User talk:UBX/Religion interest

Comments

Ironically, I considered going with the praying hands at first too: I added them to the box and everything. But then I decided that the color scheme didn't work with the warm oranges of the box (and I really like the warm oranges of the box), which matched the birdy perfectly; so I went with the more simple "sun cross" variant image, which I think works well. -Silence 00:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the hands better. A.J.A. 06:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I hate the hands, and, as a person deeply fascinated with religion, find them enormously offensive, indicating, as the ydo, that the person himself is religious, rather than indicating a scholarly interest with the social custom of religion, an aesthetic or intellectual fascination with religious beliefs, or anything of that sort. And they're aesthetically atrocious, especially compared to the old "dove" design. And they certainly fit infinitely worse on this template than on the "this user's religious views are complex and personal" template, and it's always better to have image and layout diversity in these boxes, not only for aesthetic purposes but also because some people may use both templates on their pages and won't appreciate having the two look so alike even though they're not any more related to one another than any other two religious templates on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion. So nya, make your own template. :(( -Silence 06:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Why would the hands indicate the person himself is religious? Prayer is something most religions have, while the dove is a specifically Christian symbol, of the Holy Spirit. So if it can have the dove, why not praying hands? A.J.A. 07:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

BECAUSE THE DOVE IS PRETTY, DAMN IT. :(

I'm a simple man, you see. But very well. I will contest the image no more. I will just have to express my fascination with religion in prose rather than userboxes until a better image can be found (or the birdy's copyright status is unraveled). -Silence 11:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Is that better? A.J.A. 15:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

No, thanks for trying, but it's much worse; it's simple, yes, but it also gives the very false impression that this category only concerns Abrahamic religions (since all it lists is the chief symbol of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism respectively, even though Judaism isn't even close to being one of the three largest world religions (see Hinduism)). The praying hands will have to do for now. I do like the image you chose if we use it on an Abrahamic religion-related template, though; that would actually be pretty neat (since "religion" is really quite vague; some subdivisions, like "mythology" and "folklore" and "superstition" and "ancient religion" and "modern religion" and so on) would be more useful for finding out what people are really interested in. Or maybe not, just an idea. -Silence 03:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I used the hands because it is a readily identified with religion without making it obvious as to which. The reason for changing it from the "religious symbols" image is because most people who tend to be interested in religion find it fascinating and interesting, but as well have deep convictions about the subject. And coming from my own personal perspective, without trying seeming like a bigot, I find it offensive to see the symbol of my religion with others I view as false or idolatrous. I imagine others would feel the same way, and maybe in opposite terms. Thus, the hands will do in my opinion. Aiden 04:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The image looks great, but my fears have been confirmed: this template isn't being used to express an academic or aesthetic interest in religious beliefs, it's being used to express an interest in a person's own religion (i.e. it's nothing but a slightly more positive and pleasant-looking synonym for the generic "This user is religious" template). That's not what I want at all, and I think blurring the distinction in this case is only going to make this template useless as a way for people with shared interests to get together, which is the chief value of userboxes. If this is a template being used by people who are intolerant of even seeing their religions compared or associated with other religions (because theirs is surely true and the others are surely false, of course!), it's not what I'm looking for. I propose that we keep this template as it currently is (new, purdy image and all) for those who want to use it, but also create two new templates for more specific types of "interests in religion" as a discipline, field of knowledge, or just as something to talk about:

One template for interest in religious studies (secular study of religion)

One template for interest in theology (often, religious study of religion)

Those still aren't quite what I'm looking for, so I don't think I'd use them either, but at least they'd provide more options to people.

But anyway. At least the template's pretty and relatively non-denominational now. I guess that should be more than enough for now. -Silence 05:08, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Dude, there wasn't even a symbol for my religion IN the picture, and I was still willing to put up with it. The hands picture does not symbolize my religion either - we don't clasp our hands to pray, we hold them palms up. But I don't expect that there's any image that can accurately represent all of variety that exists in religion. However, I've been looking for some that are a little prettier; how about these (public domain)? [1] [2] [3] Or perhaps we could crop this one (Creative Commons sharealike license)? [4] Then there are these (also sharealike): [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] I'm really digging #8. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 06:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, I believe the birdy is public domain. I have added source info. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 19:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I just used the What links here link to check out the people (other than yours truely) using this box, and I saw one with the "Lennonist" box and a couple others with userboxes making it clear they're not religious. Even if somebody is only interested in his own religion (or, as in my case, it's the only one he knows enough about to contribute), there's still a decent chance he'll end up editing the same articles as someone whose only interest in religion is intellectual curiousity. A.J.A. 18:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah! Great to see the original picture is back :) I was so glad with how the template worked out, I really hated it when I saw the bird was removed...! Larix 18:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Var

File:Stpetersbasilicaholyspiritwindow.jpg

This user thinks religion is spiffy.

Image dispute

"Use praying hands for the asthetic. Use the Religious Symbols img for scholarly interest. For general interest we've already agreed on this image." - User:Aiden

Praying hands would make absolutely no sense for the aesthetic template; please actually read the page on aesthetics, it deals with the study of beauty, not with prayer or belief. Plus the praying hands are already used on, and work much better there; many people have both the "this user is interested in religion" and "this user is religious" template on their page, so giving them both the same image would be a bad idea. There is no "scholarly interest" template, so clearly you haven't been paying much attention to the new templates, either! There's a general-usage one for all types of interests in religion, this one, plus one for psychological interest, historical interest, metaphysical interest (though that one hasn't been linked to yet for some reason), and aesthetic interest. There's nothing particularly "scholarly" about the inclusive image of many different religions, it's simply what makes the most sense for a template about religions; the only reason we didn't use it before was not because "we've already agreed on this image" (you obviously need to reread the above discussion), but because there weren't a bunch of different templates providing people with options for which images they wanted to go with, based on their specific type of interest-in-religion. Now that there are, that discussion is 100% defunct. Your memory of that discussion also seems to be a bit flawed; have you forgotten that I'm the person who argued by far the most strongly for including the bird image on this template originally? :) I want to excessive lengths to ensure that it would stay on the template until we had multiple images to make a more fair distribution of illustrations. And now that we finally do have that, all the lingering problems from the above discussion (like the fact that the image of the picture of the Holy Ghost isn't inclusive enough of different religions, that it doesn't really tell us anything when it's merely meant to link to "religion" rather than to the beauty of religions, that it's hard to see if made to fit the 45px limit, etc. All of that can now be resolved thanks to the new templates, so why are you going to such great lengths to drag the templates through the mud again? If you like the birdy picture so much but aren't interested in religion aesthetically, you can easily subst a custom userbox for your own page, no questions asked; but for the general usage templates like these, we should go with the best image for each version. The best image for the general religion interest, which could encompass people with all different kinds of interests in religion, from personal to spiritual to intellectual, should have a very general listing of the different major world religions. The best image for the psychological religion interest is something showing human religious customs or practices or gatherings, emphasizing the sociological aspects of religion (I've gone with a meditation image for now, but I'd love to hear some other suggestions for good images). The best image for the historical/anthropological religion interest is something old, like a religious artifact or work of art (hence the wheel, though again, other image suggestions would be welcome for the historical template). And the best image for the metaphysical/theological religion interest would be something suitably generic but "spiritual-feeling", and I've gone with some mountainside image for that which I think works nicely (but again, some other image could be better). The only two images which I think are really ideal already are the aesthetic-religion one, which works perfectly, and the religion-interest one, which we could perhaps touch up the image for a little (as it's a bit too dark, the whiter one it replaced on templates like "religious pluralism" was more aesthetically pleasing), but the idea of the current image is just right: something suitably vague and inclusive for the main "User:Rfrisbie/Userbox/Religion interest" template, with plenty of options with more specific images for people who like any of the types of "religion interest" available as userboxes. -Silence 19:39, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I have always liked the bird image, but given that there is now an aesthetic interest template and the bird image is uniquely suited to that one, I am quite satisfied with the religious symbols one here. I suppose if anyone gets too upset with an image choice, we always have the option of substing the template and changing the code to refer to whatever image we like. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 07:21, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes indeed; I like the bird image as well, but it just makes more sense on the "aesthetic" one, as a representation of religious "beauty"; putting it on the "User:Rfrisbie/Userbox/Religion interest" one too would cause the unfortunate assumption that people who don't specify the specific nature of their interest are all "aesthetic" ones. However, I've decided to create an easy solution for anyone who truly doesn't like this template's image: now, anyone who wants to can replace the template's image with anything they want (including text and any other image, as long as it's free-use) by typing something like {{User:UBX/Religion interest|[[Image:Stpetersbasilicaholyspiritwindow.jpg|58px]]}}, which produces:

File:Stpetersbasilicaholyspiritwindow.jpgThis user is interested in religion.

Good enough? -Silence 14:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

ID parameter

As it turns out, this userbox has an "ID parameter" so that any image or text can by displayed, at the discretion of the user. I posted a usage note under the template. By the way, the "See also" userboxes don't have this parameter at the moment. Rfrisbie^talk 04:05, 10 June 2006 (UTC)