Category talk:Converts to Mormonism

Redundant?

Aren't all LDS movement members "converts to Mormonism"? Are you trying to profile early members here? WBardwin 17:15, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

My initial intention was, for the most part, people who converted in the twentieth century or later. People like Glenn Beck, Gladys Knight, Andy Reid, Ricky Schroder, etc. Although I see I did have a few Mormon pioneers in at the start so maybe started a bad precedent.--T. Anthony 13:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

People can be "born into" the LDS Church and be "Mormon" their entire lives. Such people are not Mormon converts. The category should apply to people who once belonged to a church or religion or no church or religion and subsequently became Mormon later in life. You are right that this will apply to all of the "first generation" Mormons from ~170 years ago. That's the way life goes. I can't see a justification for including a convert in the 20th or 21st century but not including 19th century converts. SESmith 02:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

You make a valid point, I withdraw the idea that including pioneers or first-generation Mormons is in anyway a "bad" thing.--T. Anthony 04:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

This is part of a general set of "converts to" categories. This is people who converted from one religion to another. The Mormonism category is probably the largest proportionately, but there are lots of others.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Converts

Mormons are indeed Christians - I am not disputing this. However Converts to Mormonism are not necessarily converts to Christianity because many were already Christians. See eg List of converts to Christianity. The only one listed who is also a convert to Mormonism is Chieko N. Okazaki. A convert to Christianity converts from something outside Christianity to Christianity. A convert from Catholicism to mormonism converts to Mormonism but not to Christianity as the person was already Christian. Carminis (talk) 11:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

See for instance Category:Religious converts and Category:Converts to Christianity. The latter has just 2 subcats at the moment: Category:Converts from Judaism to Christianity is correct but Category:Converts to Mormonism is incorrect. Carminis (talk) 13:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It's classified as a subtype of Christianity in the Converts to Christianity category. Placement as a subcategory doesn't mean everyone in it "converted to Christianity", it means they converted to Mormonism, which is a subtype of Christianity. Categories don't always make total sense in every way of looking at parent-subs, but since Mormonism categories are placed in subs of all other Christianity categories throughout WP, it makes sense not to make this the one exception. Zoporific 22:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Anyone in Category:Converts to Christianity is by definition someone who converted to Christianity from outside Christianity, eg Judaism to Mormonism, atheism to mormonism, nothing to M; but not Methodism to Mormonism etc. Of course it is a subtype of christianity - the point is tht it is not the only subtype. Immigrants to the US are not all immigrants to North America - some will be canadians. Carminis (talk) 02:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

That's why immigrants to North America would be a parent and immigrants to Canada would be a sub. Similarly, converts to Christianity is the parent and converts to Mormonism is the sub. As long as the converts to Mormonism category makes its definition clear (i.e. that it doesn't imply that the person came from outside Christianity), there is no problem with it being of a sub within the Christianity category. Zoporific 03:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Men

Anyone else notice that the list is 99.9% male?

--65.92.84.24 (talk) 19:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It could be that high on the first page of 200, but my quick count is around 35 out of overall 500. That is still really high (93%).

I partly attribute this to the predominance of men in public life in society, which is then reflected in Wikipedia articles. I think we have far more biographies of "notable" men than women throughout Wikipedia. This is augmented by church factors, since church leaders are overwhelmingly men (due to priesthood requirement), and women are encouraged to primarily care for their families at home. There are more notable men, therefore there are more notable male biographies, therefore there are more men in this category. I don't see resistance or oppression in this phenomenon, as some do, but then again I am biased since I am a man. ——Rich jj (talk) 16:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

• There are easy ways to explain this. First off, a high percentage of these articles are on general authorities. Although there are a few articles on General Officers of the Church, there are only nine females among those at a time, as opposed to over 100 general authorities and currently six male general officers. The disparity goes down if you go further in the past, but you also have very long serving general officers, so this does not lead to a better balnce. Vicki Matsumori, Chieko N. Okazaki and Silvia H. Allred should all be in this category. Same with Eliza R. Snow, Lucy Mack Smith, Mary Fielding Smith and Emma Smith.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:13, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Other reason for this is that many of the converts are politicians, especially 19th century ones. The first elected woman in Utah, and the first elected female state senator in any state, Martha Hughes Cannon, had come to Utah with her family at age three. I am not sure if her parents were baptized before or after her birth, but even if it was after calling her a convert would not really work. I will go through, but I wonder if Ann Romney got counted in the total figures, which would have an effect.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The current count is 42 out of 480 or 8.7% of the listings are female.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Other Latter Day Saint denominations

Some Latter Day Saint groups (such as the Community of Christ) do not want to be called Mormons, so references to "Mormonism" and being "Mormon" in Wikipedia usually refer to the movement following Brigham Young (see Manual of Style. However, William W. Blair and R. C. Evans are in this category, yet both converted to the RLDS Church after the LDS Church settled in Utah. Is that a problem? Do we need another category for Latter Day Saints that aren't called Mormons? "Converts to the Latter Day Saint movement" sounds awkward and "Latter Day Saint converts" is ambiguous (What is being converted to and what is being converted from?). ——Rich jj (talk) 16:49, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I can see legitimate arguments for limiting this category to people who converted to Church's openly following Joseph Smith, and then Brigham Young on down. However, in theory various polygamists groups want to use the term "Mormon" and a we could follow the example of the Converts to Catholicism categories and create "Converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" as a specific title. Realistically there are few "Converts to Mormonsim" that join polygamous groups, since they do not actively prosylite. Considering that you seem to only be able to cite two people who are in this category who converted to the RLDS Church, and there are over 400 people in the category, maybe removing them from the category is the easiest solution.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Converts to Christianity sub-section

If you go through the "Converts to Christianity" section you will find lots of examples of people converting from one Christian faith to another. The general sense is that the categories "Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy", "Converts to Roman Catholicsm" and "Converts to Protestantism" belong there, even though many of the people in each of those categories converted from other Christian denominations. For consistentcy in wikipedia I put this category as a sub-category of the "Converts to Christianity" category. It creates a consistency of categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:04, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Some of the people in this category were not Christians before joining the LDS Church. Kanosh, Sagwitch, Chief Tuba and Tutsegabit come to mind the fastest. Also, some of the Japanese converts in Hawaii and Japan were not Christian. Also, Walter Gong may not have been a Christian before joining the LDS Church. Others, such as Joseph Smith, Sr. lacked any religious affiliation before becoming LDS.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:09, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Carminis in his comments above is wrong. If he takes a look at those who are in the various sub-categories the majority converted from other branches of Christianity, and many of the sub-categories of sub-categories are entirely made up of transfers of allegiance within Christianity. "Converts to Mormonism" fits in this general plan, especially since there are people in this category who were not Christian at the time of their conversion. If their is a good reason for changing it back, please explain.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:57, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Another example of a non-Christian convert is Chico Mapenda.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The other categories are wrong. 99% of those included in this category were converts from another form of Christianity, so it makes little sense to include it as a subcategory of Category:Converts to Christianity. Putting it in Category:Religious converts would make sense for all those included in it. The same goes for most other subcategories of Category:Converts to Christianity. Just because they all do it that way doesn't mean it is correct. It manifests a misunderstanding of how categories work together. If you wanted to set it up this way, Category:Converts to Christianity should be called Category:Converts to Christian denominations or something similar. How anyone can think that Category:Converts to Protestantism from Catholicism should be a subcategory of Category:Converts to Christianity I'll never understand, unless you take the position that Protestantism is Christianity and Catholicism is not. Same goes here—it can't legitimately be in the category for most of those in the category unless you argue that Mormonism is Christianity and no other Christian religion is, which is self-evidently not true.Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 07:44, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Whether the other categories are wrong is not my worry. My goal is to have consistent placement of categories. If you want to rework the whole system of categories, you will need to take it up as a general discussion urging a re-work of the entire system.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:21, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I know—I understand that you're saying this should be the same as the others one way or the other, and I can understand that. It is a wider problem that goes beyond just this category. I see that most of the other subcategories have been created and put in Category:Converts to Christianity since this one was created and the initial debate was held as to where this one should go (see the section above), so it's something that has developed independent of this one, and I can handle taking an "all or none approach" here. It's probably a categorization of convenience more than anything else, but it can also be misleading, as it does suggest everyone who converted to Mormonism also converted to Christianity. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)