Wikipedia On Mormonism

[CA Steve]

I'll admit it, I use Wikipedia a lot. When I run into a subject or term with which I am unfamiliar it is usually my first stop. For me, I find it to be an excellent starting point for investigating a new subject with extensive references for further research. I am vaguely aware of how it functions and on controversial subjects I find the "Talk" tab usually to be more interesting than the article itself.

I wonder if any of you have been involved with or followed the editing of the Mormon related articles on Wikipedia over the years and would like to share some of that information.

Thanks

[Questing Beast]

I went through a very brief, singular period when I contributed to Wikipedia. My contributions were at that time all centered upon the Norman Conquest and related subjects. Then I took a look at an article on Mormonism, and that was that. There was no way that I was going to let myself get dragged into a continual editing of the nonsense that others interspersed in those articles on THAT topic! Talk about a never-ending headache....

[Okrahomer]

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/mormonism-and-wikipedia-the-church-history-that-anyone-can-edit/

This is a fascinating article about this very issue. I'll wager there are numerous "John Foxe's" grinding their own axe's via Wikipedia.

[DavidB]

Yes I have participated in editing articles on Mormon topics, mostly deleting materials pro and con.

[thesometimesaint]

The good thing about Wiki is that allows for editing, and the bad thing about Wiki is that allows for editing. It's a pretty good place to start enquiries on just about any subject, but don't let it be your only reference.

[Storm Rider]

I edited heavily for several years on LDS related topics mostly. The biggest issue is context and prominence of minor topics or issues. I seldom participate nowadays because it demands so much time and effort. Unless something is egregious I tend to ignore it. The Foxes of the world have their place; what I found most dissatisfying is the members that were so overloaded with facts that they never understood the story; like never seeing the forest because of the trees. It would be great to have more historians participate actively, but it is a huge time drain.

[Calm]

I edited heavily for several years on LDS related topics mostly. The biggest issue is context and prominence of minor topics or issues. I seldom participate nowadays because it demands so much time and effort. Unless something is egregious I tend to ignore it. The Foxes of the world have their place; what I found most dissatisfying is the members that were so overloaded with facts that they never understood the story; like never seeing the forest because of the trees. It would be great to have more historians participate actively, but it is a huge time drain.

There is always the FAIR wiki.... I am going to be putting some time into that in the next while.

[canard78]

There is always the FAIR wiki.... I am going to be putting some time into that in the next while.

Does it work like a wiki with open editing for approved contributors?

How much should one take fair wiki as the view of one editor or a collective?

Regarding the mamawiki... the advantage is the ability to check and read the sources. These days, whenever I read a mormon article on wikipedia I try to click through to as many sources as possible. Sometimes the sources answer the question better than the awkwardly worded compromise. Sometimes the sources are so bad or subjective that I just skip that section of the article.

Edited January 9, 2013 by canard78

[Calm]

Does it work like a wiki with open editing for approved contributors? I believe, yes. Haven't really gotten into it yet, will know more tomorrow. If you want to apply, send some of your favourite posts and then discuss what you think you would be interested in doing,

More editors we add the more collective it will be. It is generally someone collecting responses to questions and then pulling them together into a coherent mass and filling in the blanks as much as possible. Most of the time this works great, at times we have some special pages that need a special touch. Announcement it is in a final draft, corrections from the list is sent in and it is pretty much done and the author goes on to the next project.

[canard78]

Does it work like a wiki with open editing for approved contributors? I believe, yes. Haven't really gotten into it yet, will know more tomorrow. If you want to apply, send some of your favourite posts and then discuss what you think you would be interested in doing,

More editors we add the more collective it will be. It is generally someone collecting responses to questions and then pulling them together into a coherent mass and filling in the blanks as much as possible. Most of the time this works great, at times we have some special pages that need a special touch. Announcement it is in a final draft, corrections from the list is sent in and it is pretty much done and the author goes on to the next project.

Thanks, I'll give it some thought. It's something I've thought about and would enjoy being involved in. I'm aware that sometimes my post appear overly questioning and challenging to answers given. Part of my reason for doing so is that sometimes people who have reached an answer for themselves don't always see some of the fragilities in the answer given.

I love fairmormon wiki - it's of massive assistance. But there are some articles that are on the weak side because there's a quick or easy conclusion when some further work would give it more credibility. There are also 3-4 stock quotes often 'defaulted' to when thorny issues come up. A difficult quote from a leader is sometimes just shelved with a 'listen to the living prophet and approved doctrine' answer instead of digging into the origins of the quote itself and trying to understand why a leader reached that idea and how they might have made that incorrect assumption.

Edited January 9, 2013 by canard78

[BCSpace]

A small group of believing LDS should be assigned to edit wiki article(s); enough to keep watch and respond quickly to malignant changes.

[Storm Rider]

A small group of believing LDS should be assigned to edit wiki article(s); enough to keep watch and respond quickly to malignant changes.

I think it would be an error to have an assignment given. Participation should be by choice and by personal initiative and expertise. Wikipedia is a voluntary process that is best reflected by this very nature of the process. It is not a professional endeavor, but is a reflection of the personal efforts of individuals who are committed to sharing their knowledge and expertise. If you want to participate, then do so and if not, don't.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Storm Rider

[3DOP]

http://www.mormonint...nyone-can-edit/

This is a fascinating article about this very issue. I'll wager there are numerous "John Foxe's" grinding their own axe's via Wikipedia.

How fitting that a propagandist from a backward thinking academic background would call himself "John Foxe" and then proceed to do editorial work designed to malign a despised religious group.

I could have found much worse material about the so-called historian John Foxe. The following is what Wikipedia admits:

Foxe's material is more accurate when he deals with his own period, although it is selectively presented, and the book is not an impartial account.

In other words, "Foxe is never completely reliable but he does improve when dealing with matters where people have living memories. He only presents that which suits his agenda and his work reflects that partiality."

Wikipedia further assures us of Foxe's continuing value in spite of our knowledge that his work continues to be proposed as truth at places like Bob Jones University. I graduated from a school that was similar. If you didn't go where I did, BJU was one of several popular alternatives. I remember going to an anti-Catholic theatrical presentation while attending this college (ca. 1980) of Foxe's martyr stories. I assure you there was not the slightest hint that anything was unbalanced or fabricated.

Foxe did not hold to later notions of neutrality or objectivity. He made unambiguous side glosses on his text, such as "Mark the apish pageants of these popelings" and "This answer smelleth of forging and crafty packing",^[51] as Foxe's age was one of strong language as well as of cruel deeds.^[52] The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica went so far as to accuse Foxe of "wilful falsification of evidence."^[53] Nevertheless, Foxe is "factually detailed and preserves much firsthand material on the English Reformation unobtainable elsewhere."^[54]

I would agree when Wikipedia, quoting a John Burrow, suggests a deep connection to Foxe's book among the peoples who settled the British colonies:

...after the Bible, "the greatest single influence on English Protestant thinking of the late Tudor and early Stuart period."

In another entry, Wikipedia talks about how gullible Foxe's readers were in his own day. I am not so sure I could be convinced that where it regards tall tales of Catholic atrocities hundreds of years ago, anything is changed. In fact, I don't think the problem then or now is gullibility. I think the problem is a willful desire to see the historical Catholic Church painted in the worst possible light. It is the ongoing life of a deeply entrenched idea and the continuing "value" attached to the selective fabrications of propagandists like John Foxe that make it difficult for modern man to gain a balanced picture of pre-1600 European civilization. It says much when a contemporary history professor is still not ashamed to use the moniker "John Foxe".

3DOP

Edited January 9, 2013 by 3DOP

[Wiki Wonka]

Does it work like a wiki with open editing for approved contributors?

Once someone is approved to be an editor, they are welcome to edit however they wish. Unlike Wikipedia, however, we don't really use the talk pages for discussion. That's pretty much handled through e-mail. If something is incorrect, someone else will notice and correct it. The editing process on the FAIR Wiki is not very rigidly structured at this time. The two primary administrators are Greg Smith and myself, so we will usually notice if something doesn't look right and correct it.

How much should one take fair wiki as the view of one editor or a collective?

It kind of depends upon the article. Typically an article is written primarily by one editor, then corrected by others. As new information comes to light, editors will add new information to articles. The wiki is very dynamic. The articles also receive prominent coverage in Google search.

Regarding the mamawiki... the advantage is the ability to check and read the sources. These days, whenever I read a mormon article on wikipedia I try to click through to as many sources as possible. Sometimes the sources answer the question better than the awkwardly worded compromise. Sometimes the sources are so bad or subjective that I just skip that section of the article.

That's pretty much the way I view Mormon-related articles on Wikipedia. I look at them to examine the sources, and pretty much ignore the text of the article itself. One of the things that irritates me is the misuse or misrepresentation of sources. For example, taking a Richard Bushman quote and then using it to support an idea that is the opposite of what the author intended. So, with Wikipedia, I always take a look at the original source and context, and ignore what the Wiki author is attempting to do with it.

WW

Edited January 9, 2013 by Wiki Wonka

[Wiki Wonka]

It says much when a contemporary history professor is still not ashamed to use the moniker "John Foxe".

3DOP

Unsurprisingly, one of the primary editors of Wikipedia's article on John Foxe is the editor known as "John Foxe."

And, as a point of interest, "John Foxe" is currently prohibited from editing Wikipedia articles related to Mormonism.

WW

Edited January 9, 2013 by Wiki Wonka

[Louis Midgley]

Oh there are some really juicy details about "John Foxe" that I have been able to figure out with just a tiny bit of a search. I would not even call it re-search. Before the recent meltdown at the Maxwell Institute I spent an afternoon trying to figure out who was hiding behind that "Foxe" handle. I was eventually led to, of all places, to Bob Jones University. You might know that this place is not at all evangelical, though it follows a certain very, very older conservative Protestant line. What I discovered is that there are two rather prominent members of the faculty at that university who carry the Matzko. If anyone cares to do some searching one might even be able to figure out if one of these Matzkos ever published something in Dialogue and if one of them ever attended one of those summer seminars for historians at BYU. So much for Matzkomania at Bob Jones University.

[cinepro]

I just skimmed the wikipedia article on "Mormons", and I didn't see anything egregious. For anyone who has a problem with the wikipedia treatment of LDS subjects, what are the most disturbing errors that are currently there?

[DavidB]

one article I edited was deleting what otherwise would have been "pro LDS" material, I deleted the material because it was 1. Was personal opinion of the editor 2. the source was to the editors personal blog 3. the personal blog did not source the claim(s)

I also have heavily edited other articles, deleting uncited claims that are many months or years old. Though I have not been to wikipedia in a year or two.

[Wiki Wonka]

I just skimmed the wikipedia article on "Mormons", and I didn't see anything egregious. For anyone who has a problem with the wikipedia treatment of LDS subjects, what are the most disturbing errors that are currently there?

The "Mormons" article is one of the better ones. The battleground articles have been "First Vision," "Joseph Smith," "Golden plates," and any of the articles having to do with the three witnesses.

The main issue I have, as I stated earlier, is with the subtle changes in the way the sources are represented. For example, from the Wikipedia article "Martin Harris (Latter Day Saints)", we have the following statement:

"Harris once imagined that a sputtering candle was the work of the devil."

This is sourced to an article in Dialogue written by Ronald W. Walker (Walker, Ronald W. (Winter 1986), "Martin Harris: Mormonism's Early Convert", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19 (4). 29–43.).

This is what Walker says:

"Once while reading scripture, he reportedly mistook a candle's sputtering as a sign that the devil desired him to stop." (emphasis added)

So, something that Harris "reportedly mistook" (according to Walker), is now presented as fact in Wikipedia: "Harris once imagined..." The editor also changed the meaning by stating the the sputtering candle was "the work of the devil," without noting that Harris associated it with the "devil's" desire to get him to stop reading his scriptures. If Harris gets "spooked" every time a candle sputters, then it make him sound more unstable than if he saw that event as being a response to something religious that he was engaged in.

Here's another one. According to Wikipedia:

"A friend, who praised Harris as being "universally esteemed as an honest man," also declared that Harris's mind "was overbalanced by 'marvellousness'" and that his belief in earthly visitations of angels and ghosts gave him the local reputation of being crazy."

(Sourced to "Pomeroy Tucker Reminiscence, 1858," in Early Mormon Documents, 1996-2003, 3: 71. )

Here is what Tucker actually said:

"His mind was overbalanced by “marvellousness,” and was very much exercised on the subject of religion; and his betrayal of vague superstitions, with a belief in ‘special providences,’ and in the terrest[r]ial visits of angels, ghosts, &c., brought upon him the imputation of being “crazy.” " (emphasis added)

Tucker says that some of the locals imputed that Harris was "crazy" (Tucker added the quotes around "crazy"). Wikipedia has changed this to a "local reputation of being crazy," making it sound like this was a generally accepted view of Harris in the region. "Imputation" becomes "reputation."

Notice how the "subject of religion" has been omitted from Wikipedia's treatment, just like "reading scripture" was omitted from the earlier quote. Things that speak to Harris's religiousness have been removed, and things emphasizing his alleged "craziness" have been left in.

The changes are subtle, but when dealing with figures like Harris, they ought to be precise and acknowledge the opinions of those who expressed them.

Oh, and you can probably guess which Wikipedia editor was responsible for adding that information to the Martin Harris article.

WW

Edited January 9, 2013 by Wiki Wonka

[Calm]

Thanks, I'll give it some thought. It's something I've thought about and would enjoy being involved in. I'm aware that sometimes my post appear overly questioning and challenging to answers given. Part of my reason for doing so is that sometimes people who have reached an answer for themselves don't always see some of the fragilities in the answer given.

I love fairmormon wiki - it's of massive assistance. But there are some articles that are on the weak side because there's a quick or easy conclusion when some further work would give it more credibility. There are also 3-4 stock quotes often 'defaulted' to when thorny issues come up. A difficult quote from a leader is sometimes just shelved with a 'listen to the living prophet and approved doctrine' answer instead of digging into the origins of the quote itself and trying to understand why a leader reached that idea and how they might have made that incorrect assumption.

Totally agree.

[Calm]

Nevertheless, Foxe is "factually detailed and preserves much firsthand material on the English Reformation unobtainable elsewhere."

How can one know if something is "factually detailed" and actually preserving real material if it is "unobtainable elsewhere". If there is only one source, how does one judge the accuracy of that source? I would have thought by comparing it to how it does when there are other sources rather than assuming it is right when it is the only one.

[Calm]

And, as a point of interest, "John Foxe" is currently prohibited from editing Wikipedia articles related to Mormonism.

WW

That explains why they have improved as much as they have....

[Calm]

I just skimmed the wikipedia article on "Mormons", and I didn't see anything egregious. For anyone who has a problem with the wikipedia treatment of LDS subjects, what are the most disturbing errors that are currently there?

Not in the mood to critique today for reasons I will refrain from sharing as involving too much whining, but I did mention two problems earlier with another article...in the case of the First Vision they left out the significant detail of the presence of Jesus Christ and in another, they quoted BRM and place the quote in the context of implying that Mormonism was just one more Christian faith....meaning he was attempting to present it as mainstream when he was claiming that our faith was the real Christianity, not claiming we were part of the category Christianity. Edited January 9, 2013 by calmoriah

[wolfcall]

the problem with the wikipedia is it is facts smattered with opinion and no two people can agree on the same subject for a prolonged period of time. i figure as long as they get the basics and it doesnt insult the subject it cant hurt most people recognize that the wikipedia is mostly opinion just like most other writings. its going to be hard to say whats what without breaking into a word war with someone. i just quit using it and grab a variety of opinions both for and against and formulate my own idea based on what is presented and allow room for expansion based on experience.

[canard78]

the problem with the wikipedia is it is facts smattered with opinion and no two people can agree on the same subject for a prolonged period of time. i figure as long as they get the basics and it doesnt insult the subject it cant hurt most people recognize that the wikipedia is mostly opinion just like most other writings. its going to be hard to say whats what without breaking into a word war with someone. i just quit using it and grab a variety of opinions both for and against and formulate my own idea based on what is presented and allow room for expansion based on experience.

Sound like a good approach. I usually go there at the start of studying a topic because the references are so good. I usually skim through the article and then link through to the content at the bottom of the page and try to make my own judgement.

All history has bias. As long as we understand that at the start of reading, we're doing fine.