Talk:Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

message: Regarding this line:
"Rough Stone Rolling makes use of much recent research and is the most complete biography of Joseph Smith published to date, but it lacks the literary distinction of Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History (1945), a biography that presents Smith as a gifted fraud.
This strikes me as a pretty non-objective statement, regardless of it being sourced to a literary review. I would remove the comparison altogether, and perhaps replace it with a line or two on how the book was received by the public/critics...
71.112.200.213 06:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to try a revision, but I believe adequate documentation to back the statement appears in the notes.--John Foxe 09:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I feel the same way. Seems unnecessary, regardless of the documentation. zarahemlite 208.69.44.26 (talk) 20:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As I wrote more than a year and a half ago, you're welcome to try a revision. That's what Wikipedia's all about. But to do so, you must use reliable sources; and you can't argue that an article is "unnecessary" or "unnecessarily subjective" if it's solidly based on reliable sources. What's not WP:RS is simply opinion.--John Foxe (talk) 10:54, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Could an image of the book cover be added? Does that require permission from the publisher? Unjedai 15:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Book Cover

message: I added quotes from Marvin Hill (actually one long quote substituting one word for a comma). It has been changed to something considerably more favorable. I must respectfully disagree with part of the recent change.
1) Changing the opening phrase is fine with me.
2) I must remove "remarkable by any standard". The title (and opening line) is muted sarcasm. The review is systematically negative. Even the praise at the end (which I quote), is extremely limited. See Midgley's 10th footnote at http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=19&num=1&id=638, where Midgley (in his characteristic acerbic style) notes the review is negative, along with an earlier review by Hill of Beginnings).
3) So in summary I believe the quote more accurately represents the reviews. If anything it is more pro-Rough Stone than the rest of the review since it cites about the only line of praise in the whole thing.
4) And last, I do not wish to cite Midgley's interpretation of Hill's review in the article itself, since his rhetoric is overblown, it comes from a deeply apologetic source, its in a footnote, and it seems strange to cite a review of a review.
Carneadiiz (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: My problems are that the characterization of the review comes from Midgley and the quotation also comes via Midgley's footnote 10 rather than from Hill.  I'd like to see the review itself, but Dialogue is not held by many libraries in my part of the world so it may take a bit for me to get a copy.  It may also be necessary to provide a phrase of identification about Hill beyond the fact that he's a retired BYU professor. And the quotation needs a page number citation.--John Foxe (talk) 00:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay I understand your objection better now. I actually pulled the quote from the Dialogue piece, I read the entire review. The quote also appears in Midgley along with his nasty commentary, but it actually is, in my opinion, the best summary quotation. I'm no lawyer but I believe I can send you a copy of the article under fair use. Email me.
Carneadiiz (talk) 00:31, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Oh and as for identification for Hill, I too would like more information, I just don't have any. All I know is that he's a retired professor at BYU who writes on American History, so he's an appropriate source here, especially since he's not taking the party line. I get the distinct impression reading his review that he's no orthodox believer, but who knows.
Carneadiiz (talk) 00:33, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.--John Foxe (talk) 16:07, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marvin S. Hill 

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