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== Combining our efforts? An open letter to users and administrators of the various different Christian wikis==

It appears that there are multipleHello, slightly different, but similar wikis to do with different Christian aspects. They include WikiChristian, WikiBible, Wikible, Theopedia, Carmpedia, Compass and so on. A reasonably full list with links can be found at [[About Christian Wikis]].

It seems Thanks for reading my two cents worth. As a bit of background information, my name is G. Grove and you can contact me at [email protected] to discuss any of the following issues. I've been involved in Christian wikis for a while now. In fact, I first tried to me that each wiki has 1 or set up a Christianity book in wikibooks 2 or 3 or 4 dedicated usersyears ago, which isn't really but then I discovered that manythere were three other Christian wikis at the time and I left the wikibook and joined WikiChristian. If At the time there was some way we could also Compass and Theopedia, 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 agree these people wanting to become be involved in one Chrisitan wiki, either by all joining forces spreading the gospel and working on one knowledge of the above listed Jesus and Christianity through wikis, or by restarting is a wonderful thing. I especially respect those users and creating a new administrators who acknowledge other Christian wiki, then perhaps we could create 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 really comprehensive directory for all the churches of the world; and useful I could go on and most importantly, a '''used''' on about each wiki for Christianity. What do you think? If you wish to comment, post your comments here. --[[User:Graham grove|Graham grove]] 10:29, 27 Dec 2005 (EST)

:Theopedia contacted CARMpedia (when it began) about combining efforts since there seemed to be considerable commonality Despite all these wonderful qualities and the hearts behind them, I believe Christian wikis are failing in perspective. There was no interest from CARMpedia what I see as their two most important objectives in doing so at that timeglorify God. Theopedia has Firstly, to be a significant amount body of content knowledge where Christians actually come to learn about a topic, and invites participation -- howeverto actively be involved in writing and updating articles; and secondly, to be a preference for witness to non-Christians about what Christianity is all about. It is obvious to me that the Protestant (Reformed) perspective will likely keep Theopedia as wikis are not used by more than a separate wiki. Respectfullycouple people for each site, ''Gomarus at Theopedia'', [[User:65and that non-Christians are not reading them either.168.235.36|65.168.235.36]] 20:44, 2 Jan 2006 (EST)Why is this failure occurring?

::Good pointI believe there is one very important overriding fact that is stifling the use and growth of all of these wikis. A way around 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 however would anywhere else presenting the information differently and allowed me to easily see what I was most interested in. I might for example be to have wiki interested in knowing about the persecution of the Coptic church in Egypt today. To learn about that can cover all view points, however individual articles within it could be specific I am going to want read testimonies about peoples experiences living in Egypt. I might want to a particular perspective - for exampleknow about the formation of the Coptic church. To learn about this, you could write 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 '''Salvation (Reformed view)''' under the main article [[Salvation]]interpreting these topics – their opinions are important because I know that there are many interpretations – there is not perhaps one “Christian viewpoint” for this. --[[User:203However, 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.26Now 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.206No, the wiki I am looking for would be different, however, it just doesn’t exist currently.130|203.26.206.130]] 06:55, 18 February 2006 (EST)

:::There are also lots of other little factors that I have found that there are quite a few differences between believe stifle the Orthodox Church and both "baseline" Western Protestantism (growth of the presumption for "various Christian" in most English-speaking forums) and Evangelical Protestantism. A merge would require so many caveats and exceptions as to be unwieldy. {{unsigned|134.68.153wikis.37}}These include

== # The use of unhelpful usernames. 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 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. “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 the road is not acceptable. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about interlinking insteadits minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? ==Nothing as far as I can see!# The layout is never particularly logical.

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 understand the thoughtwelcome comments. Please leave comments on WikiChristians “Christian wikis” talk page (so others can read them, but one must also realize that not all these Wikis are for exactly the same purposeor email me. I wouldn't necessarily combine them all togetherhave been fiddling with ideas, but rather figure templates and trialling out what category each one fits into... For exampledifferent formats for a Christian wiki that I believe would work – it would hopefully be acceptable to those who want an encyclopedia, those who want testimonies, those who want opinions and discussion, some are more leaning towards those who want stacks of information about just Christianity itselfwith directories of churches, while Wikible lyrics of songs and BibleWiki are more about the Bible itselfpublic domain texts. Some disadvantages of one wiki arePlease take a look at my version on my home computer (hopefully it is turned on and working if you go to look at it) – www.grahamgrove.dyndns. 1) If that site goes down, there's no other resource out there. 2) having more than one wiki furthers creativity because each wiki can have unique aspects of it's ownorg and click on the link to Christianity.

What Thanks for your time. I think would be better is that if all the mentioned wikis would interlink between each other. Moving all the content those of us who want a Christian wiki need some discussion, and perhaps we need to put together a single Wiki at this point would be a huge undertaking! atleast with interlinks, each site can grow in their specific areaslarger group of people to work on one encompassing wiki rather than dozens of small wikis. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Ymmotrojam]] 15:29, 30 December 2005 (GMT)

::I'm not sure I completely follow you. The whole point would be to have different wikis interlinked... WikiChristian could link to Theopedia and Wikible for example, and Theopedia and Wikible could link back to WikiChristian. (--[[User:YmmotrojamGraham grove|YmmotrojamGraham grove]] 0921:4755, 19 February 24 July 2006 (ESTPDT))

== Common licensing ==I think one thing that each site could consider doing the same, would be a common licensing schema. I, the creator of [http://www.wikible.org Wikible], personally prefer the [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html GNU Free Documentation License]. I do know though that other sites use different licenses or no license at all. My thinking about spiritual matters is that it should be free, and should remain free (free as in freedom), thus the reason why I like the GNU/FDL. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Ymmotrojam]] 01:14, 3 Jan 2006 (EST) :Just to add to the above, using the GNU/FDL allows content to be copied from other Wikis with the same license. It would be a violation Archive of the GNU/FDL to copy from say Wikipedia, to a Wiki that had no license or a different one... --[[UserTalk:Ymmotrojam|YmmotrojamChristian wikis]] 01:18, 3 Jan 2006 (EST)