Talk:Coriantumr (son of Omer)

Coriantumr
I copied and pasted the content for this article from the Coriantumr Wikipedia page so that I can make three separate Coriantumr pages. Heidi Pusey BYU (talk) 23:00, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Notability
I read through the long discussion. I don't think progress is being made. If you feel strongly that this page is not notable, please nominate it for deletion so that we can have a discussion with the larger community. If there is consensus that the page is not notable, we can merge the info onto another page. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:40, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thats not generally how it works, the burden is on those who think the article is notable to provide sources which contribute to notability. If that can't be done only then do we need to go to AfD. The solution everyone here wants is a notable article, which is why every chance will be given for notability to be demonstrated. Note the courtesy being extended as COI editors are not allowed to participate substantively in AfD but can participate in a talk page discussion (if this goes to AfD and any do I will be promptly nominating them for a LDS topic ban broadly construed). Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 18:48, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Y'all wouldn't be playing games with me now would you? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 20:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm perplexed as to what you're talking about. Based on the above discussions, notability is likely established and there are no COI editors or sources. (No one [NO ONE] has quoted policy to refute the latter.) And, as for your last comment, what?
 * So I agree with Rachel. If you think notability's still not established, you should ask the larger community to weigh in. If you're just trying to maintain this conversation for as long as possible, why? No offense, but what is your goal here?Thmazing (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Re:Horse Eye's Back statement that COI editors are not allowed to participate substantively in AfD: according to whom? The only Wikipedia policy on the intersection of COI and AfD I have identified is the Articles for Deletion page stating that editors should Please disclose whether you have a vested interest in the article. Editors who disclose potential COIs, such as by including the name of an employer in their username, are not disallowed from participating in AfD conversations. It remains the case that I don't expect COI to be a major issue; as a figure in a book, Coriantumr cannot possibly be payrolling any Wikipedia editors.
 * Additionally, your statement that you will be promptly nominating [editors who you believe to have a COI] for a LDS topic ban broadly construed (bolding added) is a drastic escalation. It gives off an impression of possible hostility to these users that is misplaced and unnecessary. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 01:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * "you should not act as a reviewer of affected article(s) at AfC, new pages patrol or elsewhere;" elsewhere would include acting as a reviewer at AfD. Also note that COI says "you should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating them directly;" yet this article was created directly. You have also misquoted me, please do not do so again. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 09:23, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You were quoted correctly. Everyone here has been striving to assume good faith. How about you? Thmazing (talk) 17:32, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't feel that I was, why is out too hard for you to assume good faith about that? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * My issue is not with notability per se, nor with any editor COI, but with NPOV and FRINGE, which extends from all the refs being from adherents/apologists. The historicity of the topic is a minority view, but all the coverage is from the perspective that BoM is either historical-as-written or is at least an ancient document that may have inaccuracies/metaphor like any other primary scripture; this is an issue because it does not represent how this character is received in the mainstream. For example, Gardner's assessment that capturing the king was a "common tactic" among Jaredites, or that the sons "chose" an attack for reasons not explicitly stated, relies on interpolating/extrapolating the text as if it had historical basis. A secular analysis would ascribe any implied motivations/reasoning from a character to the author, with evidence of authorial intent drawn from both the narrative and the author's background, rather than to the character. Gardner's or Hardy's views would be fine to include if they were balanced by secular sources clearly treating the subject as ahistorical literature/myth, or from a comparative religions stance examining how the story has been incorporated in LDS faith. But if we don't have such sources, then this is equivalent to a page on an Ayurveda decoction sourced only to Ayurveda practitioners, which would fail FRINGE and NPOV regardless of how we framed statements as "in the Sushruta Samhita narrative" and attributed them to Ayurveda scholars. If we don't have evidence that non-Ayurvedic discussion exists on the topic, it should not have a standalone article. The same goes for any other belief system. JoelleJay (talk) 21:45, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for weighing in.
 * If I may, I'd like to press back a bit on what you've said that if I understand rightly, implies that ascribing motivation and volition to characters, or making assessments of a setting's mechanics, necessarily means taking on the text as if it had a historical basis. While a secular analysis could ascribe any implied motivations/reasoning from a character to the author, as you put, examining characters as if they were people is also a form of literary analysis.
 * That's the mode of analysis Grant Hardy generally deploys in his work on the Book of Mormon. In his earlier Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide (Oxford University Press, 2010), Hardy writes, Imagining the feelings and motivations of literary characters as if they were our friends or acquaintances has always played a large part in the enjoyment of fiction. In the last half century, theorists have produced a number of sophisticated studies explaining the process by which readers come to know characters and why this is a valid response to literature (24). Hardy goes on to describe his academic approach to the Book of Mormon in the following terms: my project, which tries to make sense of the actions and thoughts of the narrators in order to provide a coherent, comprehensive reading of the Book of Mormon as a whole (25).
 * Other literary theorists writing about the phenomenon in a more general sense have expressed similar models for literary engagement. Peter Lamarque, in Fictional Points of View (Cornell University Press, 1996), writes that Readers, somewhat like scientists or historians, frame and modify hypotheses about fictional content, assessing the quality and connectedness of the data, attempting to construct (fictional) states of affairs such that they render maximally coherent the evidence available (61).
 * All this to say that I would not characterize Grant Hardy's approach to the topic, or that of publisher Oxford University Press, as a solely uncritically historical approach. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:13, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Even if Hardy's work was explicitly literary analysis, the issue with NPOV would remain because it is still attention from an adherent rather than from outside the faith. JoelleJay (talk) 19:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Isn't the editorial material in The Annotated Book of Mormon literary analysis? I'm not sure what else I'd call it. And Oxford University Press is an academic publisher, not a devotional publisher; Hardy may be a Latter-day Saint, but the editors who considered his project worthwhile, notable, and relevant to the field of religious studies made that decision not as adherents, but as academic publishers in the broader field. 23:29, 7 January 2024 (UTC) P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 23:29, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Is the editorial material discussing the author's narrative style and drawing comparisons to other mythic accounts, or is it simply summarizing stories and adding in shallow exegetic hypotheses like what is cited in the article? It's certainly not in the New Historicism school of literary criticism... As has been explained elsewhere, it does not matter who the publishers are if the author is non-independent. It is not critical analysis of the text written by the publishers in their own words. JoelleJay (talk) 23:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * New Historicism isn't the only only mode of literary analysis. There are other styles of literary scholarship (including, as Lamarque and Hardy outline, ones that involve imagining the world of a text). As for The Annotated Book of Mormon itself, its editorial material includes commentary pointing out allusions and quotations (whether internal or to and from the Old and New Testaments), signposts to help readers follow along with the Book of Mormon's temporally contorted plot through the multiple flashbacks and internal digressions, and interpretive suggestions (about the structures of books or chapter, the thematic meanings of story arcs, patterns in the plots and setting mechanics, etc.), to name just a few of the kinds of annotations that exist in the text. The appendix also includes several essays, including "The Book of Mormon as Literature" and "Reading the Book of Mormon as Fiction".
 * it does not matter who the publishers are if the author is non-independent.
 * I completely disagree. The publisher is critically important to these kinds of questions. The publisher may not personally write the text, but in academic publishing there is both editorial and peer review. Editors review the manuscript and provide feedback, including instructing authors to strike, revise, or rewrite portions; peer reviewers do likewise. I don't see what Oxford University Press would have to gain in uncritically publishing just anything that a hypothetical loose cannon writes. They, and other publishers, review texts, consider the interpretations in light of methodological expectations and the state of the field, and reject texts that either fail to meet academic expectations, fail to describe something notable, or both. If it didn't matter who the publisher was for a source, there would be no purpose to WP:SPS. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 00:12, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You are focusing on the more minor issues--surrounding the reference for one sentence used in this article--and still ignoring the larger problem, which is that these references are still written by adherents rather than by mainstream non-faith scholars. Even literary analysis will be very different between a believer and secular academics, and Hardy makes no secret that the Annotated BoM is written from the perspective of a believer I tend to treat the Book of Mormon as historical (I was invited by Oxford to edit the volume from a believer’s point of view), but I also point out anachronisms and try to keep in mind the perspectives of those who regard it as religious fiction. You are not going to get NPOV coverage from sources that treat BoM as historical to any degree, full stop.And again, that you disagree is completely irrelevant to what independence means on wikipedia. In the context of PAGs, the publisher and peer review afford a degree of reliability above SPS, they do not transform something from non-independent to independent. Publishing in a journal doesn't even turn primary scientific research reports into secondary sources, despite reviewers and the editor providing extensive new experimental design recommendations on top of the textual analysis and feedback that occurs in academic book publishing. If simply getting something published removed one's relationship with the subject, there are about a thousand AfDs I personally would need to bring to DRV. JoelleJay (talk) 04:34, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * When I say "I completely disagree", I do not mean "I personally completely disagree"; I mean "I completely disagree with that interpretation of what amounts to independence on Wikipedia, and my sense is that Wikipedia's policy does not require us as editors to banish from our use sources written by authors who are participants in nations, religions, movements, etc. as non-independent and incapable of checking their biases". P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 04:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You were making the argument that simply going through the academic publishing process removes non-independence between an author and their subject, which I am rebutting. It now sounds like you are challenging FRINGE in general, or at least the characterization of a text written by a believer in the historicity of BoM and its divine provenance as being FRINGE? JoelleJay (talk) 04:57, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't have any intent of challenging FRINGE in general. I agree that Wikipedia should not express fringe beliefs in its own voice; Wikipedia should express what comports with an academic consensus. I disagree, however, with the implication that just because a text's author believes in things like Book of Mormon historicity or divine provenance that the text itself necessarily expresses fringe views. As a practitioner-scholar published by an academic press, Hardy can both be honest about the views he holds in his personal life (I tend to treat the Book of Mormon as historical) and be accountable to tempering and checking those views in order to produce an academically rigorous product that expresses interpretations that can contribute to the academic consensus (I also point out anachronisms and try to keep in mind the perspectives of those who regard it as religious fiction). I don't find it to be a reasonable interpretation of FRINGE and POV to suppose that an author's denominational affiliation renders their texts, regardless of content and publishing context, automatically FRINGE. To elaborate by way of another example, I don't think Mark Noll being an evangelical Christian who believes in miracles and a God-breathed Bible makes his two-part Oxford University Press series on the history of the Bible in American life (In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492–1783; America's Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794–1911) FRINGE; he's honest about his faith commitments but still holds himself to academic standards, and Oxford University Press holds him to those standards too. Both Hardy and Noll can hold, in their personal lives, views different from the academic consensus but still, in their scholarly lives, produce academically meaningful work, even while they write as believers about texts they consider sacred.
 * A discussion on the WikiProject Christianity page held that using sources that expressly support the view that the Book of Mormon is a historically accurate account is acceptable—Wikipedia relies on similar sources for its coverage of Catholicism, Hinduism, and many other major world religions. [...] As for characters from scriptures/traditions, Wikipedia generally presents the religiously accepted account of their life and person as discussed in reliable sourcing while also providing the academic appraisal of said persons. Wikipedia doesn't itself express FRINGE views in its own voice, but it can express the hermeneutical interpretations of figures, settings, etc. I maintain that the literary analysis style of Lamarque and Hardy, of imagining the world of a text non-real though that world may be, is a valid form of scholarly engagement. Saying that, for example, night attacks are or aren't common is an assessment of the Book of Mormon setting, based on its representation in the text; the setting's existence is irrelevant to the meaningfulness of the interpretation, which can still mean something whether one takes it to be real, myth, or fiction. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 08:31, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Incidentally, I've never asked for an administrator to weigh in on a discussion before, but this is going in circles and it doesn't need to continue. Does anyone feel it would be inappropriate to ask admin to join us? Thmazing (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * In discussions admins are the same as any other editor. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Not quite. ;) Thmazing (talk) 23:42, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

What exactly is the conflict of interest here and whom? I don't quite understand how one can have one with a minor figure from a religious text. Is the suggestion that one being religious gives one a COI on all religious subjects? (in which case, that would be ridiculous - would that mean, if I were a Christian, that I would suddenly be COI-restricted from doing any work relating to Christianity?) BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Send to AFD unless salvagable I was recruited here from WP:FTN, but I'm inclined to agree that the article is problematic. A reader viewing this text might easily come away with the mistaken impression that Coriantumr is viewed by historians as a historic figure, when he is actually viewed as somewhere between a fictional character or a faith-based being. But we do have plenty of articles on both fictional characters and faith-based beings, so the concerns can be overcome with sufficient RSes. The standard is coverage in "independent reliable sources, outside the sourcing ecosystem of the fringe theory itself". There are lots of non-Hindus who write about Vishnu and his significance, for example. Right now, I'm not seeing any independent sourcing for the notability of any of the three Coriantumrs. Merge the synopses content to Book of Ether where appropriate. Feoffer (talk) 02:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I'd hope that readers wouldn't come away with the impression that there's a consensus on Coriantumr's historicity, when the page narrates him only in the present tense. I wonder if a background section providing context about the book's production by dictation in the nineteenth century would make a difference?
 * Second, I would posit out that there are sources from "outside the sourcing ecosystem of the fringe theory itself". The Annotated Book of Mormon comes from Oxford University Press. And Margaret Bingman's Encyclopedia of the Book of Mormon is published by Herald House; although Herald has denominational affiliations with Community of Christ (formerly RLDS Church), that denomination does not officially advocate for Book of Mormon historicity and has moved away from that position since the mid twentieth century.
 * Still, on reflection I can understand your assessment of this page specifically. The editorial material in The Annotated Book of Mormon makes just passing reference to Coriantumr (son of Omer). The remaining source which robustly engages Coriantumr (son of Omer) as a subject is the encyclopedic entry in Bingman's Encyclopedia of the Book of Mormon (which is written specifically about this Coriantumr). However, to be notable subjects require two non-incidental reliable sources, not just one. A merge to the book of Ether seems plausible.
 * I would disagree with that statement that there is no notability of any of the three Coriantumrs. Having contributed to the Coriantumr (last Jaredite king) page, I see sufficient sources treating it as a non-incidental subject. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:14, 8 January 2024 (UTC) P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:14, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with merging all three articles, as proposed by . As indirectly shown above by Feoffer, the topics of all three pages are minor characters who are hardly as well known or covered by reliable non-affiliated sources as other faith-based characters such as Vishnu. Hence merging is the most appropriate action. Also, at the Oxford University Press website there is a description of the Annotated version of the BoM. (click the "Description" tab at this url). I doubt very much that there is much, if any, critical analysis on the topic of this article. I think a topic such as Vishnu can provide a template for how articles pertaining to faith-based characters should be written. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 20:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Based on the Editor's Preface in The Annotated Book of Mormon much of this work references itself along with "abundant references to the Bible." This does not indicate sourcing for notability on Wikipedia. It doesn't matter if it has been published by Oxford University Press, as noted above.
 * Also, Oxford University Press has published an annotated Bible and New Testament guides, , . OUP also publishes about Buddhism ,.


 * So it is not remarkable that a version of the Book of Mormon has been published by OUP. I think one of the main intents behind the Annotated BoM is make the BoM much more accessible to a modern LDS audience and not necessarily intended to add to scholarship on LDS or the BoM.---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)