remove nonmember spouse's name from online ward directory

Discussions about the Ward Directory and Map tool on churchofjesuschrist.org.
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pzells
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remove nonmember spouse's name from online ward directory

#1

Post by pzells »

How do I make it so her nonmember husband's does not show up on the online ward directory but her name does?

A member does not want her nonmember husband's name to show up on the online ward directory.

I noticed that some non-member spouses show, while others do not.

I thought that I could remove her husband's non-member record, and re-add her marriage info without creating a nonmember record. However, under the MLS tools "remove nonmember record" and "remove temporary record" her husband is not listed. I now do not know what to do.
russellhltn
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#2

Post by russellhltn »

Are you talking about the "classic" LUWS? I don't think it will show anyone unless there's a member, non-member, out of unit member, or temporary record for them.

If you're talking about new.lds.org, that's a different story.
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pzells
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#3

Post by pzells »

Yes, I do not want the non-member husband of a member to be shown on the new online ward directory (new.lds.org).
russellhltn
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#4

Post by russellhltn »

There seems to be some bugs with that. You may want to talk to Local Unit Support.
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bakebread
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#5

Post by bakebread »

We have a similar problem with the online ward directory on the new lds.org site. We have two sisters in our ward who have been separated from their husbands for many years. The husbands' records are not in our ward and never have been; the husbands have never lived in our ward. Both of the sisters are listed as heads of household in our ward MLS system, but the online ward directory is apparently pulling the husbands' names off the wifes' records and listing both of them as being in the household. Knowing both of the sisters quite well, I know that each would be enraged (both have court orders preventing the husbands from having any contact with them or their children) and offended to see their "husbands" names listed beside theirs. I'd like to get it changed before they see it online.
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mkmurray
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#6

Post by mkmurray »

bakebread wrote:We have a similar problem with the online ward directory on the new lds.org site. We have two sisters in our ward who have been separated from their husbands for many years. The husbands' records are not in our ward and never have been; the husbands have never lived in our ward. Both of the sisters are listed as heads of household in our ward MLS system, but the online ward directory is apparently pulling the husbands' names off the wifes' records and listing both of them as being in the household. Knowing both of the sisters quite well, I know that each would be enraged (both have court orders preventing the husbands from having any contact with them or their children) and offended to see their "husbands" names listed beside theirs. I'd like to get it changed before they see it online.

I can't imagine the new online ward directory would just pull names from someone's record like that (if so, I agree it's a major bug). Perhaps try looking in MLS to see if maybe there is a temporary record or nonmember record or something created for those husbands. Try looking on the sister's record to ensure that there is not some listing in her household for the husband. Otherwise, you should report the bug via the Feedback link on the online directory page.
RossEvans
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#7

Post by RossEvans »

No one mentioned that they had left a Feedback item for this serious bug. So I did that yesterday.

I am in the process of analyzing and documenting the damage in our ward, and it is extensive. I think perhaps 10 percent of all our households are affected. That is, they show an individual, apparently a non-member, as either head of household or spouse when no such record occurs in the MLS roster. (They may show up in the confidential member record, which is where I suspect these names are being generated for the web.) In at least some cases, estranged husbands long removed from the actual households are named as head-of-household. This may be because of a state of separation, or it may be that a divorce was not properly recorded in the confidential member record in MLS to begin with.

And as far as I can see, there is no workaround locally. The only remedy that a user or administrator might have ordinarily would be to suppress an entire household from appearing in the directory. But even that does not work because the user interface compounds the problem: If an administrator tries to edit the profile for such a corrupt record, he always gets a spurious error message: "Sorry, data is temporarily not available for this application. Please try again later." But profile editing works for normal household records. (I suspect the trigger for that anomaly is that in the underlying web service populating the web page, the individualId element used to identify the spurious non-member's record has a -1 instead of a unique ID as all members should. The page logic and error handling gets confused by this state.)
jdcr256
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#8

Post by jdcr256 »

Non-member spouses are pulled from the Marriage Record. That is why they can be displayed without a non-member record in MLS. To remove them from the directory (e.g. in the case of a divorce), you have to edit the Marriage Record in MLS.

The bug of not being able to edit households with non-member Heads of Household will be fixed shortly.
RossEvans
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#9

Post by RossEvans »

jdcr256 wrote:Non-member spouses are pulled from the Marriage Record. That is why they can be displayed without a non-member record in MLS. To remove them from the directory (e.g. in the case of a divorce), you have to edit the Marriage Record in MLS.

The bug of not being able to edit households with non-member Heads of Household will be fixed shortly.

So is it now Church policy to publish the names of non-member spouses without their permission? If a local unit did that in MLS and published the directory, it would be violating express policy in the MLS manual. And if this is now policy, will MLS itself be changed to list the non-member spouses by default so that MLS is consistent with the website?

Within MLS, the marriage record is treated as confidential data. Not even all MLS users are privileged to see it. Yet these names are now being published to the whole stake.

A marriage is a necessary condition for a husband-wife household, but it is not a sufficient condition. How does Salt Lake know that the couple does, in fact, live together as a household within the ward boundary? There are a variety of types of separation, with or without legal process, that do not involve divorce. So there may in fact be no such "household" in the unit. (See, for example, Comment # 5 above.) And even in cases of divorce, it is not uncommon almong less active families that divorce details are not recorded because they tend not to contact the ward clerk and document the event. Heretofore, such errors of omission have been limited to leaders and clerks, but now they are published generally.
russellhltn
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#10

Post by russellhltn »

jdcr256 wrote:Non-member spouses are pulled from the Marriage Record. That is why they can be displayed without a non-member record in MLS. To remove them from the directory (e.g. in the case of a divorce), you have to edit the Marriage Record in MLS.

Like Ross I find this a very surprising change of events. I can only hope this feature was reviewed at the highest levels and included legal.

Can I assume that once we are able to edit the household that we can hide the spouse? Or is this a general change in policy and we can expect to see this functionally in MLS as well?
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