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Order of succession

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As I understand it, Baha'u'llah's will stipulated that Abdu'l Baha succeed him, and gave him the title "Centre of the Covenant" (and lots of other high praise), and said that Muhammad Ali should succeed Abdu'l Baha as leader of the faith. After a lifetime of having to deal with Ali's attempts to undermine him, Abdu'l Baha appointed Shoghi Effendi instead, and instituted the whole idea of the Guardianship. About half of Abdu'l Baha's Will and Testament is devoted to justifying to the Baha'is why he had felt it necessary to change the succession.

Someone removed my comment "Relations between them had deteriorated to the point that...". Personally, I don't see why. If Ali was attempting to get Abdu'l Baha executed by telling tales on him to the Ottoman authorities, then it is clear that by then there had been a pretty comprehensive breakdown in relations between the half-brothers. Putting it this way offers no opinion on who was responsible for that breakdown - so I figure that's perfectly NPOV, but if people don't like having this linking phrase there then it doesn't bother me much. Putting in a sentence of special pleading for `Abdu'l Baha's side of the dispute doesn't seem NPOV to me, however, which is why I removed that sentence about AB repeatedly denying Ali's arguments. -- PaulHammond 13:02, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

does "'Abdu'l-Bahá denied this, making assertions to His followers that He was not to be regarded as such." looks more NPOV? :) - --Cyprus2k1 17:47, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Cyprus, you know, and I know that Muhammad's accusations against `Abdu'l-Baha were a load of rubbish. I know that, because the early American believers used to think that `Abdu'l-Baha, being the son of "The Father" (Baha'u'llah), was really the return of Christ - and Abdu'l Baha did repeatedly deny this, and refused to take any kind of worship from the more enthusiatic American Baha'is. I don't know whether Abdu'l Baha actually dignified Muhammad Ali's challenges with any kind of response - but I don't think it is the business of any encyclopedia article to come down on one side or the other of the controversy. I think we should report the fact that there was trouble between them, report the fact that Muhammad Ali tried to get his half-brother executed by telling tales about him to the Ottoman authorities, but that that effort failed, and that eventually AB was freed as a result of the Young Turks revolution causing a change in government in Palestine. Then, we can report the fact that Ali's efforts against him persuaded Abdu'l Baha that it was necessary to spend about half of his W&T talking about how Muhammad Ali had forfeited the right to be a Baha'i Leader due to his Covenant-Breaking, and that therefore Shoghi was going to be the Guardian instead.
I don't think that we should write anything here that could be accused of being, in Amir's words a "Baha'i promotional pamphlet" - and that is what I feel Brettz is attempting to do here.
btw - if Brettz reverts me again without even correcting his damn spelling mistake, or coming here to discuss things, I think I shall scream. PaulHammond 21:39, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
This falls far short of the spirit of consultation. I made comments as to why I had reverted, if you would read them in the page history. The onus is on you to respond to the points and not to just delete things.
It is not taking a side to state the facts. If the article refers to Muhammad Alí's accusations and then leaves it hanging, this is biased, in its implicit insinuation that He must have made such claims. It is at least incumbent to state that He did make such responses, as He is in fact on record as doing (it may even be in published newspapers of the time as He is recorded in Mahmúd's Diary of having told them this), or otherwise it gives the one-sided impression that Muhammad Ali must have been right. I can provide the exct citations if it will make a difference to you.
I think it is also far from necessary to be concerned with the manifest bias of other editors. Just because some of the articles may have been derived from promotional sources and admittedly should be changed in this environment does not mean that people trying to overcompensate and paint things in what they think and want to be as negative a light as possible (without offering a description of the official Bahá'í response to those insinuations), should be given a free hand to do so. User:Brettz9 09:03, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
You didn't come to the talk page, Brettz. I put two paragraphs of explanation here, and tried to justify why I didn't think that my attempt at a linking from the fact of Ali's opposition, to the attempt to get Abdu'l Baha executed, to AB's being freed by the Young Turks was non-NPOV. From my point of view, I came here and tried to edit what was in that paragraph to an NPOV version. I stand by my comments about the succession - "could" rather than "should" understates what the expectations were. If Ali's succession to AB was not widely expected by the contemporary Baha'i community, then why was it that Abdu'l Baha's Will and Testament spent so much time justifying what a terrible Covenant Breaker Ali had been so that he could justify appointing Shoghi as his successor, instead of Ali as Baha'u'llah had said before he knew what a trouble maker Ali would turn out to be.
I don't take much issue with the "could"-"should" issue, actually. I agree that was the implication, I just thought that the Kitáb-i-'Ahd did not justify stating it in such unequivocal terms.
I believe that AB was fully justified in doing that. Discussion of whether the whole "Covenant Breaker" thing that arguably started with AB's W&T has cast a shadow over the whole Baha'i Faith since then is probably too deep and off topic for this article.
Well, Bahá'u'lláh had taken the action of excommunication earlier when Mírzá Yahyá had made the counter-claim to Bahá'u'lláh's public declaration.
Quite possibly, the mention of the problems with Ali doesn't belong in that particular section, and the whole article needs a bit of re-working. I'm willing to discuss all this with you - but not for a couple of weeks. Right now, I'm taking a break from editing Baha'i pages at all because my involvement in attempts to prevent vandalism of the main Baha'i articles by a couple of determined editors has taken its toll on my usual good humour. I've left a note on my user page about that if you're interested.
Such attacks can take a toll on all of us, for sure.
I apologise if you think my comments above are a bit OTT. Put it down to the strain I've been under on the other Baha'i articles. But, it seemed to me that what had happened here was that you had reverted me without bothering to address my comments here to put the article back exactly to your preferred version, even down to the original spelling mistake of "denied", and after what I've been dealing with on the other Baha'i articles, I formed the impression that you considered me some kind of Ali supporter whose comments were not worth considering, which made me react rather crossly. PaulHammond 15:55, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
I apologize for not taking the time to examine the talk page carefully and transfer my comments in the notes here. I apologize also for jumping to any conclusions. If you do take some time off as you state at your page, hopefully you won't find the Dr. Who article beleagured by questions of non-NPOV personal attacks and insinuations about who was the best Dr. Who or the worst!  :) Brettz9 17:15, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

checking this mass migration of pages

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from World Order of Baháʼu'lláh and Gleanings from the Writings of Baháʼu'lláh

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I'm seeing two different marks being used. Is that *correct*? Or is this a script problem? Smkolins (talk) 11:41, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The first is the hamza, which is pronounced (like the 'okina in "Hawaiʻi"). The second is an apostrophe and isn't pronounced. It just shows where a vowel has dropped out of the pronunciation. "Baháʼu'lláh" is also written "Baháʼulláh", retaining only the pronounced hamza. (Personally I would prefer that spelling, but are articles have long used the apostrophe, so I left it in.) — kwami (talk) 21:18, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well if the typography is correct, and thanks for the less and hope it makes its way into the MOS entry, care to raise the issue with whomever maintains the pageviews system? Smkolins (talk) 13:43, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

MOS Bahai orthography

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also it would be nice if MOS Bahai orthography existed for people to refer to since it and variations are being used to justify things. And is it ironic it itself is not using the new MOS? Smkolins (talk) 11:45, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we need an MOS specifically. It would mostly be a repeat of the Baha'i orthography page. My experience with the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Arabic is that the MOS requires upkeep and maintenance. Since there is a published standard for transliterating Baha'i words, it's pretty straightforward. Now that we have the Unicode figured out, there's not much left to talk about. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:16, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The MOS page has been initiated (per my proposal above), and can be reached via the MOS:BAHAI shortcut. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:29, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks. I feel a very substantial improvement would be to write out the names of the special characters and whatever syntax can do it as part of an example word and then name a respective specific character used as its approximate according to a style case along with the specific example. But that's just me. I personally feel there are levels of engagement. In causual usage the most common is dropping the accents but keeping the apostrophy-like character and then the more correct is to add the accents (though I don't "accents" is the right name in the original.) I think dropping all the special characters is long out of favor and mostly used these days as a kind of insult when done. Smkolins (talk) 12:50, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've done my best to standardize the spellings of the names. Some I didn't do if I wasn't sure what was correct. Personally, I don't care if we use "Bahai" or "Bahaʼi" or "Baháʼí", but IMO we should be consistent. — kwami (talk) 21:15, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree consistency is good. I also note that the variations probably come from a mix of people doing what is in front of their eyes to do and the keyboard setting defaults on their computers and versions of Windows, Macs, and Linux might easily strongly vary. Smkolins (talk) 13:47, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I updated the MOS:BAHAI essay-level guidance to avoid the apostrophe(-like) character confusion, conforming to MOS. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:10, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Francis Schonken: as long as it's a personal essay that you claim OWNERSHIP of, it is not an MOS and does not belong in WP space, but in your own user space, per WP guidelines at Wikipedia essays. If you're willing to allow others to modify it, that's a different matter, but so far you haven't been. You have been purposefully misrepresenting it as an MOS and thus as consensus, when it is not. You've been here long enough to know better than that. Either move it to your user space as is proper for an essay, leave it in draft space as a draft MOS, copy it onto a talk page, or delete it. — kwami (talk) 04:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't claim ownership (neither should you BTW). It does not fall in the category "essays the author does not want others to edit, or that contradict widespread consensus", so it doesn't belong in user space. Trying to thrash it without talk page discussion is a different matter & you should now better than that. As said it was prepared here, and people should be able to find it with the links posted on this page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:11, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moved back: the page is entirely appropriate in project namespace. Again, if there's anything you don't agree with, then a first place to explain that is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Bahá'í spelling. But disruption like page moves lacking any kind of consensus, emptying the page, redirecting it, and whatever other aggressive methods a single person has tried against it over an extended period of time should stop now. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's rich. You tag it as an essay, and rv attempts to bring it into line with consensus. You say any changes to it much be per consensus, but nothing in it is consensus to begin with. At best it's a draft MOS. Make up your mind -- if it's an MOS as you title it, then it needs to reflect the longstanding consensus of Bahai orthography here on WP, something that you're attempting to subvert. If it's a personal essay, then it belongs in your namespace. Your repeated attempts to disrupt WP are not productive. — kwami (talk) 09:18, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This conversation makes more sense at Talk:Baháʼí orthography. I'll leave a comment there. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 05:44, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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I'd also love if someone could check if we didn't just create a bunch of dead links across the internet. Smkolins (talk) 11:46, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • If you compare [2] to [3] (which is to say traffic to the main article over the last 14 days from its original link to the new link) isn't entirely clear. We seem to be in a tail off of traffic following the boost from the period of the Bicentenary but there is a bit of a sharp cliff but maybe that is a random fluctuation amidst this tail off of traffic. Smkolins (talk) 11:59, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand. All moves left rd's, as whenever we move articles on WP. If there are red links in the articles, that's another matter. I've tried to prevent those, but I'm sure I've missed some. — kwami (talk) 21:12, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And redirectly should hit the final page but url syntax is not trivially tolerant of syntax like this. It often breaks and through changes like this could be dropping urls as going nowhere all across the internet. Smkolins (talk) 13:41, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

more convoluted urls

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It looks like we *are* are *not* creating more convoluted urls -

(old) …Talk:Arc_(Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD) vs
(new)…Talk:Arc_(Bahá%27%C3%AD)

Smkolins (talk) 11:48, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

industry

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I can appreciate there was a lot of what seems like manual work doing all these migrations and changes. I've done a lot of work creating content for years so I know both the monotony and discipline it takes to do a lot of work like this. So yes Kwamikagami I see a lot of effort on your part to make this happen. Clearly it means a lot to you. I hope it means something to the breadth of humanity. I could ask that it was piloted and examined for results alittle more. Smkolins (talk) 12:15, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

affecting citations

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[4] but if you look at the website it plainly does not use the curled apostrophe type character. Smkolins (talk) 11:44, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's just an MOS difference. We apply the MOS to citations all the time (e.g. dashes for hyphens, straight apostrophes for curly, italics for underlined), just as we do to quotations. And many of the citations already differ in formatting. — kwami (talk) 21:10, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's odd to me. I followed the original when I could do it. I thought MOS content applied to the wikipedia article content and not to quotes and sources.Smkolins (talk)

Direct coding vs templates

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As I mentioned above, we can insert characters directly, <ʻ>, <ʼ>, but that's difficult for us editors to see. Or we can enter them indirectly via their Unicode numbers, or use the templates {{okina}} and {{hamza}}. Both of these would be easier for editors to see and possibly to type. There was an objection to doing this before, but I thought we might revisit it. I'm happen to go through all the articles I edited and switch one to another.

The templates even work in page links. Cf.

Baháʼí Faith

— kwami (talk) 22:13, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fire in Shrine of Abdul Baha

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It is strange that Smkolins (talk · contribs) is removing a correct news. There was fire at the Shrine of Abdul Baha which has also come in news and also videos and photos of the same are available.--Asad29591 (talk) 08:19, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't strange. It's covered elsewhere and it linked. Smkolins (talk) 11:01, 19 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing Text

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"At the age of eight his father was imprisoned...": `Abdu'l-Bahá's father was imprisoned at the age of 8? Or `Abdu'l-Bahá's father was imprisoned when `Abdu'l-Bahá was aged 8? Weka511 (talk) 23:00, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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