Internet filtering

[russellhltn]

Some stake presidents have pretty compelling reasons not to go to General Access, but I do not know if that is the case here.

True. But I don't think filtering can be customized. So trying to expand "Extended Access" church-wide to fit a particular stake's needs strikes me as having a high probability of a exercises in frustration.

[techgy]

The best solution to the problem is to encourage the stake to upgrade to the General Access level. This will open the network up to a variety of family history sites and eliminate the problems associated with the restrictions your getting.

Of course, the decision is that of your stake president.

[lajackson]

True. But I don't think filtering can be customized. So trying to expand "Extended Access" church-wide to fit a particular stake's needs strikes me as having a high probability of a exercises in frustration.

The best solution to the problem is to encourage the stake to upgrade to the General Access level. This will open the network up to a variety of family history sites and eliminate the problems associated with the restrictions your getting.

You are both correct. One of the decisions a stake president makes, whether or not he realizes it, is that if he stays with Extended Access, his stake will not be able to do many of the things that would otherwise be available, except from the Family History Center itself.

And even when he does realize the limitations, he may still decide not to open things up for any number of reasons.

[pbhanney]

Again, great information. It is good to see the discussion. It really helps me so that when I go back to my Stake Clerk I can have a good position as to why we need the change.

Without any of you actually knowing my Stake President or his reasons why he in particular would want to stick with Extended Access, are there general reasons why Stake Presidents in general would not want to go to General Access? From what I can see, General Access is still filtered, but just not as much as Extended (I gather this from my searches on other posts).

Also, our Stake is trying to have Family History classes in our clerks' offices during Sunday School (still hasn't happened yet). I know that during Sunday School there isn't enough time to go into Family History in depth, and it might just be a primer on how to start it. However, what are the reasons the Family History Center in our Stake might have General Access? Is it just so that people can go to other websites and search for their ancestors? Again, just trying to get a feel for this so that I might sound somewhat intelligent when I speak with my Stake Clerk again.

Thanks!

[russellhltn]

Without any of you actually knowing my Stake President or his reasons why he in particular would want to stick with Extended Access, are there general reasons why Stake Presidents in general would not want to go to General Access?

Two thoughts: When the meetinghouse Internet was announced, General Access wasn't on the list of choices. It came along later.

Second, the SP may be concerned about usage getting out of hand and being used for non-church purposes. (Youth updating their Facebook sites, etc.) By limiting to to legitimate church-need sites, he hopes to avoid this. But as I pointed out before, getting a church-wide consensus of what this list should look like probably isn't going to work for everyone.

Note that there's nothing preventing you from adding additional filtering behind the church filtering. That is, you could get General Access and then have your own case-by-case white-list filter to get exactly what's needed for that building.

what are the reasons the Family History Center in our Stake might have General Access? Is it just so that people can go to other websites and search for their ancestors?

That's as good a guess as any. It would be nearly impossible to white list all the possible genealogy sites of interest.

You may want to find out what the Family History classes intend to cover. I seem to remember reports that FamilySearchIndexing doesn't work under anything but General Access. If true, that will simplify the whole issue.

[lajackson]

. . . the SP may be concerned about usage getting out of hand and being used for non-church purposes.

Without saying too much here, when a stake president spends more than half of his interview time working with folks who have problems disciplining themselves in internet matters, he will be reluctant to allow general access.

[techgy]

Trying to set up a Sunday School class in a clerk's office would be difficult not to mention the fact that it opens up an administrative computer to other issues.

I would recommend that you talk to the Bishops in the facility in question and try and define a room that can be used for such a class. The room should be set aside for Family History use only and should be locked with restricted access. Access to the room would be limited to Family History consultants who would be present in the room during its use and conduct the classes.

This has several advantages;

1) It limits access to the room and during use there's someone in the room to monitor the legitimate use of the computers.
2) It provides a place where such work can be done without subjecting the clerk's office to such use, where space would be limited.

This is the procedure we use in our stake's buildings where 3 of the 4 buildings have a family history center in them that's manned during the Sunday School hour.

It works perfectly and we've had no reported issues of abuse, even with the General Access.