DP:Yes. Only a small handful, but a few. I regret it, but I understand.
TS: I invited a friend of mine to submit a testimony, but his career is at an important crossroads right now and he passed. For now. He indicated he would like to participate in the future. However, right at this moment he is hesitant to put anything else about himself out there, and he fears something like this would be problematic for those who have say in the next step of his career.
Generally speaking, has anyone submitted a testimony whom you would prefer not be listed? Could such a thing happen, and by what criteria?
DP: It hasn't happened yet. I'm pretty accepting of different kinds of testimonies.
But I won't permit the site to be used as a platform from which to criticize the leadership of the Church or to attack mainstream Mormon beliefs.
Does the LDS Church have any formal connection to the website?
DP:None whatever.
Do you have any plans to expand the site to include, for example, bibliographic (i.e.. not only does Professor Schmo write about particle physics, he also has an article on creation from an LDS perspective), audio, or other explicitly LDS materials by these academics, beyond their testimonies?
DP:Thus far, I've allowed people to put into their biographies whatever they've wanted. But I may well choose to move in the direction you mention.
TS: It's not a bad idea. We hope to continue to add testimonies, but that is the extent of it. However, hopefully other groups (say, athletes or some other category) will create their own sites and add to the testimonies out there. There are faithful members of the Church all over the spectrum of professions, and it would be wonderful to read more testimonies.
MST has been mentioned many places in the online LDS world, such as LDS blogs and websites. Has it been picked up by non-LDS websites, or mainstream media?
DP:Not that I'm aware of. But I'm not really looking for that.
What kind of traffic does it get?
DP:I think Scott or Tanya would be better suited to answer that question.
TS: Scott would know exactly how much. I know the couple of times he emailed the stats I was very impressed.
SG: In the last month, we had over 4000 visitors, who spent about four minutes each on the site.
Thanks to Scott, Tanya, and Dan for answering these questions about MormonScholarsTestify.org If you'd like to participate, send them an email.
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