Researching published JW content is now hindered

by neat blue dog 9 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  neat blue dog

  The recent topic by ComingOutaMyCage about the amount of words published by JWs decreasing reminded me:

  JWs are now publishing more video content than printed content. All the printed content up until now has either officially or unofficially been made available in digital format with the ability to search for keywords, which removed a layer of control and allows us to instantly find any references to, say, 1975 or "this generation". But now with videos, it's a little harder to search for statements that didn't age well, unless it's something that's been widely publicized in the ex-JW community.

  For instance, if I search for statements on beards, I'll get the most recent WT that said beards are acceptable in some cultures but even then some will refrain.....but I won't be directed to the morning worship video where Stephen Lett brings it up. Now that videos are the majority of publicly published content, there's far less ability to catalog and search for things..... Especially things that we may not think to look for at the time but become relevant later. And as we know, JWdotORG has already for some years been in the practice of deleting videos from the website, such as the one with Jared Kushner.

  UNLESS the captions are archived. Many of the videos, not all but most I believe, have embedded subtitles that can be extracted to an SRT text file, which could theoretically be cataloged and searched. However this would be removed when re-rendered such as when uploading to YouTube. Has anyone undertaken such a thing?
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  neat blue dog

  Edit -

  I just want to correct myself: searching for "beard" DOES in fact bring up the aforementioned morning worship under videos, but the question remains about doing full uninhibited searches, or just keywords of THEIR choosing.
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  Beth Sarim

  ''JWs are now publishing more video content than printed content. All the printed content up until now has either officially or unofficially been made available in digital format with the ability to search for keywords, which removed a layer of control and allows us to instantly find any references to, say, 1975 or "this generation". But now with videos, it's a little harder to search for statements that didn't age well, unless it's something that's been widely publicized in the ex-JW community.''

  We're seeing the Borg continuously reinvent itself before our eyes.

  PIMI family seem unfazed. As the what the Borg says and it's past absurdities are it's own worst enemy.

  The Borg has no choice but to evolve this way.
  
  
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  dropoffyourkeylee

  I think it would be technologically possible to have a transcription of videos which could be included in search results, but I doubt anyone would take the trouble to do that.

  The video production vs printed production is a big reason the graph (which I have copied below) from COMC's previous post at https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5722021653118976/watchtower-has-fallen-from-700k-words-year-now-just-170k-words-year shows such a decline in the last 8-10 years. Honestly, you would probably see a similar pattern in news items, as newspapers and news magazines have slimmed down or discontinued entirely and everything has gone to video or online.

  I'm a little more curious as to why the graph shows such a great decline in the years '76 to '84, and then levelled off until about 2010. I was around at that time, and all I can think of is that they quit producing the 384 page books about then.

  
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  slimboyfat

  A reasonable hypothesis might be that they were a bit flummoxed what to write after the 1975 prediction failed, so they scaled back their output. Fred Franz in particular might have decreased his written output after 1975, due the failed prophecy and due to old age. Arguably Watchtower output stabilised from 1984 onward, just as their growth numbers began to tick up again, they adjusted following the prophecy failure, and writers such as Harry Peloyan, Lloyd Barry, and Jack Barr came to the fore.
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  neat blue dog

  It's funny how JWs try so hard to make sense of everything by looking at it from a "spiritual" perspective, but the history of the organization suddenly makes so much more sense when you look at it from a human perspective.
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  TonusOH

  The declines could be due to price changes in the materials they used to print books, or a change in policy regarding how long to make them. It would not surprise me if they just allowed certain writers (Rutherford and Franz come to mind) to write as much as they wanted and publish whatever they wrote. As more writers started to work on books and needed guidance, they would probably have come up with a set of rules, including how long to make any books (which would also make it easier to get the presses set up and any other machines configured).

  I like the thought that Franz was so humiliated by the 1975 failure that he lost a bit of the will to keep writing. But a guy in his position would have had an ego the size of the Sun. I doubt it bothered him to be so spectacularly wrong- he probably blamed Jehovah for welshing on a promise.
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  slimboyfat

  Good points. I’d give your post a thumbs up, if I could.

  It’s easier to identify pre-1975 books Franz wrote: Babylon The Great Has Fallen! is a good example.

  Post 1975 I suspect he wrote, or helped write the Trinity brochure and the Divine Name brochure. But I don’t know what apart from that. I think he became blind in the 1980s so that may have curtailed his writing too. The Survival book is in the mould of Franz with all the typologies but I think that is credited to someone else (forget who) that probably followed in Franz’s footsteps theologically.
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  slimboyfat

  I think it’s fair also to say the magazines were increasingly illustrated with photo and art illustrations over time. That may gave accelerated in the 1980s, perhaps also due to the technology of colour reproduction.

  The Watchtower Study articles certainly got less wordy along the way too. I know a sister whose nickname was “paragraph 29” because she was always late for the meeting. But study articles never run to 29 paragraphs any more.
• 

  Beth Sarim

  1971 'Aid to Bible Understanding'. Raymond Franz was deeply involved in this book.

  All those years I wondered ''what amazing waste of space'' on my shelf or 'what a waste of paper'.

  But it is truly worth it's weight in gold!!!!