James Masters said...

1. Doing Well

Great resource for lesson planning, looking up General Conference and magazine info, etc. The ward and stake website access has good basic features (membership directory, calendar).

2. Not doing well

My #1 suggestion would be to have an automated Home Teaching reporting mechanism. Users could “subscribe” to receive monthly e-mail requests for HT reporting. The users could then go online and click yes/no on a visit. Also make this available for HT district leaders so that HT numbers can be inputted from home.

#2 would be to allow automated e-mail messages to be sent for various ward functions. In the past, I’ve used a Linux system at work to regularly send out requests for information, reminders for meetings, etc.

Finally #3 would be to correlate MLS with the website to have instant updates of leadership position changes.

June 3, 2007 11:14 pm #

James A. said...

Individual ward websites: better than they used to be (i.e., totally haphazard), but not yet as good as they can be. You guys have done some wonderful things on the web lately, and I’d love to see what could happen if that same passion, expertise, and ingenuity were applied to the ward websites. (I’m sure you guys have already been looking at it, but a reminder couldn’t hurt!)

Ward staff internet access: This is a tricky issue because of potential for abuse, of course, but one of the biggest frustrations I have as a ward clerk is that I can’t check my e-mail (to get things e-mailed by the bishop during the week), order online from the distribution center, update the ward website, print out maps, etc., from the clerk’s office. I regularly have to drive back and forth between the office and my home to accomplish a lot of basic tasks. Not a simple issue, but one worth exploring.

MLS: I’m sure web-based MLS is quite a ways off, but we’ve gotta dream, right?

I know the big picture is *way* bigger than just those items, but they’re the biggest Internet-related pain-points for our particular ward, so hopefully the information will help.

June 3, 2007 11:48 pm #

Steve said...

1) What is the Church doing well with the Internet?
The on-line scriptures and the gospel library are my favourite and most used parts of LDS.org. Being called as a clerk I also find the on-line training materials very good.

2) What is the Church not doing well with the Internet?
Prior to 2001 we had a local stake website, which we used to publish materials that were generated locally and promote local events. We also used an electronic mailing list. When the brethren wrote asking for this to discontinue we complied. The letter told us that policy was being developed for local unit websites. This resulted in LUWS for North America, but as I live in Europe we are still waiting. From what I have read there are limitations with LUWS, but something would be better than nothing.

June 4, 2007 12:55 am #

Carl W. Filiaga said...

The only thing that the Church is not doing well with the internet is not having the entire lds.org site available in foreign languages like Samoan, Tongan etc.

June 4, 2007 1:44 am #

Tom Ortega said...

Doing Well: Putting up the scriptures (both the written and the oral)

Not Doing Well: Making it easy for me to track down RS and EQ presidencies in other wards, finding out activities in wards I’m visiting

June 4, 2007 5:27 am #

Marvin Miller said...

Calendar for local stake/ward websites should be done via Google Calendar, in my opinion. Make it easier to subscribe via RSS and add to my personal calendar whether its Google or iCal. And, please add PDA version of scriptures (Bible, BOM, PGP, DC). Now, Apple iPhone would negate this need, though. Can’t wait for that. And, keep up the good work on ASL.lds.org — add iPod/AppleTV formatted videos if possible, especially now that Apple’s QuickTIme 7.1.6 supporting Closed Captioning standard.

June 4, 2007 6:15 am #

Jesse Stay said...

I’m very impressed with the Web 2.0 focus the church is moving towards. I’m a little worried that the church is too late in moving towards this focus. IMO, the internet is moving into another era, the Social and Mobile era, and the church needs to be moving into those eras. For instance, Facebook just released an API, and within a day or so, most of the major Web 2.0 sites had applications out for it. I think the church should always be one of the first in the game on these new technologies to have “hype” like Google, Digg, etc. do. (yes, I really think the church could be as popular as them with a focus like that). My other largest complaint is that there is no API. As a developer (and entrepeneur), I *really* would like access to the genealogy data the church has. With this, I could make some really cool and useful apps, and probably faster than the Church could.

Again, I really like that the church is taking a more agile approach lately. I’m just worried it’s not moving fast enough.

June 4, 2007 6:15 am #

Justin said...

I love what you guys have done with the gospel library. It is a great improvement. I think that you really things easier to find and easier to study. The Stake and Ward Websites could use some work. Here are a few things that I would like to see. Tiled picture directory for printing, Multiple phone numbers per person (ie. home phone, husbands cell phone, wifes cell phone), users can edit basic personal information such as email, phone and address and a prettier calendar.

- Hope this helps

June 4, 2007 7:12 am #

David Nicoll said...

1. Online content, especially the Gospel Library and the mp3’s of conference are wonderful!

2. I’ve love to have the mp3’s of Priesthood Sessions of general conference. I also wish that things like CES firesides or BYU talks were available as podcasts, or that the content of talks could be made available through an RSS feed to provide some push content for members.

June 4, 2007 7:35 am #

Chad V. Francom said...

Doing Well: #1 - The overall look and feel of the public use of the website is excellent.
#2 - The scriptures and past issues of Ensign etc article are also life saving.

Needs Improvement: #1 - Calendaring. Think Google Calendar with your next improvements. The ability to drag and drop events, quickly make repeatable events, integrate resources and regular calendar events.

#2 - Ability to customize a wards website (within reason). Links to missionaries e-mail or mission addresses from ward website. Ability to post pictures from last ward event and send out a ward e-newsletter. Some sort of blogging or journaling. So, people can post pics and text about their experience at the ward social, etc.

#3 - More web 2.0 leadership tools.

June 4, 2007 7:46 am #

Kim Siever said...

What I’d like to see:

1. Better calendar integration with online calendaring systems.
2. Country specific content not based on language (Canada for example).
3. Leadership manuals (not just curricula)
4. Web version of MLS
5. Internet access in meetinghouses (wireless would be sweet)
6. Leadership directory tied to MLS
7. Faster response times than 3 years for inclusion of submitted GED files
8. Online TempleReady creation (including verification of previously-done ordinances)
9. Book appointments for temple ordinances online

What I wouldn’t like.

1. Online HT reporting. The current method for reporting HT is seriously flawed. By moving it to the web, we would be perpetuating its ineffectiveness. The entire programme needs to be overhauled before we go to web-based reporting

June 4, 2007 7:55 am #

Kim Siever said...

One more thing I’d like to see.

Better training for leaders on th website. For example, training for ward Melchizedek priesthood leaders is HT centric. There’s more to being a MP leader than administrating home teaching.

June 4, 2007 7:57 am #

Matt Witten said...

Doing Well: The scriptures online are wonderful. As are most of the other content. I am still not yet used to the new interface, (finding the link to stake and ward websites where it is was an adventure, as well as the “shopping” section.) but I like the simpler design.

Not doing well: The job board on provident living seems a little substandard, and not any more advantageous to using indeed or some other site…
I’m still more likely to use google to search lds.org than I am to use the internal search.

June 4, 2007 9:08 am #

Larry Beck said...

The online scriptures are fantastic, but better marking tools are needed.

Make the Church Almanac a web site as well as a hard cover book.

June 4, 2007 9:59 am #

Brian said...

Doing well:
- Listening to us! or at least asking
- Ward websites
- Content (audio, video text) including the scriptures

Could do better:
- Role based tools - like the Home Teaching tracker online mentioned above, could be a great tool to support stewardships in the Church. These would be role and process based, like web-based tool for managing announcements that would generate a printable program and create a meeting template with announcements for the conducting Bishopric member. Additional processes could include class attendance tracking, food storage orders, etc.

- VoIP based phone announcement tool. The ability to send out a recorded message to your class, quorum or ward would save hours of calling. A simple dialer program could deliver the message, receiver presses one to acknowledge and your call list shrinks instantly.

- Web Proxy server or other control of internet access. These last two are really
beyond the scope of lds.org, but would be wonderful to have.

There’s no question that internet access in Church buildings is growing - half my stake has wifi. Controlling this access is the key to turning this opportunity for sin into a powerful blessing. There are plenty of options for securing meetinghouse terminals (in clerk’s offices and eventually the building) that members could benefit from in their own homes:

- Church owned web proxy servers to filter access
- Church maintained DNS servers with filtering (like http://www.scrubit.com/)
- Church modification of Open Source browser - Firefox with built-in filtering
- Church modification of Linux distribution to run on Church machines (www.christianubuntu.com/)

There are varying amounts of cost and risk in these, but this is a struggle every online member has to make, why not employ some resources to help them out.
An Open Source project like the last two seem like great opportunities to engage the LDS community to defray costs and preserve tithing funds.

June 4, 2007 10:22 am #

Dan Sage said...

1. Online scriptures, conference talks, other gospel library materials.

2. Community aspect, interaction especially on a local level.

June 4, 2007 10:35 am #

Damon said...

1) What is the Church doing well with the Internet?
I love the online scriptures, ensign, student manuals, hymns, etc. Online study materials are amazingly helpful. Has anyone measured the improvement in sacrament meeting talks since lds.org launched?

2) What is the Church not doing well with the Internet?
My favorite thing right now is listening to conference. My suggestions are all related:
a) would like to see the audio archives expanded. I’m sure the church has audio archives for General Conference going back 30+ years–can we make that available online?
b) the metadata tags in the exisiting MP3 files are inconsistent and sometimes thoroughly confusing. It would be great if the exisiting audio library could be cleaned up in a consistent manner so that I don’t have to spend so much time organizing it to go on my iPod.
c) would love to see the priesthood sessions and choir numbers made available on MP3–just like the CDs.
d) would like to be able to download an entire session of conference as an archived set of individual MP3s, instead of a single, 2-hour file.

June 4, 2007 11:45 am #

Kevin said...

1. Providing relevant information to current members that will benefit them in their mission to return to our Father in Heaven and serve our brothers and sisters.

2. Organization of the content. Accessibility of the content to all nations’ kindred and tongue. Searchability from external search engines. Better and more descriptive URLs. Better optimization for narrowband connections. I personally would rather have the site and the entire Gospel library in all languages before trying to implement anything else. When I speak with my friends from other countries they lament that they do not have access to the same information that we have. We are so blessed and I would love to share that with everyone.

Truly what makes the church’s website great is the information that is contained within. I am weary that we might use technology as an excuse to replace personal interaction with others. I am also worried that we get caught up in trendy technologies that are neat but aren’t essential.

June 4, 2007 11:52 am #

Erik said...

Suggestion:

As a stake administrator, whenever I send an e-mail broadcast I get dozens of bounced e-mails. The ability to better maintain e-mail lists would be wonderful since members do not often update this on their own.

June 4, 2007 12:45 pm #

John Melville said...

I love the online scriptures and lesson manuals.

Only 1 small suggestion:
When I prepare my priesthood lessons online, I never know which page number to reference to the SWK text for the year. Either an (optional) PDF of the final printer copy, or at least an annotation of where the original page breaks were would be ideal.

June 4, 2007 1:28 pm #

Gene Black said...

1. Doing well: Gospel Library

2. Needs improvement: Gospel Library

The searchability of the resources in the Gospel Library is really nice. It could be improved by adding the many other church approved resources such as Lectures on Faith. It would also be nice, since the church has decided on the importance of making resources such as the standard works available to us on the web, if it considered offering additional help to use those resources (personal bookmarks, highlighting, etc.). I realize there’s sometimes a clash with commercial resources that has to be considered, but it would still be nice to see the Church offer it.

June 4, 2007 1:29 pm #

Matt said...

1. Online Gospel Library is great.
2. The Church News should be on lds.org (not Desnews) available for free.

June 4, 2007 1:54 pm #

Doug said...

Feature Requests:
1. online Tithing/Offerings management tool with ability to pay by online check.
2. Home Teaching management tool with ability to report results.
3. Membership directory should support displaying family pictures to ward memebers (huge help for new members to get to know names and faces)
4. Unified genealogy database as a replacement to PAF. Let’s keep our genealogy records online to keep our records in sync with each other are reduce redundancy of effort.

June 4, 2007 1:56 pm #

Enrique Romero said...

1. What is the Church doing well with the Internet?
Giving the public access to our beliefs. The interface needs improvement but it is much better than it had been.

2. What is the Church not doing well with the Internet?
Managing the needs of the Stake and Ward Websites. The biggest complaints we (stake administrators) get are:
1. Too slow. (Action item: Lets speed things up a bit, eh?)
2. The userid I wanted is taken OR I can’t remember my user id. (Action item: Dump the userid model and just use peoples email addresses. Better yet why not have a common login for all church sites. This way I don’t have a seperate one for familyserach.org than from lds.org/units.)
3. Why can I send out email broadcasts with attachments? (Action item: Allow PDF or JPEG attachments.)
4. Why do we have to manually manage ward/stake leadership info on the website if it is already in MLS? (Action item: Incorporate this info straight from MLS.)
5. Why do new move-ins, who are previously registered on the website, take 6 weeks to show up on our ward website? (Action item: This is a bug that needs fixing.)

Feel free to forward these questions. We’d love all the thoughtful responses we can get!

June 4, 2007 2:38 pm #

Dalin Brinkman said...

The “ward” section never gets that much attention in our stake, unless you live for each church event, which is rare. Otherwise, you are like me…”what was that password again?”

The ultimate in my book would be having a one stop shop “iMember” section or something that would have the following:
1. The current ward and stake information
2. Personalizable scriptures. The ability to take the current scriptures out there and highlight them, insert notes, and download both. That would be really cool…
3. Personalized lesson planning. The ability to prepare a lesson, with highlights and notes. For those are just attending, the standard gospel doctrine lesson manual.
4. Online PAF - do your family history online. Submit gedcoms to temple ready, do research, including a log of your searches on familysearch.org and the ability to “publish” that information for others…like google does for it’s google docs.
5. eLearning - it would be awesome to have institute learning out there for those of us who regret sleeping through it at the Y. This would also have your lessons for ward clerks, and even Family history lessons….very cool.

June 4, 2007 2:43 pm #

John Vilburn said...

Doing well:
Thank you for adding the ability to upload pdf files to ward and stake websites. Now we can make our stake newsletter available via the web.

Need improvement:
Allow more web access into MLS functionality. For instance, many of the members of our ward have outdated addresses or phone numbers listed on the ward website. To correct this right now they need to contact the ward membership clerk and have him change it in MLS. Much better if they could do that themselves.

June 4, 2007 2:55 pm #

Rickety said...

1) What is the Church doing well with the Internet?

The scriptures, especially because I can enter the URL directly http://scriptures.lds.org/en/alma/14/1#1 if I know the chapter and verse.

The newsroom http://newsroom.lds.org, especially because of the statistical information, commentary, public issues, and background information.

A chance to give feedback on most sites.

2) What is the Church not doing well with the Internet?

Calendaring. I’m spoiled by Google Calendar. They do tours: http://www.google.com/intl/en/googlecalendar/tour.html

—-
Thank you for asking the questions, it is appreciated.

June 4, 2007 3:11 pm #

Christian said...

I would love to see the Church tackle Boy/Cub Scout tools, providing a one-stop shop for tracking progress against both scout activities and Faith in God — and make it possible for a boy’s records to transfer should a family move.

I understand the Church’s reasoning for discouraging existing 3rd party online solutions, but we definitely need some kind of online solution.

A great stretch goal would be to also incorporate RSS feeds, so parents could subscribe to updates.

June 4, 2007 3:16 pm #

Greg Hart said...

1. Access to the Gospel Library is great.

2. It should be a tool that simplifies, not complicates, the jobs and lives of local unit leaders. MLS and LUWS should be ONE and the SAME. Leaders need simpler access to practical membership information that allows them to serve more effectively and spend more time at home with their families. It’s time the first-class effort the Church puts into A/V, Buildings, and Curriculum be applied to MLS/LUWS as well!

June 4, 2007 3:29 pm #

Mike said...

1) Everything mentioned above. I think the church is doing a great job with their web site and I’m glad to see you seeking feedback from us, your users.

2) I would love to see a General Conference podcast that would automatically update with each new session of conference. This would make getting the latest conference absolutely effortless.

I would also like to see the software development open up more at the church. I think we’ve been kept informed about what’s going on with technology at the church but we haven’t been able to give anything back. I think there are plenty of talented software developers that would be eager to submit code patches to church software if only we could see the source code.

It would be nice to the see more of the church’s technology opened up so that we as members could give back. Why can’t we see the source code to something like MLS or even LDS.org? Why can’t we as members contribute to translating church content? Certainly the data stored in MLS could not be shared publicly but there’s no reason the source code to MLS could not be shared.

And what about the church’s Java stack? I have talked with employees in the ICS department who talk about how great the church’s Java stack is. Would it be possible for the membership of the church to see and use this stack and possibly contribute back to the church’s stack.

June 4, 2007 9:08 pm #

Emrol Gould said...

With the recent launch of Google gears and the tools that go with it, I’d like to have the ability to view some on-line content while off-line; e.g. scriptures & training material.

Also, there’s the assumption that everyone know how to use computers. My branch recent had MLS installed and the clerk doesn’t know how to drive a mouse. So some training material (available on-line and off-) would be nice (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/computertutor/computertutorone/index.shtml)

June 4, 2007 9:08 pm #

Oscar Schultz said...

The Gosple Library has been excellent. Very well done. Just keep improving.

Things to make better.
A standard meeting agenda template for each of the “standard” meetings” would be a great help.

A calling tracking program - something to track the progress a call as it flows from persons to consider, through interviews, sustaining, setting apart, various training and interviews, through to the release.

An online Ward/Stake history program (automatically tied to MLS to track callings, releases, activity levels, etc.

A tracking program for YM, YW, Primary, for the youth progress, and adults (round table attendance, various safety class attendance, forms printing & tracking, scouting(cubs-ventures), Duty to God, YW AWards. adult awards, etc.

Having a web enabled MLS would be a great help. If a direct http url access is not possible then perhaps a ssh protocol 2 dsa key only connection to run firefox or other web browser as a X window might provide the security desired.

Modify MLS to track multiple email addresses, cell phones, mailing & shipping addresses,etc for each person.

Add a report in MLS to list persons with multiple callings with some way to weight the calling to help avoid overloading people.

Setup a web based spreadsheet type organization budget proposal and tracking application with auto warnings to the Leadership if expenses are too rapid or large. Include the ability to search back through several years of history to assist in preparing the next years proposed budget . Include a way to tie the budget and the calender together.

Setup a way for the Ward Clerk/webmaster/Bishop/etc to set/reset Ward members web accounts/passwords. For leadership access you could tie the recommend numbers (right hand side) to the additional functions and access a userid could have. As the recommend is signed each Clerk (Ward and Stake) would enable the additional functions via MLS to be uploaded to control web access. When the recommend expires the additional functions would be dropped automatically.

Have a way to submit Bishop’s Store house requests online. Provide a feedback method for the Storehouse to contact the Bishop/Presidents via email.

Enable the use of PGP signed and encrypted emails.

Setup a online building problem reporting web site for the FM groups - also tie it to the Ward website so the members could repport problems via their Ward website..

the things you have done online have been a great blessing. Thanks for all you have done so far. I look forward to seeing many more great tools

June 4, 2007 10:25 pm #

Steve Neeland said...

Some features I could see as a benefit:

1. Make the member’s address that is displayed in the ward/branch website directory a hyperlink that will open another window displaying the Google maps location.

2. Different members of the same household can enter different email addresses. Syncing that with MLS would be nice, but that’s probably an MLS issue.

3. Allowing the unit site admin to change a registered member’s email address. Currently the only options are notifying the member their emails are bouncing and hoping they will logon and update the email address, or resetting their password then logging on as them as updating it for them (not the preferred method obviously).

The members that we have that use it like the simple interface and amount of content available. I applaud the leadership for providing a method for the ‘advanced’ (???) users to provide input for future enhancements. It’s comforting to know that the needs of the users are important. Thanks!

June 5, 2007 7:20 am #

John Fox said...

Online content is wonderful, and the training for ward clerks is great. Your training section for ward clerks save me a lot time. I also appreciated the CES Manuals being online at ldsces.org. I also like the streaming audio for conferences and firesides.

With all of the online content, the church can always improve searching tools. I look at it again and it is better, but I think there is still room to improve. Also now that I am not ward clerk it would be nice if the training sections for other positions was as detail as the ward clerk section is.

June 5, 2007 10:27 am #

Nick said...

Doing right:
- Site design is beautiful!
- Thanks for adding the “search for a member” feature on the stake level.
- Agreed the music dept stuff is phenomenal.

Could use:
- An online appointment or calendaring app for use at the stake level (or ward level for that matter). My stake is geographically very large and stake leaders coordinate everything by a dizzying amount of email. A calendar app where you could block out available appointment times and even let members schedule their own appointments would save sooo much time–and more importantly, it would model a clear and cohesive process for all involved.
- Also, an observation: many times even ward and stake leaders are not using the Internet resources that are available, when pointed to the site as a place to look, people are surprised to find out what is available. So that is an education need.

June 5, 2007 11:34 am #

James Lee Vann said...

Just thought I’d put in my two cents-

Great:
Lots of information
the Church Music Site
design

Needs Improvement:
Contribution and group participation, ie calenders, posting announcements on unit sites, e-mail list managment;

The UI could use a little more AJAX

Oh, and BTW, I’m in a singles ward, and the Bishopric’s membership is not in the ward, therefore, they do not appear on the leadership directory. Or the membership directory. This really needs to be fixed!

June 5, 2007 2:38 pm #

Dave said...

I would like to see more hi-res photos available for download of General Authorities so we can use to promote stake conference. Also, photos of temples, temple square, and the Conference Center.

June 5, 2007 3:12 pm #

Larry Richman said...

Great work on the redesign of LDS.org. Whoever lead that project is incredible!

Suggestion:
In MLS and the Stake/Ward Web Sites, provide the ability for a cell phone and e-mail address for each person, not each household. We’re ready to turn off our house phone (land line) now that each family member has his/her own cell phone.

June 6, 2007 8:33 am #

Dan Peay said...

The elegance and navigation of mormon.org is stellar! The message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is attractive and engaging. LDS.org is also a tremendous resource and blessing to me, my family, and friends. Particularly in the following areas:
* Audio content has changed me. Scripture and conference audio changes what my family listens to in commuting and free-time listening. (nice to have: download conference blocks in zip format rather than single talk or 2 hour block)
* Teaching resources are awesome. Our family uses this each week. (nice to have: Leadership materials and handbooks for training both adults and youth… ie, MP book 2, responsibilities of Deacon councilor with links to portions of MP book 1 which is not avail.)
* Music site is premium quality and an amazing family resource. My 22 yr old son and I just spent hours learning to play the guitar along with hymns. (low priority nice to have: Guitar chords w/online hymns)
My experience in the Needs Improvement area:
Unit Sites:
* E-mail distribution would vastly improve ward communications. Today, each individual is responsible for entering and maintaining their own email, so it doesn’t happen or is outdated. It is useless to use the unit web site for email broadcast, resulting in each auxiliary maintaining their own version of email address’ on personal computers (security risks). So, because I just gave the RS President my new email address, I assume that it will be updated on the ward site. At the very least, let the Ward Web admin have rights to set email address and “preferred name.”
* Calendaring should be a compelling driver for members to use the web, however it is not dynamic enough or thorough enough to be useful. Currently, I am unable to edit one day of a recurring meeting without changing the entire series. I’m not convinced this should be google though. Minor changes could help a lot. (and maybe take the security risk for local admins to actually include the name of the building the regional dance is hosted at:))
* Improve news and information section. We have an incredible ward mission plan and emergency preparedness plan. We need a place to post this, besides a one-line tag in the news and information section which could be a great resource, but rarely used. We striped out all the pictures, maps, and diagrams from our emergency plan to meet the 1MB limit. Imagine a place for Ward Goals or Stake Goals where members could see what they are…  (allow Word doc) (another example, building cleaning schedule posting)
* UPDATE web leadership from MLS. Please. Also “preferred name” from MLS
* It is not clear to me that the Stake Web Admin is passing on (or knows where to pass on) feedback from the stake feedback link.
Thanks for asking!

June 6, 2007 11:50 am #

weldon said...

1. Doing well

Publishing printed information to the web. The Church has done a great job of getting printed materials on to the web recently. It’s nice to have conference talks, ensign messages, scriptures, lesson manuals, etc. all readily available.

vcard export from the Ward membership directory is brilliant. Please thank whoever did that for me personally. Little things like this make a huge difference.

In big picture terms, I think the web site has been successful in bringing printed materials online. The next step is to bring church services and programs online (things that now require a phone call or a written form).

2. Needs improvement

a. MP3’s - as someone else mentioned, the MP3 files of conference are really poorly tagged. I spend an hour or so setting all the titles, speakers, disc # (for session) etc. so all the names are consistent and in order. I do that and then share them with friends because they’re much easier to use that way.

b. Podcasts - I’d really like to see podcasts of conference talks, monthly recordings of addresses at BYU, etc. to make it easy to hear the voices of our leaders. Even a recording of the monthly Ensign message would be nice.

c. RSS - I’d like to see RSS feeds for Church news (easier to manage than the daily LDS news email for me), monthly messages, conference transcripts, etc. Ward website postings as well.

d. Calendar - I’d like to subscribe to the ward calendar from iCal or Google Calendar (rather than just export).

e. My Church Life - I’d like you to create one place where I can request updates to my address, phone number, etc. Request my priesthood lineage (or view it online). Request a copy of my Patriarchal Blessing. Try to get in contact with an old missionary companion or ward member. And so on. Right now, I know that all those things are possible, but the web site doesn’t really provide any way to learn about them (that I found). I’d like to see these services exposed to the web.

f. a mobile browser friendly version of the ward web site. Particularly to look up members phone numbers from a mobile browser on a phone or check the ward calendar for the start time of an activity.

g. church distribution and magazine subscriptions - ldscatalog.com is a bit quirky. I’d really like to see a better way to manage magazine subscriptions online. My Ensign lapsed and renewing online felt like I was trying to do it blindfolded without any real information about when my subscription was going to expire, etc. Make it easy to manage my subscription online with all the information about my mailing address, expiration date, current magazines, etc.

I’ll think of more, I’m sure, but that will have to do for now

One final comment - please don’t make the mistake of tabling a feature because of the fear that it will replace ministering for the members. Good people in the Church understand that tools and tracking programs don’t replace ministering to the needs of individual members. Those tools can make our lives easier though and give us more time to actually minister to people rather than generating reports.

Best wishes to the team!

June 6, 2007 12:08 pm #

Tony R. Dufresne said...

1. The new lds.org web site is a great improvement over the older version; and, as the ward clerk in my ward, I have been encouraging our ward organizational leaders to check out the sections applicable to their positions, for instructions, helps and aids therein.

2. I believe it would be helpful if the Church’s MLS system could be put on a (user name / password protected) Intra net type system. In fact when I saw that in our stake center they had wired access to our stake offices and our three ward offices I had hoped that this is what was going to happen. But then I found out that each computer would need to have a certain version of a paid licensed software installed; and thus making that option too costly for the Church. {btw, my son. who is CompTIA certified and a disciple of open source, says that there is another source available that does the same thing, or better, then the current one now used by the Church, and it free. I believe that if those at the Church who are working on improving the MLS program could work on eliminating the need for this “licensed software” then an Intra net type system could be developed; and working in MLS from offices or homes could be accomplished and made easier, and would be a boon and a blessing for those who now have to travel long distances on days other then Sunday to use MLS.

Recently, until I fully retired, we had a similar Intra net program in the nationwide Senior Community Service Employment (SCSEP), and access to it was available to appropriate personnel nationwide with the proper user name and pass word.

My son, Paul says he would be happy to volunteer to help those at the Church with putting together such a program.

Finally, I would say to always remember the spiritual aspect of things as we work with programs and individuals in the Church, and that always all, that is done or accomplished by the Church, is under the direction of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

>>thanks for taking time to read this.

June 6, 2007 1:58 pm #

Bryan said...

Doing well:
- Music section is amazing, I love the interactive player; being able to download mp3s of any church song and sheet music is tremendous
- Locate a meetinghouse is nice, and works well most of the time
- Online scriptures interface is clean and well done
- Layout has always been clean and beautiful, very classy

Ideas for improvement:
- geocoding and Google Earth .kml file exports for priesthood leaders. I wrote my own script to translate the Hometeaching export file out of MLS into a .kml file that I could open in Google Earth and see where geographically every member of the ward lives — I then used it to revamp the EQ hometeaching lists so that key relationships were retained, and those we didn’t know could be assigned to the routes closest to them. It worked amazingly well. The high priests don’t use computers, and therefore they waste *so much time and money* driving around our ward area needlessly. They can be organized hierarchically too, by quorum, then by district, etc. I’d be happy to show you how it’s done.
- provide .kml files of ward boundaries as well — we still can’t figure out what the church thinks our ward boundaries are
- Speed! I frequently find pages stalling or not loading, or being terribly slow. It’s probably the worst site I’ve visited in years for speed.
- Online scriptures — have footnotes open in a floating window or off to the right; don’t require users to visit a new page…
- I’d love to see a church sponsored proxy that would help to filter the internet, but I understand the potential liability issues there
- Online genealogy system that allows me to keep all my family history online, and merge individuals in my history with those in my brother’s, so we can all collaboratively work together on it
- Centralized account where we can have our tithing and offerings direct deposited; writing checks/counting tithing every Sunday is labor intensive and 90% unnecessary in today’s world
- Deliver church magazines as .pdf files via email; spotlight/Google Desktop can search .pdf files, which makes finding talks at home a snap

Great job so far. I look forward to your future work!

June 6, 2007 9:58 pm #

Morgan said...

First of all, I can’t tell you how much we appreciate the great work you’re doing. The entire Kingdom is being blessed by your efforts.

I’ve held various leadership callings as a young single adult in BYU and other YSA wards. I suspect that we, as a group, may make wider use of the church’s existing Internet resources than just about anyone else. Some of these uses (as gathered from my experiences and those of my friends) include:

- Using the hymns site to substitute for hymnbooks and to provide accompaniment for opening songs in priesthood and Relief Society.
- Doing much of our personal spiritual study using the scriptures and other outstanding resources available on the web.
- Making *extensive* use of the ward website and all of its functionality, including calendaring, photos (especially important for YSAs!), leadership directories, etc. It is not unusual for many of us to login to the site several times a week to seek someone’s phone number or read about an upcoming ward activity.
- Filling our iPods with conference talks, BYU devotionals, addresses from Education Week.
- And so on, and so forth.

With this in mind, I’d like to offer these comments:

- Please improve the integration between MLS and the local unit websites. Others have said this, but let me echo their sentiments: the fact that there are two databases for e-mail addresses invariably leads to confusion and “crossed-wires.” It would also be extremely helpful if members could update all of their contact information themselves.

- Existing methods for including out-of-unit leadership in MLS are on the complicated side. As a previous comment mentioned, this issue impacts every YSA and married student unit by default, as all of our bishops come from outside the ward.

- While I recognize that it would be burdensome for LDS.org to serve as the host for all the content, a centralized directory of the church’s multimedia offerings (including those available at speeches.byu.edu, byui.edu, etc.) would be great. The content I’ve downloaded to my iPod has greatly enriched my life. At present, however, it is scattered across a variety of church-owned websites.

- I’m surprised that no one has mentioned this, but it would be wonderful to be able to pay tithes and offerings online. Accepting credit cards would be a non-starter, of course, but would it be acceptable to allow members to pay via ACH transfer from their bank accounts? I’ve got to imagine that it would serve not only as a convenience but also as a cost-saving measure for the church. Paying for the processing of so many physical deposits each week cannot be cheap.

Many of us no longer use checks for anything *but* tithing. (And I can’t imagine this phenomenon is limited to young singles!) One member of my ward, a well-educated man in his twenties who’d been on his own for years, sought out a priesthood leader for assistance with paying tithing for the first time. It turns out that he’d never written a check before.

True story!

Thanks again for all that you do.

June 7, 2007 11:24 am #

Scott McAllister said...

I love the resources for lessons and also the music section.

I’m not sure if this is to the right team, but what I would like to see is a web-based solution for TempleReady. The lack of family history tools (ie. PAF) for the Mac is more than frustrating. A nice remedy would be to have the ability to prepare names for the temple by running our gedcom files through an online application.

Thank you for encouraging feedback, and for allowing me to share my thoughts.

June 7, 2007 1:38 pm #

Annie B. said...

Several people have mentioned being able to pay tithes and offerings through electronic means. This is already available and has been for a few years now. Here is the information for that department:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Attn: Treasury Services-Electronic Donations
50 East North Temple Street, Room 1521
Salt Lake City UT 84150-3612
Fax: (801) 240-1217
Phone: (801) 240-3060 or 240-3049
E-mail: RE-FRD-Electronic-Donations@LDSChurch.org

June 7, 2007 6:08 pm #

Lars Rasmussen said...

In reponse to #1(What is the Church doing well with the Internet) the Gospel Library on lds.org is incredible. I especially enjoy the recent inclusion of podcasts for lesson material.

In response to #2(What is the Church not doing well with the Internet) the downtime on lds.org seems too frequent for such an important site. Yesterday I saw Vignette & Java error messages that spanned several minutes around 7:20AM MST. The lds.org site should have more fail-safes in place to prevent outages, and site visitors shouldn’t have to know about maintenance issues.

In addition, it seems the development and costs of our local unit computers are increasing dramatically, especially with regards to how they will connect to the internet. I serve as a ward clerk in Utah, and understand that each unit computer will need to have a separate physical Cisco firewall soon. Surely there are more economical ways to properly implement restricted internet access to local units other than dependence on thousands of Cisco PIX firewalls. The local unit computers also seem to be becoming more like home desktops than offering specific essential functionality. The cost of deploying & managing Windows desktops with access to MLS & lds.org resources will continue to increase, as will the risks and security considerations. Port the local unit computers to a non-Windows system, please!

June 7, 2007 8:45 pm #

Bryan W. said...

1. What are they not doing well? You guys rock!
2. Ideas for improvement:
a. Ward website: ward map view — plot members on a map. I moved into a new ward a year ago, and I’m still discovering people in the ward who are two blocks away.
b.LDS Facebook — OK, we don’t need the full blown thing here…. but I have lost contact with dozens of friends over the years I’d like to reconnect with.
c. Make scriptures, talks, lessons available in XML. I think you’d see some really cool mashups and applications come out of this.

June 8, 2007 8:29 am #

Jack Richins said...

Doing well: Getting content up on the website. The video/audio for conference, firesides, scriptures, magazines. Experimenting with podcasts.

Needs improving: The ward website. Wards share a lot of information. People are used to sharing information on the web (email, calendars, etc.). But church policy doesn’t allow us to share confidential information outside of church properties and the church websites/infrastructure don’t facility sharing (calendar is a big one, but I’d also like to see synch of calling / home /visiting teaching assignment information between MLS and the website). Please make it easier for members to contribute to the ward/stake websites.

June 8, 2007 9:39 am #

Rob Watson said...

#1) Doing Well: Lots more content than ever before!
#2) Not Doing Well:

a) Need more audio and video content made easily podcast-able, shareable, and “viral”. That’s how people find out what we (really) believe is when it can be instantly shared with anyone. For example, right now I share my LDS-themed playlists in iTunes over my network at my job. Daily, I have between 2 and 4 listeners. I’m constantly scouring LDS.org and the BYUTV.net site for new and interesting material to provide.

b) Social networking and calendar sharing would be a huge plus. Members who have accounts so they can look up membership data should be able to interact with each other in so many ways. Think “Google Talk”, which shows you when other people are online. Throw in asynchronous messaging so that if the R.S. Pres. is not online right now, I can “text” her and she’ll get it the next time she is online. Extend that interactivity to the desktop so we don’t have to log in to see new messages…it just pops up from the toolbar.

c) Not really part of lds.org, but goes along with the MLS and online membership data: Please allow filtered Web access from the membership clerk’s office to be able to look up addresses on sites such as whitepages.com. It’s such a productivity killer to have to go home to do that research (especially in non-Utah areas where the chapel is a 20 minute drive or a 20 mile walk) and then try to merge that back into the database from a printed copy or copy/pasting by hand from a spreadsheet created at home. If we could have Web access, even if it’s just to use one phone directory site, that would decrease the turnaround time needed to update ward lists and move members in and out.

d) PAF for Linux would be the final thing we would need for me to ditch Windows and put us on a more secure and stable Linux box. I tried “WINE” (the software, not the drink) but still too buggy to run PAF.

e) Put RSS feeds front and center. They’re a beautiful thing. Don’t hide them.

June 8, 2007 1:42 pm #

Karl Greenwood said...

I echo nearly all comments above.

For those interested in updated PAF/TempleReady, take a look at the new FamilySearch… coming soon to a temple district near you. For some details and screenshots, visit the LDS Tech Forum in the Family History / Genealogy section at: http://beta.tech.lds.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=25.

Some suggestions:

1. Integrated GIS system with ties to 3rd-party vendors for general use (i.e. Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, etc…) to provide mapping services for “Worship with us,” links to members’ addresses from an online MLS (which hopefully will come with amazing HT/VT tools, tracking, mapping of districts, companionships, home teachees), LUWS. Have the ward/stake/institute/FM group/welfare/FCH etc… boundaries visible (with appropriate access to the non-typical ones). I would love to know when I move to Anytown, Anystate, Anycountry that I’ll be in X ward/branch of X stake/mission with X institute X miles away, etc… This could also allow for online tools for priesthood leadership when rearranging unit boundaries to on-the-fly drag and drop new boundaries and see how many priesthood, primary, etc… members will be in each new proposed unit. I’m sure it could also help with PFD and FM tasks of real estate issues, parcels, church properties. This could be done piecemeal, but I’m sure there are enterprise-GIS tools available out there.

2. As has been said, better social networking tools. The ability to contact former friends in past wards/stakes/missions or research leadership in a new ward you are looking to move to for arranging moving help or scoping a new neighborhood would be very helpful. Non-resident membership in LUWS is a little finicky currently as has been stated. As a member of a YSA ward it is difficult to get our Bishopric into our website. Perhaps some mashup or tie between MLS, LUWS, and CDOL to match callings to websites. Another thing would be to provide tools for both general users and administration of YSA wards. As I understand it, YSA wards do not currently appear in the Meetinghouse Locator. In the Provo/Orem area, BYU has a team that manages a separate website for unit info, but this would be more helpful worldwide if the Church provided a tool and exposed the applicable YSA wards into the general search.

3. I’ll echo everyone else on LUWS… needs major updates. First, the tools already available just need to be fleshed-out and friendly. Attachments - ward newsletters, flyers for emails, pictures for news. The size is too small, and the organization to put up various files is convoluted and hard to do. Allowing HTML tags into events and news would be helpful and a general disclaimer window when links point outside Church sites could be added to warn users they are going to a non-Church-sponsored site. Good calendaring (possibly shared calendars through MS Exchange or some other enterprise software for unit leadership scheduling) and RSS feeds would be a welcome addition. Secondly, find a way to allow international units to utilize the tool. Even what we have is better than having nothing and they could probably use the communication tools better than some of us in the US & Canada.

4. Online, secure MLS with limited member access - Already been suggested, but I’ll add a few suggestions. Members should be able to update their contact information and have it sync to both MLS and LUWS. Some level of validation or acceptance might need to be added to avoid “lost sheep” who clear out their contact info. It would be nice as a member to be able to print out my patriarchal blessing (which could be digitized), a priesthood ordination certificate (with witnesses names - could be recorded in MLS if not currently), a line of authority chart, my own IOS for review. If an online tithing system were produced, it could be integrated with the online MLS so the unit leader could see and produce tithing settlement reports on electronic transactions.

5. Better Temples site - I’m a regular user of the non-Church-sponsored ldschurchtemples.com. I think that the content on this third-party site is very useful and desired by the membership. Having the temple district information, construction photos, a compilation of Church and local news coverage, addressing and mapping, temple scheduling and closures, various high-resolution quality photos for desktop wallpapers, and email lists for updates (particularly for temples announced and under construction) are all features on this other site that I’d love to see the Church implement. I can’t speak for the webmaster of the other site, but I’m sure the Church Temple Department has very relevant information that could be placed on the Temple site to make it more useful and content-rich. This could even include some adaptation of LUWS for use for Temple Committees who often build private websites with construction updates and cultural celebration details.

6. Archived materials - Conferences earlier than 1997, pre-1971 magazines, making some deal with the Deseret News to make freely available the Church News at least before the current 1998 archive limit and maybe on a constantly-moving window of any issue 5-10 years previous - making these available on LDS.org. Some arrangement to allow an online PDF subscription to the Church News would be nice. I like keeping up on the Church News, but as a Utah resident I have to buy the Saturday DN to get it. The CN website is terribly outdated as far as the UI and I don’t want to buy an online subscription when the site doesn’t even have adequate account login and logout procedures. An online PDF subscription or an online subscription to an updated website for the 21st century would be a more welcome prospect.

7. I’ll echo the archival version of Conference sessions with individual MP3s with good metadata for easy import into media players. I’ll also suggest in the Gospel Library a link under the “View” menu for individual PDF copies of magazine articles (not just a full magazine PDF) as well as Other Formats so I don’t have to go to a separate Language page to see if a particular item is in Portuguese, to the Braille page to see if the item’s in Braille, the Media Formats to see if there’s a video or MP3, or LDSCatalog.com to order a printed copy. Having all these different format sites so I can bridge between them would be nice. Additionally for the Gospel Library, I’d like to be able to as another request mentioned have page numbers easily available for reference during a lesson or if I want to turn to the printed copy later.

8. A long-term ideal suggestion would be to better integrate the fairly new Country Sites with the main LDS.org content. I’m not the best Web Architect, but I’m sure there’d be a way as more content is put into a portable format (perhaps XML) that the Country Sites could pull general language content from LDS.org into their sites without sending their (perhaps naive) users to a “foreign” website to access various content and also avoid duplication if they pull it into the same site to have it all in one portal. Also a way for the growing multilingual RM and Church population anywhere in the world to be able to become a more global community by having a portal to receive RSS feeds and content from the main US site, the Russian site, wherever instead of having to bounce between half a dozen sites to get information we’re interested in.

9. A “What’s New” RSS feed or email subscription list would be a nice feature in place of the current PDF on LDS.org that is hard to determine when it was updated. As the variety and expanse of the Church web presence grows, keeping management and updated on the latest is as hard for the members as consumers of the content as I’m sure it is for ICS and the other teams at the Church.

Great strides have already been made and thanks be to all the teams working on the various sites!

June 9, 2007 10:12 pm #

Tom Haws said...

GOOD
1. new FamilySearch. It’s going to be revolutionary. It would be kind of important, I think, for it to do media files and sources.
2. Find a ward at mormons.org. But it would sure be nice if could access it from meetinghouse computers.
3. Gospel Library searches often provide definitions.
4. Gospel Library search bug fixes!

BAD
1. Ward web site e-mail addresses not sync’d with MLS
2. General synchro problems between MLS and ward webs.
3. Humanitarian area is hard to navigate.

June 10, 2007 9:34 pm #

Ty Hatch said...

Doing well: Scriptures, General Conference and Church Magazines.

Could do better:
1. Access to membership info. Once I have access, it’d be nice to be able to find friends in other wards in other stakes, in other states, in other countries. The current limitation is frustrating and confusing.

2. Mobile ward directory. I’m not ever going to know everyone’s number by heart. Just being able to get names and numbers on my mobile would be extremely helpful.

3. Improved ward/stake calendar. It’s already been said, but iCal and/or Google Calendar, or even a secure feed would be great.

4. Mobile version of the scriptures, general conference and church publications. It’s be great when I can’t find my copy of the Ensign and I’m heading out the door to HT.

5. K, just a mobile version of everything. It easily the fastest growing area of internet connectivity, especially in the developing countries where the church is experiencing a lot of growth. C’mon, Cameron’s on staff. (Everyone else is pretty smart too. Loved meeting them @ SXSW this year.)

June 11, 2007 6:59 am #

jinnyruth said...

1. I love the music site and all the content online.
2. I do have some suggestions from my use:
a. More useful unit urls. I’m supposed to be getting more people in my ward to use our web site, but half of them complain they can’t figure out how to get to it, and I don’t have any easy way to tell them.
b. Speed is a huge issue in my ward. We are very rural and lots of people are still on dial-up. The site isn’t very use-able for these people.
c. As has been talked about, the email management is a problem for us as well. Our stake web master is always upset with the wards, but there is only so much we can do here.
d. Our stake stopped printing directories, so this is the most used part of the web site for our ward. It would really help to have features like not having to click a link to see pictures, and a better print option.
e. I know why you would disable a lot of html options in the ward web sites to maintain consistency, but it’s frustrating to not be able to make paragraphs or know how what I’m inputting is going to turn out.
f. I also agree with the person above who found the temple sites frustrating. We have our temple’s schedule posted on our ward web site because it’s not on the temple site.
g. I would echo the frustration with the ward calendars too.

I do love the site, but see so much unfulfilled potential.

June 11, 2007 10:30 am #

Jerry Aulenbach said...

We need more uplifting media. It has to compete with a lot of good, bad, and ugly stuff out there and needs to be in similar formats. BYU.tv is a great example, but it’s not enough. We need podcasts, video podcasts, internet radio or conference talks, easier to navigate archives that allow you to search any words in the video (provided by the text from the Ensign). Make it look like the big sites that have seen a lot of success. Have a top 10/100 list of the most often viewed conference talks. we need to appeal to the youth in ways that worldly media appeals to them. Get on more mp3 players. Offer lds Gems in audio format, with the portion of the talk edited down. Media, media, media.

-Jerry Aulenbach

June 11, 2007 11:53 pm #

SilverRain said...

Doing well:
The scriptures! As one who easily remembers words, but can’t remember numbers to save my life, I use the searchable scriptures incessantly.

Could do better:
A real, live person to speak to would be a blessing, to put it mildly. Bishops are often too busy with the “really bad stuff” to be bothered with answer-seekers or people finding themselves unable to cope with doctrines or life in general. There isn’t much I wouldn’t give for a more “mainstream,” faithful and official real-life presence online.

June 12, 2007 6:04 am #

Michelle said...

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned this, but it would be wonderful to be able to pay tithes and offerings online. Accepting credit cards would be a non-starter, of course, but would it be acceptable to allow members to pay via ACH transfer from their bank accounts?

Actually, I already do this! I do bill pay from my bank and specify that my payment is 100% tithing. As long as you have bill pay and double-check with your leaders that it’s OK, I think most of us could already do this.

I’m grateful you are willing to listen to feedback. I think the new lds.org is really beautiful. I love the music site, the multimedia options, the fact that I can do indexing easily from home. I think there are many benefits of the new search feature. The new scripture search is fantastic.

Suggestions:
However, I actually miss some of the old search functions. The advanced search features seem limited compared to before. (I used to be able to specify more about the search words themselves (about how specific I wanted the search to be).

I can’t include the speaker’s name in my search or I only get articles that use the words I search on and include the speaker’s name in the body text. I used to be able to search on key words and the speaker and find things more easily. (I suppose because the title and author fields are not searched anymore?)

I also wish that the News of the Church was a separate searchable option, and not included in search results by default. I don’t know that I have ever wanted to search the news. It’s good to have it online, but I think almost without exception, people usually want to search articles or general conference talks only. The news pieces end up cluttering the search results more than anything for me.

As a ward web admin, I wish there were more suggestions for local leaders on how the internet can be used to help them in their responsibilities. I think very often the internet is underutilized at the local level. (Clearly not by some of the people here, but….) I would love to see more included in the “Serving in the Church” sections as more features are added. It might not hurt to add a section for web administrators as well to keep them up-to-date on new features and to help them interface with the ward priesthood and auxiliary leaders so that the web is used more effectively to support ward efforts of coordination and communication, administration and ministering.

June 12, 2007 2:20 pm #

Alison Moore Smith said...

The site is amazing. I use it almost every day and so appreciate all the work being done!

Love:
(1) scriptures

(2) lessons with linked sources

(3) mp3 resources

(4) gospel library in general

(5) LOVE LOVE LOVE the music resources with the hymns and Primary songs (did I mention that I love this?)

(6) calendar of events and online ticketing (although the ticketing can get really bogged down)

(7) newsroom!

(8) temple info (recently on vacation in another state, my husband and I easily found the info we needed to attend)

(9) same for locate ward (we were able to find the closest ward and meetings times)

(10) LOVE that we are being asked for input–sometimes SLC seems so far away

Would love to see:

(1) Handbook online (the whole, kit and kaboodle). So much debate (online and not) goes on about what is “supposed” to be done in the church. Half the time there is POLICY written about it. If members could access the policy the questions would be answered. (Those who are comfortable visiting anti-Mormon sites already have access. I wish it was available to “the rest of us” to reference as well.)

(2) Priesthood sessions mp3, etc, rather than just text format.

(3) Organization sometimes makes no sense: For example in the Prepare a Lesson>Lesson Home here is the order of the lessons:

Aaronic Priesthood
Melchizedek Priesthood
Optional Courses
Primary
Relief Society
Young Women

So it’s all alphabetical EXCEPT that the priesthood ones are all listed FIRST? Sheesh.

(4) Access to current pronouncements, for example, when a letter is disseminated to be read over the pulpit or when a note changes how a particular thing is implemented, it would be nice to have it available for clarification. Often, letters are not read or are not done so in a timely manner. Sometimes the message doesn’t “filter down.” (For example, my ward still has “Achievement Days” even though the program was renamed and changed over five years ago to “Activity Day.”)

(5) Online tithes and offerings!

(6) More historical resources (so much anti-Mormon history is online, would like truthful, accurate history to point to)

(7) Agree with SilverRain, above, that it would be so nice to have a mainstream source for answers to difficult questions.

(8) More opportunities to express opinions about the function of various programs

June 12, 2007 3:17 pm #

J Anderson said...

I love the new lay out for the Gospel Library and the quick topics list! This has been such a great resource.

Things I would like to see:
1-a similar quick topics list on provident living.
2-Better use of ward and stake websites–they are not very personal to the ward. It would be nice if the ward could really make it look and feel local.

June 13, 2007 6:45 am #

Ann said...

Probably too specific for this general suggestions forum, but my stake (Slidell, Louisiana) was dissolved ten days ago, and the ward/stake for my login is still linked to the old, non-existant stake. I don’t have access to my new stake’s calendar, directories, etc. I can see the reasons for leaving things as they are for a bit, because our old dissolved stake is still finishing up some youth activities for the summer, but I’d like to be able to see my new stake’s calendar.

June 13, 2007 8:40 am #

Wade Berrier said...

1. Doing well:

-Easy to navigate scriptures and content.
-Lots of different formats for multimedia and pda content
-Really good and professional looking site
-New content is updated very quickly

2. Could do better:

-already mentioned: updated pda scriptures

I resort to using some web scraping scripts that then get converted to the plucker format. This works ok, but it would be nice if everyone didn’t have to do this.

If I understand correctly, Tom Welch now works for the church. I read that he is thinking about opensourcing ezreader:

http://retro.ldspda.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&printertopic=1&t=225&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&vote=viewresult

This would be great if that happened. We’d have some documentation about the ezreader format an could add ezreader support to ebook readers (I use http://www.fbreader.org/).

Also, it might be worth adding another ebook format to the list of formats:

http://www.openbook.org/

It looks as if openbook has the potential to simplify the mess of ebook formats.

June 13, 2007 5:28 pm #

Spitfire said...

Doing Well~
Keeping current with making magazines, books, etc available in PDA formats. Love the quick access to the current month’s VT report, etc

Needs Improvement~
Needs to retain your user name like other programs to access the ward websites, just ask for password
Ward Websites are cumbersome, sometimes hard to move from source of info to another

Really Need~
Pay our tithing/FO etc. electronically to Church Headquarters with a special code that would automatically route it to the ward or mission fund or whatever.

June 13, 2007 6:10 pm #

Tom McKinney said...

Fantastic comments. I agree with all of them.

My added vote for Podcasts of the wealth of audio and video material starting with Conference talks and going to the BYU library of mp3 and mp4 material. This would be a boon for driving time iPod study and a vote for BLIND members whose access to material would explode.

June 14, 2007 2:15 am #

Tatiana said...

I’d like to see online home teaching for the less active members to connect to a priesthood holder and chat online. This could do a lot toward reactivation of inactive members and retention of converts.

I’d like to see a churchwide wiki for members to collaborate and record their ideas and solutions to hurdles that arise in a typical ward. It would be great to have all the church manuals online and searchable, as well.

I think the music site with church hymns is fantastic. I use it lots.

June 14, 2007 7:25 pm #

Will Findlay said...

What I like:

The respectful and professional look and feel of LDS.org and Mormon.org. I’m glad we don’t go gimmicky or kitchsy to try and get popular appeal in the Church. Because of current look and feel I am comfortable sharing the sites with anyone.

An idea:

Having said what I said above, if you could still maintain the respectful environment, I think that a website designed for child-age users would be a nice addition, ala PBSKids.org. You could put the narrated picture storybooks of the scriptures online for example (like the CD-ROMS).

I can see that The Friend is online, but the interface could be made easier for young children and more appealing to them. Games might be stretching it, but I could possibly see a “What is 10% of this?” type game that has an education purpose behind it. Whatever it would end up looking like, I would recommend using the CDC’s “Rabies Web Page That’s Just for Kids” ( http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/kidsrabies/default.htm ) as an example of what not to do.

June 15, 2007 10:04 am #

Will Findlay said...

One more comment: Do seminary students still memorize scripture mastery verses? If so, it would be nice to see a page that helps students learn these scriptures by linking to/drawing upon the existing online scriptures.

June 15, 2007 10:07 am #

Matt said...

I think the website is great and thank all those who make it possible. I think everything available on the site should be considered in the “doing well” category; I’m just adding the ones I can’t live without here.

What I think LDS.org is doing well:
1a. I can’t express how great having the audio material is! I’ve been using the magazines, Teachings of Presidents and General Coference audio since their release in 2004. 1b. Having the text versions in different formats of these resources is equally great. There are times when I want the html version and others I prefer pdf.

2. Having lesson manuals online in the “Prepare a Lesson” section. These are extremely helpful for substitute teachers.

3. The training from the “Serving in the Church” section.

4. Online Distribution Center. Not everyone lives in Utah.

Not doing well:
1. Calendaring. We need a unified way for stake and unit leaders to maintain calendar events and for the membership to easily view and print it in a format that looks like a calendar. (ie. One month per printed page.) From a resource perspective, this would save millions of hours per year across the Church. Talk about ROI!

Could do better:
2. Gospel Instruction. You’re probably asking, “How do you figure after listing the various online resources in the first section?” What I mean is much more information about many more topics in the Gospel Topics. 2a. A two sentence definition doesn’t suffice. In the portal model, LDS.org provides other resources but it should have an encompassing definition (more of an encyclopedia answer than a dictionary answer.) They should really be better. An additional resource type should be “Teachings of the Prophets” with links to conference addresses. 2b. Expand the list of Gospel Topics. There is so much more! Add important people and places. Make it more like the Encyclopedia of Mormonism and less like True to the Faith.

3. Training. The “Serving in the Church” section is a really good start. There are more areas of training needed for each auxiliary. It could become much better with training based on the respective section of the Church Handbook of Instructions. I too, would like to see the CHI online, both Book 1 and 2. Having the training and CHI would unify member’s expectations of their callings and others. It would end the mindset “Well, when I was in [insert auxiliary name, geographic location, or different unit name], we did it this way.”

4. Archive ALL broadcasts. Priesthood sessions are on tape/cd from the distribution center, and the talks are in the Ensign, why no A/V on the website? All the other miscellaneous broadcasts such as the recent AP/Boy Scout broadcast, Pioneer Day, etc.

Thank you for asking our opinion! I hope you’re passing on all the MLS suggestions as well.

June 15, 2007 12:39 pm #

Rei Paki said...

Thanks for the opportunity. The church does a great job with its web presence in general. Many of the ideas above (stake/ward sites, etc) aren’t yet rolled out to the rest of the world (i.e. outside America), which would be a welcome improvement.

Granted this isn’t directly relevant to infrastructure or development, and I don’t think it’s been mentioned here, but I really think content aimed at children would be an extremely useful addition to the church’s web presence.

My daughters (eight and five) are proficient on the web and I would love nothing more than to direct them to some gospel-focused content provided by the church. I’m thinking “The Friend - Interactive”. It could include online games that teach gospel principles, the movies from the books like “Book of Mormon stories”, and also the primary songs.

June 17, 2007 7:06 pm #

Michelle said...

Joel,
I had another thought while sending notifications to the ward via the website. Specifically, it would be nice if the “new news and information” emails could include what the new news and information item is, rather than a generic message that says, “New news and information item…” . It’s easier for users to sift through email if the subject line is descriptive and specific.

June 18, 2007 10:12 pm #

Ted Boren said...

@Alison — The order you are concerned about is in fully alphabetical order. Aaronic comes before Melchizedek, and Melchizedek before Relief because that’s the way the alphabet works; I guarantee there was no effort to purposely downplay the importance or value of women in arranging this list. Just an alphabetical coincidence, not gender bias!

June 19, 2007 8:08 am #

Wendy said...

Well -
Each time I return to the website I find something new to be excited about. This week, I discovered all the “printable” sheet music from all past “Friends” and “New Eras.”

Could Be Better -
I wish that I could narrow my search fields more in the “Gospel Library” section. I knew I wanted a talk by Elder Ballard about missionary homes — but I could only narrow based on magazines/Ensign. I had to go through several pages before I found what I was looking for. Ad advanced search option could include narrowing by 1)dates, 2)speaker, 3)forum etc.

I’d like a more obvious “bill pay” for tithing option.

I know that email notices are available via ward websites. However, we only have maybe 10 percent registered with ward-website emails. I send a weekly Relief Society email to more than 75 percent of our sisters. They were more than willing to just give me their email addresses. I have been able to add/delete new email addresses easily as families have come/gone. Could you allow authorization by clerks or someone to register (even with a paper permission form) so that those who are less tech savy can get registered? That way, I could utilize the church sites to send these emails rather than be left to my own means.

June 19, 2007 11:22 am #

Wendy said...

One more thought . . .

We have several ladies, that are not members of the church, that have requested to be part of our ward RS email list. We also have many ladies, members — but not currently attending, that want to receive our weekly emails. These ladies attend and participate in many Enrichment Activities because of these emails. This is something that the current ward website configuration would not allow — but is obviously something that we want to continue/encourage. How could we make the ward websites/email work for those who are not members or are less active, but still want to participate?

June 19, 2007 11:37 am #

Michelle said...

Wendy,
You can do a search by speaker if you click on the advanced search link. (I preferred the old way of being able to put the speaker’s name in the search field, but it’s still possible with that extra step).

June 19, 2007 11:05 pm #

Michelle said...

How could we make the ward websites/email work for those who are not members or are less active, but still want to participate?

This is a question I have wondered about as well.

June 19, 2007 11:05 pm #

Michael said...

The Good: Everything your doing is done pretty well.

Suggestions:

1. COLLABORATION. Plenty of brilliant members out there doing things the church can use, like ward-address-list-on-google-earth mashups and dutytogod.com (a ward map with members marked is *incredibly* useful for hometeaching, missionaries, rides, fellowshipping). Although it’s catching up now, Church offices has always been a long way behind what individual members are doing with technology. We need to find a way for the church to get donated ideas, code, materials, etc from members.

2. MAJORITY OF CHURCH MEMBERS Live outside the US. No ward websites for us yet, even though so many of us use the internet a lot more than Americans do. Church offices is taking a long time to adjust to the worldwide church. The internet makes it unnecessary to release things first in the US. Think Global.

Thanks! Keep it up.

June 20, 2007 4:57 am #

Dalin Brinkman said...

Just a thought….I know you guys are growing, but when I think of where the web sites could go, you could do a lot. I’m just wondering if there is any thought to having some volunteer development on some projects. I know this is out there, but if you look at familysearch, the church has got old ladies around the world doing data entry for future databases. Why not have some development projects open to development throughout the church community?

If you think about it, there is a large talent base of members in the IT field who love the church, love their day jobs, but wouldn’t like to mix the two. But, if you threw out opportunities to contribute through an open programming project, they might jump at the chance.

[Joel: We are working on some opportunities like that. Check out http://tech.lds.org for future opportunities.]

June 21, 2007 2:35 pm #

Greg Warner said...

An idea I had. This is copied from an email I sent to someone… Enjoy!

Summary
It’s great to be able to mark your scriptures! Can you imagine doing it online? Technology is available to allow us to easily highlight, mark, cross reference, annotate, tag, etc the scriptures (and church magazines) online. Markings are saved to user accounts so they are accessible from any computer! I propose the creation of software to do so.

Origin of Idea
Diigo.com is a free service which allows much of the functionality listed above. By signing up and either installing a browser extension or, even easier, a bookmarklet, users can highlight and annotate any hypertext page anywhere on the http://WWW. When I don’t have my paper scriptures, I use diigo.com in conjunction with scriptures.lds.org.

Customization
Diigo works well for online study, but it’s not meant to study the scriptures. In addition, I don’t really own my data, nor trust who ever may (owners of diigo?). Diigo lacks (and thus the church site’s version would have) the following when it comes to online scripture study:

* Ability to tag (ie build you own topical guide) individual highlights
* Ability to use more than one color
* Ability to cross reference

In additon, the software would include:

* Ability to annotate
* Ability to custom highlight
* Ability to export for safe keeping

Technical Details
The scripture study program would most likely be written in JavaScript and be implemented as an extension or bookmarklet. This is advantageous because it allows the church websites to remain exactly as they are. That’s right, no need to add extra markup to the pages. In addition, the program would be very lightweight and be completely cross platform. Javascript interacts with the pages DOM, adding custom text, highlights, etc, on-the-fly. Each user would need a login and password.

Who codes it?
I am writing this idea summary with the intent to suggest that it may possibly become a BYU capstone project. This means that a team of students under the supervision of a professor takes on a project from a corporate sponsor. They do the work for free and the IP belongs to the sponsor. This would be advantageous to the students, school, and sponsor (the church).

But it’s just a suggestion. I think it would a really neat idea. Weather the Church would let students work on it, do it themselves, or throw the idea out (which would be unfortunate), it’s not that important to me. I’d probably end up coding it anyway - It’ll just take me 5 years.

Conclusion
We have the technology. Let’s harness it for good. In addition, I foresee the increased use in meetings of internet-capable mobile devices. It won’t be long until people can actually take their scriptures(.lds.org) with them anywhere.

June 23, 2007 9:03 pm #

David said...

Doing well: There are so many things to mention. Here’s what I find useful:
- MP3 versions of the hymns in both voice and music-only format
- Gospel art library
- Scriptures, with the ability to turn footnoting on and off

Improve:
- Add single click ability to turn scripture footnoting on and off for the times I want to copy text without the footnotes
- Provide all the old Church movies (e.g., Cipher in the Snow) so we can watch them for family night, put them on the iPod, etc.
- In FamilySearch, be able to download all ancestors stemming from one individual (e.g., my mom or grandmother) in GED format. I want to get started with family history, but it will take forever to download just four generations at a time in all my family lines.

June 24, 2007 5:47 am #

Josiah Carlson said...

I am very appreciative of the recent outreach by you and others to share in the technology of the Church with us. I regularly read ldscio.org, tech.lds.org. and ldswebguy.com. I found that I checked them so often that I made Google toolbar buttons (with RSS).

I made those buttons available at goslib.org (sorry about no ldscio - no search field on page!) with LDS.org and LDS.org/newsroom. I am not sure why the Newsroom has dropped the RSS feed lately.

I am excited about the recent push toward multimedia. Downloading conference in mp4/wmv is awesome. I can’t wait to see video.lds.org’s offerings grow. Will we be able to download Church films? What I would give to have a video iPod and the full catalog of films in 640×480 to show investigators and members on demand during my mission. So many times we had the discs, but they had no player!

I believe the push with Conferences, CES broadcasts, films, etc as downloads will become a valuable and popular resource for LDS.org users. If it is iPod or PSP (or wmv - Zune, Zen, etc) compliant - let them know that too.

Elder Bateman recently came to BYU-Idaho and spoke specifically about using iPods for more Conferences and less of the worlds music. I believe there are many who would use this video, if they knew where to find it.

And regarding “knowing where to find it” - what about podcasting the video/audio through iTunes? It may be as easy as setting up an RSS feed to put the content in a domain of millions content seeking users. Those searching “Mormon” there would find our library without even a visit to LDS or Mormon.org. I believe many members would subscribe to Conferences or other broadcasts to have them auto-download as new episodes are posted.

I am currently involved in a project at BYU-Idaho to ready our entire Devotional catalog to portable and desktop versions of mp4 and wmv files. We will also offer mp3 and PDF versions. (What about individual PDF Conference talk downloads beside the html version?) We are a few weeks away from completion.

It would be fun to compare specs and notes on how we each are carrying out this project.

Thank you again for all you do!

June 24, 2007 9:37 am #

Ziff said...

I second Karl Greenwood’s #6 above. I love the Gospel Library, and I just want it to be bigger. I would love to see older Church magazines (pre-1971). I would also like to see PDFs of the magazines that are already there. Text of the articles is great, but I really like being able to see the whole page layout too.

June 25, 2007 1:42 pm #

Chris Laurence said...

1) It’s a good main page, but it’s hard to find old talks or statements, or anything said at BYU.

2) I wish we could customize the main lds.org page on our own computers to have a sidebar for our ward and stake website highlights. Then they might get used more often.

June 25, 2007 11:00 pm #

Eric Poulin said...

Some Improvements:
- LUWS: Need a way to manage leadership meeting minutes. I’ve been trying to find time to write LDS Meeting Manager (on sourceforge) but there’s never enough time to write it. If meeting minutes and action items were online, individuals could check their assignments anytime and not rely on paper or email. Also this would help Bishopric members “virtually” attend auxilliary meetings by allowing them to read the minutes and keep abreast of whats going on.
- Google calendar integration for LUWS calendar… a must have.
- Electronic payment of tithes and offerings. This needs to be done properly so its attributed to my ward and Bishop can see this in Tithing Settlement time. Paying tithing is the only reason I have a chequing account.
- better linking of main lds.org page with other related pages (church education sites, FARMS, providentliving, familysearch, etc).
- LUWS - ability to post documents or other material for members to download.

June 26, 2007 10:29 pm #

Kimball Clark said...

The admittance process to sign into stake & ward websites seems too difficult and cumbersome for even the most advanced user—almost as if entering the site is similar to the process of entering the Celestial Kingdom. I believe this is the reason why so few fellow ward/stake members who access the site.

Understandably we must take precautions, but I feel that a user name, an 8 digit password with at least 1 numeral, a confirmation date and my church record number is a bit excessive, and relatively difficult information to gather. Of all the login sites I visit on a regular basis, I have never found one so difficult to enter as the Church’s site. Once the password is forgotten, the user is again required to enter the confirmation date and record number in order to retrieve/change the password. Sure I can “go the extra mile” but I was hoping the site would offer me wine and milk “without price.”

I would suggest you allow the design savvy staff at North Temple to brainstorm a better way to allow the masses right of entry.

June 26, 2007 11:28 pm #

Diane Waddington said...

Things I like.
- The Gospel Library material available in Spanish especially the manuals and the back issues of the Liahona, they make lesson preparation a little easier and reduce photocopying costs.
- The General Conferences and other broadcasts, the onliine scriptures and the music pages
- All in all everything is looking great

Things I would like to see:
- More material for foreign language speakers especially in the area of Family History and lesson planning
- Web sites for the wards, branches and districts in other countries, in my part of the world the branches are not very close to each other and the members only get the opportunity to meet at General and District Conferences so a place to interchange news would be appreciated.
- A Church Employment page for Europe, at the moment we have no way of knowing what jobs are available as they are listed in the England web page and if you are not a member of an English branch access is denied
- I agree with the person who talked about the problems with dial up access, here broadband is still very expensive and so is dial up is still used a lot

Please keep up the good work

June 28, 2007 12:48 pm #

Mark R. Bush said...

Doing well:
Site design and organization
Content (scriptures, conference on time, library)

Improve on:
Provide some subset of content for mobile browsers (try going to LDS.org on your favorite smartphone like moto q)

June 28, 2007 2:50 pm #

Derek Taylor said...

1. I love having the scriptures online, but I would really like to see the search facility improved. For example, if I want to search for a word, but restrict the search to only certain books or chapters of the Old Testament, how do I do that? The facilities for running targeted searches seems lacking.

2. MLS — When can we get it online? I know a lot of others have asked for this too. It would be really, really helpful.

June 30, 2007 9:48 am #

Rob Watson said...

I’ve seen a few people say that they’d like to see a web site or RSS feed with video/audio of conference talks so that people who search Google for “Mormon” see that right away. Google hits are decent, with the first two links being official sites. But wouldn’t it be right fantastic to have as many of the top tier Google hits be all official sites? Maybe divide the RSS feed content up by topic to really take over the playing field.

I’d like nothing better than to tell a friend “You should Google “Mormon” or “LDS” because there’s a lot of true and accurate information there for you.” rather than cower in fear that they might actually do that and be completely misled by the garbage that exists about us out there.

I used to be a mission.net webmaster and always secretly feared AND hoped that the Church would take it over. I feared that because I wanted it to still have a comfortable and welcoming feel for returned missionaries looking for their prior camaraderie and support. I hoped that because there would be a bit more consistency as well as reining in of some of the more eccentric types who would post content not appropriate for the vision of our missions.

On Mormon.org, try some new things. The new site is fantastic and looks really sharp, but I don’t yet see how it draws visitors, especially the skeptical ones, into our message. I try to put myself in the mindset of people who might fall into the skeptical set (because people get their cues from the mainstream media about us…need I say more) when I look at our site and figure out how they might get answers to their questions. All too often, I find myself saying, in their place, that this is all fine and good, but what if these ‘testimonials’ are all staged or people are being manipulated into saying what they’re saying.

I don’t have solutions for that dilemma, other than praying that the Spirit will soften their hearts, which I know can and does happen. So I hope it’s not pointless for me to be bringing this up. But, this situation does exist.

I also found myself getting bored with the pace of the videos. Even though they’re inspiring, a lot of people are still on slow connections or just don’t have the time or patience to sit through them. Spiritual things can’t be rushed according to peoples’ attention spans, for sure, but maybe there’s a way to allow the viewer to move to the parts that might more interest them. For example, let’s say I already know a lot about the Church’s welfare program in general, but I want to see how it’s helping kids in Botswana. Provide a hover-over interactivity that allows them to jump to that part of the clip. Kind of like a hyperlink to move to another chapter on a DVD.

Perhaps something less conventional such as a quick survey titled, say, “How close are your beliefs to those of members of the LDS Church?” and then ask a series of “build on common beliefs” questions.

Or, an animated interactive that packs in a lot of information about us into a great infographic. Most people are looking for the five second answer and are expecting the quick visual. If we provide that, and then some, we can give the kind of value that will more thoroughly draw them into the rest of the site.

Finally, maybe a daring section on the site answering the tough questions. But, not from the point of view of a canned FAQ response. I’m thinking more along the lines of “Here’s a random web site that said X about us and got a lot of media attention. Here are responses from individual members that most closely align with the Church’s official beliefs regarding X.” Maybe even let Church leaders and random member readers provide their own counter responses or ask follow up questions. That can get really nasty if it’s a free-for-all, so it would require some careful selection of relevant, tactful, and noteworthy questions/statements. Not just the friendly ones, either, but things on which we can still provide clarifying responses (and still have the last word…it IS our site after all.)

June 30, 2007 10:53 pm #

Joe Dehlin's Evil Twin said...

improve on:
security, reliability, better tools for local wards/stakes, better support for different platforms (firefox, linux, mobile handsets, etc)

does well:
design

July 3, 2007 9:05 pm #

Enrique Romero said