[Ldsoss] wikipedia becoming anti-mormon?

[Shane Hathaway]

Jesse Stay wrote:
> My issue is it seems wikipedia is taking an anti-mormon slant lately.
> Some of the critical items that this Church is based on have now been
> seized by anti-Mormons to give an anti-Mormon slant to those topics.
> The main example I give is the topic "First Vision".  Wikipedia seems
> to mention account after account of the First Vision, almost to prove
> the 1838 account in our Pearl of Great Price is wrong, without any
> backing evidence to the contrary (look at fairwiki.org - there is
> plenty of backed evidence from actual sources to the contrary).

I see an interesting tactic being employed in the First Vision article: 
it uniformly presents all opinions available, giving the reader the 
responsibility to evaluate the truthfulness of each opinion.  So the 
reader simply comes away confused.  It is an effective distraction.

In reality, the opinions should not be weighted equally.  Second-hand 
information should be considered far less reliable than words directly 
from the prophet, particularly the words he committed to scripture. 
Even Oliver Cowdery and Joseph's mother are only secondary sources.

I wonder how those involved in that article would feel about splitting 
the article into primary vs. secondary information.

> So, my question is - does anyone have any good ideas how we as a
> community can fight back and get the *full* truth out there?  Is it
> worth our time?  Is this something the Church needs to attack from a
> higher level?  Are they aware of it?

The general authorities can't do it, nor is it worth their time. 
Maintaining Wikipedia is ineffective missionary work.  However, fighting 
these kinds of battles is useful for sharpening personal reasoning 
skills, as long as it's civil.

Shane