User talk:L'Aquatique/Userboxes/Ethnic Jew

I think this should be renamed into Template:User secular Jew. Thoughts? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it should stay put right where it is. This template is a label for ethnic afiliation only, and is only very distantly connected with personal conviction/beliefs. The current template says nothing about religious observance, secular status is implied, but it could also refer to WP'ans who emphasize peoplehood and/or origins. =J //Big Adamsky 21:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It would be a terrible, terrible idea to rename this template to "secular Jew". In fact, a majority of Jews who do not follow Judaism are not secular, but rather hold other religious or spiritual beliefs. However, I might not oppose altering this template to encompass all ethnic Jews (and moving the current template to "nonreligion Jew" or similar), to avoid people being confused by the title, and to give ethnic Jews who are religious a template beyond just Jews; however, a possibly better alternative would be to simply have a "nonethnic Jew" template for Wikipedia Jews who follow Judaism but are not ethnically Jewish. Whatever we choose, let's keep it as simple as possible (for example, by just leaving this template as-is and creating a "user secular" or similar for ethnic Jews who don't follow Judaism and who are ALSO secular to use both userboxes..), though; too many subtle, nuanced userboxes on this topic will just confuse people. -Silence 22:28, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Woah, the possibilities and subtleties are endless! How about This user is a follower of Jubuism or This user identifies as a Pagan Jew templates? ;] [kidding] //Big Adamsky 22:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

:P Like I said, simply letting people use two userboxes (like the "Pagan" one combined with the "Ethnic Jew" one) is in most cases sufficient. -Silence 22:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It would make more sense to have a User template designating Ashkenazi ethnicity or Gruzic ethnicity, etc, thus more or less excluding converts and disemphasizing observance (if not lithurgical aspects). //Big Adamsky 10:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Then you'd need a userbox for every Jewish ethnic division, many of which wouldn't be recognizable to most people as even being Jewish. --Saforrest 19:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this template should not say "secular Jew". But should it even say "but is not an adherent of Judaism"? Why does it have to make a statement about religion at all? --Saforrest 19:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Because most religious Jews are ethnic Jews and most ethnic Jews are religious Jews. Ergo if someone has the "religious Jew" template on their userpage, the common assumption would be that he or she is also ethnically Jewish, at least in part; it would make sense, thus, to have a userbox saying something like "This user is an adherent of Judaism, but not ethnically Jewish", for Wikipedians to whom it is important to note their spiritual, but not ethnic or familial, connection. Likewise, it is more useful to have a template for ethnic Jews who aren't religious than for ethnic Jews who are, since the former is much more unusual and noteworthy and isn't potentially covered by any other template (at least not in an easily understood way). However, I'd be fine with a page-move from "User ethnic Jew" to "User nonreligious ethnic Jew" or something to make it clearer what this userbox is really for, and then, once the users using this template have been moved, with making a generic "ethnic Jew" box for both religious and nonreligious Jews. we can't simply change this userbox now, though, without such a move, because everyone who's using it chose this form of the box to put on their page, not the form you recommend. -Silence 01:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)