User talk:Rboatright/archive

My position on the OBF 12/03

I am in the middle of editing the various Baha'i pages in order to attempt to find a way to include a link to the OBF where it needs to be, while making it clear that this is a small, heretical organizaition.

Much like I think that there is a valid claim that the Mormans can get a link on the Jesus page, or for that matter the Rastafarians.... the OBF, clearly 'gets a link' on the main baha'i and historical pagaes. That's my take. So, I'm trying to come up with language which does that in a responsible way. Rick Boatright 17:59, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

older OBF discussion

Hi Rick. I noticed in your comment about the Baha'u'llah page where you added "orthodox Baha'i" back in that you said "(Look people, the orthodox Baha'is are REAL quit trying to erase them.)". Problem is, the sentence says: "Bahá'u'lláh (November 12, 1817 - May 29, 1892) was the founder of the Bahá'í Faith". He wasn't the Founder of the orthodox Baha'is. That group was founded by someone who didn't understand the importance of the Covenent that He established to preserve the unity of the Baha'i Faith. An accurate reference to the orthodox Baha'is on the page for Baha'u'llah might be something like: "The members of orthodox Bahai also hold allegiance to Baha'u'llah."

Also, Very nice page on The Houses of Worship. I was wondering where you got the picture of the House of Worship in Ashkabad. I did a project on that building when I was in university and came across that photo in a very obscure book from Moscow. Is there annother source for it? Also as to: "why the Baha'is have only built 7 places of worship" it's not that complex. There really aren't any communal rituals in the Baha'i Faith, on priests, proscribed worship services, etc. As a result, other activities got higher priority for fund allocation. Heck, the Basilica in Bethlehem wasn't built till "[T]he first half of the fourth century A.D." (http://www.visit-palestine.com/bet/places/basilca.htm). So that the Baha'is have built 7 Houses of Worship worldwide isn't so much a "why only 7" but maybe even "already built 7". And, even though there are Baha'is in 200+ countries, we're spread pretty thin, with folks moving around in sort of missionary activities. But I don't think I need to tell you this. =-)

The problem is, that denying Baha'u'llah as the "founder" of the Orthodox Baha'is is like denying Jesus as the "founder" of Mormans as well as Catholics. Should the Catholics constantly be deleting all the references to Mormanism in the various christian pages? Look, I _DESPISE_ Joel Marangella. What he did to the mind of poor Charles Mason Remey was disgusting and horrific, and his continuing flouting of the simple truth of God's Sacred Word is stomach turning. BUT that doesn't mean that in a forum like Wikipedia we can wipe out their existance.

As to the HOW in Ashkabad, simple, there are a couple of SUPERB web sources, including a re-construction of the temple in 3d. :-)

Rick Boatright

You're not talking about the 3d model I did as an independent study at UVa are you? That was probably the origin of the "web sources" and those were scanned from a book, probably the same "very obscure book from Moscow." At this point, I am a little embarrassed by the poor quality of that 3d reconstruction. "student project" and all that. I've actually asked the fellow who runs the Mediateque Baha'i website in France to take them down.Jlavezzo 22:28, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

CGd & the OBF edit dispute

Terrorism is a bit strong isn't it? I'm not sure its even vandalism as much as sheer bloody-mindedness. Please try and stay calm. Secretlondon 15:22, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)

Ok, a bit strong. No question. Fine. I'm calm. Look, it's like this.... I am a moderator of soc.religion.bahai. I deal with issues regarding heresy and the like every day. The simplistic answer of just attempting to delete the OBF from existance accomplishes _nothing_ the -explicit instructions of the administration of the Baha'i Faith is to "Leave them as found" when encountering the writings and mention of the heretical groups. It's ANNOYING that _I_ have to be their defender here. I'm -angry- at this person who keeps putting me into this position. --- Arrrgggghhhh -- calm calm calm ... Right. Calm calm calm. aaaauuuuuuummmmmmmmmm :-)

CG'd: What is your definition of a Neutral Point of View? I could claim the United States is a fascist nation run by a president who was elected illegally. This statment, while exaggerated and biased, involves the same right you are trying to strictly enforce.

There is now way that you can objectively DEFINE a neutral point of view. What gives you the right to call the inclusion of the Orthodox Baha'is as a neutral view. In my opinion, which is corroborated by others, a neutral point of view does not include association with the Orthodox Baha'is; moreover, your claim of terrorism is preposterous and unfounded. Your actions warrant the same claim.

Rather than replacing my changes with comments on terrorism, TRY and make an attempt to EXPLAIN why it is the orthodox bahais should not be removed. --I understand the words of the House, but Abdu'l Baha says clearly to "shield the Cause of God from the onslaught of the insincere".

It's simple. I do not attempt to explain it. I chose to obey the House. The House says to IGNORE the Orthodox Baha'is. The Universal House of Justice instructs individual Baha'is to _not_ block their web sites, to not remove their books from libraries, to not pursue them when they mail to us, to not reply when they post to internet forums. These instructions from the House are explicit. I chose to obey the supreme institution of my Faith, to belive that they are divinely guided in this. Why can't you.

Instead of deleting them, it is POSSIBLE that there is a _more_ npov way of including them. For example: Language has been proposed which says: "The members of the [Orthodox Bahai Faith] also hold allegiance to Baha'u'llah." It is possible that language like THAT would be acceptable. But denying their existance, denying their RELATIONSHIP to the Baha'i Faith is like trying to deny that Charles Mason Remy existed. Far better to explain, at some length how Joel Marangella subtally used his grief and increasing senility to take advantage of an old man.

PLEASE STOP deleting the OBF. NON-BAHA'IS are going to keep putting them back. It makes us look petty. It makes us look like IDIOTS. PLEASE STOP. I beg of you. Rick Boatright 12/03/2003

NFL Redirects

Your changing of the NFL redirect to the National Football League has left over 20 links with meaningless connections. Do you want to go back and correct all of them? -- Zoe

No. ok, I'll put it back But HOW DO I FIX THIS????

Put a link on the NFL national foot ball page????

Teach me Obi Wan! Sorry :-( Rick Boatright

No, just go to NFL, click on "What links here", click on each of those entries, and change the "NFL" linke to "National Football League". -- Zoe

AHHH That I can do!!! Thanks. Only seems fair.

the _other_ way did Not see fair. -- Thanks - Rick

Thanks for fixing the links. -- Zoe

About the preview thing: ah, good idea. I used the frequent commits to make sure that I didn't lose my work if the browser crashed. About the NFL redirects -- I've noticed that NFL doesn't link to a disambiguation. Should it? jdb 06:15, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ah. Gotcha -- I can't confess that I'm really that inclined to correct the acronym. Thanks for the clarification. jdb 15:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Re NFL disambiguation, I've tried twice. Feel free to try. I did went through and edited EVERY occurance of NFL to the National Foolball League and then created the redirect diambiguation page so that folks searching for NFL could find the National Forensic League. Why don't YOU try it. Right now, NFL is a redirect. Go ahead and creat the disabiguation and I'll back you up. Rick Boatright 03:17, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I just added a "for other uses" link to the National Football League page -- it seemed like the easiest way to go about it. jdb 20:20, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Arthur

Hi, thanks for the Arthur article. But, could you please rename it to "Arthur (operating system)" to be consistant with "Syllable (operating system)"? Usually article titles with brackets have the brackets contain the whole term not an abbreviation... Ta. I've never actually seen Arthur before myself, but I have used RISC OS, albeit a few years ago. I first used the WWW on an Acorn RISC OS computer. RISC OS really is something unlike anything else.

Well, I have a couple of questions. Someone has ALREADY done the redirect. How does one DELETE a page? (The (os) page) Or is this now done since someone's done the move and redirect? -- Rick

Well, to delete a page, you need to get a sysop to do it, by placing the page on the list at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Generally, though, there's no reason to delete a redirect. I'm not sure if I'm reading the above right, but if the page redirects to something useful, we may as well keep it as such to catch future links from articles and google searches for the variation or whatever. Tuf-Kat

Baha'i Temples

Rick, are you planning on linking all of these Bahai temple images you're uploading into articles? How many pictures of temples do we need? -- Zoe

Yes, I have already linked them. Really, I have a cunning plan. Give me 48 hours to get the Bahai house of worship page edited down to where it makes sense and you'll see my point or you can put them up for deletion ok? (I'm trying to make some sense of why the Baha'is have only built 7 places of worship, and yet have communities in 200+ countries, there's a theological issue here, if it isn't NPOV, I'll delete it myself) and I want to get the damned architecture off the main Baha'i page. Rick Boatright 06:44 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)~

Misc

Re Roy Rogers - "88-11 is 87 not 86" -- Nope, look again - it's neither 87 nor 86, although it could be 77 or 76. ;-) -- Marj 18:37 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Marj, ever have a "Duh" moment? Thanks. I'll go fix it. -- Rick

Rick, please go ahead and add the Bahai holy days to the years pages. And any other holy days, holidays or national days that aren't there. -- Zoe

Roger Wilco. Rick Boatright 02:52 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

Baha'i redirects

Hi Rick. Your question on the pump reminded me: something that's always bugged me about the Baha'i pages is that the main article is at "Bahai", wouldn't it be more correct to have the main page at least at "Baha'i" or (perhaps better) at "Bahá'í" or "Bahá'í Faith". The others can be redirects so it will make no practical difference to searches or links. What do you think? sannse 07:15 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

Well, since all those redirects are there, I don't KNOW that it makes any difference. If I had my druthers it would be at Baha'i Faith (no aacute, no iacute, just ascii, and my second choice would be Baha'i but what does it really matter as long as the in-article orthography is correct and all the others are redirects? Rick Boatright 00:51 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC)

It doesn't make a great deal of difference for sure, but I do think it doesn't look good to have what is effectively a misspelling as a title. Anyway, changing it to Baha'i Faith is easy as that page doesn't exist yet - I'll do that now. Thanks for your reply -- sannse 09:06 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC)

Good to meet you

I've only discovered what wiki is recently, but I'm glad I can help out with the Bahá'í stuff. It's good to meet you Rick. Bye for now --Chris

Hi Rick,

I got your message about the Bábís page. I would like to do something with it, but I haven't given it much thought just yet.

I will try to come up with a working draft of something by nlt 5/15 (I will probably have something much sooner, but I have found that I tend to be optimistic in my time assessments, so I'm giving myself some breathing room -- I hope).

anyway, I'll chat w/ you more on this. By the way, thank you for making the updates to the Táhirih page. I was actually signing on tonight to make the exact change you made (well, maybe not exactly, but I was intending to add the outside hyperlinks).

Bye for now, --Chris

Hey Rick, I guess you might have noticed that I haven't made any recent changes to the Bábís page or anything. I've been working on getting others involved, however, so perhaps sometime soon we will have more help.

bye for now, --Chris

Be careful with what you say

Your response to Talk:U.S. one dollar bill doesn't look like the answer to the correct question. Please be careful with the question you answer. I was talking about whether it was legal, not whether he liked it. 66.245.11.49 23:24, 11 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

well, ok, but as far as I can tell, there was no law impeding him from putting himself on the currency in order to further his political ambitions. No Chase biography I read has any mention of a legality issue. AAMOF, it appears that the "no living person" law was a RESPONSE to chase putting himself on the currency. Rick Boatright 15:21, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Clipper link fixing

Wasn't going to bang on the links to clipper immediately, usually I leave that sort of thing for when WP is being speedy (and I'm off work. :-) ) Feel free to work them over yourself if you like! Stan 20:51, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Morse code

If I recall, in Wikipedia any line that starts with an indented blank is rendered as-is, in a non-proportional font:

Testing: - - - . - - . - - - . . . . - - -

This seems to do the same thing as explicity using PRE:

Testing: - - - . - - . - - - . . . . - - -

-- Curps 20:51, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Enantiomers and shoes

"your shoes are entiomers of each other. 3d mirror images. the same but different."

Ah, thank you! Now that does actually make a lot of sense - what do you think of working that analogy/metaphor/whatever into the text of the enantiomer article - all that stuff about "superimposability" may be mathematically sound, but it doesn't half make it sound complicated (and the chemistry is advanced enough itself that we really don't need any more confusion)! Thanks for the explanation, anyway. - IMSoP 09:00, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Articles you may find interesting

Former resident of Topeka. I've worked with the Baha'i community there and in Dubuque, Iowa, on various pressing social issues. Which leads me to the reason for this message. Check out Racism in Topeka, Kansas, not because there is a problem with it but because it might be of interest. There is a link there, also, to another group that once served Topeks called Concerned Citizens for Equal Justice. --MacSigh 04:38, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

thanks... I'll check it out. Rick Boatright 03:34, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Usenet

How do you create a usenet subset? eg. rec.sport.cricket.statistics? What about hosting issues etc. & how do you moderate one? [[User:Nichalp|¶ nichalp | Talk]]

New Bahá'í wiki website

Hi Rick,

I just wanted to let you know that I have now been able, with the help of Jonah at BLO, been able to get a Bahá'í wiki up using Mediawiki software (as in Wikipedia)...You can reach it at http://bahai9.com . It's nowhere near primetime, largely because I still have to migrate pages from http://bahai-library.com/wiki and secondly because the pages that have been migrated need to have the code changed from that acceptable at PHPwiki to that used in Mediawiki software. Ughh...not fun for 1000+ websites... If you know any shortcuts for conversion, I'd appreciate it. In any case, though I don't want to share this new site just yet to the wider public since it is by no means ready, since you have been a frequent contributor here, I thought I'd let you know in case you wanted to get started, set up your pages or whatever. I hope to modify our own InterWikiMap to make shortcut links to the Writings (as I did at http://bahai-library.com/wiki ) as well as back to Wikipedia, Google, etc. We could then also add links here back to the Bahá'í wiki (even add it to Wikipedia's InterWikiMap!)...And, we don't need to adhere to "NPOV" there, as it is understood here at least...(I'm calling it BPOV for an attempt to put it from our perspective...) Anyhow, one other item...In preparing a talk for the upcoming ABS conference, I'm trying to finish putting together an instructional video on use of Wikipedia and then specifically the Bahá'í website which I hope could be shared to invite more and more contributors along...There is so, so much that could be added....Take a look at some of the subpages at http://bahai-library.com/wiki .... One particularly exciting potential is for using HTML iFrames to view multiple wiki pages at once...allowing the paragraphs of the Writings, for example, to be viewed alongside their corresponding wiki page....See http://bahai-library.com/zamir/kawiki.html (ignore the 3rd column) for a demonstration... I hope to get a database started to process a user's request for specific pages and page ranges, though I really need to find a way to raise some funds first to get a programmer to do that. Take care, [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 07:51, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Addition: Oh, I forgot...I've also tentatively started a history of Bahá'í wiki sites at http://www.bahai9.com/index.php/History_of_Bahá%27í_wiki_websites . Wikipedia's page history doesn't seem to go back to the beginning for the Bahá'í page (I presume the page "Baha'i Faith" was the first, though I should check the other sites too). If you have anything to add, please do so. I'm sorry it's a little self-referential, but I wanted to put down some record for future reference--especially since wiki makes it so easy to keep track of histories, there's no excuse not to record this stuff (since we do need to, in case old versions get deleted, etc.)... [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 07:55, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Baha'u'llah image

Hi Rick, you misread the talk page - the request for an image was from User:Foant - I just moved the comment from the article to the talk page :) -- sannse (talk) 00:43, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

Image:Ichabod.png

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know at my talk page where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 21:17, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Done Rick Boatright 16:50, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi Rick

I'm a regular on talk.religion.bahai. Someone over there referenced the Baha'i Faith article at Wikipedia a few days ago, and I've been exploring here ever since! PaulHammond 17:53, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Picture of Baha'u'llah - User Martin2000

Hi Rick,

I've just noticed that there is a user who appeared to come into being only to upload Baha'u'llah's image and add it to the articles on Baha'u'llah and Baha'i Faith.

Thought you'd be interested to see this.

This user appears to be an identity created on 14th Jan whose only reason for being is to upload Baha'u'llah's picture and add it to this article and the one on Baha'u'llah. here is his entire list of contributions to Wikipedia. I think Baha'u'llah's image ought to be removed from the Wikipedia database. PaulHammond 21:41, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

I am just interested in contributing to a subject in which I have accurate, detailed, and correct information. If you like to paint a rosy and romantic picutre of Bahaism, and certain facts ruin this picture for you, don't blame those who state those facts. In other words, don't shoot the messenger. I am simply stating some facts. Also, going to multiple people's personal pages and knocking on every door trying to portray me as some sort of evil character just because I have contributed FACTS AND CORRECT INFORMATION to Bahai-related articles, is not a good idea, there are good chances that it will backfire on you. Is there any misinformation that I included in any of the articles? Is the picture that I uploaded not authentic? What is your problem with my contributions other than the fact that I do not have a long list of variegated contributions? Martin2000 22:32, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Rick. I think this was a nice way of putting it.

"The photo of Baha'u'llah isn't an attack. It's a historical document. It's what he looked like on that day, in that place, at that time. The challenge before us as a community is not to waste our effort and credit on these small battles."

However, Martin and Amir's strident insistence on putting that photo into the articles, despite the feelings of Baha'is on the matter, and their use of edit summaries to make personal comments on other editors are attacks on a religion that they have a personal beef with. I must admit that when I saw Martin2000's edit history, I saw red that day - that's why, instead of going with the suggestions at [[Talk%3ABah%E1%27u%27ll%E1h]] to use a non-displaying link in the heat of the moment I expressed my opinion that the photo should be removed from the Wikipedia database.

Martin and Amir are right that an encyclopedia project like this should not attempt to paint a rosy and one-sided picture of the Baha'i Faith, but then, neither should a balanced encyclopedia article go out of its way to insult the followers of any particular religion. I don't think any reputable encyclopedia would illustrate its articles on a religion with pictures that are known to cause offence its followers. They are also wrong in their assumptions about me - as a non-Baha'i who has investigated the faith but never declared, I certainly don't have any brief to create a "rosy picture" of the Baha'i Faith. I just prefer not to conduct my arguments with Baha'is by intentionally causing offense for the sake of it! - PaulHammond 16:11, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Following up a comment you made about creating articles on CBs including Ahmad Sorhab, Ruhi Effendi Afnan and Mirza Yahya himself. Can you expand your thoughts on this? Personally, I know relatively little about them beyond what one reads in the books of Shoghi Effendi, Balyuzi and Taherzadeh. An interesting soundbite I heard recently concerning incorrect things about the Faith being put up on the Internet: "The solution to pollution is dilution." How can we help? Thanks --Occamy 09:58, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rick: the passport photograph would have been taken shortly after Baha'u'llah's December 1852 release from the Siyah-Chal dungeon and before the start of His exile on 12 January 1853. Adib Taherzadeh, in The Covenant of Baha'u'llah, writes "...His neck badly injured and His back bent by the weight of heavy chains..." which would contribute to why Baha'u'llah appears as He does in the photo. I am minded that it is probably best to let the dispute about the photo come to a resolution before offering this information. What do you think? I am asking Paul Hammond, Tomhab and Gini too. --Occamy 07:32, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Covenant

Do you think it would be appropriate to start putting together a page on the Covenant of Baha'u'llah, showing the specific texts that pass authority to Abdu'l-Baha, Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice? I listened to Ali Nakhjavani recently when he stressed the importance of us knowing these texts. An article should help deflect the ultimately baseless arguments used by those trying to attack the reputation of the Faith. --Occamy 21:01, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Vs Amir

Nicely done. Someone needed to say it. -- Tomhab 13:56, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot also with your help in Bahá'u'lláh's family. I had actually just given up. Feels like I'm talkin to a brick wall at times. -- Tomhab 18:15, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hehe, I tried to get involved in soc.religion.bahai a few years back, but got out quickly with my tail tight between my legs. I seem to remember coming out with some rather naive, holier-than-thou stuff that an 18 year old know-it-all kid would say (that is to say I'm hoping that 3 more years life experience has changed me). I'll give it another look though. -- Tomhab 18:41, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, I've got SRB up on this comp now... I'll just read for a while and keep my head low. I'm a little scared of saying something that I don't really know a lot about (like I didn't know Babism only permitted 2 wives until recently), but it'll be educating. I rather suspect I'll be a little over my head though :) -- Tomhab 19:43, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Qazvini supported/refuted

Sorry - hope you realise it was a genuine mistake. By the way dosn't i-Qazvini just mean "from Qazvin"? -- Tomhab 04:40, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Anti Baha'i books

It would be interesting, but I've been trying to think up a way of making it NPOV (which a book review basically is). I'm not too sure, but it might be worth just going ahead anyway. Especially if we just concentrate on the motives behind writing the books.

One idea I have had is to create an article on this kind of thing but with all the anti-Baha'i books. A nice list is proposed here. I think I'll just start with Maulana and Miller for now though :)

Thoughts? -- Tomhab 05:07, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Another problem is I only know the bad points of the books. I can point out that Miller sources his matterial heavily on Azal's work, but I can't quote any compliments to his work. Someone will get annoyed if we don't in all likelihood. -- Tomhab 05:46, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to start an article where the name is wrong (as they're pretty hard to remove again). What do you think of Authors on the Bahá'í Faith? That way, it can also include details of Baha'i authors. For a start:

Most literature available on the Bahá'í Faith has a significant bias; either pro-Bahá'í as produced by the Bahá'í authorities, or anti-Bahá'í authors where their religion and the Bahá'ís are largely mutually exclusive. This article is dedicated to the authors of such literature available and discusses the perspectives, experiences and the biases of the persons involved.

I think its pretty NPOV and we can also include details about Baha'i authors (where their bias is already obvious) and details on non-Baha'i authors (where their bias is NOT so obvious). It isn't manipulative in anyway though.

Any thoughts welcome - in fact they'd be very nice. -- Tomhab 02:56, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Riiight I see what you're getting at. Would be harder to point out any of their biases in a biographical page though. -- Tomhab 10:41, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Martin reverts

Did you see Martins other reverts? I think he was more keen on those with his revert rather than the bit on syncretism. I've avoided reverting because I think Refdoc will lock the page if I do (he's already warned me - see my talk page). -- Tomhab 05:57, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)