OrthodoxWiki:About

Welcome! We're glad you're here.

OrthodoxWiki was inaugurated in November 2004.

What is OrthodoxWiki?

• It's a wiki.
• It's a community focused on content creation.
• It's a place for Orthodox Christians to share their knowledge.
• It's international in scope.
• It's pan-Orthodox.
• It's an encyclopedia aimed at producing articles that can be used freely (with attribution), especially for Christian education.
• It has many audiences—it's a resource for non-Orthodox as well as Orthodox clergy and laity.
• It's a discussion forum with attention to the development of documentation to help clarify / articulate some fundamental issues in Church life.
• It has a specific bias.

Although OrthodoxWiki contains many links to external sites, it aspires to be much more than a human edited directory. Encyclopedia-like articles are considered a valuable part of this enterprise. The most fundamental aspect of all this is the consolidation of a "knowledge landscape" within Orthodoxy.

OrthodoxWiki shines in the way difficult and/or divisive topics are worked out, articulated in descriptive pro and con formats, complete with an outline of different thinkers and their arguments. A solid descriptive overview of some of these controversies simply does not exist, at least in English. In cases of disagreement, OrthodoxWiki hopes to push its users towards a constructive conversation on polemicized issues which threaten to, and in fact do, divide Orthodox Christians.

What OrthodoxWiki is not

• It is not a typical social networking site—OrthodoxWiki is focused on content and isn't a great place to network.
• It is not an official voice of Orthodoxy—among other things, this means that official documentation from particular Church officials does not constitute binding editorial policy for OrthodoxWiki. In other words, OrthodoxWiki regards itself as a beneficiary of the freedom of the press granted by the country of its server's residence.
• It is not a substitute for your priest or bishop.
• It is not perfect—OrthodoxWiki is a work in progress. It's also a communal effort, which means that not every member of the community would agree with every statement made in an article. We try hard to weed out anything that is flatly inaccurate or heretical. We press authors to provide sources and document diverging interpretations in a thorough and non-polemical manner. Nevertheless, it is certain that we don't catch or correct everything. If you see that something is lacking, please step in and fix it! You may also simply note your disagreement on the article's discussion page.
• It is not a battleground—you are free to state your opinions in appropriate places (a personal user page or in a discussion on a talk page), but do not threaten, harass or intimidate those with whom you have a disagreement. Rather, we encourage everybody to approach matters in an intelligent manner and engage in polite discussion.
• It is not Wikipedia. We borrow heavily from Wikipedia's structure, we use the same software as Wikipedia, we link to Wikipedia, and a number of our articles find their initial source in Wikipedia, but OrthodoxWiki is completely unaffiliated with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.

(With inspiration from Meta and Wikipedia.)

OrthodoxWiki's bias

Please see: OrthodoxWiki:Style Manual (Point of View).

Important pages

• OrthodoxWiki:Community portal
• Category:OrthodoxWiki policies

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OrthodoxWiki uses MediaWiki and is maintained and administered by FrJohn.

The OrthodoxWiki logo was designed and donated by Zander and is Copyright © OrthodoxWiki and its administrator.