Template talk:LDSfirstpresidency

The dates on this template
Hello again, everyone. While I would hope that the editors of this template who keep listing Eyring's two separate service terms as Second Counselor in the First Presidency on this template are acting in good faith, I wanted to start a discussion here about the back-and-forth exchange on this issue. I for one am in favor of keeping such tenures separate. The fact of the matter is that, until the Church stopped publishing it, the yearly Church Almanac (the last version of it was printed in 2013) listed such service by the number of tenures involved for the men who have served in any capacity, which in this case would apply to the Church President and his counselors. Thus, J. Reuben Clark is listed as both the 14th and 16th Second Counselor in the First Presidency, and also the 11th and 13th First Counselors in the First Presidency in the history of the Church. For that reason, the tenures of Eyring as Second Counselor should be kept separate as he was previously the 24th man to serve in that capacity, with Dieter F. Uchtdorf as the 25th man before Eyring returned to that assignment as the 26th Second Counselor in the First Presidency.

But this is not just a style type for LDS First Presidency members; for those familiar with the history of the presidents of the United States, we know that Grover Cleveland served as the 22nd US president before being defeated in his reelection bid by Benjamin Harrison, who became the 23rd US president, only to be subsequently defeated after one term by his predecessor, in which Cleveland won his second term. With this in mind, it is a Wikipedia-wide accepted precedent that interrupted terms in a position held by an individual should be listed separately. As such, it would take a revision of the policies associated with that precedent to get approval for one person serving two different terms in the same position listed in one location. Just wanted to note these things for what they are worth. Thanks. --Jgstokes (talk) 23:56, 18 January 2018 (UTC)


 * A month later, it looks like this issue is still ongoing. Again, until the Church Almanac stopped being published (the last edition was put out in 2013, and it was felt that after that, there was enough access to the relevant information online), it listed the number of Church presidents, First Counselors, and Second Counselors in the First Presidency. Since there are at least two men that I know of off the top of my head (J. Reuben Clark and Henry B. Eyring) that were called to be second counselors to the Church president after serving as first counselors to the previous one, those tenures are separate and distinct, and should be listed separately. Eyring became the 24th Second Counselor in the Church's history when called to serve alongside Hinckley and Monson, and since Uchtdorf was second counselor under Monson, Uchtdorf was the 25th Second Counselor. Now that Eyring has again begun serving as Second Counselor, he is the 26th Second Counselor. If there are any further objections about the listing of the dates on this template, those should be handled here through discussion and consensus decision, rather than engaging in an edit war. Hope this additional explanation helps. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:38, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Failed attempts to get current First Presidency template working on the relevant pages
Hello again, everyone! I have been hard at work in the last hour or so trying (and failing) to get the part of this template showing just the current first presidency on the relevant pages, including List of general authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Russell M. Nelson, Dallin H. Oaks, and Henry B. Eyring. My failures to get this fixed likely are due to misunderstanding the relevant template coding. If someone could step in and help to fix this issue, I'd appreciate it. Anything I do is just making things worse, not better, so I need to hand it off to someone who actually knows what they are doing. --Jgstokes (talk) 01:27, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to let you all know that I opted to eliminate the problems by creating a template that just lists the current First Presidency, and that that template has been placed on all the relevant pages. Thanks. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:09, 1 February 2018 (UTC)