Talk:Ronald E. Poelman

Youtube link
Regarding linking to the video of the entire talk on Youtube, see HERE:

Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry). Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors.

So yes, it does implicate WP when we link to Youtube's violations, despite what the editor maintains.

Also from WP:COPY, it says:

Linking to YouTube, Google Video, and similar sites

There is no blanket ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by the guidelines on this page (which would be infrequent). See also Copyrights for the prohibition on linking to pages that violate copyrights.

Bonneville Communications owns the copyright on all LDS Church general conference sermons, and I see nothing on the Youtube site which indicates that it is a legal posting or that Bonneville has given its permission for the posting. It can't be "fair use", as an editor has suggested, because the entire sermon is included in the two videos. "Fair use" involves situations where snippets of material are taken, not the entire work. There is no evidence that Bonneville has "disowned" the original work; Bonneville and the LDS Church are separate legal entities and Bonneville has said nothing that I know of about the original sermon. Snocrates 23:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

4.5 Years
That's not particularly long, is it? Was it at the time? It's not as if everyone speaks in every conference. Thmazing (talk) 17:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I just counted the speakers in the October 2008 conference. There are ten non-apostle/First Presidency, non-auxiliary, non-Presiding Bishopric speakers. So, in 4.5 years, there's be 90 such slots, versus (about) seventy members of the Seventy plus the seven presidents, and one can assume that a) the Presidency of the Seventy would get more speaking slots than the others, and b) newly-called Seventies would get priority for their "introduction" talks. Elder Poelman waiting 4.5 years doesn't seem unusually long considered in this light. YLee (talk) 16:44, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Did some more research on this. Entering "Ronald E. Poelman" in the lds.org search engine under General Conference shows that Elder Poelman spoke in Conference on


 * April 1978 (called)
 * April 1980
 * April 1982
 * October 1984 (the redacted talk)
 * April 1989
 * October 1993
 * April 1998 (became emeritus)

So, at first glance, Elder Poelman went from speaking every two to 2.5 years or so to every 4.5 years. Conspiracy!!!1!!!Eleven!!!!!

Not so fast. Let's look at the three others who were called into the First Quorum of the Seventy with Elder Poelman. Robert L. Backman, made emeritus in October 1992:
 * October 1978
 * October 1982
 * October 1985
 * October 1987
 * October 1991
 * October 1989
 * October 1992 (became emeritus)

Rex, C. Reeve, Sr., made emeritus in 1989: April 1978
 * October 1980
 * October 1982
 * October 1985

Derek A. Cuthbert, who passed away in April 1991:
 * April 1978
 * October 1980
 * October 1982
 * October 1985
 * April 1990

Of the four, Elder Backman spoke the most often given the number of years he actively served. However, he was called into the Presidency of the Seventy in 1985, where he served until 1992, so it's not surprising that he'd speak more often than other seventies. The clearest "trend," if any, is that all seventies spoke less often from the mid-1980s on. This makes sense, given that 1984 is when the first non-lifetime seventies (moved into the newly-created Second Quorum of the Seventy in 1989) were called. More seventies = less opportunity for any one seventy to speak.

Of course, those who still claim that Elder Poelman was "punished" for delivering a talk that, apparently, had some erroneous doctrine that needed to be fixed, have to explain: a) Why would he be able to speak again at all? b) Was Elder Reeve also "punished" by not speaking for four years before being made emeritus, and was Elder Cuthbert also "punished" by also having to wait 4.5 years before giving his final talk? Sheesh. YLee (talk) 17:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Isn't this all WP:OR anyway? The cited article mentions that he was not invited to speak again for that period of time, which is probably why it is mentioned. Anyway, this article doesn't suggest that he was "punished" in any way, apart from being required to re-tape the speech. If the article is being read to mean that the 4.5 year delay was a punishment for what happened before, it's an extrapolation or assumption being made by the reader. Good Ol’factory (talk) 04:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's indeed original research; I had no intention of using it in the article itself, and did not edit the article because, taken by itself, the sentence is a neutral statement of fact. The mention of the years in Anderson's article, though, is obviously meant to imply (cue sinister music) a punishment of some sort, and there just isn't evidence for that. YLee (talk) 05:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * In which article? The WP one or the cited one? I would agree that such an insinuation could be being made in the cited article, but when it's reported in the WP article, it's probably better seen as just a reporting of what others have said, since that's what WP does. Good Ol’factory (talk) 06:39, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Lavina Fielding Anderson's article, the one cited in the Wikipedia article. YLee (talk) 06:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah yes--yes. She's good at cuing the music, that's for sure. Good Ol’factory (talk) 06:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)