Talk:First Vision/Archive 8

message: I'm certainly not opposed to arbitration of the issue regarding whether the "evolving importance" section is historical fact or criticism.--John Foxe 00:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: John Foxe, do you mean arbitration (WP:RFAR) or mediation (WP:RFM)?  Main difference is, mediation is voluntary, arbitration is not. For the record, I've asked for mediation in the past, but I don't know if "evolving importance" is the thing that most needs to be mediated. If we can reach a consensus on "Fairness of tone" then we may be able to move forward without mediation. 74s181 10:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just thought that it might be helpful to have a single narrow issue, even if comparatively unimportant, presented to a wider audience.--John Foxe 19:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitration? 

message: The assertion is "There is little evidence that Smith spoke about the First Vision for at least a decade after it was said to have occurred."
I thought we once had a citation on this, an expert who made this assertion.  I added a    tag, John Foxe responded by adding 
:The earliest anti-Mormon literature questions the veracity of the Book of Mormon and the character of Joseph Smith "but never mentions the First Vision."[2]
(sigh) 
I found and restored the original reference (Allen 1966, p. 30).  74s181 19:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.--John Foxe 20:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The third paragraph is bloated and the references are obscure.  I really think we should be pullint a lot more from Bushman and less from these other sources.  In Rough Stone Rolling, he says (paraphrasing as I dont have my copy with me) that the early missionary work was all about the Book of Mormon and not about Smith's prophetic calling.  Many converts didn't even know about Smith, the Gold Plates, or the translation process.  To emphasize the lack of usage of the First Vision in the early prostyltizing efforts needs to be presented with a balance that none of Smith's prophetic abilites were in play.  The establishment of the church was the establishment of Christ's Church, not Smith's.  Converts did not join because of Smith.  All of this needs to be covered in the body of the article.  The third paragraph of the intro is bloated and too wordy.  The ideas presented are interesting but should be explored in the body, not the intro.  Please!  Let's get the intro tight and consise.  I am going to edit it, removing references for now, and if you see somethign that needs to be elaborated on, do it either in the body, or in the talk page.   I also highly recommend using Bushman's statements about early converts. 74s181 19:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Deciding which references are "obscure" is a judgment call; and although I'm a fan of Bushman, he is an LDS patriarch. As I said above, I don't mind shortening the paragraph so long as its meaning isn't obscured.  That is, the paragraph should continue to say that the First Vision was not emphasized in the LDS Church until the late nineteenth century, an aspect of the subject at hand that's both important and universally recognized by non-Mormon students of the LDS Church.--John Foxe 20:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The issue I have (and Wikipedia messed up and attributed some of my comments to 74s), is implying POV.  For example, saying that the First Vision was not emphasized is true, but Smith's prophetic calling was equally not emphasized.  In fact, it wasn't until later scisms where apostles attempted to prophecy about church matters that Smith came down on them and became the only voice for doctrinal issues.  And it wasn't until his status as a martyr that he really became THE prophet.  So I agree that the FV later gained an importance to the church, but only in conjunction with all matters pertaining to the prophetic calling of Smith.  Bytebear 00:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia didn't mess up, it was me.  I goofed up a 'nowiki', John Foxe sent me an email, and when I fixed it, your four tildes turned into my signature.  Sorry about that. 74s181 04:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good trick.  I wondered what was up.  Thanks. Bytebear 05:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Little evidence 

message: I will agree to arbitration, even though my belief in the Wikipedia process is much less sanguine than most of yours. To me, the important question has always been how Wikipedia should conduct itself toward a sizable consensus of editors who represent a minority position in opposition to a single editor who represents the beliefs of the majority.  If a decision could be reached on that larger issue, we might render a real service to the encyclopedia.  As I say, I doubt that the larger community is much interested in difficult content issues—their juices only seem to flow when one editor threatens to sue another—but the attempt is worth the effort.
I the meantime I will continue, in a gentlemanly fashion, to revert the article to its earlier, and in my view, more NPOV condition.  I certainly want to avoid incivility or personal attacks. (You may have heard the story of the chicken farmer who refused to press charges against the chicken thief because he didn't want to be associated with chicken thieves.)  And there will be no sock puppetry or meat puppetry on my part. It would be nice to have an ally occasionally, but I won't stoop to creating or recruiting them.  
“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.” Edward Everett Hale
--John Foxe 11:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitration 

message: I have basically replaced the entire history section with the text from the article Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr.  I have removed a few sections that do not directly relate to the First Vision.  I have done this because that article is a featured article, so the content has been proven acceptable.  It should be a much better starting point than the drivel we have now (although I suspect this article started out as a copy of that article and became drivel later). Bytebear 22:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It did not. Nor was it ever drivel. The article is one of the best written, finest NPOV articles on Wikipedia about a Mormon doctrine, well-balanced and completed documented. Your only aim is to push Mormon POV.  At least you're open and unashamed about it.--John Foxe 00:19, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "The article is one of the best written, finest NPOV articles on Wikipedia about a Mormon doctrine..." Keep going, you'll get to 1000 soon. 74s181 02:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

text: John, please read the article Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. and tell me that this article has the same tone and bias as this one.  Perhaps you think that article is just Mormon propaganda?  But that article is a featured article, the best of the best in Wikipedia.  How can you possibly think that this article is at the same level as that article.  Seriously, what are you smoking? Bytebear 05:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have read Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr., and with all due respects to Cogden, I don't believe it reads as well as this article, nor is it as well balanced in presenting the non-Mormon viewpoint. (In passing, the Harvard citations also continue to irritate me.) Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. got to featured article status because it was supported by Mormons.  No article presenting a balanced viewpoint, regardless of its quality, would have been so featured.--John Foxe 11:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just read it for the first time.  It is a much better (more polished and easy to read) article than this one.  This one is turgid with verbal bridges to nowhere throughout. In fact, I had just come here and re-read this article before posting here and in several places I said, to myself "this is just awful construction". --Blue Tie 03:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Everyone's entitled to his opinion.  And I certainly don't mean to imply that this article is without its problems.  Battlefields tend to get littered with corpses.--John Foxe 12:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section 

message: I would like to suggest a different approach that might help resolve the edit wars, as an alternative to mediation or arbitration. It does require mutual agreement by all involved editors to adopt this approach, so if a major contributor here demurs, this proposal can be considered rejected.
* Start with a list of points disputed by editors here (for example, the relevance of Joseph Smith's character to the First Vision account).  A single non-vandalism revert is evidence of a dispute and should trigger this process, without further reverts by either side.
* For each point, list all the sources that can be found that touch upon it, identifying:
** Author/originator of the source
** Nature(s) of the source (critical, apologetic, scholarly, eyewitness, hearsay, etc.)
** What the source asserts as historical fact relevant to the point (give quotes and/or page citations)
** What the source offers as historical conclusions or interpretations relevant to the point (quotes and/or page citations)
** Any editor comments or discussion needed to hash out details or explain reasoning
* For each point and its list of sources, group the sources together that agree with each other and find a succinct label for their "take" on the matter
* Any (disputed) point that is not supported by any sources is dropped from the article
* Anything that all sources universally treat as historical fact is treated here as historical fact, subject to WP:Undue weight and WP:Reliable sources
* Remaining points are given weight according to the number and reliability of the sources that support them, with attributions of points of view to those who hold them
If editors here can agree on this approach up front, then disputes over the article can be turned into discussion of sources.  I anticipate there will still be some argument over whether a source is asserting a fact or making a conclusion or interpretation, but those should be easier to resolve by comparing to other sources or by asking for outside opinions.  It also won't matter who here is LDS or not, or what an editor may think about Joseph Smith or Mormonism, because the sources will drive the article.
It will be important not to exclude any sources because of their POV, whether critical or apologetic or whatever, until it can be ascertained what the sources in total are saying.  When editors feel that all sources for a disputed point have been found or are unlikely to be forthcoming, then they can start winnowing them based on reliability, but this should be limited -- editors should rather seek to represent as many of the points of view as they can reasonably do, keeping undue weight in mind.
It may be helpful to create a template or table to make listing the sources easier, and maybe this should happen at a subpage (Talk:First Vision/Sources, perhaps).  How does this sound?  (If creating subpages or templates for such a purpose is a frowned-upon practice at WP, please suggest better alternatives.)
This means a lot more work to make a disputed point stick, but I think it's far better than arguing via edit summaries for endless reverts.
Please sign your name to this suggestion if you are willing to try this approach. alanyst /talk/ 00:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that by looking at all sources at once, editors can spot problems with undue weight, or choose language that the different POVs can agree on, or just enumerate the POVs.  Example: most sources on the Eucharist don't focus on cannibalism, so the mention of such should be limited if not omitted completely. alanyst /talk/ 04:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Editors would have to hash this out, but I think there will be general agreement for most sources, and where there's irreconcilable disagreement, just acknowledge it and move on (e.g., "John Foxe says this is apologetic, 74s181 says it's scholarly").  That might be an indication to seek a different source, or at least to get a narrow enough question for a neutral party to weigh in on. alanyst /talk/ 04:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It sounds complex, alanyst, but if we can discuss sources rather than misty notions about "fairness of tone," I think we can make progress.--John Foxe 11:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "...misty notions..."   Neigh!!!, agreed the high horse that JF is riding. <g> 74s181 14:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Limited to Morse code, the will o' the wisp angrily responded, "... --- .---. ... | -.-- --- ..- .-. | --- .-.. -.. | -- .- -."!  74s181 14:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Fundamentally, if there is no verifiable, reliable source that connects this magical thinking and the first vision, no matter how beautiful the synthesis might appear, it cannot be included -- it is O.R.  I think that there is something under the O.R. guidelines that almost address this dead on. --Blue Tie 03:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new approach 

message: There is only so much time in the day, and there are priorities in my life that need more time and attention right now.  So, while I don't expect to be completely absent from Wikipedia, don't be surprised if days go by without any contributions from me. 74s181 14:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Less active. 

message: Would anyone be opposed to this page being auto-archived by a bot? I just archived the page as it was 528 kb in size. I think the bot would be helpful in keeping this talk page at a manageable size. I would think 7 days would be a good date to set for the age, and possibly a shorter period. All other criteria aside from the counter I would leave to their defaults. See User:MiszaBot/Archive_HowTo for the bot I am referring to. - Optigan13 05:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it is no activity for x days. As described on the bot's instruction page it is "old(...) where ... specifies the maximum age of a thread". Thirty days is fine I guess it is just it looks like this one has been prone to some rapid growth over short periods of time, which can make for lengthy and difficult to read talk pages. But 30 is fine for me, I believe that variable can be changed at a later date anyway. I'm new to using the bot archival as well, so I am not certain on a lot of these points. I believe User:HBC Archive Indexerbot would take care of indexing the page as well, but again I haven't used either of these bots yet. - Optigan13 06:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

text: There are a few talk pages I have seen that have an FAQ subpage.  This is for those sticky points that get rehashed over and over again.  The problem is, the FAQ becomes as devisive as the subject it is supposed to cover.  I am not opposed to a subpage for a specific topic to keep it "sticky" but only as a place for information to give to newbies.  Discussion should still take place, and the FAQ should not become law. Bytebear 17:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I believe you are referring to the  template. Take a look at Talk:Abortion for it being used on a contentious article. I'm not sure if the bot ignores certain sections. I have seen a few user talk pages on my watchlist that have the same bot, so I'll see next time one gets autoarchived. - Optigan13 05:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright I've tested the archival and indexing bots against my own talkpage and I'm pleased with the results. Note that the talkheader was left alone as that didn't have any dating. Here are some diffs: archival of topics cut, paste to a brand new archive, and creation of the index. Another possibility is we could do the archival names by date instead of a number. Please take a look at the pages and let me know what you think, and if we would be ok at least with creating the index page. Would a more lengthy timeframe be ok to start with (30 days?), then fine tuning down if the page gets unwieldy. I'll leave the FAQ to users who are more familiar with the consensus so far. I haven't been keeping up with this page given the rate and volume of discussion here. - Optigan13 (talk) 05:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bot archival of this talk page 

message: I believe Joseph Smith's magic world view is a significant part of the First Vision story, and I've provided a citation from Michael Coe, a noted anthropologist.--John Foxe (talk) 21:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's still not making the connection.  Coe is giving an opinion about how Joseph Smith's claims of divine visitations and visions resemble the magical claims of a shaman, but he's not linking the First Vision (or any of Joseph Smith's claims of heavenly visions) to alleged practices of folk magic.  (The various shades of meaning in the word "magic" might be contributing to your inclination to see relevance where there is none.)  Please revert yourself and do not restore the material until you have presented sources on this talk page that we can agree establishes the connection.  I will not edit war with you but the material still represents original research in the context of this article, and as the contributor and proponent of it you ought to do the right thing by removing it. alanyst /talk/ 21:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You said you would seek an outside opinion about allowing the "magic" material to be interpreted by the readers without additional comment. I agreed that this would be a good idea. Now you've attempted to eliminate the section without even the pretense of consulting a third-party opinion.  I dislike putting experts between the reader and evidence that readers can interpret for themselves, but if we have to have a paragraph drawing the lines between Joseph Smith's magic and the First Vision, so be it.--John Foxe (talk) 21:37, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did seek a third opinion but apparently it was in the wrong place.  In a fit of impatience (if a two-week wait for requested sources qualifies as impatience) I decided to be WP:BOLD and correct the problem.  Now you have found the sources (Quinn and Shipps) that I was looking for; these do in fact draw the connection that you have asserted exists.  I am satisfied with that.  I have concerns now about undue weight for this perspective, and think we need only a couple of sentences to treat the folk magic connection appropriately, but I do gladly concede the larger point since it is now appropriately attributed. alanyst /talk/ 21:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I appreciate your spirit of good will.--John Foxe (talk) 02:30, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joseph Smith's magic world view