Talk:Tag:denomination=mormon

If we get consensus on what would communicate best, I, vpbroman, would be willing to put in some work to regularize names globally for LDS, Community of Christ, etc.

For myself, I would prefer the tag "latter-day saint" instead of "mormon". I won't even get into the whole hyphen issue between the Josephites and the Brighamites (most of the followers of Joseph Smith who didn't follow Brigham Young out west tend not to use the hyphen between latter and day), but it seems simple enough. Also, this follows press use guidelines as put out formally by the LDS Church... as if that really matter here. "latter-day_saint" is also reasonable. --Robert Horning 17:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

FYI as of right now the most common denomination value in use for LDS churches is latter_day_saints with 141 uses. ToeBee 01:37, 1 August 2012 (BST)

My practice now is to tag LDS properties with religion=christian denomination=mormon and operator="The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". I also watch out for nodes with mormon-related terminology, to see whether they need to marked "Community of Christ" or the like. That will be a bigger job in the MidWest USA.

Moved from Page to Discussion

Using denomination=mormon would be quite confusing. "Mormon" is a cultural category, based on a nickname; there is no one "Mormon Church". Mormons might belong to any church or no church, but most belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a good number belong to the Community of Christ, and others belong to one of many small splinter groups. These churches may be categorized as "Restorationist", but they do not consider each other to be allies or under the same big tent. Journalists frequently confuse the polygamist splinter groups with the big church centered in Utah (which discontinued polygamy in 1890). We shouldn't be confusing more people to save a few keystrokes.

Using latter_day_saint or lds should be fine, since all the other denominations are named in English. A few nodes are already tagged with a full name. Perhaps denomination:de=hlt, or denomination:fr=sdj, or the like could work. --vpbroman 18:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• This is just too complicated for users and contributors who are not familiar with the ramifications of the structure of "mormon" churches. The same discussion can be had for most other denomination=* categories, for instance denomination=quaker: again its a nickname, but it is what is widely understood. If it is required to disambiguate these different organisations there are plenty of other suitable means, such as using operator=* to provide the legal name of the church. Or you could do something like add an additional mormon=latter_day_saints. Remember the objective of OSM is to map objects, not build a database of church organisational hierarchies. SK53 11:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I moved this while cleaning up the wiki page. --MRPockets 19:27, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

This tag still has no solid consensus?

As of 2018, denomination=mormon has approximately a 45:1 ratio of tagging use compared to any other variant (lds, latter_day_saint[s], etc.) I made an edit which I assumed was a relatively safe cleanup of these into the 'mormon' denomination key. Fairly enough this was called out as a mechanical edit so I reverted it pending discussion, but there are two questions on the table at this point:

1. denomination=mormon has ~5700 tags today. Other variants as listed on the main page have ~130. I might make the argument at this point that a preferred tag has made itself known, if for no other reason by sheer numbers of use. If this is the case, it's probably reasonable to amend the parent page here say that 'this is the tag most used'.

2. If denomination=mormon is NOT the tag that really should be being used for reasons of church style preference, etc., then a different edit is likely needed, one that moves the ones currently used to the preferred tag, or otherwise (again) amends the wiki to encourage the use of this 'other' tag, which it doesn't clearly do today.

I'm not strongly invested in which tag or tags are used, though I do believe that consistency of its use to represent the same organization is a laudable goal. Thoughts on where we are here? Skybunny (talk) 21:09, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Yesterday, 7 October 2018, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave an address in which he explained the importance of using the full name of the Church. In particular, the terms "Mormon" and "LDS" were discouraged. The style guide says: 'While the term "Mormon Church" has long been publicly applied to the Church as a nickname, it is not an authorized title, and the Church discourages its use. Thus, please avoid using the abbreviation "LDS" or the nickname "Mormon" as substitutes for the name of the Church, as in "Mormon Church," "LDS Church," or "Church of the Latter-day Saints.'

I admit to being the first to suggest, over ten years ago, that the full name of the Church was too long to enter into the OSM database. However, as a member of the Church, (and a person who considers the President of the Church to be a living prophet) I now consider that my previous position was incorrect. Buildings owned by the Utah church should be re-labeled with the full name. Buildings operated by other denominations of the restoration movement, such as the Community of Christ, should be labeled with their preferred name.

Given the size of this edit, the change would best be done automatically. However, it could also be accomplished by manual comparison with the Church's own online map. According to official statistics there are presently 30,506 local congregations. Given that some meet in temporary space, and that up to three congregations may share a meeting house, it would seem that between 10,000 and 20,000 buildings should be so tagged. Vernondcole (talk) 13:51, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

So I took a look at the press release. Here's the key parts that would have relevance to OSM:

(1) "In the first reference, the full name of the Church is preferred: 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.'"

(2) "When a shortened reference is needed, the terms 'the Church' or the 'Church of Jesus Christ' are encouraged. The 'restored Church of Jesus Christ' is also accurate and encouraged."

Okay, so. (1) would make for a tag that is 48 characters long, the_church_of_jesus_christ_of_latter-day_saints. I don't really think this is ideal, mostly because (as one might guess), iD, JOSM, and other such editors are not likely to show a tag that long in its entirety, making it somewhat unwieldy. That said, it's the full name. If used in an editor though, I think it's likely to show things like 'the_church_of_jesus_christ_of_l...' or similar for being too long.

(2) has three options. "The Church", leading to tag the_church is almost certainly not going to satisfy reasonable uniqueness. "Church of Jesus Christ", making for church_of_jesus_christ...it's publicly controversial. See [1] Numerous Christian churches fundamentally object to the idea of the church calling itself simply 'The Church of Jesus Christ' because it implies speaking for, by implication, being the one church of/by/whatever Jesus Christ, at the expense of other churches.

That leaves "restored Church of Jesus Christ", thus the tag restored_church_of_jesus_christ. I think of the available four options, that's the one I'd go for. This tag would clearly identify the church as being part of the restoration movement, and not as a "general church which speaks authoritatively as the church 'of' Jesus Christ", which many Christian churches undoubtedly would stake a claim to. Skybunny (talk) 02:21, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

"president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave an address" - that has no direct impact on OSM tagging Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 13:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

While it would be easier to edit, the tag "restored Church of Jesus Christ" is not obvious. I would not naturally use it to locate, nor to identify buildings of my denomination.

In relation to this question, I called the Church's Media Relations department today. They said: "use all 48 characters" in no uncertain terms. This is understandable. In the address mentioned above, President Nelson declared: "It is the command of the Lord." It is safe to assume that 16 million members of the Church will stand behind their prophet on this question. That's about as close to "consensus" as you're going to get. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vernondcole (talk • contribs) 00:09, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

@Skybunny: @Vernondcole: I've been cleaning up data items related to denomination=* and finding that, in reality, there's some movement away from the broad theological categories that have historically been recommended on Key:denomination and towards more specific denominations that reflects organizational divisions. The latter is a practical approach, since users would consider these organizational distinctions more relevant when searching. Not everyone is steeped in theology to know these terms from each other, and most people wouldn't automatically consider one denomination to be interchangeable with another just because they happen to be related. If necessary, data consumers can rely on external lookup tables or Wikidata to conflate closely similar denominations for the purpose of choosing an appropriate icon.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not alone in having a long official name. Given the existence of other long denomination=* values that are in use, I see no problem with beginning to migrate its facilities over to denomination=church_of_jesus_christ_of_latter-day_saints or something similar. For now, I've only edited Item:Q4878 to recommend denomination=latter_day_saints as a first step towards disambiguation, since that tag is already in wide use. But if someone would like to begin retagging features to something longer, we can always update the documentation. Key:denomination was never intended to be set in stone with a full approval process for new values, considering the complexities of denomination tagging.

 – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 23:35, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

What Wikipedia recommends internally

I moved following here from Key:denomination (as we are not obligated to follow internal decisions by Wikipedia) "(Note that full name is preferable to mormon, lds or latter_day_saint (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints)#Naming unidenominational articles on Wikipedia and Style Guide), but tagging with the_church_of_jesus_christ_of_latter-day_saints is a lot of keystrokes." Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:03, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mateusz Konieczny: If we could step back in time to fix just a few of the flaws in OSM tagging, I'd give strong consideration to making denomination=* a freeform key like operator=* and pairing it with denomination:wikidata=* for good measure. With a freeform key, no one would bat an eye about values as long as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and non-English speakers in non-English-speaking countries could use a more recognizable value.

But things being what they are, I think we can at least manage to distinguish that church from the unaffiliated sects that identify with the term "Mormon". The leading alternative value is currently latter_day_saints, which technically refers to the members rather than the church, but that would be an improvement over mormon, right? The full name sees so little use in OSM that we should probably wait until it grows in usage before formally documenting it, but I don't see its length as a showstopper. It's not even in the same ballpark as your man_made=scaled_down_streets_that_may_be_used_for_traffic_safety_education_or_as_a_type_of_a_playground proposal. ;^)

 – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 22:59, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

"unaffiliated sects that identify with the term "Mormon"" if that is the present problem then such change would likely be a good idea, though I have no great experience here Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 08:13, 18 December 2021 (UTC)