[WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

Fri Jul 22 18:33:44 UTC 2005

Delirium:
> I don't see a problem with that article.  What else is there to say 
> about it?  The Book of Mormon claims something about a person named 
> "Nephi", and we report "the Book of Mormon claims the following about 
> Nephi".  Do we need to explicitly say "however, people who think the 
> Book of Mormon is mostly hogwash think this claim is also hogwash"?  

The Book of Mormon is different from, say, ''Star Wars: Revenge of the 
Sith'', in one important respect: People believe that it records 
historical facts. This also distinguishes it from ancient mythologies 
that are no longer believed. Furthermore, many of these factual claims 
are not, on their face, absurd: There are many ancient tribes about whom 
we know little, and the discovery of new ancient cultures is a real 
possibility.

When someone makes a claim about a clearly fictional universe, that's 
fine, and an initial establishment of context is sufficient. When they 
make claims, based on their scripture, about reality, then these claims 
deserve to be challenged. We challenge a 19th-century healing mythology 
like homeopathy with facts, so we should equally challenge the Mormon 
belief system, where it is not mere theology, with facts.

A Mormon who wants to know: Did Nephi exist? Did the Jaredites really 
live? - will not find answers in Wikipedia. Instead, they will find what 
they already know: official church doctrine, and perhaps some other 
LDS-related beliefs as in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaredite

Wikipedia's mission is not "free storage space for all belief systems", 
but "free knowledge for all." Another problem with 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephi , more than the first paragraph, is 
the second one, which goes on:

"Another Nephi lived around the time of Christ, and he was a descendant 
of Lehi as well. This Nephi was the son of Helaman. Nephi also had a son 
who was called Nephi after him."

The context "Book of Mormon" is easily lost once established.

An NPOV article
- makes sure that the context is clear at any given point
- balances claims about historical reality which are believed by many 
with scientific knowledge.

So yes, a statement like "These claims are not accepted by historians of 
the period" is generally necessary in these articles, but it would 
almost certainly be reverted immediately by Wikipedia's Mormon congregation.

Erik