spin

I tried to maintain a table "similar" to the following in the Nativity of Jesus article. You may remember that Roger Pierce was one of the first to take exception to the table, but for the last several weeks I've had to deal with a fellow who insisted it had to go by hook or by crook, trying various rules and claiming an invisible consensus. (See the talk here. It is interesting to see the inability to be specific in grievance.) A long edit war ensued and eventually the administrators of Wiki have left it out -- I guess to halt the continuation of any fuss.

	Matthew	Luke
	Annunciation
Angel	appears to Joseph during pregnancy	appears to Mary before pregnancy
Name	1. Jesus, 2. Immanuel	Jesus
After	Joseph takes Mary as wife	Mary 3 months in Judea
	Circumstances
Date	Before Herod's death in 4BCE	Quirinius census in 6CE
Home	Bethlehem	Nazareth
		Joseph & Mary go to Bethlehem
Birth	where Joseph lives	in temporary accommodation
	Adoration
Who	Wise men (following star)	Shepherds (told by angel)
After	Flight to Egypt to avoid massacre	Circumcised 8th day
		After 33 days presented in temple
Trip	Can't return to Judea because
to	of Archelaus
Nazareth	so move to new home in Nazareth	they return to Nazareth

I present it here partly for posterity, partly to use the new table tags.

I can't think of anything I can do, given that I repeatedly asked for suggestions as to how to make it acceptable from people who were against the table, without getting anything more than "you need secondary sources".

Wiki is big on secondary sources, because when you don't know much about the topic, it's easier to cite someone who does know more.


spin

Ben C Smith

Is it not the case that Wikipedia has a rule against original research? (I ask this sincerely; I am not signed up as an editor for Wikipedia.)

Ben.

spin

It certainly does, but I presented it as a collation of existing material without any interpretation or conclusions. To be serious about such a position, one would have to remove a great deal of Wiki material, because every time an editor reads a book and presents material from that book in a Wiki article, there is a similar level of information processing that if people want to be ultra-pedantic could be called original research.

But that's just one of the attempts that have been made. Another is that it is a "novel synthesis" and another that the consensus doesn't want the table. Any means is appropriate.


spin

dog-on

As an "experiment" it would be interesting to see if they would accept something very similar that proposes a "different solution".

No Robots

Tell me about it. Editors went through some amazing contortions to keep out any discussion of the Jewish reclamation of Jesus.

Toto

The person who objected is a recent convert and in training to be an apologist. I don't see any hope.

spin

You've got me: tell me more. What sort of "different solution"? And how would it overcome the sorts of stonewall approach I've met with?


spin

spin

I couldn't really bring his new-found religious sentiments into the issue, but it's not him that I'm worried about. The administrators have violated Wikipedia's own ethics regarding the formation of consensus. And they don't seem to mind. Consensus doesn't mean a simple majority, but working through compromise to satisfy all possible. Consensus requires constructive input, not the stonewalling the table received. That is no way to gain a consensus.


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fatpie42

I am shocked. That is f**king horrific. :angry:

dog-on

Maybe a spreadsheet that actually resolves all the conflicts?