Talk:Mormons/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Mormons/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: SilkTork (talk · contribs) 14:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

initial review

Tick box GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria Is it reasonably well written? A. Prose quality: B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists: Is it factually accurate and verifiable? A. References to sources: B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary: C. No original research: Is it broad in its coverage? A. Major aspects: B. Focused: Is it neutral? Fair representation without bias: Is it stable? No edit wars, etc: Does it contain images to illustrate the topic? A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales: B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions: Overall: Pass or Fail: Comments Pass Stable. No edit wars. SilkTork ✔Tea time 00:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Appropriate reference section. SilkTork ✔Tea time 00:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Images are copyright tagged. SilkTork ✔Tea time 00:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Focus. Some sections are quite detailed, and the article as a whole is quite long, so as part of ongoing development some trimming to make material more concise would be appropriate, but I don't see that any section is so excessive as to fail the GA criteria. SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC) Querying the history section, which is perhaps more focused on Mormonism, rather than the people. SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC) I have responded below, and have tweaked parts of the history section, particularly Beginnings and Pioneer era. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:26, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Query Captions. Some of the captions are quite wordy - see WP:CAPTION. SilkTork ✔Tea time 00:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC) I have cropped down several of the long captions. Thank you for pointing that out. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:02, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Appropriate images. I am uncertain of the value and purpose of File:Christus statue temple square salt lake city.jpg, File:Gladys Knight.jpg and File:Joseph Smith first vision stained glass.jpg. SilkTork ✔Tea time 00:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC) I put the Christus in the Beliefs section to illustrate that for Mormons, Christ is the central and most important figure (see the citation for details). Unfortunately the caption itself did not convey that very well, so I have changed it to something more simple, and cited it. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC) The picture of Gladys Knight was an illustration of a black Mormon. I basically copied the image and caption from the article on Black Mormons. I think that black Mormons themselves are particularly notable in this article because until 1978, they weren't allowed to participate in temple ceremonies. I'm not particularly attached to that image though. It used to be in the collage at the top of the article, but somebody replaced it with Marie Osmond a while back.~Adjwilley (talk) 18:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC) The stained glass picture is an illustration of Joseph Smith's First Vision. That is the event that Mormons point to as the beginning and most-important event of their dispensation. Bushman actually has a picture of the same window in his book Mormonism: a very short introduction. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:02, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Prose. Prose is readable with correct spelling, though the language is too technical - assuming a knowledge of the reader that the reader may not have. See WP:Jargon. Examples - "...a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening." The Second Great Awakening needs explaining. "the young Joseph was seeking a remission of his sins" is unclear, and some specific Mormon terminology, such as "the doctrines of sealing" and "stakes" is best explained in the text rather than expecting a reader to constantly look elsewhere for the meaning. Link to other articles, of course, but that should be for greater detail if the reader wishes, it should have to be necessary to click on the link to be able to read the article. In addition, there is a slight tendency toward writing short, choppy sentences which inhibits reading flow. The second paragraph of the lead is an example of this. SilkTork ✔Tea time 01:20, 24 December 2011 (UTC) I think you're hitting on one of my weaknesses here. I think I've fixed all the problems you've pointed out. SGA is fixed, the paragraph with the "young Joseph" is re-written, as is the 2nd paragraph of the Lead. Sealing and Stakes aren't explained explicitly, but I've put them in a context where the meaning can be guessed pretty well (...the church was divided into stakes and wards). All in all, I've made a couple short sentences longer, but I'm not very good at seeing these kinds of things. Same goes with terminology. I'll try to keep an eye out for it, but I may have to rely on others for that part. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Citing. There are a reassuring amount of cites. Most statements appear to be cited, though there is a citation needed tag for the statement on self-identified gay Mormons. The main source used appears to be Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, which from reading the critical reception in that article, is perhaps not a fully balanced account. SilkTork ✔Tea time 13:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC) Thanks. I actually added the CN tag myself after I copied the statement from the article on Homosexuality and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have deleted the sentence, and will add it back if/when I find a citation for it. I've tagged it in the original article as well, but haven't deleted that yet, hoping somebody will find one. ~Adjwilley (talk) 19:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC) As for the sourcing, I'd say that the main source used is actually a 2008 book by the same author of Rough Stone called Mormonism: a very short introduction. It's part of a series on Very Short Introductions, and it seemed fairly balanced to me. It didn't avoid any controversial issues like polygmay, mountain meadows, the priesthood ban, etc. One small side-note about the Rough Stone Rolling: As far as I understand, this book is widely acclaimed as the best biography on Joseph Smith. A close second probably goes to Fawn Brodie's work from the mid-20th century. I think it's much more likely that the article on the book is unbalanced, rather than the book itself. I've checked the edit history of the article, and let's just say that the editor who wrote most of the article has kind of a reputation...if you know what I mean. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC) Thanks for that. I've had a look at some cites, and it appears that cite 66 is intended to support the statement that in 1978 black males could become priests - though the footnote is talking about the origins of the policy to exclude black, rather than the date. Looking for other sources to support the date and the policy change, I found a number of scanned sources available on Google Books, which provide accessible details in context - such as [1], [2], [3] and [4]. It's not a requirement of Wikipedia or Good Articles that print sources have to be available online or even in most libraries, though using Google Books is encouraged. Though I've yet to finish checking sources, as it stands I think I'm unlikely to fail this article for lack of appropriate sourcing; I'm bringing this up just as an additional thing to think about to make the article more helpful to readers. If a fact can be easily verified by a scanned book, then go for that. The book used for cite 66 (Bushman's Short Introduction) is scanned, and the passage quoted in the footnote is here. SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC) The date was actually on the next page. I was using the Google book myself when I made the citation, and it's often hard to tell what page you're on once you buy the book (it doesn't say where the page divisions are). I've fixed the citation now. I'll check up on trying to give links to the online Google books. That sounds like a great idea. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC) I haven't had time yet to put Google book links in the footnotes. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Broad coverage. I'm picking up in my background reading a fair amount of material on race issues - the sources indicated above show that. The article does deal with black people, though my query here is the manner with which it is dealt. The article has a major section Groups within Mormonism, with a definition list of such groups. What was the thinking behind organising it that way? There is a sense that the race issue is perhaps not dealt with clearly in this manner. I also felt that the section title implied religious sub-groups within Mormonism, rather than groups defined by location or ethnicity. So I looked and found Pure Church of Christ, as a sub group, and Scattering-Saints-Schism-Within-Mormonism, which indicates others. The section does have Fundamentalist Mormons, though I'm wondering if that is sufficent. I'm becoming aware of the size and complexity of the topic - we don't expect comprehensive coverage at GA level, so the way the article is organised may work, but I'd like some idea of the thinking behind it. SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:38, 10 January 2012 (UTC) As I understand it, race didn't really become a big issue until the civil rights movement in the 1960s when the LDS Church came under heavy criticism. That's why I put the policy in the Modern Times section instead of both the Modern Times and the Pioneer era. I also included the section on Black Mormons because of the history with the priesthood ban, not because they're part of a different church or anything. I wanted the Groups section to be an overview of some of the different "kinds" of Mormons. Most of these are members of the LDS Church, the main exceptions being Fundamentalist Mormons, and Ex-Mormons. I tried to organize the section roughly by the size of these groups, but there is also a dimension of distance from "mainstream" Mormon theology (which is why ex-Mormons are last, even though their group is larger than some of the groups above them). I see most of the groups as being different sub-cultures that have kind of popped out of the fabric, in the sense that you can say stuff like "D. Michael Quinn is a cultural Mormon" or "Bruce Bastian is an LGBT Mormon," or "Tal Bachman is an ex-Mormon" or "Aaron Eckhart is an inactive Mormon." As for the actual schisms, there are a whole bunch of them, as you can see by looking at List of sects in the Latter Day Saint movement. All the churches that split off during Joseph Smith's life are dead now. After Smith died, there were a large number of people who claimed to be his successors. Most of the "Saints" followed Brigham Young, who led them to Utah and published the practice of Polygamy. The rest of the groups bounced around until about 1850 when most of them coalesced under the leadership of Smith's son to form a reorganized church, now known as the Community of Christ. The CoC rejected the title of "Mormon", so today the term "Mormons" only applies to Brigham Young's faction (i.e. the LDS Church), and the small groups that split off of it. The vast majority of Mormon spliter groups fall under the category of "Fundamentalist" Mormons, who split in the early 1900s when the LDS Church discontinued the practice of Polygamy. Does that answer your questions? ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC) The history section appears to deal more with Mormonism than with the Mormon people. Could there be a slight shift in the article to deal a little more with the people and the different sects, and to allow the Mormonism article to carry more of the burden of the history of the faith itself? Some information about how Mormons as people were treated by others - as well as modern day attitudes? SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC) Yes. I agree that it should deal more with the Mormon people. I think the Early and Pioneer sections will probably need the most work here, but I'll see what happens as I dive in this week. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC) I've made a few changes to the history section, trying to orient it more around Mormons, their culture, etc. I've made several changes to the Beliefs section, cutting out an entire paragraph that was talking about Ordinances. I originally wrote the paragraph because there was almost no discussion of ordinances in the Mormons or Mormonism articles. I've since added a paragraph on ordinances to the Mormonism article, so this one is probably redundant, as well as having too much detail. I also found some very recent Pew Research studies on Mormons. These discuss how Mormons view themselves, and how other Americans view Mormons. I've added them to some footnotes as supporting information, but I'm trying to avoid a US-centric bias, since most of these opinion polls (including the one you provided above) are for the United States, and many of them are tied to Willard Romney. I've included a sentence about Mormons self-identifying as Christians, and other Christians (particularly white evangelical Protestants) disagreeing with this view. ~Adjwilley (talk) 00:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Fail To meet GA criteria 1(b), which relates to specific manual of style guidelines, the article needs to comply with the advice in WP:LEAD. That is, in addition to being an introduction, the lead needs to be an adequate overview of the whole of the article. As a rough guide, each major section in the article should be represented with an appropriate summary in the lead. Also, the article should provide further details on all the things mentioned in the lead. And, the first few sentences should mention the most notable features of the article's subject - the essential facts that every reader should know. The "Second Great Awakening" is mentioned in the first sentence, but not in the main body. The history of the Mormons is merely hinted at in the lead. SilkTork ✔Tea time 01:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC) I have removed Second Great Awakening from the Lead, and integrated it into the History section. I also put a bare-bones history into the 1st paragraph of the Lead, and mentioned Polygamy in the 2nd paragraph (that's one of the more important facts). Polygamy is also mentioned in the Terminology section, immediately following the Lead. ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC) I've made a couple other changes to the Lead, and I think it better summarizes the whole article, though there are a couple places where I'm still trying to nail down a correct wording (the "tended to gather to a central geographic location" is a little too wordy for me, and I'm looking for alternatives). Overall, the Lead has been changed to reflect more of the history (which as you noted wasn't summarized very well) and less of the beliefs (I took out a bit on ordinances and authority). ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC) General comments There is a rich use of inline citing which is encouraging. I haven't checked the sources yet. SilkTork ✔Tea time 01:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Thanks. I've been editing Joseph Smith recently, which actually seems to suffer from citation overkill. It currently has 470 citations and counting. I'm trying not to overdo it here. The book I cite the most is Bushman's Mormonism: a very short introduction mostly because it's short and easy to cite. I know I could improve the article, the "Pioneer" and "Culture" sections particularly, if I used some more of O'Dea's The Mormons. (I will probably come back and do that when I'm finished at Joseph Smith.) I use a book by Mauss for the "Modern Times", several books for "Beginnings", and a cornucopia of sources for the "Groups" section. The worst-cited section is probably "Beliefs," but that's fairly non-controversial anyway. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC) It is generally discouraged to link section headings - see WP:HEADINGS. The sub-sections in Groups within Mormonism, are a defintion list, so it may be OK, but it's worth thinking about. SilkTork ✔Tea time 01:29, 24 December 2011 (UTC) I have thought a lot about it, and it used to be much worse. The current format is mostly the work of User:Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden who has done a lot of work on lists. Because this article gets more views than most other Mormon-themed articles, I wanted the "Groups" section to be sort of a hub linking to all the different kinds of Mormons. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Adjwilley's comment Thank you for your thoughtful comments. This is the first article I've contributed to significantly, and I appreciate you setting me straight on a number of these things. I would appreciate it if you would give me some time to fix some of these issues before failing the article. I feel that I can fix some of these fairly quickly over the next couple days (not including the holiday). ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Yes, you'll have time. I'm not even finished with the review yet. When I do finish if there's work to be done I always put an hold for an initial minimum of seven days. This hold will be extended as long as work is being done, or contact is being made, as the aim of the GA project is to improve articles, and as long as an article is being improved then, within reason, I prefer to hold rather than fail. A month is not unusual. Though if it stretches to more than two months then any period of inactivity can cause onlookers to leave comments of concern, and if it gets to three months, onlookers start to question the nature of the process, even if there is plenty of activity. SilkTork ✔Tea time 10:19, 24 December 2011 (UTC) Thank you. One to two weeks should be more than enough time.~Adjwilley (talk) 16:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC) I'll be finishing the review in the next couple of days - perhaps today. SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC) Hold I'm putting on hold for seven days to allow a response to the queries I've raised. I feel this is an informative article which provides a useful overview of the Mormon people, though I have some questions about the organisation and focus. In particular I wonder if there is too much material on the faith, and not enough on the people themselves, their attitudes, and the attitudes of others toward them. These are queries rather than failings, as the criteria for a Good Article is not as strict as that for a Featured Article, and the article may be listed as a GA with still some room for development or discussion. SilkTork ✔Tea time 18:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC) Sorry for the delay in getting back to this review, this was due to my Wikipedia blackout related hiatus. SilkTork ✔Tea time 13:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Refresh

Cleaning the blackboard so we can see where we are and what still needs doing (if anything). SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Tick box

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

• Focus. As this is about the Mormon people, the amount of history on the Mormon faith is disproportionate and needs trimming back. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm working on trimming the history section, and making it clearer at the same time. Please correct any mistakes or challenge any of my edits. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The Modern times section of the history is much more Mormon focussed than the earlier history. It is more about the Mormon people, and less about the church - though it does slip into some church material in the last paragraph. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The Modern Times section is one of the pieces I wrote from scratch. I will work on the Beginnings and Pioneer sections again. ~Adjwilley (talk) 06:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• The term Mormon was "applied pejoratively". Is there a source for this? And if there is, could a more common term be used, such as "applied negatively"? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't find a source, so I deleted the pejorative part altogether. If Bushman or O'Dea don't mention it, we're probably ok to leave it out. ~Adjwilley (talk) 06:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• "The city grew rapidly as missionary converts immigrated westward from Europe and elsewhere." Not sure what this means. Can you rephrase? 11:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. ~Adjwilley (talk) 06:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• I'm going through doing some copy-editing with the intention of tidying up so I can pass this on the prose criteria, however I have come upon the statements "endowment and sealing of married couples" and "divided into wards and "stakes"" which contains unexplained terms. Either these terms should be explained at the point where the reader sees them, or they should be avoided, substituting with a more common expression where appropriate. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I've moved wards and "stakes" later in the article and revised it to read, "The church is divided by locality into congregations called wards with several wards making up a "stake"." How does that sound? ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

That is clearer and more helpful. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• The more I am looking into this article the more problems I am seeing. Looking at List of sects in the Latter Day Saint movement, I note that little of that information is summarised in this article. I think that Jews is a useful article to compare with this one. It keeps focused on the Jews as a people, limits discussion of church and beliefs to a brief summary, and avoids cultural topics. Aspects of what to put in and what to leave out of an article are always going to be up for debate, and I accept the Beliefs and the Culture sections, and find them useful. I have doubts, though, about the focus of the groups section. I think that perhaps breaking it up into sects proper, and dealing with the main strands of those sects, perhaps as indicated here, separately from social or ethnic groups, might be useful. But grouping Black Mormons as distinct from Gay Mormons as distinct from Fundamentalist Mormons, as distinct from Utah Mormons, is a little unclear - and are Gay Mormons really a group? I understand that there are Mormons who may be gay, but there are also Mormons who are vegetarian, and I wonder if discussion on such matters belongs in the Beliefs section rather than the Groups section as it seems more to belong to the church as a body rather than as the Mormons as a people. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 12:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I've moved the paragraph on LGBT Mormons into the culture section and tied it to the Law of Chastity. I moved Black Mormons to the History section (Modern Times) where the priesthood ban was already mentioned. I also moved the International Mormons to the Modern Times section. The Groups section now deals entirely with the "shades" of Mormonism, leaving out race, ethnicity, orientation, etc. ~Adjwilley (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Prose is almost OK - borderline; when the jargon terms are dealt with it'll be a pass. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I've removed or explained the jargon terms you brought up. ~Adjwilley (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Sources check out, and there is plenty of inline citation. Minor aspects like "applied pejoratively" not being cited are not significant enough for concern, and can be dealt with as part of ongoing development. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I actually removed the "pejoratively" bit, as explained above. ~Adjwilley (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Lead section will need looking at again when the focus and coverage has been decided. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Article seems reasonably neutral and follows sources. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Having looked at this afresh, I feel the main area of concern is the coverage and focus. The article would benefit from a slight shift in focus to concentrate on the topic, which is the Mormon people rather than the Mormon church. Sometimes this could be a matter of a simple rewording as in this. Careful editing of the History section is the first target, then a pass through the rest of the article to pick up other wordings or text which are not appropriate. Coverage concerns are mainly in the Groups section, and that would be a matter of bringing in more information about Mormon sects, and reshuffling the information about ethnicity, sexuality, etc, into the beliefs section. I don't think that a Mormon person is defined by their ethnicity or sexuality, though the Mormon church will have some rulings on such matters, and the Mormon people as a whole may have a response to that. Am I making sense here? The remaining concerns are prose and the lead. The lead will be best looked at again after the article has been tidied up, and the prose concerns are fairly minor, to do with clarity over terminology, and all other matters being OK, I would not hold up a listing just for that. I'll put this on hold for another seven days, and I hope that people can get to work and deal with the remaining issues within that time. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:35, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
• Cmt - I agree the sect information could be alluded to, succinctly. As for the various "cultural" categorizations: Unlike with Jews, whose sub-ethnicities vary so widely (see Category:Jews by country), the lion's share of multi-generational Mormons have familial ties to Utah; so, such distinctions as that between Utah Mormons and non- and the like are notable and it would seem reasonable to include coverage of these terms in the article, at least IMO.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 03:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

On hold

On hold to deal with:

• Trimming excessive text on the Mormon church

Tried to replace stuff on church with stuff on people. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Rephrasing to ensure focus is on the Mormon people rather than the Mormon church
• Bringing in a summary of the sects

I'm not quite sure what you're looking for here. If you count all the Mormons who are members of other sects, they will represent about 0.3% of all Mormons. Of these 0.3%, I'd estimate that 99% of them can be safely categorized as Fundamentalists (those who continued the 19th century practice of polygamy). There are lots of these little sects, ranging from quiet conservative groups to texbook cults, but trying to talk about these sects, I believe, goes beyond the scope of this article.

My opinion is that a general explanation of Fundamentalism is probably best, without trying to go into too much detail, but providing links to the Mormon Fundamentalism article. Currently Fundamentalist groups show up in the Terminology section, the end of the Pioneer era (when polygamy was discontinued and the split occurred), and the Groups section. There are also links to the two largest sects within the movement (FLDS and AUB).

Additionally, we have two "See also" links to List of sects in the Latter Day Saint movement: one in the See Also section, and one in the hatnotes at the beginning of the Groups section.

Anyway, I'm hoping you might clarify what you want here. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you please clarify that in the article - that sort of information is useful. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Shuffling the material in the Group section so that matters related to sexuality and ethnicity are dealt with in the belief section

Done (described above) ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Clarifying some jargon terms

Clarified or deleted the ones you pointed out. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Reworking the lead after the rest of the work has been done on the article.

I haven't touched the lead yet...the content of the article didn't change that much, though the focus did. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Any queries, please give me a ping - I may not pick this up on my watchlist at the moment as its quite busy. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• What are "foreign standards of conduct"? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 01:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• This looks good. I haven't time to finish tonight - hopefully I'll have chance tomorrow. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 01:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Pass

The article contains a useful and reasonably detailed guide to Mormons. The prose is clear, informative and readable. There are areas to discuss and work on, such as developing the lead, continuing to ensure the prose is easy to understand, making sure there is focus on the people rather than the church, and in dealing appropriately with sects and cultural groups; however, the article sufficiently meets the GA criteria to be listed as a Good Article. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 15 January 2012

This sentence:"During the latter half of the 19th century many Mormons practiced plural marriage, a form of religious polygamy" is too unclear. It is vauge in the fact that it does not provide a specific date. The sentence shold be changed to "Between the years 1840 and 1890, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints(some F-mormon* churches still practice polygamy)practiced plural marriage, a form of religious polygamy.

* F-mormon is a term used for mormons not in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints.

Ksearcy (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Up until a week ago the 2nd paragraph in the Lead did give specific dates, but it got moved down two paragraphs under the "terminology" section because it was quite a bit of detail to have in the Lead (which is supposed to summarize the article). One of the problems with saying that polygamy ended in 1890 is that there were a few Mormons (including some general authorities I think) that continued plural marriage until about 1904. That said, in most of the sources I've read, 1890 is given as the official end, and then they often included a parenthesis about how a few tried to continue the practice, moving to Mexico and whatnot. I want to say that it was after the Second Manifesto that the FLDS people broke off, but I'm not certain of that. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I have changed the sentence to read, "During the 19th century Mormon converts tended to gather to a central geographic location, and between 1852 and 1890 many Mormons openly practiced plural marriage, a form of religious polygamy." I feel this is justified because the sources I've read almost invariably give 1890 as the end date, and the qualifiers "many" and "openly" help to eliminate the problem of the relatively small numbers that practiced it before and after those dates. Also, the second paragraph right after the Lead explains the post-manifesto polygamy and the fundamentalists breaking off.

As a side note, I've written "tended to gather to a central geographic location," which is accurate, but very wordy. I haven't thought of a better way to put it yet, so if anybody gets ideas, that would be helpful. ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Utah Mormon

Todays WaPo:

A Mormon Church in Need of Reform. ... Mormons account for 57 percent of Utah residents yet some 91 percent of Utah state legislators self-identify as Mormons. The state that’s home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has elected only two non-Mormon governors in nearly 116 years and has sent just one non-Mormon to Congress in the past five decades.

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 03:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting article, though a little original research on my part just turned up three non-Mormon governors of Utah: Simon Bamberger (a Jew), George Dern (a Congregationalist and Democrat who got 2 terms), and J. Bracken Lee (also 2 terms). ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess non-Mormon governors used to be all the rage. Lee was quite the conservative/proto-tea partier, accdg to what I've read. (I'm not a Utah native and didn't live there at the time of his post-gubernatorial SLC mayoralty..)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe the article could give more mention to...

the right-of-passage of young men performing Mormon mission work? (Also, vaguely related to this in some manner: to the decreased retention rate among U.S. LDS young men in the most recent decade?)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 07:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like you're talking about this? I'll give it a read once I get a minute. In the past I've had a hard time trying to get good statistics on activity rates and such, and I'm also trying to finish reading the recent Pew study that's come out. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Coatrack

Could someone cleanup the coatrack attacks on JSJr that were recently added by Bilbobag (talk · contribs)? -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 22:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Got it. I also added an extra "said" to the part about the translation, as that could have been considered POVish before and precipitated the attack. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Source 129

This seems to be very biased. The point relates to other Christians views of Mormons/Mormonism but the source used for this relates to research regarding views of the Republican Candidates. I would suggest that a new source should be found, one that takes the views of a broader cross-section of society and one which seeks to identify the views if Evangelicals in particular (as opposed to white-evangelicals which the source focuses on). The fact that th source specifies white evangelicals, white protestants and white Catholics would suggest that the original source was biased.

In the article the sentence [though other Christians (particularly white evangelical Protestants) disagree with this view] would specifically need addressing

-steve_brighterfutures — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steve brighterfutures (talk • contribs) 06:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Steve, the source was a Pew survey on perceptions about Mormons, and one of their findings was that white Evangelical protestants are more inclined than the public as a whole to view Mormonism as a non-Christian faith. My impression is that they are just reporting their findings, whether those are biased or not. That said, would dropping the "white" be enough to address your concerns? ~Adjwilley (talk) 19:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Contradictions Between the Bible and the Book of Mormon section

Bilbobag has added a section called "Contradictions Between the Bible and the Book of Mormon" to this article. I removed it a couple of times because I don't think it fits in this article about Mormons as a people. I think this kind of information, if it belongs anywhere, should be at Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Criticism of the Book of Mormon. Also, the citations to Apologetics Press and Fulton County Gospel News may not meet the requirements of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. This content continues to be readded so I wanted to start a discussion here on the acceptability. 72Dino (talk) 18:23, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The information I've added is factual, objective and respectful. The article states that the Book of Mormon is based upon the Bible. The information I've added identifies contradictions to that statement. The information cites verifiable sources as defined by wikipedia (see Below). While of a differing point of view, the added material immediately follows the section Culture and Practices, and discusses factual differences between two written texts, making it therefore appropriate. I have modified language to ensure neutrality, respect and objectivity. While all readers may not agree with the added section, it is none-the-less factual comparison of two texts, and challenges statements made on this page.

The word "source" in Wikipedia has three meanings: the work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, Oxford University Press). All three can affect reliability.

Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must have been published (made available to the public in some form); unpublished materials are not considered reliable. Sources should directly support the material presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made. The appropriateness of any source depends on the context. In general, the best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. Bilbobag (talk) 18:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Coatrack. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 19:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

In addition to the other reasons for not including this content (relevance, coatrack, copyvio), if you are adding this because "the article states that the Book of Mormon is based upon the Bible", then the basic premise is incorrect and perhaps a misinterpretation of the wording of the article. The Book of Mormon is not based upon the Bible and the article does not state this. The article states that the Book of Mormon is a companion to the Bible, but that is not the same as being based on it. 72Dino (talk) 20:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Dino72. Fair point about BOM being a companion to Bible. And you're correct, my wording was rather poor. I do think there's some validity in highlighting some conflicts with the 2 books though, since the article does state that the Book of Mormon is believed to have been written by ancient prophets, and is viewed as a companion to the Bible. If the 2 books are "companions", and are compared as parts of the scriptural canon (the Bible, Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price) one wouldn't expect there to be any/many conflicts between them, esp. since they were both written by prophets. Good DiscussionBilbobag (talk) 22:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Copyright

The edit comment also cut off part of the URL, so let me repeat here: As currently written, this section is a violation of Wikipedia copyright policy in that it copies or closely paraphrases text from http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=863. — TransporterMan (TALK) 19:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I have followed the requirements to post Apologetic Press information on a website. Their requirements are below.

We are happy to grant permission for items in the "Doctrinal Matters" section to be reproduced in their entirety, as long as the following stipulations are observed: (1) Apologetics Press must be designated as the original publisher; (2) the specific Apologetics Press Web site URL must be noted; (3) the author’s name must remain attached to the materials; (4) any references, footnotes, or endnotes that accompany the article must be included with any written reproduction of the article; (5) alterations of any kind are strictly forbidden (e.g., photographs, charts, graphics, quotations, etc. must be reproduced exactly as they appear in the original); (6) serialization of written material (e.g., running an article in several parts) is permitted, as long as the whole of the material is made available, without editing, in a reasonable length of time; (7) articles, in whole or in part, may not be offered for sale or included in items offered for sale; and (8) articles may be reproduced in electronic form for posting on Web sites pending they are not edited or altered from their original content and that credit is given to Apologetics Press, including the web location from which the articles were taken.

Bilbobag (talk) 19:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Compliance with those permissions is not sufficient to satisfy Wikipedia policy, see WP:COPYOTHERS (because they set restrictions which are stricter than the CC-BY-SA and GFDL copyright licenses, see the detail at that policy section). Therefore, it doesn't make any difference if you are the copyright holder or if its use here is totally legal, Wikipedia policy prohibits its use here unless the copyright owner follows one of the processes here. Please note, however, that doing so allows anyone in the world to use the owner's online material, not just Wikipedia. There is no other way (at least none that Wikipedia will accept) to give permission in a way that only Wikipedia, but no one else, can use the material. The better and easier course may be to rewrite the material for the article, but be aware in that regard that mere paraphrasing, change of first to third person, changes in verb tense, and similar revisions of the material will be regarded to be close paraphrasing and will not cure the copyright problem; it really has to be entirely rewritten from the ground up. — TransporterMan (TALK) 20:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC) PS: When I say that the "better and easier course may be to rewrite the material for the article" I do not mean to imply that the material is proper for this article or otherwise meets Wikipedia policy. — TransporterMan (TALK) 20:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess I'm confused. You stated that the information I submitted "appears to have added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without permission from the copyright holder." When I show that I have explicit permission from the copyright holder based upon 1) a telephone conversation with the publisher, and 2) their Copyright policy, I'm told that it's not that I violated their copyright, but rather I haven't met Wiki's copyright policy (which I'm assuming the 100+ sourced articles on this page have). Do I have this correctly?

Secondly, if I restate that which I've written, and use the Book of Mormon as one source and the Bible as the other, since they're both in the public domain, I'm assuming that there would be no problem - Correct?Bilbobag (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• The problem is that to the extent that you have permission, the permission is not in a form which Wikipedia will accept. As noted in Wikipedia:Donating_copyrighted_materials#Granting_us_permission_to_copy_material_already_online, permission given to Wikipedia must be given in one of two particular forms described there, otherwise Wikpedia will not accept it.
• As I noted above, rewriting the material can solve the problem but rewriting must be so thorough as to avoid a close paraphrase; mere paraphrasing, change of first to third person, changes in verb tense, and similar simple revisions of the material will not be enough.
• Again, let me reiterate that I'm only addressing the copyright issue here. The issues raised by the other editors who have removed this material may indeed also be significant enough to prevent its inclusion.

TransporterMan (TALK) 22:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• One more thing: If by your "secondly" question, above, you mean to ask whether you can just quote the Bible and the BoM and compare them yourself in the article without citation to a third party source, the answer is no. That is prohibited by the No original research policy and the verifiability policy. Each of those works can be cited for what it says (but watch out for the Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information policy), but any analysis or commentary upon them must be attributed to a reliable source.

TransporterMan (TALK) 00:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

So for example, I could state that "the Book of Mormon states that Christ was born in Jerusalem, and the Bible states that Christ was born in Bethlehem" without there being any copyright issue. A) Both volumes are in the public domain (and according to Wikipedia's "Public Domain" page, meet not one, but 2 of the Samuelson "values" to determine if a work is in the Public Domain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain) and B) I'm stating facts without any editorial or comment (Lack of Original Research). I'm just trying to understand if this would be correct? Bilbobag (talk) 21:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

There are various interpretations of those primary sources (Book of Mormon and Bible). For example, in the seeming difference that you noted it, the Book of Mormon does not say that Christ was born in the city of Jerusalem. The teachings of the LDS Church is that He was born in the land of Jerusalem, which would include Bethlehem as it is only five miles away. Therefore, the two books are consistent in that scenario. Because of the sometimes multiple interpretations of primary sources, secondary sources (assuming they meet the reliability requirements) are what you want to use as references. 72Dino (talk) 22:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Plus, it still doesn't belong in this article. Another article where it may be more appropriate is The Book of Mormon and the King James Bible. Also, you may want to review Internal consistency of the Bible as a related article on consistency. 72Dino (talk) 22:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 14 February 2012

Altiar128 (talk) 15:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC) Under your plural marriage please include that the reason that plural marriages were conducted is because if a woman came to the west and was widowed or had no man to provide for her than a Mormon man of the house hold would have her live with them. But living with a woman with out being married was shunned by society so they would get married so that the man could provide housing and care for the woman.

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 16:14, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

What are mormons mostly? are they pretty much christians?

What are mormons mostly? are they pretty much christians? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.96.76.161 (talk) 20:21, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

IP, see "Mormonism and Christianity."--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Economist ref

Can someone reformat the recently added ref from The Economist? This is how it looks now:

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Building a bigger tent: Does Mormonism have a Mitt Romney problem?", The Economist, dated 25 Feb 2012.

Here is an example of how it could look:

"Building a bigger tent: Does Mormonism have a Mitt Romney problem?", The Economist, February 25, 2012

Thanks -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 15:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done: I fixed the format but also ended up moving the added sentence to a footnote earlier in the paragraph. It sounded a little weird tacked onto the end of the paragraph on international Mormons, and to me sounded a bit like WP:Recentism. I don't think the 2010 growth was significantly out of line with the previous growth rate, so it probably shouldn't need the special mention at the end of the section. It's too bad the page has to be protected, because you're much better with citation templates than I am. Thanks! ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Changes

Greetings fellow Wiki Contributors. As I was reading this article, I noticed a few ways in which I believe it could be improved:

1) "...while a minority are members of other independent churches. Many Mormons are also either independent or non-practicing." This is redundant. We've already established others as being independent.

2) "Today, polygamy is practiced only by fundamentalist groups that have broken with the LDS Church." Shouldn't it be "broken from" ? This one I'm not too certain about.

3) "In 1823 Smith said an angel directed him to a buried book written on golden plates containing the religious history of an ancient people." A book written on plates seems badly worded. Something like "an angel directed him to an ancient text written on golden plates..." seems better.

4) In several places we have sentences that end with a period before the quotation, and others that have periods after the quotation. While both are fine, it is better to have uniformity.

5) Citation 102 is not valid. "LDS Family Services estimates that there are on average four or five members per LDS ward who experience same-sex attraction." While this may be true, the link does not go to LDS Family Services, and the website that is cited doesn't even have a source on this number. If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.

I appreciate your time, and I just wanted to have a discussion about these proposed changes.

DARKMAN5 (talk) 19:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for these helpful observations. I really appreciate the thought you've put into these. Let me quickly respond to your points.

1) You're right that the "independent" is redundant, and I need to find a way to fix that. The concept is that some are members of other churches (independent of the LDS Church) while others are independent of all churches. We could probably just drop one of the "independent"s and be fine.

2) I'm not certain about that either (with, from). Anybody?

3) I'd be happy to make that change. "Book" is a little weird.

4) I'm always unsure if the period should go outside or inside. Is there a rule on this? I'll have a look at the WP:MOS maybe. It makes sense that they switch off in the article, because I wrote a lot of it, and I don't know which way is right. :-( Update: MOS:LQ says, "place all punctuation marks inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material and outside if they are not."

5) Hmm. The footnote goes to Evergreen, which I believe is the largest organization dedicated to counseling for Mormons with homosexual attractions. They do cite the 4-5 number, attributing it to LDS Family Services, but they don't give a link. I just spent some time trying to track down the original source, but I haven't found it yet (though the same statistic is cited on several blogs, a FAIR podcast, and at least one news article talking about the podcast). I trust the Evergreen number (they would know) but I'll see if I can track down the original source. Maybe I'll try shooting the Evergreen people an email.

~Adjwilley (talk) 19:58, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

On second thought, on number 3, if I changed burried book to ancient text, the "ancient" would become redunant (i.e. "an angel directed him to an ancient text written on golden plates containing the religious history of an ancient people."). ~Adjwilley (talk) 20:10, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Request for changes to correct biased passages.

I strongly and respectfully suggest this article be reviewed for quality by whoever has the authority to edit it. I noticed the following problems from a cursory, partial reading.

"The church had previously been criticized for its policy during the civil rights movement, but the change came in 1978 and was prompted primarily by problems facing mixed race converts in Brazil.[75] Mormons greeted the change with joy and relief."

I don't want to insult anyone, but someone needs to address how this article could have been classified as a "Good Article" with such a blatant NPOV violation like the above. This violation alone should alert administrators that the entire article warrants review. Furthermore, I'd guess the method by which articles are classified as "Good Articles" probably needs to be reviewed.

"Besides the doctrinal reasons for plural marriage, the practice made some economic sense, as many of the plural wives were single women who arrived in Utah without brothers or fathers to offer them societal support.[56]"

Another NPOV violation. "...made some economic sense..." is a judgment by the author and does not represent a neutral point of view.

"Mormons self-identify as Christian, though some of their beliefs differ from mainstream Christianity. Mormons believe in the Bible, as well as other books of scripture, such as the Book of Mormon. They have a unique view of cosmology, and believe that all people are spirit-children of God. Mormons believe that returning to God requires following the example of Jesus Christ, and accepting his atonement through ordinances such as baptism. They believe that Christ's church was restored through Joseph Smith, and is guided by living prophets and apostles. Central to Mormon faith is the belief that God speaks to his children and answers their prayers."

The author states Mormon beliefs "differ from mainstream Christianity" and further states Mormons "have unique view of cosmology." It would be helpful to the reader if the author had offered examples of such differences and unique aspects. Instead, the author either describes beliefs that are not dissimilar, or that do not seem very different.

"Mormons have a fairly unique perspective on the nature of God, the origin of man, and the purpose of life. For instance, Mormons believe in a pre-mortal existence where people were literal spirit children of God,[121] and that God presented a plan that would allow his children to progress and become more like him. The plan involved the spirits receiving bodies on earth and going through trials in order to learn, progress, and receive a "fulness of joy".[121] The most important part of the plan involved Jesus, the eldest of God's children, coming to earth as the literal Son of God, to conquer sin and death so that God's other children could return. According to Mormons, every person who lives on earth will be resurrected, and most of them will be received into various kingdoms of glory.[122] To be accepted into the highest kingdom, a person must fully accept Christ through faith, repentance, and through ordinances such as baptism and the laying on of hands.[123]"

Again, the uniqueness of Mormon beliefs is emphasized, yet no mention is made of striking, key differences. For example, Mormons believe human beings can become gods, God was once mortal, and the dead can be baptised into the Mormon Church. If one is going to lead a paragraph with the statement that Mormonism is unique and different, then one should include notable differences. Some of the beliefs described in the above paragraph are either the same as other Christian sects, or do not seem unique compared to other Christian sects.

"Mormons ( /ˈmɔrmənz/) are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religious movement beginning with the visions of Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s."

This seems to be a violation of Wikipedia's verifiability standard. The above passage states that Joseph Smith had visions, which is not verifiable. It would be more appropriate to state that Mormonism is a religious movement founded by Joseph Smith, or that it began with teachings propounded by Smith, et cetera.

"Mormons believe that the Lord restored the early Christian church through Joseph Smith."

Vague word usage. "Lord" is a term not used anywhere else in the current version of the article. I'm guessing the author used it reflexively.

"Though the LDS Church has a hierarchical structure with a president/prophet dictating revelations for the whole church, there is a bottom up aspect as well. Ordinary Mormons have access to the same inspiration that is thought to guide their prophets.[132] Mormons see Joseph Smith's first vision as proof that the heavens are open, and that God answers prayers. They place considerable emphasis on "asking God" to find out if something is true."

The "bottom-up aspect" is not really explained by the above paragraph. The author does not explain how personal divine inspiration relates to the organizational/political power of lay members.

I've read a fraction of the article, so given what I've found in a small portion, I'm sure there are other issues. I recommend the article "Mormons" be removed from the "Good Article" category and reviewed by someone with the authority to clean it up.

I don't know if what I've said needs to be associated somehow with the NPOV dispute section of Wikipedia. If it does, I don't know offhand how one goes about doing that, but I'll type the following if that works:

24.27.37.18 (talk) 08:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm not clear what is wrong with the first section that is quoted. It is cited to Bushman, which is a relatively reliable source. Is the problem with "Mormons greeted the change with joy and relief"? As a general statement, I imagine that would be fairly easy to backup with citations as well, since the overwhelming reaction of LDS Church members—at least those that were publicized and are therefore verifiable—was positive. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Wow, I better respond to some of these. I'll try to go in order.

• I agree with Good Ol'factory about the joy and relief. As best I understand most Mormons at the time were uncomfortable with the policy, and had received a good deal of criticism to boot. The joy and relief part is directly from Bushman's book.
• The bit about the economics of plural marriage is not the author's opinion, but a study done by several scholars and reported, again, by Richard Bushman. I'm open to rephrasing that so it doesn't come across as POV, but I do think it's appropriate to talk a little about the nature of the early Mormon polygamous relationships in this article.
• The paragraph you cited is from the Lead, or first section, which is meant to be a brief summary of the article. The specific examples you're searching for should be found later in the article, probably in the section on Beliefs.
• The paragraph you cited from the Beliefs section actually does list a number of the key doctrinal differences you were looking for. The Mormon view of the origin and destiny of man is quite unique, and is explained in the paragraph. The baptisms for the dead part used to be in the section, but for some reason is now in a footnote. I don't remember why it got moved, but suspect that somebody thought there was too much emphasis on Mormon doctrine and belief here in this article. The article that should cover that more thoroughly is Mormonism. Also, if you're looking for a more detailed list of differences between Mormonism and Christianity, I'd recommend the article titled Mormonism and Christianity.
• "beginning with the visions of Joseph Smith"... The sentence doesn't actually state that Smith had visions, and I believe the wording comes from Bushman again (though I could be wrong on that one). It is borderline, though, and could be rephrased to read something like "beginning with the visions that Joseph Smith reported having during the 1820s" or something like that.
• the usage of the word "Lord" does seem a little vague, and could easily be replaced with "God".
• Could you clarify your concern with the "bottom up" bit? In the meantime I can try to make it more clear.

Thank you for your review of the article and comments here. I think this article is still in a young-ish state, as it is based mainly on the views of two scholars: Richard Bushman, and Thomas O'Dea, with smaller pieces by other authors like Armond Mauss. There's a new book out by Matthew Bowman that I'd like to read and then integrate into the article, but in the meantime I'll look over your concerns over the next few days and see if I can resolve some of them. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Other "Mormon" sects

The following comment was posted at Talk:Mormons/GA1. I am re-posting here so it can be discussed. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment:This article pretends to be about Mormonism; but, ends up being a "coat rack" focusing on the church in Utah, rather than the all the sects which claim to be "Mormon". Too much of the material belongs to an article on that sect, with links to the various other churches having been deleted.

It does not reflect the denominational, or multi-generational communities, outside Utah, in Alberta, Mexico, Illinois, Missouri, New York, Ohio, etc.

The way the article is, for a general, introductory article, it is misleading to the Wiki community, giving the impression that all Mormons are from Utah, and accept the policies, from that bias.

This would be like an article on Christianity suggesting that all Christians come from Rome, except for a few, that are hardly worth mentioning.

The neutrality of this article and its sources needs to be expanded and worked, if it is going to cover the topic. Laboris Dulcedo (talk) 13:07, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

The subject of other Latter Day Saint sects has been discussed a number of different times. Here are three recent ones that come to mind: Nov2011, Jan2012, April2012. Would you mind reading over those to see if they resolve your concern? If not, I'll give a detailed response to address the issues you brought up directly. Is that fair? ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:07, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 April 2012

this bit "Today a vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) while a minority are members of other churches. Many Mormons are also either independent or non-practicing."

isn't true...either you are a part of the church of jesus christ or you are not...the name "mormons" has been given to us as more of a nickname.. people associate the "mormons" with members of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints because of the book we use, called the Book of Mormon" though technically incorrect the nickname "mormons", as the article would infer, can't be part of other churches. either they are part of the "mormon" church or they are not.

please remove "while a minority are members of other churches. Many Mormons are also either independent or non-practicing."

thank you (Cjensen20 (talk) 01:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC))

• Comment. There are Mormon fundamentalists, and they are not part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but they are accurately referred to and self-identify as "Mormons". It is a minority of Mormons, but they do exist. There are also a good number of Mormons who are technically baptized members of the LDS Church, but they are not active in the church but nevertheless have retained a high degree of "Mormonness" is their culture—such as avoiding tobacco, alcohol, tea and coffee; having pictures of LDS temples on their home walls; and so forth. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:41, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
• Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. --Tyrannus Mundi (talk) 20:10, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 27 April 2012

Please change every instance of "Latter Day Saint" to "Latter-day Saint"

Please visit mormon.org or lds.org for confirmation of this official designation, which is a clarification in case and hyphenation.

Thank you

Nojiratz (talk) 13:21, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

 Not done While Latter-day Saint is correct for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is not correct when referring to the larger Latter Day Saint movement which includes all of the denominations following the tradition of Joseph Smith, including the Missouri-based Community of Christ. Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Latter Day Saints for further information on the capitalization and hyphenation. ~Adjwilley (talk) 13:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 14 May 2012

Under the Beliefs section: "According to Mormons, every person who lives on earth will be resurrected, and most of them will be received into various kingdoms of glory. To be accepted into the highest kingdom, a person must fully accept Christ through faith, repentance, and through ordinances such as baptism and the laying on of hands."

Perhaps it should mention that all three kingdoms are believed to be higher than Earth in their state of glory? This is a large part of Mormon belief, and I think it would provide a bit more context.

Suggested alteration: "According to Mormons, every person who lives on earth will be resurrected, and most of them will be received into one of three kingdoms of glory. These kingdoms are often compared to the stars, the moon, and the sun, and are believed to be more glorious and beautiful than the Earth currently is, but to be accepted into the highest kingdom a person must fully accept Christ through faith, repentance, and through ordinances such as baptism and the laying on of hands."

Or something similar would work as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.70.38.221 (talk • contribs)

• Comment. I'm not sure that it's accurate that each of the three is believed to "be more glorious and beautiful than the Earth currently is". The Mormon endowment teaches that the telestial kingdom is equivalent to "the world in which we now live". Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:37, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. Good point. I was a bit distracted and I'm not sure what I meant to say. How about " . . . and each is believed to be equivalent to or greater than the Earth currently is, but . . . " Does that seem better to you? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.70.38.221 (talk) 01:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

That's a very interesting comment by Good Olfactory, and I'll admit I'd never thought of it that way. It's hard for me to say how much of that is a symbolic comparison and how much is a description of the telestial kingdom. My understanding is that the Telestial is considered more glorious than the Earth, based partly on "The Vision" revelation where Smith talked about the three kingdoms (Doctrine and Covenants 76:89).

That said, for the purposes of this article (Mormons the people), I think the details about the 3 kingdoms of glory aren't nearly as important as the fact that Mormons are primarily concerned with obtaining the highest. The great thing about having an electronic encyclopedia is that if somebody wants to find out more about the "kingdoms of glory", those words in the paragraph link to the article on Degrees of glory, making it very easy. ~Adjwilley (talk) 14:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that's probably right. We don't need that level of detail in this article, but the link to degrees of glory is appropriate, where further information can be found. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:15, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Latter Day Saint vs Latter Day Saints

When is Latter Day Saint correct vs Latter Day Saints? For example Philo Farnsworth info box has him down as a Latter Day Saint. It would help confused people like me if the correct usage of Saint vs Saints was pointed out. Is Latter Day Saints just a subgroup of Latter Day Saint which is a subgroup of Christian? Should Farnsworth be Latter Day Saints or Saint? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.119.56.52 (talk) 16:08, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Latter-day Saint (singular) is roughly equivalent to Mormon in that a person is a Latter-day Saint. Latter-day Saints (plural) refers to multiple people, or the name of the specific church. So the difference between Saint and Saints is that the latter is plural. You can read all about the naming conventions at MOS:LDS and WP:NCLDS if you're interested.

Initially I thought you were asking about the difference between Latter Day Saint and Latter-day Saint. The rule on that is basically: Latter-day Saint refers specifically to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the largest church in the Latter Day Saint movement). Latter Day Saint refers to a member of the larger Latter Day Saint movement which includes the Missouri-based Community of Christ and other smaller (mostly defunct) factions. Farnsworth was a member of the LDS Church, so he should be Latter-day Saint, although Latter Day Saint would not be completely inaccurate. Does this answer your question? ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:31, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request, June 16 2012

The article at times clearly strays from NPOV language. Two sentences caught my eye and should be edited. "The term Latter-day Saints was given to Smith during a 1838 revelation mentioned in Doctrine and Covenants" ... this should be prefixed with "Mormons believe that", otherwise it is making the claim that God exists, and spoke to Joseph Smith, which is clearly a Mormon point of view and not a neutral one.

The article in fact begins with a non-neutral point of view statement: "the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement, which began with the visions of Joseph Smith". Joseph Smith claimed to have visions. Whether you believe the story or not will mostly align with whether or not you are an adherent of this faith. Many people claim that God speaks to them, and as far as anyone else is concerned, these are supernatural claims, they cannot be proven or disproven, so they cannot be laid down as a matter of fact in an encyclopedia. I would probably approach it neutrally by saying "In 18XX, Joseph Smith began preaching that he had visions which revealed to him ..." and just state the facts. You can avoid using the word "claim" which some people may believe inserts skepticism. By just stating the observed facts it can be dealt with then without bias in either direction.

I agree with you on the first sentence, and I've changed it from "was given to Smith during a 1838 revelation" to "originated in an 1838 revelation". I remember not quite liking that phrase when it was added to the article, though as far as I know the person who added it is not a Mormon.

As for the second sentence, I haven't changed it, because I can't think of another wording that would be as clean and concise. In my view, the term "visions of Joseph Smith" doesn't necessarily imply that Smith's visions were of divine origin (as opposed to hallucinations or fabrications), just as "revelations of Muhammad" doesn't necessarily imply that Muhammad was a prophet of God. ~Adjwilley (talk) 00:26, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a broader problem with the statement that the name "Latter-day Saints" "originated in an 1838 revelation". The Mormons were calling themselves the "Latter Day Saints" long before 1838—by 1834, they were referring to their church as the "Church of the Latter Day Saints". It first appears in one of Smith's revelations in 1838, but that's not where it originated. I'll search around for a better "originating moment" for the term. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:38, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I went back and found the edit that I thought had added the statement to the article, and it turns out they were cutting and pasting from a different section. I'm not sure now where it came from. It looks like it was originally sourced to Mormon.org, which was talking about where the name of the church came from–not the term LDS. I've made a temporary fix–taking the offending sentence, correcting it, and cramming it into a footnote–but I wouldn't mind seeing it disappear altogether. ~Adjwilley (talk) 05:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I can't find any source that explains when the first usage of "Latter Day Saint" was. It doesn't appear in church publications until Evening and Morning Star, vol. 2, p. 147 (April 1834): "Let it here be observed, that when any of the latter day saints speak of living and reigning with Christ a thousand years, they do not mean by this, that they are to live a thousand years in the flesh". Prior to that, the publication mentions the "latter days" from time to time, and it often refers to the members of the church as "saints", but never "Latter Day Saints" as a phrase. In the same edition, on p. 152, reference is made to "the church of Christ, or the church of the LATTER DAY SAINTS". That's the earliest uses I have been able to find, but surely it was in use prior to this if they started calling their church by this name in that edition. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:26, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Comment on Reference

The noted LDS scholar historian Bushman is referenced many times.

eg. Article: Besides the doctrinal reasons for plural marriage, the practice made some economic sense, as many of the plural wives were single women who arrived in Utah without brothers or fathers to offer them societal support.[54] Reference 54: Bushman (2008, p. 88) ("The close study of the marriages in one nineteenth-century Utah community revealed that a disproportionate number of plural wives were women who arrived in Utah without fathers or brothers to care for them...Since better-off men more frequently married plurally, the practice distributed wealth to the poor and disconnected").

It should be noted that referencing a noted LDS scholar's work must allow for the quite obvious assumption that the scholar likely has an obvious bias. The above reference comment pertaining to one community could be interpreted quite differently by any non LDS scholar.(Semajmai (talk) 05:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC))

It's my fault that the article references Bushman so many times. When I started out, I had read his book Mormonism: a very short introduction and it seemed to be the perfect source because it was short and easy to read, but also fairly comprehensive. I later started to replace/supplement with citations to Thomas O'Dea, whose book, though old, is well-respected. The fact that Bushman is a Mormon doesn't bug me too much, but you do raise a very good question with the example you gave, so I did a bit of research to see if anybody else had made the same claim. The first book I checked was The Mormon People by Matthew Bowman (2012). I actually haven't read the book yet, but I read about half the chapter on polygamy. Here's what he said about the economics mentioned above.

"Particularly in the early years of plural marriage in Utah, the hard years of the 1840s and 1850s, when settelment was just beginning, polygamy often provided plural wives with economic resources. Plural wives tended to come from the poorer stratum of Utah society, particularly from the ranks of immigrant women who came to Utah, often alone, with few or no resources...Such marriages immediately connected women to established kinship ties, gave them social status, and entitled them to economic support; this often replaced the absence of more traditional such networks. Women without a father in Utah were far more likely than other single women to enter plural marriage." (p. 131)

As far as I can tell, Bowman is not an LDS scholar, though it wouldn't surprise me if he had gotten the idea from reading Bushman, who is well-respected as a scholar among peers Mormon and non-Mormon. ~Adjwilley (talk) 12:44, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Locked status

Why on Earth is this article locked down?

We are presumably trying to win over new converts to our faith, and yet we're behaving like a cult. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.32.51 (talk) 21:13, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

This article is "semi-protected" (edits allowed only by logged-in users whose accounts have been around for a while) because it has, in the past, been subjected to repeated bouts of vandalism. This has nothing at all to do with "trying to win over new converts"; an article like this is supposed to be neutral and encyclopedic — neither "pro" nor "anti" in its tone — and inappropriate editing has come both from supporters and opponents of the LDS Church, as well as from people whose only wish is to spray graffiti on the article and on Wikipedia in general. If there is some particular way in which you feel this article should be changed, please feel free to bring it up here, and if discussion leads to a consensus that the change is a good idea, someone can do it. — Richwales 21:34, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

If you'd like to have the article unlocked you could always file a request at WP:RPP ~Adjwilley (talk) 20:51, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Terminology section

As I look through the revision history, it is clear that several zealous Latter-day Saints have been pushing hard to replace the term "Mormon" where possible. I am sensitive to these efforts as I believe we should call people what they prefer to be called. However, in my opinion, many of the changes made to the terminology section have become both confusing and historically inaccurate. Additionally, these edits have seriously corrupted the quality of the references section. For example, reference 14 includes links to several different works.

I propose the following edit to the entire Terminology section, attempting to balance the strong preference of Latter-day Saints in SLC with the many other but much less visible sects of Mormonism. In my edit, I am trying to 1) acknowledge that there are many branches which can be jointly called "Mormonism", 2) acknowledge that various sects have strong naming preferences and what the main ones are, 3) retain most of the same ideas as the original and preserve relevant links, and 4) provide a historically accurate yet very abbreviated history of the term in the first two sentences.

~~Frogontrombone~~

Proposed edit

The word Mormon was originally coined to describe any person who believes in the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture. The term Mormonite and Mormon were originally descriptive terms used by outsiders to the faith and occasionally used by church leaders. The term Mormon later evolved into a derogatory term, likely during the Missouri War, although the term was later adopted by Joseph Smith.

Today, while the term Mormonism can act as a blanket term for all sects following the religious tradition started by Joseph Smith, many sects do not prefer the term "Mormon" as an acceptable label. For example, the largest sect, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, recently clarified in a style guide that it prefers the term Latter-day Saints among other acceptable terms. The term preferred by the Salt Lake based church has varied in the past, and at various points it has embraced the term Mormon and also stated that other sects within the shared faith tradition should not be called Mormon. The second largest sect, the Community of Christ, also rejects the term "Mormon" due to its association with the practice of polygamy among Brighamite sects. Other sects, including several fundamentalist branches of the Brighamite tradition, embrace the term Mormon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frogontrombone (talk • contribs) 00:47, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

References

“Mormon (word)” should be merged into “Mormons”

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The two pages are basically the same thing. The word Mormon is a word that refers to Mormons. Not sure why this was two separate pages in the first place. Mrbeastmodeallday (talk) 08:46, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

They are not the same thing. One page is about a religious and cultural group of people. The other is about a word and it's uses and history. It's basically the same distinction made in the two separate articles at Jews and Jew (word). ~Awilley (talk) 07:05, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Oppose merge: As Awilley says, they are not the same. The term Mormon has multiple meanings – not originally being a name for the people – so it would be wrong to merge the word with this article. Moreover, Mormon (word) is a long, fairly comprehensive article that is well-referenced. This article is similarly long. Merging the two would either result in one inappropriately long article or a regrettable loss of content. --Hazhk (talk) 12:51, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

oppose merge: As stated by others, I believe it's fair to see an encyclopedic entry for the word Mormon and how it has been used. The purpose and explanation that flows from that gramatical/lexicological/linguistics and even cultural aspects of a word, is fundamentally different than a general artical on the Mormons/Heritage/people. While it is fair to say the article "Mormon (word)" Could probably use further editing and parsing to seperate it in purpose from the proposed merge. They should both exist seperately, for different purposes. LikeGrantTookRichmond (talk) 08:06, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Support per WP:NOTADICTIONARY. Mormons is already WP:WORDISSUBJECT, we don't need a second one about the word itself. Also in regards to Jew (word), that page is almost entirely unsourced and should likely be removed or merged as well. Anon0098 (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why are there two articles?

This and Mormonism Mike F (talk) 14:03, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Because there are two subjects covered. We also have many other articles on different Mormon subjects. -Roxy the dog 15:43, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

And does it make sense to have them under these two very similar titles? Genuine question Mike F (talk) 17:31, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Genuine answer. -Roxy the dog 18:05, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

So, to clarify: Is there a subtle difference I don't quite get yet (as I assumed in my first reply), or is the argument really, seriously just the basic semantic one that there's a difference between the noun denoting a faith and the one denoting its followers? Like between "Conservatism" and "Conservatives", is that it? Mike F (talk) 13:16, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

If you cannot see it, then perhaps wikipedia isn't for you. -Roxy the dog 13:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

What are you talking about? I am questioning the relevance of that distinction for the purpose of making Wikipedia articles. We don't have articles for "carpentry" and "carpenters", do we? Mike F (talk) 14:47, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

A better example is Jews and Judaism. One is a group of people with a distinct culture/identity/almost ethnicity. The other is a religion/religious tradition. We also have an article about the largest church in Mormonism: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All these things are closely related, but they're not the same thing. ~Awilley (talk) 02:57, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for a reasonable answer! That obviously makes some more sense and certainly makes having two articles an arguable position at least. I am still not convinced that it is better than putting them in one article in the particular case, but then I am not an expert on the subject matter as such. I basically came here as an interested reader and didn't know which article to read. At the very least, I don't think that the distinction is made very clear when you first come to this article Mike F (talk) 08:39, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Or rather, I suspect it's more that the definition of "Mormons" as given in the beginning of the article doesn't really differentiate the supposed topic enough from "Mormonism", because it's kinda hard to do so? Because it is, after all, not so clear as the distinction between Jews and Judaism? Not sure, as I said, I am not an expert, just a hunch. At least it's better than that Christians page, which outright defines its subject matter as being the followers of Christianity (and rightly so, but imo robbing itself of justification of its existence) Mike F (talk) 09:51, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

'Mormons' and Mormonism'

I'm surprised, and disappointed, at your use and/or definition of 'Mormons' and Mormonism'. There is no such term(s) used by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The word Mormon is only used in describing the Book of Mormon. Any other use is considered derogatory. 2001:569:7648:2800:D157:44E7:C113:AEB5 (talk) 04:55, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Both are words in the dictionary, and Wikipedia is uncensored. ––FormalDude (talk) 06:15, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Um no, Wikipedia is not uncensored. There's censorship going on Wikipedia with edit reverts by Wikipedia staff and users who tend to reject my and other users contributions edits and that happens even to me when I've tried to contribute to certain Wikipedia article edits in the past for over 10 years. And there's also copyright image censorship which I'm not allowed to add on Wikipedia articles since I got in trouble in the past for unknowingly added copyrighted images. CrosswalkX (talk) 05:05, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

This article's intro states it covers a topic which is larger than just the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It covers all modern day cultural groups that came out of the original church founded by Joseph Smith. Of which the LDS Church members are just one group, albeit the majority one. I think the confusion comes when later portions of the article seem to focus heavily on only LDS Church members. So what is this article, is it the culture of all groups who the word "Mormon" may refer to? In which case many of the links and reference feel like they should be reframed so that they are more clearly indicating the culture of LDS Church members, as opposed to FLDS or other related groups - who may have differences in culture. And if not, and this is just about the culture of LDS Church members, then I would agree using the word Mormon is probably better replaced with the phrase Latter-day Saint A crapo (talk) 20:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

"Mormonism" in this context is a bit like "Judaism". A lot of the logic in this essay parallels Mormonism. (Is it a religion? Is it a culture? Is it an ethnicity?) Undoubtedly the LDS Church is the predominant shaper of Mormon culture (think Word of Wisdom, Family Home Evening, LDS Missions, etc.) but there's more than that. There's the polygamy that still exists in FLDS groups. The political conservatism. Cuisine like Jello (where did that come from?) and funeral potatoes. I think this article could be improved by expanding more into the cultural side of things and de-emphasizing the specific doctrines of the LDS Church. ~Awilley (talk) 01:08, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Doctrinal change

"Tattoos and body piercings are also discouraged, with the exception of a single pair of earrings for LDS women." is now outdated information as of Spring 2023. New guidelines have been released and tattoos and additional piercings are no longer completely forbidden. I may edit this in myself if I find the time, but if someone else is looking to improve this page then that may be a good avenue. Inndrid (talk) 18:10, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

"Discouraged" is different to "completely forbidden", I don't think they were ever the latter. The guideline I remember reading some time before 2005 said tattoos were no problem where they're used to show rank etc. in the local culture. In the 90s (UK) I knew an active church member who had his blood type tattooed on his wrist (ex-army medic). My take-away was that the church was only against tattoos that were purely for decoration. Pastychomper (talk) 14:45, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey Inndrid could you provide a link to the change about piercings? I just did a Google search and this was the first result. ~Awilley (talk) 03:13, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

@Pastychomper @Awilley For full disclosure, I'm a previous member of the LDS church so my interpretations of the official material are partially influenced by that. Pastychomper you're right, completely forbidden wouldn't be the right wording. I meant that previously, tattoos could potentially be grounds for discipline if a current active member were to get one. I'm sure there are exceptions such as the ex-army medic you knew, where they would be for a particular utility. They also would not be subject to discipline if they had gotten tattoos before converting.

They recently re-issued the handbook called "For the Strength of Youth," which has historically been the main official material outlining their grounds around tattoos and piercings. In the new edition released in 2022, they rolled back their wording in that regard, counseling members to consult leaders and pray about things like tattoos and piercings rather than just saying "no" about them. I am curious about why they have left up the True to the Faith pages about that, but I believe that particular manual was published before the For the Strength of Youth update.

This Article published by LDS Living highlights some of the changes between the previous and new edition, including the excerpts about tattoos and piercings.

I can see why you may or may not think this change is necessary to include, based on their other lingering material discouraging piercings and tattoos. Further input is appreciated! Inndrid (talk) 13:54, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Would it be fair to say something simple like "Tattoos and body piercings are generally discouraged" leaving earrings out of it? (When someone says "body piercing" I don't immediately think of earrings.) ~Awilley (talk) 21:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

That sounds fair to me. It is also notable to me that having/getting tattoos may still prevent members from serving a mission, but I'm not sure if others would consider that excess information for a mid-level overview. Inndrid (talk) 16:51, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I didn't know that. I think that might be getting too much into the weeds for this article. ~Awilley (talk) 17:15, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Etymology?

According to the wiktionary they are simply derived from the eponymous book, also from two things the eponymous prohet and his eponymous water. Makes sense? I think not! Who ever invented that relgiious word for no good reason at all?2404:8000:1027:85F6:A958:5DEB:3F43:D77B (talk) 07:05, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

There is no use of the word prior to 1829 when Smith himself started publishing sections from his upcoming book in local papers. There are some conspiracy theories that Smith read it on a map somewhere, but the link is so tenuous that it is not credible. Frogontrombone (talk) 06:27, 17 November 2023 (UTC)