Talk:Mormon folklore/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Farang Rak Tham (talk · contribs) 12:09, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello Rachel, let me know when you are back on Wikipedia again, and we can start this review.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 12:09, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi, I'm back on Wikipedia! Looking forward to your suggested improvements for the page. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:57, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Introduction and limitations
Before starting this review, I'd like to state that I have little knowledge about the subject, though I did review the article The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan nominated by. My own expertise is Buddhism, so I am more or less an outsider on this topic.

Overview
I have assessed the article at B now.
 * 1. Prose:
 * No copyright violations.
 * The article makes for an interesting read, but is unclear at times. Detailed review follows.
 * There are many short sections in the article. I would recommend merging a few to improve readability.
 * 2. MOS: You could add brief descriptions to the external links and further reading sources, to designate what kind of sources those are.
 * 3. References layout: no dead links. You might want to add doi numbers to the journal articles, to help identify those sources more easily after the urls become dead links over time.
 * 4. Reliable sources: Almost all sources have been written by people from LDS, but there are a number of sources that are published by independent publishers, guaranteeing some independent editorial oversight.
 * 5. Original research: None found.
 * 6. Broadness: Positively, the article covers multiple churches of LDS.
 * 7. Focus: Yes.
 * 8. Neutral:
 * The article's tone is a bit unencyclopedic at times, bordering on travel guide language. E.g. Towns in the Mormon regional area have a unique combination of features ...
 * 9. Stable: article is stable.
 * 10-11. Pics: Relevant. Human Hair Bracelet 1.jpg, 309 MSS P 24 B2 F13.jpg , Children near a farm in Willard , George M. Brown House.jpg, and 308 MSS P 24 B2 F13.jpg have incomplete descriptions or tags.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 13:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Detailed review
I will continue with a detailed review per section. Feel free to insert replies or inquiries.

Missionary lore

 * Missionaries tell stories to escape from the pressures of strict missionary life; often these stories include ways that missionaries try to escape missionary life but are discovered. Is a bit repetitive. Please rephrase.
 * Missionaries also tell stories about getting the best of a hostile world, even if it causes other people to suffer. Ambiguous. Please expand.
 * In some missions, it is common to burn clothing to mark special missionary anniversaries, such as a tie after six months of service and a shirt after one year. This is more of a ritual than a story. Please move to customs section.

Folk songs

 * Mormons in the 1850s and 1860s used secular songs for their own purposes. Please specify.
 * They wrote their own words to familiar tunes. Specify this as well.
 * ... as did Joseph Cain. Who is this? A songwriter?
 * ... Joseph and Hyrum's death. Wikilink or expand.

Testimonies

 * belief narratives: Unusual term. Is this from the sources cited?
 * Okay. I double-checked and maybe I made this term up to avoid close paraphrasing? I changed it to "conversion narrative" which is the phrase the cited article uses. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:51, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Haha, yeah beware of the copyright police... Okay.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 21:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)


 * ... fast and testimony meeting ...: You mean fasting?
 * ... that have become the subject of "testimony bingo" jokes. Confusing, please expand or rewrite.


 * ... were more likely to relate being surprised by the truth or that their conversion was part of a long process. Confusing. Please rewrite.
 * Eric Eliason notes ... You might want to specify his discipline: e.g. folklorist, sociologist, etc. Same holds for other scholars mentioned in the article.
 * ... receiving spiritual revelation about one's marriage partner ... About should be one's marriage partner?
 * Even though the result is to support the status quo and have more children ... The previous sentence was about to have more children. You need to indicate this contrast. Similarly, the previous sentence was about relief of guilt, but this is about independence.
 * I read over the article again, and I too find it confusing. I tried to make it more clear. Here's the quote: "The visionary experience delivers a woman from the throes of guilt, uncertainty, and the necessity of constantly justifying her decision both to herself and to others. She no longer has to decide; Heavenly Father has so clearly spoken the decision for her--through the voice of her own child. At the same time, He has touched her personally, marked her as spiritually worthy--and all this at a time when she most questions her own spirituality because of the guilt of the former decision not to bear children. For most, the intensity of this visionary experience is simply too much to resist--no matter what the reasons for the previous decision." Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:31, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay. Tweaked.

Courtship and families

 * After a baby is born ... Different topic from the previous sentence. It is perfectly okay and not OR if you introduce this with a sentence like "There are also rituals that mark certain periods in life."
 * I added baptism, patriarchal blessings, and missions, which are included in the source, but I initially left out because they are also part of formal church membership. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:51, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Pioneer Day

 * ... marching in wards ... What does this mean?
 * Sorry, I hadn't noticed it was an LDS term.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 21:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Is there a wikilink for the LDS term pioneer. If so, wikilink in lead and body.

Handicrafts

 * ... "marvelously unself-conscious" ... What does this unself-conscious mean? Please expand or wikilink paraphrase.
 * ... (in Romanian) ... What does this refer to?
 * ... Ruby Swallow ... who is ...? You really need to say briefly who every person in the article is.
 * During the time when polygamists were jailed, at least one convict attempted to make hair flowers. Is this relevant?
 * Hair wreaths contained hair from multiple people and were displayed in public areas, symbolizing community unity. You mean in prison, or is this unrelated to the previous sentence?

Furniture

 * ... some Mormons have found ... Is this still happening? If not, better use simple past tense.
 * yes, it is still happening! Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any information about when the practice started. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:51, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay :-D -- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 21:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Mormon fundamentalists

 * Fundamentalist communities are intentionally built and are a different community from the more mainstream Latter-day Saints. Confusing, rewrite. Also, they are certainly a different community. I have already wikilinked to Mormon fundamentalism for you, and there is no need to state this.

Other issues not part of GA criteria

 * To help the reader distinguish the article from Culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you might want to add a hat at the top.

May 2018
I will continue with a detailed review per section later. I will also check for broadness later. Waiting for your response first.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 13:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi . Unfortunately, BYU Studies doesn't have DOIs, so I can't include them for those citations. I'm not sure what you're referring to with the photos--the ones you linked all have descriptions, copyright tags, and categories.

I merged "Pioneer Stories," "Three Nephites Stories," and "Genealogy and Temple Lore" into a "Folk narratives" section.
 * Good.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 05:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

The tone problem is one I've struggled with on this page, because the articles rarely have statistics on how popular or common something is, besides the fact that it was popular or common. The quote you mentioned refers to how a scholar specifically studied Mormon settlements and found a set of four things that, if present, indicated a settlement was Mormon with a high degree of accuracy. I tried to reword it to reflect that "unique" was a word I was using in the technical sense. The article actually lists ten things, so I could expand this part if you think it would help the page. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I will take a look at the body of the article to see if that is required.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 05:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

, do you have any plans to continue with this review any time soon? Normally a GA review must be finished in seven days, which is by tomorrow. I can give you another week, but I will only do that if you intend to go through with it. For what it is worth, the article is in quite a good state. I have seen articles that needed much more work to reach GA level than this article. It is really not that much work.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 11:14, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I intend to go through with it ! My apologies; Monday was a national holiday and I wasn't able to work that day. I think I have addressed the most recent issues in your detailed review. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:31, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've made additional edits based on your additional feedback. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:51, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Not much left to do. Almost there.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 21:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

June 2018
Just one issue remaining,. The part on "un-selfconscious" above.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 12:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Fixed it myself. Passing.
 * I'd appreciate it if you could review an article of mine on WP:GAN. Thanks.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 14:59, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the review. I'd be happy to return the favor! I'll pick a page this week. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:08, 4 June 2018 (UTC)