Religions Wiki:Purpose
Future direction
Religions Wiki has been 'forked' from a previous instance of the project (the website Iron Chariots), and as such it seems appropriate now to launch a discussion about its future direction. I suggest a discussion about the future scope and direction of this wiki. Gravitywave (talk) 20:01, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
Introduction
The current situation: fragmentary statements of purpose for Religions Wiki can be found in various pages, including these:
Discussion
Suggestion (1): A unified statement of purpose
That the fragmentary descriptions of the site's purpose identified above should be brought together into one place, such as this page. Then Purpose talk page could be a location for ongoing discussions after we finish a preliminary discussion here and have come up with some sort of draft Purpose statement. I'm tempted to call it a Mission Statement, but am put off by the religious overtones of that phrase! There would still be a place for the specific pages, e.g. Article relevance guidelines, but their content would be derived from the overall Site Purpose. Gravitywave (talk) 21:25, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
Suggestion (2): Broaden the scope of the site
That when we draft the Purpose we widen the scope of the wiki beyond 'apologetics'. I think this site was born out of, and bears the marks of, the specifically American situation where there is a vocal Christian Fundamentalist lobby and public atheism is largely reacting to literal interpretations of the Bible rather than being able to start a broader discussion about various ideas of god and ways of life without a god. I hope that this site could actually be a resource for atheists and others who are interested in religions but find their only sources of information are controlled by those same religious viewpoints. Why should there not be a place for atheists, agnostics, philosophical naturalists and materialists to share their views of religious ideas and arguments "from the outside"? Gravitywave (talk) 21:25, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
Suggestion (3): Find a clear niche for the site
There are many atheist resources on the internet, and it should be the aim of this site to complement rather than compete with what they provide. Some prominent examples include Rational Wiki and Skeptics Annotated Bible, for example (there are others). Is there a niche that the Religions Wiki can fill that offers something that adds to what these other sites do, instead of trying to imitate them?
Please contribute
Any other interested editors are invited to contribute to this discussion. You could comment on the Suggestions already shown above (to indent your comment put a colon at the start of your paragraph in the wiki editor), or if you have another suggestion you could add it after the last one and number it accordingly.
