Tech Forum

Stake Techs and Clerks:

Who draws the unit boundary maps of the "membership locator" (www.beta-maps.lds.org?)

I'm not talking about making any official boundary change, I'm talking about correcting mistakes on the unit boundary line drawn over the google earth image. We have a few houses that the boundary line "skips," inadvertently placing them in another ward. I've submitted feedback, but seem to get an automated response: "For boundary issues, talk to your stake."

To make this a little easier for me to "talk to my stake," perhaps those of you with stake positions can answer:

Who actually "drew" the lines on "membership locator," my stake clerks/tech, or the programmers at the church? Did my stake approve them? Can clerks or techs correct mistakes at the stake level, or must corrections be submitted to Church HQ?

The bigger question: Who ultimately is responsible to check the "membership locator" unit boundaries against the "official" unit boundary map held at Church HQ? The ward clerk, the stake clerk, or higher up?

thanks.

kisaac wrote:Who actually "drew" the lines on "membership locator," my stake clerks/tech, or the programmers at the church?

No stake clerks were involved in actually drawing the lines that appear on the Membership Locator. The source of those lines is ultimately the official GIS information stored at Church Headquarters that defines all unit boundaries. Of course, the software that is displaying those boundaries has to obtain that data, perhaps convert it, and certainly interpret it in order to determine just where to draw the boundaries. Programming errors could certainly occur at any step in that process, but it seems more likely to be a data problem at this point, given that so many boundaries are being drawn accurately by the software.

kisaac wrote:Did my stake approve them? Can clerks or techs correct mistakes at the stake level, or must corrections be submitted to Church HQ?

Your stake at some point in the past was involved in the process of determining boundaries, but for some stakes that was decades ago. And in any case, stakes are not directly involved in the creating of the actual GIS data. There is no way to correct mistakes at the stake level, but stakes can submit corrections to CHQ.

Our stake recently had a situation where we discovered that the GIS data was incorrect. A boundary between two wards was off by a few houses along one street. We submitted the correction to CHQ, and then we were sent new official maps, so that we could verify that the new boundary was correct.

kisaac wrote:The bigger question: Who ultimately is responsible to check the "membership locator" unit boundaries against the "official" unit boundary map held at Church HQ? The ward clerk, the stake clerk, or higher up?

Anyone who has specific knowledge of a boundary error can raise the issue. But it is the stake that is responsible to submit any corrections to boundaries for the stake or any units within the stake. Typically a stake clerk will be involved in that process, but the stake president must approve any submission of proposed changes, including corrections.

I'm agreeing with Alan_Brown (who doesn't?). Just went through this as well. We just created a new ward and discovered the boundaries were not correct.

The official boundaries are the ones you see displayed. Official meaning that is what the church has on its records. That doesn't mean they are what you have been using. To change them, I was told we had to go through the entire boundary change proposal all over again. Luckily for us, the stake president was able to contact someone in Boundary and Leadership services at CHQ who contacted me and allowed me to just email in the clarification. Much nicer. Just drawing it on a google map image was sufficient.

Haven't seen the update yet, but I expect it will reflect the changes I submitted soon.