Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Roman Catholic Church/Archive 7

About sourcing...

Nancy keeps insisting on reliable sources to demonstrate that the current wording is false or defective. It's obviously impossible to provide this as it is true that the church is "officially known as the Catholic Church". No one is disputing that. However, her insistence on this as a rule is not well-founded. That is, it is a rule that she has posited as her particular interpretation of WP:RS for this instance.

In fact, all that is required to change wording of an article is a consensus that the replacement text is better (in some meaning of the word "better") and sourced.

Many of the proposed compromise replacements can be sourced. The arguments and motivations behind the proposed text might not be so readily sourced but that is not a requirement. If we say "The Catholic Church also known as the Roman Catholic Church...", there is little sourcing requirement for this phrase because it is fairly obviously true and besides several of the sources already presented by both sides say this.

Similarly, if we say, "The Roman Catholic Church, which prefers to call itself the Catholic Church in official documents,..." that statement is also easily sourced. Whitehead is a source because he does, in fact, state the preference. So too do several other sources. Some even say that the Catholic Church dislikes the phrase "Roman Catholic Church". I don't have a problem with presenting that information although it is probably best presented in "Note 1".

So...some people (Defteri, Soidi, Gimmetrow and, to some extent, myself) wish to change the wording to weaken it but the proposed replacement wording is neither false nor unsourced.

For the other side (Nancy, Xandar et al) to agree to the compromise wording does not actually require saying anything untrue nor to deny that the church calls itself "the Catholic Church" in official documents.

--Richard (talk) 01:12, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Richard, there is no new consensus agreement on wording, the one that agreed to "officially known as" still stands. Also, you fail to realize that a very large number of options were already considered and rejected - including renaming the article - before we came to the final consensus agreed version of "Roman Catholic Church, officially known as Catholic Church". I would like to know why there is opposition to these words if both you and Defteri agree that they are true? Defteri says it is because the Church has other "official" names. We keep asking for sources to support this theory but no one has provided any and my own personal search turns up only more sources that say the opposite. I want to ask you a question: Why are you so bent on changing the wording? NancyHeise ^talk 02:31, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, you wrote "there is no new consensus agreement on wording". Yes, I agree that there is not one now but the point is that there could be a new consensus if people would compromise. And I thought that the purpose of the mediation was to achieve a "developing a mutual agreement to resolve a dispute over content". This can only happen via compromise.

As to why I am "so bent on changing the wording". The answer is so that I can be released from this nightmare. Talk:Roman Catholic Church now holds the record as being my second highest edit count for Talk Pages (260!). #1, #3 and #4 are articles that I have not worked on actively in over two years. We have gone around and around in circles making little progress except for a faint glimmer of hope which you seem determined to squash. Perhaps you enjoy this process more than you let on. I've learned a lot but I now have enough material to write an article on the name controversy so I'm happy to find a way to wind this discussion down because I doubt that there will be any new light brought to bear on this topic. Just more flagellation of a deceased equine.

--Richard (talk) 07:17, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, you make an incorrect statement above when you say that no one is disputing that Catholic Church is the official name of the Church. Gimmetrow, Soidi and Defteri have spent four months telling us that it is not the official name. They provide no sources to support their positions which you now say are "impossible" to support - (so why are they supported by anyone?) We are at mediation precisely for this reason - failure by these editors to accept consensus and failure to provide sources to support their personal opinions. NancyHeise ^talk 02:45, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

And what do you expect mediation to accomplish? --Richard (talk) 02:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps with Shell's help, we will be able to actually either get sources out of Gimmetrow and Co to support their position or we will end their opposition to our consensus agreed wording with more and more top sources supporting it. I haven't heard from either Gimmetrow or Soidi since we brought forth the Encyclopedia Brittanica source, which is now buried under all this discussion. NancyHeise ^talk 02:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

That indeed is the question: Is there any reason why a comment-less quotation of a statement by the Church itself on this very matter may not be admitted to a Wikipedia article? Nancy says that, as a primary source, it may not. [Wikipedia:Reliable source examples#Religious sources] says that "proceedings of official religious bodies ... can be considered reliable sources for religious doctrine and views where such views represent significant viewpoints on an article subject." The Church's view on the names it calls itself is certainly a significant viewpoint of the subject we are discussing. Defteri (talk) 15:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Defteri, what proceeding of the official Church body has claimed some other name than Catholic Church? Also, if your personal interpretation of something written in Church documents were a name claim, how come there are zero secondary sources to support you and over 7 that say the name is Catholic Church? It is plain as day that your interpretations are WP:OR.NancyHeise ^talk 16:17, 24 February 2009 (UTC)