Evaluate the credibility of your sources

"Automation is great. Not having to look things up because your phone finds them out for you can be very helpful. But remember: information without a source is not information you should trust." "Not all information is created equal. Just because you find information at the library does not guarantee that it is accurate or good research."

How do we know if the site is an official site of The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints?
Is there an official list of authorized LDS sites?

So on the tech side of this challenge of information overload of today. How is one to effectively use ones time to get the information that one needs and make a good evaluation of that knowledge? Especially in the realm of the new LDS.org gospel topics, sometimes referred to as Mormon essays? There seems to be plenty of scholarly sites that discuss these, and I often see members participating in the dialog, but often in the end I am confused as to what is credible. How do we help loved ones understand where fact ends, discussions start of unknown, and stay safe?

Evaluating credibility of online sources is very important, and a web search for that will find lots of sites with suggestions for doing so. (There is a chicken/egg problem here: how do you know those sites are credible? Common sense is probably the most helpful tool for this!)

Any site ending with ".lds.org" or ".mormon.org" is owned by the church, so can probably be trusted when it comes to church information (except for forums like this where anyone can post). But there are lots of other sites, like providentliving.org and mormonsandgays.org, as well as sites that are sponsored by the church but not official church sites, like justserve.org. I don't know of an official list.

Just as a note, there's a parallel discussion in the thread Sites that I recently found.

rsidwell wrote:Evaluating credibility of online sources is very important, and a web search for that will find lots of sites with suggestions for doing so. (There is a chicken/egg problem here: how do you know those sites are credible? Common sense is probably the most helpful tool for this!)

Any site ending with ".lds.org" or ".mormon.org" is owned by the church, so can probably be trusted when it comes to church information (except for forums like this where anyone can post). But there are lots of other sites, like providentliving.org and mormonsandgays.org, as well as sites that are sponsored by the church but not official church sites, like justserve.org. I don't know of an official list.

Would you care to elaborate on these sites that are "sponsored by the church but not official church sites"? I guess your common sense plays a part in this? So maybe the question is what is the purpose of a site that is sponsored by an entity but not an official sit that represents them? How does this apply to the church?

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:Would you care to elaborate on these sites that are "sponsored by the church but not official church sites"? I guess your common sense plays a part in this?

LDS.org is an official site of the Church. Everything at that site is vetted by the Church and can be counted on to be reliable. A site like JustServe.org is sponsored by the Church, but many different leaders and members are able to add items to the site, and even some service and charity organization leaders who are not members. Many other sites fall across the range that goes from nearly official and totally not.

This Forum is sponsored by the Church, but even here things sometimes get posted that do not represent the official position of the Church. But if you read more than just a single post in a topic, you quickly find that the information is excellent, usually valid, that errors and misstatements are corrected, and that the Forum is moderated in an effort to provide a reliable resource that will help Church members with technical challenges. Because of this, along with oversight that the Moderators receive from headquarters, the Forum is a reliable source of information.

Yes, common sense plays a part in this. With experience, it is not hard to discover the official site for an organization, and then to determine whether other sites support and augment the official site or are not supportive. You come to recognize sensational articles and posts that are not as reliable to use as sources of information. And you learn that a good article, supported with sources and references that can be independently verified, is more trustworthy, credible, and more likely to provide correct information.

lajackson wrote:

1968leocomeeatabite wrote:Would you care to elaborate on these sites that are "sponsored by the church but not official church sites"? I guess your common sense plays a part in this?

LDS.org is an official site of the Church. Everything at that site is vetted by the Church and can be counted on to be reliable. A site like JustServe.org is sponsored by the Church, but many different leaders and members are able to add items to the site, and even some service and charity organization leaders who are not members. Many other sites fall across the range that goes from nearly official and totally not.

This Forum is sponsored by the Church, but even here things sometimes get posted that do not represent the official position of the Church. But if you read more than just a single post in a topic, you quickly find that the information is excellent, usually valid, that errors and misstatements are corrected, and that the Forum is moderated in an effort to provide a reliable resource that will help Church members with technical challenges. Because of this, along with oversight that the Moderators receive from headquarters, the Forum is a reliable source of information.

Yes, common sense plays a part in this. With experience, it is not hard to discover the official site for an organization, and then to determine whether other sites support and augment the official site or are not supportive. You come to recognize sensational articles and posts that are not as reliable to use as sources of information. And you learn that a good article, supported with sources and references that can be independently verified, is more trustworthy, credible, and more likely to provide correct information.

THANK YOU so very much lajackson this is so very good! I guess I knew what you are saying but sometimes one does not realize it until it is written or said. Also the value of a non-official but supported site is evident from your examples and dialog. Thank you again.

There many websites that are operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints aside from lds.org and mormon.org.

Here is the link provided by the Church containing the official websites: http://tech.lds.org/wiki/Church_Websites

casupananjasonsoriano wrote:There many websites that are operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints aside from lds.org and mormon.org.

Here is the link provided by the Church containing the official websites: http://tech.lds.org/wiki/Church_Websites

This list was actually member supported and does not reflect anything official from the church. It hasn't been kept up for over 3 years, which is an eternity in Internet time.