Talk:List of members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (LDS Church)/Archive 1

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Notes

I think that a lot of the comments written in the notes section are hard to understand, so I tried to edit a bunch of them, making them more complete sentences, but I only did about the last 20. There are a lot of names on this list. -ErinHowarth (talk) 00:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the style before this change. It's brief and to the point; in contrast, the later entries require a lot of reading to extract the same information. And if additional content is wanted (beyond what's present in the earlier entries), I think the "Notes" column ought to be supplemented with other columns, so that it's easy to find each particular bit of data. (And, ultimately, each column should be filled in for everyone on the list.)

Besides the change in presentation, there's a change in content that I don't think is desirable. Things like "wrote such-and-such a book" or "gave such-and-such a talk" don't really belong here. The criteria for notability on the end of the list is clearly less strict than in the beginning and if the more broad criteria were used throughout, the useful facts in the table would be buried in trivia. The table links to the articles about the individuals, where all such information can be easily found. Some of these items, like who was replaced and where the person was born, are potentially notable, but if kept ought to be given a separate column, as I described above. Smith.dan (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It remains my opinion that many comments in the notes section are hard to understand. For example:

Second Counselor (Heber J. Grant), October 11, 1934–May 14, 1945

Second Counselor (George Albert Smith), May 21, 1945–April 4, 1951

President of the Quorum, April 8, 1950–April 9, 1951

President of the Church, April 9, 1951–January 8, 1970

This is the entry for David O. McKay. Now I'm pretty sure that what it means is that David O. McKay left the quorum in 1934 to serve as second counselor to President Grant, but it does not say that. It just says Second Counselor (Heber J. Grant). It could be interpreted to mean that President Grant served as McKay's second counselor. I know enough church history to know that it didn't happen that way, but the goal should be to keep our writing clear and easy to understand. Organizing this information into separate columns might make it easier to read, but I worry about it not being very easily standardized. The example above indicates that McKay became president of the quorum after he had become second counselor in the first presidency. That seems very unusual to me. Did he stop serving in the First Presidency? My second concern about adding more columns is not being able to see the column headings from the bottom of the table. The headings have to be pretty simple in order to be memorized long enough to read the table. Finally I would agree that the standard regarding what is notable enough to be entered into the comments field is highly variable, falling squarely on the shoulders of each individual editor. For my part, I like to keep things brief, but I try to include some fact interesting enough to inspire other readers to visit the individual page. -ErinHowarth (talk) 22:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. How best can we resolve this difficulty? Any thoughts? I too feel that brief but accurate and well-written facts would be most appropriate for this table. Drowning in unnecessary information is not productive. Any way around these problems? --Jgstokes-We can disagree without being disagreeable (talk) 01:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Uchtdorf and Bednar filled what vacancy?

This chart refers to Dieter F. Uchtdorf's call as filling the vacancy from the death of David B. Haight and David A. Bednar's call as filling the vacancy from the death of Neal A. Maxwell. What is the rationale behind that? If Uchtdorf had been called to fill the first vacancy that arose, that would have taken place after the death of Maxwell, who died on July 21, 2004, while Bednar would have been called to fill the second vacancy, created by the death of Haight on July 31, 2004. Since Uchtdorf and Bednar's calls were announced the same day, the only way we know Uchtdorf is the senior apostle is because he was listed first when sustained and also ordained first. But I think that the first ordained fills the vacancy created by the first one who died, which in this case is Maxwell. Other editors have disagreed with me on this point, and the result was that both the Uchtdorf and Bednar pages simply state that the two of them were called to fill the vacancies created by the deaths of Haight and Maxwell. This is a highly technical point, I know, but what can be done about it? The chart information on this, as it now stands, is theoretically inaccurate, not to mention historically so according to Church policy on ordained apostles. Maybe I'm just a weirdo who takes a technicality to an unhealthy level, but I think this confusing issue bears looking into and discussion about it. Any thoughts on this? --Jgstokes-We can disagree without being disagreeable (talk) 02:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If it's an issue that cannot be resolved easily with sources (and I don't think on this technical issue there are any quality sources — it's largely a matter of speculation and opinion), I think simply saying things as stated on the individual pages is the best and most principled solution: we should just say Uchtdorf and Bednar were called to fill vacancies created by the deaths of Haight and Maxwell. This page should be changed to reflect that if needed. Purely as a matter of comment, though, if we try to unwind the details of who replaced who when there are multiple replacements being called, it can quickly become nearly impossible to sort out, particularly in the early days of the church when it was more common for vacancies not to be filled right away. See, e.g., 1885–1889 — three vacancies were created by (1) the excommunication of Albert Carrington; (2) the death of John Taylor in 1887; (3) the death of Erastus Snow in 1888; and (4) the reorganization of the FP in 1889. Marriner W. Merrill, Anton H. Lund and Abraham H. Cannon were called to the Quorum 1889, but trying to figure out who replaced who is like trying to dissect a fly with a meat cleaver. It becomes even more complicated when FP members "return" to the Quorum and are not recalled into the FP. Without sources, not a headache you want to be trying to wrap your head around. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I might have been the editor to add the information causing concern, but I agree with Jgstokes, if Uchtdof is senior to Haight then it makes sense that he replaced the apostle which expired first (Maxwell). I approve of any edits that will clarify this point. On the one hand, it is very technical, but on the other hand, it matters very much which order the men sit. I think this has been important since Joseph called the first quorum and sat them in order of birth. -ErinHowarth (talk) 04:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Both of you have good points. I think that what I'll do is change the list to have Uchtdorf filling the vacancy created by Maxwell's death and Bednar filling the vacancy caused by Haight's death. Then, if there are any questions the readers have about this highly technical point, they can go to Uchtdorf and Bednar's WP pages wherein it merely states that they both succeeded Maxwell and Haight. --Jgstokes-We can disagree without being disagreeable (talk) 00:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Reformat with sortable table

I reformatted the page with a sortable table. I tried to integrate fixes for some of my concerns (described above) with some of the feedback I got. Some things that got removed in the process:

• Pre-apostleship professions/activities
• Trials & jailings
• Notable published works
• Pre-apostleship church assignments
• Standard quorum-related assignments
• Succeeded by (if any)
• Succeeded (if any)
• Age at start
• Age at end
• Length of service

These are all potentially interesting, but they simply won't all fit if we're being consistent about it. (The previous table got away with including these things by not being consistent -- it noted the professions, mission presidencies, etc. of certain apostles but not others.) It might be possible to add one or two of these things, but it's not clear which should be added. I lean towards one of the last four, or none at all (I'm also open to getting rid of the nationality column). Anybody have an opinion? Smith.dan (talk) 23:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I love the new format! But I think since we are removing trials and jailings we should remove the thing that talks about how George Q. Cannon was put in jail for six months. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruggles the Editor (talk • contribs) 14:14, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Hugh B Brown

Held Canadian citizenship and spent a significant portion of his adult life in Canada, including in the Canadian military. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ktbnyc (talk • contribs) 22:41, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Order of appearance

It looks like some recent efforts have been made to change the order of appearance of people on these lists. What criteria should really be used? If by seniority, originally seniority was based on the persons age, which was then changed to be based on ordination date as an apostle, and then further changed to date of (re)admittance to the quorum. If we simply list by date of (re)admittance to the quorum, then we have a problem, since we don't list that date in the templates (that I see). -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 17:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The entry listed Dieter F. Uchtdorf as "born in Czechoslovakia". When he was born in 1940, however, his birthplace Ostrava was part of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and called Mährisch-Ostrau. Before and after the German occupation, it was in Czechoslovakia and even later in the Czech Republic, but not in 1940. A historical detail. Best wishes Cyan22 (talk) 22:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.