User:Jonathan Tweet/sandbox

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In the Company of Crows and Ravens was written with and illustrated by Tony Angell. They discuss the ways that crows are like humans, and the many different ways that humans have treated crows. Gifts of the Crow, Marzluff and Angell documented how intelligent crows are, with both anecdotes and research. In Subirdia, Marzluff shows how seven "exploiter" birds have enlarged their territories by taking advantage of human-made changes to the environment, and discusses how we could make our back yards better for birds.

In 1989, he won the H.R. Painton Award for outstanding paper published in The Condor.

{/reflist}

Scholar	Evidence of notability
Keener	@StAnselm:, here's where you write your evidence that Keener is on Sanders' level.
Sanders	Britannica tapped him to write their biography of Jesus. That alone verifies him a great mainstream source. Theissen & Merz list his work among frequently cited literature, they name him as an important voice in contemporary scholarship, and they cite him by name for his formulation that Jesus' sect was a "renewal movement within Judaism". Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church lists two of his books among their list of important sources for their "Jesus Christ" entry (not their historical Jesus entry). The Jesus Seminar scholars include him on their list of suggestions for additional study even though they disagree with Sanders (and everyone else) about Jesus being apocalyptic. Sanders is possibly the world's most respected source on this topic.
Theissen	Theissen & Merz cite Theissen and his mentor Burchard as an important voice in modern scholarship (for what that's worth), and they name seven of his works as frequently cited sources. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church lists his textbook among their list of important sources for their "Jesus Christ" entry (not their historical Jesus entry).
Vermes	Britannica gives him an entry with a named author (not by "staff"). Theissen & Merz list his work among frequently cited literature. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church lists one of his books among their list of important sources for their "Jesus Christ" entry (not their historical Jesus entry). The Jesus Seminar scholars include him on their list of suggestions for additional study even though they disagree with him (and everyone else) about Jesus being apocalyptic.
Crossan	Britannica mentions as notable.

• removing mainstream view of virgin birth link
• removing reference to top historical sources in favor of a fringe view: link
• removing dubious tag link
• removing information on post-crucifixion following link
• Future Trillionaire removing historical information on Jesus' ministry link
• St Anselm treating textbook information as if it were the opinion of individual scholars link
• Isambard Kingdom deleting historical view of birth narratives link
• Isambard Kingdomremoving historical view of Palm Sunday event link
• St Anselm deleting mainstream view of Jesus' set-piece sermons link
• St Anselm deleting mainstream view of "Son of God" belief link

Admin noticeboard. [1]

November '14. Introduction to the issue: [2]

January '15. Continuation of discussion, St Anslem joins in, Jtrevor acknowledges that he is not to remove the POV tag until the issue is resolved. (Nice to see op[olicies being followed.) First compromise is to remove John, but FutureTrillionaire prevents that change. [3]

March '15. Continuation of discussion, Brandmeister acknowledges that the take on the Gospels is the Christian perspective. Since the agreement to remove John didn't work, we go to Plan B: separating the Gospel accounts. [4]

April '15. Short thread: [5]

April '15. Issue resolved and edits are underway, with feedback from other Brandmeister, who had opposed the changes: [6]

August '15. Summary of compromise, that is, how we deviate from reliable sources in favor of Christian sensibilities. These are compromises I agreed to as part of the consensus on keeping the gospel accounts separate: [7]

- - -

I'd like to better understand the opinions of those who think that the Gospels section is fine as it is. I would just like to listen and, for a change, not criticize. Here's what I would like to hear opinions on.

Here are WP's policies on primary, secondary, and tertiary sources (WP:PSTS).

• Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.
• Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources.
• Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other

Would anyone like to make the case that the Gospel section faithfully embodies these policies? For this thread, I won't respond to anything people post. I won't ask you for evidence or anything. I'd like to hear what other editors have to say about these policies and the Gospels section. Don't worry that you're opening yourself up to criticism. I'll just listen. And of course opinions are welcome from all, not just those who like the page's Gospels section. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 02:15, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

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This conflict is about the Jesus page: Jesus (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). It involves these editors:

• StAnselm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• LittleJerry (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Farsight001 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jonathan Tweet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

To a lesser extent, these editors have also been involved in related discussions:

• FutureTrillionaire (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Johnbod (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jeppiz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mangoe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• John Carter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

For months, one opinionated editor has tried to push their unpopular views on the other editors, advocating for major changes to the page. Most other editors have repeatedly denounced these suggestions as biased, unnecessary, contrary to the WP way of doing things, and against consensus. Currently all actual discussion on the topic has broken down, and the ad hominem comments are increasing. I'm here asking an administrator to help us resolve this impasse. I'm the opinionated editor with the unpopular views. I say we should describe Jesus the way RSs describe Jesus. The most active, vocal editors, on the other hand, strongly prefer that the page describe Jesus primarily the way the Gospels describe him. Please help us.

On the surface, the issue is content, but underneath it's conduct. Vocal editors have established a norm on the Jesus page that editors should decide how to describe Jesus based on their best judgment rather than on policies or RSs. Their approach is to say that no big changes can be made to the page without consensus, and then they withhold consensus from changes they don't like. Meanwhile, no consensus is required to keep the page the same. Since they back up their decisions with personal opinion rather than policy and RSs, there's no evidence I can look at with them to come to a mutual understanding. In fact, they dismiss the idea of evidence. I've been working on the page slowly but steadily for over a year now, and now my progress is at a standstill. For their part, the editors genuinely believe that they are in the right, and they are absolutely sick of me and my refusal to go along with the majority. More and more, they refuse to even explain why they revert my edits, remove dispute tags, etc. With no progress possible, I'm escalating this issue and hoping for a resolution.

Why is this issue so heated? The point of the other editors' stance is to protect the Gospel accounts of Jesus. Contrary to WP guidelines and the examples of RSs, this page describes Jesus primarily by summarizing the Gospels. Critical commentary is explicitly excluded from the body of this section, which is the biggest section on the page. Historical information is relegated to a secondary section, so the article has two different sections to describe Jesus' life, baptism, teaching, miracles, crucifixion, and resurrection. An open discussion based on policies and RSs would potentially lead to the Gospels no longer getting favored treatment as the primary way we tell the reader about Jesus.

Naturally, these editors sincerely think that they are following policy and RSs. They just don't point to any policies or RSs to support them. The big questions they don't answer are:

• What RS describes Jesus primarily by summarizing the Gospels?
• What policy says we should describe Jesus' life twice, once as a Bible character, and once as a historical figure?
• What guideline or RS demonstrates that we should exclude critical commentary from the Gospel summaries?
• How would it hurt the page for it to emulate Britannica's approach and merge the historical and Gospel descriptions?

My last attempt to reach consensus was a request on the dispute resolution noticeboard. A few potential moderators recused themselves, one editor refused to participate on the grounds that it's a conduct issue and not a content issue, and no moderators volunteered to handle the dispute. Previously I had tried an NPOV request on the question of whether the historical section should go first. One commenter said put the historical section first, and another said merge the historical and Gospel sections, but neither suggestion was acted on. I also tried an RfC on the the same question. The results were mostly No, although no policies or RSs were referenced in opposition to the idea.

For the nine years that I've been editing WP, the Gospels section of the Jesus article has been a source of recurrent conflict. In 2006 when I started editing WP, the Gospels section had no historical introduction (link). Other editors and I added one, but only against resistance from certain editors. The compromise at the time was to have a historical intro to the section but to exclude historical and scholarly comment from the body of the section. There is no support for such a compromise in WP guidelines or among RSs. To this day, editors put up a lot of resistance to the historical approach to describing Jesus, even resisting additions to the parallel "historical views" section. This resistance is a big problem because the historical approach is the mainstream approach, which WP should summarize faithfully.

You can see how far the Jesus article diverges from RSs by comparing it to good encyclopedias.

Here is Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Here are Jesus entries from several online encyclopedias.

Here are several diffs where the other editors have their say. They offer several opinions on why the page should be this way, but none of those opinions are backed up by WP policies or by RSs.

Historical information restricted.

• Special restriction on what we can put in the history section: diff
• Historical information excluded from Gospels section: diff diff
• This sentence was modified back and forth and then finally deleted: diff
• Reference to world's top scholar on historical Jesus deleted. diff
• Deleting references to the notability of historical works: diff
• "There are no 'historical accounts'": diff
• Historical commentary excluded from Gospels section, only description of the text allowed: diff
• Historial commentary has no value other than to whisper doubt into the ears of the naïve: diff
• Primary-text tag removed from Gospels section: diff
• Primary-text tag removed from Transfiguration section: diff

Policies, guidelines, and RSs do not apply.

• We should use other WP articles as our guidelines rather than RSs: diff
• RSs aren't relevant to this issue: diff
• Gospels are primary sources so they go before history, the examples of RSs don't apply: diff
• The issue is not about evidence or facts, but about what editors prefer: diff
• Rules for WP:STRUCTURE and POV do not apply to Gospel accounts: diff
• Policies don't apply because Gospels are primary sources: diff

Discussion is stymied. For example...

• Undue weight tag removed: diff
• LittleJerry refuses to carry on discussion of why he reverted Undue Weight tag: diff
• Undue weight tag removed and historical commentary deleted: diff
• Farsight refuses to explain why he reverted the Undue Weight tag: diff
• Done with my petulant bullshit: diff
• Refusal to discuss Due Weight tag link
• Refusal to conclude conversation about Gospel contradictions: link
• Refusal to explain what's wrong with the Britannica approach or really to discuss anything further: diff
• At Farsight's suggestion, StAnselm shuts down my thread as tendentious: link

The norm of making decisions without reference to RSs or policy spreads to new editors who join the page. Here's a new editor agreeing with an approach where no RSs or policies have entered the discussion: diff

The Jesus page gets a lot of traffic and is mirrored by other Internet sites, so this page should show WP at its best. This page is important enough that I think that this conflict deserves high-level attention. Please help.

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The reason I am escalating this dispute is that these editors revert my Undue Weight tags and refuse to discuss it on the Talk page. This behavior is part of a more general pattern of ignoring WP policy in an effort to protect the special way that the page treat the Gospels. The editors have half a dozen reasons why policies don't apply to this section or why it's OK for the page to describe Jesus in an original way rather than the way RSs describe him. I would like these editors to stop thwarting efforts to bring the page into alignment with WP policies and with RSs. They would like me to stop going against the majority opinion and accept the page the way it is.

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I've put a lot of work into both the Historical section and the Gospel section. This issue is about what order the sections come in. The Canonical Gospels section has a POV tag because it comes before the historical section. RSs treat Jesus as a historical figure. They do not summarize Christianity's four Gospels first. Putting this section first gives undue weight to the Christian perspective. Some say that there's a consensus to put the Gospels first, but no one has provided evidence for such a consensus. The section has other issues, but I'll be happy to take the tag off when the historical section is first. In fact, I've only had a problem with one editor, and this seems like it should be a simple issue. We should match the RSs better.

For comparison.

Here is Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Here are Jesus entries from several online encyclopedias.

The issue has been covered in these two discussions on this talk page.

historical account first

follow encyclopedias or WP pages

If you're new to this controversy, also consider how the entire Gospels section meets our neutrality standards, or doesn't meet them.

Christian canon: Why is it based on the four canonical Gospels? Historians don't have much use for John, so including it gives the Gospel a value that it has only within the boundaries of faith. A popular explanation is that the section header references the canonical Gospels, so naturally that's what that section has to be about, but that's begging the question. Maybe it's inevitable that we favor the Christian canon, but the section shouldn't be first.

Structure: Why is no scholarly commentary allowed in the Gospels summary? When I started editing WP 9 years ago, there was no scholarly commentary anywhere in this section. I worked against resistance to get it added to the introduction, and the introduction is in reasonably good shape. Even so, prohibiting scholarly commentary is a violation of WP:STRUCTURE. As someone who was in on the original compromise that got the section into this shape, I don't like it but I'm OK with it.

Purpose: The big question is, why do we have this section at all? RSs don't, why should we? In any event, it certainly shouldn't be first.

I hope to hear more voices on this topic. I have provided RSs and policy references as my evidence for you to judge. If you disagree with me, please share your opinion and then back it up with actual evidence. If we stick to the evidence, we should be able to clear this up. Thank you for your help.

Grandmother Fish is a children's picture book by Jonathan Tweet that teaches evolution to preschoolers.`

Event in the Synoptics	Mainstream historical opinion
Birth in Bethlehem to a virgin, Luke's Christmas story, Matthew's nativity	Legendary
Baptism for repentance under John	Virtually certain
Taught in arresting parables about the Kingdom of God (e.g., likening the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed or to leaven)	Probable
Taught that an apocalyptic revelation was imminent	Probable but disputed
Taught an ethic of radical forgiveness with pithy aphorisms (e.g., "turn the other cheek")	Probable
Scandalous ministry, feasting with sinners, drinking, fraternizing with women, plucking grain on the Sabbath	Probable
Exorcist and healer	Probable
Nature miracles	Legendary
Taught that he was the Messiah who would die and rise again. Transfiguration.	Legendary
Gathered twelve disciples	Probable, a symbolic act
Triumphal entry into Jerusalem	Probable, a symbolic act
Caused an incident at the Temple	Probable, a symbolic act
Symbolic "Last Supper" with disciples	Probable
Leaders of the Temple turned him over to the Romans	Probable
Crucified under Pontius Pilate	Virtually certain
Followers have visions of Jesus after death his death	Probable.

Portraits of Jesus in the Gospels
little to no critical interpretation throughout

Introduction (long)

Gospel facts (years, language, etc.)

Christian gospel tradition

Jesus in the Synoptics (long)

Story

Prologues: genealogies, birth and infancy

Jesus' mission in Galilee

Jesus' teaching, including Q

Passion Week in Jerusalem

Resurrection appearances

Jesus in Synoptics

Jesus in John (short)

Story in comparison to Synoptics

Jesus in comparison to Synoptics

Other sources (short)

Portraits of Jesus in the Gospels
little to no critical interpretation throughout

Introduction (long)

Gospel facts (years, language, etc.)

Christian gospel tradition

Mark (long)

Story

Jesus' mission in Galilee

Passion Week in Jerusalem

Jesus in Mark

Matthew (short)

Story in comparison to Mark

Jesus in comparison to Mark

Luke (short)

Story in comparison to Mark and Matthew

Q source for Jesus' ethical teachings

Jesus in comparison to Mark and Matthew

John (short)

Story in comparison to Synoptics

Jesus in comparison to Synoptics

Other sources (short)

Jesus in Synoptics and John

Jesus in the Synoptics	Jesus in John
Begins with Jesus' baptism or birth to a virgin.	Begins with creation, with no birth story.
Baptized by John.	Baptism presupposed but not mentioned.
Teaches in parables and aphorisms.	Teaches in long, involved discourses.
Teaches primarily about the Kingdom of Heaven.	Teaches primarily about himself.
Says little about himself.	Speaks extensively about himself.
Speaks up for the poor and oppressed.	Says little to nothing about the poor or oppressed.
Public ministry lasts one year.	Public ministry lasts three years.
Cleansing the Temple occurs late.	Cleansing the Temple is early.
Jesus' ushers in a new covenant with a last supper.	Jesus washes the disciples' feet.