Prab

Welcome to WikiChristian. My name is Prab R. Tumpati. I am a full gospel Christian believer by faith and a medical doctor by profession living in the United States. I was born and brought up in a Hindu family in India who converted to Christianity due to a great healing miracle by God in our family. I grew up in a Christian missions base called Maranatha Visvasa Samajam, started by pastor Moses Choudary, who was called to work among high caste Hindu's.

I consider myself a technology enthusiast as I taught myself a lot of computer softwares in my free time. I have started successful websites like Residentscafe, a popular website for residents and residency applicants and Believerscafe with over 35,000 pages for christians. I felt a strong need for building a website that would let people to edit and add on content collaboratively would be of great help. I them came across the concept of wiki's and felt that it would be great tool for building an Encyclopedia for all Christians. Having seen the phenomenal growth of some wiki's like Wikipedia, I thought why not have a dedicated christian encyclopedia! While there are many wiki's for secular information, we felt a need a for a dedicated Christian wiki that will not only serve as a wiki community, but also serves as a source for information and an encyclopedia on Christianity. I strongly believe that there is strength in togetherness/unity and as a group, we can help build a free Christian Encyclopedia that represents the contemporary concepts in Christian Theology and Faith.

Wikichristian was started in January of 2005 by me, along with some friends like Graham grove from Australia, in order to build an open source Christian Encyclopedia. While I did all the technical stuff in setting up the wiki and posted a lot of public domain content, Graham and many others contributed greatly in building the site up to make it one of the fastest growing wikis. In fact, the website grew to over 115 MB as of August, 2005 and was utilizing upto 95% of the server resources. It lead to temporary problems with the webhost due to high CPU usage in a shared hosting. We had finally decided to get a dedicated server to help facilitate the growth of wikichristian. Our vision is to build a free Christian Encyclopedia, public domain wiki and Bible resource and a wiki Christian community representing the contemporary church thinking and philosophy.

I declare that I do not have any commercial interest in this project and would keep the website not-for-profit. We may latter register it as a not for profit organization, as we grow. If you would like to share your views on improving this project, please drop me a line at my email id above or leave the message in the talk page here. If you are a committed Christian interested in becoming a wiki sysop, you may contact us for information on how to become a sysop.

I strongly believe that Christians have to rise up and stand for the important issues in the society in a day and age where truth is blurred and falsehood and sin are exaulted. WikiChristian would serve as a forum to represent the current concepts and trends in Christian Community the world over and will serve as a source of information, fellowship and inspiration. As this is a collaborative effort, it can only be made possible by participation from users like you! Remember that "when you cast your bread on the waters with faith, it will return one day back to you with butter on top of it".

May God Bless you richly! Prab R Tumpati, MD

You can reach me at prab at residentscafe dot com or tumpati at hotmail dot com

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Retrieved from "http://wikichristian.org/index.php?title=Wikichristian.org:About"

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Prab, just wanted to let you know that I really enjoy Wikichristian and I think it's a great site. I'm looking forward to contributing and working together on this project. Cpark 18:46, 8 Feb 2005 (PST)

Statistics?

Hi Prab, I just had a quick question about something before I head off and start a paper (For Dan-Rev...yay!). Anyway, my question was were are our statistics? Most wiki's have a statistics link right on front page (Currently working on xxxxx articles) and you can click on the number and see some statistics. I know we're using media wiki so the functionality must be there. Is there a reason we don't currently have a link to statistics?

Nevermind...I found it. Guess I just need to actually look before I ask. :) Cpark 07:33, 12 Mar 2005 (PST)

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Hi Cpark, It has been a pleasure for me too and I appreciate the wonderful spirit you have and the innovative ideas you bring in. You and Graham have been wonderful friends.

As per the statistics, we just did not want to have them on the mainpage as yet since we would like to grow to a reasonable number of articles before we can have them on the front page.

Just a note on the vision -

Let us keep the vision of wikichristian broad, to be a meta christian resource linking and reviewing everything christian on the planet and creating content where there is none. We do not have to or want to "reinvent the wheel", if the work has already been done somewhere on the internet, we will just review and link it.

-Prab

Prab, agreed about the vision. I think that the only time we need to "reinvent" the wheel is if something isn't being maintained (ie, Easton's Bible Dictionary is 100 years old and we can help to update it in a wiki environment...some with the KJV, though WEB is doing something like that, just not in a wiki environment. I view our stuff with the KJV to be more like making a study bible). Have I done something that doens't line up with keeping the vision broad? My idea with the goals is just to give us something to shoot for, not to limit what we can do. But kindda to set priorities...could I word something differently to not limit us? Or were you just giving a general statement? Cpark 05:01, 13 Mar 2005 (PST)

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Hi Cpark, I was just making a general statement and do not mean to comment on any of the things you are doing. I think we are in complete agreement here regarding the vision. As you are aware, we are still in the formative stage and we would like to have people with a vision, passion and commitment with strong leadership abilities to take this project to where we would like it to be. I am turning etnoy into a sysop and hope he would be a valuable addition to the team. God bless!

Prab, March 13, 2005.

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Hi Graham, Thank you for the wonderful work you are doing with all the lyrics. In order to better organize the information in the wiki, it is a good idea to categorize the pages so that the system automatically creates alphabetical lists. All we have to do is to type [[Category:type]] at the bottom of the page. For example, the songs category pages should have [[category:songs]]. Also, there are some dead end pages that do not have any link and the best way to avoid creating dead end pages is by categories and templates. To create a new template, just type {{template name}} and edit the template page with the link created. Thanks for the understanding.

User:Prab

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Hi Prab,

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Categories

Hi Prab,

Yep - it's a good idea to use templates and categories. Makes sense to me. However, I still like to have the index and contents pages under the control of the users rather than at the mercy of an automated system.

Thanks

Graham

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Hi Graham,

I think we can do both. Actually, the system does a good job in organizing the info alphabetically but giving the control to the users as well makes sense and we will continue both.

Thanks.

-Prab

Reference Scriptures

Prab

If it's all the same to you, I'd like to leave the reference scriptures as they were. it is easier to link to specific scripures and them alone if they do exist and exist alone. Instead of having people search through an entire book directing to the isolated scripures at are specifically referenced to seems a better idea.

cb31989

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Hi, The CamelCase type of linking text was the original wiki idea that was eventually replaced with the square bracket for wiki links in this wiki engine. One reason the CamelCase is not so good is because search engines do not recognize the two words as separate and so the page may not be ranked accordingly. Another problem is that it is a bit unnatural to not have space in between words. So, may I request you to try to use the square brackets and spaces in between words for the above reasons. Thanks for the understanding.

-Prab

Referance Scriptures

I think it would be a good idea to do referance scriptures buy chapters alone then use templates for the full book. As referance scriptures for all the variations would take a long time and people do want to read the book or print the books of the Bible beging to end to.

World English Bible updates

Is it your intention that the WEB stayes up to date with the offical versions of the WEB? Or do you want the users of wikiChristian modify it so that it becomes the wiki translation. Then there should also be an offical version as well on WikiChristian. Thanks User:M_loewen

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Hi,

I think we would do well utilizing the interlinking and other possibilities the wiki offers in enhancing the usefulness and understanding of the Bible. For example, John 3:16 can be

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life... John 3:16

By using the wiki links, we can amplify the Bible and make it very useful for the users. The idea of A Free Bible Dictionary was to have each biblical word explained in the wiki and those words can be used for the Bible versions or anywhere in the wiki just by wiki linking them. If you have other ideas, please feel free to put them forward.

I just wanted to say that I like the work you do at wikichristian and if you would be interested, we would very much like to have you as one of the sysops! Please let me know by leaving a message here or by dropping me a line at prab@residentscafedotcom.

Prab

Organization of the Free Bible Dictionary

Hi Prab, I've been talking with Cb31989 a bit about the organization of the Free Bible Dictionary, and we agree that we should coordinate our efforts to use the same title page format for the pages being imported. Right now some pages are "Easton's Bible Dictionary: XXXXX," others are "Free Bible Dictionary: XXXXX," others are "Bible Dictionary: XXXXX" and still others are just "XXXXX." I've moved a few over to "Bible Dictionary: XXXXX" now but I thought it would be wise to get other admins' opinions on what the format should be. I thought about "XXXXX (EBD)" but Cb31989 correctly pointed out that this would make it more difficult for search engines. What are your thoughts? Avertist 15:42, 26 Apr 2005 (PDT)

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Hi Avertist,

I think the idea of having all the important words in the bible defined and explained in the wiki just by enclosing the word in square parenthesis(wiki links). If we make it complicated in the url, it becomes hard to link it and I think we should leave the vast majority of words that do not have a separate article directly as they are. For example, Aaron would remain Aaron instead of Free Bible Dictionary: Aaron. If there is a top level article on the topic, we should move the dictionary part to Free Bible Dictionary: XYZ. The word "Free" would help for searches as people tend to use the word free a lot in the searches and that is what we intend to do - create a free Bible Dictionary. user:Prab

Invitation

Dear Prab,

I'd like to invite you to join the RWiki Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rwiki/.

Here's my preliminary description of the group:

This group is an informal association of administrators of religiously-based wikis. Most of us are using MediaWiki, but administrators of other wiki engines are also invited to join.

We envision this as a low-volume list where administrators of religiously rooted wiki communities can trade tips and ideas, work together to fight spambots and vandals, and so on.

RWiki is sponsored by OrthodoxWiki (http://www.orthodoxwiki.org). It is open to wikis based in all "recognized" religious communities. This generally does not include NRMs or groups commonly described as "cults."

The archives of this list are kept private, and membership is restricted to those who genuinely qualify for this kind of group. Please apply with the name and URL of your wiki, as well as a description of your role in managing it.

Yours in Christ

John S. (User:FrJohn at http://orthodoxwiki.org)

Vandalism

Sir,

I did what I could to correct the huge amount of vandalism that had occurred in the last 24 hours. I do ask that you ban the user's ip if you can, as his vandalism was quite vulgar at times. I wish I could be of more assistance but I did what I could.

Merry Christmas and God Bless,

+Anthony

I've banned his ip for 10 years. --Mustaphile 07:16, 23 Dec 2005 (EST)

New Logo

I love the new logo. It adds a touch of class to the site overall. Very good job! --Patriarchanthony 05:47, 8 Jan 2006 (EST)

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Thank you for the encouraging comments. That makes all the hours spent trying different options before coming up with the final alternative worthwhile! I believe that the message on the top - God Loves You - touches some peoples hearts! That is exactly the point of this website! God bless!

--Prab 06:33, 8 Jan 2006 (EST)

Vandalism in general

Hi, I am the creator of the new Bible encyclopedia wiki based in the United States called, Wikible. I noticed that this site is getting hammered all the time with spam. I was just curious what kind of spam protection you are using? I am using the Bad Behavior mediawiki extension at my site. Also, I've noticed this site is using a very old version of MediaWiki. perhaps a upgrade to the latest stable version, 1.5.6 (as of this post), would help curb that somewhat. As you know, spammers will try to use vulnerabilities in software to their advantage, and it would probably help to upgrade. Have a good day, and keep serving the savior! --Ymmotrojam 04:50, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

Hi, Thanks for advice. Our version of mediawiki was released not too long ago, but it is best to upgrade to the latest version. We will work on getting the upgrade. Your project appears to be good, wish you all the best! Let us work together and compliment each other. --Prab 12:37, 24 Jan 2006 (EST)

Block by username

Hi Prab. Amongst the large number of IP's spamming the wiki, every now and again, a user account will be signed up that spams the wiki. What I did notice at these times is that I can't block by username. I believe it needs to be enabled somehow in the config settings of the wiki. I wonder if you could look into this when you have the time. :) --Mustaphile 05:29, 25 Jan 2006 (EST)

Email trouble...

I put in my email address in my preferences, and it said it would send a confirmation, but it never has. Just thought I'd let you know. --Tom 20:10, 7 March 2006 (EST)

I am not sure if this is a bug. I will try to research on this. --Prab 07:33, 10 March 2006 (EST)