Talk:First Vision/Archive 2

message: What Cowdery says is "You will recollect that I mentioned the time of a religious excitement, in Palmyra and vicinity to have been in the 15th year of our brother J. Smith Jr.’s age — that was an error in the type — it should have been in the 17th."  In other words, he says that he had earlier made a typographical error and said that Smith was fourteen in the previous issue and now wishes to correct the error by saying that he was sixteen.  Obviously, in 1823, Smith was seventeen, at least until the last week of December.  So both articles get Smith's age wrong. Thanks for adding the links to the original text though.--John Foxe 13:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem - you're right re fourteen, sixteen - I think this "minor typo" is indicitive of the sloppiness of the scholarship of this "account" of the first vision - and such obvious errors cast doubt on the validity of the year as well - Cowdery could have just as easily have meant 1820 instead of 1823. --Trödel 22:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd bet Cowdery heard Joseph say "about fourteen" somewhere along the line and then realized that the date of the Moroni visitation wouldn't line up well with him being that old. (Cowdery was only a few months younger than Smith, and he would have been conscious of how old Smith was in 1823.) So a typo happened.--John Foxe 13:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smith's age in 1823 

message: For the reasons discussed above, as well as the repeated edits by IP users who obviously thought this was POV, I added the tag to the article. --Lethargy 00:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case you can also tag the article with . See Wikipedia:Reliable sources for guidelines. Thanks for discussing this here BTW. --Lethargy 01:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you check the history of this article, you will note that there has been long-standing give and take by Mormons and non-Mormons here, and changes have been made in a gracious fashion with respect for one another's position.  I would urge other editors to state specifically what, in their opinion, is POV or unreliable.  We are not interested in "what his followers say" or "what the opposition says," we're interested in facts that can be demonstrated in historical source material.--John Foxe 09:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you for your comments.  Your objections to the article are apparently not to any particular phrases or sentences. You have not asked for any facts to be documented. If the article is so obviously biased, why not? --John Foxe 20:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although that was not aimed at me, I do feel the POV tag is justified, given the discussion here and particularly the one directly above this. --Lethargy 20:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV tag 

message: Most of Cogden's suggestions are attempts to add things that should be on another page, probably "Joseph Smith, Jr."  "First Vision" should be about the First Vision. There is no need to revisit the gamut of early Mormon history here. --John Foxe 19:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added material back, and attempted to address some of your concerns. I don't think there is cause to delete any information about the First Vision that is relevant and verifiable. Much of this information is on the Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. article, but this First Vision article should go into more depth on this particular subject, which I think deserves extensive treatment. COGDEN 20:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I object to any material being taken from "Joseph Smith, Jr."  For one thing, that page is too controverted, and you'll bring all the ill will over here.  Besides the comments you've tried to add are so poorly written and organized that they make the page almost unreadable.  Try taking the revisions sentence by sentence.  We're in no hurry.--John Foxe 20:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No info has been taken from Joseph Smith, Jr.. It was taken from Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr., which is a featured article that has appeared on the Main Page. Part of my changes are structural, and not amenable to a sentence-by-sentence addition. In essence, the Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. article contained only a summary about the First Vision, and this article should discuss every issue and citation raised there, and much more. Since I haven't really deleted anything, only added things, I would call on you and others to discuss any NPOV, relevance, or other Wikipedia problems you might think are present. If you have problems with something that has been added, please make improvements. COGDEN 20:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: John, it appears that your complaints may have not been as well thought out as you may have thought.  I did not think the edits by Cogden were poorly written or made the article unreadable.  I suppose that a feature article, the source for the edits, should be given a modicum of respect.  Time is irrevelent to the conversation, the objective is to produce excellent articles.  Wholesale reversions are a last resort according to policy; it is incumbent upon you to make a critique sentence by sentence if that is your desire.  One does not achieve concensus by aggressive action such as yours and making unfounded critiques is also not a good sign of objectivity.  Storm Rider (talk) 20:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reverted one more time, to keep the status quo while we discuss here. Both John Foxe and I are up to our limit under the Wikipedia:3RR rule, so I won't be reverting any more. Hopefully neither will John Foxe for 24 hours. This will give time for user comment. COGDEN 21:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I stand by my earlier statement that much of the new material is poorly written and (to a lesser extent) poorly organized.  I've done some stylistic and substantive revision of the early parts of it, and I welcome the comparison with the original.  There much to be redebated here. Good luck on the "sacred grove" page.  The gnome that watches over it wouldn't let me add anything about Mormonism's sacred grove. --John Foxe 21:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My last edit, a short addition mentioning the Sacred Grove, apparently came just after John Foxe reverted the article (for the fourth time, in violation of the Wikipedia:3RR rule) and I didn't notice. Everybody needs to play by the rules, here, or otherwise we get anarchy. In honor of that rule, I'm not going to un-revert again for 24 hours. Obviously, since I'm an involved party, I can't use my administrative privileges to take any direct action like blocking or protection. Since this last reversion was only a partial reversion, I probably wouldn't block you anyway, but I would hope that we can work together on this article in the future. COGDEN 22:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't revert.  I was simply editing. I look forward to working with you on this article.  You've just thrown in a lot of changes all at once, and that's hard to get a handle on. --John Foxe 23:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just FYI, a partial reversion (any deletion of newly-added material) still counts under the Three-revert rule. COGDEN 00:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reasons for Reversion

message: I will try to revise the article starting from the beginning.  It should be clear at the start that there were multiple versions of the First Vision, that one mentions two persons (I don't think anyone would argue that One of them was not God the Father), and that the 1838 account is the one treated by the Church as canonical.  Nor should it be debated that the doctrine is so important to the Church that President Hinckley has put great weight on its veracity.
::The statement by Gordon B. Hinckley has no business in the introduction, as has been discussed many times before by other editors than I. This is an article that applies to numerous Latter Day Saint denominations, and not all of them agree with Hinckley. In addition, not all of the denominations have canonized the 1838 version. Basically, only the LDS Church, in its Pearl of Great Price. COGDEN 23:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If we decide to use footnotes in the article, that's fine, but we should choose one system or the other. You haven't actually removed the Harvard citations. You just put them in footnotes, making it that much harder to find and verify them, which puts two layers of indirection between the user and the full citation. If you want to use footnotes, lets do so, but we should put the full citation, or at least an abbreviated one, in each footnote. Personally, I like Harvard citations because they are edit-friendly. Footnotes are good for World Book and Brittanica, where you don't have people constantly cite-checking. Harvard referencing is more academic, as well, for those of us who care about where the cited "factoid" came from, so that we can understand immediately how credible it is, without having to sort through footnotes. Either way, however, is only a temporary solution, because eventually we're moving toward a Wikicite system, which will solve all of these problems. COGDEN 23:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When you started editing "First Vision" I thought I'd take a look at your "Early Years of Joseph Smith."  After two paragraphs I gave up; the internal citations were just too irritating.  Two clicks is not too high of a price to pay to get rid of them.  In fact I made a mental note that if someone wanted to insure that an article would not be read, he should just end every phrase with a Harvard citation.--John Foxe 21:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

text: We can change "most" to "many". COGDEN 23:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed. COGDEN 23:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I strongly disagree with your premise that the article should begin with making it clear there were multiple versions.  A topic is first introduced; it answers what, when, why, and where.  A summary of the most prevelant and believed version of the event should be summarized.  It should be followed by a lead in to who believes and how they might be different in their beliefs.  Then a controversy section.  I don't believe any article should start with controversy unless we are attempting to be polemical in our writing.  I believe an outline was already discussed.  Storm Rider (talk) 18:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where is the controversy in mentioning that there's more than one version?  Mormons and non-Mormons agree about that.  The various versions are a historical fact. Only one version is canonical, and we say that in the introduction.--John Foxe 21:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Discussion

message: Perhaps I am using the wrong terminology here, but what I am proposing is not to do an outright fork, such as something like LDS version of the First Vision, but rather doing a development and editorial branch of an unstable nature.  This is indeed a common technique for helping to resolve complicated issue.  In the software development world, especially when there are multiple contributors and collaborators, this is a very common practice to branch development from a stable bit that doesn't change much (keeping the current version of this article, for example) while the part that you want to allow major changes to be reviewed before they become "official".  Indeed this is exactly what the Wikipedia 1.0 supporters are even encouraging, and it can be done right now in a limited fashion.
All I'm suggesting is starting a page of First Vision/Unstable or First Vision/Review that would allow us to do the major changes, but allow the current version to be available while the unstable version isn't quite up to par and is undergoing major changes.  Especially if we are going to make substantial structural changes to the topic.
All of this is being done with the intention of moving it back to the main article.  Indeed, a good administrator can even merge in the edit histories from the stable and unstable pages if we think we have found a good candidate page for improvement, and we can discuss several different organizational strategies to help deal with this topic and eventually delete the ones that we don't want to follow.
This is not a classical fork such as what happened with es.wikipedia, where a whole extra server was created independent of Jimbo and completely independent development occured.  I am saying this is merely a tool to help organize our thoughts and try to achieve the supposed objective here:  To create a truly NPOV article about the topic of the First Vision of Joseph Smith.
I would like to do this here directly tied to this article, but I can also do this (it is even recommended at times) as a sub-page of my user page instead.  --Robert Horning 19:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is used sometimes, but be sure to put it at Talk:First Vision/Unstaable or /Review - as it should not be in the main namespace until it is finalized (See WP:SP). However usually it is better to work collaboratively on the article since it is difficult to get reach concensus that a wholesale new version should replace the current version. It would be good to get concensus from the editors to leave the main version alone and work together on catestrophic changes before working on such a version :) --Trödel 20:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we have any reason, here, to create a provisional fork article. I think we're generally moving in the right direction. It's difficult to achieve NPOV when there are such an unusually large number of significant points of view that have to be accounted for. COGDEN 17:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forking for editorial purposes 

message: We're making progress toward consensus, gentlemen.  It just shows what good will and some maturity can accomplish even in such a controverted arena. --John Foxe 21:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Towards consensus 

message: I object to the use of the word "critic" and "critical" to describe non-Mormon views.  If non-Mormon views are characterized as "critical," then LDS views should be prefaced by the word "believing," and those who hold them should be called "believers."  Obviously, for a number of reasons, this is the wrong way to go. --John Foxe 10:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. COGDEN 17:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Traditionally, the terms critic and apologist have long been used when discussing belief systems.  I have no problems with those terms being used here, which is why I changed the lead from "detractors" to "critics". wrp103 (Bill Pringle)  (Talk) 16:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd appreciate not having these terms used. They take us nowhere. What is COGDEN?--John Foxe 18:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Critic" and "critical" 

message: Does anybody actually use the term First Visitation? I've never heard this before, except for in 1835 when Smith called it his "first visitation of angels". But nobody actually uses this today, do they? I can't find a reference to that usage on Google. If nobody actually uses it, we should delete it from the intro as a synonym. COGDEN 00:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for bringing that up; it struck me as odd today while editing.  I am personally unaware of its usage, but you guys are more skilled researchers than I. I did not check to see who brought that usage in.  Storm Rider (talk) 00:12, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have never heard it called that, but I haven't thoroughly studied the subject either. --Lethargy 01:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's gone.  If someone comes up with a reason to resurrect it, we will.--John Foxe 19:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Visitation? 

message: I have reverted the page to eliminate unexplained deletions made during the past few days. It's important that reasons be given for major changes, especially for such an article where wording has been carefully negotiated for months previous.--John Foxe 15:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unexplained deletions 

message: I've been a long-time critic of this article the whole time, in part because it relies so heavily on trying to push the POV that Joseph Smith was nothing but a lying fraud.  Or more to the point, if I could rewrite the opening paragraph, I would change the current paragraph which reads:
:The First Vision is the name given by Latter Day Saints to an event that Joseph Smith, Jr. said he experienced during the early 1820s in a forested area (now called the Sacred Grove) near his home in northwestern New York. In Smith's first account of this experience, he said that he saw Jesus, who told him that his sins were forgiven, that men "had turned aside from the Gospel," and that He was soon returning to earth. In later accounts, Smith said that he had seen angels and/or two heavenly beings, Jesus and a second unnamed "personage"--presumably God the Father, since He pointed to Jesus and said, "This is my beloved Son, hear him." In the last, but first published, account of the experience, Jesus also told Smith that all contemporary Christian churches were corrupt. Smith did not write down an account of the First Vision until 1832, and his 1838 account, considered canonical by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was not published until 1842. During the late 19th century, the First Vision evolved into a significant element of LDS Church theology. Many modern adherents of the religion view the First Vision as the beginning of the Latter Day Saint restoration.
to become something a bit simplier:
:The First Vision is the name given by Latter Day Saints to an event that Joseph Smith, Jr. said he experienced during the early 1820s in a forested area (now called the Sacred Grove) near his home in northwestern New York. In Smith's first account of this experience, he said that he saw Jesus, who told him that his sins were forgiven, that men "had turned aside from the Gospel," and that He was soon returning to earth. In later accounts, Smith said that he had seen angels and/or two heavenly beings, Jesus and a second unnamed "personage"--presumably God the Father, since He pointed to Jesus and said, "This is my beloved Son, hear him." In the last, but first published, account of the experience, Jesus also told Smith that all contemporary Christian churches were corrupt. Many modern adherents of the religion view the First Vision as the beginning of the Latter Day Saint restoration.
I have long been a critic of the multiple accounts of this event being discussed in detail within this article as being disruptive to the POV, and it fails to get down to the meat of what most people actually believe this event to actually be about.  Note here I'm not against critical commentary about this event, but I still believe that the discussion that breaks down into each individual account largely ought to be something best left to another article, such as Accounts of the First Vision or something like that.  If you are talking about the different accounts, it would also be very useful to have these accounts put into Wikisource.  These should all be public domain, aren't they?  The "author" died in 1844, which clearly is way beyond the "life + 75 years" of most extreme copyright protection.
Should the fact that there are different accounts be mentioned?  Absolutely.  There are differing viewpoints about any historical event... often even by the same person at different points in their life (just as this event demonstrates).  Sometimes even when the person giving the accounts was being completely truthful, which IMHO tries to show here in this article that Joseph Smith was not.  But my question is.... should the discussion of each separate account make up the entire article?  Is it possible to describe what is the First Vision without having to critically review each word of Joseph Smith and compare where he said something different in a different account?  I think so, but it would require a major rewrite.  --Robert Horning 23:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First paragraph example of problems of whole article 

message: I wonder if under the section "Date of the First Vision" the contested year of the first vision and the section referring to Rev. George Lane ought to be separated.  I think there needs to be a new section, entitled, "Religious Revivals of the Time".  There are many more accounts of other religious revivals occuring at the time, of which I list below.  So long as we are trying to "prove a point" there as it seems, we should also state there are other evidences as well of a religious revival.  Otherwise I wonder the purpose of having just the account of Rev. George Lane in there.  Here are some more examples of religious revivals:
*The Palmyra Register recorded that the Methodists had a religious camp meeting in 1820. (Palmyra Register (Palmyra, NY), 28 July 1820.  See also Orsamus Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham’s Purchase, and Morris’ Reserve (Rochester, New York: William Alling, 1851), 212–213. about where they met)
*Pomeroy Tucker (a witness hostile to Joseph Smith) states that “protracted revival meetings were customary in some of the churches, and Smith frequented those of different denominations…” (Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise and Progress of Mormonism (New York: D. Appleton, 1867), 17–18.)
*The rise of a Methodist Church in 1822 gives more evidence that these "religious camps" were contributing. (George W. Cowles, Landmarks of Wayne County (Syracuse, New York: D. Mason & Company, 1895), 194.)
*The Zion Episcopal Church originated in 1823 (Cowles, Landmarks of Wayne County, 194.)
*In 1817 the Presbyterians separated into an Eastern Group and a Western Group.  The Eastern group used the only church that was available in Palmyra in 1820 (Cowles, Landmarks of Wayne County, 191–192.)
*Despite "no Record that Lane visited Palmyra until 1823", we know that such revivals were common, and because of which were not often recorded in local newspapers.  For instance, we know of such a revival that occured in Palmyra in 1818, yet it was not mentioned in the town paper despite it being attended by Rev. Roberts.  Not all revivals were recorded because of their commonality. (Discussed and cited on pages 9–10 of D. Michael Quinn, "Joseph Smith's Experience of a Methodist 'Camp-Meeting'," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought - Dialogue Paperless: E-Paper #3 (12 July 2006), )
Without the above facts, that section is very biased, and un-neutral. Jstayii 23:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates Mixed Up With Religious Revival? 

message: I am very familiar with the official LDS version of the First Vision.  Today I read this article, then I read the various other accounts of the First Vision for the first time. I was a bit surprised as the article had led me to expect something quite a bit different from the accounts.  Yes, there are some minor variations between the Joseph Smith accounts, some details left out in some cases, but no real contradictions.  The second and third hand accounts by other figures in the Latter Day Saint movement have more significant differences, some confusion between the sacred grove vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ and the bedroom vision of Moroni as one would expect from second hand accounts. Not surprisingly, there are serious inconsistencies in some of the accounts given by people who had reason to want to discredit Joseph Smith. 
However, the article implies that there are major discrepancies among the accounts given by Joseph Smith that just don't exist, it engages in personal attacks on Joseph Smith's family that are totally irrelevant to the topic, and ends by twisting a quote 180 degrees into a false conclusion.  I thought that this was Wikipedia, where we report on belief, especially in matters of Faith, and we absolutely, positively, don't draw conclusions.  So I checked out the talk page, and now I'm wondering, just who is this John Foxe, and why does he think that he owns this article about a religious belief that is so clearly offensive to him? Yes, there is some controversy surounding the various accounts of the First Vision and it needs to be reported, but this article is far from neutral in this.  
What has been done here is the equivalent of LDS editors 'taking over' the Trinity article and reframing it as totally false doctrine, using Biblical scriptures and quotes from historic Christian figures and maybe even a few from LDS authorities to prove that the 'three-in-one' doctrine is really a false doctrine of men, never taught by Jesus Christ or any of his Apostles.  I wouldn't do that, I don't think any other LDS would either. So why has John Foxe, someone who probably considers himself to be a Christian, engaged in this kind of shameless attack?   
This article is just wrong, it is not what Wikipedia is supposed to be.  I don't understand how this has been allowed to go on for so long but I feel that I must try to correct it.  But before I start working on it I'd like to hear if someone thinks I am wrong, if I have misunderstood somehow.  74s181 03:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would first check with COGDEN because he has been the most influential contributor to this article.--John Foxe 10:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 74s181, I would suggest you either bring up some specific parts of the article here on the talk page, and suggest changes, or make the changes in the article yourself and we can discuss them on the talk page. We can work on achieving a neutral POV. I wouldn't delete any material, however, because I don't know anything in the article that isn't at least relevant to the topic, although lots of things can be presented more neutrally. COGDEN 17:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where's the beef?  

message: There have been many comments and some discussion about the problems in the current article.  We have a new introduction, this is a good start.  Now I think it is time to move to the next step.  
The concerns that I and others have can be read in other comments on the talk page. My biggest concern with current article is that it focuses almost exclusively on one minority POV, that is, problems that some perceive in the different accounts of the First Vision, while ignoring completely the majority POV and other minoroity POV.  
I think we can fix the article by adding info on the majority and other minority POV and re-arranging the existing facts in the article in a more neutral fashion. Following is a proposed outline.  
: Background
:: Joseph Smith (who)
::: Smith family 
:: Revivalism in the Palmyra area (where / when)
: The Vision (majority POV what)
:: The question (why)
:: The answer (how) 
:: Subsequent visions (short summary of Moroni visit, BoM, etc.)
: Contemporary beliefs
:: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
:: The Community of Christ
:: (whatever we can find out about what other LDS denominations believe)
: Accounts of the First Vision (more what)
:: (short intro, maybe a table summarizing similarities and differences)
:: (various accounts more or less as current, reworked to remove anti-FV bias, just the facts ma'am...)
: Criticism
:: Inconsistencies in accounts
::: Content
::: Date
::: Message
:: Lack of corroboration 
:: No mention in teachings of early church leaders (better title for this section?)
:: ???
Comments? 74s181 03:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This looks good to me.  I especially like that all of the criticisms will be grouped together, which will allow the reader to understand the event as well as the scope of the criticism.  My guess is that the uninformed reader gets very confused with the current article and doesn't understand what it is and why people do / don't believe it.  wrp103 (Bill Pringle)  (Talk) 13:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed outline for NPOV overhaul 

message: Just so everyone knows, this was just added by an anonymous user, 68.108.196.155.  74s181 00:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just reverted it.  That was their only edit, and they made no comment about why they added it, nor did they start any discussion on the talk page. wrp103 (Bill Pringle)  (Talk) 01:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't object to removing this tag at the moment.  The main point of adding the tag would be to call attention to the article, which I think this one has in spades.  NPOV concerns have in fact been raised on this talk page, but I believe them to at least be in the process of being resolved.  There is no reason to make the appearance of the article look ugly while those concerns are being addressed.  --Robert Horning 11:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV-check tag 

message: I've asked this earlier, but I would like some comments specific to this issue.
I would like to set up a Wikisource category of the various First Vision accounts, but I would also like to be able to obtain these accounts which can be independently verified as genuine historical accounts.  The canonical version of the First Vision is already in Wikisource (and even linked within this article), but I would like to see other accounts added to this category as well.
If other full sources (not just annotations) can be found, please help with adding them to Wikisource as well.  I'm willing to do some of the "heavy lifting" for this in terms of transferring the content to Wikisource, but sources of the text would be appreciated.  --Robert Horning 11:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I should think the vast majority of the texts are available on line, though mostly from anti-Mormon websites.  Personally, I prefer dead tree sources for accuracy, and all the First Vision accounts mentioned in the article are available, and nicely edited, in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents.  I think including all the accounts on Wikisource is a worthy goal, and I'd be glad to keyboard whatever text you can't find on line.--John Foxe 15:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be interesting to find what texts actually can be found on line, as I have had some difficulty finding them.  I've seen annotated commentaries with substantial quotes from various accounts, but that is not the same thing as the original text that would meet the standards of Wikisource as an original source document.  I do appreciate the offer to help keyboard these documents, particularly if the accounts are relatively short, and I would have to agree that the best source is likely to be dead-tree documents as opposed to something somebody claimed is an historical document from the 1840's or so.  I also don't believe that all of the sources necessarily have to be found from decidedly anti-Mormon websites, or even a majority of them.  The point (I thought) was to provide different viewpoints about the events surrounding the "First Vision", not to provide POV fodder supporting a critical attitude towards the events.  --Robert Horning 20:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accounts of the First Vision 

message: Although I don't feel strongly about the matter, I added back the quotation from the LDS Church in the belief that it was important to quote an official source early so as to underline the importance of the First Vision for the Church.
I also rewrote a footnote in an attempt to avoid the unclear pronoun reference "this is."--John Foxe 21:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Story of the First Vision 

message: For your amusement, with apologies to Meredith Willson. 74s181 05:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  We've got trouble!