Talk:Ark of the Covenant

Ark of the Covenant - recent edit

I recently edited this article, but my edit was reverted. I undid that reversion, but I figured it would be good to explain my edit.

The edit was mostly a mere rewording. When the article said "religious tradition states that...", I rewrote "The Hebrew Bible states that..." and I tried to go a bit more in-depth about the fact that the Ark is the footstool of God, the symbol of His presence on Earth. I also added a paragraph about some of the 'rules' of the Ark (you can't touch it, can't open and look inside it, and must show reverence before it) but perhaps I should add a source. Thank you for reading this.

RandomToasterYT (talk) 20:34, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Hi and welcome to Wikipedia. I'm the editor who reverted your edits. Thanks for coming to the talk page to discuss them - that's the right way to do it on Wikipedia! Your edits made a lot of changes all at once, and added a ton of prose that was inappropriate in tone for an encyclopedia (for example "According to Joshua, it says that the stones are 'there to this day'. Interesting.") That reads like someone's essay or random thoughts, not an encyclopedia article. Also, you are correct that you need sources. Wikipedia is a place to report what sources say about a subject, not to write our own thoughts about the subject (you can do that on other websites). You can read more about this policy at this shortcut: WP:OR. It might be good to add some of the information you are talking about, but it needs sources and it needs to be well-written. Since the edits as they are make the article worse, not better, I will revert them again. If you want my suggestion, I would say that the best part of what you added is the part about the rules of interacting with the ark, but it needs to be what sources say, not your own ideas. I would recommend using your sandbox to workshop a paragraph with sources about the rules of the ark, then come back here and recommend it on the talk page so other editors can look at it and work it into the article. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 21:23, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Ark of the Covenant - Recent Edit

I have once again edited this article.

I have read your recent message, and I understand what you have said. I have written proper paragraphs, and cited sources from the Bible. I tried my best to make it look professional, and I hope my edits can remain rather than be reverted once more. As an amateur Bible scholar, I wanted to contribute my biblical knowledge to this article, and I hope I will be allowed to do just that. I have reworded a few words, yes, but my major contribution was the paragraph about the "rules of reverence" for the Ark, as well as a paragraph about the High Priest's atonement ritual.

Thank you for your time. :) RandomToasterYT (talk) 04:23, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

As an amateur Bible scholar, I wanted to contribute my biblical knowledge to this article, and I hope I will be allowed to do just that - I'm afraid that is not possible. Wikipedia has a very strict and explicit policy against editors doing their own scholarship on any topic. As Wikipedia editors, we don't contribute our knowledge; we summarise the knowledge found in sources. AntiDionysius (talk) 17:13, 5 April 2026 (UTC)