Tech Forum

jamiep39,

I'm not sure what you mean by discussion. Discussion didn't happen prior to the change. A sample of STS were not gathered into a conference call for input. Stake Presidents were not asked about the problems they are encountering or asked to take a survey. This was purely analysis by the meetinghouse networking and interested other teams at CHQ and the decision made and implemented. There still hasn't even been a communication to the STS/Stake Clerk/Bishops and Stake Presidents of the changes and why.

I expressed previously in the thread about why some social media platforms and not others like facebook. Why block Spotify but not Amazon, why pinterest and not facebook? We'll never know.

In my stake, our FM group pays for all the Internet connection. We have ComCast in 5 of our buildings, Metrocast in 1 and FIOS in the stake center. As far as I know our FM group is paying for the low end, but at the same time, they will do what is necessary to make sure that there is good bandwidth available. For instance, I ordered the FIOS at the stake center at 15 megs down and 5 up. Eventually our FM manager upped it to 25/25 because of the potential for a lot of missionaries being on at the same time. There is no plans to upgrade it any further. So I like my FM manager. He does what is necessary, but doesn't over pay.

johnshaw wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by discussion.

I was referring to @nelsonfam's earlier mention of internal follow up meetings and architectural discussions. My post was mostly targeted at @nelsonfam or others on the inside who might know more about the status.

I was able to get access to the admin portal of our filtering policy and made some adjustments to the categories and blacklists. You should see web and mobile access to social media platforms improve over the next 24 hours.

Of the six named, the Church has an extensive presence on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Elder Bednar has encouraged member use of those sites for missionary activities, I use Twitter a lot to send things out and last week I sent the 2015 Youth Theme song 'Embark' into a discussion of Grammy nominees and winners, and got four downloads out of it as I had provided the link for that as found on the Church site. With Twitter, you can tweet out things during General Conference live (called 'live-tweeting), remember how popular #LDSConf is?

Yes Spotify and Pandora may have TOS clauses regarding large gatherings, but Pandora does have a business setup that handles that sort of thing, but both also air commercials unless the account is paid for rather than a 'freemium' account (a term used in the industry to describe a lot of these types of sites that offer both free and paid services).

Snapchat has a lot of problems yet, it's gaining respectability, but the worst problems are not cleared away, such as pornography, and some other issues.

I think the Church may have selected a very cheap filtering setup, more robust filtering solutions can allow for time of day and even day of week filtering of certain sites, not just block/allow exception lists. Having that feature in a filtering product (Blue Coat has done this since the filter was Cerberian), and that would allow for blocking a lot of stuff on Sundays that would normally be OK on another day of the week in the same location.

russellhltn wrote:
Spotify specifically we use for YSA dances and to provide background music for activities, etc.

Its my understanding that Spotify is licensed much as a rented DVD, in that it's for personal use only. Isn't playing streaming content like that at a church dance a serious Intellectual Property issue? Legitimate DJ's pay for the privilege of entertaining with someone else's creative property, shouldn't the church as well? We know we can't steal the public performance rights of movie makers by having ward movie nights to play the latest Disney release, how do we justify it with music for dances?

dmadderra wrote:

russellhltn wrote:
Spotify specifically we use for YSA dances and to provide background music for activities, etc.

Its my understanding that Spotify is licensed much as a rented DVD, in that it's for personal use only. Isn't playing streaming content like that at a church dance a serious Intellectual Property issue? Legitimate DJ's pay for the privilege of entertaining with someone else's creative property, shouldn't the church as well? We know we can't steal the public performance rights of movie makers by having ward movie nights to play the latest Disney release, how do we justify it with music for dances?

Yes, that is correct. Though many ignore or don't think about the problem of showing movies, either, or copying music for choir. If it happens in your ward or stake, make sure your voice is heard.

Because the copyright issue is a separate topic, it should probably be moved to its own thread. I've done some research trying to resolve the matter and the best solution seems to be purchasing a license through Christian Copyright Solutions. From what I've read this would grant the Church (at least in the United States) permission to play any song from the BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC catalogs. From what I can tell that's nearly any song one would want to play. Based on their licensing structure it would cost the entire church $2100 per year and all of the units in the US would be covered. (https://www.christiancopyrightsolutions ... ic-pricing) We've considered purchasing the 500-1999 option that covers our average attendance but haven't done it yet. Does anyone know if the Church has looked into any licensing solutions like this? I feel like this would be a good route to go.

bradhokanson wrote:@marvinc. getkahoot.com and kahoot.it were requested to be allowed in late November and are currently in the LDS Meetinghouse whitelist. If you have having issues, PM with specific details.

I noticed that Kahoot is now listed as a site to be blocked in meetinghouses. I was planning on using Kahoot at the end of the month and now I’m scrambling. Do you know if there’s a way to request a review on this game? Or do you know a reasonable (free) substitute that allows more than just a few participants?