Tech Forum

As the current (US) wards rely more and more on the website, I was wondering why we a members cannot alter our contact info from the website. Changing phone #, email, picture are all membership preferences that can change quite frequently.

I understand why we cannot update the address on the web, (if you change your address, you can move to another ward, that gets updated and you have access to your new ward. Now if we take the malicious approach, somebody hadn't really moved they could theoretically search all the wards gathering information on anyone.)

There is a way to handle that from my experience with some major websites one normally would register to use like some of the services on Yahoo.

When you want to change very personal inforamtion, they usually have you login again, even if you are already logged in, so that you and they are sure the information is from the user rather than some other person that somehow hacked in or whatever.

Usually personal information like that is stored on a separate box, so it stays separate from username/password/site preferences files you use every time you log in.

Might something like that facilitate what you are asking about?

I was mostly suggesting it for what the ward sites should be able to do. Right now you can't really update anything from your profile, which in reality is your membership record. I was suggesting allowing some limited changes to be possible from the website on your membership record that wouldn't affect anything that needs to go through the ward clerk.

thedqs wrote:I was wondering why we a members cannot alter our contact info from the website. Changing phone #, email, picture are all membership preferences that can change quite frequently.

I suspect with the photos there are two issues. The first, is the possibility of uploading inappropriate photos (perhaps using a using a compromised account). I think this can be solved by requiring the admin to approve the photo before it goes live.

The second may be in issue of copyrights on professional photos.

But on a whole, I do think members should be able to upload their photos. I think it puts too much of a burden on the admin to make them do it all.

Ok minus the picture, how about phone #?
I ask this because our phone number is my wife's cell number and we want the ward to call the house humber. I just thought it would be easier to change it online instead of tracking down the ward clerk.
And who does the photo, I thought it was part of the MLS database, is it a webmaster function?

As a ward web admin, I can vouch that the photos are a webmaster function currently. I would like to see the ability to post individual photos. Currently only one photo can be posted per family, and at the recommended size of 180 * 135 pix, a full family pic would be hard to distinguish faces.

I just found that the information that you registered with on the lds.org ward website, (address, phone, etc) (your profile info) does not affect (except your e-mail) what appears in the ward directory. Was this suppose to be the case? If so why is it there at all since it just duplicates information?

thedqs wrote:I just found that the information that you registered with on the lds.org ward website, (address, phone, etc) (your profile info) does not affect (except your e-mail) what appears in the ward directory. Was this suppose to be the case? If so why is it there at all since it just duplicates information?

The stuff reflected on the website is off your official church record. You're not allowed to change your church record. Some stuffy clerk with no appreciation for exactness is responsible for your church record. It's not even reflective of your current church record; it's a few weeks old.

Is there a way to change a username once a member has already subscribed? We have a member that was signed up by a well-meaning friend who gave her a user name based on her membership number. Not very easy to remember.

olsonle wrote:Is there a way to change a username once a member has already subscribed? We have a member that was signed up by a well-meaning friend who gave her a user name based on her membership number. Not very easy to remember.

PM or E-mail me with the new username that they want and I can change it.

Tom