Talk:Quaker business method

Title

Whether or not it should be the canonical title, I don't know - but we should consider that before creating a redirect. The process is known, among Anglophone Quakers in Europe and, from what I can tell, Australia, as Quaker Business Method - I don't know if it is so known by Anglophone Quakers of the Americas. If this is the general term by which it is known - and I can say that it is how it is referred to in academic research in the UK at least - in English, then that should be the title of the article. If not, it should be a redirect. I suggest attempting to find consensus on this before taking either action. SamBC(talk) 11:48, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

@Sambc I'm glad to have you involved, especially as a self-described Quaker! I've been to a fair few meetings in Scotland and Germany, but only one business meeting (in German.) It is/was not clear to me what the canonical title should be. I see now that Quaker Faith and Practice indeed uses Quaker business method, as you suggested, and I do somehow see QFP as being the most canonical source in Quakerdom. I do also note that searching for Quaker decision-making returns a page of hits including afsc.org, quaker.org, quakers.nz, qandb.org, etc. Ngrams shows Quaker business method and Quaker decision-making to be neck-and-neck.

I think I would defer to you on this. DougInAMugtalk 16:06, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

@Sambc and @Onga0921 both suggest changing the name of this article from "Quaker decision-making" (QDM) to "Quaker Business Method" (QBM). You both seem more personally familiar with Quaker terminology than I, and if QBM is a more honest representation, then I agree we should change it. I wonder if QBM should be capitalized as "Quaker Business Method" or rather "Quaker business method"? I lean towards the second, since there is no canonical source, and there are differences between different Quaker communities.

Onga0921 notes I wrote with a focus on the sociological/governance aspects. This observation is accurate: a significant motivation for my writing this article was my work editing Consensus decision-making (CDM), where the line between CDM and QBM was quite blurry. QBM has religious and sociological/governance aspects, and we need to try and make an article that addresses both. The term "Quaker decision-making" has significant usage (see above) and, whether Quakers use it or not, should be included as a second title, or somewhere else bold in the lead as per WP:PLA DougInAMugtalk 10:48, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

@Sambc @Onga0921 I went ahead and moved the page to "Quaker business method". I opted for lower case, which is debatable. (QFP uses lowercase, for what it's worth https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/?s=quaker+business+method)

I also reintroduced "Quaker decision-making" into the lead, for reasons listed above. DougInAMugtalk 13:11, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Regarding Onga0921's rewrite

@Onga0921: Hi, and thanks for taking an interest in this article! I just reviewed your recent edit. While you make a lot of corrections, introduce good content and other improvements, there are multiple points which present issues. I was considering to revert your edit, but decided to write here first, in case you want to fix those issues yourself:

• Changing the title to "Quaker Business Method": There is an existing talk discussion about what the title should be, please have a look at it. In any case, the first name in the lead should match the page name, which it no longer does.
• I believe the various synonyms for "meetings for worship for business" would be better on the respective page.
• There are several phrasing changes which I think make the article less clear for people who don't know about Quakers, for example, "corporately" instead of "collectively", "triennium" instead of "three year period", etc. Clearly, there are domain-specific terms which should be used, but I believe we should take care that laypeople can read and understand as far as possible.
• I feel the claims you make would enjoy a few more references.

I would ask @Biogeographist: to cast their eye to see whether what I'm saying makes sense, and if I'm acting appropriately. DougInAMugtalk 19:45, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Douginamug: Hello. Thanks for the comments, I'll jump right into your bullet points.

• I had a look at the talk discussion above and decided to be bold, but wasn't quite bold enough to move the page! Quaker business method is a phrase used amongst Friends and, I feel at least, it has a more religious connotation - as opposed to the more sociological feel of Quaker decision-making. I think the focus of the article is on the practice and religious aspects more than it as governance: would you be happy with moving the page?
• The current MfW article is very short, and I feel the inclusion of more than a paragraph and a link to this article would confuse laypeople (decision-making as worship is unusual!). I could introduce a very brief subheading on naming, clarifying why the different names are used as they are, but don't think that would mesh well. What about keeping meetings for church affairs and MfWfB in the lede, and putting the others in a note?
• I don't think corporately and collectively are synonyms - there is a sense of holism, that the meeting itself is a body, with the former that's absent from the latter. I have written a clarifying subclause.
• Triennium is not a Quaker phrase, but I have also edited it to three year period.
• I won't add references imminently, but expect them soonish (frankly, I found list-defined references pretty tricky!)

Very Best Onga0921 (talk) 22:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Onga0921 Thank you for engaging so constructively :)

• I will talk about the page name in the existing talk page discussion.
• I think your suggestion for the naming of meetings is good. I would still suggest using one 'main' name in the lead, and moving the others to where MfWfB is discussed (perhaps in this article in another section, perhaps MfW). I'll leave it to you.
• My point with "corporately" and "triennium" was more general. I think you share my concern to have the article accessible to non-Quakers, while remaining an honest reflection to Quakers, and that is enough for me.
• Ah yes! We can move away from LDR if you like. This was my first article, and I was just trying it out.

Cheers! DougInAMugtalk 10:25, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Feedback from New Page Review process

I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: Thanks for the article!.

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 08:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)