User talk:Ernobe

dead link references

Hi, I undid your change to NSA:United States‎‎ because it removed references to content. I've added links to the content of the dead links as archived on archive.org using the archiveurl parameter, so that should fix things. Dragfyre (talk) 10:34, 11 December 2017 (PST)

Various fixes

Hi, you mentioned a problem with Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css, that has been fixed. The markup template problem has been fixed now too. How do things you were working on look now? David (talk) 13:25, 10 June 2023 (PDT)

Things are looking pretty good, thanks a-lot. Ernobe (talk) 14:57, 10 June 2023 (PDT)

Table of contents changes

Hi Ernobe,

You might already know all this, but Bahaipedia uses MediaWiki, and it seems to be that they are moving towards integrating the table of contents into the sidebar (see for example this page). While we run quite a few versions behind the latest in terms of design and software, eventually what we are using will become unsupported due to age and we will need to upgrade to the newer versions of things. With that in mind, per-article changes to the table of contents might create a lot of work down the road if it needs to be undone later. If you're just adding it in one place to experiment with a new look or design that's fine, but I wouldn't start adding that toc template to lots of articles. A better place to make site-wide changes would be somewhere like MediaWiki:Vector.css, that applies custom css to the Vector skin, and would not negatively affect any other skins that might be added in the future, like the new version of Vector. Personally I like the TOC being more integrated in the article like you've done on The Báb, but I'm not a huge fan of needing to scroll through the TOC. Let me know what you're thoughts are for other articles or what goal you're working towards. David (talk) 08:10, 7 October 2023 (PDT)

I like the Vector 2022 idea of having the sidebar as a drop down menu. That should leave more space for things like TOC, but unfortunately it has left the space empty, and created more empty space on the right, so now everything is even more crammed into the article than before. Actually a sensible TOC should be at the top of the article, or side by side at the top, and infoboxes would be better as hideable elements (default hidden) somewhere in the article and not the other way around. To leave more space for other things, it should be optional to have the TOC as a drop down menu instead (and not eliminate it completely as in Vector 2022). A good starting point would be to eliminate the sidebar from the current skin, as in Completely remove the sidebar, tabs and search bar. It would be easy to reverse should it break things, and it's being officially documented, which means it's not a shot in the dark and perhaps somewhere someone is attempting the same thing and can offer support. Then again, it might turn out that, considering where things are heading, eliminating the sidebar will leave a gaping hole that can't be filled by anything else. Ernobe (talk) 14:57, 7 October 2023 (PDT)

I tried this hack on the Spanish wiki, which removed the navigation bar but left logo, toolbox and search bar. I tried purging the cache as mentioned at troubleshooting, though it might require a purge on your end. Ernobe (talk) 22:45, 8 October 2023 (PDT)

I got it to work with css following this instruction. I think the Vector 2022 skin set in preferences looks better than it did before. The current skin requires some tweaking of the appearance of the navigation links. As for TOC, I'm thinking to start articles with a heading to force it to appear at the top, and also to install an extension that will force it to appear collapsed by default. Ernobe (talk) 19:31, 9 October 2023 (PDT)

Hi Ernobe, I understand the desire to fix the look of the site, I have spent considerable time myself on trying to adopt different themes to achieve different goals but in the end ran into edge cases where what I was able to hack together broke down and either created problems or looked really poor. I know it's not ideal, but please don't make sitewide css changes right now, there are some better, more polished options out there and I'll look at them again when I have time. As for starting articles with headings, that breaks the pop-up box when the article is linked to so I can't recommend that. And for installing an extension to force-collapse the TOC that's something I've also tried and none of the extensions are up-to-date, there are pages with recommended javascript that I tried myself but they didn't work either. I think it would be a better idea to focus on developing the content more while I look into changing to a new updated theme instead of trying to make a lot of modifications to the old one that might need to be undone as soon as we upgrade. David (talk) 20:05, 9 October 2023 (PDT)

This was one such attempt, the sidebar disappears when the screen width is below a certain threshold, it hasn't quite met all of my goals but I may try again: https://bahaipedia.org/index.php?title=God&useskin=timeless David (talk) 10:15, 10 October 2023 (PDT)

This hack has enabled me to be rid of the limited width problem on Vector 2022 (added to User:Ernobe/vector-2022.css), which incidentally solves the TOC problems mentioned previously. Not sure if any more "upgrading" is required. Ernobe (talk) 09:12, 19 October 2023 (PDT)

Hi guys... Not sure if you're aware, but if you want to experiment with CSS (or JavaScript) that affects only you personally, it can be done in Special:Preferences under "Custom CSS". Brettz9 (talk) 05:32, 10 October 2023 (PDT)

Spanish translations

Hi Ernobe, many thanks for the work you've been doing on the Spanish 'pedia. Hopefully you will have more contributors joining you there in the future :) I just wanted to point out that I've added a "Translation Starters" section to Bahaipedia:WikiProject Translation. This will be updated semi-regularly by a bot to add automated translations of short passages of articles, which translators can use as inspiration for new articles on other language versions of Bahaipedia. Best regards!--Dragfyre (talk) 21:47, 7 October 2023 (PDT)

Flags on country articles

Hi Ernobe, thanks for all the initiative you've been taking to improve the site. Could I ask that we not add {{flagg}} to the lead of country articles? The way it's been added so far, it adds both a self-link to the current article and a white space in case no flag is present, both of which are confusing; as well, it will be visually disruptive to have the flag in the lead text, especially if the lead starts with the country's full official name (e.g. the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) or doesn't start with the country's name at all (e.g. India). Instead, I think we can explore adding the flags to infoboxes, which are much more graphical in nature and where flags would work really well visually. I've gone ahead and made a change at {{Infobox Country}} for you to see; hopefully it'll propagate quickly. Dragfyre (talk) 01:36, 30 October 2023 (PDT)

wrong locator maps?

Hi Ernobe, I'm not sure what you meant by "wrong location on the map" in your recent reverts ([1][2][3])—the locations do seem to be correct. Here's a comparison with an actual map of Andaman and Nicobar. Thoughts? Cheers, Dragfyre (talk) 21:58, 8 November 2023 (PST)

Concerning Andaman and Nicobar, all I can say is that on my browsers (Firefox and Chromium) your edit at [4] shows a location off the west coast of Africa, not the east coast of India. Ernobe (talk) 22:15, 8 November 2023 (PST)

Ohhh - that might be a cache problem. I saw the correct versions before your reverts. If you purge the cache of the page (try following this link), you should now see the correct version. We're probably using two different Bahaipedia servers too, so when I purge the cache it might not purge the cache on your side. Please feel free to check with me first in case it happens again, in case it is a cache issue. Dragfyre (talk) 22:25, 8 November 2023 (PST)

Purged -- still wrong location. Could it be that my Bahaipedia server has wrong locator maps, while yours has the correct ones? Ernobe (talk) 22:40, 8 November 2023 (PST)

I see the correct location on that article. FWIW since the map didn't exist until Dragfyre added it, a cache problem doesn't make sense in this case. (edit: unless it was the underlying old map json data which was cached somehow). Also if you edit a page the cache for that page is purged automatically on every server. To answer your question Ernobe, no, that is not possible, all servers share a common master database. However there are several caches, both server and browser side, in addition to those caches there is a job queue which distributes certain update tasks (like when editing templates and a lot of pages are affected) over a long period of time to not tax server resources which can also affect when someone sees new information. The cache may not be purged automatically or correctly when templates are edited and in those cases we just have to wait for the cache to expire. A null edit while logged in should always force an update to everything on a page, unless the job queue is backed up, which you can see at the bottom of this page. FYI ?action=purge may not work for anonymous users. David (talk) 04:15, 9 November 2023 (PST)

Will remember to do a null edit while logged in whenever I experience problems in the future. Thanks. Ernobe (talk) 06:05, 9 November 2023 (PST)

Citing page ranges

Hi Ernobe,

Thank you so much for your edits on Ali-Kuli Khan, I've wanted to do that myself for a long time. A heads up on the references with page ranges, they need to be separated with a pipe or the link won't work correctly. {{citebn|154|8|9}} and not {{citebn|154|8-9}}, this is true for all our custom citation templates.

David (talk) 09:56, 25 November 2023 (PST)

Working with wikibase

Hi, I'm working on a module and template to allow integrating wikibase data automatically. It's no where near complete but you can see it here: Marzieh Gail. Everything in the infobox comes from wikibase and it's populated by {{wikibase}} which is just a modified copy of Template:Infobox Person. I'll experiment more with that template and if we like it I'll integrate it back into Infobox Person. For now I've reverted your edits to Bahá’u’lláh. In general I wouldn't put properties or statements in an article like that, a template is a better place, but ideally I think you want them in a lua module which allows for formatting and other manipulation of the data before it is displayed. I'm working on Module:InfoboxWB for that purpose. David (talk) 04:20, 25 December 2023 (PST)

On the Spanish wiki, the infobox module calls wikibase only to create an "edit on Bahaidata" link, but it doesn't recognize a linked page as linked, probably because we are lacking the ULS (Universal Language Selector) extension. Ernobe (talk) 07:46, 25 December 2023 (PST)

ULS doesn't have anything to do with connecting a wikibase client and repository, everything is connected now and working as intended. ULS is probably most useful for us on bahaidata.org to allow someone like yourself to switch between languages quickly to edit item labels in different languages (bahaidata uses your default language from user preferences to determine which label language you see and can edit). In Módulo:Ficha‎‎ at line 573 you'll see mw.wikibase.getEntityIdForCurrentPage() which is how a module retrieves the item ID number for the current page. That's roughly equivalent to {{#statements:P36}} which implicitly finds and uses the current page item ID number too (instead of explicitly referencing it like this: {{#statements:P36|from=Q9}}. You can confirm a page is connected by looking for "wikibase item" in the toolbox. David (talk) 08:13, 25 December 2023 (PST)

See https://es.bahaipedia.org/index.php?title=Bahá’u’lláh&oldid=1654, the "Herramientas" (Tools) on the left shows an "Elemento de Wikibase" (Wikibase item) link, but at the bottom of the infobox it says "Página no enlazada a Bahaidata" which means "Page is not linked to Bahaidata". Ernobe (talk) 09:04, 25 December 2023 (PST)

The pages are connected properly, so the problem must be in the module logic. David (talk) 09:17, 25 December 2023 (PST)

Problem solved: a Wikidata infobox template connects the page with {{Ficha Wikidata}}. Ernobe (talk) 11:19, 25 December 2023 (PST)

Good job! David (talk) 14:20, 25 December 2023 (PST)

Retrieving wikibase data

I saw you added a media legend (which I renamed media caption) property, thank you, that's very useful. I added it to Template:Wikibase and Module:InfoboxIB. I'll be making a lot more changes to those in the future so I wouldn't do much more then test them on es.pedia necessarily, eventually Template:Wikibase will be merged with Template:Infobox Person. Template:Wikibase is there just for testing without affecting regular pages. David (talk) 16:53, 26 December 2023 (PST)

Can you check to see if the Spanish caption at d:Q893#P35 has datavalue.value.language = "es" set? I need it for it to reach the es:Eve Nicklin infobox. Ernobe (talk) 19:40, 26 December 2023 (PST)

It does not, and the solution is more complicated than it would seem. There are many different approaches and I need some time to experiment to find the best one. Preferably you would add the Spanish caption on bahai.media as that is the most visible location, and then we'd get the caption from there and not bahaidata. Hold off on adding any more captions on bahaidata while I try to figure out if that's possible. David (talk) 21:04, 26 December 2023 (PST)

It seems like there isn't a good way to get a caption from bahai.media even if we follow the method wikimedia commons is using for multi-lingual captions. In the meantime I've create a new property P40 "caption" with datatype "monolingual text" which requires you to specify the language at the time you enter the information. This allows you to specify the language you want with lua. I've updated Module:InfoboxWB to accept a lang parameter so {{#invoke:InfoboxWB|getImageCaption|lang=es}} results in: "Eve Nicklin y Raḥmatu'lláh Muhájir" if used on the page Eve Nicklin. This isn't ideal because it creates multiple locations where a caption exists. I'll consider this problem some more. David (talk) 21:32, 26 December 2023 (PST)

A related problem is that when changing property values in lua modules there is a conflict between properties with the same value. For example, changing P2096 (media legend on Wikidata) to P40 (caption on Bahaidata) creates a conflict with P40 (child on Wikidata). Ernobe (talk) 06:46, 27 December 2023 (PST)

What are some examples of this conflict? As for captions feel free to add them using P40 to person items which have an image if you want. It's not something we'd use here so you don't need to add English captions as you do it. My Template:Wikidata functions as a fallback source for data, not a replacement. In other words it's only going to be used in the case where "hey, the data happens to be on bahaidata, let's use it" and not "let's move all data over to bahaidata first and then use it". David (talk) 09:25, 27 December 2023 (PST)

If two different properties are set using the same value, for example if child and mother are both set using 'P40', one on Wikipedia and one on Bahaipedia, then both the subjects' mother and child will be named the same, which is not always the case. In such cases, can I replace the one on Wikidata with an empty value if the corresponding property doesn't exist on Bahaidata? And if so, what would that value be? Ernobe (talk) 13:43, 27 December 2023 (PST)

Now I understand, there is no connection between bahaidata and wikidata, they don't know about each other and can't affect each other. Similarly, bahaipedia and other sister websites doesn't know wikidata exists. David (talk) 17:54, 27 December 2023 (PST)

I already knew that, and that was not my question. Anyway, I think the problem can be dealt with on an individual basis as it arises, by commenting out the offending code and then re-introducing it as the need arises. Ernobe (talk) 08:13, 28 December 2023 (PST)

Ok, I didn't realize that the lua modules you were talking about were originally copied from wikipedia, that after importing them here then changing properties you found conflicts, right? I wouldn't recommend copying modules related to wikidata from Wikipedia, not only for the reason you found but also because data types or connections between data can be different which will cause failures in unexpected ways, and those failures are going to be difficult to identify. David (talk) 10:51, 28 December 2023 (PST)

The wikidata infobox template depends on the wikidata infobox module which depends on the wikidata module. If a failure arises in this specific application (the infobox template) it will be easy enough to track down and solve, thanks to its efficient modular programming. BTW you can try to achieve the same thing on the English version by installing Template:Infobox_person/Wikidata and dependencies: Module:Wikidata and Module:WikidataIB. Ernobe (talk) 11:37, 29 December 2023 (PST)

Thank you but I won't do that here. While I might be able to troubleshoot any future problems, it's unlikely other editors would understand them or know how to fix them so the solution you're offering isn't sustainable. It would be better to develop an equivalent module from the ground up. David (talk) 13:25, 29 December 2023 (PST)

Article titles

Will you give your input to a discussion on how place names should be titled when there is a difference with its current usage? See Talk:Ṭihrán. David (talk) 21:39, 5 July 2024 (PDT)

Book titles

About turning the title of the infobox book template into a url to an external link like here: Faith, Physics, and Psychology, I don't think that's a good place to list the URL. If I was looking for an external URL I wouldn't expect it to be in that place, I'd look for it either in the body of the infobox which is standard on wikipedia, or at the bottom of the page in the regular content section, like where external links are usually found. Can we use one of those two places? David (talk) 18:33, 30 July 2024 (PDT)

Why not? Ernobe (talk) 18:44, 30 July 2024 (PDT)

BPOV banners

Hi Ernobe, I saw that you added the BPOV template on a few articles. Could I ask what you feel needs improvement (in each one or generally), so that I know what to focus on if/when I get a chance to improve them? Thanks! Dragfyre (talk) 14:03, 13 January 2025 (+08)

It is generally the same reason the other BPOV flagged article, Persecution, has it. The BPOV would be, presumably, what makes the Bahá’ís different from other people similarly accused. Likewise in the other articles, the general theme is service, programme of growth, but none of it from any point of view which would distinguish it from similar organizations with those ideals in mind. I've found the bahai9.com articles, for example Administration a good resource for obtain relevant cites from the writings. Ernobe (talk) 06:28, 13 January 2025 (PST)

Oh, I see! Actually, I added the BPOV tag to Persecution, and the reason was to encourage a clean-up of that article to present the facts in a style more consistent with a Bahá’í point of view. This includes using more straightforward language and giving a more appropriate weight to authoritative Bahá’í sources. The problem with that article is that, because a lot of it has been copied over from Wikipedia, some of the prose contains excessively neutral language and "both sides"-ing that aren't really appropriate for a Bahá’í encyclopedia - for example, things like "The Bahá'í World Centre claims that..." or "alleged persecution", or treating MacEoin's claims that the Bábís were preparing for a holy war as being on par with the authoritative Bahá’í view. That's fine for Wikipedia with their NPOV policy, but it doesn't really fit here.

I do see what you mean about including information about focusing more on distinguishing the Faith in the articles that you've tagged. I just didn't connect the dots. Perhaps we could introduce a more specific template for this particular issue. Dragfyre (talk) 09:50, 15 January 2025 (+08)

Cleaning up the article as you suggested would still require a Wikipedia attribution template at the bottom, in my opinion. I think that template should not automatically include articles with it in the "Content copied from Wikipedia" category, because they've been cleaned up, and if they haven't, they should have a further template specifically for such content, flagged at the top asking for the cleanup. In my experience cleaning up articles for the Spanish Bahaipedia, once you get started it's no longer simply about semantics, it's about re-organization and elaborating on the BPOV in such a way that it renders it no longer qualifying as a "copy" in my opinion. But as a courtesy and for the benefit of fellow researchers it should have the Wikipedia attribution, including the link to the exact version (by date) if possible.

As for a more specific template for BPOV, it should probably be somewhere along the lines of asking for more quotes from the Central Figures on the topic. Ernobe (talk) 08:28, 15 January 2025 (PST)

Referencing

I don't think I ever thanked you for all your work on citations and referencing. Thank you! Dragfyre (talk) 21:15, 25 February 2025 (+08)

BTW, it looks like Infobox Book is not picking up stuff from bahaidata. Though I remember David saying something to the effect that priority should be given to adding stuff to infoboxes rather than bahaidata. Ernobe (talk) 06:32, 25 February 2025 (PST)

There are only a handful of books on bahaidata right now, but Dragfyre is working on importing more, and after that is finished it would make sense to connect the template. David (talk) 07:03, 25 February 2025 (PST)

es.bahaipedia Main page redesign and Core Articles

Hi Ernobe, I was planning on making two major(?) changes on the Spanish Bahaipedia but wanted to run things by you since you're currently the main contributor there. The purpose of these is to update the look of the site, to help visitors discover content, and to help support us in developing the site.

First: User:David has asked me to work on updating the Main pages on Bahaipedias of different languages to be more similar to the English Bahaipedia. There are a few main benefits to this: a) the new page will go into more detail about Bahá’u’lláh, His life and His teachings; b) the new design will include responsive designs so that the site will be more mobile-friendly; and c) the new page will be better linked to different sections to make it easy to direct readers to important topics. Some of the side benefits are that the content update and mobile-friendly design should improve the main page's SEO and allow better ranking in Google, Bing and so on. I've already done this on the French Bahaipedia, and it seems to have gone OK.

Second: There is a project at WikiProject Translation to translate all the "core articles" (which are based on the topics shown on bahai.org) into the various languages we serve. I'd like to add a "Core articles" page to the Spanish Bahaipedia to make it easier for us to pursue and track progress on this project there. Ideally, we would also add a link to those core articles in the main navigation links at the top left of every page. Again, I've done this on the French Bahaipedia (here) and it's been helping me a lot to keep track of which pages have already been created and which ones I could do next.

Please let me know if you have any concerns or suggestions about either of these. I'll wait up to hear from you either way. Best regards --Dragfyre (talk) 16:52, 8 May 2025 (+08)

Update: Well I don't know what happened here but it does seem like there is some very grave misunderstanding happening, possibly even about the whole nature and purpose of the project. Ernobe, to be honest I'm having a lot of trouble following your lines of reasoning and even understanding what you're trying to say, and moreover at this point I feel like the conversation has gone very far from my original question. For this reason, I'm going to bow out now. Before I do that, though, I'll just state what I have understood in relation to my question and what I plan on doing.

From my reading of your comments, it seems like you didn't have any issues with updating the content of the Spanish Bahaipedia homepage and making it mobile-friendly, so I will plan to do that soon. I'm not really sure, but from what I understand, your main concerns seem to be related to the core articles, so I'll happily leave those for now. I do hope that we can clear things up eventually and continue to discuss ways to develop the Spanish project. Best regards --Dragfyre (talk) 11:06, 10 May 2025 (+08)

Thanks for the opportunity to pitch in. We could add a link to the official Baha'i site in the main navigation links at the top left of every page. That would be better than copying the contents of that site, which as David has pointed out in one of the talk pages, would cause Google and other search engines to notice and scrap the duplicate sites from their database anyway. It would also involve going against the goal of the project as stated in the Bahaipedia:About page: "Our goal is to make this information easily accessible to everyone, and to encourage study of the source documents used in our articles." Since the new content would not be encyclopedic (would not cite any sources for the individual statements made) I don't see how it would further the stated goal. This reminds me of one of Scott Riders' youtube videos in which, talking about the cause for a Palestinian state, has said that "we cannot be more Palestinian than the Palestinians." If the goal is to improve on the main Baha'i site, bahai.org, by adding links to full quotations of the statements made, why is that not something that is being talked about and arranged over there? And if we do it here, the suggestion seems to be that we would be removing supporting material from non Baha'is sources simply because they are not Baha'i, as recent edits here have shown. I don't see how the cause of teaching the Faith can be furthered by removing any signs that the people being taught are learning anything. Would other people related to those being so treating be interested in following any of our content? Ernobe (talk) 09:32, 8 May 2025 (EDT)

I may have misspoken (or mis-written) - each of the "core articles" themselves are not copies of bahai.org, but the list of topics on this page mirrors the topics that are listed on bahai.org.

Take Bahá’u’lláh for instance; it is a stand-alone Bahaipedia article which shares a topic with, and links directly to, this page on bahai.org; all the same, it goes into more depth than that page (as an encyclopedia would) and also cites and links to other authoritative sources on Bahá’u’lláh. So unless I've misunderstood something, I don't think having this article on Bahaipedia goes against the goal of "encouraging study of the source documents"—by linking this encyclopedic content to the authoritative sources, I believe we're complying with B:GATEWAY.

Please let me know if that helps to clarify things a bit. Best --Dragfyre (talk) 22:30, 8 May 2025 (+08)

My impression, from reading many of the "core articles" and witnessed the current administrations' policy of removing content from Wikipedia, is that its reading of the B:GATEWAY guideline implies that articles should only include links to Baha'i sources. But the principle of the search after truth, on which the guideline is based, states that truth is one and cannot be multiple. Its purpose is to avoid disagreements among humanity which lead to disunity. Therefore, links to non-Baha'i sources should also be included, in order to demonstrate and prove this principle and manifest the desired outcome of unity. Ernobe (talk) 12:26, 8 May 2025 (EDT)

Hi Ernobe, on the page you mentioned it states "or through other publishers provided those books and material are generally considered reliable" or for articles concerning history "...may use any reliable source". The paragraph is intended to be read this way: First try and reference the Bahá’í writings, if that's not possible reference material produced by the Bahá’í institutions or publishers, if that's not possible any reliable source is acceptable. The reason for this is because we want people to be able to independently study the writings and discover why we believe what we do. Also the Bahá’í writings are much more accessible than a printed book to the average internet user. Failing that, Baha'i books will be more accessible to an audience interested in Baha'i topics than secular works, so Bahá’í works are prioritized. The reason for moving away from Wikipedia articles can be summarized simply by: their approach to acceptable sources is opposite of ours. So if we were to copy from them we'd have to track back every statement and modify every reference to present the Writings and Bahá’í sources first, a task which is probably more work than writing original articles. David (talk) 15:43, 8 May 2025 (EDT)

This backtracking that you mention as needing a complete rewrite would only be necessary if Wikipedia engaged in falsifying and corrupting the Writings of Central Figures and the Administration, and basing its views on such corruption. Since that is not the case, their views are easily modifiable to accord with the true intention of their own quotes from the Writings. You seem to be trying to treat Wikipedia, and for that matter the rest of the academic establishment, as covenant-breakers, without any evidence to support your claim. --Ernobe (talk) 9 May 2025 18:15 (UTC)

You've misunderstood me. I said track back to mean the process of looking at a statement, finding its source (with preferences first to the Bahai writings, then Bahai publications), and then linking to those sources. I made no presumptions about the accuracy of the content found in Wikipedia. I don't appreciate your comparison to valuing Bahai sources being akin to treating academic sources like covenant breakers, it's absurd. Why are you so attached to copying Wikipedia content over here? You should perhaps edit there instead but this project is not Wikipedia and does not seek to clone Wikipedia. David (talk) 15:44, 9 May 2025 (EDT)

I don't understand your question. If you do value academic sources, why are you so intent that they should not come from Wikipedia? --Ernobe (talk) 10 May 2025 22:26 (UTC)

Here is an explanation for the reasoning behind the policy pages and approach we've adopted. If you don't understand any part of it please tell me exactly which part and I will try to explain it better. Before considering any policies we first start with a purpose statement. A purpose statement answers this question: why does this website exist and what are we trying to accomplish? The purpose statement we came up with is: this project exists to facilitate independent investigation of truth. In order to accomplish this we've divided articles into two types, those about Bahá’í teachings and those about things like people, places or historical facts. In the first category, articles about Bahá’í teachings, independent investigation requires individuals to connect directly with the writings of the Central Figures. It is not acceptable simply to describe Bahá’í teachings accurately, because that is the same as one individual learning from another individual; it is an important starting place, but to truly become attached to the Bahá’í Faith individuals must study and connect to the Bahá’í writings directly. With this in mind, if we had an article on Bahá’í teachings composed entirely of accurate information sourced to academic authors, does that article facilitate independent investigation of truth? The article has accurately informed our readers, but it has not easily facilitated independent investigation of truth, it has not directly connected our readers to the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, therefore it has failed to capitalize on the attention our readers have given our article and we have lost the opportunity to direct that reader into the Bahá’í writings. Is this making sense so far?

The second category of articles, for those about people, places and history, independent investigation of truth depends less on connecting people with the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh and more on connecting people with reliable sources. However, we still want to allow people whenever possible to read the source material our articles are based on. Between Bahá’í sources (books, newsletters, etc) and academic sources, which do you feel would be more accessible to our audience? Since things like Bahá’í News, Bahá’í World, Star of the West, World Order and The American Bahá’í are all sources of Bahá’í history that are available online, they are both reliable and more accessible than other sources. Because they are more accessible, we rank them higher then other sources that are less accessible. This is the fundamental purpose to the B:GATEWAY page, to say that our project exists not just to describe information accurately, but to connect readers directly with the source material our articles are based on. Is any of this unclear or confusing? Do you understand that trying to adapt Wikipedia content to the above model would present just as much work as writing an article from scratch? David (talk) 20:02, 10 May 2025 (EDT)

Just to chime in here, I believe the source of tension was the removal of the majority of the page Manifestation of God. I have been very busy recently and unable to find the time to write on this or flesh the article out, however the primary issue I had with the page in its wikipedia copied form was not anything to do with academic sources being used, rather the issue was that as written the article doesn't even adhere to wikipedia's standards (i.e. the entire minor prophets section doesn't include a single citation, and it to my mind invents the distinction that capitalisation of the letter p in the word prophet is a significant aspect of the Baha'i writings without a citation). It also makes several statements in its own words with a citation style that does not really support the statement in and of itself, for example in a section it includes "According to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the divine Manifestations of God must be distinguished above any other person in every aspect and qualification, in order that they can effectively train and educate people." then cites the book Foundations of World Unity which A: is a non-authoritative compilation which includes unverified notes of talks by 'Abdu'l-Baha, and B: does not actually directly say what the statement in the article says. Certainly it is a valid interpretation of the text on the page cited, but it is not encyclopedic to make a firm statement on what 'Abdu'l-Baha taught about Manifestations of God by summarizing one interpretion of a lengthy passage and presenting it as a statement of fact. I originally intended to adapt the article section by section but in my estimation virtually every section was riddled with stylistic errors in line with the above so I felt it was best to start from scratch with an article that avoided the above issues, albeit in a barebones format. Part of the reason the article is so brief is that in my research I found the majority of the actual Baha'i writings often use the term Prophet more often than Manifestation of God, and I found it hard to find much academic material from any source which really talked about the term specifically which I feel should be the primary basis for the body of the article with much of the content in the wikipedia article (i.e.; minor prophets) being more suited for the Prophet article. Hope not too rambly, kind regards Jagar (talk) 11:39, 11 May 2025 (+08)

Just to add on to this, I think the primary issue with the content copied from wikipedia is actually very much the opposite of what it seems to be being characterized as in this discussion. It is not really that it gives undue weight to academic sources, rather from my general impressions they seem to mostly be built on statements of "'Abdu'l-Baha said" or "Baha'is believe" with citations often linking to pages in Baha'i books without any context or discussion given as to how the citation supports the statement. This isn't intended as a criticism to those who wrote the articles, as most of them are largely the same as they were written in the early 2000's and haven't received much collaborative support to improve them since initially being written, but in light of this I am of the mind that there is limited utility in porting over wikipedia articles as is simply because the way they are written makes 'updating' them to bahaipedia's style (or modern wikipedia's for that matter) as labor intensive as just researching the topics from scratch (as David says). Unsure of how it lines up with the updated policies as I have not had an opportunity to study them, but for me personally my policy is; if summarizing something as a Baha'i belief include a direct quotation rather than summarizing with a citation, and if quoting an academic source or Baha'i Studies article/book quote it as "Professor X. states that Baha'is believe ..." Jagar (talk) 12:00, 11 May 2025 (+08)