Talk:General conference (Latter Day Saints)

Conducting Conference
"Gordon B. Hinckley has personally conducted sessions as Church President, while as Second Counselor in the last years of Spencer W. Kimball he was at times the only member of the First Presidency in attendance." I took this out because I thought it was confusing. Not sure what is trying to be communicated by this sentence Trödel| talk 14:00, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Title of the Article
I propose this article renamed to General conference (Latter-day Saints) and remove the section on the Community of Christ conference (or just have a "See Also" entry for it. It seems no other Latter Day Saint organizations are mentioned in the article. Bytebear 19:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As it stands that's true, but our policies disfavour articles for individual sects. General conferences are shared by many faith in the Latter Day Saint movement, so the LDS-heavyness is something that can and should be rounded out. Cool Hand Luke 00:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree on it being added to this article, in fact, the very name of the Community of Christ's meetings being called 'World Conference' indicates it is different and does not belong in the 'General Conference' (Latter-day Saint) article.

If there are articles for the Community of Christ, that information should be put in the article(s) about them, and in doing so this will improve both articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.27.203.38 (talk) 06:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Topics
In the sample of the topics, I think there ought to be more talks under each topic than there currently are. I know that President Faust spoke on Forgiveness last Conference, and there are other examples. In my opinion, since the official Church website General Conference section has conferences from April 1997 onward, I think perhaps that should be the limit we go in finding Conference talks on the subjects listed. I've run a few searches and been surprised how many results I came up with for each topic in General Conference under those restrictions. I think there is definitely room for expansion here. Otherwise, perhaps if there are to be restrictions, they should be for only the most recent conference in which each topic was discussed. Any thoughts? --Jgstokes-We can disagree without being disagreeable 22:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Since the "list" is provided simply as a sample of possible topics, I think it should just list 4–5 sermons on a variety of topics. There's really no need for a massive or comprehensive list of topics, in my opinion. I think the point is to give the reader a flavor of what kinds of things are spoken about, and that can be done with listing less than half a dozen sermons. –SESmith 23:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

World Conference/Article Split
Removed the section on the community of Christ world conference. This has it's own article, and all community of christ related articles should redirect there, not here. This isn't an article about general conference in multiple LDS denominations. Kristmace (talk) 09:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is about "multiple LDS denominations". The fact that it's limited now to LDS Church and CofC does not mean other denominations could not be added. The article begins with a general history from the pre-succession crisis Latter Day Saint movement, so it's entirely appropriate to include how it's developed in the divergent denominations. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll agree with that. In that case then a General Conference (LDS Church) article should be created and the majority of the information here could be placed there. This article could then be a brief overview of conferences in all LDS denominations. Kristmace (talk) 09:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That could be done; my main concern would be that it would create a whole lot of work on other pages which link here, since many pages that link here appear to be referring to an LDS Church conference as opposed to the pre-1844 conferences or Latter Day Saint conferences in general. After the page was created all the links elsewhere would need to be changed. Honestly, though, I don't see a problem with how it is now; I would be more inclined to propose merging the Community of Christ article back into this one since Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints) discourages denomination-specific articles in the Latter Day Saint movement area. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:46, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. I looked at the links to this page before I removed the World Conference section, and then removed it because all the links (unless I missed one) were in reference to LDS Church conference. I would be in favour of merging the World Conference article back into this one in that case. There needs to be either separate articles on LDS Conference and World Conference or one covering both and the pre-1844 history, at the moment we have a mixture. Kristmace (talk) 10:06, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Just an additional comment. I understand that denominational articles are discouraged, but they are still appropriate - First Presidency being a prime example. The article First Presidency contains information on the general LDS movement principle, then there are separate articles for the LDS Church FP and the Community of Christ FP. It's a lot of work, but I still think that this is the ideal that we need to work towards. Kristmace (talk) 11:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes; I didn't mean to suggest that it couldn't be done. I agree with you that either they should both be separate or they both should be in this one. I can support either and could support a separation as long as someone's willing to do the legwork of changing all the links. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:11, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I have read the article and feel that the Community of Christ section should be removed. The main reason being that there is no such thing as a denomination of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Community of Christ may have originally been started by individuals that formerly belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, however, it is a different religion entirely with its own separate beliefs and always has been. They are not connected any more than the Catholics and Lutherans. Also, there is nary a mention of the Community of Christ in the first portion of the article and I find it's inclusion confusing, and I imagine somewhat mystifying, to those not familiar with either religion. Therefore I don't see a need to incorporate it, especially if the Community of Christ has their own entry already.--Purpletoupee (talk) 07:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's quite right, but the confusion may just be resulting from a misunderstanding of how WP uses certain terminology. Both the LDS Church and the Community of Christ are closely related—they're certainly much closer that Catholics and Lutherans. How?—they are both denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement. Most Latter Day Saint movement churches have a "general conference" or a "world conference", and that's really what this article is about. It's not about any one church's conference, but rather the conference practice that has resulted in the many Latter Day Saint churches that have evolved from Joseph Smith's original "Church of Christ". The fact that only the LDS Church and Community of Christ are mentioned does not mean it cannot or should not be expanded to include other smaller Latter Day Saint denominations. Good Ol’factory (talk) 08:29, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment Is it possible to just move this article to General Conference (LDS Church), so it is exclusively about the LDS Church? The LDS general conference has a lot of history and is really large, both in its immediate and satellite/Internet audience, and I think it merits its own article. --Eustress (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking not really, because there are churches that are not the LDS Church and not the Community of Christ that are Latter Day Saint churches and they have general conferences too. There's nothing in the current article about these yet (this could be written, though), but I imagine some of the links to here may be from non-LDS/COC church pages. Probably few though. In the end, this page would probably eventually come to exist in some form as a non-LDS/COC page, in which case the vast majority of the links would still have to be moved to General conference (LDS Church), since this would not be a redirect page. To recap: I've no problem with General conference (LDS Church) being created as a segregated page, so long as someone changes all the many links to the correct page. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Move
Whoa, why was this moved to General conference (Latter Day Saint movement) and then redirected to General conference (LDS Church)? According to WP:LDSMOS, we use "(Latter Day Saints)" as the DAB for things of the Latter Day Saint movement. I suspect this was a way around the problems I mentioned above, but it's not going to work by simply redirecting this page to General conference (LDS Church). Sorry, but I don't think there's any way around the fact that someone will have to change all of the redirects to the correct page. We can't just redirect this one to a church-specific page, as was done. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I had never seen WP:LDSMOS, so I guess I'm learning. Regarding updating all the links, I am aware of that (as you explained above) and am in the process. Thanks for your help. --Eustress (talk) 09:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * They should all be updated now. --Eustress (talk) 09:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Merger Proposal
I have proposed that the article World Conference (Community of Christ) be merged into this article. WP:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints) discourages articles which are denomination specific in the Latter Day Saint movement. This article will therefore be a summary of pre-1844 general conferences and then general conferences in various LDS denominations. Kristmace (talk) 14:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This article is called "General Conference." "World Conference" doesn't belong in it.75.165.226.215 (talk) 20:28, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

While Community of Christ and the LDS church have historical roots together, they have more time apart, have vastly different theological understandings, and often words are in common but the means of them are not. It would be best in my opinion to have separate articles for CofC and LDS Church on each issue, topic... and perhaps Early LDS movement (shared history time)to ease in confusion. Perhaps look at other movements in Christianity and see weather they are split up or all combined when the shared history is 7%-13% or so of total history...

DO NOT MERGE THESE ARTICLES. Despite sharing their very early history they are completely different denominations and General Conference for one is run by a completely different organization and people then the World Conference of the other. The structure of each conference is totally different including schedules, regularity, sessions, etc. If these articles are merged I shall appeal.

I agree this is a horrible suggestion. A solution could be to add (LDS) after the title of this existing article and (RLDS) after another article. There is too much confusion between LDS and RLDS splinters on Wikipedia. Everyone should be recognized but not at the expense of the overwhelmingly better known LDS organization.--Ninja247 (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Do Not Merge - I agree that this is a bad idea. There are to many fundamental differences between the World Conference (Community of Christ) and General conference (Latter Day Saints)--ARTEST4ECHO talk 17:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Change made about Sustaining of Church Officers
I just added clarification about the sustaining of Church officers. Before I made the change, the article said "During the Saturday Afternoon Session..." However, there have been at least 5 exceptions to that in the last 22 years that I'm aware of. When Ezra Taft Benson was sustained as 13th President of the Church, that Solemn Assembly took place during the Sunday Afternoon Session. Howard W. Hunter, Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson all had the Solemn Assembly during the Saturday Morning Session. In April 2007, since the Salt Lake Tabernacle was set to be dedicated during the Saturday Afternoon Session, the sustaining took place in the Saturday Morning Session. And in October 2007, the sustaining was also held during the Saturday Morning Session. As a side note, President Hinckley conducted that sustaining, which is pretty unusual for the President of the Church to do. Additionally, if you refer to conference reports from President Kimball's administration, you will note at least half a dozen additional exceptions to the WP stated information about when the sustaining is held. In short, there are no hard and fast rules saying that the sustaining of church officers HAS to take place during the Saturday Afternoon Session. When it takes place is solely at the discretion of the presiding authority. Therefore, just because something TYPICALLY happens is no rationalization for the implication that it ALWAYS happens that way. Accordingly, I have added the clarifier, "During one session (typically Saturday Afternoon)..." Any comments/questions/additional insights? --Jgstokes-We can disagree without being disagreeable (talk) 02:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Dissemination: Via Youtube
There have been two edits made by people to remove the information about the LDS Church adding Youtube to the dissemination methods being used for General Conference, beginning with the April 2010 Conference.

The entire conference, all 33 talks, were placed on Youtube late in the afternoon of 5 April 2010, and it was completely up within about two days. It is on the popular 'Mormon Messages' page on Youtube, which can be found at http://www.youtube.com/mormonmessages and the Church website page, mormonmessages.org does not have these videos included with the Mormon Messages on that page. This needs to be included regardless of botmasters who think that all Youtube links are bad for the Wikipedia pages, XLinkBot and WildBot are the biggest offenders that way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.27.173.103 (talk) 01:34, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It's probably just easier to link to the general conference page on lds.org where all the sermons are also available. Then the bots won't get cranky. There's no reason to favor the YouTube channel over the LDS Church's own official website that it hosts. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

This page and the "General Conference/LDS Church" page on here should be merged.
This page should be merged with the "General Conference/LDS Church" page on here, since both pages describe the same thing.

Here's the link to the other page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Conference_(LDS_Church) --KellyLeighC (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Links are outdated.
I was curious, so I clicked on the links listed in the external links section, and I got an error message or directed to a general page rather than a specific article for each link I clicked on, with the exception of "An LDS Conference Outside the U. S.?" or whatever it's called. I propose that the out-of-date links be replaced with the correct links ASAP. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:35, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed the EL. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 16:04, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Many thanks! The page looks great now! I had no idea where to find those links, so I owe you big time. Thanks again! --Jgstokes (talk) 19:08, 7 May 2014 (UTC)