Daniel Peterson wrote:Mister Scratch wrote:So, does the aptly named MADboard represent the "official" Mopologetic party line? Yes, it most certainly does.
How would one go about demonstrating such a thing?
And what, exactly, would it even mean?
That MA&D represents the official point of view of an organization called the Mopologetic Party?
It's easy enough to understand what an official statement of the Democratic Party, or of General Motors Corporation, or of the National Organization of Women would be. But it seems to me rather difficult to understand what might be meant by speaking of an "official party line" in a case where no office, organization, leadership, or coördination exists. Or are you perhaps suggesting that "Charity," "Confidential Informant," "urroner," "Bsix," the various "Julianns," and all of the other "Mopologists" have an editorial meeting each morning, perhaps by conference call, in order to formulate and unify their plans for the day's threads?
Actually, I don't think that's terribly far from the truth. My impression---verified in part by accounts from folks such as Liz and Kevin Graham among others---is that there is a good deal of communication (or "coordination", if you will) that takes place behind-the-scenes, via PMs or listserves and so forth. You are aware that there is a separate MAD forum which logs the activities of the moderators, right? And you are further aware that the MADmods surreptitiously monitor the posters' PMs, right?
But what about much more prominent "Mopologists," like John Welch, John Sorenson, David Paulsen, John Clark, Noel Reynolds, and the like, who never post on MA&D and very likely don't even know that it exists? How, precisely, does it represent them? Or do they, in fact, receive and follow the morning MA&D editorial directives, too?
My point is simply this: If one wants to know what the "current trends" are in Mopologetics---any, by extension, what some of the more crucial issues are that pertain to Mormonism---the MADboard represents the "official" views better than perhaps any other online source. As to your last paragraph, I just think you've got it backwards. The "more prominent 'Mopologists'" such as the folks you name might not participate on MAD, but if one wants to know about there work, MAD is probably the best place to begin one's investigation.