Talk:Elenari

Article needing attention

Besides not mentioning that this article is on a ficticous race, it also contiains very little information on this subculture (if it qualifies as one). This returns 663 hits on Google, meaning that it should (probably) be kept, but it needs major changes. Benji 21:53, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

While I am not one and so not sufficiently informed to modify the page, Elenari are not fictitious. If anything, they would come under spirituality. Vashti 07:36 29 Dec 2004 (GMT)

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Um, Gabrielsimon, please don't remove the "article needing attention" tag unless you're prepared to actually do something to the article. Vashti 21:37, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

The Corruption

I added info on The Corruption and someone removed it claiming I needed to cite a source. The Elenari FAQ already speaks of it and the source has already been cited. I think The Corruption's relationship to the Elenari is a significant thing to mention. I think it should be back, but please rewrite the entire thing if you don't like what I wrote. Thodin 15:17, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Another note, I see that Gabrielsimon, who took it out has had all his/her edits reverted in this topic and I've seen them reverted most of the time in Otherkin as well. So maybe it should have stayed. And if anyone else thinks so then they can bring it back. Thodin 15:22, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I've done a bit of a rewrite and put it back - please feel free to expand and correct it though, this isn't exactly my area of expertise. :) Vashti 21:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Context?

I found this from another article, so I don't have much familiarity here. I wasn't sure which parts of the articles are talking about the Otherkin and which were talking about Tolkien's Elenari. Particularly, do both groups speak the Elenari language? Help from other editors is appreciated. Friday 05:16, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

nope, the elnari from tolkien dont have any lingusitic traits in common with these elnari... its just the name sounded close. Gabrielsimon 08:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

This article deals entirely with the otherkin group who call themselves the Elenari, and not with any of Tolkien's works. Vashti 09:44, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Possibly POV statement

What is the source that says BrightMoon was one of three "primary" Elenari worlds that are recalled? This suggests a level of primacy over Alorya and Shiri that does not seem implied in the Elenari FAQ. My own experience is that more people recall Alorya, in particular, than recall Brightmoon; however, I admit to some bias. If there is no source for this, could we change the language to something less POV like "The Elenari recall living on several worlds, including Sel'ar, Aelveron, BrightMoon, and Alorya; though others including the Charonish Domains are sometimes mentioned." This would seem to more accurately reflect the significance placed on these worlds by the FAQ itself. Shiri seems quite well represented as-is by the seperate reference to Elenari who recall living in Faerie. Jarandhel (talk) 17:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

You know what, I think I'm just going to make the change and if people disagree with it they can take it up here and/or revert it... Jarandhel (talk) 18:23, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

This is the classic verifiability problem. Same thing we frequently get over at Otherkin. If there's something that differs from the source, it was probably based on an editor's personal experience. If the Elenari FAQ is the only source, IMO there shouldn't be an article at all. It's nearly impossible to make a proper, neutral article based on one source in cases like these.

At one time, my bright idea was to rip out as much OR as possible, even if that meant having shorter articles. If the otherkin subtype articles ended up too short, they could be merged with Otherkin.

To me, the options in order of how much I like them are: 1) Get rid of all these articles, due to V and NOR concerns. However, this is a grey area case for purpose of V and NOR. And the Afd clearly indicated a consensus for keeping Otherkin because it's a real phenonmenom. I personally feel that most people giving opinions there did not address the real issues of V and NOR, but I cannot change that. Option 2) is remove most details (we can't give good details when we don't have good sources) and merge them all together. Otherkin would be an overview of the idea and would have sections on the different kinds. Option 3) is what we have now: POV, OR, and Verifibility problems spread out over several articles.

There may well be other great solutions that I'm not seeing, but that's how it looks to be right now. The problem is, if I write "The Pontiac GTO was reintroduced in 2004" without a source, that's ok. It's easily verifiable by any adult, as you talked about earlier. From what I can see, details about Elenari are not easily verified independantly by an average person. Friday (talk) 19:01, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

PS. I fully understand that I probably have higher standards of Verifiability than most editors, so option #1 I don't consider much of a possibility. #2 still seems best to me though. If nothing else, dealing with one article that's an OR magnet is easier than dealing with a handful. Friday (talk) 19:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't agree with your favored approach. It seems to me that "ripping out" what you view as original research, when you have admittedly higher standards of verifiability than most other editors (and are therefor not in consensus), is simply a way to perform an end-run around the consensus on deletion. Editing the articles down to stubs and merging them is effectively the same as deleting them entirely, if you are removing what others have indicated is substance to be preserved in their consensus. I would also remind you of the views expressed in such locations as Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research/archive3#Proposals_for_exceptions_to_the_policy and User_talk:Antaeus_Feldspar#Verifiability regarding whether or not otherkin websites are proper sources for an article on otherkin, or amounted to original research.

I think I can, however, provide you with a fourth alternative: additional sources, which should help make the article more balanced than one with a single source. Rialian.com also has more than a little information on it about the Elenari, and I think some other websites may as well. There was also an old mailing list on the subject of Corruption which has recently been revived, and a significant portion of the past archives of that list may soon become publicly available, so it may be possible to better source that segment as well; though I'm not certain it would be appropriate for me to do so considering I was and am the owner of that list. Jarandhel (talk) 19:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I understand there's all kinds of different views on this. I don't see that trying to merge into Otherkin is trying to avoid the Afd result in any way, but again, everyone has different views. I'd personally like to see some degree of encyclopedic standards applied here, but if consensus disagrees, so be it. Since I put in the Afd and it was soundly rejected, I think I should be conservative in my editing here, purely so it doesn't like like I'm trying to force through my preference in spite of the Afd. Hence, I've kept it mostly to the talk page and made few article edits. Maybe I should make even fewer. :) I'm just saying, based on past experience, whoever wants to try to keep these articles in decent shape will have to fight off a lot of people coming by and putting in their own experiences and opinions. IMO, this would be less work with a merge. Friday (talk) 20:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I dunno if this will explain my thoughts on this any more than I already have tried to, but here goes. Collecting and summarizing the views of a loosely associated bunch of people is a great opportunity for inserting bias. Anyone doing so can easily pick and choose the stories from people that support their version of what they believe is "real" Elenari (or Otherkin, or whatever). So, I believe such collection and summarizing should be approached with caution. Trying to say "Most Elenari believe X" is much dicier than saying "The Titanic weighed Y tons". Now, one could easily respond, "You're worrying about a problem that hasn't happened yet". Well, in my opinion, we won't have a way to know if/when this problem occurs, so we should tread carefully.

Christianity varies widely in beliefs too, but we can (somewhat) trust a reputable person who writes "Most Christians believe X". I'm not saying that only scholarly sources would be acceptable; that's much too high a standard. But, if Newsweek does a story on Elenari, I'd consider that a significantly better source than someone's personal website, even though Newsweek is far from a "scholarly" magazine. Dunno if this clarifies or not, but I thought I'd at least attempt it. Friday (talk) 20:31, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

To some extent I agree, however I think you ignore the fact that the Otherkin and Elenari communities have themselves taken steps towards collecting and summarizing their views in a way which is fair to all involved. The Otherkin FAQ and the Elenari FAQ are both examples of community projects, written by committee, with input from a broad range of Otherkin and Elenari respectively. They are the products of the prevailing consensus among their respective communities. I would also question if your newsweek article would truly be more reputable; wouldn't it simply use these same primary sources to verify what beliefs are most prevalent? The main difference is that it, like the Village Voice article, would interview the authors of the primary sources rather than quoting the sources directly.

I would also suggest that we do, in fact, have a way to know if/when this problem of inserting bias occurs; it will have occurred when someone comes along and complains that the article is biased, citing references to prove their side. Wikipedia is completely open, and its content about Otherkin has been duplicated by a broad range of sites so is commonly available; if there is a significant portion of the otherkin community which feels their side of things has been left out or even underrepresented, they can come here and make their case, just like any other editor. It will be a task to keep such contributions NPOV, but I think it can be done.

Ripping everything out and merging articles isn't really going to stop these problems, anyway. To use a metaphor, it's like the mythical hydra. If you cut off one of its heads, two will eventually grow back. You pretty much set the stage for endless revert wars between yourself and those who wish to include more content in the article, and having to delete and remerge pages every time someone creates them again. Short of gaining protected status for the otherkin article, and some sort of special deletion status for the merged pages, you'll have your work cut out for you indefinitely. By contrast, working to make sure that the article remains NPOV, only makes descriptive claims that are supported by its sources, and makes no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, or evaluative claims while relying on primary sources, will eventually result in an article that is thorough enough and solid enough to stand against most criticisms and can be left more or less alone save for minor updates and revisions to reflect changes in the subculture over time. Jarandhel (talk) 20:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I suspect we're just going to continue to disagree, but at least we might understand why. Here's a perfect example, where you wrote The Otherkin FAQ and the Elenari FAQ are both examples of community projects, written by committee, with input from a broad range of Otherkin and Elenari respectively. They are the products of the prevailing consensus among their respective communities. You know all this, apparently from your own personal knowledge.

I have no such personal knowledge of this subject matter. You're asking me to accept your word that the source is good, based on your own knowledge. I'm inclined to agree with your assessment, since you seem reasonable and knowlegable, but I have to admit I have no way to judge such a thing. FWIW, other editors have claimed personal knowledge of the subject matter and disagreed with things in the FAQs before.

Ideally, we'd have a better way to know whether a source is reputable or not. Yes, if Newsweek did an article, they would also be faced with the task of deciding which personal stories to use in their article. How would I know Newsweek would do a good job? Well, I wouldn't, but I would know their reputation as a magazine, and I would know that they employ professional journalists and editors. In the end, it comes down to "verifiability, not truth". Would the Newsweek treatment of Elenari be more true than that of an Elenari-owned website? Perhaps, but maybe not. Would a Wikipedia article using Newsweek as a source be more verifiable than one using someone's website? Most certainly. Friday (talk) 22:17, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Except that both FAQs talk about their own origins, so you do not merely have to take my word for the fact they were written by groups rather than individuals:

"Contributions: Written by Arhuaine, Miaren Crowsdaughter, Thistle Kachunk, Golden Syrpent, Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, Jarin Dreamsinger and The Crisses--volunteer members of Otherkin community from a number of Yahoo-Groups lists." on the Otherkin FAQ.

"Many people contributed a great deal in time and effort, and I thank them for sharing their thoughts. I also thank K'Llayna for making sense of it all and adding the hyperlinks. For more detailed information, please browse the Elenari page. Contributors: K'Llayna, Ashran, Dan O'Dea, Estara, Silvaerin'a, Robin, Syleniel" on the Elenari FAQ.

I think you also misinterpret the motto of "verifiability, not truth". One of the most important points on Wikipedia:Verifiability is "Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: outlandish claims beg strong sources." If the article claimed that these people actually are from the worlds they claimed to remember, such a claim would be outlandish and demand a strong source, otherkin sites alone would certainly be inappropriate sources for such an article. However, the claim that they believe they are from such worlds is not, and can be easily verified by reference to their own FAQs and writings.

As you have said before, your standards for verifiability are much higher than those of other editors here on Wikipedia, and I believe they are stricter than Wikipedia policy itself demands. The Wikipedia policy page on No Original Research specifically says that there are cases where articles can be written entirely using primary sources, though these are exceptions and require certain criteria to be met; it also says that it is not original research to collect and organize information from existing primary sources. As another editor put it in the past: "If the Otherkin article were to state that legends of werewolves in the Middle Ages came from Otherkin, not because an editor decided it but because an Otherkin site claimed it to be so -- then we'd definitely run into problems of verifiability. But as long as we're describing what people believe as what they believe, we can usually take people's word on it." You agreed with this reasoning when he presented it mere weeks ago, I'm afraid I don't understand why you have changed your mind since then. Jarandhel (talk) 23:04, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I also wanted to respond to your statement that "FWIW, other editors have claimed personal knowledge of the subject matter and disagreed with things in the FAQs before." That's always going to happen. Hell, there are things in the FAQ and in the articles themselves that I disagree with myself. Right down to the very definition of otherkin, as a matter of fact. I've written numerous posts, and a [whole essay], on that subject for the Otherkin community before. However, I also realize that my point of view is not the consensus of the majority of the community. Until it is, I'll keep trying to persuade others (outside of the forum of wikipedia) around to my point of view, but I won't start describing things as if my thoughts were a common usage, much less represented the consensus of the Otherkin community. That is the essence of NPOV, right? Jarandhel (talk) 23:21, 15 October 2005 (UTC)