Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Saints/Archive1

The following discussions are an archived debate. Please do not modify it.

I'd like to propose two optional additions to the template: (1) a representative icon or painting of the saint; (2) a short hymn or troparion to the saint, no more than a dozen lines. Often such hymns beautifully encapsulate the Christian tradition regarding the saint. Wesley 16:27, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

• Welcome to the project! A place for an icon or another depiction of a saint is already reserved in the template (the "image"). I like your idea of the hymn though. I'm going to add it to the template. --Kpalion 18:10, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Is there a preferred convention for the title of the articles? I.e., should they be of the form "Saint XXXX" or "XXXX"? Jonel 05:32, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

• No, but there are two more general conventions, which may conflict each other in this case: NPOV and use of most common names. Whether somebody is a saint or not is a POV matter (sure, canonization as such is a fact, but canonization itself is nothing more than an official statement of the Church's opinion). So as a rule of thumb, styles like "Saint" or "Blessed" should not be used in article titles.
• However, I think we should give priority to the latter convention, if "Saint XXX" is by far the most common by which a person is known. So we have "Saint Peter" not (more neutral) "Simon of Bethsaida".
• Of course the "Saint" table is a different thing -- since it concerns the cultus of a person, not the person itself, we should use the name which is officialy used by the Church. So e.g. the article on Edith Stein is at Edith Stein (the most commonly used name), but in the "Saint" table she's called "Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross". --Kpalion 12:29, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like a great project, and since hagiography is one of the things I plan to work on here, I'd like to spend some time on it. I wrote an article yesterday which included a few saints' named, and decided to add a biography for one of them, St. Anthony Maria Zaccaria. After searching a bit, I found that the for "St. XXXX" was common, and chose that (having considered the alternatives "St XXXX" and "Saint XXXX". I suppose one thing that needs to be done is to go through all the "St. XXXX"-pages and change them to whatever is appropriate. I'll go through that one and arrange it according to the template.

I fear that dropping Blessed/Saint from the name in the title might cause difficulties in some cases. In the case of "St Peter", many will feel that calling him "Simon of Bethsaida" is less neutral - it seems to negate his special status, which is after all the only reason he is included. Some cases are very special indeed, such as the Bede, who is rarely called Saint Bede, but almost always as Venerable Bede. I suppose this would be the case for all the Biblical saints, who are considered as having a special state of grace by not just the Catholics or Orthodox, but by almost all Christians. Some cases will be difficult; many saints are known only by their Christian name, and have no surname or other appellation. To call an article "Virgil" would be confusing, but "Saint Virgil" make it instantly clear that it's not about the Roman author. One possibility is to use it as a suffix, as seen in some encyclopedias, for instance "Virgil, Saint". All in all, I think this will be something that can be solved easily by discussing the difficult ones.

Cnyborg 14:50, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Regarding Dogface on the use of Blessed and Saint in Greek and other liturgical languages, would the Greek 'makarios' not be translated as 'Blessed' (i.e. Jesus' 'Blessed are the poor in spirit' where makarios is used) and hagios as 'holy' or 'saint' as per Paul's letters to the hagios? Similarly the Latin Patriarchite in Jerusalem uses the Hebrew 'Baruch' for Beatified persons and 'Kadosh' for Saints.

The following discussions are an archived debate. Please do not modify it.

Just wanted to let y'all know I put a copy of the infobox at Wikipedia:Infobox, so if it is ever changed, make sure that gets updated too. Tuf-Kat 04:26, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Today (10/12/04) I created an article on St. Maria Soledad. How do I get the article added to the list of saints? caeruleancentaur@yahoo.com

Today (10/12/04) I added the infobox to Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The following discussions are an archived debate. Please do not modify it.

What about canonized popes? Should they have both infoboxes? Burschik 14:09, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• I would say pick the one that looks the best. --evrik 18:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Can I suggest changing the "place" to "by whom" in the Beatified and Canonized section? The CE usually tells the date and Pope who canonized. --Bwpach 22:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I would say rather to add "by whom" as an optional field. Churches other than Rome who canonize do so by act of a Synod, not by a decree issued by any one person. TCC (talk) (contribs) 03:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Box Template

I have taken the liberty of creating Template:Infobox Saint. I hope it's useful. Please feel free to correct my clunky documentation in the noinclude section, or to suggest any changes you'd like to see. Demonstration will be on John of Shanghai and San Francisco. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:14, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

• Looks great! Maybe you can flesh out the instructions, or a description on the project page! --evrik 05:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. I'm not terribly fond of the way some of the usage guides for templates are written, and I'm not sure I like my way better.

I removed the redirect on the talk page for the template. It should not go here. Often template discussions involve technical issues that are specific to the template itself and have little relevance for the project as a whole. I did add {{WikiProject Saints}} to it though. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Very nice, a saint infobox was much needed. I'm a little clueless about templates, as I've never had the nerve to edit one, so forgive the stupid question, but how do you control the size of the image within the template? The one on Saint Patrick, where I've just added the template, is a little on the large side and might look better smaller. I tried "image_size=", which is used on some other infoboxes, but that didn't seem to have any effect.

Also, is it a good idea for 'Venerated in' to default to 'all Christianity'? Is there any saint for whom that would be true? There are some protestant faiths that are strictly against the veneration of saints, although they may recognize them as holy people. Would it be possible for for the box to give an error if there's no value supplied, like it does for the other required fields? That would at least prevent an editor from accidentally adding incorrect information to the template by failing to supply a value, and would call more attention to the problem than a default value. -- Vary | Talk 02:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You're correct about some Protestant faiths. What I had in mind was that perhaps certain figures might be acknoweledged as "saints" even where they're not normally venerated, like one of the Apostles, and that in any event the list might be large. Consider what it needs to look like for, for example, St. Peter. In such cases we're almost bound to inadvertently leave someone out.

Now that I think about it, it might be best to come up with some exhaustive list of saint-venerating denominations that can be used as the default. If we should leave someone out, it can be corrected globally without any trouble.

I can make image_size a parameter without any trouble. It's hard-coded right now to 200px, which leaves about a 50px margin -- the box itself is 300px wide. I was afraid that a different image size might look odd. Look for it in a few minutes. TCC (talk) (contribs) 03:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

D'oh! I'd forgotten it was already in there. Try "imagesize" without the underscore. I'll fix the documentation. TCC (talk) (contribs) 03:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the less certain I am about what to do for the "Venerated by" line. You're still right. Perhaps I should make it optional, except this is information that really should be there. The trouble is that I don't know if there are cases where some part of a denomination venerates saints and part doesn't. (I have denominations like Lutheranism and Methodism in mind.) We obviously can't list portions of denominations in what is supposed to be a summary. I wonder if a list of those I know of plus "and others" would offend anyone. TCC (talk) (contribs) 03:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd love for it to be optional, personally. Yes, it's info that really should be there, but I think it might be better for the info not to be there than to say by default that a particular saint is revered by denominations that don't. As for "others," if anyone is offended, they could certainly add to it themselves. Sometimes with saints we are simply limited in that knowledge and need someone who knows more to come along.--TurabianNights 07:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll make it entirely optional this evening then, unless someone has a contrary opinion and discussion ensues in the meantime. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I am adding this template in a haphazard way to various saint's articles. I am not putting "Saint" in the name field. It seems redundant, or perhaps would be if the infobox had a title. In any event, doing it this way avoids NPOV complaints and is consistent with liturgical usage. I'm relying on List of saints to fill in Anglican veneration where it was omitted, and I've been including it even when it's marked as "Commemoration" by the footnote in the list.

If anyone disagrees with the way I've been doing this, it's reasonably traceable and I haven't done much yet. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding the portal

I just added the portal to the bottom of the template. If everyone agrees with this edit, we can move to eliminate {{portalpar}} from ost of the articles we have tagged. --evrik 03:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That works, unless there's some more general Wiki policy objection to putting a portal link in an infobox. I don't believe it's something generally done. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

• we're being innovative. --evrik 16:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)