NOM

Something is stirring in Mount Doom. The eye of Sauron is busy looking at lots of things.

https://www.lds.org/study/church-history?lang=eng

It seems the website is undergoing significant updates. If you click "Church History Topics" or "Gospel Topics Essays" several of the topics/links in the left column are not currently working. Many other links are not yet working. This doesn't appear to me to be an attempt to hide anything, but simply changes are in progress and the new format isn't yet finished.

What is interesting to me is the number of topics available. It's extensive and mentions some things that were a bit taboo in years past.
It seems the Corp is busy on being as transparent as they know how. Many of juicy topics are presented in a light as rosy as possible. It seems BYU and the Maxwell Institute took Hollands advice to heart and we should expect new Master Degrees available in WordSmithing and Turd Polishing.

This appears to be a departure from the recent version of presenting the first paragraph of the Essays with a little "Click here to read more" button.

Also, at the end of each topic there are usally two sections - Church Resources and Bibilography.
Church Resources are a few links to Offically Accepted sources, such as references to the scriptures or Joseph Smith Papers.
Bibliography are links disclaimed to be unofficial and may or may not be entirely accurate. Such as stuff from BYU, Apologist or even unrelated 3rd parties.

As a general observation, this is a step towards greater transparency. At the same time, that newly earned degree in WordSmithing is being put to good use.

This is like the tactic used in a civil lawsuit. (Disclaimer, I am not a lawyer, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster) Both sides will demand copious documents from each other and it's like a war to dump a stupid amount of paper on your opponent. You want to meet the legal disclosure requirments, but hope that the other side will simply overlook that critical email.

In this case, it's the LDS church dumping a ton of material that might confirm your decision to drink coffee, but it's surrounded by gallons of faith promoting Postum and just maybe you will retain your testimony as a result. At the very least, the juicy details are not all in one place so your believing friends and relatives will get bored and wander off before they overload their testimony shelf. The CES Letter and MormonThink put all that Satanic material together in one, organized place. Darn them to heck!

Frankly, the new "Saints" book does the same thing. All the great details are in there, but plenty of faith promoting details surround it so it's curiously easy to overlook. You can see that Joseph seemed to get sealed to a lot of women, but there is no organized list so it was probably not more than a few rather a few dozen. Clearly Joseph is the good guy. The LDS website understands this idea and lays it all out for you.

Either way, it feels like their strategy will work very well for all my family.

Kishkumen wrote: ↑Tue Feb 26, 2019 10:43 am It seems BYU and the Maxwell Institute took Hollands advice to heart and we should expect new Master Degrees available in WordSmithing and Turd Polishing.

Thanks for the LOL! That's a great description. I think the Mtutes should be required to put that on their resumes:
Master Degree in WordSmithing and Turd Polishing

Probably trumps a marketing degree.

If I understand correctly, this is LDS-Inc.'s attempt to make the "Gospel Library App" available online, to the world, without downloading the App.

Kishkumen wrote: ↑Tue Feb 26, 2019 10:43 amThis appears to be a departure from the recent version of presenting the first paragraph of the Essays with a little "Click here to read more" button.

FYI, once you wade your way through and find "THE" Gospel topics essays that all of us evil apostate folks know and love, they still use the same "Click here to read more" re-direction. They're still "transparently" hiding things to the best of their ability, and making their best attempt to hide their "transparency" from search engines...

Edit

It seems more links are working than I first experienced. Maybe my computer was having a nervous breakdown and just not cooperating, but on a return visit, many more of the links/topics appear to be up and running.

Kishkumen wrote: ↑Tue Feb 26, 2019 3:32 pm Edit

It seems more links are working than I first experienced. Maybe my computer was having a nervous breakdown and just not cooperating, but on a return visit, many more of the links/topics appear to be up and running.

A few weeks ago there was a thread on reddit that the blacks and the priesthood essay was down, but it loaded right up for me.

That section definitely has been glitchy for a few weeks, although I don't know if it's because they're revamping it or some other technical issue.

jfro18 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:19 pm A few weeks ago there was a thread on reddit that the blacks and the priesthood essay was down, but it loaded right up for me.

That section definitely has been glitchy for a few weeks, although I don't know if it's because they're revamping it or some other technical issue.

If I didn't know any better, I'd almost think they didn't want those articles to work properly.