Tech Forum

OnMyMission wrote:I actually coded up most of the site to support 'paid' pages, I just didnt know how much interest there would be. Sounds like I need to work more on that! What would you pay for unlimited pages, photos and other data?

Keep it for free if possible and therefore let the biggest amount of people benefit from it. But thats just my personal opinion. I think there are more benefits and blessings to find as it serves to inspire others.

RussellHltn wrote:Along the lines of mkmurray's comments. We're OK with the site as-is, even with some advertising.

But if it becomes a commercial $ite, then the welcome mat starts getting rolled up. If you want to explore the gray areas, I'd suggest PMing Tomw to discuss it.

Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is so taboo to discuss anything of commercial nature on these forums. I mean, as long a there is no direct solicitation, what's the harm in asking what kind of market might exist for a certain product or what price points may work. If the church wants to encourage people to build useful and awesome apps, like OnMyMission.com, then shunning anyone who tries to build something commercial seems counterproductive.

douglas.a.hatch wrote:Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is so taboo to discuss anything of commercial nature on these forums. I mean, as long a there is no direct solicitation, what's the harm in asking what kind of market might exist for a certain product or what price points may work. If the church wants to encourage people to build useful and awesome apps, like OnMyMission.com, then shunning anyone who tries to build something commercial seems counterproductive.

The Church is a non-profit, tax exempt organization. To avoid placing that at risk, the Code of Conduct and the Terms of Useincorporate rules to protect that status. Anyone registering to use these forums agrees to abide by those standards. You may want to review those standards since your questions are answered there. If you have any further questions regarding these standards, please direct them to Tom Welch, Church Technology Commmunity Manager and forums administrator, in a private message.

jdlessley wrote:The Church is a non-profit, tax exempt organization. To avoid placing that at risk, the Code of Conduct and the Terms of Useincorporate rules to protect that status. Anyone registering to use these forums agrees to abide by those standards. You may want to review those standards since your questions are answered there. If you have any further questions regarding these standards, please direct them to Tom Welch, Church Technology Commmunity Manager and forums administrator, in a private message.

I see the following in the code of conduct:

You agree not to post (d) any advertisements, solicitations, chain letters, pyramid schemes, investment opportunities, or other unsolicited commercial communication;

Seems like this would be aimed at preventing the kind stock pumping spam you get on Yahoo Finance--not necessarily preventing any discussion of commercial products. Am I wrong? Is this really an issue of the church's tax exempt status? That just seems a little far-fetched to me. But I'm no lawyer.

Just a FYI on what the missionary Handbook says today:

You may communicate with your family and mission president by e-mail, according to approved guidelines. Use only MyLDSMAIL.net, the filtered service established by the Church. Do not use any other e-mail service or any other Internet service or site that has not been authorized.

...

As your call letter states, you are "expected to devote all your time and ateention to serving the Lord, leaving behind all other personal affairs." Do not become preoccupied with communicating with family and friends.

So - unless mission president approves such usage, then such site, would encourage missionaries to be disobedient to mission rules. If they have to access it themselves.

Work around it, and let the missionary sent a email (as someone stated before here), to the web site, and let parents set it up?.

Just a FYI

douglas.a.hatch wrote:Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is so taboo to discuss anything of commercial nature on these forums.

Well, the last instruction we got was against things commercial. If you want to flesh out that boundary, then I suggest you PM Tom. The rest of us all answer to him, and I think you'll find he's the most open to the idea.

A PM to Tom will have a better chance of success than a public discussion. And that’s not a brush-off. That really is the best channel to get what you want.

zabaki wrote:Just a FYI on what the missionary Handbook says today:
So - unless mission president approves such usage, then such site, would encourage missionaries to be disobedient to mission rules. If they have to access it themselves.

Work around it, and let the missionary sent a email (as someone stated before here), to the web site, and let parents set it up?.

Just a FYI

The site is definitely not for missionaries to use themselves while on their mission. I try to reinforce this with the verbiage I use on the site. You should create a website FOR YOUR missionary.

The missionary will have the ability to CC us any emails they send home to their parents and we will automatically post the text and also any photos that are attached to their website.

The site also lets the page owner (usually a parent or friend) to grant other family and friends 'editor' permissions so that multiple people can upload and moderate content on the pages.

I wanted to thank those that have been sending me PMs with bugs or other suggestions.

Specifically, macsense and a few others found a couple of issues when creating new missionary websites.
Those issues should be resolved now. I deployed a new version this morning with a bunch of fixes and UI cleanup!