. Done. --Ahc 14:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts? --Ahc 05:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

• All suggestions sound good to me. I don't have much time myself. I will try to work on whatever is needed as I can. Logophile 06:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Last night I completed the task of adding/updating templates to rank our articles. I noticed that the importance ranking isn't working yet, if anyone can see the mistake that I made I would very much appreciate someone fixing it (I'll try to look at it later). As you work on articles in the future please try to update that rating if you do a lot of work. I also suggest you review the bot generated list of articles. Hopefully the importance ranking will kick in soon and help us set priorities. If you think I've rated an article wrong, PLEASE correct me. --Ahc 13:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article listings

I don't usually use sub-sections on the talk page, but I wanted to keep all this together. I've started to use the new form of the template that I created yesterday to create better work lists for the project. It has occurred to me that this may make our current listing of articles unnessasary, but there seem to be some trade offs. Right now we have the list broken into several sections to make it easier to find articles of interest to an editor, but the new bot generated work lists don't seem to support that (at least as far as I can tell at the moment). We also have several articles that we have not placed our template on, or do not exist yet. I do not like the idea of maintaining two sets of quality ranks for the articles so I'm making the following suggestion: we drop the old listing of articles, and leave only a list of articles we'd like to create, and a list of articles that are tangentally related to the project, but that we haven't placed out header on. Thoughts? --Ahc 16:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Categories

I discovered tonight that there are several sub-categories to the Quakers category (namely: Category:American Quakers, Category:Australian Quakers, Category:British Quakers, Category:English Quakers, Category:Scottish Quakers, Category:French Quakers). I just added them to the list of categories on the main project page. I'm wondering what others thoughts are about these. I've just asked the user that created them if they could explain why they were created. On the one hand the Quakers category has gotten rather large, on the other hand, these other categories have not really been populated in the last few months, and I feel that categories like Australian and French are likely to remain small indefinitely. Should we combine/remove some of them? Restructure them into another organization scheme? --Ahc 03:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

--- Yes, please.

Vernon White 08:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

___

So that's one vote yes. Anyone want to suggest a new scheme? Or should we just remove the sub-cats all together? --Ahc 05:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Having Categories for "notable" individuals is much better than creating (and maintaining) lists of notable individuals. Personally, I don't see the need for either, but I know that some people like to have them & categories are a much cleaner way to do it -- plus they are verifiable since they appear in the Wiki entry for the individuals, so other editors can delete it if there is a problem. Ted^Talk/_{Contributions} 14:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally I'd be just as happy to drop the lists, but I don't think these new categories are helpful either. I might be inclined to breakup the Quaker Schools category to help make that list less important, but breaking people by location doesn't seem helpful to me. Maybe creating some sub-cats by time period (century?) would be helpful to keep the Quakers category from being too big (and therefore hard to monitor). --Ahc 20:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd be happy with that, or if the categories remained divided by place, it might be worth having them divided by continent, if that would better populate each group. Drum guy 18:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

BTW what is necessary for someone to be put in one of the Quaker categories? I note that Edward R. Pease is categorized as an English Quaker and he was raised one but he becames an atheist in early adulthood. --Erp 06:28, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Participant box template

I created a template in an attempt to make managing the user list a little more manageable for new users. My goal was to make it easier for people to add themselves without having to worry about details like getting their user link right.

The {{Quakerbox row}} template expects 3 paraments (user, date, comment) and can handle a 4th (name) if the user wants to display a name other then their username. As of this writting the first three users in the table have been converted (and one other that I used for testing). I'm a little concerned that the templates are actually harder for some people to use so before I spent the time to redo the whole table I thought I'd ask for input. --Ahc 05:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creed

Our objective #3 is stated as "Ensure that Friends are accurately represented in other Wikipedia articles, such as articles about religion or Christianity. E.g. Christian views of women ". Our position is not mentioned in the article on Creeds.

Is our witness againt imposed statements of belief, service books and attendance at the State's preferred place of Worship from our earliest days likely to be a contentious issue with those supporting The Richmond Declaration begging to differ from atheist Quakers and those with an affinity to Goddess worship?

Vernon White 22:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

While authors will need to expand the Richmond Declartion article with care, I don't see any reason it should cause problems. Currently it's not really even properly described, let alone the controversy that it caused. The issue of Creeds in my experience is the least of the problems among Friends. In short I'm not inclined to worry until a problem arrises. --Ahc 04:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quakers in Europe

I have added some external links to this page and placed a link in the "See also" section of RSoF. Hope others will add some more detail.

---Vernon White 23:52, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quaker Userbox

I have put this on my Userpage:

The Userbox on the Quaker Project page doesn't seem t work.

===Vernon White 22:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 0.5 Nomination Accepted

For those that didn't notice, the Religious Society of Friends article's nomination to Wikipedia 0.5 release was accepted. They also rated the article as being Class-A (which is one level higher then I had been willing to give it previously, but I'll go with the assessment team's expereince on that matter). --Ahc 16:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image Question

There is a great picture on the French version of the main article. I tried to put the image into that article, but a different image came up. How do I get the picture from the French version to the English version? Logophile 06:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It is a very interesting image; I've never seen it before. The problem probably stems from all the different versions only sort of being linked together (that are really seperate insteances of the software so they only somewhat communicate). I know there is a wikiproject around somewhere that discusses images, you should probably ask them. Since it's in the public domain you could just copy it over to the English language version, but the people that work on images might suggest that the image should be placed in the commons. --Ahc 04:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split Main page

A suggestion the the Main Page is too long and that it should be split has been added to the top of the Page. How do we heed that suggestion, please? (See Length of Main Article above. === Vernon White (talk) 16:59, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how I missed that getting added. It's been there for quite some time, I went back 100 edits and I couldn't find the edit that placed it. I'm going to remove it for the time being, but I'll put some comments on the article's talk about to see what folks think. If others feel it's a good idea, then we should create another article on Quaker decision making. --Ahc 04:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I think I might have added it. I found the discussion of it on the main article's talk page, but it got swallowed up by other concerns (See article talk page) and never resolved. I've gone ahead and removed it for the time being. What do others feel about creating a new article for that section? I expect it would like something like the Quaker history article, only much shorter. --Ahc 04:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Religious leaders

The current organization there is abit muddled, and needs some discussing how to deal with. A general proposal for cleaning it up is posted at Category talk:Religious leaders#Organization proposal, and more input would be great. It doesn't address the issue of Religious leaders/religious workers/religious figures, but that is another issue that exists. Badbilltucker 22:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Woodbrooke

Can anyone tackle an article on Woodbrooke? == Vernon White (talk) 21:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Religion

The group indicated above was recently revitalized for, among other things, the purpose of working on those articles whose content is such that the article does not fall within the scope of any particular denomination. To most effectively do this, however, we would benefit greatly if there were at least one member from this Project working on those articles. On that basis, I would encourage and welcome any member of this Project willing to work on those articles to join the Religion WikiProject. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus nominated for Article Improvement Drive

I recently found that our article on Jesus is the first page that appears when anyone does a Google search of the subject. It is currently, regrettably, only at GA status. On that basis, I would request any individuals who might be interested in helping to bring this article up to FA status to indicate their support for the article being chosen as the AID article at Wikipedia:Article Creation and Improvement Drive#Jesus. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration

The current collaboration is now complete! Anyone want to propose a new one? --Ahc 01:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions:

• Friends who have articles in the [British] Dictionary of National Biography and other National biographical dictionaries and are thus "WP:Notable".
• The Valiant Sixty and First Publishers of the Truth.
• Articles on notable Quaker families (as well as individuales). e.g. Pease family (Darlington)
• Swarthmore Lectures and lecturers (There is already a succession table).
• Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre - Will need a DAB page as many places are called "Woodbrooke/Woodbrook".
• Quaker Women Ministers list.
• Topics featured in the Quaker Tapestry.
• The Manchester Conference (1895).
• Succession table of London/Britain Yearly Meeting Recording Clerks, Y.M. Clerks and Clerks to Meeting for Sufferings.
• Members of the Friends Ambulance Unit.
• Friends who fought in WWI and WWII and their religious destination (resigned, disowned?, re-admitted?).
• Succession table for Friends World Committee for Consultation Triennial Conferences.

Enough?

=== Vernon White (talk) 10:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks. I think a couple could of these could go on the requested article page (like Woodbrooke), and maybe that could get some better use. Granted the collaborations haven't gone all THAT well in the past (I did much of the last one myself), but there's always hope for improvement. From this list I would think we should take one task like: Topics featured in the Quaker Tapestry, make a list of what those are and have at it. My second vote would be for: Succession table for Friends World Committee for Consultation Triennial Conferences, with a similar work flow. --Ahc 14:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Since I think the succession table can be handled without trying to draw any other attention to it, I'm posting your Quaker Tapestry idea on the project page. --Ahc 05:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Quakerism in the United Kingdom

Is there need for such a category as "Category:Quakerism in the United Kingdom"? === Vernon White (talk) 23:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably not. I tried to raise a similar question about the division of categories to regionalize Quakers (Category:English Quakers, Category:Scottish Quakers, Category:French Quakers, Category:Irish Quakers) but I just got ignored, and then yelled at for being an idiot...both of which I found to rather unhelpful responses. I know there are a couple WikiProjects focused on categorization, but I haven't taken the time to review their process to figure out how they determine what needs regionalization. I gave up in part because I felt like I was yelling at the wind; if there were other people interested in sorting this out and rolling back some of this categorization (I really don't see a reason for 17 subcategories of Category:Quakers, maybe 3 or 4, but not 17) I'd be happy to assist. --Ahc 04:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No. I don't see any need for national subdivisions, unless the broader division is HUGE. William Penn was neither a "U.K. Quaker" nor an "American Quaker". I also object to the word "Quakerism" as if we were some philsophical sect. I see the editor who created this category claims to have been "confirmed" on their Userpage, presumably not "convinced". === Vernon White (talk) 13:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

So it sounds like there are at least two of us interested in fixing this...I suggest we see what we can do. --Ahc 14:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I finally got around to poking around the Categories for discussion tonight, and reviewed Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people. If a couple other folks want to review that and offer their thoughts about what to do with the nationality categories, I would find it helpful. On the one hand, that pattern has emerged as the Wikipedia standard, on the other I think it was taken too far with Quakers. I find those categories unhelpful and distracting much of the time.

On the other hand I think Category:Quakerism in the United Kingdom should be nominated for deletion (which I'll do shortly). My primary problems with it are that it will always remain small, and be redundant to better catories that should be used or created. I think there are a couple of categories we could create to make things clearer, but I don't think this is one of them. --Ahc 03:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Succession table for Friends World Committee for Consultation Triennial Conferences

I have added a list of Triennials from 1991 onwards to the Friends World Committee for Consultation article. I don't think I have skill to turn this into a table. Can someone help, please? ===Vernon White (talk) 01:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll start with something basic and we can refine it from there. --Ahc 05:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quaker Council for European Affairs

An enthusiastic New Page Patroller has challenged to Notability of QCEA. I've added some more material, direct from the QCEA website. Can anyone add more, please? === Vernon White (talk) 20:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restructuring Categories

Okay, since I've just nominated one category for deletion, I thought I'd take a minute and try to start a dialogue about what categories we have and need. Currently I am aware of:

• Category:Quakerism
• Category:Quakers
  • Category:American Quakers
  • Category:Australian Quakers
  • Category:British Quakers
  • Category:Canadian Quakers
  • Category:Dutch Quakers
  • Category:English Quakers
  • Category:German Quakers
  • Category:Irish Quakers
  • Category:Japanese Quakers
  • Category:Korean Quakers
  • Category:New Zealand Quakers
  • Category:Scottish Quakers
  • Category:South African Quakers
  • Category:South Korean Quakers
  • Category:Swiss Quakers
  • Category:Welsh Quakers
  • Category:French Quakers (currently empty)
• Category:Quaker schools
• Category:Quakerism stubs

I think we need to add Category:Quaker organizations (which I will create shortly, and will need help populating), which may one day need to broken down into national categories to some degree. There has been concern in the past about the national division of the "Quakers" categories, and I'd love to hear where people currently stand about what to do with those. We also discussed previously ending the lists pages (List of Quakers and List of Friends Schools). The list of Friends Schools certainly needs to be cleaned up, as it's become a bit of a link farm. Anyone have thoughts about how we could better organize the categories that will scale more effectivly? It might be helpful to review guidelines for category naming. --Ahc 04:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Having worked trying to sort out the organizations from Category:Quakerism, it's clear to me we need a couple more cats and I thought I'd look for feedback before I worked on creating/populating them. I think we need a category for meetings and/or meeting houses. There are now several articles on individual meeting houses (for example: Amesbury Friends Meeting House) some of which also mention the meetings that own them. We are also working toward having articles for many of the yearly meetings, which probably also need categorization. Thoughts? --Ahc 04:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea to make a list of Quaker (Preparative) Meetings - possibly divided (section headings) by YM and MM, and/or a category/stub category for them (probably a general one including PMs, MMs and YMs)? Drum guy 17:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, should there be guidelines about whether articles (e.g. Amesbury Friends Meeting House) should be about a meeting (e.g. Amesbury Friends Meeting), meeting house (e.g. Amesbury Friends Meeting House) or both (have one redirect to the other)? Drum guy 18:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly create "Preparative Meeting"?

I think there should be an article on Preparative Meetings, which could link with Monthly Meeting; it could also be linked to from articles on individual preparative meetings. Drum guy 18:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I also think it would be useful to create an infobox for use on Preparative Meetings' pages. Drum guy 18:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spirit of Christ article?

the Spirit of Christ article contains little or no information that can't be found at Inner Light. It is merely an aspect of the latter article, and can have little extra added to it. I see no reason for this page to exist, other than for it to serve as a redirect page. Thoughts on this? Ian Goggin 16:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

That's probably not a bad idea. Feel free to add the merge proposal templates. The discussion about this suggestion should properly be held on the talk page of one of the two effected articles. --Ahc 21:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)