Talk:Discordianism

My First Article

Well, it took me all afternoon, but it's complete. I hold no illusions about its quality, I know I'm surely leaving some things out, or have written some sections poorly, or made spelling mistakes. So, if anyone sees a problem with this page, please don't hesitate to come give me a shout on my talk page or similar, and let me know. If you see something wrong but don't feel up to changing it yourself, let me know, and I promise I'll do my best to. I hope it's up to standard. It's completely original, though I looked up a few sources I remembered were mentioned in the Wikipedia article (rather than dig through my own book collection for, say, Drawing Down the Moon to look up the relevant parts). I'm marking it CZ live, and putting it in the Philosophy and Religion workgroup categories. If this is inappropriate,please let me know and I will undo it. Michael MacNeil 15:24, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Added the checklist

Please do this on new articles from now on. Nice job for a first draft though :0) --Eric M Gearhart 16:07, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Ah, see? I'm still learning. Thank you for reminding me about the checklist. As to its status, would you care to make any suggestions on how I could make it more devloped? Additionally, I changed the template to a "no" for underlinked. If you have occasion to check the Religion page, you'll see I added it under "borderline cases", and thus it links to the over-category, and have also removed it from the Philosophy Workgroup. Upon consideration, I've read the Philosophy page and realized it doesn't really "fit". That is to say, I was erroneous in thinking it fit into hard philosophy. It just sort of overlaps. Michael MacNeil 17:07, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Upon reading the criteria in CZ:The Article Checklist, I've determined that since this is a new article I wrote myself, marked CZ live, in the appropriate workgroup category (Religion, though this still needs to be checked), and the article title is bold, it qualifies as "cleaned up". If this is incorrect, someone please let me know. Michael MacNeil 17:20, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Michael, you do work fast! This is not a subject that I am familiar, but it looks reasonable. Is any of it from wikipedia? --Matt Innis (Talk) 17:37, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Nosir. As mentioned above, I looked up one thing (the page reference for "Drawing Down the Moon", which is in my personal book collection but I did not wish to dig off of my walls). The rest was written by scratch over two hours of working (my Easter dinner fell in the middle). I have the Principia in all its editions in front of me. I never go much of anywhere without it, and consider myself, laughingly, an "expert". I AM a practicing Discordian, but writing about the intriguing thing that is the worship of Eris from a neutral point of view -still- makes it look good. Which is the thing about some articles, they look it. That said, have any suggestions on how to improve it? I'm writing a piece on the Five Fingered Hand of Eris, the differences in editions, and a bit on Zarathud, Malaclypse the Elder ,Van Van Mojo, St. Gulik the Stoned, and Blessed Saint Hung Mung respectively (about a paragraph each). But it looks so -long-... does anyone think I should section it or provide a better guide to organization, or does it look fine? Opinions all? Michael MacNeil 17:42, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Excellent. Unfortunately, my job (as constable) keeps me from commenting on content as that is supposed to be left to those who know the subject. When it comes down to the time when you are ready to perform the mechanics of actually Approving the article, I can do that! The idea now is to get one of your workgroup editors to come take a look, too. I'll keep an eye if you need me, but if I miss something, drop me a note on my talk page. --Matt Innis (Talk) 18:16, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Ways To Improve the Article

The following are my own suggestions for things that could be done to improve the rather rough draft currently being used for this article.

-The addition of more sources relevant to the contained material would be useful, though all information currently stated is covered by sources mentioned at the bottom of the article.

-I plan to add sections on the five apostles of Eris, a specific paragraph about various Holy Symbols (Including the Five Fingered Hand of Eris), a bit more on the opinion of Discordians regarding Eris as she was seen by the ancient Greeks (chilly, cruel-looking figure concealing a dagger in her breast), and details of what Discordians believe and about the tie to the Illuminati.

-Expansion of the paragraphs about their influence on modern pop culture and literature may be of use.

Anyone (who actually has seen this article, and I doubt anyone has really) with something more to propose, be it a change in layout, a useful image, or the addition or removal of topics, please do so. Barring that, I'm going to get to work on the above. Michael MacNeil 12:54, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

I have worked faster than I thought I would, and added... well, a lot. I am going to mark the article "developed" on the CZ checklist. If anyone feels differently, -please- reverse this. I don't want it being considered developed before it really is.

I do believe this can now be considered a quite useful introduction to Discordianism, and is accurate to the best of my researching ability and knowledge. Michael MacNeil 15:57, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Approval

This article looks good, probably it can be approved? Yi Zhe Wu 16:34, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

Maybe; it's up to a religion editor to make that decision. --Larry Sanger 17:21, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

Why do I think that an article on Discordianism cannot be approved or disapproved or something like that? Of course, someone can come along and approve it -- we can approve anything, for example, The Eldritch Brotherhood of Mu -- but then someone else can disapprove it. Fortunately no higher authority exists in Discordianism who can resolve this dilemma. So perhaps the article will sit here in eternal flux between approval and disapproval. That would be the Discordian solution, don't you think? In brief, I like this article. Timothy Perper 18:16, 5 October 2008 (CDT)

Excellent observation. Religion and Philosophy may not be the appropriate approving groups, but rather a chaos theory subgroup of Mathematics, or just a Politics author. Then, there is the Military aspect: an axiom in the German General Staff was that "war is chaos. The reason the Americans do well at it is that they practice chaos every day." Howard C. Berkowitz 16:12, 11 November 2008 (UTC)