https://en.orthodoxwiki.org/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Sir+James+Paul&feedformat=atomOrthodoxWiki - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T15:32:24ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Eucharist&diff=52401Eucharist2007-06-03T18:35:39Z<p>Sir James Paul: Small edit</p>
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<div>[[Image:Covered Vessels 2.jpg|right|thumb|200px]]'''Eucharist''' comes from the Greek meaning ''giving thanks''. Other names for the Eucharist include: the '''''Holy Gifts''''', '''''Communion''''', and the '''''Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ'''''. [[Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christians]] believe that the Real Presence of God (not merely a sign) is present after the [[consecration]] of the Gifts. Roman Catholics and some protestants also hold this view.<br />
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{{spirituality}}<br />
<br />
== Background ==<br />
The Eucharist is the center of life in the Orthodox Church because the Church is primarily a eucharistic community. The Eucharist is the completion of all of the Church's other sacraments and the source and the goal of all of the Church's doctrines and institutions.<br />
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The majority of scholars of the Last Supper do not believe that it was a Passover meal, a position consistent with the account given by the [[Gospel of John|Gospel of Saint John]]. A minority believe that it was a seder or Passover meal, a position consistent with the Synoptic Gospels. However, as Enrico Mazza has argued, the minority view "remains a theological interpretation. The historical fact is that the Last Supper was not a Passover celebration and, consequently, that its liturgy was not that of the Jewish Passover" (''The Celebration of the Eucharist: The Origin of the Rite and the Development of Its Interpretation'' [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999] pp. 25-26).<br />
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==For the remission of sins and unto life everlasting==<br />
Before the reception of Holy Communion the following prayer is generally recited by all. It is each person's act of personal commitment to Christ, their promise of faith in Him and the Sacred Mysteries of His Church.<br />
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:''I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first (see [[I Timothy|1 Tim]] 1:15).''<br />
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:''I believe also that this is truly Thine own most pure Body, and that this is truly Thine own most precious Blood. Therefore I pray Thee: Have mercy upon me and forgive me my transgressions, committed in word and deed, whether consciously or unconsciously. ''<br />
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:''And make me worthy to partake without condemnation of Thy most pure Mysteries, for the remission of sins and unto life everlasting.''<br />
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:''Of Thy Mystical Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant. For I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, neither like [[Judas Iscariot|Judas]] will I give Thee a kiss; but like the thief will I confess Thee: "Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom."''<br />
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:''May the communion of Thy Holy Mysteries be neither to my judgment, nor to my condemnation, 0 Lord, but to the healing of soul and body.''<br />
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The faithful receive Holy Communion on a spoon. They are given both the consecrated bread (NIKA) and the sanctified wine. The communion of the faithful is always from the gifts offered and sanctified at the given Divine Liturgy. All who are [[Preparation for Holy Communion|prepared]] members of the Church through the [[sacrament]]s of [[baptism]] and [[chrismation]], including small children and infants, may partake of Holy Communion.<br />
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==Eucharist as a sacrifice==<br />
The Orthodox Church believes the Eucharist to be a sacrifice. As is heard in the Liturgy, '''"Thine of Thine own we offer to Thee, in all and for all."''' <br />
#At the Eucharist, the sacrifice offered is Christ himself, and it is Christ himself who in the Church performs the act of offering: He is both priest and victim.<br />
#'''We offer to Thee'''. The Eucharist is offered to [[God]] the [[Trinity]] — not just to the [[Father]] but also to the [[Holy Spirit]] and to [[Christ]] Himself. So, what is the sacrifice of the Eucharist? By whom is it offered? and to whom is it offered? In each case the answer is Christ.<br />
#We '''offer for all''': according to Orthodox theology, the Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice, offered on behalf of both the living and the dead.<br />
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The Church teaches that the sacrifice is not a mere figure or symbol but a true sacrifice. It is not the bread that is sacrificed, but the very Body of Christ. And, the Lamb of God was sacrificed only once, for all time. The sacrifice at the Eucharist consists, not in the real and bloody immolation of the Lamb, but in the transformation of the bread into the sacrificed Lamb.<br />
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All the events of Christ's sacrifice, the [[Incarnation]], the Last Supper, the [[Crucifixion]], the [[Resurrection]], and the [[Ascension]] are not repeated in the Eucharist, but they are made present.<br />
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==Real, symbolic, or mystical==<br />
The Eucharist is both symbolic and mystical. Also, the Eucharist in the Orthodox Church is understood to be the genuine Body and Blood of Christ, precisely because bread and wine are the mysteries and symbols of God's true and genuine presence and his manifestation to us in Christ.<br />
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The mystery of the Holy Eucharist defies analysis and explanation in purely rational and logical terms. For the Eucharist, as Christ himself, is a mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven which, as Jesus has told us, is "not of this world." The Eucharist, because it belongs to God's Kingdom, is truly free from the earth-born "logic" of fallen humanity.<br />
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From [[John of Damascus]]: "If you enquire how this happens, it is enough for you to learn that it is through the Holy Spirit ... we know nothing more than this, that the word of God is true, active, and omnipotent, but in its manner of operation unsearchable". <br />
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==Reserved Sacrament==<br />
The Eucharist is normally reserved in a [[tabernacle]] on the [[altar table]], although there is no strict rule as to the place of reservation. There are no services of public devotion before the reserved sacrament, nor is there any equivalent to the Roman Catholic functions of Exposition and Benediction. The [[priest]] blesses the people with the sacrament during the course of the Liturgy, but never outside it.<br />
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The faithful at the liturgy are never given communion from the reserved gifts; they are kept exclusively for those unable to be attend liturgy for good reasons, usually sickness or infirmity. Holy Communion is always from the gifts, the bread and wine, actually offered at the eucharistic liturgy which is currently being celebrated. Only the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts uses gifts sanctified at the previous Divine Liturgy.<br />
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{{liturgy}}<br />
==Eucharistic Liturgies==<br />
In the Orthodox Church four [[Divine Liturgy |Eucharistic Liturgies]] are commonly used.<br />
<br />
===Liturgy of St. James===<br />
The Liturgy of St. James is served only in certain places, usually on the [[feast day]] of St. [[Apostle James the Just|James]] the "Brother of the Lord" ([[October 23]]), first [[Bishop]] of [[Church of Jerusalem|Jerusalem]]. It is the oldest and longest of the liturgies. It varies greatly from the other liturgies celebrated by the [[Church]] today in that it is celebrated outside the sanctuary at an [[altar]] that faces the congregation. <br />
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The rubrics require that this liturgy is celebrated by a [[bishop]] and twelve [[priest]]s. In the absence of a [[bishop]], thirteen [[priest]]s may celebrate the service. The faithful receive [[Holy Communion]] as the [[clergy]] do, receiving the Body in their mouth and then drinking from the [[chalice]].<br />
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===Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great===<br />
The Divine Liturgy of St. [[Basil the Great]] is used on the Sundays of [[Great Lent]], [[Holy Week|Holy Thursday]], the Eves of [[Pascha]], [[Christmas]], and [[Theophany]], and the Feast of St.[[ Basil the Great]] ([[January 1]]). St. Basil shortened and standardized all the variations of liturgies that developed from the time of St. James until the acceptance of Christianity by the Roman Empire.<br />
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===Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom===<br />
The most common is the Divine Liturgy of St. [[John Chrysostom]], the liturgy used on all Sundays except those which fall during Great Lent and all holy days on which a Eucharistic liturgy is served except for the eves of Pascha, Christmas and Theophany, Holy Thursday, and the [[feast day]] of St. Basil the Great.<br />
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===Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts ===<br />
: ''Main article: [[Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts]]''<br />
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The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is a [[Vespers|vesperal]] service during which elements that were previously consecrated are distributed to the faithful. The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is appointed for use on Wednesdays and Fridays during [[Great Lent]] (and certain feast days when they fall on a weekday during Great Lent) because the full celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy is generally prohibited on the weekdays of Great Lent. This service is often attributed to St. [[Gregory the Great]], Bishop of [[Church of Rome|Rome]] in the sixth century.<br />
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==Other Divine Liturgies==<br />
There are several Divine liturgies that are used in some Orthodox churches frequently and in others rarely.<br />
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===Divine Liturgy of St. Mark===<br />
The service is the original, traditional liturgy of the Church of Alexandria, used by the great hierarchs of Christ Athanasios, Cyril, Makarios, Dionysios and others. Manuscript texts of this liturgy date back to the fourth century, but more ancient fragments exist. Although the order of the service has developed over the course of many centuries, we are assured that the author of this liturgy is indeed the Apostle Mark. The most recent text (dating to 1585 during the time of the Greek Patriarch of Alexandria Meletios Pigas) was approved and published by St. Nektarios of Aegina. This liturgy is served once a year in the Greek and Russian Churches.<br />
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===Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon===<br />
: ''Main article: [[Liturgy of St. Tikhon of Moscow]]''<br />
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Used by the Western-rite Orthodox of the Antiochian and ROCOR churches.<br />
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===Divine Liturgy of Peter the Apostle===<br />
This liturgy is also known as the Sarum Missal, it is used by the Antiochian and ROCOR Western-rite churches.<br />
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==See also==<br />
*[[Prosphora]]<br />
*[[Preparation for Holy Communion]]<br />
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==Published works==<br />
* Laverdiere, Eugene. ''The Eucharist in the New Testament and in the Early Church''. (ISBN 0814661521)<br />
* [[John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon|Zizioulas, John D.]] ''Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries''. (ISBN 1885652518)<br />
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==External links==<br />
*[http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num31.htm Orthodoxy and Transubstantiation]<br />
*[http://goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7077.asp The Holy Eucharist] by Rev. Thomas Fitzgerald from the [[Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America]] website<br />
*[http://www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=53 The Orthodox Faith] Fr. Thomas Hopko, Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir's Seminary, Crestwood, NY. <br />
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[[Category:Featured Articles]]<br />
[[Category:Sacraments]]</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Informed_Consent&diff=52400Informed Consent2007-06-03T18:28:57Z<p>Sir James Paul: Small edit</p>
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<div>If you were to do research on various Bioethics issues, you would most likely come across the term “informed consent” without there being a definition. It is one of those terms that people often assume everyone knows and understand, the sad reality being that many people do not fully understand informed consent, especially understanding this within an Orthodox context. In his book, The Sacred Gift of Life, Fr. John Breck says, “matters of ‘informed consent’ and ‘patient’s rights’ need to be evaluated in the light of the Gospel’s teaching on freedom and responsibility.”[1] Our first step will be to define informed consent and look briefly at the history, and then attempt to struggle with this issue and what it means for Orthodox Christians, and hopefully come to some conclusion. <br />
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== Definition & History ==<br />
<br />
What is informed consent? According to the Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary, informed consent is a noun which means “consent to surgery by a patient or to participation in a medical experiment by a subject after achieving an understanding of what is involved.”[2] Vital to this understanding is that the patient is supplied with the necessary facts but also fully capable to understand these facts - in other words, the patient needs to be mentally competent. This brings about legal ramifications which, of course, cloud the issue. When there is an absence of informed consent, ethical issues arise. Legally, certain procedures cannot be allowed to happen. If the patient is unable to give informed consent him or herself, for example in the case of a mentally incompetent patient or a child, then someone else is usually in a position to give consent. [3]<br />
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<br />
The American Medical Association (AMA) defines informed consent slightly differently on their website, which has a banner saying “Helping Doctors Help Patients.” They say “Informed consent is more than simply getting a patient to sign a written consent form. It is a process of communication between a patient and physician that results in the patient's authorization or agreement to undergo a specific medical intervention.”[4] The AMA implores Doctors on its website to focus on the communication process and also to document it as well. The AMA provides steps for proper communication with a patient, saying at the end of this list, “this communications process, or a variation thereof, is both an ethical obligation and a legal requirement spelled out in statutes and case law in all 50 states.”[5] According to the AMA, the legal ramifications of informed consent are recent, although the ethical guidelines have been understood for a long time. Informed consent as such only began appearing on the legal scene in the 1950’s, before that it was lumped into the tort law category of battery. The emphasis placed on informed consent by the AMA is not only to protect the doctor legally, but also to protect the rights of the patients.[6]<br />
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<br />
The National Cancer Institute describes two key elements for informed consent in the case of a clinical trial: the document and the process. The document is what the participant actually signs and lists a summary of the clinical trial – “including its purpose, the treatment procedures and schedule, potential risks and benefits, alternatives to participation, etc.”[7] – and also the rights of the participant. The National Cancer Institute says that the process of informed consent is ongoing and begins long before the trial begins and ends long after the trial is over. “Thus, informed consent is an ongoing, interactive process, rather than a one-time information session.”[8] I think that this definition of informed consent is vital also to doctor-patient relationships as well and should not be limited to clinical trials.<br />
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<br />
The question of mental competency plays a major factor in this discussion. When is it ok for a doctor to question the mental competency of a patient and at what point does the family of the patient begin to question their mental competency? The University of Washington School of Medicine advises that a patient’s mental competency is generally clear. In the cases when competency is unclear, they provide the following suggestions for assessment of the situation. Is the patient able to:<br />
* understand his or her situation, <br />
* understand the risks associated with the decision at hand, and<br />
* communicate a decision based on that understanding?[9]<br />
If it is hard to assess the patient’s competency, it is possible that the doctor will bring in a psychological consult. Often making the discernment of mental competency difficult is that some patients move in and out of competency based on medication and also disease. Doctors are encouraged, in these situations, to try and include the patient in the decision making process when the patient is lucid.[10] It is important for the both the patient and the doctor to realize that if the patient refuses treatment, this is not necessarily an indication that the patient is mentally incompetent.[11] The patient has the right to say no. I think that many legal struggles over mental competency stem from a differing opinion between the patient and the family as to the course of treatment. <br />
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<br />
To summarize a definition of informed consent let us look to a listing of the following elements which are necessary for a complete definition of informed consent:<br />
# the nature of the decision/procedure; <br />
# reasonable alternatives to the proposed intervention; <br />
# the relevant risks, benefits, and uncertainties related to each alternative; <br />
# assessment of patient understanding; and <br />
# the acceptance of the intervention by the patient.[12] <br />
This list provides a thorough and complete understanding for the patient and also for the doctor which will in turn provide for the best possible care. Informed consent is not needed in every situation. Generally, when surgery, anesthesia and other invasive procedures are involved, informed consent is needed. In situations where informed consent is not needed, it is still important for the lines of communication to be open and working between the patient and the doctor.[13] The patient should not be afraid to ask questions and the doctor should not be annoyed with having to answer them.<br />
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== Orthodoxy and Informed Consent ==<br />
<br />
For Orthodox Christians, what does all this mean? The issue seems to be clear cut, why all the fuss? According to Fr. Breck, “Some Christian ethicists today are suggesting that our unity in the Body of Christ implies a mutual commitment that in certain cases transcends the need for informed consent and transforms the self-centered notion of personal ‘rights’ into the self-giving gesture of care offered to others in love.”[14] My understanding of what Fr. Breck is saying here is that there should not be a need for informed consent because we should totally give ourselves over to the doctor’s care in love because, ultimately, we are giving ourselves over to God because the doctor is working within a Christian framework of caring through love, “ground[ing] personal relationships – between doctor and patient as between the medical team and the patient’s family – in the ultimate relationship of love, trust and mutual devotion.”[15] Personally, I see this as being the ultimate goal, what we need to strive for in this world, but I do not think that this is our current reality or something that we can feasibly expect at this point. If this is the ultimate goal of Orthodox Christians, how do we continually work towards this goal within the world we live in? What is our response to informed consent within the secular framework as followers of Christ?<br />
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Unfortunately, not a lot has been written on this topic from an Orthodox standpoint.[16] I would venture a guess that this is because there is not a lot to say. The issue appears to be pretty cut and dry. Informed consent is necessary for a proper understanding of a procedure being done and it is the responsibility of doctors to provide the needed information so that patients can understand what is happening. Following the guidelines listed above and others in the cited websites should ensure that the patient is informed. The real issues appear to be revolving around the question of the patient’s mental competency. For Orthodox Christians, the answer to that question appears simple. The patient, the patient’s family and the doctor all need to open themselves up to hear what God is saying in the situation. The patient’s family needs to be sensitive to the needs of the patient and listen to what they are actually saying, not only what the family thinks they are saying. The doctor needs to also be sensitive to the needs of the patient and recognize their concerns and fears. In addition, the doctor must be vigilant in providing the patient with all the possible options in an unbiased manner allowing the patient to make the decision that they feel fit. The patient needs to be open to listening to others, whether the doctor or their family. Inasmuch as they all need to listen to the patient, the patient also needs to listen to them. The patient, patient’s family and the medical team needs to work within a framework of “the ultimate relationship of love, trust and mutual devotion shared by the three Persons of the Holy Trinity.”[17] This may mean the patient or their family needs to “let go,” that the doctor needs to accept a difficult decision from the family, or the patient needs to trust the suggestions of the doctor even if this means a difficult surgery. <br />
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As followers of [[Jesus Christ]], this means that our prayer becomes “Thy will be done.” When we pray that way, our acceptance of that will is our submission to God as His creation. Within the world as we now know it, this is not always easy. We need to seek out for our physicians people that understand and accept that we will be responding in this manner. A good relationship with our primary doctor will ensure this, as they will, ideally, suggest specialists that will also understand this and not try and force anything on us.<br />
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== Conclusion ==<br />
<br />
Ultimately, the issue of informed consent is one of the few, if not the only, doctor-related issues within Bioethics. The onus appears to be placed primarily on the physician to completely inform the patient and continue in dialogue with the patient. When this burden is not upheld by the physician, there are boundaries within secular law that can allow for the patient to seek remuneration from the physician. Unfortunately, this has become very common and, in my humble opinion, has caused for physicians to fear patients and also provided for a lot of extra paperwork. Ideally, we would all work within the framework provided by Fr. Breck of “the ultimate relationship of love, trust and mutual devotion shared by the three Persons of the Holy Trinity,”[18] but within our current reality our calling as Orthodox Christians is to at least work towards these goals in ourselves first and by our example bring others to this understanding. Issues surrounding informed consent at the end of life further complicate things, but within this framework are seemingly easier to understand and cope with. As Orthodox Christians, within issues of Bioethics, we will continually be searching for God’s will in all situations and, by putting our trust in Him, we will be able to make proper decisions. I suppose that for Orthodox Christians, a definition of informed consent or a list of what is considered complete informed consent would then have to include information regarding God’s will. <br />
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== Notes ==<br />
[1] Breck, John. ''Sacred Gift of Life: Orthodox Christianity and Bioethics''.<br><br />
[2] Informed Consent.Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary.<br><br />
[3] Informed Consent.Wikipedia, Inc.<br><br />
[4] Informed Consent. American Medical Association.<br><br />
[5] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
[6] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
[7] Informed Consent. National Cancer Institute.<br><br />
[8] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
[9] Informed Consent.University of Washington School of Medicine.<br><br />
[10] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
[11] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
[12] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
[13] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
[14] Breck, p. 17<br><br />
[15] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
[16] Of my three textbooks for a course on Bioethics at Holy Cross Seminary, only one listed informed consent in the index. Within that book, it was only discussed in one paragraph.<br><br />
[17] Breck, p. 17<br><br />
[18] ''Ibid.''<br><br />
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== Bibliography ==<br />
<br />
Breck, John. ''Sacred Gift of Life: Orthodox Christianity and Bioethics''. (Crestwood: SVS <br />
Press. 1998) p. 17<br />
<br />
Informed Consent. AMA.org. American Medical Association. <br />
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/4608.html (Accessed: April 26, 2007).<br />
<br />
Informed Consent. Dictionary.com. Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. Merriam-<br />
Webster, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Informed Consent (Accessed: April 30, 2007).<br />
<br />
Informed Consent. Cancer.gov. National Cancer Institute. <br />
http://www.cancer.gov/ClinicalTrials/AGuidetoUnderstandingInformedConsent/page2 (Accessed: April 27, 2007)<br />
<br />
Informed Consent. Washington.edu. University of Washington School of Medicine. <br />
http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/consent.html (Accessed: April 26, <br />
2007)<br />
<br />
Informed Consent. Wikipedia.com. Wikipedia, Inc. <br />
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent (Accessed: April 26, 2007).<br />
[[Category:bioethics]]</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Universit%C3%A9_de_Sherbrooke&diff=47537Université de Sherbrooke2007-03-17T23:56:29Z<p>Sir James Paul: Added internal link</p>
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<div>'''Université de Sherbrooke''' is a French language public university with its main campus at Sherbrooke, Quebec (in the Eastern Townships region of the province) and a satellite campus at Longueuil, a Montreal suburb.<br />
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The university's [http://www.usherbrooke.ca/fatep/formation/theologie theology faculty] offers [http://www.usherbrooke.ca/programmes/bacc/theo.html Bachelor] and [http://www.usherbrooke.ca/programmes/maitrise/theo.html Master] of [[Theology]] degrees in [[Orthodox Theology]]. Also offered is a 30 credit part-time [http://www.usherbrooke.ca/programmes/certif/c-theoor.html Undergraduate Certificate in Orthodox Theology]. <br />
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There are evening and weekend courses for the Certificate and Master's programs offered at the Longueuil campus. Originally courses were offered only in French as the university is a francophone institution, but, recognizing that many Eastern Orthodox Christians in the province of Quebec are anglophone, the courses for those Certificate and Master's programs are available at Longueuil in English and French.<br />
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[[category:Stubs]]<br />
[[category:Seminaries]]</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Population_control&diff=47536Population control2007-03-17T23:55:20Z<p>Sir James Paul: Added internal link</p>
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<div>'''DEFINITION OF POPULATION CONTROL'''<br />
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'''Population control''' is the practice of limiting population increase, usually by reducing the birth rate. The practice has sometimes been voluntary, as a response to poverty, or out of religious ideology, but in some times and places it has been government-mandated. This is generally conducted to improve quality of life for a society or to prevent a “Malthusian catastrophe”. [“Malthusian catastrophe” is a return to subsistence-level conditions as a result of agricultural (or, in later formulations, economic) production being eventually outstripped by growth in population. Theories of “Malthusian catastrophe” predict over several generations or centuries. "Population control" has also been conducted in the name of eugenics, racism, and the economic self-interest of corporations to exploit citizens of poor countries. Given the nature of human reproductive biology, controlling the birth rate generally implies one or more of the following practices: sexual abstinence, contraception, same-sex relations, sterilization, abortion, or infanticide.<br />
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'''[[ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN ETHICS]]'''<br />
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Contemporary concern about population growth would appear to be a direct contradiction between the Orthodox Christian ethical imperative to “be fruitful and multiply.” In the fourth century [[St. John Chrysostom]], noted the population question and related it to the need that the sexual drive be fulfilled in marriage. "It was for two reasons that marriage was introduced; so that we may live in chastity (sophrosyne) and so that we might become parents. Of these the most important is chastity...especially today when the whole inhabited world (he oikoumene) is full of our race." Chrysostom's arguement is equally relevant today. Humanity has been obedient to the divine command and has been “fruitful” and has “multiplied” and “has filled the earth” (Gen. 1:28). This raises the question for Orthodox ethics regarding the appropriate means for population control. Coercion of the individual couple's choices regarding their obligation to procreate does not seem ethically appropriate. Also, Orthodox ethics opposes the use of abortion as a birth control method. Advocating widespread abstinence from sexual relations by huge numbers of married people without contraception control methods violates some of the purposes of marriage as understood in the Orthodox Church. The use of contraceptives within marriages to space and limit offspring seems to be the appropriate ethical response. Persuasion and education are appropriate means to encourage smaller families. All Orthodox ethicists, however, would hold that respect for the freedom of each couple to decide must be considered an important and significant factor of population control policy.<br />
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'''UNITED NATIONS FUND FOR POPULATION ACTIVITIES (UNFPA)'''<br />
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President Ronald Reagan gave his position on international population policies in the following remarks to Right to Life activists (1987) -- “as you may be aware, some international organizations have chosen to support abortion as a means of population control. Well, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, or UNFPA, for example, works with Chinese population programs, which include abortion. Our response to that? We cut off American funds from UNFPA and from overseas organizations that support or promote abortion. We believe population programs can and must be truly voluntary, cognizant of the rights and responsibilities of individuals and families, and respectful of religious and cultural values. Well, that means no coercive measures such as involuntary sterilization and no use of abortion for population control.”<br />
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These days the population bomb hysteria that was all the rage in the 1960s and 1970s has largely subsized. Every prediction of massive starvation, eco-catastrophe of biblical proportions, and $100 a barrel oil has been discredited by the global economic and environmental progress of the past quarter century. Intellectually, the “Malthusian limits to growth" menace is stone dead. But within the Clinton State Department, “Malthusianism” flourished. The Clinton administration allocated almost $300 million a year to international population control -- or what is euphemistically described these days as "family planning." In countries ranging from India to Mexico to Nigeria to Brazil, the basic human right of couples to control their own fertility and determine their own family size has been trampled upon by the state, thanks in large part to flows of dollars and deluges of false limits-to-growth propaganda supplied by the American government. The UNFPA, however, has had a particularly demon-like presence in developing nations. Back in the Reagan years, Congress sensibly pulled out of the UNFPA because of its complicity in some of the most inhumane forms of population containment. Today the UNFPA maintains the fiction that the agency has fought coercive policies. How does one explain, then, that UNFPA once gave an award to the Chinese government for the effectiveness of its genocidal one child per couple policy? To this day no one knows precisely how many babies and women have died at the hands of the population control fanatics in China. What we do know is that this program will go down in history as one of the greatest abuses of human rights in the 20th century. The Chinese government's ongoing birth control policy has already claimed an estimated 5-10 million victims. An estimated 80-90 percent of the victims have been girls. UNFPA still spends millions each year on population control programs in China.<br />
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The following is UNFPA's overview of China as found on their website: “The Law of Population and Family Planning of the People's Republic of China went into effect in 2002, introducing client-centered and service-oriented approaches to reproductive health services. Introduction of the law has been considered among the most critical factors influencing the future direction of population policy as well as the provision of family planning services. The law spells out rights and responsibilities for clients, service providers and family planning officials, as well as providing for sexual health education for students. Most provinces have also formulated their own regulations. A client-centered, quality reproductive health approach, pioneered in 32 counties with UNFPA assistance, has been replicated in over 800 other counties (one third of the country's total), resulting in its incorporation into national policy. With a total fertility rate of about 2 lifetime births per woman, China has sustained a reduction in population growth over the past three decades. However, the current total population of 1.3 billion is still a key concern. The government views population issues as critical to the country's development.”<br />
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The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was established in 1969, shortly after the contemporary hysteria about overpopulation was launched with Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb. Since that time, the UNFPA has propagandized the world with the fallacies that the world is becoming overburdened with people, that the developed world's population is depleting natural resources, and that the developing world is doomed to poverty unless it can curtail its population growth. Accordingly, the fund has spent almost $2.5 billion on its various activities, which range from collecting data to sponsoring family-planning programs. But are those programs really necessary, let alone ethical? Are there really too many people? Famine, deepening poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and resource depletion are adduced as the symptoms of overpopulation. Yet on no count does the evidence support the anti-population lobby's case. On the contrary, the long-term trend for each factor is positive and points to an even better future.<br />
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Television pictures of starving, emaciated Africans are heartbreaking, but they are not evidence of overpopulation. Since 1985 we have witnessed famines in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and elsewhere. Those nations have one thing in common: they are among the least densely populated areas on earth. Although their populations are growing, the people are not hungry because the world can't produce enough food. They are hungry because civil war and primitive economies keep food them from producing food. In the 20th century there has been no famine that has not been caused by civil war, irrational economic policies, deliberate retribution, or natural disasters. Moreover, the number of people affected by famine compared to the number affected during the late 19th century has fallen--not just as a percentage of the world's population but in absolute numbers. Food is abundant. Output has more than doubled in the last 30 years. Per capita food supplies have increased 25 percent in the developing world, where the world's population growth is occurring. The real cost has declined. And what's true of food is also true of other resources. <br />
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The claim that "uncontrolled" population growth depletes resources has no more foundation than the catastrophists' other arguments. For centuries, resources of every kind, including energy, have been growing more plentiful and less expensive. In the developing world, total fertility rates dropped by 40 percent. The population controllers credit their efforts, while still complaining that not enough is being done. But the beginning of the fall in those rates preceded their campaign. Moreover, there is a simpler explanation: as economies develop and become richer, people tend to have fewer children. In preindustrial, agricultural economies, children produce wealth as farm workers, and later they provide retirement security for their parents. Children are assets. A large number of children correlates with wealth. In developed economies, children consume wealth, for education and the like. They are an expense. Thus people tend to have fewer kids. A low fertility rate is an effect, not a cause, of development.<br />
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'''HOW THE NEW DEMOGRAPHY OF DEPOPULATION WILL SHAPE OUR FUTURE'''<br />
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Ben Wattenberg's "Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future" reports conclusively that the world will have far fewer people than was expected even a decade ago, that in numbers and age and gender patterns this smaller population will be distributed in ways that will be significant, and that the implications for the environment, the economy and national security will be quite profound. The biggest news is that in sheer numbers the human race is now likely to peak at 8.5 billion people, rather than at the earlier United Nations' projection of 11.5 billion. Even the U.N. demographers now agree that the population explosion will never reach the numbers they had once projected. The biggest reason for this dramatic decline was captured in an earlier book by Mr. Wattenberg, "The Birth Dearth." Women are simply having fewer children and the result is that in some countries population is already starting to go down. In order to sustain the current population, the average woman would have to have 2.33 children. Falling below that average will result in a population decline. Today some 40 countries are already below the replacement rate and Mr. Wattenberg expects virtually every country to be below the replacement rate by the end of our lifetime. Amazingly, after all the focus on Chinese compulsory population control, it is not China that has had the most rapid change in birthrates among Asian countries. That honor goes to South Korea, where women now average only 1.17 children (even lower than Japan). China has dropped to 1.825 and is still declining.<br />
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Here are a few more fascinating points in this book that deserve to be singled out: 1. Europe is going to lose population dramatically by mid-century and therefore become significantly older. This will almost certainly entail a significant shift in power and in economic competitiveness away from an aging and shrinking European Union. 2. Mexico is on the verge of dropping below the replacement rate; over the next generation this will almost certainly slow the rate of migration to the United States. 3. Russia is facing a demographic crisis, with the shortest lifespan for males of any industrial country and a catastrophic decline in women willing to bear children.<br />
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Mr. Wattenberg highlights the intellectual dishonesty of environmentalists and their factual mistakes over the last generation. Paul Ehrlich, for example, had predicted famines beginning in the 1970s. They simply haven't happened. The global warming projections all assumed a population of 11.5 billion. If the human race peaks at only 8.5 billion people - 3 billion fewer than predicted - and then starts a long-term decline, human environmental impact will be much reduced. Also highlighted is the unique role of the United States as the one industrial country that will keep growing. American population growth is a combination of the highest birthrate of any industrial country (2.01 children per female) and our willingness to accept immigration. Mr. Wattenberg projects that the United States will continue to grow in economic and other forms of power, while Europe and Japan decline dramatically. In the Wattenberg vision of the future, there are only three large nations by 2050: China, India and the United States.<br />
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He concludes by noting that the Less Developed Countries could in fact experience a "demographic dividend". He notes that poor countries with falling fertility rates are growing wealthier quicker than are the rich modern nations. In the meantime the New Demography is bad for most Western nations. Thus the need to spread the vision of freedom and democracy around the world, lest non- (or anti-) democratic nations (Islamic states for example) win by default, by simply taking over due to sheer force of numbers. No one really knows where these trends will take us. Much of Mr. Wattenberg's book could be called speculative. But it is important that good minds pay close attention to these changes. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''BIBLIOGRAPHY'''<br />
-Harakas, Stanley. 'Living the Faith'. Light and Life Publishing Co., 1997<br />
-Wattenberg, Ben. 'Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future'. Ivan R. Dee (Publisher)., 2004<br />
-Moore, Stephen. 'Don't Fund UNFPA Population Control'. Cato Institute (cato.org)., 1999<br />
-Richmond, Sheldon. 'The United Nations and Global Intervention'. Cato Institute (cato.org)., 1997<br />
-Gingrich, Newt. 'Warnings for a Shrinking War: Geopolitics, Environment and World Economy Affected'., (newt.org)., 2004<br />
-Reagan, Ronald. 'Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan'., (reagan.utexas.edu). 1981-1989<br />
-United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). 'Population, Health and Socio-Economic Indicators/Policy Developments- China', (unfpa.org)<br />
-'Population Control'., (wikipedia.org)<br />
<br />
[[Category:Contributed Articles]]</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User_talk:Wsk&diff=47535User talk:Wsk2007-03-17T23:52:56Z<p>Sir James Paul: /* Question */</p>
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<div>{{welcome}} &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 11:25, 28 May 2005 (CDT)<br />
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== Photos from Japan ==<br />
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Judging by the age you give the photos, it is likely that their copyright has long expired and they are now in the public domain. You should feel free to scan them in and upload them to the site. Thanks for your work! &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 07:09, 6 Jun 2005 (CDT)<br />
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== Various ==<br />
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I deleted the duplicate article as you requested.<br />
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One other note is that when you did a "move" on the Sandbox, it turned the Sandbox into a redirect to the new article. Additionally, it imported the entire editing history from the Sandbox into your new article. I thought you might like to know that for future reference. In the future, you may wish to create new article projects in the userspace instead, e.g., [[User:Wsk/Article Name]], or just copy and paste the code into the new article, so that redirects and shifted editing histories don't get thrown about. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 19:54, 7 Jun 2005 (CDT)<br />
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== Nikolai-do pics ==<br />
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Those photos are fantastic! Thanks for procuring them. Please be sure to add an [[Help:Image licenses|image license]] for each one as is appropriate. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 15:49, 17 Jun 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== Bishops and links ==<br />
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You're most welcome for the help&mdash;it's the standard wiki-protocol! :)<br />
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There are a couple things to note:<br />
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*Links and article names for bishops are in the format '''Firstname (Surname) of See'''. The birthname can be noted in the article, but it's not included in the article name. Making links to as-yet-absent articles is also included here, since clicking on those links will lead a user to create an article with that name.<br />
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*Creating wiki-links which link to an article with name A yet display name B are done in the following fashion: '''<nowiki>[[Name A|Name B]]</nowiki>''' Thus, if I wanted to link to your userpage without displaying its full name, I would use '''<nowiki>[[User:Wsk|Wsk]]</nowiki>''', yielding this: [[User:Wsk|Wsk]].<br />
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Please take the time to read through the [[Help:Contents]] and the [[OrthodoxWiki:Style Manual]] for lots of tips on style and technical details. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 13:36, 25 Jun 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== Orthodoxy in America template ==<br />
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Great job on making all the "American Saints" on the template blue. You have some very well-researched articles. —[[User:Magda|magda]] 16:26, 30 Jul 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== Sp: Archimandrite/Archmandrite ==<br />
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I've noticed that there seems to be a consistent spelling error in a number of your articles. Just so you know, the word is spelled '''[[archimandrite]]''', not '''archmandrite'''. (This is not a personal criticism; just trying to let you know!) &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 09:18, 8 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== St. Herman's Seminary ==<br />
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I moved the [[St. Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary (Kodiak, Alaska)|St. Herman's]] page because the apostrophe was one of those "smart quotes" and the [[Template:Orthodoxyinamerica|Orthodoxy in America template]] (among other pages) wasn't picking up on it. Just something to look out for. [[User:Magda|{{User:Magda/sig}}]] 16:24, 13 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== Cult/occult ==<br />
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I have no idea how OrthodoxWiki got classified as being "cult/occult" by this particular web-service you mention. It may well be that the word "cult" appears in a number of articles, and so some automatic classification occurred. In any event, if you'd like to contact these folks to let them know the real state of things, feel free. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 08:10, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
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::Far out wsk! Any follow-up? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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:Thansk Bill for all your notes. I'm glad you're excited about OrthodoxWiki! I've been very happy about all the Japanese Orthodox stuff. I've got a friend who's moving to Japan soon (she's now Orthodox and married to a Japanese Orthodox man), and it's been a blessing to see so much about the Japanese Orthodox Church! - [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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==An Overdue Response==<br />
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:Hi again, I wanted to respond to your comments below. Sorry for the delay! Thanks for your support and encouragement for this project, and for talking it up. Please greet Fr. Constantine for me. He probably won't remember, but we met awhile ago. Keep up the good work, and keep thinking big for the site. We need vision! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 14:11, 8 Sep 2005 (EDT)<br />
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By the way, I glad you all have started the OrthodoxWiki site, it's among the things we need to do to 'advertize' Orthodoxy. Now we need to get the word out to our people. I attend St Nicholas in Washington and have mentioned the site to a number of 'outward looking' people, but I need to do more. Bill Kosar<br />
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== Japanese Orthodox ==<br />
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Wow, great work Bill. Where do you find this stuff? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br>P.S. I had the pleasure of serving with Fr. Dennis in Chicago yesterday.<br />
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== Canadian OCA Hierarchs ==<br />
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Here are a couple of links for succession boxes: [http://www.archdiocese.ca/archivesbishops.htm list of Canadian bishops] and [http://www.archdiocese.ca/archivesHistory.htm a history of the Archdiocese of Canada (OCA)]. {{User:Magda/sig}} 09:10, November 12, 2005 (CST)<br />
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== Bringing together the pages... ==<br />
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Hi Bill,<br />
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I've put [[Template:Orthodoxyinjapan]] on all the pages about Japanese Orthodoxy I could find, and also put everything together into [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]]. I would be grateful if you could write a brief introduction on the category page, then I would like to submit the whole category as a featured article to showcase some of the unique information we have here on OrthodoxWiki. How does all that sound? Thanks! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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P.S. It would also be wonderful, if you have a chance, if you could work on [[Timeline of Orthodoxy in Japan]]. It doesn't have to be extensive, but it would be nice to have something up. Thanks!<br />
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== Category link ==<br />
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Hi Bill, thanks for bringing this up -- I've added the category to the image. This can be done by going to the image page, clicking edit and adding <nowiki>[[Category:Japanese Orthodox Images]]</nowiki> anywhere in the text of the page. By the way, signatures use a tilde rather than a "'". Hope that helps, and thanks for your work! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 12:18, December 5, 2005 (CST)<br />
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== [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]] ==<br />
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Just so you know, when you add the '''<nowiki>{{orthodoxyinjapan}}</nowiki>''' template to an article, [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]] automatically gets added, so there's no need to include it separately. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 09:57, January 5, 2006 (CST)<br />
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== Uninhabited islands ==<br />
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I would propose that we take uninhabited islands off the [[:Template:Parishes of the USA|template]] altogether, and delete those pages... Sorry this comes after your work. {{User:Magda/sig}} 20:25, January 7, 2006 (CST)<br />
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Thanks for your help. {{User:Magda/sig}} 10:18, January 12, 2006 (CST)<br />
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== Parish Directory (USA) ==<br />
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Invitation to join discussion at [[Category talk:Parish Directory (USA)]]. {{User:Magda/sig}} 11:00, January 31, 2006 (CST)<br />
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== Ordain / [[Ordination]] ==<br />
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When making links, please try to link to the actual article title and not to a redirect. Articles are usually titled as nouns (ordination), rather than verbs (ordain). Some can be tricky, of course, like [[tonsure]], in which the noun and verb form are the same. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 17:22, April 22, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Photos from St. Nicholas in DC ==<br />
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The photos you've uploaded recently of liturgical hardware you note as being "courtesy" of the catehdral in DC, yet you also have them listed as being copyrighted by you (that is, you own the photos). If they're yours, then the "courtesy" should probably be worded some other way (e.g. "Thanks to so-and-so for allowing this photo to be taken" or something like that). "Courtesy" in this context usually means that someone else owns the photo and is letting you use it, so if the cathedral owns those photos, then to put your own name on them for the copyright would be inaccurate. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 15:15, May 7, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Edward of England ==<br />
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There are, AFAIK, only two sainted Edwards in English history, and only one was a martyr. (Edward the Confessor died peacefully.) The Sept. 3 feast is of the translation of the relics of [[Edward the Martyr]]. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 15:41, May 28, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== 1917-18 Council article ==<br />
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Why not mention this on the article's talk page? I'm sure a collaboration is possible. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 16:48, June 11, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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I read the sandbox article, I have not problem if you replace the stub I posted with an actual article. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 10:20, June 12, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Sysop Invite ==<br />
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Dear Bill,<br />
<br />
I'd like to invite you to become an OrthodoxWiki sysop. This doesn't require much more time or commitment than you've already demonstrated. You'd be part of our ultra-secret OrthodoxWiki Sysop email list, where we work together to battle wiki-evil and talk about various issues affecting the life of OrthodoxWiki, and once in awhile bounce around ideas about its future. Also, you'd have superpowers on the wiki, allowing you to intervene in edit wars, and otherwise better manage articles. Finally, you'd be a reference point for other users - welcoming them in the name of OrthodoxWiki, and helping folks get the hang of the OrthodoxWiki style. Let me know if you'd like to accept this mission by leaving a note on my talk page or emailing me directly. Thanks, {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
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== Royal/Holy Doors ==<br />
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Hey, sorry about the rude reversion of your change to the [[Classification of Feasts]] article. I should have edited it and provided an explanation rather than just using the rollback feature. I wasn't thinking.<br />
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The proper name for the doors leading from the nave to the altar is "holy doors". The "royal doors" are actually the doors leading from the narthex to the nave. It is a popular misnomer to call the "holy doors" royal. &mdash;[[User:Dcndavid|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. David</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:Dcndavid|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/Dcndavid|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 23:03, August 11, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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::Dcn. David, I can't help but think there's more to the story than that. I think here is a good place to push for primary sources and a solid historical account - though it might be more than we can take on at the moment! It seems to me that the conflation of "royal" to holy (after the collapse of the Empire?) also has a layer of symbolic meaning which goes beyond a "popular misnomer." [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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::It is interesting that this question came up. We are plagued with numerous names being applied to various Orthodox expressions. Besides our different languages in use, we are also confronted with the names from the Western Christian world. Of course this makes consistency difficult in such a place as Orthodoxwiki. I have been trying to settle the many empty articles under the 'wanted' article and noticed the appearance of Holy Doors and Royal Doors - that I usually use - so the changes! As my knowledge on many of the open articles is very low, having articles and corrections to articles by 'authorities, more than from Wikipedia, would be nice. <br />
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::I planned to have, at least the empty Door articles, redirected to the Iconostasis article as an immediate improvement. It at least gives a overview and thus a simple explanation. I whole heartly agree with Fr John that we need to travel toward better authories writing articles on many of the complicated subjects, especially better than me![[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:08, August 12, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Request Photo Use for Wikipedia ==<br />
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Hi, I'm part of a group of users over on Wikipedia who working on importing articles from the [[:Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia|Catholic Encyclopedia]]. The article I'm working on now is about the aër. I noticed that the article here on OrthodoxWiki ([[Aer]]) has a picture you provided ([[:Image:Aer_on_a_Chalice_and_Discos.jpg]]). I would love to be able to include the picture in the article on Wikipedia as well, but notice that the copyright only allows it to be used on this site. Would you mind granting permission for it's use on Wikipedia as well? Thanks, [[:Wikipedia:User:Kylef81|Kylef81 (wp)]] [[User:Kylef81|Kylef81]] 19:26, August 17, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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:Just something to keep in mind - Wikipedia doesn't really want closed-license photos, no? Would this mean that you're asking Wsk to reissue it under the GFDL (or at least a CC license)? — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
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:Kyle and Fr. John; I've changes the copywrite notice of the Aer image to GFDL so that Kyle can use it. Fr. John, I'll be changing the other images as I have some time. [[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 12:10, August 19, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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:Thanks! I've added the image to the article on Wikipedia. [[User:Kylef81|Kylef81]] 13:24, August 19, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Back? ==<br />
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I'm not really back. Just fixing a few things I noticed. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Dcn. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</small> 15:10, October 9, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Question ==<br />
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Do you want to help me with my wiki [http://editthis.info/wikireligion/Main_Page wikireligion]? There are a lot of articles that need to be made. --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 17:28, February 4, 2007 (PST)<br />
::This may seem like a little bit of a odd question but do you have a wikipedia, meta wiki, wikiquote, witionary, wikispecies, or wikipedia simple english account? I feel as if I have seen you somewhere other than here. Have a nice week and god bless you and every one you know:) --[[User:Sir James Paul|James, La gloria e a dio]] 16:52, March 17, 2007 (PDT)--[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 16:52, March 17, 2007 (PDT)</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User_talk:Wsk&diff=47534User talk:Wsk2007-03-17T23:52:10Z<p>Sir James Paul: /* Question */</p>
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<div>{{welcome}} &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 11:25, 28 May 2005 (CDT)<br />
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== Photos from Japan ==<br />
<br />
Judging by the age you give the photos, it is likely that their copyright has long expired and they are now in the public domain. You should feel free to scan them in and upload them to the site. Thanks for your work! &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 07:09, 6 Jun 2005 (CDT)<br />
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== Various ==<br />
<br />
I deleted the duplicate article as you requested.<br />
<br />
One other note is that when you did a "move" on the Sandbox, it turned the Sandbox into a redirect to the new article. Additionally, it imported the entire editing history from the Sandbox into your new article. I thought you might like to know that for future reference. In the future, you may wish to create new article projects in the userspace instead, e.g., [[User:Wsk/Article Name]], or just copy and paste the code into the new article, so that redirects and shifted editing histories don't get thrown about. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 19:54, 7 Jun 2005 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Nikolai-do pics ==<br />
<br />
Those photos are fantastic! Thanks for procuring them. Please be sure to add an [[Help:Image licenses|image license]] for each one as is appropriate. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 15:49, 17 Jun 2005 (EDT)<br />
<br />
== Bishops and links ==<br />
<br />
You're most welcome for the help&mdash;it's the standard wiki-protocol! :)<br />
<br />
There are a couple things to note:<br />
<br />
*Links and article names for bishops are in the format '''Firstname (Surname) of See'''. The birthname can be noted in the article, but it's not included in the article name. Making links to as-yet-absent articles is also included here, since clicking on those links will lead a user to create an article with that name.<br />
<br />
*Creating wiki-links which link to an article with name A yet display name B are done in the following fashion: '''<nowiki>[[Name A|Name B]]</nowiki>''' Thus, if I wanted to link to your userpage without displaying its full name, I would use '''<nowiki>[[User:Wsk|Wsk]]</nowiki>''', yielding this: [[User:Wsk|Wsk]].<br />
<br />
Please take the time to read through the [[Help:Contents]] and the [[OrthodoxWiki:Style Manual]] for lots of tips on style and technical details. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 13:36, 25 Jun 2005 (EDT)<br />
<br />
== Orthodoxy in America template ==<br />
<br />
Great job on making all the "American Saints" on the template blue. You have some very well-researched articles. —[[User:Magda|magda]] 16:26, 30 Jul 2005 (EDT)<br />
<br />
== Sp: Archimandrite/Archmandrite ==<br />
<br />
I've noticed that there seems to be a consistent spelling error in a number of your articles. Just so you know, the word is spelled '''[[archimandrite]]''', not '''archmandrite'''. (This is not a personal criticism; just trying to let you know!) &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 09:18, 8 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
<br />
== St. Herman's Seminary ==<br />
<br />
I moved the [[St. Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary (Kodiak, Alaska)|St. Herman's]] page because the apostrophe was one of those "smart quotes" and the [[Template:Orthodoxyinamerica|Orthodoxy in America template]] (among other pages) wasn't picking up on it. Just something to look out for. [[User:Magda|{{User:Magda/sig}}]] 16:24, 13 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
<br />
== Cult/occult ==<br />
<br />
I have no idea how OrthodoxWiki got classified as being "cult/occult" by this particular web-service you mention. It may well be that the word "cult" appears in a number of articles, and so some automatic classification occurred. In any event, if you'd like to contact these folks to let them know the real state of things, feel free. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 08:10, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
<br />
::Far out wsk! Any follow-up? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
:Thansk Bill for all your notes. I'm glad you're excited about OrthodoxWiki! I've been very happy about all the Japanese Orthodox stuff. I've got a friend who's moving to Japan soon (she's now Orthodox and married to a Japanese Orthodox man), and it's been a blessing to see so much about the Japanese Orthodox Church! - [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
==An Overdue Response==<br />
<br />
:Hi again, I wanted to respond to your comments below. Sorry for the delay! Thanks for your support and encouragement for this project, and for talking it up. Please greet Fr. Constantine for me. He probably won't remember, but we met awhile ago. Keep up the good work, and keep thinking big for the site. We need vision! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 14:11, 8 Sep 2005 (EDT)<br />
<br />
By the way, I glad you all have started the OrthodoxWiki site, it's among the things we need to do to 'advertize' Orthodoxy. Now we need to get the word out to our people. I attend St Nicholas in Washington and have mentioned the site to a number of 'outward looking' people, but I need to do more. Bill Kosar<br />
<br />
== Japanese Orthodox ==<br />
<br />
Wow, great work Bill. Where do you find this stuff? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br>P.S. I had the pleasure of serving with Fr. Dennis in Chicago yesterday.<br />
<br />
== Canadian OCA Hierarchs ==<br />
<br />
Here are a couple of links for succession boxes: [http://www.archdiocese.ca/archivesbishops.htm list of Canadian bishops] and [http://www.archdiocese.ca/archivesHistory.htm a history of the Archdiocese of Canada (OCA)]. {{User:Magda/sig}} 09:10, November 12, 2005 (CST)<br />
<br />
== Bringing together the pages... ==<br />
<br />
Hi Bill,<br />
<br />
I've put [[Template:Orthodoxyinjapan]] on all the pages about Japanese Orthodoxy I could find, and also put everything together into [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]]. I would be grateful if you could write a brief introduction on the category page, then I would like to submit the whole category as a featured article to showcase some of the unique information we have here on OrthodoxWiki. How does all that sound? Thanks! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
P.S. It would also be wonderful, if you have a chance, if you could work on [[Timeline of Orthodoxy in Japan]]. It doesn't have to be extensive, but it would be nice to have something up. Thanks!<br />
<br />
== Category link ==<br />
<br />
Hi Bill, thanks for bringing this up -- I've added the category to the image. This can be done by going to the image page, clicking edit and adding <nowiki>[[Category:Japanese Orthodox Images]]</nowiki> anywhere in the text of the page. By the way, signatures use a tilde rather than a "'". Hope that helps, and thanks for your work! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 12:18, December 5, 2005 (CST)<br />
<br />
== [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]] ==<br />
<br />
Just so you know, when you add the '''<nowiki>{{orthodoxyinjapan}}</nowiki>''' template to an article, [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]] automatically gets added, so there's no need to include it separately. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 09:57, January 5, 2006 (CST)<br />
<br />
== Uninhabited islands ==<br />
<br />
I would propose that we take uninhabited islands off the [[:Template:Parishes of the USA|template]] altogether, and delete those pages... Sorry this comes after your work. {{User:Magda/sig}} 20:25, January 7, 2006 (CST)<br />
<br />
Thanks for your help. {{User:Magda/sig}} 10:18, January 12, 2006 (CST)<br />
<br />
== Parish Directory (USA) ==<br />
<br />
Invitation to join discussion at [[Category talk:Parish Directory (USA)]]. {{User:Magda/sig}} 11:00, January 31, 2006 (CST)<br />
<br />
== Ordain / [[Ordination]] ==<br />
<br />
When making links, please try to link to the actual article title and not to a redirect. Articles are usually titled as nouns (ordination), rather than verbs (ordain). Some can be tricky, of course, like [[tonsure]], in which the noun and verb form are the same. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 17:22, April 22, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Photos from St. Nicholas in DC ==<br />
<br />
The photos you've uploaded recently of liturgical hardware you note as being "courtesy" of the catehdral in DC, yet you also have them listed as being copyrighted by you (that is, you own the photos). If they're yours, then the "courtesy" should probably be worded some other way (e.g. "Thanks to so-and-so for allowing this photo to be taken" or something like that). "Courtesy" in this context usually means that someone else owns the photo and is letting you use it, so if the cathedral owns those photos, then to put your own name on them for the copyright would be inaccurate. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 15:15, May 7, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Edward of England ==<br />
<br />
There are, AFAIK, only two sainted Edwards in English history, and only one was a martyr. (Edward the Confessor died peacefully.) The Sept. 3 feast is of the translation of the relics of [[Edward the Martyr]]. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 15:41, May 28, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== 1917-18 Council article ==<br />
<br />
Why not mention this on the article's talk page? I'm sure a collaboration is possible. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 16:48, June 11, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
I read the sandbox article, I have not problem if you replace the stub I posted with an actual article. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 10:20, June 12, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Sysop Invite ==<br />
<br />
Dear Bill,<br />
<br />
I'd like to invite you to become an OrthodoxWiki sysop. This doesn't require much more time or commitment than you've already demonstrated. You'd be part of our ultra-secret OrthodoxWiki Sysop email list, where we work together to battle wiki-evil and talk about various issues affecting the life of OrthodoxWiki, and once in awhile bounce around ideas about its future. Also, you'd have superpowers on the wiki, allowing you to intervene in edit wars, and otherwise better manage articles. Finally, you'd be a reference point for other users - welcoming them in the name of OrthodoxWiki, and helping folks get the hang of the OrthodoxWiki style. Let me know if you'd like to accept this mission by leaving a note on my talk page or emailing me directly. Thanks, {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
<br />
== Royal/Holy Doors ==<br />
<br />
Hey, sorry about the rude reversion of your change to the [[Classification of Feasts]] article. I should have edited it and provided an explanation rather than just using the rollback feature. I wasn't thinking.<br />
<br />
The proper name for the doors leading from the nave to the altar is "holy doors". The "royal doors" are actually the doors leading from the narthex to the nave. It is a popular misnomer to call the "holy doors" royal. &mdash;[[User:Dcndavid|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. David</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:Dcndavid|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/Dcndavid|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 23:03, August 11, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Dcn. David, I can't help but think there's more to the story than that. I think here is a good place to push for primary sources and a solid historical account - though it might be more than we can take on at the moment! It seems to me that the conflation of "royal" to holy (after the collapse of the Empire?) also has a layer of symbolic meaning which goes beyond a "popular misnomer." [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
::It is interesting that this question came up. We are plagued with numerous names being applied to various Orthodox expressions. Besides our different languages in use, we are also confronted with the names from the Western Christian world. Of course this makes consistency difficult in such a place as Orthodoxwiki. I have been trying to settle the many empty articles under the 'wanted' article and noticed the appearance of Holy Doors and Royal Doors - that I usually use - so the changes! As my knowledge on many of the open articles is very low, having articles and corrections to articles by 'authorities, more than from Wikipedia, would be nice. <br />
<br />
::I planned to have, at least the empty Door articles, redirected to the Iconostasis article as an immediate improvement. It at least gives a overview and thus a simple explanation. I whole heartly agree with Fr John that we need to travel toward better authories writing articles on many of the complicated subjects, especially better than me![[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:08, August 12, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Request Photo Use for Wikipedia ==<br />
<br />
Hi, I'm part of a group of users over on Wikipedia who working on importing articles from the [[:Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia|Catholic Encyclopedia]]. The article I'm working on now is about the aër. I noticed that the article here on OrthodoxWiki ([[Aer]]) has a picture you provided ([[:Image:Aer_on_a_Chalice_and_Discos.jpg]]). I would love to be able to include the picture in the article on Wikipedia as well, but notice that the copyright only allows it to be used on this site. Would you mind granting permission for it's use on Wikipedia as well? Thanks, [[:Wikipedia:User:Kylef81|Kylef81 (wp)]] [[User:Kylef81|Kylef81]] 19:26, August 17, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Just something to keep in mind - Wikipedia doesn't really want closed-license photos, no? Would this mean that you're asking Wsk to reissue it under the GFDL (or at least a CC license)? — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
:Kyle and Fr. John; I've changes the copywrite notice of the Aer image to GFDL so that Kyle can use it. Fr. John, I'll be changing the other images as I have some time. [[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 12:10, August 19, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Thanks! I've added the image to the article on Wikipedia. [[User:Kylef81|Kylef81]] 13:24, August 19, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Back? ==<br />
<br />
I'm not really back. Just fixing a few things I noticed. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Dcn. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</small> 15:10, October 9, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Question ==<br />
<br />
Do you want to help me with my wiki [http://editthis.info/wikireligion/Main_Page wikireligion]? There are a lot of articles that need to be made. --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 17:28, February 4, 2007 (PST)<br />
::This may seem like a little bit of a odd question but do you have a wikipedia, meta wiki, wikiquote, witionary, wikispecies, or wikipedia simple english account? I feel as if I have seen you somewhere other than here. Have a nice week and god bless you and every one you know:) --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 16:52, March 17, 2007 (PDT)</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User:Sir_James_Paul&diff=47532User:Sir James Paul2007-03-17T23:50:05Z<p>Sir James Paul: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''I would like some help with my wiki [http://editthis.info/wikireligion/Main_Page wikireligion]'''<br />
<br />
Here at orthodox wiki I focus mostly on maintenance work because I want to help the wiki out but really do not know much more about [[Orthodox Christianity]] than what is already here. You can also find me at all of the english wikimedia projects, wikichristian, and wikireligion:) God bless whoever sees this:)</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Spirit_of_Orthodoxy_Choir&diff=47530Spirit of Orthodoxy Choir2007-03-17T23:46:35Z<p>Sir James Paul: Cleared out sandbox</p>
<hr />
<div></div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Photography&diff=47529Photography2007-03-17T23:45:48Z<p>Sir James Paul: </p>
<hr />
<div>This is a few links to Photography of [[Orthodox]] related things.<br />
<br />
*[http://puck.wolmail.nl/~kosc/ Photos of Mt. Athos by Zbigniew Kosc]<br />
*[http://www.Orthodoxphotos.com OrthodoxPhotos]<br />
*[http://www.orthphoto.net OrthPhoto]<br />
*[http://www.konevets.spb.ru/05/maximus.htm Konevits]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Arts]]<br />
[[Category:Links]]<br />
[[Category:Marketplace]]</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Anti-Orthodox&diff=47526Anti-Orthodox2007-03-17T23:40:49Z<p>Sir James Paul: /* Protestant Polemics */</p>
<hr />
<div>''This entry is for links to modern polemical material and Orthodox responses. Historical material, or detailed treatment of a range of critiques should be filed under the particular body in question. See,e.g. [[Category:Non-Orthodox|Non-Orthodox]] for more information.''<br />
<br />
==Protestant Polemics==<br />
The difficulty with most of these sites is not that they are criticizing [[Orthodox Christiani]]ty as it is but basing their critiques on misconceptions of Orthodox doctrine and practice. Sometimes elements of Orthodox teaching can be recognized, but the way they are put together is often quite bizarre. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote about how heretics took elements of the faith and rearranged them, so that what once was a mosaic of a king becomes an image of a dog (or something else).<br />
<br />
One significant exception is [[Daniel Clendenin]], whom many Orthodox Christians respect for being much more thorough in his research. In that, he is relatively unique among modern critics of Orthodoxy. <br />
His ultimate reason for rejecting Orthodoxy is spelled out in terms of his commitment to Protestant distinctives, a viewpoint which draws the lines clearly, rather than proceeding from the position that we all share the same basic assumptions and that one's interlocutor is drawing dishonest conclusions based on them.<br />
<br />
===Links===<br />
*[http://people.biola.edu/faculty/alang/EO/Summary.pdf [[Eastern Orthodox]] Teachings in Comparison with The Doctrinal Position of Biola University] (PDF) - May, 1998 (A summary is available [http://www.samford.edu/groups/global/ewcmreport/articles/ew08304.html here])<br />
**[http://www.ctlibrary.com/1450 Higher Education: Universities Question Orthodox Conversions] - from ''Christianity Today'']<br />
**[http://www.samford.edu/groups/global/ewcmreport/articles/ew08306.html Gerald Bray Responds to the Biola Statement and Don Fairbairn]<br />
*[http://www.namb.net/evangelism/iev/PDF/BB_E_Orthodox_Manual.pdf Witnessing to people of Eastern Orthodox Background: Turning Barriers of Belief into Bridges to Personal Faith] by Matt Spann, 2001 (from the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church).<br />
*[http://www.credenda.org Credenda Agenda] - This site was recently redesigned and the links below may soon disappear. Perhpas these volumes are still being edited for inclusion in the redesigned site?<br />
**[http://www.credenda.org/old/issues/cont4-4.htm Is Orthodoxy Orthodox?] (''vol. 4:4'')<br />
**[http://www.credenda.org/old/issues/cont6-5.htm Tradition Betrayed: Eastern Orthodoxy Examined in the Light of the Apostolic Faith] (''vol. 6:5'')<br />
**[http://www.credenda.org/old/issues/cont8-5.htm Mother Kirk: Protesting Catholics and the Authority of the Church] (''vol. 8:5'')<br />
<br />
::[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/credenda_response.htm Patrick Barnes responds to The Credenda Agenda 6:5], and [http://www.credenda.org/old/issues/vol6/eastern.htm their reply].<br />
<br />
*http://exorthodoxforchrist.com/profile.htm<br />
<br />
*[http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/b.2549471/k.9A95/httpwwwequiporgfreeDE177htm.htm Searching for the True Apostolic Church: What Evangelicals Should Know about Eastern Orthodoxy] by Paul Negrut ([http://www.equip.org/ The Christian Research Institute], Statement DE-177)<br />
**[http://students.cua.edu/16kalvesmaki/CRJ.htm A Response from Joel Kalvesmaki]<br />
<br />
===Articles===<br />
*[http://uecb.by.ru/eng/archive/orthodox1.htm "Why I'm Not Orthodox"] by Daniel Clendenin (originally published in [http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1997/jan6/7t1032.html ''Christianity Today''])<br />
**[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/clendenin.aspx Responses from Patrick Barnes and Deacon (now Priest) John Whiteford]<br />
**[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/clendenin_response.aspx A Letter in Reply] by Anastasia Theodoridis<br />
**A more strident response from Rdr. Peter Jackson: [http://www.roca.org/oa/149/149p.htm Part I] and [http://www.roca.org/oa/150/150f.htm Part II]<br />
<br />
* [http://www.lausanne.org/Brix?pageID=14728 Christian Witness to Nominal Christians among the Orthodox] - Report of the Consultation on World Evangelization, Mini-Consultation on Reaching Nominal Christians Among Orthodox held at Pattaya, Thailand, from 16-27 June 1980. Sponsored by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.<br />
* [http://www.christianweek.org/stories/vol19/no05/record.html For Those Who Embrace Orthodoxy] - ''Christian Week'' 19:5 (May 27, 2005)<br />
<br />
==Roman Catholic Polemics==<br />
*[http://www.catholic.com/library/eastern_orthodoxy.asp (Roman) Catholic Answers: Eastern Orthodoxy] - A poorly-researched profile of Orthodoxy from (Roman) Catholic Answers.<br />
*[http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ464.HTM Orthodoxy and Catholicism: A Comparison] - Dave Armstrong<br />
*[http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/8410/ Apologia: A Catholic Page for Protestants and Eastern Orthodox] - unknown author<br />
*[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13535a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article on the so-called "Eastern Schism"] - unknown author<br />
*[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12043b.htm Catholic Encyclopedia on "Photius of Constantinople"] - Fr. Adrian Fortescue (an early 20th-century Roman Catholic liturgical scholar)<br />
<br />
[[Category:Inter-Christian]]<br />
[[Category:Links]]<br />
[[Category:Non-Orthodox]]</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Anti-Orthodox&diff=47525Anti-Orthodox2007-03-17T23:40:19Z<p>Sir James Paul: Added internal links</p>
<hr />
<div>''This entry is for links to modern polemical material and Orthodox responses. Historical material, or detailed treatment of a range of critiques should be filed under the particular body in question. See,e.g. [[Category:Non-Orthodox|Non-Orthodox]] for more information.''<br />
<br />
==Protestant Polemics==<br />
The difficulty with most of these sites is not that they are criticizing [[Orthodox Christiani]]ty as it is but basing their critiques on misconceptions of Orthodox doctrine and practice. Sometimes elements of Orthodox teaching can be recognized, but the way they are put together is often quite bizarre. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote about how heretics took elements of the faith and rearranged them, so that what once was a mosaic of a king becomes an image of a dog (or something else).<br />
<br />
One significant exception is [[Daniel Clendenin]], whom many Orthodox Christians respect for being much more thorough in his research. In that, he is relatively unique among modern critics of Orthodoxy. <br />
His ultimate reason for rejecting Orthodoxy is spelled out in terms of his commitment to Protestant distinctives, a viewpoint which draws the lines clearly, rather than proceeding from the position that we all share the same basic assumptions and that one's interlocutor is drawing dishonest conclusions based on them.<br />
<br />
===Links===<br />
*[http://people.biola.edu/faculty/alang/EO/Summary.pdf Eastern Orthodox Teachings in Comparison with The Doctrinal Position of Biola University] (PDF) - May, 1998 (A summary is available [http://www.samford.edu/groups/global/ewcmreport/articles/ew08304.html here])<br />
**[http://www.ctlibrary.com/1450 Higher Education: Universities Question Orthodox Conversions] - from ''Christianity Today'']<br />
**[http://www.samford.edu/groups/global/ewcmreport/articles/ew08306.html Gerald Bray Responds to the Biola Statement and Don Fairbairn]<br />
*[http://www.namb.net/evangelism/iev/PDF/BB_E_Orthodox_Manual.pdf Witnessing to people of Eastern Orthodox Background: Turning Barriers of Belief into Bridges to Personal Faith] by Matt Spann, 2001 (from the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church).<br />
*[http://www.credenda.org Credenda Agenda] - This site was recently redesigned and the links below may soon disappear. Perhpas these volumes are still being edited for inclusion in the redesigned site?<br />
**[http://www.credenda.org/old/issues/cont4-4.htm Is Orthodoxy Orthodox?] (''vol. 4:4'')<br />
**[http://www.credenda.org/old/issues/cont6-5.htm Tradition Betrayed: Eastern Orthodoxy Examined in the Light of the Apostolic Faith] (''vol. 6:5'')<br />
**[http://www.credenda.org/old/issues/cont8-5.htm Mother Kirk: Protesting Catholics and the Authority of the Church] (''vol. 8:5'')<br />
<br />
::[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/credenda_response.htm Patrick Barnes responds to The Credenda Agenda 6:5], and [http://www.credenda.org/old/issues/vol6/eastern.htm their reply].<br />
<br />
*http://exorthodoxforchrist.com/profile.htm<br />
<br />
*[http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/b.2549471/k.9A95/httpwwwequiporgfreeDE177htm.htm Searching for the True Apostolic Church: What Evangelicals Should Know about Eastern Orthodoxy] by Paul Negrut ([http://www.equip.org/ The Christian Research Institute], Statement DE-177)<br />
**[http://students.cua.edu/16kalvesmaki/CRJ.htm A Response from Joel Kalvesmaki]<br />
<br />
===Articles===<br />
*[http://uecb.by.ru/eng/archive/orthodox1.htm "Why I'm Not Orthodox"] by Daniel Clendenin (originally published in [http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1997/jan6/7t1032.html ''Christianity Today''])<br />
**[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/clendenin.aspx Responses from Patrick Barnes and Deacon (now Priest) John Whiteford]<br />
**[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/clendenin_response.aspx A Letter in Reply] by Anastasia Theodoridis<br />
**A more strident response from Rdr. Peter Jackson: [http://www.roca.org/oa/149/149p.htm Part I] and [http://www.roca.org/oa/150/150f.htm Part II]<br />
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* [http://www.lausanne.org/Brix?pageID=14728 Christian Witness to Nominal Christians among the Orthodox] - Report of the Consultation on World Evangelization, Mini-Consultation on Reaching Nominal Christians Among Orthodox held at Pattaya, Thailand, from 16-27 June 1980. Sponsored by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.<br />
* [http://www.christianweek.org/stories/vol19/no05/record.html For Those Who Embrace Orthodoxy] - ''Christian Week'' 19:5 (May 27, 2005)<br />
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==Roman Catholic Polemics==<br />
*[http://www.catholic.com/library/eastern_orthodoxy.asp (Roman) Catholic Answers: Eastern Orthodoxy] - A poorly-researched profile of Orthodoxy from (Roman) Catholic Answers.<br />
*[http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ464.HTM Orthodoxy and Catholicism: A Comparison] - Dave Armstrong<br />
*[http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/8410/ Apologia: A Catholic Page for Protestants and Eastern Orthodox] - unknown author<br />
*[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13535a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article on the so-called "Eastern Schism"] - unknown author<br />
*[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12043b.htm Catholic Encyclopedia on "Photius of Constantinople"] - Fr. Adrian Fortescue (an early 20th-century Roman Catholic liturgical scholar)<br />
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[[Category:Inter-Christian]]<br />
[[Category:Links]]<br />
[[Category:Non-Orthodox]]</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User_talk:FrJohn&diff=47194User talk:FrJohn2007-03-14T02:51:08Z<p>Sir James Paul: Comment</p>
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''[[/archived discussion 1]] (through 09-07-2005)''<br><br />
''[[/archived discussion 2]] (through 11-20-2005)''<br><br />
''[[/archived discussion 3]] (through 05-24-2006)''<br />
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__TOC__<br />
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== God bless you ==<br />
I hope that we can do a very nice site in arabic --[[User:Habib|Habib]] 19:23, November 10, 2006 (PST)<br />
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<br />
== Protest ==<br />
<br />
Fr. John,<br />
I published my article on Hebrew Catholics in the Orthodox Wiki portal for two reasons, the first is I couldn't log in the General Wikipedia and the second because it is related to an Eastern spirituality. You said you deleted it because it is not convenient for your site, i mean, you consider it not appropriate. So, where is the information right for your believers and anybody else? Where is the Christian spirit you proclaim? I don't pretend to alien or romanize the Orthodoxy, as i understand we are from the same Apostolic root. Where is the final period for a real unity? When until are the Latin and Orthodox fighting for little things?<br />
I'm a great admiror of the Eastern culture and its ritual traditions. I respect and support the diversity in the Church of Christ. I believe in the unity but not the uniformity. So, if you could see i look for the defined identities from the peoples.<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Levikahano|Levikahano]] ([[User talk:Levikahano|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Levikahano|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
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::Hi Levikahano, It's not right for OrthodoxWiki because it deals with a Roman Catholic group. I'm not saying the group isn't important or that we may share many things, but this generally isn't in the scope of material that we would include here. I would encourage you to put it on a Catholic wiki, or even on Wikipedia. May God bless you. {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
<br />
== Deletes and undeletes? ==<br />
<br />
I'm curious as to what exactly you're doing. Are you trying to erase article histories to remove direct evidence of vandalism? If so, it makes examining the legitimate part of the histories somewhat difficult... :/ &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 16:03, June 3, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Book sources page formatting ==<br />
<br />
There are HTML formatting problems on the [[Special:Booksources]] page. (after the ISBN number is entered) This once worked but now does not. There is no way for me to fix it, so I'll just report it. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 12:57, June 13, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:I went ahead and wikified the page. Is there a particular reason why the html formatting no longer works? —[[User:Magda|<b>magda</b>]] ([[User_talk:Magda|talk]]) 13:09, June 13, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hmm... probably has to do with the upgrade to 1.6. I'm out of town now, but I'll try to have a look next week when I get back. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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==Name blocks==<br />
Are we able to block certain usernames from being used? Right now, the system of renaming has its advantages in the history section of vandalised articles, but the same usernames can still be reused - can we put, say, a '*vandal*' block up? &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="red">Pι</font>]][[Special:Listusers/sysop|s]][[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="yellow">τ</font>]][[Special:Contributions/Pistevo|é]][[User:Pistevo|<font color="blue">vο</font>]] at 21:57, June 16, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:I think it's possible, but I'll have to refresh my memory on this. Let me try to look at this later in the week. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
::It is, you need [[:metawikipedia:Username Blacklist|this]] extension. [[User:Gregg|Gregg]] 15:40, June 17, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:::Thanks Gregg! That makes it easy. {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
:::P.S. If anyone has an idea what should be blocked, please send me an email.<br />
<br />
== Hello, Father ==<br />
<br />
Thanks for the message. I'm a php programmer. I'm mystified by wiki, but I'll figure it out.<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Rightwingprof|Rightwingprof]] ([[User talk:Rightwingprof|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Rightwingprof|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
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==Re:==<br />
<br />
Thanks, not sure how much I can, or will contribute, but hey, maybe I will learn something.<br />
<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Mmatga2me99|Mmatga2me99]] ([[User talk:Mmatga2me99|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Mmatga2me99|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
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== Thank you for the welcome ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr John,<br />
<br />
Thank you for the kind welcome. Much appreciated. It's nice to be here. -[[User:Antonios aigyptos|Antonios]] 15:27, August 5, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Sysop ==<br />
<br />
Thank you, Father John. I find it a pleasure to accept your invitation. I wouldn't do too well on handling theological subject, but history, etc. and sounding off on non-theological subject I can do.<br />
<br />
I had been meaning to e-mailing you on the subject of sound (audio) lifes, but have kept putting it off. I have a recording of my father-in-law's choir (Victor Pokrovsky) that I recorded at Nicolai-do in 1957 and have wondered if you want to place audio files on Orthodoxwiki. I have the file in two formats, AIFF Audio file and MP3 Audio file. I know the perferred format is 'OGG' but so far I haven't found the means to convert it. The file is short, 11 minutes, but of course is a large, 112MB and 127 MB. There is a slight pause at about a one third point for a shorter version.<br />
<br />
I can send the file to you if you have access to a means to convert the file, when I get to a high speed connection. I'm on dial-up. Or less I could just up-load load one of the two versions I have.[[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:28, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hi Bill, Of course it's a nice addition, but sysops generally aren't the ones to do the heavy theological writing. Mainly they're just empowered to do a few extra things for the good of the order. Thanks for accepting!<br />
::You might not have noticed yet my very subtle announcement on the [[OrthodoxWiki:News|news page]] about [[osource:Main_Page|OrthodoxSource]], a new sister project to OrthodoxWiki (very much in ''alpha'' stage at this point, which is why the announcement wasn't more strongly stated). The audio recording you mentioned would be great on that site - it's exactly the kind of thing I envisioned it for actually. <br />
::I haven't worked out what to do with large media files yet. There's a few possibilities, including using a free third-party service like [http://ourmedia.org OurMedia]. I think I'd rather keep more direct control of the archives though, so I'm thinking about using something like Amazon's S3 service, which is totally scalable. The downside is that I'd have to ask for donations to cover some of the (relatively minimal, at least initially) cost. We have room to grow on the server we're on, but I don't want to overwhelm things, especially if our media hosting grows, as I hope it will.<br />
::In terms of formats, I envision being much less strict than Wikimedia Commons - my concern would be less for openness of the format than for general accessibility. In this regard AIFF/MP3 are hard to beat. Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to email you with an FTP login, then you can upload the files at your leisure. Does that sound ok? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 21:50, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
Your offer, Fr. John, sounds very good. I received your e-mail and now I will send the file as soon as I learn to use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This is a first for me. The OrthodxSource sounds like a great addition.[[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:10, August 15, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Sysop invite ==<br />
<br />
Why, thank you, Father. I'd certainly like to help. My technical/wiki mark-up skills may not be that great, but I'm willing to do anything I can. Just tell me what I need to do next. [[User:Gabriela|Gabriela]] 22:47, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Thanks for accepting, Gabriela. You've got enough down, and I'm sure you can keep learning. I'll send you an invite to the Sysop list. You can look over the archives if you want to get an idea of where we have been. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
== become an OrthodoxWiki sysop ==<br />
<br />
Thank you for the invite Father John, I'd be glad to help when I can. I am going to be busy for the next few weeks, but then I'll be able to give it more time. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 20:05, August 14, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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==Contributed articles==<br />
I've forgotten - are contributed articles supposed to be within the normal OW space, or is there a special place set aside for them? &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 03:19, September 1, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hi Pistevo, we're planning to move them all to OrthodoxSource. It hasn't really launched yet, so maybe we should just post it here with a <nowiki>{transfer}</nowiki> tag. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
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== Dcn ASDamick? ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr John: I wonder if you know what's become of Deacon ASDamick? His user pages both here and on Wikipedia list him as departed indefinitely from the services; but as he was so active (I interacted more with him there than here, I do confess), I wonder what's happened? &mdash;[[User:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="orange"><b>Antonios Aigyptos</b></font>]]<sup><i>[[User_talk:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]</i></sup> 16:36, September 4, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hi, He's taking a (hopefully temporary) leave of absence for while. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
Ah, I see. Well, as long as nothing's terribly wrong. From the on-line perspective, he's just up and vanished with no means of contact -- so one worries! &mdash;[[User:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="orange"><b>Antonios Aigyptos</b></font>]]<sup><i>[[User_talk:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]</i></sup> 17:17, September 4, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Yep, I can see that. Thanks for your concern - he's fine though. And still email-able. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== [[Primus inter pares]] article ==<br />
<br />
Hello Father,<br />
<br />
I saw that you added the Wikipedia source link to the article in question. I read the parts of the style manual regarding how to do that (besides copying and pasting the actual Wikipedia URL), but I still seem to be confused. <br />
<br />
Also, that link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primus_inter_pares%26oldid%3D67646207, also seems to result in a Wikipedia error.<br />
<br />
I tried to import the article as best I could, my apologies if I erred.<br />
<br />
[[User:Hellenica|Hellenica]] 22:20, September 8, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hi Hellenica,<br>Thanks for your work here. Good catch on the link. You don't need to apologize - you're just learning. Because of the licensing, we need to explicitly state the Wikipedia article as a source. Since it doesn't add anything to what's currently there, the current article doesn't need to be cited as an external link. If you don't have time to edit all the wikipedia-specific stuff out, and add Orthodox stuff in, just mark it with a <nowiki>{{cleanup}}</nowiki> tag until it's been fixed up. Again, thanks! — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Vandalism ==<br />
<br />
There is a user, [[User:Youte2|Youte2]] who is defacing countless articles, it looks like a bot. [[User:Hellenica|Hellenica]] 21:26, September 9, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Thanks, got him. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Re: My e-mail address ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr. John,<br />
<br>You know, actually I thought about that myself, but I didn't consider it such a problem because I already get spammed up to the lagoon, what with the e-mail address embedded in the headers of my web sites. Fortunately, Yahoo! has made it very easy to clean out all that bulk mail with just a few clicks.<br />
<br>But you're right. Why make a bad problem even worse? Thank you for your concern and for making that change.<br />
<br>Sincerely, John Bockman<br />
<br />
:No problem, glad to help. Yours, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Upload problems ==<br />
<br />
I'm having a problem uploading an image of the late Metropolitan Vitaly. I get an error message when I do that.:<br />
Internal error<br />
<br />
Could not copy file "/tmp/phptpCoq5" to "/home/owiki/public_html/images/6/66/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg".<br />
<br />
:Thanks for pasting in the whole error message - that helps! I'm not really sure what happened, but it looks like there was a corrupted file under that same name. I've deleted it - please try again and let me know if you have any more problems. Thanks! - Fr. John<br />
<br />
::Nope, I'm still getting the same problem <br />
<br />
::Could not copy file "/tmp/phpkVAglv" to "/home/owiki/public_html/images/6/66/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg".<br />
::--[[User:Aleks|Aleks]] 15:12, September 26, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hmm.... ""/tmp/phpkVAgl" is your local path? What program are you using to store the image? I wonder what would happen if you tried renaming the source filename to something more standard, with a MIME type that the wiki would recognize. There are MIME restrictions in place which prevent "unmarked" files without certain extensions from being uploaded. You might also type a different destination filename. Let me know again if that doesn't work. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] <br />
::Nope, my path local path is "/home/sasha/Desktop/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg". This must be some kind of path on the server. I'm using Mozilla Firefox on Linux (Fedora Core 5). The problem occurs with any image of Metropolitan Vitaly. The images are all jpg. If you'd like, Father, I can e-mail the image to you and you can try uploading it.<br />
([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
:This problem is now fixed. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk]) 09:54, September 27, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Featured ==<br />
<br />
Thanks! I've actually been away for two weeks, which is why it hasn't changed - I thought I put it on my userpage, but apparently not... &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 20:17, October 6, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
Hi Fr. John,<br />
<br />
Thanks for that it looks much neater now, okay this is a sad point and feel free to yell at me for it - now no one will know that I did it? as it doesn't list me as being involved/ a contributor in the page - now I know that as a Wiki user that shouldn't bother me as it's really all aobut growing the knowledge base but I guess I am vain and also I could use the brownie points! Sorry.<br />
But really I do like what you have done and it really does look much better and I uderstand entirely why you have done it, so please feel free to totally ignore my cribbing and moaning.<br />
<br />
Thanks <br />
<br />
Mela91e<br />
<br />
<br />
==Father Bless!==<br />
<br />
Father bless! <br />
<br />
Hello Fr. John,<br />
I found your link here via the discussion page at Wikicath.org. Sadly this Catholic wiki is being overrun by spam links and misguided attempts by Protestants to convince us we're all pagans. I saw that you'd made an offer to help deal with the spam, do you know if the owner of WikiCath is going to do something about it soon? Or perhaps I should just find another Catholic wiki =/<br />
<br />
Anyways, I do love this Orthodox Wiki and want to see something similar for us Catholics. :) <br />
<br />
You humble brother in Christ,<br />
-Devin<br />
a sinner<br />
- [[User:Dscherck|Dscherck]] 23:40, November 3, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
==Recent Changes==<br />
Not sure what the problem is - or the solution - but [[Special:Recent changes]] keeps coming up as an executable. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 05:42, November 4, 2006 (PST)<br />
:I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.7. It's not even letting me go to a page and then load; I click and it pops up that Firefox is trying to open a "application/x-httpd-php" file from orthodoxwiki.org. My RSS feed is working fine, though. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 02:12, November 5, 2006 (PST)<br />
::Still the same. Also, for whatever reason, it works fine using Internet Explorer. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 00:34, November 6, 2006 (PST)<br />
::Also, it works fine in Firefox 2, which I've just installed. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 00:52, November 6, 2006 (PST)<br />
:Not sure what to say at this point, except I'm glad it's working for you! I have noticed this problem with a few sites in the past, and I'll continue to dig a little bit and see it I can't find out anything more. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Edit Throttling ==<br />
<br />
Hi FrJohn, I'm working on an Edit Throttling Mediawiki extension. I've seen you guys have faced a lot of vandalism in the past. I tried to install Bad Behavior, but it didnt work on our wiki. We were vandalized again using a Move flood (lots of Moves in a short time). I've also seen BB denies some legitimate users. Have you been vandalized recently and what else are you using besides Bad Behavior to stop vandal bots and human vandals, while not causing inconvinience to legitimate users? thanks! --[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 18:34, November 5, 2006 (PST)<br />
:Hi FrJohn, thanks for response. Today I finished up writing the Edit Throttle extension and have put it into place for testing. I think it will work well, even for your problem:<br />
::Basically, the only problem that remains is when a human agent creates an account with a temporary email address and then blasts us.<br />
:In my ET extension, if a user is not on some "safe lists" (which can be edited only by SysOps like any Mediawiki page [just like in the SpamBlacklist extension page]), he will get blocked automatically if he tries to make more than for example 5 edits in 1 minute, or 20 edits in one hour (these numbers can be adjusted). Our wiki also requires people to login so thats also one help. Although maybe later I'll change this but with lots of alterations to make sure people's IP addresses dont become public etc. I did the login thing primarily so our IP addresses arent put out in public (really not wise of Mediawiki developers to get this idea of throwing out people's IP's for the world to see). I'm testing this extension and its working great for now. I even adjusted the Spam blackList so it only scans for spam, if a user is not on those safe lists. The theory behind all of this is simple: Except for WikiPedia, all wikis are usually edited by a small group of people. That makes it possible for this extension to do its job nicely. I might ask you sometime more detail on the other extensions/utilities you've installed - if the ET doesnt work well. If it works well for me after I've tested it nicely, I'll let you know if you would like to have it to (it will probably not be coded best, but atleast it works). I love the idea of these safe lists. This is perfect for wikis like ours, where a small number of people edit the wiki. For example you have about 2000 users, which is good. Its manageable and even ideal to have these safe lists. Even if a user is not on the safe lists, he can still edit, but more strict limits will be imposed on his editing, just to make sure we dont have a vandal at large. I even have a function in there, which detects lots of edits from people who are not on the safe list, and then it locks the wiki, allowing only "safe list" users to edit the wiki. This is useful if vandals use anonymous proxies with different IP's to make a flood that way, or if a group of vandals decide to attack a wiki at the same time. Safe list users get free tickets. Others have to be scrutinized. With the control of the Safe lists only in the hands of Sysops, its easy to control access. Doing that saves a lot of headache, where all we'd be doing is either fearing when the next attack is going to happen or reverting the attacks. There's another list "Frequent editors". That list has special people on it like Sysops, or people who we know edit the wiki a lot. To them, no limits of any kind are imposed. I'm excited and cant wait for our first vandal to attack to see what happens. Sometime I might ask you for advice for possible patterns of vandalism we could deal with. Our wiki is very controversial (means, a large group of people hate our presence to varying degrees) and so it was absolutely important to have these protections in place, otherwise we could not survive. All we'd be doing is reverting attacks if we werent protected so this will be very helpful for us. Because this is new, I'm sure the system can be breaken by some means or patterns ov vandalism and I'll see what goes on and adjust accordingly. So many other things as well can be put in place and designed, for example, I could limit the number of edits depending on the age of the user. If a user is only 60 minutes old (fresh user created), it could only do 5 edits and then further editing could only be possible if we add it to the Safe list. The process would be designed to be transparent to the genuine editor, but a quick road block to the vandal. We could even possibly limit IP edits. For example, we could have a maximum of 10 anonymous edits everdday just to keep things in check. These kinds of checks can also be created but for now, I'll stay with what I have and just allow logged-in edits. --[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 22:06, November 12, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
::This sounds very good, John. I'd love to give it a try. I like the idea too of being able to restrict by age of user. Instead of putting 1000 people on the safe list, I could just specify that any accounts older than 3 months can edit more furiously than brand new accounts. I don't care too much about the elegance of the code, as long as server load isn't dramatically increased. I'd be happy to use OrthodoxWiki as a test wiki for you. Happily, we're at the point right now where automated bot attacks aren't really a problem, and the occasional human ones get cleaned up pretty quickly. I could see ET as a way to further cut down on cleanup costs, though. God bless! — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
:::Ok great. I'm testing it out on our own wiki first right now and have some more fine tunings to do and then I'll probably give the script to you after I think its good and ready. The server load will be fine, yes. The script is very efficient. It basically only runs if a user moves or edits (which is rare on small wikis, or at most a maximum of every few minutes or sometimes even hours). If a script finds a user on the Frequent Editor list, it exits right away. My script actually helped reduce the load becuase it doesnt process Safe user posts for spam, so thats a big efficiency (the SpamBlacklist is a huge long list of possible spam URL's and certainly for example, we dont need established editors' posts being monitored for spam. Thats ridiculous and wastes server resources). So you're right then, its the new accounts that are always a problem. I'll fine tune and get back you sometime. If possible could you give me some links where I can see where vandalism took place on your wiki here? Then I can incorporate those behaviors into the script if possible. <br />
:::I'm also trying to make it so that all the parameters (e.g. minimum user age: 3 months) can be adjusted easily on the wiki, without need for us to get into PHP and FTP, and then all we need is to login and do these changes. Also I plan to try to introduce some sort of emergency button that halts editing from users not on our safe lists, and also another button which halts all editing. This can be helpful in the worst situation where there's lots of flooding going on and we're not sitting on our PC with access to the server code. Of course the automatic blocks are important. If we're not at our PC, we dont want to come back and find all our pages vandalized (like I experienced two times) and since we're not always at the PC, we want the auto blocks to take care of these things. I'll be fine tuning the script in the coming days and weeks for these kinds of features. Since vandalism is not a problem for you right now, I guess you wouldn't need the script in an emergency, correct? So I'll just fine tune and make it bug free to make sure it works, before giving it to you. If you'd still like a copy, let me know, however, there may be some bugs there that I havent caught so I would say you could wait a little before testing it out on your wiki. Lets see what happens today. The vandal usually strikes after 24 hours of opening up the wiki so I expect some thing caught in the trap if that script works. Meanwhile if you have any suggestions for what this script could do, feel free to propose any ideas that you think will be effective in reducing vandalism while least inconveniencing genuine users.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 15:28, November 13, 2006 (PST)<br />
::::FrJohn, also, what kind of automatic restrictions do you think should apply to users not older than 3 months? Posts/day limit? Links limit? I'll be looking forwarding to seeing your vandalism examples so I can observe. Another thing, do you have a link for the single user IP extension? The one which enforces one user registration per IP.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 04:29, November 15, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi John, Sorry for the delay here. What I think would be most useful and complement what some of the other extensions do would be edit/post limits per hour and per day, customizable for each wiki, and able to be tweaked by age of account. That sounds good. Links haven't really been a problem for us since we put in "bad behavior" - the spam-bots go elsewhere, but I can imagine this being helpful in some situations. I don't think an extension to enforce one account per IP is a good idea - there are too many folks with shared computers or dynamic IPs out there. I use the espionage extension for this purpose - just to cross check any suspicious accounts to see if there's multiple per IP. Sincerely yours, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
::Thanks. I already have a function that calculates the age of a user, so I can easily get that into the system. What do you think would be good limits on the number of edits and the age too? I can create multiple levels of protection as well (e.g. 3 months, 6 months, 9 etc) and assign edit limits to each "age" level. There's no limit to what we can do, maybe just your idea of the 3 months is good. My extension has become quite customized although yes its as simple as adding the extension include in the LocalSettings.php. There are many things which i can turn into "options" that each wiki can customize itself with. My next step is trying to hide the page on the wiki which will hold all our variables (edit limits etc). I dont want hackers to figure out the limits otherwise they'll try to exploit the system and although it will be an added nuisance, its just better that the Variables page is out of public view. its meant to be an Admin only page. For now I'm still testing it and refining it as I go along. Every few days I make an small improvement in it.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 18:01, November 17, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi John, Hmm... Since we haven't had too many problems lately, I'd want something that wouldn't really get in people's way - like 4-5 edits/min, 10+ edits in 5 mins or 20 edits/hour for users under 3 months. I don't think it's needs to have too many levels - just one for new users and one for older users. For other wikis that don't require accounts or email confirmation, these features might eb more useful. I also don't think it would necessarily need a wiki page - I think many MediaWiki sysops will be used to tweaking settings in a file, as long as the documentation is clear. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
::I can do that easily. I just need to find a way to hide a page from the public view so only sysops can see/edit the system Varaibles page. After that I can make it customizable through the edit page. I like the idea of being able to edit it through the wiki. That way we dont have go in, edit and upload through FTP. Do you know some PHP? I could send you the code and you could edit it as you like, although I havent put in the age check yet.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 13:40, November 18, 2006 (PST)<br />
:::See though, your proposal can break the system. A hacker could register, wait for 3 months and then flood. Thats why I believe the safe lists is a good idea. Either that, or apply limits to _everyone_, regardless. We may _adjust_ the limits for users older than 3 months, that would be better than not having any limits at all for possibly a hacker who registered and waited for 3 months. The limits may be alarming at first, but if you look at recent changes, people really dont edit more than what you said, 5 posts/minute, e.g. I used my age function now but I commented it out, thinking that this can break the system. The "no limits" should _only_ be applied to people who we know for sure, will never vandalize (unless their passwords are stolen, but this danger exists for anything, not just a wiki so it has to be disregarded). If I put in a check that puts higher editing limits for users older than 3 months, that sounds reasonable, but not to remove the limits altogether. What i will do is put such a limit there, but it will be up to you. You can set the age limits for "old" users so high, that its practically impossible to break them my human editing, so it will basically amount to "no limits". Others like me will bring down the limits for every user regardless, to be safe.<br />
:::Do you know of any good way to hide a page so only sysops can see/edit it?--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 14:38, November 18, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
Hi John, You have a point there. I guess we've dealt with this by using bad behavior, which is effective against bots, and giving sysops the ability to ban users and IP's. In the context of our active community, this has worked reasonably well. We also have a "mass delete" extension installed which allows us to delete all new pages created by a user at once. Even with all fo this, I see a good. place for edit limits. There will certainly be different needs on different wikis. A safelist seems like a good idea too. As for how to hide a page, I don't know myself, but there are some good models out there. I think, e.g. of the "Last User Login" or "UserScore" extension, as well as many others. You can default to the sysop of bureaucrat user flag, or create a custom user group... — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
hey FrJohn, hah! We had out first vandal caught last night. By the time the roach started to wreck havoc, it was 4am in the morning my time so there would be no way I could have stopped it. After 6 edits, it was automatically blocked. Its IP was blocked automatically by mediawiki's default system for 24 hours so that prevented his other nick from doing damage, although my own protection would have blocked the IP anyway if it had gotten more edits from that IP. The way it got triggered is yes, it did too many edits in a certain amount of time. I have a block set even for a 72 hour monitoring. This is great. Although so much more can be done e.g.:<br />
#log of activity<br />
#Clear specificed blocks<br />
#various options like: Age limit monitoring (like you said)<br />
#Automatic rollback (that would be awesome)<br />
#Being able to adjust variables and options on the wiki - no need to go into FTP. This is helpful when somoene is installing the system and testing it for their own wiki.<br />
Some error checking needs to be done too.<br />
<br />
One big cool thing about this extension is, it has 3 levels of checks:<br />
# Ban by Username (too many edits coming a username). Next level, if that doesnt stop it:<br />
# Ban by IP (too many edits coming from an IP. Useful if multiple usernames from the same IP doing the damage - this is only limited to fast edits which break the throttle limit). If the IP block doesnt stop it, check next limit:<br />
# Halt all editing from "Unsafe" users (users not present on our Safe lists, which really means new users on the wiki whom we dont know anything about yet). This is useful for example, if its a flood of vandals targetting the wiki at the same time.<br />
So this is really fool proof. Each level has a higher limits than the previous level, so its triggered only if needed. Plus, the Safe users get free tickets and higher limits. The "Frequent" editors get no limits at all. I say if a Vandal was clever enough to make himself look like a real editor, it would be worth undoing all his damage at some point since he had made some contributions. The likelyhood of that happening is real low, I mean no one would go through the trouble of appearing like a genuine editor, only to get in the Frequent users list and then take his chance to wreck havoc. Even if he did, we'll atleast have his good edits after we've restored the wiki and reverted the edits.<br />
<br />
I only had do to 3 rollbacks, took me a minute. More improvements I believe will come as the system is improved and tested like last night. A lot of options can be put in it. I'll work on this stuff more, I dont want to release it right now, although if you really need a copy right now, let me know and I'll make arrangements. Do you have any examples of recent vandalism? If you could give me a few links to vandalism done on your wiki in the past, I can learn from that behavior and adjust my extension. And oh again, Bad behavior might not have stopped the vandalism last night. It failed to stop it once and it denies genuine users, so I've disabled it since I had the new protection which has worked perfectly. I'm pleased, to say the least. Our wiki would have been ravaged by the time I woke up, had the protection not been there. And its pretty silly that Mediawiki doesnt have these protections by default. By the way, I get a Javascript error in your website here when the Edit box loads. It might have to do something with the little "make a map" thing. What is that? I'd like to see a sample of possible, it might be useful for our wiki too. Also, the mass delete sounds good. Whats the name of that extension? I see that your [http://orthodoxwiki.org/MediaWiki:Monobook.js CSS] file doesnt show anything, yet it looks like you're editing it. Does this mean the content is hidden from other users, but only you can see and edit it? If so, this could be useful for the Variables page I want to make. Looks like you're having a lot of traffic right now (which is good), the site was responding slower.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 07:10, November 20, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi John, That's great that you've got it up and running and it's functioning well. I hope it helps some wiki-sysops gain control of their sites again! You can find the "Mass delete" extension [http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/Nuke/ here]. I've been having some trouble with Javascript lately - and just disabled the GoogleMaps extension (again) for the reason you mentioned. I expect Monobook.css and js are protected. You can edit your own user versions though. Best wishes, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Help Editing page ==<br />
<br />
FrJohn, I do not know if you are looking at this, but I think that the [[Help:Editing]] page has a frame problem. The left menu gets loaded with the text on the right. - [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 08:09, November 8, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Weird! Thanks for the heads up. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
==Featured Article - [[Episcopi vagantes]]==<br />
Wasn't terribly happy with the pic that I used - that one was used because Abp Aftimios is the source of a number of "Orthodox" episcopi vagantes. Would be very happy if a suggestion of a more appropriate photo/picture could be made. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 16:34, November 24, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
== Romanian diocese in OCA, vs. Romanian Archdiocese ==<br />
<br />
Bless me father John,<br />
<br />
I understand very well your position and arguments concerning the modification I made in the article about ROEA. At this moment I don't have time to look for a reference for the assertion I made. However, this is a well-known fact in the Romanian community.<br />
<br />
I presume that the author took the "argument" with the WW II as a cause for the staying of bishop Policarp in Romania from one of the official histories of ROEA.<br />
<br />
However, this is a very weak argument, because Romania entered in the WW II only in 1941, after 2 years.<br />
<br />
Between us, the real reason was the political pressure made by a leftist group in DC, on behalf of the dean J. Trutza's group, who was disturbed by the "monarchical" leadership of Bishop Policarp. The group started to "claim" his bishop only in 1946, when the communists forbade him to come to USA.<br />
<br />
Moreover, I don't understand why you erased the the assertion regarding the canonicity of the 3 ucrainian bishops. This is so well-known by everybody (the 10-year anniversry book of OCA, edited by Fr Alexander Schmeman makes a clear reference to this fact, by the way), and even confirmed by the following text. I would also like to get an explanation for the delay of one year between the deal between ROEA and Metropolia, and the re-ordiantion of Bp. Trifa.<br />
<br />
My opinion is that, if you want to be consistent, you have to erase the hole article, asking for independent references.<br />
<br />
Yours in Christ,<br />
<br />
deacon Ioan<br />
<br />
::Hi Deacon Ioan, Thanks for your explanations. I am not very familiar with the situation. I think what worried me were the vague assertions without much detail... some "communist group", "uncanonical"... I changed the part about the uncanonical bishops in the Ukraine too becuase this needs more detail - the Ukraine, as a border-land, has often been a canonical mess. Which group were these bishops in, and what were the circumstances of the ordination? By simply citing them as uncanonical and saying syaing which group they belonged to, and so on, it makes the impression that the OrthodoxWiki article is arguing against the legitimacy of the current church. We can certainly document disputes, it wouldn't be our place to take a position on this (unless this was something accepted across Orthodox jurisdictions worldwide). Maybe all of this material could be put on the associated talk page for now, until more detail is collected? Thanks for your work here, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Articles on WCC and NCC ==<br />
<br />
Father, bless.<br />
<br />
I was looking today at the article on [[Ecumenism]] and noticed that there are links for the [[World Council of Churches|WCC]] and the NCC. The WCC article is a stub with a single link. I'm wondering if these two possible articles have a "direct connection" (per the [[OrthodoxWiki:Style Manual|Style Manual]] to Orthodoxy. It seems to me that any information about either body could be included as a section in the Ecumenism article. To give some scope: It's been two years since the creation of the WCC article, and all we have is a single link. What think you? --[[User:Basil|Basil]] 10:56, January 4, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi Basil, I think I was the one who created them a long time ago. My hope was that each would offer a history of Orthodox involvement in the organization - there is a lot to say! But I think you'e right - if you want to consolidate the material in the ecumenism article, I think that would be good. We can "branch off" (!) the article again if someone wants to do the work on it. Thanks for writing, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
::Based on [[User:ASDamick|FrAndrew]]'s input and yours, I have made the WCC article and the NCC article redirects to [[Ecumenism]]. See [[Talk:World_Council_of_Churches|talk page for the WCC article]]. --[[User:Basil|Basil]] 15:36, January 4, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Many thanks Father John.:) (re:Kollyvades article)<br />
:No worries, I agree completely. Since I only had a small amount of infomation on that subject from another Orthodox website, I thought it might be better just to list the subject to make it known and let someone else continue, but I see your point and I agree completely. Will try to do a little research when i have some time and redo the article! Much appreciated. --[[User:Angellight_888|Chris]]<br />
<br />
== OrthodoxWiki en español ==<br />
<br />
Dear father John:<br />
<br />
I'm interested in colaborate in this wiki, but starting an OrthodoxWiki in spanish (i'm Chilean)<br />
I hope that we can do a very nice site<br />
<br />
God bless you<br />
<br />
In Christ<br />
--[[User:Alstradiaan|Alstradiaan]] 16:15, February 2, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
PD: Excuse me, my english is awful<br />
<br />
== Comment ==<br />
<br />
FrJohn, will you please go to my wiki wikireligion and edit it some. Also do you mind if I take content from this wiki and put it there. I have a link on my user page. God bless. --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 15:28, February 5, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
== Wikireligion ==<br />
<br />
I agree with you. You have to remember we are a new wiki. We are talking about what our policies are going to be right now. Have a nice week and god bless. --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 17:32, March 8, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
==Block==<br />
LOL, sorry, I realized that immediately after I posted. I was just so outraged by the picture that I started clicking and typing as fast as I could and accidentally hit the enter key before I was even done with the comment. The end was supposed to say, "....Jesus Christ article." Otherwise I would have deleted the specifics upon further consideration. Whoops! [[User:Gabriela|Gabriela]] 19:38, March 10, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
==Re:Reply==<br />
Dear Fr John<br />
<br />
thank you for your reply<br />
<br />
i'm a bit reluctant to contribute in a main article because my personal style of writing is not quite what an encyclopaedic entry suppose to be. but i would be really happy to write and to add my writings in the project as annexes, or other suplementary material. the main obstacle for that is time and an over-sensitivity for conceptual transparency (my frail knowledge of english language makes the things more difficult.) anyhow, i hope i will be able to help this really blessed project.<br />
<br />
your blessing<br />
<br />
vassili psyllis<br />
<br />
: [[User:Vassilip|Vassilip]] 09:03, March 11, 2007 (PDT)<br />
<br />
== Comment ==<br />
<br />
If there is ever any outbreaks of vandalism here feel free to contact me at wikipedia. My User name is Sir james paul there. Have a nice week and may god bless you :) --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 19:51, March 13, 2007 (PDT)</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User_talk:FrJohn&diff=46843User talk:FrJohn2007-03-09T01:32:19Z<p>Sir James Paul: Wikireligion</p>
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<div><div id="shortcut" style="border: 1px solid #CC9; margin: 0em 1em 0em 1em; text-align: center; padding:5px; clear: both; background-color:#F1F1DE"><br />
''Welcome to my discussion page. Please post new messages to the bottom of the page and use headings when starting new discussion topics.<br> Please also sign and date your entries by inserting '''<nowiki>- ~~~~</nowiki>''' at the end. Thank you.<br>[{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit&section=new}} Start a new discussion topic.]''<br />
----<br />
''[[/archived discussion 1]] (through 09-07-2005)''<br><br />
''[[/archived discussion 2]] (through 11-20-2005)''<br><br />
''[[/archived discussion 3]] (through 05-24-2006)''<br />
</div><br />
<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
<br />
== God bless you ==<br />
I hope that we can do a very nice site in arabic --[[User:Habib|Habib]] 19:23, November 10, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Protest ==<br />
<br />
Fr. John,<br />
I published my article on Hebrew Catholics in the Orthodox Wiki portal for two reasons, the first is I couldn't log in the General Wikipedia and the second because it is related to an Eastern spirituality. You said you deleted it because it is not convenient for your site, i mean, you consider it not appropriate. So, where is the information right for your believers and anybody else? Where is the Christian spirit you proclaim? I don't pretend to alien or romanize the Orthodoxy, as i understand we are from the same Apostolic root. Where is the final period for a real unity? When until are the Latin and Orthodox fighting for little things?<br />
I'm a great admiror of the Eastern culture and its ritual traditions. I respect and support the diversity in the Church of Christ. I believe in the unity but not the uniformity. So, if you could see i look for the defined identities from the peoples.<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Levikahano|Levikahano]] ([[User talk:Levikahano|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Levikahano|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
<br />
::Hi Levikahano, It's not right for OrthodoxWiki because it deals with a Roman Catholic group. I'm not saying the group isn't important or that we may share many things, but this generally isn't in the scope of material that we would include here. I would encourage you to put it on a Catholic wiki, or even on Wikipedia. May God bless you. {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
<br />
== Deletes and undeletes? ==<br />
<br />
I'm curious as to what exactly you're doing. Are you trying to erase article histories to remove direct evidence of vandalism? If so, it makes examining the legitimate part of the histories somewhat difficult... :/ &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 16:03, June 3, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Book sources page formatting ==<br />
<br />
There are HTML formatting problems on the [[Special:Booksources]] page. (after the ISBN number is entered) This once worked but now does not. There is no way for me to fix it, so I'll just report it. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 12:57, June 13, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:I went ahead and wikified the page. Is there a particular reason why the html formatting no longer works? —[[User:Magda|<b>magda</b>]] ([[User_talk:Magda|talk]]) 13:09, June 13, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hmm... probably has to do with the upgrade to 1.6. I'm out of town now, but I'll try to have a look next week when I get back. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
==Name blocks==<br />
Are we able to block certain usernames from being used? Right now, the system of renaming has its advantages in the history section of vandalised articles, but the same usernames can still be reused - can we put, say, a '*vandal*' block up? &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="red">Pι</font>]][[Special:Listusers/sysop|s]][[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="yellow">τ</font>]][[Special:Contributions/Pistevo|é]][[User:Pistevo|<font color="blue">vο</font>]] at 21:57, June 16, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:I think it's possible, but I'll have to refresh my memory on this. Let me try to look at this later in the week. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
::It is, you need [[:metawikipedia:Username Blacklist|this]] extension. [[User:Gregg|Gregg]] 15:40, June 17, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:::Thanks Gregg! That makes it easy. {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
:::P.S. If anyone has an idea what should be blocked, please send me an email.<br />
<br />
== Hello, Father ==<br />
<br />
Thanks for the message. I'm a php programmer. I'm mystified by wiki, but I'll figure it out.<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Rightwingprof|Rightwingprof]] ([[User talk:Rightwingprof|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Rightwingprof|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
<br />
==Re:==<br />
<br />
Thanks, not sure how much I can, or will contribute, but hey, maybe I will learn something.<br />
<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Mmatga2me99|Mmatga2me99]] ([[User talk:Mmatga2me99|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Mmatga2me99|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
<br />
== Thank you for the welcome ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr John,<br />
<br />
Thank you for the kind welcome. Much appreciated. It's nice to be here. -[[User:Antonios aigyptos|Antonios]] 15:27, August 5, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Sysop ==<br />
<br />
Thank you, Father John. I find it a pleasure to accept your invitation. I wouldn't do too well on handling theological subject, but history, etc. and sounding off on non-theological subject I can do.<br />
<br />
I had been meaning to e-mailing you on the subject of sound (audio) lifes, but have kept putting it off. I have a recording of my father-in-law's choir (Victor Pokrovsky) that I recorded at Nicolai-do in 1957 and have wondered if you want to place audio files on Orthodoxwiki. I have the file in two formats, AIFF Audio file and MP3 Audio file. I know the perferred format is 'OGG' but so far I haven't found the means to convert it. The file is short, 11 minutes, but of course is a large, 112MB and 127 MB. There is a slight pause at about a one third point for a shorter version.<br />
<br />
I can send the file to you if you have access to a means to convert the file, when I get to a high speed connection. I'm on dial-up. Or less I could just up-load load one of the two versions I have.[[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:28, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hi Bill, Of course it's a nice addition, but sysops generally aren't the ones to do the heavy theological writing. Mainly they're just empowered to do a few extra things for the good of the order. Thanks for accepting!<br />
::You might not have noticed yet my very subtle announcement on the [[OrthodoxWiki:News|news page]] about [[osource:Main_Page|OrthodoxSource]], a new sister project to OrthodoxWiki (very much in ''alpha'' stage at this point, which is why the announcement wasn't more strongly stated). The audio recording you mentioned would be great on that site - it's exactly the kind of thing I envisioned it for actually. <br />
::I haven't worked out what to do with large media files yet. There's a few possibilities, including using a free third-party service like [http://ourmedia.org OurMedia]. I think I'd rather keep more direct control of the archives though, so I'm thinking about using something like Amazon's S3 service, which is totally scalable. The downside is that I'd have to ask for donations to cover some of the (relatively minimal, at least initially) cost. We have room to grow on the server we're on, but I don't want to overwhelm things, especially if our media hosting grows, as I hope it will.<br />
::In terms of formats, I envision being much less strict than Wikimedia Commons - my concern would be less for openness of the format than for general accessibility. In this regard AIFF/MP3 are hard to beat. Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to email you with an FTP login, then you can upload the files at your leisure. Does that sound ok? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 21:50, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
Your offer, Fr. John, sounds very good. I received your e-mail and now I will send the file as soon as I learn to use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This is a first for me. The OrthodxSource sounds like a great addition.[[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:10, August 15, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Sysop invite ==<br />
<br />
Why, thank you, Father. I'd certainly like to help. My technical/wiki mark-up skills may not be that great, but I'm willing to do anything I can. Just tell me what I need to do next. [[User:Gabriela|Gabriela]] 22:47, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Thanks for accepting, Gabriela. You've got enough down, and I'm sure you can keep learning. I'll send you an invite to the Sysop list. You can look over the archives if you want to get an idea of where we have been. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
== become an OrthodoxWiki sysop ==<br />
<br />
Thank you for the invite Father John, I'd be glad to help when I can. I am going to be busy for the next few weeks, but then I'll be able to give it more time. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 20:05, August 14, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
==Contributed articles==<br />
I've forgotten - are contributed articles supposed to be within the normal OW space, or is there a special place set aside for them? &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 03:19, September 1, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hi Pistevo, we're planning to move them all to OrthodoxSource. It hasn't really launched yet, so maybe we should just post it here with a <nowiki>{transfer}</nowiki> tag. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Dcn ASDamick? ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr John: I wonder if you know what's become of Deacon ASDamick? His user pages both here and on Wikipedia list him as departed indefinitely from the services; but as he was so active (I interacted more with him there than here, I do confess), I wonder what's happened? &mdash;[[User:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="orange"><b>Antonios Aigyptos</b></font>]]<sup><i>[[User_talk:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]</i></sup> 16:36, September 4, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hi, He's taking a (hopefully temporary) leave of absence for while. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
Ah, I see. Well, as long as nothing's terribly wrong. From the on-line perspective, he's just up and vanished with no means of contact -- so one worries! &mdash;[[User:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="orange"><b>Antonios Aigyptos</b></font>]]<sup><i>[[User_talk:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]</i></sup> 17:17, September 4, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Yep, I can see that. Thanks for your concern - he's fine though. And still email-able. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== [[Primus inter pares]] article ==<br />
<br />
Hello Father,<br />
<br />
I saw that you added the Wikipedia source link to the article in question. I read the parts of the style manual regarding how to do that (besides copying and pasting the actual Wikipedia URL), but I still seem to be confused. <br />
<br />
Also, that link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primus_inter_pares%26oldid%3D67646207, also seems to result in a Wikipedia error.<br />
<br />
I tried to import the article as best I could, my apologies if I erred.<br />
<br />
[[User:Hellenica|Hellenica]] 22:20, September 8, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hi Hellenica,<br>Thanks for your work here. Good catch on the link. You don't need to apologize - you're just learning. Because of the licensing, we need to explicitly state the Wikipedia article as a source. Since it doesn't add anything to what's currently there, the current article doesn't need to be cited as an external link. If you don't have time to edit all the wikipedia-specific stuff out, and add Orthodox stuff in, just mark it with a <nowiki>{{cleanup}}</nowiki> tag until it's been fixed up. Again, thanks! — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Vandalism ==<br />
<br />
There is a user, [[User:Youte2|Youte2]] who is defacing countless articles, it looks like a bot. [[User:Hellenica|Hellenica]] 21:26, September 9, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Thanks, got him. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Re: My e-mail address ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr. John,<br />
<br>You know, actually I thought about that myself, but I didn't consider it such a problem because I already get spammed up to the lagoon, what with the e-mail address embedded in the headers of my web sites. Fortunately, Yahoo! has made it very easy to clean out all that bulk mail with just a few clicks.<br />
<br>But you're right. Why make a bad problem even worse? Thank you for your concern and for making that change.<br />
<br>Sincerely, John Bockman<br />
<br />
:No problem, glad to help. Yours, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Upload problems ==<br />
<br />
I'm having a problem uploading an image of the late Metropolitan Vitaly. I get an error message when I do that.:<br />
Internal error<br />
<br />
Could not copy file "/tmp/phptpCoq5" to "/home/owiki/public_html/images/6/66/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg".<br />
<br />
:Thanks for pasting in the whole error message - that helps! I'm not really sure what happened, but it looks like there was a corrupted file under that same name. I've deleted it - please try again and let me know if you have any more problems. Thanks! - Fr. John<br />
<br />
::Nope, I'm still getting the same problem <br />
<br />
::Could not copy file "/tmp/phpkVAglv" to "/home/owiki/public_html/images/6/66/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg".<br />
::--[[User:Aleks|Aleks]] 15:12, September 26, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hmm.... ""/tmp/phpkVAgl" is your local path? What program are you using to store the image? I wonder what would happen if you tried renaming the source filename to something more standard, with a MIME type that the wiki would recognize. There are MIME restrictions in place which prevent "unmarked" files without certain extensions from being uploaded. You might also type a different destination filename. Let me know again if that doesn't work. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] <br />
::Nope, my path local path is "/home/sasha/Desktop/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg". This must be some kind of path on the server. I'm using Mozilla Firefox on Linux (Fedora Core 5). The problem occurs with any image of Metropolitan Vitaly. The images are all jpg. If you'd like, Father, I can e-mail the image to you and you can try uploading it.<br />
([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
:This problem is now fixed. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk]) 09:54, September 27, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Featured ==<br />
<br />
Thanks! I've actually been away for two weeks, which is why it hasn't changed - I thought I put it on my userpage, but apparently not... &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 20:17, October 6, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
Hi Fr. John,<br />
<br />
Thanks for that it looks much neater now, okay this is a sad point and feel free to yell at me for it - now no one will know that I did it? as it doesn't list me as being involved/ a contributor in the page - now I know that as a Wiki user that shouldn't bother me as it's really all aobut growing the knowledge base but I guess I am vain and also I could use the brownie points! Sorry.<br />
But really I do like what you have done and it really does look much better and I uderstand entirely why you have done it, so please feel free to totally ignore my cribbing and moaning.<br />
<br />
Thanks <br />
<br />
Mela91e<br />
<br />
<br />
==Father Bless!==<br />
<br />
Father bless! <br />
<br />
Hello Fr. John,<br />
I found your link here via the discussion page at Wikicath.org. Sadly this Catholic wiki is being overrun by spam links and misguided attempts by Protestants to convince us we're all pagans. I saw that you'd made an offer to help deal with the spam, do you know if the owner of WikiCath is going to do something about it soon? Or perhaps I should just find another Catholic wiki =/<br />
<br />
Anyways, I do love this Orthodox Wiki and want to see something similar for us Catholics. :) <br />
<br />
You humble brother in Christ,<br />
-Devin<br />
a sinner<br />
- [[User:Dscherck|Dscherck]] 23:40, November 3, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
==Recent Changes==<br />
Not sure what the problem is - or the solution - but [[Special:Recent changes]] keeps coming up as an executable. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 05:42, November 4, 2006 (PST)<br />
:I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.7. It's not even letting me go to a page and then load; I click and it pops up that Firefox is trying to open a "application/x-httpd-php" file from orthodoxwiki.org. My RSS feed is working fine, though. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 02:12, November 5, 2006 (PST)<br />
::Still the same. Also, for whatever reason, it works fine using Internet Explorer. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 00:34, November 6, 2006 (PST)<br />
::Also, it works fine in Firefox 2, which I've just installed. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 00:52, November 6, 2006 (PST)<br />
:Not sure what to say at this point, except I'm glad it's working for you! I have noticed this problem with a few sites in the past, and I'll continue to dig a little bit and see it I can't find out anything more. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Edit Throttling ==<br />
<br />
Hi FrJohn, I'm working on an Edit Throttling Mediawiki extension. I've seen you guys have faced a lot of vandalism in the past. I tried to install Bad Behavior, but it didnt work on our wiki. We were vandalized again using a Move flood (lots of Moves in a short time). I've also seen BB denies some legitimate users. Have you been vandalized recently and what else are you using besides Bad Behavior to stop vandal bots and human vandals, while not causing inconvinience to legitimate users? thanks! --[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 18:34, November 5, 2006 (PST)<br />
:Hi FrJohn, thanks for response. Today I finished up writing the Edit Throttle extension and have put it into place for testing. I think it will work well, even for your problem:<br />
::Basically, the only problem that remains is when a human agent creates an account with a temporary email address and then blasts us.<br />
:In my ET extension, if a user is not on some "safe lists" (which can be edited only by SysOps like any Mediawiki page [just like in the SpamBlacklist extension page]), he will get blocked automatically if he tries to make more than for example 5 edits in 1 minute, or 20 edits in one hour (these numbers can be adjusted). Our wiki also requires people to login so thats also one help. Although maybe later I'll change this but with lots of alterations to make sure people's IP addresses dont become public etc. I did the login thing primarily so our IP addresses arent put out in public (really not wise of Mediawiki developers to get this idea of throwing out people's IP's for the world to see). I'm testing this extension and its working great for now. I even adjusted the Spam blackList so it only scans for spam, if a user is not on those safe lists. The theory behind all of this is simple: Except for WikiPedia, all wikis are usually edited by a small group of people. That makes it possible for this extension to do its job nicely. I might ask you sometime more detail on the other extensions/utilities you've installed - if the ET doesnt work well. If it works well for me after I've tested it nicely, I'll let you know if you would like to have it to (it will probably not be coded best, but atleast it works). I love the idea of these safe lists. This is perfect for wikis like ours, where a small number of people edit the wiki. For example you have about 2000 users, which is good. Its manageable and even ideal to have these safe lists. Even if a user is not on the safe lists, he can still edit, but more strict limits will be imposed on his editing, just to make sure we dont have a vandal at large. I even have a function in there, which detects lots of edits from people who are not on the safe list, and then it locks the wiki, allowing only "safe list" users to edit the wiki. This is useful if vandals use anonymous proxies with different IP's to make a flood that way, or if a group of vandals decide to attack a wiki at the same time. Safe list users get free tickets. Others have to be scrutinized. With the control of the Safe lists only in the hands of Sysops, its easy to control access. Doing that saves a lot of headache, where all we'd be doing is either fearing when the next attack is going to happen or reverting the attacks. There's another list "Frequent editors". That list has special people on it like Sysops, or people who we know edit the wiki a lot. To them, no limits of any kind are imposed. I'm excited and cant wait for our first vandal to attack to see what happens. Sometime I might ask you for advice for possible patterns of vandalism we could deal with. Our wiki is very controversial (means, a large group of people hate our presence to varying degrees) and so it was absolutely important to have these protections in place, otherwise we could not survive. All we'd be doing is reverting attacks if we werent protected so this will be very helpful for us. Because this is new, I'm sure the system can be breaken by some means or patterns ov vandalism and I'll see what goes on and adjust accordingly. So many other things as well can be put in place and designed, for example, I could limit the number of edits depending on the age of the user. If a user is only 60 minutes old (fresh user created), it could only do 5 edits and then further editing could only be possible if we add it to the Safe list. The process would be designed to be transparent to the genuine editor, but a quick road block to the vandal. We could even possibly limit IP edits. For example, we could have a maximum of 10 anonymous edits everdday just to keep things in check. These kinds of checks can also be created but for now, I'll stay with what I have and just allow logged-in edits. --[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 22:06, November 12, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
::This sounds very good, John. I'd love to give it a try. I like the idea too of being able to restrict by age of user. Instead of putting 1000 people on the safe list, I could just specify that any accounts older than 3 months can edit more furiously than brand new accounts. I don't care too much about the elegance of the code, as long as server load isn't dramatically increased. I'd be happy to use OrthodoxWiki as a test wiki for you. Happily, we're at the point right now where automated bot attacks aren't really a problem, and the occasional human ones get cleaned up pretty quickly. I could see ET as a way to further cut down on cleanup costs, though. God bless! — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
:::Ok great. I'm testing it out on our own wiki first right now and have some more fine tunings to do and then I'll probably give the script to you after I think its good and ready. The server load will be fine, yes. The script is very efficient. It basically only runs if a user moves or edits (which is rare on small wikis, or at most a maximum of every few minutes or sometimes even hours). If a script finds a user on the Frequent Editor list, it exits right away. My script actually helped reduce the load becuase it doesnt process Safe user posts for spam, so thats a big efficiency (the SpamBlacklist is a huge long list of possible spam URL's and certainly for example, we dont need established editors' posts being monitored for spam. Thats ridiculous and wastes server resources). So you're right then, its the new accounts that are always a problem. I'll fine tune and get back you sometime. If possible could you give me some links where I can see where vandalism took place on your wiki here? Then I can incorporate those behaviors into the script if possible. <br />
:::I'm also trying to make it so that all the parameters (e.g. minimum user age: 3 months) can be adjusted easily on the wiki, without need for us to get into PHP and FTP, and then all we need is to login and do these changes. Also I plan to try to introduce some sort of emergency button that halts editing from users not on our safe lists, and also another button which halts all editing. This can be helpful in the worst situation where there's lots of flooding going on and we're not sitting on our PC with access to the server code. Of course the automatic blocks are important. If we're not at our PC, we dont want to come back and find all our pages vandalized (like I experienced two times) and since we're not always at the PC, we want the auto blocks to take care of these things. I'll be fine tuning the script in the coming days and weeks for these kinds of features. Since vandalism is not a problem for you right now, I guess you wouldn't need the script in an emergency, correct? So I'll just fine tune and make it bug free to make sure it works, before giving it to you. If you'd still like a copy, let me know, however, there may be some bugs there that I havent caught so I would say you could wait a little before testing it out on your wiki. Lets see what happens today. The vandal usually strikes after 24 hours of opening up the wiki so I expect some thing caught in the trap if that script works. Meanwhile if you have any suggestions for what this script could do, feel free to propose any ideas that you think will be effective in reducing vandalism while least inconveniencing genuine users.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 15:28, November 13, 2006 (PST)<br />
::::FrJohn, also, what kind of automatic restrictions do you think should apply to users not older than 3 months? Posts/day limit? Links limit? I'll be looking forwarding to seeing your vandalism examples so I can observe. Another thing, do you have a link for the single user IP extension? The one which enforces one user registration per IP.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 04:29, November 15, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi John, Sorry for the delay here. What I think would be most useful and complement what some of the other extensions do would be edit/post limits per hour and per day, customizable for each wiki, and able to be tweaked by age of account. That sounds good. Links haven't really been a problem for us since we put in "bad behavior" - the spam-bots go elsewhere, but I can imagine this being helpful in some situations. I don't think an extension to enforce one account per IP is a good idea - there are too many folks with shared computers or dynamic IPs out there. I use the espionage extension for this purpose - just to cross check any suspicious accounts to see if there's multiple per IP. Sincerely yours, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
::Thanks. I already have a function that calculates the age of a user, so I can easily get that into the system. What do you think would be good limits on the number of edits and the age too? I can create multiple levels of protection as well (e.g. 3 months, 6 months, 9 etc) and assign edit limits to each "age" level. There's no limit to what we can do, maybe just your idea of the 3 months is good. My extension has become quite customized although yes its as simple as adding the extension include in the LocalSettings.php. There are many things which i can turn into "options" that each wiki can customize itself with. My next step is trying to hide the page on the wiki which will hold all our variables (edit limits etc). I dont want hackers to figure out the limits otherwise they'll try to exploit the system and although it will be an added nuisance, its just better that the Variables page is out of public view. its meant to be an Admin only page. For now I'm still testing it and refining it as I go along. Every few days I make an small improvement in it.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 18:01, November 17, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi John, Hmm... Since we haven't had too many problems lately, I'd want something that wouldn't really get in people's way - like 4-5 edits/min, 10+ edits in 5 mins or 20 edits/hour for users under 3 months. I don't think it's needs to have too many levels - just one for new users and one for older users. For other wikis that don't require accounts or email confirmation, these features might eb more useful. I also don't think it would necessarily need a wiki page - I think many MediaWiki sysops will be used to tweaking settings in a file, as long as the documentation is clear. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
::I can do that easily. I just need to find a way to hide a page from the public view so only sysops can see/edit the system Varaibles page. After that I can make it customizable through the edit page. I like the idea of being able to edit it through the wiki. That way we dont have go in, edit and upload through FTP. Do you know some PHP? I could send you the code and you could edit it as you like, although I havent put in the age check yet.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 13:40, November 18, 2006 (PST)<br />
:::See though, your proposal can break the system. A hacker could register, wait for 3 months and then flood. Thats why I believe the safe lists is a good idea. Either that, or apply limits to _everyone_, regardless. We may _adjust_ the limits for users older than 3 months, that would be better than not having any limits at all for possibly a hacker who registered and waited for 3 months. The limits may be alarming at first, but if you look at recent changes, people really dont edit more than what you said, 5 posts/minute, e.g. I used my age function now but I commented it out, thinking that this can break the system. The "no limits" should _only_ be applied to people who we know for sure, will never vandalize (unless their passwords are stolen, but this danger exists for anything, not just a wiki so it has to be disregarded). If I put in a check that puts higher editing limits for users older than 3 months, that sounds reasonable, but not to remove the limits altogether. What i will do is put such a limit there, but it will be up to you. You can set the age limits for "old" users so high, that its practically impossible to break them my human editing, so it will basically amount to "no limits". Others like me will bring down the limits for every user regardless, to be safe.<br />
:::Do you know of any good way to hide a page so only sysops can see/edit it?--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 14:38, November 18, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
Hi John, You have a point there. I guess we've dealt with this by using bad behavior, which is effective against bots, and giving sysops the ability to ban users and IP's. In the context of our active community, this has worked reasonably well. We also have a "mass delete" extension installed which allows us to delete all new pages created by a user at once. Even with all fo this, I see a good. place for edit limits. There will certainly be different needs on different wikis. A safelist seems like a good idea too. As for how to hide a page, I don't know myself, but there are some good models out there. I think, e.g. of the "Last User Login" or "UserScore" extension, as well as many others. You can default to the sysop of bureaucrat user flag, or create a custom user group... — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
hey FrJohn, hah! We had out first vandal caught last night. By the time the roach started to wreck havoc, it was 4am in the morning my time so there would be no way I could have stopped it. After 6 edits, it was automatically blocked. Its IP was blocked automatically by mediawiki's default system for 24 hours so that prevented his other nick from doing damage, although my own protection would have blocked the IP anyway if it had gotten more edits from that IP. The way it got triggered is yes, it did too many edits in a certain amount of time. I have a block set even for a 72 hour monitoring. This is great. Although so much more can be done e.g.:<br />
#log of activity<br />
#Clear specificed blocks<br />
#various options like: Age limit monitoring (like you said)<br />
#Automatic rollback (that would be awesome)<br />
#Being able to adjust variables and options on the wiki - no need to go into FTP. This is helpful when somoene is installing the system and testing it for their own wiki.<br />
Some error checking needs to be done too.<br />
<br />
One big cool thing about this extension is, it has 3 levels of checks:<br />
# Ban by Username (too many edits coming a username). Next level, if that doesnt stop it:<br />
# Ban by IP (too many edits coming from an IP. Useful if multiple usernames from the same IP doing the damage - this is only limited to fast edits which break the throttle limit). If the IP block doesnt stop it, check next limit:<br />
# Halt all editing from "Unsafe" users (users not present on our Safe lists, which really means new users on the wiki whom we dont know anything about yet). This is useful for example, if its a flood of vandals targetting the wiki at the same time.<br />
So this is really fool proof. Each level has a higher limits than the previous level, so its triggered only if needed. Plus, the Safe users get free tickets and higher limits. The "Frequent" editors get no limits at all. I say if a Vandal was clever enough to make himself look like a real editor, it would be worth undoing all his damage at some point since he had made some contributions. The likelyhood of that happening is real low, I mean no one would go through the trouble of appearing like a genuine editor, only to get in the Frequent users list and then take his chance to wreck havoc. Even if he did, we'll atleast have his good edits after we've restored the wiki and reverted the edits.<br />
<br />
I only had do to 3 rollbacks, took me a minute. More improvements I believe will come as the system is improved and tested like last night. A lot of options can be put in it. I'll work on this stuff more, I dont want to release it right now, although if you really need a copy right now, let me know and I'll make arrangements. Do you have any examples of recent vandalism? If you could give me a few links to vandalism done on your wiki in the past, I can learn from that behavior and adjust my extension. And oh again, Bad behavior might not have stopped the vandalism last night. It failed to stop it once and it denies genuine users, so I've disabled it since I had the new protection which has worked perfectly. I'm pleased, to say the least. Our wiki would have been ravaged by the time I woke up, had the protection not been there. And its pretty silly that Mediawiki doesnt have these protections by default. By the way, I get a Javascript error in your website here when the Edit box loads. It might have to do something with the little "make a map" thing. What is that? I'd like to see a sample of possible, it might be useful for our wiki too. Also, the mass delete sounds good. Whats the name of that extension? I see that your [http://orthodoxwiki.org/MediaWiki:Monobook.js CSS] file doesnt show anything, yet it looks like you're editing it. Does this mean the content is hidden from other users, but only you can see and edit it? If so, this could be useful for the Variables page I want to make. Looks like you're having a lot of traffic right now (which is good), the site was responding slower.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 07:10, November 20, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi John, That's great that you've got it up and running and it's functioning well. I hope it helps some wiki-sysops gain control of their sites again! You can find the "Mass delete" extension [http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/Nuke/ here]. I've been having some trouble with Javascript lately - and just disabled the GoogleMaps extension (again) for the reason you mentioned. I expect Monobook.css and js are protected. You can edit your own user versions though. Best wishes, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Help Editing page ==<br />
<br />
FrJohn, I do not know if you are looking at this, but I think that the [[Help:Editing]] page has a frame problem. The left menu gets loaded with the text on the right. - [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 08:09, November 8, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Weird! Thanks for the heads up. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
==Featured Article - [[Episcopi vagantes]]==<br />
Wasn't terribly happy with the pic that I used - that one was used because Abp Aftimios is the source of a number of "Orthodox" episcopi vagantes. Would be very happy if a suggestion of a more appropriate photo/picture could be made. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 16:34, November 24, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
== Romanian diocese in OCA, vs. Romanian Archdiocese ==<br />
<br />
Bless me father John,<br />
<br />
I understand very well your position and arguments concerning the modification I made in the article about ROEA. At this moment I don't have time to look for a reference for the assertion I made. However, this is a well-known fact in the Romanian community.<br />
<br />
I presume that the author took the "argument" with the WW II as a cause for the staying of bishop Policarp in Romania from one of the official histories of ROEA.<br />
<br />
However, this is a very weak argument, because Romania entered in the WW II only in 1941, after 2 years.<br />
<br />
Between us, the real reason was the political pressure made by a leftist group in DC, on behalf of the dean J. Trutza's group, who was disturbed by the "monarchical" leadership of Bishop Policarp. The group started to "claim" his bishop only in 1946, when the communists forbade him to come to USA.<br />
<br />
Moreover, I don't understand why you erased the the assertion regarding the canonicity of the 3 ucrainian bishops. This is so well-known by everybody (the 10-year anniversry book of OCA, edited by Fr Alexander Schmeman makes a clear reference to this fact, by the way), and even confirmed by the following text. I would also like to get an explanation for the delay of one year between the deal between ROEA and Metropolia, and the re-ordiantion of Bp. Trifa.<br />
<br />
My opinion is that, if you want to be consistent, you have to erase the hole article, asking for independent references.<br />
<br />
Yours in Christ,<br />
<br />
deacon Ioan<br />
<br />
::Hi Deacon Ioan, Thanks for your explanations. I am not very familiar with the situation. I think what worried me were the vague assertions without much detail... some "communist group", "uncanonical"... I changed the part about the uncanonical bishops in the Ukraine too becuase this needs more detail - the Ukraine, as a border-land, has often been a canonical mess. Which group were these bishops in, and what were the circumstances of the ordination? By simply citing them as uncanonical and saying syaing which group they belonged to, and so on, it makes the impression that the OrthodoxWiki article is arguing against the legitimacy of the current church. We can certainly document disputes, it wouldn't be our place to take a position on this (unless this was something accepted across Orthodox jurisdictions worldwide). Maybe all of this material could be put on the associated talk page for now, until more detail is collected? Thanks for your work here, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Articles on WCC and NCC ==<br />
<br />
Father, bless.<br />
<br />
I was looking today at the article on [[Ecumenism]] and noticed that there are links for the [[World Council of Churches|WCC]] and the NCC. The WCC article is a stub with a single link. I'm wondering if these two possible articles have a "direct connection" (per the [[OrthodoxWiki:Style Manual|Style Manual]] to Orthodoxy. It seems to me that any information about either body could be included as a section in the Ecumenism article. To give some scope: It's been two years since the creation of the WCC article, and all we have is a single link. What think you? --[[User:Basil|Basil]] 10:56, January 4, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi Basil, I think I was the one who created them a long time ago. My hope was that each would offer a history of Orthodox involvement in the organization - there is a lot to say! But I think you'e right - if you want to consolidate the material in the ecumenism article, I think that would be good. We can "branch off" (!) the article again if someone wants to do the work on it. Thanks for writing, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
::Based on [[User:ASDamick|FrAndrew]]'s input and yours, I have made the WCC article and the NCC article redirects to [[Ecumenism]]. See [[Talk:World_Council_of_Churches|talk page for the WCC article]]. --[[User:Basil|Basil]] 15:36, January 4, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Many thanks Father John.:) (re:Kollyvades article)<br />
:No worries, I agree completely. Since I only had a small amount of infomation on that subject from another Orthodox website, I thought it might be better just to list the subject to make it known and let someone else continue, but I see your point and I agree completely. Will try to do a little research when i have some time and redo the article! Much appreciated. --[[User:Angellight_888|Chris]]<br />
<br />
== OrthodoxWiki en español ==<br />
<br />
Dear father John:<br />
<br />
I'm interested in colaborate in this wiki, but starting an OrthodoxWiki in spanish (i'm Chilean)<br />
I hope that we can do a very nice site<br />
<br />
God bless you<br />
<br />
In Christ<br />
--[[User:Alstradiaan|Alstradiaan]] 16:15, February 2, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
PD: Excuse me, my english is awful<br />
<br />
== Comment ==<br />
<br />
FrJohn, will you please go to my wiki wikireligion and edit it some. Also do you mind if I take content from this wiki and put it there. I have a link on my user page. God bless. --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 15:28, February 5, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
== Wikireligion ==<br />
<br />
I agree with you. You have to remember we are a new wiki. We are talking about what our policies are going to be right now. Have a nice week and god bless. --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 17:32, March 8, 2007 (PST)</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User_talk:FrJohn&diff=45221User talk:FrJohn2007-02-05T23:28:16Z<p>Sir James Paul: Comment</p>
<hr />
<div><div id="shortcut" style="border: 1px solid #CC9; margin: 0em 1em 0em 1em; text-align: center; padding:5px; clear: both; background-color:#F1F1DE"><br />
''Welcome to my discussion page. Please post new messages to the bottom of the page and use headings when starting new discussion topics.<br> Please also sign and date your entries by inserting '''<nowiki>- ~~~~</nowiki>''' at the end. Thank you.<br>[{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit&section=new}} Start a new discussion topic.]''<br />
----<br />
''[[/archived discussion 1]] (through 09-07-2005)''<br><br />
''[[/archived discussion 2]] (through 11-20-2005)''<br><br />
''[[/archived discussion 3]] (through 05-24-2006)''<br />
</div><br />
<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
<br />
== God bless you ==<br />
I hope that we can do a very nice site in arabic --[[User:Habib|Habib]] 19:23, November 10, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Protest ==<br />
<br />
Fr. John,<br />
I published my article on Hebrew Catholics in the Orthodox Wiki portal for two reasons, the first is I couldn't log in the General Wikipedia and the second because it is related to an Eastern spirituality. You said you deleted it because it is not convenient for your site, i mean, you consider it not appropriate. So, where is the information right for your believers and anybody else? Where is the Christian spirit you proclaim? I don't pretend to alien or romanize the Orthodoxy, as i understand we are from the same Apostolic root. Where is the final period for a real unity? When until are the Latin and Orthodox fighting for little things?<br />
I'm a great admiror of the Eastern culture and its ritual traditions. I respect and support the diversity in the Church of Christ. I believe in the unity but not the uniformity. So, if you could see i look for the defined identities from the peoples.<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Levikahano|Levikahano]] ([[User talk:Levikahano|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Levikahano|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
<br />
::Hi Levikahano, It's not right for OrthodoxWiki because it deals with a Roman Catholic group. I'm not saying the group isn't important or that we may share many things, but this generally isn't in the scope of material that we would include here. I would encourage you to put it on a Catholic wiki, or even on Wikipedia. May God bless you. {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
<br />
== Deletes and undeletes? ==<br />
<br />
I'm curious as to what exactly you're doing. Are you trying to erase article histories to remove direct evidence of vandalism? If so, it makes examining the legitimate part of the histories somewhat difficult... :/ &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 16:03, June 3, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Book sources page formatting ==<br />
<br />
There are HTML formatting problems on the [[Special:Booksources]] page. (after the ISBN number is entered) This once worked but now does not. There is no way for me to fix it, so I'll just report it. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 12:57, June 13, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:I went ahead and wikified the page. Is there a particular reason why the html formatting no longer works? —[[User:Magda|<b>magda</b>]] ([[User_talk:Magda|talk]]) 13:09, June 13, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hmm... probably has to do with the upgrade to 1.6. I'm out of town now, but I'll try to have a look next week when I get back. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
==Name blocks==<br />
Are we able to block certain usernames from being used? Right now, the system of renaming has its advantages in the history section of vandalised articles, but the same usernames can still be reused - can we put, say, a '*vandal*' block up? &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="red">Pι</font>]][[Special:Listusers/sysop|s]][[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="yellow">τ</font>]][[Special:Contributions/Pistevo|é]][[User:Pistevo|<font color="blue">vο</font>]] at 21:57, June 16, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:I think it's possible, but I'll have to refresh my memory on this. Let me try to look at this later in the week. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
::It is, you need [[:metawikipedia:Username Blacklist|this]] extension. [[User:Gregg|Gregg]] 15:40, June 17, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:::Thanks Gregg! That makes it easy. {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
:::P.S. If anyone has an idea what should be blocked, please send me an email.<br />
<br />
== Hello, Father ==<br />
<br />
Thanks for the message. I'm a php programmer. I'm mystified by wiki, but I'll figure it out.<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Rightwingprof|Rightwingprof]] ([[User talk:Rightwingprof|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Rightwingprof|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
<br />
==Re:==<br />
<br />
Thanks, not sure how much I can, or will contribute, but hey, maybe I will learn something.<br />
<small>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:Mmatga2me99|Mmatga2me99]] ([[User talk:Mmatga2me99|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Mmatga2me99|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><br />
<br />
== Thank you for the welcome ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr John,<br />
<br />
Thank you for the kind welcome. Much appreciated. It's nice to be here. -[[User:Antonios aigyptos|Antonios]] 15:27, August 5, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Sysop ==<br />
<br />
Thank you, Father John. I find it a pleasure to accept your invitation. I wouldn't do too well on handling theological subject, but history, etc. and sounding off on non-theological subject I can do.<br />
<br />
I had been meaning to e-mailing you on the subject of sound (audio) lifes, but have kept putting it off. I have a recording of my father-in-law's choir (Victor Pokrovsky) that I recorded at Nicolai-do in 1957 and have wondered if you want to place audio files on Orthodoxwiki. I have the file in two formats, AIFF Audio file and MP3 Audio file. I know the perferred format is 'OGG' but so far I haven't found the means to convert it. The file is short, 11 minutes, but of course is a large, 112MB and 127 MB. There is a slight pause at about a one third point for a shorter version.<br />
<br />
I can send the file to you if you have access to a means to convert the file, when I get to a high speed connection. I'm on dial-up. Or less I could just up-load load one of the two versions I have.[[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:28, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hi Bill, Of course it's a nice addition, but sysops generally aren't the ones to do the heavy theological writing. Mainly they're just empowered to do a few extra things for the good of the order. Thanks for accepting!<br />
::You might not have noticed yet my very subtle announcement on the [[OrthodoxWiki:News|news page]] about [[osource:Main_Page|OrthodoxSource]], a new sister project to OrthodoxWiki (very much in ''alpha'' stage at this point, which is why the announcement wasn't more strongly stated). The audio recording you mentioned would be great on that site - it's exactly the kind of thing I envisioned it for actually. <br />
::I haven't worked out what to do with large media files yet. There's a few possibilities, including using a free third-party service like [http://ourmedia.org OurMedia]. I think I'd rather keep more direct control of the archives though, so I'm thinking about using something like Amazon's S3 service, which is totally scalable. The downside is that I'd have to ask for donations to cover some of the (relatively minimal, at least initially) cost. We have room to grow on the server we're on, but I don't want to overwhelm things, especially if our media hosting grows, as I hope it will.<br />
::In terms of formats, I envision being much less strict than Wikimedia Commons - my concern would be less for openness of the format than for general accessibility. In this regard AIFF/MP3 are hard to beat. Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to email you with an FTP login, then you can upload the files at your leisure. Does that sound ok? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 21:50, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
Your offer, Fr. John, sounds very good. I received your e-mail and now I will send the file as soon as I learn to use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This is a first for me. The OrthodxSource sounds like a great addition.[[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:10, August 15, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Sysop invite ==<br />
<br />
Why, thank you, Father. I'd certainly like to help. My technical/wiki mark-up skills may not be that great, but I'm willing to do anything I can. Just tell me what I need to do next. [[User:Gabriela|Gabriela]] 22:47, August 10, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Thanks for accepting, Gabriela. You've got enough down, and I'm sure you can keep learning. I'll send you an invite to the Sysop list. You can look over the archives if you want to get an idea of where we have been. [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br />
== become an OrthodoxWiki sysop ==<br />
<br />
Thank you for the invite Father John, I'd be glad to help when I can. I am going to be busy for the next few weeks, but then I'll be able to give it more time. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 20:05, August 14, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
==Contributed articles==<br />
I've forgotten - are contributed articles supposed to be within the normal OW space, or is there a special place set aside for them? &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 03:19, September 1, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hi Pistevo, we're planning to move them all to OrthodoxSource. It hasn't really launched yet, so maybe we should just post it here with a <nowiki>{transfer}</nowiki> tag. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Dcn ASDamick? ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr John: I wonder if you know what's become of Deacon ASDamick? His user pages both here and on Wikipedia list him as departed indefinitely from the services; but as he was so active (I interacted more with him there than here, I do confess), I wonder what's happened? &mdash;[[User:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="orange"><b>Antonios Aigyptos</b></font>]]<sup><i>[[User_talk:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]</i></sup> 16:36, September 4, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
::Hi, He's taking a (hopefully temporary) leave of absence for while. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
Ah, I see. Well, as long as nothing's terribly wrong. From the on-line perspective, he's just up and vanished with no means of contact -- so one worries! &mdash;[[User:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="orange"><b>Antonios Aigyptos</b></font>]]<sup><i>[[User_talk:Antonios_aigyptos|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]</i></sup> 17:17, September 4, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Yep, I can see that. Thanks for your concern - he's fine though. And still email-able. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== [[Primus inter pares]] article ==<br />
<br />
Hello Father,<br />
<br />
I saw that you added the Wikipedia source link to the article in question. I read the parts of the style manual regarding how to do that (besides copying and pasting the actual Wikipedia URL), but I still seem to be confused. <br />
<br />
Also, that link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primus_inter_pares%26oldid%3D67646207, also seems to result in a Wikipedia error.<br />
<br />
I tried to import the article as best I could, my apologies if I erred.<br />
<br />
[[User:Hellenica|Hellenica]] 22:20, September 8, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hi Hellenica,<br>Thanks for your work here. Good catch on the link. You don't need to apologize - you're just learning. Because of the licensing, we need to explicitly state the Wikipedia article as a source. Since it doesn't add anything to what's currently there, the current article doesn't need to be cited as an external link. If you don't have time to edit all the wikipedia-specific stuff out, and add Orthodox stuff in, just mark it with a <nowiki>{{cleanup}}</nowiki> tag until it's been fixed up. Again, thanks! — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Vandalism ==<br />
<br />
There is a user, [[User:Youte2|Youte2]] who is defacing countless articles, it looks like a bot. [[User:Hellenica|Hellenica]] 21:26, September 9, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Thanks, got him. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Re: My e-mail address ==<br />
<br />
Dear Fr. John,<br />
<br>You know, actually I thought about that myself, but I didn't consider it such a problem because I already get spammed up to the lagoon, what with the e-mail address embedded in the headers of my web sites. Fortunately, Yahoo! has made it very easy to clean out all that bulk mail with just a few clicks.<br />
<br>But you're right. Why make a bad problem even worse? Thank you for your concern and for making that change.<br />
<br>Sincerely, John Bockman<br />
<br />
:No problem, glad to help. Yours, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Upload problems ==<br />
<br />
I'm having a problem uploading an image of the late Metropolitan Vitaly. I get an error message when I do that.:<br />
Internal error<br />
<br />
Could not copy file "/tmp/phptpCoq5" to "/home/owiki/public_html/images/6/66/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg".<br />
<br />
:Thanks for pasting in the whole error message - that helps! I'm not really sure what happened, but it looks like there was a corrupted file under that same name. I've deleted it - please try again and let me know if you have any more problems. Thanks! - Fr. John<br />
<br />
::Nope, I'm still getting the same problem <br />
<br />
::Could not copy file "/tmp/phpkVAglv" to "/home/owiki/public_html/images/6/66/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg".<br />
::--[[User:Aleks|Aleks]] 15:12, September 26, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
:Hmm.... ""/tmp/phpkVAgl" is your local path? What program are you using to store the image? I wonder what would happen if you tried renaming the source filename to something more standard, with a MIME type that the wiki would recognize. There are MIME restrictions in place which prevent "unmarked" files without certain extensions from being uploaded. You might also type a different destination filename. Let me know again if that doesn't work. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] <br />
::Nope, my path local path is "/home/sasha/Desktop/MetropolitanVitaly.jpg". This must be some kind of path on the server. I'm using Mozilla Firefox on Linux (Fedora Core 5). The problem occurs with any image of Metropolitan Vitaly. The images are all jpg. If you'd like, Father, I can e-mail the image to you and you can try uploading it.<br />
([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
:This problem is now fixed. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk]) 09:54, September 27, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
== Featured ==<br />
<br />
Thanks! I've actually been away for two weeks, which is why it hasn't changed - I thought I put it on my userpage, but apparently not... &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 20:17, October 6, 2006 (CDT)<br />
<br />
Hi Fr. John,<br />
<br />
Thanks for that it looks much neater now, okay this is a sad point and feel free to yell at me for it - now no one will know that I did it? as it doesn't list me as being involved/ a contributor in the page - now I know that as a Wiki user that shouldn't bother me as it's really all aobut growing the knowledge base but I guess I am vain and also I could use the brownie points! Sorry.<br />
But really I do like what you have done and it really does look much better and I uderstand entirely why you have done it, so please feel free to totally ignore my cribbing and moaning.<br />
<br />
Thanks <br />
<br />
Mela91e<br />
<br />
<br />
==Father Bless!==<br />
<br />
Father bless! <br />
<br />
Hello Fr. John,<br />
I found your link here via the discussion page at Wikicath.org. Sadly this Catholic wiki is being overrun by spam links and misguided attempts by Protestants to convince us we're all pagans. I saw that you'd made an offer to help deal with the spam, do you know if the owner of WikiCath is going to do something about it soon? Or perhaps I should just find another Catholic wiki =/<br />
<br />
Anyways, I do love this Orthodox Wiki and want to see something similar for us Catholics. :) <br />
<br />
You humble brother in Christ,<br />
-Devin<br />
a sinner<br />
- [[User:Dscherck|Dscherck]] 23:40, November 3, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
==Recent Changes==<br />
Not sure what the problem is - or the solution - but [[Special:Recent changes]] keeps coming up as an executable. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 05:42, November 4, 2006 (PST)<br />
:I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.7. It's not even letting me go to a page and then load; I click and it pops up that Firefox is trying to open a "application/x-httpd-php" file from orthodoxwiki.org. My RSS feed is working fine, though. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 02:12, November 5, 2006 (PST)<br />
::Still the same. Also, for whatever reason, it works fine using Internet Explorer. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 00:34, November 6, 2006 (PST)<br />
::Also, it works fine in Firefox 2, which I've just installed. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 00:52, November 6, 2006 (PST)<br />
:Not sure what to say at this point, except I'm glad it's working for you! I have noticed this problem with a few sites in the past, and I'll continue to dig a little bit and see it I can't find out anything more. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
== Edit Throttling ==<br />
<br />
Hi FrJohn, I'm working on an Edit Throttling Mediawiki extension. I've seen you guys have faced a lot of vandalism in the past. I tried to install Bad Behavior, but it didnt work on our wiki. We were vandalized again using a Move flood (lots of Moves in a short time). I've also seen BB denies some legitimate users. Have you been vandalized recently and what else are you using besides Bad Behavior to stop vandal bots and human vandals, while not causing inconvinience to legitimate users? thanks! --[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 18:34, November 5, 2006 (PST)<br />
:Hi FrJohn, thanks for response. Today I finished up writing the Edit Throttle extension and have put it into place for testing. I think it will work well, even for your problem:<br />
::Basically, the only problem that remains is when a human agent creates an account with a temporary email address and then blasts us.<br />
:In my ET extension, if a user is not on some "safe lists" (which can be edited only by SysOps like any Mediawiki page [just like in the SpamBlacklist extension page]), he will get blocked automatically if he tries to make more than for example 5 edits in 1 minute, or 20 edits in one hour (these numbers can be adjusted). Our wiki also requires people to login so thats also one help. Although maybe later I'll change this but with lots of alterations to make sure people's IP addresses dont become public etc. I did the login thing primarily so our IP addresses arent put out in public (really not wise of Mediawiki developers to get this idea of throwing out people's IP's for the world to see). I'm testing this extension and its working great for now. I even adjusted the Spam blackList so it only scans for spam, if a user is not on those safe lists. The theory behind all of this is simple: Except for WikiPedia, all wikis are usually edited by a small group of people. That makes it possible for this extension to do its job nicely. I might ask you sometime more detail on the other extensions/utilities you've installed - if the ET doesnt work well. If it works well for me after I've tested it nicely, I'll let you know if you would like to have it to (it will probably not be coded best, but atleast it works). I love the idea of these safe lists. This is perfect for wikis like ours, where a small number of people edit the wiki. For example you have about 2000 users, which is good. Its manageable and even ideal to have these safe lists. Even if a user is not on the safe lists, he can still edit, but more strict limits will be imposed on his editing, just to make sure we dont have a vandal at large. I even have a function in there, which detects lots of edits from people who are not on the safe list, and then it locks the wiki, allowing only "safe list" users to edit the wiki. This is useful if vandals use anonymous proxies with different IP's to make a flood that way, or if a group of vandals decide to attack a wiki at the same time. Safe list users get free tickets. Others have to be scrutinized. With the control of the Safe lists only in the hands of Sysops, its easy to control access. Doing that saves a lot of headache, where all we'd be doing is either fearing when the next attack is going to happen or reverting the attacks. There's another list "Frequent editors". That list has special people on it like Sysops, or people who we know edit the wiki a lot. To them, no limits of any kind are imposed. I'm excited and cant wait for our first vandal to attack to see what happens. Sometime I might ask you for advice for possible patterns of vandalism we could deal with. Our wiki is very controversial (means, a large group of people hate our presence to varying degrees) and so it was absolutely important to have these protections in place, otherwise we could not survive. All we'd be doing is reverting attacks if we werent protected so this will be very helpful for us. Because this is new, I'm sure the system can be breaken by some means or patterns ov vandalism and I'll see what goes on and adjust accordingly. So many other things as well can be put in place and designed, for example, I could limit the number of edits depending on the age of the user. If a user is only 60 minutes old (fresh user created), it could only do 5 edits and then further editing could only be possible if we add it to the Safe list. The process would be designed to be transparent to the genuine editor, but a quick road block to the vandal. We could even possibly limit IP edits. For example, we could have a maximum of 10 anonymous edits everdday just to keep things in check. These kinds of checks can also be created but for now, I'll stay with what I have and just allow logged-in edits. --[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 22:06, November 12, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
::This sounds very good, John. I'd love to give it a try. I like the idea too of being able to restrict by age of user. Instead of putting 1000 people on the safe list, I could just specify that any accounts older than 3 months can edit more furiously than brand new accounts. I don't care too much about the elegance of the code, as long as server load isn't dramatically increased. I'd be happy to use OrthodoxWiki as a test wiki for you. Happily, we're at the point right now where automated bot attacks aren't really a problem, and the occasional human ones get cleaned up pretty quickly. I could see ET as a way to further cut down on cleanup costs, though. God bless! — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
:::Ok great. I'm testing it out on our own wiki first right now and have some more fine tunings to do and then I'll probably give the script to you after I think its good and ready. The server load will be fine, yes. The script is very efficient. It basically only runs if a user moves or edits (which is rare on small wikis, or at most a maximum of every few minutes or sometimes even hours). If a script finds a user on the Frequent Editor list, it exits right away. My script actually helped reduce the load becuase it doesnt process Safe user posts for spam, so thats a big efficiency (the SpamBlacklist is a huge long list of possible spam URL's and certainly for example, we dont need established editors' posts being monitored for spam. Thats ridiculous and wastes server resources). So you're right then, its the new accounts that are always a problem. I'll fine tune and get back you sometime. If possible could you give me some links where I can see where vandalism took place on your wiki here? Then I can incorporate those behaviors into the script if possible. <br />
:::I'm also trying to make it so that all the parameters (e.g. minimum user age: 3 months) can be adjusted easily on the wiki, without need for us to get into PHP and FTP, and then all we need is to login and do these changes. Also I plan to try to introduce some sort of emergency button that halts editing from users not on our safe lists, and also another button which halts all editing. This can be helpful in the worst situation where there's lots of flooding going on and we're not sitting on our PC with access to the server code. Of course the automatic blocks are important. If we're not at our PC, we dont want to come back and find all our pages vandalized (like I experienced two times) and since we're not always at the PC, we want the auto blocks to take care of these things. I'll be fine tuning the script in the coming days and weeks for these kinds of features. Since vandalism is not a problem for you right now, I guess you wouldn't need the script in an emergency, correct? So I'll just fine tune and make it bug free to make sure it works, before giving it to you. If you'd still like a copy, let me know, however, there may be some bugs there that I havent caught so I would say you could wait a little before testing it out on your wiki. Lets see what happens today. The vandal usually strikes after 24 hours of opening up the wiki so I expect some thing caught in the trap if that script works. Meanwhile if you have any suggestions for what this script could do, feel free to propose any ideas that you think will be effective in reducing vandalism while least inconveniencing genuine users.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 15:28, November 13, 2006 (PST)<br />
::::FrJohn, also, what kind of automatic restrictions do you think should apply to users not older than 3 months? Posts/day limit? Links limit? I'll be looking forwarding to seeing your vandalism examples so I can observe. Another thing, do you have a link for the single user IP extension? The one which enforces one user registration per IP.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 04:29, November 15, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi John, Sorry for the delay here. What I think would be most useful and complement what some of the other extensions do would be edit/post limits per hour and per day, customizable for each wiki, and able to be tweaked by age of account. That sounds good. Links haven't really been a problem for us since we put in "bad behavior" - the spam-bots go elsewhere, but I can imagine this being helpful in some situations. I don't think an extension to enforce one account per IP is a good idea - there are too many folks with shared computers or dynamic IPs out there. I use the espionage extension for this purpose - just to cross check any suspicious accounts to see if there's multiple per IP. Sincerely yours, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
::Thanks. I already have a function that calculates the age of a user, so I can easily get that into the system. What do you think would be good limits on the number of edits and the age too? I can create multiple levels of protection as well (e.g. 3 months, 6 months, 9 etc) and assign edit limits to each "age" level. There's no limit to what we can do, maybe just your idea of the 3 months is good. My extension has become quite customized although yes its as simple as adding the extension include in the LocalSettings.php. There are many things which i can turn into "options" that each wiki can customize itself with. My next step is trying to hide the page on the wiki which will hold all our variables (edit limits etc). I dont want hackers to figure out the limits otherwise they'll try to exploit the system and although it will be an added nuisance, its just better that the Variables page is out of public view. its meant to be an Admin only page. For now I'm still testing it and refining it as I go along. Every few days I make an small improvement in it.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 18:01, November 17, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Hi John, Hmm... Since we haven't had too many problems lately, I'd want something that wouldn't really get in people's way - like 4-5 edits/min, 10+ edits in 5 mins or 20 edits/hour for users under 3 months. I don't think it's needs to have too many levels - just one for new users and one for older users. For other wikis that don't require accounts or email confirmation, these features might eb more useful. I also don't think it would necessarily need a wiki page - I think many MediaWiki sysops will be used to tweaking settings in a file, as long as the documentation is clear. Thanks, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
::I can do that easily. I just need to find a way to hide a page from the public view so only sysops can see/edit the system Varaibles page. After that I can make it customizable through the edit page. I like the idea of being able to edit it through the wiki. That way we dont have go in, edit and upload through FTP. Do you know some PHP? I could send you the code and you could edit it as you like, although I havent put in the age check yet.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 13:40, November 18, 2006 (PST)<br />
:::See though, your proposal can break the system. A hacker could register, wait for 3 months and then flood. Thats why I believe the safe lists is a good idea. Either that, or apply limits to _everyone_, regardless. We may _adjust_ the limits for users older than 3 months, that would be better than not having any limits at all for possibly a hacker who registered and waited for 3 months. The limits may be alarming at first, but if you look at recent changes, people really dont edit more than what you said, 5 posts/minute, e.g. I used my age function now but I commented it out, thinking that this can break the system. The "no limits" should _only_ be applied to people who we know for sure, will never vandalize (unless their passwords are stolen, but this danger exists for anything, not just a wiki so it has to be disregarded). If I put in a check that puts higher editing limits for users older than 3 months, that sounds reasonable, but not to remove the limits altogether. What i will do is put such a limit there, but it will be up to you. You can set the age limits for "old" users so high, that its practically impossible to break them my human editing, so it will basically amount to "no limits". Others like me will bring down the limits for every user regardless, to be safe.<br />
:::Do you know of any good way to hide a page so only sysops can see/edit it?--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 14:38, November 18, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
Hi John, You have a point there. I guess we've dealt with this by using bad behavior, which is effective against bots, and giving sysops the ability to ban users and IP's. In the context of our active community, this has worked reasonably well. We also have a "mass delete" extension installed which allows us to delete all new pages created by a user at once. Even with all fo this, I see a good. place for edit limits. There will certainly be different needs on different wikis. A safelist seems like a good idea too. As for how to hide a page, I don't know myself, but there are some good models out there. I think, e.g. of the "Last User Login" or "UserScore" extension, as well as many others. You can default to the sysop of bureaucrat user flag, or create a custom user group... — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
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hey FrJohn, hah! We had out first vandal caught last night. By the time the roach started to wreck havoc, it was 4am in the morning my time so there would be no way I could have stopped it. After 6 edits, it was automatically blocked. Its IP was blocked automatically by mediawiki's default system for 24 hours so that prevented his other nick from doing damage, although my own protection would have blocked the IP anyway if it had gotten more edits from that IP. The way it got triggered is yes, it did too many edits in a certain amount of time. I have a block set even for a 72 hour monitoring. This is great. Although so much more can be done e.g.:<br />
#log of activity<br />
#Clear specificed blocks<br />
#various options like: Age limit monitoring (like you said)<br />
#Automatic rollback (that would be awesome)<br />
#Being able to adjust variables and options on the wiki - no need to go into FTP. This is helpful when somoene is installing the system and testing it for their own wiki.<br />
Some error checking needs to be done too.<br />
<br />
One big cool thing about this extension is, it has 3 levels of checks:<br />
# Ban by Username (too many edits coming a username). Next level, if that doesnt stop it:<br />
# Ban by IP (too many edits coming from an IP. Useful if multiple usernames from the same IP doing the damage - this is only limited to fast edits which break the throttle limit). If the IP block doesnt stop it, check next limit:<br />
# Halt all editing from "Unsafe" users (users not present on our Safe lists, which really means new users on the wiki whom we dont know anything about yet). This is useful for example, if its a flood of vandals targetting the wiki at the same time.<br />
So this is really fool proof. Each level has a higher limits than the previous level, so its triggered only if needed. Plus, the Safe users get free tickets and higher limits. The "Frequent" editors get no limits at all. I say if a Vandal was clever enough to make himself look like a real editor, it would be worth undoing all his damage at some point since he had made some contributions. The likelyhood of that happening is real low, I mean no one would go through the trouble of appearing like a genuine editor, only to get in the Frequent users list and then take his chance to wreck havoc. Even if he did, we'll atleast have his good edits after we've restored the wiki and reverted the edits.<br />
<br />
I only had do to 3 rollbacks, took me a minute. More improvements I believe will come as the system is improved and tested like last night. A lot of options can be put in it. I'll work on this stuff more, I dont want to release it right now, although if you really need a copy right now, let me know and I'll make arrangements. Do you have any examples of recent vandalism? If you could give me a few links to vandalism done on your wiki in the past, I can learn from that behavior and adjust my extension. And oh again, Bad behavior might not have stopped the vandalism last night. It failed to stop it once and it denies genuine users, so I've disabled it since I had the new protection which has worked perfectly. I'm pleased, to say the least. Our wiki would have been ravaged by the time I woke up, had the protection not been there. And its pretty silly that Mediawiki doesnt have these protections by default. By the way, I get a Javascript error in your website here when the Edit box loads. It might have to do something with the little "make a map" thing. What is that? I'd like to see a sample of possible, it might be useful for our wiki too. Also, the mass delete sounds good. Whats the name of that extension? I see that your [http://orthodoxwiki.org/MediaWiki:Monobook.js CSS] file doesnt show anything, yet it looks like you're editing it. Does this mean the content is hidden from other users, but only you can see and edit it? If so, this could be useful for the Variables page I want to make. Looks like you're having a lot of traffic right now (which is good), the site was responding slower.--[[User:JohnK|JohnK]] 07:10, November 20, 2006 (PST)<br />
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:Hi John, That's great that you've got it up and running and it's functioning well. I hope it helps some wiki-sysops gain control of their sites again! You can find the "Mass delete" extension [http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/Nuke/ here]. I've been having some trouble with Javascript lately - and just disabled the GoogleMaps extension (again) for the reason you mentioned. I expect Monobook.css and js are protected. You can edit your own user versions though. Best wishes, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
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== Help Editing page ==<br />
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FrJohn, I do not know if you are looking at this, but I think that the [[Help:Editing]] page has a frame problem. The left menu gets loaded with the text on the right. - [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 08:09, November 8, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Weird! Thanks for the heads up. — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
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==Featured Article - [[Episcopi vagantes]]==<br />
Wasn't terribly happy with the pic that I used - that one was used because Abp Aftimios is the source of a number of "Orthodox" episcopi vagantes. Would be very happy if a suggestion of a more appropriate photo/picture could be made. &mdash; edited by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] <sup>''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''</sup> at 16:34, November 24, 2006 (PST)<br />
<br />
== Romanian diocese in OCA, vs. Romanian Archdiocese ==<br />
<br />
Bless me father John,<br />
<br />
I understand very well your position and arguments concerning the modification I made in the article about ROEA. At this moment I don't have time to look for a reference for the assertion I made. However, this is a well-known fact in the Romanian community.<br />
<br />
I presume that the author took the "argument" with the WW II as a cause for the staying of bishop Policarp in Romania from one of the official histories of ROEA.<br />
<br />
However, this is a very weak argument, because Romania entered in the WW II only in 1941, after 2 years.<br />
<br />
Between us, the real reason was the political pressure made by a leftist group in DC, on behalf of the dean J. Trutza's group, who was disturbed by the "monarchical" leadership of Bishop Policarp. The group started to "claim" his bishop only in 1946, when the communists forbade him to come to USA.<br />
<br />
Moreover, I don't understand why you erased the the assertion regarding the canonicity of the 3 ucrainian bishops. This is so well-known by everybody (the 10-year anniversry book of OCA, edited by Fr Alexander Schmeman makes a clear reference to this fact, by the way), and even confirmed by the following text. I would also like to get an explanation for the delay of one year between the deal between ROEA and Metropolia, and the re-ordiantion of Bp. Trifa.<br />
<br />
My opinion is that, if you want to be consistent, you have to erase the hole article, asking for independent references.<br />
<br />
Yours in Christ,<br />
<br />
deacon Ioan<br />
<br />
::Hi Deacon Ioan, Thanks for your explanations. I am not very familiar with the situation. I think what worried me were the vague assertions without much detail... some "communist group", "uncanonical"... I changed the part about the uncanonical bishops in the Ukraine too becuase this needs more detail - the Ukraine, as a border-land, has often been a canonical mess. Which group were these bishops in, and what were the circumstances of the ordination? By simply citing them as uncanonical and saying syaing which group they belonged to, and so on, it makes the impression that the OrthodoxWiki article is arguing against the legitimacy of the current church. We can certainly document disputes, it wouldn't be our place to take a position on this (unless this was something accepted across Orthodox jurisdictions worldwide). Maybe all of this material could be put on the associated talk page for now, until more detail is collected? Thanks for your work here, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
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== Articles on WCC and NCC ==<br />
<br />
Father, bless.<br />
<br />
I was looking today at the article on [[Ecumenism]] and noticed that there are links for the [[World Council of Churches|WCC]] and the NCC. The WCC article is a stub with a single link. I'm wondering if these two possible articles have a "direct connection" (per the [[OrthodoxWiki:Style Manual|Style Manual]] to Orthodoxy. It seems to me that any information about either body could be included as a section in the Ecumenism article. To give some scope: It's been two years since the creation of the WCC article, and all we have is a single link. What think you? --[[User:Basil|Basil]] 10:56, January 4, 2007 (PST)<br />
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:Hi Basil, I think I was the one who created them a long time ago. My hope was that each would offer a history of Orthodox involvement in the organization - there is a lot to say! But I think you'e right - if you want to consolidate the material in the ecumenism article, I think that would be good. We can "branch off" (!) the article again if someone wants to do the work on it. Thanks for writing, — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
<br />
::Based on [[User:ASDamick|FrAndrew]]'s input and yours, I have made the WCC article and the NCC article redirects to [[Ecumenism]]. See [[Talk:World_Council_of_Churches|talk page for the WCC article]]. --[[User:Basil|Basil]] 15:36, January 4, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
:Many thanks Father John.:) (re:Kollyvades article)<br />
:No worries, I agree completely. Since I only had a small amount of infomation on that subject from another Orthodox website, I thought it might be better just to list the subject to make it known and let someone else continue, but I see your point and I agree completely. Will try to do a little research when i have some time and redo the article! Much appreciated. --[[User:Angellight_888|Chris]]<br />
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== OrthodoxWiki en español ==<br />
<br />
Dear father John:<br />
<br />
I'm interested in colaborate in this wiki, but starting an OrthodoxWiki in spanish (i'm Chilean)<br />
I hope that we can do a very nice site<br />
<br />
God bless you<br />
<br />
In Christ<br />
--[[User:Alstradiaan|Alstradiaan]] 16:15, February 2, 2007 (PST)<br />
<br />
PD: Excuse me, my english is awful<br />
<br />
== Comment ==<br />
<br />
FrJohn, will you please go to my wiki wikireligion and edit it some. Also do you mind if I take content from this wiki and put it there. I have a link on my user page. God bless. --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 15:28, February 5, 2007 (PST)</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User_talk:Wsk&diff=45210User talk:Wsk2007-02-05T01:28:10Z<p>Sir James Paul: Question</p>
<hr />
<div>{{welcome}} &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 11:25, 28 May 2005 (CDT)<br />
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== Photos from Japan ==<br />
<br />
Judging by the age you give the photos, it is likely that their copyright has long expired and they are now in the public domain. You should feel free to scan them in and upload them to the site. Thanks for your work! &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 07:09, 6 Jun 2005 (CDT)<br />
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== Various ==<br />
<br />
I deleted the duplicate article as you requested.<br />
<br />
One other note is that when you did a "move" on the Sandbox, it turned the Sandbox into a redirect to the new article. Additionally, it imported the entire editing history from the Sandbox into your new article. I thought you might like to know that for future reference. In the future, you may wish to create new article projects in the userspace instead, e.g., [[User:Wsk/Article Name]], or just copy and paste the code into the new article, so that redirects and shifted editing histories don't get thrown about. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 19:54, 7 Jun 2005 (CDT)<br />
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== Nikolai-do pics ==<br />
<br />
Those photos are fantastic! Thanks for procuring them. Please be sure to add an [[Help:Image licenses|image license]] for each one as is appropriate. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 15:49, 17 Jun 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== Bishops and links ==<br />
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You're most welcome for the help&mdash;it's the standard wiki-protocol! :)<br />
<br />
There are a couple things to note:<br />
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*Links and article names for bishops are in the format '''Firstname (Surname) of See'''. The birthname can be noted in the article, but it's not included in the article name. Making links to as-yet-absent articles is also included here, since clicking on those links will lead a user to create an article with that name.<br />
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*Creating wiki-links which link to an article with name A yet display name B are done in the following fashion: '''<nowiki>[[Name A|Name B]]</nowiki>''' Thus, if I wanted to link to your userpage without displaying its full name, I would use '''<nowiki>[[User:Wsk|Wsk]]</nowiki>''', yielding this: [[User:Wsk|Wsk]].<br />
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Please take the time to read through the [[Help:Contents]] and the [[OrthodoxWiki:Style Manual]] for lots of tips on style and technical details. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 13:36, 25 Jun 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== Orthodoxy in America template ==<br />
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Great job on making all the "American Saints" on the template blue. You have some very well-researched articles. —[[User:Magda|magda]] 16:26, 30 Jul 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== Sp: Archimandrite/Archmandrite ==<br />
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I've noticed that there seems to be a consistent spelling error in a number of your articles. Just so you know, the word is spelled '''[[archimandrite]]''', not '''archmandrite'''. (This is not a personal criticism; just trying to let you know!) &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 09:18, 8 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== St. Herman's Seminary ==<br />
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I moved the [[St. Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary (Kodiak, Alaska)|St. Herman's]] page because the apostrophe was one of those "smart quotes" and the [[Template:Orthodoxyinamerica|Orthodoxy in America template]] (among other pages) wasn't picking up on it. Just something to look out for. [[User:Magda|{{User:Magda/sig}}]] 16:24, 13 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
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== Cult/occult ==<br />
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I have no idea how OrthodoxWiki got classified as being "cult/occult" by this particular web-service you mention. It may well be that the word "cult" appears in a number of articles, and so some automatic classification occurred. In any event, if you'd like to contact these folks to let them know the real state of things, feel free. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 08:10, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)<br />
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::Far out wsk! Any follow-up? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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:Thansk Bill for all your notes. I'm glad you're excited about OrthodoxWiki! I've been very happy about all the Japanese Orthodox stuff. I've got a friend who's moving to Japan soon (she's now Orthodox and married to a Japanese Orthodox man), and it's been a blessing to see so much about the Japanese Orthodox Church! - [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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==An Overdue Response==<br />
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:Hi again, I wanted to respond to your comments below. Sorry for the delay! Thanks for your support and encouragement for this project, and for talking it up. Please greet Fr. Constantine for me. He probably won't remember, but we met awhile ago. Keep up the good work, and keep thinking big for the site. We need vision! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 14:11, 8 Sep 2005 (EDT)<br />
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By the way, I glad you all have started the OrthodoxWiki site, it's among the things we need to do to 'advertize' Orthodoxy. Now we need to get the word out to our people. I attend St Nicholas in Washington and have mentioned the site to a number of 'outward looking' people, but I need to do more. Bill Kosar<br />
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== Japanese Orthodox ==<br />
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Wow, great work Bill. Where do you find this stuff? [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
<br>P.S. I had the pleasure of serving with Fr. Dennis in Chicago yesterday.<br />
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== Canadian OCA Hierarchs ==<br />
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Here are a couple of links for succession boxes: [http://www.archdiocese.ca/archivesbishops.htm list of Canadian bishops] and [http://www.archdiocese.ca/archivesHistory.htm a history of the Archdiocese of Canada (OCA)]. {{User:Magda/sig}} 09:10, November 12, 2005 (CST)<br />
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== Bringing together the pages... ==<br />
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Hi Bill,<br />
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I've put [[Template:Orthodoxyinjapan]] on all the pages about Japanese Orthodoxy I could find, and also put everything together into [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]]. I would be grateful if you could write a brief introduction on the category page, then I would like to submit the whole category as a featured article to showcase some of the unique information we have here on OrthodoxWiki. How does all that sound? Thanks! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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P.S. It would also be wonderful, if you have a chance, if you could work on [[Timeline of Orthodoxy in Japan]]. It doesn't have to be extensive, but it would be nice to have something up. Thanks!<br />
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== Category link ==<br />
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Hi Bill, thanks for bringing this up -- I've added the category to the image. This can be done by going to the image page, clicking edit and adding <nowiki>[[Category:Japanese Orthodox Images]]</nowiki> anywhere in the text of the page. By the way, signatures use a tilde rather than a "'". Hope that helps, and thanks for your work! [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]] 12:18, December 5, 2005 (CST)<br />
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== [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]] ==<br />
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Just so you know, when you add the '''<nowiki>{{orthodoxyinjapan}}</nowiki>''' template to an article, [[:Category:Orthodoxy in Japan]] automatically gets added, so there's no need to include it separately. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 09:57, January 5, 2006 (CST)<br />
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== Uninhabited islands ==<br />
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I would propose that we take uninhabited islands off the [[:Template:Parishes of the USA|template]] altogether, and delete those pages... Sorry this comes after your work. {{User:Magda/sig}} 20:25, January 7, 2006 (CST)<br />
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Thanks for your help. {{User:Magda/sig}} 10:18, January 12, 2006 (CST)<br />
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== Parish Directory (USA) ==<br />
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Invitation to join discussion at [[Category talk:Parish Directory (USA)]]. {{User:Magda/sig}} 11:00, January 31, 2006 (CST)<br />
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== Ordain / [[Ordination]] ==<br />
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When making links, please try to link to the actual article title and not to a redirect. Articles are usually titled as nouns (ordination), rather than verbs (ordain). Some can be tricky, of course, like [[tonsure]], in which the noun and verb form are the same. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 17:22, April 22, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Photos from St. Nicholas in DC ==<br />
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The photos you've uploaded recently of liturgical hardware you note as being "courtesy" of the catehdral in DC, yet you also have them listed as being copyrighted by you (that is, you own the photos). If they're yours, then the "courtesy" should probably be worded some other way (e.g. "Thanks to so-and-so for allowing this photo to be taken" or something like that). "Courtesy" in this context usually means that someone else owns the photo and is letting you use it, so if the cathedral owns those photos, then to put your own name on them for the copyright would be inaccurate. {{User:ASDamick/sig}} 15:15, May 7, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Edward of England ==<br />
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There are, AFAIK, only two sainted Edwards in English history, and only one was a martyr. (Edward the Confessor died peacefully.) The Sept. 3 feast is of the translation of the relics of [[Edward the Martyr]]. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 15:41, May 28, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== 1917-18 Council article ==<br />
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Why not mention this on the article's talk page? I'm sure a collaboration is possible. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. Andrew</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Randompage|<font color="blue">random</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 16:48, June 11, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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I read the sandbox article, I have not problem if you replace the stub I posted with an actual article. [[User:Andrew|Andrew]] 10:20, June 12, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Sysop Invite ==<br />
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Dear Bill,<br />
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I'd like to invite you to become an OrthodoxWiki sysop. This doesn't require much more time or commitment than you've already demonstrated. You'd be part of our ultra-secret OrthodoxWiki Sysop email list, where we work together to battle wiki-evil and talk about various issues affecting the life of OrthodoxWiki, and once in awhile bounce around ideas about its future. Also, you'd have superpowers on the wiki, allowing you to intervene in edit wars, and otherwise better manage articles. Finally, you'd be a reference point for other users - welcoming them in the name of OrthodoxWiki, and helping folks get the hang of the OrthodoxWiki style. Let me know if you'd like to accept this mission by leaving a note on my talk page or emailing me directly. Thanks, {{User:FrJohn/sig}}<br />
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== Royal/Holy Doors ==<br />
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Hey, sorry about the rude reversion of your change to the [[Classification of Feasts]] article. I should have edited it and provided an explanation rather than just using the rollback feature. I wasn't thinking.<br />
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The proper name for the doors leading from the nave to the altar is "holy doors". The "royal doors" are actually the doors leading from the narthex to the nave. It is a popular misnomer to call the "holy doors" royal. &mdash;[[User:Dcndavid|<font color="blue"><b><i>Dcn. David</i></b></font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:Dcndavid|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <sup>[[Special:Contributions/Dcndavid|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</sup> 23:03, August 11, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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::Dcn. David, I can't help but think there's more to the story than that. I think here is a good place to push for primary sources and a solid historical account - though it might be more than we can take on at the moment! It seems to me that the conflation of "royal" to holy (after the collapse of the Empire?) also has a layer of symbolic meaning which goes beyond a "popular misnomer." [[User:FrJohn|Fr. John]]<br />
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::It is interesting that this question came up. We are plagued with numerous names being applied to various Orthodox expressions. Besides our different languages in use, we are also confronted with the names from the Western Christian world. Of course this makes consistency difficult in such a place as Orthodoxwiki. I have been trying to settle the many empty articles under the 'wanted' article and noticed the appearance of Holy Doors and Royal Doors - that I usually use - so the changes! As my knowledge on many of the open articles is very low, having articles and corrections to articles by 'authorities, more than from Wikipedia, would be nice. <br />
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::I planned to have, at least the empty Door articles, redirected to the Iconostasis article as an immediate improvement. It at least gives a overview and thus a simple explanation. I whole heartly agree with Fr John that we need to travel toward better authories writing articles on many of the complicated subjects, especially better than me![[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 20:08, August 12, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Request Photo Use for Wikipedia ==<br />
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Hi, I'm part of a group of users over on Wikipedia who working on importing articles from the [[:Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia|Catholic Encyclopedia]]. The article I'm working on now is about the aër. I noticed that the article here on OrthodoxWiki ([[Aer]]) has a picture you provided ([[:Image:Aer_on_a_Chalice_and_Discos.jpg]]). I would love to be able to include the picture in the article on Wikipedia as well, but notice that the copyright only allows it to be used on this site. Would you mind granting permission for it's use on Wikipedia as well? Thanks, [[:Wikipedia:User:Kylef81|Kylef81 (wp)]] [[User:Kylef81|Kylef81]] 19:26, August 17, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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:Just something to keep in mind - Wikipedia doesn't really want closed-license photos, no? Would this mean that you're asking Wsk to reissue it under the GFDL (or at least a CC license)? — [[User:FrJohn|<b>FrJohn</b>]] ([http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:FrJohn&action=edit&section=new talk])<br />
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:Kyle and Fr. John; I've changes the copywrite notice of the Aer image to GFDL so that Kyle can use it. Fr. John, I'll be changing the other images as I have some time. [[User:Wsk|Wsk]] 12:10, August 19, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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:Thanks! I've added the image to the article on Wikipedia. [[User:Kylef81|Kylef81]] 13:24, August 19, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Back? ==<br />
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I'm not really back. Just fixing a few things I noticed. &mdash;[[User:ASDamick|<font size="3.5" color="green" face="Adobe Garamond Pro, Garamond, Georgia, Times New Roman">Dcn. Andrew</font>]] <sup>[[User_talk:ASDamick|<font color="red">talk</font>]]</sup> <small>[[Special:Contributions/ASDamick|<font color="black">contribs</font>]]</small> 15:10, October 9, 2006 (CDT)<br />
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== Question ==<br />
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Do you want to help me with my wiki [http://editthis.info/wikireligion/Main_Page wikireligion]? There are a lot of articles that need to be made. --[[User:Sir James Paul|Sir James Paul]] 17:28, February 4, 2007 (PST)</div>Sir James Paulhttps://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=User:Sir_James_Paul&diff=45208User:Sir James Paul2007-02-05T01:20:19Z<p>Sir James Paul: </p>
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<div>'''I would like some help with my wiki [http://editthis.info/wikireligion/Main_Page wikireligion]'''</div>Sir James Paul