Wikipedia:Peer review/Christian Conventions/archive1

Christian Conventions

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for July 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… After a lot of effort led by one extremely determined editor, the Christian Conventions article looks about ready for a Good Article nomination. Before we start this process, I'd very much appreciate comments from other editors. Thanks, Nemonoman (talk) 21:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I have read this so-called 'peer review' and this is a joke. You editors have made no substantial effort to assess this article .. clearly. Problem 1, no one has any knowledge of the subject matter.RSuser (talk) 14:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I think what you mean by "assess this article" is determine if the article matches the reality of the friends and workers fellowship, i.e. are the cited sources correct or not. The article does match cited sources - but does not always match reality. If anyone wants to know why please include all the discussion archives in your review. Any questions, please ask. Thanks, Jesse Lackman (talk) 21:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why there it's problem that "no one has any knowledge of the subject matter". Wikipedia isn't meant to be a diary of personal experience but an encyclopaedia of scholarly research. Peer reviewers aren't required to have in-depth knowledge of the specific focus of the article/essay, but significant knowledge/expertise in the broader topic -- which in this case is philosophy and religion -- to assess it for scholarly quality. In this case I think the reviewers have done a great job doing just that, but the more reviews the better...

Nor is the purpose of the peer review to find out if the article documents the absolute truth (if such even exists), but to see that it does the best it can with the references available. If you have suggestions for how this article can be more accurate or for previously unknown reliable sources then please say so. Please don't just criticise the attempts to improve the quality of this article. Donama (talk) 02:13, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Redtigerxyz's review

for GA concerns

• Current Images are good in terms of license. Can images about the current state of the organization, be found/made? Current Sunday conventions, leaders
• Why do we need 12 references to prove the Founder is William Irvine, in the infobox? 1 is enough. In a note, write the "Restorationism" view
• I observe long sentences like "Irvine became dissatisfied with Faith Mission precepts, and in 1897 he became convinced he had received a revelation that the manner in which the disciples had been sent out in Matthew chapter 10 was a permanent commandment which should still be observed." Till you reach the end, you lose track of the beginning. Split in 2 or any 3 sentences.
• "The earliest workers and overseers began to pass away, giving way to a new generation of leaders...." para is every repetitive. It sounds like "X died, Y died, Z died, A died, M died ... ". Can it can put in a better way.
• "Doctrine and practices" has too many sub-sections. Some are hardly 2-3 lines? Can these can merged to form larger. Split "Doctrine and practices" into Doctrine (religios philosophy of the group), "Organization" (heirarchy, terminology about posts, Ministers) and "Practices" (meetings, gatherings)
• IMO, The "Church name" section is too down the line. I suggest a section named "Church name(s)" at the beginning before History with all the names, including the ones in the lead be coupled together.
• Members: 150,000-600,000 unofficial estimates. Reference needed
• References: " Fortt. 1994. A Search for the Truth, p. 135." "Fortt. 1994 p. 135." is enough. see WP:REF for other styles
• References should have books and journals, and need not have newspapers. If you goes to search today's "The New York Times. New York, New York.", you is not going to find anything about Christian Conventions. shift additional info about the paper in "footnotes" itself. "The Oakland Tribune. Oakland, California." "Fiset, Bill. "700 Attend Rites for John Carroll," The Oakland Tribune, 7 November 2007. p. 15." can be combined as "Fiset, Bill. "700 Attend Rites for John Carroll," The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California. 7 November 2007. p. 15."--Redtigerxyz ^Talk 13:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is most interesting, seems factually accurate and verifiable, is certainly broad in coverage, stable, neutral, and well-written. I doubt that it will have much trouble making GA. I have a few suggestions, none of which should be too hard to deal with.

Founding

• "In 1896, William Irvine was sent as a missionary by the interdenominational Faith Mission organisation to southern Ireland. He enjoyed success there, and was promoted to superintendent." - Would it be a good idea to say in this sentence where he was sent from? Clicking links tells me it was Scotland, but it might be good to include it directly in the text.

• Assuming a readership largely unfamiliar with Christian Conventions or, for that matter, Christianity, might lead you to provide a bit more general background information in the form of wikilinks or of bits inserted into the text. For example, "...that the manner in which the disciples had been sent out in Matthew chapter 10..." might make slightly more sense to readers who haven't read or don't remember what Matthew chapter 10 said about the disciples if a brief summary, just a few words, were included in the sentence or in a short sentence inserted just after this sentence. In the same vein, would it be helpful to such readers to link damnation, collection box, evangelist, and other terms familiar to Christians but perhaps not to everyone?

• In the last sentence of the lead, the reference numbers are out of place. In each case, the references should be embedded after the comma or period rather than before; e.g., (Canada),[17][18]. Ditto for the one or two others that appear elsewhere in the article.

Early growth

• "Later that year, William Irvine, accompanied by Irvine Weir and George Walker, brought his message to North America." - "took" rather than "brought"? "Brought" puts an odd America-centric spin on things.
• "A hierarchy developed, wherein senior "workers" in various regions took charge in coordinating the efforts of the ministry within their geographical areas." - "took charge of" rather than "took charge in"?
• "William Irvine continued to have the ultimate say over both their conduct and finances... " - Delete "both"?

Schism

• "There were many excommunications of Irvine loyalists ... " - Wikilink excommunication?
• "He rejected the appointment of head workers to geographic regions and the "Living Witness" doctrine (see Doctrine and practice)." - I think the clickable link here is confusing and can't substitute for a brief in-text explanation.
• WP:EL says in part, "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia but should not normally be used in the body of an article." For this reason, I would suggest replacing the direct link in the "Tramp Preachers" caption with an in-line citation. The citation might begin with an explanatory phrase "The complete article may be viewed" followed by the author, title, url, publisher, date of publication, and accessdate, or whatever parts of that set of data are known.

Consolidation

• The Manual of Style generally frowns upon extremely short paragraphs and extremely short sections and subsections. The third paragraph of this section is only one sentence long. Possible solutions are to expand or to merge. I think you could merge this orphan with the paragraph below it.
• " ...workers traveling into an area controlled by another overseer must first submit their revelation to,[49] and obtain permission from, the local overseer." - "had to" rather than "must"?
• "The exact boundaries between fields was worked out over time... " - I don't believe "fields" is explained until much later in the article. It needs a brief in-text explanation here to avoid confusion. Perhaps the preceding sentence could say, "...which limited workers operating outside of their appointed geographical spheres, known as "fields": ...".
• "Most members were not aware that names had been taken." - Perhaps it would be slightly more clear to say "Most members were not aware of these names."
• "Some who dissented after learning of the practice were disfellowshipped." - I don't see a link that will work for "disfellowship" in this context since the available links seem specific to the LDS or the Jehovah's Witnesses. Perhaps a brief in-text explanation would be helpful. Who had the power to order disfellowship?
• Who had the power to excommunicate?

Doctrines

• WP:MOS#Bulleted and numbered lists says in part, "Do not use lists if a passage reads easily using plain paragraphs." It would be easy to render the bulleted list here as plain paragraphs. Doing that would also eliminate several extremely short subsections.

Standards

• "The use of television and other communication media which might disseminate a "worldly" message to the laity is discouraged... " - Wikilink laity?

Church name

• ""Alberta Society Of Christian Assemblies" - Lowercase "of"?

Terminology

• "Used colloquially when talking to strangers to refer to one's Sunday/Wednesday activity, e.g., "I'll be at church until midday." - Wikipedia avoids using "one" in this way. You could just delete it to solve the problem: "Used colloquially when talking to strangers to refer to Sunday/Wednesday activity, e.g., "I'll be at church until midday."
• "Mission: a series of larger meetings known as gospel meetings the function of which is proselytizing. Generally a sequence of such gospel meetings will conclude with a day during which—as a hymn is sung—those interested in professing may rise to their feet and so indicate their profession(see above)." - It's better to explain in-text than to embed notes like "see above" that force readers to hunt for an explanation. In this case, the explanation seems to be below rather than above.

References

• These generally look fine, but Citation 126 has a dead link.

External links

• I suggest creating an "External links" section and moving the "Christianity portal" to that section.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. We often find ourselves swamped with requests for reviews, and any help with reviewing would be appreciated. Finetooth (talk) 17:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Finetooth. You have chosen a good username for yourself! --Nemonoman (talk) 18:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Excellent suggestions Redtigerxyz and Finetooth. I'm going to tackle Redtigerxyz's short citation format when my eyes can stand looking at the tags for an uninterrupted chunk of time. I've implemented most of Finetooth's suggestions (still working on a couple). Thanks for the input! • Astynax ^talk 19:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the reviews Redtigerxyz and Finetooth. And thank you Nemonoman and Astynax for acting on the recommendations. Donama (talk) 02:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

From JesseLackman When I read the WP:V policy quoted on the CC talk page I realised there's really no hope of the article completely matching real life. It is about as good as it can be given the quality of the published reference material available. I suppose an objective reader looking through the references will see the obvious personal opinion/interpretations with loaded words and phrases like "cult", "Delusions", "Reinventing the Truth", "Churches That Abuse", "A Search for the Truth: The Workers' Words Exposed", "Heresies Exposed" "Christian Truth and Religious Delusions", "Sex, Lies and Sanctity: Religion and Deviance in Contemporary North America", etcetera. A title like "Worker's words exposed" clearly implies the worker's words have hidden meanings which I [Fortt] will expose. That is a personal opinion/interpretation and is the general flavor of nearly everything published by RIS, there is a lot of "reinventing the truth" in the realm of subjective opinion and interpretation. As you know there is a fair quantity of this kind of material written about the friends and workers fellowship, the quality of such reference material is what I'm questioning. The quality of the reference materal affects the quality of the article itself, sometimes in spite of the efforts and attempts of the editors. It seems to me that Jeffro77 had a good suggestion at the bottom of the "William Irvine may not be the founder" [1] section;

As I stated in the section below, statements that contain subjective material should be introduced with something like According to {source}... rather than merely presenting subjective material as outright facts.--Jeffro77 (talk) 03:23, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Jesse Lackman (talk) 13:17, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Jesse for your continuing efforts on behalf of this article. I see your concern that even the titles of certain references suggest and might even promote bias. This is disturbing, but I don't see how to get around it.

As to the "According to {source}..." idea -- this is sort of what the use of footnotes is meant to convey, and at a certain point, every sentence would ideally have an "according to...", and that's practically useless. But if there are particular sentences where the "according to" phrase would provide greater clarity and impact, and point out a possible divergence between sources and "reality", please help us by highlighting those on the Talk page. --Nemonoman (talk) 13:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)