WikiChristian talk:Bible

This page is to discuss how the Bible could best be referenced in WikiChristian and any changes that we should undertake. Please see Bible Changes for the current system that is being implemented.

Opening Salvo

Some of the pros of the current system that I can see are:

• A verse can be easily displayed on any page simply by typing something like this: {{web_verse|john|1|1}} which will display Template:John 1:1 (WEB) ; different versions and languages can be displayed too, for example {{greek_verse|john|1|1}} will display this: Template:John 1:1 (Greek)

• By editing the verse directly (for example adding links to the verse) the edit will apply on whatever page the verse is displayed
• There can be a main page for each verse or chapter for which a commentary can be written (for example John 1:1)
• There can be individual pages for different versions / translations of the verse or chapter which can contain footnotes about that version (for example John 1:1 (Greek) can have footnotes that show any textual variants for the Greek text - if there happen to be any)

Anyway, these are just some of the positives. I look forward to hearing what other people think and to hearing the cons. --Graham grove 13:53, 22 July 2008 (PDT)

Aquatiki here.

• What versions are important to have here? What versions are affordable/legal? The Greek, Hebrew, Latin, KJV, ASV, YLT and WEB are all free. Do we want all of those?
• There no argument for and many against having tons and tons of pages. Having a page for every version of every verse/chapter/book is unavoidable, but there only need to be a handful of templates to handle all the things we want done.
• Most people know nothing about Greek/Hebrew/Latin, nor do they want to! I am for the sequestering of other forms of verses.
• All these versions can be nicely tucked away in to Namespaces (read this Wikipedia explanation).

--Aquatiki 10:16, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

Graham again.

• I think we should start with free versions and at a bare minimum have the WEB version and the Greek and Hebrew. But ultimately the more versions the better. But let's start with one English translation and the original language versions. How does that sound?
• I'm very happy with tucking away pages the way as you have suggested. Will we still be able to easily show the text from any page using something similar to {{web_verse|john|1|1}} and will we still be able to keep the little "edit" link so that the Bible text itself can be edited to add links?
• And if we do it this way then where can we still put footnotes specific to particular versions, for example, a footnote showing the Greek manuscript variants for the Greek version?

--Graham grove 10:37, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

Aquatiki's counter-riposte

• I agree with your first point 100%.
• Quoting will be as easy as you imagine. Linking to "edit" is easy too.
• New point: Isn't adding links to bible words an pretty big judgment call? Are we not adding a layer of interpretation to the bible? On my wiki I decided against doing that at all, but perhaps we could bracket it some way here, if you're keen on it. Otherwise, can we really call it the KJV or WEB? (I know we do it with the Greek/Hebrew/Latin, but I don't think you're proposing to only link to a dictionary-like page for English words).
• Would the footnotes need to be displayed every time the text is quoted, or only seen on the original page, or be electable? All are possible.

--Aquatiki 10:44, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

Graham yet again

• I'd be interested to hear a little further about your thinking for linking in the Bible. I'm suggesting for example, if the word "Abraham" appears in the text, that it links to Abraham; "Baal" would link to Baal; "Israel" might link to Ancient Israel and Judah if it was appropriate to the context and so on. --Graham grove 10:51, 23 July 2008 (PDT)
• Not sure about where the footnote would be seen. Perhaps only on the original page. What do you think? --Graham grove 10:53, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

Aq

• I don't disagree that sometimes it's plain as day, but just to take you last one as an example: Dispensationalism says that Ancient Israel is Modern Israel: you're deciding they are not by having two pages and linking to one over the other. Or, somewhere you and I might disagree, what is "the world" in John 3:16? The planet? The people? Which people? The elect? Who gets to decide which link is appropriate when there isn't just one page to which one can link?
• Footnotes about textual variations are so erudite and esoteric, that I can't imagine any but the most lofty of scholars wanting to input that resolution of detail into a wiki. Since, however, Unbound's free texts provide it, it would seem best in by judgment to include it on the Greek page and nowhere else. --Aquatiki 11:01, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

Graham

• Fair enough - I'm happy to cut out the idea of putting links in the English text. I guess the commentary section is meant for the explaining of terms anyway. I still think it is important to put the links in the original language however.
• I agree about leaving textual variations in the Greek page.

It seems to me that we're coming to some good conclusions here. I don't imagine that many other people are going to make comments, but you never know.

I think the next step is to work out what a standard page verse, chapter and book page would look like. --Graham grove 11:10, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

I will make a working model for you once I am able to create a namespace or two. --Aquatiki 11:17, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

P.S. I think it's good that we document this conversation as there may be technical people who come along at a later date.

Brilliant. Sounds good. Agreed about the documentation. Thanks Robert. --Graham grove 11:32, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

By the way, could we keep it as much is possible in line with style outlined in Wikichristian.org:Page Layout. Perhaps some sort of cross between what you've created in ReformedWord and the style of, for example, John 11:25 or John 11:35. --Graham grove 11:35, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

Which namespace for verse pages?

Another question - probably a silly one, but I just want to be sure. I like being able to type the verse into the search section, e.g. I like being able to type "John 1:1" into the search box on the left hand side of the wiki and have John 1:1 loaded up. That would still occur with the new system we're thinking of implementing wouldn't it? --Graham grove 15:05, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

Have you read MediaWiki talk:Sidebar? Ryan has suggested that we might want to have random:verse and random:article. I thought we could segregate all the Bible stuff to separate namespaces (WEB:John/1/1,KJV:John/1/1,Greek:John/1/1, etc) and even have Bible verse pages themselves be Bible:John 1:1. The solution I just found to your hope was here: Special:Random does not ever point to redirects, special:Randomredirect does. Soooo, if you had all the verses (i.e. John 1:1) be redirects to Bible:John 1:1, then you could still type into the search box John 1:1 and end up at Bible:John 1:1 and Special:Random|Random article and Special:Random/Bible|Random verse could still work. Does that make sense? --Aquatiki 16:36, 23 July 2008 (PDT)

Yes that makes sense. I'm glad it will be possible because I think it is important to be able to type the verse or chapter in the search bar and end up at the right place. Robert, I think you're doing a fantastic job, and a very good and useful wiki is going to be the result of all your hard work. By the way, I love the fact that Greek and Hebrew are now down below (Another good reason to have non-accented text as the standard is the fact that the characters below don't have accents). Cheers. --Graham grove 03:46, 24 July 2008 (PDT)

First Draft

Check out Bible:John 1:1 and tell me what you think. Also imagine that someday John 1:1 will be a redirect to there. --Aquatiki 17:01, 24 July 2008 (PDT)

That's brilliant. It looks good and your system is excellent. I really appreciate that you kept it in the same format as the rest of WikiChristian and that it isn't really clutterred. Thanks especially for keeping the links in the Greek and keeping it in non-accented format. Now, for the second draft what extra features would you like to add in?

Here are some ideas

• Given that we decided we weren't going to put links in the WEB or KJV version, then how about we remove the "edit" box
• I like your little box to show all translations in ReformedWord - it's very impressive. Would you like to add that or something similar to that somewhere? I'm not sure where the best place for it would be - e.g. at the bottom of the page or the top of the page?
• Your little box to show the parsing is great as well. Would you like to incorporate something similar into WikiChristian? I wonder if the best place for that would be in the Greek:John 1:1 page?

But that's great work and I especially like that you've kept it simple and in the style of WikiChristian. Thanks Robert. I look forward to hearing your ideas to make it more useful. --Graham grove 23:12, 24 July 2008 (PDT)

Nitty Gritty Greek/Hebrew/Latin

I hope you're still looking over here, Graham. It doesn't seem right to me to have Ειμι be in the main namespace. Shouldn't we move it to Greek:Ειμι? It's not an article and not intended for general consumption. This is important as it will determine how I make all the Greek, Hebrew and Latin pages. --Aquatiki 06:51, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

Sure. Let's move it to Greek:Ειμι and we can do that for all Hebrew, Latin and Greek words. Cool. Thanks. --Graham grove 07:46, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

OK, I did it. Look at Greek:John 1:1. I changed the link for ην to point to a subsection on Greek:Ειμι. This would be a way for us to link to the specific form of the verb/noun/adjective, so people could tell the parsing. I was thinking we could add a lot of white space at the bottom of the page, so that even the last form linked to would still show up at the top of the page when clicked on.

The reason I'm proposing this style for Greek pages is because to do it the way I've done on ReformedWord would require the extension Semantic MediaWiki. That would be a major change for this site and a big commitment to make things part of Web 3.0. I'm not sure it's something we'd want to embark on quite yet (if ever). Let me know what you think of my proposed system. --Aquatiki 08:51, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

Not sure about what the page will end up looking like. It might be a little too messy this way. I'm beginning to think your original idea of simple redirects (e.g. "en" redirecting to "eimi" or "theon" redirecting to "theos") and having clear tables is the neatest way to do it. --Graham grove 09:08, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

Well-flushed-out adjectives and verbs might look a little gross, but names and nouns might not look too bad. I tend to agree with you, however. Shall we make it a definitive statement? --Aquatiki 09:13, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

Yep. Agreed. --Graham grove 09:16, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

Current system

I really like the way John 1:1 is looking. Although it may not be as fancy as ReformedWord I actually like this simpler system. Well done. Looking good. --Graham grove 07:48, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

With your approval, I think it's about time to try a mass-production. How 'bout ... the gospel of John? This would involve the change/creation-of any John_???:??? pages into/as redirects, the creation of all Bible/Greek/Hebrew/Latin/KJV/WEB:John_???:??? pages and the deletion of all Template and John ... (WEB) pages.

Are we ready? --Aquatiki 10:06, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

We're definitely ready.

Note that: John 11, John 11:25 and John 11:35 have a commentary section that would be good not to lose. Should we copy these pages into the discussion on this page?

For the chapter pages, e.g. John 1, I think it would be good to use the exact same style as for the verse page except for the following: instead of the whole chapter quoted at the top, perhaps just display the first verse quoted in a collapsed box that is expandable.

I'm looking forward to a fully functioning Gospel of John! --Graham grove 14:31, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

I'll take your points in reverse order I not gonna try the chapter page at this time. Let me make a mock up at Bible:John 1 first before we try.

What about those commentary pages? Should they be at John 1:1 (commentary) or Bible:John 1:1 (commentary) with a redirect? --Aquatiki 14:37, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

Collapsibility

For some reason the table of different translations doesn't seem collapsible on my computer here. I'm not sure if it is a problem at my end or at the servers end. --Graham grove 14:35, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

What browser are you using? Trying clearing your cache. Does it work in Firefox? --Aquatiki 14:37, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

I've tried both firefox 2 and internet explorer 5. I'll clear my cache though and see what happens. --Graham grove 14:38, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

Clearing the cache hasn't seemed to have made a difference. I can see all the verses - the box simply appears to be permanently expanded on mine with no link to expand or hide. --Graham grove 14:40, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

When I use internet explorer, the page appears to load up fine, but down the bottom (where it says "Done" it notes that there was an error loading the page). --Graham grove 14:41, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

What on EARTH?!?!?!? That was working a minute ago!?!?! This is so frustrating. :-( I wanna cry! --Aquatiki 14:45, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

I thought I saw it working too and wondered if I was going mad! What I reckon is lets not worry about collapsibility for the moment. That can also be added in later right? --Graham grove 14:49, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

I WILL get it working again! The trouble is, changes takes days to filter through. There are internal caches and caches across the internet and browser caches. It WILL work, but like you said, I won't worry for now. --Aquatiki 14:53, 2 August 2008 (PDT)

I like your attitude. Definitely not worth stressing over at the moment. --Graham grove 14:56, 2 August 2008 (PDT)