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{| class="infobox" width="315px"|-! align="center" | Archives----|-|# [[Talk:Christian wikis/Archive 1]]# [[Talk:Christian wikis/Archive 2]]|}

'''[http://www.wikichristian.org/index.php?title=Talk:Christian_wikis&action=An open letter to users and administrators of the various different Christian wikis=edit&section=new Add new post]'''

Hello== Kathpedia ==May I add Kathpedia to the Wikilist? http://www.kathpedia.com/ We are a German catholic wiki. --[[User:Benedikt|Benedikt]] 00:15,17 July 2008 (PDT)

Thanks for reading my two cents worth. As a bit of background information, my name is G. Grove and : Of course you can contact me at graham_grove@yahoomay.com.au to discuss any of the following issues. I've been involved in Christian wikis for a while now. In fact, I first tried to set up a Christianity book in wikibooks 2 years ago, but then I discovered that there were three other Christian wikis at the time and I left the wikibook and joined WikiChristianGood luck with it. At the time there was also Compass and Theopedia--[[User:Graham grove|Graham grove]] 00:19, but not anything else. In an attempt to try and get WikiChristian used more I started the wikipedia article "Christian wikis" and have since watched an explosion of links appear. That there are all these people wanting to be involved in spreading the gospel and knowledge of Jesus and Christianity through wikis is a wonderful thing. I especially respect those users and administrators who acknowledge other Christian wiki sites as well as their own. Every one of these wikis has some excellent points. Theopedia is full of academic articles; wikible is intelligently set out; biblewiki is commendable for its extensive linking; wikiChristian is admirable because of its attempt to cover all things Christian including be a directory for all the churches of the world; and I could go on and on about each wiki.17 July 2008 (PDT)

Despite all these wonderful qualities and the hearts behind them, I believe Christian wikis are failing in what ::Thx. I see as their two most important objectives in glorify God. Firstly, to be a body of knowledge where Christians actually come to learn about a topic, and to actively thought it would be involved in writing and updating articles; and secondly, polite to be a witness to non-Christians about what Christianity ask before since it is all aboutmy first edit on this wiki. It is obvious to me that the wikis are not used by more than a couple people for each site--[[User:Benedikt|Benedikt]] 11:32, and that non-Christians are not reading them either. Why is this failure occurring?17 July 2008 (PDT)

I believe there is one very important overriding fact that is stifling the use and growth of all of these wikis. They are all essentially modelled closely on Wikipedia. Why is this a problem? Well, wikipedia is a great encyclopedia – a fantastic reference and very useable and helpful. So, if I want to know about say, the “Coptic Orthodox Church” why would I go anywhere else?! I would only go anywhere else if that anywhere else presenting the information differently and allowed me to easily see what I was most interested == Strength in. I might for example be interested in knowing about the persecution of the Coptic church in Egypt today. To learn about that, I am going to want read testimonies about peoples experiences living in Egypt. I might want to know about the formation of the Coptic church. To learn about this, I am going to want to firstly read an encylopedia style overview article about the council of Chalcedon and monophysitism, but then I going to want to read different peoples views on interpreting these topics – their opinions are important because I know that there are many interpretations – there is not perhaps one “Christian viewpoint” for this. However, I might want to find a local Coptic church to visit – and so I would need a list or index of Coptic churches – their addresses and service times and what language they were in. Now Wikipedia wouldn’t be a particularly useful source for some of what I want and certainly isn’t set out in a way that it is easy to find some of that information. No, the wiki I am looking for would be different, however, it just doesn’t exist currently.numbers ==

There WikiChristian slowly continues to grow which is wonderful, as do some other wikis. In the past various people have talked about how to bring about growth in Christian wikis and how to combine them without any resolutions or effective strategies. I wanted to open up the discussion again. <small>As a side note, I notice that [[Theopedia]] and [[OrthodoxWiki]] are doing really well these days in terms of numbers and articles - so well done to the guys over there! One of the strengths of theopedia and orthodoxwiki are that they are designed for a very specific sub-section of Christianity - Reformed (i.e. Calvinist Protestantism) and Eastern Orthodox. But this is also lots a one of their weaknesses - they are less open to discussion and allowing views of other little factors Christians to be voiced. Regardless, well done Theopedia and OrthodoxWiki - may God continue to bless your good work. But for those not part of the theopedia or OrthodoxWiki teams this discussion about Christian wikis should stay very much in our focus.</small> Basically I have a few questions that I believe stifle reckon deserve some consideration and comments over the growth coming months. Of course, if we really consider Christian wikis important in documenting knowledge about God and what he has communicated and is communicating to the world, then we should also pray about these things...* Is there a way that the various Christian wikis could combine into one? I know division has been a major feature of Christianity for 2,000 years and so I guess it's asking a lot. Should we even pursue a course of trying to get Christian wikis to combine? There are obvious advantages but what are the disadvantages? If we were to pursue combining then should this be done on a one-by-one basis and how is this done in a way that is respectful?* Are there ways of attracting more visitors to WikiChristian in the various hope that people will begin to contribute more?* Are there ways of inviting people specifically to help work on WikiChristian? Friends? Advertising? How?* Are there other Christian wikisout there that we don't know about that are talking about how they can bring about growth?* How do we encourage contributions with people adding actual content (and not just copying content from elsewhere) rather than just neatening up the wiki? (I'm all for neatening up the wiki and I think it is great the cleaning up that has been happening. These includeI'm also all for getting more and more original content and depth of knowledge and insight into the wiki)

# The use of unhelpful usernamesThanks. Why can’t we all use our real names as our user names. It makes us less anonymous# The complaints that seem to arise whenever someone writes an article in an essay style presenting his viewpoint, rather than in an encyclopedia style. Articles should be able Look forward to have sentences starting with “I think”. Now these are clearly individual opinion articles, and so need to be marked as such. But Christianity is comments - hopefully a personal religion, and few people have opinions which differ. “I think” is valid.# Vandalism – but I don’t know what to do about that – perhaps the only way to stop it is to have a critical number of users# The unwritten rule that an article about the local church down comment over the road is not acceptablefollowing months. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister--[[User:Graham grove|Graham]] 02:51, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see!# The layout is never particularly logical.18 October 2008 (PDT)

There are I’m sure lots more issues that other people have thought of. And of course you may vehemently disagree with me on each or every point. : I welcome comments. Please leave comments on WikiChristian's “Christian wikis” talk page (http://www.wikichristianve recently added Google Adword for ReformedWord.org/index.php/Talk:Christian_wikis) (so others can read them, or email me. I have been fiddling with ideas, templates and trialling out different formats for a Christian think the kinds of people who would use these wiki that I believe would work – it would hopefully be acceptable to those who want an encyclopediaonce they're very good are legion, those but the people who want testimonies, those who want opinions to edit and discussion, those who want stacks of information with directories of churcheswork on them is much smaller. --[[User:Aquatiki|Aquatiki]] 04:26, lyrics of songs and public domain texts. Please take a look at my version on my home computer 18 October 2008 (hopefully it is turned on and working if you go to look at itPDT) – www.grahamgrove.dyndns.org and click on the link to Christianity.

Thanks for your time:: Pity. I think those of us who want a Christian wiki need some discussion, and perhaps we need Still wikipedia seems to put together draw in a larger group lot of people to who edit and work on one encompassing wiki rather than dozens of small wikisarticles.How does Google Adwords work? Does it cost money? --[[User:Graham grove|Graham]] 06:12, 18 October 2008 (PDT)

(--:::Well all I'm from a new bible wiki of sort, [[User:Graham grove|Graham groveBibleFootnotes]] 21. And I'd like to add a couple thoughts here about combining our efforts. I've been following the biblewiki world for a while seeing the difficulty and division that has been there. Perhaps one way that we can all work together is to each find different areas that we can focus on so that we're not all doing the same thing. Several wikis seem to be bible commentary. We think we might have made some progress in how to make a collaborative commentary a little more usable and would love for all of you to check it out and give us your feedback. We think some of the reason that bible commentary wikis haven't caught on is that they're too difficult to use. We've tried to do a little something different. If you like what you see, each of these Christian wikis could start specializing into different projects. Thoughts?:::55, 24 July 2006 (PDT))

 :I appreciate the commentsGod bless you. I don't really disagree with any of it. I think some of In my humble opinion, public domain or CC (only attribution) allows more solidarity since the similarity with Wikipedia is an effort not to re-invent the wheeltexts can be used anywhere. For exampleI cannot copy the texts of WikiChristian, ReformedWord, OrthodoxWiki, CreationWiki neiter Conservapedia in the area of organization of the Wikife.pasosdeJesus. Of course there are other aspects than org --just organizational beginning. However I could copy and logistical thingsI would prefer to contribute with Theopedia (public domain). In addition, we You also need could use the translation to remember that there are many people spanish of the gospels in the world that haven't even heard of Wikipedia, so it shouldnpublic domain (I't be too surprising m working on that Christian wikis are lacking in editorial support. Here are some responses and I pray to your points... --[[UserGod for direction and His help):Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06 http:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)# The use of unhelpful usernames//www. Why can’t we all use our real names as our user namesgutenberg. It makes us less anonymous#org/etext/12501 http:Interesting idea, I think I like it//www. Especially for citing articlesgutenberg. --[[Userorg/etext/12500 http:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)# The complaints that seem to arise whenever someone writes an article in an essay style presenting his viewpoint, rather than in an encyclopedia style. Articles should be able to have sentences starting with “I think”. Now these are clearly individual opinion articles, and so need to be marked as such. But Christianity is a personal religion, and people have opinions which differ//www. “I think” is validgutenberg.#org/etext/12502 http:I agree//www. "I" statements should be included somehow. If you think about it, every statement is an opinion, even encyclopedic writings are opinions from various points of view, although they may be more educated than the average persongutenberg. The only trouble I see is in how to merge encyclopedia and user commentaryorg/etext/12503 Vladimir Támara. I'd love to see what others think about that! --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 0607:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)56 COT Jan 3 2009# Vandalism – but I don’t know what to do about that – perhaps the only way to stop it is to have a critical number of users#::I pretty much havendon't had any vandalism at Wikible for a few months nowunderstand. I use keyword filters, captchas, a username registration blacklist, First you say PD and a user creation log to keep track of who registers. And I still allow anonymous users to edit CC are good and add contentthen you say WikiChristian, and all registered users are free to edit the Main Page. In factReformed Word, the only page thta no one can edit but me is the Copyright noticeOrthodox Wiki aren't great, which I think is selfwhen they are GFDL and CC (SA-explanatory why I did thatA) respectively. Other than that, almost anyone can edit Which is it. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)# The unwritten rule that an article about the local church down the road ? Do you mean only PD is not acceptable. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service timesgood? Nothing You can copy stuff as far as I can see!#:I agree with thatlong you footnote it. --[[User:YmmotrojamAquatiki|TomAquatiki]] 0605:4113, 25 July 2006 4 January 2009 (PDTPST)# The layout is never particularly logical.#:Layout? What are you referring to? --==See also==[[UserTalk:Ymmotrojam|TomChristian wikis/discussion]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)