Bahai9:Site rules

The following is to be a list of some principles, some directly Writings-based, others we have derived, to help create a loving and courteous environment for collaboration which includes and links to information about the Bahá'í Faith in an accurate, efficient, and Covenant-centered manner.

Copyrights

Please respect copyrights. Any content should be either under an open content license (or your own contributions offered to use under our open terms—see the Main Page), within the public domain (across jurisdictions), under "fair use" across jurisdictions, or under the terms of the Bahá'í Writings which are available for use for free (though not "open", as rights are reserved and commercial use is not permitted without approval).

Perspective (BPOV)

Minimum of opinions; let the text speak for itself

Pages at this site are to (try to) speak from the point of view of the Bahá'í Faith (BPOV). Opinions and interpretations are welcome in other venue, but not on Bahai9, except if it is an explicit and plausible interpretation in which case, a heading might be provided with a question mark to indicate the tentative nature of the question, but this approach should not be abused. An example might be a quotation potentially suggestive of "time travel" but which might be seen by others as figurative. It may be worth bringing up given its informational interest, but not stated as a solid belief of the Faith.

Although the focus is generally on the explicit text, this does not mean that certain counter-balancing quotations should not be taken into account. Sometimes it may be more helpful for a quotation to use a summary statement which uses less of the "method of exaggerated emphasis" used in the original and more a summary which harmonizes with other quotations on the page. This is not to undo the efficacious speaking techniques, but to give clarity to those reviewing how the quotations can be consistent if they seem to state opposed principles. But we should also avoid over-interpreting in offering any such reconciliations.

Openness to diversity of ideas faithful to the Covenant

We aim to also resist the temptation for blocking summaries which though faithful to the text, extract justified principles which might not be politically in favor at the moment (the tendency in the Faith being toward openness to expression of differing views as long as they fall within the reasonable parameters of the Covenant), though while also being sensible and temperate as it is the general policy advocated in our Faith.

Although there is inherently some interpretation involved in summarizing, outlining, or even collecting quotations together, these approaches (when providing links to the original source quotations (see tips on citing the Bahá'í Writings)) will hopefully ensure that this wiki site can offer as well-organized and faithful a collection of guidance as is possible for us to achieve, without the interposition of personalities and layers of conjecture.

Not lacking in relevant forms of guidance

Cherry-picking is to be avoided, including wrongly dismissing letters on behalf of Shoghi Effendi or those to individual believers for all relevance.

Relationship with Neutral Point of View

Although attempts at BPOV should not in theory entirely contradict NPOV (neutral point of view) as is used at sites such as Wikipedia in the sense of being dispassionate in the examination of a subject, whether spiritual, intellectual, or material, in that true Bahá'í belief will not contradict true science and reality or the independent pursuit of truth (of whatever type), the Bahá'í Writings also make clear that such investigation (of whatever type), if it is to be successful, should (and indeed can only effectively) be done through the enlightenment of the Divine Educator and Teachings.

Also, it is a manifest contradiction for avowed Bahá'ís (whose central belief is the acceptance of Bahá'u'lláh as a Divinely-guided Prophet Who has also set up Divine institutions to succeed Him) to accept the dogma of scholarly agnosticism when the tenets of the Faith speak against it (and its biases), so being "neutral" in such a sense, or in a sense of failing to be impassioned about virtues and principles such as justice or lacking the desire to identify with or bring others under the unifying influence of its Teachings, etc., or belief in its Covenant, is not possible for Bahá'ís according to its own Teachings (though non-Bahá'í supporters of this wiki site are quite welcome, if they wish, to contribute to the site, according to their consciences, in joining us in describing the history or tenets of our Faith (if they can respect such principles)).

Appeals process

Unlike Wikipedia, which has its own appeals/escalation process for edit disputes, Bahai9 is, at this time, supervised by Brett Zamir (with the sometime fallback assistance of David Haslip).

For the time being, while I hope to foster for a consultative environment for those posting in good faith and people are welcome to use the talk pages to politely express concerns to myself or others, I (Brett Zamir) do reserve the right to hold the final decision on content of the site. If the Bahá'í institutions every wish to liaison with our site, I am happy to defer to whatever individual or board they might appoint.

Courtesy vs. innovation

Be bold but courteous

Don't fear taking the initiative in making organizational changes or additions. Prior versions of the page will remain accessible, and if you make any errors and accidentally delete some work, it is fairly easy to revert back to a prior version. Of course, for courtesy's sake, before deleting significant portions of another's work (or even anything at all--see below), you may wish to add a question/comment about it on the page or to the "Talk:" page for the article and add your comments there.

Strongly prefer "move" to "remove"

Be sensitive about removing any data. Just because we do not see the relevance of something or think it is not useful does not of course mean that others will feel the same. If someone has taken the time to add some data, unless it is manifestly erroneous, for courtesy's sake, please do not remove it, even if (or especially if) you are simultaneously adding other data. These files do not take up that much space, so having a page on site which we do not feel is that essential should be all right, as long as the page is not irreverent or misleading. We can, however, move data which could become distracting to the page at hand, onto another wiki page and link to it from the existing page. If there is any doubt, however, it is always safer to first consult on the article's corresponding "Discussion" (Talk) page (you may need to first add a link to the new Discuss page if none exists). After all, we are to "consult in all things" (Consultation (compilation), no. 17).

Important mechanics on content

Page naming

If a concept deserves its own page for discoverability, e.g., because it is of importance in and of itself, may be neglected if not independently called out, has an abundant number of quotes, etc., don't hesitate to give it its own page even if you are unable to think of a name which may be as short as most of our page titles. For example, Raising concerns with fellow believers about statements or actions apparently undermining the Covenant is a fine title to have despite its length because it would probably be difficult to shorten any further without losing important information as to the idea of the page, and yet it really deserves its own page despite not having a succinct name for the specific concept. Of course, if you do come up with a shorter name which does summarize the concept, feel free to make or propose a redirect.

Linking

Provide (anchored) links for all references

To enable readers to verify the authenticity of a passage and to gain easy access to its context, as much as possible, please try to link readers directly to the page (or paragraph) in question when adding passages from or links to the Bahá'í Writings. Read more on how to do this here.

Link to Official sites

Where official introductory articles (or other articles) exist on a given topic, we should include links to them (such as at https://bahai.org )

To discuss these rules, please add your comments to Bahai9 talk:site rules.

Link back to Wikipedia, Bahaipedia, etc.

Consistent with the Bahá'í view of the harmony of science and religion, links can and ideally will be made here at Bahá'í9 to corresponding public collaborative articles such as Wikipedia, Bahaipedia, Bahai.works, or Bahai.media to allow those gaining the Bahá'í perspective of a topic (often dealing with moral implications and the like), to see what scientists have thus far discovered about the topic. Links could, in turn, be made from these public pages back to our wiki, as relevant.

Include links to new pages from various entry points of the main page

The various categorization schemes regularly overlap, so new pages should, as appropriate, ideally be linked to from each major type of categorization. The formal category pages will ideally be used as well (they are currently not very well developed).

Conventions

Follow the formatting conventions of the site

Please try to follow the conventions set up on most pages (e.g., indent quotation citations).

Singular articles except for lists; plural categories

Article pages should generally be expressed in the singular, with list pages being expressed in the plural. Category names, however, should be in the plural.

Choosing suitable quotes for a page

In general, include only explicitly relevant quotes and provide adequate but not excessive context

While many quotations may be potentially applicable to a subject, please try to limit quotations to those explicitly mentioning the topic, including limiting the excerpting from a quotation to show only the amount of context that is needed to convey the relevance of the quote to the topic of the page.

A small bit of extra context is fine, but the site aims to be an adequately circumscribed reference whereby people can quickly scan headings, quotes, etc. to find the point of interest without the distraction of additional context not of relevance to the topic at hand, and as per the previous rule, the quotes should always have links back to their full context anyways for people wanting to get the complete picture of how the quotation was originally used (though the excerpt should not be so short so as to be taken out of context and distort the original meaning).

Since a wiki page is collaborative and not for a specific individual's point of view, the requirement for inclusion of largely explicit/directly relevant quotations (and limitations on context) are also useful for the sake of being able to find relative stability and agreement on what quotations are applicable to a given topic. The site does not seek to allow more loose interpretations, helping to avoid certain debates as would undoubtedly occur. This is in spite of the usefulness such more open sites might provide, and as suitable as it may be to have such a separate wiki for this purpose (or a categorizable discussion forum to ensure no individuals' words are removed except by an approved moderator).

That all being said on explicitness, the quotation doesn't need to mention the same exact word used in the topic (e.g., mention of "adversity" is fine on the "test" page) and also, if you really feel there is a pressing need to raise the possibility that a less explicit quotation may be relevant to the page, there are other means to do this, such as:

1. Adding a "See also" section which links to the related page of interest (including to your user page or a subpage of your user page) OR
2. Add the quotation at the bottom of the page or section, and add a question mark in the heading, to indicate that it is not certain that the quotation is relevant (e.g., see Women as Manifestations of God or Physics#Time-travel and Teleportation?).

Given the mystical nature of some of our Writings, we do not wish to foster too narrow of a view, nor circumscribe the Writings' applicability, but our Writings do aver that in this age things are stated plainly, and to be useful as a reference which is this site's intention (as opposed to acting as a kind of fully open-ended discussion forum), some limits will be needed.

Weigh significance as to whether content should be moved to own subpage

While often quotations can be accommodated within nested sections without becoming cumbersome, it is possible in some rare cases, that the available quotations in the Writings may be a bit overwhelming, and best shuffled off into its own subpage. For example, with Taking care of oneself, some quotations of Shoghi Effendi advising a National Spiritual Assembly member to take care of his health were so frequent, and unlikely to provide any new doctrinal insights. These quotes may nevertheless be of interest to some wishing to see such detailed examples (but not enough to justify keeping them on the page), so they were moved to their own subpage of Taking care of oneself/Incidental.

Organizing quotes within the page

Limitations of the however excellent Lights of Guidance

Lights of Guidance is a truly wonderful compilation in many regards (one frequent objection to it, a lack of context, can be mitigated here as we can link back to any full original document).

It has headings helpfully summarizing longer quotations, and those headings are nested into high-level topics. But often these headings were not subnested as the benefit of more time and thought can now allow, and were not always arranged into a discernible order.

Advantages of nested headings for lightening memory load and drill-down

When headings are nested, one can look at the lesser nested level to get a higher-level overview of the subject, and by lightening the load on one's memory, successfully remember the main points--optionally enhancing that later with more study of the lower-level details. This also helps with drill-down, as one can quickly think about high-level categories to get in the right vicinity of a quote or quotes of interest. (See use of study outlines for further inspiration.)

Logical sequencing also helps memory

Besides nesting being a memory aid, so is a logical sequence. For example, with the page suffering of the innocent, we attempted to arrange them in a practical (albeit not explicit) order. The first quote addresses the likely most insurmountable objection to God's existence, the idea that we can even understand why God does allow suffering; we simply admit our minds can't (fully) grasp it. But then we go on to draw thoughts away from too much dwelling on suffering: we have the assurances that God may recompense those in the next world. While this is not so much of a proof (unless from the standpoint that our need points to a way of fulfillment), but this is maybe the next most important because if one instead talks too early of the other truths we might share, such as the benefits of suffering in this world, some may feel that suffering seems just too severe to be "building character" whereas with the promise of reward, they feel it is not so stern.

Next we talk about suffering eventually ending. Often times people focus on suffering in the world as though all of the suffering in history is experienced by a single creature. Some awful things happen, yes (which is hard to fathom, though mitigated somewhat with an idea of future recompense), but also important to note it does in fact end. Finally, with the other objections addressed, we can admit that there are some benefits of suffering evident in this world.

This order also can be retained in memory because it goes in reverse sequential order (promises for later after we die, the fact that we eventually die, and the benefits even before we die).

It may not always be easy to build such a unified order (or for visitors to discern it), but with nested headings, we can perhaps improve upon this further (e.g., to have a high-level heading speaking to the transition from recompense in the next world, suffering ending, and benefits in this world). The key is to have fewer headings at any level, and a good order where we do have somewhat of a hodge-podge (e.g., suffering is unfathomable, there are mitigating details in all worlds, and what can we do about it anyways?).

Let the organization be shaped by the contents

The contents themselves shape the organization. One needs to look at what they say when all gathered together, making some initial attempts, and then if too crowded, organically trim the headings and categories. The growth of the site should be organic--like the development of the Faith, of the Ruhi materials, etc.

May use ellipses or bulleted summaries in order to draw out specific itemized points

Sometimes one quotation may have many important points that are best brought out separately. Ellipses can be helpful to do this if adding them does not distort the context and instead better highlights meaning. If it is too repetitive to repeat a quotation multiple times with different ellipses, one can also use a bulleted summaries/lists such as that used on Diet#Specific recommended foods, Fast - purposes of, or Writings Buddhist authenticity#Summary of guidance on authenticity.

Ideally group by figure

Per Compilation making#Grouping, the difference of station between the figures writing a particular passage might justify separate compilations (or sections?), the quotations also suggest that compilations by subject can nevertheless be used. However, if it does not disrupt the reasonability of ordering of headings, ideally the quotations should be in the order of Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice (with messages written on their behalf, following those written directly by them).

Contemplate who may need to know

If something is in the Writings, it is an article of faith for Bahá'ís to assume that some need to know what it states, especially when beyond the context of personal advice (and even personal advice is often likely to extend to some other circumstances).

Asking who (as in a person in what situation or frame of mind) needs to know some statement in the Writings can be very helpful not only in teaching our Faith, but also toward organizing and orienting our summaries (and helping with retention of the information). We don't want to limit to whom some Writings apply, jump to overly certain conclusions, or preoccupy ourselves selfishly with the duties of others, but in analyzing an issue, we may indeed be better served in thinking about why the Central Figures or institutions felt the need to made such-and-such an argument or emphasis.

For example, if a quotation mentions that the Faith is unique in having two independent Manifestations of God, we may consider that some may consider this feature of the Faith particularly noteworthy, even if we ourselves might or might not have taken it for granted ourselves (and do not feel the need to draw it out in a topic page, for example). We are more likely to recall these points also (and be better at organizing) if we can note that each statement has its own relevance and power to change, to instill unity, wonder, and so on. Some quotations achieve their result in a fuller context, and cannot be so easily categorized, and Bahai9 doesn't need to include every quote if they cannot be easily categorized, but very often it is possible to find a way to summarize when we think of the audience.

Although we don't want to state things too often in negative terms, it can often be helpful to think about what it looks like not knowing a point in the Writings. While the Writings are for all, certain points may be of particular or special concern to some more than others. It can help guide how we orient the pages if we remember there is an audience not only for every topic, but every point and counter-point.

Balancing gradualism and comprehensiveness

Wikis offer the benefit of not needing to feel obligated to complete all the work desired on a page since the very nature of wikis suggests it is ongoing work. However, we also don't want to convey a sense, especially for very sparsely populated pages, that the current content on a page necessarily represents the total gist among all the other quotations which are available on the topic.

(Of course, even if we have all authoritative quotations, this doesn't mean that the quotations are representative; it may instead be that the nature of the questions asked were of one angle, and if the Universal House of Justice were asked to elucidate other angles, they might yet do so.)

To indicate some qualification that particularly important content (or content to round out the topic) may be yet missing, add {{stub}} to pages to indicate that the page is not well-fleshed out. In some ways more usefully, add a "To-dos for this page" header and section which summarizes what is desired to be done. This not only clues in future editors as to what must be done, but can be useful to site visitors to see what kind of information is missing, and possibly visit any links that you have included (even if listed as still needing to be properly incorporated).

Todos for this page

• Integrate with the Bahai9:Site policies page/subpages.