Talk:Q2259532

Re subclass of (P279) of believer (Q17573152)

Not sure that this relation is valid.  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iwan.Aucamp (talk • contribs) at 10 September 2019 (UTC).

@Iwan.Aucamp: believer (Q17573152) is indeed a tricky and amorphous item. It is helpful to be able to recognize clergy (Q177826) and laity (Q15407657) as the subcategories of believer (Q17573152). Do you have another suggestion about how to model these relationships? Daask (talk) 15:25, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Daask: Maybe "religious practitioner" (it seems to be a well established phrase) instead of believer (Q17573152)? The problem with believer (Q17573152) is that I'm sure you could be part of the clergy without believing in god. We don't know what someone's beliefs are and there is no reason why someone actually has to believe to be part of the clergy. Iwan.Aucamp (talk) 19:45, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Relationship with religious leader

@ArthurPSmith:, responding to your edit summary: 'I don't think every cleric is necessarily a "leader" - for example monastic orders'.

Many members of Christian monastic orders are not regarded as clergy, see w:en:Laity and w:en:Lay brother. I don't have knowledge of how other religious traditions define clergy and monastic orders. I was working with the definition of clergy from w:en:Clergy: "Clergy are formal leaders within established religions." What do you propose? Daask (talk) 15:19, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

To be clear, I suggest that the distinction be that cleric (Q2259532) is for formal leaders, which is a subclass of religious leader (Q15995642), which may include informal leaders. Daask (talk) 15:27, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The problem is the relation already existing in Wikidata is in the reverse direction. If you have a different definition of cleric, then maybe that needs a new item? Redefining an item in the middle of the class hierarchy is tricky, particularly with all the different language relations and contexts that need to be considered. ArthurPSmith (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@ArthurPSmith: On the relationship between cleric (Q2259532) and religious leader (Q15995642), I think we need sources which describe the relationship or provide definitions. I was working off the definitions that I described, which seem to suggest cleric (Q2259532)subclass of (P279)religious leader (Q15995642). However, I recognize that there may be other definitions of cleric (Q2259532) and religious leader (Q15995642) than the ones I described and all statements on both items should be reviewed before making a change. Daask (talk) 16:20, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Daask: note that clergy (Q177826) also exists, so this item is different from that. ArthurPSmith (talk) 18:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@ArthurPSmith: I saw that. As far as I can understand. clergy (Q177826) is the social group that contains of all instances of cleric (Q2259532), and likewise for laity (Q15407657) and layperson (Q10317028). Daask (talk) 19:09, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Q4504549

@Daask: you seem to be messing around with religious servant (Q4504549) also; do you have an overall plan for what you are trying to change here? It might need to be discussed with the relevant Wikiproject. Note that nun (Q191808) is currently a subclass of monk (Q733786) which is a subclass of religious servant (Q4504549); nun (Q191808) is also under Christian minister (Q1423891) which is also under cleric (Q2259532). So if you change this meaning and relation there is a lot in addition that needs to be addressed. It may be the different language sitelinks are inconsistent in their descriptions and definitions on this. Also note this is not limited to Christianity - Buddhist clergy (Q70901436) is currently a subclass of this item also... ArthurPSmith (talk) 15:51, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@ArthurPSmith: I would greatly appreciate assistance with religious servant (Q4504549). I began trying to bring it in line with the linked Wikipedia articles, and ran into trouble. I asked someone more knowledgeable about Eastern Orthodoxy off-wiki and haven't heard back yet.

To understand my difficulty (EDITED 17:13, 11 May 2020 (UTC)):

• w:ru:Церковнослужитель seems to describe a low class of clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy, including acolytes, readers, and subdeacons. Thus the term seems to be equivalent to minor orders (Q15243077), but that has a separate article, w:ru:Малые чины.
• w:ru:Иподиакон says subdeacons are between w:ru:Церковнослужитель, the lower non-priestly clergy, and a higher category of priestly clergy, w:ru:Священнослужитель or Major orders (Q6738352) (deacons, priests, and bishops). Priestly here means something like holy orders. w:ru:Малые чины says subdeacons belong to the Major orders (Q6738352) even though they do not receive holy orders. w:en:Holy_orders_in_the_Catholic_Church#Minor_orders indicates that subdeacons have sometimes been included in Major orders (Q6738352), but the Catholic church now regards Major orders (Q6738352) as only including those who have received holy orders in the Catholic Church (Q3500812).

I am under the impression that the meanings described in the Wikipedia articles linked to religious servant (Q4504549) are something like minor orders (Q15243077), which have been conflated with a meaning something like cleric (Q2259532) or religious leader (Q15995642), which I understood as the result of translation difficulties. I realize that I have left religious servant (Q4504549) in an undesirable state. Daask (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

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Notified participants of WikiProject Religions Pinging the Religions project, I think that's most relevant. ArthurPSmith (talk) 16:53, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Note to Religions project participants: I split this section on religious servant (Q4504549) from the above #Relationship_with_religious_leader, which is also unresolved. Daask (talk) 17:54, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS, Draceane, Infovarius, Speltdecca: All of you have recently edited religious servant (Q4504549). Do you have thoughts about how to sort out this issue? Daask (talk) 17:32, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

My only involvement has been to restore a missing label in English. I don't have any opinion on what label is best for religious servant (Q4504549), but it's not a good idea to have no label at all as that leads to problems when information is imported into wikis that have no article on whatever this particular topic is intended to be. I hope that participants will be considerate of the point that Wikidata is not a walled garden that only needs to be self-consistent; it is also a resource used by many other sister projects and third-parties. Whatever the exact meaning and categorisation of this entity is eventually decided, please don't blank labels. --RexxS (talk) 17:47, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Uhm, after short look on related pages, I don't understand clearly the concept of religious servant (Q4504549). Seems to be related to the Orthodox Church specifically, but I know very little about it. „Церковнослужитель“ could be translated as ecclesiastical servant IMO. So, pinging someone who understands Orthodoxy would be helpful. — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 17:50, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• To follow up on this, I've changed the English label of religious servant (Q4504549) to "religious", which is a bit old-fashioned but the OED uses for "A person bound by religious vows or devoted to a religious life, esp. in the Roman Catholic Church." This seems to fit the sense of "member of a religious community" better than "clergyman", which generally refers to a member of the ordained clergy - a priest/minister/etc - cleric (Q2259532) is the appropriate item for that label.

I haven't changed any of the class hierarchies, so that should all still be OK. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)