Steven Carr

http://www.nazarethmyth.info/

Does anybody know more about this?

Toto

I remember seeing that site a while back; I thought it was discussed here, but I haven't found the old thread. Rene Salm appears to be a well read amateur and religious seeker; he has compiled an interesting list of Buddhist Christian parallels.

Osbert

Here is a well researched site.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html

Peter Kirby

Wikipedia on Nazareth at its finest hour

Wikipedia on Nazareth a while later

Wikipedia on Nazareth after a "wholesale revision" by a self-titled expert

Wikipedia today with the wholly ignorant comment, added to the removed Finegan quote, "The critical question now under scholarly debate is when in the Roman period Nazareth came into existence, that is, whether settlement there began before or after 70 AD (the First Jewish War)."

Is Wikipedia worth bothering with? Your best effort contributions will be revised if there is a strong enough faction wanting to revise them.

This is horrible in issues such as evolution and biblical criticism. I'd rather get my information from edited sites such as talk.origins and NT Gateway.

Should I produce a "historical Jesus" article for Wikipedia, started here, knowing that it will be cut up and butchered?

regards,
Peter Kirby

Roger Pearse

Bill Thayer did a really good job on the Mithras article. But you wouldn't know it now. All that happened was that his data was used to decorate the ignorant theses of weenies with an agenda to peddle.

I've done a little research recently on Roman solar festivals on Dec. 25. I went in and modified the Christmas article. The changes were reverted in 6 minutes on the grounds that I hadn't discussed them in the talk page (I was writing the talk page entry while he was reverting them) and were "too extensive" and that lots of other web pages were "solid references" for the legends being repeated.

The most amusing revert was to 'correct' the date when Saturnalia finished from 23 Dec. to 25 Dec. Even Wikipedia's own Saturnalia article says different.

But really, who has the time to fight with these people?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Peter Kirby

I believe that there may be an alternative to Wikipedia brewing in some academic's brain that uses a "Creative Commons - by attribution no derivitaves" license. (Hell it's brewing in my brain and I could be the one to make it!)

First, an article is born. By a single honest-to-God author.

Second, the community decides whether the article is fit to become "the" article for its title subject.

Third, if someone wants to make a change, they do one of two things: (1) message the author through a convenient interface or (2) apply to the author to become a co-author of the article.

(In the case of abandoned articles, or authors not responding, the community will mark the article as abandoned and look for a new sponsor/author. This would of course require a modification to the "no derivatives" part. Maybe a special license would have to be made.)

Fourth, if the original author does not agree to co-author the article, or to incorporate the suggested change, you can write your own article on the topic and submit it to either (a) replace the existing article or (b) be attached as an addendum.

Overall, this would eliminate edit wars, reduce plain old bad writing, and encourage high quality authors to contribute, knowing their contributions will not be destroyed. So maybe let's do it?

regards,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

New thought about "The Credible Encyclopedia":

Let's just use the damnable GFDL. This would allow us to cannibalize as many articles from Wikipedia as we desire.

However, the restrictions would all be built into the software. Don't like how the site works? Try building your own thing!

regards,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

I have registered credipedia.org and will get to work on this site.

Credipedia is meant to be credible and to give more credit to authors, whereas wikipedia is meant to be "quick".

regards,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

Update: I have discovered, for myself, the project of Larry Sanger titled Citizendium. I am currently reading the archives to see if I want to merge the vaporware of Credipedia with the vaporware of Citizendium. (i.e., to back his project instead)

regards,
Peter Kirby

Roger Pearse

There is the long standing saying in usenet, tho, that a moderated group with a parallel unmoderated group will die. If it's hard to become a contributor, who will do so? (Not disagreeing; just looking at potential problems).

Who do you do your domain registration through, by the way?

All the best,

Roger Pearse