Comments on: Your Friday Firestorm: Analysis #1

By: Ziff

Ziff — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:03:37 +0000

Steve, I’ve loved this series, and have to agree with Ann that I would like to see it continue. How about Saturday Smackdowns next?

That said, I love to see more stats about comment counts and such being thrown around. Cynthia (#9), great analysis! I agree that it’s surprising that the New Testament supplied so many. I would have guessed that the D&C alone would supply enough controversial topics for several years’ worth of firestorms. And isn’t it fortunate that with ongoing council, there’s always new firestorm fodder available? :)

By: StillConfused

StillConfused — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:50:50 +0000

Discussing Friday Firestorms? You tease!!!!

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:04:17 +0000

Is this going to be the Brett Favre of blog series? Wait, that would mean it would have to continue on another blog. Never mind.

By: Bro. Jones

Bro. Jones — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:16:56 +0000

I would certainly love to see more firestorms, and more “You Make the Call” too! I never get to have these kinds of discussions at church, and rarely even among friends, so the bloggernaccle serves a great purpose for me in this regard.

By: Rick Grunder

Rick Grunder — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:56:56 +0000

I’m a hard one to impress, and I too often think I know things, but John Hamer’s Anthon transcript scenario (#7) just took my breath away. Stunning. And thanks for the excellent follow-up observation, Kari (#11)! Wait . . . today is 7/11 . . . even better.

By: Ann

Ann — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:15:13 +0000

Maybe YFF will be like Doctor Who, with a gap of 20 years between new episodes (not counting the YFF movie, which will garner disappointingly low ratings). An avid fan base whose passion and persistence in the face of a soulless, bureaucratic network/blog win the hearts and minds of a new generation of producers/blog admins, who reintroduce YFF to top ratings and excellent reviews.

By: SteveS

SteveS — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:52:39 +0000

Eric Russell (#10): You’re probably trying to be cute with your jumping the shark comment, but clearly when YFF #52 garners the greatest number of comments, it clearly *hasn’t* jumped any aquatic animal yet. I would be interested in seeing more firestorms in the future.

By: Kari

Kari — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:25:39 +0000

John says (to revive FF #36) -

Therefore references in the Book of Mormon to “the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2) and “reformed Egyptian” (Mormon 9:32) were written down after Anthon told Harris that some of the BoM Caractors resembled Egyptian writing. I don’t think there’s any idea in the minds of Joseph Smith or Martin Harris that the Caractors were Egyptian until after Anthon told Harris that some of them resembled Egyptian writing.

I like your scenario John. Don’t forget that Mormon 9:32 and 1 Ne 1:2 are pretty close together in the chronology of translation, with 1 Ne being written down after Mormon. Thus allowing two verses, separated in Josephs consciousness by a couple weeks, to be separated by a millennium in BoM chronology. With this period of translation being a year or so after Harris visited Anton.

By: Eric Russell

Eric Russell — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:51:08 +0000

FF jumped the shark back in week 5.

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:33:19 +0000

Steve, with this little analysis per post, it’s going to take you 52 YFF analysis posts to tell the whole story! (or is that the point? :-) ) Where are the graphs? Where are the standard deviations?

Here’s some Excel data to get you started:

	OT	NT	PGP/JSH	D&C	BoM	Other
Count	11	12	4	8	10	7
#comments:
Average 83.64	56.08	42.5	104.25	95.3	150.71
Median	72	55	39.5	99.5	75.5	155
Stdev	43.4	14.82	11.15	60.71	56.1	45.55

“Other” consists of contemporary GA quotes (Ensign, general conference).

I’m surprised that NT was the most fertile territory in terms of number of YFFs. Contemporary GAs handily defeat all when it comes to controversy, it seems.

–sister blah 2