Why two forums for Family History?

I am still trying to get the lay of the land and wonder why there are two separate forums covering Family History Center issues? There is this one and https://www.familysearch.org/learn/forums/en/index.php

Both seem to cover technical aspects of the calling. I do notice that the other forum is labeled "beta" and that the host which must be a different host than this forum, seems to be having issues at the moment.

barryhill wrote:I am still trying to get the lay of the land and wonder why there are two seperate forums for Family History, this one and https://www.familysearch.org/learn/forums/en/index.php

Both seem to cover technical aspects of the calling.

The forum you linked to (I'll call it the FHD forum) is sponsored by the Family History Department and so is more likely to have participation from people directly linked to that department.

Back when the LDSTech forum started (late 2006), the FHD forum was not very active and was limited to discussions of research topics -- they didn't accept discussions of actual products. So this forum on LDSTech filled a need that wasn't met at that time. But now the FHD forum covers a broad range of topics and is has a much higher level of participation by the genealogy community than does this little part of LDSTech.

For most issues related to family history work, the FH department's forum is your best source of information. For issues related to clerks (such as how current membership records interact with New FamilySearch, or LDSAccount registration problems), you might get better answers here on LDSTech. But for everything else I'd recommend the FHD forum.

barryhill wrote:I do notice that the other forum is labeled "beta" and that the host which must be a different host than this forum, seems to be having issues at the moment.

The FHD forum is hosted on Amazon EC2, which is currently having some problems. But I'm sure those will be repaired soon. That forum (which is based on vBulletin, just like LDSTech) has been through an upgrade recently. The information is not in beta, but the forum software is still settling down, so I imagine that is the reason for the "beta" label.

aebrown,

Thanks once again for a clear concise explanation. You and the other regulars on here make this an extremely valuable service to members trying to juggle callings.

Barry

barryhill wrote:I am still trying to get the lay of the land and wonder why there are two separate forums covering Family History Center issues?

Good questions. The Family History sections were added quite some time ago, apparently in expectation of something. Judging by the section names, I think the intent was topics on software development for Family History rather then Family History itself. Those conversations must be taking place somewhere, but apparently it's not happening here.

RussellHltn wrote:Good questions. The Family History sections were added quite some time ago, apparently in expectation of something. Judging by the section names, I think the intent was topics on software development for Family History rather then Family History itself. Those conversations must be taking place somewhere, but apparently it's not happening here.

Discussions regarding third-party development for FamilySearch take place at the FamilySearch Developer Network (FSDN). I don't see any reason for such discussions to occur on LDSTech.

I would think that this forum can still be useful for things that might be needed for family history that FamilySearch has not thought of yet, while the forums.familysearch.org site can be for products already out, such as nFS, the Indexing program, the wiki, the overall site, etc.

So there will be a need for this forum, it may be time though to rewrite the description to indicate the difference between what goes on FamilySearch Forums, and the ongoing development of new ideas that I could see coming from LDS Tech.

PS: Looks like the forums over on FamilySearch may be live again, saw them this morning before going in for my meetings today.