Is the Maxwell Inst. "Mothballing" the Mopologists' Work?
Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 3:03 am
It would seem that the Mopologists, at least the ones over at "Sic et Non," are in a state of near panic. In a moment that seems to echo something that wound up making my annual "Top Ten" list in 2013, the Mopologists are concerned about a move that the Maxwell Institute is making.
So.... The idea is that the publications are simply moving to a more permanent site? And this is a problem why exactly? Peterson continues:
Now, web programming and things in that vein are, admittedly, not my speciality. Nonetheless, as a layperson, I am wondering about the complaints here: is the issue simply that links that people have bookmarked will no longer work, and that people will now have to locate this old Mopologetic articles via different means--such as a burdensome Google search? (And is it really true that the material will be "more difficult to find"?)
In any case, this is DCP's closing remark:
Huh. I am not quite sure what to make of this, and I am hoping that someone with a deeper understanding of search engine algorithms and that sort of thing might weigh in. Based on what Peterson and the Mopologists are saying, this would appear to be a deliberate attempt to "suppress" Mopologetic materials. (I can't help but snicker. Weren't the Mopologists just flipping out over accusations that Joseph Fielding Smith "suppressed" historical information about the First Vision? Maybe Blair Hodges and his colleagues at the MI should just copy-and-paste the things that Kiwi, DCP, et al. were saying, eh?) Is that true, though? You'll notice that Dr. Peterson referenced the MI's Twitter feed as a source of information, and indeed, there is a tweet confirming the "update" to the website: the MI's position is that this is simply a tech-driven move, meant to archive all the publications in a more permanent place. Which version is correct? Like I said: I'm not in a position to know. (However, I will note that there is something hilariously ironic that "Sic et Non" is complaining about the Maxwell Institute "breaking links" when he himself consistently fails to provide links that would support his various smears, attacks, and gossip mongering aimed at, e.g., MormonDiscussions.com, or the MI, for that matter. He himself deliberately makes it difficult to examine evidence related to his (generally false or exaggerated) accusations. And like I said, he did not provide a link to the MI's Twitter feed. How funny is it that he would complain that the MI doesn't supply clear links to their "cesspool of hatred" articles when he won't supply links here for the same alleged reason?)
As you can imagine, the "Comments" are every bit as juicy as you might have anticipated:
Meaning, in other words, that the Mopologists assumed all along that the Maxwell Institute would attempt a sort of "cyber book-burning." My God: how is it that they hold their fellow Latter-day Saints in such horrible, low regard?
Interestingly, one commenter raises the very point I made up above:
Well, I *think* it's interesting: I'm not sure what s/he means by "spreading their access" when referring to "pulping hard copies." What, should the MI have loaded them all onto a plane and then gone dropping them all across the Utah? As for the "changing the Internet address".... Well, I don't know. As I imagine is the case for most people, Google does a fine job of helping me to find whatever I'm looking for. Will this move interfere with Google's ability to locate documents? That *does* seem to be the basic allegation. If it's true, well...That's certainly saying something. Though if it *is* true, you have to wonder if it was sanctioned by the Brethren. If it was not, then, yes: I would agree that the Mopologists are right and the Maxwell Institute is trying to "suppress" their old garbage. If it *was* sanctioned by the Apostles, then this is an incredible blow to the face of Mopologetics--far, far worse than whatever "spanking" that Midgley imagines was delivered to the MI by Holland. (And an incredibly bold move--if you subscribe to that view--for a recently "scolded" MI to then challenge apostolic directive by "breaking" these links.) And, of course, it could be the case that this is simply conspiratorial smearing on the part of "SeN' and the Mopologists. That remains to be seen.
In the meantime, there is this from Midgley:
Ah, boy. Not good. So Midgley is saying that the BYU library's archival system is *so good*, so obvious, and so freely available, that Mark A. Scherer is clearly an anti-Mormon because "he simply ignores both the relevant materials published on the Book of Mormon during Joseph Smith's lifetime"--materials which, from what I can gather, are archived at the BYU library website: the same place where the old FARMS stuff is going to go. I don't know what to make of Midgley's tangent about the Community of Christ and its funding situation. Midgley circles back around to the main point at the end of his post, but the argument is considerably weaker: "The problem is that doing this breaks all previous electronic links to those materials." Well, if the tradeoff is a more permanent and reliable archive, then what is the "problem"?
When the original, old copies of the FARMS Review were "pulped" back in 2013, I thought it was useful to view the act as a kind of "burning an effigy," and it seems to me that the Mopologists are attempting to adopt that viewpoint themselves this time around. I dunno: I'm glad to look at additional evidence, but based on what I can see, this seems like simple pettiness on the part of DCP and the MI crew. Just look at this remark from Laralee Nelson, normally a strong supporter of "SeN":
Again, I'm left to wonder what the problem is here, exactly. Is there legitimate "suppression" going on in a corner of Mormonism? Or, instead, is this just them attempting to put a negative spin on something?
* * * * *
As a point of trivia: it appears that, despite John Gee's departure--along with the moving of the Gay Research Professor Chair--the Maxwell Institute still got to keep its funded slot for its "Senior Research Fellow." And guess who it is? Teryl Givens! Wow: they replaced Gee with Givens! What an incredible coup for the MI! (And I bet Givens's compensation is considerable.)
**I owe a debt of thanks to an anonymous "informant" who kindly lent the descriptor "mothballed" to my analysis.
Sic et Non wrote:I haven’t yet had the time to look myself, but I’ve received reports and/or expressions of concern from several persons about a new development regarding the website of BYU’s Maxwell Institute.
It seems that the Maxwell Institute’s website has been down for a few days — which represents a disaster for search engine visibility and for those who link to the historic apologetics material there. A friend tells me that a big new update is supposed to come out next week, but he wonders why they can’t do an update without shutting the site down for days at a time. “But most critically,” he asks, “will there be anything left of the apologetics material?” One report says that, if somebody is looking for the publications archive, it can be accessed at https://scholarsarchive.BYU.edu/. Apparently, the Maxwell Institute has consolidated with Scholars Archive by making them the permanent host of its catalog, supposedly at the invitation of BYU and the Harold B. Lee Library, who will be hosting the Maxwell Institute’s publication library in the future.
So.... The idea is that the publications are simply moving to a more permanent site? And this is a problem why exactly? Peterson continues:
It seems that MI_BYU has now confirmed via Twitter that all links to historic materials at mi.BYU.edu will be broken, which, says one such webmaster, is “a devastating blow to webmasters who have relied on their information.” “Is this,” he asks, “an update or a purge?”
One observer estimates that this may be the fifth time — at least — over the past dozen years that all Maxwell Institute links have been broken in a site “update,” which, he remarks, causes “great grief to users of their material and [makes] valuable materials more and more difficult to find due to lost SEO rankings and visibility.” “Those who used that material like me will be punished with hundreds of dead links that hurt the SEO scores of users. How can they do this again? So troubling.”
A different person responds: “Yes. It is very frustrating. I wish they would drop the pretenses at maintaining any continuity with the former NAMI and just change their name.”
Now, web programming and things in that vein are, admittedly, not my speciality. Nonetheless, as a layperson, I am wondering about the complaints here: is the issue simply that links that people have bookmarked will no longer work, and that people will now have to locate this old Mopologetic articles via different means--such as a burdensome Google search? (And is it really true that the material will be "more difficult to find"?)
In any case, this is DCP's closing remark:
Daniel Peterson wrote:Well, I’m hoping that all of these valuable materials won’t simply be lost. That would be an offense against the authors and a real disservice to those who have found these materials helpful or might have done so in the future.
I’ll try to find out more about what’s happening when I get back to the States.
Huh. I am not quite sure what to make of this, and I am hoping that someone with a deeper understanding of search engine algorithms and that sort of thing might weigh in. Based on what Peterson and the Mopologists are saying, this would appear to be a deliberate attempt to "suppress" Mopologetic materials. (I can't help but snicker. Weren't the Mopologists just flipping out over accusations that Joseph Fielding Smith "suppressed" historical information about the First Vision? Maybe Blair Hodges and his colleagues at the MI should just copy-and-paste the things that Kiwi, DCP, et al. were saying, eh?) Is that true, though? You'll notice that Dr. Peterson referenced the MI's Twitter feed as a source of information, and indeed, there is a tweet confirming the "update" to the website: the MI's position is that this is simply a tech-driven move, meant to archive all the publications in a more permanent place. Which version is correct? Like I said: I'm not in a position to know. (However, I will note that there is something hilariously ironic that "Sic et Non" is complaining about the Maxwell Institute "breaking links" when he himself consistently fails to provide links that would support his various smears, attacks, and gossip mongering aimed at, e.g., MormonDiscussions.com, or the MI, for that matter. He himself deliberately makes it difficult to examine evidence related to his (generally false or exaggerated) accusations. And like I said, he did not provide a link to the MI's Twitter feed. How funny is it that he would complain that the MI doesn't supply clear links to their "cesspool of hatred" articles when he won't supply links here for the same alleged reason?)
As you can imagine, the "Comments" are every bit as juicy as you might have anticipated:
Louis Midgley wrote:There are, of course, several full copies that have been made of what they previously maintained. These were made to preserve electronic access to all those publications just in case someone decided to just pull the plug. One should also be aware that suddenly the decision was made to pulp all the remained hard copies held by the Maxwell Institute. They would not give them away or sell them. The excuse was that they had no room to store unsold copies.
Meaning, in other words, that the Mopologists assumed all along that the Maxwell Institute would attempt a sort of "cyber book-burning." My God: how is it that they hold their fellow Latter-day Saints in such horrible, low regard?
Interestingly, one commenter raises the very point I made up above:
B. Wilson wrote:Over the last several weeks, many have made negative comments about Joseph Fielding Smith claiming that he hid information from members of the church, information that would lead them to rightly doubt their testimonies. There seems to be a strong positive correlation between these critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and those who glory in Dan's removal from the Maxwell Institute. Shouldn't these individuals criticize the Maxwell Institute for pulping hard copies rather than spreading their access, and frequently changing the Internet address of papers?
Well, I *think* it's interesting: I'm not sure what s/he means by "spreading their access" when referring to "pulping hard copies." What, should the MI have loaded them all onto a plane and then gone dropping them all across the Utah? As for the "changing the Internet address".... Well, I don't know. As I imagine is the case for most people, Google does a fine job of helping me to find whatever I'm looking for. Will this move interfere with Google's ability to locate documents? That *does* seem to be the basic allegation. If it's true, well...That's certainly saying something. Though if it *is* true, you have to wonder if it was sanctioned by the Brethren. If it was not, then, yes: I would agree that the Mopologists are right and the Maxwell Institute is trying to "suppress" their old garbage. If it *was* sanctioned by the Apostles, then this is an incredible blow to the face of Mopologetics--far, far worse than whatever "spanking" that Midgley imagines was delivered to the MI by Holland. (And an incredibly bold move--if you subscribe to that view--for a recently "scolded" MI to then challenge apostolic directive by "breaking" these links.) And, of course, it could be the case that this is simply conspiratorial smearing on the part of "SeN' and the Mopologists. That remains to be seen.
In the meantime, there is this from Midgley:
Louis Midgley wrote:The BYU Library not only collects and stores books, but it also maintains at least several electronic collections. For example, back in 1998 I got the idea of updating the remarkably useful collection of essays made by Francis Kirkham of what he could find in the 1940s of newspaper account of Joseph Smith. He assembled less than fifty of these in his various editions of New Witness for Christ in America. I just started that project when my wife and I were called to serve as Latter-day Saint missionaries in Aotearoa/New Zealand. So the word on what we called the Kirkham Project was turned over to Matt Roper. When he was trough with his exhaustive collection he had something like five hundred items on the Book of Mormon written by critics and by Latter-day Saints.
This would have been a long series of volumes, so it was decided to reproduce it electronically. It contains the best possible of these items currently available, and also an exact transcription. It very much resembles the Joseph Smith Papers project, except that it is not heavily annotated. The entire collection can easily be searched. No one seriously proposing an explanation of the Book of Mormon must consult all of this collection.
Hence, when Mark A. Scherer, in the first of his massive three volume The Journey of a People (Independence: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2013) argued that the Book of Mormon was fiction fashioned by Joseph Smith out of 19th century materials available to him, he simply ignores both the relevant materials published on the Book of Mormon during Joseph Smith's lifetime. Please note that Scherer was the Community of Christ Church Historian until he published the last of his massive three volume history. The office of Church Historian no longer exists in the Community of Christ because they have no funds to pay anyone. And they have also closed their own archive in their Temple in Independence.
But there is more. Dale E. Luffman, once an Apostle for the RLDS/Community of Christ, published a book entitled The Book of Mormon's Witness to Its First Readers (Independence: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2013), in which he consults none of what was published on the Book of Mormon during Joseph Smith's lifetime. But there is even more. Alan D. Tyree, also a former RLDS Apostle (1978-1992), published a book entitled Millions Call It Scripture: The Book of Mormon in the 21st Century (Independence: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2013), which shows no familiarity with the primary source materials published during Joseph Smith's lifetime.
My point is that the Kirkham Project is very important. Instead of publishing many volumes, the decision was made to make this collection available through a server maintained by the BYU Library. The current executive director of the Maxwell Institute seems to have chosen to shift at least most of those materials published by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and also the Maxwell Institute, at least prior to the meltdown and the change of directions, to the BYU Library server. The problem is that doing this breaks all previous electronic links to those materials.
Ah, boy. Not good. So Midgley is saying that the BYU library's archival system is *so good*, so obvious, and so freely available, that Mark A. Scherer is clearly an anti-Mormon because "he simply ignores both the relevant materials published on the Book of Mormon during Joseph Smith's lifetime"--materials which, from what I can gather, are archived at the BYU library website: the same place where the old FARMS stuff is going to go. I don't know what to make of Midgley's tangent about the Community of Christ and its funding situation. Midgley circles back around to the main point at the end of his post, but the argument is considerably weaker: "The problem is that doing this breaks all previous electronic links to those materials." Well, if the tradeoff is a more permanent and reliable archive, then what is the "problem"?
When the original, old copies of the FARMS Review were "pulped" back in 2013, I thought it was useful to view the act as a kind of "burning an effigy," and it seems to me that the Mopologists are attempting to adopt that viewpoint themselves this time around. I dunno: I'm glad to look at additional evidence, but based on what I can see, this seems like simple pettiness on the part of DCP and the MI crew. Just look at this remark from Laralee Nelson, normally a strong supporter of "SeN":
Libraries, by virtue of their preservation mandate, are usually pretty good about keeping hold of materials, both digital and physical. The BYU library, at least when I was in school there and working at the library, was very good at that mission. It's also likely that the URLs will be much more permanent as a part of the library than they have been prior to this time. Sometimes they can do redirects so old links will go to the new site, but that depends a lot on conditions beyond the library.
Again, I'm left to wonder what the problem is here, exactly. Is there legitimate "suppression" going on in a corner of Mormonism? Or, instead, is this just them attempting to put a negative spin on something?
* * * * *
As a point of trivia: it appears that, despite John Gee's departure--along with the moving of the Gay Research Professor Chair--the Maxwell Institute still got to keep its funded slot for its "Senior Research Fellow." And guess who it is? Teryl Givens! Wow: they replaced Gee with Givens! What an incredible coup for the MI! (And I bet Givens's compensation is considerable.)
**I owe a debt of thanks to an anonymous "informant" who kindly lent the descriptor "mothballed" to my analysis.