Talk:Genealogical Resources of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints


 * This page has been revised to meet the scope of the Wiki and we appreciate David's willingness to do this. There is good information here for members of the LDS Church and we appreciate that it can be helpful to them and might be of interest to those who are not members.  Thanks, David.Lynda 16:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

We are considering deleting this page but would like input. Much of the information is out of date and we feel it doesn't fit the scope of the Wiki.Lynda 17:54, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Please explain in greater detail what makes this page not fit the scope of the Wiki. Has someone complained that it mentions FamilySearch products? Or is the complaint that it talks about Latter-day Saints? Help me to understand what it is in this article that hurts the goals of the Wiki, or hurts the genealogical Wiki community, or what makes it outside the Wiki scope.

Rather than deleting out-of-date material, we could fix it with the correct information. But the reason I've hesitated to do that is fear that it would draw attention to this page and make it subject to exactly this kind of (out of scope) deletion request. The censorship hawks are far more zealous about FamilySearch products than almost any other subjects in the Wiki, and updating this page would involve descriptions of products they would not tolerate.

We have conflicting Wiki policies. One policy says the Wiki must have a neutral point of view. Another Wiki policy would suppress any mention FamilySearch products. And yet another policy would suppress almost any mention of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These latter two policies are obviously NOT neutral.

We want the Wiki to be neutral because we want the Wiki to be a community tool. We don't want it to be overtly LDS piece of property. And we don't want it to be an overtly LDS missionary tool. Either of those would detract from the Wiki's community oriented purpose.

But deleting almost every reference to the LDS Church or the LDS reasons for doing genealogy is NOT NEUTRAL and it hurts the genealogical community, and the Wiki more than it helps it. That would be suppression. It would be inherently prejudiced. Unless someone has already deleted most other references to the LDS Church, those references have been kept low-key. They did not leave an impression that the purpose of the Wiki was to promote the LDS Church or its products.

The policy against mentioning FamilySearch products has a "silo-building" feel to it. But there it is, in all its non-neutrality, Wiki-community-damaging glory.

I'm willing to work on making this article fit within the scope of the Wiki. I would like to work with the person suggesting it is outside the scope of the Wiki (is it you Lynda?) until we can come to an agreement that it is finally acceptable and within the scope of the Wiki. I would rather fix useful Wiki pages than delete them. DiltsGD 23:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * David, I understand your passion about this page and those like it. The problem is not so much with FamilySearch products as with the doctrinal issue here. I'm still wondering if the page could be fixed so that the information needed by the LDS community could be accomplished by a link to those instructions in nFS or FamilySearch.org? You're right that we shouldn't delete every reference to the LDS church. What do you think about the linking idea?

By the way, I'm the Team Lead on the Wiki support team and work directly with Janell. I asked Michael about this page and he said to work with you. I know you two had a conversation about it previously. You do so much for the Wiki and I admire you for that. I just hope we can reach a compromise here.Lynda 18:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)