Talk:No, Ma'am, That's Not History

A fact from No, Ma'am, That's Not History appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 24 March 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that No, Ma'am, That's Not History, Hugh Nibley's rebuttal to Fawn Brodie's divisive biography of Joseph Smith, started a trend of polemics in Mormon apologetics?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/No Ma'am, That's Not History.

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by BorgQueen (talk) 23:04, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Article history

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... that No, Ma'am, That's Not History, Hugh Nibley's rebuttal to Fawn Brodie's divisive biography of Joseph Smith, started a trend of polemics in Mormon apologetics? Source: "[Brodie's] skeptical stance clearly figured in her writing about the first Mormon prophet. It probably also figured in the mixed reception that the book received." Jan Shipps' review of Rough Stone Rolling in The Journal of American History, p. 499
"'No Ma'am' marked a turning point in the history of Mormon apologetics and polemics that it adopted, at least in part, the descriptive language of academic to help make it apologetic and polemical points. [...] Nibley's more intellectual and academic apologetics and polemics, including his style and method, would become standard operating practice for many Mormon apologists and polemicists in his wake and remains at the hear of Mormon apologetics and polemics even today." -Ronald Helfrich, Mormon Studies: A Critical History, p.30 (available through EBSCO books but not open-access)
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Commission on Training Camp Activities
- Comment: I can't remember if there are special rules about wikilinking other pages in a hook. Both of the other pages I've wikilinked are in good shape, and I myself have done extensive work on the Hugh Nibley page.

Converted from a redirect by Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk). Self-nominated at 17:52, 1 February 2023 (UTC). Note: As of October 2022, all changes made to promoted hooks will be logged by a bot. The log for this nomination can be found at Template talk:Did you know nominations/No Ma'am, That's Not History, so please watch a successfully closed nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

New enough, long enough, well sourced, Earwig says copyvio unlikely. QPQ is done. A few issues to resolve: Overall, the article seems to maintain a neutral tone, but "sin of hyperbole" in the first paragraph jumps out and sounds odd in wikivoice, even though I understand the intent was to frame it as an indirect quote. Would it be possible to resolve this somehow – possibly by using scare quotes, or just simplifying to say "criticized for hyperbole" or similar? Regarding the hook, at the moment, it seems like more information is needed in the article to support the claim that it "started a trend". The final paragraph could use at least one more sentence explaining the trend; I was also left wondering what it meant that "(FARMS) was founded and published 'Nibley-style apologetics and polemics'." Just a bit more elaboration there may go a long way. Cielquiparle (talk) 09:25, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Cielquiparle, thank you for the review. I adjusted the information in the lead. Because there are so few neutral sources that discuss FARMS Review, I found it difficult to contextualize their work, but I tried to make it clear that the people who commented on it all had other interests (for example, that Daniel Peterson was the chairman of the board at FARMS and that Ron Priddis was the managing director at Signature Book). Maybe it's enough to explain that FARMS Review published book reviews for over 20 years. It's possible that I added too much information. From the part in the paragraph starting "FARMS Review contained a review..." I am essentially making an argument of parallelism--that the critiques Priddis made of the reviews in FARMS were similar to the critiques in No Ma'am. But since original research isn't allowed, I haven't explained that in the body of the text. If the context is sufficient without that example, I'm happy to remove it. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Cielquiparle: Just passing through and noticed this review still in the lurch. Have Helps's revisions addressed your questions? Do you need a different reviewer to pick up the torch? I'd offer, but I've made some minor contributions to the page (gnomish stuff + repeating adding a quote from the lede to the body text) and don't know if that'd disqualify me. P-Makoto (talk) 20:55, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Approving ALT0. The non-neutral statement in the lead has been fixed and more information has been added re: FARMS Review to add more context to the fact cited in the hook. (Unable to access the Mormon Studies: A Critical History beyond snippets, so AGF on the source.) Cielquiparle (talk) 23:10, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

dyk

Hey, @Rachel Helps (BYU), very interesting article! I would have fixed the cns if I could have figured them out, but we need them for DYK Valereee (talk) 18:30, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think I fixed them--let me know if you still have questions. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 20:41, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, @Rachel Helps (BYU)! The source for the DYK hook is good, but a citation at the end of summary section is still needed. This isn't a fiction novel where we can use the book itself to tell us plot points, we need someone discussing the content. If no one is discussing the content in a nonfiction book, it's always going to be open to "Who says so?" Right now the unsourced content is He presented many counter-arguments to Brodie's arguments, using logic to show inconsistency or casting doubt on her sources. He also criticized her psycho-historical method, stating that historians can't know what hidden emotions Joseph or Emma Smith felt unless they have a source that says so. There's opinion in there -- he used logic to show inconsistency to cast doubt on her sources, for instance. Who says so? Valereee (talk) 21:19, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have two sources for the first sentence; for the second, I summarized more than one part of the book. I included direct quotes in the reference. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 20:15, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]