CreationWiki:Coffeehouse/archive2

Leaving comments on talk pages
This is getting a little out of control, so I thought I'd mention it. So far I've noticed that many people are not signing their comments! This is very important, because it makes it very difficult to follow conversatins when we do not know who is talking. If you see a comment that someone made and it does not have a signature, or is not properly formatted, please use, and sign it for them! Also, just typing your name is not acceptable, you must put four tildas so it tells everyone else what time and date you posted! Here's what my signature looks like ... --Tom 23:51, 8 October 2006 (EDT)

Evolutionism Category
I've removed "evolution" as a category and have instead classified the "theory of evolution" topics as |"Evolutionism". The change seemed appropriate since we are classifying the belief aspects related to "creation" in a "Creationism" category. --Mr. Ashcraft 13:36, 16 December 2006 (EST)

International CreationWiki Sites
It is our hope that the CreationWiki would branch out to the international community, and help creationist groups around the world setup their own CreationWiki site. We placed an international menu as the default (index) file on the creationwiki domain some time ago in the hope that it would peak interest.

The group that contacted us about translating the spanish site does not appear to be active in its development any longer. The time spent setting up that site will have been wasted unless someone else steps up. The problem is not just finding people to work on a foreign language site, but we must have someone who speaks the language to administrate.

For the moment, I feel the Spanish site should be locked without a Spanish-speaking administrator to oversee the goings-on. I have contacted all of the Spanish creationist groups I know of, but short of that, I'm not sure what else can be done to find a new administrator, or furthermore, to promote the international use of the CreationWiki.

Any suggestions? --Mr. Ashcraft 17:27, 23 December 2006 (EST)

LaTeX
Gents, I couldn't help noticing: the $$$$ markers don't work during edits. So many of us have to create mathematical expressions as images on outside applications, and then import those images into the Media Pool. That seems such a waste of resources! Can't we turn on LaTeX and offer a quick tutorial on how to use it? I'm 95% confident that I can figure out most of the symbol commands, just by viewing source code on the Wikipedia. It would save a lot of image-creating.--Temlakos 21:17, 25 December 2006 (EST)


 * I've asked one of the admins if he would enable the feature. We looked into it once before, but I cant remember why we didnt get it working. I'll post another note here if/when it gets done.


 * TeX
 * http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings#TeX


 * TeX
 * To use inline TeX, you need to compile 'texvc' (in the 'math' subdirectory of the MediaWiki package and have latex, dvips, gs (ghostscript), and convert (ImageMagick) installed and available in the PATH. Please see math/README for more information.
 * $wgTexvc - Location of the texvc binary.
 * $wgUseTeX - Enables the use of (TeX) tags.


 * --Mr. Ashcraft 10:39, 26 December 2006 (EST)

Bot Programmers Needed
Due to the ever increasing size of the CreationWiki, it will become imperative that we have some bots developed and active or ready to implement. A bot is a program designed for performing certain repetitive tasks on a Wiki. They can be particularly handy for "find and replace" chores, and can save us a lot of time - time that is better spent on editing that cant be performed by bots.

They aren't especially difficult to create, but prior programming experience would be a big advantage. The following links should help guide interested parties to the necessary software and types of uses that bots perform on other wikis like wikipedia.

Bot Software Downloads and Info


 * Bot by Wikimedia


 * Bot by Wikipedia
 * Creating a bot by Wikipedia


 * Download Standard Python Software


 * Python Bot Framework makes writing python bots easy, and transport independent, allowing the same bot code to run on multiple protocols.


 * Using the python wikipediabot by MediaWiki
 * Python Wikipedia Robot Framework A framework for writing robots to crawl MediaWiki wikis like Wikipedia, with the goal of standardizing content or otherwise making minor modifications to the pages of the wiki including making interwiki links.

Links
Please bare with us as we attempt to hammer-out some policy and strategies with regard to placing links on the CreationWiki. Your thoughts on this matter are requested.

In particular we need to address the following 2 issues.
 * Where should links be placed?
 * What limitations should exist regarding placing links?

We would like to see links placed on the CreationWiki in a way that is orderly, while least restrictive as possible.

Currently we have a heading beneath each article titled - "Related References", which is used as a general bibliography for article citations and related links. Please note that we encourage our authors to cite their references and a style guide for placing references within a paper and in the Biography has been prepared.

It has been suggested that we either:
 * separate the Bibliography into 2 headings "References" and "External Links", so as to make a distinction between the works used by the authors for support and consultation, and those suitable for further study on the subject.
 * limit the placement of the "External Links" to a links page where categorized external links would be placed.

One important policy point for consideration is where to allow homepage links to creationist sites that are non-specific in nature. Sites like Answers in Genesis have information that pertain to a great many topics on the CreationWiki, but having links to the AiG homepage on dozens of pages is simply not appropriate.

Please give your thoughts or comments... --Mr. Ashcraft 13:42, 29 December 2006 (EST)


 * Shouldn't we have a single page listing all creationist resources, on-line and off-? Such an article could have a section titled "Internet resources," and that would be the perfect place to put in homepage links. Of course, each site deserves its own article, and the homepage link is appropriate on that article. Other than that--well, I certainly would rather not put in a homepage link on every article in which I include a link to a specific page on that site. But if everyone could at least know where to go to find other Internet resources, that would help a great deal.--Temlakos 13:53, 29 December 2006 (EST)

A FABNAQ Directed at Evolutionists
Gil and I have been thinking: Why shouldn't we go on the offensive against the evolutionists? They want to talk about "Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions" that they have for us? Well, I can think of a number of Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions for evolutionists. For example:


 * 1) Where's the Oort Cloud?
 * 2) Why is Halley's Comet still as bright as ever, if the earth is really old enough for that comet to have made its hundred passes many times over?

I could probably think of a dozen others, and I'm sure that any of a number of people reading this post can each think of a hundred more.

We need a new project page, or perhaps just another discussion article, that we can encourage everyone to watch. Comments?--Temlakos 23:09, 4 January 2007 (EST)

Creationwiki's viewpoint on Christianity
CreationWiki:About says that "Articles should be written from the creationist point of view (CPOV), which holds that the universe and life on Earth are the result of an act of creation by God." Many pages on creationwiki seem to take not just a creationist but an explicitly Christian stance (moreover, a Protestant, Christian stance). Examples include Apologetics which says that "Some of the major religious groups claiming to be Christian but who attack fundamentals of the Christian faith include: Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, and Roman Catholics. The number of small new religious groups is growing constantly, and the leaven of the erroneous teachings of many of them is also spreading." and Do you want to be descended from a monkey?. The second one seems more serious since it seems to be written assuming that Christianity is the only religion that the talk origins archive cares about. So are we explicitly Christian or is the wiki going to be for creationism in general? Crookwood 01:19, 25 January 2007 (EST)


 * I am not the author of those particular articles on apologetics. I have written multiple articles on Bible history, and on at least one modern nation that will figure prominently in Bible prophecy. While so doing, I always have a fundamentalistic perspective that informs everything I write. I am not ashamed, for example, of addressing the Biblical chronology dispute head-on--though in a project like this, I prefer at this point to publish a table of conflicting dates and calculations and let those who are of a mind, decide for themselves which model presents "the simplest explanation that fits all the facts."


 * I also have written some articles that address the culture in which we live, and how that culture has changed. Certain religious icons (Saint Nicholas for one) and cultural institutions (including especially theater but also including music, which I fully intend to address) have a direct bearing on how one is going to perceive our findings.


 * Now I can understand your concern, which is: Are we getting off-topic, or at least out-of-scope, when we address those controversies that objective science (including a proper approach to archaeology) cannot properly address? I suspect, however, that you might have another concern, which you did not express out loud, as it were: Are we provoking enmity to no good purpose among those who might be interested in creation science, but who have differing religious perspectives?


 * The answer to both those questions depends on yet another question: Do the findings of creation science support one set of religious traditions over another? Do the findings even bear on half the disputes between and among different religious traditions? And: what texts, other than the Bible, are of value in informing a creation-scientific investigation, and to what degree, and how can you tell? And if they cannot contribute--then why not simply ignore them?


 * Ultimately, however, I leave this up to Mr. Ashcraft to decide.--Temlakos 08:43, 25 January 2007 (EST)


 * Ashcraft so far has not commented on the matter but our current articles seem to be very different in this regard and I do not know if I should standardize them all one way or another. I'm also thinking of making stubs for some of polytheists and pagans as well as maybe the Bahai (who are at least monotheists) and this will determine how I write the articles a lot. Crookwood 22:40, 26 January 2007 (EST)


 * The only problem with that is that these different religious groups would each have its own creation story. If we once start trying to match demonstrable events with "the faiths of all countries" so as not to offend anybody, our enterprise will surely fail.--Temlakos 23:07, 26 January 2007 (EST)

The CreationWiki is for creationism in general. Although Biblical young earth creationism will remain the principle perspective, any creation science or creation apologetics topics can find a home on the site.

The purpose of the site is largely one of a Christian outreach. Nevertheless, a degree of neutrality is advisable, and you are encouraged to write articles on the world's other religions and their stance on the creation.

I would however, discourage you from making sweeping content changes to multiple articles as suggested by your statement to "standardize them all".

To my knowledge the apologetics article you mentioned was written by Johnson C. Philip with the original title of Christian apologetics. I moved it to the general title apologetics as no article on the topic yet existed, which explains the emphasis within. Since the Apologetics article has seen further development, I have returned the bulk of that material to its original title.

--Mr. Ashcraft 01:38, 27 January 2007 (EST)


 * And concering Roman Catholicism, what should we do? Roman Catholics share the same creation story, but we have articles like Purgatory which takes a very dim view of Catholic doctrine. Crookwood 15:28, 18 February 2007 (EST)

Need to rewrite creation etc. articles
I think we need a more thorough typology of creation, creationism, etc. We should distinguish the creation of the universe, kinds of life, and humans (universal creation, biological creation, human creation). We should distinguish creation of matter and soul. We should be more specific about ID and creationism (ID is a form of biological creationism that is agnostic about the identity of the creator).

Historically, we have many friends and allies as well as opponents of various stripes. When we claim historical figures as creationists, we should be careful about what kind of creationism it is (based on their writings) lest we misrepresent people.

Anyway, I'm willing to attempt a major re-write but I wanted to let people know and see if there are any general comments.

--Rgillmann 14:24, 27 January 2007 (EST)


 * Agreed. The creation article in particular needs a lot of work. I think your suggestions and edit of the intro is a good start. I've created headings for each of the typologies you've suggested to detail, where an abstract of the article would be placed.


 * BTW - ID is not simply biological creationism. Much of their work has focused on universal creationism also (i.e. The Privileged Planet, etc).

--Mr. Ashcraft 23:05, 27 January 2007 (EST)