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I thought that it would be nice to keep a snapshot of when we reached 1,000 articles on our Mormonwiki. If you click on the thumbnail it will be enlarged.

MormonWiki.com is our collaborative site where Church members can write articles on Mormon beliefs and doctrines. The potential downside of a collaborative site (a “wiki”) is that spammers and vandals can participate too.

Among the most prolific participants at Mormonwiki.com is Rick Willoughby, who has volunteered countless hours to write articles and combat spam and vandalism. Rick recently pointed out an interesting pattern: automated spam attacks on Mormonwiki usually fail when the article contains any reference to the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C). It turns out the ampersand in “D&C” fouls up the spam attacks. Rick jokingly called these cases “spam attacks halted by modern revelation.”

Despite occasional “impotent vandalism,” as Rick calls it, Mormonwiki.com has been remarkably successful. It recently reached its 1,000th article in English, and there are hundreds of articles in other languages. It’s by far the most popular website published by the More Good Foundation. Mormonwiki.com is a rising star among the many sites that provide good information about the Mormon faith online. For this we can thank the dozens of participants like Rick who’ve volunteered their time to write and collaborate on articles.

If you’re interested in participating, please visit Mormonwiki.com and see our Beginner’s Guide.

Mormon Testimonies is growing but we need more written and video testimonies, especially conversion stories.

These are a few new ones that you may like:

Susan Easton Black (link to the site)

Valerie Finnegan, a convert from Scotland (link to the site)

Ott Dameron, a convert from the US (link to the site)

Giuseppe.. I know this guy very well. (link to the site)

Francesco Lepore (another convert from Italy) (link to the site)

This is a series of posts about 12 Ways to Share the Gospel online.

I am going to broaden this category a bit as well. Instead of just editing one of these wikis feel free to write a new article as well. I have to admit that writing or editing for a wiki is kind of intimidating for me. But as I spent some time looking around the wiki and reading the many helpful guides, it became less overwhelming.

So my first suggestion is to do just that. From the Mormonwiki homepage you can see a categorized list of all the articles. Browse the articles by categories that interest you. When you find an article that you’d like to add to or edit in some way you’ll need to create an account. If you already have a More Good Foundation log in name and password that will work just fine for Mormonwiki. If you don’t have a log in name and password create one by clicking on ‘log in/create account’ at the top right of the screen. Once you have logged in you are free to add to existing, edit, or create content.

Mormonwiki also has extremely useful information and guidelines that I strongly suggest that you read first. They were very helpful for me! Here are the links for a few of them:
http://www.mormonwiki.com/mormonism/Beginners_Guide
http://www.mormonwiki.com/mormonism/Post_an_Article_on_MormonWiki
http://www.mormonwiki.com/mormonism/Writing_Guide

Remember to keep a respectful and informative tone on the wikis, they’re not blogs (where we get to use all sorts of informal tone and humor) so it’s important to keep them as professional as possible. Happy writing!

This is a series of posts about 12 Ways to Share the Gospel online.

As I am an employee of the More Good Foundation I haven’t exactly ‘volunteered’ with the Foundation. But because I am an employee I know how much we rely on and desperately need volunteers. This work can not possibly reach its full potential without the help of member missionaries who are willing to let their voice be heard and their light shine online.

To Volunteer:
contact us
call at our main line: 801-705-9385
go to moregoodfoundation.org

This is a series of posts about 12 Ways to Share the Gospel online.

Again this option is very easy to do, the only ‘catch’ is that you have to have a Facebook account. Facebook is a great tool for social networking and keeping in contact with friends and family. All you have to have to create an account is an email address. Here are the steps:

1) Go to Facebook.com and click ‘Register’

2) Fill out the registration page to get signed up

3) Once you have signed up there will be an application on the left sidebar that is called ‘Notes’. Yup…click there!

4) Here’s where you can either write a note directly on Facebook or if you share your beliefs regularly on your blog, you can even have your blog imported. After clicking the subheading ‘My Notes’ you will find a setting on the right sidebar that will enable you to import your blog. The blog posts your write will then appear on Facebook as Notes!

This is a series of posts about 12 Ways to Share the Gospel online.

This one is basically the same as number 2. But since there are no language requirements there should be no exceptions to this one…everyone can write their testimony and post it online at mormontestimonies.org! You can even write more than one. For example, you could write your personal conversion story, or a spiritual experience you had during the week, or special testimony building experience from your mission. Write about anything you feel would help the reader feel the spirit and come unto Christ. Here are the basic steps:

1) Go to Mormontestimonies.org and use your name and/or give it a story name to ‘Create article’

2) Write your testimony in the page provided

3) Now here’s the one tricky part. Because mormontestimonies.org is a wiki, each page needs to be classified. There are a few different categories that can be used (and there are instructions on how to classify your testimony on the site) but everyone should at least catagorize their testimony alphabetically. Here’s how: At the end of your testimony, type (or copy and paste) this line [[Category: Alphabetical]] including the brackets.

4) Then save your testimony and repeat!

This is a series of posts about 12 Ways to Share the Gospel online.

I found that posting pictures on Flickr was fairly simple but I’ll go through a few of the steps here to avoid as muchconfusion as possible.

1) Go to Flickr.com. If you already have a Yahoo! email account or you created one so that you could do number one then you can go ahead and sign in using that. If you don’t already have an account you’ll have to create one. Don’t worry it’s relatively painless! Click the button that says ‘Create your account’, the follow the steps given in the Answer a Question at Yahoo! Answers post.

2) From your Flickr homepage you will be able to upload and and manage any or all your pictures.

3) Create albums for your mission and/or wedding pictures and make sure to label them as such using keywords such as ‘temple’, ‘mission’, ‘mormon’ etc.

**Jeff reminded me that I forgot to include the link to my pics. So here are a few of my wedding pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8216429@N04/
Unfortunately, I don’t have many digital wedding photos but I’ve been hoping to round a few more up from a few family members soon.

This is a series of posts about 12 Ways to Share the Gospel online.

There are many reasons that placing links in your site is very important. Linking to other sites creates a sense of community. It also helps create exposure for other good, positive LDS sites. While lds.org is of course a fantastic site, there are also many other fantastic sites that provide more specific and/or detailed information on particular gospel principles and topics for those searching for it (particularly non-members).

Here are a few websites that I like to use in my blog posts:
ldsfaq.byu.edu
josephsmith.com
mormontestimonies.org
ldssearch.com (this is a search engine for LDS topics to help you find other good websites to link to)

What are some of the sites you like to link to?

And here is an example of a blog post I did that includes links to many different sites:
http://www.mikelblake.com/2007/03/12/every-member-a-missionaryeven-me/

After The Mormons aired, I contacted a fellow who had written a lengthy email to PBS complaining about inaccuracies in the show. He regretted sending the hastily written email because it lacked the tact and style that would have been more characteristic of him. But his email already had wings — it was being forwarded to hundreds of people, and in some cases even modified from his original text.

I emailed him, suggesting he start a blog:

I think it would be great if you setup a blog. You could post the original letter and follow-ups and allow people to comment. Let people pass around the address of your blog instead of the text that might get altered. The world needs more blogs from faithful members who defend the Church. I’d be glad to help you set it up if you’re interested.

But he wasn’t interested:

I don’t have an interest in setting up a blog. I do not want to spend time becoming an internet apologist for the Church.

So I tried one last time:

…the Internet needs more faithful voices. With as much effort as you put into your letter, you appear to have the courage and energy to be such a voice. Consider a line from Elder Ballard’s Nov 2005 conference talk: “We call upon Internet providers and Web site creators to become more responsible regarding their potential for influence….”

In President Kimball’s address “When the World Will be Converted” he talked of using radio, TV, and satellite to spread the Gospel and that he believed “the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly had a glimpse.” That was 1974. Could Church members have envisioned an invention that would allow us to connect instantly with billions of people all over the globe? I feel like we have the opportunity to share the Gospel in a completely new way.

While his response was kind, he was still uninterested:

you contend well for a faithful use of the internet. thanks for all you’re doing.

What went wrong?

He can certainly do as he pleases, but if he has the time to publish a lengthy, well-written letter to PBS — and it was well-written — why not publish on a blog? Blogs allow for an open dialog between parties and preserve the history and fidelity of the text. (We believe blogs to be authentic; we believe emails to be authentic, as far as they are forwarded correctly.) Publishing online where everyone would see might have tempered his initial response. It facilitates a gentlemen’s duel — if we must use the word “duel” at all — instead of a drive-by shooting.

My offer to him stands for everyone. If you need help starting a blog so you can share your beliefs and testimony, we’d be glad to help.