Freemasonry

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This article began as a partial translation from the french wikipedia:

• fr:Liste d'obédiences maçonniques

--Christophe Dioux (talk) 18:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since this list indicates that it includes any Tom, Dick and Harry who forms a Grand Lodge... I have added a few fringe groups that claim to be Masons. More to come, unless the article is either deleted or limited in scope. Blueboar (talk) 01:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your personal view may be getting the better of you. I don't think we should be making any changes to the page until we have come to an agreement on wither deleting or keeping. Making changes at this point alters the content of the article from the original point of deletion. If the article is voted on as a keep, then go ahead and bloat it with all the information you want. After, you can put it back up for a deletion. I have not reverted your submition. Zef (talk) 14:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK Blueboar (talk) 14:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since the AfD is over and defauted to "keep" I shall continue. Blueboar (talk) 12:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just out of curiosity, what part of this list is frustrating you all so much? Why don't we all work together to improve the page. Possibly renaming it to something more spacific instead of a General List Of. Please list the lodges that need discusion and a reason why we think they should be removed/keep: Zef (talk) 16:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1. I've got nothing Zef (talk) 16:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't know enough about the politics of Grand Lodges outside of Canada.

I don't appreciate the insinuation that this is a personal issue. Fundamentally, the list as it stands violates WP:N. We already have the other list, which isn't great, but covers a lot of ground. This one makes no attempt whatsoever to assert any minimal criteria of notability, nor does it address regularity or amity. Effectively, I could create a webpage, call it the GL of <whatever>, make up a few officers' names and an address (because there's no real way to verify that unless you dig), and have a pretty good case made to get on this list. Therefore, what's the encyclopedic value of this list? Not only is WP not a Lodge visitation reference, it's not an information dump either. In order to improve this, we'd have to basically make it something else entirely, so we might as well delete it. MSJapan (talk) 17:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My biggest problem with this is that it is almost a word for word copy from Paul Bessel's page, and therefore, extraneous, if not copyvio. I get that the point is to list lodges who aren't UGLE recognized, but wiki isn't a list. apparently, it is--Vidkun (talk) 15:49, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a slight problem with listing UGLE under "international relations" for the "mainstream" GLs, especially the ones in the US. Yes, these grand lodges do recognize UGLE, but UGLE isn't the head of some sort of organization. We could just as easily list GLoNY or any one of well over a hundred other GLs.

I think the concept here is to indicate that a given Grand Lodge or Grand Orient belongs to a "recognition bloc" (sometimes under a formal umbrella organization, such as CLIPSAS, but not always)... but I am not sure if this is the right way to do it. Any suggestions? Blueboar (talk) 16:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How is it that the Grand Lodges always correspond to secular jurisdctions such as the 50 States of the USA and the 10 provinces of Canada (ie Grand Lodge of Iowa, Texas, Manitoba, Ontario, etc) ? I don't mean to be overly suggestive, but the fact is that the lodge territories almost always overlap with the political jurisdictions of the local legislative assemblies. This is not the case for mainstream religious organizations such as dioceses, who are aligned on cities instead of provinces or states (cf archdiocese of Baltimore, archdiocese of Ottawa, etc). ADM (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, why shouldn't they? To delve further, whether it works or not is dependent on where you look. In Germany, the multiple Grand Lodges are based in cities, and I believe this holds for Brazil as well, unless it's considered provincial jurisdiction. In most of Europe, Grand Lodges are national in scope. The US and Canada are special cases, although some GLs in Canada cover more than one province, and many of the GLs have been in existence since colonial times, and were in the Territories before they became states or provinces.

Another simple explanation is that there's a residence requirement to join, so it would make sense that the GL should cover the the extent of the residence requirement. I'd also point out, most importantly, that almost every town and city has some sort of legislature, so I could just as easily turn around and ask you why your archdioceses are only concerned with the believers in major metropolitan areas, which one would hope is not the case, but it is suggestive, is it not? In spite of your statement, you're trying to make some sort of political point, and your understanding of the underlying principles involved is flawed and/or superficial. MSJapan (talk) 04:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the various Christian diocese were originally based on territorial legislative units ... those of the late Roman Empire (See: Diocese#History). It only looks like things are based on cities when you look at it from a purely modern (and American) perspective. Blueboar (talk) 04:34, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed two from the list:

• Antioch Grand Lodge of Texas AGL-TX - after a closer look at the website... this appears to actually be nothing more than a link page to a commercial gambling site
• Brighter Light Grand Lodge of Texas, does not seem to have a valid website anymore, and thus no way to verify that it still exists (a lot of these small self-created Grand Lodges go into and out of existance quickly).

We should probably check other entires as well. Blueboar (talk) 22:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If this page is going to live up to its promise and include all of Freemasonry, it has to do a better job of listing the various Prince Hall Jurisdictions, factions and schisms. Many states in the US have multiple Prince Hall Grand Lodges. Some of these are recognized by the "mainstream" GLs ... others are not. Some are "self-proclaimed" (although from what has been said in previous threads, I guess these should be included in this list)... but others are outright hoaxes and scams (which I don't think should be included). This website (although definitely biased towards a particular "chain of legitimacy" in Prince Hall Masonry) should be helpful in figuring out which are which. Blueboar (talk) 23:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We use English name for the majority of the Grand Lodges and Grand Orients on this list... but not for all. I think we should use the English name... but perhaps include the non-English name in a parenthesis. Thoughts? Blueboar (talk) 04:15, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that we can use the variant most often used when writing about them in English. I do not find it necessary to translate all just to treat them all in a uniform way. I believe some are known mostly in their original language [would you agree that is the case? I am not sure but base it just on a vague feeling, I haven't done anything like any research about it] (e.g. Grande Loge de France, Grand Orient de France and Grande Oriente d'Italia) and then we can also use those names. However, I have not any strong preference for this and accept that we translate all should that option be preferred.

I believe that for the ones that we do translate it is a good idea to include the name in the original language in parenthesis. Then there should be no uncertainty for the reader exactly which GL that is specified and they have the original name should they want to search more information. Ergo-Nord (talk) 22:38, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense to me... except that a lot of these are not discussed in any English language sources, so there is no "variant most often used when writing about them in English" for us to use... should we just use the non-English version, or try to translate? Blueboar (talk) 22:52, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then I would say that we could translate them. Ergo-Nord (talk) 08:01, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could we please get some citations for the lodge and membership numbers... In a few cases the info is supported by Grand Lodge website that is linked, but for most it isn't. Blueboar (talk) 12:17, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This column bothers me... it gives the appearance that, when it comes to "mainstream", "regular", "Anglo/American tradition" GLs, UGLE determines relations for other Grand Lodges... but this is not how it works. In the Anglo tradition, each GL determines recognition on its own. Yes, UGLE is the 1000 pound elephant in the room, but they are not the be-all-and-end-all of recognition, and occasionally other Grand Lodges (especially in the US) will disagree with them.

The question is... what are we trying to convey when we note "International Relations"? I think we currently combine two distinct, but related concepts... 1) which masonic tradition does the grand body follow... Anglo vs. Continental... and 2) does the grand body belong to a specific organization (CLIPSAS, SIMPA, Etc.). We need to come up with a better way to indicate all this. Please share your thoughts and ideas. Blueboar (talk) 15:44, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have been thinking about this for time to time. I saw your question earlier today and gave it some more focused thought.

I think that it could be beneficial to have information about which tradition a Grand Lodge belongs to. But I think that we should not have details as to which Grand Lodge is recognised by (some) other Grand Lodges, because we then really should list every Grand Lodge that recognises one particular Grand Lodge, and that is to much information that also changes. And as you write recognition by UGLE isn't really different than recognition by any other Grand Lodge. Anybody really interested in the recognition issue should better consult the different Grand Lodges for a current and correct list. The wikipedia articles for particular Grand Lodges could perhaps treat the subject in a cursory way should it for any reason be interesting to mention it regarding at particular Grand Lodge.

I do not think that membership in a particular organisation is interesting here. I guess that they were added more to show what type of Grand Lodge it was and not really to show membership in the organisation. I think that details like that can be included in the specific articles about different Grand Lodges and not here.

I think that one problem is defining which categories to use. I believe that just using two, like “Mainstream” and “Continental” (or any of the alternatives to the respectively category name) will be to blunt. How to handle an all women Grand Lodge that requires a belief in a Supreme Being?

Could a way forward be to add more information in the questions that are divisive? Like having two categories; one category where the sex of the members are indicated (“Male”, Female” or “Mixed”) and one where the question of belief is indicated (“Requires belief in Supreme Being”, “Do not require belief in Supreme Being” or “Require Christian belief”). Any more categories needed? I guess that something like would give the readers some useful information. They would be able to quite quickly understand what type of Grand Lodge they are reading about. Ergo-Nord (talk) 23:02, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... I definitely agree that a column for "Sex" is a good idea... I was thinking of having a column titled "Masonic Tradition", and listing "Continental", "Anglo-US", "Prince Hall", etc (there will be some that don't fit any label... in which case we can use "Other"). I do think noting whether a body belongs to an international organization like CLIPSAS is useful information, but this is really only is an issue with the Continental Lodges... perhaps "Continental (CLIPSAS)" and "Continental (SIMPA)" etc. Blueboar (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That could also be a good idea though I believe it could potentially be more problematic. I think that it requires us to come up with good categories with good descriptions and that we make it perfectly clear that it is relates to the tradition the Grand Lodge works according, and not about if it is recognised and is in amity with a (majority) of other Grand Lodges or any specific Grand Lodge, like the UGLE.

I am thinking about the Grand Lodges that could become targets for repeated changes by different users if it is not perfectly clear what information we wants to convey; e.g. the GLdF which work in the anglo/american tradition but isn't recognised by the majority of the bigger Grand Lodges (will it be accepted that we list them as “anglo/american” or will it be constant confusion with the issue of recognition and it will be changes back and forth between “anglo/american” and “other”), or the GOI that is recognised by most/all US Grand Lodges but not by the British (will it be accepted that we list them as “anglo/american” or will e.g. British writers change to “other” and american writer change back to “anglo/american”), or the Order of Women Freemason which operate in anglo/american tradition with regard to the belief of its members etc with the exception that they only accept women (will it be accepted that we list them as “anglo/american” since that is what they work after in every detail with the exception of gender, which we indicate in another column, or will it be changed to “other”, I believe most would understand "anglo/american" as all male and requires belief in Supreme Being but if we have a special category for gender that definition of "anglo/american" would make the categories overlap and create confusion).

I think it could work but we need to think carefully about the categories. This approach has, as you write, the benefit that we can give information about such traditions as Prince Hall etc which is good. The benefit of instead having gender and requirement or not of belief in Supreme Being is that it possibly avoids any discussions since it is very specific. We would still convey the same information (since “anglo/american” tradition is all male and requires belief in a Supreme Being etc) with the added benefit that the women and mixed groups could be described in better detail (without the risk of having edit-wars because of objections to the labels). But it has the drawback of not including any information about the Prince Hall etc, but that information could be put in a third column should we so wish. Ergo-Nord (talk) 02:05, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah... it is complicated. I'll have to think on this more. Blueboar (talk) 02:20, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The "Websites" column should be removed WP:EL, WP:NOTLINK, and WP:LINKSPAM. --Ronz (talk) 18:00, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]