love=Please, talk as you want I only ask that you be constructive and that you do not edit others posts here.=

I have been attacked over the past few days by other users on Wikipediawho seem to regard all of my writing of articles on Erisism as merely a Discordian prank and so should be utterly deleted. This is not the case and I am in fact revealing a true aspect of the two dictinctly different faiths that prey to the godess Eris.

Some have also suggested that Erisism be merged with Discordianism which is something which I am loath to do because the religion does have its differences, which is why I wrote that section. According to some, I am angering the godess by writing such things but I do not accept this at all, I am just spreading the word of Eris to others so that the information can be made availible to all to discuss and pass comment upon. It would be a different matter if I wrote about a page about a small religious caste of the Christian faith and the matter of such a deleting would not have come up. Maybe it is because there has been Discordian pranks in the past but if the Erisism article had been properly read then you would learn that it is not the duty to Eris to perform action, but to mediate on a better world.

Hope that you can understand, --by WiseGuy H.E.C. 22:29, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Discordian Hierarchy

I agree with you that articles on Erisism should not be merged with articles on Discordianism. I see claiming to be a "leader" of the Discordian religion as an utter absurdity, and an insult to Discordians everywhere. --Carnildo 00:36, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Erisism and related

I'll gladly elaborate my deletion request.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Specifically, it is a secondary source of information: it disseminates information of existing sources and presents them in an encyclopedic format.

Now, why does Erisism not qualify? Quite simply, because to my knowledge (but correct me if I'm wrong) there is exactly one person serving as the external source to this article, namely you.

That brings us to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is not an outlet for private mental constructs, no matter how neutrally presented. Factual accuracy is at stake: how can we possibly check it if there's only one person supplying the facts? You can get out of this by simply postulating that you're the only one qualified to supply the facts (or alternatively, that anyone can put in anything they like and it's true), but this undermines the entire concept of an encyclopedia.

And that brings us to Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. It's great that you can put in "authorized" articles, "proved" authentic by yourself, and, hey, there's no policy to stop you so people must accept it, right? Well, no. Wikipedia is plenty eristic, we don't need no steenkin' rules to kick this sort of thing out by community consensus.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you're spreading the faith. But Wikipedia is not the medium to do it in. We're building an encyclopedia, not providing free webspace for people who construct their own subrealities, rewarding as this task may be. Please consider joining the Anarchopedia if you just want a free outlet for your ideas, setting up your own homepage if you just want attention, and joining us if you just want to help build an encyclopedia. Personally, I find the latter the most rewarding.

Praise Eris. All hail Wikipedia! JRM 08:48, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

Submitting to some reasonable requests.

I would firstly like to thank both User:JRM and User:Carnildo for your constructive insights on the articles. I shall reply to you both now in the order that you have posted.

Carnildo, you seem like a faithful Discordian since you have stood up for your Discordian beliefs. I will accept that you have all the right in the world to not accept that one branch of Discordianism is higher then the other. So due to this very reasonable request I have removed the section on heirarchy and so will accept that in a scheme of things that the Erisian cannot claim any real authority over anyone else. If a Pope can't do such a thing and now that the Polyfather Mal-2 is deceased (Blessing of Eris be upon him.) then I shall wait until there is word from Greg Hill's estate introducing a new Polyfather. I would also ask that you help if you can in improving the Erisism article so that it cannot be just seen as me as one man spurting nonsense.
JRM, you speak well on the rules of Wikipedia and so I thank you for making it clear. Regarding your point on it only being me writing it I have asked that the www.PrincipiaDiscordia.com forumn members start editing it to make it far more reliable. Upon your request I have removed all suggestion that the articles needs to be authenticated or even blessed. I have tried my best to keep the article very neutral in scope, just like a encycloypedia should. I am upset that merely because the article has mention of Discordianism it will be deleted out of hand and so will gain enough votes to be deleted. The philosopher Mill wrote about such an act, calling it the tyranny of the majority. I would also like ask that you personally help by editting this article to make it conform with the Wikipedia guidelines. I am happy for High Erisian Church to be deleted, I only started this because it was a term that I felt needed defining from my main article Erisism. I would be loathed to have the Erisism article merged into Discordianism but I would rather that happen then it be deleted outright (and in my personal opinion rather out of hand). I thank you again, and apologise but I cannot seem to gain access to my email address at wiseguyhec@hotmail.com.

On a another note, it was always my proposal on 'joining you' the wider Wikipedia users and write on other subjects, it just susprised me on what was not on the site it is just that the first article I have chosen to write has caused such a stir that I have been bogged down making it more acceptable to the Wikipedia guidlines. Do you see any problem in me writing an article about Greg Hill, the main author of the Discordian bible? --by WiseGuy H.E.C. 10:34, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Apologies if my lengthy reply bores you, but I'm also writing this for myself, to better consolidate my views on Wikipedia.

I am upset that merely because the article has mention of Discordianism it will be deleted out of hand and so will gain enough votes to be deleted.

This is indeed not a valid reason; I think the main beef people have with it is that it doesn't seem notable in any way. I happen to be an inclusionist, so I don't care about notability. I'm still sceptical about the potential for people to come and make this article encyclopedic, however. The Discordian style of writing doesn't lend itself to factual accuracy or the neutral point of view. Sentences like these would have to go, for example: "It is in fact true that the proper Erisian will lead a life of deep contemplation but it does not necessarily follow that the Erisian will fall deep into contemplative isolation away from the common man. The problem is created when the lesser mind (one who does not understand Erisism) takes the actions and the mental state of the practitioner to be one of an unstable person and they can believe that the Erisian is possibly suffering from a style of God Complex and so takes legal actions against them." Is this supposed to be factual and neutral, or is it one person pulling things from their backside? To outsiders, it can't look like anything but a hoax, that's why they're all so eager to delete it.

The main article on Discordianism unfortunately has plenty of this sort of unencyclopedic nonsense too. (I use "nonsense" in a positive sense—the Principia Discordia is nonsense, but that doesn't mean it's not true.) Think of it like this: can people who are not Discordians and who are not interested in becoming Discordians get factual, neutral, sensible information on Discordianism, that is "true" according to aneristic principles (i.e. "true" in the boring sense)? While Discordianism passes the test (mostly), Erisism definitely doesn't. As an outsider, this article is of no use to me. Even as a Discordian unaware of Erisism, it's of little use.

Some open issues that would need to be resolved:

Is Erisism really notable enough for its own article, or should it just be a mention in Discordianism? How many people are involved in it? 5? 10? 100? Does it have its own newsgroups? Local cabals? Lots of forums in which it is discussed? Is there indeed a base for factual accuracy or will it always be a small group more or less making things up as they go along?
Keep it neutral: "It's true that X" definitely isn't. "Erisists believe X" might be.
Warn outsiders: make clear that Erisism, being part of Discordianism, is considered fictional, a hoax, or at least quite eccentric by most people. (I'm pretty sure this is factually accurate. :-)
Keep it factual: where did Erisism come from? How many believers are there, estimated? How widespread is it?

I thank you again, and apologise but I cannot seem to gain access to my email address at wiseguyhec@hotmail.com.

That's alright, because I didn't intend to mail anyway. I prefer to keep wiki things on the wiki.

Do you see any problem in me writing an article about Greg Hill, the main author of the Discordian bible?

Not at all. Greg Hill was a real person, facts on his life are available, and I'm guessing there are enough interested people here to work on the article and make it worthwhile. If Kerry Thornley has a good article, so should Greg.

I'm pretty sure Erisism is going to be deleted, but don't worry too much about it. As it stood, the article really was unacceptable, and people had justifiable concerns about the suitability of the subject material. In general, it's safer to extend an existing article—if people have any objections to the new material, you can use that article's talk page to meet them. If on the other hand there's lots of expansion and the topic is so extensive that it warrants its own article, that's good too (and you can then point to a legitimate reason for the article's existence).

Please note, finally, that we're not out to get you. (Well, most of us aren't—I'm sure there are plenty of deletionists who would love to see everything on Discordianism deleted as not notable, but that's not going to happen.) We just care a lot about keeping our encyclopedia a valuable resource to the public at large. Big articles on what are not-so-serious topics tend to reflect badly on the wiki (but see Wikipedia:Unusual articles for good examples on how such articles should be written; exploding whale is a good exponent). JRM 11:32, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

Eris link

Just doing a disambig round, the links to Eris, im not sure what exactly you mean , go to Eris and pick the best one.Ω§|Blacksmith2 07:07, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]