Talk:Joseph Smith

bhroberts.org

bhroberts.org is akin to a blog, not a solid source, and should be removed. They don't do scholarship themselves, and the original scholarship should be cited. Pending any objection, I will remove these sources. Epachamo (talk) 17:33, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 July 2026

Change "Josiah Stowell and Joseph Knight, Smith's patrons, travelled to Palmyra for the anticipated recovery on the treasure on September 22, 1827." to "Josiah Stowell and Joseph Knight, Smith's patrons, travelled to Palmyra for the anticipated recovery of the treasure on September 22, 1827."

Just the "on" to "of" I think was originally intended. Kamenomagic (talk) 05:58, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

 Done thank youuuu pattersonuwu ^njz (talk) 06:09, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Why no section about Joseph's marriage to children?

wp:deny The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

He famously married married several people, including children. The article makes it seem like the prophet was only into adults, can we fix this? Here 4 the hard questions (talk) 03:53, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

The article List of Joseph Smith's wives exists. Tbhotch^™ (CC BY-SA 4.0) 04:08, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

The youngest I'm seeing in the list is two of them age 14. That was not unusual in the 19th century. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:59, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

There is a difference to sealings and marraige. Marraige often is confused with sealings. Smith was sealed to many people like his parents, but that does not mean in any way that he is romantically "into" other people. Knotsworth (talk) 23:01, 4 November 2026 (UTC)

OP blocked as a sock of a blocked user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:14, 5 November 2026 (UTC)

Daguerreotype

The daguerreotype only needs to be covered once in the article, not twice. There is little reason to have an image of Lewis Bidamon here, Joseph Smith would never have met the man. (The article on Emma Smith, yes.) And there is no source for the speculative idea that the locket could be Bidamon. --Michael Snow (talk) 09:25, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

Peer Review

I am requesting a Peer Review on this article. About a year ago, there was substantial editing. In some ways, the article is not the same article that was originally passed as a WP:GA. I am a little concerned about Good Article criteria 3b: [the article] stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). I especially think the section on his teachings is excessive: that is why the subarticle on his teachings was created.

I do not necessarily want to delist it or go through the WP:GAR process. I also do not want to tear out prose that is good, in and of itself. Lastly, I do not want anyone to think I am trying to WP:OWN the article. So hopefully a Peer Review can help with all of this. Trevdna (talk) 16:33, 12 November 2026 (UTC)

I began editing this page back in 2022, but gave up when I realised it was under the grip of certain editors. One, a paid employee of LDS, was beavering away removing citations by Fawn Brodie – a respected commentator who also happened to have been excommunicated by the LDS Church.Obscurasky (talk) 16:49, 12 November 2026 (UTC)

A few things about that: 1) I believe that editor is no longer active. She was a student librarian and researcher at BYU, and was remarkably aboveboard about it all, given the circumstances. 2) The point of the Brodie thing was because the scholarship was considered outdated. For a time we decided to selectively prune as many of those citations as possible, without editing the POV balance of the article at the time. We were trying to get it to FA status, and the consensus at the LDS Wikiproject had been to deprecate (as in, to no longer use and to begin removal of) Brodie in favor of more recent scholarship. (I was assuming good faith on that one.) But when it became clear that course did not reflect consensus for this article, we stopped. Also, at the list of sources (see WP:LDS/RS) the stance was softened on Brodie from Remove On Sight to Tread Carefully.

So, no, I doubt that this article is secretly controlled by a cabal of aggressively pro-LDS editors. Though of course I could be mistaken. Trevdna (talk) 17:03, 12 November 2026 (UTC)

Peer review

Joseph Smith

Previous peer review

About a year ago, there was substantial editing to this article. In some ways, the article is not the same article that was originally passed as a WP:GA, 14 years ago. I am specifically concerned about Good Article criteria 3b: [the article] stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). I especially think the section on his teachings may violate WP:SUMMARY somewhat. I do not necessarily want to delist it or go through the WP:GAR process. But I think some cleanup may be warranted.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Trevdna (talk) 16:36, 12 November 2026 (UTC)