Before L9 dropped, we were told FL was looking into denominational tags. Did that make it into L9?
Partially - see it partially implemented in the revised Commentary Section of the Passage Guide and in the Authors section of the Factbook denomination entry. It is in the code but tagging still needs to be completed. Pointing out errors in how a person is classified is very useful to Sean right now.
I think it's a difficult thing because authors can change their denomination over time. This means that something previously is written might be viewed differently if they change their denomination affiliation. Each book would need to be treated on its own rather than the author to be accurate. I am not sure what percentage of authors change denominations over time but I know it could cause an issue in tagging. I was curious if the possibility was taken into considerations. Perhaps it's such a low percentage that it is a non-issue
I think it's a difficult thing because authors can change their denomination over time.
Blair, you are too much like me. Get over it. [;)] Yes, you are absolutely correct. However, a group of users got together and classified a large number of authors to their satisfaction. They believed they had proven that it was possible. I thought they had proven what standards would satisfy them. Given the standards that it is appropriate to hold computer-generated, mid-range AI to, I believe you and I are right that there are authors who are difficult to impossible to classify and "they" are right that it can be done sufficiently well to be helpful and well-received.
Meanwhile I will consider the classification plight of 3 scholars who changed denominations after retirement in order to retire to the monastery of their choice.
Perhaps it's such a low percentage that it is a non-issue
I think it's worth thinking about.
Offhand I can think of G. K. Chesterton, St. John Henry Newman, Scott Hahn, C. S. Lewis, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, and Jaroslav Pelikan as well-known convert authors who FL carries. I know FL carries both pre- and post- conversion works from Chesterton, Newman, and Lewis; I believe there's one from Ware, and probably also some from Pelikan. I don't think Hahn published anything before his conversion. I'm pretty sure all of these are better known as members of their destination ecclesial community (respectively, Catholic, Catholic, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Orthodox) than wherever they were before (Anglican, Anglican, Presbyterian, atheist, Anglican, Lutheran), and the only one I'd potentially flag as it mattering that his pre-conversion work be findable according to his pre-conversion label is St. John Henry Newman, but, realistically, you can't look all that much at 19th century Anglicanism without running into him in short order, so it's not a big deal from my perspective.
We're very grateful for the work of the forum users who contributed a lot of data on authors and their denominational associations.
In addition to MJ's point about grouping commentaries, we now have Factbook pages for a large number of denominations (specific organizations) and denomination groups (less formal groupings of affiliated denominations, like Baptists and Methodism). We've also built a fair amount of hierarchical organization of denominations and denomination groups: currently the See Also section of a denomination group shows links to the narrower specific denominations, and when breadcrumbs are added (coming soon), you'll be able to go the other direction, from a specific denomination to its broader denomination group. As MJ suggests, we're still both correcting and adding denominational affiliations for authors. Like everything else in Factbook, this will be ongoing work for the foreseeable future: Factbook really won't ever be "done" because we keep adding resources, authors, new connections between data, etc.
We're also adding subject references to resources to indicate book-level primary subjects: so for my library the Factbook page for Baptists shows a few resources under Books from Your Library that are broadly about the Baptists. We still have a lot more annotation to do here, but these new denomination concepts will be used for subject references to help in discovering new content.
It's a good thing I'm not an author, because I've gone through at least four denominations in my lifetime: was baptized in an Episcopalian church, raised in a Congregational church, made my first adult decision to join a church in a Presbyterian church, attended a transdenominational seminary with Baptists, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Reformed leaning Catholic, Christian & Missionary Alliance, and a Mennonite on the faculty (and probably others I'm forgetting), and am now a Mennonite/Anabaptist with an appreciation for the good things that many other traditions have contributed to my ecumenical faith. I think it's important to be deeply rooted and grounded in one particular tradition that you worship in, but be able to dialogue freely with and learn from others, and not necessarily limit your viewpoints to just the statement of faith of your particular denomination. Some denominations are less doctrinaire anyway and encompass people with a variety of beliefs on certain points of theology. John Stott, for example, was an Anglican Evangelical all his life, but admitted some agnosticism about his belief on hell as a perpetual state of torment, allowing for the possibility of annihilationism.
