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Talk:Patriarchal Province of Seleucia-Ctesiphon

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Lists and tables

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Right now a good portion of this article is lengthy lists about bishops. Perhaps this information would be better presented in a table format? I'd be happy to handle the wiki markup to get things started. --Elonka 19:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Elonka,
It's an attractive suggestion, but there are a couple of reasons why I would prefer to keep things the way they are now. In many cases, all we know about a particular bishop is that he signed the acts of a synod, so he only gets one sentence, with a footnote to Chabot's Synodicon Orientale. In other cases, however, enough information survives, from a range of sources, to enable a long paragraph to be written on a bishop. Take one of the bishops mentioned in this article, for example, Sliba-zkha of Tirhan, who brokered a deal with the Jacobites to get a Nestorian church built in Takrit. This ingenious compromise is mentioned in several histories, notably by Thomas of Marga (Nestorian) and Bar Hebraeus (Jacobite), and eventually I'd like to gather all the relevant references to him in his paragraph in 'Diocese of Tirhan'.
I know that a lot of the stuff in these diocesan articles may appear a bit dry at present, but all the articles are works in progress, which I am gradually adding to. I've started with the easy, one-sentence, figures to cover most of the ground quickly, and will be moving on to more complex paragraphs as I progress. Although a table might work for the one-sentence bishops, it won't for the more interesting ones. That being the case, I would prefer to keep the article in its present shape for the time being.
Another point is that I intend to break up these main articles eventually into a series of articles on individual dioceses. When that happens, the detailed lists of bishops will go in the article on the diocese concerned, and each diocese will rate just one paragraph (date of foundation, geographical coverage, last mention of, any notable bishops) in the article on the larger province. I think that will make both the provincial article and the subordinate diocesan articles more readable.
Djwilms (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the problem is the treatment may be too detailed and esoteric for a general purpose encyclopedia.
On another note, I'd like to see more treatment of the diocese Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and also the diocese of Baghdad. Certainly the transfer of the metropoltican see was a major structural change, but the discussion of it is unclear.--Cúchullain t/c 16:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Esoteric. A bit patronising? Are you saying that Wikipedia should not include articles on individual Christian dioceses (there are already several articles on dioceses in the UK), or merely that it should not include articles on dioceses in small and unimportant countries like Iraq? The history of the dioceses of the Church of the East may seem esoteric when viewed from Florida, but there are hundreds of thousands of Assyrians around the world who are rightly interested in their past.
Djwilms (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure you can tell by now that I too am interested in the history of the Church of the East (even coming from Florida, as you say), and would like to see our discussion of it improved on all fronts. I never said that individual dioceses, in Iraq or any place else, were not worthy of articles. What I said was the current treatment of the information in this article doesn't really help the reader understand the subject, the Province of the Patriarch. We're giving the reader a lot of raw information to sift through without a lot of context or flow to tell them why it's important - right it reads like a chronicle of events. This of course is something that can be remedied. The featured article Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami (no, it's not my diocese, if you were wondering ;) ) is a good example of an encyclopedic treatment of an individual diocese. The same model used there can be followed for any diocese, even if they are small, ancient, or not much is recorded about them. In time I hope to see such treatment for all the Church of the East dioceses, or at least the best-attested ones, and I look forward to working with you towards that goal.--Cúchullain t/c 02:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. I take your point on the treatment, but as I have said above in my reply to Elonka, this is work in progress. My instinct at first was to cover as much ground as possible, with factual statements properly referenced. Although the subject matter may appear dry at present, my diocesan articles at least quote their sources, unlike some other Wikipedia articles on the Nestorians. They are also factually correct and well-informed. As I start adding more information on bishops who actually did something important, the present pattern of one-sentence paragraphs will start to disappear. Then, as I break up the provincial articles as proposed above, and spin off articles on individual dioceses, I think these articles will gradually assume a more attractive shape. But in the meantime, please bear with me. Rome was not built in a day.
On your other points, Seleucia-Ctesiphon was the diocese of the patriarch, which I should have mentioned somewhere but probably haven't yet. Baghdad never became a diocese of the Church of the East at this period. The patriarchs resided in Baghdad, but still called themselves bishops of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.
Djwilms (talk) 03:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Further to our earlier discussions, I've just created the first diocesan article, Tirhan (East Syrian Diocese), and have replaced the list of bishops of Tirhan in the article Province of the Patriarch with a potted history of the diocese (footnotes to come shortly). I intend, over the next two years (see the list of dioceses in the template at the bottom of the article for an idea of the scale of the task), to give similar treatment to all Nestorian and Chaldean dioceses.
Can we keep the term 'East Syrian' for these diocesan articles for the time being, please? Eventually, when all the Nestorian articles are sorted out, I have no objection to replacing it with 'Nestorian', but for the moment I would rather concentrate on substance than semantics.
Djwilms (talk) 03:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tirhan looks quite good for a start, well done. On the nomenclature, I don't have any strong opinion about "Nestorian" vs. "East Syrian", but the style guidelines on capitalization are to use capitalization only if the article title is a proper noun (Episcopal Diocese of Delaware; Roman Catholic Diocese of Urgell; if it's used as a common noun it doesn't get capitalized. Additionally, if there is no other article with a certain title, as with Tirhan, there is no need to disambiguate with parentheses.
Typical usage for other articles on churches' dioceses and provinces seems to be to use them as a proper noun (so "East Syrian Diocese of Tirhan"; "East Syrian Ecclesiastical Province of Beth Huzaye". However, it looks like there will be relatively little overlap between Church of the East dioceses and those of other churches, so perhaps we can just stick with, for example, "Diocese of Tirhan". If necessary, I might suggest using "Church of the East" as the descriptor ("Church of the East Diocese of Tirhan").--Cúchullain t/c 16:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Let me give some thought to the nomenclature. We're going to get some overlap with the Syrian Orthodox Church eventually, when I get round to giving the Jacobite dioceses the same treatment. For example, both the Nestorians and the Jacobites had dioceses of Beth Nuhadra and Marga (in Adiabene), and in several other places, including Herat in Segestan. Beth Nuhadra (East Syrian/West Syrian or Nestorian/Jacobite diocese) works for me. I think the main thing at present is to get the structure of these articles right. 'East Syrian' as a stopgap and interim term has the advantage that it is unlikely to trigger an edit war, whereas using 'Nestorian' until we have sorted out a firm policy on nomenclature will probably generate a time-consuming and dispiriting insurgency from the Assyrian thought police.
Djwilms (talk) 01:19, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 9 May 2019

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 06:22, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Patriarchal Province of Seleucia-Ctesiphon → Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon – Per WP:CONSISTENCY with names of other patriarchates tends to be named. Sources seems to offer this as a legitimate option. Parts of the information would perhaps better be moved to Dioceses of the Church of the East to 1318 or Church of the East, possibly. PPEMES (talk) 12:00, 9 May 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. bd2412 T 00:38, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for you comment. The history that it talks about, was this really an ecclesiastical province that makes sense as a stand-alone article under this name, as opposed to renaming it and include (parts of) the former scope? For the record, there seems to be quite some inconsistency in equivalent articles. Some offer an article on the office of the patriarchate of X, some of the title of patriarch of X, and some of both. This very proposal should be seen in the light that I have proposed splitting precisely Patriarchs of the Church of the East (which logically is about titles, not offices). Let's hope others will chime in and give third opinions both here and on Talk:Patriarchs of the Church of the East. PPEMES (talk) 14:34, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This article is specifically about the province of which the patriarch was metropolitan. It isn't about his diocese specifically or about his office as head of the Church of the East. It is about the ecclesiastical structure of his province. That is why the present title is best. It is clear. The proposed title is not clear between province, diocese and office, but it is safest—as now—to let redirect to page on the office, whose holder was diocesan, metropolitan and catholicos all at once. Srnec (talk) 01:30, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This article is about the East Syriac ecclesiastical (patriarchal) province of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and that is clearly reflected in the current title. On the other hand, the proposed title "Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon" has totally different meaning, and it does not reflect the content of this article. Sorabino (talk) 01:53, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Verifiability

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@Srnec: you are actively trying to keep unsourced, unverifiable claims on WP. Either those unsourced parts are new and I am willing to wait 1 month for a source before removing them, or the material dates back to article's creation and it can be safely assumed that no one wil add a source for them (maybe that means there are none or that those info are a hoax). An unsourced information being on Wikipedia for years does not mean it should be kept.
By the way, my question still stands: have you been keeping those unsourced paragraphs unchanged for all those years, as your summary makes it sound? Have you for example prevented people from changing anything on those unsourced paragraphs, whether removing, changing or adding information? Veverve (talk) 22:59, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If you believe the material added by David Wilmshurst, author of The Martyred Church and The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, is probably false or at least unverifiable, then remove it. If you think that will improve this article and the encyclopedia, go ahead. In my opinion, you have no good reason for thinking either. I have read The Martyred Church, but it was a library copy and I do not have access at the moment. I think it will verify the challenged material, but if you would be more comfortable removing it, fine. I'm not running to the library for this. Standards for footnoting were different back when Djwilms began this article.
have you been keeping those unsourced paragraphs unchanged for all those years You can see all my edits to this article in the history. Srnec (talk) 23:25, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Srnec: Wikipedia does not care about who writes it, only reliability counts, not WP:TRUTH; see also WP:EXPERT.
Yes, I believe removing unsourced information from an article improves it greatly. I know some WP users disagree, but I am unwilling to wait for an "inline refs saviour" who will take the time to verify each unsourced or dubious claims of an article, which I sometimes have been.
I will be removing those paragraphs, as you agreed. If you have a RS to source those claims, then feel free to add them back with proper inline references. Veverve (talk) 23:37, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your user page says you are retired. When will you be leaving us? Srnec (talk) 23:43, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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