From time to time questions are raised about this site, and this page addresses some of them. The current questions that have answers on this page include the following…

1. Is this an official website for Jehovah’s Witnesses?
2. When did this site get started?
3. Why did this site go from being a rather private and secret site to a quite public one?
4. Who can comment on news/blog entries?
5. Who can participate in the discussion forum?
6. Who can sign up to receive the daily bible text?
7. Is the Branch, a Branch, or the religions leadership aware of this site?
8. Are the elder’s in your congregation aware of this site?
9. Have you ever been contacted by the Branch regarding this site?
10. Do you think the Branch approves of this site?
11. What happened to the recorded talks that forum members were able to download?
12. Is there prepared study material available on this site that I can download and use?
13. If you were contacted by the Branch to stop the daily text emails, what would you do?
14. What if the Branch started doing Daily Text emails themselves?
15. If you were contacted by the Branch to take down this site, what would you do?
16. Your answers to questions 13 and 15 bother me, what should I do?

1. Is this an official website for Jehovah’s Witnesses?

No, this is not. This is a mere hobby site started by one particular Witness, and now maintained by a few others. The official websites for Jehovah’s Witnesses are linked to in the masthead at the top of the page.

2. When did this site get started?

This domain name was registered in mid 2006. The discussion group existed before then. JWTalk had been just a private discussion forum until 2010 when the public news blog was added.

There are only a few discussion forums out there on the internet that are “safe”, positive, and upbuilding for Witnesses, and they are difficult to find. Then there are a some email mailing lists for Witnesses, and while they are well moderated, what happens is that apostates or opposers also join the list, not to try and post ill messages to it, but to sit back and harvest email addresses so they can send out there misleading garbage to you ‘at more convenient time’.

JWTalk Forums is a discussion board with the option to participate through email via a corresponding mailing list hosted at Google Groups. Email addresses are NEVER shown to anyone. When mailing list participants post or reply to a topic, our software strips there email address and replaces it with out own before sending the message back to the mailing list.

Giving your email address to other members is discouraged. There is an internal private messaging system. Anyone abusing it to send harmful messages to a single individual will be banned. Anyone posting harmful material to the group will be banned.

The decision to start the news blog portion of the site came later, and is explained below. Brothers and sisters forward links to news articles among each other all the time. The news blog just collects them and posts them publicly.

3. Why did this site go from being a rather private and secret site to a quite public one?

For a number of reasons. For starters, in summer of 2010 the link to the private members only discussion forum, which had remained a secret for several years, somehow got indexed in Google and Bing. In addition, members continually lost the link to the members only area. The news blog portion of this site had been an idea tossed around for a while, and after being ‘exposed’, we decided to implement it.

4. Who can comment on news/blog entries?

Anybody. You do not have to register to comment on an article. However, if you do register, you can choose to get emailed when new articles get posted. All comments are held in queue until a moderator has read and approved it. Not all comments will be approved. Discussions are not permitted in the comments. Discussions about articles must be done in the discussion forum.

5. Who can participate in the discussion forum?

Any publisher whose membership is approved. Membership is primarily by referral only. There is a ‘Refer a Friend’ forum inside the discussion forum that members use to refer others. People who try to register for membership without having received an email invitation generated by our internal ‘Refer a Friend’ form will experience longer than usual delays.

All referrals are contacted to verify that they did indeed refer you to the discussion forum before you are permitted to read and participate. If you apply for membership and the person you put down as your referrer says that they did not refer you, you will be denied and banned, because this means you are a dishonest person (Hebrews 13:18).

Those who apply for membership and leave the referral field blank will be handled on a case by case basis. You will have to provide evidence that you are who you say you are, and then some.

6. Who can sign up to receive the daily bible text via email?

Anybody. God’s Word is public. The accompanying comments are not entire articles, but snippets that, as far as it seems to us, should fall within Fair Use Laws.

7. Is the Branch, a Branch, or the religions leadership aware of this site?

We would think so. We’ve only been linking to the official sites for 4+ years. Almost everyone checks their server logs to see where the incoming traffic is coming from.

8. Are the elder’s in your congregation aware of this site?

A few of them, yes.

9. Have you ever been contacted by the Branch regarding this site?

Nope.

10. Do you think the Branch approves of this site?

Of course not. They can only approve of their own sites. This does not mean that they disapprove either.

Notice this reference…

*** km 9/02 p. 8 par. 6 Avoid the Pursuit of “Valueless Things” ***
Internet Web Sites: We have an official Internet Web site: www.watchtower.org. This site is adequate to make information available to the public. There is no need for any individual, committee, or congregation to prepare a Web page about Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some have posted the contents of our publications with all scriptures and references given in full and have even offered copies of convention material on a donation basis. Whether profit is involved or not, the practice of reproducing and distributing publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses in an electronic document is a violation of copyright laws. While some may view this as a service to the brothers, it is not approved and should be discontinued.

Let’s break this down…

“There is no need for any individual, committee, or congregation to prepare a Web page about Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

This is not a web page about Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is a collection of news articles or links to news articles about Jehovah’s Witnesses that can be found elsewhere on the internet. Posting them here makes it possible to share the information with others, as well as comment on them without having to read all the nasty hate filled comments that are usually found at the articles source(s). Articles are either compiled from various source by a volunteer, or are copied with permission from the original journalist or news source.

“Some have posted the contents of our publications with all scriptures and references given in full and have even offered copies of convention material on a donation basis.”

The contents of our publications cannot be found on this site, neither is study material made publicly available on this site. No recordings of conventions or assemblies are posted to the public or to the forum. This site is a hobby site, and costs nearly nothing to run, and no donations are asked for. In fact, we are greatly irritated by the amount of other “Witness friendly” sites that are on the internet that do ask for donations. We have no Twinkie habit to support, so please give generously to your congregation and to the worldwide work.

Whether profit is involved or not, the practice of reproducing and distributing publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses in an electronic document is a violation of copyright laws.

And again, entire publications nor even entire articles are distributed on this site. Members of the private discussion forum are not permitted to post publications nor articles in their entirety either.

But what about the warnings such as those mentioned in the km 7/07 p. 3 Question Box article entitle What are the dangers of using the Internet to associate with someone we do not know? (please read this article using your WTLIB CD as well as other similar articles).

Such cautionary statements published by the faithful and discreet slave are valid and necessary, and each person needs to meditate on the contents of those articles and make their own conscience decision. While every effort is made to ensure the discussion forum remains a safe place to associate online, there can be no guarantees that people will not post offensive material from time to time. In the period from 2007 to 2010, it has happened twice, and both users have been banned. Likewise, even when we have permission to reprint an article, we are required to link to the article source. Often times the comments appearing at the end of these articles contain offensive content, typically from apostates and opposers. This is one reason why the public news page was started here, so brothers and sisters could read an article without having to see the discouraging comments or advertisements that come along with it.

11. What happened to the recorded talks that forum members were able to download?

Please see the Question Box in the April 2010 Our Kingdom Ministry. The library index of recorded talks is no longer visible to members, and the forum that used to be dedicated to exchanging recorded talks has been deleted.

12. Is there prepared study material available on this site that I can download and use?

Nope. Our study material IS our literature. Make good and regular use of it.

13. If you were contacted by the Branch to stop the daily text emails, what would you do?

Although we do not see the likelihood of this happening, we would discontinue using material from Examining the Scriptures Daily. This answer has changed, as recently JWTalk moderators have obtained complete control over the Google Group list that was being used in conjunction with the forum. So now, if we were asked to cease email the text each day by our organizations leadership, we would be in a position to immediately stop the service.

14. What if the organization started doing daily text emails themselves?

That would be fantastic! Imagine being able to subscribe to it in whatever language you speak, and have it emailed to you at the appropriate time in your time zone wherever you are in the world. With some planning and some programming, they could make it happen. They should!

15. If you were contacted by the Branch to take down this site, what would you do?

Depends on what it was they considered improper and the reasoning behind it.

It would not make sense that the discussion forum would be the issue. There have been Witness only discussion forums, mailing lists, and message boards, since the mid-90′s, some of which still exist to this day. Brothers and sisters are going to search out other brothers and sisters online and socialize with them, because that is just the way it is. JWTalk and it’s predecessor has been a safe place to do so for several years. If the discussion forum was taken down, it’s members would just start up another one, and perhaps try to be a little more secretive. What would be the point?  For the last 15 years that I have been on the internet, I have seen the Branch pursue other webmasters to take their sites down for various reasons, but I have never seen them go after a discussion forum.

The news portion of it would seem unlikely to be a problem either.  The very same news can be found elsewhere on the internet, but out there it is littered with comments and advertisements that we quite frankly would rather not look at or read.

The Branch has gone after sites that people put up about our beliefs and practices, or those dedicated to distributing study material, publications, and maintaining large libraries of recorded talks. None of this takes place here at JWTalk.

15. Your answers to questions 13 and 15 bother me, what should I do?

Stop using the Contact form at the top of the page to present us with “What If” scenarios and demanding an answer. The real answer to such scenarios can only be determined if we ever have to face such issues. You’re speculating what the Branch would do, and we can only speculate what we would do.

We perceive our organization’s leadership as loving, friendly, and above all, the most reasonable people on the face of the planet. They are appointed to shepherd people, not micromanage them.