User talk:SirThomasMoreLikeIt

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A video showing the basics of verifiability and neutral point of view policies.

Welcome![edit]

Hello, SirThomasMoreLikeIt, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or click here to ask for help here on your talk page and a volunteer will visit you here shortly. Again, welcome! Acabashi (talk) 03:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Churches[edit]

I notice that you are adding a 'Previous denomination' in Church of England church articles, see here. Unless you are prepared to run though every such WP church article it seems a little wasteful of your efforts. We try to create a consistency within article types, so if you want to do this it would be best to achieve a consensus on WP first, this on the relevant religion and architecture Projects. A change in church denomination to Anglican mostly took place in the 16th century, so it hardly seems relevant. If denomination change was recent, or done for recent reasons specific to the particular church, this needs to be explained in the article body text. Also, when you make a change in an article, please give your reasoning in the edit summary. If you wish any help in editing, please contact through my Talk page. Thanks. Acabashi (talk) 03:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are two issues at work here, and it will help if we can keep them separate. Issue 1 is a technical matter; you should not link to redirects. Each time a reader looks up "Roman Catholic" the servers have to redirect (and hence delay) the display whilst it finds the correct page. If you use [[Roman Catholic]] the servers look up the page and retreive it, then determine that it is a redirect and so have to lookup the real target [[Catholic Church]] and modify the page to say "redirected from Roman Catholic". Then they send the data back to the reader. This may only take a few microseconds, but multiplied by all the accesses Wiki gets and it is, I understand, noticable. To conclude this issue, if future try to use [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]]. The browser will display the text after the bar, but send a request for the page defined before the bar. This is the "unneeded redirection to which I referred".

Issue 2 is, I suspect more controversial. "Previous denomination" is of greater use where a church has been transferred to another religious organisation. For instance some redundant Free Churches have ended up as Sikh temples. Redundant Anglican churches may be sold to other Christian organisations, such as The New Testament Church of God which bought St. Mary's in Strood or St Bartholomew's, Rochester. The latter was built between 1115 and 1124 so started as Catholic, then became CofE and finally Celestial Church of Christ. I put it to you that being sold to a totally different set of users is more significant than the earlier change of senior management!

The issue of terminology is important. One still hears (far too often) phrases like "it was ours until they [the Protestants] stole it". Although one cannot underestimate the subsequent changes (particularly under Edward and the Commonwealth), the initial break with Rome left the same parish clergy ministering to the same parishoners; really no change in ownership. It merely changed from the church in England to the Church of England. Writing up the Catholic/Protestant division creates the fertile ground in which sectarianism flourishes, consider the Troubles in Northern Ireland for example. My personal feelings on this matter are: (1) the edit is unnecessary, I would strongly dispute your assertion "this fact, which may well be unknown to a great many people - not just visitors to the England and Wales but many of its own citizens as well". I think most people have heard of Henry & his wives. (2) if you feel the change is important and are prepared to go through all churches making it, at least keep the the non-controversial and historically accurate term "Catholic" as used by the Nicene Creed, unless of course you are actually trying to make a point, not report facts (which I sincerely hope is not the case). Martin of Sheffield (talk) 19:19, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Martin of SheffieldThanks for taking the time to put your thoughts across. I am happy to accept that, for the reasons you gave, the term 'Catholic' is preferable to 'Roman Catholic' and I will amend the relevant entries in the next couple of days if that is OK. Thanks again. God bless you. SirThomasMoreLikeIt (talk) 20:52, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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